I was never a witch, so I let them keep it at that, if they didn't feel like giving specifics. Instead, I told them who the demon was, and we came up with a plan—one that didn't involve Seir. When the sun came up, we'd take Murmur down and send him back to hell.
After dinner, I asked Matt if he'd come to bed. Tried for a significant look. I wanted to feel him close, feel him in me, know that he understood.
But he said he had some work to do with KK and he'd be in later. I went to bed alone, trying not to picture myself unraveling like a cheap sweater.
***
I shot up in bed in a cold sweat and instinctively looked for the clock. A bright red 3:33 blinked at me from the night table. I couldn't remember what had awakened me, but knowing where I was and why, there was no doubt that something very bad was about to go down.
I jumped into a pair of jeans and grabbed my trench coat—my tools were secreted in its many pockets, safe and accessible. In the living room, I found Matt slumped over a table and an open notebook, sleeping soundly. I shook him. "Something's up."
He sat up, rubbing at the back of his neck and looking more adorable than any grown-ass man had a right to. "What—what does Seir say?" He reached for his glasses.
"Not sure we're on speaking terms."
He shook off the sleep, then grabbed his own jacket and followed me to the lab outbuilding. Silence had fallen on the sultry southern night. Not even crickets dared to chirp, no birds, no squirrels, nothing but a lingering smell of sulfur in the air.
As if we'd walked out of that house and into hell itself.
Matt shot me a nervous look, and I nodded to let him know I felt it too. The lab building was dark, but the door hung open, gaping like the Big Bad Wolf's maw.
"Fuck," Matt said.
"Fuck," I agreed.
We moved forward in step together, as if we'd never been parted by the night. As if we'd eaten, slept, awakened as one, like we usually did.
Not a peep from Seir. Instead of making me grateful, it tied my stomach in knots.
"Thackeray!" came a shout from the lab. KK's voice, high and panicked.
"What the hell is she doing in there?" Matt asked.
"Let's go!" I ran for the door, Matt hard on my heels. Vials flew at my head the moment I crossed the threshold, glass crunched under my bare feet—I hardly felt a thing. "Hang on, KK!" I shouted, dodging another projectile.
I glanced back at Matt, but he was navigating the demonic mess with amazing agility. Nothing had touched him yet, and he looked light on his feet. Thankfully, he'd never taken off his shoes, just passed out fully clothed at the table. Smart.
KK cowered in a corner at the very back of the lab, where she'd managed to compose a protective circle around her. Murmur, in all his glowing glory, loomed near and above, the feathers of his griffon mount twitching, his beautiful lips curling into a smirk.
"Murmur!" I shouted, planting my feet shoulder-width apart and reaching for my tar water—my special blend of creolina, holy water, and sea salt.
Again, Seir was deafeningly silent. I couldn't remember ever grabbing that bottle without him complaining, before.
No time to worry about that now, though. Murmur's spectral griffon reared, screaming silently. From behind his Spartan warrior helmet, Murmur looked me in the eye.
My blood felt like ice, but I glared him down. "I know you. I'm here to send you back."
Though his mouth didn't move, Murmur's words echoed through the lab, rattling copper and glass. "You have no power, Hermes Thackeray. I know your name, too."
"Hermes?" Matt facepalmed. "Damn, dude."
"Shut up." I cringed but refocused on Mumur quickly. "You will go, or I'll make you go."
"You and whose legions?" He cocked his head playfully, belying the massive, dark power behind him.
Something shimmered next to him, just in front of KK. A familiar image congealed in the darkness, a beautiful, iridescent man on a winged warhorse, shining, perfect, demonic.
"Seir," I said.
"I warned you," he replied.
"You don't have to do this." My mouth had gone dry, my lips numb. I licked at them uselessly. "We can defeat him—any of them—together."
"Alas, that you'd rather get fucked," Seir said. "Human folly. You always come undone eventually. But we had a good ride, Thackeray.
"He's mine, now." And with those final words, Seir's energy swirled, causing his form to disappear into a small tornado of power. It leapt from Murmur's side—
—directly into Matt.
