Sitting next to Opal on the old Lincoln’s plush bench seat, Dru took off the disco ball necklace she’d gotten from Salem’s place. With a flourish, she hung it from Opal’s rearview mirror.
“Aww, look at that,” Opal said. “It’s disco-tastic.”
Dru smiled. “And hopefully only the first of many amulets to come.”
At that, Opal turned on disco music, and the swirling upbeat melodies lifted Dru’s mood. As they drove, Dru hungrily tore the foil off a steaming arepa and was immediately swaddled in the savory aroma of fried plantains, melted cheese, and creamy guacamole, all wrapped in a fluffy grilled cornbread wrap. It smelled so good it almost made her cry.
“I don’t know how you can eat and read while we drive. I get motion sickness in the car.” Opal waved her own arepa at the open book in Dru’s lap, nearly dripping a thick green dollop of guacamole onto its pages. “By the way, just so you know, I’m against everything you’re doing with that book.”
“Yeah, I know.” Dru took her eyes off the page long enough for a huge, delicious bite. Her coffee had already worn off, and she still desperately needed sleep. But at least she had food now. Despite Opal’s warnings, Dru was determined to keep going until she was able to decipher at least some of Lucretia’s crystal magic spells.
As they left Greyson’s sketchy neighborhood in the rearview mirror, they drove along a stretch of nondescript tan-and-gray industrial buildings: auto body shops, heating and air-conditioning companies, a brick warehouse festooned with graffiti.
“Must be something good in that book, though,” Opal said, her mouth full.
Dru sighed. “Well, I’m pretty much playing connect-the-dots to find the symbols. It makes me feel like an amateur astronomer.” At Opal’s puzzled expression, Dru drew a jagged line in the air with her finger. “Connecting stars into constellations? Anyway, that’s the first problem. The second problem is that there are apparently even deeper layers of meaning buried in here.” Dru flattened Lucretia’s book against the dashboard. “The letters ‘PbS’ appear here and here.” She flipped through a few pages. “And again, here and here. Different symbol, different spell, same three letters. That can’t be a coincidence. What’s so special about ‘PbS’?”
“That’s an excellent question.” Opal chewed slowly, deep in thought. They rolled up to a red light and waited. “Hmm. How about CNN? Is that in there?”
Dru flipped back through the pages. “No . . .”
“What about HBO? Showtime? Nick at Nite?”
“No, it’s not PBS, it’s— Never mind.” Dru sighed.
Opal brushed errant cornbread crumbs off the crystal that Dru had glued to the inside of the driver’s door. She peered closely at the two-inch length of quartz, frowning. “I am going to snag my sleeves on that, you just watch. Did you have to glue that thing right to the armrest?”
“Sorry. That’s where the measurements placed it. I figured if I was going to create a protective grid inside your car, the measurements had better be as accurate as possible,” Dru answered absently, still stuck on the “PbS” mystery.
Opal complained a little more, but Dru was focused on the book. Different three-letter combinations appeared over and over on its pages, but Dru had no idea what they could mean. The way they were spaced out reminded her of grids like the one she had created inside the Lincoln. The exact placement of each crystal was important. So was the particular combination used. Maybe the physical location on the page represented the actual physical location of the crystal, and the letters were some sort of code for the type of crystal.
The traffic light turned green, and the Lincoln accelerated. They hit a pothole, eliciting a rattling sound from the ashtray, where a silvery cube rolled around. Dru finished her arepa and picked up the cube, immediately recognizing it as galena. That brought back memories of desperate times.
Dru couldn’t help but wince when she thought about how much time she had spent driving around in cars, trying to fight the forces of evil. She had used galena to fight the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and their speed demons—the possessed muscle cars they drove on their mission to destroy the world. Hellbringer had originally been one of their demonic steeds. Galena crystals burned demons like fire.
Dru set the galena back in the ashtray and watched it rattle around. She wouldn’t be able to keep something like that in Hellbringer’s ashtray without burning him. “You ever wonder why galena harms demons?”
Opal shrugged. “Who knows?”
