by Bryan Fields
This time the engine roared to life, settling down to a steady rumble, that old-school V8 heavy metal thunder pounding away in the middle of your chest. Boo backed the car out, parking in front of the office and leaving the engine running. “So, okay, what are you going to do about a license plate?”
“Have your cousin Harold sell us this car,” I said. “Which you gave to him on consignment.”
Boo rubbed his chin, thinking the idea through. “Yeah, that works. Give me a minute and I’ll drive us over there.”
We said our goodbyes and stowed the wooden parts of the spear in the trunk. The spear tip went in the concealed space in the passenger seat.
The mile or so to Harold’s car lot revealed two things. First, almost no one noticed the car, including people at fast-food drive ups; and second, we forgot to recharge the air conditioning. Oh, and third—there is no shade in a bubble-top car. It’s a rolling greenhouse. Leave the canopy back, and the rear portion of the bubble top becomes an air dam, creating an insane vortex of scorching air.
Thankfully, we could fix the air conditioner. While Cousin Harold filled out the paperwork, Boo recharged the air conditioner and I sat on the phone trying to convince our bank to wire ten grand to the bank Boo used. I finally gave up and put the car on my credit card.
At long last, armed with a valid temporary tag and a stack of paperwork, we drove back to the parts yard to drop Boudreaux off.
He patted the side of the car, shaking his head. “I know you got a thing to do and all that, but this car is my family history. When you’re done, just bring it back. You can have your money back and Harold can just put it down as a return. I figure you can buy any car you want, but there’s only one that belonged to Granfer Vic. Deal?”
“What about the three million you asked for?”
He sighed. “You couldn’t get ten grand from your bank. Don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t see anything says you got that kind of cash. Maybe you do, maybe I’m wrong, but…honestly, I think it’ll rain Vegas showgirls before I see that kind of money.”
I started to reassure him it wouldn’t be as long as that, but a thundercloud chose that exact moment to form right in front of the car. I looked skyward and shook my head. You were waiting for that exact statement, weren’t you? What would you have done if he’d asked about the Spanish Inquisition?
A petite woman with the overdeveloped muscles of a power-lifter walked out of the storm. I wouldn’t say she was beautiful, but she was handsome, with a fierce expression, like a boxer waiting for the bell to ring. She looked native African, with dark black skin and close-cropped hair. For clothes, she had a large square piece of fur wrapped around her waist and a long furry strip bound across her chest. Her waist wrap had three gold buttons along one edge, pretty much confirming my impression that she’d simply torn a fur coat into something more to her liking.
She stomped up to Rose and gave her a short bow. “I have been looking for you,” she said. “I’ve been calling out, seeking you for weeks now. I know your mother told you I wanted to talk. Why have you been running from me?”
I murmured, “She’s your ‘unfinished business?”
I sensed shame, embarrassment, and a deep well of anger and betrayal from Rose. The anger didn’t last, but the shame and embarrassment only deepened. She folded her arms across her chest and asked, “Why have you been looking for me?”
“Forgiveness. I…” The woman looked around and said, “Could we speak privately?”
Rose looked down. “I’m not ready for that just yet. Say what you need to say.”
The woman nodded. “So be it. I don’t care. I’ve lived with wanting to say this for so long. I apologize for what I said the last time we spoke. I never meant to upset you. I know it hasn’t been long for you, but it’s been almost sixty years for me. I had to find you, and to apologize. I am sorry, and I ask you to forgive me for speaking thoughtlessly.” She bowed her head and waited.
Rose looked up. “Fine. I accept your apology. Now, we have a lot of stuff to do, so if you’ll excuse us…”
“Just a minute,” Nadia said. “I’ve been wondering why I haven’t had any Dragonesses chasing me down since you put that marker on me, and now that one is here, I want to see if we have a chance to hit it off. You two can work out your issues later, but I’d like you to come with us. I want to talk to you and see if we’re compatible. What’s your name, anyway?”
