Last Exit

by Catie Rhodes

  My shoulders rounded. “The only thing I’ve ever done to get rid of souls is eat them. And I’m not eating Oscar’s soul. The hag almost killed me.” I cringed at the memory of the pain.

  Mysti’s nose crinkled. “You’re lucky it didn’t. The hag was a higher being. Don’t try that again until you have full use of your power.”

  I gave a tough shrug. Deep down, I agreed.

  Griff spoke in my silence. “There are weapons that will kill anything—spirit, chthonic being, you name it. Unfortunately…”

  “Tanner would be the one to know about that, and he’s lost to us.” My face heated.

  Mysti gave me a fierce frown. I interpreted it as “Not your fault.”

  “Wait a minute.” Tubby wouldn’t stay quiet, even when the topic went far beyond his area of expertise. “Aren’t spirits just made of energy?”

  Nobody answered, and Tubby rolled his eyes. “Energy can’t be killed, right? So how do special weapons or eating souls kill them?”

  I saw where he was going and hoped we could reason it out. We were, after all, nothing more than a couple of witches, a nosy grave dowser, a former B-list celebrity, and a redneck crime kingpin.

  I began talking, thinking as I spoke. “When I ate Loretta Nell Grimes’s spirit and the hag’s magical core, I absorbed them. The energy didn’t die. It changed. Both what Loretta Nell and the hag had been personally faded away. I gained the energy for my own use.” I pushed myself to see a solution and didn’t.

  “So how do you change Oscar’s energy without eating it and without one of these weapons?” Tubby asked.

  We all stood thinking.

  “You did fine with Loretta Nell, but not the hag.” Mysti spoke barely above a whisper, face tight with the pressure to think of a solution.

  It hit me. The solution had been there all along. I spoke in a rush.

  “Loretta Nell worked out fine because I had more magic than her.” I remembered Mohawk calling me the Gregorius Witch. That had been the first time I’d heard that name. But now I understood all that it meant. “But the hag was a being greater than me. So it almost killed me.” I shook my finger at Mysti, heart hammering. “Oscar’s spirit is more than me right now.”

  Mysti stood up straight, a hard light burning behind her eyes. “He is. So we need something greater to kill him.”

  Or to contain him. I rummaged through my list of contacts. Sol and Bub had refused to help me when Oscar had sent a supernatural assassin after me. They had, instead, taken bets and had fun seeing how things worked out for me. I couldn’t depend on them. But I did know one person who dealt in supernatural oddities, someone for whom Oscar’s soul might have value. I shivered at the memory of him.

  “I know someone who might help. But that still doesn’t take into account Oscar coming for us. And he will once we have the soul.” I glanced around my friends.

  A voice came from all around me. “You’d have to distract Oscar, of course. But why would I let you have his soul?”

  Fear landed with a jolt in the pit of my stomach. I spun around to face a very elderly woman’s ghost. Had to be Herta.

  Wrinkled flaking skin. White eyes. Dark lips. Her coldness seeped into my skin, making my sore muscles ache. Whispers scrabbled at the back of my mind. A querulous old voice rose above them.

  “Get away from here. This ground is protected.” She flicked her fingers at me.

  I flew backward, right into Hannah. We fell in a heap. Tubby rushed to help Hannah. Mysti held out one hand to help me up. I took it and got to my feet.

  She whispered, “Herta wouldn’t have mentioned distracting Oscar so we could get away with his soul if she weren’t willing to help.”

  I nodded. It was time to make a deal with Herta. I hated this part.

  Aloud, Mysti said, “Help me clean the marks off Herta’s tombstone. She wasn’t this kind of witch and wouldn’t have liked these things.”

  We spent the next few minutes rubbing the marks off the tombstone. Mysti left the flowers, but took the prayer candles covered with Xs to the cemetery’s fence and left them. She motioned to Griff, and he brought over her witch pack. She set out old china bowls. In one, she poured water. In the other, she placed a crust of bread.

  She put her arm around me and spoke in a whisper. “Summon Herta. Explain your need. I can feel her magic. She was a good person. Maybe once she understands the evil Oscar intends, she will help us despite her personal relationship with him.”

