“And that’s how we ended up here,” said the kid. They were all clustered around the island in the kitchen, wide awake. Robin’s camera still stood at the end of the counter, recording his tale. Kenway made them all omelets and coffee while Joel and Wayne told their stories. His eyebrows stayed high and his forehead furrowed through most of it, but to his credit he never challenged them or made any disbelieving noises.
Wayne had traded his hospital gown for a sweater and a pair of jeans from Robin. They were feminine and a couple sizes too big, but they did the trick.
With some alcohol, Neosporin, a bandage, and a bottle of breakfast stout, Joel was sore and whiny but otherwise good as new. He’d only been nicked by the nail through the door, and his cuts weren’t as bad as they looked—more scratches than anything else, not quite enough to need stitches. He was wearing one of Kenway’s shirts and a pair of his jeans—a pair of skinny jeans the big vet had received as a gift last Christmas and just hadn’t been able to bring himself to wear.
Robin walked around the apartment, looking through the boy’s ring like Sherlock Holmes with his magnifying glass, trying to detect anomalies. No such luck. It seemed whatever the ring was capable of, only its owner was able to take advantage of it.
An engraving inside the ring said, Together We’ll Always Find a Way.
This was significant. Words hold power, and Robin knew from experience that text—whether engraved or printed—could absorb and retain, or channel, that power.
“I need to call my dad and let him know I’m all right,” said Wayne. “If he’s awake now, he’s probably really worried. Probably wondering where I am.” He sighed. “I don’t have my cell phone or I’d text him.”
Pouring herself a cup of coffee, Robin joined them at the island. She gave him her cell phone and his ring, and he typed in his dad’s number, pressing the phone to his ear. “What troubles me the most,” Robin said to Kenway, “is the Sasquatch-monster they saw in my old house is … well, I’ve been seeing it for a long time. It’s that thing I’ve been calling the Red Lord. Always thought it was a hallucination—a part of my psychosis and my PTSD. I don’t know what to think about three other people seeing it too.” Robin sat there picking at an omelet, carving off little bites and eating them in a daze of deep thought.
“Saw it?” squawked Joel. “Fucker tried to kill me!”
“I’m pretty sure you’re not psychotic, or whatever,” said Kenway. “Psychosis doesn’t shit spiders all over my bed like some kind of Satanic slot machine.”
“I’m with friends, Dad,” Wayne was saying, trying to lay down some damage control. They could hear the mosquito-buzz of Leon Parkin shouting through the phone. “Yes, friends. No, not Pete. I’m fine, I’m fine. Something happened in the room and I ended up somewhere else. I mean, I don’t know. It was weird. Yes.” His face scrunched up on one side and he screwed the heel of his hand into his eye sleepily. “Dad, I can explain it better when you’re chilled out, okay?” A tear rolled down his face. “Hey. Hey, I’m sorry. For making you worry.” The boy turned away from them, hugging himself, trying not to sob outright. “Do you forgive me?” Several quiet seconds passed. “I love you too, Dad.”
“Hey,” said Kenway. “Tell him we’re gonna take you back to the hospital as soon as we get done eating.”
Wayne did so. “I’m sorry for making you worry,” he reiterated, his voice breaking. “Are you doin’ okay? Dad, you ain’t drinkin’ nothin’, are you?… Don’t worry about me if that makes it harder. Yeah. I just don’t want … y’know?” He hung up and gave the phone back to Robin.
She took a sip of coffee and asked them, “So you said the walls were green when you went into the old Underwood house?”
“The kitchen was burnt slap up,” said Joel. “And your mama’s old diner table was in there, too.”
“My mom painted the walls green when I was a kid. When they prosecuted my dad and I became a ward of the state, the city fixed it up and painted it blue.”
“Other than it bein’ burnt, it looked like it did when we was kids.” Joel gingerly explored the bandage taped to his chest, an adhesive combat bandage from Kenway’s old combat medic supplies, like a big square Band-Aid. “Man, this makes me glad I shave.”
Wayne made a face. “You shave your chest?… Do you shave your legs and everything?”
“I don’t really consider this an appropriate topic for breakfast conversation.” Joel winced in mock offense and he tossed one leg over a knee, sitting back with his beer. “You always this rude?”
“So weird.”
“Little man, don’t be sassing your elders.”
