by Nash, Layla
Crossroads Burning
Layla Nash
Ravenheart Publishing
Copyright © 2018 by Layla Nash
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Jacqueline Sweet
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
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Chapter 1
The witches of Rattler’s Run all eventually go crazy. Sometimes they take others out with them, and sometimes they just kind of slip away into madness and end up wandering the prairie in their nightgowns. No one in town ever minded those. It was the ones who brought demons back with them, from wherever they went, that really turned the town against us.
We grew up knowing that could happen and we still missed the signs when Aunt Bess went around the bend. It happened so slow it kind of sneaked up on us, despite Ma’s warnings, and Bess near destroyed the town before her magic gave out and killed her.
No one went to her funeral except us. But then, there wasn’t much to bury, and no one from town wanted to be part of a witches’ circle, even when it was just standing next to a casket.
Poor Aunt Bess. It wasn’t like we could have done anything if we saw the signs earlier, but then again, maybe we could’ve. It’s hard to tell with that kind of thing.
We stayed away from town for a while after that, licking our wounds and trying to figure out what to do next. With Aunt Bess gone, it was just me and my sisters. Ma died years before, even though her ghost came back every now and then, and there weren’t any other siblings or cousins or relations to worry about—or fall back on. At least one of us had to stay in Rattler’s Run forever, and since we couldn’t agree on which one, we were all stuck.
Some mornings, like that particular morning, I wondered if it wouldn’t be worth just disappearing in the night. Lucia and Olivia would get over it eventually.
I stared under the hood of the rattletrap SUV that hauled me all over hell and gone, pondering where I would get the money for a new starter. Business wasn’t exactly good for anyone in Rattler’s Run, but it especially wasn’t good for a witch who moonlighted as part of the Park Service. They hired me on as a contractor most years to help with tracking different animal populations, like the wolves and a new herd of bison that roamed the prairie, and to keep an eye out for poachers. That summer, they’d hired on some interns or felons or something and there wasn’t as much business as usual for me, though all the rangers apologized for it. It was a headquarters decision, they said. Not that that put food on my table or gas in my truck.
The weather started to turn already as September faded, and I didn’t want to be without the truck or the Park Service paycheck. There wasn’t much else a witch could do in Rattler’s Run, not when no one would hire us to work around kids or food. Which left the parks and the tourists.
Except for Halloween, when the entire town expected the Lucketts to put on a show. I figured that was the year we’d start charging a fee for walking around with pointy hats and gauzy skirts and moles on our chins. We could have rigged up the house as a haunted house, but I didn’t want a bunch of strangers tromping through the last refuge we had. Besides, it could have given the real ghosts we had ideas about staying around full-time, and no one needed that.
I wiped grease off my hands and finally gave up. Fixing the truck was beyond my rather limited mechanical abilities, and magic wouldn’t do much but more damage with that kind of machinery. Which meant I’d have to call in some favors from the local repair shop, since I had no money to pay for it. Double shit.
The hood dropped with a thud and I glanced up just as Olivia bounced onto the front porch and across the dirt yard, past the scraggly rose bushes that were just about all we had left to remember Gran except for her ghost. “Where are you headed?”
“Up to the fort,” she said, flicking a blonde braid over her shoulder. “Something wrong with the truck?”
“Yeah.” I tilted my head back, closing my eyes against the bright sunlight, and exhaled my worries out to the universe, like Gran taught us. Everything happened for a reason. So the universe was trying to tell me something by making me wait. Or maybe the barn cats got into the engine and clawed up the belts. Again.
Or Ma’s ghost came back around and wanted to make sure I thought of her.
“Maybe Jimmy will fix it for you for free,” she said, giving me a sideways look as she waggled her eyebrows. “Or for trade.”
And she put her hands on her hips like she could illustrate what the sixty-year-old, snaggle-toothed mechanic would want in trade. I threw the greasy rag at her, unmindful of her old-timey costume for reenactments up at the fort for the tourists. “Get out of here. And pick up something for dinner on your way back, after you’re done churning butter.”
“Don’t be jealous.” Olivia waved her fingers and did some kind of shuffle with her feet that could have been a dance move before she climbed into the ancient sedan that was apparently the only working vehicle on our property.
Except the ride-on mower, which I’d be damned if I’d take into town.
