by Catie Rhodes
That got my attention. Heart thundering, I tried to backpedal, but my foot kept sliding forward. Tanner yelled at me to stop, not to fall. I wanted to snarl something smart-assed at him, but I was too damn scared. My other foot got into the slide. I began to fall fast.
Miss Ugly caught me by one arm, pulled me away from the edge, and whispered in my ear, “No. I’ve worked too hard for this meal.”
Her foul breath turned my stomach. I struggled against her, elbows flailing. But she was strong, too strong for me on this side of the veil where she could walk in daylight. She used the length of her arm to hold me away from her and snatched Tanner out of the cage. He threw punches that landed but did no harm.
Miss Ugly dragged us through a little stand of trees and back into the clearing where she’d brought me the first night we met. I tripped over one of the skulls lining the clearing and let myself fall, hoping it would knock Miss Ugly off balance.
No such luck. She gripped my arm tighter and yanked me along like a tired mom wrangling a toddler in the throes of the fifteenth tantrum of the day. Tanner kept punching her in the head, his face set in a fierce grimace.
She dragged us to a bone sticking out of the ground, one from a creature so huge I didn’t want to imagine what it was or how Miss Ugly had beat it. Because if she could beat this thing, there was no way Tanner or I could physically best her.
Coils of the white line, which had to be tendon, lay at the base of the bone. Miss Ugly nodded at the stuff and said, “Secure them,” then shoved us at the bone.
The line slithered toward us with lightning speed, wrapped itself around both us and the bone pole and began tightening. I locked my legs to resist the pull, but the cord of tendon only pulled tighter, digging into my skin.
I held my ground, but the tendon dragged me against the bone, tightening even more. Fear wrapped freezing bands around my chest. The idea being eaten, even if I was dead when Miss Ugly did it, made me dizzy.
Tanner slammed into the pole next to me, struggling so hard, his head whipped side to side. Then it was over. The cords quit moving and held us fast against the pole.
Miss Ugly picked up a dirty, wickedly long knife and ran it across a flat stone to sharpen it. Muscles working underneath her thin shoulders, she began to hum. Next to her sat a huge club. It occurred to me that she’d probably club us so she could cut us into pieces without us resisting. I kicked my feet uselessly against the ground, skin tingling as it went numb.
“Stop,” Tanner whispered out of the side of his mouth. “Connect with the wheel of life again and give your fate to someone else.”
I concentrated on the wheel, hidden in the ugly red canvas of my hip pack. It lay dormant. The chatter in my mind rose, a cacophony of screams, fears, and regrets.
“Let it go. Be here now.” Tanner’s voice next to my ear lent the only sanity I had in that moment.
I tried to relax my shoulders, tried to let go. But it was like asking a person on fire to forget the pain. Something cool touched my quickly numbing hand. I cut my eyes as far as possible because I couldn’t even move my head and saw Tanner’s fingers touching mine. I concentrated on the brownness of his skin, the way the yellow undertones matched mine, and the shape of his fingernails.
The wheel hummed to life. My black opal jolted in response. I connected with the new level of power from the mantle. It had a deeper, fuller feeling. It crackled over my skin, almost electric, then climbed its way up my arms, crawling over my face, and seeped into my brain.
Motes of light filled my vision. The world around me turned to a blur. The wheel of life’s ball of energy hung only a few inches away. I pushed my mind toward it, the power of the mantle thudding stronger with every beat of my heart. I stepped into the wheel as I had before.
The lines of fate went out in every direction, the neon of life energy cracking through them, running at light speed. In front of me stretched the new brilliant yellow fate I’d created for myself. I turned back and saw the dead, black line of fate I’d cut off the night before.
I picked it up in one hand, and my skin began to turn black. It was infecting me with its deadness. The black necropsy spread up my arm. Fast. I had to find someone fast. I could have kicked myself for not planning this, for not figuring out who I was going to give it to ahead of time. But I hadn’t known what to do.
I stared at all the lines of fate. Who could I damn to a death more horrible than anything I could imagine? And why? Nobody deserved this, except maybe me, and only because it was my fate.
