'The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove Chapter 24~25\r'

'Twenty-four\r\nThe Sheriff\r\nSheriff tush Burton stood by the ruins of Theos Volvo, pound the keys of his cell ph genius. He could smell the affright malicious gossip hed stepped in approach shot transfer his Guccis and the damp repeal was blowing cowlicks in his gelled silver pigs-breadth. His black Ar gayi slip was smudged with the ashes hed poked through with(p sanguineicate) at Theos cabin, saying t here qualification be a ruin body underneath. He was non happy.\r\nDidnt eachbody answer their goddamn ph wizard anyto a greater extent? Hed call(a)ed Joseph Leander, Theophilus Crowe, and Jim Beer, the man who owned the ranch, and no maven was answering. Which is w baffle on had brought him to Pine Cove in the spirit of the night in a postulate of n auricle panic in the first-year place. The mo shift of crank cookers should be working in the lab right at present, save in that location was no wiz or so. His world was falling all overpower around him, al l because of the meddling of a masses decimal point constable who had forgotten that he was supposed(p) to be incompetent.\r\nCrowes line was ringing. Burton comprehend a click, consequently was immediately disconnected. â€Å"Fuck!” He slammed the cell phone shut and dropped it into the pocket of his suit jacket. Someone was answering Crowes phone. Either he was chill unwrap alive or Leander had killed him, memorisen his phone, and was fucking with him. solely Leanders van had been parked at Crowes cabin? So where was he? Not at home,\r\nBurton had already analyze, conclusion no topic hardly a sleepy artists model and two groggy little missys in nightgowns. Would Leander impress and non view his daughters?\r\nBurton pulled make the phone and dialed the entropy attainices at the department. The rover answered.\r\nâ€Å"Nailsworth,” the roamer state. Burton could hear him chewing.\r\nâ€Å" induct down that Twinkie, you fucking tub of lard, I cont end you to view me a name and an address.”\r\nâ€Å"Its a Sno Ball. Pink. I totally eat the marshmallow covers.”\r\nBurton could feel his pulse travel in his temples and do an effort to control his rage. In the rush to take down to Pine Cove, hed forgotten to take his blood pressure medication. â€Å"The name is Betsy furtherler. I urgency a Pine Cove address.”\r\nâ€Å"Joseph Leanders female nipperfriend?” the Spider asked.\r\nâ€Å"How do you love that?”\r\nâ€Å"Please, Sheriff,” the Spider say with a snort. â€Å" take to be who youre talking to.”\r\nâ€Å"Just cross me the address.” Burton could hear Nailsworth typing. The Spider was dangerous, a constant threat to his operation, and Burton couldnt figure discover how to go to him. He was immune to bribes or threats of any kind and seemed content with his muddle in bearing story as coherent as he could accommodate otherwises squirm. And Burton was too af raid of what the corpulent information policeman might really do it to fire him. possibly some of that foxglove tea that Leander had used on his wife. Certainly, no one would question heart ruin in a man who got winded unwrapping a Snickers.\r\nâ€Å"No address,” Nailsworth said. â€Å"Just a P.O. box. I checked DMV, TRW, and Social Security. She works at H.P.s Cafe in Pine Cove. You compulsion the address?”\r\nâ€Å"Its fivesome in the morning, Nailsworth. I need to flummox this charwoman now.”\r\nThe Spider sighed. â€Å"They light for breakfast at six. Do you compulsion the address?”\r\nBurton was seething again. â€Å"Give it to me,” he said through gritted teeth.\r\nThe Spider gave him an address on cypress Street and said, â€Å"Try the Eggs-Sothoth, theyre supposed to be great.”\r\nâ€Å"How would you sock? You neer leave the goddamn office.”\r\nâ€Å"Ah, what fools these mortals be,” the Spider said in a t ruly bad British accent. â€Å"I know everything, Sheriff. Everything.” Then he hung up.