“I mean, galena is a lead sulfide, but there’s nothing about lead that— Wait a second.” An idea hit Dru like a bolt of lightning. She slapped her hands down on the book hard enough to make Opal jump. “PbS is the scientific notation for plumbous sulfide,” Dru said excitedly, pushing her glasses back up her nose. “Also known as lead sulfide. Your friend and mine, good old galena. See?” She picked it up from the ashtray.
Opal finished her arepa and crumpled up her dirty aluminum foil with obvious satisfaction. “Yeah, I know galena is a lead sulfide. But why would Lucretia put that in her book?”
“It’s in so many of her spells. She uses crystals the same way I do. Only, of course, much better than me.”
“That’s debatable,” Opal offered.
“You’re sweet, but no, it’s not really up for debate. She is seriously light-years beyond me. But galena could have been one of the things Lucretia used in 1969 to summon up the speed demons from the infernal pits. Either to summon them or bind them into the cars.”
“Like Hellbringer.” Opal delicately dabbed the corners of her mouth with a napkin, sopping up hot sauce. “But that doesn’t make sense. Demons hate galena. They’ll do anything to stay away from it.”
“Exactly. If you’re going to force a demon to take up permanent residence in cold Detroit steel, you can’t do it gently. You might have to use galena to make them obey. I can only assume that the summoning process was seriously unpleasant for the speed demons.”
“Well. It’s not like Hellbringer is ever in a good mood.” On the bench seat in between them, Opal’s phone rang. She glanced down at the screen and smiled as she picked it up. “Hola, sweetie. You get that sink installed yet?”
As Opal chatted with Ruiz, Dru ran her fingers across the yellowed paper of Lucretia’s book.
She traced the symbols hidden in plain sight. Other scientific notations jumped out at her. “SiO2” stood for silicon dioxide, otherwise known as quartz, a common soul-cleansing crystal. Dru felt a certain sense of comfort seeing that in the formulas. If she ended up casting any of these spells, the quartz might offer her some measure of protection against the backlash of dark magic.
“FeS” was another abbreviation. It stood for ferrous sulfide, also known as pyrite, or fool’s gold. Dru’s pyrite disk had protected her from Lucretia’s blasting spell the night before. Now she was starting to get an idea of why. For every spell, there was a counterspell, and Dru was uniquely positioned to have all of the crystals she needed on hand to counter Lucretia’s spells.
Despite her exhaustion, Dru felt a surge of excitement. For the first time, she had the opportunity to get an inside look at the work of another crystal sorceress. Lucretia had crammed decades’ worth of knowledge into this handwritten book, and Dru was only barely beginning to scratch the surface. She could happily spend years analyzing its contents.
But she didn’t have years. Lucretia had made off with the powerful Amulet of Decimus the Accursed. Dru didn’t know for sure how long it would take her to complete her master plan—whatever it entailed—but the clock was ticking. Dru had to find her, and fast.
She pored over the cryptic symbols that filled the book, looking for a spell she could use to track down Lucretia. Most of the spells in the book were so far beyond her that she didn’t even know what they did. The rest were more complicated than she could comprehend, at least at the moment. Maybe if she had a good night’s sleep and plenty of time on her hands, things would be different.
But for now, things were still incredibly frustrating, and she still had so far to go. Dru shut the book harder than she meant to. The pages slapped together with a resigned thump, drawing a concerned look from Opal, who was still on the phone with Ruiz.
Dru opened her mouth to apologize, but the words dried up on her tongue. Past Opal, outside the window, the beautifully brilliant blue sky was split by the flapping black shape of the giant bat. It dove toward them, blotting out the sky, its sharp claws aimed right at Opal’s window.
“Look out!” Dru yelled. But she was too late.
As Rane tensed to spring into motion, her phone buzzed in its armband holder. Actually, it was Salem’s phone. After hers had gone into the drink, he’d told her she should start getting her phones by the dozen at Costco. So instead, she had helped herself to his phone. That would teach him to be so smart about it.
She glanced at the screen.
Where are you, Buttercup?
The text didn’t have his name attached to it, but it was definitely Salem. He had probably picked up a burner phone at the corner store first thing this morning. So, after he had gotten so weird and obsessive last night that she had to go home, he thought she would still answer his texts?
No. Freaking. Way.
I know where you are, he texted. BTW, I can track my own phone.
