Beaten Path

by Martin Shannon

  “I wouldn’t be either,” I said, pointing at the couch. “When was the last time you replaced your furniture?”

  The Swamp Witch bit her lip. “Eighty-five, I think?”

  “It shows.”

  Kaylee closed the box before Adam could get a closer look at the bowl. “I don’t get it, what does it do?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” my apprentice said with more than a little surprise in his voice.

  “She doesn’t know,” I said, “Because this is the last one.”

  “The last one?”

  “I mean this is the last Prussian Wedding Bowl ever made. No one knows what happened to the Magician who made them, and since Prussia doesn’t actually exist any more it’s not like we can go find his or her family. We aren’t going to know until it’s activated.”

  Adam raised an eyebrow. “So this could…”

  I pantomimed an explosion with my fingers.

  “Right,” the Swamp Witch said, placing the bowl box on the tiny table with the rest of my artifacts. “So now you can see why I’ve kept it in a box under the couch.”

  My apprentice nodded vigorously.

  Kaylee gently pushed the bowl into a prominent location on the table. “Good. What’s left, Gene?”

  I pointed at the odds and ends. “I’ve got Betty’s Glasses. They’re a little scratched, but they do a great job of providing a quick view of the Gloom.”

  Little Ed reached for the bright red horn-rimmed glasses, but his mom cut him off. “I wouldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you really want to see what the Green Swamp looks like from the Gloom?”

  Little Ed pulled his hand back. “No.”

  “What else have you got?”

  I pointed at a small thimble, which was more of a decorative game piece than an actual sewing tool. “That’s my portable threshold generator. Great for creating a home away from home to keep the dark things out.”

  “And what about these?” Kaylee asked, pointing at the small bag of buttons.

  “Lost Buttons.”

  Kaylee snapped her fingers back like she’d seen a rattlesnake. “You carry around Lost Buttons?!”

  “I don’t carry any of this around. I had Adam get it all out of storage. If anything he’s been the one carrying it around in the trunk of his mom’s car.”

  “I have. Wait, what have I been carrying around in the trunk of my mom’s car?”

  Kaylee gave the buttons a wide berth. “You’re responsible for those.” The Swamp Witch turned to her son. “Eddie, stay far away from the buttons.”

  Little Ed did as his mother instructed. “What do they do?”

  “They lose people.” I picked up the small bag and setting it aside.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you ever lost a sock in the dryer?”

  Little Ed shook his head. “We have a clothesline.”

  Of course you do.

  “Well, if you had a dryer, you’d know that socks go missing from time to time.”

  “Where do they go?” the junior Demon Hunter said, leaning in.

  “Most of the time they end up behind the dryer and against the wall. It’s like a no-man's land of lint and fabric softener sheets back there.”

  “Huh?”

  “Eddie.” Kaylee pointed at the buttons. “To hold a Lost Button in your palm loses you in space and time.”

  “Damn.”

  His mother nodded. “You understand?”

  Little Ed held up his hands. “Got it. Don’t touch the buttons.”

  “Well, just don’t hold them in the palm of your hand,” I said, gently setting the bag aside.

  The Swamp Witch turned her attention back to me. “While it’s really great to have a stack of terrible and insanely dangerous Magick on my dining room table, it’s not going to be enough. You can’t wield even half of this stuff in your current state, and what items you can handle aren’t going to be nearly enough to stop your Darkling, let alone save Donnie and Ed.”

  “Mom, he’s trying—”

  I cut Little Ed off. “No, your mom is right. We can’t just scrape together a bunch of stuff and hope for the best. We need a plan, but we need something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “An army.”

  39

  Seat of my Pants

  Adam rolled down the Cadillac’s window. “I don’t know, Gene. Are you sure this is going to work?”

  Nope.

  “Absolutely positive.”

  My apprentice played with the zipper of his hoodie. “I’m not sure. You think I can convince him to help?”

  “If you can’t I’m pretty sure your mom can.”

  My apprentice scrunched up his face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing,” I replied, innocently holding up my hands. “You’ll understand when you get older.”

  “Very funny.” Adam checked the rear-view mirror and with it the bowl box sitting in the back seat. “Is there anything I should know about having that in my car?”

  “Try not to put anything in it, okay?”

  Adam sighed, visibly distressed. “Are they as dangerous as you say they are?”

  Sweet mother-of-pearl, yes.

  I shook my head. “She kept it in a box under her couch. How bad could it be, right?”

  Adam put the car in drive, then stopped and threw the shifter back into park. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”

  “What do you mean?” I said, backing away from the car door with my hands behind my back.

  “God damn it, Gene. I’m not going to go through that again. I told you she’s not there. She’s in Tampa. She’s safe. Whatever it is I connected to at the Tower of Terrible—”

  “Unceasing Torment.”

  “Whatever.” Adam brushed me off. “It wasn’t her. I know it.”

  “She came to me, Adam.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The staff, Kaylee’s staff, that was Cathy. Her Magick is stronger now. It’s more powerful than mine at her age—far more powerful.”

  My apprentice shook his head. “That’s what I mean. Your daughter is what, sixteen, seventeen?”

