Practical Demonkeeping (Pine Cove, #1)

by Christopher Moore

“Catch had once been a tall and beautiful angel, but his time in hell, steeping in his own bitterness, had changed him. When he appeared before Solomon, he was a squat monster, ...

a snake, his eyes like those of a cat. He was so hideous that Solomon would not allow him to be seen by the people of Jerusalem, so he made ...

“Catch carried in his heart a loathing for humans as deep as Satan himself. I had no quarrel with the race of man. Catch, however, wanted revenge. Fortunat...

What if for a moment—just a moment—he took the Arab’s outrageous story for the truth?… “If this is true, then how do you know, after all this time, that Solomon lied to you? And why tell me about it?” “Because, Augustus Brine, I knew you would believe. And I know Solomon lied because I can feel the presence of the demon, Catch. And I’m sure that he has come to Pine Cove.” “Swell,” Brine said.

It was a skewed brand of faith that he had developed through years of watching television—where no problem was so great that it could not be surmounted by the last commercial break—and through two events in his own life.

Under the mist a crew of men were unrolling the big top of the Clyde Beatty Circus.

Trying to control things by design would only delay his inevitable rescue. The sooner he hit bottom, he reasoned, the sooner his life would improve.

Each time this had happened before, things had gotten a little worse only to get a little better. One day the good times had to keep on rolling, and all of life’s horseshit would turn to circuses. Robert had faith that it would happen. But to rise from the ashes you had to crash and burn first.

When his vision returned, a little man in a red stocking cap was sitting next to him. He hadn’t seen him come in. To Mavis the little man said, “Could I trouble you for a small quantity of salt?”

“How about a margarita with extra salt, handsome?” Mavis batted her spider-lashes.

“I don’t understand morality.” “That’s not surprising.” “I don’t think you understand it either.”

“Be quiet. People are looking.” “You’re trying to be tricky. What’s morality?” “It’s the difference between what is right and what you can rationalize.” “Must be a human thing.” “Exactly.”

morality?” “It’s the difference between what is right and what you can rationalize.” “Must be a human thing.” “Exactly.”

A few minutes before, Gian Hen Gian had rushed into the house babbling in Arabic like a madman. When Brine finally calmed him down, the genie had told him he had found the demon. “You must find the dark one. He must have the Seal of Solomon. You must find him!”

“You are a pain in the ass, Gian Hen Gian.” Brine gathered up the map and headed out of the room. “If it be so, then so be it,” the Djinn shouted after him. “But I am a grand pain in the ass.”

Catch was a demon of the twenty-seventh order. In the hierarchy of hell this put him far below the archdemons like Mammon, master of avarice, but far above the blue-collar demons like Arrrgg, who was responsible for leeching the styrofoam taste into take-out coffee.

Catch had been created as a servant and a destroyer and endowed with a simplemindedness that suited those roles.

After all, it was better to rule on Earth than to serve in hell.

Butterflies do not wax nostalgic about the time they spent as caterpillars.

Cookies snitched from the jar are always sweeter than those served on a plate, and nothing evokes the prurient like puritanism.

Twain had put it succinctly: “Never underestimate the number of people who would love to see you fail.”