by Catie Rhodes
“Y’all cut it. I’m better now. Let’s get back on the clock.” I held up Nineteenth Century Spiritualists of America. “Neecie’s ghost said the Coachman’s secret is in this book.”
“Good idea.” Griff pulled over in the next gas station and turned off the SUV’s engine. I leafed through the book, not sure what I was looking for, until I saw a familiar face. It was a picture of the Coachman. I held up the book for my friends to see.
“This is him.” I turned the book back where I could see it and read aloud. “‘A more interesting case of obsession is that of Oscar E. Rivera, a native of Houston, Texas. Rivera enjoyed success leading séances for the Houston rich but became obsessed with an ancient immortality rite he discovered. Rivera took on the name Lord of Babylon and left Houston in 1870 seeking an underground river he believed would connect him to the underworld. He never returned.”
My cellphone picked that moment to blare out my stupid ringtone. Fear charged though my body and made two or three laps before I realized what the noise was and took the offending instrument out of my pocket. I answered.
“Papaw?” If Cecil liked being called Papaw, I’d do it. Having him like me felt good. “What’s going on?” I felt too funky to make small talk.
“What’s wrong, child? You sick?” Highway sounds drifted through Cecil’s end of the call.
“Nothing a little rest won’t fix.” Would it? Might not. Every time this dude got into my magical dance space, he put a bigger hurt on me. Next time, I probably wouldn’t have the strength to fight.
“Tell me what’s going on when we meet up.” Cecil paused as though I should know exactly what he meant.
I frowned. Had I agreed to meet Cecil today? I couldn’t remember. My brain limped along in last place.
“The family storage unit.” He said the words slowly, as though he needed to make extra sure I understood. “To find the runes Samantha stole? And maybe that disk?”
Ah, yes. Those. “Hold on just a second.” I took my phone away from my ear, muted it where Cecil couldn’t hear our conversation, and told Griff the gist of the call.
“I’ll give you a ride.” Griff barely glanced at me in the rearview.
I un-muted the conversation. “I’ll be there.”
Cecil rattled off an address and told me he’d be waiting on me.
The storage units sat on a busy highway one mile off I-45. As promised, Cecil waited in the parking lot next to the office. When he saw us, he started up his truck and led us through the complex. He stopped in front of a row of larger units.
I got out of the SUV and met him where he was already fumbling with a rusted padlock. Cecil stopped what he was doing and hugged me. I surprised myself by hugging him back.
“I’ve got another matter I want to discuss with you today. It’s about Sanctuary. Don’t let me forget.” He stared at me, something brewing in the dark depths of his eyes. I bet I didn’t want to know what he had to say.
“Then we’re even. I’ve got a matter to discuss with you. You were already in bed by the time we finished scanning the spell.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I am sorry about that. If I were even twenty years younger, I think it would help. What’s up?”
I told him about the familiar voice in the vision where I saw the Coachman summoned and the way Mysti recognized the magical signature as something she felt in the camp. “So you’ve got a traitor in your midst.” I expected shock followed by outrage.
Instead, Cecil squinted and nodded, dark eyes moving back and forth. “Let’s keep this between us for now. If Finn and Dillon get wind of it, they’ll go on a skull-cracking crusade. The rat’ll go underground.”
“How are Finn and Dillon?” I took the keys from him and worked the lock.
“Devastated. Hysterical.” Cecil shook his head. “They’ve given up hope, I think.” He glanced at the SUV. His mouth thinned into an angry slash when he spotted Griff.
Somewhere, very distant, Zora began to cry. It kicked a little of the fog out of my head. “Well, I haven’t given up.” Wade joined us and helped me roll up the sliding door.
“Holy shit.” Wade surveyed the stacks of boxes in front of us, a sick expression on his face. I felt the same way. We’d never be able to find the right box. Many of them had no more label than a year or a single name. There was no way Cecil knew what was in each one. I groaned. This would be almost as easy as slipping a haystack through the eye of a needle.
Cecil spoke to Wade. “Son, can you make a path to the back?”
