Midnight Rider

by D V Wolfe

  I shook my head. “I can’t remember. Rhonda or Tiffany or something.”

  “That was when I first met you. You looked like such a hussie,” Rosetta said, shaking her head.

  “I know,” I said. “You made a point to inform me of that every time you saw me.”

  “She was...a model or something?” Rosetta asked, pausing, her pestle in mid-air, squinting as if trying to remember.

  I rubbed a hand down my sore neck. “Maybe before she became the trophy wife for some rich guy in New York City. I found out they had had a fight on his yacht and he threw her overboard. Apparently, she never learned to swim and she had drowned, which is why I woke up in her body, miles out to sea, treading water in what had to have been a seven hundred pound dress.”

  Rosetta snorted. “Which you quickly ditched, as I recall. Probably a good thing or those fishermen wouldn’t have bothered pulling you out of the drink. I was surprised that she drowned. I’d have thought those ridiculous bosoms could have been used as a floatation device.”

  “Apparently silicone isn’t buoyant,” I said.

  “And so that time you were ‘blacked out’ from New York State?” Rosetta asked.

  “Yeah, and most of the east coast while they looked for her after her ‘strange disappearance’.”

  “Man that chaps my hide. I can’t believe that low life husband of hers got away with killing her,” Rosetta said.

  I let out a burp. “He didn’t. He married again and his second wife shot him in his sleep one night. Apparently, he was an asshole.”

  Rosetta rolled her eyes. “As if it wasn’t obvious before.” She glanced over at me. “So what’s the story on this skinsuit? I don’t think you’ve ever said.”

  I shrugged. “I got pretty lucky this time. This gal’s soul apparently got bored with the ‘lather, rinse, repeat’ life, and just vacated her meat suit. She’s from a speck of a town in Alaska and most of her family live there. She kept to herself and didn’t have a lot of friends, so when I woke up there, I left a note in her rat-trap apartment that I was ‘going to find myself’ and headed for the lower forty-eight. Alaska doesn’t have as much super activity affecting innocents, mostly because there aren’t as many innocents to affect, so it’s not much of a loss to be blacked out there.”

  We fell silent for a few moments and I got to my feet, moving inside the shed. She was pummelling Silver Hair and Angelica root. I watched her working while I arranged boxes on the shelves next to her.

  “How many do you have left to save, Bane?” Rosetta asked quietly.

  I sighed. “Four hundred and eighty-two.”

  “Tall order,” she said as she pulled the stopper out of a flask and dropped some pearly liquid into the mixture.

  “You’re telling me,” I said. “And just about five months left to do it in.”

  “Well, I heard something this morning on the two-way that might be of use to you,” she said, as she handed me the pestle and mortar. “Grind it good now, don’t get sloppy.” She untied her apron and dug in one of the square pockets on the front of her dress. She pulled out a scrap of paper and unfolded it before trading it to me for the pestle and mortar.

  “Coordinates,” I said, looking over the numbers scribbled on the page.

  Rosetta nodded. “I looked them up. It’s St. Louis. And I heard Walter talking about St. Louis on the radio. With his help, I was able to contact the other side and find out exactly what it is.” I felt my heart leap in my chest. I hoped Nya was wrong. I really needed it to be something that I knew how to hunt, but was enough of a pain in the ass that every hunter and their mother wouldn’t be chomping at the bit to hot-foot it over to Missouri to go after it.

  “It’s a demon,” Rosetta said, deflating my hope balloon with a big fat raspberry. “A really nasty one,” she continued. “I wouldn’t be giving this to you at all if time wasn’t so short. It’s not worth the risk. But maybe if you exorcised it...”

  “Damn,” I said. Rosetta’s sharp gaze met my eyes. I sighed. Rosetta didn’t like Nya. I was pretty sure it was because Nya also told me what to do sometimes and that was Rosetta’s “boat to captain” as far as she was concerned. I found the whole thing pretty funny, usually. “Nya said she’d heard from some of her snitches that there was something pretty big coming just for me. Aren’t I a lucky girl?”

  “Shit, Bane,” Rosetta breathed and I had to resist the temptation to call her on her cursing hypocrisy.

  “And then,” I continued. “She called me back to tell me it was a demon.” I grinned at Rosetta. “I’d been hoping you were about to tell me it was a ghoul or a rougarou.” I debated telling Rosetta about Nya’s news that it might be the demon holding my deal and then decided against it. No reason to get her dander or her hopes up.

  “Isn’t that against the rules?” Rosetta asked. “Wouldn’t that breach the court ruling or something? I mean if a demon whacks you because you interrupted something they were doing, that’s probably one thing, but putting a hit out on you?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure how seriously the downstairs crowd actually takes the rules. I mean, Hell is hell for a reason, right?”

