by S. A. Hunt
Protect it from the Devil. Robin looked into the strange dog’s eyes and saw only black pits, holes in the sable fur of his face. He lay down, ignoring her. He was faintly see-through, like meat sliced too thin. I guess I don’t qualify as the Devil, then. “So, he’s a ghost?” she asked as a certain sort of relief came over her.
“He is. He was buried in an old French graveyard in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, back in the seventeenth century and the days of fur-trading and the Hudson’s Bay Company. When we found him, he had no gravestone and no name. So we named him Gévaudan, after the Beast of Gévaudan, of course, being French. He followed us home and he’s been running around with us ever since. Gev was a greyhound in life.”
“Wait, so ghosts are real?” asked Kenway.
“Sure,” said Gendreau.
They stared at each other awkwardly for a full ten seconds while Kenway waited for him to elaborate, which he did not do.
“All right,” said Kenway. He sipped from the glass of bourbon he was still holding.
“This is the assault team I’ve assembled to help us storm Cutty’s stronghold,” the magician said, changing the subject. “Each one has in his or her possession a libbu-harrani, a heart-road artifact imbued with a Gift, confiscated from a defeated witch. Mr. Tiedeman here has the unusual talent of ‘channeling.’ I’m sure you’re familiar with this, Miss Martine,” he offered. “Amelia Burke could do it.”
“Yeah.” Robin asided to Kenway and Wayne, “Channeling is the ability to shift and focus energy.” She had fought and killed Amelia Burke in a condemned mall in Iowa. The witch had rail-gunned a baseball right through the engine block of her utility van. “I’ve done a little research on it, and from what I can understand, the energy is derived from the adenosine-triphosphate of the body’s mitochondria.” Also known as ATP, the cell energy produced by ancient foreign organelles living inside the cells of the majority of living beings.
Molecular biology, started in high school and continued in Heinrich’s training. Robin had spent dark, lonely nights during that monastic first year locked up in his Texas compound, learning about her new enemies and studying the techniques that would help her exact the vengeance she thought she needed.
But apparently like everything else Heinrich told her, his theory on channeling was bullshit too. “If only it were that simple,” said Gendreau. “That would make for a temporarily accelerated metabolism every time the individual used his or her Gift—but that isn’t the case.” The magician’s pale hand clapped on Lucas’s shoulder. “We’ve done our own research, since we can capture and contain the witches’ heart-roads and we can observe their properties at our leisure. No, we believe the Gift of channeling stores and redirects bosons.”
“Bosons?” Robin was at a loss.
“Bosons are what give matter its mass,” said Wayne. “People call it the God Particle because it’s part of the glue that holds the universe together.”
“Yes!” Gendreau pointed at him, you win the kewpie doll, a grin breaking across his face. “What a clever little boy you are. Yes, that is why channeled objects exhibit disproportionately concussive force. We only managed to come up with this theory after years of experimentation with CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.”
Wayne blinked. “That’s what the LHC is for? You guys are researching magic?”
“We were given access to their results in exchange for funding. The LHC was constructed for legitimate scientific research, but during the construction, our leadership was made to understand its potential in the world of supernatural sciences, and we’ve … diverted funds in their direction. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.” Turning, Gendreau marched out several paces away from Lucas and the edge of the parapet, doing an about-face with a swirl of jacket. Sara moved away as well. “Now, if you’ll all take a few steps back, Mr. Tiedeman here can demonstrate the power of channeling.”
Kneeling, Lucas picked through the dead leaves until he found something suitable, which turned out to be an acorn, new and green at the tip. He held it up to them as if it were a card trick—if the audience will please examine the ace of spades and ensure it has not been altered in any way—and made an OK with his fingers, the acorn pincered between his thumb and forefinger. This, Lucas held for five, ten, fifteen long seconds, his arm beginning to tremble like a weightlifter at the end of his reps. Robin thought he was trying to squeeze it to pieces, but then he spun on his heel and whipped his hand toward one of the coin-op binoculars mounted on the parapet, his tie flapping.
