Hell Fire

Luckless Bastard

By one p.m., we had a trunkful of bulk spices. We’d driven to a neighboring town to pick up most of them. More interesting, twenty miles away, nobody seemed to have heard of Kilmer. They’d never even driven through.

We stood outside the public library while I snapped pictures of the building’s exterior with Chance’s phone. When I thought I’d gotten all the angles, we went inside. I studied the screen and, sure enough, as the door closed behind us, five bars lit up on the device, as opposed to the straggly one or two we got anywhere else in town.

I gave it back. “Can you take some pictures of the inside and then send the lot to Booke? Do you have his e-mail?”

“Sure,” he said, and glanced around the interior as if deciding where to start.

Once he’d gone, I dug my cell out of my pocket. The librarian glared at me from the desk, so I moved away from the front door. Somewhere in the middle of History and Philosophy, I took a look. I had more messages from Jesse, but none from Booke. First thing, I called Saldana, knowing he was probably here—or nearly so—by now, depending on what time he’d left Texas. I had never been so happy to hear a call connect.

He answered on the first ring, his voice warm, worried, and touched with a Texas drawl. “Corine, are you all right? Where are you?”

“At the library,” I told him, keeping my voice low. “It’s the only place my phone works. Things are weird. I’ll tell you more when you arrive.” I wanted to say I was touched that he’d drop everything to come looking for me, but I couldn’t find the words, so I went with a question instead. “Where are you?”

A long silence followed, but background noise told me he was driving. “I have no idea,” he said at last. “I can’t find the town. GPS has never heard of it.”

“Booke said there was no reference to Kilmer anywhere online, either. If you’re totally off course, I suggest finding a library and looking for archived maps, anything before 1900. If that doesn’t work, go earlier . . . until you find it. It’s here.” I paused. “Even if the rest of the world seems to have forgotten about the place. For now, though,” I went on, “look for a road sign. There should be something posted about the next town.”

“Yeah. There’s one coming up—looks like Darien. I’m five miles away.”

“You’re fairly close.” I gave him directions to the house from the road he was driving on. “We’ll meet you there in two hours. If you have trouble, text me. If I’m not here, I may not be able to answer, but I can come looking for you.”

“And vice versa.” I heard the smile in Jesse’s voice as he rang off.

Then I called Booke. It was so weird that we couldn’t call out anywhere else. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen pay phones anywhere in this godforsaken town.

“I have bad news, good news, and maybe more bad,” he reported.

“Bad first, then good, please.”

“You sent me a mixture of burnt cat hair, ground bone dust, powdered stinkweed, and . . . one thing I can’t seem to isolate. If it’s been transmuted as a result of the spell, I may never know what it was.”

“The spell or the component?”

“Both,” he said, sounding unhappy. “Right now, it could be a spell meant to cause genital warts, prevent attacks from unfriendly spirits, make you grow hair on your back and develop unpleasant body odor, or summon a demonic cat to smother—”

“And that’s the bad news?” I figured he could go on like that for a while. “What’s the good?”

“Well. None of those things has happened, right?”

Only Booke would ask that, though I did give my arm-pits a tentative sniff. “Nope.”

“Then the spell might have been interrupted when you fled the bed-and-breakfast.”

“Great. Finally, something swings our way.”

“Or . . . ,” he said, hesitant, “it might have been cast with a timer or trigger.”

“So it could go off like a bomb if we put a foot wrong.” I rubbed my forehead. I’d never wished harder that I had my mother’s abilities instead of a relatively worthless and limited gift like the touch. “That’d be the other bad news, right?”

“Unfortunately, yes. You need someone to cleanse all your possessions, but I suspect you don’t have anyone handy who could.”

“Not right here, no.”

I thanked him and rang off. If we were to get a witch out here, I’d need to visit Area 51—a message board that the Gifted used to communicate—and ask around. We might be able to use Chance’s phone to connect to the Net and do it that way, but it would have to be before closing time. After five p.m., we were on our own.

Chance found me a few minutes later. “Anything?”

First I relayed what Booke had told me; then I borrowed his phone. It took fifteen minutes for me to log into Area 51 and post a request for someone to perform a cleansing. Maybe we’d get a nibble, maybe not. If nothing else, before we left the library, we should talk to the handyman again. Mr. McGee might remember something from years ago, and he looked ornery enough that he wouldn’t care about keeping other people’s secrets.

