“What happened in there?” asked McGlazer.
“Let that stay between us,” Ysabella said.
Maisie scrutinized her mentor’s expression for signs of a resolution. What she found was despair and resignation, as if etched with acid.
Chapter 9
Beyond The Darkness
The post-midnight chill was like a fall from a great height, so violently did it shock Yoshida awake.
Awake?
He was surrounded by forest, under a haloed half-moon.
His feet stung and ached. They were bare and dirty, like the rest of him. “Just great,” he grumbled. “Where the hell am I?”
Shivering, he did a quick three-sixty to find his sleep clothes, cursing when he didn’t. Not that the boxer shorts and T-shirt would offer much warmth, but at least he’d feel less vulnerable.
Yoshida slapped himself, hoping to come out of this new dream level and find himself in his bed, with soft music playing at low volume on the nightstand as usual, his digital clock dimly reassuring him he had many hours of night left. But the slap changed nothing.
Yoshida searched his last memory. It was what it should be—lying in bed, whitewashing the day with some focused breathing to carry him off to slumber.
After that—dashing through the woods—on the hunt.
He didn’t remember killing anything. Only wanting to. Hungering for the chance…
Naked and filthy, he could expect exactly no late travelers to stop and help, if he could even locate the road.
Then, rubbing his cold arms, he circled forty degrees and stared assuredly into darkness between trees. He saw something—but not with his eyes.
The way home.
He could not have given directions if asked, nor could he have seen his own footprints in the dark to retrace them. He could walk to his house, though, in a straight line, with no misgivings, no doubt that he would find his way.
Beginning the trek, Yoshida rubbed the place on his arm where Aura had bitten him but felt nothing.
A hot bath, a cold beer and back to the sack he’d go—hopefully to stay.
* * * *
“Thank goodness, the boys didn’t jump the fence again.” McGlazer said to Stella. He was not about to let anyone enter without him. Not even Hudson.
Though McGlazer’s house was within walking distance of the church, Stella had picked him up, still accustomed to doting on him from when he was recovering from the crippling assault at the hands of Ragdoll Ruth. “Oh, yeah.” Stella gestured at the gate. “We all know how insistent you are that no one goes in without you.”
She let him out right at the gate. “Did you get some sleep, officers?” he asked Hudson and Yoshida.
“Ten solid hours,” Hudson said. “Leticia apparently threatened to murder anyone dumb enough to wake me.”
Yoshida’s haggard face was his answer.
The three witches gave their greetings. Ysabella looked little better than she had after the ritual to cure Aura. Maisie stood between her elders, a folded white cloth clutched to her chest.
Dennis Barcroft’s flame-painted hearse rumbled around the corner of Ecard Street, loaded down with bodies: Pedro, Jill, DeShaun and Stuart.
“Hmm.” Violina all but rolled her eyes at the cartoonish hearse, but smiled her appreciation for its lanky androgoth driver.
“Now it’s a party,” quipped Hudson.
“Damn right,” said Dennis.
Stella unlocked the gate. “Who’s driving up?”
“Looks like a nice walk, actually,” Ysabella commented, and started doing just that. Only Maisie noted the slight wobble in her gait.
Yoshida issued a quiet, irked huff as he began to follow.
“Maybe you should head home,” Hudson told him. “Pretty obvious you didn’t sleep.”
Yoshida waved him off.
“Something up?” Hudson asked.
“Insomnia, I guess.”
As they trekked up the long hill, the others broke into groups as well.
Maisie looked to Ysabella, as if for permission, and received a knowing smile. The young witch dropped back to greet Pedro, presenting him with a proud smile and the tightly folded cloth she had been hugging.
“No way!” Letting the Sex Pistols T-shirt unfold, Pedro inspected the collar. “You got the blood out!”
“As promised.”
“Don’t tell me it was magic.”
“Of a kind.”
“And the logo ain’t even faded!” He side-hugged her, gave her a kiss on top of the head. “You’re the coolest, lady!”
“‘Sex Pistols’…” She took the shirt from him to make one more inspection of the pristine white fabric. “So…should I give them a listen?”
“If you hear us—old us, that is—then you’ll know.” He flashed a smart-ass grin at Dennis.
Maisie watched him admire the shirt, remembering the day before when she met him at the Community Center and coaxed from him the story of how he had gotten blood on his favorite shirt.
“See, I got scratched during the, ya know, howl-a-baloo with The Fireheads…or Furheads, as it were.”
She laughed so loud it made her instantly self-conscious, until he said “Ah, you ain’t gotta sell it like that.”
It seemed a wild contradiction that this well-muscled, overtly theatrical rock-and-roll personality was so modest, until she learned just a little more about his past. The muscles were more armor than decoration, and the music, escape. These had kept him alive during the kind of harrowing childhood only Candace could top.
“Maybe I could watch you rehearse then,” she said. “Or even record, if we’re around long enough.”
“Maybe we could have a picnic or something first.” He gave her a shy smile. “Believe it or not, I’m a little shy at first.”
“Warm-up picnic, then rehearsals,” Maisie said. “Sounds like a full day to me.”
“It’s a date then,” Pedro said. “’Cause if you chicks are here to do what we’re asking of you, you’re gonna be staying a while.”
* * * *
Dennis bumped against Jill. “Aww, ain’t Petey cute over there snuggling up with Sabrina the Teenage Witch?”
She nudged him back. “Ain’t you cute, though.”
Dennis met her gaze and put both hands over his heart. “There goes all my focus for the day.”
“Don’t you worry, Sugar-Tits,” Jill said. “We finish this demo, and I’ll see you on the other side.”
“You’re moving quite well today,” Violina told Ysabella, a curl of the
