by S. A. Hunt
The witch thumped back into the living room and clapped once, rasping her dry old hands together. Robin’s mind produced a mental image of a housefly furiously rubbing its forelegs against each other. She shuddered.
“How are you feelin’, dear boy? How’s that leg a’ yours?”
Wayne mumbled something not quite audible.
“Very good, very good. Sounds like the poultice did the trick, hmm? Drew the poison right out of you as easy as … well, dirt out of a carpet! It’s the salt, you know, that does the trick. You toss in a few secret ingredients and it’ll draw the venom right out of the bite.”
(b i t e y o u, w a n t t o b i t e y o u)
Starvation surged in Robin’s chest, dropping into the pit of her belly, and for a terrifying second she thought her stomach was going to growl out loud. Owlhead wanted the old woman, and bad. She could feel it. But without a display of prestidigitation on Weaver’s part, the demon couldn’t find her. It was attuned to her arcane energies.
“People’s got lots of mean things to say about our country remedies and old wives’ tricks,” Weaver was saying, “but when they work—and they always do—oh, those folks shut their traps, they shut ’em right up.”
Leon took the opportunity to jump in. “Mrs. Weaver—”
“Call me Karen.”
“Karen, then … I just—”
“Or, you can call me Grandma if you like. Granny, Grammama, Mee-Maw, I come a-runnin’ to bout any of those.”
“‘Mee-Maw’? I wanted to thank you for what you did at the hospital. For … for footing Wayne’s hospital bill. I don’t—I don’t even know how to voice my gratitude enough. You have no idea how much you helped me out. I mean, almost thirty thousand dollars? As a high school teacher, that’s like a year’s pay for me.”
The witch tittered. “Wasn’t no trouble, no trouble at all. You save up a lot of money livin’ with two other old goats in a crumblin’ pile in the ass-end of nowhere. Chicken coops’re cheap, and we’re all hens down that way.”
“I see.” Leon scoffed politely. “Well, there’s not much I can do to repay you, at least for the time being, but I, uhh … I wanted to invite you over for dinner. My treat. It’s the least I can do for the lady that saved my son’s life and me a ton of heartache.”
“How lovely of you. I’d be delighted. But your kitchen is awfully small … and ain’t exactly geared to the gills. Now, our kitchen, on the other hand, well. You could roast a buffalo in that sucker, hooves and all, and dress it up no worse than Wolfgang Puck himself! And it’s been quite a long time since we’ve had any company up there. Yessirree.”
Silence lingered for a few seconds, and then Weaver went on talking.
“Make a deal with you, Mr. Parkin. You put together what you want for dinner—steaks, chicken, lamb, whatever you fancy. Bring it on up to the house. We’ll sizzle it up fine and dandy with some veggies and baked tubers and yeast rolls, hmm?”
“Yeah, okay. Sounds good to me.”
The uncertainty in Leon’s voice made that a bald-faced lie Weaver would have to be an idiot to miss.
“You seem reluctant, buddy. What’s the matter?”
“I hate to impose.”
“It’s the stories, ain’t it? The tall tales about us being a bunch of witches. Bubble-bubble-toil-and-trouble and all that. I expect the folks over there in the trailer park been tellin’ you tales out of school.” Weaver chuckled dismissively, airily. “Take a gander at my face, hon. What color is my skin? Green?… No? And where’s the wart on my nose? My pilgrim hat and buckled shoes? My bristly dustbroom and black pussycat?”
Another stretch of quiet, and then Leon said with a soft laugh, “Okay, yeah. I get the point. Sometimes I’m bad about letting what people say get to me. Not quite gullible, but—”
“Too trusting?”
“I guess? I guess you could say so.”
Pete cut in. “The heck is a tuber?”
“A potato, my man,” said Weaver. “An obsolete word for a potato, from an obsolete potato of an old woman.”
Nobody laughed. Weaver continued to talk, unfazed. “Trust is a good thing, Mr. Parkin. A good thing. I think this world could use a bit more of it. Without it, where would we be? Kids don’t hardly get to play outside these days, do they? They just sit in the house with their Internet and video games because the world out there scares the hell out of them. We don’t trust them around strangers anymore. We don’t trust Halloween candy anymore, for Pete’s sake, and as an alleged witch I can tell you without a doubt that’s a crying shame.”
