It Happened One Doomsday

by Laurence MacNaughton

  That was the only picture with people in it. The rest were nothing but cars.

  The welcoming aroma of coffee filled the air. Greyson sat on a stool in his kitchenette, pecking at the keys of an old laptop. A black leather cowboy hat crowned his head as if it belonged there, hiding his horns. But his glowing red eyes were impossible to ignore.

  They cut across the room to her, unreadable. “Morning,” he said.

  Looking at him now, in the clear morning light, there was only one thing she could think about.

  The kiss.

  The thought of it brought a rush of blood to her head, making her giddy. And confused.

  She had no idea how to sort out what she was feeling. About him. About Nate. About the insane concept that she, herself, could actually be a sorceress. Everything was happening too fast.

  From the armchair beside her, a chainsaw-like rumble made her jump. Until she realized it was Rane, snoring openmouthed. Most of Rane’s body was hidden under a blanket, but the arms and legs that stuck out didn’t look like they were attached at the right angle, as if she’d simply splatted onto the couch from a high altitude.

  Dru got to her feet carefully, afraid to wake Rane. But then again, Rane could probably sleep through an aboveground nuclear test.

  As Dru crept toward the kitchenette, Greyson stirred and got out a mug emblazoned with a five-pointed Mopar logo.

  “Thing only makes one cup at a time.” Greyson opened a kitchen cabinet, revealing shelves of ramen noodles and Spam. He got out a single serving of coffee and started it brewing. “I don’t get visitors all that much.”

  Dru gave him a sad smile. “Ever?”

  His red eyes met hers briefly, then glanced behind her. She followed his gaze to a half-empty bag of cat food sitting on the floor by the back door.

  “There’s a stray cat, hangs out in the alley sometimes. A red tabby. Likes tuna.”

  “Really? What’s his name?”

  Greyson shrugged as if he didn’t care, but a slight hesitation beforehand told her that he did. “Doesn’t seem to need one. Mostly he responds to ‘Want some food?’”

  She watched Greyson as he fixed her a cup of coffee from his single-serve machine. Everything in his life seemed to be built around cars, not people. As if he had given up on any personal connections and devoted himself to things that couldn’t talk back.

  She cleared her throat. “So, who are the people in your photo? They seem nice.”

  He didn’t answer at first. When he did, it was without meeting her gaze. “My family.”

  “Do they live around here?” In the silence that followed, she added nervously, “Do they work on cars too?”

  He slid a steaming mug of coffee in front of her. “Cars can be tough to fix. But at least they can be fixed. Some things can’t.” Buried under his gruff tone, she could hear the hurt in his voice.

  She decided it would be better to leave that topic alone. Whatever had happened with his family, Greyson seemed to have honed his mechanical skills to wall himself off from the human world.

  No wonder he had forged such a strong connection to Hellbringer. The car attracted him, played to his biggest defenses, and his loneliness provided an opening for the demon’s power. He was the perfect target.

  “You said you needed info about the estate,” Greyson said, interrupting her thoughts.

  “That the car came from? Yes, absolutely. Did you find anything?”

  By way of answer, he turned his laptop screen to face her. It was a list of auction items. A very long list.

  She scrolled through it, not sure what she was looking for. She found the usual items she’d expect to see in a big estate sale: furniture, jewelry, miscellaneous antiques. But then things got a little strange.

  A collection of rare insects. A medical autoclave. A sixteenth-century German tapestry depicting a scroll with seven wax seals.

  “Well, that’s something you don’t see every day. Book of Revelation,” she explained at his quizzical look. “Biblical prophecy about the end of the world. Who would want to hang that in their home?”

  The deeper she got into the list, the weirder things became.

  A stuffed Alpine ibex. A test tube incubator. An alphabetized collection of bat wings.

  She pointed at the screen with a growing sense of dread. “This was no ordinary estate. Who was the owner?”

  Greyson shook his head. “They don’t give any names. But I did find an address in New Mexico. The weird thing is, when you look it up on a map, you can see the road, but no house. The road just ends.”