I glanced through the fates connected to mine. They were all people close to me. Cecil, whose line still burned bright despite his failing health. Shelly, whose line looked as young and vibrant as mine. Finn and Dillon. Their children. Hannah. Even Kenny, who I disliked, still had plenty of adventures ahead of him.
Then I spotted the black line writhing amidst all the colored ones. I didn’t even have to stare into it to know who it belonged to. My ex-husband’s essence came off it like stink off shit.
I picked up the line, and a picture formed in my head. Tim rode in the back of a car, head lowered and moving with its motion . He wore the kind of jumpsuit I associated with someone enjoying a nice stay in jail. A metal mesh grate separated Tim from the uniformed driver, who wore a gun at his hip. Some kind of cop probably.
The police must have finally picked up Tim’s crazy, naked, screaming ass. He deserved whatever they had in store for him so much that I almost hated to give him to Miss Ugly.
Then Tim raised his head, mad eyes darting around the car. His nostrils flared. How could he sense me? I wasn’t even with him, not even in spirit. Something flashed behind his eyes. Tim’s small, sharp features gave way to Oscar Rivera’s smoother, more rounded ones.
“You can’t. You’re not strong enough,” Oscar growled in Tim’s voice.
“Wrong again, asshat.” I married my old, dead cord of fate to Tim’s dying one. Maybe we’d once had some kind of a future together. The only thing left now was death. My old fate came back to life, the black regaining its luster, and pumping Tim full of the poison my fate still needed to pass along.
Tim screamed, and Oscar screamed within him. The cop driving glanced into the rearview mirror and yelled, “Shut up back there.” Tim acted as though he didn’t hear.
The cop wouldn’t have to listen much longer. I had to bring Tim back to Miss Ugly, back to my fate. I gathered my power and reached for Tim. He stopped screaming. Oscar Rivera’s eyes looked out of his, and a smile hovered on his lips.
I froze. Oscar wanted me to touch Tim so he could access my power and create havoc I didn’t even want to think about. I drew back my hand. How could I do this? I had to touch Tim to drag him into the wheel of life, but I couldn’t touch anything Oscar had control of.
Easy answer. I had to expel Oscar from Tim. I groaned, remembering how hard it had been to get rid of Oscar a few months ago, how weak it had left me. I’d had to be carried afterward.
No matter. It had to be done or Miss Ugly would kill me, and she’d kill Tanner, and neither of us deserved it. Besides, Oscar had caused this whole shit show just so he could chase some asinine dream of world domination.
Oscar began to laugh through Tim’s mouth. Finally he said, “You’re still too weak to control me, aren’t you? Still too backward and afraid to embrace your power. Such a pathetic excuse for a witch.”
The cop glared into the rearview mirror. “Mister, you’re gonna shut up back there. I promise you are.” Then he muttered, “You’re not as untouchable as you think you are.”
My eyes opened, and I saw the situation for what it was. I’d moved forward in my life, let go of the past, received even more of the mantle’s power. Oscar was dead. He’d never move forward. All he could do was live in the prison he’d created for himself or move on to the realm of the dead, where he actually belonged.
All those racing lines of fate came back to me. Oscar’s dead fate was somewhere in there. If I could send him back down the
line of his fate, he’d be trapped in his own bad decisions, back in the place where he’d hidden his soul.
One problem remained. How would I do it without lending him power? I couldn’t. But I could let Oscar think he was taking my power and then use it against him. I had enough power to do that now.
The mantle strained against the weakening scar tissue, trying to work its way into the rest of my body. To get started, I just needed to get Tim’s sorry ass out of this police car.
I stared at the cop. He didn’t deserve what was about to happen to him, so it needed to be not too bad. I sent out my usual fire ants and aimed them right for his family jewels. He squirmed in his seat a few times, trying to adjust his pants.
“What is that?” His voice rose several octaves. He swerved to the roadside, tires crying out, and slammed to a stop. He glanced back at Tim, shook his head, and got out of the car, patting his crotch and dancing around.
I grabbed Tim by the shoulder. In my current state, that of spirit, he was no heavier than a pencil. I kicked the car door open a little too hard, and it blew off the car and tumbled into the ditch.