I screamed wordlessly. How had I not seen it coming? How had I not known that he'd want more than anything to get revenge on Matt, who'd caged him, who'd locked him out, who'd stolen me and with me human sensation, experience—
Matt held up one hand. The swirl of Seir's power bounced off him like a rubber ball.
"What…?" I staggered toward him.
Matt smiled and pulled off his t-shirt, then threw it aside. Across his chest, in black, fresh-pink-edged relief, was a tattoo identical to the one KK had given me a decade ago in New Orleans:
Sub Tuum Præsidium.
"Beneath thy protection." Part of a prayer, a hymn to the Virgin Mary that had kept me safe in my darkest nights.
Murmur's griffon reared once more, this time trying to get away from us. KK laughed out loud behind it, the carefree laugh of someone with less than zero fucks to give. This demon had taken her stores; she'd be damned before it took her, too. I knew her too well to think that laugh meant anything else.
Matt and KK had conspired to save me today. Matt had gotten his own protective tattoo—and done it in secret, so Seir could never know.
I glared, though a smile tugged at my lips. "Time to go home, Seir."
Still a swirl of confused energy, Seir couldn't respond with words. He bounced from copper pot to glass vial, looking for something to possess. But everything living in the room had protection.
His demonic compatriot, Murmur, seeing that their plan had failed, reared again and tried to fly.
I flung my hand out, sending a line of tar water down the wall and barring his passage through that window. Matt was already moving to reinforce the opposite wall. KK stood in her protective circle at one end of the corridor our potions formed, me at the other.
"The plan will still work," I pointed out.
Matt's jacket lay limp over one of the lab tables. He rummaged through its pockets and found his collapsible summoning circle. "Ready."
"Do it," I said.
The collapsible circle worked like a fishing net, but magic made it fall expertly every time. It wasn't such a different construction from the medallion he wore—and I the one I wore to block Seir. The circle flew like a lasso and enveloped Seir's energy. It tightened around its quarry at a short incantation Matt spoke in Gullah, his mother tongue.
Seir screamed, but now it was outside my head.
"Finish him, please," I said.
Matt held out his left hand, long fingers spread wide, pentagram tattoo on the back of his hand convulsing with his movements. Then he made a fist.
For the first time in years, Seir blinked out of existence. I couldn't feel him around me, coiled like a snake. I couldn't smell him, hear him, touch him.
I breathed deeply. Freely. Tears stung my eyes.
Murmur's griffon screeched again, panicking.
KK turned on him, fire in her eyes, and said, "Go. Now."
I chucked the rest of my bottle at him. Matt flung another incantation.
Murmur and his spectral, feathered friend blew away like so much dust.
I suddenly felt as if my muscles had liquefied. I hit my knees with a crack but felt nothing. "He's gone."
Matt and KK both came to me, saying things. So many things.
But I was too busy crying with joy to understand.
***
KK patched up my feet and apologized for lying to me about where she and Matt had been all day. I let her know she never had to apologize for any
damn thing, not to me, and she went off to bed laughing. As if she hadn't been dragged by the hair into her lab and held captive by a pair of demons just an hour previous.
Matt tucked a pillow between my ankles and the coffee table, then put a blanket over my lap. "Try and sleep."
"You saved my life," I said. "You saved… everyone. Everything."
He smiled and tucked up next to me, leaning his head on my shoulder. I breathed deeply, filling my senses with the sweet smell of his hair. No more creolina and spilled ink and sulfur, just KK's herbal concoctions and my Matt. More cleansing than any hot shower.
Though I could use one of those too. Once my feet were done bleeding.
"I figured Seir would go for me soon, but I didn't want him to think I knew it," Matt admitted quietly. "And knowing we'd be vulnerable once we started trying to cleanse that lab, I figured I'd better get protected."
"From my demonic STD." I snorted. It was what he'd called Seir last year, after creating that magical charm for me. "I guess the necklace won't burn anymore."
