Jerry tossed him the coat, made him stand up and turn around, carefully ran the end of the wand up and down his legs; he detected no suspicious bumps.
So far, so good.
“Now, Mr.— is it Mr. Carlo, or is that your first name?”
“Excretion of an unclean animal!” Carlo snapped.
There was a puzzled silence, broken by a snigger from Killer. Jerry grinned to himself; in whatever language that obscenity had been phrased, the wand had translated it literally. Carlo bit his lip and seemed to shrink slightly, puzzled and shocked.
“Your jacket.”
Stubbornly Carlo mouthed something, but silently. Jerry began to tense. “Killer? Can you part his hair at this distance without pushing his eyes apart?”
“Three times out of ten,” said Killer, aiming the Uzi.
This was a bluff, because if the cottage was truly faerie then it was likely bulletproof, and there could be ricochets, and violence itself was dangerous. But the bluff worked, and the leather coat yielded a professional-looking switchblade. A driver? Not a donkey, a weasel— sneaky and dangerous. Jerry demanded that he remove his boots and throw them over and then checked him with the tip of the wand before deciding that he had now disarmed his captives. The second Mrs. Gillis was obviously concealing nothing on her person except possibly foam rubber.
He went and sat down wearily on the arm of Ariadne’s chair. The prisoners were disarmed and also shaken by his party trick with the wand. To his eyes, the wand was brilliant white now, making the icebox look gray Killer had noticed and was grinning. Killer grinning always meant trouble for someone, even if only himself. The forces were building.
“Now,” Jerry said, “I shall try to explain the precautions— ”
Two sets of heavy boots came thumping up the porch steps, then stamped on the porch itself as though to shake off mud. A massive fist knocked imperiously.
“Open up!” boomed a deep male voice. “This is the FBI. We have you surrounded— come out with your hands up.”
Six
“Not a word!” Jerry hissed, pointing the gun straight at them. “Not a whisper, or I shoot!”
Gillis beamed triumphantly, and his wife smiled. Ariadne had uttered a sort of sob and clutched at Jerry’s arm. “Open up!” the voice roared again.
Still watching his prisoners, Jerry rose and moved around to the door. He laid the wand over the bolt, a symbolic bar binding door and wall, and shouted,
“I know you for what you are. Begone!”
There was, of course, no reply, and he walked back to his seat on the arm of the chair, still watching them.
The minutes passed…
Curious— the Gillises had been pleased and relieved, but the Carlo youth had shown something else: fear or anger. Now they were starting to frown, and he was visibly relaxing.
“I think that should do it,” Jerry said at length, “until the next try.”
“Who was that out there?” Gillis barked, a scowl darkening his heavy features. Not the FBI, obviously.
“There was nobody out there.”
The black eyes narrowed, and then he looked at his companion, Carlo, at his wife, and then back at Jerry. “Bull!” he snapped. “I’ve seen better conjuring tricks at the Rotarians’ Christmas Party. I don’t know what scam you’re trying to pull, Howard, but it isn’t going to work on me, no matter how many accomplices you have out there.” With just three of them— he and Killer and Ariadne— it would have been easy. But now there were eight, and Killer was immobile— too many sheep and not enough sheep dogs. Killer twisted his head round to smirk at Jerry and then turned back to his guard duty; he could see the dangers, and the smirk said that the Oracle had wanted brains. The sensible thing would be tie them all up and gag them, but that would be violence and dangerous in itself.
“Demons,” Jerry said. “We had the flesh-and-blood monsters, and our guns scared them away because flesh can be destroyed. Now comes the pure evil, the disembodied legions of Hell.” Mrs. Gillis paled and started to whimper; her husband put a comforting hand on her knee and glared at his captor.
“Perhaps you’d like to put Alan on the bed?” Jerry said. “Poor little tyke, he’s had a rough day.” She looked at Gillis for orders, and he nodded without really taking his attention off Jerry. “That’s a good idea, Maisie,” he said.
Well, now he had a name for her. He opened the bedroom door and left it open after this Maisie had returned to her chair. Alan was as limp as wet leather and looked as though there would be no sound from him until morning. Lacey scrambled up to take his place on Maisie’s lap, huddled in her poncho and almost as pale as her real mother was.
“Guns would be useless against what’s outside,” Jerry said. “But there are rules. They can not come in unless they are invited.” Gillis was disbelieving and furious, the Carlo youth disbelieving and contemptuous— but Maisie wavered slightly.
“What happens if they do get in?” she asked. There was a trace of gold chain at her neck, which might mean a crucifix; perhaps she could believe in demons.
Jerry shivered involuntarily. “Eight unmarked bodies. The coroner would probably attribute the deaths to carbon monoxide poisoning.” That was the best possibility. A crazed bloody-orgy was another. Worst of all would be eight cases of demonic possession loosed on an unsuspecting world, time bombs of evil to be detonated later.
“Bull!” Gillis roared. “Don’t listen to him, Maisie. You’re frightening the child, Howard. What is the point of this?”
“The point is that I am deadly serious!” Jerry snapped. “Unless each of you will give me your word that you will do as I say, I am going to tie you up and gag you. Now, will you listen?”
“Go ahead, then,” growled the big man.
“There are demons outside,” Jerry said, “but this cottage is demon-proof, and they can enter only if they are invited— but they decide what’s an invitation.” Belief would be almost impossible to get in this century; perhaps that was why there were so few Merans from technological cultures. “They have very liberal definitions of what constitutes an invitation. It need not be specific. If one of you had said, ‘Oh, good!’ just now— that would have been an invitation. Any one of you can do it with one word. That’s why you must not say anything— by the time you work out what you’ve said, it’s too late. We know the names of a few of the major demons and to pronounce one of those names— even in a command to go away— would be an invitation.” Gillis snorted.
“You’re awfully heavy for Maisie, now, dear,” his wife muttered to Lacey, and he turned his attention to the child, lifting her over onto his own lap. That was more important than demons, obviously.
Jerry sighed wearily. “The only words it is safe to say are the ones I used: ‘I know you for what you are. Begone.’ If you hear a voice you know calling to you, try that first.” He glanced down at Ariadne, and she looked up at him with a blank, hopeless expression. There was no rope to tie them all up, although bed sheets might do. Would they hold still for it under Killer’s gun?
“Demons flock around me,” Killer said cheerfully.
Stupid little braggart— he couldn’t help. “They are also scared witless of you,” Jerry snarled. “At least, so Tig says. When you’re in the party, the demons are a hell— pardon the expression— are a lot more circumspect, so he says.” Killer smiled, flattered but very pallid, and it took a lot of pain to show on Killer’s face. The wand could help, as it had somewhat helped his ankle while they were in the wagon, but he would refuse to accept it at this point— Jerry was the Oracle’s choice. That was one of the unwritten rules of the field men.