Wade made a face but obeyed, moving the boxes as though they weighed nothing.
Cecil surveyed the boxes with an almost wistful expression on his face. He caught me watching and huffed a short laugh. “My whole life’s in here. Everything that has ever been important to me is packed up in this depressing little room.”
I nodded. Everything I’d once had was ash. All the pictures, the mementos, even Memaw’s beautiful furniture. Burned down by people who hated me for being what I was. Maybe the boxes weren't so bad.
“As you get older, your life gets smaller instead of bigger.” Cecil stood very close and spoke into my ear. “You see things you love and believe in change, and you’re too old to stop it happening.”
Was Cecil talking about Kenny, about maybe handing over leadership of his community to him? There was no way I’d ask. Despite the time I’d spent with Cecil over the past few days, he still felt like a stranger. He probably always would. We met too late.
“Family is priority. Protect them above all else. That’s the way my momma and daddy taught me.” He put his arm around me. “We can’t allow an outsider to lead Sanctuary.”
So he was talking about Kenny. I shifted in his embrace to stare into his face but still said nothing. Whatever he saw made a smile spread on his face.
“What would you do about Kenny, Leticia’s granddaughter?” he whispered. “I see something in you, something neither Finn nor Dillon have, something Jadine’s too young and inexperienced to understand.”
Still I said nothing. I thought I’d fight Kenny to the last breath in my body, not just to save my family’s legacy but to show him I don’t eat anybody’s shit. Cecil’s smile grew. He patted my arm and let me go. “I think you’ll do.”
Do for what? I opened my mouth to ask, but Wade called to us from across the room.
“Mr. Gregg? Gregson?” He shrugged. “What do you think of this?” Wade had made a narrow trail through the boxes, piling the ones he took out in front of the unit.
“I think you should call me Cecil, for one thing.” Cecil headed into the forest of boxes and motioned me to follow.
I clicked on my flashlight and shined it on boxes. As the boxes grew deeper, the writing got more faded. The quality of the cardboard changed. It went from thin and flimsy to thick and sometimes waxy. At the back, Wade had widened the walkway to go to both sides of the room. He’d left behind a row of a wooden boxes.
“Let’s see what’s in here.” Cecil pointed at the first one.
I knelt and wrestled off the top. Footsteps gritted behind me. Griff and Mysti approached, curious expressions on their faces. Inside the box lay a folded military uniform. A tarnished silver lighter, engraved with flowers, lay on top of that.
“Those are from my time in the Army.” Cecil picked up the lighter and turned it over in his hand, pensiveness darkening his eyes. “I bought this in Japan.” He handed it to me. “I want you to have it.” Cecil took my arm again. He leaned close to speak into my ear. “I could let you turn Kenny into a toad.”
I shrugged. His insistence on pulling me into Sanctuary puzzled me. I didn’t think I had what it took to help him.
“What do you think?” He put his arm around me again. “Talk to me.”
I searched my mind. Cecil’s idea could result in a civil war of sorts if Kenny and his group decided to take over using force. My knee-jerk solution was to scare Kenny to the point he was afraid to retaliate. It sounded harsh, even
in my thoughts. I didn’t want to speak it aloud and fixed my gaze on the military uniform.
The black opal warmed on my chest, and the flapping of wings came from behind me. I turned but did not see Orev. The sound of flapping wings came again. This time, I recognized it as being inside my head. My hand moved on its own, plunging into the crate and rummaging around.
I drew out a single black feather. The beating of wings grew louder inside my head, and I pushed the military uniform aside to find a bag made out of an old quilt lying underneath it.
“How did Samantha’s special bag get in here?” Cecil leaned on me. He was getting tired. I remembered Memaw like this after she got sick.
Just how sick was my uncle? Was he pressing me to be his right hand, and presumably assume a leadership position of Sanctuary, just because he couldn’t find anybody better? My jumbled thoughts wound up for another pitch, but I cut them off. I couldn’t give in to brain melt. I had to focus on the contents of this bag and worry about Cecil’s intentions later.
I took one deep breath to center myself and pulled on my mantle for strength. “What was Samantha’s special bag?”
