Dark Traveler

by Catie Rhodes

  He spoke to Hannah, his rough purr of a voice raising the hair on the back of my neck. “You’re Hannah, right?”

  Hannah turned her million-watt smile on him. “Yep. Hannah Kessler. And you’re Tanner, the guy who has the magical items. When do I get a look?”

  Tanner smiled and held one arm out showman style. “They’re in the camper on my truck. Come on over.”

  Hannah bounced over there as though she wasn’t wearing a silky dragon kimono and house shoes. Tanner leaned into the truck and moved a few things around. Hannah, who had the talent of acting believably interested in anybody, exclaimed over them and asked questions.

  “Go on.” Shelly gave me a nudge. “You didn’t see him watching you?”

  I shook my head. Double negative. No to going over there and no to seeing Tanner watching me.

  Cecil came closer. “Shelly’s told me what happened yesterday with Wade’s sister. Do you want Kenny to keep an eye out for them, kick them out if they come back?”

  The idea appealed to my inner teenager more than it should have. That alone told me the right answer. “No. Don’t do that. Desiree’s not a danger. Neither is Wade. If they need us, they need us.” Shame at the scene with Desiree flashed through me, heating my skin.

  Shelly came closer but stopped at putting her arm around me. She’d been raised in the Northeast, and her version of comforting and motherly was less touchy-feely than the version I’d grown up with. Right now, prickly as I felt, it worked.

  “I know you wanted to be with Wade, sweetheart. I’ve seen the way your face lights up when you talk about him.” She cast her voice low, speaking directly into my ear. “Remember what we talked about last night? Don’t sit around mourning Wade. Any man who doesn’t want to be with you isn’t worth it.”

  I nodded and swallowed hard. “I’m going to lone it for a while. Maybe forever.”

  Shelly and Cecil exchanged a glance. He raised his eyebrows. She shrugged. Cecil turned his attention back to me.

  “Shelly and I know you’re fine alone, but you’ve got a lot on your shoulders. It never hurts to make friends.”

  Shelly cupped her hand around her mouth and cut her dark eyes at Tanner’s fine form. “Especially when they look like that.”

  I glanced at Tanner and Hannah, already laughing and becoming friends. Maybe they’d fall in love, and I wouldn’t have to worry about whether he liked me. Something that felt more like disappointment than I cared to admit took root in my chest.

  “There’s something else you may not understand.” Cecil came closer.

  Hearing the change in his voice, I took my attention off Tanner and Hannah. “What?”

  “Now that you’ve taken on the center of our family’s power—the mantle—your gifts will be passed to one of your descendants. Not anybody else’s.” He had lowered his voice almost to a whisper.

  “How do you know?” When I didn’t want to believe something, the easiest thing to do was challenge it. It was way better than considering the implications of what Cecil suggested.

  “I heard my mother and her mother, Samantha, talking about it enough times.” Cecil had spots of red high on his cheekbones but otherwise looked determined to deliver this message. I glanced at Shelly for reassurance, hoping she’d override this announcement, call it old-fashioned or anti-woman. The sympathy on her face suggested I wouldn’t have her on my side.

  “Now that you’re not going to get together with Wade, you need to think about stuff like this.” She tried to smile. “I know it sounds incredibly old-fashioned, like kings passing on kingdoms. Papaw hasn’t wanted to be this blunt about what you’ll eventually need to do.” Shelly patted Cecil, and he cleared his throat, face turning redder than ever. “But you need to face this part of your duties as the center of our family’s power.” Shelly carried our raven tattoo as well, hidden beneath her shirt on one shoulder.

  “It doesn’t have to be tomorrow, and it doesn’t even have to be Tanner,” Cecil said quickly. “But you’ll want to choose well. My personal suggestion is to find a man who has his own gifts, so your child will have a better chance of being magically inclined.”

  And Tanner fit the bill. They had it all figured out. Find Peri Jean a man. Get her knocked up. Then everybody’ll be happy. The whole thing annoyed me. I decided to play my trump card. “I thought y’all knew I can’t get pregnant.”

