Last Exit Read online

  Tubby nodded, eyes fixed on the road. He cracked his window and let the wind take his cigarette butt.

  “There’s several things there.” He glanced at me. “You’ve got the underground river leading to the underworld. You’ve got the Lord of Babylon thing.”

  “He also committed at least one murder in Austin,” I said. “She was the first person he killed after making the immorality pact. Her bone made the first rune.”

  Tubby shuddered. “Ewww. And just think. You touched those runes.”

  I ignored him. “Oscar was also a native of Houston. He may have hidden his soul somewhere there.”

  The idea of poking around Houston filled me with dread. For one thing, it was a good five-hour drive north and east from our current location. For another thing, the traffic was insane. Too many people, all in a big hurry.

  Tubby nodded but said, “Yeah, but Houston is a big, big city.”

  No shit. Another lightbulb flashed behind my eyes. “How far are we from Austin?” I loved Texas’s Hill Country, but the open country made things seem farther away than they really were.

  “’Bout two hours, but Cecil’s coordinates are taking us that way anyway.” Tubby glanced at the map on his phone. “You got an idea?”

  “Maybe. Let me make a phone call.” I got into my contacts and called someone I’d met under pretty bad circumstances, hoping he’d answer the phone.

  Linus Bramwell, author on the occult, answered on the first ring. “If it isn’t my favorite troublemaker. What’s shaking?”

  “I’m looking for information about Oscar E. Rivera. He’s the subject of an urban legend in which he’s called the Coachman. He’s also used the name Lord of Babylon.” I paused to let Linus take in what I was saying.

  “Sounds familiar.” The sound of him clicking computer keys came over the line. He went silent as he read whatever he’d found. “Oh, I’ve heard about this guy. Why do you want to know about him?”

  I blurted out my sordid history with Oscar Rivera. I told him about the way Oscar had hidden his soul and bargained for immortality. About the way he’d sent Miss Ugly to kill me and recruited my ex-husband to help him. Then I told him about Oscar calling the Wild Hunt to kill me and what he’d do with my magic if he succeeded.

  Linus sucked in his breath at that point. “What are you going to do?”

  “I think I can get rid of him forever if I destroy his soul.” The magnitude of it chilled me.

  “Fairy tale justice. It might work,” Linus muttered, still clicking. “How can I help you?”

  “Oscar may have hidden his soul somewhere from his past, but I don’t know enough about him to figure out where that would be.” My cheeks heated asking this man for another favor. He’d helped me before just because I’d asked. Now I was asking again.

  Linus said nothing for several long minutes. “I have some resources, but I don’t want to become a target of the Wild Hunt.” Fear hushed his voice to a near whisper. “Why don’t you start by telling me what you know of Oscar’s history? That will give me a starting point.”

  I read him the same passage I’d read Tubby and included the name of the book it had come from and the author.

  Linus’s only answer was the clicking of keys on a keyboard.

  “We’re two hours away from you. Is that enough time?” I was already sending Cecil a text message explaining where I was going and that I’d be later than expected.

  Linus came back with, “That’s fine. I’ll leave yours and Tanner’s names at the gate.”

  “I’m with Thomas Tubman today.” Anxiety bloomed in my gut at having to give Linus some explanation for Tanner’s absence.

  But Linus simply barked a dry laugh and said, “Understood.”

  Tubby and I sped toward Austin, only stopping to buy cheap hamburgers at a fast food restaurant, which we ate on the way.

  Tubby gawked at at the entrance of Linus’s subdivision. “Damn thing’s twice as fancy as the one where Rainey lives.”

  Tubby was right. Though Rainey lived in the nicest subdivision in Gaslight City, this place far outclassed it. The guard shack alone made hers look like a kid’s lemonade stand.

  We followed a flagstone drive of variegated colors to the guard shack. A steel arm that could have easily finished killing Tubby’s Cutlass barred the road into the community of expensive houses. Stone walls at least twelve feet high, emblazoned with the subdivision’s name, protected the development.

