by Catie Rhodes
The bartender set a short glass in front of Tanner and poured brown liquid from an unlabeled bottle. That was when I noticed the tattoo on his hand. It showed a horned ram, set over a point-down pentagram.
The bartender reached underneath the bar and came up with a smudged glass, which he set in front of me. Next to it, he placed a dirty, unlabeled plastic bottle of water. I nodded my thanks but didn’t bother to pour the water into the glass. I had no intention of drinking it.
I leaned close enough to Tanner’s ear to see where he’d had it pierced and whispered, “Don’t drink it.”
“You think I’m crazy?” He whispered back, picked up the glass, and swirled the liquid around. Specks of unidentifiable material floated inside it.
I leaned back on my stool and surveyed the bar’s interior, running my gaze along the stone walls for the skull lamp. I’d brought all the cash I could rustle up, about two thousand dollars, in the hopes it would be enough to purchase it from a bunch of squatters. Now that I was here, felt the atmosphere of the place, I knew we’d have to fight for it. I suspected we’d have to fight to get out of this place alive.
An obese man with greasy, black hair and a tattoo matching the bartender’s wandered over. His black vest hung open, displaying a chest covered with whorls of black hair stretching over a beer gut so huge I couldn’t believe it was real. “Looking for the bathroom, pretty girl?”
He reached for my hair with one chubby hand and had his fingers wound in it before I could stop him. He proceeded to stroke my hair the same way he’d pet an animal. He smelled like meat right before it goes bad.
I nodded, too repulsed to form words. Directions to the bathroom would give me leave to look for the skull lantern and get me away from my admirer.
“All the way at the back. Left corner.” The bartender’s voice said from right next to my ear. I spun around, heart thundering, and found his face an inch from mine. He grinned, and it wasn’t a nice grin.
Tanner had his arm around me again. “Want me to go with you?”
Hell no, came to my lips, but I pushed it back. He was trying to help. I smiled and shook my head. Tanner pressed his lips together and gave me a solemn nod.
I pushed myself off the stool and hurried away from the bar. Coming here had been a mistake, but I wasn’t sure what else I could have done. Passing the tables, I became aware something was wrong, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was until I got almost to the back of the saloon.
None of the bar’s patrons had even looked up as I passed their tables. Even the people sitting alone, many of whom were male, did not seem to notice me passing by their tables. Apprehension built in every muscle of my body, urging me to take some kind of action, until I was almost running by the time I got to the little inlet in the back.
The skull lantern stood right next to a cutout in the wall. One side had a sign that said “hombres.” The other sign had a sign that said “señoritas.” Making a point not to look at the skull, I hurried into “señoritas.” These weirdos didn’t need to know what we’d come for, not until Tanner and I were ready to make a move.
The women’s restroom was obviously new construction. Even the wood smelled new. Light came from some indiscernible source and cast the room in a deep orange glow. The toilets were behind stalls with closed doors. I had no intention of pulling my pants down to sit on one of those toilets, so I approached the sink and twisted the knob on the faucet, intending to splash water on my face. Reddish brown water gushed out, bringing with it the smell of rotten eggs. I turned it off without even letting it dampen my fingers.
How were Tanner and I going to do this? He wasn’t afraid to fight, no matter how scary the opponent. That was a plus. But there was something wrong, big wrong, in this place. Not knowing what it was put us at a great disadvantage.
If these were just a bunch of human assholes, I could do a little sideshow magic and scare them out of bothering us. If they were supernatural—either boogers or humans under the control of boogers—we had a hell of a fight on our hands.
Tanner’s angry shout pierced the silence. A drawn out, agonized scream followed. The opportunity to plan lost, I turned toward the door and marched out.
12
I emerged from the restroom expecting to see a brawl. What I saw instead scared me worse. The bar’s patrons sat at their tables, still drinking as though nobody was screaming their lungs out. And the scream. Jeez Louise. It droned on and on like the hum of machinery or the buzzing of a mosquito. I ran to the front of the bar, expecting to find Tanner missing a limb.
