He crawled in the backseat of the Mercedes and lay down to nap away his anxiety.

The first thing Catfish saw when he came through the doors of the Head of the Slug was Estelle standing at the bar, and he could feel the crust peeling off his heart like old paint. Her hair was down. Brushed out, it hung to her waist. She was wearing a pair of pink overalls that had been splattered with paint over a man’s white T-shirt—his T-shirt, he realized. She looked to him like what he always thought home was supposed to look like, but as a Bluesman, he was bound by tradition to be cool.

“Hey, girl, what you doin‘ here?”

“I called her,” Mavis said. “This is your driver.”

“What I need a driver for?”

“I’ll tell you.” Estelle took his hand and led him to a booth in the corner.

Winston Krauss came through the door a second later and Mavis waved him over to the bar. “Son, I’m about to make you the happiest man in the whole world.”

“You are? Why?”

“Because I like to see people get what they want. And I have what you want.”

“You do?”

Mavis stepped up to the bar and in low, conspiratorial tones, began telling Winston Krauss the most titillating, outrageously erotic tale that she had ever told, trying the whole time to remember that the man she was talking to wanted to have sex with marine animals.

Over in the corner booth, Catfish’s modicum of cool had melted. Estelle was smiling, even as tears welled up in her eyes. “I wouldn’t ask you to do it if I thought it would put you in danger. Really.”

“I know that,” Catfish said, a gentleness in his voice that he usually reserved for kittens and traffic cops. “It just that I been runnin from this my whole life.”

“I don’t think so,” Estelle said. “I think you’ve been running to this.”

Catfish grinned. “You gonna take them old Blues off me for good, ain’t you?”

“You know it.”

“Then let’s go.” Catfish stood up and turned to where Mavis and Winston stood.

“We ready? Y’all ready?” He noticed that the front of Winston’s trousers had become overly tight. “Yeah, you ready. You sick, but you ready.”

Mavis nodded, a slight mechanical ratcheting noise coming from her neck, “Take the second turn out, not the first,” Mavis said to Estelle. “From there it hugs the coast, so there’s no hills.”

“I have to go get my mask and fins,” wailed Winston.

Thirty-one

“Has it been five minutes yet?” Molly was sitting cross-legged, her sword held across her knees. Theo jumped as if he’d been poked with an ice pick, then checked his watch. He crouched by the cave mouth, listening for the sound of either salvation or death.

“About a minute left. Where the hell are they? Molly, maybe you should find some cover.”

“What cover?” She looked around the cave. It was an open chamber; the only cover would be the darkness in the back of the chamber.

“Get behind Steve.”

“No,” Molly said. “I won’t do that.” She heard a voice come from the back of her mind. “Get to cover, you daffy broad. What, do you have a death wish?”

“I have abandonment issues. I’m not going to turn around and abandon someone else,” Molly said.

“What?” Theo said.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“Fine, die. What do I care?” said the narrator.

“Bastard,” Molly said.

“What?” said Theo.

“Not you!”

“Molly, how did you get those guys to come out and drag me into the cave before?”

“I just told them to.”

“Well, take their clothes back to them and tell them to get dressed.”

“Why?”

“Just do it. And tell them to hang on to Steve’s sides and not let go, no matter what he does.”

“Now who’s nuts?”

“Molly, please, I’m trying to save him.”

Burton checked his watch. “That’s it. Get into position. We’re going in.”

Sergeant Sheridan wasn’t so sure. “They have thirty hostages and we don’t have any recon of their positions and we don’t have a full team. You want to take this guy out with thirty witnesses?”

“Goddamn it, Sheridan, get your men in position. We go on my signal.”

“Sheriff Burton.” Theo’s voice from the cave.

“What?”

“I’ll take your offer,” Theo said. “Give me five more minutes and I’ll come out. We can all leave together. The others will come out after you’re gone.”

“You just want him anyway, right?” Sheridan said. “He’s the only one that can hurt the operation.”

Burton turned it over in his mind. He’d been determined to take out the constable and the woman, but now he had to rethink things. If he could get Crowe away from the others, he could dispose of him with no witnesses.

Burton’s cell phone rang. He flipped it open. “Burton,” he said.

“You shouldn’t have made disparaging comments about my weight, Sheriff,” the Spider said.

“Nailsworth, you piece of sh—” The line went dead.

Suddenly the sound of a wailing Blues guitar came screaming over the marine terrace. Burton and the SWAT team turned to see an old white station wagon driving along the edge of the terrace, next to where it dropped to the beach.

An inhuman roar rose up out of the cave, and when Burton looked back to the cave all he saw was a huge reptilian face coming at him.

Winston sat in the back of the station wagon, steadying the Marshall amplifier that was screaming out the notes from Catfish’s Stratocaster. The amp was plugged into Mavis’s black box and a cord ran over the seats into the cigarette lighter, next to where Catfish was playing. After the first few notes, Winston’s hearing had shut down due to temporary deafness, but he didn’t care. He could hardly believe his luck. Mavis had promised him the biggest sexual thrill of his life, and he had doubted her. But now he saw it. It was the most gorgeous creature he’d ever seen.

The feelings of self-pity, jealousy, and heartbreak were new to him, but the response that welled up in him when he heard the sound of his enemy was more deeply imprinted on his lizard brain and it displaced all the newer feelings with rage and the imperative to attack.

He stormed out of the cave with pilgrims hanging on his back by the ridge of armored plates that ran down his spine. Two layers of protective covering slid over his eyes, shortening his vision, but it was the sound that guided him anyway, the sound that carried the strongest association with the enemy. He flashed bright crimson and yellow as he charged over the rocks, kicking aside the vehicles and shedding pilgrims as he made his way to his enemy at the shore.

Molly stood in the cave entrance, screaming for Steve to stop. Theo grabbed her around the waist and pulled her away just as the Sea Beast, dangling pilgrims, charged past them. She elbowed Theo in the forehead, stunning him for a second, and she made for the cave entrance. Theo caught her outside on the rocks and held her.

“No!”

Theo wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her side, and lifted her off the ground, then held her kicking as he braced for gunfire. But none came.

Burton was climbing to his feet just below them, focused on the Sea Beast as it passed. “Shoot that thing! Shoot it! Shoot it!”

The SWAT commander had rolled out of the way and come up with his weapon ready, but with people hanging all over the beast, he didn’t know where to shoot, so instead let his weapon fall to his side as he stared in amazement.

Burton drew a pistol and began running after the Sea Beast. Below, two of the SWAT team had already broken into a run from behind the Blazers just as the Sea Beast bowled them over. The other two were pinned underneath one of the crushed vehicles. As they fell, each pil grim jumped to his feet and ran after the Sea Beast, who was making a beeline across the grassy terrace toward the white station wagon.