by S. A. Hunt
What he did remember was being badly frightened by the sight of giant pawprints, claws twice the size of his hands, in the sand around his improvised camp. At the time, he’d convinced himself that a mountain lion had come to investigate him during the night.
He flexed his aching hands now, studying them through the tears.
Let’s go find those whores, those tramps that hurt you, La Reina whispered in his head. Run them down. Grind them up in our gears. Burn them in our engines. They belong to us. This house belongs to us.
“Yes, Mother Mary,” Santiago said, lips brushed by dead gray grass. “Hallowed be thy name.”
The road belongs to us.
Track 5
“What do you mean, we won’t get the Winnebago back until morning? It was just a busted tire!” Robin had cornered the mechanic in his garage, her fists on her hips, and Jake, as his shirt said, was pressed against the wall, clutching a clipboard in both hands in a shielding manner. Some charcoal-and-rotten-eggs smell overpowered the sweat-and-motor-oil funk soaked into the cement.
“Well, you see, ma’am,” he said, taking the pen out from behind his ear. He fumbled it onto the floor.
Robin stared at him. Jake abandoned the pen.
“You see,” he began again, “when you put on the spare and let the Winnebago down off the jack, you—you did it too fast and bent the rim. So, it’s gonna need a new one … but these old ’Bagos, they got different rims, so I had to order you a new one. Got a guy comin’ out from San Antonio tomorrow with some parts, I asked him to bring one of those rims down with him, so I can put it on in the morning.”
First time the Smell happened—road rage at an Arizona traffic light just before Thanksgiving—she was mortified; she thought maybe there was a rotten egg in the RV, or God forbid, she’d shit her pants. Is it actually possible to be so angry you shit your pants? But after talking to Kenway about it, she realized it was her breath. When she was pissed off, her breath smelled like sulfur.
Brimstone.
In the dark garage, her eyes were luminescent. Only faintly so, almost a trick of the light, a suggestion of luster. Mechanic Jake’s eyes darted from her face to the GoPro camera on her chest and back to her face. It was turned off at the moment, but people still regarded the camera with suspicion.
“That okay?” he asked.
Robin sighed and relented, walking away. “Yeah, whatever.”
“Ain’t gonna be a whole lot more cost-wise, but it’s—”
“I’m not worried about the money,” she told him, walking backward a few paces. “I just want it done. And no fooling around in the engine, please. I don’t want any surprise nickel-and-diming. Tire and rim.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, coolly.
Felt like she was being too hard on him, but she’d been taken by mechanics before, back when she was driving the Conlin Plumbing van. He’ll probably tack on a little extra labor for the attitude, but better that than digging up extra engine problems like shitty little potatoes. Maybe she should send Kenway in to address the bill later. Just because she was a woman, they acted like they had all the leeway in the world to run over her, like she was some kind of bimbo that didn’t know what was going on when they talked about how it was gonna take three weeks to order a new part from China or God knows where. But discovering that you’re half-demon has a marvelous effect on one’s confidence, and she just didn’t have the patience for the runaround anymore. Better, she found, to let them think she’s a bitch and get shit done than to pussyfoot around and be forced to haggle for days over irrelevant engine issues. I checked your transmission fluid and found some other stuff wrong while I was in there. No, you didn’t, you lying prick. You changed my oil for no reason, even though I just did it myself two months ago. One of your other tires wasn’t holding air either, so I went ahead and replaced that one, too. Gee, thanks.
Not the best tactic at a restaurant, where people can spit in your food, but situations like this? Fair game.
An ancient bulldog stood out in the garage driveway, a scruffy little monster with the watery bloodshot eyes of an old pothead. He hobbled around, muttering and soliciting affection from the two men. Gendreau’s immaculate hands were crammed in his immaculate pockets; he wouldn’t have anything to do with the dog, so Kenway was doing all the petting. An airport pull-along sat on the oil-stained gravel next to the magician’s foot. His pinstripe vest was matched with a pair of tactically aged gray skinny jeans, making him look like a banker from Tombstone. Early-evening sun turned the scar on his neck pearlescent pink.