  The guard’s eyes widened at Tubby’s beat-down car, but he quickly rearranged his expression into a poker face and took Tubby’s and my driver’s licenses. He came back less than minute later. “Mr. Bramwell is waiting to see you.”

  We cruised through the subdivision’s narrow streets. When Tanner and I had come here a couple of months ago, it had been early morning with barely anybody stirring. Now, at midday, people were everywhere, despite the gray day.

  Eyes widened, fingers pointed. A few clapped phones to ears, probably calling the guard shack to ask about the nasty car invading their pristine corner of paradise. A small part of me didn’t blame them. Tubby and I looked like what we were: white trash.

  “This one.” I pointed to Linus’s Spanish-style house with its tile roof.

  Tubby parked at the curb and leaned across the car to stare at the house. “Who is this guy?”

  “He writes occult fiction.” I worked the door latch and got out. Tubby hurried to follow. We approached the door, and I rang the bell.

  Linus opened so quickly, he must have been standing on the other side.

  “Well, if it isn’t Peri Jean Mace.” He held open his arms, and I gave him a hug. He turned to Tubby, hand out, smiling. “Linus Bramwell.”

  “Tubby Tubman.” Tubby wiped his hand on his pants and shook Linus’s hand, craning to peek inside the fancy house.

  Linus held open the door. “Come in.”

  We went inside, Tubby goggling at the made-to-look-old features of the obviously new home.

  “This’s a nice place,” he muttered to me.

  I nodded, remembering the way Tanner had looked around. It had been as though he knew about places like this, wished himself back in one of them instead of slumming with me. Probably at least some of the reason he’d gone back to California.

  Instead of leading us to his spacious kitchen, which looked out on his luxurious pool, Linus lead us through a living room with exposed beams, warm terracotta-colored tile, and rustic furnishings that probably cost a small fortune.

  “Let’s go into my office.” Linus held open a heavy door made of rough wood.

  Tubby stared at it as we passed. “Where do you get a door like this?”

  “It’s reclaimed from an old house in France, Mr. Tubman.” Linus’s shoes tapped softly on the floors until he crossed onto a faded Persian rug. He went behind his desk, also made of rough wood, sat down, and motioned for Tubby and me to take the red leather-covered wingchairs in front of the desk.

  We sat, Tubby still staring at all the details.

  “I managed to dig up a little on Oscar.” Linus’s grim face gave me a bad feeling.

  “I appreciate your effort.” I leaned forward, trying to ignore Tubby’s gawking.

  Linus smiled in acknowledgement, clicked a few keys on a silver keyboard, and stared at his monitor.

  Tubby half rose from his chair to peer at an expensively framed print of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights.

  “What the fuck?” he muttered.

  I reached over, popped him on the leg, and hissed, “Straighten up.”

  He gave me the finger. Linus looked up about that time. I swatted Tubby’s finger away and tried to act dignified.

  Linus acted as though he’d seen nothing. “Oscar was an occultist in Houston, Texas, which you already knew. In the census for 1870, he listed ‘professor’ as his occupation.” Linus tapped a few more keys. “I suspect Oscar considered himself a professor in spiritualism. He was quite popular among the wealthy, which play
s in our favor. Those people had time to write letters to each other, and those letters were preserved.”

  I had a hard time imagining Oscar behaving himself well enough to fit in with the well-heeled. But he’d been handsome and had a commanding presence. He must have figured out a way.

  Linus leaned close to his screen and squinted. “In one of these letters, a society woman writes that Oscar told her he’d been orphaned after his parents died of influenza. He claimed to have spent the rest of his childhood in a tiny German farming community where he was raised by a German witch. Whatever the truth was, this socialite notes that Oscar spoke fluent German with a cousin of hers.”

  I perked up. This could give us a big clue about where Oscar hid his soul. “Does it give the name of the town?”

