Shoot to thrill, p.12
Shoot to Thrill, page 12
part #5 of Midnight Rider Series
The road between Louisville and Crossways, Kansas was pretty much a straight westward line. The scenery was nothing to write home about especially when we got west of St. Louis. I had the radio going, but so far all of Walter’s weather reports had been sum ups letting other hunters know that the baddies had been dealt with by another hunter. It was starting to make me itch.
“Uh, gum wrapper for your thoughts,” Noah said. I glanced over at him. He was picking at the wadded up paper in the crack of the seat between us.
I shook my head. “Just thinking.”
“I was thinking too,” Noah said.
“Yeah?”
Noah shrugged. “I just think it’s odd. If Nigel was this god, why would he care about the symbol used in soul contracts? I mean, the demons are probably not on the same side as a god, right? I mean they probably have a lot of crossover intent, trying to play the dating game with the same souls, but...”
“It could mean that Nigel wasn’t a god and he actually was a demon, like I’ve been saying,” I muttered. “Apparently just to hear myself speak.”
“But then the other symbols,” Noah said. “The ones in the fireplace. Why would a demon have those? Stacks said they were ancient Mesopotamian which would be weird for a demon to write in since Stacks says they usually use Enochian.”
I didn’t have an answer to this line of thinking. I was stumped on the god or demon front for the moment, but in the time I’d been a hunter, I knew that the best thing you could do when you were facing the unknown was to prepare for all contingencies. “Well, it’s a good thing we’re going fishing for an expert.”
“Yeah,” Noah said. “So this one random hunter might know something about gods?”
I nodded. “So Tags says.”
“And you’re not sure, but he might be at this dive bar in the middle of Kansas?” Noah asked. I could hear the doubt in his voice.
I nodded again. “That’s the plan.”
“So why don’t you call the bar before we make the trip?” Noah asked. “What if he’s not even there?”
I shrugged. “Then we’ll ask the other hunters where to find him.” I glanced over at Noah and saw him glaring at me. I blew out a sigh. “Look, so Ruger is kind of dating my ex and things are a little tense between him and me. If I call ahead, he may take off before we get there because, god love her, but Mattie Mae cannot keep a conversation to herself. It’s better if we just surprise him.”
“Oh this should go well,” Noah muttered. “And your ex is?”
“Andi,” I said. “We’re still friends and I think it kind of bugs Ruger.”
“And you think he’ll still talk to us?” Noah asked.
“He’s a hunter,” I said. I turned to look at him. “No matter personal feelings, when face to face with another hunter that is asking for help, hunters suck it up. The good ones do, at least. Because if they don’t, they know people could die.”
Noah leaned back in his seat and was quiet for a minute. Then he cleared his throat. “So what’s Pitch’s like?”
“It’s a dive bar,” I said. “And the patrons are hunters. It’s owned by a retired hunter who makes her own whiskey and blooming onions. And amulets come to think of it.”
“Drunk, armed, and psychotic,” Noah muttered. “I can hardly wait.”
The exhaustion of the week and carrying the sword around was wearing me thin. It was an eleven-hour drive to Crossways from Louisville and somewhere around Kansas City and nine hours into the drive, I cried uncle. Noah even had the class to not make fun of me, but inside, it was scaring the crap out of me. When I pulled my wallet out to hand over cash to the woman in the Motel 6 office, I’d had to lean on the counter to keep from falling down. What Miss Chloe had said to me kept twisting itself around in my head. Was this happening because I was so close to going back to Hell?
In the room, I let Noah shower first and I took off the sword and laid it on the bed next to me. Beyond the physical weight being lifted, I felt a mental relief roll through me. I flopped down on the bed and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, sunlight was pouring in through the window and Noah was standing over me, hands-on-hips.
“Well, are we going to sleep all day or are we going to go eat some blooming onions and gab about gods?” Noah asked.
