12

Adam

“Adam, the demons . . .” Bobby said, watching behind them for the glow of green headlights.

“I know. I’m trying. Vran?”

Adam felt something lurking past what they could see and hear.

It was like a glamour, and he’d gotten really good at piercing those, at sensing the cracks and where to pry with his power. This whole place was one big glamour, but no matter how hard he pried he couldn’t find a crack.

“This place tastes strange,” the elf said. He stuck his tongue out, like he might catch a raindrop.

“How so?” Adam asked, sniffing.

He rolled the window down and took a long breath to taste the air. Wood rot, damp—like the swampy places down by the lake back home.

“I can smell it,” Adam said, looking for rain or signs of water, but they’d left the flooded plains behind. “But I don’t see it.”

“It’s old,” Vran said.

“Yeah,” Adam agreed.

It felt like an abandoned pool or bathtub. The ghost of water. This place remembered rain. It remembered a lot of it.

“All I smell is cow,” Bobby complained.

“There’s that too,” Vran said. “This is like the Tidal Gate.”

“How do you call it back home?” Adam asked.

“Water,” Vran said. “I have to wake it up, make it remember when the world was flooded.”

“They’re here,” Bobby said as green headlights filled the road behind them.

“We could drive on, come back when we shake them,” Bobby said.

“No,” Adam said. “I know what to do.”

He killed the engine and leaped out.

“Adam!” Bobby called.

“One sec!” he yelled back. “Like Vran said, it needs to remember.”

Adam popped the trunk and grabbed a gallon of water.

Ghosts usually wanted blood, but this one was something else, the ghost of a time or a place.

The demon cars revved their engines.

Adam slammed the trunk shut, popped the cap off the gallon, and started walking, hurrying to splash a circle, grateful that Bobby had brought it.

The cars stopped, close enough that their headlights almost blinded Adam. He kept walking, kept pouring.

A gunshot cracked.

Adam came around the Cutlass to see the cowboys coming at the demons from a side street.

More gunshots sounded.

At least they weren’t shooting at him.

The circle was messy, but as soon as he completed it the world began to shift. The taste of rain filled the air.

Adam capped the near-empty jug, tossed it at Bobby, and dove back into the car. He’d barely closed the door when the skies opened. Rain poured in sheets, washing the world away.

“How did you know to draw a circle?” Bobby asked.

“It’s always circles,” Adam said.

Behind them, the demon cars had started chasing the cowboys, trying to run them down in the alleys.

“Why’d they help us?” Bobby asked.

“No idea,” Adam said.

Vran shrugged and pointed out the windshield. “I’d be more worried about that.”

Something swept across the horizon, a slow tide that picked up speed as it came on. The trains were gone.

“Let me out!” Vran said.

“What? No!” Adam said.

“It’s water, Adam,” Vran said. “I can save us if you let me out.”

“No,” Adam said.

“Fine.”

Vran vanished in a puff of brine scent.

“Vran!”

But the boy was already outside the car, standing in front of the flood.

Adam unbuckled his seat belt as Vran lifted a hand. The wave parted for him, dividing around the Cutlass as it swept into the town.

Adam felt the gate open, felt the world begin to shift. Ice pooled in his belly as they sank.

The ghosts swam outside, caught up in the tide, their expressions blank, like this was a nonevent.

The cowboys and the demon cars swirled by, tossed every which way.

Then Vran turned, looked Adam in the eye. He smiled, but Adam felt the fear, the navy blue dread filling the boy. The taste of his magic turned brackish, stale and salty.

Then the flood swept Vran away.

It never touched the Cutlass. The shift ended. Vran had saved them.

Adam leaped out of the car.

The mud sucked at Bobby’s hiking boots as he joined Adam.

“Do you see him?” Adam asked.

“No,” Bobby said.

Adam scanned the sodden street. He trudged forward, but found no sign of the elf.

Even if the car would start, even if the engine weren’t flooded, he would not leave Vran behind.

“He didn’t make it down,” a voice drawled.

Adam whirled to face the cowboy, the friendly blond from before. Down here, he looked more solid, less spectral, not that his gun hadn’t been real enough when he’d been shooting at the demons. It rested in a holster on his belt.

The other riders appeared, flickering into sight atop their horses at the end of the street.

“What do we do?” Bobby asked.

“Do you know where he is?” Adam asked the cowboy, ignoring Bobby’s question.

“No,” the cowboy said.

Adam inhaled, tried to remember, tried to sense the elf.

What he got was a hint of Vran’s magic, the same taste as when he’d first appeared to Adam and then vanished.

“He called the Tidal Gate,” Adam told Bobby. “He may be all right.”

“What does that mean?” Bobby asked.

“It’s how he teleports. He may have made it out,” Adam said, remembering their conversation at Dead Woman’s Crossing. He had to hope that was the case.

“And if not?” Bobby asked.

“Then he’s lost between the planes.”

“Y’all ain’t from around here,” the cowboy said.

“Just passing through,” Adam said, eyeing the muddy town and trying to get his shaking under control.

Debris piled everywhere. Water ran in dirty streams. Still not an ocean, but something close to it.

“We don’t mean any harm,” Bobby said.

“Whether or not you did, you made quite a splash,” one of the other cowboys joked.

Great, Adam thought. Vran was missing, and they had to deal with undead cowboys telling dad jokes.

This really was hell.

The riders hadn’t come closer. The blond stayed ahead, nearer than the others. He looked familiar, but Adam couldn’t place him.

He tipped his hat.

“Nice car,” he said.

“Thanks.”

Adam wondered if he should have gotten a gun or salt from the trunk. There wasn’t time now.

“Where’d you get it?” the cowboy asked like they were having a casual conversation, like one of them wasn’t missing.

“It was my dad’s,” Adam said.

He could inch away, try to jump back in the Cutlass, but he didn’t even know if she’d start. Even if she did, they couldn’t outrun bullets.

“Why are you rustling ghosts?” Bobby asked.

“It’s why we’re here,” the cowboy said with a shrug.

“And the demons?” Adam asked. “Why the shoot-out?”

“They’re not supposed to be here,” the cowboy growled. “They belong lower down. That’s where you’re headed, right?”

“It is,” Adam said.

Bobby gave him a wary look, but Adam had the sense that he knew the blond, and even if he didn’t, they were badly outnumbered.

“You’re not supposed to be here either,” one of the older cowboys, a woman, said.

Adam sized up the riders. They didn’t look angry, just hard.

“We have to,” Adam said. “Like I said, we’re only passing through. We don’t want any trouble.”

The blond turned to the others. Something unspoken passed between them.

“You should go,” he said to Adam. “Get what you’re here for and get out if you can. Be quick about it.”

“That’s the plan,” Adam said.

“There’ll be more demons,” the cowboy said.

“I appreciate the warning,” Adam said.

He and Bobby climbed back into the Cutlass, his stomach tied in knots as he turned the key.

It would be damn embarrassing if it didn’t start.

The engine turned over with a discontented grumble.

I’m sorry, girl, Adam thought. I’ll give you anything you need when this is done.

Adam took a final look around, hoping for a sign of black hair and a mischievous grin. Nothing. He saw nothing. Vran was gone.

The cowboys turned their horses and rode away.

“Any idea what they wanted?” Bobby asked.

“No,” Adam said. “But I don’t think that’s the last we’ll see of them.”