by Catie Rhodes
The rats rose out of nothing, brown bodies writhing, the noise of their squeaks maddening. Their tails twined together.
“I order the souls of these twelve inside the rat king to be crushed, suffocated, and devoured. The power of three is three. You have caused harm and now must pay.” These were also the words Sol told me to speak. I concentrated on moving the souls from the human bodies into the rats. My body stiffened and shook with the effort. The first one, belonging to the weakest member of the group, pulled free from its body and fell into a rat.
“Let it flow through you,” Priscilla’s voice whispered in my ear.
I did as she said, giving myself up to it, forgetting there was a Peri Jean Mace. I focused every piece of my being on the task at hand. Sickness and fatigue beckoned somewhere deep in my mind. I ignored it. The power rolled through me, arching my back, making my hair stand on end. My vision grayed out.
The souls rushed over me, one after the other. The rats squealed louder as each soul found its home. My body relaxed, bathed in sweat. I lay on the floor panting. The snake slithered toward the joined rats, its tongue flicking out to test the scent of their fear. My own fear threatened to swallow my sanity. I turned my head away. Priscilla Herrera leaned into my face.
“No. Watch.” Her dark eyes glowed with something that scared me worse than the snake about to eat its gruesome meal.
I turned back in time to watch the snake strike. Its thick body whipped and bulged over the mass of rats. Their squeals became unbearable and then just stopped. The snake’s jaw unhinged, and it began swallowing the dead rats one by one. As each rat went down, the human body it coincided to slumped to the floor, skin pale and waxy in the dying candlelight. When the last one went into the snake’s gullet, the candles all flickered out.
I’d thought I had control of my fear, but it jumped back to the surface, screaming hysterically. I didn’t want to be in the dark with that snake. Something cold and long nestled against me.
“Send him away.” The snake’s head bumped against my neck, and its rattles chittered in the darkness. “Say his true name.”
“Not yet.” I pushed my consciousness out of my body and into the Coachman.
His shriek of fear and rage shook my entire being. He whipped at me, trying to enter, but it was too late. His followers were dead. There was no one to sustain his presence. I blew a little puff of air at him, and he flew away, light as a piece of ash.
I went straight to the blue Mason jar and broke it on the brick floor of the little room. Zora’s tiny spirit raced around the room, ready to go back to her own body. I pulled her little soul against me and sheltered her from what I was about to do. I gathered my power again, noting how little was left but still awed at its magnitude. Then I screamed his true name. “Oscar Elias Rivera.”
The Coachman, who’d at some point re-christened himself as Lord of Babylon, howled at the sound of his true name. He wouldn’t be able to resist me, not with his followers being digested in the snake’s belly.
I yelled his name again, just because it felt good to hear him cry out. “Oscar Elias Rivera, leave this place. Go back to your soul’s home immediately without going anywhere else.” It wouldn’t help for me to tell him not to come out. I couldn’t stop him if another group of idiots summoned him.
The old schoolhouse shook. Something cracked deep inside it. The sweet, rotting odor came back. I gagged and retched. The rest of the windows burst outward. The Coachman disappeared, roaring his displeasure to the world. A few dogs and coyotes returned the sentiment.
Then it was just me and Zora’s spirit. I marveled at the brilliant ball of light and saw the blue thread connecting us. That must have been where her memories of me came from. Gently as I could, I snapped the thread and pushed the little girl back into her body. Her eyes flew open. She sucked in a breath and began to wail.
The clattering of the snake’s rattles came near, and Sol’s whisper filled my head. “Job well done, exactly what I expected from you.” Then he was gone. I let out a sigh of relief and began to worry how I’d get up to help Zora with my wrists and ankles bound. Where were her parents anyway? And Wade?
“Let me go.” Wade’s shouts came from right outside the building.
I expected him to kick down the door, but Dillon and Finn did that, shining their flashlights around the room.
“Over here.” I gasped out the words, all traces of power gone from my voice. It was just the voice of a woman who’d smoked two packs of cigarettes every day for way too long.
“The fuck?” Dillon breathed. “This room’s full of rotting corpses.”
