by J. D. Monroe
Her plan was to call Christina, but that’s a no go. And if she passes out before the knife is dealt with, she’s a dead woman.
“All right,” she finally says. She’ll go call for help. She’ll get Georgia locked up for drunk and disorderly or some other bullshit charge, and that’ll give her time. If they’re not horrible people, the owners of the next RV down will take one look at her and let her call. Hopefully.
She hobbles across the RV and flings the door open onto the dark shadow of woods. “What the…” She hangs on to the door and peers outside. No lights, no sound but the wind murmuring through the night-blurred trees. They may as well be on the moon.
Fine.
She’ll crank this thing up and drive it to the first house she sees. Hop, skip, and a jump to the cab. The GPS is still on. The red you are here indicator is an island in a sea of green to all edges of the screen. Her mouth goes dry as she taps the zoom button. Two zooms, and she finds them in the middle of a state park. Did Georgia drive as far as she could from civilization?
“Dammit, Georgia!” The keys are gone. No telling where Georgia stowed them, and she’s not waking her up to find out.
Alone in the middle of nowhere. No phone. No backup. Just her, her psycho roommate, and a knife that will probably turn her into a homicidal maniac as soon as she touches it. Sounds like a reality show Patience would watch.
She briefly considers finishing off her drugstore wine and taking a nap. Might as well, since this thing is going to end badly anyway.
Instead, she hobbles into the bedroom and helps herself to one of Georgia’s clean shirts, since she saw fit to destroy one of Charity’s last clean ones. It feels like a monumental achievement just to get the damn thing on, and she has to sit for a while to catch her breath. She’s tempted to look at the mirror but decides against it. She’ll just feel sorry for herself, and that’s a luxury reserved for people who don’t have a psychopath hogtied in the next room.
She steps back over her trussed partner and starts rounding up supplies. Last bit of holy water and salt. Flashlight from her bag. Kitchen tongs from a drawer by the microwave. She hauls it all outside the RV and opens the storage well to pull out the acetylene torch and a bag of white candles. She props the flashlight on the stairs, casting an eerie yellow glow that soaks into the darkness like water into sand.
Then she goes back for the knife, tiptoeing like the blade itself will roar to life if she wakes it. She gingerly picks it up with the tongs and hobbles outside with it.
As she crouches on the ground, wet pine needles scratch at her legs. She deposits the knife on the ground and stares at it. It really is a beautiful knife. Nice, sharp blade that gleams like new, no nasty nicks or burrs to keep it from cutting clean. Ornate carvings on the wooden hilt hint at its age, which is somewhere between pretty damn and really damn old. She reaches out to trace the carvings, then yanks her hand away like it’s been burned.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she says. She peers up, where the moon peeks through the skeletal fingers of the reaching trees. “I’m afraid. I know I shouldn’t be, but I am.”
What would Christina tell me?
“This is stupid,” she mutters. “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” She pauses and squints up at the moon, leaking like liquid silver through the tree cover. “I don’t remember the next line. If anyone is listening, please help me out. Everything hurts, and I’m fucking terrified. Please don’t hang up because I cussed in a prayer.” She sighs heavily and puts her hands over her face. “I’ll start over. Please help me through this, God. I know I’m not a good person, but this isn’t about me right now. This thing is gonna keep killing people who don’t deserve it, so please give me what I need to stop it. And also, please help me not bleed to death first, because that would kind of defeat the purpose. Thanks. I mean, amen.”
She sighs. Christina would shit a brick over propriety and make her start over, but there’s no time. She props up the white candles in their stout holders, then lights each one in turn, murmuring prayers to ward off evil the entire time. She places the knife in the center of the arrangement, then pours the holy water over it. Finally, she pours a circle of salt around the entire thing.
Now the worst part.
Her throat closes up, and her skin crawls as she hesitates, hand trembling over the knife. She has to touch it, can’t break the curse any other way. If she just melts it, it’ll be a cursed lump of slag for someone to bash heads with. “Sack up,” she says. She grabs the handle, and it sucks her in.