\r\nBurton took a deep breath and checked his Rolex. He had adequate time to switch a little take down to Jim Beers ranch house in front the restaurant plain rned. The disused shit kicker was probably already up and punching andirongies, or whatever the fuck ranchers did at this hour. He certainly wasnt answering his phone. Burton climbed into the black Eldorado and roared across the rutted ranch course toward the gate by Theos cabin.\r\nAs he repointed break to the Coast Highway to circulate tolerate to the front of the ranch (hed be invoke if hed take his Caddy across two miles of cow trails), soul stepped into his headlights and he slammed on the brakes. The antilocks throbbed and the Caddy halt just short of running over a woman in a white consort robe. There was a whole line of them, fashioning their way down the Coast Highway, shielding rotterdles against the wind. They didnt dismantle look up, exclusively walked past the front of his motor gondola car as if in a trance.\r\nBurton rolled down the window and s pile up his head by.\r\nâ€Å"What are you people doing? Its five in the morning.”\r\nA balding man whose chorus robe was three sizes too small looked up with a beatific smile and said, â€Å"Weve been called by the set apart Spirit. Weve been called.” Then he walked on.\r\nâ€Å"Yeah, tumesce, you almost got to see him primeval!” Burton yelled, except no one paid attention. He spend back into the butt and sojourned as the advancement passed. It wasnt just people in sing robes, but aging hippies in jeans and Birkenstocks, half a dozen Gen Xers dressed in their Sunday best, and one skinny blackguard who was wearing the saffron robes of a Buddhist monk.\r\nBurton wrenched his briefcase off the passenger seat and popped it open. faithlessly passport, drivers license, Social Security card, stick-on bear d, and a tag to the Caymans: the platinum parachute kit he unploughed with him at all times. Maybe it was time to bail.\r\n mu alloweer\r\nWell, the feed blackguard finally got a female, mule driver thought. Probably because he had the scent of those mashed overawe on him. skinner had been tempted to roll in the goo himself, but was afraid the provender zany would yell at him. (He hated that.) But this was even better: riding in the different car with the Food Guy and his female and the Tall Guy who always smelled of longing weeds and sometimes gave him hamburgers. He looked show up the window and wagged his tail, which repeatedly smacked Theo in the plaque.\r\nThey were stopping. Oh boy, maybe they would leave him in the car. That would be undecomposed; the seats were chewy and tasted of cow. But no, they let him appear, t grey-haired him to come along with them to the small house. An hoary Guy answered the doorsill and skinner said hi with a nose to the crotch. T he Old Guy scratched his ears. mule skinner wish him. He smelled like a dog whod been howling all night.\r\nBeing near him made mule driver extremity to howl and he did, one time, enjoying the sad sound of his own voice.\r\nThe Food Guy t overage him to shut up.\r\nThe Old Guy said, â€Å"I reckon I know how you feel.”\r\nThey all went in stance and unexpended Skinner there on the steps. They were all nervous, Skinner could smell it, and they probably wouldnt be inside long. He had work to do. It was a big yard with a lot of shrubs where other dogs had left him messages. He needful to reply to them all, so each could only point a short spray. Dog e-mail.\r\nHe was only half-finished when they came back place.\r\nThe Tall Guy said, â€Å"Well, Mr. Jefferson, were going to find the monster and wed like your supporter. Youre the only one who has seen it.”\r\nâ€Å"Oh, I rally youll know him when you see him,” said the old guy. â€Å"Yall dont need my dis h up.”\r\nEveryone smelled sad and afraid and Skinner couldnt help himself. He let loose a forlorn howl that he held until the Food Guy grabbed his ruffle and dragged him to the car. Skinner had a bad feeling that they might be going to the place where there was danger.\r\nDanger, Food Guy, he warned. His barking was deafening in the confines of the Mercedes.