The Brotherhood of the Wheel

by R. S. Belcher

  “No,” Max said. “Viamancers tap into a system of power, and I think I’ve decoded that system—hacked it, if you will.”

  “The only people I’ve ever heard of doing road magic were road witches,” Jimmie said.

  “Well, have you ever wondered how they do what they do?” Max asked, as she slid her tablet out of her satchel. “I’m going to try to explain it,” she said. “Please try to keep an open mind. My colleagues in the order have been less than unbiased about my research and my hypothesis. It’s very disheartening to see scholars with such narrow minds.”

  “After the last few days, my mind is as open as a drunk’s fly,” Heck said, smiling. “Lay it on me, Doc.”

  “Go on, Max,” Jimmie said. “How do the road witches do what they do?”

  “Magic,” Max began. “Real magic—not Penn and Teller stuff—”

  “Actually,” Jimmie said, interrupting, “I hear tell those fellas are the real deal. There was this deck of cards that stole souls over in Reno and—”

  “Okay, okay,” Max said. “How about the Chris Angel stuff, then?

  Jimmie nodded, “Sounds about right—damned mind freak…”

  “Anyway,” Max continued, “real magic requires enormous amounts of energy, power. To bend space, in physics, requires the harnessing of suns—what they call total conversion power. In magic, it would require a harnessing of a significant amount of the earth’s manasphere. Back in the hotel, Mark Stolar mentioned that his friend Dewey Rears had been looking into a connection between the U.S. highway system and long xian—”

  “Max,” Heck said, jamming a thumb toward his chest, “caveman, remember? Grunt.”

  “Right, right,” Max said, nodding and waving her hand in front of her face, as if batting invisible cobwebs. “Grunt, of course. Long xian is Chinese for ‘dragon lines,’ or, as they’re called in the West, ‘ley lines’—powerful lines of magical energy that run through the earth—the lifeblood of the planet. The fact that Rears had connected ley-line energy to the highway system and to the Pagan’s murders made a great deal of my theory fit, made it all click into place. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 was the genesis of the modern interstate-highway system. It spawned over forty-two thousand miles of highways and routes that completely cover America today.

  “What I’ve been studying for several years now, and what the data Lovina gave me from Mr. Rears’s computer seems to confirm,” she said, holding up a small USB drive, “is that America’s highways were planned and built to tap the energy of the earth’s ley lines—its magical power—and redirect that almost limitless power the way dams control the flow of water.”

  “So the highways are magical rivers,” Heck said, an evil light twinkling in his eyes. “Has anyone told the folks in Jersey yet, because I’m pretty sure they got screwed in this deal.”

  Max narrowed her eyes behind her glasses, “Open mind, caveman. You promised.”

  “Max,” Jimmie said, rubbing his chin. “You have to admit that seems a little far-fetched. Don’t you think someone would have made this connection before now? You Builders research everything, after all, and us Brethren are out here on the Road constantly.” He downshifted the semi, gliding between traffic. “It just seems someone would have noticed.”

  “You actually just made part of my point for me, Jimmie,” Max said. “I think everyone has noticed, but they just didn’t see. You and the other Brethren are out here all the time—on the Road. You’ve all wondered, like everyone who has to deal with entities like the Master of the Hunt, for example, why—why does the highway attract these supernatural forces, these unstable and dangerous personalities? Why? The energies that the Road is conducting are the answer. They’re drawn to it, like a light in the darkness, and the amount of the energies, the confluence of them, allows them to slip over into our world, close to the source, close to the Road.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Heck said, looking to Jimmie. “That makes pretty good sense, Jimmie.”

  Jimmie nodded, “Yeah, it does—better than any of the other theories I’ve heard over the years, but forgive me if I withhold judgment, Doc.”

  “I’ve looked into the other theories that have popped up over the decades,” Max added. She slid the USB drive stick into a port on her tablet. Her fingers were moving quickly over the screen. “Unlike my colleagues, I don’t just dismiss a theory out of hand because I don’t care for it.”

  “So your buddies got no love for this idea of yours?” Heck said.

