by D V Wolfe
“Not when it’s going to mean your death!” Rosetta yelled.
“What if it was Tags? Or Noah, or Stacks, Gabe, me? Wouldn’t you go?” I yelled back.
“That’s different!” Rosetta screamed.
“Why? Because Festus is a demon?” I asked.
“Yes!” Rosetta shouted. “He deserves what’s coming to him.”
“Why? Because of everything bad he’s done?”
“Yes!”
“Like sending people to Hell?” I screamed.
“Yes!”
I dropped my arm. “If you believe that, then why are you trying to protect me?”
Rosetta began sputtering, “That’s...different…”
I pushed past Rosetta and moved into the house, heading down the hallway. Noah was running behind me.
“Bane, what are you doing?” Noah asked.
“Leaving,” I said. “I’m going to get Festus.”
“I’ll load the truck,” Noah said.
I stopped and looked at him. “You shouldn’t come.”
“Try to stop me,” Noah said, glaring at me.
I didn’t have time to argue. I threw the radio back in my duffle and grabbed it off the floor.
“Bane, wait!” Tags was coming down the hall after me. “Don’t be an idiot. Walter said...the full moon…”
“Yeah, well the ‘almighty powerful’ Walter, who demons supposedly can’t interfere with, was cut off from his powers by a human spirit. I can’t do anything about Walter’s ‘vision’ but I can do something about mine. I’m going to get Festus. If I go now, I should be able to get him before the full moon.”
Tags blocked the doorway. “Out of my way,” I said. Tags and I glared at each other.
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Tags said.
“What else is new,” I said.
Tags still didn’t move. I sighed and turned around, heading for Rosetta’s front door. I stomped outside, Noah trailing behind me, carrying his bag. I popped the toolbox and threw my bag in.
“Uh, what about the keys?” Noah asked quietly. I sighed and stomped back around the truck and yanked Rosetta’s back gate open.
“Bane,” Stacks said. “Harbingers are never wrong. If Walter saw your death on the full moon…”
“Then I’ll just have to be in and out before Friday, won’t I,” I said. I pushed past Stacks and stood at the foot of the porch steps, glaring at Rosetta. “Please, Rosetta, give me back my keys,” I said, through gritted teeth.
“You stupid, stupid girl,” Rosetta said, and I could hear her voice shaking as she said it. “Three days. Can’t you just wait three days until after the full moon to go hunting?”
“If I wait,” I spat, “Festus will be dead.”
Rosetta was shaking her head. “You wouldn’t know good sense if it bit you on the ass. You’re willing to throw away your last chance, and the last chance for all those people’s souls on a worthless demon.”
I shook my head. “Not a worthless demon. For my friend. Now give me, my goddamned keys.”
“Bane, I’m telling you for the last time. Knock this shit off. He’s made his bed and now he has to sleep in it.”
“Well so have I! You’re not my mother, you’re not my jail warden. Just give me my fucking keys!” I could feel the time slipping by and this stupid game was causing my mouth to bypass my brain. I could feel the anger swelling inside me, turning to rage.
“No!” Rosetta shouted. “You’re acting like a spoiled brat!”
“I’m acting like a brat? Rosetta, for the last day and a half, you’ve kept us all here, doing chores for you and we’ve done it and we’ve smiled, all to keep you happy! Now, I don’t care if it makes you ‘unhappy’, Rosetta, I’m going after Festus. So come down off that ‘holier than thou’ soapbox, accept the trophy for being the world’s biggest hypocrite and give me my keys!” I shouted.
Rosetta pulled them out of her pocket and pitched them at me like a fastball. I was stunned by the look of hurt and anger on her face and I didn’t catch them, but my face did. I felt the hard metal dig into my eyebrow, knocking my head back with the force. I ignored the stinging pain and bent to pick them up.
I looked up, but Rosetta was gone, back into the house. Tags and Stacks stood on the back porch, staring at me like I was already dead.
“Have a nice life, Bane,” Tags growled. I turned to look back at him. He was stomping up the stairs, heading back inside after Rosetta.
Stacks shook his head. “Whatever is left of it.” He followed Tags back inside. I turned and headed back to Lucy, a terrible cramping pain eating at my gut.
Gabe had rolled his bike back out of the gate and he was standing with it, next to Lucy.
“Bane, Rosetta is your oldest friend…”
“And she’s out of line,” I said.
“She just…” Gabe started.
