Dark Traveler

by Catie Rhodes

  I thought fast. “Wait a minute. Let’s talk about what kind of trouble Tanner’s in. Is anybody after you?”

  Tanner’s broad cheekbones darkened. “Just bill collectors.”

  I nodded, sympathy overriding my basic need to send Tanner packing. “Yeah, I’ve been there.” I jumped at my own words, frantically searching for another reason Tanner couldn’t stay. It came like magic. “If you’ve lost everything, what are you staying in? We don’t do motels. We’ve all got RVs.”

  “Tanner can stay with Shelly and me,” Cecil broke in. “Jadine can bunk with you, Peri Jean.”

  Tanner shook his head. “No, sir. I’d never ask that. The last two things I own are an old camper and the truck my dad used to use to pull it.”

  Cecil slipped his arm over my shoulders. “Tanner’s great-grandparents helped my parents found Sanctuary. They and their children, one of which was my dear friend Jackson, were here from the beginning. Surely we can consider Tanner a legacy member and give him a chance.”

  My cheeks flamed. I knew I was being played, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I gave a grudging nod. Cecil took his arm off me to shake hands with Tanner. Tanner watched me as he shook hands with my great-uncle.

  I couldn’t look away. Those eyes. Damn it. Just damn it.

  3

  I stomped toward my tent. Even arguing with people about whether or not they really wanted a love spell was better than standing around acting like it was okay that Cecil had allowed a weirdo that nobody knew into our group just because he’d been friends with the weirdo’s grandfather.

  “Wait,” Hannah called from behind me. I waited until she caught up to begin my rant.

  “I can’t believe Cecil just let this Tanner nerd in. Especially after he gave me such a hard time over the fire-eater family.” That had been a sore spot for me. I’d liked the family of fire-eaters and thought they’d make a good addition to Sanctuary. We had too many people who depended on the runoff from those of us who actually had marketable talents. Cecil had vetoed me, claiming the fire-eaters looked like trouble.

  Hannah said nothing. I glanced over to see a smirk on her face. I stopped.

  “Don’t you think we should have checked out Tanner more?” I heard the high-pitched exasperation in my voice, felt it in the acid on my stomach. I wanted Hannah to be on my side.

  Hannah’s smirk grew into a grin. “I think you checked out Tanner enough for all of us.” She raised her eyebrows. Hannah’s recent bad experiences with men kept her out of the dating pool. But she still noticed and rated every good-looking man.

  “Oh, good grief,” I muttered to let her know now wasn’t the time.

  “Don’t you try that with me. I know you well enough to detect interest.” She laughed.

  “He’s a loser.” I stomped toward my tent. At least it was one place I was in charge.

  “I don’t think Tanner’s a loser.” She trailed after me. “Something bad happened in his life, sure, but I think he’s decent.”

  I barely heard her. I was too busy staring at the man coming out of my tent.

  “Hey!” I took a few running steps toward the guy, trying to decide if I recognized the gray hair and the emaciated body. I didn’t think I did.

  But maybe this guy was ill and wanted to check on a healing potion. I made them from recipes in Samantha’s grimoire, which I’d recently obtained, and they worked. The guy might also be up to no good. Either way, I wanted to find out, maybe take out my annoyance with Tanner Letts on him.

  The guy never acknowledged me. He picked up his pace, hurrying toward a crowd of yelling, jostling teenagers. Maybe I did recognize the way he walked, but I couldn’t quite place it. I watched more carefully, noting a flash of silver at his feet. I focused on his cowboy boots. Duct tape. The guy had duct-taped his cowboy boots together. Damn. That was pretty dire.

  I hurried toward the crowd of kids, but they picked that moment to stop in the middle of the path leading through the tents and start talking and giggling. By the time I picked my way through them, the man was gone.

  Hannah peeked out of my tent. “Peri Jean? You better get in here, girl.”

  I changed direction and rushed into my tent.

  The drawer where I kept Oscar’s bone runes hung open. The runes covered the chair where I sat to do business, just hovering on it, sort of jittering. Oscar’s special brand of evil, tinged with his hate, baked out from the runes. As we stood watching, the runes dropped to the floor and began to spin lazily. Hannah skittered backward, trying to get away from the evil.