It feels like falling backward into cold water, closing over her as she sinks deeper in a cruel undertow. Cold hands grab her, pulling her down, down, down. And then she stands upright, staring down at her own body. She looks like shit, face all bruised and battered, leg streaked in crimson. Her face is chalky pale in the moonlight. Her hand clutches the knife, holding the blade up so it reflects the moonlight. A translucent hand wraps around hers, pressing her hand tightly around the hilt. The figure shimmers, and it turns to grin at her.
It’s Calloway, dressed in strange clothes like he stepped out of a museum display.
“How…”
“This blade has been in my possession for over a century,” he says. “It belongs to me, and it always will.” His handsome face creases in a smile that makes her skin crawl.
It’s more than a little disconcerting to stand here and watch her own body. Her hand shakes, and sweat pours down her face. The candles are flickering. “No,” she murmurs. “I’m going to destroy it.”
“But why would you?” Calloway says. “You do want to be strong, don’t you? Aren’t you tired of this tooth-and-nail struggle day in and day out?”
Something is happening to her body. Something dark slides up her fingers, into her veins, like choking vines around her arm. Spidery shadows strangle her arm, spreading upward as she watches.
“And it’s not so bad,” Calloway says. “Three sacrifices, and it’s over. A paltry tribute, really. Think of the lives you’ll save. Once you control the blade, it’ll kill anything. Revenant, poltergeist, even demons. Surely you can see the obvious advantage.”
“Is this the same promise you made Georgia?”
Calloway smirks. He reaches over and presses a hand to her forehead, and Charity watches in horror as the black spreads down her face like spilled ink. “That’s better.”
“Stop that!”
He gives her a coy smile. “I’m going to make you a special offer. Not what I made sweet Georgia, or anyone before her. I’ll actually pass it on to you, and you will carry on its legacy.”
“Fuck that,” she says. “You can stick your knife up your undead ass.”
Calloway ignores her. “There is a purpose. This blade demands three deaths. But as long as you keep its hunger sated, you will stay young and stronger than you can imagine.” He shrugs. “Think of the lives you’ve saved over your years, and then imagine how many more you’ll save. Look at you, all broken and beaten. Imagine if you could go to sleep and wake up like new.”
She doesn’t even want to consider it, but there’s a certain appeal to what he says. For every ghost she puts to rest, every monster lurking, there are a dozen more she can’t stop.
What the fuck do you mean, there’s an appeal? part of her screeches. Look at you!
The shadow is seeping into her face, oozing into the whites of her eyes like an oil spill. The blade pulses with light now, slow and steady like a heartbeat.
“You only have to make a small sacrifice,” Calloway says. “And then, only the people who would hold you back. Georgia, who just tried to murder you and nearly succeeded. Your sister, Patience, who abandoned you when you needed her. And Harmony, who destroyed your innocence and stole your father from you. No great losses. Think how free you would be without them.”
She’s starting to feel warm again. As she looks down at her body, it’s nearly all dark, veins bulging out. Power fills her, she realizes. Power to be the best hunter tha
t ever lived. And it feels good.
She smirks back at Calloway. “Nah.”
“Nah?” he says incredulously.
“Nah,” she says with a shrug. “You don’t know jack shit about me if you think I’d kill Patience. The other two, maybe, but not my sister. No matter how much of an asshole she is.”
Calloway’s expression goes harsh and cold, and she realizes this isn’t Calloway, not entirely. She gets a glimpse of something inhuman as he snarls, something angular and shadowy under his handsome mask. “I know you better than you think. I convinced sweet Harmony to murder your dear old daddy. Don’t you remember?”
“Every damn day,” she says. “And I’m still not gonna kill Georgia. Or Patience. Or, as much as I’d sometimes love to, Harmony. Mostly because you want me to, and I delight in being as contrary as fucking possible.”
“You say that,” Calloway says. “Look again.”