Robin could only think of her mother pinning Weaver’s husband to the floor two decades ago. Edgar, the real-life boogeyman, making children disappear out of his homegrown Six Flags. She had no doubt Weaver was complicit in the racket. Hypocrite hag, she thought, squeezing little Katie’s shoulders. The girl squirmed. She pressed her hand over Katie’s mouth before she could complain. Sorry, sorry—don’t squeal! We’ll all be shitting bumblebees if she finds us in here!
“Anyway,” said Weaver, “I need to get back to the ranch. I got a dress I’ve been working on for a month or so now and I’m starting to get down to the wire on my deadline. These young ladies these days, they don’t have any patience for craftsmanship.”
“A dress?”
“Oh, yeeeah. I design and make wedding dresses and sell ’em on the Internet. A real cottage industry, all by myself. Can you believe it? I talk down at the Internet like it’s some kind of playpretty for lazy folks, but really, it’s been a Godsend for an old lady like me. Why, I can visit the Great Wall of China from the comfort of my kitchen!”
The two of them headed to the front door, Leon with his slow cowboy stride, Weaver bustling along in a constant swish of fabric and a boot-heel drum solo.
“How does steak sound?” Leon asked, opening the front door.
“Like this: MOO.”
The kids in the living room giggled.
“Steaks sound just fine, Mr. Parkin,” said Weaver.
“Please, call me Leon.”
“Ah, the lion! I like that quite a lot. You strike me as a man with a lion’s courageous heart, Leon. Boy’s quite lucky to have such a father. I think he takes after you.”
“Thank you.”
“Seven o’clock? Six? I don’t want to keep the lion-cub up too late. It is a school night, after all.”
“Six is fine. I’ll be there.”
“It’s settled.” Weaver’s voice became a little clearer, a little louder. She must have leaned into the doorway to shout. “Have a good Sabbath, everybody! Dig that cake! There’s more where that came from!”
An awkward silence followed this as the children hesitated, unsure of how to respond.
“Thank you, Miss Weaver,” called Amanda.
Pete and Wayne echoed her. “Thank you, Miss Weaver.”
Meanwhile, Robin could feel the witch’s laser gaze through the wall, as if she had Superman’s eyes. She knows we’re here. She knows, dammit. Even though they’d parked in Chevalier Village so the plumbing van wouldn’t be sitting in Leon’s driveway for Cutty to see.
“You’re very welcome,” grinned Weaver. “Au revoir!”
The front door closed. The whole house seemed to hold its breath for a full minute as everybody stayed locked in position, listening. Almost as if they were waiting for something.
“That is one creepy-ass old biddy,” noted Joel.
Katie stirred. “I have to peeeeeee.”
“All right, all right.” Joel cracked the door open. Wayne’s father stood by the front door, peeking through the sidelight windows. “Is she gone?”
Leon spoke over his shoulder. “Yeah. She’s gone.”
“Gone gone?” asked Joel. “She’s off the property?”
“Yeah, she’s crossing the highway right now.” Leon gave them a pointed look as they came out of hiding. “Man, for a big-shot witch-hunter, you sure are hot to stay outta sight.”
Robin was the last out of th
e bathroom, closing it behind her to give Katie some privacy. “You remember that green-eyed thing in the darkhouse?” She said ‘dark house’ as one word, darkhouse, as one would say “big-house” or “outhouse.” Seemed to be evolving into her name for it. “Well, that creature may be the only thing that can kill those witches. That’s how powerful they are. They’d tear through us like wet toilet paper.”
“Then what made you think you’d be able to take ’em on by yourself?” asked Leon, going into the kitchen.
The water ran as he washed out the coffee mugs, staring out the window over the sink. Robin put her fists on her hips and stared darkly at the foyer rug as if she could find wisdom in the intricate red-and-blue curlicues. “Thought I might have a chance with the Osdathregar, I guess.”
“Hey, guess what,” said Kenway, coming in through the back door. He blew the last smoke of his cigarette as he did, the door pulling the cloud inside-out. In the awkward silence of the witch’s departure, his boots sounded like hammers on the tile.
“I give up. What?”
“You got company,” he said, and stepped aside.