The cop spun around, red-faced and sweating, one hand holding his dick through his pants. The surprise on his face would have been comical had he not been reaching for his gun.
I opened my third eye and looked for the place where I could step back into the wheel of life’s highway of fate. A little dab of the neon sunshine of my fate line flashed near a culvert a few feet away. I focused on it, pulled Tim out of the car, and dragged him toward it.
Tim, or maybe Oscar, kicked and screamed, gibbering curses. Oscar’s power pulled at mine, teasing at first, then gobbling it like a man starving. I ignored it. Let him hang himself.
The first bullet whizzed past me and hit dirt about a foot from Tim’s kicking legs. I moved faster, strength already flagging. I dug deep and pushed with all I had, heart throbbing in my neck, exertion aching deep inside. Another bullet hit the dirt right next to Tim. The yellow dot of fate was only a few feet away. I yanked Tim the rest of the way and let us both fall into my new fate.
We stood in the sphere, Tim and I. The madness fled from his eyes. It had been wiped away when we passed between worlds.
“What is this?” He looked around. “Where is this?” He leaned close, staring at my face. “Are you an alien? I could always tell something was wrong with you, Peri Jean.”
His words killed any guilt I felt. I stared deep into his eyes, searching for Oscar. My enemy had turtled down inside my ex-husband for safety. But he’d forgotten something. Or maybe didn’t realize it. I could track my own magic now.
I followed the glow of the mantle through Tim, chasing it down to its source. Tim’s soul was colorless and pitted with the scars of a wasted life. He’d never once cared about anybody but himself and even now thought he’d escape unscathed.
I slammed my fist into the ugly, parched surface of Tim’s soul, making a hole big enough to pull Oscar out. Oscar scuttled backward, tried to send magic out to shock me away from him. I opened myself, opened my third eye, and let my own power absorb back into me. Then I used it to pull Oscar out of Tim.
Tim convulsed, and his eyes rolled back in his head, the experience too much for his fragile body. I kept pulling until I had Oscar out of Tim.
Oscar grappled to get control of the power he’d stolen from me, by now understanding I was using it against him. I kept my third eye open, calling for the line of fate that had once been his. I found it, dead and rotted, buried under more vibrant lives.
I struggled with the power Oscar and I now shared, straining so hard to control it that my eyeballs bulged and my head pounded. Sweat dripped from me, but finally I wrangled it into a force not unlike a catapult.
I pulled back on it, letting it gather momentum, and then released. Oscar, now nothing more than a sliver of light, rocketed toward his fate and hit it with an earth-shattering boom.
Next to me, Tim had fallen. His body bent with tremors. Reaching into his soul had done something to his brain. His body stilled, and his eyes opened.
He smiled at me. “You really are an alien, aren’t you?” Tim smiled. “You can tell me.”
I gripped his arm, pulled him up, and marched him into the line of my fate and back to Miss Ugly’s lair. I found her standing over my still form, her club held aloft over her head.
Tanner strained against his bonds screaming, “No. No. Just give her a minute.”
“Hey!” I yelled at Miss Ugly’s back.
She turned, club still held up to strike, and saw my spirit form bringing her Tim in the flesh.
Tim’s eyes widened at the sight of Miss Ugly. He let a little giggle slip from his lips. “The fuck is that?”
“Mine,” she whispered and came toward Tim.
I let go of him and leapt back into my body, horrified at my numb hands and fingers. Miss Ugly pointed behind her. The ropes of tendon binding Tanner and me fell off and snaked toward Tim.
I climbed to my feet and almost fell right back down. Icy needles prickled through my arms and legs as feeling tried to come back.
Tanner wobbled to me and grabbed my hand. “Let’s go, right now.”
I shook my head and pointed. Miss Ugly had backed Tim against a huge, ancient oak tree and slashed her mark into his forehead. The cords of tendon wound around him so tight that they’d embedded into his skin. My ex-husband’s eyes rolled to me, pleading.
The magnitude of what I’d done washed over me, hot and ugly. I’d condemned a man I’d once loved to death. It didn’t matter that his line of fate had already been terminal. I’d chosen to give him to a monster to save myself.
