Mercury Retrograde

by Laura Bickle

  Her dreams were disjointed. Snakes slithered over Phil and Meg, who lay motionless on the ground in Tyvek suits. She felt Mike’s disapproving glare on her, and heard her father humming the theme to Hawaii 5-­0 in the background. She thought she heard Cal’s voice somewhere in the dreamscape, but she couldn’t find him, no matter how hard she looked in the forest. A raven perched on her shoulder, plucking at her hair with his beak. Bits of chemistry leaked into her dream, formulas of acids and bases and things that fizzled and burned.

  When she awoke, afternoon sun streamed in through Maria’s lace curtains. Petra rolled over and contemplated going back to sleep. It was tempting to remain here, in this cocoon of calico cotton, for a few more minutes. She felt safe. Which was a rare thing, these days.

  But safety was an illusion. She forced herself to roll out of bed and pad out to the living room.

  Frankie was stretched out on the couch, and Sig lay on top of him. “Good morning, Sunshine.” Sig wagged his tail, pounding the colorful afghans on the back of the couch.

  Maria handed Petra a cup of coffee. “Feel better?”

  “Yes. Much.” She drank the coffee greedily. “Can I borrow a pencil and paper?”

  “Sure thing.” Maria dug a notebook and a pencil out of the stack of phone books beside the refrigerator. “I called Mike and let him know that you’re here. I didn’t tell him anything else.”

  “Thanks. He’d just . . . overreact.”

  “He does that. But don’t worry about him. He’s a big boy.”

  Petra sat down at the kitchen table and began to scribble.

  “Whatcha working on?” Frankie asked.

  “A grocery list. Of stuff I’ll need to fight the basilisk.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  FIRE

  Preparing to fight the basilisk involved a lot of beer and hair spray.

  Maria drove Petra, Sig, and Frankie to the hardware store in Temperance. Petra muttered to herself as she traveled up and down the dusty aisles, filling the countertop with a nonsensical collection of items: drain cleaner, copper pipe, a pipe cutter, aluminum dryer vent, aluminum foil tape, PVC pipe and fittings, pipe cement, a handful of bolts, duct tape, a barbecue ignitor, a welder’s blanket, gloves, and helmet, tin snips, a hacksaw, drill, and a massive roll of pink fiberglass insulation. The hardware store clerk, to his credit, made no comment as she checked out. She stopped across the street to pick up some aluminum foil, hair spray, a pair of latex dish gloves, a disposable cell phone, and four six packs of locally-­brewed beer in glass bottles with screw-­on caps from Bear’s shop.

  “That looks like one heck of a party,” Bear remarked.

  “Yeah. It’s gonna be.” She sighed.

  “I should warn you. That beer really sucks.” He held one bottle up to the light. There was sediment drifting in the sludge.

  “It’s okay. Really.”

  “Your bad party is all on you, then.”

  They hauled all the gear back to Petra’s trailer.

  “I’ve never seen hair spray in your possession.” Maria picked up a bottle of Aqua Net from Petra’s bags and stared at it with suspicion.

  “First time for everything.”

  “What can we do to help?”

  “Actually, I need those beer bottles emptied . . .”

  “Done,” Frankie said, hauling the six packs out to the front step.

  Petra spent the next hour sawing at the pipe, gluing adapters to create an area for the ignitor chamber at the end of the pipe, and drilling space for the ignitor in the chamber she created. She got the parts sealed together in a shape that vaguely resembled a cannon. Frankie had polished off several bottles of beer by the time she was ready for a glass bottle.

  “What is it?” Maria asked.

  “It’s a potato cannon!” Frankie exclaimed.

  Petra grinned. “You bet. But we’re not shooting potatoes today.”

  She went outside the trailer, popped the bottle into the end of the cannon. It fit snugly, and didn’t fall out when she turned the pipe upside down. She sprayed the hair spray into the chamber end of the cannon for a ­couple of seconds, and screwed the pipe cap on. She aimed the cannon at a clump of sagebrush about fifty yards away, and pulled the ignitor.

