28

THE DARK UNKNOWN

Just under two hours later, Hellbringer labored to climb up through the cold thin air of the Rocky Mountains. The winding dirt fire road was barely suitable for four-wheel-drive trucks, much less an old rear-wheel-drive street machine with barely any ground clearance. Rocks constantly banged inside the wheel wells and pinged off the underside of the car.

Dru had long since traded places with Salem, and now he hung out the open passenger window, stretching his sparkling fingers into the night. As he made spidery flicking motions, the jagged boulders jutting up from the road ahead sank down into the dirt or else lumbered aside, clearing the way for the low-slung demon car.

Greyson sat hunched over the steering wheel, gripping it tight. The moon was hidden behind a nearby mountain peak, so that outside the twin cones of their headlights, the surrounding slope was pitch-black. “I don’t like this,” he growled. “We’re moving too slow. The wraiths are gaining on us. I can feel it.”

Salem spared him only a brief, unhinged glance. “Has it occurred to you that we wouldn’t have this problem if you’d had the foresight to bond with a demon-possessed truck?”

In the back seat, Rane held out an open box to Dru. “Want some Devil Dogs?”

“Again, no. Thank you.”

“Fruit Doodles? They’re Yankee-Doodle de-licious.”

“Oh, my God. No.”

This whole time, Rane had alternated between stuffing her face with junk food and chatting about every random thing that popped into her sugar-addled brain. Dru, exhausted by trying to keep up, finally tuned her out and instead focused on sorting through the heavy cardboard tray of rocks that threatened to crush her lap with every bump. By the light of her phone, she slid the crystals around the gritty cardboard, planning out the magic spell she would use to heal Rane and finally undo the damage wrought by the wraith.

And, not to put too fine of a point on it, finally make her shut up.

Opal had sent them a sizable chunk of hematite, as cloudy red as if it had been poured from the bottom of an old wine bottle, and shaped very much like a heart. Not like a cute Valentine’s Day heart, but an actual human heart, which was more than a little macabre. Next to that was a polished bloodstone, streaked with complicated swirls of green, red, and tan that reminded her of the clouds of some gas giant planet as seen from space.

Opal had also thrown in a glittering pyramid of quartz, a golden fragment of iron pyrite, and a doorknob-sized chunk of fossilized wood. Plus Dru’s jagged-edged green vivianite crystal, which she was glad to see again. But she wouldn’t need that until they actually reached the portal.

If there even was a portal. Salem had been wrong or deliberately evasive plenty of times before, and she wasn’t one hundred percent sure she could start trusting him now.

Dru picked up the heart-shaped red hematite and turned it over in her hands, shining the phone’s light through it, looking for flaws. It was so well formed that Dru could already feel the subtle healing vibrations coming off of it in invisible waves. As always, Opal had the perfect eye for choosing crystals.

Dru gave Rane a sympathetic look. “You’re being really cool about this, you know?”

Rane finished off the box and crumpled it. “Cool about what?”

“About losing your powers. I mean, personally, I think I would be freaking out right about now.”

Rane’s throat worked, as if unable to swallow down the last crumbs of the Fruit Doodles. “I’m not freaking out.”

“I know. You’re cool as a cucumber. Which is really impressive, considering.”

Rane’s nostrils flared. Her unblinking eyes bulged out, and her substantially sized hands started to shake. “I’m not freaking out about losing my powers. Why would I be freaking out?”

Uh oh. Dru patted her arm reassuringly. “No, oh, no. You’re going to be fine. I promise. Don’t freak out.”

“I lost my powers.” Rane’s nostrils flared. “I can’t do anything. I’m useless.”

“No, no! You’ll be all right. Really. We’ll fix you up.”

Rane’s chin and lips trembled, and her breath came hard and raspy. “I am not freaking out!” she yelled.

“No, you’re not!” Dru couldn’t match Rane’s volume, but she tried. “You’re not freaking out! You’re cool!”

Rane pressed her fists against the sides of her head. “I know! I am cool!”

