Practical Demonkeeping

him, right? And he wasn’t sure he could spend another night alone, thinking about it, going though the nightmare.
    He turned on the shower and the breath jumped from his body. The water was ice cold. The Breeze hadn’t paid the gas bill. Robert steeled himself to endure the cold shower. He had to look good if he was going to rebuild his life.
    Then the lights went out.
    RIVERA
    Rivera was sitting in a coffee shop near the police station sipping from a cup of decaf, smoking a cigarette, waiting . In his fifteen years on the force he estimated that ten of them had been spent in waiting. For once, though, he had the warrants, the budget, the manpower, and probable cause, but he had no suspect.
    It had to go down tomorrow, one way or another. If The Breeze showed up, then Rivera was in line for a promotion. If, however, he had gotten wind of the sting, then Rivera would take down the drunk in the trailer and hope that he knew something. It was a dismal prospect. Rivera envisioned his task force swooping in with sirens blaring, lights flashing, only to chalk up a bust for unsafe vehicle, perhaps unlawful copying of a videotape, or tearing the tag off a mattress. Rivera shivered at the thought and ground out his cigarette in the ashtray. He wondered if they would let him smoke when he was working behind the counter at Seven-Eleven.
    THE BREEZE
    When the jaws of the demon had clamped down on him, The Breeze felt a moment of pain, then a light -headedness and a floating feeling he had come to associate with certain kinds of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Then he looked down to see the monster stuffing his body into its gaping mouth. It looked funny, and the ethereal Breeze giggled to himself. No, this was more like the feeling of nitrous oxide than mushrooms, he thought.
    He watched the monster shrink and disappear, then the door to the old Chevy opened and closed. The car sped off and The Breeze felt himself bouncing on the air currents in its wake. Death was fine with The Breeze. Sort of the ultimate acid trip, only cheaper and with no side effects.
    Suddenly he found himself in a long tunnel. At the end he saw a bright light. He had seen a movie about this once; you were supposed to go toward the light.
    Time had lost meaning for The Breeze. He floated down the tunnel, for a whole day, but to him it seemed only minutes. He was just riding the buzz. Everything was copacetic . As he approached the light, he could make out the figures of people waiting for him. That’s right: your family and friends welcome you to the next life. The Breeze prepared himself for a truly bitchin ’ party on the astral plane.
    Coming out of the tunnel, The Breeze was enveloped by an intense white light. It was warm and comforting. The people’s faces came into view and as The Breeze floated up to them, he realized that he owed every one of them money.
    PREDATORS
    While night fell on some like a curtain of foreboding, others were meeting the advent of darkness with excited anticipation. Creatures of the night were rising from their resting places and venturing forth to feed on their unsuspecting victims.
    They were feeding machines, armed with tooth and claw, instinctively driven to seek out their prey, gifted with stealth and night vision, perfectly adapted to the hunt. When they stalked the streets of Pine Cove, no one’s garbage cans were safe.
    When they awakened that evening, they found a curious machine in their den. The supernatural sentience they had experienced the night before had passed, and they retained no memory of having stolen the tape player. They might have been frightened by the noise, but the battery had long since run down. They would push the machine out of the den when they returned, but now there was a scent on the wind that drove them to the hunt with urgent hunger. Two blocks away, Mrs. Eddleman had discarded a particularly gamey tuna-fish salad, and their acute olfactory systems had picked up the scent even while they slept.
    The raccoons bounded into the night like wolves on the fold.
    JENNIFER
    For Jenny, evening came as a mix of blessing and curses. The call from Travis had come at five, as promised, and she found herself elated at being wanted but also thrown into a quandary about what to wear, how to behave, and where to go. Travis had left it up to her. She was a local and knew the best places to go, he had said, and he was right. He had even asked her to drive.
    As soon as she had hung up, she ran to the garage