They waited.
Rane tilted her head to peer up the steep slope. “I know they’re up there. But I don’t see them.”
Neither did Dru. “They might not follow us down here,” she said hopefully.
“Yeah, right.” Rane kept watch up the mountainside.
The terrifying run down the slope, after the long hike and the endless spell-casting, had left Dru shaky and weak. Suddenly thirsty, she dug around the junk in the car until she found a bottle of water between the seats. She gulped it down.
Just when she thought she had miscalculated Salem’s course, movement approached down the pass. The blocky shape of Salem’s black hearse, now half tan with trail dust, slowly bounced its way down the rocky doubletrack. The final bloody rays of sunset sparkled off its chrome trim, shining like rubies, and then the car descended into the darkness with them.
Dru couldn’t be sure it was Salem behind the wheel. The car paused at the edge of the road, and she worried they’d been spotted.
Then the hearse’s headlights flared to life, and with a clatter of gravel, it turned the other direction and drove away.
“Okay, give him a minute,” Dru whispered, “and then we’ll follow him at a good distance. But keep your headlights off. With the sun going down, he might not see us.”
“Might not,” Rane agreed. “Can’t see anything out of the back of that thing.”
“But he might see our headlights!” Dru insisted.
“Fine, fine.” Opal eased the Lincoln forward. “But if it gets much darker, I won’t be able to see the road.”
“Just go slow. But fast enough to keep up with him,” Dru said.
Opal gave her a withering look.
“I don’t know. Just drive normally!”
“Just another day at the office.” Opal coasted them down a slope and then up the next rise. Salem’s sharp red taillights bobbed in and out of sight ahead of them. “Why does that man drive a hearse, anyway?”
“It fits him,” Rane said.
Dru nodded. “I can see that. Considering his morose personality, obsession with dark magic, and predilection toward Gothic-style accessories.”
“No, dude. It fits him. Literally. There’s, like, tons of cargo room. Good roof height in back, so he can sit back there with all his magical stuff. And if you need to haul off a dead monster, it’s easier to load than a van.”
“Oh,” Dru said. “That’s actually kind of disturbing.”
“On so many levels,” Opal added.
“Hey, you know, it’s part of the job.” Rane sounded defensive. “You fight monsters, somebody’s got to clean it up. You can’t just leave these suckers lying around for the tabloids to find.”
“Nobody believes it anyway,” Opal said. “Even when they do get photos, everybody thinks it’s a hoax.”
“Besides,” Rane said, “the hearse is big enough, you can sleep in the wayback. If you’re on a stakeout. Or, you know, what . . . ev . . . er.” The way she stretched out the word made it sound impossibly dirty.
It took a moment for the implications of that to sink into Dru’s brain. Where she immediately wished they hadn’t. She shook her head, as if that could somehow dislodge the disturbing image of Rane and Salem getting busy in the back of the hearse. “I’m sure you two didn’t . . .” She cleared her throat. “You know.”
Rane seemed puzzled. “What, hop in the wayback for a little walla-walla bing-bang? Oh yeah.”
“Eww. Eww! Not another word. In the back of a hearse?”
Rane shrugged. “Like I said, tons of room.”
Dru winced. “Ugh. Oh, my God.”
“You think that’s freaky?” Opal said, waggling her eyebrows. “This one time in college, I had these friends who worked at a peanut butter factory, and one night after work we—”
“Look out!” Dru yelled, pointing out the sheer drop-off they were headed toward.
“Whoa!” Opal jerked the wheel, just barely keeping the yacht-sized car on the narrow dirt road. “Honey, don’t distract me like that!”
“I’m not the one telling freaky peanut butter stories! Just focus on Salem!”
Opal hunched over the steering wheel, staring out across the night-darkened mountainside rapidly disappearing beneath the evening sky. “I don’t see him. I don’t see anything. I need to turn on the lights.”
“No! Don’t turn on the headlights. He’ll know we’re here.”
“Well, he might find out when we drive off the side of the mountain!”