A tall, gangly man sauntered into the kitchen and pushed his fingers into the pocket of his coat, pulling a flip-phone out and opening it. The felt gambler hat on his bald brown head, along with the black overcoat, made him look like he should be chasing an outlaw through Tombstone. The witch-hunter’s eyes were inscrutable behind silver aviator shades as he showed them the phone’s screen.
“I finally got into my voicemail.” Heinrich pinched the cigar from between his teeth and blew a cloud of coconut-smelling smoke. “Robin Hood, how many times have I told you not to call me and interrupt my kung fu?”
Acknowledgments
Congratulations! You made it to the acknowledgments page. But your princess is in another castle.
The first person I’d like to thank is my mom—for so much, mostly being my frame of reference for what a strong woman looks like, and for giving me a place to stay while I wrote this book, and the next one. Thanks to your help I was able to sell enough self-published books to spread my wings and really, truly fly for the first time. I have a wonderful career and life now, and it’s thanks to the books … but they never would have happened without you.
I would also like to thank my miracle-working agent, Leon Husock, for giving me my first break. He’s the one I point to when I say dreams actually can come true.
And of course, my stalwart editor and friend Diana Pho at Tor Books, who laid into this manuscript with a chain saw and made it ten times better. She is an amazing person and a consummate professional, and it has been a revelation to work with her.
Last but not least, my Outlaw Army, my believers and Constant Readers who have been with me from the beginning, especially Chaser Spaeth and Katie Fryhover, who made amazing cosplay of characters from my Outlaw King series. Thank you for sticking with me this far. I love you folks so much.
1
Present Day
Forty yards back, a steel pole as big around as Michael DePalatis’s arm stretched across the overgrown dirt road. Pulling the police cruiser up to the gate, he unbuckled his seatbelt and started to open the door.
“I got it.” Owen checked the gate and found there was, indeed, a chain confining the gate to its mount, and a padlock secured it. Two of them, in fact.
Hypothetically they could go around it, if not for the impenetrable forest on either side. “Shit.” Mike got out of the car anyway. “Looks like we’re walking.” He hopped over the gate, his keys jingling. The grass beat against Mike’s shins, and hidden briars plucked at his socks. “When we get out of here, you might want to check yourself for ticks. Few years ago I was part of a search effort out in woods like this, and when I got home I found one on my dick.”
“Oh, that’s nasty,” said Owen. He laughed like a kookaburra.
Conversation slipped into silence. The two men walked for what felt like half an hour, forging through tall wheatgrass and briars. Mike glanced at his partner as they walked. Officer Owen Euchiss was a scarecrow with an angular Van Gogh face. The black police uniform looked like a Halloween costume on him.
They called him Opie after the sheriff’s son on The Andy Griffith Show because of his first two initials, which he signed on all of his traffic citations. His constant sly grin reminded Mike of kids he’d gone to school with, the little white-trash hobgoblins who would snort chalk dust on a dare and brag about tying bottle-rockets to cats’ tails. Middle age had refined him a little, but the Scut Farkus was still visible under Opie’s mask of dignified wrinkles.
“Ferris wheel,” said Owen, snapping Mike out of his reverie. He straightened, peering into the trees.
The track they were walking down widened, grass giving way to gravel, and skeletal machines materialized through the pine boughs. They emerged into a huge clearing that was once a parking lot, and on the other side of that was an arcade lined with tumbledown amusement park rides, the frames and tracks choked with foliage.
Had to admit, the place had a sort of postapocalyptic Logan’s Run grandeur about it. A carnival lost in time.
Not any better than a “pet sematary.”
The two policemen walked aimlessly down the central avenue, heels crunching in the gravel. “What did Bowker say we’re supposed to be looking for?” asked Owen.
“You heard the same thing I heard.”
“‘Something shady.’”
They came to a split, facing a concession stand. Owen took out his flashlight and broke off to the left, heading toward a funhouse. “I’ll check over here.”
Mike went right. A purple-and-gray Gravitron bulged from the woodline like an ancient UFO. Across the way was a tall umbrella-framed ride, chains dangling from the ends of each spoke like something out of Hellraiser. He contemplated this towering contraption and decided it had been a swing for kids, but without the seats it could have been a centrifuge where you hung slabs of beef from the chains and spun the cow blood out of them. Or maybe it was some kind of giant flogging-machine that just turned and turned and whipped and whipped.
