by Catie Rhodes
The noise of a horse's hoofs filters through the trees. A huge mule with two riders, a male and a female on its back, climbs the rutted and potholed driveway and stops in front of the house.
The woman, petite with short, black, finger-waved hair climbs down. I recognize the young version of Samantha from Tyler’s research. She hitches up her high-waisted black pants, obviously not cut for a woman’s figure, and tightens the belt. I almost ooh over her boots. The boots are cream colored with a dark brown toe cap and heel cap and have a chunky high heel. Samantha brushes some dirt off her white button-down shirt.
“See there? You’ve already gotten my shirt dirty.” The man, his round moon of a face set in distaste, climbs off the mule. He pushes back his black hair and shoves a Humphrey Bogart hat over it. He adjusts his high-waisted pants. “I told you not to wear my clothes.”
I’ve only seen Samuel in a couple of visions, and he’d been a boy in both, but I know him anyway.
Samantha bitch-faces him until he glances away from her. In only a few seconds, he faces her again.
“This is not our fight.” He smooths down his tie. The contrasting color on the geometric pattern matches his shirt. “Lakeworth said we’d cut out before tonight’s show. Just leave this craziness behind.”
“You listen to me, Sam.” Samantha points her index finger at her brother the way Memaw used to do when she’d had about enough. It must be a family tic. “I saw little Billy get into that carriage in the middle of the night and knew I should have stopped him. His ghost showed me what that thing inside that house did to him. Little Billy was one of us. It’s our fight now too.”
“Do you want your baby girl growing up motherless?” Samuel purses his lips at his sister. “You got no husband to raise her. She’d be stuck with me.”
“Don’t you understand? What happened to Billy could have happened to my Iris.” Samantha whirls away from her brother and marches toward the crumbling steps. Samuel hurries to catch up to her.
“See her courage? And she wasn’t even as powerful as you are.” The voice comes from behind us. Jadine lets out a little scream, and I nearly leap out of my skin, shoulders ratcheting up to my earlobes. I turn. Priscilla Herrera has her hands on the hips of her old-fashioned dress. “Go on. Follow them.”
Samuel and Samantha climb the steps of the crumbling mansion and push open the door. Both recoil. Cecil, Mysti, Jadine, and I, hands locked to avoid losing each other, float along behind them, there and not there.
“You see? He’s making sacrifices to the dark ones.” Samuel’s face wrinkles in distaste. “We can’t interfere.”
“We can if we have more power.” Samantha gives her brother a hard shove into the house. “And today, I do.”
Brother and sister walk through a house strewn with bones and the rotting corpses of animals. From somewhere upstairs comes the sound of a woman’s hysterical laughter. It ends with a loud crash. After a few seconds of silence, the laughter starts again. Samuel and Samantha ignored it all, eyes straight ahead, and walk until they reach a closed door.
“This is the one,” Samuel says. “I feel his magic in there. Now, Sister, are you sure?”
“I have to do something. Momma would have.” Samantha takes a fabric-wrapped object, tied with a black ribbon, out of her pocket. Samuel kicks open the door.
“We’ve come to end you,” he yells into the gloom.
“In here,” comes the Coachman’s horrible voice.
Samuel and Samantha creep into the room. It had once been a study, but all the books are gone, the bookshelves filled with skulls, some animal, some human.
“You’ve chosen foolishly, little witch.” The voice emanates from a dark corner of the room, and a match flares to light up a handsome face alight with the deepest evil. The Coachman’s lips curl into an ugly, perverse smile. “You could have ridden out of town. I’d have let you go, Samantha Jeanette Herrera.”
Samuel’s head whips to stare at his sister. His mouth drops open, and he tries to pull his hand from hers. She holds him fast. “Let me go. He’s already got you. Had I known, I’d have never come.” He tries again to yank his hand away from his sister. But she’s the boss. He doesn’t stand a chance. Samantha turns away from her brother and back to confront the Coachman.
“And how long before you followed? You’re nothing but a disease.” Samantha’s voice sounds calmer than mine would have. My fear would have awoken my temper, made me shout.