  I stood my ground, letting the haze of horror radiate over me. Jadine’s vision of me surrounded by Oscar’s runes came back. That was two in one night. First Tanner, now this. But I still didn’t know what it meant.

  I inched closer to the runes scattered on the dirt floor. “Were the runes already stuck to my chair when you came in here?”

  She nodded. “And the room already felt the way it does now.”

  The guy I’d seen, Mr. Duct Tape Boots, must have done this. I fumed, wishing I’d caught him. I’d have made him eat that duct tape and thank me for the nice meal. Occupied with my anger, it took several seconds to realize nothing had been tampered with except the runes. Odd. There were items in my tent that looked far more valuable than the runes. Besides, they’d been tucked out of sight.

  “Is anything missing?” Hannah still held her hands over the runes in a warding off gesture.

  I glanced around but saw nothing other than the runes scattered on the floor. I shook my head at Hannah and bent over to see what was going on.

  How had the runes stuck to the chair? The only magic connected to those runes belonged to Oscar Rivera.

  Oscar was supposed to be powerless in his soul prison. He shouldn’t have been able to manufacture enough magic to make the runes stick to the chair. Had the guy we saw coming out of the tent done this? I hadn’t gotten any magical pings off him. And the black opal usually let me know, as it had with Tanner.

  I lit a cigarette and paced back and forth, rubbing my temples and muttering to myself.

  “Do you think the Coachman—I mean Oscar—is trying to get another coven to summon him?” Hannah stared at the scattered runes, a sick expression on her face.

  “Sure, if he can manage it. But…” I gestured at the runes. “How could that guy have known the runes were here? It’s not like I had a sign saying, ‘Contact a Crazy Motherfucker with These Runes.’”

  Hannah frowned at the runes and chewed her lip in thought. “Didn’t you once tell me it’s possible Oscar had caches of these runes stashed in places where he murdered people? That guy we saw could have found more of Oscar’s runes somewhere else. And Oscar might have sent him. Right?”

  I groaned in answer. Leave it to Hannah to bring up an even more horrifying scenario. Oscar had been a prolific murderer. Logic said there were way more runes than the ones in my possession. But I had held out hope those runes didn’t exist. “There’s nothing we can do now, other than tell the others to keep an eye out for Mr. Duct Tape.”

  Hannah walked over to the mess of runes, picked up the muslin bag I kept them in, and tried to use the edge of her phone to sweep them into the bag. The runes slid over the dirt floor, away from Hannah. She dropped the bag and backed away.

  I sent a text message to everybody in my family about Mr. Duct Tape. Then I got a folder out of the buffet where the runes had come from and tried sweeping the runes into a pile. They ran from me as well. Impatient, I grabbed at one. Soon as my fingers touched it, a flash of evil shot through me. My heart stuttered, then ached. My vision of the living world faded.

  A woman runs down a hallway, screaming. Blood streams from a gash on her cheek. Footsteps pound behind her. Oscar Rivera gains on her, teeth bared in a bloody slash, an axe gripped in both hands.

  The intensity of the vision rocked me on my feet. I gripped the back of my chair and pushed myself out of it. Reality bled over the vision, and I realized I’d m
issed whatever Hannah had said. “What?”

  “I didn’t say anything. It was this awful sound…” She cut off her words and pointed at the flap leading outside. “Hear it?”

  “Hoooooo.” The sound came from outside and sounded like an engine winding down or maybe a very strong wind whistling around large structures.

  The sound drilled into my head, its wrongness scraping against my nerves. I left the runes where they lay and stood.

  It came again. “Hoooooo.”

  “What is that?” I asked Hannah.

  She shook her head.

  “Hoooooo.” This time it was closer.

  My black opal woke up and gave me a little shock. The stone began to heat the skin on my chest and ping me at intervals.

  “Hoooooo.” The sound raised the hair on the back of my neck.

  The black opal’s pulses of magic came closer together, almost like an extra heartbeat. The table where I performed séances began to shake.

  “Hoooooo.” It was right outside the tent now.

