Last Exit Read online

  It was almost as though he’d been watching my dreams. For a man whose only talent was spirit medium, just like me, he was pretty damn good at guessing what I was thinking. I couldn’t manage more than a grunt in response.

  “Have you heard from Tanner?” Shelly pushed her half-eaten breakfast away.

  I shook my head.

  “Have you left him a message apologizing for whatever you did?” Cecil lit a cigarette.

  Shelly gasped. “Peri Jean does not owe that man, or any other, an apology.”

  Cecil gave his wife the finger.

  I shook my head again but understood something new. Neither Shelly nor Cecil believed I could fight off Oscar. Between Mysti, Tanner, or the Wanderer, they thought the answer to survival lay with someone other than me. The coffee maker finished. I got up, poured a cup, and went to the door, cigarettes in hand.

  “Chilly out there. Fall’s coming." Cecil took off his flannel shirt and held it up.

  I set my stuff down, took the shirt from Cecil, and put it on. Then I kissed his cheek. He patted my back. I lit a cigarette and went outside. The cool, humid air cut through my clothes, calling for chill bumps on my arms.

  Hannah sat on the hood of a junked car. Tubby stood nearby, pinwheeling his arms and talking in a loud voice. Hannah giggled at whatever he said. She saw me coming and turned her attention away from Tubby.

  He stopped what he was doing and hurried to me. “You sleep good?”

  I shrugged. The real answer was no. My head swam from lack of sleep and whatever poison still lurked in my body.

  A black SUV crept down the road in front of the hotel. The window rolled down, and Griff leaned out, squinting at the Snake Creek Hotel. I ran out so he could see me, waving and pointing where he needed to park.

  Griff pulled off the road and drove around the side of the second building. I followed, relief surging through me. Griff and Mysti would know what to do. They always did.

  But when my friends got out of their vehicle, they looked more beaten than I did. Mysti had a bruise forming on one cheek, and scratches covered her arms. Griff moved stiffly, as though he’d suffered some injury his clothes covered. Closer inspection revealed dots of blood soaking through his shirt.

  “Are you okay?” I pointed at the blood.

  “Damn dogs clawed me. Every time I move around, the cuts open again.” Sad lines bracketed his mouth. “They killed the people we’d come to help,”

  There was nothing worse for Griff. He may have worked in the supernatural world, but he took helping people seriously.

  “It’s because of me. I’m so very sorry.” Shame took a heavy seat on my shoulders.

  Both Griff and Mysti shrugged, as though this was the way things went, the risks people like us took on. Maybe it was.

  “There’s coffee inside. Shelly and Cecil had eggs and bacon.” My stomach rumbled at the thought of food. I hadn’t had anything since before Oscar’s attack.

  “Sis!” Brad yelled from behind me. He shoved me out of the way and grabbed Mysti in a hug. He squeezed his eyes shut, and I realized how much he must have missed the safety of his big sister. Growing up orphans, Mysti had been his rock all his life.

  Jadine trailed behind Brad, aluminum cane in one hand, sightless eyes set at a point in the distance. Griff approached and spoke to her. She smiled and hugged him.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance. We all watched the sky as though Oscar and his murderers might come down right now.

  Mysti went to the SUV and got out her laptop. “Let’s go inside. We need to talk about what I think we’re dealing with here.”

  A few minutes later, Shelly and Jadine stood at the stove frying more bacon. Mysti and Griff listened as I told them everything I’d experienced from eating the hag’s magical core to finding out about the Gregorius Witch and my ultimate destiny.

  Griff took a sip of coffee. “I’m surprised eating that little monster’s magic didn’t kill you.”

  “I think it came close.” I didn’t go into that awful smelling funk water Priscilla Herrera made me drink. Mysti would want me to guess what had been in it. Instead I dug in my pocket and came out with the hag’s heart in my fist. I dropped it on the table. “I kept a souvenir.”

  A hush fell over the room. The hard little heart rocked back and forth, ruby crystals glinting in the harsh overhead lights. Coolness crept over my skin. It was the kind of chill felt in places that poked the primitive part of the brain and told it to hit the road.

  “What are you going to do with it?” Griff’s lips turned down as he studied the thing.