  “Unfortunately, no.” Linus went back to reading from his computer screen. “But this might interest you. From everything I’ve found, Oscar Rivera was a phony.”

  “W-what? How?” This went against all I knew about Oscar. Even as a spirit, he had powerful magic.

  “Séances are easy to fake. There was stuff like tapping and automatic writing.” Linus sounded like he was winding up for a lecture, one on the wrong topic. I’d have to cut him off.

  “Of course, but I was more curious about you calling Oscar a phony. He’s a lot of things, but not that.” I told Linus some of the things I’d seen Oscar do in visions of the past.

  “It seems he changed after something very bad happened to him.” Linus spun his monitor and showed us a badly scanned picture of a young Oscar Rivera and a woman with two young boys. Like all the pictures of the time, the subjects looked as though they were about to be led to the guillotine. Linus turned the monitor to face him again.

  “The woman in the picture was Olive Allen. She married Oscar Rivera in 1860. Over the following years, she gave birth to the two boys in the picture.” Linus’s eyes scanned over the screen. “This part of Oscar’s life is only well documented because it’s so tragic. Even so, information is limited. Oscar lived in Houston right after the Civil War. It was a rather lawless period in which some shameful tragedies occurred. If you think people are intolerant now, imagine how they were back then.”

  The idea chilled me. Some people who’d known me all my life had tried to kill me because they thought I was satanic. They’d been willing to kill Rainey Bruce and Wade Hill right along with me just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I nodded my understanding.

  Linus watched me, both sympathy and curiosity evident in his gaze. “The most detailed account I found says that Olive, Oscar, and their sons were dragged from their home and lynched right in their front yard.”

  “For being Satanists, I assume.” I muttered the words.

  Linus rolled his eyes and nodded. “Oscar somehow survived. He claimed not to know who hurt his family.”

  “What happened after that?” Tubby lost interest in the expensive furnishings enough to speak. “I mean, what did Oscar do?”

  “Impossible to know for sure. But after I got some ideas of his social circle, I was able to find a few clues.” Linus tapped a few keys. “Rumor claimed Oscar summoned a demon to help him carry out revenge. The men suspected of lynching Olive and the children were found ripped apart, as though animals had attacked them. After that, Oscar became a known spell caster, one who had no problem with the darker side of things.”

  My cheeks tingled. Though this gave me no hints where Oscar might have hidden his soul this go-around, it did give me a sense of this man, who he might have been and what might have driven him.

  I’d never know for sure, but I suspected Oscar’s near-death experience gave him a little something extra. I’d seen it before. A man like Oscar, one who’d been unable to protect his wife and children, would have grabbed onto that extra power.

  Linus talked about Oscar summoning a demon. It probably murdered the people who hurt Oscar’s wife and children. I’d have done the same. Did that make me like Oscar? I shied away from the thought and forced my mind back on track.

  The demon Oscar had called forth had surely wanted some form of repayment. I’d dealt with their kind too and knew something of their ways. Mysti called them chthonic beings. Tanner called them boogers. Priscilla Herrera called them dark beings. I called them trouble.

  Once a booger had a human in its snare, it handed out favors like a politician. But one day, all those favors would come due. At that point, most humans found themselves up crap creek in a sinking boat.

  But Oscar had sought immortality. He had let himself get pulled even deeper than simply having revenge on his family’s murderers. What had driven him?

  All my experiences with Oscar had centered on revenge and power. Could anybody be that boring and shallow?

  Linus’s soft, scholarly voice cut into my thoughts. “When you called, you read to me an entry from a book about spiritualists.”

  “Sure.” I dug out my phone. “I’ve got a picture of it right here. I can send it to you.”

  “Not necessary. I found it online.” Linus’s eyes crinkled into a smile. “I was able to find out a bit about the immortality rite referenced.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “It supposedly came from a book found in an abandoned monastery. Oscar bought it from an explorer known only as Black Silas.” Linus stopped reading to stare at me. “Are you all right, dear?”

