Practical Demonkeeping

provide some escape from the demon, who had been with him for seventy years, and would be with him forever unless he could find a way to send him back to hell.
    For a man of ninety, Travis was remarkably well preserved. In fact, he did not appear to be much over twenty, his age when he had called up the demon. Dark with dark eyes and lean, Travis had sharp features that would have seemed evil if not for the constant look of confusion he wore, as if there were one answer that would make everything in life clear to him if he could only remember the question.
    He had never bargained for the endless days on the road with the demon, trying to figure out how to stop the killing. Sometimes the demon ate daily, sometimes he would go for weeks without killing. Travis had never found a reason, a connection, or a pattern to it. Sometimes he could dissuade the demon from killing, sometimes he could only steer him toward certain victims. When he could, he had the demon eat pimps or pushers, those that humanity could do without. But other times he had to choose vagrants and vagabonds, those that would not be missed.
    There was a time when he had cried while sending Catch after a hobo or a bag-lady. He’d made friends among the homeless when he was riding the rails with the demon, back before there were so many automobiles. Often a bum who didn’t know where his next roof or drink was coming from had shared a boxcar and a bottle with Travis. And Travis had learned that there was no evil in being poor; poverty merely opened one up to evil. But over the years he had learned to push aside the remorse, and time and again Catch dined on bums.
    He wondered what went through the minds of Catch’s victims just before they died. He had seen them wave their hands before their eyes as if the monster looming before them was an illusion, a trick of the light. He wondered what would happen now, if oncoming drivers could see Catch perched on the front of the Chevy waving like a parade queen from the Black Lagoon.
    They would panic, swerve off the narrow road and over the ocean-side bank. Windshields would shatter, and gasoline would explode, and people would die. Death and the demon were never separated for long. Coming soon to a town near you , Travis thought. But perhaps this is the last one .
    As a seagull cry dopplered off to Travis’s left, he turned to look out the window over the ocean. The morning sun was reflecting off the face of the waves, illuminating a sparkling halo of spray. For a moment he forgot about Catch and drank in the beauty of the scene, but when he turned to look at the road again, there was the demon, standing on the bumper, reminding him of his responsibility.
    Travis pushed the accelerator to the floor and the Impala’s engine hesitated, then roared as the automatic transmission dropped into passing gear. When the speedometer hit sixty he locked up the brakes.
    Catch hit the roadway face first and skidded headlong, throwing up sparks where his scales scraped the asphalt. He bounced off a signpost and into a ditch, where he lay for a moment trying to gather his thoughts. The Impala fishtailed and came to a stop sideways in the road.
    Travis slammed the Chevy into reverse, righted the car, then threw it into drive and screeched toward the demon, keeping the wheels out of the ditch until the moment of impact. The Impala’s headlights shattered against Catch’s chest. The corner of the bumper caught him in the waist and drove him deep into the mud of the ditch. The engine sputtered to a stop and the damaged radiator hissed a rusty cloud of steam into Catch’s face.
    The driver’s side door was jammed against the ditch, so Travis crawled out the window and ran around the car to see what damage he had done. Catch was lying in the ditch with the bumper against his chest.
    “Nice driving, A.J.,” Catch said. “ You going to try for Indy next year?”
    Travis was disappointed. He hadn’t really expected to hurt Catch, he knew from experience that the demon was virtually indestructible, but he had hoped at least to piss him off. “Just trying to keep you on your toes,” he said. “A little test to see how you hold up under stress.”
    Catch lifted the car, crawled out, and stood next to Travis in the ditch. “What’s the verdict? Did I pass?”
    “Are you dead?”
    “Nope, I feel great.”
    “Then you have failed miserably. I’m sorry but I’ll have to run you over again.”
    “Not with this car,” the