  I shrugged. “Sell it. Trade it. Use it to make a potion.”

  Mysti, using a ballpoint pen, moved the heart where she could get a better look.

  “Even dead, it’s powerful.” She pushed it toward me, my signal to put the thing up. “Use it well.”

  Mysti winked and changed the subject.

  “So the combined power of the Gregorius Witch, plus every witch in your line, will be yours if you can shed the scar tissue. Correct?” A smile hovered on her lips, and a manic brightness gleamed in her eyes. Mysti had encouraged me to accept my destiny at every turn.

  I bit my lip to keep from reminding her how spectacularly I could fail at all this.

  She squinted her eyes and leaned close. “Don’t be afraid. You got this. Now, think back to Oscar’s attacks, both of them. Did you see anything else of note?”

  I lowered my head and thought carefully. This was Mysti’s information gathering phase. She liked to hear even the smallest detail. As I sifted through my awful memories, one flashed to the surface. Something big that I had almost forgotten.

  “They were eating souls and magical cores.” My words rushed out.

  Mysti raised one eyebrow in question.

  “Oscar’s huntsmen,” I said to her unasked question. “They’d lean over their kills and sort of inhale. The magical core—or soul, whatever the person had—would come right out.” I stopped for a breath. “It was making Oscar’s warriors stronger.”

  Mysti closed her eyes and groaned.

  “What is it?” I knew it was bad, but Mysti rarely reacted with such pessimism. She always knew the next right thing to do.

  Mysti and Griff exchanged a meaningful look. He shrugged.

  “We saw them do it too,” Mysti said.

  Griff took over the story. “We went to San Antonio to help a young woman whose house was infested with malicious spirits. It was so bad, we checked her into a motel in San Antonio. When Oscar and those others ripped the roof off the motel, those hounds came in first. They clawed the girl to death.”

  Mysti tapped the table. “But listen to this. Once she was dead, those horsemen leaned over her and breathed in her soul. They got bigger and more solid. More real.”

  Stomach churning, I remembered what I’d seen back at the RV park. My mother killing Anita came back in stark detail. This time, I could see her mane of long dark hair thickening. The same had happened when Joey Holze killed Lorrie the face painter. Her soul had nourished him, made him more than just bone and metal. And when King Tolliver killed Early Ramey, his gross teeth had seemed to get bigger. I wanted to scream at the endlessness of it.

  “They’re doing the same thing I did to Loretta Nell and the hag. And they’re gaining power and getting stronger with each one.” I accepted the plate Shelly held out and began wolfing down bacon and eggs, so hungry my stomach growled as I ate.

  “Is that how they’re coming back to life then?” Cecil, still smoking, rubbed his stubble.

  Shelly strolled by and plucked the cigarette out of his fingers. “You’re not supposed to be smoking.”

  “Hey,” Cecil said to her back. Shelly kept walking, ignoring him.

  I touched his arm to get his attention. “I think that’s some of it. But there’s also something else. After I ate the hag’s magical core, I saw Oscar through the hag’s eyes. He was saying that he and his army were neither dead nor alive. That’s why they can’t
be killed."

  Mysti opened her laptop. “Are you ready to hear a theory on what we’re dealing with?”

  “I don’t want to hear it, but I guess I need to.” I ate the last bite of egg, lit a cigarette, and leaned back in my chair.

  Cecil snapped his fingers at me and pointed at the pack of smokes. I slid it across the table. He lit one with relish. Shelly might have won a skirmish, but the war was far from over.

  “Let’s hear it, Ms. Whitebyrd.” Puffs of smoke accompanied each word out of Cecil’s mouth. Mysti smiled at him and sat a bit straighter. She loved having the answers.

  “I think Oscar has managed to raise the Wild Hunt. Do you know that term?” She glanced around the table.

  “I do,” Griff said.

  “Not you.” Mysti turned her laptop around so Cecil and I could see.

  A piece of artwork covered the screen. Wild horseman raged through midair, seemingly chasing something.