“You’re going to be fine!”

“Totally fine!” Rane’s knees tried to curl up into a fetal position, but she was too big. There wasn’t enough room in the back seat. In frustration, she wadded up the Fruit Doodles package into a crinkly fist-sized missile, and hurled it at Salem hard enough to smack his hat off the top of his head.

“Hey!” He fumbled to grab it before it flew out the open window. “What was that for?”

“This is all your fault.” Rane unfurled her long body and sniffed the air, until she started to look dangerously nauseous. “Dude. Do you smell that?”

Dru’s nose wrinkled of its own accord as a horrible stench filled the car. It was like someone had scrambled up an omelette out of an entire truckload of rotten eggs, then dumped it into an open sewer and forgot to put the lid back on.

Rane pinched her nose. “Oh, my God. Salem! Did you cut one loose?”

He sighed. “We’re almost to the hot spring, Buttercup. That’s just how the water smells.”

Still holding her nose, Rane made a face. “No freakin’ way.”

Unable to take the stench, Dru pinched her own nostrils shut too. “What is that? No water on earth smells that bad.”

Salem smirked. “That’s because it’s not from Earth, darling.”

“Whatever, dude,” Rane said. “That’s the last time I’m letting you eat a whole box of Ring Dings.”

But as it turned out, Salem was right. They turned off the dirt fire road onto a gentle grassy slope, navigating by headlights around altitude-stunted pine trees until a swirling column of steam rose up ahead.

The hot spring was a churning pool of cloudy water at least thirty feet across, and almost perfectly round. Bubbles constantly frothed the surface, releasing foul-smelling gases. Marble-sized clusters of black, white, and green minerals bobbed in the shallows.

The natural pool bubbled in the center of a bleached-white halo of mineral-crusted rocks of all sizes. Some were as big as boulders, some as fine as sand, and all were worn smooth by the elements. No plants grew there, not even a single blade of grass. The water-rounded rocks were completely crusted with chalky minerals, making the pool and the whiteness surrounding it look like the mountainside had a vast eyeball, and it was open wide in terror.

Greyson left the headlights on when he shut off the engine, and the crushing silence that descended on them was broken only by the burbling of the boiling pool.

Salem got out and indicated the hot spring with a sweep of his pale hands. “Beautiful, isn’t it? And also deliciously refreshing, if you’re thirsty.”

Dru made a face. “Good to know. Next time, I’ll bring some loose leaf tea. And nose plugs.” Dru got out of the car and set her heavy tray of crystals on Hellbringer’s warm hood.

Foul-smelling steam curled in the headlight beams. On the far side of the pool were squat shapes that looked like long, carved stones. Dru adjusted her glasses and squinted until she could make out a fragmented ring of simple, squared-off benches sitting in the open, under the stars. Whether they had been broken by human hands or the harsh mountain weather, she couldn’t tell from here.

“Doesn’t look like any portal I’ve ever seen,” Greyson said, leaning against Hellbringer’s roof with his arms folded.

“Yeah,” Rane chimed in. “For one thing, it’s full of water.”

Salem gave Greyson a sour look. “And you’re the portal expert, I take it.”

Greyson didn’t budge. “Believe I’ve seen more netherworld portals than you have. And like she said, none of them were wet.”

With an exaggerated display of patience, Salem produced an antique brass spyglass from an inner pocket of his black coat. With a quick snap, he extended it to its full length and held it out to Greyson. “Here. Put a big, fat demon eyeball on it and see for yourself.”

Greyson gave the brass spyglass a long, suspicious look, and then took it. He raised it to his eye and frowned for a long moment. “Looks to me like…water.”

“Oh, give me that.” Salem reached out a long arm and snatched it back. “You’re doing it wrong.”

“You can’t look through a telescope wrong.”

“Apparently, you can.” Salem stepped out of the headlight beams and into the darkness to take Rane’s hand in his. His eyes glinted chips of reflected light. “Those wraiths must know by now what we’re up to. They won’t waste any time getting here. Better get a move on.”

