by S. A. Hunt
Heat still filled her mouth and eyes, tinging everything with a feverish red. She leaned over, slid the Osdathregar out of Cutty’s twice-dead chest with a whetstone sibilance of blade against bone.
Almost knock-kneed in her frailty, Ereshkigal staggered, trying to find the strength to stand. The newborn death goddess was thin, scrawny, her wet hair clinging to her face and chest in sheets. Her skin was still the sickly blue-white pallor of a stillborn colt, her fingers long and spindly as she reached out for balance.
We finally meet, girl, said a whisper in Robin’s brain.
To the half-demon witch-hunter, the strange creature should have been a blinding light, an edible mother lode, a font of power to satiate the hungriest of demons. But as the Matron’s illusion faded and Robin’s eyes focused on the thing in front of her, she briefly saw them: ethereal silver strands, thousands of them, a web of shimmering beams in every direction, flowering out of the central Ereshkigal, pulsing, each softly glowing tendril pulling something out of her.
“All them witches,” she said, gripping the dagger in her wounded hand. Blood dripped from the hilt, mixing with Cutty’s black rot. “They’re still connected.”
With time, I will be strong again, whispered Ereshkigal.
Fire still coiled in Robin’s chest, etching her nerves into her bones like the flash-shadows of a nuclear explosion. The air smelled of gunpowder and rotten eggs.
I will offer you that which Marilyn Cutty no longer can. What is no longer hers to give. The death goddess extended a supplicating hand, teetering like a drunkard. Join me, protect me, serve me … and I will give you your mother back. Your father. Your friends. You will have a life free of hunting. Free of this transient existence, living on the road, risking your life for nothing. You can be the woman the girl was meant to be.
“The woman I was meant to be,” said Robin.
She plunged the Osdathregar into Ereshkigal’s forehead.
“I already am.”
The silver blade pierced the soft skull with a sickening squelch and sank in all the way to the hilt. Ink ran from the goddess’s eyes in four harlequin streaks. “Guck,” she said, leaning backward in surprise.
Kicking up one leg, Robin planted a foot on Ereshkigal’s chest and breach-kicked her into the Matron’s lap, the wheelchair jerking backward.
Yee-Tho-Rah stiffened, looking up with those shriveled green-olive eyes. The arm not pinned by the choking, stunned body on top of her unfolded and reached for Robin. And kept reaching. The Matron’s arm seemed to lengthen, growing and stretching, the bones inside twisting and crackling. She was still covered in those squirming black cellar-roots, and they darted out in fine pseudopods, sticking to Robin’s dress.
Dirty yellow fingernails grazed her face.
Where she expected the dying Matron to offer one last plea for mercy, only an endless shriek of indignation and revenge echoed in her mind.
Opening her mouth, Robin spewed a gout of red hellfire.
The Stolichnaya vodka caught in a bright splash and a WHOOSH of flame. Ereshkigal shrieked and thrashed, gabbling nonsense, the handle of the Osdathregar protruding from her forehead like a unicorn’s horn. Wind from the broken window caught the fire and whirled it into a tower of flame, reaching toward the ceiling.
Someone came trudging up the stairs and Robin turned to see the Parkins, looking very much the worse for wear. Wayne had one of Kenway’s toluene paint markers and a deep scratch on his face. Leon had an algiz rune drawn on his forehead and he was cradling a blood-slick cat.
The cat jumped out of his arms as Mr. Parkin gaped at the fire. “Christ!”
Rushing at the conflagration, Leon ripped the dagger out of the monster’s face, tossed it aside, then grabbed the arms of the wheelchair and ran it backward. Flames licked at his face. His eyebrows roasted, curling into ash. The back of the wheelchair crashed through the remains of the window and somersaulted backward into the dry canal three stories below.
Broken glass and fire rained into the darkness as Robin watched—dazed, exhausted, traumatized, her feet unwilling to propel her any farther.
Stepping over the fallen Kenway, Leon stumbled toward the kitchen, where his iPhone lay at the edge of the carnage, glowing softly in the shadows. He grabbed it and dialed 911.
The three of them watched the thing in the canal burn as Robin polished off the Stolichnaya straight from the bottle. A distant ambulance siren fell over them, growing to a caterwaul. “You look like you need a drink, Mr. Parkin,” rasped Robin, and she offered up the vodka.