“I never rightly knew. She wouldn’t let any of us touch it. I just know that bag wasn’t here the last time I found my Army uniform. Which was around the time Finn and Dillon got married a few years ago. Dillon wanted to wear my first wife’s wedding dress.” Cecil tugged at a box near his legs and finally motioned to Wade. “Son, will you get this where I can sit on it? This concrete and my wore out old feet are having a pissing match.” Wade did as asked, and Cecil sat down with a grunt.
Griff watched from a safe distance, his arms crossed over his chest, the usual scowl he reserved for Cecil set on his face.
“Mr. Reed, we don’t have to be enemies, you know.” Cecil raised his eyebrows at Griff, who shrugged. “We both care for Peri Jean, albeit in different ways. I know you believe I did your daddy wrong, and maybe I did, but perhaps you’ll give me another chance since we’re stuck working together anyway.”
Griff took in Cecil’s speech with a frown. Mysti spoke his name, and he jumped as though startled. He turned to her. She gave him a pointed glare. He nodded at Cecil and came closer.
“I last saw the bag Peri Jean holds the day before Samantha died.” Cecil reached out to finger the bag. “She was packing to go see a friend of hers in Nacogdoches. Of course, she was so senile by then she couldn’t go anywhere. The next day, she died, and the bag was gone. Mama and Fern both thought the other had taken it. If Samantha had the runes and the disk at the time of her death, they would have been in here.”
From the outside, the bag looked empty, but I felt many items rattling around inside it. The first one I pulled out was a black, fabric book. Written in a spidery hand were spells, not unlike the ones in the grimoire I inherited from Priscilla Herrera.
I read a few. Most were simple and light. Love spells. Good health spells. A potion to clear a sore throat and another to make chicken pox go away. A little zing worked its way into my fingertips reading the last one. It would work for me, I bet.
I held out the book for Mysti to examine. She tentatively touched it with one finger to see if it had the same spell on it as my book of shadows, which didn’t like anyone other than me trying to use it. It did nothing, and she took it from me and began turning pages.
I dipped my hand into the bag and rooted around. This time, it closed on a hard object wrapped in fabric. I had a pretty durn good idea what it was before I drew it out. “It’s the disk.”
As I’d seen in the vision where Samantha got the Coachman killed, the disk was about the size of a tea saucer. I tried cupping it in one hand and unwrapping it with the other, but almost dropped it. Cecil leaned over and pulled the ribbon holding the fabric together. The fabric fell away. He grunted and made a face.
“It’s not the same one we saw in the vision.” He was right. The disk, a tarnished brass, was smooth and blank as it could be. The one Samantha used in the vision had shapes etched in the metal.
Mysti reached out for it, and Cecil handed it over. She rolled it around in her hands. A frown creased her brow. “But it’s magic.” She held it out to me.
I took the disk, and my black opal jumped against my chest and heated faster than usual. I yelped. “Maybe she was getting ready to make a new one?”
Mysti shook her head. I could see the answer on her face. She didn’t know how to do that and wouldn’t be able to direct me.
I set the disk aside and rooted around in the bag again until I came up with a black pouch with a drawstring tie. I opened it, expecting to see the tiles Samantha and Samuel took from the Coachman’s house of horrors. I recoiled. “Ugh. A bone.”
Wade leaned forward and made a face, but Cecil smiled. “That’s a black cat bone. Belonged to my great-uncle Samuel. He carried it gambling.”
“Did it help?” The bone transferred a slight hum of magic into my fingers.
Cecil laughed. “I think not. He lost more than he won.”
I reached into the bag again and came up empty. Wherever the tiles ended up, they weren’t here. “That’s it.”
“We’ll figure out something else,” Mysti said. She glanced at Griff, but he was staring into the crate.
“What is that?” Griff leaned around me.
I turned to see what he meant. Just looked like some old metal junk to me.
