by MLN Hanover
Their cars. There was something about that. It took me a couple of minutes before my subconscious handed me the thing I’d been trying to remember. They’d had a vanity plate. I picked up the little stub of pencil and wrote on the back of the envelope: GODS-WRK. I felt pretty good about that, which was nice because I didn’t get much further on that track.
I turned to how another rider could have been there in the first place. If I’d been a rider, a circle of exorcists was pretty much the last place I’d want to be: the sanctuary was consecrated, and I’d had the rider-stopping medallion on during the rite. When I started listing the reasons that the sewer-stink thing really couldn’t have been there, it was a pretty strong argument. I wrote my questions on the envelope: Why/how can it live with the enemy? Why didn’t the medallion stop it?
I sat looking at the words for a long time, wondering what I’d do if I found Dolores and she didn’t know what I was talking about. It was possible that the Black Sun really had been tricking me. Footsteps crunched through the snow, and I shoved the envelope into my pocket before the knock came. The guy was midtwenties, wearing jeans that actually fit, a thick flannel shirt, and curly dark hair that had been gelled to within an inch of its life. He had a black suitcase in his hand too big to be called an overnight bag, but too small to hide a body in. His smile was cautious.
“I’m looking for Jane Heller?” he said.
“Close enough,” I said. “Tell me those are my new clothes.”
He handed up the suitcase.
“I have the car out in the parking lot,” he said. “There’s some paperwork I need you to sign.”
“No problem,” I said. “Give me ten minutes to change, and I’ll meet you inside.”
“That’ll be great,” he said with a bobbing, deferential nod.
I put the case on the kitchen counter, unzipped it, and popped it open. The top of the pile was fresh underwear, two different sizes of sports bra, and thick white wool socks. I couldn’t stop grinning. Tights that were right on the line between panty hose and thermal underwear. Two pairs of slacks, one black and one tan. Low-heeled boots that zipped up the side that could pass for businesswear, but had enough tread and arch support to take hiking. A pack of undershirts still in their plastic, three blouses, a dark overcoat not that different from the one I’d left behind, a package of ponytail holders, a black baseball cap with insulated foam lining, a pair of sunglasses, a discreet emergency pack with a variety of feminine protection products, a wallet filled with hundreds and twenties, a New Hampshire driver’s license with a picture of me I didn’t remember seeing before, and a black case with a smartphone in it. I pushed the power button, and the little thing sprang to life. It was thicker than the other ones I’d seen, and the matte black case had an almost military feel. The opening touch screen was filled with application icons. The address book had only one entry: my lawyer’s private line. I could have kissed her.
It took me twenty minutes to change, and when I stepped out of the RV for the last time, I looked like someone from a SWAT team. My hair was pulled back through the adjustment band of the baseball cap. I had the dark slacks, the black overcoat, the sunglasses. The shoes were a little too big and the sports bra was still a little too tight, but walking around to the front of O’Keefe’s, I felt more comfortable than I had in days. Just before I turned the corner, I looked back. The snow was mostly melted off the RV. Its sides were scabby with sun damage. I still smelled like Midian’s cigarettes and probably would until my hair grew out.
“Thanks,” I said to the broken-down old vehicle and the vampire I’d borrowed it from.
My car was a blue SUV with the dealer’s paperwork taped to the back window. It stood out in the parking lot because of its lack of mud and wear. I walked into O’Keefe’s to find Mr. Hair Gel chatting up the underage waitress I’d had the first time I came in. He looked pleased and nervous when I sat down across from him.
“I just need a signature on a few things saying you took possession,” he said, setting a pack of legal-sized papers in front of me with neon-green sticky notes showing me where to sign. He also handed me a really nice ballpoint pen.
“Thank you,” I said, and started making all the right marks. In the corner of my eye, I saw the waitress trying not to stare at me.
“Excuse me,” Mr. Hair Gel said. “I’m sorry for asking, but are you a movie star or something?”
“Nope,” I said, putting my initials on an insurance policy for the new car.