  “Yeah, but you’d think the boys upstairs would have an issue with them going ‘open season’ and aiming right at you,” Rosetta said.

  “I could always just hunt it back,” I said.

  “Go after the demon,” Rosetta said. “And exorcise it?”

  I shook my head. “Nya says this one has grown out of his exorcism pull-ups. She thinks I’ll have to kill it.”

  “Sweet Jesus.” Rosetta breathed, turning away from me and wiping her hands on her apron.

  We were quiet for a minute and then I asked, “Any idea how many souls a big daddy demon would be worth?” I tried to sound casual. I was hoping Rosetta in her decades of experience might have some vague idea about what a demon would be worth on the “bad shit to souls saved” scale.

  “That’s a question for your shifty accountant,” Rosetta sniffed and I felt the change in the air around us. She wasn’t going to forbid me from going. She knew what I had to do or maybe she knew that even if she told me not to go, I was going to do it anyway. I watched as Rosetta dislodged a bullet from a rifle casing and dumped the gunpowder into the mortar.

  “Is that safe?”

  Rosetta shrugged. “You took them before, didn’t you?”

  “Fair enough.”

  She opened the bottle of graveyard dirt and dumped some into the bowl and then pulled a box of empty gel caps towards her.

  “Help me fill them?”

  The sun was starting to set when we climbed the porch steps. I had a fresh bottle of pills in my pocket and I was feeling pretty good, considering. I’d taken two of the pills as soon as we filled them and a huge wave of relief had flooded through me when the visions surrounding me had blurred to nothing. We got to the top of the porch steps and paused. The house was eerily quiet. Rosetta opened the door and we peered around the spotless kitchen. It seemed untouched except for the broken window.

  “Noah?” I called out. We looked into the living room and I saw his frizzy hair sticking up over the arm of the couch. “Looks like he’s passed out.”

  “We'll just leave him there,” Rosetta said. “How about we get some grub rustled up?”

  She started on the chicken and set me to work chopping potatoes.

  “About this demon in St. Louis,” I began. Rosetta crossed the room, carrying the bowl of chicken breading in her hands and kicked the pantry door closed.

  “Can’t be too careful,” she said, nodding meaningfully at the door.

  I rolled my eyes. “I suppose they can’t hear us through old barn wood.”

  “They can’t hear us through the warding symbols, smartass.” With a spatula, Rosetta moved the quilt that hung on the back of the door aside to reveal the symbols, carefully painted in red.

  “Nice,” I said. I turned back to the potatoes. “So what do you know about whacking demons?”

 
; Behind me, Rosetta snorted, “I know it ain’t like picking wildflowers.”

  6

  “You don’t say,” I muttered and I immediately ducked to miss the ladle Rosetta pitched at my head. It clanged against the counter and fell into the sink. Noah sat bolt upright on the couch with a shriek and turned to stare at Rosetta and I, wild-eyed.

  “Wha?”

  “You alright there, sonnie?” Rosetta asked.

  “I heard some...something.” He closed his eyes and his head thumped back against the arm of the couch. A second later, his soft snoring filled the air again.

  “Nya says she’s digging around trying to figure out how to kill a demon,” I said. Rosetta looked slightly annoyed again at the mention of Nya and I couldn’t help but grin. She pushed me aside and took ownership of the sliced potatoes.

  “I heard Slosh Figgins say that if you could find the bones of the person before they became a demon, grind their pelvis into powder and eat it, you can control them,” Rosetta said, dumping the sliced potatoes into a bowl.

  “Ewww,” I said. “I think I’d rather deal with the s.o.b. head-on if the alternative is drinking demon pelvis Alka-seltzer.”

  “Yeah,” Rosetta said. “Sounds pretty far-fetched, doesn’t it?”

  I nodded, trying to stifle a yawn. “And it is Slosh who said it, after all.”

  “When was the last time you closed your eyes, Bane?” Rosetta asked.

  I shrugged. “Philly? Or maybe Atlanta. Somewhere between the fourth Weeping Woman and the second Dullahan.”

  “Dammit Bane. Those pills are only as useful as the person taking them. You have to sleep.”

  “Actually, I don’t know if I do. I mean, I’m not really your average, red-blooded…” I looked down at myself, “What would you say? Twenty-seven year old?”

  “You don’t know how old your meat suit is?” Rosetta asked. “You knew everything else about her but what, you never looked at her driver’s license?”

  I shook my head. “She didn’t have one. Finding out my age wasn’t really much of a priority when I got topside again.” I looked down at myself. “You think, maybe, twenty-eight?”

  Rosetta craned her head around behind me and looked down. “Eh, somewhere between there and thirty-five. Your hind end is too perky to be much beyond your mid-thirties.”