Anxiety gripped Dru. They were clearly the only other car out here in the mountain wilderness. If they turned on their headlights, Salem would surely see them and bolt, meaning all of this effort was wasted. But if they didn’t turn on the lights, they could easily run off the road in the dark. Without any guardrails to protect them, the results would be too horrible to contemplate.
A heavy weight settled in Dru’s stomach. She had to admit there was no way to win.
“Fine. Turn on the lights.”
“Sorry, honey.” Opal pulled the light switch, and the gravel road in front of them lit up in their headlight beams.
They weren’t alone.
Directly in front of them, in the center of the road, a dark figure stood, feet planted wide. Salem.
Opal screamed and hit the brakes, but Dru knew it was too late. They were surely about to run him over.
Salem’s long hair blew back as he raised his arms to point his spidery fingers at them. His eyes glowed white.
Dru’s stomach lurched as invisible tethers of magic lifted the car completely up off the ground and suspended it in thin air.
She could do nothing except stare back into Salem’s furious face, his skin bleached bone-white by the headlights. With a snarl, he swung his arms to the side, as if flinging them away.
With a nauseating lurch, the car soared off the side of the mountain and hovered in the open air, hundreds of feet above certain death.
Dru realized she was screaming, and so was Opal, so she reached for her. They clung together on the Lincoln’s wide bench seat, holding onto each other because there was nothing else to hold onto.
“It’s okay,” Dru said, over and over, trying to convince herself. “He’s not going to drop us.” She stared into Salem’s enraged features, spotlighted on the road in front of them, searching for any sign that she was right.
“Hey, goth nugget!” Rane bellowed, hanging her head out the window. “You’re not going to drop us! You’re just pissing us off! Why don’t you go— Hey!” This last was directed at Opal as she buzzed up the back window and clicked on the child locks.
“Don’t give him any ideas!” Opal yelled.
Salem motioned again, and the car swung the rest of the way around to the other side of him, so that they were facing back the way they had come.
As they hovered over the gravel road again, this time pointed uphill, Salem closed his hands into fists. Instantly, the car dropped to the ground.
It wasn’t a long fall, maybe only a foot or two, but it was enough to flip Dru’s stomach completely over. Everything in the car jumped with a bone-jarring bang.
The engine died. They sat in sudden silence broken only by the clattering of the thick cluster of amulets hanging from the rearview mirror as they swung back and forth.
Behind them, Rane broke the silence. “He’s such an ass hat. I’m going to teach him a lesson.” She opened the back door.
Dru twisted around in the seat and grabbed Rane’s arm. “Wait! Wait. He’s just trying to scare us.”
“It’s working!” Opal shrieked.
Dru ignored her and focused on Rane. “If you go out there, it will turn into a huge fight. Like with Ember.”
“News flash. When someone picks up your car and dangles you over a cliff, the fight’s already started. Now I’m going to go finish it.” Rane tightened her fist, the one with the titanium ring, and her body transformed into shimmering metal.
Dru’s blood ran cold. This was seriou
s. “Just wait! Just wait, okay? Give me five minutes to talk to him. That’s all. I know Salem.”
“You think I don’t?” Rane barked back. Her metal eyes flashed like the blade of a knife.
As calmly as she could, Dru held up her hands and kept her voice quiet. “One minute, then. Just one minute, and then he’s all yours. All right?”
Rane’s jaw worked side to side. Then she shut the door and turned to Opal. “Time her.” She bit off the words.
Opal made a face. “I’m not timing her. Are you crazy? I’m about to back us all the way down this mountain. I’ve had enough of this.” She turned the ignition key. The starter whinnied, but the car didn’t start.
Dru put a calming hand on her wrist, stopping her. “Just one minute. I promise. Just pop the trunk for me.”
“The trunk?”
“Just trust me.” Dru slid out of the seat before either of them could argue with her. She circled around to the back of the car and lifted the trunk lid. In among the clutter of shoe boxes and garment bags, she found Salem’s black silk top hat.