The fat guy who’d been fondling my hair stood holding the hilt of a knife, the one Tanner took off my asshole ex-husband, sticking out of the center of his chest. By all counts of logic, the knife was lodged in his heart. He should have been on the floor gasping his last.
Tanner saw me and rushed to me, pointing at the screamer. “He tried to bite me. Just leaned over and opened up.”
The guy turned his considerable beer belly toward me, still bellowing, and belched a gout of black blood toward my face. I backpedaled, shaking the thick, and surprisingly cool, mess off my hands. I didn’t have time for fear. My stomach had other plans. My last meal raced up my throat. I let out one sour burp and projectile vomited all over the fat guy. He screamed louder, eyes beginning to glow fiery red.
The terror came then, crawling over my body with sharp claws. My heart slammed hard against my ribcage. Exactly how bad was this? If the drama was isolated to the screamer, Tanner and I might be able to get out with the skull lantern.
I looked for the bartender. He stood at the other end of the bar, a bowl of something in front of him. He stuck in his fingers, pulled something wiggling out of the bowl, and stuffed it in his mouth. He didn’t seem to hear the screaming man.
My plans for a speedy getaway ground to a halt, and the gravity of the situation, the truth about what Tanner and I had bumbled into, hit me hard enough to make me dizzy. This place felt just like the lost church of St. Augustine, where I’d encountered the freaks singing religious hymns backward. I hadn’t seen the signs I’d come to associate with a thin place, two columns or posts, maybe a doorway. But that meant nothing. I learned about some new horrible thing every day.
I cut off the increasingly hysterical train of thought. However we’d gotten here, we were now trespassing in the some outpost of the damned. We needed to get the skull lantern and get out. Fast. I gripped Tanner’s arm, too freaked out to enjoy the feel of his bicep.
“The skull lantern’s at the back near the restrooms. Let’s get it and go.” I gave him a tug.
We hurried to the back of the room, the guy Tanner stabbed still screaming bloody murder, the other patrons and the bartender still ignoring him.
I snatched the skull lantern, having to pull it upward out of a base set into the wood plank floor. Magic shot through my arm, pinged my black opal, and settled against my magical core.
Its power burned, almost too much for me. Had I not already had the mantle, the power would have hurt me. Bad. My hand that held the skull lantern emanated pure, white light. The corners of my vision lit up with this power.
The fat guy’s scream cut off as though someone had flipped an off switch. The murmurs of the bar patrons ceased. Busy marveling at the lantern’s power, the danger of the sudden silence didn’t register.
“Watch out.” Tanner grabbed my arm and jerked me into the alcove where the bathrooms were.
The white bowl I’d seen the bartender eating out of hit the wall right where my head had been and shattered. Baby snakes hit the floor with a meaty splat and began writhing, trying to get away.
My stomach lurched again. I clapped the hand not holding the skull lantern to my mouth. One of the baby snakes slithered over the toe of my cowboy boot. I did a wild little dance, the motion of the snake seeming to wiggle through my body.
“Come on.” Tanner led the way out of the alcove.
We’d only been in there a few seconds, and we
hadn’t heard a peep from the people inside the bar. But they’d somehow moved to the back of the bar and gathered, forming a stinky, greasy wall while I’d wigged out over the baby snakes. The bartender stood at the front of the group.
He opened his mouth, revealing a top and a bottom row of teeth that had been filed to points. Or maybe they just became that way after he got here. The roar that came out of him rattled over my skin and shook the building’s floorboards.
His bellow somehow flipped a switch in his friends. They broke their silence and answered his howl, some throwing their heads back like wolves. Their eyes glowed with feral light that flashed red every few heartbeats.
Jumping beans bounced around in my tender stomach. My bowels went loose and hot. There was nowhere to run, no way out. The collective outcry went on and on, so long I had time to think of all the ways I’d fucked this up. I grabbed Tanner’s hand, as though touching another person would act as a talisman against the hell about to erupt around us. We clung to each other and waited to see the reward of our stupidity.