Hefting Kenway’s fire extinguisher, Leon smiled tiredly and sprayed the flames lingering on the floor—which was already blackened from the spider-fire Robin had dealt with a few days ago. “No thanks. I’m done with that stuff.”
She shrugged. “More for me.”
36
Silence reigned over the Volvo as the Dogs of Odysseus made their way through the streets of Petoskey. The only sound was the steady white-noise shushing of the SUV’s tires as they coasted over ghostly swarms of snow-powder.
“Radio?” asked the woman driving.
“I could use a little peace and quiet,” croaked Gendreau in the passenger seat. The magician stared out the window at the passing restaurants and summer homes. To their left was a hillside neighborhood of gingerbread houses not unlike Robin’s childhood home, their porches swathed in plastic winterization sheeting. To their right sprawled a marina bristling with yacht masts, and beyond that glittered the gray waves of Lake Michigan.
The sunset was a hot red blur on the water, compressed by a thousand layers of pinks, purples, and blues. After a few minutes of introspective solitude had passed, Sara said from the back, “You doing okay, Andy?”
“I just need time,” said Gendreau. As had become habit, he touched the scar across his throat.
“And a new relic,” said Lucas. “Martine ruined your cane.”
“It’s okay.” The curandero delved into his jacket liner and took out the dead tooth. “Carrying around a penis as long as my leg doesn’t suit my image as a man of taste. Once we’re home and I’ve had a little time with my therapist, I’ll speak with our quartermaster here and see if there’s another item that might match my particular set of skills. And by ‘therapist,’ of course I am referring to the bottle of Dewar’s in the bottom drawer of my desk.”
Under a puffy down vest, the driver wore a blue dress covered in black palm-leaf silhouettes. Running across the left side of her chest was a seven-inch surgery scar in the vague shape of a Nike swoosh. She was Asian, fine-featured, with ringlets of raven hair shot through with silver.
“I’m sure you’re itching to ask,” said Gendreau.
The woman stopped for a red light. “You made your reports.” She gave him a glance, eyes quickly back to the road. “But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious.”
“Your son is doing well. Clever.”
She nodded.
“Good-looking kid,” Gendreau added. “Takes care of his father.”
A wistful smile touched the corner of her mouth.
“We’ve got a long road ahead of us, trying to find Cutty and Leon,” said the curandero. “She’s long gone—probably skipped town as soon as Martine got out of the hospital. Weaver likely stayed behind to slow us down and give her coven-sister a chance to escape.”
“When I made those rings,” said the woman, “I never considered the idea they might react to the protective wards Annie Martine put on the house.”
“Goes to show you how sensitive these energies can be.” Gendreau slumped in his seat, folding his arms. It had been a long flight, with an exasperating six-hour layover in the Detroit airport. As much as he enjoyed the McNamara Light Tunnel, he enjoyed his bed considerably more. “I think we can all internalize a little new knowledge from our adventure in the boondocks this week.”
The driver shook her head. “Of all the places, a backwoods town in the South. I guess he was tired of the big city after all.” T
he light turned green and she pulled into a small but labyrinthine shopping district.
Two- and three-story brick buildings loomed over the streets, lining their path with clothes boutiques, Mackinac fudge shops, restaurants, fancy furniture merchants. The woman drove them deeper into the maze and eased into parallel parking next to a small restaurant, picture windows framed by a rainbow of coffee mugs embedded in concrete. The sign above the front door read ROAST & TOAST CAFÉ.
Next door was a tiny bookstore. MCLEAN & EAKIN BOOKSELLERS. “So,” said Gendreau, opening his door and unfolding his long legs, “pray tell, dear Origo, might you have a suitable relic to replace my broken cane?”
“Not quite as dapper as the one you had, but I think I may,” said Haruko, putting quarters in the meter. “How do you feel about rings?”
“I could be convinced.”
Across the street, the black greyhound watched the magicians file into the bookstore from his vigil on the corner.
Even though they couldn’t perceive him, pedestrians gave the Beast of Gévaudan a wide berth as they bustled long the sidewalk. The church-grim looked up, hollow eyes traveling the face of the bookstore, past the windows on the second floor, and the third floor, to the roof and beyond, to the hidden tower only he could see, the Ithacan Library, reaching invisibly into the sky over the lake.
