by D V Wolfe
I picked up my duffle bag. “To Lancaster. To go get Festus.”
Rosetta shook her head and banged a fist on the table. “Damn it, Bane, will you sit down and shut up instead of going off half-cocked!?”
I stared at her. “Is there more?”
Rosetta nodded and looked down again, some of her guilt creeping back in. What was this guilt thing about? I sat back down and looked at her, waiting for her to continue.
She took a breath. “...the caller...said that the cannibals were strong, much stronger than he’d ever seen them. He said he saw one of them snap a man’s neck with two fingers when the man tried to stop them from robbing a liquor store.”
I felt a shiver of dread roll over me. “Well, they have been eating their demon-meat Wheaties.”
Demons had two ways to travel. If they were high enough muckety-mucks, they could possess humans. Shorter wait time and more selection. Of course, they had a human co-pilot but I’d never heard of a human soul overpowering a demon that was possessing them, so at most, a little annoying for the demon. The other way demons moved around was by Empty Houses, the shells of humans whose souls had already vacated the premises. This was the same process I had if I died. If their Empty House was destroyed, they had to go back downstairs and get in line for a new one. Depending on who was bribing the office staff in charge of assigning the bodies, sometimes the wait was years.
“Is it too much to hope that maybe they’ve just discovered PCP?” I asked. Noah gave me a hopeful look but Rosetta rolled her eyes. I nodded. “Yeah, way too hopeful. What about your caller? Maybe he thought he was looking at cannibals but it was really a couple of guys with roid-rage that were snapping necks and stealing forties.”
Rosetta shook her head. “The...caller, knows what he’s talking about.”
I frowned. “Ok Rosetta, who is this ‘caller’?” She didn’t move and I leaned forward, something dawning on me. “Is it an innocent? Do you have some poor bastard postman or something, following these animals around?” Rosetta didn’t move and I shot to my feet and leaned over the table at her. “And you had the nerve to get in my business and tell me what to do and how terrible I was for involving an innocent? At least mine is with me where I can at least try to protect him. What the hell, Rosetta? What if they ‘make him’ as some kind of half-ass spy and decide to have him for lunch?!”
“Bane,” Rosetta said. “The call wasn’t from an innocent.”
I didn’t believe her. “Really? Then who was it?”
Rosetta raised her eyes and there was sadness and guilt tied up together there, knocking me back when her gaze met mine. “Gabe.”
4
“Come again,” I said. “I know I misheard you. I must have some of that necro-witch’s kitty litter bullshit in my ears.”
Rosetta shook her head. “He’s been tracking them.”
“Why?” I asked. “I highly doubt that some lowly cannibals, even demon-fueled ones, made it onto his Order of Divine Assholes’ radar. How would he even know about…” I looked at Rosetta and now the guilt on her face was starting to make sense. “Rosetta, what did you do?”
“Nothing,” She said quickly. “He just...calls me sometimes to check up on you. I’d just gotten home from St. Louis, and I was tired. And all the way home I was thinking...Bane, I would have thought Festus just wandered off but...the tribe...they left their mark at the warehouse and then when they were at the Johnson Meredith building, that couldn’t have been just a coincidence. I just thought Festus had to be with them and maybe they used him to find you and then decided the demons were better party favors than your hide, split a hundred ways.
“Then, Gabe called as soon as I got home. Actually, he’d been calling and he’d left several messages and I made the mistake of answering… Anyway, long story short, he dragged it out of me that your accountant was snatched by Sister Smile and her crew, and then he hung up. He called this morning to tell me about his tribe sighting and the fact that they were on the move.” As she’d spoken, Rosetta’s expression had gotten lighter as if it was a relief to tell me all of this. Rosetta could physically handle just about anything, but she couldn’t hold in any form of guilt.
I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes. No. This wasn’t happening. I wasn’t about to take any leads from…
“Who’s ‘Gabe’?” Noah asked. Rosetta was quiet and I heard Noah’s chair squeak as he shifted in it. “Who’s Gabe?” He repeated and I could hear a hint of teasing in his voice. Great. Exactly what I needed.
“He’s a hunter,” I said, hoping that would be enough. “Just a dumbass hunter.” Rosetta coughed and stood up, both Noah and I shifted our attention to her. “What?” I said. “He is.”
Rosetta sighed. “If the kid’s going to be dragged along for the ride, you’re going to have to tell him eventually.”
“No, I’m not,” I said. “Because he shouldn’t ever have to meet Gabe.” I turned to Noah who looked like he was about to protest. “He’s a hunter. That’s it. We’re not on friendly terms.”
“Anymore,” Rosetta coughed.
I gave her a cold, hard glare. “Pity, Rosetta. It sounds like age and all the sulfur in this house are beginning to catch up with you.” She gave me the finger.
“Whoa,” Noah said. “Now I know this is serious if Rosetta’s pulling out the middle finger. Seriously Bane, who is this guy?”