Fine. Good for him. She ignored his message, cracked her knuckles, and focused on how she was going to take this old brick building apart. From here, she could see the half-open door and the four loading docks, plus two boarded-up windows. No way to circle around the building without getting spotted. But she had to assume the place had at least one other exit around the corner, possibly two. Also, there was some kind of tarpaper-covered structure on top of the second-floor roof. Maybe that was the bat house.
She drummed her fingers on her biceps. Screw it, she thought. Nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned frontal assault. She’d start with that.
Before she could launch herself out of the bushes and charge the front door, a droning motor sound approached from the distance. A slab-sided black car came flying down the gravel road, spewing up a huge dust trail behind it. Rane groaned as it grew closer. It was Salem’s hearse.
Apparently, he wasn’t kidding.
Irritated, Rane pulled the phone out of its armband holder and texted him back. Get out of here, you weirdo. You trying to spook them away or what?
The hearse slowed down, but didn’t stop. You found the lair?
She sighed in exasperation and texted back, Duh.
The hearse rolled to a stop a few hundred yards away, near the line of flatbed trailers baking in the sun. After a few seconds, the engine cut out, letting silence return. The only sound was the buzzing of the power lines.
Rane watched the building for any sign of movement. A glimmer of yellow eyes shone in the darkness. Slowly, the door eased shut. Obviously, the animal sorcerers had seen Salem’s car. So now she had lost the advantage of surprise, thanks to him. She ground her teeth in frustration.
He opened the car door and stood behind it. With a flourish, he extended an antique brass spyglass and studied the building. He took his sweet time about it.
Rane squatted down and waited, fuming. The spyglass had ghostly powers, and it had come in handy plenty of times in the past. Looking through it revealed all sorts of hidden spells and invisible enchantments, making them visible as shimmering auras in its watery lenses. Rane had actually been the one to find the spyglass, back when they were tracking a ghostly pirate ship along the Gulf Coast near New Orleans. She had given it to Salem as a surprise gift, mostly because she knew that if she kept it, she would just end up breaking it sooner or later.
Still. It sucked to sit in the bushes waiting for him to finish his obnoxiously conspicuous reconnaissance. The only thing holding her back was the possibility that he might spot something important she couldn’t see.
Apparently satisfied, he collapsed the little brass telescope in a single quick motion and got back into the car. A few seconds later, the phone buzzed again.
This will take time. The place is heavily protected.
Rane snorted. She found that hard to believe. The pitted brick walls looked about half ready to cave in. She texted, I’m going in now.
Stay put, Salem texted.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Rane said aloud. Who did he think he was, to order her around?
All the doors and windows are warded, Salem texted. These proteans think they are safe, but they are not. Not from me. I will handle this.
Even though he couldn’t see her, Rane made a talky motion with her hand. Yak, yak, yak. She started to stand up.
As if he knew that she was ignoring him, he texted again: Do NOT try the door!
So he wanted to keep all the glory to himself, apparently. Rane put away the phone without bothering to reply. This wasn’t a democracy.
At her feet sat a football-sized chunk of granite. She stooped and picked it up. Focusing on the rock, she willed her body to transform. A thrilling rush coursed up her arm and through her body as she turned into solid stone. Transforming into solid rock or metal was the greatest feeling in the world, like a runner’s high combined with a sugar rush. It made her feel strong enough to punch through a wall. She felt unstoppable. And she pretty much was.
The nice thing about granite was that it was not only tough, but it also blended into the background. Her entire body was now mottled light tan and gray, with charcoal-colored speckles. If she had wanted to stay put, she would have blended right into the surrounding landscape. Sometimes, an edge like that came in handy.
But right now, she wasn’t interested in stealth.
She straightened up to her full six-foot-plus height and strode out of the bushes. She had spent years practicing moving silently while transformed. It wasn’t easy. In metal form, she tended to ring like a church bell, and in stone form, she sounded like a rockslide. Right now, these sorcerers were already expecting trouble, so she decided to let them know exactly who they had pissed off. She pounded her way toward their lair with footsteps that were probably rattling windows a half mile away.
She didn’t bother making for the mint chocolate chip house, which she could have used as cover. Instead, she trusted in speed and intimidation. And also being made out of solid rock. She marched straight toward the building, punching deep footprints into the dirt.
Direct assault. That was the way she liked it.
