Free Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology by Howard Tayler Dan Wells Mary Robinette Kowal Brandon Sanderson Page B

engineer, “with plans to deploy just before the BSEs go into general use. We’d never send a demon into the field without a trained demonologist to wrangle it.”
    “Which means you wouldn’t test it without one, either,” I said, and looked at the corpse of the dead engineer. “Is that him?”
    The living engineer shrugged helplessly. “There’s a chapter on troubleshooting,” he said meekly.
    I looked up at the gremlin, still loudly tearing the truck to pieces. “If it causes trouble, we shoot it?”
    “I don’t recommend it.”
    “We have an RPG-7 in the JERRV,” said the gunner. “Took it off some Taliban last week.”
    “I really don’t recommend it,” the engineer insisted. “Any weapon you use against it will fail as soon as it leaves the salt circle, and I don’t think I have to tell you what happens when a rocket-propelled grenade fails.”
    “It was just a suggestion,” said the gunner.
    “‘Chapter 6,’” I read, “‘Troubleshooting. If you have no access to a demonologist, your first priority is to reinforce the salt circle containing the demon and requisition a new demonologist immediately.’ Thanks, that’s very helpful. ‘If you absolutely must attempt to control the demon without a trained expert, there are some tricks that may be useful. One: gremlins love sugar.’ Seriously?”
    “Absolutely love it,” said the engineer.
    “Huh. ‘Two: the binding agent on the BSE-7, unless completely destroyed, can be used again, with the understanding that damaged binding agents are prone to unexpected catastrophic failure.’”
    “Take a picture of him eating the truck,” said the driver, crawling back out of the JERRV. “You can put the photo in the manual as a demonstration of ‘unexpected catastrophic failure.’”
    “Did the radio work?” I asked him.
    “Well enough. The good news is, the insurgents in this area won’t be coming after us, because they’re engaged in a firefight with our convoy.”
    “And the bad news,” I said, “is that our convoy can’t come get us because they’re engaged in a firefight with insurgents.”
    “Exactamundo. And so far they’re losing, so they might not come get us at all. It’s a very big group of insurgents.”
    I stood up and looked at the JERRV’s blackened undercarriage. “So we’re on our own, in enemy territory, under direct assault by a demon, and the only thing we can use to stop it is that thing.” I pointed at the shattered BSE-7, a charred lump that looked like a pie plate. It had been torn open, and the inside was full of something dark and sticky.
    “Smells sweet,” said the gunner.
    “They like sugar,” said the engineer with a shrug.
    “So it is a pie plate.” I leaned in and smelled it. “Smells like . . . strawberry jam.”
    “That gremlin’s almost three feet tall,” said the gunner. “If he was crammed inside that tiny thing, it’s no wonder he’s pissed.”
    “That goop—which, yes, probably contains strawberry jam—is an arcane demon-binding agent,” said the lead engineer. “Once he’s bound into it, the physical space doesn’t really matter; you could bind him into a teaspoon, and that’s all the space you’d need. The majority of the BSE-7 is made up of the shaping agents that direct the gremlin’s power away from the vehicle.”
    “How do we get it back in?”
    “The manual explains it in detail,” said the engineer, “but the basic gist is fire and blood.”
    “That’s horrible.”
    “It’s a demon,” he said. “What did you expect?”
    I sat down again, a plan slowly forming in my head. “What kind of grenades do we have for the captured RPG?”
    “PG-2s,” said the gunner. “Old Soviet stuff.”
    “You really don’t want to shoot him,” said the lead engineer.
    “Sure I do,” I told him, skimming through the section on demon binding. It was far more gruesome than expected. “Just not in the way you think.” I turned to the gunner. “Get me a grenade;