His hand opened up like a pantomimed pistol, his index finger pointed out—bang bang, my baby shot me down—and the acorn razored across the air into the teardrop-shaped machine, embedding itself, ptank!, in the steel housing. Both eyepieces exploded with sharp crystalline snaps and the whole machine came loose from its pedestal, plummeting over the side.
Sara looked up from the gorge even as the binoculars continued to tumble down the mountain, cartwheeling along the rocks through a glitter of quarters. “I can’t say I approve of unsolicited vandalism, but … impressive as always, gunslinger.”
“Lady Amundson, on the other hand,” the magician said, gesturing to her with his pearl-headed cane, “possesses the Gift of illusions and conjurations, much like Karen Weaver. She is the one responsible for this anomalous weather.”
“I normally make people hallucinate monsters, but I figured making you see a physical manifestation of your worst phobia might’ve made a bad first impression.” Sara emphasized each point with a sinuous gesture. Illusory snow danced around her hands, transforming into monarch butterflies, which then burst into flames and burned into flakes of ash. “Bedbug monsters, rainbow LSD monsters, monsters made out of tax paperwork, ugh, all kinds of monsters. Kinda my thing.”
Lucas Tiedeman grinned, straightening his necktie. “Welcome to the A-Team.”
Polishing off his bourbon, Kenway tossed the ice off the cliff and sighed into the empty glass. “Either I need a lot more of this or I’ve already had way too much.”
24
The magicians were staying in one of the larger lodges down the hill, a rustic frontier shack full of fragrant cedar furniture, dizzying quilts, and mounted deer heads. Robin and Wayne helped them load their belongings into their vehicle while the head-bandaged Kenway took a bathroom break. “We’ve still got the cabin for the week,” Gendreau told her as they crammed luggage into the back of a Chevy Suburban. “But if we don’t survive Cutty’s wrath, it wouldn’t do at all to leave our things here where the normals can find them.”
Robin elbowed Wayne. “I’m so glad they don’t call us Muggles. That would be too much.” The boy grinned, the white windows flashing on his glasses. “We’re gonna go get your dad, okay?”
He traded the grin for a sad but confident smile.
Sara Amundson joined the two of them as Lucas and Gendreau hauled the last couple of bags. Robin eyed the horn sticking out of the part in her hair. “What’s with the, uhh…” She made an A-OK with her hand, pretending to loop an imaginary unicorn horn on her own head.
“It’s a wig,” said Sara, tugging the horn. Her entire head of hair lifted up to reveal fiery red underneath. She readjusted the pink-white wig, twisting it back down onto her skull. “Last Halloween, I went as what I like to call a ‘Murdercorn’ and everybody liked it so much, I thought I would do it again this year.”
“Don’t let her lie to you.” Lucas shut the back of the Suburban. “She’s been wearing it ever since.”
Sara lowered her head and jabbed him in the arm with the horn. He backed away, making the sign of the cross with his fingers. “The Murdercorn is murderous.”
The seven of them piled into the SUV. Gendreau drove, Lucas sat up front in the passenger seat, Robin sat in the back with Sara and Wayne, and Kenway in the cargo area with the luggage. Gev the ghost-dog had disappeared; Wayne seemed confused and disappointed until Sara told him that was just how Gev was. He would show up later, usually when they least expected i
t. “He comes and goes. He’s like a cat.”
“A cat only minimally tethered to this plane of reality,” said Lucas.
The minute she was nestled in, Robin felt old and salty by association. She reflected on the past couple of years and the battles and hardships she’d had to endure alone at the hands of America’s witches, and she couldn’t help but feel like the one hardass in a car full of untested rookies. Suddenly, the Suburban had the silly yet claustrophobic feel of a clown car. They’re not taking this seriously enough, including Gendreau, she thought, looking around at them. Sara gave her a pinched, disaffected smile that didn’t touch her eyes. It’s a field trip for them. Willy Wonka, a woman in a unicorn wig, a beanpole dog, and a Quentin Tarantino character.