She spared Salem only a single killer glance as she pounded across the gravel road, wondering if he was giving her that lusty look he sometimes did when she got physical. But she couldn’t see him inside the dark hearse. Without a doubt, he was frantically trying to text her right now. But the phone, along with her clothes, was now magically transformed into rock. She didn’t have to put up with his yammering anymore.
She could feel the stares of the sorcerers inside the building. She had no idea how many of them were inside or what kind of animals they were. And right now, she didn’t care. She just wanted to take the place apart with her bare hands.
When she was about a dozen paces from the door, she pulled her arm back and hurled the rock with all her strength. It flew in a fast, shallow arc, with enough raw force behind it that it should have knocked the door clean off its hinges. But instead, it struck an invisible wall and bounced off with a sinister sizzling sound. To her surprise, it really was magically protected. The rock cratered into the dirt, smoking slightly.
She pursed her lips. Okay, so, maybe don’t go through the front door.
But doors and windows weren’t the only way to break into a building. Sometimes you had to make your own opening.
She marched over to the huge pile of rusty junk piled up against one wall. It was mostly lightweight stuff like old stovepipes, broken chains, and little scraps that wouldn’t do her any good. But buried beneath all of that was the elongated bell shape of some kind of transmission, maybe from a forklift or a tractor. Now it was nothing more than a couple of hundred pounds of rusted metal. She bent down and snatched it up.
Behind her, Salem started up the hearse and came flying down the road toward her. Good. About time he joined this party. Because things were about to get crazy.
Lugging the rusted transmission, Rane paced the length of the building, looking for a weak spot. With old brick structures like this, there was always a way in.
She found her opportunity beneath the corner of one of the windows. A wide zigzag crack in the mortar stretched down and across, like stair steps, from where the foundation had eroded beneath the abandoned building. Perfect. The fissure in the wall was easily wide enough to stick her fingers in. But she wasn’t going to use her fingers.
Salem’s big black hearse slid to a stop behind her. He leaped out of the driver’s seat, his eyes wide with anger. “Exactly what part of ‘don’t go inside’ was unclear to you?”
Rane grinned. “You said don’t go in the door. Didn’t you?”
She planted her stone feet in a wide stance, settling into the dirt. She shifted her grip, eyed the crack in the wall, and swung the rusted transmission back. With a huff of breath, she swung it forward with all of her strength, with the pointed end aimed at the crack between the bricks. In one motion, she slammed two hundred pounds of steel into the crack.
BOOM. The crushing impact was loud enough to set her ear ringing on that side of her head. Red brick dust swirled around her. She swung the transmission away from the bricks again.
Salem backed up a step. “Wait, no, what do you think you’re—”
BOOM. The window above shattered, raining glass down on her. With a groan, the wall on the right side of the crack tipped drunkenly inward. Loose bricks clattered out of the gap and fell around her feet.
Salem held out a cautioning hand. “If you think this is the way to—”
BOOM. The pointed end of the transmission went all the way through the bricks, punching a head-sized hole in the wall. Rane planted one foot against the solid side of the wall and yanked the transmission free. Clusters of dirty red bricks came with it, bound together by a crumbling crust of mortar.
She eyed the wall. Dangerously unstable fissures radiated outward through the mortar, cracking through the flaking paint. As she watched, the cracks kept spreading, making a sound like someone munching on the world’s biggest corn chip. The wall was right on the edge of coming apart. Satisfied, Rane dropped the transmission at her feet with a heavy metallic clank.
She backed up a step and tensed to give the wall a final kick. When she glanced back over her shoulder, Salem was staring with a curious mixture of irritation and fascination, his eyebrows wrinkling. He didn’t say a word.
With a heartfelt grunt, Rane gave the wall a savage kick, driving her granite foot into the weakest spot. At that, the rest of the wall beneath the window tilted inward and collapsed in a roar of broken masonry. A towering cloud of dust swirled out into the sunlight, escaping through a hole now big enough to drive a car through.
She dusted rust off her hands, enjoying the awed look etched across Salem’s face. It wasn’t often that she got to see that. With a grin, she jerked a thumb toward the building. “You just going to stand there looking pretty, or you want to go get your amulet back?”
Then she turned and leaped into the darkness.