I held up a hand. “Gabe, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to regret or reflect, or many other ‘r’ words later, but right now, I have to go.” I turned back to Lucy and stuck the key in the door. I opened it and reached across to unlock Noah’s door.
“Which one are you going to head for?” Gabe asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Walter. The phone rang and rang. No answer. “Walter’s not picking up.”
“Let me try,” Gabe said. He punched some buttons and waited while it rang. “Walter,” Gabe said. “Yeah, it’s Gabe. About those two storm fronts…” Gabe was quiet while he listened. “Do you think it could be the cannibals that are consuming demon flesh?” More waiting. “Oh, I see. Thanks. Thanks, anyway, Walter.” Gabe hung up.
“Well?” I asked.
Gabe shook his head. “Walter can’t be sure on either of them. He said that he smelled sulfur on both fronts, so definitely some demon activity.” Something Nya had said, echoed in my head.
“Nya thinks the demons will be trying to raise Ber-...the Duke again. So, I suppose it could be that.”
Gabe blew out a heavy breath. “What do you want to do?”
There was only one thing to do. “We need to check out both of them. If it’s the Duke rising, we need to stop it, if it’s the cannibals, well, same thing.” I could feel the skin over my eye beginning to swell where the keys had made contact.
“Are you ok?” Gabe asked, his eyes darting up to the wound.
“Fine,” I said.
“Well, which one do you want to check out?” Gabe asked. “I’ll take the other one.”
I locked eyes with Gabe. “Gabe, you don’t have to do this. I know what kind of pressure is already on you. Your death would be even worse than mine.”
Gabe held up a hand. “Which one do you want?”
I sighed. “I guess I’ll take Oklahoma.”
Gabe nodded. “Then I’m heading to Missouri.” He turned to his bike and pulled his helmet out of a saddlebag. He paused and then turned and gave me a piercing stare. “And we call each other when we get there and see what’s what. Then we decide which one is more pressing and we meet up to take them down, together, one mess at a time, right?”
I hesitated. To me, the cannibals were the bigger threat. Festus’ life hung in the balance. If the Duke rose, I’d hunt him next and give him some Solomon’s Spice acupuncture. Of course, there was the possibility that he’d wreak some major havoc before I got to him, but so would the cannibals. Hell, they’d already hit that benchmark.
“Bane,” Gabe said.
I looked at him and nodded. “Yeah. Yes. Together.” He didn’t look entirely convinced. “Hey, I’m no hero. When we know what’s what, we’ll call in every form of back up we can think of and take all the help we can get.”
Gabe locked eyes with me and I felt my heart rate speeding up, but it wasn’t from dread.
“Be careful,” Gabe said.
“You too.”
He fired up his bike and I climbed behind the wheel, plugging the key into the ignition and rolling the
engine over. I raised my hand to my nose. I could smell Rosetta’s perfume on the keys, clinging to them from their time in her dress pockets. I glanced up at the old house and a suffocating feeling of grief pressed against me. Would I ever see her or this place again?
“We’ll apologize when we get back,” Noah said softly. I looked over to see him staring at the back of the house too.
“Let her yell at us,” I said.
“Throw kitchen utensils,” Noah added.
“We’ll weed her garden beds.”
“And cuss, just so she can tell us off.”
I wanted to smile, but I had the horrible feeling that a door had closed, and permanently sealed itself off.
“So, Oklahoma?” Noah asked.
“Oklahoma,” I said. The uneasiness in my gut was stronger now as I backed out and headed down the alley. I braced myself on the steering wheel and moved us through town.
18
Sicily, Oklahoma was a fourteen-hour drive from Rosetta’s house. Neither one of us wanted to talk about the events that led to us getting on the road. I was dealing with it, by not talking at all. Noah, on the other hand, was talking about everything else he could think of.
“I hope it’s the cannibals,” he said. “I’m ready to end those fuckers.” I cut my eyes to him but didn’t say anything. “Do you think I can have something that holds more rounds than the ten-gauge? I mean, I don’t want to put five of them down and then get swarmed while I’m trying to reload.”
I snorted. “Wouldn’t want that.”
“Yeah,” Noah said. “So I was thinking, maybe the .45 would be a good idea. I mean it has like twenty shots, right?”
“Seven in the clip, one in the chamber,” I said. I had a hard time fighting the grin that was trying to form on my face. “Sorry, I didn’t know I’d been holding you back all this time.”
“Well, I’ve really got it figured out now. And I mean, the cannibals are just human, right? As long as I don’t take a bath in meat tenderizer before facing them, I should be able to take them.”