  I croaked a non-answer at him. It was all my airless lungs would let me do. Black Silas. We’d met because of my adventure in Devil’s Rest, Texas. He’d helped me auction off a book that drove people into a murderous rage. He scared me witless.

  Linus watched me, intelligent eyes sharp and probing. “What is it?”

  I chewed my lip and brainstormed possible answers. Black Silas was dangerous. I’d sensed that much about him. He’d been pleased to meet me, but he might be less than pleased if I gossiped about him. Careless words might put Linus in danger.

  I shook my head at my friend. “I can’t say anything.”

  Linus sat back in his seat, eyes suddenly dull and angry. “That’s not fair. I’ve helped you more than once. This is of interest to me.”

  “Can I say I’ve met Black Silas and be done with it?” My heart trembled giving even this much detail.

  “That’s impossible. This man would be well over a hundred and fifty years old…” Linus paled.

  “Black Silas is not human, and he’s not anybody you need to know about.” I hardened my voice into the one I used when necessary on underlings.

  A warm wind began to blow in Linus’s office, making papers flutter off his desk. Horror stole into my veins. What on earth was this? The answer came without much thought. Injured and scared, my tenuous control on my power was even looser than normal.

  Magic crackled at my fingertips, and the smell of ozone filled the room. Whispers teased at the edge of my mind. I tried to pull back the power. But getting it back in was a lot harder than letting it out. A low hum came from the wood floor.

  Linus’s face turned gray. He grabbed for his desk and stood, chest rising and falling. The wind whipped around him.

  “Oh, boy,” Tubby muttered.

  I strained to control the magic seeping from me, shaking with the effort. If a little force had done this, how did I ever expect to be an accomplished witch? I sucked in a hard breath and pulled at the magic so hard the pain returned to my newly healed injury.

  The wind died. The papers lay still on Linus’s desk. The poor man still stood behind it breathing hard.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “It’s over now. But you can’t know Black Silas. You’re my friend, and I’m afraid of what he might do to you.”

  Linus licked his lips and nodded, nostrils flaring. He sat carefully behind his desk. “We may revisit the issue at another time. For now I’ll accept your answer. The last historical mention I found of Oscar was of him consulting a geologist about underground rivers. He disappeared after that.”

  I had vague ideas of O
scar’s further adventures. He’d gone out to Central Texas, where there were caverns and pools of water underground. He’d sought out the hole where I’d thrown the runes and somehow got himself down there without falling and killing his own stupid self.

  Linus began clicking keys on his computer. “You came here on a theory that Oscar hid his soul somewhere in his past. As I pulled together all the information I just shared, my heart sank on your behalf. I don’t think your theory is going to pan out.”

  My head snapped up.

  “Houston is a city of progress. It’s not like, say, New Orleans where you can go to a carefully preserved historic area.” Linus still looked a little green from his fright, but he was too curious to throw us out. “Houston doesn’t have an abundance of structures that would date back to the 1860s. The likelihood of one of those few being linked to Oscar is slim.”

  I fell back in my chair. Oscar had been raised in a German-speaking community in Texas’s Hill Country. Maybe he’d hidden his soul there. “And there’s no further mention of where Oscar was raised?”

  “I found nothing more.” Linus gave me a sad shake of his head.

  I put my forehead in my hand. We’d gone out of our way to come here, but Linus hadn’t had the magic answer. What now?

  A voice that sounded suspiciously like Memaw spoke up in my head. The first thing you need to do is thank this nice man for his time. A smile spread over my face. Memaw had been all about good manners. I raised my head.

  “Linus, thank you for taking time out of your busy day for us.” I stood and held out my hand.

  He didn’t take it. Instead he gave me a crafty smile. “We’re not finished. Sit back down.”

  I did, heart speeding up, body tensing.

  “After I figured out my research wasn’t going to help you, I called a contact of mine.” Linus smiled. “You’re not the only one who has non-human affiliations. They agreed for you to come see them.”