by Lori Drake
“The thought crossed my mind, but as far as I know, Eric has no idea what went down last year.”
Dean nodded and straightened, then walked toward the urinals. “Thought it was worth mentioning. Tell your girl I said hi.”
“Will do. Hey, if you talk to Cathy again, would you ask if she has any suggestions for dealing with that Eastgate guy, if we do come across him? She’s at least aware of his reputation.”
“Yeah. Oh! That reminds me,” Dean turned back. Fortunately, he hadn’t unzipped yet. He retrieved an envelope from inside his leather jacket and offered it to Chris.
Chris took it. The envelope was heavier on one end, and its contents shifted around with a metallic rasp. He tore the envelope open and spilled its contents into his hand while Dean turned back to the wall. It was the anti-possession medallion Cathy had made, on a silvery rope chain. Not actual silver, fortunately.
“Don’t know if you’ll need it,” Dean said, glancing over his shoulder. “But figured it couldn’t hurt.”
Smiling, Chris dropped the charm back in the envelope. “Thanks, man. We’ll be in touch.”
He told Joey about his run-in with Dean when he caught up with her at the car, showing her the “care package” he’d brought for them.
“I knew he was around here somewhere,” she said, nodding toward the Harley with the blue dragon painted on the gas tank. “I saw his bike when I came out.”
“You need to hit the head before we go?” Chris asked.
She nodded and headed off to do that while Chris finished pumping gas. Once the tank was full, he slid behind the wheel and adjusted the seat and mirrors while he waited for Joey to get back. Though he expected an argument over switching seats when she returned, she settled in the passenger seat without a word and started digging around in the bag of snacks and energy drinks.
As he pulled back onto the road, his eyes caught on gray clouds to the west, hugging the tops of the mountains. Lightning arced in the distance from cloud to cloud.
A storm is coming.
The memory of the strange dream surfaced. He remembered every detail, from Karina’s shifting eyes to the sinking feeling in his stomach when the man in the linen suit had vanished. His subconscious was clearly on overdrive, even if he couldn’t fathom what it’d meant. Was the howling wolf Joey? His mother?
He had no answers, but he couldn’t stop turning the questions over and over in his mind.
8
Tires squealed, and Joey was thrown against the passenger door as Chris made a sudden, sharp left.
Her eyes flew open. “What the fuck, man!”
“Sorry, sorry! I almost missed the turn.” He spared her an apologetic glance, but she growled in response.
“Eyes on the road, please!” Joey let her head drop back against the headrest and counted to ten. “Just relax, you said. You’ve been driving all day, you said.”
“I said I was sorry.”
Joey peeled her fingers off the door handle and kept her eyes forward. The empty two-lane road stretched ahead of them, straight and flat as it rode along at the base of a small mountain range to their right.
“What’s got you so distracted, anyway?” she asked.
Chris raked his fingers through his hair. “Nothing.”
Joy studied his profile, frowning. She knew him too well to let it go, and after all they’d been through… “No more secrets, right? That’s what we agreed.”
He sighed. “It’s nothing important. Just a couple weird dreams, that’s all.”
“Weird like dwarves playing bagpipes during church, or…?”
Chris told her about the hotel, the woman in red, the man in the linen suit, and the sense of despair he’d been left with when the man vanished.
“Okay, that is pretty weird,” Joey said. She took a sip of water, then offered him one. “But at least the dancers didn’t turn into ducks or anything.”
Chris snorted softly and waved off the water bottle.
Joey thought about the dream. “Okay, let’s break this down. A long drive. Given our current circumstances, it’s not hard to guess why you’re dreaming about that. The hotel could be a place of refuge, a port in the storm, so to speak. Kind of disappointed you’re dreaming about dancing with other women, but… maybe the guy represents your dad. Your biological father. You’ve been under a lot of pressure to fill his shoes, and this guy literally left his empty shoes behind him.”
“Maybe,” Chris said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Except I’ve seen pictures of my biological father. This guy looked nothing like him. I remember it all, clear as day.”
Joey shrugged. “He’s still a stranger to you in all the ways that count. It wouldn’t be a dream without some symbolism. What about the wolf from the first dream? Anyone you recognize?”
“No.” Chris shook his head. “Both times, though, I got the sense that the wolf was interrupting the pattern.”
“How so?”
“Well, the first time it appeared in front of me and I woke up. The next time, it called to me when I was getting lost in the moment. Twice. It seemed to really annoy the man.”
Joey took another sip of water, then toyed with the cap. “There’s another possibility.”
“What?” His eyes darted her way.
She reached across the console to lay a hand on his leg. “It was just a fucking dream, babe.”
Chris sighed and shook his head. “Don’t brush me off. You always do that when you don’t agree with me.”
Annoyance flared. Joey shoved the water bottle into the cup holder. “What am I supposed to do, argue with you about it?”
“If it’s warranted, yeah.”
Joey folded her arms. “So, yesterday when I told you Jessica was trouble… you didn’t really want me to let it go?”