I’ve got half a mind to tell them to stay in the cabin and let me handle Cutty.
This is my fight, anyway.
A sensation of impending doom came over her, as if she’d bought a ticket on the Titanic. Pain throbbed in her shoulder. She caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror and marveled at how sallow her face looked. Her eyes were dark pits in her face, glassy in the watery daylight.
Down the mountain they drove, winding back and forth through the switchback and the hairpin curves running across the south slope. The woozy snaking of the top-heavy vehicle turned Robin’s medication-and-booze-marinated guts into a churning lava lamp. When he got to the bottom and passed the cabin office, Gendreau paused at the frontage. The Subway’s sign glowed yellow in the failing afternoon light. “Last chance,” he said, peering through the windshield. “Anybody for a last meal?”
Lucas grunted. “Your confidence inspires me.”
“Let’s get this over with,” grouched Robin. Every movement of the Suburban made her want to throw up. The feeling of her worm-arm-thing curling and flexing gently by her side wasn’t helping.
They crossed the road and headed under the interstate toward Blackfield. Robin peeled back her shirt to uncover the red-black tendril, and Wayne subtly cowered away from it. The sight of him leaning against the window dug deep and left a splinter of embarrassment inside.
“Oh, my God,” said Sara. “What the hell is that?”
“According to Gendreau, it’s my new arm.” Robin picked it up the same way he had, the coil of sausage-flesh draped over her palm like fine jewelry. Not only had it grown another several inches while they were getting ready to leave, but now it was as thick as a finger. “Evidently, I absorbed Theresa’s gift for transfiguration when I closed her heart-road, and it’s causing … something to grow in its place.” She hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be a tendril forever. A six-foot squid tentacle would definitely strain things between her and Kenway for sure.
“There’s two more of ’em,” said Wayne.
Sara leaned forward to see better. “Jeez, they’re braiding together.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Robin thought the entwining tendrils resembled a sort of ponytail made out of Slim Jim jerky. Nausea turned her stomach into a cement mixer, and sour saliva leaked into her mouth.
“Stop the car,” she almost shouted, unbuckling her seat belt.
As soon as Gendreau pulled to the side of the highway, Robin wrenched the side door open. She went to her knees on the shoulder of the highway and gargled hot vomit into the dry brown grass, audienced by a wall of pines and a sun-faded soda can. The tentacle under her shirt coiled and flexed.
Exhaustion settled over her and she rested, trying to catch her breath, wheezing through a rawhide throat. Someone got out and before she knew it—or could say otherwise—Kenway was crouching beside her. “You don’t have enough hair to hold out of the way when you puke,” he said, the dull glint of his prosthetic leg peeking out from under his jeans, “but I can at least be there to help you get back up.”
Tears tumbled down her face (when had she started to cry?) and she spat again and started to wipe her slimy mouth on the collar of her T-shirt—a thing people do when they’re not used to being in the polite company of civilized humanity—but Kenway was there with a wadded-up napkin. She wiped her face down with all the ceremony of scrubbing bugs off a car fender.
“Other than Heinrich—and I’m not even sure about him—the last person I can remember ever giving half a shit about me died years ago. Mom was all I ever had. Even in high school.” The wind plucked and pushed at the wadded-up paper in her hand. “I don’t know what to do with you. You’re like … a riddle, man. A mystery I need to solve. What do you even see in me?”
“All those YouTube subscribers,” said Kenway. “What—four, five million people? I’ve never even met five million people. There aren’t even that many people living in this town. And you walk around thinking you’re alone in this life.” He shook his head.
A breathy, sarcastic laugh. “This life is so jacked up, Kenway.” She looked up at him. “Demons. Witches. Magicians. Ghost dogs. Are you sure you want to be a part of it?”
“Am I a part of it?”
“I’d like you to be.”
His beard separated, revealing a grin as warm as sunshine. “Yeah. I think I’d like that very much.”