Cecil spoke up. “It’s antique spurs. As a boy, I found them near the old schoolhouse. Samantha lived nearby, and us kids explored everything. There was part of a barn, half of it had burned—” Cecil’s face darkened as he realized the implications of what he’d just said. As a boy, he’d played on the ruins of Blessed Union, the African-American community who’d known the Coachman for what he was.
Griff reached past me, grabbed one of the spurs, held it upright. Now I saw where the leather strap would have gone. Griff’s hand began to shake, and the shiver spread through his whole body. One tear streaked down his cheek.
“These were mine,” he muttered. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped to the floor. Wade rushed forward and kept him from cracking his skull.
I LEANED over Griff and drew in a sharp breath. His eyes had rolled up to show only whites. I grabbed his shoulders and shook him hard. “Griff! Come on. Wake up.” The smell of smoke wreathed us, its stench parching my throat.
Mysti pushed me away. She went through a similar routine. She ran her hands over Griff’s face. “He’s burning up. Like a fever.” Eyes bugged out and full of fear, she stared at me. “What do I do?” Her mouth trembled.
“I don’t know,” I muttered and glanced at Wade for help.
“There’s nothing wrong with his body.” Wade shrugged. I can’t fix it, the shrug said.
Griff’s clothes began to smoke. I had to do something. Griff always went out of his way to help me. I couldn’t let him or Mysti down.
I put both hands on his chest and closed my eyes. The black opal wouldn’t even give me a ping, but I forced my mind into the place where all my bad memories hid and saw the white mist of the mantle floating on top of the scar tissue. I pushed myself into the mist, down into the depths of Priscilla Herrera’s mantle, now mine. The power rushed on me like liquid fire. It bathed me with light and power. I opened myself and sought Griff’s mind.
Everything faded to black, and I shot down a tunnel with a light at the end. In those stories about people dying, they always talked about going into the light. What if I was killing myself and maybe Griff too? I didn’t have a choice. I had to risk myself for him. What kind of friend was I if I didn’t? I pushed myself toward the light, fear filling my throat, and passed into the light.
Acrid smoke shot down into my lungs. I gagged on the sour taste of it and forced open my eyes. Smoke stung them, and a tear tracked down my face. Horror at what I saw threatened my hold on sanity.
I stood in the middle of a burning village of ramshackle wood buildings. People ran every which way, wide-eyed and yelling
in fear, sweat running down their dark skin. I searched for Griff. A hand curled around my upper arm. I spun to face whoever had a grip on me. A scream erupted out of my mouth before I thought better of it.
The Coachman stood in front of me, stinking of kerosene, and grinning like a madman. “You’ll die here with them. Only thing is, your body won’t die, and I’ll have you. That way I can bleed you out, use those precious last drops to be reborn in that little girl.”
A fist flew over my shoulder and slammed into the Coachman. He disappeared into dozens of tiny pieces. Wade Hill, red-faced and gasping for air winked at me. “Fuck him. Know what I mean?”
“How did you get here?” I gingerly sipped the caustic air, careful not to send myself into a coughing fit. If I started coughing, I didn’t think I’d be able to stop.
“You think you’re the only one who can learn new tricks?” Wade’s grin closed the conversation. He wasn’t going to tell me more, not even if I begged.
Flames roared around us, punctuated by the screams of people trying to escape. A familiar voice rose above them, screaming in fear.
Griff. Where is he? I took off walking toward the sound of Griff’s terror, Wade following me. He pointed at a barn with boards nailed over the doors. Fire blazed from the roof.
I ran to the structure and tried pulling the boards off the door. The heat burned my hands, and I had to jerk them away. Wade tried but found he couldn’t stand the pain any better than I could. We stared at each other, panting.
If what the monster said was true, Griff’s spirit could die here. Mine and Wade’s spirits could die here. We had to get out. Urgency beat at me, but my mind was going the speed of a ball rolling uphill. I clapped my sore hands over my face. It couldn’t end like this. I dropped my hands and glanced around. An axe leaned against the wall of the shack next door. I ran over to get it.
I grabbed the axe and slammed it into the door, expecting to break it down. The axe bounded back and nearly whopped me in the face. Probably would have if Wade hadn’t grabbed it.
