"And what's that?"
"Force. Tried and true, my most effective method. All through the ages
I've used force. Great conquerors have done my work merely by force of
arms. More lately I've preferred intrigue, cold war stuff, you know,
but since you are from the old school, I'll just have to overpower you."
The Devil advanced slowly, flexing his hairy arms and going into a
crouch, almost ludicrously reminiscent of a boxer's stance.
Deliberately Joe leveled his gun and pulled the trigger. The blast
was deafening in the close confines of the basement, but the Devil
didn't waver. He grinned his horrible grin once more and pointed to a
flattened piece of lead on the floor. "Neat trick, don't you think?"
he asked. "If I were vulnerable to bullets, I'd have been holed rather
frequently. Even silver bullets, silly superstition, are of no avail.
Put up your dukes, my friend. I'm going to slap you silly."
* * * * *
The door at the head of the stairs opened, and Pearl's voice rang
through the basement. "Joe! Joe, are you all right!"
"Don't come down!" yelled Joe. "I've got the Devil cornered down here."
"_Cornered!_" exclaimed the Devil. "Why you grandstander, you! Even
while facing me, you can blow your horn to your wife! What a phony.
Maybe it's time she got a real break...."
Joe Emerald threw his gun carefully and swiftly through the air, and as
the Devil ducked it neatly, he hurled his six-foot-one of well-trained
muscle and bone at the hairy figure. They came together with a crash,
and for an instant the Devil reeled back.
"If it's force you want," snarled Joe, "maybe I'm not unversed in its
application. Ever seen any jiu jitsu?"
"Invented it," said the Devil, evading a hold, and applying one of his
own. Joe whirled through the air and went to the concrete floor with a
crash. But he was up in an instant, his hurtling body cracked into the
Devil's knees, and both went down in a heap. In an instant they were
thrashing around in a violent tangle of arms and legs. Joe crashed a
fist home into the Devil's mid-section, and the Devil grunted. Then
a back-handed slap from the Devil's hand rattled the teeth in Joe's
skull. Brilliant lights danced before his eyes. Instantly the Devil
threw his hairy body atop Joe's and bore him back, both shoulders flat
against the floor. A taloned claw gripped his throat, and began to
squeeze. Joe thrashed around, but he could not throw off the Devil's
weight, which seemed to increase immensely by the second.
"Great help, the knowledge of how to increase gravity," observed the
Devil, tightening his grasp on Joe's throat. "As soon as consciousness
leaves you, I'll make the transference, and then we'll chain you by
your own dog's collar and leave you here."
Joe Emerald thrashed wildly, but the lights in the basement began to
grow dim as his wind was cut off. Despair swept over him in a wave as
black as the approaching unconsciousness.
There was a dull thud, a groan, and the grip on his throat lessened,
fell away altogether. In a whirling haze of black, he heard a mumble,
"Women ... always bruising my head...."
* * * * *
Then Pearl was bending over him, sobbing, lifting him, shaking him
wildly.
"Get up, Joe!" she begged. "Please get up. I've knocked him out with
the snow shovel."
Joe shook his head to clear it, and the lights seemed to come back on.
He climbed to his feet, stood wavering as he stared about. Pearl was
clinging to him, staring down at the floor. He looked down. The Devil
was lying flat on his stomach, and across him lay the snow shovel
with which Pearl had hit him. There was a goose-egg on the back of the
Devil's bald head, and it was getting bigger by the second.
"You really walloped him hard!" exclaimed Joe.
"We've got to get out of here!" said Pearl. "Get the kids and go! He'll
come to pretty soon and then..." she began to shudder uncontrollably.
"He's the Devil!" she sobbed.
"I guess he is," admitted Joe. "But it won't do any good to run from
him. Has never helped in the past."
His eyes roved about the basement, fell upon the chain fastened to the
wall, with its steel collar.
"That's it!" he exclaimed. "We'll chain him to the wall with Rover's
chain. That'll give us time to decide what to do."
He grabbed the Devil by the heels, dragged him over to the wall.
Opening the collar, he placed it around the Devil's thick neck, and
snapped it shut. It clicked with a satisfying air of finality. Joe
jerked it several times to see that it was tight.
"He's coming to!" exclaimed Pearl.
"And I think the kids have heard the commotion and are coming to
investigate," said Joe. "You get upstairs--head them off. We can't let
them see this..."
Pearl ran for the stairs, and called up to them. "No, Jimmy--Sally,
don't come down! Mother's coming up. Everything's all right."
The sleepy sound of the children's voices came to Joe's ears as she
disappeared up the stairs, and they were cut off suddenly as she shut
the door. He could hear the sound of their feet on the floor above as
she marshalled them back to their beds.
* * * * *
Beside him the Devil stirred. "Ow," he groaned. "What was it she hit me
with?"
"A snow shovel."
"Never had any use for snow shovels," said the Devil, struggling to
a sitting position. The chain around his neck rattled and his eyes
widened. He looked at the chain, and at the bolt that held it into the
wall. He took the chain in both hands.
"Never saw a chiseling contractor's cement I couldn't pull a bolt out
of," he said.
Joe picked up the snow shovel and stood watchfully waiting. The Devil
tugged at the bolt, then yanked furiously. At length he leaned back
against the wall, breathing heavily.
"No cheap contractor put that in," said Joe. "I did it myself."
"What were you building, a fortification?" snarled the Devil.
"Just made up my mind there wasn't going to be any plaster cracking in
this house," said Joe.
"It doesn't seem that it will," said the Devil. "But never mind, it
won't make any difference in the long run. If there's anything I've got
lots of, it's time. I'll figure out a way to get out of here. Meantime
I'd advise you to stay out of my reach. And don't think that shovel
would help you--it's only women who can put dents in my noggin. And
your wife won't get a second chance--the woman doesn't live whom I
can't hypnotize in one second."
"Thanks for telling me," said Joe. "I'll see that she stays out of the
basement."
"Why don't you go back to bed," advised the Devil. "I've got to think
about this situation."
"Go back to bed?"
"What else can you do?" asked the Devil.
Joe thought a minute. "Nothing," he agreed finally. "But it seems to
me that you are in the same boat. You can't loose yourself from that
chain, and as long as I keep people out of the basement, your presence
here will be a secret. Okay, you think about it, and I'll go upstairs
and do the same. Seems to me that this thing can be turned to good,
somehow."
"While I'm down here you can't do much else," said the Devil dourly.
"But it can't last--it never has. This concrete will disintegrate
finally..."
Joe Emerald stared at the Devil a moment, then turned and went
thoughtfully up the stairs. At the top, he flicked the switch and the
basement went dark. Peering down, he could see only two balefully
glowing yellow orbs, slanted and evil, shining in the darkness.
He opened the cellar door, stepped into the room above and closed the
door behind him. Pearl stood in the doorway of the living room, staring
anxiously at him. He looked at her a moment, and suddenly he grinned.
"Pearl," he said. "We've got the Devil downstairs, chained to the wall!"
"Oh, Joe," she said with a wail. "What are we going to do?"
He walked over and took her in his arms and kissed her. "It's not what
we're going to do," he said. "What's _he_ going to do?"