I sighed. Damn it. I hated it when Rosetta was right. I was going to have to tell him. One thing I’d learned about Noah in the last week was how incessant he was when he wanted to know something. Like a dog with a squeaky toy, eventually, he’d chew it out of you. And being stuck in a truck with him all day and night…
“Gabe was….we used to…..” I didn’t know what to say, how to finish. Something big and wearing a sharp-toed shoe was kicking me in the heart. It was a strange feeling. It made me feel the way I did when I lost a lot of blood or tore ligaments in my leg and had to limp around. Wounded, I guess.
“They used to live in sin,” Rosetta snapped. She was back. Rosetta Wesson; disgruntled, scandalized Sunday school teacher, in full regalia. She’d gone to the counter and lifted the lid off of a crockpot to stir the contents. The tantalizing smell of pot roast filled the kitchen.
“What do you mea….” Noah began, but his face suddenly went pale, and then his cheeks colored. “Oh.” He looked down at the table. “So you two...went out.”
I blew out a sigh. “I guess if you can call it that. We were working a couple of cases that had some cross over. We split long stakeouts, researching, that kind of thing.” I looked at Rosetta. “Thanks for the dramatics.”
Rosetta dipped a spoon into the pot roast gravy and tasted it before answering. “Well, that’s what you were doing. I couldn’t get a hold of you for five days after that case in Memphis was over. Last I had heard from you, the pair of you were going to drop by another hunter’s to check-in and then get dinner. I tried calling for days after that.”
I rolled my eyes. “So you just assumed we were doinking each other’s brains out?”
Noah’s face went even redder if that was possible. Rosetta slammed the lid back on the pot roast and turned back to look at me. “Correct me if I’m wrong!”
I scratched my neck. “Well, the hunter we were going to see was Leiderstein, you know, the big German guy in Memphis? I think his first name is Helmut,” I said. Rosetta nodded but said nothing, so I continued. “Well, some red-eyed dick weed was wearing him. He invited us in and we were all sitting there talking about the case when Helmut tried to garrotte me with a phone cord. Gabe filled Leiderstein’s pecs with rocksalt, both barrels, and I was able to slip out. Then Leiderstein’s neighbors, who were also being worn at the time, dog-piled on with knives and guns, and Gabe and I barely escaped. My cell phone fell out of my pocket as we beat our way to the truck. I’d been stabbed in the side,” I pulled up my shirt to show her the shiny white scar on my left hip. I caught a glimpse of the scar on my right hip from Rosetta’s ki
tchen window. Now, I guess they matched. I dropped my shirt after Rosetta looked satisfied. “And,” I couldn’t help the grin creeping across my face. “Gabe got stabbed in the ass.”
I heard a bark of laughter from Noah and even Rosetta shook her head and looked down trying to hide her smile.
“See?!” I said to Rosetta. “He is a dumbass. Tell me I’m wrong.” She just shook her head. “So we got in the truck and went to his safe house at the time and stitched each other up.” I didn’t feel like either of them needed to know what the ‘stitching each other up’ part had led to. I didn’t really need to think about it either. It already crept into my mind at night when the big picture went to static for a moment. “Anyways,” I said. “About five bottles of whiskey, ten boxes of Cap’n Crunch, and a two-day Looney Tunes marathon later, I was healed enough to travel. I tried to leave at first light and Gabe thought it would be funny to hide my keys. So I kicked him in the ass, forgetting about his stitches.” Rosetta chuckled this time. “Which opened up again. We were fighting and swearing at each other as I stitched him back up and long story short…”
“That’s where your suture needle is,” Noah interrupted, looking as if something had just dawned on him. “Last time we were here when Rosetta asked you where your suture needle was, you said, ‘jammed in the left ass cheek of some jerk in Tennessee.’”
I nodded. It was surprising that the kid had remembered something so trivial when we were burning and smudging a Hellgate in between killing a Rawhead and going demon hunting.
“So you never…” Noah started, his gaze fixed on me. I felt a strange heat climbing up my cheeks.
“I don’t need to know,” Rosetta said quickly. Then she looked at Noah. “And certainly he doesn’t need to know. A kid his age…”
“I’m eighteen,” Noah said, sitting up a little straighter.
It was weird to think about being eighteen. I’d spent what would have been both my sweet sixteen and my eighteenth in the holding cells in Hell. Time didn’t exist downstairs. Everything seemed to drag on forever, but the clocks didn’t move, there was no day and night and there was no sleep, so time just kept passing in the living world while I twiddled my thumbs in the pit.
“For what it’s worth,” Rosetta was saying, and I pulled my mind back from its stagger down memory lane. “He said to stay the hell away from Lancaster and Sister Smile’s crew. Especially right now. After they…”
“Shotgunned a keg of one hundred percent pure-octane demon fuel?” I asked.
