"I got it, Earl. It's evil. More evil than I can ever understand. So stop tryin' to get me to understand already."

Earl emptied the last of the pot in his mug. "The point I'm really tryin' to make is that it's not alone. There's a lot more right behind it, just like it. Some even worse, I think."

"Worse than absolute evil."

"I told you, you can't understand."

Duke cracked his knuckles. "Whatever you say."

"What I'm gettin' to, Duke, if you'd stop interrupting me, is that I'm not stickin' around this place anymore. I'm taking off. With or without you."

Duke drew in a deep breath. His broad chest inflated. His shirt collar popped a st.i.tch. He fixed Earl with his typical stone-faced lack of expression. His eyes narrowed the tiniest fraction. His brow furrowed in barely noticeable lines.

"You runnin' away then?"

Earl turned away under the guise of returning the coffeepot to its place, but was really hiding his inability to look Duke in the eye.

"Yeah."

Duke rose from his chair very, very slowly.

Earl swallowed a nervous twitch. The average vampire wasn't much of a match for the average werewolf in a knock-down-drag-out fight. The undead were mostly shadow and stealth, phantoms of flesh designed to prowl the night. Werewolves were built to kill, plain and simple. Earl had seen Duke slaughter five vampire punks in Little Rock. They'd gotten in a few good shots, but when it was all over, they'd tasted final death while Duke had only lost an arm.

Each of those punks individually had been tougher than Earl. A lot tougher.

He didn't think Duke would really kill him. Duke was particular about who he killed. But he could still kick the unliving s.h.i.t out of Earl without much effort.

Keys clattered on the counter beside him.

"Take the truck."

"Did you get my stuff?" Earl asked Duke.

"In the storeroom. By your trunk."

"Thanks." He stuffed the keys in his pocket. "Sorry, Loretta."

She smiled softly. "That's alright. I understand. h.e.l.l, if I had a brain, I'd be leaving myself."

Napoleon, who up to now had been occupied with the death throes of a c.o.c.kroach, perked up his ears and turned to the walk-in freezer door. He loudly sniffed the metal door from one end to another and back again. Then he started growling.

Duke and Earl watched the door suspiciously, but it didn't do anything. Napoleon's growling graduated to angry, staccato barking. Loretta couldn't see or hear him, but she could see the nervousness on Earl's face.

"What? Did'ja hear somethin'?"

Napoleon bent on his front legs. His tail fell flat. Cautiously, he stuck his head and half his immaterial body through the door. He barked once, quickly withdrew, and ran behind Duke with a whimper.

Duke took a step forward, reaching for the handle.

"Don't open it," Earl said.

"Got to."

"No, you don't. Just let whatever is in there be."

"What?" Loretta asked. "What's in there?"

"Something evil, I bet."

"Only one way to find out." Duke lifted the handle, and soft, white frost slipped through the cracked door.

Earl threw his thin frame against it, slamming it shut. "d.a.m.n it, Duke. Why do we have to find out at all? Who says we want to find out? I don't want to. How 'bout you, Loretta?"

"Just give me a sec." She retrieved her shotgun and aimed at the door. "Alright, I'm ready."

Earl threw up his arms. "Aw, s.h.i.t. Fine. Open the G.o.dd.a.m.n thing. But don't say I didn't warn you when some horrible, otherdimensional, squidoid f.u.c.king thing rips you a new a.s.shole."

He stepped aside, shaking his head.

"n.o.body ever listens to me."

"On three," Duke said.

Loretta c.o.c.ked the hammers of her shotgun.

Napoleon offered up halfhearted barks even as he backed away.

"One."

"Can't leave well enough alone," Earl mumbled. "Can't leave the unholy h.e.l.lbeast in the freezer."

"Two."

"Oh no. G.o.d forbid. Much better to get our eyes eaten and our souls ripped out."

"Three."

Duke threw wide the door. The unnaturally thick mist spilled across the kitchen floor in an ankle-deep fog. The thing in the freezer took one clumsy step forward. The humanoid shape was nothing more than slimy skin draped over bones. Its eyes thrust forth from their sockets on long stalks that swept the room.

Loretta lowered her shotgun a few inches. "Gil?"

Gil Wilson's thin form opened its mouth as if to speak. A yellow paste dripped from its lips.

"Shoot it!" Earl shouted.

"But, it's Gil. I can't just . . . "

Gil groaned, extending his arms toward Duke. The werewolf backed away. If Earl didn't know better, he'd have thought Duke was afraid. But nothing scared Duke.

"It's not Gil! It's just something in Gil's body!"

"But . . ."

Gil literally twisted in Earl's direction. The body shifted and turned in ways that would have been impossible with joints and bones in the way. Its skin swelled, as if there were other ent.i.ties lurking just below the surface, waiting to break free.

"Shoot the f.u.c.kin' thing!"

She fired both barrels into it. The body disintegrated. Most of it just disappeared like a popped bubble. The limbs and head fell to the floor. The fog rolled into the freezer, sucked into an invisible hole in the back. The bits and pieces started melting amidst agonized squeals.