  I walked to the flap, knees so weak I could barely keep my balance. But I had to see.

  “Don’t go out there.” Hannah had backed herself against the wall, as far as she could get from the runes and the awful sound.

  “Stay here.” I walked outside.

  Our little thoroughfare off the midway was nearly deserted. It was almost time for the carnival to close. Several yards away, I caught a glimpse of Tanner’s long hair as he walked next to Cecil, who seemed to be explaining something. They both glanced at me.

  “Hoooooo.” It came from all around me.

  Cecil looked up at the sky. He’d heard it too. Tanner followed Cecil’s movement, eyes wide in confusion.

  The air changed. The hot wind that had been rushing through stopped. A heaviness replaced it, pressed against my skin. My teeth throbbed, and an annoying hum filled my ears.

  “Hoooooo.” The sound came from above me.

  I raised my head and stared at the sharp stars and inky sky. They looked normal to me. Then everything changed.

  Far above, a blob appeared. It shot toward me, growing bigger as it came. Its sound came with it. “Hoooooo.”

  It flew closer, and I recognized the shadow from earlier. Only now it was three times the size it had been. It raced toward me, the sound growing louder and louder.

  I stood rooted to the spot, the ringing in my ears so loud I could barely think.

  “Run!” came Cecil’s shout. It snapped me out of my trance. I looked around for the source. Cecil cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted again. “Run, baby, run!”

  Next to him, Tanner stood open-mouthed at the spectacle.

  I took a few steps toward the main part of the carnival and glanced back at the shadow. It shot forward and brushed against me. The world flashed black and gray.

  I kicked it into high gear and ran for my life.

  4

  I rounded the corner into the main carnival midway running wide open. Funnel cake booths and games of skill and chance flew past. People standing in line stared. Some pointed me out to their friends.

  I pumped my legs as hard as I could and raced for the attractions. People littered the fence next to the Ferris wheel. Screams came from somewhere nearby, probably the zero gravity ride. I went past them all with no idea where I was going. I just knew I didn’t want that shadow to pull me off the carnival grounds.

  The “hoooooo” sound chased me. It was like someone sucking wind and hollering at the same time. Not too creepy, unless it came from the larger-than-human shadow behind me.

  My thighs ached and shivered. They wouldn’t hold out much longer. My lungs screamed for mercy. Hannah and I smoked way too much. If she’d quit, I would too. I shook off the foolishness and ran harder. I had to figure this out and do it fast.

  Problem was, I didn’t even understand what happened. That cowboy’s mother’s ghost turning into this shadow didn’t make any sense. The dead lady had seemed so normal, even with the bashed-in head.

  Black dots swam at the edges of my vision. My body was on the verge of collapse. I had to get somewhere I could rest.

  A row of tents with inside attractions was coming up. Some spirits couldn’t cross into structures. Maybe this one was one of the unlucky ones. The Hall of Mirrors was first. Not the greatest place to elude a spirit, since they liked mirrors, but I was out of go-juice. I swung around the line and barreled through the door.

  “Hey!” yelled the ticket taker. “I don’t care if you work for the carnival. You can’t go in free.”

  I pretended not to hear and ran into the dimly lit enclosure. The Summervale Hall of Mirrors sported a medieval fantasy theme, the mirrors framed in elaborate gilt. Overhead lights flashed off the mirrors. My fatigued vision interpreted it as a strobe effect. It made my head swim. I stopped and put my hands on my knees, struggling to breathe. The sound I made didn’t sound too different from the shadow’s “hoooooo.” Maybe we deserved each other.

  As I caught my breath and began to feel normal again, I listened for the “hoooooo” and didn’t hear it. I began to relax.

  The first scream came from within the Hall of Mirrors. High-pitched, teenage, female. A teenage boy yelled, “Holy shit! What is that?”

  Then came a grown woman’s voice. “You can’t be in here dressed up all horror-like. This attraction is for little kids too.” She was trying to sound big and tough, but fear quivered at the edges of her words.