  She’s… why can’t I remember?

  “I bet you can’t even remember,” Adam said, shaking his head. “You’re losing touch, Gene. You’re seeing things that aren’t there. Something on the other side is taking advantage of that. You’ve said it yourself, you’ve screwed over a lot of monsters over the years. Could it be that at least one is using this opportunity to get to you?”

  He may have been making valid points, but I had no interest in listening to them. It was Cathy, I knew that like I knew the sun would rise tomorrow. “You have children, Adam?”

  “No, but that’s not the poi—”

  I placed a hand on the hood of the car. “That’s exactly the point. You don’t understand.”

  My apprentice slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “Oh really? You think I don’t understand what love is? You think because I live in an apartment above my mom’s garage I’m some sort of emotionally stunted loser?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying—”

  “You gave up everything, you idiot! Porter, Cathy, Kris, you gave them all up—willingly! You didn’t even try to find another way. You didn’t come to me. You just woke up one day and said ‘screw you’ to the rest of us and signed on with the other team. I had to find out after the fact. Is that how much I meant to you?”

  “It wasn’t like that…”

  Adam threw the car back into drive. “Like hell it wasn’t. I’m going to find my mom and that Leprechaun, and then I’m going to tell him exactly what you said. You know something? I hope he tells you to go pound sand.”

  “Adam, wait, I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Damn it, Gene. I’m not going to stand around and watch you destroy yourself again. I was there the first time and it damn
near killed me. You took the most amazing life, a life some of us would have done damn near anything for, and burned it to the ground. I’m not going to watch you do it again.”

  “Adam!”

  My apprentice hit the accelerator and tore out of that small clearing, kicking up white sand and pine needles in the process.

  I waited until those bright red taillights faded from view before I pulled out the picture wheel. I knew I’d screwed up, and the photos confirmed it. I was down to my last image. The single still frame of Cathy’s bike laying on the street. I stared at that scene and tried to understand the significance but came up blank.

  This is all I have left…

  The Darkling’s power had grown, and with it went any chance I had of coming out ahead in the face of the reconciliation wheel.

  I shoved the disc back in my pocket and took a deep breath.

  It was a decent plan, but in the end would it be enough?

  * * *

  “This is insanity, Gene,” the Swamp Witch said, clutching a newly remade staff under her arm. Together we crouched in the thick palmetto fronds not far from the Alligator Men village.

  “You bet it is, but do you have a better idea?”

  Kaylee squinted at the thatch roof huts. “What about the Bridge Trolls?”

  I nodded. “That’s where you’re headed next.”

  “Gene, Alligator Men and Bridge Trolls? What the hell are you thinking?”

  I scratched at the second pair of loaner jeans I’d had to wear since I got here. Unlike the Magickal capris I’d been sporting, these weren’t broken in yet. “I’m thinking this is actually a pretty smart idea, truth be told.”

  “You would think that. I’m starting to wonder just how much planning goes into your thought process?”

  I removed the folded-up pair of muddy capris from under my arm. “According to my wife, basically none. I prefer to think of them as improv.”

  “And she married you of her own free will?”

  I unfolded the Magickal denim and laid it across the ground. “Yep, sure did. I wonder myself sometimes exactly why.”

  The Swamp Witch kept one eye on the distant reptile-men and the other on my pants. “So, you’re going to do what, exactly?”

  “Me? I’m going to get Little Ed and his dad’s pickup and head to the Florida Cemetery.”

  “Then what are we doing here?”

  Satisfied the pants were exactly where I wanted them, I pulled Kaylee’s attention back to the denim. “You are going to wake up these pants.”

  “Wait a second, you want me to rouse your trousers?”

  I pursed my lips. “When you say it that way it sounds so—”

  “Horribly wrong?”

  “Pretty much.”

  The Swamp Witch sighed. “What’s in the bag?”

  “You’ll see. Just do me a favor and light up the 501s.”

  Kaylee’s Magick bubbled up like fine champagne. She really was a gifted woman with a subtle talent for Magick I’d never seen before. Most of us bent reality to our will, and sometimes reality wasn’t keen on that and it bent back. But for Kaylee, Magick was like convincing the universe that what she wanted was its idea all along. Pretty much the same thing Porter had been doing to me for more than a decade.

  Sneaky powerful.

  The Magick pants filled out like you’d shoved an air hose in the cuffs. In seconds they were up and ready for action, if a little muddy.

  “There,” she said, opening her eyes. “They really stink, Gene.”

  The pants shook like a wet spaniel.

  “I think they like it,” I said, carefully unzipping the small bag while keeping the Swamp Witch from seeing the flamingo inside. I retrieved Adam’s golem and placed him in the driver’s seat of the strangest-looking pair of self-directed denim I’d ever seen.

  “What’s that doing?”

  The tiny wrestler gripped the waist band like a bull rider. “Yippee ki yay, mother—”

  “That’s enough,” I said. “Alright, you two, here’s the plan. You run in there like a mad fool—”

  I wasn’t sure, but it looked like the pants nodded.