  “In the middle of the neighborhood?”

  “No. Middle of the desert.”

  “So not exactly the sociable type.” Slowly, Dru nodded. “That makes sense. I’ll bet they had some obfuscation spells in place.” Before he asked, she added, “Camouflage.”

  “So you think this person was a sorcerer?”

  “Had to be. Monstrously powerful one, too. Or someone who made an infernal bargain.”

  Greyson didn’t look convinced. “Or maybe just someone who liked to collect weird antiques.”

  She jabbed a finger at the screen. “Who else has a laboratory-grade fume hood and a vacuum pump in their house? And jars full of dead animal parts?”

  Greyson’s red eyes narrowed. “Maybe a veterinarian.”

  “Sure. A veterinarian who operates on demons.” Dru kept scrolling through the list, more worried by the moment. “If this is all from one house, it must’ve been huge. There are over a thousand items here. Are there any books?”

  “Think so.” He took the laptop, typed for a moment, then turned it back to her.

  Dru’s jaw dropped open.

  The Prophecies of Paloma.

  Severina’s Spirit Guide.

  The Scripture of Ephraim.

  Dru pointed at the last one. “That’s part of the Wicked Scriptures. I thought they’d all been burned.”

  Greyson looked uneasy. “The Wicked Scriptures?”

  “About everyone dying horribly in a fiery doomsday at the end of the world.” She kept going down the list, and the books kept getting darker. “Some of these are seriously bad mojo from the Middle Ages. Formulaes Apocrypha. That’s all about questionable studies into the nature of primordial destruction. And the Treatise Maleficarum. A who’s who for the pits of hell.” A horrifying thought seized her. “I can’t believe they auctioned this stuff off to the public. You know what kind of creeps are going to buy these books?” She stood up and paced the tiny kitchenette, a hard knot forming in her stomach.

  “Anything in here tell you how to undo what they did?”

  “There’s too much stuff here for one lone sorcerer. It had to be a group of sorcerers, all acting together. If even one of them was still around today, they wouldn’t have let this stuff get auctioned. No way. Which means they’re all dead,” Dru said. “Whatever they were up to, it probably got them all killed. This is seriously worse than I thought. Tons worse.”

  A crash from the living room signaled that Rane was awake. She rolled to her feet and blinked in the morning light, looking stunned. “Hey. I miss anything?”

  Dru just stirred her coffee and glanced at Greyson.

  He lifted his leather cowboy hat, revealing his horns. “Morning.”

  “Ooh, still demon-y. Least you’re not trying to kill anyone. And plus you’re bitchin’ stylish, so, win-win.” Rane lurched across the living room, long arms stretching wide, mouth yawning open wider. “Ahh . . . Coffee. Black.”

  “Out of mugs,” Greyson said. “She got the last one.”

  “Whatever. We’ll share.” Rane straddled a chair and picked up Dru’s mug, downing it in three gulps before she set it down and tapped the rim for a refill.

  “There’s more.” Dru pointed at the laptop. “Apparently, Hellbringer hails from some evil sorcerer group’s mansion in New Mexico. Possibly haunted.”

  Rane draped a heavy arm over Dru’s shoulders and hugged her close. Her skin radiated
a sleepy warmth. “Cool. Road trip.”

  19

  DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME

  Nate’s white Prius trundled southbound on the empty highway at exactly one mile per hour under the speed limit. Denver was hundreds of miles behind them. Ahead, endless hills of sunbaked New Mexico earth rolled out of the distance, evenly dotted with tufts of dry green scrub and spiky yucca. Beyond, dark clouds rose over the deep blue silhouettes of mountains, threatening to overtake the clear, bold sky.

  Before they’d left, Rane had pointed out how much she liked seeing Dru in a “prom dress,” which immediately made Dru insist on running home to get cleaned up and put on skinny jeans and some road-trip-worthy shoes.

  Now, Dru slurped down the last syrupy drops of her Frappuccino through its overly long green straw and regretfully nestled the empty cup back into the holder.