Kenway scoffed. “You just got away from a blood-stealing serial killer and fought off a monster in a nightmare version of your house, and you think a guy that shaves his legs is weird?”
After gulping down breakfast, they loaded into Kenway’s truck and headed to the hospital. Robin rode in the back, wearing a thick jacket with the hood pulled over her head to protect her from the wind. It was a little after six in the morning, according to her phone—and the autumn air bit her face.
She squinted in the gale, holding the GoPro out, filming the scenery as it blew past. This would make good B-roll. She wanted to monologue, but the snapping of the wind would make it impossible to hear.
As they pulled into the parking lot of Blackfield Medical, Leon Parkin came striding out the front door, followed by an old woman in a raggedy petticoat that seemed to be made out of old potato sacks and swatches from the clearance fabric section of Walmart. Kenway was barely out of the driver’s seat when Leon marched up and started raining blows on him, cornering him inside the truck door.
Everyone exploded into movement, shouting, running to stop him. Joel and Robin got them separated and Leon threw his elbows, trying to shake them off. “Y’all motherfuckers take my son?” he raved, seething in the middle of their circle. White vapor coiled from his mouth. “Who are you? What is this?”
“Now wait a minute—” Kenway began, putting up his hands. Blood trickled from his nose. Leon charged him again and Joel and Robin wrestled him away.
Wayne got out and ran to his dad. Leon clutched him against his side. “Get inside, son.”
“But Dad—”
“Get your ass inside and I’ll be in there in a minute.”
The boy looked up with a stern face that belonged on a grown man and pushed away. “Dad, I left on my own. It was an accident.”
“What did I tell you?”
“No!” said Wayne, clenching his fists and shivering. He was limping again, his left foot a faint shade of purple. “I been helping—I’ve been dealing, with you, and things, you know, for long enough, Dad, and you owe me. I’ve always been there. Always. Even when you weren’t.” They all stared in amazement at the boy’s near-shouting tone. “So right now, I need you to listen!”
Stunned, Leon’s face softened as he seemed to see his son, really see him, his eyes wandering up and down Wayne’s outfit.
“We both lost her, Dad. I hurt too. You know that?”
Leon nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, man … yeah,” as if he were coming out of a trance, and he stooped to gather Wayne up in a huge hug. The old woman clutched the collar of her heavy patchwork coat, her stringy hair whipping around. Her face was pinched into a vapid smile until she caught Robin’s stare.
Recognition flashed in the old woman’s eyes. “Why don’t we all go inside and sort this out somewhere warm, yes?”
“My name is Karen. Karen Weaver,” she said to Wayne, leading them to a back corner of an isolated waiting room. “Believe it or not, I actually live right across the street from you, in the big Mexican church-house. Me and my friend Theresa were out hunting mushrooms by the old fairgrounds when I heard your friends screaming you’d been bitten by a mean old snake.”
Ah, damn. It’s one of the Lazenbury coven. Robin followed them, her GoPro clipped to a jacket pocket, recording the conversation. Children’s books and old magazines littered an end table, and behind them an aquarium burbled peacefully.
“What kind of snake?” asked Joel.
Weaver smiled. “Well, that big kid—Peter, was it? He did a real number on it with that mallet, but from what I saw it looked like a copperhead. Anyway, I put a special salve on you, a poultice, I suppose, that worked to nullify and draw out most of that venom, and then Theresa carried you out to the road.” With a giggle, she added, “For an old lady, she’s as strong as a warthog.” She bent to watch the fish darting back and forth in the aquarium, talking to the glass. “One of your friends got your cell phone and called 911 for you—Johnny, I suppose his name was.” Weaver wagged a finger at Wayne. “A very dear little boy, you ought to thank him, and Peter, for their heroics. They’re quite exceptional for children these days.”
Turning to Kenway, Leon rubbed his head. “Hey, look, man … I’m sorry about the whole, you know, punch in the face and all—”
The vet had produced a paint-smeared handkerchief from somewhere, and was holding it to his nose. “Unnerstandable,” he said, checking the fabric. His nose had stopped leaking. “Enh, I been through worse, trust me.”
Kneeling to get eye-to-eye with his son, Leon said, “Now, tell me what happened. You said you would explain everything. I want to know the truth.”
Wayne’s eyebrows scrunched. “When have I lied to you—”
Leon smirked dryly.
“—in the last week?” Before his dad could answer, Wayne took out the ring and showed it to him. “It was this.”