She smacked the clay dust off it as she crossed the dozen yards of dirt road that separated them. Silently, she hoped this little peace offering would work. He’d had this hat forever. It had to mean something.
Salem stood with his half-unbuttoned black silk shirt tucked into black leather pants over boots with wicked-looking metal toes. His long hair fluttered freely in the wind. Without his hat, he looked less like a stage magician and more like a rock star. Dru could almost understand why Rane had such a thing for him.
Except for the fact that he looked ready to murder them all.
Dru took a deep breath and held out the top hat. “Here. Brought you something.”
After a tense standoff, Salem finally took the hat. He scowled at her for a moment before he looked down and gently brushed off the last traces of clay dust. It made little clouds in the beams of the headlights.
Dru adjusted her glasses and clasped her hands in front of her. “So, um . . . Mind telling me why you were at Greyson’s place?”
“I do mind.” He carefully placed the hat on his head and swiped his finger around the brim. From beneath the hat, his eyes glittered. “Let’s call it professional duty and leave it at that.”
“Uh-huh.” Dru tried to ignore the butterflies in her stomach. “So, funny coincidence. You’re out here in the mountains, and they’re kind of full of undead. Why is that?”
“They’re not close enough to worry about,” he snapped. If the presence of the undead came as any surprise to him, he didn’t show it. “What do you want?”
“Okay. Listen, we don’t have to be on opposite sides here. Can we just be friends again?”
The corner of Salem’s mouth twitched. “I’ve always preferred being enemies,” he said with an air of impatience. “It makes so much more sense.”
Dru couldn’t keep the shock from showing on her face. “Salem, we’ve always been friends, I thought. We’ve never been enemies.”
“Really? That’s a new one. Allow me to count the ways.” He paced back and forth across the road, ruffled black shirt shining in the headlights, his shadow dancing far behind him. “First, you lied to me about your demonic boyfriend, Greyson.”
“Well, in my defense, all I did was omit certain details—”
“You stole from me. On more than one occasion.”
That stung. “Truth be told, you actually stole certain things from me first. Including the journal of the Seven Harbingers, which you took apart and pinned up on your wall. So, I was just trying to—”
“You followed me here,” he said.
“We’re looking for Greyson.”
“You’ve been gossiping about me behind my back.”
“Hey, you’re the one who broke up with Rane. Remember?” Dru jabbed a finger at him. “And she’s my best friend. That makes you fair game for trash talk. That’s a girl code exemption.”
“You broke into my home. My private sanctuary.”
Dru cleared her throat. “Are you still hung up on that? Because really, it’s not like we went through your bedroom drawers. We just had to get a few things that—”
“Things that belonged to me.”
Dru felt her own patience rapidly disappearing. “Let’s get one thing straight, buddy. When it comes to doomsday, we’re in an emergency situation here. Okay? Social mores go out the window just a little bit when the fate of the world is at stake.”
Salem stared at her for an uncomfortably long time. Long enough for her anger and defensiveness to fade away into a little bit of shame. Maybe she had treated Salem badly, after all. It was true that saving the world was a matter of epic importance. But that didn’t make it right to forget who your friends were.
“Doomsday,” he said at last. “Well played.”
For once, Salem didn’t sound the least bit sarcastic. That made her feel even worse.
“Look, for what it’s worth, I really am sorry,” she said. “I am. I normally don’t treat people like that. I never meant for you to come to any harm, or to violate your personal space or . . .” Her confidence withered under the intensity of his stare. Quietly, she added, “Is there any way we can go back to being friends? We could help each other. We can work together.”
He folded his arms and glared at her in silence.
Behind Dru, a car door slammed. Heavy footsteps marched up beside her and stopped. Rane, arms folded like Salem, looked him up and down. Her jaw was set in a tough line, but at least she was in human form. Dru hoped that meant she wasn’t about to start a fight.
