Grave Threat

by Lori Drake

  The phone was ringing.

  9

  The first thing Joey became aware of when she regained consciousness was that her head felt too small for her brain. Her pulse throbbed in her ears, and pain lanced her skull as she opened her eyes.

  Uncertain where she was or what had happened, she looked around and groaned as the memories returned. The wall of earth and stone rushing toward her. The car crashing through the guardrail. The sensation of free fall as it tumbled over the edge and rolled down the steep slope. She’d lost consciousness before the car had come to a stop, and had no idea how long she’d blacked out.

  If her splitting headache was any indication, not long enough.

  Chris.

  Had he been far enough away from the landslide to be safely out of its path?

  Rather than dwell on Chris’s situation, Joey took stock of her own. The car was upright, which was an improvement over the last wreck she’d been in. The roof had caved in, but not so much that she couldn’t sit mostly upright. She sat amongst debris and shattered safety glass, the smell of earth heavy around her. All but one of the windows was blocked; if not for the sunlight streaming in that lone window, she might have had a panic attack.

  Her fingers fumbled for the seatbelt’s buckle, but it was jammed. Maybe she’d been premature in dismissing the panic attack.

  “Help!” Yelling made her head throb, but she did it anyway. “Chris, can you hear me? I’m here! I’m okay!” There was no response.

  Joey gripped the seatbelt and yanked, hard, taking advantage of her supernatural strength and freeing herself. But when she tried to wiggle toward the unblocked window, she found that her right leg was pinned. Shortly after that, she realized she couldn’t feel her foot.

  “No… no, no, no!”

  Joey pulled harder, then tried pushing on the caved-in dash. Panic welled within her, and her eyes stung as she struggled to free herself, visions dancing behind her eyes of having to retire from competition and find some other way to make a living. Dance classes? Choreography? What use was a one-legged dancer? Did the Paralympics have a ballroom category?

  “Chris!” She tried again, rising desperation making her pulse race and her breathing quicken. She gulped short breaths of air, knowing she was about to hyperventilate but unable to stop it.

  “Joey!” A familiar voice pulled her from her pity party, but it wasn’t Chris’s.

  “Dean! I’m in the car! Help, I’m trapped!”

  “I’m coming, hold on!”

  Like she had any other choice. Joey closed her eyes and tried to focus on her breathing, but tears ran down her cheeks as she struggled not to break down entirely. Where was Chris?

  The sound of rubble shifting, rock scraping and thudding against rock drew her eyes open, and she looked at the window in anticipation of Dean’s appearance. The car had settled at an angle, tilted so she had to look up to do so. When he did appear, the sun at his back left his features in shadow, but he was still a welcome sight.

  “Hey, are you okay?” he asked.

  “My leg’s pinned, my head’s killing me, and I need to get out of here before I completely lose my shit.” Her voice trembled despite her effort to keep it steady.

  “Sure thing. Just need to find something to use as a pry bar. Is there a tire iron in the trunk?”

  “Do I seem like the kind of girl that changes a lot of tires?” Joey tried to keep from sounding testy, but failed.

  “I think that’s one of those damned if you do, damned if you don’t sort of questions…”

  “Just check the trunk!”

  “On it.”

  Dean vanished, and even though the sun streamed in the window once more, Joey’s world grew a little dimmer for his absence. She waited, listening while he climbed around to the back of the car, hoping that the trunk had popped open somehow in the landslide. There was no way she’d be able to reach the trunk release from where she was pinned. There was a bit of scraping and a few thumps behind her before he called, “Got it!”

  Once he passed her the tire iron, Joey was able to wedge the dashboard up enough to free her leg. Dean braced himself on the window and offered a hand to her, then pulled her up until she was able to grab the doorframe and help. As soon as her head breached the open air, the bulk of her claustrophobia faded. Feeling was already starting to flow back into her leg, lighting it up with pins and needles. She welcomed the sensation as she climbed the rest of the way out of the car with Dean’s help and sagged against the battered driver’s-side door.