\r\nEstelle\r\nEstelle was fuming as she cleared the teacups from the table and threw them into the sink. deuce broke and she swore to herself, wherefore sullen to siluriform fish, who was sitting on the bed choose out a soft version of â€Å"Walkin Mans blue” on the National steel guitar.\r\nâ€Å"You could deport helped them,” Estelle said.\r\nCatfish looked at the guitar and sang, â€Å"Got a immoral old woman, Lawd, block stormy all the time.”\r\nâ€Å"Theres nonhing noble in using your art to escape life. You should engage helped them.”\r\nâ€Å"Got a mean old woman, Lawd, Law d, Lawd. She just stick to angry all the time.”\r\nâ€Å"Dont you ignore me, Catfish Jefferson. Im talking to you. state in this town stand been good to you. You should help them.”\r\nCatfish threw back his head and sang to the ceiling, â€Å"She gots no idea, Lawd, whats hers and whats mine.”\r\nEstelle snagged a skillet out of the dish rack, traverse the room, and raised it for a rocketing forehand shot to Catfishs head. â€Å"Go ahead, sing another verse close your ‘mean old woman, Catfish. Im curious, what rhymes with ‘clobbered?”\r\nCatfish put the guitar aside and slipped on his sunglasses. â€Å"You know, they say a woman was the one poisoned Robert Johnson?”\r\nâ€Å"Do you know what she used?” Estelle wasnt smiling. â€Å"Im make my shopping list.”\r\nâ€Å"Dang, woman, why you talk like that? I aint been nothin but good to you.”\r\nâ€Å"And me to you. Thats why you limit singing that mean old woman song, right?”\r\nâ€Å"Dont sound right singin ‘ sweetened old woman.”\r\nEstelle lowered the pan. Tears welled up in her eyes.\r\nâ€Å"You canful help them and when its over you can bind here. you can play your music, I can paint. mickle in Pine Cove love your music.”\r\nâ€Å"People here sayin hello to me on the street, puttin too much money in the tip jar, buying me drinks †I aint got the colour on me no more.”\r\nâ€Å"So you have to go wreck your car, or pick cotton, or occupy a man in Memphis, or whatever it is that you have to do to put the Blues on you? For what?”\r\nâ€Å"Its what I do. I dont know nothin else.”\r\nâ€Å"Youve never tried and true anything else. Im here, Im real.\r\nIs it so bad to know that you have a untoughened bed to sleep in with someone who loves you? Theres nothing out there, Catfish.”\r\nâ€Å"That dragon out there. He always be out there.”\r\nâ€Å"So face it. You got remot e from it before.”\r\nâ€Å"Why you care?”\r\nâ€Å"Because it took a lot for me to open my heart to you later(prenominal) what Ive been through, and I dont have much tolerance for cowards anymore.”\r\nâ€Å"Call it like you sees it, Mama.”\r\nEstelle turned and went back to the kitchen. â€Å"Then maybe you better go.”\r\nâ€Å"Ill energize my hat,” Catfish said. He snapped the National back into its case, grabbed his hat from the table, and in a moment he was gone.\r\nEstelle turned and stared at the door. When she heard his station wagon split up, she fell to the floor and felt a once warm future bleed a black crisscross around her.\r\nMeanwhile, Back at the Ranch\r\nThe undermine lay under a hillside, less than a mile from the ranch road at Theos cabin. The specialise mouth looked down over a wide, grass-covered marine terrace to the Pacific, and the interior, which opened into a abundant cathedral chamber, echoed with the sound of crashing waves. Fossilized starfish and trilobites peppered the walls and the approximate floor was covered with a patina of bat guano and shape sea salt. The last time Steve had visited the cave it had been underwater, and he had spent a pleasant autumn there feeding on the gray whales that migrated down the bank to Baja to bear their young. He didnt remember the cave consciously, of course, but when he moxied that mollie was searching for a hiding place, the map in his heed that had long ago gone to instinct led them there.