“So, what’s news, Miss Martine?” the magician asked dourly. Robin manhandled the dog while she imparted Jake’s tale of woe.
“Tryin’ to give you a rim job,” said Kenway.
“What?” asked Gendreau.
“Bent rim. Giving you the runaround. Rim job. Bent rim. Get it?”
Robin rolled her eyes and turned the GoPro on. “I get it, but I’m not sure I want it.”
“I ain’t complaining,” Kenway continued. “We can get a motel room for the night. Be nice to sleep on a real bed for a change, one with plenty of room to stretch out, and, God willing, a bathtub.”
All of the irritation drained from Robin’s face. The relief was so palpable, she almost fell over. “Oooh. Yes. A bathtub. Okay.” She went back into the RV and scooped some toiletries and clean clothes into a Walmart bag. She also grabbed her MacBook bag and the Osdathregar from its customary place—hidden under the mattress—and locked the Winnebago up.
After locking up, she opened the window over the kitchen sink to keep it from getting too stuffy in the Winnebago.
It would be safe there in the garage.
* * *
Earlier that afternoon at the Diner of the Ejaculating Footballs, they were polishing off their last few bites when Navathe had mentioned something about getting dessert, but Robin’s heart just wasn’t in it. Not in the mood for one of those dried-out-looking pieces of pie in the counter case. Not after a conversation about the hell-spiders that might or might not be inside her.
“So,” Robin said to Rook, trying to change the uncomfortable subject, “you said you were an Oreo.”
“An Origo, but, yes.”
“So, what does an Origo do? You never really elaborated.”
With a thoughtful sigh, Rook searched her mind for the words. “These relic objects and the teratoma elements don’t just fit together like puzzle pieces, or chocolate and peanut butter. They’re more like pickles and peanut butter. They have a strange affinity for each other in the end, but you have to make them play nice to tease that synergy out.”
“Wait,” said Kenway, “go back a bit.”
“What confused you?”
“The pickles-and-peanut-butter part. What? What is that?”
“Never had a pickle-and-peanut-butter sandwich?” asked Rook, disbelief flashing over her face.
“Uhh, no.”
Robin waved all this away. “We’ll talk about gross sandwiches later; right now, I want to know more about Orlando.”
“Origo?” asked Rook.
“That’s what I said.”
Navathe burst out laughing.
“We Origo are artificers,” continued Rook, with a disapproving head-shake. “We are editors of magic, singularly talented at ‘conductive semantics,’ or what we call shadow grammar, the rhythms, the rituals, and the syntax needed to pair heart-roads with items, imbue them with meaning, and to pair the completed relics with their potential users. You have to find just the right host object that will most efficiently, most powerfully, and most compatibly house that teratomatic matter.” She pointed to Navathe’s snow globe. “This took several years of trial and error with a dozen objects before we could find one that would respond to the rituals, accept the teratoma, and output an acceptable level of energy. But it only took three months for Navathe to attune to it.” Gesturing to Gendreau’s ring, she said, “This, however, only required three objects to find one that would re
ceive the lock of hair embedded in it. But it took a year and a half to find someone it resonated with and teach them how to channel the energy coming through the relic’s heart-road. It takes a lot of time and finesse.”
“So, why do you implant the teratoma matter into a conduit? Why don’t you just surgically insert the matter into the user?”
Giving a woof of horror, Gendreau interjected. “Incredibly dangerous. The teratoma would infect the person and turn them into a witch of Ereshkigal.”
“By the time the teratoma had set up enough to start channeling energy into the user, you’d have to kill them to get it back out,” said Rook. “It would start generating another avatar of Ereshkigal herself, just like Marilyn Cutty’s coven, their matron Yee-Tho-Rah, or any of the other witches you’ve hunted.”
“Something men don’t usually survive,” said Gendreau. “As for your other question, Miss Martine, about whether this is a new- employee orientation or a noose-fitting? Well, let’s just say it’s the next phase of your probationary period.”