“Quick,” I said. “Downstairs. Don’t let the librarian catch us.”

We ran Mr. McGee to ground in the basement. It wasn’t hard. He was sitting at a table, listening to an old transistor radio. To my ears, it sounded like the whispers and hisses of mechanical failure—no music or words broke the soft, sibilant hiss.

“What’re you listening to, sir?” Chance spoke first, politely announcing our presence so we didn’t startle him.

We came around the other side. I find it difficult to hold a conversation with someone’s back. In this case, it didn’t help any. Whether some trick of shadows or light, his eyes appeared blind, all darkness devoid of iris or pupil. He turned his face toward us.

The old man said in a vacant voice, “Dead people.”

If he intended to frighten me, well, it worked. Icy fingers crept down my spine, and I could imagine I heard ghost whispers buried in the mechanical static—broken phrases and pleas for salvation. Now and then, I could almost make out the words. It felt as though the sound burnt itself into my brain, as if my flesh fused with the signal. Despite myself, I edged closer to Chance, who wound an arm around my shoulders.

“Can you understand them?” I asked quietly.

Mr. McGee tapped his gnarled fingertips against the table, yellowed nails sounding like chitin-shelled insects beneath a boot. “Sometimes,” he said at last. “More often than not, these days. They say you can only hear them if you’re near death yourself. Can you make out what they’re saying, missy?”

The question hit me like a fist in the chest. My lips felt numb. A charged tingle shot up my spine and out the top of my head. I felt compelled to answer; the truth spilled out of me like a black ribbon, linked to the awful ink of his eyes.

“Help us.” I mouthed the words, nearly soundless. “They’re saying, ‘Help us.’”

Chance cut me a sharp look, as if wondering whether I was playing along, humoring the old bastard. I wished to hell I was. The infernal chorus had coalesced for me; I heard a thousand souls moaning in torment, begging for deliverance.

“Ah,” McGee said, nodding. “Ah. Poor pretty thing.” If he hadn’t been so damn terrifying, I would’ve dismissed him as nuts and walked away. But I couldn’t seem to move. “I wondered when y’all would come back,” he went on.

“You knew we’d be back?” Chance asked, lofting a brow. He didn’t seem afflicted with the same raw horror that weighted my bones.

“I know everything about this town worth knowing.”

“Then you know what happened at the Solomon house,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

He peered at me, seeming surprised for the first time. “You’re her. The one who got away. Oh, missy, you ought not to have come back. They’ll do for you this time for sure.”

Excitement shivered through me. “They, who? I need names, Mr. McGee.”

But he seemed lost in a fit of dementia. “They thought I didn’t know. And I didn’t, not for a long while, but I heard it on the radio. I know. I know—” He began to choke, a hideous red froth burbling from his tobacco-stained lips.

Chance grabbed for the old man as he fell, and I ran, screaming, for the stairs. When I got back, Chance had given up on resuscitation. I stood there, trembling, soothing Butch with a touch to his head. He scented death in the air and gave a little whimper. I knew he wanted to leave. So did I.

The basement turned into a confused nightmare of agitated questions and implications of blame. Two young men from the funeral home arrived first, followed by the sheriff, and then the doctor. As they argued, Mr. McGee lay stretched out on the basement floor, dead as a doornail. He gave off a faint odor similar to the powder we’d found lining our doorway at the bed-and-breakfast.

Chance had the guy’s blood all over him. He’d done his level best to save him, but whatever got him had been inexorable.

The country doc knelt, gave a cursory look, and then pulled out a notepad. “John McGee, aged seventy-six. Apparently suffered a seizure, possibly stroke related. Time of death”—he checked his watch, an old-fashioned wind-up one—“one forty-five p.m.”

I could hear the librarian trying to keep order upstairs. Chance, the sheriff, and a couple of guys from the funeral home stood watching the doctor complete his rudimentary exam. To me, it looked like he just poked McGee here and there to make sure he was deceased.

There were no body bags here. While they wrapped him in a sheet, I edged closer to the worktable. Expecting to be caught at any moment, I edged McGee’s old cream and chrome radio into my bag. Butch yelped a little, which drew their attention back to me. It didn’t take much to look as though I were restraining loud, noisy sobs.

