"Yeah, but how we gonna do that?" Junior asked, glancing over uncertainly, then gunning the Jeep through a yellow light turning red.
"Oh, there's ways. There's ways, buddy."
Yes, there are lots and lots of ways.
Derry Howe looked over at Junior, smiling. "You know what they say? Where there's a will, there's a way. Well, I've got me a will that won't quit. I just need me a way. I'm gonna find it, too, and you can take that to the bank! Old Bob and those others can go shove their patience where the sun don't shine."
They crossed Avenue G past the tire center, gas station, and west–end grocery and rode farther toward the cornfields. The buildings of the mill were still visible down the cross streets and between the old homes, plant three giving way to plant four, plant five still out ahead, back of the old speedway, the whole of MidCon spread out along the north bank of the Rock River. The demon studied the residences and the people they sped past, his for the taking, his to own, dismissing them almost as quickly as they were considered. This was a breeding ground for him and nothing more. On July fourth, all of it and all of them would pass into the hands of the feeders, and he would be on his way to another place. It was his world, too, but he felt no attachment to it. His work was what drove him, what gave him purpose, and his servitude to the dark, chaotic vision of the Void would allow for nothing else. There were in his life only need and compulsion, those to be satisfied through a venting of his madness, and nothing of his physical surroundings or of the creatures that inhabited them had any meaning for him.
The Jeep passed a junkyard of rusting automobile carcasses piled high behind a chain–link fence bordering a trailer park that looked to be the last stop of transients on their way to homelessness or the grave, and from behind the fence a pair of lean, black–faced Dobermans peered out with savage eyes. Bred to attack anything that intruded, the demon thought. Bred to destroy. He liked that.
His mind drifted in the haze of the midday summer heat, the voices of Derry and Junior a comfortable buzz that did not intrude. He had come to Hopewell afoot, walking out of the swelter of the cornfields and the blacktop roadways with the inexorable certainty of nightfall. He had chosen to appear in that manner, wanting to smell and taste the town, wanting it to give something of itself to him, something it could not give if he arrived by car or bus, if he were to be closed away. He had materialized in the manner of a mirage, given shape and form out of delusion and desperation, given life out of false hope. He had walked into a poor neighborhood on the fringe of the town, into a collection of dilapidated homes patched with tar paper and oilcloth, their painted wooden sides peeling, their shingled roofs cracked and blistered, their yards rutted and littered with ruined toys, discarded appliances, and rusting vehicles. Within the close, airless confines of the homes huddled the leavings of despair and endless disappointment. Children played beneath the shade of the trees, dust–covered, desultory, and joyless. Already they knew what the future would bring. Already their childhood was ending. The demon passed them with a smile.
At the corner of Avenue J and Twelfth Street, at a confluence of crumbling sheds, pastureland, and a few scattered residences, a boy had stood at the edge of the roadway with a massive dog. At well over a hundred pounds, all bristling hair and wicked dark markings, the dog was neither one identifiable breed nor another, but some freakish combination. It stood next to the boy, hooked on one end of a chain, the other end of which the boy held. Its eyes were deep–set and baleful, and its stance suggested a barely restrained fury. It disliked the demon instinctively, as all animals did, but it was frightened of him, too. The boy was in his early teens, wearing blue jeans, a T-shirt, and high–top tennis shoes, all of them worn and stained with dirt. The boy's stance, like the dog's, was at once strained and cocky. He was tall and heavyset, and there was no mistaking the bully in him. Most of what he had gotten in life he had acquired through intimidation or theft. When he smiled, as he did now, there was no warmth. "Hey, you," the boy said.
The demon's bland face showed nothing. Just another stupid, worthless creature, the demon thought as he approached. Just another failed effort in somebody's failed life. He would leave his mark here, with this boy, to signal his coming, to lay claim to what was now his. He would do so in blood.
"You want to go through here, you got to pay me a dollar," the boy called out to the demon.
The demon stopped where he was, right in the middle of the road, the sun beating down on him. "A dollar?"
"Yeah, that's the toll. Else you got to go around the other way."
The demon looked up the street the way he had come, then back at the boy. "This is a public street."
"Not in front of my house it ain't. In front of my house, it's a toll road and it costs a dollar to pass."
"Only if you're traveling on foot, I guess. Not if you're in a car. I don't suppose that even a dog as mean as yours could stop a car." The boy stared at him, uncomprehending. The demon shrugged. "So, does the dog collect the dollar for you?"
"The dog collects a piece of your ass if you don't pay!" the boy snapped irritably. "You want to see what that feels like?"
The demon studied the boy silently for a moment. "What's the dog's name?"
"It don't matter what his name is! Just pay me the dollar!" The boy's face was flushed and angry.
"Well, if I don't know his name," said the demon softly, "how can I call him off if he attacks someone?"
The dog sensed the boy's anger, and his hackles rose along the back of his neck and he bared his teeth with a low growl. "You just better give me the dollar, buddy," said the boy, a thin smile twisting his lips as he looked down at the dog and jiggled the chain meaningfully.
"Oh, I don't think I could do that," said the demon. "I don't carry any money. I don't have any need for it. People just give me what I want. I don't even need a dog like this one to make them do it." He smiled, his bland features crinkling warmly, his strange eyes fixing the boy. "That's not very good news for you, is it?"
The boy was staring at him. "You better pay me fast, butt–head, or I might just let go of this chain!"
The demon shook his head reprovingly. "I wouldn't do that, if I were you. I'd keep a tight hold on that chain until I'm well down the road from here." He slipped his hands in his pockets and cocked his head at the boy. "Tell you what. I'm a fair man. You just made a big mistake, but I'm willing to let it pass. I'll forget all about it if you apologize. Just say you're sorry and that will be the end of it."
The boy's mouth dropped. "What? What did you say?" The demon smiled some more. "You heard me." For an instant the boy froze, the disbelief on his face apparent. Then he mouthed a string of obscenities, dropped to his knee, and released the chain on the dog's collar. "Oops!" he snarled at the demon, flinging the chain away disdainfully, eyes hot and furious.
But the demon had already invoked his skill, a small, spare movement of one hand that looked something like the blessing of a minister at the close of a service. Outwardly, nothing seemed to change. The demon still stood there in the sweltering heat, head cocked in seeming contemplation, bland face expressionless. The boy lurched to his feet as he released the dog, urging him to the attack with an angry shout. But something profound had changed in the boy. His look and smell and movement had become those of a frightened rabbit, flushed from cover and desperately trying to scurry to safety. The dog reacted on instinct. It wheeled on the boy instantly, lunging for his throat. The boy gave a cry of shock and fear as the dog slammed into him, knocking him from his feet. The boy's hands came up as he tumbled into the dirt of his yard, and he tried desperately to shield his face. The dog tore at the boy, and the boy's cries turned to screams. Drops of blood flew through the air. Scarlet threads laced the dusty earth.