We hit Crossways a little before noon. Coming into town, I made a hard left at the Pioneer church and skirted the tiny main street. It was summertime, so school was out and kids were running around on the only slab of concrete, in the middle of Crossway’s only park, chasing the one kid who had a basketball. There were a handful of vehicles parked in front of Lil’s Diner and Coffee Shop at the corner and I recognized the old station wagon at the end. Well, even if we couldn’t talk to Ruger, at least this trip wouldn’t be a total loss.
“Cival’s in town,” I said as I turned the corner and made a quick right, heading down a dirt road out of town.
“Who?” Noah asked.
“Cival. Percival Wiggins. He’s a hunter.”
Noah snorted. “With a name like that he probably got beat up every day of his life.”
I shrugged. “He’s British and built like a WWII tank, so not so much.”
“So there are British hunters too?” Noah asked.
I nodded. “You think this supernatural shit is just in the U.S.?”
Noah thought for a minute. “No. I guess I just never thought about it.”
I nodded. “Well, Cival came over during the 70s. He liked it here so well, he married a disco queen and settled down in Michigan.”
“And?” Noah asked.
“And a rougarou broke into his house while he was away on business and redecorated...with his wife’s entrails.”
“Jesus,” Noah said. “Did anyone get into hunting just because they liked it?”
I shrugged. “I know one or two young hunters that got into it just so they could have an excuse to blow shit up and shoot and whatnot. But they’re definitely the minority, they usually don’t last long and almost always there’s a brush with the supernatural in their past that steered them this direction and they don’t want to talk about it.”
Pitch’s Flask was tucked between a couple of rolling hills and not visible from the road. I turned down an overgrown horse path that looked like it faded into the surrounding prairie the further we went along.
“Uh, Bane, where the hell are we…”
I steered us around a bend and the view of the old farmhouse-turned-dive-bar came into view. It had a wide front porch under the dark wood overhang that stretched the whole length of its front side. Out front, it still had the old hitching posts where several bikes were parked. I quickly studied the bikes and felt a wave of relief that there were no green Triumphs there. The huge neon sign that sat on top of the bar’s overhang was secured with baling wire to the eaves of the house. Mattie Mae had won the sign in a poker game. Her small straight against Bootsy Hill’s bluff meant that he had to custom make her whatever she wanted. He’d finished it and gotten it installed a month before his head had been ripped off on a hunt for a skinwalker. The sign was shaped like a reclining cartoon devil with the words, “Pitch’s Flask” and below it, “One Hell of a Time” right over where its junk would have been. Even though the sun was up, I could see it flickering in the daylight. Ever since Bootsy had bought it, Mattie Mae never turned that thing off. It was her way of lighting a candle for a fallen hunter.
“Wow,” Noah said. I kept my grin and my comments to myself. “I never expected anything like this out here.”
I nodded. “Well, none of us are very subtle.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Noah muttered as I pulled up to park between a neon green Gremlin and a black and silver Mustang.
“Be careful not to ding that Mustang,” I said to Noah as I cut the engine. “That’s Jovan’s and he treats that thing like it’s attached to a crucial part of his anatomy.”
“You scared of him?” Noah asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
I shook my head. “No, but we’re on a tight schedule and we don’t really have time for a throwdown.” I turned to study the Gremlin next to me. “This thing on the other hand,” I muttered. I knew who the Gremlin belonged to and I owed him an ass-kicking.
Noah reached for his door and paused. “Give me the keys.”
I turned to look at him. “Why?”
“So you don’t accidentally lock them in the cab again. I saw you taping that cardboard over your window last night. It would take longer to punch it in and unlock the door than to just break my window, so to avoid both, just give me the keys.”
“Fine,” I said, tossing them to him.
I got out, slammed Lucy’s door and I immediately felt naked. I’d decided to not wear the sword for a day or two unless I knew I was going to need it. I was still feeling pretty tired, so I’d stashed it under the seat again. And even though there was just cardboard and half a roll of duct tape between it and the outside world, I was pretty confident that no one at Pitch’s would fuck with it. Hunters weren’t passive-aggressive. We were active-aggressive.