Duke, Earl, and Loretta warily gathered together at the door, watching what was left of Gil drip away into nonexistence.

"What the h.e.l.l happened to him?" she asked.

Duke knelt down, though he didn't touch the pieces. "You sure that was Gil Wilson, Loretta?"

She nodded. "Pretty sure. Kind'a hard to tell." The arms and legs were gone, but the fleshless skull remained. She prodded it with her shotgun. "This doesn't make any sense. I mean, I've been in and out of this freezer hundreds of times. He couldn't have been in there all that time. There's no place to hide. So where in the Lord's name has he been?"

"h.e.l.l," Earl answered. "He's been in h.e.l.l. 'Least, his body has. And something tried to ride it back out again."

The eyes popped from the sockets again. Eight spider-like legs thrust from underneath the skull. The skull sprang up and over their heads, hit the tile, and scrambled toward the kitchen door.

Napoleon stopped its flight. The ghost dog snapped and snarled, holding the skull at bay. They circled warily. The skull squirted a dark, red liquid from its nose. Napoleon whined.

Duke brought down one immense sneaker on the abominable headbone. It shattered into a gooey mess. The skull let loose with one last ear-shattering shriek.

Earl checked Napoleon. A chunk of the dog's shoulder was gone, bubbling and hissing. Ectoplasm was not flesh. It was a construction to house the bodiless soul. The stuff of spirits was mostly indestructible, but there were ways to kill a ghost. Real, physical ways if one had the means.

Napoleon lay on the floor as more and more of his body dissolved.

"s.h.i.t!" Earl carefully picked up the dog and cradled it in his arms. "Come on, little guy. Don't die on me now."

The acid had eaten away a leg. It kept consuming, but it was slowing. Earl prayed it would stop. He didn't want to tell Cathy her dead dog was really dead.

Napoleon raised his head with pained eyes he could barely keep open. With one final whimper, his head dissolved. But the acid finally stopped eating away.

"Yes."

He clutched the headless, three-legged specter to his chest. Napoleon just needed time to recover now. Hopefully, he'd get back his missing parts, but even if he didn't, a ghost didn't technically need them. It'd take some getting used to, but, at least, he'd live. Sort of.

Loretta saw only Earl cradling empty air. "Is he alright?" she asked Duke.

Duke nodded. He didn't bother explaining.

Earl put Napoleon in his trunk to rest. Then he grabbed his stuff and headed out the door, stopping just long enough to glance down at the slimy remains of brains and bones.

"Go get her, Earl," Duke sighed, sc.r.a.ping the sludge from the soles of his sneaker with a spatula. "Sooner you free your girlfriend, sooner you can get goin'."

Earl didn't know why he should feel bad about leaving. Duke was a grown man. If he didn't have enough sense to get away from Gil's All Night Diner while he still could, it wasn't Earl's fault. But he felt bad anyway. Duke had always been there for him. He'd slept a little easier every day knowing Duke was watching his back. And now, at the first sign of trouble, he was taking off.

"Duke . . . " He struggled with the words. "I just want you to know that I, uh, well . . . "

Duke stopped cleaning gunk off his shoes. They stared at each other amid the quiet splashing of Loretta mopping up extradimensional brain spider goo.

"d.a.m.n it, why do you gotta go and make this so f.u.c.kin' hard?"

Earl switched his sack from one hand to the other and back again.

"I'm sorry. That's all I wanted to say."

Duke's face remained as blank as ever.

Earl turned to the doors. "You a.s.shole."

"See you around, Earl."

Halfway out the kitchen, the vampire turned. Duke was back to salvaging his sneakers.

"See you around, Duke."

Most of Earl's self-loathing disappeared the moment he saw Cathy. She smiled, and he almost forgot about deserting Duke.

"Hey, where's Napoleon?"

"He's in the diner. Playing with Duke." He felt bad about lying to her, but he didn't want her to worry needlessly. He held up the paper bag. "I think I'm ready to cast the spell tonight."

"Already?"

"Well, I can't actually cast it until around eight-thirty. But I can set it up."

"Why eight-thirty?"

" 'Cuz that's when the metaphysical atmosphere is most receptive to spectral unchaining."

"Wow. I thought you didn't know much about magic."

He shrugged. "I get by."

Truthfully, his experience was rather limited. The "metaphysical atmosphere" was Hector's wording. Not his. But he was willing to fake a greater understanding if it impressed her.

"So how's this work?"

He removed items from the bag, explaining their purpose. "The blue candles represent wind and water, elemental forces that are ever free. And I'll use this bag of salt to form the circle of ectoplasmic binding. And I'll paint the runes 'round the circle with this." He shook the can of spray paint. "It's red 'cuz that's the color of earth, the force that anchors you."

He grinned, swelling with pride.

"Runes. Like the runes Odin gave up his eye for?"

Rather than admit he didn't know who the h.e.l.l that was, he simply nodded.