Sheriff Jack Hays strode through the saloon doors and I hailed him. He looked less than pleased to see me.
“Where the hell you been, Percy?” he said, and that reminded me to switch accents. “We’ve had men dropping dead every night for—Jesus Christ.” He stopped once he took in the shaking form of Stephen Blackmoore. “Is this him?”
“That’s him, Sheriff,” I said. “And he’s agreed to return to hell.”
“Well, let’s get him out of here, then.”
“It would be better, I think, to get everyone out of here. Which is why I needed you. If we take him outside, there are too many things that can go wrong. We could be interrupted by most anyone—or witnessed by most anyone. We don’t want that.”
“Huh.” Hays glanced around at the busy gambling hall. “It’s gonna be a job to get them out of here when they’re havin’ such a high time.”
I began pulling chips and coins and cash out of my pockets and put them on the table. “Pay them all off. The proprietor too. Greed is a powerful motivator.” I smirked at Mammon as I said this, and he seethed.
“Jesus,” Hays said again, and Blackmoore’s body twitched as the sheriff began to gather up the money. He wisely began by visiting Perkins at the bar, then he told the piano player to leave off. He hollered until he could be heard, and once he had everyone’s attention, he told them to finish their current round or hand in their games and then move along, the U.S. Exchange was closing for the night. The loudest grumbling came from the poker players who were currently down in their personal counts. The sheriff went over to them and quietly used my money to take the sting out of it.
Once everyone was out but Blackmoore, Perkins, the sheriff, and me, the lawman shrugged his shoulders at me. “Now what?”
“Now I need two things,” I said. “I need a container or two of salt from the kitchen, Perkins. And, Sheriff, I hate to ask, but there’s no helping it because I have to keep this sword holding the demon still. I need you to take off my boots.”
Sheriff Hays’s lip curled, and he looked like he’d rather dine on hog slop. “Why do you need that?”
“I need a solid connection to the earth. Again, I apologize. Please keep whatever money you have left as payment.”
“Think I will,” he said, shoving it into his coat pockets as he stomped over. “Don’t tell nobody I did this.”
Perkins disappeared into the kitchen while the sheriff pulled my boots off. “Ain’t no earth in here, in case you didn’t notice,” he said.
“There will be.” I addressed the demon. “All right, Mammon, get up. Walk straight backward until I tell you to stop.” I wanted to do this away from the door in case someone came in, but to prevent that I asked the sheriff to stand guard and keep everyone out.
When Perkins returned from the kitchen, I used my left hand to sprinkle a generous line of salt underneath my sword hand, extending to either side, then gave the container back to Perkins. “I need you to continue to make a circle around this man, but stay out of arm’s reach the whole way around him, okay?”
Perkins developed a crease between his eyes. “You been drinkin’ my piano player’s laudanum?” he said.
“No, I’d never do that. Laudanum’s a hell of a drug.”
“What’s really going on here? Y’all told me this was a wanted man. Why don’t the sheriff just take him away?”
“Because, Perkins, there’s a demon inside this man, and we need to get him out.”
Perkins stared for a few seconds, then turned to Hays. “Sheriff?”
Hays nodded at him. “Just do what he says.”
“This is a damn crazy waste of salt,” he said, but he did as I asked while I kept close watch on Blackmoore.
“Thanks,” I said when he was finished. “Best get back behind the bar now.” As he turned, shaking his head, I used the last of the energy in my bear charm to access more: I unbound the cellulose of the floorboards beneath me so that I could sink through the wood and make contact with the earth. Buildings back then didn’t have cement foundations underneath them. They had stone and mortar foundations around the edges but just wood laid on top of earth in the middle.
With a fresh supply of energy from Gaia and contact with the elemental Sequoia, I told her I had captured the demon and needed to open a portal to return it to hell. Permission granted, I crafted a ward of containment around the ring of salt as a backup before I got to the really tricky part.
I had no idea what kind of person Stephen Blackmoore was when he wasn’t possessed, but I couldn’t simply toss him into hell while still alive. He should have his shot at life and a chance at redemption if he wanted to seek it. But to get Mammon out of Blackmoore, I would necessarily need to release him from the binding of Fragarach—and the demon knew it. He couldn’t talk, but he winked and grinned at me. The chances of him meekly slinking back to hell were nil.
I checked my ward, which was stronger than the salt anyway. I’d create the portal inside it. Nothing for it but to proceed: The longer I delayed, the greater the chance that someone would come along to interrupt—as someone had interrupted Stefano Pastore.
“When I release the binding, Mammon, you will exit Mr. Blackmoore as promised.”
“I never promised that. I only said I would go back to hell when you opened a portal.”
“You can’t take Mr. Blackmoore with you.”
“Oh, but that’s precisely what I’m going to do. He belongs to me every bit as much as that sword belongs to you.”
“Not now he doesn’t. He deserves to live his natural life first, and you can have his soul later.”
“Ha! You have no idea what this man deserves. But what are you going to do? Destroy him to destroy me? You would damn yourself in the process.”
“No, I’m not going to hell when I die. I belong to the Morrigan.”
The demon cocked Blackmoore’s head to one side. “The Morrigan?…Oh. You’re one of them. A Druid. I thought they were all dead.”
“Clearly not.”
Blackmoore closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled. When he opened his eyes again, he smiled at me. Or, rather, Mammon did. “Very well, Druid. I will leave Mr. Blackmoore when you release the binding and let him live his life.”
That was a bit too accommodating. “His natural life?” I pressed.
“Yes.”
“Fine. Do it.” I released Blackmoore from Fragarach’s grip, and oily orange smoke began to pour out of his ears, nostrils, and mouth. It swirled and coalesced behind him into a humanoid form, and when the smell hit me I threw up a little bit in my mouth.
Eventually the smoke stopped coming out of him, and Mammon manifested in his true shape—a grotesque starved thing of stringy muscles, like an Egon Schiele painting, except that he had a distended belly, pitiless barren eye sockets like mine shafts, and rows of serrated teeth in an unhinged jaw like some nightmare from the Marianas Trench.
His host wobbled and blinked as he came back to himself. “Stephen, come here,” I called to him. All he had to do was step out of the circle and he’d be safe. “Stephen!”