Travis shook his head violently. “You don’t understand. I’m not what you think. I never wanted this, and now I have a chance to stop it. Let me go. I can end it.”

“Why should I trust you? You’re a murderer.”

“No. Catch is.”

“What’s the difference? If I do let you go, it will be because you will have told me what I want to know, and how I can use that information. Now I’ll listen and you’ll talk.”

“I can’t tell you anything. And you don’t want to know anyway, I promise you.”

“I want to know where the Seal of Solomon is. And I want to know the incantation that sends Catch back. Until I know, you’re not going anywhere.”

“Seal of Solomon? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Look — what is your name, anyway?”

“Travis.”

“Look, Travis,” Brine said, “my associate wants to use torture. I don’t like the idea, but if you jerk me around, torture might be the only way to go.”

“Don’t you have to have two guys to play good cop, bad cop?”

“My associate is taking a bath. I wanted to see if I could reason with you before I let him near you. I really don’t know what he’s capable of… I’m not even sure what he is. So if we could get on with this, it would be better for the both of us.”

“Where’s Jenny?” Travis asked.

“She’s fine. She’s at work.”

“You won’t hurt her?”

“I’m not some kind of terrorist, Travis. I didn’t ask to be involved in this, but I am. I don’t want to hurt you, and I would never hurt Jenny. She’s a friend of mine.”

“So if I tell you what I know, you’ll let me go?”

“That’s the deal. But I’ll have to make sure that what you tell me is true.” Brine relaxed. This young man didn’t seem to have any of the qualities of a mass murderer. If anything, he seemed a little naive.

“Okay, I’ll tell you everything I know about Catch and the incantations, but I swear to you, I don’t know anything about any Seal of Solomon. It’s a pretty strange story.”

“I guessed that,” Brine said. “Shoot.” He poured himself a glass of wine, relit his pipe, and sat back, propping his feet up on the hearth.

“Like I said, it’s a pretty strange story.”

“Strange is my middle name,” Brine said.

“That must have been difficult for you as a child,” Travis said.

“Would you get on with it.”

“You asked for it.” Travis took a deep breath. “I was born in Clarion, Pennsylvania, in the year nineteen hundred.”

“Bullshit,” Brine interrupted. “You’re not a day over twenty-five.”

“This is going to take a lot more time if I have to keep stopping. Just listen — it’ll all fall into place.”

Brine grumbled and nodded for Travis to continue.

“I was born on a farm. My parents were Irish immigrants, black Irish. I was the oldest of six children, two boys and four girls. My parents were staunch Catholics. My mother wanted me to be a priest. She pushed me to study so I could get into seminary. She was working on the local diocese to recommend me while I was still in the womb. When World War I broke out, she begged the bishop to get me into seminary early. Everybody knew it was just a matter of time before America entered the war. My mother wanted me in seminary before the Army could draft me. Boys from secular colleges were already in Europe, driving ambulances, and some of them had been killed. My mother wasn’t going to lose her chance to have a son become a priest to something as insignificant as a world war. You see, my little brother was a bit slow — mentally, I mean. I was my mother’s only chance.”

“So you went to seminary,” Brine interjected. He was becoming impatient with the progress of the story.

“I went in at sixteen, which made me at least four years younger than the other boys. My mother packed me some sandwiches, and I packed myself into a threadbare black suit that was three sizes too small for me and I was on the train to Illinois.

“You have to understand, I didn’t want any part of this stuff with the demon; I really wanted to be a priest. Of all the people I had known as a child, the priest seemed like the only one who had any control over things. The crops could fail, banks could close, people could get sick and die, but the priest and the church were always there, calm and steadfast. And all that mysticism was pretty nifty, too.”

“What about women?” Brine asked. He had resolved himself to hearing an epic, and it seemed as if Travis needed to tell it. Brine found he liked the strange young man, in spite of himself.

“You don’t miss what you’ve never known. I mean I had these urges, but they were sinful, right? I just had to say, ‘Get thee behind me Satan’, and get on with it.”

“That’s the most incredible thing you’ve told me so far,” Brine said. “When I was sixteen, sex seemed like the only reason to go on living.”

“That’s what they thought at seminary, too. Because I was younger than the others, the prefect of discipline, Father Jasper, took me on as his special project. To keep me from impure thoughts, he made me work constantly. In the evenings, when the others were given time for prayer and meditation, I was sent to the chapel to polish the silver. While the others ate, I worked in the kitchen, serving and washing dishes. For two years the only rest I had from dawn until midnight was during classes and mass. When I fell behind in my studies, Father Jasper rode me even harder.

“The Vatican had given the seminary a set of silver candlesticks for the altar. Supposedly they had been commissioned by one of the early popes and were over six hundred years old. The candlesticks were the most prized possession of the seminary and it was my job to polish them. Father Jasper stood over me, evening after evening, chiding me and berating me for being impure in thought. I polished the silver until my hands were black from the compound, and still Father Jasper found fault with me. If I had impure thoughts it was because he kept reminding me to have them.

“I had no friends in seminary. Father Jasper had put his mark on me, and the other students shunned me for fear of invoking the prefect of discipline’s wrath. I wrote home when I had a chance, but for some reason my letters were never answered. I began to suspect that Father Jasper was keeping my letters from getting to me.

“One evening, while I was polishing the silver on the altar, Father Jasper came to the chapel and started to lecture me on my evil nature.

“‘You are impure in thought and deed, yet you do not confess,’ he said. ‘You are evil, Travis, and it is my duty to drive that evil out!’

“I couldn’t take it any longer. ‘Where are my letters?’ I blurted out. ‘You are keeping me from my family.’

“Father Jasper was furious. ‘Yes, I keep your letters. You are spawned from a womb of evil. How else could you have come here so young. I waited for eight years to come to Saint Anthony’s — waited in the cold of the world while others were taken into the warm bosom of Christ.’

“At last I knew why I had been singled out for punishment. It had nothing to do with my spiritual impurity. It was jealousy. I said, ‘And you, Father Jasper, have you confessed your jealousy and your pride? Have you confessed your cruelty?’

“‘Cruel, am I?’ he said. He laughed at me, and for the first time I was really afraid of him. ‘There is no cruelty in the bosom of Christ, only tests of faith. Your faith is wanting, Travis. I will show you.’

“He told me to lie with arms outstretched on the steps before the altar and pray for strength. He left the chapel for a moment, and when he returned I could hear something whistling through the air. I looked up and saw that he was carrying a thin whip cut from a willow branch.

“‘Have you no humility, Travis? Bow your head before our Lord.’

“I could hear him moving behind me, but I could not see him. Why I didn’t leave right then I don’t know. Perhaps I believed that Father Jasper was actually testing my faith, that he was the cross I had to bear.