  The cannon erupted in a flash of fire and launched the bottle in the air. Behind her, Maria and Frankie whooped in victory. The bottle overshot the clump of sage, and she prepped the cannon to try again, holding it at an angle. Frankie was only too happy to oblige by draining the beer bottles for her to try, and she experimented with bottles full of water, figuring out that the device had a decently reliable range of about seventy-­five yards. But closer was better.

  “So you’re going to shoot the snake with beer?” Frankie asked. “That works for me.”

  “Nah. I’ve got something more interesting in mind for the snake.” She took the cannon back into the trailer, donned the pink latex gloves she’d picked up from Bear’s store, and began to measure out the drain cleaner into the empty bottles over the kitchen sink. She sealed them with the screw-­on caps, shaking them and holding them upside down to make sure that they wouldn’t leak.

  Maria opened her windows to let the trailer air out. “Drain cleaner is a nasty surprise.”

  “The lye in it should neutralize some of the acid. At least, that’s what I’m hoping. And the glass bottles should be impervious to both the acid and the lye base.”

  Maria busied herself with cleaning and loading Petra’s guns, sitting on the steps outside the trailer with a gun cleaning kit she’d brought. She’d also brought her shotgun to leave with Petra, properly accessorized with two boxes of shells.

  “Just in case it gets closer than cannon range,” she said.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  As the sun lowered on the horizon, Maria made a sandwich run, and the three of them sat at Petra’s table, eating sandwiches from Bear’s deli. There had been a curious quietude to the afternoon as they made the preparations.

  “We could go with you,” Maria suggested as she fed pieces of salami to Sig.

  “No. You guys should go home. This could go awfully bad, awfully fast.” Petra smiled over her sandwich crust. “And besides, I need somebody to run interference with Mike. He’s not going to be happy when he figures out that I’m not here.”

  “He’s not your dad. You don’t need his permission.”

  “Yeah, well. I hate lying to him.”

  “And I wouldn’t ordinarily advise it. But . . . this is something that you’ve got to do. You and Gabe.”

  Frankie snorted. “You can’t trust them. They’re Sal’s men. They’ll protect their own interests, and they’ll protect him.”

  Petra placed her hand on his. “I know what I’m dealing with, Frankie.”

  But she sounded a lot more certain than she felt.

  Sal’s anger was a palpable thing, like a shimmering humidity before a storm broke.

  Gabe knew that he was furious when Petra left with Hollander. The deputies departed shortly afterward, and Sal took that opportunity to take some potshots at Gabe’s raven with his rifle. Sal’s aim was terrible, and the raven escaped unscathed.

  Gabe’s strategy was avoidance. He had enough to do to prepare to fight the basilisk without worrying about Sal’s tantrums. He and the rest of the Hanged Men kept a wide berth, readying their gear, cleaning their guns, and casting glances at the house.

  The Hanged Men were not happy with Gabe, either. They spoke little enough at the best of times, but the silence now was deafening. They knew that he’d given the blood of the basilisk to Petra, and not the Lunaria. And certainly not Sal. He’d put them all in jeopardy by placing them in the line of fire once again. It felt like betrayal.

  And he wasn’t sorry for it. Not for an instant. The memory of Petra had been brought back to him, and he would not los
e her again. In all the years that he’d been dead, he’d felt a gradual dulling of sensation, an erosion of emotion as time passed over him. It had worn away the sharp edges of feeling and left a smooth black stone in his chest.

  But she made him feel something—­more alive. He felt the churning of possibility. His blood quickened, and he had wanted nothing more than to linger with her in the Stella Camera. If there had been no time, no pain, no future of best-­laid plans—­he would have given anything to stay in that place. He wanted to memorize the pattern of freckles on her body, to feel the warmth of her mouth on his, to taste the salt on her shoulder.

  She was ordinary. She was miraculous.

  And he would sacrifice anything for her. The simmering resentment of the Hanged Men, Sal’s wrath . . . it was all nothing in light of seeing her open her eyes in the dark. If she walked away forever, washed her hands of all the filthy business of the undead, it still would have been worth it for that one night of her dozing against his shoulder. He had not felt this way about any other woman, not even Jelena.