I nodded. “Solid plan, not bathing in meat tenderizer. What about the demon’s supernatural special sauce they’ve been ingesting?”
Noah shrugged. “I mean, it’s been almost two weeks since St. Louis, wouldn’t the demon stuff be about out of their systems by now? Maybe they’re back to being just human-eating humans.”
I nodded. “Solid hypothesis. If it is the cannibals, how do you think Walter’s been able to track them if they don’t have any supernatural vibes they’re sending out?”
This one took Noah a minute. I let him turn the question over while I merged us onto 64 West.
“Festus!” Noah crowed suddenly. “I’ll bet he’s sending out some kind of beacon that Walter is picking up on.”
“Must be some heavy-duty shit if it’s showing up as a whole storm front. Do you think he’s wearing one of those lightning-rod hats or something to make his signal stronger?”
Noah opened his mouth to answer and then glared at me, realizing I was messing with him. He reached over and turned on the radio and we settled in to listen. Along the way, we stopped at truckstops to refuel. We ate while we drove and a little after midnight, we passed the sign telling us that Sicily was twenty-seven miles ahead. I glanced down at my phone. No call from Gabe.
“We’re making good time,” Noah said. “Didn’t you say it was a fourteen-hour drive? Looks like we’re going to make it in a little over thirteen.”
I nodded. “Gabe should have hit Salvation by now. Salvation was only about twelve hours from Rosetta’s.”
Noah shrugged. “Maybe traffic is bad or he would actually have to stop to eat, instead of eating while in motion, like an animal.”
“Do you know of any animal that eats while they’re running?” I asked. Noah was quiet after that. Every mile we got closer to Sicily, we could feel the temperature dropping and the wind starting to pick up, pushing Lucy around on the highway. I tightened my grip on the wheel to keep her on the road.
“Shit,” Noah said, reaching for the heater. “It’s freezing.”
I nodded. “Well, I think we’ve come to the right place.” I hoped Gabe wasn’t hitting a quick temperature drop like this. I knew he took pristine care of his Triumph, but it was an old bike and I knew it could be temperamental when the weather changed. I grabbed my phone. To hell with it, I’d call him. I needed to know he’d made it. I flipped my phone open and hit the two on speed dial. It rang and rang and then went to his voicemail, which was just him clearing his throat and the beep.
“Call me,” I said. “We’re just outside Sicily and we definitely just stumbled onto something. I hope the weather is treating you well up north.” I hung up.
“No answer?” Noah asked. I nodded. “Well, if he’s riding, he might not have heard it ring and he definitely couldn’t answer it.”
That was probably it. I did my best to push Gabe to the back of my mind along with everything else I was currently avoiding thinking about. I slowed down and took the exit towards Sicily, and then picked my phone up again.
Noah rolled his eyes. “You calling him again already?”
“Calling Walter. I don’t want to just joy ride around Sicily looking for a fight.”
“Oh,” Noah said, settling back in his seat. “Good idea.”
I hit the six on speed dial this time and waited while it rang. It rang six times and then the line was silent. I looked over at Noah. “No answer.”
The winds had picked up and a sudden gust shoved us across the highway and into a shallow ditch. I’d dropped the phone as soon as I realized Lucy was being pushed sideways on her tires. Noah screamed and I turned into the push to keep us from rolling. The wind picked up the loose red clay in our headlights and blocked out the road ahead. I eased Lucy forward, feeling her front tires dig into the side of the ditch as we slowly climbed back up onto the road. I put every ounce of muscle I had behind the wheel to get us turned back into the lane and heading towards Sicily again.
“This is like tornado season in Kansas,” I said. I grinned at Noah. “One of the four recognized seasons in the state.”
Noah groaned and covered his eyes as we barreled down the highway, which was in a full brown-out, blocking out everything more than a foot or two in front of the truck. “This is bad,” he muttered. “This is really bad.”
“Wishing you’d stayed back at Rosetta’s?” I asked.
Noah was quiet for a second. “No,” he said. “I’m wishing we’d put Festus on a leash.”
“Good plan. Let’s do that when we get him back,” I said, groaning as I fought to keep us from hitting the ditch again.
Hail started pounding down on us as we rolled into town. The red dust clouds dissipated for a moment and we could see the main street ahead of us. I paused at a four-way stop.
“Well, without any guidance from Walter, we’ll have to find them ourselves. What do you think? Right, left, or center?” I said, raising my voice so that Noah would be able to hear me over the pings and thumps of hail hitting the cab roof.