  Shelly’s face dropped in shock, but Cecil only nodded. “In our world, anything can be fixed. And you know this. You have destiny, Peri Jean. Don’t let that fact escape you.”

  But have a child with a man I didn’t even know? The idea was old-fashioned and silly. Isn’t the idea of romance silly as well? It didn’t even exist until fairly recently. Before that, people got married and had children together to merge fortunes and continue family lines. What was so different about me needing to pass on my gift?

  Gift. The word struck a blow in my subconscious. When had I started thinking of the things I could do that way? Maybe I didn’t. I could have just picked up the word from Mysti. More horrifying than my change of heart over my talents was my dampening outrage over needing to have a child to pass on those gifts. A long time ago, I’d wanted one.

  Maybe having a child outside the concept of romantic love would work better for me. My relationships all crashed and burned. In the case of Wade, it never even got off the ground. Either I was the wrong woman, or they were the wrong men.

  Despite all my reasoning and logic, I still fumed inside. But I couldn’t get angry at Cecil and Shelly. They weren’t suggesting I run over there and jump Tanner. They wanted me to keep my options open. Unable to face them anymore, I walked over to where Tanner and Hannah stood, still talking. They quieted as soon as I came close.

  “I’m going to make coffee.” I spoke directly to Hannah. Then to Tanner, I said, “Come get me tonight after you get set up. I’d love to see your shop.”

  Without waiting for his response, I marched toward my camper. Hannah’s light footsteps came behind me. I held open the camper’s door.

  Hannah gave me the most annoying grin and said, “He’s a really nice guy.”

  “Don’t say another damn word about Tanner Letts.” Because I was attracted to him. Of all the stupid damn things. My heart couldn’t take another round of hurt, but loneliness had a way of pushing me to do stupid things.

  Hannah did what I asked and said nothing more about Tanner. We fixed coffee and ate little cups of Greek yogurt while we waited for it to brew.

  “Cecil mentioned the spell blocking the mantle again.” I scraped the last of my yogurt out of its little plastic cup and licked it off the spoon.

  “Has he found the man he thinks can help you?” Hannah gathered up our trash, dumped it, and poured two cups of coffee. We both lit cigarettes.

  “No. He just said he hasn’t forgotten about it.” I sipped the dark brew, savoring the way it felt on the back of my tongue.

  “I’m sort of wondering if you even need magical help getting the spell off. It’s made of your bad memories and broken dreams, right?” Hannah rolled her cigarette between her fingers, something she’d been doing instead of wringing her hands.

  “Yes. Each of us, including you now, has a magical core. The spell caused a type of scar tissue to form around mine. That scar tissue keeps me from fully accessing my power.” I paused for a sip of coffee.

  “Holy moly. Imagine what you’d be able to do with it gone.” Hannah stared at me with a kind of awe in her eyes that made me uncomfortable.

  I shrugged off what she’d said. “From what I saw when the Coachman trapped me inside the spell, yes, the scar tissue is made up of bad memories and broken dreams.” I opened the blinds on the window looking out on Tanner’s camper. He’d either gone inside or walked off. I caught Hannah watching me.

  She winked, but when she spoke, she said nothing about Tanner. “After everything that happened to me last year, and then this year, I’ve done a lot of thinking about how I perceive myself in light
of…” She swallowed hard and waved one hand to describe a horror most people couldn’t imagine.

  “You have nothing to feel ashamed of,” I said, anger heating up.

  “I know that. But those words are easy to say. They’re a lot harder to internalize.” Hannah’s voice had risen in impatience. She took a couple of deep breaths, and her caramel-colored eyes calmed. “Here’s what I wanted to get across. One of the big things I figured out in all my soul searching is that I decide how I feel about me on a day-to-day basis. It’s all on me, all my choice.”

  I nodded my understanding but did not interrupt.