Salem’s gaze cut over to Rane, and something in his face softened. For the briefest moment, Dru saw real vulnerability pass across his sharp features. Beneath the all-black outfit, the long, wavy hair, and the guyliner accenting his crazy sorcerer eyes, there was a regular guy next door gazing with real longing at the girl he regretted leaving.
The night air seemed to go still around them, as if the world was waiting for Salem to make his move. Dru held her breath, not daring to crack the fragility of this moment.
“Dude.” Rane’s flat voice broke the silence like a rampaging bull crashing through a rodeo fence. “Are you wearing leather pants? That is so hot.”
Salem sighed and rolled his eyes. Just like that, the magical moment was gone. The wind picked up again, carrying particles of dirt through the headlight beams as he turned on his heel and strutted away uphill. “Fine. Come on. Might as well show you,” he said without looking back.
“Yeah! Let’s see it,” Rane called after him, hands on her hips. Her lips quirked up into a smirk as she watched him walk away.
“What do you think he’s going to show us?” Dru whispered, worried.
Not taking her eyes off Salem, Rane leaned closer. “I don’t know. But if things get hot and heavy, just be cool, okay?”
“Seriously?” Dru couldn’t keep her voice down. “In the hearse?”
“Not in the hearse,” Salem called from the darkness ahead. “Under the mountain. That’s where everything is about to happen.”
18
DARKNESS RUNS DEEP
Salem stood at the edge of the mountain ridge and pointed out into the night-darkened abyss. “There.”
Dru walked up beside him, ignoring for the moment where he pointed. Instead, she studied the sharp angles of his face in the faint reflected glow of Opal’s headlights.
She had known Salem for years, and despite his insufferable attitude, she still felt that deep down he was a good person. But he had too many secrets, too much anger, too much ego. She had never entirely trusted him. Could she trust him now?
The wind whispered through the sparse pine trees, making branches creak and bushes rattle. The air rapidly cooled as the night closed in around them, stripping away the warmth of the day.
Rane marched up, crunching gravel beneath her military boots, and planted herself between Dru and Salem. Muscles bulged as she folded her arms. “I don’t see anything.”
Dru looked, too. “Me either.”
Salem sighed and pointed harder. “Over there. In the moonlight.”
Dru took off her glasses, polished them on her shirt, and put them back on. Following Salem’s outstretched finger, she squinted into the far distance, where the silvery light from the cloud-shrouded moon spilled down a rough slope.
“Do you see the entrance?” Salem asked.
Dru squinted harder, seeing nothing at first. Where he pointed, there was just a rough cliff face and possibly the ghost of a road.
Then she spotted it. A wide archway was cut deep into the rock, as tall as the pine trees that surrounded it, and twice as wide. The curve of its ceiling was much too even to be natural, but all she could see was a solid black shadow within.
“What is that?” Dru asked.
“That,” Salem said, dropping his arm and turning to face her, “is exactly where you need to not go. Let me handle this.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s the source of the undead. The mountains around here are crawling with them, and you two princesses are lucky you haven’t run into any yet, or you’d both be dead.”
Rane snorted. “Whatever, dude, we already—”
Dru kicked her in the ankle before she could reveal to Salem that they had already stirred up some kind of undead nest.
Salem looked up at her suspiciously. “Already what?”
Dru stepped in. “Obviously, we already knew there were undead creatures around here. What we need to know is, what is that?” She pointed toward the mysterious tunnel entrance. “Some kind of a mine or something?”
“Judging by the Fort Knox–style blast doors sealing off the entrance, my money is on a nuclear bunker from the Cold War,” Salem said. “Somebody has been busy with obfuscation spells, keeping it hidden from casual observation. What’s inside is anyone’s guess. But everything points to it as the epicenter for doomsday.”
And it was exactly where the smoke had headed, Dru realized. Greyson was inside there somewhere. But why? And what was keeping him there?
Rane pointed at it with her chin. “So how did you find it?”
“Good point,” Dru said. “How did you know where to look, exactly?”
A Kiss Before Doomsday Page 15