Alaskan summer was in full swing as a 1974 Winnebago Brave trundled into the parking lot of Cap’n Joe’s Tesoro gas station. Emerald mountains crowded around the town, their peaks thrust into the low clouds as if jostling for a drink of rain.
Wincing in anticipation as the vehicle’s brow slipped under the eaves, Robin angled the RV underneath the awning and parked by the pump at the end.
Satin-gray ocean lapped at the shores of the bay across the road. She sat for a moment, gazing absently, not really thinking. Eventually, she unclipped the seat belt and climbed out of the driver’s seat. A trash bag full of clothes sat on the floor under the breakfast nook. She opened it and her lip curled at the coppery stink of blood. She tied it shut and carried it outside.
Graffiti was spray-painted on the side of the dumpster—WELCOME TO ALASKA in two-foot-tall letters. What concerned her was that the middle A in ALASKA was the witch-rune for homelands, the sideways Jesus-fish. Clomping across the parking lot in untied combat boots, she lobbed the bag of clothes over the rim of the dumpster, then went into the gas station. A few minutes later, she came back out with a little bag, glass clinking inside.
Wind rolled in off the ocean as she pumped gas, giant tides of air that pushed waves across the puddles and made the awning’s aluminum sheets thunder. Her Mohawk blew in the gale.
“Morning, love.” The shape of her mother Annie coalesced from the cool air.
“Hi, Mom.”
Only Robin could see and hear her. Annie’s AM-radio voice was tinny and hollow, but her diction was razor-sharp. She wore a flowing sundress, or at least that’s what Robin thought it was; the ghost was mostly diaphanous and gauzy. Ever since she’d pulled Annie out of the dryad, she appeared from time to time, as if checking in. She supposed she carried Annie in her heart now, or at least in some room of her mind.
A red pickup truck angled in, paused as if in indecision, and then pulled up to the next pump. In the back was a bundle of fishing poles, nets, a tackle box. Mashed beer cans.
The door opened with a rusty crack and the driver got out, dressed like some kind of farmer, dirty chambray shirt and even dirtier jeans. His face was a wild bristle of salt-and-pepper scruff. Instead of opening his mouth to reveal grungy chompers and a Howdy, y’all, he smiled with flawless eggshell teeth and said, “Guten Morgen. Schönes Wetter, nicht wahr?”
Good morning. Lovely weather, isn’t it?
“Uhh … ja. Wenn Sie eine buh—Beerdigungen, v-vielleicht.” Yeah. If you like funerals, maybe. It was the best she could remember from Heinrich’s books. Probably sound like I have some kind of brain damage.
The German laughed. “What brings a beautiful young woman like you out here to the middle of nowhere by herself?” he asked in a heavy accent. His eyes were hooded but clear. And they were gravitating to her ass.
“Creepazoid,” murmured the ghostly Annie.
Robin smiled and whispered confidentially behind her hand, “Ich bin hier, um eine Hexe zu töten.”
Laughing even harder, the German unscrewed his gas cap and looked back at her. Something in Robin’s eyes made his smile fall cold. If it were possible for a man’s ears to lie flat back like a dog, Herr Fisherman’s would have. He got back in his truck without putting the gas cap back on, cranked it, and pulled around next to the store.
His doors locked. Clunk!
Robin laughed. “You’re gonna be waitin’ a while for me to leave, sucker.” The meter on the pump had climbed to nineteen dollars. “The Brave is thirsty today.”
She engaged the auto-cutoff and climbed into the Winnebago. Her MacBook sat on the breakfast nook table. She opened the laptop and woke it up to find a couple of new emails buried in a mess of spam and Malus Domestica fan mail. The first was from Anders Gendreau, asking her how Alaska was treating her. She typed up a quick answer and fired it off:
Hey Andy,
It’s beautiful up here but hard to sleep with it always daytime. I’m done here for now, but I might spend a couple more days here in the mountains before I take off back to the Lower 48, if you don’t mind—I could use a little more nature in my life. Looking forward to getting back. Let me know if you guys want to get together for the Fourth.