Leon took it in his thumb and forefinger, at the end of the chain still around the boy’s neck. “Your mother’s wedding band?” His features softened, his eyes wistful. “I didn’t know you were wearing this.”
“I been wearin’ it for … well, ever since Mom. I found it in the cupholder in your car and I took it.” Wayne held it up to his eye. “I woke up in my hospital room, got up and got Mom’s ring out of my stuff, and when I came back to my bed I looked through it and saw a door in the wall where there wasn’t one before.”
Karen Weaver’s eyes darted over to Wayne’s face, and narrowed, and she seemed to be paying much more rapt attention to him. The old woman twitched as if she were about to reach for the ring in his hand and ask about it, but she hesitated—out of fear, or propriety, Robin wasn’t sure. But there was no mistaking the look on the witch’s face as Weaver stared, eyes bouncing from ring to boy to ring—tense, poised interest.
Greed, almost, glinting underneath her bushy eyebrows.
The boy went on to describe the strange past-version of the Underwood house, and the bizarre owl-headed Sasquatch, and rescuing Joel from the Serpent.
“A killer?” Leon stiffened. “You saw a dead guy?”
Joel spoke up. “I was chained up in a garage somewhere next to a dude with a cut throat. This red-headed guy had knocked me out and I guess he was drainin’ people for their blood. Said something about ‘blood for the garden.’ He was about to stick me like a pig too, until y’boy here showed up outta nowhere and saved my sexy ass.”
“And you saw this weird dark version of our house too?”
“Yes sir, I did.” Joel peeled back the lapel of the jacket he’d borrowed from Kenway, exposing his bandaged chest. “And that monster damn near opened me up.”
The old woman coughed once, twice, then started hacking into a lacy cloth and struggled to breathe.
That ring, thought Robin. Does she sense something about it?
Is it supernatural?
“You okay?” asked Kenway.
“Oh, yes, yes,” choked Weaver, waving him off. “It’s getting that time of year when it gets dry outside. And I’ve got a bit of congestion. Nothing, really. I’m going to get some water, if that’s all right with you-all.” She tipped her hat deferentially and sauntered out of the room.
I need to find out what she knows. Robin got up and excused herself as well, following the old woman. The Parkin family could be in danger if she wants the kid’s ring.
Still crouping and wheezing into her napkin, Weaver glided down the hallway and around the corner. Robin followed, striding into a small hallway that contained a drinking fountain and the doors leading into the three restrooms—a men’s room, a women’s room, and a gender-neutral family restroom.
At the end of the hall was a utility closet, the door gently easing closed on its hydraulic arm.
The hell you going in there for? Robin moved past the restroom. She pulled the door open and slipped through into the utility closet, pushing it shut.
To her left were several floor-to-ceiling racks piled high with clean linens, to her right were three washer-dryer combo machines, one of which was drying a load with a warm, steady rumble-bang-tumble. In the back of the room were more steel shelving units, these packed with cleaning chemicals, scrub-brushes, sponges, and green scrub pads. Beyond that was a chain-link enclosure through which Robin could see some sort of sleek machine with a digital readout. A hot water boiler, perhaps.
The gate was unlocked; she pulled it open and stepped into the enclosure. Opposite the boiler, she found a deep industrial sink and a big soap-scummed mirror. A mop bucket stood sentinel, full of milky gray water.
No witch. Robin sighed.
Where did you go?
She went to the sink and poured a double-handful of water, washed the sleep out of her eyes, and straightened back up, toweling her face dry with her T-shirt. When she opened her eyes again, the old woman’s reflection stood behind her own.
Robin gasped and spun to face her.
“I know who you are,” said the crone, backing her against the mop-sink.
“You do?”
“Oh, yes, of course. You’re huge on the Internet, you know.” Weaver grinned, flashing peanut-colored teeth and black gums. Her breath smelled like skunky weed. “You’re the witch-hunter on that Malus Domestica channel, aren’t you? Oh, I’ve been subscribed to you for ages. I even have a few of your T-shirts.” She threw her hands up in mock exasperation, her gaudy rings glittering in the fluorescent lights. “My friends, they don’t think much of you, but I think you’re a very brave young lady to do what you do. I’m a huge fan.”