"If it does, we got more work to do."
I reached over for my coat and pulled the medallion out. He sat up to put it over my head, then tucked it under my t-shirt.
Nothing. For the first time ever, it didn't burn to the touch. It was just a beautiful silver charm, given to me by the man I loved.
I kissed him, short but serious, and said, "I thought you were pulling away, today. In the car. And with KK."
He shook his head. "I'd never do that. Demon or no demon. I love you, and we're in this together."
My eyes stung for the second time that day. "You love me." I wasn't really asking.
He nodded. "Yeah, dumb ass. Of course. You think I'd go this far out of my way for a fuck-buddy?"
"No," I said—though he probably would've, truth be told. Matt had a golden soul, like the golden fog he wove around me when we were alone.
We were alone right now, though. For the first time, just him and me, not trying to fuck. Just together. "I didn't want to say it in front of him, but I've loved you as long as I've known you."
"Yeah. Me too." He bumped my forehead with his. "It's you and me now, Thack." Then his voice took on something wicked and he added, "Hermes."
"Don't you even think about it."
"No, I mean, I get it now, man. I wouldn't tell anyone either." He chuckled.
"You're a cruel little witch, you know that?"
"I think your mama was the cruel one. Hermes. The hell?"
I laughed. "She was into gods and mythology and all that. She couldn't have called me Ra or Zeus or something bad-ass."
"Hermes was fast," he said thoughtfully. "The messenger god, right?"
"Right."
"I think he's the god of alchemy too?"
"Yeah. That still doesn't do it for me."
"For real, though. I don't see it."
"Me neither." I nuzzled into him, and we were quiet for a moment. Me just thinking over and over, together. Together. Finally, we're together.
"It'll be okay, you know," he said after a moment. "We'll refine your methods. Pick up new ones. We can track down demons without him. A little slower, maybe, but a lot safer."
Funny, but for all my worry all this time, I hadn't even been thinking about that. "I know it," I said.
"Is it weird. Without him there?"
I nodded. "I don't think I fully comprehend it. But that doesn't mean it's bad. I'd give anything to be alone with you."
"Mmm. You were so hot, facing that Murmur bitch down." He nipped at my ear, sending goosebumps down my side. "You think KK would kill us if I blew you on her couch?"
I smiled. We were both too worn out for sex anyhow, which was what made it even funnier. "Yep."
"Well, you aren't moving tonight, doctor's orders. So let's just cuddle," he suggested.
"Yeah," I agreed. "Let's."
Moonlight Motor Inn
The Moonlight Motor Inn didn’t look like much, at first: very seventies in design but updated with new paint and plenty of attention. Attractive to families on their way up north from the Twin Cities, probably, especially when traffic got heavy toward the end of the fleeting summer. Not the kind of place I would’ve looked at twice--hotels or motels with doors that led directly outdoors from your room weren’t my thing. Too noisy, both living and dead-wise. Bad odds of ending up in a Tarantino film scenario. But as I rolled up and parked in the lot, then stood bathed in the soft neon glow of the NO VACANCY sign, I had to admit the place wasn’t as crap as I’d expected.
There was plenty of vacancy, in fact, but the place was shut down for me. I was always very specific about not wanting the living around to screw up my initial read on a place, and people tended to listen. If they knew what the hell to do with the dead, they wouldn’t need me in the first place.
Something tugged at me inside, near the base of my skull. A spirit guide’s voice: You shouldn’t be here alone. This place isn’t right.
My skin prickled. That was my Grandpa Abe, and he never led me wrong. I closed the car door behind me, standing in that puddle of delicate neon light.
I took a deep breath, centered my awareness in the center of my brow and let my gaze go soft. My fingers and toes tingled as I tentatively opened up, alive with the crackling energy of the place. If it felt like this outside, odds were good the place would be chock full of dead people.
Grandpa Abe was right. I should’ve canceled when Elise bailed on me tonight. And yet, I was here, and this family needed help. I’d done all the protective meditations. I was carrying the right crystals in my pocket. It was two hours back to St. Paul, so I might as well peek inside while I was here.