  The decision was made, and he would make it work. He’d save the Lunaria, and he’d figure out some way to placate Sal afterward.

  But Sal had other ideas.

  In the afternoon, Sal’s shiny pickup truck came barreling down the drive from the house. It plunged into the fields and jounced over ruts, splashing mud and breaking a fence post. Seeing him from a distance, Gabe first thought that Sal must have finally had a stroke, but his head was upright in the rear window of the truck, and he kept driving. He didn’t stop for the Hanged Men, just went barreling past. Driving west.

  A chill trickled down Gabe’s spine, and he began to run.

  The other Hanged Man sensed his disquiet. Ravens exploded overhead, heading to the Lunaria.

  But Sal was already there. He had limped outside the truck with a cane and was pouring a can of gasoline over the trunk of the tree. The vapors shimmered in the afternoon sun, a warning of his invisible malice.

  The ravens flooded to the tree, screaming.

  Sal turned to look at them, murder on his face. He struck a match and tossed it at the roots of the Lunaria.

  Flames blossomed, spiraling up the trunk. The birds that meant to roost in the tree flew past, cawing in a deafening cacophony of panic.

  “Get some water!” Gabe shouted at the Hanged Men. Most fluttered back to the barn as birds to find feed buckets and anything that would hold water from the faraway siphon. The few that remained as men took off their coats to try to beat out the fire.

  But it was going to be too late. That much was clear. The flames licked up the brittle tree, chewing through the leaves and branches. The fire roared, sparks pushed in the wind, black smoke blowing back over the grass, dripping fiery leaves.

  Sal leaned heavily against the bumper of the truck, looking pleased with himself. He had had the same expression when he was a child, frying anthills with a magnifying glass. He’d never changed.

  Gabe’s hands balled into fists. He advanced upon Sal, grabbed his flannel lapels in his fists and shook him. “Why did you do that? Why?” he snarled.

  Sal leveled him with the most evil look a human face could countenance. “You found the basilisk. You found its blood—­and you gave it to that woman.”

  Gabe cocked his head. How could Sal have known? He glanced over his shoulder at his fellow Hanged Men, and a ­couple looked away. Sal had extracted the information from them. Or else, one of them had told him outright.

  “That blood was promised to me. And you’re going to suffer for it.”

  The field was burning now, the seed tassels of the grasses popping and sparking. This fire could spread, could cause so much more damage than just to the Lunaria.

  Gabe hissed at him: “There is more blood. The snake is still out there.”

  Sal shrugged. “You boys forgot to follow orders. Now, maybe you’ll follow ’em. For whatever short time you have left. I have your complete attention now. Don’t I?” He cocked his sallow head.

  Gabe hauled off and slugged him. Sal sprawled against the immaculately-­washed hood of his truck, spitting blood against the shiny paint. Gabe picked the rancher up and threw him on the ground, twenty feet away from the truck, in the path of the fire. Sal struggled to get up, but couldn’t do more than drag himself on his elbows.

  Gabe reached inside the pickup to find the keys, and pocketed them. If Sal was going to get back to the house, he’d have to do it on his hands and knees, if the fire didn’t claim him first.

  The tree was sobbing. He turned.

  A soft wind echoed through its branches as they crisped to ash. It was a sound of such sorrow that tears flickered in Gabe’s eyes.

  The tree was magnificent, still, even in its death. It sighed until all the leaves blackened and curled away, until the fine branches were consumed in smoke, flames licking over the lower branches from which more than a dozen men had been hanged.

  By the time the Hanged Men returned with water to douse the fire, the tree was a black husk, part of a trunk and just a few main branches. They’d pumped water into buckets and cattle troughs, dumping it on the fire. But it had to burn itself out, these crooked singed black fingers reaching toward the sky.

  Sal was crawling in the field toward home, determined to make it back to his log castle, even if he couldn’t drive there.

  Gabe’s shadow stretched over him. Fury had risen in his chest, settling in his throat. “You had no right.”

  “It’s my land,” he gasped. “My tree.”

  Gabe considered beating him to death, stomping him to bits and burying him in a shallow grave that no one would ever find. He toyed with the idea of burning him, letting him die in sympathy with the tree.

