“Destroy it,” Rane echoed, as if savoring the word. She nodded her approval.
The roar of the engine dropped into a guttural warble, then coughed and went silent. The sudden lurch of deceleration threw Dru off-balance. She reached out both hands to steady herself.
“The hell?” Greyson said in the deafening quiet, then played with the gear shift and the ignition key. It didn’t seem to do any good.
Dru tried to peer across to see the gauges. “Did we run out of gas?”
“No. Something’s wrong.”
They coasted down a long slope, a brown rocky cliff rising up on their left, a steep chasm open on their right. Ahead, the road made a sharp left turn, protected by a guardrail. Beyond the guardrail lay nothing but empty air and the distant pine trees of the far slope. If they didn’t turn, they would go right through the guardrail and down untold hundreds of feet to the next rocky ledge below, or possibly all the way to the bottom.
Out of the corner of her mouth, Rane said, “Maybe the speed demon heard you.”
Greyson gave Dru a sharp look. “Heard you what?”
“Nothing.” Dru tried to look innocent. “Did you check the gas?”
“We didn’t run out of gas,” Greyson snapped. “What did you say?”
“Just . . .” She tried not to wither under Greyson’s glare. “I may have, maybe, alluded to . . . destroying Hellbringer.”
They kept rolling downhill without power, the wind noise whistling louder around them. A bad feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. Maybe Hellbringer really had heard her.
Greyson stared ahead at the sharp turn and tightened his grip on the wheel. “Hellbringer came to help us. Why would you want to destroy it?”
“Destroy a demon?” Rane said with a mock gasp. “What sort of crazy talk is that? Oh, wait. Here’s a wacky idea. Let’s just start trusting demons. Because how could that possibly go wrong?” She shot a dangerous look at Dru, who tried to ignore it.
“I thought I broke the connection with that spell,” Dru said.
“Hellbringer is still connected to me,” Greyson said. “I can feel it.”
“Apparently,” Dru agreed. “But what if this thing is actually driving you instead of the other way around? We know it’s a demon. Demons generally equal evil.”
“Right now’s not the best time for a debate,” Greyson said.
“But what if destroying this car is a necessary part of your cure?” Dru’s pulse picked up as they approached the turn. “Um, you can stop the car anytime.”
“Now would be good,” Rane added.
“I’m trying,” Greyson said through gritted teeth. “We’re in gear, but we’re just rolling along without power. And right now, I’ve got the brake pedal to the floor. Nothing works.”
Uh-oh. “That’s not good, is it?”
The muscles in Greyson’s jaw clenched. “I can’t stop this car.”
They kept picking up speed, rolling straight downhill toward the guardrail, everything quiet but for the wind. A rush of cold fear shot through Dru’s veins.
“I know Hellbringer attacked you,” Greyson said flatly. “But so did I. The demon inside me did it, and that doesn’t excuse it, but that doesn’t make me evil, either. Maybe Hellbringer was just protecting me.”
“Oh, sure, that’s it,” Rane said, her voice dripping with sarcasm before it turned serious. “D, say the word, and I’ll go stone and jump out. I can take you with me.”
Dru noticed that she made no mention of taking Greyson along.
“Dru?” Greyson said, the urgency plain in his voice. They’d almost reached the bottom of the hill, closing in fast on the guardrail. “I’m running low on ideas.”
Dru placed one palm flat on the dashboard. “Hellbringer, can you hear me?” She didn’t know what she expected. Maybe not a voice, but some kind of response, maybe a creak or a growl from the engine. She got nothing.
Nothing but the rush of wind over the car as it hurtled straight down the mountain highway.
Rane seized her arm and said something about making a jump for it, right now, but Dru wasn’t listening. She could only stare ahead at the empty air and the endless pine forests far beyond, the trees from this distance nothing more than miniature points tinged blue by the atmosphere.
The thin air. Nothingness. Endlessness.
If someone had threatened to destroy her—and these days, that felt like a daily occurrence—what would she do?
Try to work it out first. Make a peace offering. Offer assistance, especially if that person was in trouble.