I was still pondering the possibilities when the dust cloud settled down from her departure and then rose up again with the arrival of a newer model Land Rover. I coughed and covered my mouth and nose with my sleeve so I didn’t end up with pneumonia as the truck bumped over and around the lake-sized potholes. We really needed gravel or something on the drive, but that would have to wait until we won the lottery.
Apparently witches weren’t any luckier than regular humans, since we hadn’t even gotten a scratch-off to pay out in all the years we’d been playing.
The big man who got out of the dusty green truck put on a ball cap as soon as he straightened, squinting in the sun, and brushed more of the dust off his khakis and button-
down shirt. His gruff voice was comforting more than intimidating as he held out his hand to shake. “Luckett, we expected you up at the station half an hour ago.”
I shook his hand and patted the hood of my truck. “Trouble with the starter. I was just headed in to call you.”
Eddie, one of the park rangers who’d lasted the longest at the local station, gestured for me to pop the hood once more. I obliged, hoping maybe he had some kind of mechanical magic I lacked, and leaned on the bumper to watch as he fiddled with some of the belts. “We might have some extra parts lying around the warehouse. I’ll see what we can dig up.”
“Thanks, Eddie. I’d appreciate it.” I’d have appreciated it more if he hired me on full-time with a cushy salary and benefits, but since I couldn’t leave Rattler’s Run, I couldn’t go to whatever school they used to make new park rangers. “What brings you by?”
“We have kind of an odd request,” he said, frowning more as he leaned to check something else in the engine. “Go around and try to start it. Maybe we can get it running for now.”
An odd request? I slid into the driver’s seat and turned the key, hoping beyond hope for a hint of life from the engine. Nothing. Not even a chug. “An odd request for the park or an odd request for... other stuff?”
I added the last a bit hesitantly. Eddie wasn’t from Rattler’s Run, like most of the rangers who ended up passing through, but he was one of the few who didn’t seem perturbed by the rumors about the Lucketts and witches and craziness. He was one of the few who got turned around in the Crossroads, the odd kind of Bermuda Triangle we had out on the plains, and lived to tell of it. He came out completely bald and shaken to the core. For a while, we thought he might turn tail and head to one of the safer national parks, like one with grizzly bears or geysers. But instead he started paying attention to the stories, and one night over several beers, he asked me whether I was actually a witch and what the hell happened to him out at the Crossroads.
So for him to say it was an odd request meant a lot more than if any of the other rangers mentioned it.
Eddie rubbed his jaw and leaned his hip against the truck’s fender. “Well, it’s not official park business, so I can’t pay you. But some fellas were up here looking for a guide, or at least our approval for traveling into the Crossroads.”
My eyebrows rose as I looked at him. The park service didn’t approve anyone for travel through the Crossroads, since so many people ended up dead or disappeared through that part of the plains. The Native American reservation also abutted the western edge of it, and there had been trouble with tourists and hikers wandering into areas they had no business poking around in. The ones who survived to tell of it seemed to think the Crossroads were haunted or full of savage wolves, and all kinds of conspiracy theories kicked up during my mom’s childhood. So the Park Service shut down that part of the park completely to outsiders. The official explanation was something about an endangered species of grass or mold or bird needing to be left alone, or the snap blizzards that seemed to brew up right there regardless of whether it was June or January. Everyone in Rattler’s Run knew it was magic, though, through and through.
“What are they looking for?”
“They said they were tracking some kind of drone and lost contact with it in that area. The last coordinates they have for it are right in the middle of the Crossroads.”
“A drone?” I snorted, trying to think of something more ridiculous and coming up with nothing. “What the hell for?”
“Trying to track wolf populations, I think. They’re an interesting group, working for a university on a federal grant, so Washington called and recommended we help them out getting to the location. I told them we couldn’t allow them into the Crossroads without a guide and I’d do my best to find them one.” Eddie studied me as he closed the hood of the truck. “From what I heard, they’ve got deep pockets and could pay you a hell of a lot more than we could. You interested?”
“All they want to do is go in and retrieve their little doodad?”
Eddie hesitated, and I braced myself for the real trouble. After some time, he took a deep breath and shook himself, like he was trying to throw off a memory. “Something feels off about them, about the request. I can’t put my finger on it, and I can’t explain it, but there it is. I figured if anyone could figure out what they’re really after, it would be you.”
“I’m happy to talk with them,” I said. “But I don’t know about going out into the Crossroads with a bunch of tourists.”