  Max nodded. “I researched the Builder archives and everything I could access from the other orders, and there’s nothing. Not even a mention in passing. The Benefactors have the resources for a project like that but not the required occult architectural and geomancy know-how. The Builders have the knowledge but not the resources or the political pull. And, like I said, there is no mention of even a hint of any of this anywhere.”

  “I noticed you just skipped right on over the Brethren,” Jimmie said. “Nobody knows the Road better than us.”

  Max looked up from her tablet. She had a distinct “deer in the headlights” look on her face. “Oh, oh, Jimmie—oh, no … I … didn’t mean to offend the order. It’s just that the Brethren … they just don’t have that kind of, well, power.”

  “It’s cool,” Jimmie said with a thin smile. “We get that all the time. First to bleed, last to brief.” Max looked back to her tablet sheepishly.

  “Shit, it is like the military, isn’t it?” Heck said

  “Like I told you when we first met,” she said, “I was very excited by the prospect of riding along with Brethren, because it gave me a chance to do more work on my research. Your order keeps so many secrets, Jimmie, from everyone.”

  “Gee, I wonder why?” Heck said. “Sounds like these other guys treat the Brotherhood like a bunch of garbagemen.”

  Max remained busily working on her tablet, her eyes down.

  Jimmie laughed. “It’s okay, squire,” he said. “Let it go. Got to know your limitations. Well, for the record, I’ve never heard of any of this even as a wild truck-stop story. I don’t think the Brethren are in on this conspiracy of yours, either, Max. You say Rears’s research backs this up?”

  “I’ve been trying to confirm the data Lovina got off his computer,” Max said, swiping her screen with her finger. “Between running gun battles, attempts on our lives, car chases, and incarceration. It looks very promising, very promising. The majority of these Black-Eyed Kid sightings are near highways and routes that are part of the overall interstate system, part of the Road, and, interestingly enough, the Pagan’s known murders also match up very well to being in the proximity of the highways.”

  “Lots of serial killers use the Road,” Jimmie said. “Always have. Good dump sites, cuts between law-enforcement jurisdictions. That’s why the killers formed the Zodiac Lodge, and the FBI set up the Highway Serial Killings Initiative—Cecil Dann’s outfit.”

  “But the Pagan’s murder sites aren’t just on or near the Road,” Max said, spinning the tablet around to show the two men. “They correspond exactly to the nexuses of ley lines. Those sites would have enormous supernatural power flowing through them.”

  “Great place for this Horned Man to do ritual sacrifices,” Heck said. “Like the Masturbator of the Hunt is doing.”

  “Watch your mouth, squire!” Jimmie barked. “Lady present.”

  Heck balked, and Max smiled, looking down again. “Like the Master of the Hunt is doing,” he corrected himself.

  “You are twelve,” Jimmie said to his squire.

  Heck shrugged.

  “Um, yes, yes,” Max said. “Sacrifices to an entity would have enormous impact, spiritually, at those nexuses. He’d be strengthening the Horned Man, and he’s apparently already weakened the Triple Goddess in some fashion. A very dangerous cosmological imbalance.”

  “You actually believe in all these gods, spirits, and stuff, Max?” Heck asked.

  “From what I’ve studied,” Max s
aid, “I think the universe wears many masks for us, to help us keep from thinking we’re in an empty, dark room, alone. We give those masks names and power, sometimes enough to take on a life of their own. The Wild Hunt is a very old power.”

  “I heard of the Wild Hunt growing up,” Heck said. “I was raised by a bunch of mad Scot bikers. I know it’s an old Celtic fairy tale; it’s supposed to chase you, but that’s about all I know.”

  “It’s a myth from across Europe,” Max said. “A spectral hunting party—huntsman and hounds. It’s seen across the sky, or moving like phantoms through the forests and the roads. If you saw the Hunt, it was supposed to be a harbinger of some great disaster, either cultural or personal, for anyone seeing it.”

  “Sounds a little like the Black Dog,” Jimmie said, eyes focused on the road, the night wrapping itself deeper around the highway, like a snake crushing and devouring its prey. “You ever hear of the Black Dog, either of you?”

  Max and Heck shook their heads.