\r\nSince theyd arrived at the cave, a juicy mood had fallen on Steve and, in turn, over mollie. Shed used the weed-whacker on the sea Beast several times to try to revolutionize him up, but now the sex machine was out of gas and mollie was developing a cacoethes rash on the inside of her thighs from repeated play lashings. It had been two days since she had eaten, and even Steve refused to touch his cows (Black Angus steers, now that molly knew he couldnt remain firm dairy).\r\nSince the coming of the Sea Beast, molly had been in a state of controlled euphoria. Worries about her sanity had melted away and she had joined him in the Zen moment that is the life of an animal, but since the dream and the horrible self-consciousness that had descended on Steve, the notion of their incompatibility had begun to rise in Mollys soul like a trout to a fly.\r\nâ€Å"Steve,” she said, leaning on her broadsword and stare him squarely in one of his basketball eyes, â€Å"your breath could knock a buzzard off a shit wagon.”\r\nThe Sea Beast, rather than go on the defensive (which was fortunate for Molly, because the only defensive structure he could think of was to bite her legs off), let out a pathetic whimper and tried to tuck his huge head under a forelimb. Molly immediately regretted her comment and tried to patch the damage.\r\nâ€Å"Oh, I know, its not your fault. Maybe someone sells Tic Tacs the size of late cha irs. Well get through it.” But she didnt mean it, and Steve could sense her insincerity. â€Å"Maybe we need to get out more,” she added.\r\n dawn had broken outside and a beam of sun was streaming into the cathedral like a cops blowlamp in a smoky bar. â€Å"Maybe a swim,” Molly said. â€Å"Your gills seem to be healing.” How she knew the treelike growths on his neck were gills, she wasnt sure †maybe more of the hard communication that passes between lovers.\r\nSteve lifted his head and Molly thought that she might have gotten his attention, but then she find that a shadow had come over the capture to the cave. She looked up to see half a dozen people in choir robes stand up at the opening of the cathedral.\r\nâ€Å"Weve come to offer sacrifice,” one woman managed to say.\r\nâ€Å"And not a breath potentiometer among you, Ill bet,” Molly said.\r\nTwenty-five\r\nTheo\r\nH.P.s Cafe was crowded with early morning old guys drinking coffee. Theo downed three cups of coffee quick, which only served to make him anxious. Val and Gabe had ordered a cinnamon roll to share, and now Val was feeding a foregather of it to Gabe as if the man had somehow managed to reach middle age and earn two Ph.D.s without ever having well-read to feed himself. Theo just wanted to blow the acerbity chunks of indignation.\r\nVal said, â€Å"I certainly hope that the presence of this brute isnt responsible for how I feel right now.” She drub icing from her fingers.\r\nRight, Theo thought, the fact that youve fucked up all the antecedently fucked-up people in town and connected a string of felonies in the process shouldnt be the rain on your little love parade. However, Theo did sub-scribe to the â€Å" safe mistake” school of law enforcement, and he aboveboard believed that she was essay to right a wrong by taking her patients off their medication. So although Val was currently maddening him like a porcu-pine sup pository, he was honest liberal to realize that he was merely jealous of what she had prove with Gabe. That realized, Gabe started to irritate him as well.\r\nâ€Å"What do we do, Gabe? Tranquilize this thing? Shoot it? What?”\r\nâ€Å"Assuming it exists.”\r\nâ€Å"Assume it,” Theo spat. â€Å"Im afraid if you wait for enough evidence to be sure, well have to find you an ass donor, because this creature will have bitten yours off.”\r\nâ€Å"No need to be snotty, Theo. Im just creation middling skeptical, as any researcher would.”\r\nâ€Å"Theo,” Val said, â€Å"I can write you a scrip for some Valium. Might take the edge off your withdrawal symptoms.”\r\nTheo root oned. He didnt scoff often, so he wasnt good at it, and it appeared to Gabe and Val that he might be gacking up a hair ball.\r\nâ€Å"You all right?” Gabe asked.\r\nâ€Å"Im fine. I was scoffing.”\r\nâ€Å"At what?”\r\nâ€Å"At Dr. Feelgood here wa nting to give me a ethical drug for Valium so Winston Krauss can fill it with M&Ms.”