  I reached inside, searching for my ability to summon a ghost. My power sprang forth, willing and overly excited.

  “Herta Schüler, please talk to me.” I meant to whisper the words, but I boomed them out, sounding like Priscilla Herrera.

  Herta’s form flashed in front of the grave. Both eyes were black pits, not an uncommon sight in the spirit world. The water in the bowl dissipated in seconds. The bread in the other bowl began to smoke. It blackened into ash.

  Herta’s power, frightfully strong for one so long dead, radiated off her. It brushed against my power. Static blared in my head.

  “You’re here to steal from my son.” She had a strong German accent, spoken with sharp, clipped sibilants. It was almost as threatening as her magic.

  There was no point in lying to her. “Yes. But Oscar intends to kill me and to wage war on the living with my power.”

  Her form flickered, eyes filling in to a faded blue. “I know the boy I raised grew in einen Teufel. But he is still mein Sohn.”

  I caught onto mein Sohn because of the context. But einen Teufel had me puzzled.

  Herta let out an impatient snort. “A devil. My son is a devil.”

  I nodded my understanding. “If you know Oscar grew into a devil, then you know he must be stopped. Let us dig up his soul and rid the world of him.” I still held the spade in one hand, ready to finish this errand.

  The breeze moving through the ancient trees turned icy.

  “I won’t betray my son. Even if I would, he’ll come as soon as you tamper with his soul. Someone would have to stall him for you to get away.” This was the second time she’d mentioned distracting Oscar. Though her refusal sounded final, she was giving me a solution.

  We needed to negotiate. What might Herta want that I could grant? I glanced at the prayer candles and other crap we’d piled by the fence and at the smudges where we’d rubbed the Xs and pentagrams off her grave.

  “I can clean your grave. Make it look nice again. If this is where you’re choosing to spend eternity, I can make it nice.” Even as I said the words, I couldn’t believe Herta would want to stay here. What a lonely place.

  “I don’t want to be here. I’m trapped.” Herta stopped her advance and hovered over the ground, white hair blowing in the wind. Anger began to radiate off her.

  “Then I’ll help you get out of this cemetery and on to whatever’s next for you.” Even better. Something I could understand her wanting.

  “Nobody can help me.” The air turned even colder. “Father Weber trapped me here for eternity.”

  This was Herta's price. She wanted out of this place. Herta moved toward me. She wanted to touch me.

  I stiffened, skin crawling, but stood still. Her freezing hand connected with my forehead. There was a snap, both inside and outside my body. Blue light flared.

  Wind filtered through the trees, rattling the leaves, blowing hard enough to send a flurry of them dancing to the ground. My brain ached with what felt like an ice cream headache, and the smell of decay filled my senses.

  Something passed between us. On my end, it felt like a hard pull on my magical energy. Herta Schüler’s story seeped into my mind, fragmented and mundane, detailed and horrific.

  Herta Schüler had been a natural witch like Mysti and me. She’d used her power to make healing potions and to bless this little settlement with prosperity. She’d been a childless widow with money. She had taken in children in need of a home and loved them.

  Flashes of Oscar as her adopted son played behin
d my eyes. He started as a skinny boy, eyes dark and full of fear. He carried water and hoed in the garden. He grew. The fear left his eyes. Herta taught him reading and writing. The final image of him showed him packing a small wagon attached to a horse. Herta saw him off smiling but then went into her house, sat at her table, and cried.

  Further flashes showed her surrounded by other adopted children and later their children. She went through the same ritual as she had Oscar of seeing them off to greater fortunes.

  Then came Father Weber. Flashes came of this short, bald-headed, buck-toothed asshole turning Herta away from the doors of the church, making a warding-off-evil gesture with one hand.

  Father Weber had Herta’s tombstone turned the wrong way. At Herta’s burial, he had buried a piece of iron over her casket and, by doing so, trapped Herta’s spirit on this plane.

