“Huh? Gah! Damn, why does my asshole feel like it’s on fire?”
Those were not, as last words go, particularly inspirational or profound. Mammon reached out from behind him, gripped his left shoulder, and then wrapped his long bony fingers around Blackmoore’s neck, ripping off his head, hat and all. This he threw unerringly at a kerosene lantern resting on the bar, which shattered and immediately ignited the cherrywood. Blackmoore’s head disappeared behind the bar and Perkins cried out in alarm, though I don’t know whether it was at the fire or at the appearance of a demon in his place of business.
But Mammon wasn’t done. He tore Blackmoore’s corpse apart limb by limb and chucked them at other lanterns in the hall, setting fires elsewhere.
“You promised him a natural life!” I shouted as he dismembered his victim.
“And he got one. I killed him quite naturally, with my bare hands,” Mammon said. “And it is natural for predators to tear apart their prey. Step into the circle, Druid, and I’ll show you how natural it is.”
“What the hell?” Deputy Kasey Princell stepped in to gape at the spectacle just then, and Sheriff Hays drew his gun and thunked the butt of it into Princell’s shoulder.
“Damn it, the whole place is going to burn down! Go get help or the town could go!”
I turned and saw that he was right. There were so many fires now and there was nothing but wood in the place. The U.S. Exchange was done for. But Perkins plainly did not want to believe that. He was trying to contain the fire on the bar with a towel while the rest of the hall flared up.
“Perkins!” I shouted as Princell exited. “Get out of here! You can’t save it!”
“We can stop it!” he replied. “Help me!”
“Perkins, we can’t!” I struggled to think of something he loved more than the business he’d built from scratch and gambled on a guess: “Think of Felicity, Perkins! You have to save Felicity! Get her out of here!”
He ceased his flailing and looked up from his immediate area, seeing that it was true. The building would burn down no matter what we did at that point. The volunteer firemen and bucket brigade would never get there in time. We were both already sweating, and it was a cool early morning.
“I hope you all go to hell!” he said, throwing down his bar towel and dashing back to the kitchen to fetch Felicity. I think that poodle saved him just by being there; if she hadn’t been, I believe he would have gladly burned with his saloon.
That, at least, was a silver lining to an otherwise legendary cock-up. As the flames popped and crackled and the heat and smoke grew, I realized what Mammon was trying to do: distract and delay until I had no choice but to leave myself. If I never opened that portal to hell, he never had to step through it.
The sheriff wasn’t distracted. He had something to kill and a fully functional firearm in his hand, and he’d just seen Mammon tear a man apart and toss his bits around the room. There was really no quibbling over the demon’s guilt. Hays stepped forward into the room to get a better angle and started firing. The bullets were on target but simply passed through. Mammon had taken a shape but was not really flesh occupying space. He just laughed as the sheriff poured bullets into him and the flames grew higher.
Focusing on the space where Blackmoore used to stand, I chanted the words to first bind that space to its equivalent space in hell, then to unbind the veil separating the planes. Mammon responded to this by plunging his clawed hand into Blackmoore’s headless, limbless torso, ripping out bloody ropes of intestine, and throwing them at me.
Such situations are a perfect example of why Druids must develop, at minimum, two different headspaces for battle. One must deal with the demands of the physical fight, while the other must remain undistracted to craft bindings.
I merely held up Fragarach with the flat of the blade presented to Mammon, so that nothing would hit me in the face, and continued. Stephen Blackmoore’s digestive system smacked wetly against either the blade or my body before dropping to the floor, and I was splattered with his blood and shit, but it could hardly be worse than the smell of Mammon himself.
When the binding was complete and hell yawned before Mammon’s feet, he roared and tossed Blackmoore’s torso at me. I took the trouble to duck under that one.
“Má ithis, nar chacair!” I told him in Gaeilge, a fantastic curse for one such as Mammon, who always wants more: It means, “May you eat but not defecate.”
He slid down through the portal as much as jumped into it, pulled by the strength of his own word, and I closed it up behind him. Sequoia would feel that and know that I’d done my duty.
//Harmony restored// I sent to her, and she replied in kind.
“I thought I’d seen everything,” Hays shouted past the roar of the inferno, “but I reckon I better rethink that. Come on, Percy, let’s go.”
“I’m headed out back to make sure Perkins really left,” I told him, pointing at the kitchen door, and he held my gaze for a moment, far too smart to accept that at face value, knowing he’d never see me again. Then a beam cracked above, and we nodded and parted ways. I escaped out the back door through the kitchen, making sure Perkins and Felicity were gone, and remembered to fetch Mustang Sally from where I had her stabled. I headed for the bound trees north of town, hoping I’d be able to shift out before my activity there drew a new batch of faeries from Aenghus óg.
That episode turned out to be the second Great Fire of San Francisco, quite literally started by greed, which eventually consumed three city blocks and cost four million dollars in damages. Thanks to Deputy Princell’s quick work, the alarm was spread in time to prevent any deaths other than Stephen Blackmoore’s. And I was able to enjoy a year of peace with Mustang Sally in Argentina before she passed away of truly natural causes.
—
<You didn’t give her Immortali-Tea?> Oberon asked.
No, Oberon, I told him via our mental link. You’re only the second companion I’ve done that with.
<Why?>
Some people—and some creatures—don’t handle long lives very well. It changes them for the worse. But you just keep getting better, buddy.
<Oh. Thanks. I would give you a snack for that if I had one. Hey, would you like some brisket? I still have some here.>
I briefly glanced at the slobbery hunk of beef underneath Oberon’s paw. No thanks; I’m full.
<Who was the first companion you gave Immortali-Tea to?>
I’ll tell you some other night, okay? It’s a story in itself.
“That was quite a tale, Atticus,” Granuaile said. “I’ll be thinking about a world without greed for a while now. I think you might be right: Letting Mammon go back to hell might have been one of your worst cock-ups ever. It’s greed that makes us destroy Gaia bit by bit.”