Robin chuckled and combed a hand through her unruly Mohawk. The ID bracelet the hospital had put around her wrist scuffed across her forehead. She’d forgotten about it. Biting the paper until it broke, she held it into the wind, watching it twitch and dance. Her fingers let it fall and the hoop curled into the afternoon, rolling along the roadside like a tumbleweed.
“I forgot to thank you for coming to my rescue back there in the vineyard.” She squinted into the wind, regarding Kenway’s face. “I didn’t need it—”
“Obviously.”
“—Obviously, but nobody else has ever helped me before.”
Empathy written on their faces, the misfit magicians (how much that sounded like some dirty-Southern-rock band from the eighties, don’t hand me no lies and keep your hands to yourself) watched this interlude from the car. “You’ve got lots of help now.” Kenway reached out with his big hands and framed her jaw, wiping the tears off her cheeks with hard leather thumbs. “Whether you need it or not.”
* * *
Underwood Road. The road sign waggled in the breeze like the palsy of an old man, at the edge of a road-shoulder stubbly with juts of broken hickory, a weathervane pointing in uncivilized directions. The Suburban was still parked by the side of the road where she’d gotten out to blow chunks. Robin leaned against the car with the door open, her forehead on her arm and her arm on the frame, trying to let the fresh air settle her stomach.
“You okay?” asked Wayne. He had taken off his glasses and was buffing the lenses with his shirt.
“Yeah, it was … the Percocet, the bourbon, being cooped up in the car, this thing—” She shrugged the shoulder with the bloodworm hanging out of it. “Got to be a little much for me. Needed some fresh air.”
“Are you sure you want to do this today?” Kenway was beside her. He followed the line of her eyes to the road sign and put his hand on her back. The tendril curled as he did so and she felt him tense up, but he didn’t snatch his hand away. God, but she loved him for that. She really did.
For sure, she was having second thoughts; her mother had been locked inside that tree for half a decade now, and a few days wouldn’t make much of a difference.
But—
“—They’ve got Leon,” she said. “I can’t leave him there.”
Gratitude loosened Wayne’s features. She could tell he wanted to say something like My dad’s tough, he would understand if you wanted to psych yourself up before you jump into Hell, but the relief, and the eagerness to rescue his father, kept him from opening his mouth. She hoisted herself into the seat and pulled the belt across her lap. “Let’s go. Make hay while the sun shines. Strike while the iron’s hot.”
Kenway lingered in the door, assessing her.
Finally, he slithered into the back of the Suburban and she pulled the door shut, clunk. Gendreau put on his blinker, waited for a Cama
ro to go shushing past, and pulled back out onto the highway, crossing the median and turning into Underwood Road.
The magician drove like a car commercial. His pale, slender fingers handled the steering wheel in a delicate, businesslike way, a conductor-motorist that poured the Suburban down Underwood’s sinuous length. Georgia’s ever-present trees enclosed them with wet, skeletal trunks still stained a raw strawberry-blond by the weekend’s rains.
NO TRESPASSING. The sign was still nailed to a tree, speckled with bullet holes.
It occurred to Robin the South had a lot of these signs distributed throughout the wilderness as if the great landgrabs of the colonial days had never truly ended, the countryside still scissored into a patchwork of a thousand hidden estates. She saw fewer of these signs up north, almost none in New England except for the wilderness of Maine and swaths of upstate New York. The commune in Oregon had them but only because the hunters that used to own the property had put them up; the witches didn’t need them, didn’t want them because they liked it when trespassers showed up uninvited.
Welcome, sir, have a seat, have a beer, welcome to Hotel California.
The things she’d seen crisscrossing the country, following Heinrich’s leads, following Heinrich’s orders … the human finger-bones hanging from porch eaves in gruesome wind chimes, the skull-bowls spackled with burnt blood, the decaying figures sitting in iron gibbets—so much like mummies, shriveled paper skin glued to thin rods of bone, hands clawed around their knobby knees, stiff lips stretched across yellowed skulls—the cries of children locked in cellars, their child minds scrambled by the Gift of illusion. Yes, it worked both ways, you know, the crones can make you see things, and they can make you not see things as well.