A flashlight beam flickered over me. I winced, squinting my eyes at the glare. “I did it. He’s gone.” I felt like a million bucks in spite of my aches and pains and my numb hands and feet. Pride may have been one of the seven deadlies, but I sure felt it right then.
Wade charged around her and knelt over me.
“I did it,” I whispered to him, a smile cracking my dry lips.
He smiled back and stroked my cheek. “You did.” He cut the zip tie holding my wrists together and raised me to a sitting position. His rough hands began to massage feeling back into my numb hands and feet.
I glanced at the disk laying on the floor a couple of feet away. It had gone blank again. No snakes. No rat king. Just a blank metal disk. Griff and Mysti surrounded me, their concerned questions fading into one long, hysterical sentence.
Dillon grabbed her daughter up off the floor. The kid continued to scream, shrill, hysterical screams. Was something wrong with her? Finn joined them, putting his arms around both of them. Neither of them seemed alarmed by her condition. Dillon planted a loud kiss on Zora’s check and whispered in her ear. The sobs decreased in volume.
I opened and closed my hands against the pain of circulation returning to them. Wade grabbed me under one arm and pulled me to my feet.
Dillon stopped kissing her child’s face and turned to me. “You saved my baby.”
I nodded, face still split in what I knew had to be a stupid grin.
Finn turned to me and threw his arms around me, pressing his wet cheek to mine. “Thank you.” He whispered the words over and over.
Dillon joined us. She spoke into my ear. “There will never be anything too big for you to ask me. I will stand by your side.” She drew away from me. “Understand?” I nodded and returned her hug.
Turned out I couldn’t get up by myself. I held up my arms for Wade to pick me up, but he shook his head. “You’ll have to walk.”
I stared at him, confused.
“They’re waiting for you.” Mysti pulled one arm over her shoulders, and Wade took the other. They helped me hobble to the old schoolhouse’s door. Griff opened it, and I gasped.
The entire membership of Sanctuary, including Kenny and Anita, stood scattered in front of the schoolhouse. They held bats, axes, and not a few guns. Cecil stood in front of all of them.
“What’s next, niece? What needs to be done?” Even in the soft glow of a dozen flashlights, craftiness glowed in his dark eyes. He’d won. I’d help him run Sanctuary now, and he knew it.
“We’re ready to help,” someone yelled.
“Tell us what to do,” said someone else.
I turned to Griff. He nodded, giving me the only blessing I’d get from him.
“Dead bodies inside,” I croaked. “We gotta get rid of ’em.”
My knees buckled, but Wade and Mysti held me upright.
ONE WEEK LATER
The smell of barbecue brisket and the shrieks of kids playing filtered through the aluminum walls of Danielle's trailer. I glanced around the place, still shell-shocked it was mine. The community of Sanctuary had given both it and Danielle's heavy duty Ford pickup truck to me in exchange for ridding them of the Coachman and rescuing Zora. I hadn’t wanted to take it, but Dillon told me it would be an insult for me to refuse.
The camper was nearly brand-new. Still had the new smell even. The cushion in the table benc
h had a butt indention marking where Danielle had liked to watch TV, and the mattress had a hollowed-out spot where she’d laid her large body each night, but those were small things. I was proud to have a home on wheels. Thanks to Dillon's skill as a forger, I was the legal, registered owner of the camper and the truck. For all the State of Texas knew, Danielle had sold it to me. I paid the taxes from the supposed sale. It was mine, and I'd earned it the hard way.
“What are you going to do with this thing?” Mysti said from her perch on the bed. “Griff’s subdivision won’t allow you to park it out front.” She smirked. “They’d probably call out the League of Decency.” We giggled.
“I found storage for both it and the truck. Not far from Griff’s house either.” Cigarette clenched between my teeth, I straightened my jeans over the tops of my brand-new cowboy boots.
Look tough, but feminine, Cecil had said.
I stared at myself in the mirror and stubbed out my cigarette in the glass hotel ashtray someone had stolen sometime or another. Maybe I didn’t fit the bill, but it would have to do. I faced Mysti. “Unless y’all want me to move out of your house right now.”