The Coachman laughs, his baritone so rich and pretty it seems it should have been in a fancy ballroom somewhere and not in this stinking old wreck of a house.
Samuel gives up trying to get away from his sister and closes his eyes, his lips moving. Samantha does the same. The candles lighting the room flare bright and then die back down.
“Is that all the two of you can do?” The Coachman rises from the corner and tosses away a gnawed bone still half covered in bloody meat. His long fingernails curl into jagged hooks, filthy and bloodstained around the cuticles. “At least it’ll be quick. Come closer, pretty ones.” His voice echoes, and his eyes go black and brighten with otherworldly light. Samantha and Samuel stare glassy-eyed at the Coachman, mesmerized by his voice “Come on,” the Coachman croons. “I won’t bite.” He chuckles.
Now his voice isn’t so scary. It’s like music, the most hypnotic sound I’ve ever heard. Samantha rises a few feet off the floor and begins to float toward the Coachman. He smiles and holds out his arms.
She’s hypnotized. My mind races for a solution. Samantha gets closer each second I waste thinking. I run forward and grab at the back of her shirt. Cold spreads through my body at our contact. I gasp at the intensity of it. Samantha’s head whips around, eyes wide with surprise. She takes a deep breath, as one just awaking, and blinks. Samuel jerks into awareness and pulls his sister away from danger.
“Let’s just go,” he says, his voice tight with panic. “We can still leave.”
The Coachman’s laugh thunders through the house. The door to the study slams shut. Samuel runs to one of the windows, lifts a foot, and kicks at it. The impact sends him sprawling backward but makes nary a mark on the window.
Breathless panic beats at my chest, as though I stand in this disgusting lair, just as real as Samantha and Samuel. And maybe I do. I stopped her from going to the Coachman. How did I do that?
Samantha takes the fabric-wrapped object out of her pocket, unties the bow, and lets the cloth fall to the grime-caked floor. Gold flashes in the dim candlelight.
I strain to see what she has but can only make out that it’s flat and round.
“Give that to me.” The man’s voice throbs, persuasive and seductive.
Samantha shakes her head and throws the disk to the floor. She takes a straight razor from her other pocket and cuts her hand. Blood drips onto the disk.
“I call to the power of the dark outposts. I call to the one who walks between worlds.” Samantha’s elbow shoots out and jabs her brother. He winces.
Samuel reaches in his pocket and withdraws a folding knife. He opens the blade and slashes his palm. He makes a fist so blood drips to the floor. Together, they chant, “We call to the one who walks between worlds.”
The disk begins to glow. Soon, its light shines brighter than the candles. I go closer. I need to see the disk. My instincts tell me this disk was how Samantha got rid of the Coachman.
The disk is about the size of a dessert saucer, with etchings on it. Before I can identify what they depict, they hump together, roll around each other, and swirl in a circle. A black dot appears at the center of the circle and widens.
A pruney, waterlogged finger hooks over the edge of the black dot and pulls it wider until the disk disappears, and a black hole opens up in the floor. Hands clasp the sides of the hole, and a white, bald head emerges.
Fear jumps inside me, once twice. I know this guy, remember him from the day I found the Mace Treasure hidden away in the dark outposts. This man isn’t human, probably never has bee
n. He’s powerful and dangerous.
“Stop this now.” The Coachman drops the dime store hypnotist voice. His voice squeaks like a bully facing his worst nightmare.
A man wearing a wet, black suit climbs out of the black hole where the disk used to be. He stands perched on the blackness, suit dripping. The water rolls over his waterlogged, pruney hands and patters on the floor.
The sound needles at me, drilling into my brain. I remember my last encounter with this man. Nausea burns at the back of my throat as the image of him eviscerating a man in front of me and forcing me to read his guts like tea leaves plays on loop in my head.
As if he feels my thoughts, the man in the black suit turns and bares his needle teeth at me in a smile. He sees me. Oh, holy goddess, ghost of Elvis, and unicorn king, he sees me. No, no, no. My throat closes. He takes his awful gaze off me and turns back to Samantha and Samuel.
“Samantha Jeanette Herrera and Samuel Cristobal Herrera, I have come at your request. Do you have my offering?”