“It’s just we don’t usually get this kind of service request. I mean, there was this one time Julia Roberts had a bunch of people out in Arroyo Seco, and—“
“I’ve never met Julia Roberts,” I said. “I think we travel in different circles.”
“Right. I just had to ask,” he said. “You looked like you could be.”
I glanced up. His smile was bashful and cocksure at the same time. I was being hit on. I smiled back.
“Anything else you need me to sign?” I asked. He shook his head and passed a single key on a remote control fob across the table. I picked it up, weighing it in my hands. All right, then. Time to hunt down demons. “Thanks. You do have a ride back to town, right?”
“He’ll be along shortly,” Mr. Hair Gel said, but his tone suggested that he’d be open to the offer of a lift back in my car. For half a second, I was tempted.
Once I was in the SUV, I cranked up the heater, letting the engine run. The cell phone had great reception, even here. I called my lawyer.
“Jayné!” she said, answering before it could ring. “Is everything all right, dear?”
“It’s great,” I said. “You’re a miracle worker. But I need something else. Can we get an address for a someone if I give you a license plate? I’m not sure if it’s New Mexico or Colorado plates, though.”
“Of course, dear. Give me what you’ve got, and I’ll be right back.”
I spelled out GODSWRK to her and waited while she repeated it all back in military code. Golf Oscar Delta. Then we dropped the line. The SUV said I had a full tank of gas, the built-in GPS was disabled and couldn’t find a signal, and it was a few degrees below freezing outside. I took a deep breath and leaned back. Jayné Heller, international demon hunter. Well, all right, then.
As I pulled out to the road, Ozzie trotted into the parking lot. I saw her dark eyes looking up at me, her tail wagging. The little chuffed bark was white in the cold. I stopped and opened the passenger’s door. She looked at me.
“You coming?”
She trotted over, hauled herself up the step, and sat in the passenger’s seat, panting through a canine smile. When I reached across her to close the door, I got a cold earful of damp nose. I took us out to the highway.
Jayné Heller, international demon hunter, and her dog.
Even better.
“Hey,” I said. “
Can you talk?”
“Yeah,” my little brother, Curtis, said. “They’re all out doing stuff. What are you up to?”
“Surprisingly difficult question to answer,” I said. “I just got a dog. What’s going on at home?”
For twenty miles, Curtis filled me in on the gossip at home. Our older brother, Jay, had gotten his girlfriend pregnant, and now my future sister-in-law and her whole extended family had descended to prepare for the wedding. Mom had given up all hope of keeping the bun-in-the-oven issue quiet, and was now explaining to everyone at church that the new in-laws only looked Mexican, but were really Brazilians who’d just been living in Mexico before they came to the United States. In her mind, this was apparently better. Curtis was wildly amused by the whole thing, and his schadenfreude was a little infectious.
Before he hung up, I got Ozzie to bark hello to him a couple of times.
My new cell phone had a web browser that promised me a hotel with a real shower and hot water if I drove back in toward Taos proper. My other option appeared to be heading north into the Carson National Forest and staying there until spring, so w
ith a little trepidation, I headed south.
The sky was enormous, the horizon seemed to fly out before me snow-white and earth-brown and the gray-green of piñons. Clouds draped the overwhelming blue like lace pulled to breaking, and the air smelled of cold and smoke and pine. For all my moving around the world, I’d spent very little time driving, and almost none by myself. I found myself humming, and then singing. Ozzie didn’t object.
There were a few cars and trucks on the highway, zooming along regardless of the ice on the pavement. I passed the turnoff to San Esteban with a little shudder. I kept waiting for Ex’s little black sports car to zoom up alongside and force me off the road. Once I got in close enough that there was traffic and an almost urban concentration of buildings, I actually started feeling better. I had cover and the anonymity of the crowd.