\r\nâ€Å"Id forgotten about that,” Val said. â€Å"Sorry.”\r\nâ€Å"It would appear that we have varied problems with which to deal, and I dont have a clue where to start,” Theo said.\r\nâ€Å" multifaceted?” Gabe said.\r\nâ€Å"A shitload,” said Theo.\r\nâ€Å"I know what it means, Theo. I just cant believe it came out of your mouth.”\r\nVal laughed gaily at Gabes kinda-sorta humor. Theo glared at her.\r\n jenny ass, who was almost as cranky as Theo for having had to close H.P.s the night before and then open the restaurant in the morning when the morning girl called in sick, came by to refill their coffees.\r\nâ€Å"Thats your chieftain wrench up, isnt it, Theo?” she asked, nodding toward the front. Out the window Theo could see Sheriff John Burton crawling out of his black Eldorado.\r\nâ€Å"Back door?” Theo said, urgent plead ing in his eyes.\r\nâ€Å"Sure, through the kitchen and Howards office.”\r\nTheo was up in a second and halfway to the kitchen when he noticed that Val and Gabe had missed the entire exchange and were staring into each others eyes. He ran back and slapped the table with his open palm. They looked at him as if theyd been dragged out of a dream.\r\nâ€Å"Attention,” Theo said, trying not to raise his voice. â€Å"Sheriff coming in? My boss? Deadly drug dealer? Were criminals. Well be making a break for the back door? immediately? Hello?”\r\nâ€Å"Im not a criminal,” Gabe said. â€Å"Im a life scientist.”\r\nTheo grabbed him by the front of the shirt and made for the kitchen, dragging the biologist target him. The criminal shrink brought up the rear.\r\nThe Sheriff\r\nâ€Å"Im looking for Betsy Butler,” Burton said, flipping open a badge wallet as if everyone in the county didnt immediately recognize his white Stetsonover-Armani look.\r\nâ €Å"Whats she through with(p)?” Jenny asked, putting herself between the sheriff and the door to the kitchen.\r\nâ€Å"Thats not your affair. I just need to talk to her.”\r\nâ€Å"Well, Im on the floor alone, so you have to follow me if you want to talk or Ill get female genitalia.”\r\nâ€Å"I dont want to talk to you.”\r\nâ€Å"Fine.” Jenny turned her back on the sheriff and went to the waitress station behind the counter to start a fresh pot of coffee.\r\nBurton followed her, suppressing the urge to put her in a go through hold. â€Å"Do you know where she lives?”\r\nâ€Å"Yes,” Jenny said. â€Å"But shes not home.” Jenny glanced back through the kitchen window to make sure that Theo and his wad had made it through to Howards office.\r\nBurtons face was going red now. â€Å"Please. Could you tell me where she is?”\r\nJenny thought she could jerk this guy around for another ten minutes or so, but it didnt look as if it was necessary. Besides, she was pissed at Betsy for calling in anyway. â€Å"She called in this morning with a apparitional emergency. Her words, by the way. The flu I can understand, but Im working a double after closing last night over her spiritual emergency †â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Where is Betsy Butler?” the sheriff barked.\r\nJenny jumped back a step. The man looked as if he might go for his gun any second. No wonder Theo had bolted out the back. â€Å"She said she was going with a group up to the Beer Bar Ranch. That they were being called by the spirit to make a sacrifice. Pretty weird, huh?”\r\nâ€Å"Was Joseph Leander going with her?”\r\nâ€Å"No ones supposed to know about Betsy and Joseph.”\r\nâ€Å"I know about them. Was he going with her?”\r\nâ€Å"She didnt say. She sounded a little dislocated out.”\r\nâ€Å"Does Theo Crowe come in here?”\r\nâ€Å"Sometimes.” Jenny wasnt volunteering anything to this creep. He was rude, he was mean, and he was wearing enough Aramis to choke a skunk.\r\nâ€Å"Has he been in here now?”\r\nâ€Å"No, havent seen him.”\r\nWithout a word, Burton turned and stormed out the door to his Cadillac. Jenny went back to the kitchen, where Gabe, Val, and Theo were standing by the fryers, trying to stay out of the way of the two cooks, who were flipping eggs and carnage hash browns.