Wayward Devils (Souls of the Road #4)

Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

S omehow, Abbi wheedled her way into getting ice cream before seeing the Blarney Stone.

Oddly, the ice cream was found in a restaurant, and it wasn’t the same shop as the one listed on the flyer.

The woman who took our order wasn’t named Billy. Her name was Stephanie, and she looked like a bored high-schooler.

Because she was a bored high-schooler.

Franny chatted her up, explained the sister-town agreement between the two ice cream shops, which, according to her, were owned by the same partners.

Somehow the coupons got involved and by the time it was over, I had a double scoop cone, Abbi had a bowl with three scoops, and Franny had a single scoop.

Franny sat across from Abbi, and I split the difference between them, taking up a lot of space, facing the window.

It wasn’t hot in the place, but it wasn’t cold enough to keep the ice cream from melting either. We all set to getting the creamy sweets under control, and after a couple bites, I realized I should have gotten a bowl instead of a cone.

I wiped out the top scoop and had the second whittled down low enough it wasn’t dripping over my fingers when I tuned back into the conversation.

“Road trip. That sounds exciting.” Franny ate her ice cream in half-spoon bites, like she wanted to make it last twice as long.

“It is! We were in Missouri, that’s where I’m from, and then we went to Oklahoma and Kansas, well, Kansas and Oklahoma, and now we’re here. I want to see all the sights up close. Really close.”

Abbi squirmed around and produced the brochure with the information about the Blarney Stone.

“See?” She spread it on the table and pointed. “Someone buried a lot of cars. I want to see that. And that tower is leaning. And there’s the Blarney Stone.”

“Route 66.” Franny reassessed me. “You’re taking her on a road trip down Route 66?”

“What’s wrong with Route 66?”

“Nothing. I just...” She paused, and the air shifted, almost as if a window had been opened, allowing in a cooler breeze.

It wasn’t uncomfortable. But it was most definitely magic.

“So, what, exactly are you, and what, exactly do you want from us?” I licked the edge of the cone and took a bite. I liked to get cone and ice cream in each bite once I got down to this point.

“Do I need to be anything other than what you see?” she asked.

“When someone uses magic,” I said, crunching to the cone point, then popping it in my mouth, “it’s pretty hard to ignore.”

Her eyebrows arched, and her eyes, a pretty hazel threaded with brown, locked onto me.

“You really should come to the bar,” she said.

I wiped sticky fingers on a napkin, which did more clinging than cleaning. “The bar in town? Which one?”

“No, not here. It’s up a-ways.”

“On the Route?”

“Yes. A small town. Have you heard of McLean?”

“Sure.”

“Oh, so you’ve driven this way before?”

“Sure.”’

“Maybe I should ask you what you are, Brogan Gauge.”

There was that breeze again, coming in through a window that didn’t exist, brushing over my skin like silk. It smelled like shade and creek water, loamy and sweet.

“I’m exactly what I look like,” I said.

She brightened. “Oh, good. So am I.”

Abbi tipped her bowl and slurped the melted slurry. “Why do you want him to go to the bar?”

“The same reason I wanted to take you to the best ice cream there. I think he’d like it.”

“No. You want him to see something, I think,” Abbi said. “Plus, you think you know me.”

“You seem...familiar.”

“I know.”

Franny stared at her bowl a moment as if making a decision. She scraped up the last half spoon of ice cream, then placed her spoon in the bowl.

“Let’s see the Blarney Stone. I will tell you more then.” She scooted her chair back and stood.

“Yes!” Abbi bounded out of her chair. “It’s okay,” she said, taking Franny’s hand, and tugging her to the door. “He’s not mad at you. He knows you’re using magic. So do I. You should just tell us why.”

Franny threw me a look. I raised my eyebrows, agreeing with Abbi. Before Franny could speak, Abbi pushed through the door.

“What happens if someone licks the stone?” Abbi asked. “Is that good luck or bad luck? Is it extra luck because it gets in your stomach? Can you swallow luck? What does it taste like? Brogan, I bet it’s delicious!”

“Abbi,” I said, following them into the heat.

Abbi hopped on one foot, then the other, pausing to check for traffic before releasing Franny’s hand and bouncing across the street. “Is it this way? I think it’s this way. You look like I’m right. Of course I’m right. I’m always right! I’m so excited! How big is it? It must be huge! The biggest, luckiest stone ever!”

“Abbi,” I picked up my pace. “Don’t run.” There was no traffic, but I didn’t want her getting lost.

“It’s right over there!” She pointed at the archway on the corner with a little courtyard beyond. Then she ran.

“That’s it!” Franny called out. She put on some steam and pulled ahead of me. “Abbi, Abbi, dearest. Wait up. I can tell you all about it.”

Abbi didn’t need me protecting her from Franny. But I was in a bad mood, and letting Abbi out of my sight with a stranger reminded me too much of Lu and the monster hunter.