“Damn straight.” Rane yanked his top hat off and bent to kiss him on the forehead. Then she shoved his hat back on crooked and turned to Dru as he struggled to right it. “You ready, cowgirl?”

Dru led Rane over to one of the cold, smooth stone benches at the edge of the light and set down the cardboard tray of crystals. Salem followed a step behind and watched as Dru carefully selected the crystals she needed.

Feeling the pressure of his gaze, she glanced up at him. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.” He settled down on an adjacent bench, still staring. “Carry on.”

Stifling a tired sigh, Dru did her best to ignore him and handed Rane the chunk of fossilized wood.

She hefted it. “What do I do with this?”

“Nothing yet. It’s just to give me a base reading. Get a good grip on it.” The tendons in Rane’s hand flexed, and the muscles in her bare arm bulged out.

“Maybe not quite that good of a grip.” Dru took a swirled green blade of agate, full of branching green markings that looked like plant leaves, and ran it all over Rane’s body. She started at the fossilized wood and systematically moved up one arm and down the other, staying about an inch above her skin. The whole time, she concentrated on the green agate, straining to pick up any changes in its vibration. She spoke softly. “Moss agate helps nurture new growth, so I usually recommend it in the later stages of the healing process, as the body and soul grow to meet future challenges. But with you, I have to get ahead of the curve, because you always heal so darn fast.”

“Vitamins,” Rane answered simply. “Protein. Complex carbs. Hey, that tickles.”

“Sorry.” As Dru charged up the crystal, it grew more sensitive in her fingers, until it became an extension of her senses. She could feel Rane’s heartbeat, the slow and steady intake of breath, the tension in her muscles as she shifted on the hard bench. This level of intimacy would have been awkward with anyone else, but she’d been through so much with Rane, it felt for a moment like the two of them were connected on a level beyond words.

Dru deliberately waited until she had checked everything else before she moved up to Rane’s neck, where the wraith’s cold, bony fingers had choked her. As the moss-colored agate traveled slowly up over her throat, it jumped in Dru’s grip, and she gasped. She had braced herself against what she would find, but the damage was much more severe than she expected. Although the angry bruises were nearly gone from her skin, the invisible psychic wounds went much deeper. Jagged tatters of Rane’s energy lay raw and exposed. When Dru found them, they convulsed in every direction, nearly knocking the agate out of Dru’s fingers.

“Ow.” Rane winced.

Salem twitched. “Watch what you’re doing.”

Dru scowled at him. “I didn’t even touch her.”

“Are you sure you’re qualified for this?” he said.

Dru pointed back toward Hellbringer. “If you can’t stay out of this, go wait in the car.”

Salem glowered at her. He didn’t get up, but at least he remained quiet.

Taking a deep breath, Dru turned back to Rane. “Okay, I have to warn you, it looks like the wraith did a lot of damage to your psyche.”

“No kidding?” Rane snapped.

“Yeah.” Dru probed gently with the agate, not liking what she found. “Here’s the bad part about healing superfast like you do. Your soul has tried to patch itself back together again, which ordinarily would be a good thing. But everything that healed improperly has to be re-broken to make you whole again.” Dru gritted her teeth in sympathy. “I think this might get a little rough.”

Rane let out a long sigh, and Dru could feel her warm breath against the night. “Pshh, yeah, right. Nothing you ever do is rough. You’re the best. Like a little kitten. With superpowers.”

“Oh, well. I wish everybody had that kind of faith in me.” Dru couldn’t help but glare at Salem, but apparently he didn’t notice. She put the agate back into the cardboard tray and took out the smooth cylinder of swirled green-and-red bloodstone. Folding her fingers over it, she felt its cool heaviness start to warm in her palm.

Meanwhile, she picked up the heavy heart-shaped chunk of red hematite in her other hand. Mentally, she attuned herself to it until she felt comfortable with its entire crystalline structure. She had been preparing herself for this moment during the long drive. Now she finally started to charge up the crystal, and she was ready for the primordial red force that pulsed in its depths.