Samantha holds out one hand, and the not-man approaches her. He crouches underneath her hand, awful mouth open. She squeezes and blood droplets patter around his mouth. He turns to Samuel. He closes his eyes and sways. Samantha pops him one on the arm. He straightens up and does what his sister did.
“What will you have me do?” the prune-skinned thing asks.
“This one must end. He is full of the flesh of others, ripe with power.” Samantha gestures at the Coachman.
The wrinkledy-skinned monster nods. “Then it’s done.” The monster turns to the Coachman and licks his lips.
“You can’t take me. We have a deal.”
“Your body wasn’t part of your immortality bargain. Only your soul.” The prune-skinned thing takes squishy steps toward the desk.
“But you can’t,” the man behind the desk gibbers. “I only get this one body, and I was told as long as I took care of it, I could continue to use it.”
“Allowing yourself to be recognized as a monster by an entire town is lazy and risky. You’re not worthy of the gift bestowed on you.” Pruney leans over the Coachman.
The Coachman shoots to his feet and grabs a handful of ivory tiles, each emblazoned with the mark given to him by the goat man. “Accept these. They’re the souls of those I’ve consumed. They hold power, great power.”
Pruney takes one of the runes, turning it over between his wrinkled fingers. He tosses it to Samantha. “Gather every last one of these and hide them well.”
“We’ll destroy them,” Samantha says.
“Don’t do that.” The creature is fierce for the first time. “They’re your only power over him. You need them to…”
“Please don’t end me.” The Coachman cuts Pruney off, voice trembles with sobs. “I’ll do anything—”
Pruney doesn’t let the Coachman finish. He leaps on the Coachman, lighting on his shoulders like an oversized, featherless buzzard.
The Coachman screams, high and hysterical. He could be a star male soprano in an out-of-tune opera. “I made a deal—”
Pruney hovers on the Coachman’s shoulders, hunched and horrible. “Your bargain is forfeit. You chose to separate your soul from your body. You agreed to steal life force to continue a mortal existence in a soulless body. You lived a careless existence, and your final victim, the boy Billy, doomed you because he was under the protection of this witch.”
The Coachman clawed at Pruney with both arms, yelling pleas, protests, and curses.
“Hush now. I know your true name.” Pruney whispers in the man’s ear. The Coachman’s eyes widen, and acceptance of his fate passes over his face.” Pruney’s mouth opens, saliva dripping from his sharp teeth. He strikes like a snake. His teeth crunch down, cracking the skull. He makes slurping sounds as he sucks the brain out of the Coachman’s skull.
My stomach tosses and heaves. Beside me, Cecil clutches his chest and sucks in air. Jadine opens her mouth to scream, but only emits a hiss. The hysteria in her eyes says she won’t last much longer. Mysti, eyes wild and mouth twisting, pulls us back from the spectacle. I can't look away. Pruney lifts the headless corpse as though it weighs nothing, holds it over his head with his arms outstretched, and begins to eat the corpse from the head down. The sounds he makes are nothing I want to hear again.
Samantha races to the desk and gathers the runes into her hands. Some spill onto the floor. She turns to her brother. “Help me. We must get them all.”
Samuel, lips the color of spoiled liver, helps his sister for a few minutes, the slurping and crunching sounds continuing as Pruney eats his meal. Samuel stops gathering tiles. He stares at something on the floor and picks up a diamond ring.
“Good god, brother, don’t worry about something you can use in a card game. Take the tiles.” Samantha barely turns from her task.
Samuel scoops the ring into his pocket. He grabs a few more handfuls of runes and staggers away.
Pruney finishes his meal and walks back to the black circle. “Samantha Jeanette Herrera, our business is concluded. Thank you for honoring your end of our bargain. I am sorry to say I cannot bestow the power of Priscilla Alafare Herrera upon you as you asked. It would kill you. Instead I offer you wisdom. Listen and heed…”
The room fades around us.
I came back to myself still lying on the rec room floor, Wade looming over me, wild eyed and yelling, “Are you okay?”