“Her mother’s dice decided I would be called Erica. I didn’t like the names I was offered and my request for more examples was not granted.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Rose said. “I know her procedures. When you find a name to your liking, I’ll see to it you get a new set of papers. In the meantime, we need to go. Goodbye.”
Nadia snapped her fingers. The engine died, along with the car’s electrical power. “I said, I’d like Erica to come with us. Please.”
Rose stared at Erica and I felt the emotional dam give way inside her. “All right. Erica. You and Nadia can talk on the drive to Las Vegas. You and I will talk later. And…I am glad to see you again.”
“Glad that’s settled.” Nadia snapped her fingers again and the car started up.
Boo nudged me in the ribs. “Still want to drive to Las Vegas? You pretty outnumbered, fellah.”
“At this point, I’m committed. Or at least I should be.” I gave him a smile. “Still think you’d be happy with three million?”
“Only when I see it in my bank account. What I do want is the car back. You can keep the demon-killing spear. Got no need for it.” He shook my hand. “Have a safe trip.”
“Thank you, and thanks again for all your help. We couldn’t have done it without you.” As I said it, I felt like a knife was twisting in my stomach.
Right on cue, Nadia took Boudreaux’s hand and zapped him with Retcon. “Forget our names and faces. We were some obnoxious friends of your drunk brother, looking for parts for a ’76 Pinto. You sold us our parts and we left. That’s all you know. Now, go back to work, and in ten seconds you’ll feel perfectly normal.”
Boo nodded and started walking back to the office. I closed the canopy and drove off without looking back. Nadia darkened the glass in the canopy and the rear window with a wave of her hand. Shade and working air conditioning made the car far more enjoyable.
Nobody looked twice at us when we stopped for gas. I pumped and paid while the ladies hit the restroom. When they got back, I took my turn.
When I opened the restroom door, two scorpions scampered across the grungy tile floor and into the shelter of an occupied stall. I kept an eye on them, but they kept their distance. Maybe they were onto something; the noises and odor coming from the stall amounted to a damage shield. I stayed as far upwind as I could and gave the bugs a nod. Stay away from my boots, and I won’t use you for target practice. Deal?
They wiggled their pincers at me, but stayed put. I took it as an acceptance of my terms. I got through flushing and zipping without issue, but when I went to wash my hands, it wasn’t me in the mirror.
It was a screaming woman wearing the filthy, torn remains of a satin nightgown. Under her blood-matted hair, her face was gouged and bleeding from dozens of self-inflicted wounds. Her eyes were gone, just oozing sockets, but I could feel her gaze fix on me. “I see you,” she howled. “I see you, and I know your name!” Her voice dissolved into a shriek, and behind me, the guy in the stall started screaming as well.
I didn’t wait to see what was happening. I ran out the door and into the gas station. “Call 911! The guy in the toilet is having a heart attack or something!”
As I said it, the guy stumbled around the corner and slumped against the front window. His skin was blistering and falling off in huge chunks, while thick streams of blood and bowel oozed down his thighs and spattered on the ground behind him.
I shoved the cashier out of my way, sprinting for the car and shouting, “Marines—we are leaving.” I leaped over Rose and dropped into my seat. I redli
ned second gear getting out of the parking lot without putting my seatbelt on or waiting for an opening in the traffic.
The Don’t Get Involved spell was supposed to make people move away from us. I decided to test it. I ran it up to eighty and got into Highway 163’s center turn lane. A tour bus in the oncoming lane and two semis trying to turn squeezed to the side to make room for us. I pulled back to the right side of the road and whipped through the next red light at one-ten and accelerating. Two pickups and a mail truck slowed down just enough to miss us. I kept the hammer down, and we blew past a Tribal Police car sitting on the side of the road. The officer ignored us and kept eating.
I slowed down enough to make the turn onto US 160 without rolling us and yelled, “Nadia! Decontaminate us!” I didn’t know that she could, but you never know. Turned out she could. Her spell filled the car with an arctic blue light. I hoped it would be enough, assuming the guy in the bathroom died of something contagious.