They stopped yelling as one and advanced on us. Tanner let go of my hand and bellowed a war cry. He was right. The time to be scared was over. Now it was time to fight. To the death if necessary.
I pushed the panic to another part of my mind and called to the mantle. Its comforting veil slipped over my vision. The things in front of me wore red skins that moved like fire. Smoke rose off them. Their eyes, which had only looked a little crazy with my regular vision, now glowed mad and hungry.
One of them grabbed me, opening his mouth wide, saliva dripping in long, stretchy strands. Terror locked my muscles, and I could only watch, heart thudding dully, sluggish thoughts clogging my brain. The thing’s spit hit my skin and sizzled like hot bacon grease. That broke me out of my stupor.
I channeled the mantle and sent it to the surface of my skin where the man-thing’s hand clutched me, expecting it to burn him. But the white light from the skull lantern married itself to my magic at the last second. I lost control.
The combined magic flowed into the man-thing, pumping him full. He jittered in place, making a sound like a motor burning itself up. Spit flew from his mouth. The sharp smell of urine drifted to me. The man’s movements reached a fever pitch, and his eyes burst, spraying me with warm, sticky liquid. His skin began to smoke, then to peel off his face. Light, the same white light I’d seen coming from the lantern flowed from his skin and back into me. My head ached the way it did when I took too big a sip of milkshake.
The man dropped to the floor in a pile of smoking, bloody rags. Another lost man grabbed me by my hair, pulling my head back to expose my neck, bowing my back in the process. His mouth opened, displaying those sharp-pointed teeth. For tearing, like a dog’s, my mind babbled. He bent toward me.
I sent the mantle out at him, but it couldn’t connect. His skin wasn’t touching mine. I pushed it between us, but the effect was weakened. He only jerked as though he’d gotten a handful of static electricity.
Another set of rough hands grabbed one arm, yanking, presumably getting ready to bite a chunk out of it. It didn’t matter if I killed the one trying to bite my neck. Melting that first one had taken a lot of juice. I could give maybe two more that treatment. What then? I had to figure out another plan of escape.
I glanced at Tanner, thinking maybe he’d help, but he had his nine irons amulet in one hand and was slamming one of the pieces into the monster’s faces. They fell away when the iron touched them but came right back in twos and threes. One took a nice, healthy bite out of Tanner. He winced but spun and slammed the iron into the thing’s face. Soon they’d overwhelm him.
I thought fast. Going for the skull lantern seemed to have mobilized them. That was what they’d protect, not each other. Hot breath tickled the skin on my neck. Shit. I was about to get eaten alive if I didn’t act.
So I did the only thing I knew to do. I threw the skull lantern like a javelin over their ugly heads. It arced up and over them. A dirty hand reached up and grabbed it midair. The other monsters crowded around the one who’d retrieved the skull lantern.
Tanner turned to me gaping. “Why’d you do that?” Blood steamed from no telling how many bites on his arms. There was a scratch oozing blood on his neck.
“There were too many of them. They were just going to eat us, drink our blood, whatever.” I gasped, leaning against the wall and trying to catch my breath.
“But how are we going to get it back now?” Irritation flashed in Tanner’s eyes, bright as any emotion I’d seen there so far.
“I don’t know.” I put my hands on my knees, wheezing, and watched the not-quite-men gibber and slobber over the skull lantern. “But we’re going to use it to kill them.”
Tanner faced me, frowning.
“When I picked up the lantern, its magic mixed with mine. I melted that dude there.” I pointed at the pile of smoking clothes. It didn’t even look like something that used to be sort of human.
“I’ll ask again. How do we get the lantern back?” Tanner watched the knot of humanoid creatures. Soon, they’d turn back to us, either wanting revenge or wanting to initiate us into their weird club.