  As the desolate highway droned along beneath the tires, she wished Greyson would say something. Anything. He’d barely spoken a word in the last couple of hours. Even Rane was quiet in the back seat, possibly napping.

  Dru kept wanting to ask Greyson how he was doing, but she held back. It was fairly obvious he didn’t want to talk. Besides, who would be happy about being stuck in half-demon form, with horns, claws, and glowing eyes?

  She felt terrible about his condition, though she hadn’t caused it. At least she had broken Hellbringer’s connection to whatever dark force was behind all of this. She presumed that kept Greyson from getting any worse. But she still didn’t know how to break the curse for good.

  “Just to keep you in the loop,” Greyson said abruptly, breaking into her thoughts, “it’s getting late, and we’re getting closer to sunset. We need to pick up the pace.”

  Dru flexed her aching fingers on the steering wheel. “Well, I can’t change the speed limit.”

  “Too late to point this out, but I do have a much faster car parked in my garage.”

  Dru shook her head resolutely. “No one is going anywhere in Hellbringer. That thing stays parked.”

  “Even after your spell? I was under the impression that you short-circuited the instrument of ultimate evil. Now it’s just an ordinary car, right?”

  “Still.”

  “Still, now you’re wondering if you should’ve let me drive.” He sounded sure of it. “You enjoy danger. You just don’t want to admit it. That’s why you’re in this line of work.” He turned his dark sunglasses toward her and gave her an unusually frank smile.

  Part of that smile might have been from the potion he’d been sipping on all afternoon. She’d formulated a new potion before they left, a simpler one with more quartz infusions to strengthen his willpower and steel his resolve.

  So far his demon symptoms hadn’t gotten any better. But they hadn’t gotten any worse, either. That was something.

  “Believe me,” she said, “I’m not a big fan of danger. The less, the better.”

  “You say that, but you’re still driving us across the desert in search of some crazy haunted mansion that’s not on any map. That’s what I like about you. You’re full of contradictions.”

  “Maybe,” she admitted after a long moment, and a slow smile spread across her face.

  It felt so great to be out of the city, on the open road, heading toward the unknown. Completely unlike her usual self, but unexpectedly invigorating. Like a cool drink of water when she didn’t even know she was thirsty.

  Plus, she was completely at ease with Greyson. Sitting next to him felt so effortless, so right. As if they’d known each other for years. Even the way he looked at her had a puppy-dog quality to it. The thought made her smile even wider.

  He smiled back, teeth shining in the sun, red eyes still hidden behind his dark sunglasses. “Come on, you’ve got to be tired. Pull over and let me drive.”

  “Why on earth would I let you drive? Especially after you’ve been drinking out of that skull-shaped bottle all afternoon?”

  He scrutinized the bottle. “I thought you made this potion lower-octane.”

  From the back seat, Rane barked out a laugh.

  Greyson turned toward her, sunglasses flashing. “I’m sorry. Question from our studio audience?”

  Rane leaned forward between the seats, wearing Greyson’s leather cowboy hat. Dru did a double take, but decided not to ask.

  “Dude,” Rane said, “she’s not going to let you drive her boyfriend’s car. Period.”

  Greyson just grunted and faced front again.

  An awkward silence descended. The desert slid by, endless.

  “Speaking of your boyfriend,” Greyson said finally. “Isn’t he going to wonder where his car is?”

  “No, Nate’s in New York. As long as I get back to town in time to pick him up at the airport, everything’s going to be fine.”

  Greyson glanced at his watch. “So what’s Nate’s deal, anyway? What kind of sorcerer is he?”

  “Oh, no, he’s a dentist.”

  Greyson raised an eyebrow. “A dentist?”

  “What?” she said. “Why does everyone always say it like that? There’s nothing wrong with a dentist.”

  “I just never pictured you . . . Never mind.”

  “Pictured me what?”

  Greyson just shook his head.

  “Pictured me what?” Dru slapped her palm on the steering wheel.

  “Naked?” Rane said from the back seat.

  “Hey.” Dru pointed back over her shoulder. “Pipe down back there.”