He groaned and rubbed his temple. “No, I really wanted you to let that go.”
“Who’d you leave in charge?” Joey asked, though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.
“What?” Chris glanced her way, forehead creased.
“Of. Your. Pack. Who’d you leave in charge?”
There was a pause before he answered, like he knew she wasn’t going to like it. “Jessica.”
Joey slapped the dashboard. “I knew it! I’m sure she was thrilled.”
“Actually, she wasn’t there at the time.”
His voice had an “if you must know” quality to it that got her hackles up. Joey looked out the window, practically grinding her teeth. “What if she’s in on this? Did you think of that?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed.
Joey smirked, dragging her eyes from the increasingly steep mountain slope. “Now who’s brushing off who? She and Eric were tight. She was in love with him. Women do strange things for love.”
“You’re right, she was in love with him. Past tense. She wrote him off, same as the rest.”
“Falling out of love’s not that simple.”
“Sometimes, it is.”
“Are you willing to stake Mom’s life on it?”
He shot her a warning glance, but further argument was forestalled by the phone ringing. Eric’s phone. Chris reached for his pants pocket, since they hadn’t handed the phone off yet.
“Hands on the wheel!” Joey snapped, and leaned over to fetch it herself. It was a little awkward, but it wasn’t like her fingers had never been close to his junk before. At the rate he was going, it’d be a long while before he got her fingers this close to his junk again.
Joey snapped into the phone, “What do you want now?”
“Pull over at mile marker fifteen,” Eric said, unperturbed.
Joey relayed the instructions, then asked, “What’s at mile marker fifteen?”
“You’ll find out when you get there.”
“Humor me.”
“What’s gnarled and purple?”
It wasn’t the kind of humoring Joey had in mind, but she played along. “I dunno. What?”
“Your m
other’s ring finger.”
She could hear the smile in his voice and growled low, but kept her questions to herself after that.
“Okay, we’re here. Now what?” Joey asked, once they’d pulled over at the designated spot.
“Give Chris the phone.”
Frowning, Joey passed the phone to Chris and settled in to wait, watching him as she did. Anxiety crept back to the fore, supplanting the aggravation that both men had stirred within her.
After a pause, Chris looked over at her with a frown. “He wants me to get out of the car. He says you have to stay put.”
“I don’t like it,” she said.
“Me either. But we don’t have much choice, do we?”
Joey caught her lower lip between her teeth. They really didn’t. She nodded at him and remained in her seat while he got out of the car.
“Okay, I’m out,” he said, then closed the door.
Silence descended, broken only by the ticking of the cooling engine. Joey watched Chris walk off, along the shoulder. He glanced over his shoulder at her briefly, brows drawn together, but kept walking. Her right knee started to bounce. She fidgeted with the strap of her seatbelt, which suddenly seemed too tight. The only thing she hated more than being in a car was being strapped into a car. They weren’t even moving, and the air had stopped circulating when the engine shut off. She leaned over and pressed the start button so the fan would kick on, then settled back to wait.
Chris walked down the shoulder for several minutes before turning toward her once more. He still had the phone pressed to his ear, but he was a fairly distant speck, even to her keen eyes. She drummed her fingers against her arms, vibrating with tension. It took her a few moments to realize that she wasn’t actually the one vibrating. The car was. The ground was.
A rumble drew her attention out the window. She looked up the steep slope of mountain beside her, eyes widening in shock and horror as a torrent of earth and rock slid toward her.
Joey reached for her seatbelt. Her fingers fumbled with the buckle. She yanked at it, snarling in irritation. The rumble outside her window grew louder. The car shook so hard that it rattled her teeth. She glanced out the windshield and saw Chris running toward her, pale as a ghost. It was the last thing she saw before the rock and debris slammed into the car, sending it sliding across the road and over the railing.
“You son of a bitch! What have you done?” Chris snarled into the phone.
Rich, deep laughter was Eric’s only response.
Chris changed course, running across the road to watch the car slide down the adjacent slope amidst the rock and debris. It rolled once or twice before sliding into a dry lakebed at the bottom of the slope. Earth mounded around and over it, almost completely burying it.
On the other end of the phone, Eric’s laughter finally ran its course. “Man, I wish I could’ve seen that.”
“Laugh it up, chucklehead. I’m gonna find you. I’m gonna kill you!” Chris clutched the phone so tightly that its plastic housing cracked. His pulse pounded in his ears. The image of Joey’s car being swept across the road and past the guardrail on the other side would be forever burned into his brain.
“I’m quaking in my boots over here, twinkle toes. Anyway, you’ll have to make up your mind which is more important first: Mommy dearest, or your sister with benefits. She could still be alive down there. Maybe.”
Tears stung Chris’s eyes as his wolf howled in impotent rage. He kept his eyes on the wreckage, hoping for some sign of life. She had to be okay. She just had to be. But what would he do now? How could he choose between the love of his life and the woman that had all but given him life?
Eric didn’t give him much time to make up his mind. “Tick tock, motherfucker.”