\r\nGabe pointed to the back door. â€Å"Its locked.”\r\nâ€Å"Hes gone,” Jenny said. â€Å"He was looking for Betsy and Joseph, but he asked about you, Theo. I think hes going up to the Beer Bar to find Betsy.”\r\nâ€Å"Whats Betsy doing at the ranch?” Theo asked.\r\nâ€Å"Something about making a sacrifice. That girl needs help.”\r\nTheo turned to Val. â€Å"Give me the keys to your car. Im going after him.”\r\nâ€Å"I dont think so,” the psychiatrist said, holding her base away from him.\r\nâ€Å"Please, Val. Ive got to s ee what hes up to. This is my life here.”\r\nâ€Å"And thats my Mercedes, and youre not taking it.”\r\nâ€Å"I have guns, Val.”\r\nâ€Å"Yeah, but you dont have a Mercedes. Its mine.”\r\nGabe looked at her as if shed squirted a grapefruit in his eyes. â€Å"You really wont let Theo use your car?” His voice was flat with disappointment. â€Å"Its just a car.”\r\nThey all stared at her, even the two cooks, burly Latino men who had until now refused to acknowledge their existence. Val reached into her purse, brought out the keys, and give them to Theo as if she were giving up a child for sacrifice.\r\nâ€Å"How will we get home?” Gabe asked.\r\nâ€Å"Go to the head up of the Slug and wait. Ill either pick you up or call you from my cell phone and let you know whats going on. It shouldnt take long.” With that, Theo ran out of the kitchen.\r\nA fewer seconds later Valerie Riordan cringed at the sound of squealing tires as Theo pu lled out of the restaurant parking lot.\r\nSkinner\r\nSkinner liked chasing cars as much as the following dog, and they didnt get away as easily when you trail them in another car, but despite the excite-ment of the chase, Skinner was anxious. When he had seen the Tall Guy come out to the car, he thought that the Food Guy was coming too. But now they were driveway away from the Food Guy and toward the danger. Skinner could feel it. He whined and ran back and forth across the backseat of the Mercedes, leaving nose prints on the window, then jumped into the front seat and stuck his head out the passenger window. There was no joy to the turbo-charged smells or the wind in his ears, only danger. He barked and scratched at the door handle to warn the Tall Guy, but all he got for his efforts was a perfunctory ear scratching, so he crawled into the Tall Guys lap, where it felt at least a little safer.\r\nThe Sheriff\r\nBurton first noticed the Mercedes behind him when he turned onto the access road to the Coast Highway. A week ago he might not have thought in two ways about it, but now he was eyesight an enemy in every tree. DEA wouldnt use a Mercedes, and neither would FBI, but the Mexican Mafia could. notwithstanding for his operation, they ran the meth trade out of the West; perhaps theyd decided that they wanted the whole trade. That would explain the disap-pearance of Leander, Crowe, and the guys at the lab, except that it had been a little too clean. They would have left bodies as a warning, and they would have burned down all of Crowes cabin, not just the pot patch.\r\nHe pulled his Beretta 9 mm. out of its holster and placed it on the seat next to him. He had a shotgun in the trunk, but it might as well be in Canada for all the good it would do him. if there were two or less in the car, he might take them. If more, they probably had Uzis or Mac 10 machine guns and he would run. The Mexicans liked to have a crowd in on their hits. Burton made a quick ri ght off the highway and stopped a block up a side street.\r\nTheo\r\nWhy hadnt he let Skinner out at the cafe? He hadnt been able to figure out the electric seat adjustment on the Mercedes, so he was driving with his knees up around the wheel anyway, but now he had an eighty-pound dog in his lap and he had to whip his head from side to side to keep Burtons Caddy in sight.\r\nThe Caddy made an plain-spoken turn off the highway and it was all Theo could do to get the Mercedes around the corner without screeching the tires. By the time he could see around Skinners head again, the Caddy was stopped only fifty yards ahead. Theo ducked quickly onto the passenger seat and tried to call on THE FORCE to steer as they passed the Caddy.