Miss Ugly raised her huge club over her head, arching her back as she prepared to bring it down. Tim’s scream intensified, turned into the terrified wail of one doomed. The club came down with a sickening crunch. The tendon cords dropped from Tim and arranged themselves back into a neat pile.
Miss Ugly gripped Tim’s ankle and dragged him to the bone where Tanner and I had been bound. One side of Tim’s head was caved in, but his sides moved. He was still breathing. Miss Ugly’s pet tendon cord bound Tim to the bone post.
Sickening understanding hit me. She’d let Tim season before she finished killing him and butchered him. The meat would taste better that way.
Tanner tugged my hand again and whispered, “Let’s go.”
I’d thought Miss Ugly would have a parting shot for us, but she no longer even seemed to know we were there, now that our fates were no longer connected. Tanner gave me another gentle tug, and I let him lead me back toward the two columns that marked passage across the veil. Over here, they were easy to see. Not so much on our side.
Ashamed as I felt, I still gave myself a little cheer for surviving. Letting Oscar beat me would have been worse than letting Felicia beat me. Or Michael Gage. Or anybody else whose ass I’d had to kick in my history of ass kickings. And I’d gained something more with this victory.
I glanced at Tanner out of the corner of my eye. He still looked like sex on a cracker. The final battle with Miss Ugly hadn’t dampened my anticipation for the next time we took our clothes off and pressed our bodies together. It might not be love, and it might never be. But anything we had together would happen in the present moment. That was a hell of a lot better than living for a memory.
19
Tanner and I crossed into our side of the veil between dark and light right where we’d gone in, behind the RV park. The heat punched into us like an invisible fist. Sweat popped out all over me. Tanner groaned.
“The humidity. It’s like a wet towel over my face. I can barely breathe.” He let go of my hand and marched toward the campers and air conditioning.
I followed, not willing to spare the energy to speak. This kind of heat didn’t allow for mistakes. Before I'd gone ten feet, a sheen of sweat covered my body.
Caw. Caw. Cawww.
Orev flapped toward me and landed on the ground at my feet. He opened his wings as tho
ugh in greeting. I knelt in front of him and gently patted his sides. The bird, whom I’d seen attack and try to put out eyes, made a cooing sound.
“Where did you go?” I whispered.
A picture took form in my head, one of Sol and his goat friend Bub sitting at a table, hunched over a chessboard whose pieces were made of tiny, hideously deformed humans. While I watched, Sol touched the head of one of them and spoke. It moved across the board. Another piece proceeded to hack it to death with a sharp weapon. Sol and Bub laughed together.
The image faded. Why had Sol and Bub taken Orev? I rummaged through my exhausted mind until I realized Tanner had squatted next to me. He stretched one hand out to Orev, who drew his head back in warning.
“Let him,” I told Orev. “He’s our friend now.”
Orev let Tanner stroke him, but I could feel his indignation. I ignored it and rose. Orev flapped to perch on my shoulder. I walked into camp, exhaustion aching in my legs.
We’d only gotten about halfway to my camper when Hannah came running up to us, sweat rolling down her red face. Rather than speak, she ran at me and grabbed me in a hug.
She tried to jump up and down a little and almost made it. That made me smile.
“I knew when you changed your fate,” she panted, fanning her face. “I knew. The vision of your death just went away.”
“Did you take the runes and dump them like I said?” If Oscar had any power left, down in the dungeon of his soul, he’d be trying to reconnect to them. I didn’t want him anywhere he could use them to siphon my power or to spy on me. That was exactly how he’d found a way to sic Miss Ugly on me.
“When I knew you weren’t going to die, I waited.” She walked alongside Tanner and me, glancing between us, probably trying to figure out how far things had gone.
I sure wasn’t going to tell her, not after all the nay-saying I’d done over Tanner. Instead I voiced one of my bigger worries. “How did things go for Cecil at the hospital?”
Hannah twisted her lips and stared at the sand clouding around our feet and sticking to the sweat on her bare, whiter-than-white legs. “They put in a stent, I think you call it. He’ll be home later today. But…” She turned to me and said, “Shelly seemed upset.”