Rosetta nodded and looked at me earnestly. “Bane, it may be too late to save…”
I shook my head. “Can’t be helped. I have to go look for him.”
“Festus?” Noah asked.
I nodded and then looked from Rosetta to Noah. “Why don’t you stay here with Rosetta for a couple of days? She can always use a hand around here, what with being so old and crotchety. She’s like a tree falling in the woods. If she’s crotchety and no one’s around, it still makes a sound but then her crankiness is wasted on the wall-walkers and poltergeists. And believe me, they’ve heard enough.” A spatula bounced off the side of my head and I turned to look at Rosetta.
“Like hell I’m staying,” Noah said, his voice rising in volume and pitch as he shoved his chair back. “Who’s going to stitch you up or... fix you up,” he said, raising his hands, palms up. “If the cannibals get a second bite at you?” I started to speak and he cut me off. “I mean, I’m not Gabe or anything, but I’ll bet I can use a suture needle if cauterizing won’t stop the bleeding.”
Oh, Noah. “Thank god for that,” I said. I looked at Rosetta who was looking disapproving again.
“So I suppose you two are going to take off at first light for Lancaster then?”
I shook my head and pushed my chair back. “We should get on the road now. It’s about a six-hour drive.”
Rosetta had just opened the oven door and now the smell of fresh bread was everywhere, mixing with the hearty smell of potatoes and pot roast in gravy. My stomach and Noah’s seemed to growl in unison.
“I suppose,” I said slowly. “We could wait until after dinner.”
The sun had set by the time the three of us put our forks down. We’d had to wait for the Huckleberry Buckle to come out of the oven and Rosetta had insisted on making homemade ice cream in her big old-fashioned churn. I knew what she was doing. She was running out the clock. She knew that if she could just keep us here until after sundown, the kid would be tired and I’d cave and let her talk me into staying the night.
After dinner, I helped her with the dishes while Noah took a shower and I couldn’t help getting in a jab for her oh-so-careful planning to keep us there. “So how’s Tags doing?” I asked her, unable to keep from smiling.
“Wipe that stupid grin off your face, Bane,” Rosetta huffed, taking the plate out of my hand to dry it. “You look like a dog who just ate its business.”
“Wow,” I said. “You southerners have disgusting sayings.”
“Right and you Kansas rednecks are all poet laureates,” Rosetta scoffed.
I wasn’t deterred. “So did Tags spend the weekend here?”
Rosetta was silent and I turned to look at her, watching her glare at the dish in her hand as she furiously scrubbed at a spot with the dishtowel.
“Went that good, huh?” I asked, dumping a cup full of dirty silverware into the soapy water. “Did you find a good place to stash the body?”
“I don’t know what I’ve ever said or done to make you think I want your nose in my business,” Rosetta growled. “But for your information, Taggert came for a visit. We had a lovely dinner and..”
I turned to give her my full attention. “And?” I asked, thankful she wasn’t holding one of the steak knives I’d just started scrubbing.
Her lips were pinched and she set the plate down on the counter, a little harder than was necessary. “We had a small disagreement and he left after.”
“Was there shooting involved?” I asked. “Did he make some comment about Big Joe?” Big Joe was Rosetta’s twelve-gauge shotgun that she slept with on the pillow next to her.
“No,” Rosetta said.
I rolled my eyes. “Did he try to convince you to move out of this hell hole?”
“Hellgate,” Rosetta snapped, and I knew I’d struck gold. “He tried to pull that, ‘I’m a man, I know what’s best’ horse puckey with me. When I tried several times to tell him why I couldn’t leave the Hellgate to some poor innocents to deal with, he said he wouldn’t live here.”
Oh, Tags. If he didn’t always put both feet in his mouth, he wouldn’t know why he had legs.
“And I told him,” Rosetta continued, snatching silverware from the water and making me spring away as she shook a fistful of knives and forks in my face. “That he wouldn’t be living here, so he could just take that rustbucket back to Indiana.”
Second mistake. Somehow, in the course of only a few hours, they’d managed to stab each other right in their psychological bed sores. Only an idiot would try to tell Rosetta what to do, especially about her house and only an idiot would insult Tags’ beat-up old Scout. At least to their faces. I gave Rosetta hell about the house but it was always teasing and mostly payback for her trying to mother me.
“So,” I said. “I take it he headed back to Indiana?”
Rosetta harrumphed and dumped the now dry silverware into an open drawer before ramming it home with her hip, “Either that or he headed to Illinois for that Kess Dorfin woman.”
I drained the sink but didn’t say anything. Kess Dorfin was a Celt Druid. The only one I’d ever known. She was the one who’d taught me about Pucas. She lived on a whole other plane than the rest of us, at least in her head. I tried not to smile at the look of annoyance on Rosetta’s face as she wiped down the counter.
“You think he and Kess are having some kind of…”