She’s flat on her back, eyes wide and unseeing. The white candles are flickering violently, and the blade is clutched tightly in her hand.
“You can argue with me all you want in here. What matters is what you’re about to do,” Calloway says. Suddenly, her body lurches up, and she gets to her feet. Her movements are jerky, like a puppet with half its strings cut.
Oh, shit. While she’s wasting time arguing with Calloway, the blade has gotten a hold on her. Just like she knew it always would.
As her body lumbers toward the door of the RV, the dark silver cross around her neck catches the moonlight.
She whips her head around to Calloway. “The Lord is my shepherd,” she says. Suddenly something sharp rakes across her face. Calloway’s manicured hand has become a blackened claw emerging from frilly cuffs, nails dripping red as his expression turns to fury.
“You shall shut the fuck up.”
“I shall not want,” she says, moving closer to his ghostly figure. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters.” More claws, tearing deep into soft tissue, slashing through bone as easily as paper. She staggers and looks down at the shredded fabric across her torn belly. Ropy intestines leak out of the seam like stuffing from a rag doll.
“You are weak and pathetic,” Calloway snarls. “Insignificant.”
He’s working awfully hard to convince you, the rational part of her speaks up. None of this is real. Look.
The blood dripping off his talons is nothing but electricity, a current between two random synapses in her brain. Her physical body is untouched as it lurches toward the RV.
She smiles. “Hey, asshole. You’re not real.”
Her physical hand trails down the door of the RV and jerks at the knob.
Calloway grins and exposes a jagged maw of discolored teeth. “I’m real enough for this.”
As her body opens the RV and climbs the stairs, she’s dragged along behind it, still floating outside her body like a balloon on a string.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
Calloway lashes out again, claws swiping at her. His pressed shirt sleeve is evaporating, revealing something dark and blotchy beneath. “Your God doesn’t give a shit about you.”
“Then what the hell are you so scared of?” she says with a laugh. She sinks her spirit hands into his face, and she sees something glowing behind the human mask. “I will fear. No. Evil.”
“Stop that,” he says, face twitching between her hands. His hands grasp at her wrists, trying in vain to wrench her hands away. For once, it feels good to be the scary one.
“For thou art with me,” she says. He tries to pull away, and she digs her own claws in. Her fingers sink into something wet and hot, squirming against her fingers like a bucket of earthworms. “Where you goin’, buddy?”
“Let me go,” Calloway pleads.
Her body raises the knife over Georgia, who is still out cold. Her face is strangely peaceful, even under the strip of duct tape.
No, no, no.
“Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me,” she says as fast as she can. Come on, help me out here. “Thou preparest a table—”
“Stop it!”
“Before me in the presence of mine enemies—”
“You bitch!”
“Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over—”
“I will tear you to shreds. I will violate you in every way imaginable—”
“Surely, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” she says breathlessly. Her hand trembles, and the blade freezes in mid-swing. The muscles in her arm stand out as she strains to bring the knife down on Georgia.
Calloway screams, and his face peels away like burnt paper. Beneath the human mask, his skin is streaky gray like the revenants’, eyes fiery and reptilian. He’s not just a spirit, but something else she’s never seen. “You diseased whore. Murderer.”
“I am nothing but an instrument of the one who is greater than me,” she says, not knowing where the words come from. For a second, a warm breeze blows, and a golden haze falls over her. Her hands glow even brighter as she digs into not-Calloway’s flesh. “And I will stand firm. I will not be shaken or moved.” She grins and squeezes her hands together. “Now get the hell out of me, you son of a bitch.”
The white light explodes like a Fourth of July fireworks display, and the not-Calloway explodes outward in shards like black glass. Pain washes over her as she slams back into her body. She stumbles over Georgia, knife thunking into the fake hardwood floor as she falls. Georgia’s eyes fly open. She screams. Charity screams back in surprise, then grabs the knife and runs back outside. She can hear Georgia screaming bloody murder inside, flopping around like a giant worm on the RV floor. The whole thing shakes on its shocks.