I made it to a little hotel just after three. It was two stories, with low scrub pine around the perimeter and a gravel parking lot mostly buried under ice and snow. We were a long way from the ski valley, and even so, there was only one vacancy. The guy at the desk balked at Ozzie until I gave him an extra hundred. The room was on the second floor, and it would have been physically impossible to do a hundred dollars’ worth of damage to it. The carpet was damp and stank of mildew. The bed sagged visibly in the center. The windows had scallops of dust running down them. At that moment, the honeymoon suite at the Bellagio wouldn’t have been better. I took a hot shower, washing my hair three times to get the last of the cigarette stink out. When I toweled off, my toes were pale and prune-wrinkled.
The scabs and cuts that cross-hatched the soles of my feet burned, the waer loosening the clots, but I didn’t start bleeding again. When I probed my rib, it still hurt, sure enough. In the mirror, my skin was bright pink from the hot water where it wasn’t white with old scars: my arm, my side. I stretched out, and the vertebrae between my shoulder blades cracked pleasantly.
Ozzie had curled up on the bed and wagged heavily as I got dressed again. I was going to need a place to use as my base of operations. This wasn’t the little condo halfway up to the ski valley. It didn’t have the gas fire heater or the hot tub or the little kitchen. If I wanted food, I’d have to head out to the convenience store or a tiny diner a few blocks down the road. In the next room, two women were shouting at each other over the yammering of their television cranked to eleven.
“Okay,” I said. “I know it’s not the best accommodations in the world, but it’s what I’ve got for now. Just don’t take off running down the road with me like last time, okay?”
My rider didn’t reply, but Ozzie sighed and let her head loll down on the bedspread. So I figured that made two out of three in favor with one abstention. Not great, but until I had better, it’d do. I put my few belongings in the closet and bathroom counter, pulled my hair back into a ponytail, and went out for supplies. The convenience store was called Allsup’s, and it was entirely covered in Christmas decorations—tinsel icicles, printed cardboard reindeer, even blinking colored lights strung around the cash register. A weak version of “Little Drummer Boy” was leaking out of the radio, reminding me that I wanted my own music back. But they had dog food for Ozzie and some snacks for me. I bought enough granola bars, sunflower seeds, and Diet Coke to keep body and soul together for a couple of days. Ozzie stayed in the car. As I walked out, flimsy plastic bag on my wrist, my new phone rang, a chiming tritone.
“Hello?” I said, fumbling to get the SUV’s back door open and talk on the phone at the same time.
“Jayné, dear? I have the information on that license plate you wanted me to look for,” my lawyer said.
“Spiffy. Give me just a second, and I’ll … Okay. Got a pen. Go ahead.”
The car was registered to Eduardo Garcia with an address in Questa, New Mexico. I was reasonably sure that none of the women I’d seen sitting around Chapin’s table had been named Eduardo, but apparently someone knew him well enough to borrow his car. It was a start.
“Also I had a call from our friend Ex,” she said. “He seemed a bit upset.”
I closed the rear door and leaned against the SUV. An ancient-looking station wagon pulled up to the gas pumps, an old man at the wheel and three young children mashed close together in the backseat. A fire truck cruised by, slow and stately as a sailboat.
“Dear?”
“What did he say?”
“He seems to think you’ve had a psychological crisis of some sort. Run off in the night. He wanted me to look into getting you an evaluation. Against your will if necessary.”
“Great.”
I waited for the next comment, certain sheosedsk what was really going on and unsure what I’d say.
“Are you certain you want to keep him on the payroll?” she asked.
I smiled.
“Yeah, for now. He’s overreacting to some disagreements we had. We’ll figure it out.”
“He’s a darling boy, and very intense, but he seems a bit histrionic sometimes.”
“He just hates not being the one in control,” I said.
“Well, that’s true of us all, I suppose. Is there anything else I can do for you right now?”
“Nope,” I said. “I’m good.”
