by Catie Rhodes
The weird, exhilarating pride and love rushed over me again. Much as I hadn’t wanted to help Cecil run Sanctuary, a traveling community of grifters and carnies, I had a feeling I’d found a place for myself and my magic. I glanced at Cecil. He gave me a quick wink and nod. Love for my great-uncle flooded me. Bad as this was, even if Hannah decided to hate me forever, my life had bright spots too. I went to stand by Dillon's side.
“Corman.” Dillon snapped her little fingers in front of his face. “Hey. Wake up. I want to talk to you some more.”
Corman rolled his head on his shoulders, the bones in his neck popping. “What?”
Dillon crouched so their eyes would meet. This seemed to be an important part of her gift. She put one hand on Corman’s chest and gave him a shake. He moaned. Whatever she’d convinced him of regarding his pain wasn’t lasting long. She shook him again, hard.
He yelped and opened his eyes wide. “What?”
“Listen to me, Corman. You want to help us. The only way you’re going to get out of this alive is by helping us. You believe that?” Dillon stared into Corman’s eyes without blinking.
“Yeah. You’re right. Y’all are going to kill me if I don’t help.” He blinked rapidly.
“So Peri Jean’s going to ask you some questions. And you’re going to answer. You want to answer. Right?” Dillon had her hand on Corman’s arm, the same way I’d seen her charm three different men out of their wallets one night on Austin’s Sixth Street.
“Yeah.” Corman bobbed his head. “Yeah. I want to answer.”
Dillon backed away from Corman and nodded to me. “He’s hurting, so I don’t know how long it’ll really work.”
I knelt in front of Corman where he didn’t have to raise his head to see me. “Did King try to set up a meeting with my mother recently?”
Corman nodded slowly. “Yeah. He sent me and Trench Coat. We were to not engage her but wait until she left and then follow her.” He swallowed. “But Rainey Bruce showed up. We thought maybe she was working for Barbie, so we followed her. She led us to a little house off Perdido Street. Had a padlock on the door.”
My mind ran its hamster wheel. Perdido Street. That was smack in the middle of Gaslight City’s African American community, in an area where many houses were unoccupied and boarded up. I snapped my mind back on task. “What else, Corman?”
“Rainey sat on the floor picking through some luggage. We called Daddy to see if we should go in and take the luggage from her. He told us to wait until she left. She did, and me and Trench Coat broke in, nabbed the luggage, and took it back to King.”
Smart as Rainey was, she hadn't known to watch her back. She’d been in so much danger and hadn’t even sensed it. And it was all because she knew me. I didn’t need the hag to remind me of that. I broke off the thoughts about Rainey’s safety. I had a lifetime to worry about them. The important thing right then was what they found in Barbie’s luggage. I leaned into Corman’s face. “Did King find anything of use in my mother’s luggage?”
Corman gave his head a slow shake. “Nothing other than he thinks she’s dead now. He got really mad then and burned everything.”
I suppressed a groan. “King was looking for a recording, right?”
Corman nodded and then groaned in pain. A sheen of sweat glowed on his forehead. One drop fattened and slid down his face. He needed medical attention. Denying it might cost him his life and us our bargaining chip.
I asked the next question. “Do you know what was on it?”
Corman gave me a blank stare. I considered kicking him to get his attention but pulled back my temper. Patience. Patience. I whispered the word as though it might really help.
Finally he spoke. “I think he wants something he can use to blackmail Joey Holze.”
I drew in a sharp breath. We were on the right track. According to my mother, Joey helped her cover up her murdering my father and frame my Uncle Jesse for the crime. “Why does he want to blackmail Joey?”
“Several months ago, I overheard King and Joey arguing. They didn’t realize anybody was in Long Time Gone with them.” Corman closed his eyes and swayed back and forth. When he opened them again, they were foggy with pain. “You had just started asking questions, saying you knew who really killed your daddy and you were trying to get Jesse out of prison.” Corman licked his lips, and I held a bottle of water Tubby or someone had sat by the chair up to the injured man’s lips. He drank greedily.