  “That’s Johann Wilhelm Cordes’s Wilde Jagd.” Mysti tapped a key, and the image changed. “This is Wodan's Wild Hunt by Friedrich Wilhelm Heine. This second image is important because it leads to the next thing we need to talk about.” Mysti was in full teacher mode. She even had a pen pointed at the hunt’s leader. “In German mythology, the Wild Hunt was storied to have been led by Odin or Krampus. Perhaps Berchtold or Holle. But here’s the cool thing about the Wild Hunt.”

  “Depending on what you consider cool,” Griff cut in.

  Mysti ignored him. “The Wild Hunt can be found in many cultures. In Italy, it’s called Estantiga, which translates to ‘the old army.’ In England, it was called by many names—Cain’s Hunt, Herod’s Hunt. In Cornwall, they called it the Devil’s Dandy Dogs.”

  I jumped at that, remembering the way the dogs had ripped into people I knew, biting chunks out of them while they screamed for mercy that never came.

  Griff spoke, lending a voiceover to the horrific images in my head. “The huntsmen are described as specters, demons, sometimes the fae. It is generally agreed they are not humans but creatures from another dimension. Which could mean they are neither alive nor dead.” Griff stared at me as he repeated my words from a few minutes earlier.

  “In some tellings, the hunt is associated with Yule.” Mysti glanced up from her screen and met my eyes. “But it can also be associated with Samhain.”

  Samhain was in a few days’ time. The veil between our dimension and the next would be at its thinnest. Oscar would be at his most powerful. Worry gelled in my stomach, turning the coffee and food into a flaming acid. I got out my antacids and crunched three between my teeth.

  “He chose this time of year because he has the best chance of beating me. He’s planned this down to the last detail.” I stared at Mysti, wanting reassurance.

  “You’re right.” The excitement from teaching fell off her face. “And there’s no way to reverse your status as the target of the Hunt.”

  I frowned, puzzled.

  “I did a little spirit work this morning. My spirit contact from the dark outposts says being named as the hunt’s target is sure doom.” Mysti plucked at the beads on her top with trembling fingers. “The hunt will ride until its target is annihilated, down to the last friend and the last drop of shared blood.”

  I tried to digest all the bad news, but one piece wouldn’t quite go down.

  “How did Oscar know to call the hunt? How did he wield such power?” I muttered the question almost to myself, not really expecting an answer.

  Mysti, lips turned down, shook her head. She didn’t know. Maybe it didn’t matter. We were in grave danger either way.

  Tubby burst into the kitchen, Hannah on his heels.

  “Storm’s coming.” His face had gone white enough to make his freckles stand out.

  From outside came a rolling clap of thunder. Underneath was the rumble of horse hooves beating a non-existent ground. Motorcycles roared behind, competing with the baying of hounds.

  They’d found us already.

  The thunder went from a rumble to a cacophony of hoofbeats, shouts, and barking dogs. The drone of the motorcycles chased behind them. The noise, both in and outside my head, became all I heard or knew.

  Every nerve in my body drew wire tight. My heart quivered in my chest, like the breath of a trapped animal. They were coming. I still wasn’t ready.

  I drew on the mantle, still trapped behind the thin wall of scar tissue. The previous night’s rest had done me good. My magic throbbed to life. Warmth spread throughout me, tingling at the surface of my skin.

  Orev cawed behind me. The rustle of his wings came closer until his feet closed on my shoulder. Power hummed between us. The tiny, fine hairs on my arm stood on end and prickled on the back of my neck.

  Something slammed into the door separating the kitchen from outside. The building shook. Several people screamed. The sound of running footsteps came through the roofing and wood. The beams creaked. More screams.

  Hannah came to stand next to me. In one hand, she carried a rusty tire iron. “I don’t have enough bullets left to fight.”

  I only nodded. Drawing power took all my focus. Throwing out both arms, I pulled magic from the naturally occurring components of everything around us.

  Something slammed against the door. Breaking glass tinkled. The smell of gasoline had time to reach my nose before a whoosh rattled the door in its frame. Fire licked around it. Wisps of smoke drifted from the dry wood.

  “Gonna burn you out, you fucking witch,” Joey Holze yelled, voice both inside and outside my head.

  “Burn her out!” Barbie’s hoarse scream cut off so she could guffaw.