“Hey.” A hand around my left wrist pulled violently enough, I stumbled mid-pivot like a whipcrack in a kids’ game.

I cocked my right fist, but the asshole who had grabbed my wrist twisted. My knuckles hit shoulder, instead of the guy’s jaw.

He grunted from the impact. But instead of staggering away, he moved up into my space, into my reach, and simultaneously lifted my left arm and hand, then pressed my hand backward with one swift, incredibly powerful motion.

The bone popped, and I yelled.

The guy was fast—vampire fast—darting around and behind me, his hand over my mouth, arm across my neck.

“Shit,” he said. “Shit. I didn’t want...”

I was burning under the waves of pain. I could feel the tension in his body, smell the sweat. I raised my boot to stomp on his foot.

“Brogan! The luck!” Abbi yelled. For someone so small, she had a set of lungs on her.

The vampire released and pushed me all in one motion. I spun toward him, but he was already four yards away and running.

Cowboy. I got the impression of worn jeans, boots, a tucked-in western-style shirt. His hair was brown, clean cut. Good-enough-looking guy made greater from the glamor of the vampiric kind.

Just before he disappeared around the block, he held up his hands—in what? Surrender? Apology?

I wanted to kick the shit out of him.

But between one blink and the next, he was gone.

Fucking vampires are too fucking fast.

My heart thundered, my breath dragged ragged and hard.

Abbi!

I tucked my broken wrist against my chest and ran out of the space between buildings where he’d dragged me.

Electric shocks jolted up my arm with each step, lightning searing stitches through my shoulder, my spine, my skull. Every breath hurt.

I ran harder.

“Abbi!” I rounded the corner and barreled into the little space fenced in on three sides with a concrete pedestal in the center.

Abbi stood on her tiptoes, her palms spread on the top of the pedestal. Franny was beside her, hand under her arm to help stabilize the girl.

“I haven’t licked it yet,” Abbi said, “so I don’t have luck, but Franny told me all about it. Did you know the one in Ireland is bigger than this one because it’s the mommy stone and this is only a wee baby stone?”

“Abbi,” I breathed, relieved she was still here, still whole, unhurt, babbling and bouncing from too much sugar.

“I wanted to wait so you could see...” She let go of the pedestal.

“You hurt your hand.” She rushed to me, touching my elbow. “Did you fall?” Then her eyes went wider. “You got hurt.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Just a sprain. We have a wrap back in the motel. Lick the stone, Abbi. I think we need that luck.”

“I know what did that,” she whispered.

I didn’t doubt she could tell I’d been jumped by a vampire.

A cowboy vampire who had broken my wrist and run off like he’d stepped into the wrong room filled with garlic, sunlight, and wooden stakes.

It didn’t make sense. Things that wanted to hurt, hurt. And vampires were always things that wanted to hurt.

“Are you all right?” Franny asked. “You’re pale as a sheet.”

“It’s fine, I’m fine.”

“That wrist?” The feathers in her hair lifted in the breeze. “Mr. Gauge. I know a very good general practitioner who could see you.”

“No. I’m fine. Kiss the stone. It’s okay, Abbi. Lick it.” I pushed her gently toward it with my good hand.

I was sweating, but shivered at every shift in the wind. Shock.

“You need to kiss it too,” Abbi said. “You need luck. And a wish. Franny said wishing is allowed because it’s magic.” She held onto my good elbow and guided me over to the pedestal.

The relief of seeing her unharmed made me too tired to resist. “You need luck for you and Lula,” she said. “And maybe you need a doctor too.”

“I don’t need—”

“Luck, first.”

I quickly scanned the engraving on the polished top of the pedestal, where a plaque containing the slice of the stone was displayed.

“You do it first,” Abbi said. Hado was on her shoulder, a shadow half-hidden in her hair, with glinting eyes and sharp claws.

I placed the fingertips of my good hand on the side of the plaque.

Luck was automatic, given for the price of a kiss, but wishing was something I’d lost the knack for years ago.

Wishes weren’t the same as deals with gods. They didn’t have loopholes or prices. Until they were granted. And those loopholes and prices changed depending on who was doing the granting.

I had no idea what a stone might demand. Big wish or little? Big price or small?

I formed the idea. Then I kissed the stone, taking what luck it would give, and repeated the wish once, twice, three times.

“My turn!” Abbi tippy-toed again, smooched (licked) the stone noisily, then mouthed her wish.

If my lip-reading skills were any good, it had something to do with cookies.

“That’s it,” I said. “Let’s get back to the motel. Franny, this is where we part ways.”

“Are you sure you don’t need help wrapping your wrist?”

“I do not. Let’s go now, Abbi.”

Abbi had crouched down and was staring at little pebbles at the base of the pedestal. She popped back up and took my hand.

“Don’t forget to come see us at the bar,” Franny said. “Free appetizer and, of course, the ice cream. Did I mention the ice cream?”