“You believe in witches, then.” Smooth. You’re the fucking smoothest. Trying to act like you don’t already know she’s a witch. Her breathing quickened, and suddenly she realized her inner monologue was Heinrich’s reproachful voice, echoing in the channels of her brain. Chick, she’s been waiting for you, she’s on top of this, she knows, she knows you know she knows, and—
“Believe in them?” Weaver laughed. “My dear, I am one.”
“You’re one of the Lazenbury House coven.”
“Ah, it looks like you done your homework.” The witch wrung her hands. “Are you here to, ahh, slay us too, then? Stop playing coy. I know why you’re in town.”
Swallowing, Robin put a little steel in her spine and stepped into Weaver’s personal space. “You murdered my mother and turned her into a dryad. If you been watching my videos, you know I been doing this for a couple of years now—” She jerked the collar of her shirt down. Tattooed on her sternum, just below the pit of her throat, was the protective Viking rune, the algiz. “—so I’ve learned a few things from Heinrich.”
“Heinrich—?” Weaver was unimpressed. “Honey, Heinrich Hammer is a fool,” she said sweetly, encouragingly. “The only reason he ain’t dead yet is because he quit huntin’ us years ago. He’s made a puppet of you, a henchman, a bloodhound to hide behind and exact his mad, mean crusade against us without having to risk his own life. You know, you should be proud of yourself. You’ve accomplished more than he ever did.”
The witch traced the symbol with a painted claw. “Now, this is very pretty, dear, quite a lovely tattoo, but it won’t save you. Your little Viking protection rune may protect you against being made a familiar, but it won’t protect you from the rest of our bag of tricks.”
“I saw you looking at the boy’s ring.”
“I was, I was,” said Weaver. “Very interesting—secret doors? A house stuck in the past? A monster? Are you thinking what I’m thinking, girl?”
“Illusion magic?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so—being a master of Illusion and all, I know my own magic when I see it. I think it’s something else. Conjuration, perhaps. I dabble in Conjuration, you know—it’s one of my lesser Gifts. You know, speaking of Gifts…” Weaver laid a flat palm on Robin’s cleavage, and she sidled away from the cold hand, sliding her butt along the edge of the sink.
Following, the witch migrated her hand from Robin’s left breast and then to her belly. Her fingertips were cold as December, even through the cloth. “Oh, dove, I think I feel something kicking. Don’t you?”
Robin pushed her away. “Get off me.”
“Wait a minute,” said Weaver, snatching her hand away. “Did you say dryad? Mother?” Her rheumy eyes widened and she swept in, staring into Robin’s face. “Are you…? Could you be? Annie Martine’s daughter? Oh, how you’ve grown, my dear. How lovely you are now! I knew a few years ago you were sprung out of the nuthouse, Marilyn said as much, but we had no idea where you went! Oh, who could have guessed such a beautiful girl could have come from such a homely woman?”
“Don’t talk about my mother,” growled Robin, and she let out a mild cough. Maybe she was coming down with a cold too—bit of a tickle in her chest. “She may have been a witch, but she was a good person, and better than any of you. You had no—cough—no right—”
“Who knows rights better than you, eh Malus? Malus Domestica, YouTube star, traveling the roads, living the American dream, killing innocent witches by the fourscore. You wouldn’t know your right from your left.” Weaver emphasized right and left with palsied fists, then marched off in that sweeping, handsy Gargamel way of hers, reaching for the door handle.
Before she could leave, Robin had a fistful of her coat. “You better leave those people alone. Stay away from—cough—the Parkins. And tell Marilyn I’ll be—cough, cough—making a house call.” She pulled the witch close and said through gritted teeth, “You three can prepare all you want, but—cooouugh, cough—I’ve gotten a lot of practice doing what I’m gonna do to the four of you. Believe that.”
Silence fell over them as the dryer stopped tumbling and the machine shut off. The threat devolved into a coughing fit, and she gasped for air. Her lungs felt like they were full of down feathers, itching and wispy.
“You don’t know your mother as well as you think you do. I’m pretty sure Annie Martine is responsible for whatever creature Marilyn found out there in your mama’s old house. The one them black folks is living in now.”
“Wait, you mean—cough, cough—that’s not yours?”
“That thing is a little above my pay grade, as powerful as I am. And if your mother had magic that powerful, then it’s a good thing we killed her dead as shit.” Weaver opened the utility room door and wrenched her sleeve out of the girl’s hand, her expression one of genuine concern. “You don’t know what you’re gettin’ yourself into. Stay away from the Lazenbury House, let us take the Conjuration ring, and we’ll leave you be. Get out of Blackfield and I’ll … I’ll convince Marilyn not to come after you, yes, that’s what I’ll do. Stick around and we’ll kill you dead too.”