As the spring bubbled nearby, Dru suddenly remembered the map and newspaper clippings she’d seen above Salem’s workbench. She turned to Salem. “This is the location you had marked on your map, isn’t it? Where those tourists disappeared back in the 1920s.”

He smiled faintly. “Not just the 1920s. They’d been disappearing every so often since settlers first found this place in the 1890s and tried to turn it into a health resort. Saps. The native tribe that originally lived in the area told them the pool was dangerous, but did they listen? Of course not. And as a consequence, I imagine some unfortunate health-seekers found themselves accidentally sucked into the netherworld. I’m sure that didn’t work out well for them.”

Dru suppressed a shudder at that thought.

But Salem didn’t even bat an eye. “By the way, there are some collapsed buildings back that way.” He waved vaguely into the darkness. “Nothing left but timbers and a rusted wood stove. Pretty boring, actually. The interesting part is the pool, which serves as a portal to the netherworld. Hence, the general creepiness surrounding us.”

“Creepiness,” Rane repeated. She stared in fascination at the hematite pulsing brighter and brighter in Dru’s hands.

Dru could only shake her head at Salem. “Why do you never tell anybody about these things when you discover them?”

He leaned closer. “Because then it wouldn’t be a discovery, would it?”

She felt her blood start to boil. “You’re impossible, you really are. The carnotite crystal. The map to this hot spring. All this time you’ve had the scroll, you’ve been trying to find a way to send it back to the netherworld. Just like I’ve been trying to do. Why do you always hold out on me? We’ve been on the same team all along. Why don’t you just tell me what—”

He stopped her with an upraised finger. “You’re still relatively new to the whole sorcerer thing, so I’m going to give you a hall pass just this one time. But for the future, remember this. Sorcerers don’t have teams. Teams imply messy concepts. Cooperation, shared enemies, trust. In magic, these things are slippery. They shift and change. Constantly.”

“Not for me, they don’t. I trust my friends. That never changes.”

He actually looked sad for her, and then his suspicious gaze slid down the length of Hellbringer’s sleek, menacing body. “Sooner or later, darling, that’s going to get you killed.”

Dru bit off her reply. She opened up her other hand to reveal the bloodstone she had warmed up in her palm. Tiny pinpricks of light bloomed inside it, surprisingly bright. Her anger at Salem was making her lose control over her energy flow. Before she could slow it down, the hematite in her other hand started to flash like an old-fashioned police gumball light.

Dru had meant to ease Rane gently into the uncomfortable healing process. But the finger-length bloodstone sparkled with hot golden lights, driven by Dru’s temper, and the hematite pulsed bright red. Magic coursed through the crystals and sparked against Rane’s wounded psyche much sooner and harsher than Dru intended.

A silent pop of light flared out around them, as if a camera flash had gone off. Rane’s whole body went rigid. Every muscle stood out in the flare of light, circling her biceps with deep shadows, highlighting the crevices of her abs, hollowing out her cheeks. The petrified wood exploded in her tight fist, littering the ground with fragments, and she pitched backward off the bench as if she’d been kicked off by a mule.

Salem yelled in surprise and kneeled at her side.

“Rane!” Dru set down the crystals, now dark and cold, and rushed to her other side. A haze of tiny sparks swirled in the air around them, winking out one by one. She smelled burned hair. “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry!”

Rane coughed hard, again and again, blasting Dru with the foul odors of frosted cupcakes, salt and vinegar potato chips, and processed extra-spicy meat sticks. Dru gagged.

Still gasping for breath, Rane raised her fistful of petrified wood fragments and stared at it, going slowly cross-eyed. With a straining groan, she tightened her knuckles even harder, and all at once her hand turned a rich, striated brown. The effect spread down her arm and across her body, until Rane had completely transformed into petrified wood.

“It’s working,” Salem whispered. Then it became a shout. “It’s working!”

“Rane!” Dru was afraid to touch her. “Are you okay? Talk to me.”