“Hell no.” She said it too quickly. I couldn’t begin to imagine what having both Brad and me as permanent houseguests must be doing to her relationship with Griff. It was time for me to go, had been for a few months. “I just don’t want you to go gallivanting off with this bunch. Griff and I might be bailing you out of jail before it’s all over.”
“I’m not leaving for another month, and I’ll see you every time we come through the area.” I threaded the black belt, also bought for the occasion, through my jeans and began tucking in my Johnny Cash giving-the-finger T-shirt, keeping my head down so Mysti couldn’t see the excitement on my face. This new adventure was a mixed bag. Most things in life worked out that way. But I had the feeling it was going to be a hell of a ride.
“You’re not wearing that T-shirt, are you?” Mysti squinted at me.
“Cecil said look tough. This was the tough part.” I held out my arms.
Someone banged on the door. It rattled the whole dwelling.
“We’re going to sit down now,” Dillon yelled.
A lighter rap drummed on the door. “Sit down now,” a childish voice echoed.
I smiled, and so did Mysti. Zora acted as though she’d forgotten the whole ordeal with the Coachman. She hadn’t mentioned remembering me from before again either. Other than bringing dead birds back to life on occasion, she was a normal little girl with too much energy and a wide stubborn streak. Each day I spent with her made me more and more proud of who and what I was. This kid wouldn’t have lived without me.
“Let’s go.” I held out my hand and pulled Mysti off the bed. She’d fallen in the mattress’s dimple, and we both struggled to get her off the bed. I’d have to buy a new mattress if I wanted to sleep in here.
We walked out into bright winter sunlight glaring against a turquoise sky. The aroma of sizzling hot dogs joined the barbecue brisket smell. A queasy rumble came from my stomach. I put my hand over it and munched an antacid tablet.
“It’s not too late to tell Cecil you don’t want to do this.” Mysti gripped my arm. Griff appeared on my other side and put his arm around me.
“Mysti’s right,” he whispered in my ear. “It’s not too late.”
But it was too late, had been since I stepped out of that old schoolhouse and started planning what do with all those dead bodies. Maybe it had been too late even before that. But Griff and Mysti weren’t the right people to tell that to.
“This is the right thing to do.” I drew myself up as straight as I could. “The scar tissue surrounding my magic almost got me killed. The only way I’m ever getting it off me is to seek the real me. To accept the real me. Cecil says he'll find help for me. I need to help him too.”
“You don’t have to do this to seek the real you.” Griff’s arm tightened around me.
“She can make her own decisions.” Mysti’s voice trembled. “We can’t protect her forever.”
Zora rushed at me, hair flying back from her face, eyes wild with excitement. She held out her arms a few seconds before she reached me, and I scooped her up and perched her on my hip. She tugged my hair. Hard. “Mama say you come now.”
I walked toward the pavilion and saw the empty lawn chair right next to Cecil’s. People had started gathering, and all of them gave me curious glances. Some of them whispered to each other. I hugged Mysti and Griff.
“Passing a crossroads isn’t the end. It’s a new beginning. I’ve got to see where this takes me.” I stared into both their faces. My heart ached at the idea of hurting them. They’d been so good to me. “I can still work for you. Griff only needs me some of the time anyway.”
Mysti threw her arms around me. “We’re not angry at you, and we don’t feel betrayed. We want great things for you.”
“May this be one of those great things.” Griff gently drew Mysti away from me.
I took the final steps into the pavilion, boot heels ringing on the concrete floors. Cecil patted the seat next to him and smiled. I handed Zora to Finn. She struggled, but her daddy gave her a stern look. She relented with her bottom lip stuck out. The old-fashioned metal lawn chair creaked when I sat on it. The whispers and murmurs increased. This hadn’t been what people expected.
“Do you need a cushion?” Cecil said into my ear. I shook my head. He took my hand, his swollen knuckles and sun-spotted skin a sharp contrast to my battle-scarred fists and smooth skin, still tan even in the winter. “You’ve given an old man hope for the future. You and me are gonna have some fun.”
