Another yell split the air, and the chopper roared up alongside me. The bike, as well as its rider, was black as pitch, because that’s what they were covered in. The black tar of the Eternal Shame smothered them and what had once been horses. The viscous fluid almost sparkled in the edge of the peanut truck’s headlights.
“Don’t get it on you!” I shouted to Donnie and Maurice, who were already in the truck bed and retrieving blades from the tool chest behind the cab.
“What is it?” Donnie yelled.
“It’s deserter’s pitch, and it’s the last thing you boys need—trust me.”
The truck hit a bump and almost sent me tumbling onto the pavement, but instead I swung face-to-face with one of Sear Spit’s undead soldiers. The featureless and tar-covered visage let out another scream; this one was delivered at close range and rattled me more than I cared to admit. A saber cut the air above my head with the practiced effort of hundreds of midnight rides.
“Ed, how far are we from the Croom Wildlife Sanctuary?” I ducked the blade and pulling myself back into the cab.
The Demon Hunter swerved the truck hard to avoid another stretch of broken road. “Not far.”
Another scream split the air, but this time my head was far enough back in the cab to avoid the spectral sword.
“Florida National Cemetery’s still on the edge, right?”
My old roommate nodded. “Unless they moved it.”
Skreech!
Ed and I did a double take when a saber tip tore through the peanut truck door like tissue paper.
“Let’s hope not. Punch it, Ed!”
“Way ahead of you,” the Demon Hunter shouted, his hands clutching the wheel. “Hold on everybody.”
Tar-covered fingers grabbed the edge of Ed’s door.
“Full recline, Lovely!”
My roommate pulled the seat release and flopped backward into his son’s lap just as I unloaded a round from One-shot’s Pistol.
Boom!
The Dead Sea round peeled the black tar rider off the window.
“Get me to consecrated ground, Lovely.”
Ed snapped his seat back. “Damnation, nice work. You ever thought about Demon Hunting?”
“What, and take all your business?” I shouted over the screaming undead. “Just get us there in one piece. Oh, and Ed?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s good to see you again. Hell, it’s good to see anyone again.”
The Demon Hunter’s bandana flapped in the wind, giving him a distinct World War I aviator vibe. “Next time stop at one of my peanut stands before you go making deals with the v—”
A black tar saber cut through the driver’s door, stopping just short of my old roommate’s spleen.
“Less talk.” I ripped off a few more rounds through the open window. “More driving.”
6
Trailer Toss
The tar-covered undead vanished from the window, but his scream told me the salty ammunition had only served to piss him off further.
“Damn it, Gene,” Ed swerved in the gathering mist. “That was almost my nose—I’ve got a look to maintain.”
“Anything to distract from the hair, right?” I climbed into the back seat. “Little Ed?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m Eugene Law.”
“Pleased to meet—”
“Save it for later. I’m practically your uncle. Here, take this.” I dropped the revolver into Ed Lovely junior’s lap. “I think there’s still a few rounds, make them count and keep your old man alive, you got it?”
The young man nodded, his hands shaking around the hot steel.
“What are you doing, Gene?” Ed asked, fighting to keep the trailer from fish-tailing.
“I’m going to help the rest of Jersey Shore and keep Dumbo’s snack wagon from coming apart at the seams. You get us to the National Cemetery—”
Another Midnight Rider’s scream, along with the sound of shearing metal, cut over my words.
“—and try to do it quickly, I don’t know how much longer the nutty buddy here’ll hold up.”
“It better hold up. I just got done paying it off,” my old roommate said, his hands tight on the wheel.
I climbed over Little Ed while the truck’s engine rumbled like a thundering herd, and squeezed my way out the rear window. If Donnie and Maurice could do it, there was little reason to believe I’d have problems, yet it took a push from Ed’s son to get my belt buckle over the sill.
“Thanks.” I hit the truck bed and realized it might have been a lot smarter to just stay in the cab.
Clang!
Donnie and Maurice were doing their best to keep the black tar sabers from slicing through the tires, but the machetes they carried weren’t really built for the task. A Midnight Rider’s sword sliced along the lip of the bed and sent sparks raining down. I pulled Donnie back moments before he received ACL surgery at the edge of that wicked blade.
“Thanks,” the big man said as he tried to regain his balance.
Chopper engines roared alongside us, rider swords cleaving deep grooves in the truck metal like it was aluminum foil.
Well, at least it’s not a lease.
“You guys salt the peanuts, right?”
Maurice deflected a saber swing, then pointed to the back of the truck. “Yeah, but we keep it on the trailer.”
Of course you do.
The steel trailer bounced like a kid’s toy behind the truck bed. There had to be at least a dozen razor-sharp-looking tools rattling around on that metal death-trap.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
“Think you guys can draw their attention?”
A black blade pierced the truck bed between Donnie’s legs. “Uh, sure…” he said, raising his foot to stomp it down.
“Stop,” I cried, pulling him back. “Do not get the tar on you!”
“Why?” both men asked, suddenly acutely aware of the black liquid staining their machetes.