  The cowardly part of me, the part Priscilla Herrera always criticized, considered finding the emergency exit and slipping out. The shadow was just a spirit and would likely go back to its realm at dawn. But I couldn’t do that. It would be an asshole move. Even though I considered myself a die-hard butthole, I didn’t think I’d crossed into asshole territory yet.

  I trudged toward the sound of the disturbance. One question plagued me. Why had they seen the spirit? The reason I saw them made sense. But normal people didn’t usually see spirits.

  I followed the sound of a child wailing through the maze until I found them. The woman knelt on the floor next to a little boy old enough to have lost one of his front teeth. Tears streaked down his red face.

  “There’s somebody dressed like a scary witch.” The woman, whose voice I recognized from earlier, was still trying to be a badass for her kid. Her wide, fear-filled eyes and the way she clutched her child gave away her terror over what she’d seen.

  That told me she didn’t regularly see ghosts or spirits. There had to be a reason, but I was too rattled to hit on it. Best thing I could do right then was get this woman and her kid out of here so I could deal with this nasty ghost without an audience.

  “Yes, ma’am. I apologize on behalf of Summervale Carnival. That person is playing a prank. We’ll remove them right now. Go back outside and ask for a refund.” Unable to believe how calm I sounded, I helped the woman up and pointed her in the right direction.

  Something moved behind me. I turned and faced the shadow. At first, I saw nothing but a ripple in reality. But then I glanced at one of the mirrors. I saw what the townies had seen. And it was ugly.

  A scream worked its way up my chest. I opened my mouth to birth it into the world, but nothing more than a hiss came out of me. “No,” I whispered and backed away.

  The shadow advanced on me, its features taking shape now that I had glimpsed its true form in the mirror. That told me the being was from the dark outposts and likely not a spirit in the sense of ghosts and specters. This thing was a puredee monster. And now that I had seen it, it would never let me un-see it.

  The monster's greenish-gray skin was either covered in slime or had a slick, rubbery looking surface. Its eyes, with no iris, consisted of a huge black dot in the middle of the eyeball. The creature’s sunken mouth opened and let out another “hoooooo.” This one rattled the mirrors in their frames.

  I backed into one of the mirrors. It shook with the impact. I pushed against it, wishing I could scoot through the wall.r />
  The creature took another step toward me, hunching at the waist to lean closer. Its hooked nose reached almost to its thin slash of lips. A pointed chin curved away from its body.

  The creature wore no clothes. Deflated looking breasts lay flat on her bony chest. Both her head and her sex were covered with thin, greasy black and gray hair.

  The thing reached out one hand to me. The sight of that hand scared me weak. Bony fingers, three times as long as mine, covered with inches-long, sharp, black fingernails, grazed my face.

  I pressed myself against the mirror, barely feeling its cool, hard surface. My breath came in wild gasps, each one followed by a grunt. My brain lost its ability to reason and only sent one message. Run. Run. Run. Run.

  Running was a good idea. I pushed away from the mirror and tried to duck around the monster. She closed one hand around my arm, squeezing so tight the bones of my forearm ground together. With a flick of her arm, she slung me back.

  My head slapped the wall. A thump reverberated through my head. Dull pain spread from the point of impact. The blow scrambled my thoughts further. Somewhere, very far away, a raven cawed. I couldn’t remember why that was important.

  The black opal pinged. But I didn’t know what that meant either. I couldn’t do anything but try to escape from the monster. It raised one bony foot, tipped with long black nails matching the ones on its hands, and swung it toward my legs. Her kick forced my legs out from under me. I toppled to the dirt. The creature straddled me and pushed me onto my back.

  The black opal sent ping after ping into my chest. Finally I remembered I was a witch. The raven’s caw came again. This time, my brain spit out the information I needed. Orev. This raven was my familiar. Orev had roosted for the night somewhere too far away to get here in time. But he still wanted to help. The next caw echoed through my head. The mantle, it said. Find your power.

  I reached for the mantle and grabbed on to it, panicked and pulling too hard. The spell blocking me from the mantle’s full power required finesse if I wanted to get around it. But right then, I was beyond anything but animal panic. The mantle screamed against the tissue of the spell. Pain lanced through my magical core. I loosened my hold and pushed a jolt of magic into the creature.