Chapter Twenty Six

After Hep, Scroat and Sarah had caught up with Cyrus a little bit, they went back to the hotel. Killer, who had been left in Sarah’s room to entertain himself, had made an unholy mess of the place. He had unplugged most of the cables from the TV, chewed most of the way through a chair’s leg, scattered the towels all over the bathroom, ripped up the phone book, and pooped everywhere.

When Sarah entered the room, she saw the mess, and Killer perched on one of the lamps looking proud as could be.

“I gotta get you a travel cage,” Sarah said to the bird.

The next morning, the four of them checked out of the motel (Sarah left a generous tip for the cleaning staff) and rode over to the place Cyrus was staying. Cyrus let them into his room. Nubbins was sitting in an easy chair and watching TV.

It only took Killer a matter of seconds to notice the demon. The bird did not leave Sarah’s shoulder, but growled continuously at the little demon.

“Killer, hush,” Sarah said, but he did not stop growling.

“Dammit, you’re freaking my bird out,” Sarah said. “I’m going outside.”

“Hey, I’ll come with you,” Scroat said.

The two of them left the room, leaving Hep, Cyrus and Nubbins.

Nubbins said to Hep, “I hope you guys don’t think you’re going to be able to help the Rev here.”

Hep said, “We’ll see.”

He, Scroat and Sarah had decided to accompany Cyrus for the rest of his tour (and for the foreseeable future after that, unless they were able to take care of the demon problem quickly). The idea, frankly, made Cyrus uncomfortable. He preferred to travel light and discrete, and an entourage on motorcycles (with a parrot) was far from travelling light. It would be, well, large and obvious.

Ducking out of town would be more like leading a parade now, unless he came up with a plan for how they could accompany him without drawing attention.

“So,” Hep said, “How are we going to keep your followers from noticing the biker gang chasing you around?”

“Well, I guess you could start by not coming to the revivals. It’s not like a whole lot of bikers show up, ever, so when someone finally notices you, they’re going to think you’re a part of the show. Or worse, they’ll think you’re following me like a couple of filthy deadheads,” Cyrus said.

“Milton-heads?” Nubbins suggested, and exhaled a surprising amount of smoke. Really, no one would have expected a tiny demon to take such massive drags off a cigarette.

“Yeah, we don’t really want that,” Hep said. “Scroat hates a crowd. Especially a crowd of deadheads.”

They decided that Hep, Scroat and Sarah would hang out in the general area, but would avoid the revivals, and would stay a ways back from Reverend Milton’s car while they traveled. That should help keep things nice and discrete.

Eventually it was time for Reverend Milton to leave for the tent again, and the second night of the revival. He and Nubbins left with Grace. Scroat, Sarah and Killer saw the three of them leave the hotel, and decided to head in and see what Hep was up to.

Hep was, in fact, sitting with his head in his hands. He let the three of them in to Cyrus’s room, and resumed sitting with his head in his hands.

“So, what are we up to, Hep?” Scroat asked. He turned on the TV and checked to see if the room had pay-per-view porn.

It did not. Scroat was quite annoyed.

“We’re trying to figure out a way to help Cyrus,” Hep said.

“And why, again, are we doing this instead of riding around and getting laid? I mean, the dumb bastard did it to himself,” Scroat said.

“Well, because if one of us were hell bound and knew about it – it’d probably be you – I’d like to think someone would come along and help us out,” Hep said.

“Uh huh. And so why are we helping him?” Scroat asked again.

“Because we’re nice guys?” Hep said.

“Fuck that. You’re a nice guy. I’m not. I come along for this shit for the riding and the, uh…” he looked at Sarah then, and noticed she was glaring at him.

“What?” he said.

“You, are helping out your friend. Because you’re a good guy. Because good guys help their friends, and get nearly unlimited head, while jerks do not help their friends, and do not get any head at all,” Sarah said.

“Oh, now I remember why we’re helping our friend. Uh, Cecil, right?” Scroat said.

“Cyrus,” Hep said.

“Yeah, him. I always liked that guy. I’m glad we can help him in his time of need,” Scroat said, and smiled as sweetly as he could.

“Right now, you’re a guy who might get occasional head if he asks really, really, really nicely, and makes me cum twice beforehand,” Sarah said, then got up and started digging through the drawers in the room, hoping to find a magazine or something to stay occupied.

“I’LL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL!” Killer said.

Scroat sat quietly for a moment. Hep still had his head in his hands.

“So, uh, you got any ideas, Hep?” Scroat asked, quietly.

“No. I do not. Do you?” Hep asked in return.

“No. I was just checking,” Scroat said. “Think we could get him baptized again?”

“Sure, if you can figure out how to distract Nubbins long enough to get Cyrus in the river,” Hep said.

“Oh yeah,” Scroat said. “What did he do to get Hell so interested in him that they sent a demon to accompany him to Hell.”

“He ripped off a sweet old lady who was his friend,” Hep said.

“Yeah, but I don’t think that’s really worthy of demonic accompaniment, is it?” Scroat said.

“Doesn’t seem like it,” Hep said. “It’s kind of a fucked up religion though.”