“Just don’t, okay?” I pushed up my sleeves and placed both hands on the rear gate.
I didn’t get a response, but there were too many screams and too much tearing metal to have heard it anyway.
One of these times they’ll cut the tires, then we’re really screwed. Come on, Ed, get me to that cemetery.
The truck hitch rattled beneath the rear gate, bucking like a wild bull as it whipped the trailer side to side. I swung my foot over and onto the rattling steel knob.
See? Not so bad. Your backup career in rodeo arts is a viable option…
“Hold on,” Ed shouted from somewhere in the main cab.
“Wait, Ed, don’t—”
My old roommate’s truck swung hard into a narrow turn, taking us off the main highway and into the Croom Wildlife Refuge. I knew this because had I not caught the edge of a large peanut roaster and hung on for dear life, I’d have ended up plastered to the steel sign welcoming us to said refuge.
“Damn it, Lovely. Some of us are doing terribly dangerous things back here. More warning!”
Cypress trees whipped by at a frenetic pace. Long branches from the dense swampland smacked the sides of the trailer. Salt bags skidded across the wooden floor while I clung to the sharp metal sides of an oversized roaster that did nothing but want to topple over. Ed clearly had better things to do than listen to me, as the truck continued to bounce over the rough road. I white-knuckled that roaster in the vain hope I’d avoid ending up a pavement stain for future generations to admire.
The road that encircled the Croom was narrow, which meant the choppers had to fall back to keep up with us. This was exactly what I didn’t want, as it put me face to face with the tar of the Eternal Shame.
“You better leave now before I open up a tall boy of Magickal beatdown,” I cried, trying to find a better place to put my feet. The floor of the trailer had become a minefield of salt and peanut bags, all of which I tumbled over when Ed hit a massive pothole.
Damn it, Lovely.
The sudden lunge sent me stumbling to the back edge of the trailer. I caught the rear gate with my hands, but that left my head expertly positioned against the railing like a backwater guillotine.
Crap.
Ed ramped up the speed and squeezed me against the railing. Just above my exposed head, the pitch-black blade of a Midnight Rider appeared ready to give me a quick shave, French Revolution style—so much for being deterred by my bravado.
So this is how I end? Beheaded by a walking ink spot whilst clinging to the back end of the nutty buddy wagon? That’s a lot to put on a grave marker.
I waited for the final blow, but it never came.
Cling!
Donnie’s machete stopped the saber inches before it could make contact with my soft pink and squishy skin. Donnie himself had leaned over the trailer bed door and was doing his damndest to keep me from ending up a footnote in Sunshine State history.
“We’re even!” he shouted.
I slipped below the blade and scrambled into the middle of the swinging trailer. “Hardly. You split my soul in half.”
“Just get the damn salt bag,” the muscle-bound Demon Hunter said, deflecting another saber slash.
The truck swerved and cracked the trailer like a whip. Donnie fought his way back to the truck bed, while I went face first into a rucksack of sea salt.
Bingo.
The road opened up after the last turn and it was easy to see why—the cypress swamp was giving way to manicured grass and well-maintained easements. We were closing in on the Florida National Cemetery.
Just a few more minutes…
Midnight Riders weren’t the smartest muscle in the supernatural world, but getting them to drive onto consecrated ground was a big ask. That was where the salt came in.
If I could just piss them off enough…
I shoved my hand into the bag and shoved handfuls of crystalline sea salt into my jacket pocket. It was right about that point when I started to get the feeling we might make it out of this relatively unscathed.
Boom!
A tire blew, and the truck lurched to the side, sending the trailer bouncing into the swale. The massive pickup had four back tires, but losing one was still a problem.
“Son of a bitch. Ed, can you keep it on the—”
I didn’t get to finish my sentence, as what words I had left caught in my throat when the Riders sliced the trailer hitch free from the back of the truck.
Oh, crap.
Traditional trailers weren’t designed for autonomous navigation—what with no front wheel and all. Ed’s peanut hauler suffered from the same design flaw.
The front edge dropped, digging into the dirt and tossing me, along with the various sharp implements of road-side peanut vending, like a drunken bull-rider and his rodeo clowns into the tall grass at the entrance of the cemetery.
I did my best to roll with it, but that’s hard to do when you hit the unforgiving ground with the force of a thunderclap. I looked up just in time to see Ed’s truck roar past like a space coast rocket now that the trailer hitch was a distant memory. My old roommate might have wanted to stop, but the truck had other ideas.
The Riders!
The choppers’ throaty roar pushed me to my feet and got those feet moving.
Just get to consecrated ground…
I would love to say I outran those spectral motorcycles and their damned riders, but I’d just been tossed from a peanut trailer at high-speed, so my running was more or less a highly motivated limp.
Just a few more yards…
The gate was closed.
Crap.
I stopped my limping and turned to face the undead monsters, still backing up toward the closed gate. “You guys remember what happened the last time you faced a Magician, right? You sure you’re ready for a second beat down?”
I was lying—the only one beat down here was me. This was going to be a long and painful death. The black tar of the Eternal Shame would see to that.