However, none of this changed the fact that besides my wallet and phone, we were about to go inside empty-handed and it made me feel naked. There was a rule at Pitch’s: no guns inside. It wasn’t posted anywhere, but if you came in armed, you weren’t getting served and no one would talk to you. Some kind of peer pressure to try to keep the peace. Before the rule, the more hot-headed hunters (which was pretty much all of us) tended to go for their guns to settle arguments about everything from the best way to skin a shifter to whether or not someone cheated in a pool game. Pitch’s liked to keep a low profile and was perfectly happy to have the town of Crossways forget they existed at all. But, this was hard to maintain when people kept shooting the place up.
I led the way to the front door, past the empty rocking chairs. It was still a little early in the day for the porch sitters. We pushed through the doors and paused, letting our eyes adjust to the low light. At first glance, the place looked abandoned. There was a small bar upstairs and a pool table in one corner. Three single-bulb light fixtures with dark shades hung over the bar and a hula girl lamp without a shade stood on a shelf behind it, illuminating the rows of liquor bottles. There were cigarette butts in an ashtray, a thin trail of smoke still rising from it on the bar. To the left of the bar, there were a pair of doors set into the wall. The first one had “Pee Closet” scrawled across it in black marker and the second door read, “2 Do”. Hunters tended to have a third-grade sense of humor when it came to bathrooms. I’d never quite figured out why. There was a single door behind the bar. If you weren’t looking for it, you’d miss it. I pushed past Noah and beckoned him to follow me. The door blended into the barn wood-paneled wall and I stuck my finger in a knothole and tugged. The door swung open and we were hit with a wave of sound and the smell of fried food and alcohol wafting up from the bottom of the hidden staircase.
“What the….” Noah started behind me.
“This farmstead used to be a moonshiner’s hideout,” I said. “Most hunters are on the run from Johnny Law in one place or another. Makes them feel much safer to be hidden away down here when they cut loose.”
We stomped down the stairs and we were met by the squeaks of stools as their occupants turned to look at who was coming in.
“Well shit, Bane, you’re still topside?” I knew that voice and I felt myself bristling a little. It was Eliza. She was a damn good hunter and she’d dated Gabe on and off. I raised a hand in greeting to her.
“Yep, not rid of me yet.”
“Can’t be long now though, right?” Eliza asked.
“No, not long.”
“Wow,” Noah whispered in my ear. “I can feel the love from that one.”
“Stop hissing in my ear,” I muttered to him.
I glanced around the room. There was a knot of three hunters at the bar, deep in conversation, a map stretched between them. I recognized Jovan, a tall Iranian hunter with a square jaw and a rugged beard. He glanced up as we passed. “Hey Bane, nice job on those vamps in Chicago.”
I grinned at him over my shoulder. “We had fun, but Walter was pissed about it.”
Jovan rolled his eyes. “You leave one basement full of stumps and Walt has a cow, it’s just his M.O.”
In the back corner of the room, a lamp I recognized as one that had been liberated from a Pizza Hut, hung over a round table where five or six folks were deep into a game of Texas Hold ‘Em. I recognized Devon sitting across from Cival. They wore their usual bow tie and a crisp shirt. I caught Devon’s eye and they gave me a wink. I’d worked half a dozen hunts with Devon over the years. Devon was an innovator and almost always had Stacks helping them research various experiments to improve hunters’ odds against supers. Just for keeping him busy and taking up some of the time, he’d normally be using to get neck-deep into it by hacking a government website, I owed Devon a round. I didn’t recognize the other three people playing cards. I blew out a sigh. No Ruger. Not great, considering Ruger was the main reason for coming to Pitch’s. Seeing Byron’s old Gremlin outside had been a thrill, knowing I could be minutes away from kicking his ass for him sending me to Sister Smile, but I didn’t see him in the bar either.
“Bane, I haven’t seen you in an age.” I turned to look at the bar to see Mattie Mae drying a glass and grinning at us. “What drug your sorry ass back to Kansas?”
I sidled up to the bar and climbed on a stool. Noah did the same on the next stool.
“Oh, this and that. Say, I saw Byron’s Gremlin parked outside,” I paused and looked around me again. “But I don’t see his sorry hide down here.”