A camera flashed in front of us. I took my eyes off Cecil’s, so like mine and like Memaw’s, and saw Dillon backing away.
“I’ll have that one printed up. Get a copy for both of you.” She scooted back behind Cecil and me. Her lawn chair squeaked as she sat down.
I stared out into the assembly of people. This was the first good look I’d gotten at them and they at me. I recognized what they were, even if I only knew a few names. These were the kind of people I’d known growing up, the kind who wore dollar store shoes and didn’t know the difference between a hotel and a motel.
They peered right back at me, taking in my new boots and my aggressive T-shirt. A woman about my age who had a little girl hugged to her legs smiled. I smiled back. Someone tugged at my hand. I didn’t have to look to know it was Zora. She climbed into my lap, giving her mother a triumphant grin. Poor Dillon. She had her hands full with this kid.
The feeling of someone’s gaze heavy on us had me glancing around until I saw Wade Hill. He and Bradley flanked Jadine. She had a flush high on her cheekbones and a smile on her face. She waved in my direction. My black opal zinged at the magic of our minds meeting. Wade took a step away from Jadine and crossed his arms over his chest, staring at me with an unreadable expression. He gave me a barely perceptible nod. Did that mean he still had hot iron for me? I smiled at him. It wasn’t over until it was over.
Finn stood from his chair and clapped his hands. People quit talking and watched him. “I, Finlay Gregg, call to order the winter tribunal of Sanctuary, begun by Iris and Filip Gregg on this very land in winter of 1959.”
So that was why they came back here. We all need a home base, a place to go when the outside world threatened to take all we were and gnash it to bits. I was still looking for that place. Maybe I’d find it sometime or another.
“We only have a few items to cover, and then we’ll get back to this party so we can pull out tomorrow morning.” Finn gestured at Cecil, who gripped my shoulder and stood.
“I’d first like to say a few words in honor of Eric and Kitty Lyons. They died protecting my great-niece Zora and her brother Zander. They’ll always be remembered in this community for their heroism and sacrifice. Let’s bow our heads for a moment of silence.” All the heads bowed. Cecil stood watching the group for several seconds, checked his cards, and spoke again.
“The
next item of business is my announcement that I’m naming my great-niece, Peri Jean Mace, as my consultant and enforcer.” Cecil paused while people talked among themselves. He’d have needed a bullhorn to be heard over them. He patted my arm as the talking died down and winked at me.
My heart thundered as my gaze ran over all the faces in front of me. I searched for signs of disbelief, disappointment, or disgust—all the things I figured people associated with me. None of those emotions stared back at me. Several of the women began clapping, and the rest of them joined in. I sat stunned at the display.
Cecil laughed. “The third item we need to discuss is Kenny's attempt to forcibly take this community from me. Incidents like this will be part of Peri Jean’s duties, and I’ll leave it with her.” Cecil put one hand over my forearm.
I faced him and shook my head. This wasn’t what we discussed. All I’d promised to do was use magic to keep a handle on things, to let people know Cecil had backup. He gave me a stern glare. I took a deep breath and tried to get Zora to get down. She whined and protested, so I stood, hitching her onto my hip, sure I looked ridiculous and not tough at all.
“Kenny and Anita Johnson.” My voice rang over the silent pavilion. It sounded screechy, like the voice of someone who smoked too much. The thought of a cigarette made my fingers itch to hold one. I took a deep breath and reigned in my roving thoughts. “You campaigning against my uncle Cecil, taking a private vote, and then trying to enforce it at gunpoint could have ended with someone seriously hurt. Do you agree?”
Anita tossed her head, her face darkening. It was probably the only admission I’d get from her. I set my gaze on Kenny's creased face.
“Yes, ma’am.” His voice trembled. He’d helped us dispose of the bodies from the Coachman’s coven, his face shiny with fear sweat. When we got to Danielle, with her eyeballs blown out of her skull, he’d gasped and rolled his eyes fearfully at me. Maybe he figured he was next. He should have been, really, but I didn’t want to start off like that. Besides, I had a feeling a man like this, one who owed me something, might come in handy at some point.