Poor man had to be miserable. He was a jerk. No doubt there. But did he deserve this? “What did they say?”
“Joey told Daddy that if that tape gets found, somebody’s gonna go down, and it ain’t gonna be him. He wanted Daddy to kill you, Hannah, Rainey, and Jesse.” There was enough meanness left in Corman to grin at me.
Coldness worked its way down to my feet. I’d already known King was trying to have me killed, and I knew Joey wanted me dead. But hearing Corman say it had more of an effect than I’d have imagined.
“Then what?” I almost choked on the words.
“King refused. He said his deal with Joey ended the day Paul Mace died. Joey slammed out of Long Time Gone.” Corman nodded at the water, and I gave him more as I put together a timeline. Joey ordered King to kill my friends and me. King refused but later changed his mind enough to talk to Tubby about putting a contract out on my life. Then Hannah offered herself up like a birthday present, and King saw another way to blow the whole thing sky high.
Struggling to keep my voice even, I said, “What deal did King and Joey originally have?”
Corman hung his head and let his eyes drift closed. My hopes soured. He either didn’t know or was too sick to talk more. This great idea was turning into one big dead end. He hadn’t told me a damn thing I really needed to know.
When he spoke again, I had to strain to hear him. “See, I was only eight or so. Joey would come by the house late at night, when my brother and I were already supposed to be asleep. That was when we lived over by the haunted witch cabin.” He stopped speaking, and I gave him water again, mind racing.
The place Corman called the haunted witch cabin was the site of my father’s murder. And a lot of other things important to me and my history. Corman pushed the bottle away with his chin.
“I remember asking Daddy why he was talking to a cop. Because he always taught me and my brother that cops are the enemy. Daddy told me the only way he could stay out of jail and keep the motorcycle club was to help Joey.”
“Do you remember how King helped Joey?” I hunched in front of Corman like a gambler over a craps table, wanting the answer to be there enough to keep trying even when it seemed hopeless.
“Daddy didn’t tell me much about his business back then.” Corman shook his head.
No, no, no. I wanted him to know something useful so badly I was ready to sic Dillon or even Tubby on him.
“The only thing I really remember is from when I was seven or eight years old. It was summer. Joey called for my father. Daddy rushed out the door, told me to stay put. A while later he came back with a paper bag. There was blood dripping out of the bottom of it.” Corman leaned his head back and closed his eyes, grunting at intervals.
“Where’d he put the bag?” Maybe all these years, Barbie, Joey, and King had kept up a blackmail standoff. Joey had the murder file which either implicated King, Barbie, or both. Barbie had this recording King wanted so badly. It probably implicated both Joey and King. Then King had whatever was in this bag. Barbie’s clothes from the day of the murder? Maybe. Maybe not. They’d each had their little insurance policy to keep the others from squealing. If one went down, they all fell.
“We used to have an old school bus behind our house.” Corman watched me through half-lidded eyes. “Daddy kept it there. Told me if he ever caught me out there, he’d beat me black and blue.”
“Any idea where it is now?” This bag and the tape were Jesse’s ticket out of jail. If I could get my hands on one or both, my uncle would be free. Only King s
tood in the way. I tried to think like my Uncle Cecil, to see how to best manipulate the situation. But my thoughts ran together.
“Maybe the safe at Long Time Gone.” Corman shrugged and winced. “Maybe the safe on the compound. I never saw it again.”
“Okay. Thanks for your help.” I turned to Tubby. “Get him a doctor or a nurse. I’ll pay.”
Corman leaned his head back and muttered a thank you. I turned to leave the room. Even though I didn’t like watching Corman hurt, I still didn’t want to spend time with him. Dillon and Cecil flanked me. I stopped on the other side of the building, next to the staircase, and filled them in on what Hannah told me. I finished with, “The tape’s got to be in that motel room. We have to get in there. But after that? No idea how to find the tape.”
“I might have some ideas on finding the tape.” Cecil put his hand on the bannister. “But do you think Ms. Whitebyrd would be willing to join our discussion?”
Mysti stood off to the side with Dillon, probably asking about her ability of persuasion. I swear, sometimes I thought Mysti ought to write a supernatural encyclopedia. “Mysti,” I called.