With an unholy yell, and its blade held high, the lead Rider charged on his bike. In my haste I fell backward, my foot catching on something along the roadside.
What the?
It was a cross—a simple, painted reminder of the poor person who’d died along this road an untold time ago.
The chopper closed in and I raised my hands in a final act of defiance. Well, that’s how I want to remember it, but I’m sure it looked more like sheer terror—thankfully there was no one there to see it.
Clang!
For the second time that night someone stopped me from taking a deserter’s saber to the face, but this time the one who did it wasn’t even living. Silver saber, strong in the translucent hands of my spectral savior, turned aside its tar-covered equal.
The Rider shot past before angrily coming about.
“Hooah,” the young soldier yelled, his weapon keeping my head attached to my body. “Stay behind me, sir.”
Not to be the person that looks a gift of death avoidance in the mouth, I did what any sane Magickless Magician would have done: I got behind that skinny spirit and his sword. “You got it, kid.”
7
Collar Popping Evil
Black pitch oozed from the Rider’s rumbling exhaust pipes. Grass wilted beneath the bike’s vile touch. The Midnight Rider circled back around, his tar-covered chopper roaring in defiance.
“Nice job,” I said, huddled behind the translucent young man.
Baby-faced and clean shaven, my savior wore a set of poor-fitting fatigues, and had a black beret clamped down on his short-cropped hair. “Who are these guys?”
The Riders’ rebel yells set my hairs on end. “Don’t worry about them. We’ve just got to get to the cemetery and we’ll be safe. That’s consecrated ground.” I pointed to the rows of markers just past the darkened gates. “Just need to get them in there… somehow.”
The soldier shook his head, but kept that saber and his eyes trained on the Riders. “I can’t go in there, sir.”
“Well, crap. That’s a problem.”
The Midnight Riders revved their engines, the heavy choppers spewing more black tar.
“Get down,” the soldier cried as the twin bikes exploded off their marks and roared toward us at high speed.
“Holy—”
“I said get down,” the kid knocked me back, then twirled around and spun that sword like a young man possessed. He parried tar-black blades and separated the Riders from their steeds with an expert precision. Pitch-covered bodies tumbled into the tall grass.
“Are you okay, sir?” The young man turned to help me up.
“Yeah,” I said, accepting his ghostly hand. “I’m… look out!”
The Midnight Riders’ broken bodies got to their feet, injuries healing beneath the shifting tar of the Eternal Shame. The spectral soldier yanked me behind him again and kept that silver blade between us and the advancing undead.
“I don’t suppose you have a weapon, sir? It would be very helpful right about now if you did.”
“No, I don’t. We can’t all carry swords around.”
Black blades dripped with inky tar.
“I see. Then we appear to be FUBAR.”
Glistening in the hazy moonlight, the deserters circled slowly, looking for an opening. The acrid smell of the Eternal Shame’s tar was nigh overpowering.
“Don’t get it on you.” I crouched behind the young man and pointed at the oily pitch.
“Don’t get what on me, sir?”
“The tar.”
“Why?”
“It’s soul-binding stuff,” I said, doing my best to move in tandem with the young swordsman. “There isn’t a Stain-Stick in the world that can get that evil out.”
The young soldier tilted his head. “Good to—”
“Look out!”
One of the Riders sensed an opening and lunged. His tar-covered saber slashed with a wild fury at my savior’s midsection, but the young man was faster. He parried the blade and cut back with a strategic
and well-timed strike of his own.
“Nice work! Where did you learn to do that?” I asked, limping behind the young fighter.
“North West Florida Saber Champion of nineteen ninety-nine, sir.”
“Ninety-nine?”
The soldier parried two more strikes from the advancing Riders, but had to turn in the process. They were herding him away from the cemetery gates and back toward the small white roadside cross.
“Did you die?” I asked, my eyes on the weather-beaten cross.
“I am a ghost.”
Clang! Pling!
Silver and black flashed beneath the moonlight.
I pointed to the roadside marker. “No, I mean did you die right over there? Where that broken cross is?”
“Yes, sir!”
Crap.
“They’re pushing you back to your Death Spot,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to adjust the young man’s trajectory. “You can’t let them do that. Do you understand?”
The young soldier held his ground, but the fury of those twin black blades was rapidly becoming too much even for him to defend.
“No?”
I slipped around him, just as a black-tar blade cut the air where I’d been. “That’s your Death Spot. If they push you back onto it, they might be able to trigger your ride.”
“My what?”
“Damn it, kid.” I ducked under another whirling blade. “Your ride. You know, your ticket to the afterlife? Paradise, Valhalla, the Happy Hunting Grounds, or whatever it is that you believe in.”
“My family is Southern Methodist, sir.”
“Heaven it is,” I said, twisting to the other side to avoid another killing lunge. “Haven’t you seen your ride before?”
Pling! Clang!
“I am having a very hard time managing two blades at once. Would you mind not talking quite so much?”
“Right, sorry,” I said, my eyes on the quickly approaching Death Spot. “Listen, uh…”
“Private Petty.”
Clang!
Beaten Path Page 4