  “Good. Next, Muscles, I need you to shout obscenities and taunt the living hell out of those Alligator Men.”

  This time I was certain the little rubber wrestler winked.

  “Great, on the count of three. Ready? One, two—”

  I didn’t get to three. My animated pants exploded off the mark like a world-class sprinter with Muscles bouncing along in the driver seat.

  Kaylee frowned. “Is that it? Just taunt the Alligator Men?”

  Damn it!

  “Get their attention, then run like hell for the Florida National Cemetery!” I shouted, watching the pants break the tree line and blast their way past a group of Alligator Men guards.

  “You think this’ll work?” the Swamp Witch asked, getting to her feet to join me and watch the animated duo swerve and dance their way through the confused reptile men.

  “These boots were made for walking, and I’m-a-gonna make em outta you!” the boisterous golem yelled, his baritone voice carrying on the night air.

  I cringed and shrugged my shoulders. “Well, we can’t make it worse, can we?”

  * * *

  “Is that the last of it?” I asked as Little Ed threw another bag on the truck bed.

  “You said get all the salt Dad has, right? Well, that’s all he keeps in the staging area.”

  Little Ed had been able to scrounge up enough gas to get the red pickup rolling again, and together we’d driven out to his father’s home base. It wasn’t much, just an old concrete-walled shed I’d spent a very uncomfortable hour in what seemed like a lifetime ago.

  “How many bags?”

  “Four.”

  I pursed my lips. “It’ll have to do.”

  Little Ed slammed the truck bed shut and tossed his machete on the passenger seat. “Listen, Gene. Is there still a chance for either of them?”

  “Donnie and your dad?”

  “Yeah.”

  I put a hand on the wooden man’s shoulder. “Sure.”

  Little Ed didn’t move; he just stared deep into my eyes. “Don’t lie to me, Gene.”

  “Okay, you’re right. It’s not fair to you. I’m going to level with you, kid. Each day that goes by they lose a little more of themselves to the Eternal Shame. If it goes on too long, then there’s no coming back.”

  The junior Demon Hunter’s shoulders fell. “I knew it.”

  “But,” I said, getting his attention. “I know your dad. I may not have been around him the last few years, but Ed Lovely has about as much give as granite, and is twice as hard-headed. If anybody can withstand the tar, it’s your dad.”

  “And Donnie?”

  “He strikes me as a tough nut.”

  “He is.”

  I smiled and gave Little Ed’s shoulder a squeeze. “Then it’s settled. Let’s go save those two knuckleheads before they give the Eternal Shame a bad name, eh?”

  The wooden man returned my smile. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

  Little Ed climbed into the driver’s seat and revved the rumbling engine. “Florida National Cemetery here we come.”

  I pressed my fingers against the House’s bag. Private Petty’s saber and the flamingo remained safely in its folds, both of which I’d need, along with a lot of luck, and more Magick than I could shake a stick at.

  We pulled out on the highway, and Little Ed coaxed the engine up to speed. Before long we were cruising along at a good clip. A burst of lightning shot across the night sky, filling the space between the clouds and lighting up the treetops like a flash bulb. The first hints of an unsettling cold chilled my tired bones.

  “Gene?”

  “Yeah, I feel it. Can you step on it?”

  Little Ed punched the accelerator and the rusty red pickup roared in response.

  “Is this plan going to work?” the wooden man asked, unwilling to take his eyes off the boilin
g sky.

  “I sure hope so.”

  The pickup kicked up gravel along the dark road. “That’s not really inspiring.”

  Another crack of lighting split the sky.

  “You’re right. Drive faster.”

  40

  Enlisted Men

  The wind had picked up by the time we passed the first sign. Little Ed gripped the wheel tighter and fought to keep the rusty truck from sliding across the road. The night sky clearly wasn’t happy with the Thinning preparing to spill out across the cemetery and it made sure we knew that. Irritated clouds twisted and folded in on themselves above that sacred place, making me painfully aware just how unpleasant it was about to get.

  “Pull over outside the gate,” I said, directing Little Ed to an open patch of grass not far from the entrance.

  “Isn’t that where you…”

  “Shattered Private Petty’s death spot?

  The wooden man nodded.

  “Yeah, not one of my finer moments. Try not to run over it at least.”

  The pickup cut a path through the soft grass and Little Ed avoided what we both assumed had been the grave marker’s prior location.

  “Now what?”

  A gust of wind shook the ancient oaks that lined the road.

  “Now, we work like hell.” The Thinning’s Magick trickled into my bones like a low-voltage battery. “I don’t know how long we have before they get here.”

  As if in answer to my words a thunderclap rattled the truck and made the young Demon Hunter jump. “Right, let’s get the salt.”

  “Good idea.”

  The junior Demon Hunter and I had the pickup emptied in minutes.

  Nothing quite like terror to get the blood going.

  “Okay, where are we putting these?” Little Ed asked, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

  I removed a piece of paper from my pocket and unfolded it in the whipping wind. “Can you follow this?”

  Little Ed tilted his head and turned the paper sideways. “Is this the cemetery?”