When I returned to the saloon, I hoped that the mood would have noticeably shifted and my quarry would have appeared. A scan of the hall’s auras revealed nothing unusual, so it was back to work. I gambled and caroused and laughed. I got asked about my sword a lot and why I wore gloves. They were lucky, I said, and left it at that.
Gambling halls back then didn’t have closing times as long as there was money to be made. And since there was quite a bit of money changing hands—I was making sure of it—Perkins didn’t go to bed at a sensible hour. He had someone come in to take over but he stayed on, keeping an eye on things. There were several fights that broke out at the poker tables, but I kept everything cooking along nicely at the roulette table. Like the king in Hamlet, I took my rouse and kept wassail. But even with breaking down the alcohol and taking breaks every so often, I was getting tired and thinking about giving up. It was long past midnight—three A.M., if I’m not mistaken—before something shifted in the air.
A man with a slight beer gut strode into the hall then, wide-brimmed hat pulled low, his full dark beard kept trimmed, and a slim cigar smoldering at one corner of his mouth. Two guns hung low at his hips, and he had pointy steel-toed boots that were meant to be seen as much as worn; he wasn’t a working cowboy or a miner. He was something else.
Checking him out in the magical spectrum, I saw the black roiling stain in his aura that meant he was possessed. A demon was riding this man around like a meat limousine.
I finished up my roll at the roulette table, hoping to lose that round, and I did. I excused myself for a break and opted for a saunter instead of a mosey, beckoning to Perkins.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Makepeace, what can I get for you?” he said. I crooked a finger at him so that he would come closer and no one would overhear me.
“I’m not really Silas Makepeace,” I said, letting the Texas drawl go and returning to my English accent. “My name’s Algernon Percy and I’m working undercover for the sheriff. A man we’ve been looking for just walked in the door. Could you send someone to fetch Sheriff Hays here immediately? Tell him Percy’s found our man.”
“Okay. Is there going to be trouble?”
“Quite likely, but I hope we’ll be able to take care of it without anyone getting hurt. The faster the sheriff gets here, the less likely it is you’ll suffer any damages.”
“Which man?”
“Slim cigar, wide hat, fancy boots, string tie around his neck.” I bobbed my head in the general direction of the front door.
Perkins’ eyes shifted, stopped, and narrowed. “Never seen him before. But that doesn’t mean anything. All right, I’m on it.”
The piano player from earlier in the evening had gone home, and the new one was playing so ecstatically he might have been floating in a haze of laudanum, which is a hell of a drug.
The possessed man’s eyes fixed on the roulette table, where the largest concentration of greed was centered. If he followed the pattern he’d established elsewhere, he’d start betting there and keep winning until Perkins asked him to quit. Then things would get violent. And he would take as many people down as he could before slipping out of this body and finding a new host.
While Perkins sent his extra barkeep out to find the sheriff, I turned around and focused on those holsters. I used some energy in my bear charm to bind the iron to the leather so he’d never be able to draw. The iron resistance, both on my end and on the part of the gun itself, meant it took more energy than I would have liked. For good measure I fused the hammers down so he wouldn’t be able to shoot through the holster. It didn’t leave me with a whole lot of magic to draw on, but I hoped I wouldn’t need much more. Drawing power now would bring the wrong kind of attention.
The demon took his time scoping out the hall before moving to the roulette table, and I left the bar before his eyes got to me. I circled to the far side of the table and hid myself behind a couple of hangers-on. It wasn’t a long wait before he appeared at the table and started to manipulate things. Cheating, in other words, as I did. I watched in the magical spectrum. He made sure the main bettor lost while his side bet won. He would become the main bettor soon, and that would put us all on a dangerous path. I needed to get him away from the others before he seduced them with greed and killed them, claiming their souls for himself.
Upgrading to a brisk walk and carrying Fragarach in its scabbard in my left hand, I flanked the demon and tapped him on the shoulder before he could place his next bet.
“Say, partner, don’t I recognize you? What’s your name again?” I smiled at him as he turned to face me. He deliberately puffed a toxic cloud of cigar smoke my way before answering.
“Stephen Blackmoore.”
“Naw, that’s not your name. You’re Mammon, aren’t you?”
I did not expect the fist that plowed into my gut at that point, nor did I expect its speed or power. I thought I’d get a squint and a raspy Clint Eastwood challenge along the lines of “What’d you call me, punk?” before we got into trading fisticuffs, but, nope, I got a pile driver into my diaphragm. Doubling over was instinctive and I couldn’t help that, but I staggered back so he couldn’t follow up easily. He clipped me anyway on the shoulder, and the force of it caught me off-balance and drove me to the floor. I rolled, gasping for air, to avoid the stomp or kick I was sure would follow. He took a couple of pointy kicks at my head and missed; my tumbling took out a fun-sized man, who wasn’t aware that a fight had broken out and fell over me, cursing. That slowed down the demon long enough for me to regain my feet.
I was just in time to see another fist coming at me, and considering the power of his other punches, if I let it land I’d have my nose driven into my brain. I swept my left forearm in front of my face, knocking his fist to the left, and struck a couple of stiff fingers into his throat a split second later. The demon might not care about air or much else, but the meat wagon he was riding had reflexes. He reeled back and the cigar fell from his lips. I caught it, flipped the lit end toward him, and shoved it right down that gasping mouth. That gave him something more to think about. He might even be thinking about leaving the body of Stephen Blackmoore a bit early, since demons aren’t that great at healing.
Given enough space and time to breathe, I drew Fragarach from its scabbard and pointed it at him. “Freagroidh tu,” I said, activating the enchantment worked into the blade, and that bound him in place as well as any ward or ring of salt could. I let him spit out the cigar, but then I followed up in Old Irish: “You may neither move nor speak without my permission.” It didn’t matter if he understood me: Fragarach did. He froze up, glaring at me, and then I was faced with the old proverb about what to do when you catch a tiger by the tail. You’d better not let go.