“They look serious enough. They’re cautious enough they accepted having a guide without much fuss, and they’ve got the right kind of gear. They’ve done their research.” He shrugged. “Headquarters wouldn’t have called if these guys weren’t legitimate. And if it was anywhere else in the park, I wouldn’t mind them going out on their own, even now with the weather changing. But since they asked about the Crossroads and only the Crossroads, I figured it was worth your time.”
I frowned, waiting for the magic or my connection to the land or whatever it was that tied us to Rattler’s Run to speak up. When nothing flared up to warn me about doing the job, I figured there wasn’t much harm in taking some strangers into the Crossroads and right back out again. And I needed the money to fix my truck. “Yeah, I can do that. When do they want to leave?”
“Right away, but I’ll leave that up to you. They’re staying in town at the Inn. I’ll let them know you’ll meet them there at six.”
“Tell them to go to the bar instead.” I canted my head back at the house, where Lucia got ready for work, even though Eddie wouldn’t know that. “I’ll have to get a ride or take the bike. Might as well get a drink while I’m in town.”
“I might meet y’all there, too,” he said, a hint of a drawl making an appearance. I didn’t know much about Eddie other than his role as a park ranger, but he had an air of kindness about him that reminded me distantly of an uncle or father-figure I remembered as a watermark of a real person. I’d never known my father, just like my sisters hadn’t known theirs, so part of me was usually looking around to see if someone might have the same eyes as me. Eddie wasn’t nearly old enough, nor had he ever lived anywhere my ma had, but I liked to think maybe my real father was a bit like him. “I’ll have Dave or one of the others bring a service truck down here for you before you leave for the Crossroads, since it might be a while until yours is fixed. I didn’t see anything wrong with the starter, but that doesn’t count for much.”
“Right.” That was more the truth than he even realized. Magic worked funny around machines, and long-term exposure to witches or magic or anything like us tended to degrade metals and cause stuff to go funny or not at all. Which made keeping a toaster working in the house damn near impossible. The technology in our house was a lot closer to the historical reenactors’ quarters at the fort than any of our neighbors, but at least we could make up for it with touches of everyday magic. “I’d appreciate anything you can help with. It’s been kinda lean this year.”
Eddie nodded, about to say something else that might have bruised my ego or made me like him even more, then his radio squawked and he unclipped it from his belt. “Sorry, I’ve got to head back. There’s a big tour group that’s been causing a bit of trouble with some of the mannequins, and I promised not to leave Dave in charge of the fort for more than an hour.”
I laughed, flipping my useless truck keys around my finger. “Poor Dave. Give him my best.”
“Will do. We’ll see you at the bar around six.”
He got into his truck and started it up, about to pull out when I stepped forward to squint at him, shielding my eyes from the sunlight. “Wait. How will I know these cats? The ones with the drone thing.”
“You’ll know.” He chuckled, shaking his head, and touched the brim of his cap in a polite kind of salute. “If you don’t, you’re not half as psychic as I think you are.”
It was my turn to laugh, though it wasn’t nearly as easy as his. “I’m not ps
ychic, Eddie. I promise.”
“That’s what a real psychic would say,” he said, then winked to show he was mostly joking. Mostly.
I shook my head and stepped back from the truck, waving him away. “Then I see you buying me a beer later this afternoon.”
The park ranger snorted. “We’ll see about that.”
He drove off, the truck rattling and rumbling as it bounced down the rutted dirt road away from the house, and I stood there longer than I should have, watching the truck turn off toward town. The dust hung in the air like unwise words, and I wondered why the air remained so still and tense, like a storm was brewing far away and we just couldn’t see it yet. I checked the horizon, just in case, and closed my eyes so my magic could sink down from my feet and into the earth, searching for a hint of what was to come. But the earth and the spiderweb of ley lines didn’t have anything to tell me, so I turned around and went up to the house to ask Lucia for a ride to town before her shift at the bar.
Chapter 2
Being a witch in a small town was never comfortable, but it was even less comfortable walking into places when you were pretty sure they’d just been talking about you. Like when conversation died to nothing except coughs and cleared throats, and no one would meet your eyes. I knew there wasn’t anything on my face or the front of my shirt as I stepped into the bar, but there might as well have been. The locals looked away and the few tourists caught the tension in the air and did the same.