And if that didn’t work?
I’d try to destroy them before they got me, she thought.
Just like Hellbringer was about to do.
The black metal of the dashboard grew warm under her hand. “Hellbringer,” she whispered, “I understand.”
Ahead, the guardrail loomed as they rushed straight for it.
“We won’t destroy you,” Dru whispered. “If you help us, help save us, we’ll save you. That’s the truth.”
But demons didn’t believe in truth, only oaths. A sorcio phrase popped into her mind, gleaned from one of her long-forgotten books.
“Mi juras, Infernotoris,” she intoned solemnly. I swear to you, Hellbringer.
Something trembled through the metal beneath her fingers. Nothing she could pinpoint or explain. Just a feeling that something crucial had shifted.
The engine rumbled back to life, and the wheels locked up with a howl of rubber. Greyson, startled into action, spun the wheel. They skidded to a stop mere inches from the guardrail. The noise of the skidding tires etched itself into Dru’s brain.
And then all was quiet.
Through the window, all Dru could see was the distant carpet of pine trees on the far slope, and the snowy peaks of blue mountains ranked into the fading distance. For a heart-stopping moment, she thought they’d gone over the edge. It was only when Rane let go of her arm that she fully realized they had stopped.
They sat motionless at the edge of the road, engine thrumming, while Dru tried to get her racing heartbeat back under control.
“We’ll talk later,” Rane whispered in her ear. She nodded meaningfully, then mouthed the word Christine.
Greyson slid his sunglasses off and seemed to contemplate them for a long moment. He blew out a slow breath but said nothing. When he finally looked over at Dru, his eyes glowed a steady red.
“I get it,” she said quietly. “And I think Hellbringer understands me. It’s worth saving.” Dru wanted to add, And so are you.
Still, Greyson said nothing.
Dru gave him an awkward smile. “Sorry. Poor choice of words back there.” She shrugged and held up both hands.
Rane snorted. “Yeah. Who knew this evil flying monkey death car of yours was so sensitive?”
Greyson glanced back at her, his expression wry, then turned to Dru. “So we’re done here? I can just drive now?”
Dru smiled nervously. “Can we stop at Starbucks?”
“No.” He slipped his sunglasses back on and shifted into gear.
“What if they have a drive-through?” But her words were lost in the sudden roar of the engine.
31
FADE INTO DARKNESS
The closer they got to the city, the more traffic they saw, but it was all heading out of town. A few hapless accidents were enough to leave the highways jammed to a standstill.
The overcast sky grew darker as they drove, and the strangely rusty quality of the light that filtered down through the clouds made everything feel nightmarish and unreal.
But worst of all was Greyson’s state of mind. The longer he drove Hellbringer, the more it seemed to get under his skin. He became irritable. His teeth looked a little bit sharper and his eyes brighter. It was as if the car gave him a constant dose of road rage.
Dru made a mental note to mix up a new potion as soon as they got back.
By the time they pulled up in front of The Crystal Connection, the uncan
ny sky was already dark enough to make the streetlights come on.
Greyson drove around into the alley behind the shop and backed the car into the narrow parking space. The walls of the adjacent buildings reflected Hellbringer’s thudding exhaust notes back at them, nearly deafening even with the windows closed. When he shut the engine off, the silence settled on them as if it had physical weight.
Dru looked Greyson up and down with a critical eye, noticing the horns protruding farther from his forehead and his skin getting ruddier. Definitely time for a new potion.
Greyson eyed the alley with barely contained agitation. “What do we need here, anyway?”
Mentally, she added up a list. “Everything.”
When Dru got inside, Opal swept her into a warm, perfume-scented hug. “Oh, my God, Dru. Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”
Dru smiled wanly. “It was a long trip.”
“You get my messages?”
“My phone died.” Dru dug through the pile of books next to the ugly chairs to find the cord of the charger and plugged in her phone. “First, I need to get some midnight jade for Greyson.”
Greyson stormed in behind her, glaring at everything around him, including Opal.