  Something heavy hit the roof. The old wood popped and groaned. A motorcycle engine buzzed as one of the ghostly iron horses rolled over it.

  “They’s pouring gasoline on the roof,” Kenny yelled from the big open room with all the boxes.

  Brad ran into the room. “Everybody come on. We have to get out.”

  People streamed out of the kitchen. I followed them. Smoke drifted from the ceiling like errant ghosts. The wood popped as the fire ate it. Soon the flames would take over the building. Anybody left inside would die.

  Someone had pushed all the boxes to one side and ripped the plywood off the building’s old front door. My family and friends hurried to it, so afraid of the fire they weren’t thinking. The huntsmen would be out there, waiting to slaughter them.

  “No,” I screamed at the top of my lungs, the force of it scalding the inside of my throat.

  Everybody stopped and stared at me.

  “They’re waiting to kill you,” I said, already doubting my decision to stop them.

  What else could they do? The choices were to leave and be killed or stay and burn to death. Fire licked the ceiling above, sending down little cinders to remind us time was running out. I glanced at the stairs. My witch pack and trunk were up there. But a thick cloud of smoke belched down the stairs. I’d die if I tried to retrieve them.

  Anger and grief stopped my thought processes. I was about to lose all the witching supplies I’d so carefully chosen. Including Priscilla Herrera’s spell book.

  “We’ve got to get out of here. Now.” Dillon had one kid on each hip. Finn hurried along behind carrying a bag of baby supplies.

  “I think I know what to do.” Griff appeared with his sleeves rolled up. In one hand, he held a metal can with the word flammable on it.

  “Fight fire with fire.” Finn dropped the bag.

  “That’s our baby’s diapers,” Dillon snapped.

  “You want to fight instead of me?” her husband said to her.

  He shouldn’t have asked. Dillon handed both kids to her husband and hurried away with Griff.

  Over her shoulder she said, “Don’t forget the damn diapers, Finn.”

  Trying to hold onto his two kids, Finn grabbed for the bag. Brad handed it to him and took Zander in one arm. With the other, he held onto Jadine.

  “All right,” Brad said in a low voice. �
�Let them go out first with whatever they’re making. The rest of us’ll run for the cars.”

  Kenny came over and stood next to me, hairy arms crossed over his chest. Over the course of the evening, his cheeks had hollowed, and his mouth had turned down.

  Griff, Dillon, and Mysti came from the kitchen, all holding torches. With red cinders raining down around them, they looked like fire nymphs. Cecil and Shelly brought up the rear, both holding their own torches.

  I channeled the power I had managed to gather. It burned in the center of my chest. The over-tight indigestion from eating the hag came back. Sweat popped out over my body, sliming my skin. I fought for control. I had to have it together for this.

  The ceiling gave a loud crack. Red sparks rained down, stinging my arms. Several screams filled the room. This was it.

  “Go!” Mysti yelled.

  Griff kicked open the door. He held up a can of aerosol spray and depressed it against the torch. Flame shot out. A horse screamed, and so did my mother’s voice. Good.

  I crowded behind the torchbearers and twisted to speak to my family. “Run for your lives. Don’t wait for anybody. Don’t help anybody. Just go.”

  I burst into the hazy light, throwing up my left hand. Fire formed in a beautiful orange and red ball. The colors undulated and sent up tiny sparks. I focused on Nash Redmond a few feet away and threw the fireball. It hit him in the chest and knocked him off his horse. Mayhem broke out.

  The people behind me scooted past and ran to the building next door for their cars. The battle raged in front of me. Griff and Dillon used aerosol cans and torches to set horses and horsemen on fire.

  Dogs surrounded Mysti, saliva flying from their mouths, red-tipped ears glowing. She lifted a bottle of clear liquid to her mouth and blew fire into their faces. They ran away yelping, their white fur turning black.

  One of the dogs, the one who’d gotten the biggest blast of fire spit, fell on its side and stilled. Its eyes glazed in death. Then the black soot faded from its white fur in a fast sweep. The dog got back up, shook itself, and snarled.

  Sorrow melted my resolve. We couldn’t beat them. We’d die fighting, and Oscar would have my power once and for all.