Parking lots and driveways didn’t last long up north, what with the thaw and freeze, and this one had been no exception. It was fresh, as if re-paved just this year, and still smelled of tar and tires. My boots clopped across it, loud raindrops on a silent pond, and the NO VACANCY sign flickered with an electric whirr.
Welp, that was either a wiring issue, or a paranormal issue, and I wouldn’t know which until it was too late. "Ah, fuck." But my hand was already on the doorknob for room 101, so I pushed it open. It was empty of furniture, though the walls were hung with family photos and crosses and calendars and brightly colored decorations. I ignored all that and focused on the energies in the room as I stepped inside, leaving the door open behind me. People had lived here recently--I could still smell their food, hear their laughter, but in that bloodless, dry, way that was a little like watching a silent, black-and-white film. Residual energy. Every place had leftover energy, and this place’s went back half a century at least. Before that family, a string of short term occupants, no one leaving more than half a spiritual thumbprint on it before departing again.
I opened the ensuite door, which led into 103, equally empty. People had slept here, watched TV here, raised a family here. The owners, maybe--
Stop trying to figure it out, just feel it.
I wasn’t sure if that was a spirit guide talking or me, but I obeyed anyhow. A young woman had left part of herself here, crying about a child she’d lost. She was like a hologram, a reflection, nothing inside her to speak to. She sat and cried every night, though most of her had moved on.
I returned to the sidewalk. As I approached the door to 105, a shiver ran through me, so strong it stopped me in my tracks. A consciousness fluttered at the periphery of my perception, like a far-off beating of wings. Except it wasn’t far off, it was in that room, and it was waiting for me.
The moment was a familiar one, like walking a knife’s edge between fear and excitement. The dead don’t generally stick around in our world because they’re happy and loving; they’re usually here because they’re angry, abused, vengeful, or in the best-case scenarios, wallowing in sadness. I shouldn’t be here alone, no, but now that I knew there was something so strong here, how could I justify leaving it, leaving them, whoever they were, to suffer any longer?
I opened the door. Thi
s room was lived-in: double bed, made but haphazardly, wardrobe open and brimming with clothes, loveseat broken in, Xbox controller on the end table. I took a step inside.
Cold shot through me, freezing me to the spot, icing the blood in my veins. "Get off me," I said through chattering teeth. "Get. off."
The chill intensified, trying to take me over. I closed my eyes and focused.
This spirit had been a person, a man. Around my own age. Died in the early 1980s or late 70s, recent enough to still understand, to still feel here, in this time and place. Stan? Steven! Images flashed through my mind: a painting of a blasted tree trunk and a summoning circle in chalk on the ground, a cracked light fixture and a box hidden in the ceiling.
I felt as if the life was being drawn out of me, sucked out as if by some weird life-force vampire. A sudden death; a creeping blackness; an unexpected betrayal.
I shuddered with the cold, with the effort of keeping myself to myself, of keeping him--Steven--out. He didn’t just want me to feel his death, he wanted to take me. He kept saying, Nobody listens. Especially this guy. This guy never fucking listens.
This guy? Someone who lived here now. One of the family. Why should he listen?
A flash of a pentagram tattoo in my mind.
A witch. A witch lives here? ‘This guy’ is a witch?
Another shudder, and the room swam before me. I staggered backward before I could faceplant into the institutional carpet, took a bad step off the sidewalk and onto the blacktop. "Get. Out of me!" I spread my arms wide, pushing outward, and letting my energy flow with the motion.
I shuddered yet again, blood warming slowly. And then I passed out.
***
"Shit, dude, you went down hard," said someone. It was quiet, blurry as if I might be underwater and the person speaking was just above the surface, reaching down for me.
I struggled to come up for air. The surface of the water shimmered, the image of an unfamiliar face dissolving and reforming. I fought it, tore my way upward, and finally sucked in air and opened my eyes.
Witchy Boys: The Complete Collection Page 11