Rane grinned, showing teeth that looked like wine corks. “Rock and roll, dude.”

“Heads up!” Greyson shouted in alarm, and pointed out across the mountainside. The moon had finally risen above the peak. Silvery light spilled down, burnishing the silhouettes of the pine trees with platinum highlights and turning the grassy slope pewter gray.

In the far distance, an eerie brilliance streaked toward them. Then another, and another, spread far apart. Six widely spaced ghostly forms flew just above the mountainside, heading straight for them like heat-seeking missiles.

The wraiths of the Harbingers.

Rane rolled to her feet, stone fists bunched. “All right. Let’s get it on!” “No! This is no time to fight!” A cold shiver of fear ran through Dru. “Come on!”

“No way, D! I just got my mojo back! It’s payback time.”

“Everyone,” Greyson barked, opening the car door, “get in.”

Dru grabbed the cardboard tray of crystals. “Listen to me. We can’t stand here and fight. We need to get the scroll into the netherworld. Right now.”

Salem smiled slightly. “You go. We’ll cover you.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Salem. Since when do you want to leave the fate of the world in my hands?”

He looked troubled by that thought. To Rane, he said. “She has a point. Into the car, Buttercup.”

With an inarticulate growl of anger, Rane turned and ran with the rest of them back to Hellbringer.

Greyson slid behind the wheel. “Ready?” He turned the key, and Hellbringer rumbled to life.

After Rane and Salem got into the back, Dru flipped the front passenger seat back into place and got in. “Can somebody explain to me why this car was built with four seats but only two doors?” She wedged the cardboard tray down around her feet, wincing as the crystals all clattered together. She found the angular vivianite crystal and willed it to come to life. Its murky green depths twinkled, like sunlight playing through weed-choked water. Mentally, she summoned up the complex magical glyphs needed to open a portal to the netherworld.

The sea-green light of her vivianite crystal lit the car’s interior with an unearthly underwater flicker. She poured in everything she had left after healing Rane, and was rewarded with a jolt of power that flowed through her entire body. Magic flared around the round rim of the boiling pool, then stirred up its depths, growing so intense that the light poured out across the mountainside.

“Go!” Salem yelled. “Go, go!”

Greyson looked to Dru.

She nodded.

Engine bellowing like a prehistoric creature, Hellbringer shot down the slope toward the bright pool. The spinning tires clawed for purchase first in the soft grass, then across the bleached-white pebbles, as the speed demon accelerated toward the blazing portal.

The wraiths swooped after them, ghostly bodies rippling in the night. But Dru blotted them out of her mind, focusing all of her attention on opening the blinding white portal to the netherworld. The moment Hell-bringer passed through, she intended to snap it shut, trapping the wraiths here on Earth. Then, at last, they would be free of their pursuers.

She had only a second to worry that there was some kind of terrible miscalculation in her plan before Hellbringer plunged nose-first into the pool. But instead of splashing into a wave of churning water, she was hit by an icy blast of wind. It howled in through the open window, nipping at her skin, tugging at her clothes, swirling her hair.

The intense white light blew out everything else, blinding her. It shined through her skin, into her soul, crackling through her with an electrical sizzle that made her teeth ache. She wanted to call out to the others, but a vast rumble drowned out all sounds, so deep and reverberating that it shook her rib cage. Gravity whirled around her, yanking her back and forth in the seat.

Then they were through. The blinding light died away to a dark sky rippling with twisting colors, slashed through by the smoking trails of massive shooting stars. Below the horizon lay nothing but an ocean of eerie mist that rose and fell in undulating waves. They were no longer on Earth.

Instantly, she willed the portal to close behind her. The bone-shaking rumble stopped, unmasking the aggressive growl of Hellbringer’s engine. The demon car drove along a narrow, elevated stone road, mere yards above the cloud ocean. It was a causeway, made of black cobblestones held together by magic that burned like molten steel just poured from the forge.

For a moment, Dru thought they were safe. Then she turned around to look behind them.