Practical Demonkeeping

arrive.
    “Do you think we can pull this off?” Travis asked Brine.
    “Why ask me? I know less about this than the two of you. Whether we pull it off depends mostly on your powers of persuasion.”
    “Can we go over it again?”
    Brine checked his watch. “Let’s wait for Robert and Howard. We still have a few minutes. And I don’t think that it will hurt to be a little late. As far as Catch and Rachel are concerned, you are the only game in town.”
    Just then they heard a car down-shifting and turned to see Howard’s old black Jag turning onto the dirt road. Howard parked behind Brine’s truck. He and Robert got out and Robert reached into the backseat and began handing things to Brine and Travis: a camera bag, a heavy-duty tripod, a long aluminum lens case, and finally, a hunting rifle with a scope. Brine did not take the rifle from Robert.
    “What’s that for?”
    Robert stood up, rifle in hand. “If it looks like it isn’t going to work, we use it to take out Rachel before she gets power over Catch.”
    “What will that accomplish?” Brine asked.
    “It will keep Travis in control of the demon.”
    “No,” Travis said. “One way or another it ends here, but we don’t shoot anyone. We’re here to end the killing, not add to it. Who’s to say that Rachel won’t have more control over Catch than I do?”
    “But she doesn’t know what she is getting into. You said that yourself.”
    “If she gets power over Catch, he has to tell her, just like he told me. At least I will be free of him.”
    “And Jenny will be dead,” Robert spat.
    Augustus Brine said, “The rifle stays in the car. We are going to do this on the assumption that it will work, period. Normally I’d say that if anyone wants out, they can go now, but the fact is, we all have to be here for it to work.”
    Brine looked around the group. They were waiting. “Well, are we going to do this?”
    Robert threw the rifle into the backseat of the car. “Let’s do it, then.”
    “Good,” Brine said. “Travis, you have to get them out of the cave and into the open. You have to hold the invocation up long enough for Robert to get a picture, and you have to get the candlesticks back to us, preferably by sending them down the hill with Jenny and the Elliotts .”
    “They’ll never go for that. Without the hostages, why should I translate the invocation?”
    “Then hold it as a condition. Play it the best you can. Maybe you can get one of them down.”
    “If I make the candlesticks a condition, they’ll be suspicious.”
    “Shit,” Robert said. “This isn’t going to work. I don’t know why I thought it would.”
    Through the whole discussion the Djinn had remained in the background. Now he stepped into the circle. “Give them what they want. Once the woman has control of Catch, they will have no need to be suspicious.”
    “But Catch will kill the hostages, and probably all of us,” Travis said.
    “Wait a minute,” Robert said. “Where is Rachel’s van?”
    “What does that have to do with anything?” Brine said.
    “Well, they didn’t walk here with hostages in tow. And the van isn’t parked here. That means that her van must be up by the cave.”
    “So?” Travis said.
    “So, it means that if we have to storm them, we can go in Gus’s truck. The road must come out of the woods and loop around the hill to the caves. We already have the recorder, so the invocation can be played back fast. Gus can drive up the hill, Travis can throw the candlesticks into the truck, and all Gus has to do is hit the play button.”
    They considered it for a moment, then Brine said, “Everyone in the bed of the truck. We park it in the woods as close to the caves as we can without it being seen. It’s the closest thing to a plan that we have.”
     
    On the grassy hill outside the cave Rachel said, “He’s late.”
    “Let’s kill one of them,” the demon said.
    Jenny and her grandparents sat on the ground, back to back.
    “Once this ritual is over, I won’t have you talking like that,” Rachel said.
    “Yes, mistress, I yearn for your guidance.”
    Rachel paced the hill, making an effort not to look at her hostages. “What if Travis doesn’t come?”
    “He’ll come,” Catch said.
    “I think I hear a car.” Rachel watched the point where the road emerged from the woods. When nothing came, she said, “What if you’re wrong? What if he doesn’t come?”
    “There he is,” Catch said.
    Rachel turned to see Travis