The sheriff put me in mind of a basset hound. Robinson had thinning brown hair, a weathered face with generous jowls, and a sizable gut on a short, spindly-limbed frame. Our chance of getting away without trouble seemed slim.

“Let’s go on up,” he said. “I’m going to need to ask y’all some questions.”

“Yes, sir.” I made my voice meek as I preceded him up the stairs.

We sat down at a library table near the back. They hadn’t yet taken us down to the courthouse, but I was pretty sure they would—in time. Chance told our story concisely, which was good, because I had a wiggly dog stashed between my knees and stolen goods hidden in my bag.

Robinson listened without comment, and then he turned to me. He couldn’t seem to grant Chance as much as a glance without going green around the gills. Admittedly, my ex did look a sight, blood-spattered as he was. “I’d like it in your words now, miss.”

In the background, I heard the librarian shooing towns-people away. She’d managed to get the doors locked after the man from the funeral home took the body away. Apparently they wouldn’t be calling a CSI unit to the scene. Imagine my surprise.

“We went down to visit with him.” That seemed nice and innocuous. “I lived here, years ago, and I’ve been paying respects to folks I knew back then.”

They could verify that part with Miz Ruth, at least. I hadn’t known Mr. McGee from Adam, but I didn’t see any point in advertising the fact. It wasn’t like the maintenance man could contradict me at this point, poor old soul.

“You’re from Kilmer?” The sheriff pushed up the brim of his hat, eyeing me with bloodshot eyes.

“Yes, sir.” I opened my eyes wide. Older Southern men were often suckers for respectful manners. Maybe it would work here, though cops generally hated me on sight—and the antipathy was mutual. But my twin plaits and lack of makeup probably made me look younger; another good thing.

“I need your name for the record, honey.”

Nothing like announcing yourself to your enemies, but I did wish it hadn’t killed Mr. McGee. After this, nobody would doubt who I was or what I wanted. Chance tensed, and his hand went to my knee, squeezing, silently begging me to lie.

I knew why. This was dangerous, dangling myself as bait. To his mind, I might as well rub sirloin on my bare ass and run around in the woods yelling, Here I am.

“Corine Solomon,” I said deliberately, watching the sheriff’s face.

He wrote it down dutifully in his little notebook. “Sounds familiar.”

I let that go. If he didn’t know and did some digging, he’d find out soon enough. “I lived here until I was eighteen. Now I’m on vacation and catching up with folks I haven’t seen in a while. It’s such a pretty little town.”

Robinson practically glowed. “That’s surely true. You just don’t find places like Kilmer anymore.”

Not outside of hell, anyway. My smile didn’t falter.

“I’m sorry if we broke the rules,” I said quietly. “Mr. McGee had told us to come see him anytime we liked.”

Also not true, but again, who would know?

“Did y’all talk about anything that might have upset him?” Robinson asked, clearly trying to be delicate.

I pretended to think about that. “No, sir. He was telling us about wanting to start a home repair business, when he started to choke. I got scared and ran for help. I think Chance tried to revive him, but he’s not a doctor or anything.” I sounded ridiculously guileless, but Robinson seemed to be buying it, lock, stock, and barrel.

“Well, I guess it’s not so unusual for an old gent like McGee to keel over. I’m sorry you had to see it.” He patted my forearm. I tried not to tense, but I was terrified he’d notice the scars on my palms and start looking closer at me in other regards.

“It was scary,” was all I could think to say. To my vast relief, he took his hand away and closed his notebook.

“Here’s how it’s going to have to be,” he told us. “The doc will check out old Mr. McGee down at the funeral home in the morning. I’m sure things happened just like you said, but just in case Doc finds evidence otherwise, I’m going to detain one of y’all overnight, just to make sure you don’t run off.” He offered a friendly smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes when he looked at Chance. “That would surely make fools of us, if y’all got away with murder.”

That was crap, but I knew Robinson didn’t have to be polite or reasonable about it. Here, the law operated however he wanted it to. Hell, even in big cities, they could hold a suspect for up to twenty-four hours for “questioning.” I wasn’t sure about these circumstances, but personal rights seemed to be shrinking all the time. I started to object, but Chance silenced me with a gesture.

“I don’t mind,” he said quietly. “In the interest of full cooperation, I can take a night in custody.”

As Sheriff Robinson led Chance away, I had a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Divide and conquer, right? I wondered if either of us would last the night.