  “If I let myself start thinking negative things, it gets easier and easier to fall into darkness. Before I know it, I’ve had a nasty day, full of bad thoughts. But doing stuff like making myself talk to Tanner, reminding myself I’m perfectly safe with him, helps create positive paths of thinking.” She watched me, vulnerability naked in her eyes. She’d laid herself out to me, told me how her mind worked day to day. The least I could do was take her seriously and try to understand.

  “That makes sense. So you’re saying that maybe I could kill the scar tissue by not allowing those bad memories to control my present day life?” It made a kind of sense. Hannah had been saying similar things to me all along, especially about letting go of Wade. The problem was, I didn’t think I could do it. Those events and the pain that went with them were buried deep, so deep that I didn’t know who I’d be without them. The thought scared me.

  “I’m not saying you have to do it this second. But just think about it.” She drained her coffee cup and stood for a refill. “When the negative beliefs you learned from those experiences arise, try to let go of them. Think about good stuff instead. It might starve the scar tissue.” She grabbed my cup and poured in a little fresh coffee to warm it up.

  I nodded my thanks and took a sip. “I’ll try it next time I’m aware of thinking about the bad parts of life.”

  “That’s the problem you’re going to run into.” Hannah lit another cigarette. “You’ve lived with your scars for so long they’re embedded in your subconscious. You’re not even aware you’re reacting to them.”

  I lit my own cigarette. Get two smokers in a room together, and they’ll smoke every cigarette they’ve got. “You’re right. Some of those memories are so old that I don’t even remember the actual event.”

  “Do you ever wonder if your mind could have overblown what happened? All this time, your feelings have been building, and whatever hurt you might not have been that big of a deal in the first place.” Hannah sipped her coffee, staring at something I couldn’t see.

  My phone blared out Mysti’s ringtone. It saved me from having to spout off some unhelpful but well-meant platitude to Hannah in exchange for her genuinely good advice. “It’s Mysti, and she wants to video chat again. Come over here so she can see you too.”

  Hannah raised her head, eyes dead and cold for a split second, and then smiled. I accepted the video call wondering where Hannah went when her eyes dulled. Maybe it would be best if I didn’t know.

  Mysti’s face appeared on my phone's screen. She’d put her brown hair up in a messy bun with a lace ribbon trailing down onto her shoulders. She beamed good morning at us. “You had a second visit from Miss Ugly last night?”

  I nodded. “She cut more marks on my chest and dragged me through the woods. You should see the backs of my legs.” I told Mysti about Miss Ugly taking me into the dark outposts, how she seemed to have a lair there, and about the cauldron bubbling over the fire.

  Mysti listened with her nose wrinkled in distaste. She glanced at some papers next to her and shook her head. “Did you see anything else?”

  “The clearing had a row of skulls set into the ground, sort of making a ring.” The yellow light flickering over the bones flashed behind my eyes. I’d be going back to that place if I couldn’t get rid of Miss Ugly. And it would be the last place I saw. I checked the clock on the stove. Twelve hours to sundown and Miss Ugly’s return.

  Mysti’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Did you see a house made of bones? It would have been on a platform of some sort.”

  “No. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. The only light came from the fire.” If the house existed, and I bet it did, whose bones was it made from? The people Miss Ugly cannibalized? The whole ugly scenario played again in my head. Something new occurred to me. “That monster called me a thief.”

  “She what?” Mysti’s voice sharpened and raised a little.

  “She called me a damn thief. Like I’d want any of her crappy stuff.” It had just occurred to me to be offended by the accusation. I’d been too scared before.

  Mysti picked up a sheaf of papers and glanced through them, frowning. Finally she began to nod. “I can’t make any promises on the accuracy of what I’m about to say. It’s not like there’s a directory of these creatures.”

  “Where do you get your information?” Hannah nearly shoved me aside in her eagerness to speak to Mysti. I’d thought her love of research and puzzles died in the wake of her ordeal with Michael Gage. This was the first real interest she’d shown since then.

  Mysti answered excitedly. “The only human accountings of the chthonic beings, which Priscilla Herrera simply called dark beings, are limited to mythology and folklore as source material. It’s important to remember two things.” She held up two fingers. “One: humans only see what these beings want them to see. Two: these beings evolve with human imagination. They’re capable of just about anything. Their greatest desire is for us to need them.”