When the rides had been damaged enough and lost so much of what identified them, they became alien and monstrous.
Third-wheel mobile homes made a village in the back, caved in by the elements. Bushes cloaked their flanks and bristled from inside. He slapped a whiny mosquito on his face.
Blood on his fingers. He wiped it on his uniform pants.
After wandering in and out of the carnie village, Mike decided none of them were in good enough shape to sustain life. He headed back into the main arcade.
At this point he had developed an idea of what Wonderland looked like from above: an elongated I like a cartoon dog-bone, the arcade forming the long straight part down the middle. Mike stood at the west end of the dog-bone, staring at the concession stand, and took his hat off to scratch his head.
He took the left-hand path, walking toward the funhouse. Behind the concession stand to his right was a series of roach-coaches: food trucks with busted, cloudy windows, wreathed in tall grass. A Tilt-a-Whirl, an honest-to-God Tilt-a-Whirl. Bushes and a tree thrust up through the ride, dislodging plates of metal and upending the seashell-shaped cars. A wooden shed with two doors stood behind the Tilt-a-Whirl, quite obviously an improvised latrine.
Here, the treeline marked the end of Wonderland. A chain-link fence tried to separate fun from forest, but sagged over, trampled by some long-gone woodland animal. Tucked between the Tilt-a-Whirl and the smashed fence was a pair of gray-green military Quonset huts. At the end of one of them stood a door with no window in it, secured with a padlock. NO ADMITTANCE—EMPLOYEES ONLY!
“The hell?” Mike lifted the padlock. No more than a couple of years old. Schlage. As he tried the doorknob, the entire wall flexed subtly with a muffled creak. Old plywood? He pressed his palms against the door and pushed. The striker plate crackled and the wall bowed inward several inches.
“Geronimo,” he grunted, and stomp-kicked
the door. The entire wall shook.
Another kick set the door crooked in the frame. The third kick ripped the striker out and the whole door twisted to the inside, the hinge breaking loose.
Inside was pure, jet-black, car-full-of-assholes darkness. Dust made soup of the air. Mike took out his flashlight and turned it on, holding it by his temple, and stepped into the hut. A workbench stood against the wall to his right, and a dozen buckets and empty milk jugs were piled in the corner, all of them stained pink. Wooden signs and pictures were stacked against the walls:
VISIT HOOT’S FUNHOUSE!
ARE YOU TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL? DRINK FIREWATER SARSAPARILLA!
GET LOST IN OUR HALL OF MIRRORS!
Three hooks jutted up from the bare cement floor in the middle of the room. Chains were attached to them, and the chains led up to three pulleys.
Old blood stained the floor around the hooks.
“Ah, hell,” said Mike, drawing his pistol.
On the other side of the workbench was a door. He gave the stains a wide berth, sidling along the wall.
Flashlight in one hand and pistol in the other, he crossed his wrists Hollywood-style and pushed the door open with his elbow. Beyond, the polished black body of a Monte Carlo reflected his Maglite beam.
POW! Something exploded in the eerie stillness.
A bolt of lightning hit Mike in the ass. Electricity crackled down the Taser’s flimsy wires, tak-tak-tak-tak, racing down the backs of his thighs, and he hit the floor bleating like a goat. The pistol in his hand fired into the wall between his jitterbugging feet, blinding him with a white flash.
“You had to come in here, didn’t you?” asked the silhouette in the doorway, tossing the Taser aside and plucking the pistol out of Mike’s hands. Chains rattled through a pulley and coiled around his ankles. Strong, sinewy hands hauled him up by the feet and suspended him above the floor. One of those white five-gallon buckets slid into view underneath his forehead, knocking his useless arms out of the way, and then his hands were jerked up behind his back and he was locked up in his own cuffs, dangling like Houdini about to be lowered into a glass booth full of water. “This is what I should have done to that faggot, instead of lettin’ him hang around,” said a man’s voice, reminiscent of Opie but growlier, deeper, more articulate. “But I got his fuckin’ car now. Sweet ride, ain’t it? Did you see it in there?”