With that, the witch slipped out the door. Robin wanted to retort, but she couldn’t stop coughing and catch her breath long enough to speak. The cavity of her chest was alive with fluttering-itching-whispering. A lump in her throat. She made long, drawn-out huuuckkkk sounds as if she were trying to muster up a loogie, and some wet little wad popped up into her mouth, lying on her tongue like a swallowed cigarette butt.
Robin staggered over to the industrial sink, coughing as she went, and spat it into the basin.
A dead moth.
“Ugh,” she said, and coughed again.
This time the tickling sensation intensified, rushing up her windpipe, and when she coughed again a cloud of fat fluttery moths burst from the depths of her lungs.
Their tiny legs fought for purchase on the roof of her mouth, filling her throat. The ones that managed to escape fell into the sink and battered the mirror, dragging their saliva-wet bodies across the dirty glass, leaving smears of bitter wing-powder.
Bits of insect were caught in her teeth. Her stomach rumbled and gnarled, and her mouth flooded with salty spit. She was going to puke.
Wheezing, sucking wind, fighting to breathe, Robin braced her hands on the edge of the sink. Tears clung to the rims of her eyelids. The convulsion came without preamble, as it always does, and she loudly and rudely unleashed a torrent of sour vomit into the mop sink.
“Guh,” she gasped, staring down into a brown slurry of coffee and eggs and dead moths.
Rummaging through the shelving units, she found a roll of paper towels. Ripped off a handful and scrubbed her tongue with it in disgust. The sensation of having moths in her mouth was unbearable—after chasing the supernatural for several years there wasn’t much on this planet Robin was still afraid of, but insects never failed to make her skin crawl. That’s most likely why the witches usually utilized them against her. They somehow just knew what got your goat, and they beat you over the head with it.
Shivers danced down her back, turning into a pins-and-needles prickly feeling, goosebumps running across her shoulder blades and down her arms. The hair stood up on her wrists and the backs of her hands. She hugged herself against the chill, wringing her hands.
Itchy, so itchy, suddenly she was scratching her hands, and then her arms, the goosebumps had become this helpless, crazy-making itchiness. It wouldn’t go away but it felt so good, it was so satisfying, Jesus, she was digging miniature orgasms out of her skin like a paleontologist unearthing fossils. Her fingernails left burning streaks down her forearms. She unbuttoned her jeans and pushed them down to her knees, scratching her legs.
Opening her eyes, she looked down. Her arms were covered in pimples. Dozens—no, hundreds—of whiteheads. Not only were they on her arms, but they’d spread to her thighs, too. “What the hell?”
This is wrong, she thought, slowly turning her arms this way and that, inspecting the surprise acne. Something is wrong. Something is really wrong here. She dug at one of the largest whiteheads, picking at it until it came loose in a tiny plug of wax.
Two little red-green eyes stared up at her.
Horror made her scalp crawl as a housefly wriggled up out of the pore in her skin and struggled to its feet.
The fly rubbed its forelegs all over its head as its wet, glassy wings unraveled, drying and hardening. Robin slapped it away. “No. No no no no.” Her boots clomped a jig of panicky disgust on the tile floor. This dislodged several other whiteheads on her thighs, and she fell against the wall, her back sliding down the rough cinder block. More flies pushed and floundered up out of her skin. “No, no, no, no, no.” As the flies emerged they left holes, stretched and hollow like toothmarks, and within seconds, her arms were covered in a honeycomb of gaping pores. Her thighs resembled the surface of a sponge, freckled with holes.
Dead flies littered the floor around her, rolled into wet bits by her frantic slapping and rubbing. Hundreds of them buzzed and droned around her head, crawling on the shelving units and white linens. She pressed her palms to her face again and tried to will it all away, tried to picture the algiz rune in an attempt to pull a mental shell over her mind.
That’s it—maybe it’s an illusion. Maybe I can think it away. Acne littered her cheeks with lumps. The pimples on her forehead squirmed restlessly under her fingers. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. The little engine that could, goddammit, let it be an illusion and not an actual conjuration. Let it just be a visual suggestion, don’t let these flies be real—
Robin opened her eyes to silence.