Mattie Mae rolled her eyes. “That green hunk of junk died about two months ago. He left it here, swearing he’d come back with a buddy who had a truck that could haul it away. He borrowed some cash from the bar on his tab, hitched a ride east with Maxi, and I haven’t seen hide or hair of him since.” She sighed. “I’d be lying if I said I was surprised.”
“Well, we don’t call him Buy-your-own Byron the Moocher, Esquire, for nothing,” I said. There was a twinge of disappointment in my chest. It would have been very soothing to beat the shit out of Byron for the hell he’d gotten me involved in by sending me to see Sister Smile. Oh well, eventually karma was going to catch up with him. Mattie Mae powered her chair to the cooler behind her where she kept the pint glasses. When she turned back around she noticed Noah and frowned.
“Oh god, Bane, please tell me this innocent isn’t a new partner?” There was a noticeable drop in the volume of conversations around us.
“I’m not an innocent,” Noah said and I could hear the frustration in his voice.
Mattie Mae gave Noah a sympathetic smile and then turned her no-nonsense glare on me. “What the hell is this kid doing with you?”
“Long story,” I said, raising both hands one to silence Noah and one to silence Mattie Mae before she chewed me out. “We’re looking for Ruger. Have you seen him?”
Mattie Mae looked down the bar. “Hey Andi, you know where Ruger is?” I followed Mattie Mae’s gaze. The three guys at the bar with the map leaned back and I finally saw past them. I felt something electric skate through my stomach. I hadn’t spotted Andi when we first came in. Andi Fletcher was a biker. She was mind-numbingly gorgeous and wore black leather...everywhere. She caught me staring and I gave her a little finger wave. She winked at me and then grinned down at her drink and answered Mattie Mae. “He’s in Tucson, chasing a lead.” Andi slid off her stool and came around the bar. I turned back around to face Mattie Mae, willing myself to not turn around and get lost in her gaze. She slid onto the stool on the other side of me and set her half-finished beer on a coaster in front of her.
“It’s good to see you, Bane. It’s been a long time.”
I nodded. “Well, you know the job and how kindly it takes to social time.”
“Yeah,” Andi said softly. “And I’ve been in the south a lot with Ruger,” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
I cleared my throat but tried to keep my voice low and put a lot of things I couldn’t say out loud into it. “From what I remember, he’s a good-looking guy. Good hunter. He’s lucky to be a part of your life. Don’t let him forget it.”
I felt Andi’s fingernails graze my jeans just above my knee. “I heard you and Gabe were getting pretty serious.”
I shook my head, trying to ignore the ache in my chest. “Not sure who’s spreading that, but you’ve been misinformed.” She added some pressure to her hand on my leg.
“That’s good news, I hated to think he was the sole receiver of your...massages these days. You know Ruger wouldn’t mind if you kept me company while he was gone.” I loved Andi but I doubted very much that Ruger wouldn’t mind. Andi was poly, but I wasn’t sure if Ruger was too. I’d seen him in passing, but I’d never had a drink with him and talked about the facts of life or anything.
But, god help me it was tempting. Andi had been my second relationship. Luckily she hadn’t known me in my two previous Empty Houses. Jo was the only relationship I’d had in my first Empty House. In my second, a soft chair had been my version of sex. My thing with Andi had started just after I came back topside in my current Empty House.
I felt Noah almost breathing on my neck. He was leaning so close to listen to what Andi and I were saying I was actually worried he was about to fall off his stool. I did my best to ignore him and I put a hand over hers on my leg. I rubbed my fingertips over the back of her hand.
“As very, very tempting as that sounds, we came for some intel, and then we have to get moving.”
Andi squeezed my leg once more and then brought her hands back up to wrap around her beer. She leaned towards me again, keeping her voice low. “I know there’s not a lot of time left for stopping to...smell the roses,” Andi said, her lips brushing the shell of my ear and sending a hundred and ten volts of current straight to my center as I had a flashback memory of the tattooed roses she had on her inner thighs. “But if you need anything, I’m here.”