  Jimmie downshifted and continued, “It’s a trucker story. You’re driving, usually when you’re at the edge of what you can bear—tired, bone-tired. You see a huge dog, black as tar, glowing eyes, running beside your rig, keeping up with it, or it’s in the road ahead of you, or on the side of the road, staring.” He looked over to Max. “You see the Black Dog, it means death’s courting you. Truckers who see it and keep on going, they don’t keep going for long.”

  “Interesting, they both possess the same hound metaphor,” Max said. “The same is true for the Wild Hunt. Those who saw it either disappeared or died.”

  “Like Karen Collie and her friends, or the kids Lovina was looking for,” Jimmie said.

  Max nodded.

  “You think those kids saw the Wild Hunt?” Heck asked.

  “They saw something,” Jimmie said, “something on those Internet images Lovina chased down, something that came looking for them, and then they were gone—‘gobbled up,’ Karen said.”

  The cab was silent for many miles. They passed a wall of signs announcing routes and interstate numbers. They were coming up on I-64, and signs declared that St. Louis was ahead. Max silently mouthed the route and the interstate numbers and quickly made notes on her tablet.

  “Assuming your theory is right, Max, and the Road is some kind of magic river,” Jimmie said, “I want you to find out where in Kansas is the deepest pool—what did you call it, a nexus of magic?”

  “I can do that,” Max said. “Yes, of course.”

  “Good,” Jimmie said. “Real good, Max. Let’s go see what kind of road witch you are.”

  They drove on through the night. Jimmie kept his eyes locked on the road as his companions again slumbered, with the road rocking them gently. His mind was on Four Houses and overdue mortgages, the Master of the Hunt, and the baby kicking in Layla’s belly. He thought of his daughter, of the kids her age who had been lost to and transformed by this force he hunted, and he focused on the two young people riding with him now—how young they both were and how much they truly didn’t understand what they were driving into. Jimmie thought of his oath, and of Heck’s words—“You could just say, ‘Hell with it.’ Not your problem, man.” He wished he could, he really, truly did—to have this pass over him, but it was way too late for that. Even though he didn’t see it, hadn’t seen it, Jimmie felt as if the Black Dog was watching him, staring with eyes full of warning and waiting death.

  NINETEEN

  “10-78”

  The Charger’s headlights bounced as the muscle car drove up the bumpy, uneven stone drive of Agnes’s home. The car came to a stop beside the porch, where Ava, Lexi, and Cole had made their last stand less than a week ago. The porch light was on. Lovina got out, and Ava slid out from the backseat behind her. The two younger women helped Agnes out of the passenger seat in the front. The older woman groaned as she stood and rested some of her weight on them.

  “You okay?” Lovina asked, as she scanned the yard and down the drive to the main road for any more of the living darkness she had scattered when she drove into this odd little town huddled on the edge of an unnamed two-lane highway. The woman she had rescued from the shadow people told her that she was in Four Houses.

  “I believe that I shall not endeavor to go for a jog again,” Agnes said, groaning a little as she took the stairs. Ava helped her, while Lovina searched the night, Agnes’s broom-handled Mauser in one hand and her own .40 Glock in the other.

  “We may want to hurry a bit, if we can, Agnes,” Lovina said. She paused behind the Dodge to unlock the trunk and get her night bag and her sack of weapons. She shouldered the bags, slammed the trunk, and picked up the Mauser again. Slowly backing up the stairs, Lovina heard Agnes fumbling with a ring of keys, then the thunk of the door locks and the front door swinging open.

  “Dennis!” Agnes said. “Darling, what are you doing up?”

  Lovina was on the porch now, and she glanced back from keeping watch to see a slender elderly man standing at the door. His legs were shaking. He was in pajamas and a robe. He held a large old revolver with a metal ring screwed into the base of the handle. His hands were trembling, barely holding it.

  “Aggie, what are you doing out here,” Dennis muttered. “What were you thinking, love? Get inside, get in, all of you. It’s past curfew, and Paris is crawling with those damn Jerries. Come on!” Agnes held her husband and kissed him on the cheek. He slumped slightly against her.

  “You take too many risks, my beautiful girl,” Dennis muttered.

  “Of course, my love, of course,” she muttered into his ear. “I love you.”