She tosses the knife into the circle of candles, then examines her hands. The mysterious glow is gone, and they’re back to her own callused, scarred hands, grimy and bloody. It was a fluke.
Probably.
With a little laugh, she ignites the torch and puts it on the blade. There’s a feeling of something flapping around her, whipping her hair around her face. Cold air blasts her even with the white-hot flame melting the blade. It takes minutes for the blade to turn into a lump of slag, but she keeps the torch on it until it’s flat and charred.
“Thank you,” she murmurs. She turns her face up to the sky, where the moon seems brighter somehow. “Thank you for the help.”
She takes the lump of metal inside, where Georgia is still screaming. She drops it into the container of salt water and seals it, then stomps the floor. Her angelic moment is over. “Georgia, stop with the screeching. I’m not going to kill you,” she says. She cuts Georgia’s hands and feet free, then backs up slowly to sit in the dinette and watch. The girl winces as she peels duct tape from her mouth. “Are you yourself?”
“Are you?” Georgia says.
“I’m not the one trying to cut someone’s lungs out,” Charity says. Georgia’s face goes pale, and she busies herself with peeling the tape from around her ankles. “Please tell me you have gas somewhere.”
Georgia nods at the floor. “There’s two full cans in one of the storage wells.”
“Good,” Charity says. “Then fill her up and take us home.”
39. MAKING AMENDS
SHE NODS OFF HALF A DOZEN TIMES on the way back to Tipton, but each time it takes only a few seconds for her to shake herself and squeeze the warm metal of her gun. Georgia doesn’t say a word the whole way, and it’s probably for the best. That’s going to make for one hell of an awkward conversation. So, about that time I jumped you, hogtied you, and try to ritually murder you? Yeah, that was weird.
The sun is just creeping up over a foggy treeline when the RV trundles over the town line. Charity throws on a jacket over her mismatched clothes and slings her duffel over her shoulder. Georgia starts to come for her stuff, then hangs back near the driver’s seat like a guilty puppy. Her
eyes slide away from contact.
“I’ll be back for the rest,” Charity says. She hauls her backpack onto one shoulder and tucks the sealed plastic container under the other arm. “Don’t leave town.”
Georgia swallows and nods.
She steps down out of the RV. It feels like waking up from an incredibly realistic nightmare. Standing there in front of Mike’s little house, she takes a long, deep breath, and sighs it all out. You survived.
It’s barely twenty feet from the edge of the street up to Mike’s front porch, but it might as well be a marathon. She bangs on the door. No answer. She bangs again, and it swings open on a messy-haired blonde scrubbing at her eyes. “It’s fuckin’ seven—” She gets a look at Charity’s face. “Jesus.”
“Yeah,” Charity says. “Where’s Mike?”
Melinda gapes. “What happened to you?”
“Too much tequila,” Charity says. “Where the hell is Mike?”
The girlfriend wrinkles her nose, then bellows over her shoulder. “Mike, your cousin’s back.”
Mike shuffles up behind her. “You didn’t invite her in?” He scrubs at his eyes. “Christ, Charity, are you all right?”
“I need a shower,” she says. “And I could use some sleep.”
Melinda gripes outside the whole time Charity’s in the shower. She’s keeping her voice low, but Mike’s walls are cheap and thin. “She’s into drugs, Mike, and I am not having that in this house.”
“She’s not into drugs, and it’s my goddamn house, so you don’t get to decide,” Mike retorts.
“Then what the hell is it? Gambling? I’m not doing this again, Mike, I can’t.”
You and me both, sister, Charity thinks as she examines the aftermath of the last few days. It’s been less than a week, and she feels like she’s gone nine rounds with Tyson on a bad day.
By the time she feels clean, the water is going cold and the mirror is completely steamed up. Just the blurry splotches of color tell her how bad it is. She doesn’t bother swiping at the mirror to get a closer look.