“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 walking out of the woods and up the gentle slope toward them.
Robert screwed the tripod into the socket of the telephoto lens, tested its steadiness, then fitted the camera body on the back of the lens and turned it until it clicked into place. From the camera bag at his feet he took a pack of Polaroid film and snapped it into the bottom of the Nikon’s back.
“I’ve never seen a camera like that,” said Augustus Brine.
Robert was focusing the long lens. “The camera’s a regular thirty-five millimeter. I bought the Polaroid back for it to preview results in the studio. I never got around to using it.”
Howard Phillips stood poised with notebook in hand and a fountain pen at ready.
“Check the batteries in that recorder,” Robert said to Brine. “There are some fresh ones in my camera bag if you need them.”
Gian Hen Gian was craning his neck to see over the undergrowth into the clearing where Travis stood. “What is happening? I cannot see what is happening.”
“Nothing yet,” Brine said. “Are you set, Robert?”
“I’m ready,” Robert said without looking up from the camera. “I’m filling the frame with Rachel’s face. The parchment should be easily readable. Are you ready, Howard?”
“Short of the unlikely possibility that I may be stricken with writer’s cramp at the crucial moment, I am prepared.”
Brine snapped four penlight batteries into the recorder and tested the mechanism. “It’s up to Travis now,” he said.
Travis topped halfway up the hill. “Okay, I’m here. Let them go and I’ll translate the invocation for you.”
“I don’t think so,” Rachel said. “Once the ritual has been performed and I’m sure it has worked, then you can all go free.”
“You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Catch will kill us all.”
“I don’t believe you. The Earth spirit will be in my control, and I won’t allow it.”
Travis laughed sarcastically. “You haven’t even seen him, have you? What do you think you have there, the Easter Bunny? He kills people. That’s the reason he’s here.”
“I still don’t believe you.” Rachel was beginning to lose her resolve.
Travis watched Catch move to where the hostages were tied. “Come, do it now, Travis, or the old woman dies.” He raised a clawed hand over Amanda’s head.
Travis trudged up the hill and stood in front of Rachel. Very quietly her said to her, “You know, you deserve what you are going to get. I never thought I could wish Catch on anyone, but you deserve it.” He looked at Jenny, and her eyes pleaded for an explanation. He looked away. “Give me the invocation,” he said to Rachel. “I hope you brought a pencil and paper. I can’t do this from memory.”
Rachel reached into an airline bag that she had brought and pulled out the candlesticks. One at a time she unscrewed them and removed the invocations, then replaced the pieces in the airline bag. She handed Travis the parchments.
“Put the candlesticks over by Jenny,” he said.
“Why?” Rachel asked.
“Because the ritual won’t work if they are too close to the parchments. In fact, you’d be better off if you untied them and sent them away with the candlesticks. Get them out of the area altogether.” The lie seemed so obvious that Travis feared he had ruined everything by putting too much importance on the candlesticks.
Rachel stared at him, trying to make sense of it. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“Neither do I,” Travis said. “But this is mystical stuff. You can’t tell me that taking hostages so you can call up a demon is consistent with the logical world.”
“Earth spirit! Not demon. And I will use this power for good.”
Travis considered trying to convince her of her folly, then decided against it. The lives of Jenny and the Elliotts depended on Catch maintaining his charade as a benevolent Earth spirit until it was too late. He glared at the demon, who grinned back.
“Well?” Travis said.
Rachel picked up the airline bag and took it to a spot a few feet down the hill from the hostages.
“No. Farther away,” Travis said.
She slung the bag over her shoulder and took it another twenty yards down the hill, then turned to Travis for approval.
“What is this about?” Catch asked.
Travis, afraid to push his luck, nodded to Rachel and she set the bag down. Now the candlesticks were twenty yards closer to the road that ran around the back of the hill — the road that Augustus Brine would drive when the shit hit the fan.
Rachel returned to the hilltop.
“I’ll need that pencil and paper now,” he said.
“It’s in the bag.” Rachel went back toward the bag.
While she was retrieving the pencil and paper from the airline bag, Travis held the parchments out before him, one at a time, counting to six before he put the first one down and picked up the next. He hoped he had the angle to Robert’s camera right and that his body was not in the way of the lens.
“Here.” Rachel handed him a pencil and a steno pad.
Travis sat down cross-legged with the parchments out in front of him. “Sit down and relax, this is going to take some time.”
He started on the parchment from the second candlestick, hoping to buy some time. He translated the Greek letter by letter, searching his memory first for each letter, then for the meaning of the words. By the time he finished the first line, he had fallen into a rhythm and had to make an effort to slow down.