  The fury started in my belly, liquid fire and intoxicant of the self-righteous. People who abused their power pushed my buttons. The victims, little people like me, often had nobody to help them. My anger grew.

  I wanted to personally piss on the grave of the man who did this. But such actions fueled no purpose. Best to focus on how I could help Herta.

  “What if I dig up the iron so you can leave here? Maybe turn your headstone around. Would you show me where to find Oscar’s soul then? Tell me how to stall him?” Shivering from worry and the cold Herta emanated, I waited for her answer.

  Herta’s brow creased. Oscar had been a son she loved. Giving him up presented a moral dilemma.

  I felt sorry both for Herta and Oscar. He had been a sweet boy, and they’d loved each other. But life had knocked him around. Killed his wife and children. Oscar came up fighting, but he took the dark path and lost himself along the way. It could happen to anybody, even me. As much sympathy as I had, Oscar would be a danger until he left this plane forever.

  “Yes or no?” I licked my lips. If Herta said no, I’d have to fight her. It would drain my energy to dangerous levels, and I still might lose.

  “Oscar was my son. It goes against my nature as a mother to betray him.” Herta hung her head.

  My stomach sank. All that for nothing. She had changed her mind.

  “But…” She put her freezing hand on me. “It is my fault Oscar is doing this. It is I who told him the legend of the Wilde Jagd. It is I who taught him how to contact die dunklen Wesen and make deals. So this is meine Strafe.” She shook her head at the confusion on my face. “The Wild Hunt. Demons. Punishment.”

  I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Show me where the iron’s buried. Let’s get it off you.”

  She flickered out of existence and reappeared a few feet away.

  We went to work digging. Griff kept the spade for himself, and the rest of us used knives, keys, whatever we had. Herta had been in the ground a long time. It took many minutes for us to hit the iron. Once we did, our movements reached a feverish pitch. Griff finally pulled out a short section of iron decorated with curlicues.

  “My house,” Herta whispered next to me.

  I stiffened. Father Weber had defaced Herta’s home so that he could trap her spirit forever in this cemetery. Rage flashed hard enough to make my vision waver.

  “The tombstone,” she whispered. “You promised to fix my tombstone.”

  Griff glanced at the spade in his hand and made a pained face.

  “It’ll have to be done with magic.” I came closer to the huge monument. It probably weighed hundreds of pounds. Mysti came near.

  “We could combine our power to move it.” She regarded the huge stone with an expression of dread.

  I held out my hand. Mysti clasped her fingers over it. Her power hit mine and almost knocked me staggering. She’d claimed not to be as powerful as me, but this blast of pure energy was like nothing I had inside me. My power was connected to the element of fire. Mysti’s power dealt more in air. How we’d do this came to me in an instant.

  I called on the shining light of the mantle and let the fire join forces with Mysti’s air. Together, we sent out our magic, pushed it toward the monument. The energy wrapped itself around the stone.

  “Now push,” Mysti ordered.

  Bending my knees as though lifting a heavy weight, I gave it everything I had. The tombstone began to turn. It was like watching a turtle cross the road. My magical muscles began to throb with the strain. Next to me, Mysti began to shake with effort. Sweat popped out on her face and made streaks through her makeup.

  The tombstone shifted a tiny bit at a time. After what seemed like forever, the inscription finally faced perpendicular to Herta’s final resting place.

  “Just a little more,” Mysti gritted out.

  I nodded and redoubled my efforts. Sweat rolled down my forehead and burned my eyes. A low whine came from my throat. Just when I thought I could stand it no longer, the tombstone moved the last few inches.

  Mysti and I both fell backward. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, sides heaving. I lay on my back and turned my head to watch her. After a few seconds, she gave me a smile.

  “You did great. I knew you could do it.” Still panting, her words came out uneven.

  I shook my head at her. “Why do you keep that hidden?”

  Mysti tinkled laugher, stood, and held out one hand. She’d say no more. I let her help me up.

  “Are you free now?” I asked Herta.