She turned to see what I wanted.
“Can you join Cecil and me upstairs to talk about finding Barbie’s recording?”
Without answering, Mysti hurried across the room, Dillon at her heels.
We climbed the steep staircase, Cecil yawning every other step. My great-uncle was an old man. At least eighty. Maybe older. We needed to find him a place to sleep for a few hours. At the top of the stairs, I stopped so quickly Cecil and Dillon ran into me.
“What is it?” Cecil muttered and then yawned again.
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t do anything but stand rooted to the top step and stare. Hannah hung from one of the exposed beams, swaying back and forth. An overturned chair lay at her feet. I let out a howl I’m sure the Six Guns heard all the way back at their shitty compound.
My lungs emptied, and my scream ended. I ran to the overturned metal folding chair at Hannah’s feet, uprighted it, and wrangled it into position. Pain flashed as I ripped off a couple of fingernails. I ignored it and scrambled onto the chair.
Inside me, the hag pulled toward Hannah. I didn't understand what the little horror was up to but didn’t have time to figure it out. Mysti pushed a pair of scissors into my hand and grabbed my legs to hold me steady.
I grabbed Hannah around the waist, the material of her linen blouse rasping against my cheek, and did my best to lift her. The buckle from her belt dug into my forearm. For a second, I thought I didn’t have the strength.
Then I put some slack in the rope. Hannah’s body flopped and swayed, limp, dead meat. With my free hand, I snipped the braided nylon rope she’d used to try to end herself. She fell against me. I overbalanced, and we tumbled to the floor. Hannah landed on top of me, and my head slapped hard against the wood floor.
The hag cast about, frantic, pressing toward Hannah with all its might. Its plan came to me in a flash. The hag would grab onto Hannah’s life force through me, consume it, and be able to overpower me. That wasn’t the worst part. Once the hag ate Hannah’s life force, she’d be gone forever.
“Fight it.” Mysti leaned over both of us, pulling Hannah off me. “Don’t let it get her.”
Reaching for strength I wasn’t sure I had, I wrapped the mantle around the hag and held it fast with all my might. It slammed against the walls of my body. I rocked with each attempt it made to get to Hannah.
“Let me go,” it screamed inside my head.
“You’ll have to kill me first,” I managed to grunt.
Dillon appeared and yanked away the noose, revealing an angry red circle around Hannah’s neck. Mysti shoved her out of the way and began CPR and chest compressions.
“C’mon, Hannah,” she snapped every time she came up for air. “Peri Jean won’t talk to your ghost if you let yourself die.”
The hag’s keening at sight of Hannah, and a good meal, made it hard to concentrate. I curled on my side, hands over my ears, and let my conscious slip into the hag’s.
Through its eyes, I saw Hannah’s life force rising from her still body, not responding at all to Mysti’s efforts. Somehow I knew Hannah didn’t want to come back. She wanted to be done with this. The hag leered gleefully at the destruction of my friend. As I watched, the life force rose further. Time was running out.
Helpless tears coursed down my cheeks and scooted down my neck to soak into the crew neck of my T-shirt. It couldn’t end like this. There were so many things I still wanted to do with Hannah, so many conversations I wanted to have. But I was occupied fighting the monster inside me and could do nothing.
Don’t lie to yourself. The whisper came from my elbow. Priscilla Herrera stood next to me wearing her young skin. She raised one heavily tattooed arm and adjusted her wide-brimmed hat.
My malignant passenger hissed in displeasure at Priscilla. In a flash, Priscilla’s face elongated, the eyes darkening to black pits. Her mouth fell open. She let out a howl. My horrible passenger answered Priscilla’s howl with a low, reverberating growl, which came out through my mouth.
My black opal heated at the proximity of so much magic. I gathered the power of the mantle, taking note of my flagging energy, and squeezed the hag harder. Instead of cowering away, it pushed an unearthly scream through my lips. It shook the room.
Mysti jumped away from Hannah and faced us. Her eyes grew. “What's happening over there?”
