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spoke up again. “Yer that gambler what won the mine from Mr. Anderson? Are ya aiming to work the mine? An’what’s to become of us now he’s daid?”
    Devlin looked over the motley crew before him. Hard bitten men with stooped shoulders wearing dusty creased clothes. Devlin sensed their suspicion of him.
    “You men can rest assured,” he said. “For now you still have a job at the Gilded Bird. I would like to assess the operation itself in the next two days. For the time being the mine is closed down however all of you will receive your full pay for the week.”
    The miners talked among themselves. The leader stepped up to Devlin. “We’re to hold ya to yer word Mister, but we ain’t workin’ with no Injun.”
    Devlin frowned. “You will take your orders from me. Walking Ghost is my right hand man. Anyone who has problem with that can clear out now.”
    Two of the miners grabbed their packs and left. The leader, and five others, remained.
    After they had left, Devlin took a hard look at the mineshaft, the heap of worn and rusted mining machinery and Anderson’s dilapidated shack. He could almost smell the malevolent energy that emanated from it. There was not a ghost of a doubt in his mind that he was looking at the vortex, the doorway and source of evil, the demon’s lair that fate had led him to. The question in his mind was how was he to stop it?  In his way John Anderson had acted as a sort of human cork and blocked the flow of evil from seeping out of the mine. In the end by killing himself he had signaled his surrender.
    Devlin was prepared to take up the fight.  He would have to go down into the mine to assess what he was up against this time. Would the situation become another twisted fray? A free for all that would take all the arsenals in his possession? Would he triumph over it? Could he carve the heart out of another demon that sought to creep out of the earth and wreak havoc amongst the living?
    He was not yet ready to lay a bet on the outcome of those questions.
    Evil and its minions tended to have a will of its own and could be as slippery as a greased eel. The whole situation, he sensed, was primed and ready to go off.
    Devlin’s premonition proved true that evening when the moon rose high in the sky and deep within the earth, in the bowels of the Gilded Bird, a sulfurous crevice opened up.  Here a damp, mustard colored mist wound its way through the shaft. It made its way out into the moonlit night and streamed, snakelike through the night air towards C Street and the Barbary Coast.
    It made no distinctions in its prey as it crept through the open window of a house of ill repute where a 15-year-old prostitute named Mary lay in her crib smoking a bowl of opium. She inhaled deeply. An hour later when her drunken john came to sample her charms she cut off his penis. In the morning he was found him lying in a pool of blood while Mary cooked and ate his shriveled glory with her morning whiskey. The papers reported it and for a space of one day there was anger and outcry. 
    When Esmeralda read the story dread filled her insides. Her favorite breakfast of burnt toast and orange marmalade curdled in her stomach. More than ever, she thought, she needed to start her work. She had begun the arrangements the day before to purchase a handsome two story house on B Street that was located just four houses down from Pipers’ Opera house. A purchase that had proved to be ridiculously easy once she had presented the owner with a bag of gold nuggets. 
    The house she had chosen was laid out perfectly for what she had in mind. It was a tall narrow, shotgun house with a large parlor and bay window in the front. The upstairs area of the house consisted of three rooms: A bedroom suite for her private use, a séance room with a large round table and thirteen chairs, and a private treatment room with a separate entrance and back stairs.
    The front area and the parlor were large enough for her to set up card,