  Herta answered by flitting around the edges of the graveyard. She even left the fenced area and made bright revolutions around the church. A seed of worry sprouted in the fertile soil of my mind. What if Herta didn’t keep her end of the bargain? It might take us hours of digging around Herta’s tombstone to find Oscar’s soul. And she’d promised to help me distract Oscar when he came to stop me. I still needed her to do those things.

  “Don’t go yet,” I called.

  Griff shook his head and began digging with the spade.

  Herta zipped back to her grave, wind of her passage rattling the leaves.

  She pointed at the church. “Don’t waste time digging. The soul is in the church. Under the pulpit. Hurry.”

  14

  The church wasn’t too many yards away, but even the short distance made my abdomen ache. Hannah caught up with me, huffing and puffing.

  “I need to talk to you about something.” Hannah pulled her fingers a few times.

  It didn’t take a genius to guess what she was about to say. The glances between her and Tubby told an obvious story. It woke up the ache of losing Tanner, but I had no regrets about taking a pass on a do-over romance with Tubby. Too much risk of losing the bond we had. If Hannah wanted to see where a flirtation with Tubby led, she should. Before I could tell her that, she spoke again.

  “Normally I’d stay away from Tubby because the two of you had a thing.” She pulled her index finger hard enough to make the joint pop and flinched.

  I cringed on her behalf. Did she really think I’d get angry? Or was she afraid of Tubby? Sometimes the men who instilled a little spark of fear did so because they were the right one. A memory of dancing with Tanner flashed in my mind. Deep, hollow sadness filled my chest and ached at the base of my throat. He’d been the right one. I’d never deny Hannah the chance to see if Tubby was the right one for her.

  “You don’t have to ask my blessing, but you have it. Take a chance.” My voice wavered on the last couple of words. Tears flooded my eyes. Not wanting Hannah to see, I quickened my pace and hurried up the church’s crumbling brick steps.

  When I reached for the door of the rickety old building, an invisible force rose up and knocked me backward. I flew up several feet before I dropped and landed hard. Pain flared in my midsection. I put my arms over it and whimpered.

  Hannah dropped to her knees beside me. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll live.” Trying to catch my breath, I opened my second sight. Something supernatural had shoved me away from the door. What?

  Over the door of the church hung several
horseshoes. Not those. I handled them all the time. Hoisting myself to my feet, I stared at the bricks. Nothing unusual there. The only other thing that caught my attention were two decorative posts with geometric flower shapes burned into them.

  Footsteps crunched toward us. I twisted, knowing it was Mysti and Griff.

  She kept her distance. “Father Weber covered all the bases, didn’t he? Horseshoes, witch marks burned onto the posts. Why, I bet at one time there were even witch balls.”

  “But I handle horseshoes all the time,” I protested.

  “Haven’t I told you that it’s all about intent?” She winked.

  Cringing with embarrassment, I crawled to my feet. Mysti had made note of all this before she even climbed onto the bricks. I hadn’t seen them until I looked for them. Then I’d had no idea what I was seeing or why it could hurt me.

  “How did Oscar get in if this place is protected?” The depth of my ignorance terrified me. How was I going to survive?

  “Oscar can bypass this ward because he is neither living nor dead. Being in-between grants immunity.” Mysti rattled off the answer without an ounce of reproach, but my cheeks grew even hotter.

  “Then what do we do?” My pride made the words almost too big for my mouth. But I managed.

  “Remove them, Tubby.” Mysti snapped her fingers at him.

  Tubby hurried on to the church entry with his bolt cutters. There was finally a use for them. He swung at the decorative post. It only took him a few hits to dislodge it. He kicked it off the porch and moved on to the next one. Griff yanked on the post between each hit. This one took fewer blows. Tubby jumped to pull the horseshoes off the doorframe. He pitched them into the church’s overgrown yard.

  I glanced at Mysti. “Shall we?”

  She slipped her arm through mine. “We shall.”

  We hadn’t taken two steps before the shape of a short, ugly man appeared before us. Father Weber in spirit form. He stood with his stubby legs apart, rabbit teeth clenched in a snarl. No witches, his awful, grating voice exploded in my head.

  “How is that awful man keeping us out?” I yelled at Mysti.