  “Where’s Chris?” Dean asked, brows inching together.

  Joey shook her throbbing head and probed it with gentle fingers. A hiss of pain escaped her when she encountered an open wound. “Not here. Eric ordered him out of the car. Clearly, this little adventure was just for me. He must’ve triggered the landslide, somehow. He was very specific about stopping at mile marker fifteen.”

  “Roger,” Dean said, looking to his left. “See if you can find Chris?”

  Joey’s stomach roiled, a wave of nausea rolling through her. She swallowed bile, but held it together.

  “He’s going to look.” Dean turned his attention back to Joey and frowned. “Maybe you should sit down.”

  Joey let him guide her down the pile of rubble to sit on the dry, barren earth at its base. This part of Oregon was practically a wasteland. They’d driven through the desert for hours, and everything east of Steen Mountain seemed to be parched and dry. Joey had grown up in the desert, but this was different.

  Lifting her eyes, she traced the obvious path the landslide had taken down the slope into the dry lakebed. Disappointment was bitter on her tongue.

  “He left me.”

  Dean sat beside her and put an arm around her. “Eric forced his hand. You know that, right?”

  Joey leaned against Dean and closed her eyes against another wave of nausea. “Yeah,” she said, but of all the aches and pains she could count, the worst one was her heart.

  The phone rang and rang. Chris concentrated and gave his body another shove, but he wasn’t exactly gaining ground. His body was slumped to one side now, but the angle made it difficult to get him to shift enough to dislodge the medallion. Chris was more than motivated to keep trying. He didn’t know what would happen if he kept not answering that phone, but one thing was for certain: it wouldn’t be good.

  “What in the afterlife are you doing?”

  The voice at his back startled him, and he whipped around to find Roger leaning against a nearby tree. The spirit had one eyebrow aloft in a very human expression of curiosity.

  “Roger! Is Joey okay?”

  “Yeah, Dean’s with her now. So”—he gestured at the Jeep behind Chris—“what are you doing?”

  Relief flooded Chris, but embarrassment nipped at its heels. He would’ve blushed if he could. “Trying to get back into my body. I put the anti-possession charm on before I went astral, and now I’m stuck. I thought if I could dislodge it, break the skin contact…” He shrugged.

  “Good luck with that. I’ll let them know what’s going on. I’m sure they’ll head this way as soon as Joey can ride.”

  “Thanks, Roger.”

  The spirit vanished, and Chris turned back to the task at hand. The phone had gone silent, but resumed ringing again.

  “Well,” he muttered to himself, “at least he’s still trying.” It was a consolation, however small.

  Chris kept trying too, throwing himself at his body again and again in an effort to move it. It helped that his body was a solid presence for him, but if he shoved too hard, the spell protecting it snapped back and knocked him on his spectral ass. This charm was definitely going to need some tweaking, even if only for him. As he worked, he wondered if it could be configured to keep him from leaving his body as well. At least then he wouldn’t have to worry about doing it accidentally anymore.

  The sound of an approaching engine gave him pause, and he turned to scan the road, expecting to see Dean’s motorcycle. I
nstead, an SUV rolled down the maintenance road from the other direction. It was branded with the Oregon Park Service logo, and Chris winced. This could be a problem. He watched as the SUV rolled to a stop, but the man that stepped out was no park ranger. Or, at least, if he was one, he was out of uniform.

  The man was tall and muscular, but his face was hard to get a read on. Even as he approached the Jeep, his features were muddled and blurry. The more Chris tried to focus on his face, the more disorienting it was. The stranger rapped his knuckles on the glass, but of course Chris’s body didn’t stir.

  Grumbling, the man opened the door and gave Chris’s shoulder a shove. “Hey! Wake up, Martin.”

  It took Chris a moment to place the voice, to figure out how the guy would know his name. It was Eric.

  Eric gave Chris’s body another shove when he didn’t stir, then leaned over and checked for a pulse. “Huh.”