  “Aww Rosetta, you’re gonna make me blush.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Well it’s a hell of a lot better than having to listen to you whine about your arthritis.”

  “That sucked,” I said. “Knife wounds, I can handle. Rock salt from my own gun? Goes with the territory. But arthritis and peptic ulcers and glaucoma. Man, getting old is for the fucking birds.”

  “Watch your damn language, Bane,” Rosetta growled.

  I looked back down at the cutting board, trying to hide my smirk. Rosetta had never had any kids, but she was quite the mothering type. Part shining example, part unapologetic hypocrite.

  “So have you heard any lore about killing demons? I mean besides what Slosh told you?”

  Rosetta shoved the tray of breaded chicken into the oven and closed the door with her foot. She tossed her oven mitts on the counter and leaned against it.

  “Well, when Henry….when he passed, I looked into all kinds of research. For the longest time, I thought I was hunting a demon. The signs were all there. The thunderstorm in January, traces of sulfur on his body, the fact that his heart….” She took a deep breath, “had exploded in his chest.” Rosetta paused and cleared her throat. I looked over to see her give herself a full-body shake as if she was trying to shake a feeling off. Then she met my gaze. “Fenton O’Leary, you remember him?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, he only had one eye and about half his teeth?”

  “That’s the one. He said the only weapon in a hunter’s arsenal against demons was exorcism.”

  “And if they can’t be exorcised?” I asked.

  Rosetta shrugged. “Get the hell out of their way?”

  “So helpful,” I said. “Unfortunately, that’s not really an option. And even if I could exorcise it, what’s to stop him from coming back up here for round two?” Another thought occurred to me and I suddenly felt pretty defeated. “Besides, if I want it to count against my magic number, I’ll bet I have to kill it.”

  Rosetta nodded. “I’m sure that’s how your shyster of an accountant will see it.” She looked over at Noah’s form on the couch. “I can see to him, send him home, and make sure he’s safe.”

  I nodded. “That would be good. I need to get to work and I don’t really have time to babysit.”

  “You were joking about him setting people on fire with his hands, right?” Rosetta asked. “And you just got the kid to play along?”

  I shook my head and I gave an inward sigh. The kid had some strange and dangerous abilities. I couldn’t just ride off into the sunset, cross my fingers, and hope I wasn’t dooming other people who came into contact with. “No. I better take him with me,” I said after a minute. “He accidentally killed someone. And I have no idea what to do about this ability of his. I don’t think it’s possession, but I’ve never heard of anything like it. I’d feel safer keeping an eye on him.”

  Hell, maybe he could be useful as a constant source of bait on hunts. I could think sarcastic thoughts like that because I was already going to Hell. It was the little things. There was a creak above our heads and we both looked up. “Besides you have enough to worry about in this funhouse without having Ole Flamey Fingers setting your quilts on fire.”

  Rosetta looked annoyed. “Bane, you can’t take innocents on hunts…” She held up a hand to stop my protest before it began. “Even innocents with strange abilities.” I just looked at her and for a minute, we sized each other up trying to decide who was going to get their way. Rosetta finally sighed and I was so surprised to see her give up that I almost collapsed. “Well, if you’re going to run off half-cocked, which I know you always do,” Rosetta said. “At least be smart enough to ask for some help.”

  I held up my hands. “I’m all ears, Rosetta. You have a lead?”

  “I don’t,” she said. I turned back to the sink and began rinsing the knife and cutting board. “But Stacks has resurfaced.”

  My finger slipped on the knife blade and I gritted my teeth as the water turned a pale red. I turned back to look at her, wrapping my hand in a clean towel. “He’s alive?”

  Rosetta shrugged. “Apparently so. Or he’s undead. Either way, I thought you’d probably want to see him.”

  “Where’s he at?” I asked, glancing at the clock over her head, now hanging crooked in the aftermath of the day’s ordeal.

  “Where do you think? Back in Messina. Probably holed up in the same rat-infested trailer, up to his neck in old pizza boxes and beer cans. Joel called and told me. He’d been hunting a Shellycoat south of Charlottesville and he drove through Messina. He stopped for a drink and spotted Stacks at the local bar.”

  I did my best to ignore the stab of discomfort that came from hearing Joel’s name and I rolled my eyes at Rosetta. “Why on earth would Stacks go back there?” Rosetta muttered something about a dog and his vomit. “Well I can probably make Indiana by sun-up if I leave now.” If anyone alive would have an idea about icing a demon, it was that weasel, Stacks.

  Rosetta spun on her heel and started smacking me with her spatula, “Not. On. Your. Life. Young Lady! You are going to sit your ass down and eat dinner and then you’re going to go to bed. If I see you so much as make a move for that truck, I’ll shoot your tires out and then turn the barrel on your sorry hide.”