  Lovina felt more than heard anything outside; she whipped her head around and saw a shadow person running toward the porch. “Shoot,” Agnes shouted. “My gun, shoot, now!” Lovina didn’t think, she reacted. The old Mauser cracked and a stream of red light hissed from the round and struck the shadow person. The creature flailed and then was devoured by the crimson light.

  “Tracers,” Lovina said, hurrying to the door. She handed Agnes her Mauser as they stepped inside. “Tracers kill them. Good to know.”

  The door was secured. Lovina looked around the sprawling but homey old house. Agnes helped Dennis back to his wheelchair and placed a blanket around him. She looked up the daunting spiral of a staircase and marveled at how he had managed to traverse it. She took the heavy breach revolver from his shaking hands and handed it to Ava. “How on earth did you find your old Webley, love?”

  Dennis didn’t reply, his eyes already drooping from all the exertion. Agnes turned to the two young women. “I’ll put him to bed. Ava, please put on a pot and we’ll have tea and talk. Now, Miss?”

  “Marcou,” Lovina said. “Please, just call me Lovina.”

  “Very well, Lovina. There is a guest room across from Ava’s upstairs. You are welcome to it. She can show you where it is, and you’re more than wel—”

  There was a pounding at the door. All three women spun their guns in the direction of the sound, side by side, ready to fight.

  “Agnes? Ava? It’s Barb and Carl from Buddy’s!” a woman’s voice called. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, my soul,” Agnes said, trying to hurry to the door and wincing in pain as she did. “Let them in, let them in!”

  The door was hastily unlocked and thrown open. Carl and Barbara Kesner hurried inside, both brandishing flashlights. Their RV was parked beside the Charger. Barb hugged Agnes while Carl helped Lovina re-secure the door.

  “We heard all the screaming down on the road,” Carl said. “We came to help but were too late. We decided to come up and see if you two made it home. Then we saw that sweet car sitting out front and we figured we should see if you were all okay.”

  “We are, thanks to Lovina here,” Agnes said.

  “The car’s mine,” Lovina said, extending her hand to Carl, then Barb, to shake. “I’m Lovina Marcou. I’m a state cop from Louisiana.”

  Carl smiled and made an odd gesture, running his finger along the side of
his face. He played it off as if he was scratching an itch, but he wasn’t. The gesture seemed strangely deliberate and casual at the same time.

  “Long way from home,” Ava said. “How did you get here?”

  “Chasing a killer,” Lovina said. “Black leathers, old Harley. Kind of a Prince of Darkness thing going on?” Everyone looked to Agnes. “Obviously, I’m in the right place,” Lovina said.

  “You’re chasing Emile Chasseur,” Agnes said. “The Master of the Hunt.”

  Dennis moaned a little, and Agnes returned to his side. “All of you, please make yourselves at home. Carl, Barbara, please stay here tonight. We have the room. I’ll tend to Dennis, and then we shall talk.”

  Agnes put Dennis to bed. Tea was made and served with various cakes and cookies. Ava filled a hot-water bottle and applied it to Agnes’s aching hip, and everyone told their stories. The old grandfather clock in the parlor said it was well after two in the morning by the time Lovina finished with her tale of how she had come to Four Houses.

  “You said this guy, Aussapile, you were working with was a trucker?” Carl said. “His name sounds familiar to me.”

  “Really?” Lovina said. “Well, you travel around long enough, you’re bound to run into the same people, right? We all know how the wheel turns.”

  Barb and Carl smiled and nodded. “Absolutely,” Barb said. “Small world, huh?”

  “Minuscule,” Carl said, grinning. His smile was as infectious as his wife’s. “How can we help you, Officer? We’ve been waiting for a long time to have a shot at standing up to Chasseur. He’s had this town in fear and under his control for a long time.”

  “Longer than you think,” Agnes said. “I think we’ve been waiting for you, Lovina. I think the other house has been waiting for you, too.”

  “I don’t understand,” Lovina said. “But I know Jimmie, Heck, and Max will find a way to find me, and they will help. Apart from us, are there any other folks in town that could help?”

  “Sure,” Carl said. “Plenty, but the Scodes—the scumbags who are basically Chasseur’s goons—they have everyone frightened.”