Robin’s head tilted like a curious dog. “Probationary?”
“Frank didn’t fully trust the idea of relying on your YouTube videos for assessment,” said Navathe. “He wants a firsthand vantage point. Says it’s too easy to doctor the videos to exclude violent incidents and loss of control. The camera is too friendly.”
“But I’ve never lost control,” said Robin.
Kenway stepped in. “She hasn’t, that I’ve seen. Hell, she’s got more control than I do. Don’t ever let me get near a box of Fudge Rounds. Retirement has made me a fool for pogey bait.”
She poked the hulking veteran in the belly. “I try to keep the old man on the nutritional straight and narrow. I can’t hunt witches if my partner gets winded putting on his seat belt.”
“Hey, it was the one time, all right?”
“Well, there’s a difference between scarfing down junk food and losing your mind and killing people. So, Frank’s appointed someone to be your auditor,” said Rook, speaking over them, and she flicked a finger at Gendreau. “And he says that since Andy here has taken it upon himself to be your secret liaison, he can fill that role.”
Gendreau had been grinning at Robin and Kenway, but then his face fell. “What? Wait, me? You want me to go with them?”
“Not me, I don’t. Your grandfather. I guess since you’re the one that knows her the best, you’re the one most suited for the task. Personally, I think it’s him punishing you for hiding her over the winter.”
The curandero tugged down his shirt collar to fully reveal the scar from Karen Weaver’s knife. “Last time I rode into battle with Robin Martine, I got my throat cut. I almost died. If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to sit this one out. Watch from the sidelines.”
Rook rubbed her forehead, chagrined. “It’s not up to me. This is from Frank.”
“Yeah, well,” said Gendreau, getting fired up. He stiffened, as if he were about to get out of his chair. “Grandpa Frank can come stick his dick in the fire if he wants to. I’m a lover, not a fighter.” Robin was surprised; it had been the first time she’d ever really seen him lose his cool. One of the men sitting at the diner counter looked over his shoulder at them. “I know why he’s doing this, and it’s not funny. It’s not funny at all.”
“You know that’s not true.” Rook shook her head. “He loves you. He loves you for who you are. He’s not putting this on you to punish you for that. He’s assigning you to this because he believes in you.”
“Please excuse me,” said Gendreau, “if I think that’s horseshit.”
* * *
Rook and Navathe had departed to head for Killeen, where they would spend the night and catch a morning flight back to Michigan. Gendreau remained with Robin, and the magicians’ absence left him aloof and sulky. The self-appointed third wheel walked behind her and Kenway as they marched through Keyhole Hills. Everyone had retreated inside for dinner and evening TV, so they walked through a quiet postapocalyptic twilight of jack-o’-lantern windows. Dogs wurfed quiet warnings at them from the shadows. “So dry and dusty here,” he muttered to himself. The tiny pull-along luggage rattled and thumped along behind him. “Starting to miss Petoskey already.”
Robin slowed to match his pace and slipped her hand under his elbow so they walked with linked arms. “You don’t have to be afraid to ride with me,” she told him. He was almost a foot taller, so she had to look up at his pale, fine-featured face. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”
His chin subconsciously dipped to hide his scar.
“That night in the Lazenbury really messed you up, didn’t it?”
“I almost died.” The corners of his mouth twitched downward. “If you’d asked me a year ago if I cared about living or dying, why, I’d have to give it legitimate consideration. For a long time, I’ve never been the most … vibrant soul. I’ve had a long, strange, hard life. But after lying on that parquet floor, frantically trying to remember how to knit flesh back together as my life’s blood pumped through my fingers, I…”
He trailed off.
“You’re not carrying your bull-pizzle cane,” said Robin.
“You destroyed the relic that was in it.” Wasn’t said accusingly, only a droll statement of fact.
“To save your life.”
Gendreau finally looked at her. His mouth was set in a firm line, but his eyes were glazed with distant fear. “And I overflow with gratitude for it.”