Chris swallowed the emotions that sought to overwhelm him. If he could handle the astral plane, he could handle this. Dean wasn’t far behind them. He’d ride to the rescue. It was practically his favorite thing to do. Chris lingered, ears straining in an effort to pick up the sound of Dean’s Harley.
“What’s next?” he asked, promising himself that when he found Eric he’d break every bone in his body and then let Roger kill him.
“Keep walking,” Eric said. There was no missing the smug satisfaction in his voice. “You’ll come across a blue Jeep. Key’s under the mat.”
Chris hung up and walked away from the scene. Doubt dogged his steps at first. Joey was going to be pissed. Hell, the last words they’d exchanged had been angry ones. How had he let that happen? Fighting with her was only fun when they had a chance to make up.
As he trudged along, he told himself that Joey would be okay. That she’d understand. That she’d want him to go after Adelaide. He repeated these things, over and over, until he almost believed them.
After about half an hour of walking, he came upon the Jeep Eric had mentioned. The key was right where he said it’d be. Chris climbed in and started the engine, trying not to think about what he was leaving behind. Joey. Dean. Roger. From now on, there was no safety net. He was on his own.
It’d been a while since Chris had driven a standard transmission, but he got the Jeep moving with minimal fuss. The phone rang about twenty miles down the road. Chris fumbled with it one-handed, nearly dropping it twice before he managed to answer.
“There’s a turnoff for a campground coming up. Turn there, but go past the campground. Stay on the maintenance road. It’s a rough ride, so hold on to your nuts. You’ll know when to stop.”
Maybe Chris was actually getting close to the end of this road trip from hell. He spent the next ten miles trying to figure out some sort of strategy. Maybe he could pull off the maintenance road and scout on foot a bit before making that last leg. He didn’t like not knowing what he was going into, but he also didn’t want Eric to hurt his mom any more than he already had. Scouting on the astral plane would be faster, but came with its own risks. However, it also had its benefits, like possibly being able to talk to Roger. If the ghost was still in range, he could find out if Joey was okay.
It was the opportunity to reach out to Roger that made up Chris’s mind, in the end. After turning onto the campground access road, he pulled off and parked on the side of the road, tilted his seat back, and closed his eyes. A familiar wave of anxiety over leaving his body unattended washed over him. He drummed his fingers against his leg, then remembered he still had Cathy’s charm. Removing the envelope from his pocket, he shook the necklace into his hand and put it on, tucking it beneath his shirt so the copper medallion was in direct contact with his skin. With that done, he closed his eyes, willed himself to relax, and crossed over to the astral plane.
Even expecting the flood of emotions, their intensity quickly overwhelmed him. Chris staggered and fell to his knees. He hadn’t realized just how afraid he was of losing his mother, Joey, or both, until then. Twined with it was the guilt of leaving Joey behind, of getting them both into this mess in the first place, not to mention the anger Eric’s actions had provoked.
No, not anger. Rage. Sheer, unadulterated rage.
The intensity of the warring emotions nearly drove him right back into his body, but he firmed his resolve and pushed it all aside. He needed to do this. Lives depended on him, and he didn’t have many tools left in his arsenal that would give him an advantage.
Once he had control, he stood once more and looked around at the landscape gone gray.
Speaking of tools in my arsenal…
“Roger?” There was no answer. A fresh surge of worry rose to the surface of the swirling mass of emotions inside Chris, but he did his best to push it aside and zipped up the maintenance road.
Chris had no real sense of time or distance in this place, but he encountered the felled tree across the road in short order. But looking around it, he didn’t see any indication of what he should do from there. There was no sign, no obvious trail leading away from the road, no arrows etched in tree trunks, nothing but the thick tree trunk conveying an obvious “stop” message
.
Frustration tested the limits of his control. He counted to ten, then tried to zero in on Adelaide and Eric again, to no avail.
Not wanting to spend too much time away from the phone, Chris scouted the immediate area quickly before returning to his body. In a rush, he leapt the last few feet, but the dive didn’t end as intended. Rather than plunging back into his body, he collided with it.
Recoiling, Chris blinked in confusion, then alarm. The last time he hadn’t been able to get into a body, it’d been possessed. But his body was right where he left it, reclining in the seat, eyes closed. A terrible realization slowly dawned.
Oh god, it’s the charm. It’s keeping me out.
He touched his chest, watching as a ripple of energy blossomed beneath his intangible fingers. It held even when he pressed, flexing slightly but not giving. When he pressed hard enough, it rebounded, pushing his hand away.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. How the hell did it let me leave, but not let me back in?
Chris rubbed his temples. What could he do? He’d had some success affecting the physical world from the astral plane in the past, but he didn’t have enough finesse to remove the charm, if it’d even let him.
Maybe if I dislodge my body so the charm breaks contact with my skin…
Before he could decide whether that was a good plan, a familiar sound sent a jolt of alarm through him. If he had blood at that moment, it would’ve run cold.
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.