“My word.” Opal backed up a step, eyes going wide. “You feeling all right, Greyson?”
He bared his teeth. “Fine.”
“He will be in a minute,” Dru called out from the front of the shop. She dug through her cardboard drawers of jade. It had occurred to her during the drive back that midnight jade, or Lemurian black jade, could be just the crystal he needed right now. She kept digging until she found a polished oblong stone about half the size of her palm.
She came back and pressed the crystal into Greyson’s hand. His touch gave her a warm surge of energy, which she directed back into the smooth black rock. Flecks of pyrite glittered and shone within the darkness, like gold stars. “This should help protect you against the other Horsemen.”
Without taking her worried eyes off Greyson, Opal put her hands on her hips. “What Horsemen? Dru, you see what’s going on with the weather outside? This does not seem natural, by any stretch.”
“I’ll tell you later.” Dru directed Greyson to go sit down in back, then wasted no time heading up front to mix together a new potion. By now, she had it down to a science. Or at least she hoped so.
Opal followed along as if to help but apparently changed her mind and drummed her fingers on the countertop instead. “So I suppose you didn’t see the news on TV.”
“We’ve been out of town,” Rane said as she came in from the back room. “Way out of town.”
Opal shrugged. “Anyway. They say it’s unusual cloud formations. Spreading out all over the country. People keep asking, ‘Has there been some kind of chemical spill or something?’ That horrible smell in the air. Whole city smells like a damn frat house on burrito night.” Her eyes turned skyward. “I’ve got to wonder if it’s ’cause of the meteors.”
Dru paused in the midst of measuring ingredients into a metal bowl. “Um, meteors?”
“Yeah. Sky’s falling, for real. Some kind of big meteor shower. It keeps knocking out satellites, so the media is having a field day with it. But you ask me? I don’t think anybody’s got a clue what’s really going on.”
Dru carefully stirred the potion. “The signs of the apocalypse.”
“Don’t I know it.” Opal rolled her eyes. “They’ve been telling everybody to stay indoors. ’Course, you know that means everybody’s been getting the heck out of town. Traffic on the highway is a nightmare. That’s why I had to open late today, just so you know. And I’ve got errands to run this afternoon.” She paused, one immaculately drawn eyebrow lifted. “Wait a minute. When you say the signs of the apocalypse, you don’t really mean—”
Dru nodded somberly.
Opal looked puzzled. “I mean, you don’t really mean—”
“Hold that thought.” Dru decanted the potion into a bottle, covered the mouth with her thumb, shook it, and brought it back to Greyson.
He sat quietly with the midnight jade cupped in his hands, an anguished look on his face.
When she held out the bottle, Greyson looked up. “Do you really think you can get this thing out of me? Or are you just wasting time on me when you could be trying to stop the apocalypse?”
“Stopping the apocalypse starts with you.” Fear radiated off him, even though he hid it well. “Now, drink this.”
“The whole thing?”
“Don’t worry, this one’s alcohol-free. I used a petalite elixir this time. Made from the same kind of crystal that I gave you in the beginning. But you might need some Tums later.”
Up front, Opal’s voice went shrill, the words lost in a frantic tirade. Dru was still debating whether she wanted to investigate when Rane came stomping back. “Dude, she’s totally freaking out. I don’t have the energy to deal with this. I’ve been burning calories like a maniac. Got any protein?”
“Fridge is upstairs.” Dru nodded toward the stairwell door. “You know where it is.”
As Rane headed upstairs to Dru’s apartment, Opal hustled into the back room sniffling, holding her phone like a fragile egg. “I can’t reach my man.” She tottered past Greyson on plum-sequined heels and dropped into the chair next to him. “He’s supposed to call me on his lunch break. Why does that man always forget? And now the world’s ending.”
Dru came over and laid a comforting hand on Opal’s arm. “We won’t let the apocalypse happen. I promise.”
Opal dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a tissue and gave Dru a terrified look. “Tell me you’ve got a plan.”
“Well, um . . .”
Without warning, Opal slapped Greyson on the shoulder. “What did you do, Mr. Greyson?”