They continued to walk. Eventually he said, “I traded the cane for a ring.” He extended a hand to display the gaudy fixture on his left index finger. The ruby darkled in the evening light with red depth. Something was lodged inside like a piece of fruit in cherry Jell-O. “Certainly more convenient than carrying around a three-foot bull penis. But I’m still learning how to use it. I carried the cane around for eight years. Only had the ring since Thanksgiving.”
“So, it took time?”
“Yes. Like Rook said, the relics serve as conduits for the teratomas, and it took time to attune to the relic, to learn how the conduit works—how to work the power inside. It’s sort of like being a soldier with a gun. He has to be trained in how to use it accurately, and to familiarize himself with it, to be effective.”
“Why do you need the conduit, anyway?” Robin asked. “I mean, I know the teratoma can’t be implanted into you. But why can’t you just hold the matter?”
“Unlike you, Miss Martine, we human mages can’t utilize the raw power inside the teratoma. We don’t have any natural function or limb or organ for that. Going back to that soldier, it’d be like giving him a handful of bullets with no gun and asking him to go out and do his job. Sure, he could probably fetch up a pair of pliers and a hammer and make it work, but it wouldn’t be very useful or accurate—and he would probably hurt himself in the process. I don’t think we can even do that.”
The three of them paused at a Wendy’s to let a Range Rover trundle out onto the highway.
“You’ve also got to consider compatibility.” Gendreau loosened the elaborate knot in his necktie. “The magician’s mental fortitude must be up to the task for harnessing the power in the relic, or bad things can happen. As you well know, the teratomas are all pieces of the death-goddess Ereshkigal, and all the relics derive their power from her.”
“With you so far.”
“If the relic is too strong for the magician, it will corrupt them. She can’t reincarnate herself through a relic—the teratomas must be embedded in organic tissue to mature and metastasize—but she can still reach you here,” he said, tapping his head. “She can get to your mind. She can manipulate you.”
“Sounds like you folks walk a razor’s edge.”
“We do, we do. Dangerous dance, Miss Martine.”
A dry breeze shifted up the street, blowing a paper bag along the gutter. The scent of hamburgers washed over them in a warm, fragrant wave. “You can call me Robin, you know.”
“I know.”
“Do you feel more comfortable calling me Miss Martine?”
“I do. For now.”
“Okay.” She thought for a moment as they walked. “So, are there artifacts too powerful for any of you to use?”
“I’m sure there are, but the Origo keep a pretty tight lock on them. Rumor has it there’s one for resurrection, one that can manipulate time. One that can kill with a glance. But I’ve never seen them. They’re all kept in a big warded vault in our place in Michigan.”
The motel was a horseshoe-shaped collection of suites with a Tommy Bahama theme. She paid extra for the “El Presidente,” which was what passed for a deluxe suite in a motel where a third of the rooms were occupied by full-time residents. The room was done up in tasteful shades of ecru and blue; the curtains were white linen and looked like sails. The bathroom was tiny, a pass-through they shared with Gendreau, who took the suite next door. A rear corner was occupied by a great big oval bathtub with jets in the bottom.
“Hell yeah,” said Kenway, taking off his shirt and shoes.
The TV was a tube television probably a decade old. Robin flipped through channels until she stopped seeing commercials. “Animal Planet,” she said into the GoPro’s all-seeing eye. “Good enough.” She turned it off.
“Saw a frozen yogurt place down the street,” Gendreau said, peeking in. “I’m craving chocolate. You two want me to bring you back anything?”
“Surprise me,” said Robin.
The magician gave them a thumbs-up and disappeared into his suite.
Wasn’t long before both of them had stripped and were sitting in lukewarm water, jets going full blast. Water gurgled and foamed like fresh champagne. Kenway dunked his face and slicked his hair out of his eyes. “Tell you what, there ain’t nothin’ like a cold bath on a hot day.”
“Like a tropical pool,” said Robin, her head resting on the edge. She closed her eyes.
“Well.”
“Well what?” she asked.