  Chris’s intangible hands were clenched into fists at his sides. He vibrated with rage. The world went red and hazy as he stood there, a foot away from the man that’d kidnapped his mother, pushed his soul mate off a mountain, murdered his birth parents, and tried to kill him too. What could he do, faced with his mortal enemy? Nothing. He was stuck on the astral plane, while Eric was free to do whatever he wanted with Chris’s body.

  His anger was so high that it took him a minute to remember that he wasn’t completely helpless after all. He rushed toward Eric, intent on possession, but bounced right off him the same way he had his own body. While Chris reeled, processing this, Eric hoisted his body over his shoulder and walked back to the SUV. When he did, Chris got another look at his blurry features. Or, at least, he tried to look. His eyes kept wanting to slide away, until Eric moved past him and his back was to Chris once more.

  Chris stared at Eric’s back in slack-jawed astonishment. There had to be magic at play here. Eric had some sort of charm, like his, that warded against possession. But that wasn’t it. He was clearly more generally protected from spirits. If he hadn’t heard him speak, Chris wouldn’t have known Eric was Eric at all. His features were too indistinct, and Chris hadn’t been able to jump to him when he’d tried.

  Yes, there was magic involved. Powerful magic. But whose? Chris turned this over in his mind, only broken out of his distraction by the slamming of the SUV’s trunk. Eric walked around to the front, no longer burdened by Chris’s body, and climbed into the driver’s seat. The engine roared to life, and Eric turned the SUV around before heading back up the maintenance road.

  “You know, that would’ve been an excellent time to try getting back into your body, while it was hanging half upside down.”

  Chris whirled to find Roger standing behind him. “How long have you been standing there?”

  The spirit’s expression was grim, lips pressed in a tight line. “Long enough.”

  “Tell Dean that Eric has a witch backing him up. I’m going to follow him. I need to stick close to my body until I can figure out how to get back into it.”

  Roger nodded, and Chris took off after the SUV before it could get away. He dove through the back door to check on his body, but the charm was still in contact with his skin, so he pushed his way forward until he could sit in the passenger’s seat. The unpaved road grew considerably bumpier after they passed the campground’s turnoff, but Chris only noticed because of the way Eric bounced around in the driver’s seat.

  The road wound through the trees and up the mountain until it encountered the fallen tree. Eric laid on the horn as they approached, and the trunk lifted off the ground for the SUV to pass beneath it. On the other side, Eric stopped and looked over at Chris. Chris blinked, but as the passenger door opened, it became apparent that Eric was looking through him, not at him. Chris migrated to the back seat with a thought, and the passenger climbed in.

  “Did you find him?” she asked. Something about her voice tickled Chris’s memory, but he couldn’t quite place it. It wasn’t Jessica’s, at least. Like Eric’s, her features were blurry and indistinct.

  “He’s sleeping it off in the trunk.” Eric put the SUV in drive and continued up the road.

  “Sleeping off what?” the woman asked.

  “Damned if I know. He was in the Jeep, completely passed out. I tried to wake him up, then decided to just throw him in the trunk.”

  “This isn’t what we planned,” she said, her melodious voice tense.

  Eric shrugged. “Sometimes you have to improvise.”

  They fell silent for the rest of the drive. Eric turned off the main road and onto an even bumpier side road eventually. Their destination soon came into view ahead. Chris leaned forward to peer out the windshield at the trailer perched precariously on the side of the mountain. He had no idea how high up they were at this point, or even how long they’d been driving.

  Eric and the woman got out of the car, and Chris followed, hoping that Eric would sling his body over his shoulder again. He didn’t. In fact, they left him in the trunk while they went inside the trailer.

  The interior was clean-ish and spartan. Rustic, one might say. The furniture, along with the carpet, was worn and had seen better days.

  “Get her ready to move,” Eric said. “I’ll take care of him.”

  The woman lingered briefly, then nodded and headed down the short hallway that led deeper into the trailer.

  Eric crossed the room and squatted to retrieve a thick coil of rope from a duffel bag. He slipped his arm through the coil, hanging it on his shoulder, and went back outside. Torn, Chris followed to make sure that Eric wasn’t planning a hanging. What he could possibly do about that was beyond him, but that was beside the point.