I noticed Tanner’s bites again and leaned closer. The edges had already turned red and puffy. But the bite on my arm looked like an old wound that I had used a hot iron to cauterize. The white light from the lantern must have done that. We had to get the thing back.
I regretted my decision to throw it. It had been spur of the moment, and it didn’t play well in the chess game of this situation. But there was a way to turn things around. I just had to get my mind calm enough to think.
The big-bellied guy Tanner had stabbed came shambling around the idiots as they fought over the lamp. His eyes had turned solid black and now fixed on us.
“Intruders,” he grated. More black blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth. “Intruders.” This time he said it louder.
Tanner took my arm and leaned close to my ear. “Five more seconds, and he’s going to have the whole gang of them on us. They get us down, it’s over.”
I glanced back at the bathrooms but couldn’t remember a window in the women’s. If I went in there, I’d be trapped. But we were also trapped in this little corner of the Pale Horse Saloon.
“Intruder.” The guy tripped on one of his friends’ feet and went down face first, right onto the knife. He rolled on his side and began trying to regain his feet.
“The iron was working on getting them to move.” Tanner still had it in his hand. Gore and charred skin stuck to the amulet. “I’ll start hitting them with it, and you make a grab for the skull lamp. What are you going to do?”
“In that folktale, Vasilisa somehow let the lantern burn her wicked stepmother and stepsisters to ashes.” I tried to reason out what I was going to do as I said the words. Tanner shifted impatiently, throwing glances at the freaks a few feet away. “Somehow I’ve got to keep the power of the lantern with the lantern and project it outward.”
Tanner nodded. “Fine. Let’s do it.” He held up his fist for a bump, eyes fierce, kissable lips pressed into a determined line. Dorky, but hot. I bumped with him, and he turned away, starting toward the monsters, shoulders squared like he accepted his mission, whatever it brought. I grabbed at him.
“What I did earlier took a lot of energy. If I do a mass burning, I might collapse.” I paused. Tanner would have to get me out of the Pale Horse Saloon, but explicitly telling him this made me feel all squirmy and embarrassed.
“I won’t leave you, okay?” He gripped my arm with one hand and gave me a light pull toward the men.
Tanner marched with his nine irons amulet held high, the cross stuck out. He clapped it against the sweaty head of one of the men. I gripped the guy’s arms and slung him out of the way, ignoring the too-hard pull in my muscles and back. He staggered from us, holding his hand to his head.
Tanner repeated the exercise on three more men before we got close to the lamp. By that time, the men
we’d already burned with the iron were staggering back toward us, hands covering their wounds but mad as hell and ready to take a bite out of our asses.
I grabbed for the lamp, felt a brush of its magic, but the men held on tight. Tugging at the thing, desperation building, the lantern’s magic fluttered against mine again. There was no way I could wrench it from them.
Tanner couldn’t help me. He was busy planting his iron cross on the skin of our enemies. If he stopped, they’d be on us like a flock of ducks on June bugs.
I held on tight to the lantern, its magic still ebbing at the edge of mine. Could I send magic through it even if those things were holding on to it? I didn’t know, but I had to try. Otherwise, we were about to become monster chow.
Trying to block out the gibbering and the growls, I latched on to the mantle, concentrating on the magic around me. Magic is everywhere. It’s in lights in the form of electricity. It’s in wood that carries earth magic. It’s even in the air, just a little charge most people don’t feel. And magic is part of fire.
I called to the fire inside the lantern, letting its magic flood into me. It swirled around my magical core again. This time it made itself at home, slipping through the hole in the scar tissue and teasing against the power of the mantle.
Slippery, sweaty fingers closed around my neck. It was one of the monsters getting ready to take a bite out of me. The thing let out a howl and dropped away. Tanner must have given it a shot of iron.
Begging the universe for just a few more seconds, I gathered both the mantle and this sharp, white magic from the lantern together and pushed them back through me. It was like forcing rushing water to turn and go the other way. I strained, pressure building behind my eyes, body shaking with the effort. Sweat popped out on my body.