“You're losing her. I can see her life force.” Panting with fatigue, I rolled onto my knees and crouched like a cat trying to yak on the carpet.
Priscilla came with me and whispered in my ear. Don’t you want to ask how to save her?
Right now, I just wanted her to go away. Priscilla didn’t care about me or my friends. All she cared about was her part in my destiny. She planned for me to have the full measure of the magical gifts passed through our family line of witches. Sometimes I got the idea there was more, but I didn’t like to think about more duties and more misery. The point was, Priscilla wouldn’t help me unless it fit into some grand plan of hers.
Right now, while I watched one of my oldest friends die, I didn’t have time for Priscilla’s brand of bullshit. Between her and the hag playing demolition derby inside my body, I probably had as much reason to jump ship as Hannah did.
Ninny. I want only what’s best for you. This girl’s death on your conscience is not one of those things. Priscilla came nearer, and her spicy scent tickled my nose. Although you don’t have full use of my gift, you can bring her back. Her cold fingers pressed against my temple. The night I killed Michael Gage replayed on my mind’s movie projector. Priscilla’s freezing fingers turned my head to look at Hannah’s still form. Her life force had risen almost all the way out of her but was still connected. She’s not gone yet. Wake her up. Gently.
The hag salivated for me to go nearer Hannah. It wanted a chance to snap forward like a dog snatching a treat and suck in the life force. Once it did that, Hannah and I were both cooked. Hannah would be all the way dead. The hag would be too powerful for me to control, and it would suck me dry too. The crushing weight of helplessness came back. I spun to Priscilla, ready to give her the what-for, and found her ready for me.
Your will is as great as the thing inside you. Otherwise, he’d have already defeated you. She faded from sight, done with me. Understanding flooded over me. She wanted me to see what I could do, despite grief, despite fatigue, against risk. Tiredness ached in my bones.
Priscilla always called me a coward. Right then, I understood what she meant. Destiny isn’t fairy dust and magic. It’s a long, blood-stained crucible, suffused with more grief than victory. I had to try.
“Peri Jean, if you’re going to do something, it needs to be now.” Mysti’s voice snapped me out of my own head.
I nodded, even though I didn’t know how to do this. In my weakened state, I needed physical contact with Hannah. It would give me more control because I would
n’t have to push my power into her from a distance. But touching Hannah would give the hag access to her.
“Peri Jean…” Mysti didn’t need to finish the thought. I knew.
I had to at least try. I reached for the mantle, intending to send it to Hannah long distance. It slipped into my exhausted grasp, trembling and tired, but there.
The hag, hiding deep inside my psyche, as though the mantle couldn't find it there, chuckled. I wanted to hurt it but couldn't without using more precious energy.
You can. With my strength, you can. Priscilla Herrera’s voice came from all around me. It bolstered me, gave me the strength I needed to go on.
I got to my feet and staggered to Hannah’s still form. The silver mist of her life force barely touched her now. It was ready to change, ready for the next thing. Not on my watch.
I channeled the mantle again and held my hands over Hannah. The hag leaned forward, straining against the bonds that glued us together. I concentrated on my breathing, made it the only thing in the world, and hoped what I was about to do wouldn’t fry mine or Hannah's brain. Control wasn’t my strong suit.
I waited until my mind was clear as a pond after a strong wind, nothing in my ears but my own ragged breathing. I split the mantle down the middle. One half swaddled the hag, wrapping it so tight the thing couldn't even make noise.
It was a temporary solution at best. There’d be no way I could hold the split indefinitely. It would fall as soon as my concentration did or when the last of my strength ebbed away. But for right then, I hoped it was enough.
I let the other half of the magic trace around Hannah’s head, looking for a way in. I entered through her eye and saw the spark of life still attached in her brain. My magic circled it, warming it, nurturing it. It brightened and kindled. This was the limit of my power unless I wanted to give her the Michael Gage treatment, which would cause an aneurysm or a stroke. I withdrew.
The life force had disappeared, hopefully gone back into Hannah’s body. She jerked, once, twice, her head rolling side to side. But she didn’t open her eyes.