We were walking toward the hotel, but her voice wasn’t getting any fainter.

“She’s following us, isn’t she?” I asked Abbi.

“She likes me.”

“You?”

“I like her too.”

I sighed.

“She gave me three scoops of ice cream. Three. You only ever let me have two.” Her voice was petulant, but she squeezed my arm. She was worried. Probably worried about me.

I was worried too. Not about my wrist. There was a vampire in town, one who broke my wrist then ran off, and I didn’t know where Lula was.

I glanced behind me. Franny spotted my glare and suddenly became interested in a brambly old rose growing on the corner of a fence.

We walked a little faster.

“Vampire, Abbi.”

“I know.”

“Did you see him?”

“No. I was looking for luck.” She paused. “It isn’t easy to scry when something is stuck in concrete.”

“Scry?”

“I can see things. You know I can. I just have to see them at the right, um...angle? Light? And the Blarney Stone is luck. That’s a kind of magic. I wanted to see. See if we end up okay.”

She leaned into me a little, then must have remembered my injury and quickly pulled away. “Do you think we are?” she asked. “Okay?”

There was a vampire in the town. The woman behind us had some kind of magic up her sleeve and wouldn’t leave us alone.

Lula was talking to a hunter who wanted us dead, and two gods—well, a god and a demon, which made it worse, really—had decided they wanted a slice of our current shit pie.

Abbi knew all that. That wasn’t what she wanted from me. I knew what she needed. I needed it too.

“Yes,” I said. “We are going to end up okay. I promise.”

She was quiet for the next block or so. I glanced over my shoulder again.

Franny leaned back giving the roof of the hardware store a good once over.

“I think I want to see the ocean again,” Abbi said. “It’s been a long time.”

“We can do that.”

“Ordinary is by the ocean,” she said. “Crow lives there.”

“Why do you call him Crow?”

“He’s only Raven when he’s being a god. When he’s being a friend, he’s funny and smart and just Crow.”

“Have you been friends for a long time?”

She smiled. “Yes. He’s fun to watch. Did you know he tried to steal a Valkyrie feather once? That didn’t work. At all. He almost got killed. But it was funny.”

“Do you trust him?” I asked. “If we find the book and take it to Ordinary, do you think it will be safe?”

She hummed. “Ordinary is different. I see some of it. Some of it isn’t for me to see, and that’s okay.” She brightened. “If we go there, I could see all of it. Maybe even the magic library!”

We were almost at the motel, the heat simmering up off of the concrete turned my stomach and made my head ache.

“Ordinary is good, though,” Abbi said, and it sounded like she was convincing herself along with me. “It’s a safe place for all kinds of people. Even people like me.”

“Like you?”

“Rabbit in the moon down from the sky. I could…play there. Me and Hado would be safe there.”

“Even with all those gods on vacation?”

She nodded. “Sometimes they’re better that way.”

“Like Crow?” I asked.

“Like Crow.”

“What do you know about the demon?”

“He left the Underworld a long time ago.” She paused as if gathering up memories. “He caught a lot of souls. He’s very good at hiding.”

“And catching souls,” I said.

“He doesn’t do that anymore.”

“All demons take souls,” I said.

“No,” she insisted. “He caught a soul who changed his mind.”

“What kind of a soul makes a demon stop taking souls?”

She shrugged. “Just a good man from Ordinary.”

“You’re really selling this town, kid.”

We were at our room now and she hurried to open the door. “I want to see the ocean and the magic library. Maybe…maybe someday we can do both?”

She looked so small and hopeful, I gave her the comfort I could. “Maybe someday we can.”

The air that poured out of the room was at least twenty degrees cooler. The pain in my hand and arm was ramping up, and my mind was fixed on setting the damn thing or wrapping or splinting it.

That was my only excuse for not immediately registering that there was a woman in our room.

“Are you hurt?” She was short, maybe an inch under five foot, her gray hair cut in a smart bob. Her glasses were small, wire-rimmed octagons, and her eyes behind them were shrewd.

She wore a light shirt with a long, lighter overshirt that stirred as she moved.

Silk, I thought. It had a way to it, a movement. It had to be silk.

All her colors were green and rose. She looked like a garden.

“You.” She pointed to my wrist. “Hurt?” Like maybe I couldn’t speak English. She waved at an old-fashioned doctor’s bag on the bed.

“You need to sit. I have medicine.”

That’s when my brain finally caught up to reality. “What are you doing here? Who are you? How did you get into the room?”

“Yes, thank you, he means,” Abbi said. “You can help us.”

The woman’s gaze tracked to Abbi, and something in her body language settled. “I didn’t believe her,” the woman said, like we were all in on this conversation, except I, for one, had no idea what she was talking about.

“Franny has a way of embellishing things,” she said, “but she was right. Hello, moon goddess. I hope you don’t mind me not doing the worshiping yet. I’d rather get Brogan patched up first.”