No flies. She checked out her arms, expecting the holes to linger, but they were gone.
Relief crashed into her system, such blessed relief she fell over and lay on the cold cement floor. She stumbled back to the sink and washed her mouth out, washed her arms, washed her face.
The GoPro on her jacket was still recording. “Weaver,” she said to her subscribers, checking for acne in the mirror. She shuddered, pulling the camera off and pointing it at her own face. “She’s an Illusion witch. I hate Illusion magic so much. So freaking much. I am so going to kick her ass first.”
When she was finally convinced the vision was out of her system, she washed her hands, washed her mouth out again.
As she stood bent over into the sink, sharp fingernails trailed delicately along her upper arm. A cold, hard hand cupped the soft point of her shoulder, thumb and index finger encircling the back of her neck, wiry hair brushing her skin, a huge hand, the hand of a man reaching for a little girl.
The corner of her eye. The mirror above her head.
A glimpse of red.
Coarse red hair.
Her heart seemed to pause in her chest, a breath caught halfway into her mouth. IT’S HIM IT’S THE RED LORD HE’S TOUCHING ME HE’S TOUCHING ME—
Robin stood straight, turning, backing against the sink.
She was alone.
She let out a frustrated growl that broke at the end, turned into a high, angry shriek. That had to be another one of Weaver’s illusions. The witch knew about the monster. Did she know what it looked like? She’d said it didn’t belong to the coven, said it must have been conjured by Annie.
No. There’s no way. Robin stared at her face in the sink, with mild alarm at how much older she suddenly looked. Must have aged ten years in the last half hour. Took me years to accept Mom was a witch at all, much less be able to conjure something like the Red Lord. Like Weaver said, it’s above her pay grade. If Mom could magic something like that, the coven would have never gotten the drop on her.
Right?
Besides—that thing had been terrorizing Robin for a while now. Why would Mom sic something like that on her own daughter?
No, she thought, and spat again. Illusion or not, that thing belongs to the coven.
She dug in her pocket and took out the bottle of aripiprazole. Screwed it open and took two of them. No more bugs. Gave it a second thought, steeled herself and slipped a third into her mouth, and swallowed them all with a gulp of water from the mop sink. She wasn’t a big fan of loading up on anti-hallucination meds, but sometimes you just have to bring out the big guns.
There may be bugs on some of you mugs, but there ain’t no bugs on me.
At such an early morning hour, the roads were nearly dead, and the ride back to the apartment was much warmer inside the cab of the truck. She stared out the window as she rode, her mind sorting through options, the GoPro aimed out the window collecting B-roll footage. Joel rode in the middle, the gearshift protruding between his knees.
The protective algiz rune on her chest had been mostly sufficient until now, defending her from all manner of energy, ricocheting it back into its source. It still worked on familiarization and possession, which was its primary purpose, but Weaver’s moths-and-flies-and-maybe-the-Red-Lord illusion … well, it had been a bit of a shock.
But why should I be surprised? After all, according to Heinrich, the Cutty coven is the most powerful in America.
And now it is one of the last. Under his tutelage, she had roamed the continent, hunting down every witch she could find in the Lower Forty-Eight, and a couple in Canada. Nineteen of them, from Neva Chandler, the self-proclaimed King of Alabama, to Gail Symes, who called herself the Oracle of the Sands. There were still hundreds of minor witches out there—newbies, idiots, little girls who had no idea their hearts had been sacrificed to Ereshkigal, and those like Neva, vapor-locked mummies too run-down to migrate out of their own ghetto—but most of them were too embedded, too well-hidden, or so weak they might as well have been your normal everyday hippie.
The witches had no real hierarchy. They had no structured government. Most of them had divvied up the country as the first presidents were buying it piece by piece from the Mexicans and the Spanish, and ripping it from the hands of the Native Americans.
Ever since, they moved from town to town every couple of decades, eradicating the weak ones or dueling each other like Highlanders. Robin had never witnessed a witch-duel, but it must be a sight to see.
The truck stopped for a red light. Without the radio on, the atmosphere inside was quiet and contemplative.
She turned the camera around and pointed it at Joel. “I think you should stay a couple nights somewhere else. Maybe at Kenny’s place. Y’know, in case the killer knows where you live.”