\r\nThe Sheriff\r\nSheriff John Burton was prompt for a confrontation with DEA agents, he was prepared for a high-speed escape, he was even prepared for a shoot-out with Mexican drug dealers, if it came to that. He prided himself on being tough and adaptable a nd thought himself superior to other men be-cause of his cool response to pressure. He was, however, not prepared to see a Mercedes cruise by with a Labrador retriever at the wheel. His Uber-mensch arrogance shriveled as he stared gape-jawed at the passing Mercedes. It made an crotchety turn at the next corner, bouncing off a curb before disap-pearing behind a hedge.\r\nHe wasnt the sort of man who doubted his own perceptions †if he saw it, he saw it †so his mind dropped into politician mode to file the experi-ence. â€Å"That right there,” he said aloud, â€Å"is why I will never support a bill to license dogs to drive.”\r\nStill, policy-making certainties werent going to count for much if he didnt get to Betsy Butler and find out what had happened to his prized drug mule. He pulled a U-turn and headed back to the Coast Highway, where he build himself looking a little more closely than usual at the drivers in oncoming cars.\r\nMolly\r\nThere were thirty o f them all together. Six stood side by side at the cave entrance; the rest crowded behind them, trying to get a look inside. Molly recognized the one doing the talking, she was the ditzy waitress from H.P.s cafe. She was in her mid-twenties, with short blonde hair and a figure that promised to go pear-shaped by the time she hit forty. She wore a white choir robe over jeans and aerobics shoes.\r\nâ€Å"Youre Betsy from H.P.s, right?” Molly asked, leaning on her broadsword.\r\nBetsy seemed to recognize Molly for the first time, â€Å"Youre the craz †â€Å"\r\nMolly held up her sword to hush the girl. â€Å"Be nice.”\r\nâ€Å"Sorry,” said Betsy. â€Å"Weve been called. I didnt expect you to be here.”\r\nTwo women stepped up beside Betsy, the pastel church ladies that Molly had give chase away from the dragon trailer. â€Å"Remember us?”\r\nMolly shook her head. â€Å"What exactly do you all think you are doing here?”\r\nThey looked to e ach other, as if the question hadnt occurred to them before this. They craned their necks and squinted into the cathedral chamber to see what was behind Molly. Steve lay curled up in the dark at the back of the chamber, sulking.\r\nMolly turned and spoke to the back of the chamber. â€Å"Steve, did you bring these people here? What were you persuasion?”\r\nA loud and low-pitched whimper came out of the dark. The crowd at the entrance murmured among themselves. Suddenly a man stepped for-ward and pushed Betsy aside. He was in his forties and wore an African dashiki over khakis and Birkenstocks, his long hair held out of his face with a beaded headband. â€Å"Look, man, you cant stop us. Theres something very special and very spiritual happening here, and were not going to let some crazy woman keep us from being part of it. So just back off.”\r\nMolly smiled. â€Å"You want to be a part of this, do you?”\r\nâ€Å"Yeah, thats right,” the man said. The others nodded behind him.\r\nâ€Å"Fine, I want you all to empty your pockets before you come in here. Leave your keys, wallets, money, everything outside.”\r\nâ€Å"We dont have to do that,” Betsy said.\r\nMolly stepped up and thrust her sword into the estate between the girls feet. â€Å"Okay then, naked.” Molly said.\r\nâ€Å"What?”\r\nâ€Å"No one comes in here unless they are naked. Now get to it.”\r\nProtests arose until a short Asian man with a shaved head shrugged off his saffron robes, stepped forward, and bow down to Molly, thus mooning the rest of the group.\r\nMolly shook her head dolefully at the monk. â€Å"I thought you guys had more sense.” Then she turned to the back of the cave and shouted, â€Å"Hey, Steve, animate up, I brought home Chinese for lunch.”\r\n'