Sparkles danced around her. She rose up. Another wave of her silly star-topped wand and the glowing transport disc receded from under them, taking the two hulking guards with it.
“Wait, Lady Alexendrite!” Hilario shouted, “What am I supposed to do! How am I supposed to save an entire city in just a few hours?”
Stone grated against stone. The black rocks of the gate slowly extended toward and around them in a semicircle. In a few seconds they would close.
Locking them outside the city.
The Alexandrite Witch sparkled in the narrowing gap. She honked her bulbous red nose.
“You must do what you do best, my sweet clown,” she said.
“Lady Alexandrite?” he said.
“Do what you do best,” she said.
The gate slammed closed with an echoing bang. Leaving an angry human, a van with a ghost in it, a gem witch with a six-tailed rat demon trembling at her feet, and…one very confused psychic, morbidly obese clown.
Do what you do best.
What the heckity heck was that supposed to be?
34
There was a hitchhiker on the road to heck.
Breaking from her sullen silence as the van rolled down the steep incline, Sapphire Witch gasped.
“How dare he!” she said.
Hilario spared a glance toward the passenger seat, but didn’t take his shaking hands from the wheel. Or his floppy shoe covered foot from the brake.
No, that would have meant death sooner rather than later. And death later–much, much, much later–was always his preference.
The van was humid with his sweat and the stench of sulfur. Which was better than it had been. The Sapphire Witch had commanded Marco’s Sea Terror soiled overcoat be tossed out before she deigned to enter the van again.
Like he wasn’t going to throw it out anyway.
Another quick glance in the rearview showed Marco and Larry getting up from their own sullen spots in the back of the van. They craned their heads forward.
He applied more pressure to the brakes. They squealed and the van’s body groaned. The engine was already laboring with the transmission in low. It chug, chug, chugged in a valiant effort to slow itself and its precious and not so precious cargo.
He squinted at the figure down the road. If there was a figure. Between the smoke and flames rising from the fiery river of molten rock below, he could barely see the narrow, switchbacking road. Too many times in the last few minutes he had wrenched the wheel to pull the van back from the sheer drop off.
He’d asked the Sapphire Witch if she could fly them down to wherever they were supposed to be going. The reply he’d gotten back was a flat No. In a tone that precluded further conversation.
It seemed she’d rather sulk that help.
But now she sat up, anger coloring her face.
“Stop the vehicle,” she said.
Commanded.
His body automatically obeyed before his mind could object. Aeons of being at the bottom of the org chart had taught him that beings used to commanding obedience didn’t like saying things twice.
The van came to a grudging stop, the brakes squealing and groaning. Fortunately they were at yet another switchback in the road. Which was sort of level. Or at least not as rectum clenchingly steep.
The passenger door flung open and the Sapphire Witch was out. Stalking toward the figure ahead of them. Lightning crackled around her hands.
He let out a sigh. At least she could be mad at someone else for a few moments. Of course, after she killed whoever it was, all her anger and disdain would be back on him.
Which really seemed unfair. He was supposed to save the city and she was supposed to help him. In some way. Maybe.
“What the fuck’s going on now?” Marco asked. He had his meaty paws on the back of the seats, his blocky face thrust toward the windshield.
“Where’s Sapphire going?” Larry asked.
The six tailed rat demon, who had been dozing at the Sapphire Witch’s feet jumped up on the seat and put its paws on the dash.
“Oh oh,” it said, “This is bad.”
Hilario restrained himself from grabbing the rat demon by the neck and shaking it.
“What’s bad? Who is that?” he said.
The rat demon shook its scaly head. “You might want to back up a few miles, clown boy,” it said, “This could get ugly.”
Hilario pushed the thought of the miles of narrow, heart attack inducing road out of his mind. There was no way he was going to back the van up that.
“Who is it?” he said.
“Sapphire’s old boyfriend,” the rat demon said.
Oh dear.
Lighting crackled in a great blue flash that lit up the canyon. In the stark, bright relief of it, Hilario got a glimpse of the being.
And his heart sank.
Why?
Why did it have to be one of them?
Bolts of lightning sizzled away from the Sapphire Witches hands. The bolts surged around the object of her ire. Raw electricity swirled in a ball around him.
But never touched him.
“Die!” she screamed at him.
But the being just laughed. A hollow, metallic sound that drummed against Hilario’s ears.
“What is that thing?” Larry asked.
A hand slapped Hilario’s shoulder. Hilario jumped. Nearly unlocked his light energy reserves to rebuff the attack. Until he realized it was just Marco. Marco with the eerily complete psychic shield that Hilario couldn’t penetrate.
“Larry asked you a question,” Marco said, “What the fuck is that thing?”
Hilario let out a heavy sigh. Watched the Sapphire Witch throw more lightning at the being. Which did it no harm