I shoved at him. “Vomit,” was the only word I managed. He helped me up and hauled me to the bathroom. By the time I finished emptying my stomach, my skin flashed hot and cold, sweating pouring down my face. Wade approached me holding a damp paper towel. He pressed it to my lips and stroked my back.
MYSTI, whose pale cheeks were the only hint of what she’d just seen, was telling the others about our ordeal when Wade and I walked back into the larger room. I wobbled back to the séance table and fell into a chair.
“Okay?” He stooped over me. “Want a Coke?”
In Texas, all soft drinks are called Coke. Wade was offering me my choice of anything the vending machine had. I dug in my pocket for a dollar. “Something clear.”
“They’ve got canned seltzer water.” Jadine leapt from her chair and led the way to the drink machine. Wade followed. The two of them had an overly long conversation by the drink machine. Brad watched, cheeks reddening.
My cheeks got hot too. Much as I hadn’t wanted Brad coming onto Jadine, I wanted Wade flirting with her even less. My panties still burned mighty hot for Wade Hill. Didn’t matter he’d told me no way ever. I silently willed Bradley to get his narrow ass up and go over there. He didn’t, and Wade brought me back a can of lime-flavored seltzer water. I nodded my thanks and opened it.
Cecil put one shaking hand over mine. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Never want to again.” He removed his hand and used it to massage his chest. Was he getting ready to keel over from a heart attack? This whole thing was taking so much out of all of us.
Cecil took his hand off his chest. His shoulders straightened, and he cleared his throat. “Do we agree the tiles Samantha and her brother took are the stolen items the Coachman demanded?”
We all nodded. Brad took out his phone and approached the table. Cecil turned and raised his eyebrows. Brad showed him the picture of Jeremy, the jerk who’d stolen Tyler’s map.
“This must be how the Coachman managed to come back,” Cecil muttered.
“But how did that little punk know to call the Coachman?” This part kept hanging me up. None of the legends Tyler talked about mentioned the tiles.
Griff pulled out his phone and began tapping the screen. “I’ve been thinking about this tile since I saw the one in that picture. It seemed so familiar. Then I remembered I ran into a similar object years ago.” He turned to Mysti. “Do you remember the first time you consulted with me?”
Her eyes widened. “I sure do. The Ingermann case. That camera.” She spoke to the rest of us. “These people had bought an old property out in the Hill Co
untry, the site of two separate mass killings. Their son found a camera in the attic. It had a similar mark carved on its case. Soon after, he began disappearing for hours with an invisible playmate. One day, the mother got a glimpse of him walking out the door holding the hand of this…how did she describe her?” She nodded at Griff.
“Murder fairy,” Griff supplied immediately. “She hired me to investigate. The whole thing was beyond my skill set. I hired Mysti. We discovered this evil young woman—she’d been a cannibal in her human life—had somehow attached her essence to the camera. Anybody who found it was toast.”
Jadine spoke up. “Would destroying the tiles destroy the Coachman?”
Mysti shrugged. “That nasty creature in the vision implied they could be used to send the Coachman away. But I suspect the only way to destroy him would be to destroy the metal where he hid his soul.” She glanced at me. “Did you say it was a watch?”
“Might’ve been. What did you think, Jadine?” She could, after all, see in visions. Maybe she’d noticed something I hadn’t.
“Maybe. Or a pendant. It was so far away.” She turned toward Wade again, smiling. My green-eyed monster growled.
Across the room, Dillon stood and brushed off her jeans. She squatted next to her son and asked him a question. Finn joined them. He and Dillon talked with their heads together for several minutes. They approached us holding hands.
Finn cleared his throat. “We’d like to know what y’all actually plan to do to get Zora back.”
“So far I ain’t heard nothing about saving my Zora.” Dillon took her cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one. I stared until she handed me one and lit it for me.
I blew out a jet of smoke, and a sheet of nicotine comfort cloaked my emotions. “I got inside the Coachman’s head after his people poisoned me. I could hear Zora.”
“Poisoned?” Wade nearly yelled. I told him about my fun afternoon. His face turned gray. “That was when I nearly ran off the road.”
Dillon grabbed my arm and squeezed too hard, trying to take my attention off Wade. Her hand was like ice. “You see where he had her?”