  It only took a couple of minutes for Eric to tie up Chris. He wasn’t gentle about it, but he didn’t rough-up Chris’s body either.

  The trailer’s screen door banged open, calling Chris’s attention. The mystery woman pushed someone out the front door. The captive had a bag over her head and her wrists were bound at her back. Still, Chris would’ve recognized his mother’s regal bearing anywhere. Adelaide stumbled on the front steps, on account of not being able to see where she was going, but the woman behind her held on to her arm and kept her from falling.

  Eric shoved Chris’s body aside in the trunk, making room, then turned toward Adelaide and his accomplice when they drew near. He whipped the bag from Adelaide’s head, then motioned into the trunk with it. “Brought you some company.”

  Like the others, Adelaide’s features were indistinct, as if they’d been drawn in charcoal and smudged. Still, Chris got the impression of rapidly blinking eyes and caught her indrawn breath when she found Chris in the trunk.

  “What have you done to him?” Adelaide said, steel in her voice.

  “Shut up and get in,” Eric said.

  When she didn’t move swiftly enough, he grabbed her arm and shoved her toward the car. Adelaide lost her balance and half fell into the trunk. Chris’s relief that she was still alive was quickly eclipsed by anger over her mistreatment, especially when he caught a glimpse of her swollen fingers behind her back. Eric bent and grabbed her ankles, pushing her the rest of the way in. She curled up beside Chris, no doubt shooting daggers at Eric with her eyes until he closed the trunk.

  “You sure you want to get on the road now?” the dark-haired woman asked.

  “Might as well.”

  “What’s the rush? We took care of the girl.”

  Eric shrugged. “We did. No one’s going to complain if we show up early. Come on.” He brushed past her on his way to the front of the SUV and climbed inside. She joined him, and soon they were pulling back down the drive.

  Though he wanted to update Roger before they ended up outside the spirit’s range, Chris didn’t want to lose track of his body. He drifted along behind the vehicle at first; it wasn’t hard to keep up with them on the astral plane, but on the off chance that he might overhear something of value, he eventually opted to move to the back seat. If only there was some way he could get a message
to his mother, she could help shift the medallion so he could get back into his body and… be trussed up in the back with her.

  For now, it was enough to know she was safe. Or, at least, as safe as one could be at Eric’s sadistic mercy.

  10

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to carry you?” Dean asked, for the hundredth time.

  Okay, so maybe not the hundredth time, but that was what it felt like to Joey.

  “Yes,” Joey said through gritted teeth. She’d been struggling up the embankment for the last ten minutes, hindered by a bum leg and a throbbing head. It had to be the same leg she’d gotten shot in, didn’t it? The gunshot wound had long since healed fully, but every now and then she felt a phantom twinge. It had to be psychosomatic, but even at one hundred percent functionality, she still thought of it as her “bad leg.”

  “Yes you want me to carry you?” Dean said, hovering at her side. “Or yes you’re sure?”

  Joey glared at him, and he held his hands up in surrender. She went back to climbing.

  “It wouldn’t have to be a damsel in distress thing,” Dean said, after a whole thirty seconds of silence. “You could hop on my back.”

  Joey’s foot slipped on the pale, cracked clay and she nearly ended up on her ass again. Dean’s arm shot out and she grabbed it, using it to steady herself. It’d only taken him one elbow to the gut to learn not to try and grab her arm. He was a quick learner.

  Once she had her balance, she looked at him and blew an errant strand of hair from her eyes. “If I say yes, it’s just between us, right?”

  “Just you and me and the desert, Red.” He paused, then added, “And Roger.”

  Joey sighed. “Fine. Turn around.”

  He moved so that he was standing down the embankment from her, passed her Roger’s coffee can, and then turned away, bending his knees to make it that much easier for her to climb on. Once she was settled, he resumed trekking up the steep incline. He was right, it was easier this way, but she’d never admit it.