—Robin
The second email was from Wayne Parkin.
Hi Robin!!!!!
I hope you’re having fun. Dad and I love the pictures you’ve been posting in Alaska and Canada. That moose you saw on the freeway was crazy!!!! I hope her and her baby are okay!!!
Miss you here. Dont know if you saw the pictures we put on Instagram but Joel and me fixed up the comic shop real good and with Marissa’s help, we got it running this week. Its doing great. I guess Fisher made a will a couple years ago and left the shop to Joel. Him and Marissa are sharing ownership and thanks to all our ideas … especially Marissa … Joel says the shop is out of the hole, whatever that maens.
Turned out Miguel was the one that bought Kenway’s art shop and turned it into another pizzeria … the Rocktown Cafe … since they’re right down the street from the comic shop we share alot of business!!!
Anyway I wanted to say hey and tell you I’m doin real good in school. And thank you for kicking that demon out. We sleep good now. Dad had that symbol tattooed on our shoulders. At first the tattoo guy didn’t want to do it but then Dad showed him your videos and then the tattoo guy was all about tattooing a kid. It hurt real bad but I didn’t cry at all. Dad was proud of me.
Dad hasnt had a drink since we moved here. He misses Mom sometimes and he gets this look on his face when Mr. Johnson messes up and offers him a beer but he never takes one.
Love you Ms. Martine. Come see us when you get back.
PS. Joel decided to try his brothers “keto diet” after all. He had a hard time with it at first he got real sick for a few weeks but now he’s doin alright. He still cheats sometimes but he says he feels better than he has in a while. Also he’s taking self defense classes with Marissa.
Robin closed the MacBook, digging through the bag for a can of green tea. She opened it with a snick! and sat in the nook, slurping and staring out the window.
“Get up, you lazy bastard,” she called. “I’ve been driving all night. It’s your turn.”
A groan came from the bedroom loft.
“Get uuuuup.” Robin slurped tea.
“Uuuuuhhng.”
She got up out of the nook and went into the back. Kenway was sprawled facedown on the bed in his underwear, the sheet sideways like a toga. She pulled the sheet off and smacked him hard on the ass.
“Yo!” he shouted, scrambling to roll over. Grabbing her wrist, he dragged her into the bed and held her down unti
l she was forced to pinch him and it turned into a tickle-fight. He won by forfeit when he took her face in his hands and they kissed, an intoxication of slow gulping and lip-biting and tongue-licking.
“My devil-girl,” said Kenway, her cheeks cupped in his bear paws.
He got up and pulled an elastic sock over the end of his leg, then strapped on his prosthetic foot. Lumbering through the Winnebago, he pulled a can of coffee out of her bag and slugged half of it back, then put on some clothes and went out to put away the gas nozzle.
While they’d been necking in the back, another car had pulled up to the other side of the pump. A young woman fed gasoline into a raggedy station wagon, her shoulders bunched up against the damp wind. Dark circles of insomnia ringed her eyes.
Sitting in the back was a little boy. He seemed to recognize Kenway and rolled down his window, but what he said was so low, Robin couldn’t make it out. The woman—his mother, assumedly—gave him an earful. He frowned and rolled the window back up. Before any further words could be exchanged, the boy’s mother got in the car and drove away with a squeal of tires.
“What was that about?” asked Robin as Kenway tucked his bulky self behind the wheel of the Winnebago.
“Kid asked me if I was the guy from that show on YouTube.” He buckled his seat belt and started the engine. “Told him I was. He said there’s a witch living in the woods near his house. Almost got his sister and now she’s been prowling around all night trying to get him. They call her ‘the Qalupalik,’ the Old Woman of the Sea.”
“I take it his mom told him to shut up about the witches.”
“Actually, she told him to shut up, shut up, shut up about the goddamn witch.” He was already fording the parking lot, chasing after the station wagon. Robin staggered across the listing deck of the RV and plopped into the passenger seat.
Seagulls sliced the sky over the road. She leaned over to turn on the radio, and static brought her to a station playing Halestorm’s “Daughters of Darkness.” Rock ’n’ roll filled the Winnebago with sound and fury. Annie stood behind the transmission hump, her hands on their headrests, smiling. As Robin watched, the shade vapored into nothing.