  “There’s no point in letting him live,” one of the Hanged Men, Mitchell, asserted. “There’s no tree.”

  “Do with him as you wish.” Gabe said. The image of the smoking tree had hit him too hard; he was tired of dickering with the old despot about which rules he’d failed to follow. If Sal died, another of the Rutherford clan would take over. Could be worse. Could be better. But they wouldn’t be alive to see it, not without the tree.

  The Hanged Men grabbed Sal and a length of rope, making ready to hang Sal on the last solid branch that remained. Sal kicked and howled and ranted about how he was king of his ranch, and the cops would be down on them like fleas on a dog, but no one answered him.

  They strung the noose up, the rope sizzling against the tree. Mitchell jammed Sal’s head into the noose and pulled. Sal coughed and sputtered, his eyes and tongue bulging while his feet kicked out into space.

  “All of us were hanged by this tree, Sal. All of us.” Gabe walked around him, wanting to etch his misery into his brain. “But you will be the only one hanged here who will have truly died. Now that the tree is dead, you’ll be dropped straight into the hell of your own making.”

  Sal didn’t go quickly. He thrashed and tried to get his fingers underneath the noose. Then Mitchell made a sharp jerk with his supernatural strength, and Sal’s neck finally broke. It was probably a kindness that Sal didn’t deserve. But they all remembered their own hangings.

  “What now, boss?” Mitchell asked him.

  “Leave him. We still have one more night to live . . . and the snake to reckon with. Let’s make the most of it.”

  They packed their gear, took Sal’s shiny new truck, and headed down the road.

  Not one bothered to cut Sal down from the tree or douse the small fires in the field. The tree was dead. Sal was dead.

  All that was left was the snake and whatever life remained in their bodies until they wound down and died.

  Petra sat on the steps of the trailer, waiting.

  Frankie and Maria, satisfied that she was as prepared as Temperance’s meager resources allowed, had left. Sig had found a yellow finch feather stuck to the
barbecue, and Maria was determined to braid it into Petra’s hair. Some kind of omen or talisman for luck—­Petra hadn’t really been listening, focusing on how to best cut the fiberglass insulation with the bread knife that she’d found in the kitchen drawer.

  But she was ready now.

  She was surrounded by all of the gear she’d assembled: bottles of lye tucked back into the cardboard beer containers, the potato cannon leaning up against the dented skin of the Airstream, and the fiberglass insulation stuffed into a plastic garbage bag. A collection of spears constructed from copper pipe, filed to sharp angles at the edges, was tied in a bundle beside her. She’d stuffed the ends with cotton, hoping that a lucky scratch could collect more of the basilisk’s blood.

  Sig sat beside her, watching the sky darken and the first pinpricks of stars glowing in the ceiling of the night. She rubbed the soft fur of his back, marveling at how it had changed from the coarse fur of a wild animal to the silky coat of a domestic one. The color was still the same—­gold ticked with black and grey—­but he felt different. He felt different under the fur, too. He had developed a satisfying layer of fat over his ribs and had filled out around his neck. He’d grown a few inches, and he seemed so much more than a pile of legs.

  She wondered if she had changed that much. She glanced down at the scars on the insides of her arms. She felt different, inside and out. She’d moved beyond the loss of Des, and come to some understanding of the loss of her father. She understood why he’d done what he’d done: He’d gone looking for magic to cure his illness. As a teenager, she’d never have forgiven him for that. As an adult, she found that she could.

  And then there was Gabe. He had given up the future of the Lunaria, and the future of the Hanged Men, for her. She felt unworthy. And she felt responsible for them, the way she’d felt responsible for Des. She couldn’t let it turn out the way it had for Des: in flames and death.

  And more than that, if she truly admitted it to herself—­she loved him. It wasn’t the kind of love she’d had for Des, or for other men in her past. This was different. It was more than fascination, than curiosity. It was a trust, a faith that he was so much more unbreakable than Des. And an admiration for how he’d held on to his humanity for all this time. She wasn’t a woman who fell often, but she knew the feeling of the ground when she hit it.