Joel wore one of Kenway’s old gray exercise shirts, ARMY across the chest. His face broke into a warm, grateful smile when she mentioned protection, and it gave her a motherly pang. Suddenly she wanted to gather him up in her arms and carry him over the threshold into Kenway’s apartment like a new bride, which was a very strange sensation. She almost laughed, which—considering the last thing she said was in case the killer knows where you live—struck her as the worst possible thing to do.
“I’ll be aight,” he told her, “Got my mama’s old shotgun at the house. I don’t think he knows where I live anyway.” Pointing at the camera, he added, “How you gonna put me on YouTube, and I ain’t fixed up at all? I look like I been through a wood chipper.”
“You look fine.”
“At least give me a ride back there and let me take a shower.” Joel tugged the chest of the huge T-shirt out. “This thing like a tent on me. And, no offense, hero, but your clothes are all beat to hell.”
On the other side of the intersection was a McDonald’s. They crossed the road and pulled into the parking lot. Robin offered Kenway her debit card, but his face conveyed reluctance. “Go ahead,” she said, urging him on with the card in her hand. “You know I’m good for it. I’m stayin’ in your apartment, after all. I owe you anyway.”
While Kenway ordered them coffee with a discontented grumble, Robin took out her cell phone and dialed a number. It rang several times, but no one picked up. A recorded voice told her the owner of the number hadn’t set up his voicemail yet, so she couldn’t even leave him a message.
“Dammit,” she told the mechanical voice. “Heinrich, when will you ever get with the times?”
This wouldn’t be the first time Robin might be forced to go after a formidable witch alone. She peeled back the lapel of her shirt, looking not only at the algiz on her chest but the stab-wound scar at the top of her right breast. The Oracle of the Sands had been a hell of a fight—Symes had been hiding out in one of the smaller, dinkier, run down casinos on the outskirts of Vegas. Robin had gone in masquerading as one of the customers, but as soon as the Oracle realized she was there (thanks to a particularly eagle-eyed pit boss and an armada of surveillance cameras), every customer in sight lost their minds. Suddenly the casino was full of crazed cat-people out for her blood, and Robin barely made it out with her life.
The only reason she was still alive was because of the cavalry—Heinrich had busted in at the last minute and provided the distraction she needed to escape. It had cost him, though. A .45 round to the guts. That had been a harrowing couple of days. She found out after the fact Symes had gassed a cage full of house cats in a specialized panic room in her penthouse suite. A familiar-bomb, basically. As soon as it had gone off, almost every customer in the casino went feral.
Joel borrowed Robin’s cell phone and tapped a number into it. “Hello? Blackfield Police Department?” he said, pressing it to his ear. “I gotta talk to y’all about something, and you gonna want to hear this. I think I just got rescued from a serial killer.”
He paused. “Yeah, I’ll wait.”
Kenway handed out the coffee and pulled back into traffic.
“Hello there, Mr. Officer,” Joel said, hugging himself. “I almost got killed by some maniac, and I thought y’all would like to know about it. Yeah, he drugged me and when I woke up I was chained to the ceiling next to a dead guy. Yeah. Yeah, I got out. No, he said he was going to bleed me dry, because he needed ‘blood for the garden.’ No, I have no idea what that means. No, the only enemies I got live in glass bottles. Yeah, glass bottles. As in alcohol. It was a joke.” He sipped coffee. “You want me to come up there and file a statement? A report? Aight. I’ll be up there in a little bit. I got to go get my car and some clean clothes.”
“What you gonna do now, Hollywood?” asked Kenway.
“After we take Joel to the police station, I want to head out to my old house and formally introduce myself to Mr. Parkin,” said Robin, glaring daggers out the window. “If there’s really a monster in there, I think my mother had something to do with it, but I’m sure there was a good reason. And I want to take a closer look at that ring. The witches seem to be interested in it, and Weaver looks like she’s willing to kill to get it.”
“So you think it’s really magic?”
“Yes. Weaver said it might have Conjuration magic in it. Or on it. Or however that crap works.” She leaned over to eye him. “Also, don’t call me Hollywood.”
“Point of order,” said Joel, holding up a finger.
“Hmm?”
“I need to get my car. Black Velvet is not at my house.”
“Where is it?” asked Kenway.
“I drove Velvet to my booty call with the mysterious Mr. Big Red last night.” Joel massaged his face with both hands, talking through his fingers. “I left it parked in front of the serial killer’s apartment.”