Westbound 160 was clear for half a mile in each direction, so I slowed down long enough to close the canopy and fasten my seat belt. “Sorry for the rush—the demon bitch showed up in the bathroom mirror and gave some poor guy taking a dump a terminal case of Ebola or something. I just wanted to get out of there before we caught something.”
“What did she look like?” Nadia asked.
“Not what I expected. Nothing I’d call demonic. Long fingernails, with blood on her hands. No eyes. Just empty bloody sockets. She looked like she clawed up her face and tore out her own eyeballs. I’m also pretty sure demons don’t wear stained satin nightgowns.”
Nadia leaned back in her seat. “No, that doesn’t sound like the Bloodmaiden at all. It sounds more like…what is that game…” She pulled her phone out and poked at it. “Yeah, here. Bloody Mary, or Bloody Bones. ‘A spectral vision of a skeletal, eyeless woman drenched in blood. Children often attempt to frighten one another by pretending to summon her during sleepovers’.” She lowered the phone. “That makes no sense. If it was the Blood maiden, she would have appeared as a Dark Elven woman who looks like she just got out of a bathtub full of blood. She has a major Erzsebet Bathory thing going on.”
“Access,” Rose said. “Crom is using books and movies to gain access to his world. She assimilated the Bloody Mary legend and used all the energy raised by kids telling each other ghost stories.”
“Could be.” Nadia thought for a moment. “Something still isn’t right. Once she has the ability to manifest on Earth, she’d appear as herself, just the way Crom did when David saw him.”
“She might not have that ability yet,” I said. Then the light bulb went on. “That’s why we can’t attack her until after seven tonight! Whatever is involved with her forming an avatar on Earth won’t be finished until then. Once she has physical form, the spear can kill her.”
Rose checked the map on her phone and shook her head. “Allowing half an hour for rest stops, we’ll still be a little early. We might have to find a quiet spot to wait until after seven, and then go in full-throttle.”
Nadia said, “We could stash the car someplace safe, teleport to my parents’ suite, and use Mother’s crystal ball to locate the Bloodmaiden. Once we know where she is, we grab my folks and a few dozen Houseguard, teleport in, and you backstab the bitch. How’s that for a plan?”
“Works for me,” I said. “Let’s go with that, unless someone has a better idea.”
Nobody did.
Erica sighed. “Now that we have a plan, I’d appreciate a chance to get some different clothes.” She looked at Nadia. “And, I’m not really a good choice for a partner. I’m sure you could do better.”
Rose rummaged through her dimensional closet, pulling out a handful of clothes and passing them to Erica. “These are pretty loose on me, so they should fit, but…smoke and ash, you have huge shoulders.” Her brows furrowed. “Is that body actually female?”
I heard Erica tear through the leather strips she was wearing and kept my eyes on the road. As an afterthought, I also angled the rear-view mirror to up so all I could see was the canopy.
Erica sighed again as she slipped a shirt on. “Yes, it’s female. I don’t plan on nursing a child while I’m here, so I see no purpose in over-glorifying its mammary glands.” She stopped and did a quick comparison between herself and Nadia. “Or was there something I missed? Am I required to have long hair? Please say I’m not. This length for this ethnicity appeared to have the easiest maintenance routine.”
“No, your hair can be any length,” Nadia said. “And it’s normal for muscular, athletic women to have smaller breasts. Your body looks fine. Now, you and Rose obviously know each other. I’m assuming you grew up together. I want to know what the problem between you and Rose is. I’m not going to dance back and forth dodging land mines having both of you in my life. So who wants to start?”
“I will,” Erica said. “We grew up together. Our mothers are both mystical academics…they worked together. We were friends, until we got older and I started asking questions no one wanted to answer. I was tarnishing Rose’s reputation, so I retreated into my studies to save her embarrassment.”
“You were never an embarrassment. You’re an excellent evoker. I’ve never met anyone with your command of battle magic.” Rose had her arms tight around her chest, staring straight ahead.