  “Greyson, do not question the dentist thing.” In the rearview mirror, Rane’s half-lidded eyes scowled at Dru from beneath the hat brim. “Please, please tell me you’re not going to launch into your whole flower manifesto again. Are you?”

  “No . . .” Dru sighed. “Anyway, I wouldn’t exactly call it a manifesto.”

  Greyson cocked his head at Dru, waiting.

  She sighed. “Rane doesn’t want to hear it.”

  He folded his arms. “Then it must be good.”

  A warm glow spread through her. She couldn’t help herself. “Okay. So, the thing about flowers—”

  Rane took off the cowboy hat and bopped her with it. “Jeez-us. Not again.”

  “So . . .” Dru said. “You remember in that restaurant, Chez Monet? They had all the flowers?”

  “My recollection’s a little fuzzy.”

  “Right. Sorry. Well, everywhere you look, they have these gorgeous vases of miniature red peonies. Beautiful. And they happen to be my favorite flower.”

  “That’s why Nate picked the restaurant for you?”

  “No.” That would’ve been nice, she thought. “No, that’s just their thing. But that’s not the point. I’ve always loved peonies because they’re pretty unusual. But typically they don’t get a lot of respect. Right?”

  Greyson shrugged.

  “Okay, well, what kind of flowers get all of the attention? Roses. Red roses. Because they’re all dramatic and bold and romantic. Right? Well, sorcerers . . . I’ve known a bunch. A bunch. And they tend to be long on drama and short on commitment. They’re like thorny roses.” She looked up in the rearview mirror at Rane. “Present company excluded.”

  “No, go ahead,” Rane said, tossing the hat over her shoulder. “I am so thorny.”

  Dru turned her attention back to the road. “And what I really want is a red peony. Less dramatic, sure, but completely dependable.” She let out a breath. “You see what I’m saying?”

  “No.” His sunglasses made his expression unreadable. “But obviously you need to get more flowers.”

  “I mean I just want a normal life.”

  “Except,” Rane said, “there’s one big, fat problem with your theory. In reality, Nate’s an a-hole.”

  Greyson tried to hide his smile.

  Dru waved it off. “Oh, don’t worry. It’s just, you know . . . a little thing we’re going through.”

  Rane leaned forward between the seats. “Okay, dude. Let me ask you. When a guy says, ‘We should take a break,’ what does
that mean? Isn’t that kind of like saying, ‘I’m a selfish jackwad who only cares about myself’?”

  Dru tried to shrug it off. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it,” she said quietly, but that sounded hollow even to her.

  “Told her this on the phone,” Rane said.

  Greyson visibly winced. To Dru, he said, “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, feeling a hard lump form in her throat.

  “He’s seeing someone else?” Greyson said.

  “No!” Dru said at the exact moment that Rane said, “Probably.”

  Greyson made a dismissive wave. “Sorry, not my business. Just have to seriously question any guy who’d give you up.”

  Dru just glared at Rane. Probably? How could she even think that?

  Rane caught the look and shot it right back. “Sorry, have I entered an alternate universe where Nate can do no wrong?”

  “Good thing is you’ve seen your dentist’s true colors,” Greyson said. “Maybe there’s someone out there who will treat you right.”

  Dru kept her gaze locked on the empty highway ahead. This conversation was spinning out of control, and suddenly all she wanted to do was stop the car and get out. But they were stuck together in the middle of the desert.

  No one else could understand how badly she wanted to just live a stable life, for once. Because deep down inside, she didn’t feel like she belonged in the weird world of magic. She’d never been a sorceress.

  Until now.

  The real question, the scary question, the one lurking at the edge of her mind like a dozing bear that could maul her at the slightest provocation: could she handle this? All this magic?

  Or would it burn her out, crush her, leave her broken and unfulfilled and alone, like so many sorcerers she had known over the years?

  She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Greyson was right. They had to hurry if they wanted to make it before nightfall.

  With a twinge of reluctance, she forced herself to press down the gas pedal and edge up past the speed limit.