He finished chugging his potion and set down the empty bottle. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he looked from Opal to Dru and back, obviously uncomfortable. The moment stretched out. Finally, he cleared his throat. “I’m just going to take a walk.” He got up and left.
Dru let out a long breath and sat down next to Opal, who sighed.
Then Opal touched Dru’s arm and leaned in close. “You did notice that man’s not wearing a shirt under his leather jacket?”
“Yeah, kind of my fault.” At Opal’s sharp look, Dru felt her cheeks reddening. “Well, I sort of ripped his shirt off. But I had a perfectly good, logical reason.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Opal nodded knowingly. “That’s what I always tell myself.”
“So I’ll just go upstairs and get Greyson a shirt.”
“Good thinking.”
When Dru came back down with the T-shirt and found Greyson, his eyebrows went up.
“Face?” he said. “I take it that’s the front?”
Confused, Dru checked the front of the shirt and laughed. “Oh, yeah. Face Vocal Band. Kind of a rock thing, only no instruments, just voices. You’ve got to hear them sing ‘How Was the Show Last Night?’” She held out the shirt. “I got this at a concert, and Nate never wanted it, so I figured if maybe you were getting cold . . .”
Opal snorted.
“Thanks.” Greyson took the shirt.
As he stripped off his jacket, Opal’s gaze lifted from the old book she was slowly paging through and roamed up and down Greyson. Dru shot her a reproachful frown, but Opal feigned innocence.
The T-shirt stretched tight over Greyson’s shoulders and chest, distorting the four letters of the Face logo into four oblong shapes. He shrugged his jacket back on, straining the shirt’s seams.
As Dru tried to clear the visual of Greyson’s bare, muscled chest from her mind, she searched around for the Harbingers’ journal. “Opal, we had a book here. A hardbound journal, mid-twentieth century. Had a drawing of a seven-fingered hand on it. Do you know where that got to?”
Opal looked up. “Hmm? Oh, Salem took it.”
“What? Why?”
“He said you sold it to him,” Opal said defensively. �
��I’m sorry, I thought you were trying to operate a for-profit business here?”
A cold feeling settled over Dru. “I didn’t sell it to him. He’s lying.”
Rane walked in, chewing as she stuffed chicken bones and empty food containers into the already full trash can. “What would Salem want with the Harbingers’ book?”
“Hopefully, he wants the same thing we do. It’s the only clue we’ve got about the Harbingers. Opal, could you call Salem, please? Tell him we need that book back. Immediately.”
Grumbling under her breath, Opal looked up his phone number and dialed, but a few seconds later she shook her head. “He’s not answering. Want me to leave a message?”
Rane crumpled up a paper bag in her fist. “I’ve got a message for him.”
“Tell him it’s a matter of life or death,” Dru said. “Totally serious.”
As Opal left the message, Rane finished disposing of the wreckage of her feeding frenzy.
Dru pointed at the pile of bones. “Was that my rotisserie chicken?”
“I was hungry. Look, we can’t just sit around and wait for Salem to get around to calling back. Because take it from me, he doesn’t call.”
“What else can we do? We can’t just break into his house and get it.”
Rane snorted. “Why not? I used to break into his place all the time. That’s how we met.”
Greyson stepped closer, red eyes glowing. “This Salem, he’s one of the good guys?”
“Sure. I mean, mostly.” Dru wasn’t entirely sure about that. “It’s not like he’s ever done anything bad.”
Rane scowled. “Dumping me doesn’t count?”
“I mean, not evil bad.” She wavered, remembering what he’d said in the alley outside. “When I asked him about the Harbingers’ symbol the other day, he lied to me. He must know about them, obviously, or else he wouldn’t have recognized the seven-fingered hand. And he lied to Opal. I never sold him the Harbingers’ journal. He stole it.”
Greyson nodded once, decisively. “That settles it. Let’s go.” With a jingle, he pulled out his car keys.
“Go where?”
“Go find this Salem and get your book back.”
It Happened One Doomsday Page 19