“I was an embarrassment. We were supposed to come to Earth together. I…I postponed taking the class. I devoted my time to academics, studying evocation with far-flung teachers and hoping the world would forget about me. I was just beginning to gain recognition for my knowledge of battle-magic when my parents brought me back and insisted I begin studying to come here.” Erica looked down at her lap, picking at a hole in the pants leg.
Rose said, “Committing to the class involves applying the first round of spells making up the acceptance. Once you start with them, you have to have each additional sequence applied in the right order and at the right time or your body loses regulation of your energy consumption. It’s a terrible way to die.”
“Why didn’t you want to come here?” Nadia asked.
Erica bit her lip. “I hate being told what to do. I’m not an idiot, I know what our population issues are, but the idea of being forced to mate disgusts me. Drakes…I’ve never met one I could stand to be around. I don’t want to be around them, and I certainly don’t want to have to interact with one in order to raise children. I’d rather…I’d rather not be here.”
Rose said, “Please, just tell them.” She kept her gaze fixed out the front window, clinching her arms tight to her chest.
“I said I was sorry, but I’ll say it again—I regret my words, and I beg your forgiveness.” Erica paused, but Rose didn’t reply. Erica looked down and shook her head. “Very well. After Rose…lost her fertility, my family thought it would do both of us good to see one another. They thought her distress would open my eyes to the value of what I was rejecting. All I saw was a friend in pain, and I said the first thing that came to mind. I told Rose I wished I’d known she’d needed to kill a Unicorn, because I would have volunteered to do it. It would have been my liberation.”
Nadia winced. “Oh, ouch. I can see how that could hurt you, Rose. But Erica did apologize, and I’m sure she never intended to hurt you. She was trying to comfort you, and she said the wrong thing. Please forgive her. Honestly extend her forgiveness.”
“I know she did,” Rose said. “I want to…I do…accept your apology. I forgive you.” She turned around and took Erica’s hand. “It wasn’t what you said. I mean, yes, at first it was. Later…I was angry because I needed you with me. I wanted to have my friend with me, helping me through this, and you couldn’t be there. If we’d gone through the class at the same time, we would have stayed together. You would have been by my side that day.”
“I would have come if you had called.”
“And you would have died. The ambient magic level here could not have maintained the acceptance sequence. It would have collapsed and yo
u would have died. How could I ask that of you?”
“I still would have come!” Erica blinked tears out of her eyes. “Oh, what fresh hell is this? These slagged-out meatsacks leak under pressure?”
Rose started sobbing as well, despite the fact she was laughing at the same time. She got out of her seat and slithered into the back for several miles of crying, hugging, and making up for lost time. I did what all guys do in times like this: I handed out tissues and thought about the Empire.
Once the tears dried and the snuffling stopped, Nadia said, “If you two don’t mind, Erica and I have some talking to do, and I’m going to give us some privacy, okay?”
“Oh, fine. Have fun. Just make sure you can hear us if we start yelling,” Rose said. She climbed across the seat again and added, “Oh, if you want to try the sex, Nadia was an excellent instructor. Just be sure to clarify any terms you’re not familiar with.”
Nadia blushed. “And on that bombshell, goodnight…”She pulled Erica into a cuddle and filled the back seat with Darkness.
“You Humans may not have a lot going for you physically or magically,” Rose said, “But recreational sex is a magnificent invention. Your people did a great job with that one.”
I pulled her close to me, and kissed the top of her head so I could keep my eye on the road. “Well, at least we’ll be remembered for something.”
Chapter Nineteen
Eric/Erica
An hour or so later, the Darkness in the back of the car dissipated. I glanced in the mirror while I tried to think of a suitably smart-ass comment, but that idea went right out the window. Erica was gone. The short-haired bodybuilder was now blond-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, Nordic, and most definitely…male. He looked happier than I’d seen the female Erica being. Clothes were still an issue. He was packed into the silk panties Rose had provided, and they were starting to split up the sides.