  The room fell to silence at the chilling reality of Mysti’s words. No real record of how to defeat Miss Ugly or how get rid of her existed. We’d have to give it our best guess. One wrong step would end with me being served as human pot roast.

  “So what do you think we’re dealing with?” I stared at my mentor’s face, searching for just how bad this was. I had a feeling it was about a nine on a scale of ten.

  “What you’ve said about Miss Ugly fits the details of some of the wild woman of the woods, or witch of the woods, folktales. Cannibalism. Weird noises. There’s a Slavic folktale where the creature lives in a house of bones. I advise you to read a few of them.” Mysti tipped her chin at me. “Samantha is right in what she told you. You cannot out-magic this creature, nor can you fight her with magic. My contact in the dark outposts…”

  “Oh no. What did you have to trade for information from one of them?” The dark beings, or chthonic beings as Mysti called them, always wanted to offer favors to humans. Any trade would be to their advantage.

  “Actually, my contact owed me a little something.” Mysti’s chilly smile wrapped freezing bands around my chest. Not for the first time, it hit me that my mentor had a whole, secret existence in the magic world, probably one I didn’t want to know much about.

  Mysti’s smile faded as she began talking again. “My contact said that Miss Ugly often believes her victims have stolen something from her. So that’s why she called you a thief.”

  “Could I theoretically bargain with her to return whatever she thinks I’ve stolen?” The idea sounded like a good one to me.

  “Maybe. She’s known to reward good deeds, although her idea of a reward and yours might not mesh.” Mysti nodded. “Has she said anything else?”

  I thought hard. Miss Ugly had said more, but I’d been too scared to latch on to it. Whatever she’d said made me think of a spool of thread for some reason. Had she threatened to tie me up? I gave up. “She said more, but I don’t remember it now.”

  “When you do, text it to me.” Mysti held my gaze through the camera, asserting her authority even across the miles between Texas and Canada.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” I tried using the same tone of voice on Mysti that I used on members of Sanctuary. She barely responded.

  “Let’s not worry about it right now. For now, let’s talk about the last piece of information I have for you. And my contact did charge me for
this, so please appreciate it.” Mysti played with the strip of lace coming off her bun, the only indication she’d ever give of sour nerves. “The Coachman sent Miss Ugly after you.”

  “Oscar Rivera?” I shouted the words.

  “How?” Hannah’s yell blasted into my eardrum, making it rattle.

  Mysti acknowledged our outrage with a tired sigh. “The Coachman, or Oscar, is cut off from the living plane, but he’s not cut off from the dark outposts.” She shook her finger at the camera, a habit she’d picked up from me. “He can contact anybody in the dark outposts he wants.”

  “So what do I do now?” It didn’t sound like there was much I could do.

  Mysti gave me an apologetic smile. “You need to contact Oscar.”

  The idea sent a bubble of burning anxiety through my stomach. I shook my head. “I can’t.”

  Mysti cocked her head at me, eyes narrowed. “What did the runes allow that coven to do a few months ago?”

  My cheeks heated at the rebuke in her voice. I mumbled the answer, feeling like a first grader who’d just caught her teacher’s bad side. “Summon Oscar.”

  “And who has those runes?” Mysti softened the rebuke with one her smiles.

  “Me.” I was too embarrassed to smile back. I should have known this. Mysti couldn’t be with me every second leading me along.

  “Now this is dangerous. Oscar siphoned a lot of power off you back when the two of you battled. If he’s wheeling and dealing in the dark outposts, he managed to conserve some of it.” She paused and checked some papers next to her.

  “If Oscar has a little power left over, does that mean he could escape into the world?” My scalp tingled as I began to sweat.

  “He wouldn’t do that,” Mysti said. “What he really wants is to possess you. He's smart enough to know that would not only carry him further but allow him to get really, really powerful before he went off on his own. Understand?”

  I nodded, body tightening at the memories of Oscar inside me, manipulating memories to distract me while he stole power.