I got in the SUV, started up the engine, and paused. It was Sunday afternoon, with a couple of hours still before sundown. Questa was half an hour away. If it all worked out right, I could find Dolores tonight and get her back to Chapin and Ex in the morning with her story to back up mine. Except …
Except she wasn’t the only one who’d gotten an exorcism recently. Was it her sister? Someone else in her immediate family had been ridden and cured before she had, and I was pretty sure it had been her sister. And if all of Chapin’s exorcisms came with a secret toy surprise like mine, that meant at least one person in Dolores’s household was being ridden right now. Or maybe everyone. Hell, all of Questa could be one big rider colony for all I knew.
And for that matter, I was making an assumption about Chapin too. I was thinking there was only one ringer in the circle. What if that wasn’t true? What if all of them were under the control of something else? I leaned against the steering wheel. I couldn’t go running after this like I was chasing fireflies. I had to think it through. Ozzie yawned massively and lay down on the passenger’s seat.
Being with Aubrey for as long as I had, I’d learned a few things by osmosis. Things like this: parasitic systems have structure. By watching what a parasite did, you could figure out something about its life cycle. A mycoplasmic infection made mice seek out the smell of cat urine? Pretty fair bet that the parasite wants to get inside a cat. A carpenter ant crawls down out of its nest in the forest canopy and latches onto the bottom of a low-hanging leaf? The fungus that’s about to pop its head open would probably like to rain its spores down from about that height. So if a rider is taking the risk of hanging out with exorcists in order to get fresh victims, that meant something. Specifically, it meant that the benefit it got from being around exorcisms outweighed the risk of being discovered by the kinds of guys who were professionally not in favor of spiritual parasites. Which meant …
I sat back and pulled the folded envelope from my pocket. Midian’s letter was still inside. I plucked it out.
Getting a rider’s like a drinking game. Once you start losing, you keep losing—getting ridden opens you up and getting closed again is tricky.
So this particular rider needed people who were easy to possess. People who were already vulnerable. I remembered something that Aubrey had said once about hospitals being a great breeding ground for infection because there were so many people there with crappy immune systems. An infection that wouldn’t be able to survive in a normal person would have all kinds of room to grow if you gave it a community of people who couldn’t fight it off. And if that was the kind of rider I was looking at, then what it was doing made sense.
So unless Questa was hip-deep in people who’d already been ridden by something else, Stinky’s pool of possible victims was go
ing to be limited.
And it meant something else.
I pulled up my phone and turned the envelope over. I took the extra minute to put Chogyi Jake’s number into the address book before I called. It rang five times and rolled to voice mail. I growled in frustration and waited for the beep.
“Hey. It’s me. Find out if any of Chapin’s boys has had a rider. It may be important. But be discreet about asking. Don’t be obvious. I’ll check back in later.”
I dropped the connection and sat back. Ozzie considered me with wet eyes.
“I think it’s going pretty well,” I said. And then, still out loud, “Okay, listen up. I’m heading toward Dolores and her family. Chances are pretty good that there’s going to be a rider there and it won’t want us to take her back. If you think you’re too weak to take this thing in a fair fight, tell me now, and we’ll find a different plan.”
I waited. The guy with the kids finished gassing up his station wagon and pulled out. A girl maybe thirteen in a huge blue down coat walked across the street and into the store. A car drove by slowly, thumping out a bass line that was rendering anyone inside it deaf and sterile.
“I can,” I said, unaware that I intended to until the words came out. The voice had an exhaustion I didn’t feel myself.
Ozzie scrambled to her feet, whining anxiously. Her head was tilted.
“Yeah, I know,” I said, scratching the dog between the ears. “It freaks me out too. But she’s on our side.”
For now, anyway, I thought while I started the engine.
THE ROAD to Questa was lousy driving—hard-packed snow where it wasn’t ice. I took it slow enough that I didn’t feel the immediate danger of skidding into the oncoming lane but as fast as I could manage. The sun was sliding close to the horizon, and people were already turning headlights on. I wasn’t sure I’d make it back to the hotel outside Taos if I could find a room on Questa that kept me from driving back in the dark. Or one with a dry carpet. Part of me rebelled at the idea of having two hotel rooms at the same time, but with a few thousand dollars in my pocket, it was hard to get too worked up over the loss.