Morris did not check his watch again, but he knew the witching hour had arrived when a gray Homburg suddenly plopped onto the middle of his coffee table. Looking up, Morris saw a small man in an elegant suit and bow tie sitting on the sofa. The man absently stroked his goatee as he frowned in Morris’s direction.
“I was about to say that I’m surprised to see you, Quincey.” The little man’s voice was surprisingly deep. “But, on reflection, I really shouldn’t be. My last client tried to hide out in a cathedral, for all the good it did him. So I suppose it was only a matter of time before one of them came crying to you for protection.”
“I’m surprised you even bothered with this one, Dunjee,” Morris said. “He was contemplating suicide when you showed up to make your pitch, so you guys would have had him anyway.”
The little man shook his head. “Our projections were that he wouldn’t have given in to his suicidal ideations, more’s the pity. Even worse, there was a seventy-thirty probability that, after hitting rock bottom a year or so later, he was going to enter a monastery and devote the rest of his life to prayer and good works. Ugh.”
Dunjee stood up. “I hope we’re not going to have any unpleasantness over this, Quincey.” He reached inside his jacket and produced a sheet of paper, which he waved in Morris’s direction. “I have a contract, duly signed of his own free will. My principals have lived up to their part of the agreement, in every respect.” He glanced over at Stone, and the expression on his face reminded Morris of the way a glutton will look at a big plate of prime rib, medium rare. “Now it’s his turn.”
“You know that contract of yours is unenforceable in any court, whether in this world or the next,” Morris said. “The only thing you’ve got working for you is despair. The client thinks he’s damned, and his abandonment of hope in God’s mercy ultimately makes him so.”
Dunjee shrugged. “Say you’re right. It doesn’t matter a damn, you should pardon the expression. If it’s despair that makes him mine, so be it. Bottom line: the wretch is mine.”
“Not this time,” Morris said quietly.
“Surely you’re not claiming he didn’t accept the validity of the deal. Did he come running to you because he was eager to hear stories about that ancestor of yours who helped kill Dracula all those years ago? I don’t think so, Quincey. He knew he was damned, and he was hoping you could find him an escape clause.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Morris told him.
Dunjee stared at him, as if suspecting a trick. “So, why are we talking?”
“Because I found one.”
“Impossible!”
“Not at all. Despair is the key, remember? Well, he doesn’t despair any more. I convinced him that the soul is not ours to sell—which you admit yourself. Further, I spun him a yarn about how you were a con artist planning to come back when his luck changed and extort money from him, except you got arrested before you could return.” Morris shook his head in mock sympathy. “He doesn’t believe in the deal anymore, and that means there’s no deal at all.”
Dunjee’s eyes blazed. “He doesn’t believe?” Before Morris’s eyes, the little man began to grow and change form. “Then I will MAKE him believe!” The voice was now loud enough to rattle the windows, and Dunjee’s aspect had become something quite terrible to behold.
Morris swallowed, but did not look away. He had seen demons in their true form before. “That won’t work, either. I slipped him a mickey—120 milligrams of chloral hydrate, combined with about four ounces of bourbon. He’ll be unconscious for hours, and all the legions of Hell couldn’t wake him.”
Morris stood up then, facing the demon squarely. “The hour of midnight has come and gone, Hellspawn,” he said, formally. “You have failed to collect your prize, and consequently any agreement you may have had with this man is now void, in all respects and for all time.”
Morris picked up the glass he had prepared earlier. Pointing the index finger of his other hand at the demon he said, in a loud and resolute voice, “I enjoin you now to depart this dwelling, and never to enter it again without invitation. Return hence to your place of damnation, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is never quenched, and repent there the sin of pride that caused your eternal banishment from the sight of the Lord God!”
Morris dashed the contents of the glass—holy water, blessed by the Archbishop of El Paso—right into the demon’s snarling face, and cried, “Begone!”
With a scream of frustration and agony, the creature known as Dunjee disappeared.
Morris took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He carefully put the glass down, then pulled out his handkerchief to mop his face. His hands were trembling, but only a little.
He looked over at Trevor Stone, who had started to snore. He would never know what Morris had accomplished on his behalf, but that was all right. In the ongoing war that Morris fought, what mattered were the victories, not who received credit for them.
He sniffed the air, noting that the departing demon had left behind the odor characteristic of its kind.
He hoped the sulfuric scent of brimstone would be gone from his living room by morning.
After earning both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, Justin Gustainis was commissioned a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Following military service, he held a variety of jobs, before earning a PhD. Gustainis currently lives in Plattsburgh, New York where he is a Professor of Communication at Plattsburgh State University. Outside of his academic publications, he has authored three novels and two novellas of occult investigator Quincey Morris and his “consultant,” white witch Libby Chastain; three novels featuring Stan Markowski and the Scranton [PA] Police Department’s Occult Crimes Investigation Unit—the most recent is Known Devil—as well as a standalone novel, The Hades Project. He also edited Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives.
The Case: An FBI agent, with troubles of his own, needs help uncovering a treasonous leak of secrets to the Nazis. He calls on an old friend for assistance . . . and gets far more than he bargained for.
Investigator: Jake Steuben, a former deputy sheriff whose family—including cousins Vic, Rosalie, and Olivia—is particularly talented and quite used to saving humankind.
SWING SHIFT
Dana Cameron
Jake Steuben knew it would be easy to find Harry amid the crowd at North Station. All he had to do was find the highest density of pretty girls; his friend would be within fifteen feet.
Sure enough, there he was, ten feet away from a group of secretaries by the newsstand, watching as they chattered about the stars on the cover of Life. Jake picked up his valise and edged his way through the crowd. He leaned over and whispered into Harry’s ear.
“If you get into trouble and you can’t get out, it’ll be because of a girl.”
“There are worse reasons.” Harry startled, his morose stare gone, and stood up to shake Jake’s hand. “Train was on time. Any trouble?”