A samurai, a blacksmith, a cop, a paramedic, and a priest all cram into a beat-up old Suburban and head for the Colorado Rockies. It sounded like a bad joke, but it was my life. And I was stuck in it for a twelve-hour road trip.
Other than my brief exchange with Cole, silence reigned in the cramped vehicle, not our usual modus operandi at all. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time Will went this long without babbling about anything and everything that popped into his head. I blamed Cameron, sitting on the end of the seat farthest from me. He kept his nose buried in a book-a book for Pete’s sake! Who takes a book on a paintball/camping trip??-oblivious to the guilt I’d assigned him.
Cole caught the look and elbowed me in the side with a scowl. I shrugged. This was not my fault, dammit. It was Mira’s, or Dr. Bridget’s or… not my idea.
It didn’t help that the crisp morning had given way to a hot and muggy day-not unusual for the first week of September on the great wide Kansas plains, but still unpleasant. Once we got to the mountains, I knew it would cool down, but being wedged into the Suburban with no air conditioning was miserable at the moment. We all smelled like sweaty dog. I tilted my head to glance at Cole’s watch. Only eight hours left to go. Great. I got up before the butt crack of dawn for this?
My head ached already, and my stomach did a slow roll, expressing its displeasure. Long car trips had never agreed with me, at least when I wasn’t driving. The heat, the constant motion, terrifying nightmares… Yeah, it was no wonder I wasn’t feeling top-notch. And of course, my general discomfort with Cameron’s presence didn’t help either.
Y’know, I could have just asked the guy. “Hey, you happen to cast any magic spells lately?” Definitely would have been an icebreaker. But you don’t just go saying that kind of stuff to people. And while trying to figure out a way to tactfully drop that question into conversation, I’d fallen asleep.
Cole elbowed me again. “They’ll be fine. Would you relax? This is supposed to be a fun trip.”
I was puzzled for a moment, before realizing that he assumed my antisocial demeanor was from worrying about Mira and Annabelle. True, it had been my chief argument for skipping this trip altogether. And I was worried about them a little.
Esteban was there, to be sure, but despite what training he’d had with me over the summer, he was just a kid. Sometime in the last few months, he’d remembered he was only seventeen. He’d discovered girls, and music, and cars (after I taught him to drive). He was athletic enough, and devoted to our lessons, but he really lacked discipline. Despite my promise to teach him as best I could, any lack of focus on his part was actually fine with me. If I could keep him away from the demon-slaying profession, so much the better.
Even though I’d given him the responsibility of watching over my family, it made me nervous that he was their only means of physical protection. What could he really do, hormone something to death?
I grunted in response to Cole and stared out the window, watching the lines of I-70 go whipping past. My brother was most likely right. The summer had been quiet. No one tried to run me off the road; no one tried to hack my computer. No body-hopping demons had showed up in my backyard to taunt and heckle me (well, until a couple of days ago). I hadn’t had any phone calls from potential clients since the disaster back in March. No one had. To anyone on the outside, these were all good things!
Part of me felt like an idiot for being such an old worrywart. It wasn’t like I was the only guy who left family at home. Cole’s ailing son was valiantly starting kindergarten, like Anna, and Marty’s wife Melanie was six months along with their first. Neither of them were obsessing about it. Just me and the knot in my stomach. Of course, no one had tried to kill either of them in the last year or so. I’d had more close calls than I liked to think about.
You know how that one guy in the Western who always says the place is too quiet? Yeah, that’s how I felt. Something was brewing, it just hadn’t come to the surface yet. And the farther we got away from home, the more it tickled at the back of my mind, an insidious little whisper that said, “We always come back, Jesse.”
“Rest stop!” Will announced from the front, and even I could feel a twinge of relief. I just needed to get out of the truck and away from my thoughts.
We all piled out, everyone stretching and groaning including the dog. The five of us made an interesting troupe. You had me in all my wiry-scrawny glory with my shoulder-length blond ponytail and the beginnings of scruffy red beard stubble.
Shorter than me by a good foot, Marty’s head was shaved totally bald, and he’d cut the sleeves off his T-shirt to show off his ink. At least he wore cargo pants today instead of his usual kilt.
Will’s curly hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he took a moment to wipe the smudges off his thick glasses. My height, probably, though a good seventy-five pounds heavier if not more. Wicked smart, though he did a bumbling idiot impression really well.
Cole… well, Cole looked like a cop, and there was no way out of it. Clean cut, clean shaven, perfect posture, good boy. That’s my little brother.
And of course, Cam-short-for-Cameron, who was trying to make lumberjack into the new fall chic.
Marty tossed me the end of Duke’s leash and vanished in the direction of the restrooms. How exactly did I get elected official dog walker? By the time I pondered that for a moment, the guys had vanished, leaving me and Duke alone.
The big goofball gave me his best pleading look and leaned against the leash just enough to get his message across. I gotta go, boss!
That was all well and good, but I suddenly realized this was a chance to do a little snooping. Cam’s backpack was on top of the pile. Maybe I could just peek inside, real quick like. “Hang on, boy, Uncle Jesse’s being a bad person.”
The backpack itself was brand-new, still stiff with creases in it from where it had been boxed at the store. Glancing around once, on the lookout for the guys coming back, I unzipped it and went poking.
Jeans, jeans, socks, more socks, two shirts, boxers-ew! I grimaced and kept pawing my way past someone else’s underwear down into the depths of the bag. And I came up with nothing. No esoteric trinkets, no mystery bottles or vials. Nothing sent any tingles along my skin, evidence of magic derring-do.
Duke, not nearly as fascinated with my detective work as I was, tugged harder on the leash, whining softly.
“Hang on, almost done.” Each garment was tidily folded; it was easy enough to get everything back in the pack like I’d never touched it. Easier that than explaining to Cam why I was rummaging around in his drawers.
The spell hadn’t been his. Couldn’t have been. I’d never seen a magic user yet, my wife included, who didn’t carry something on their person, some shard of their own power. Sometimes it was a talisman, sometimes it was just tools of the trade. Hell, even with no magic to call my own, I carried charms and spells with me almost all the time, courtesy of Mira.
Mira’s was her pentacle necklace. Miguel’s had been a gold hoop earring in his left ear. Esteban’s was a silver ring on his pinkie finger. Ivan’s was the gold cross he wore religiously, pardon the pun.
A cross… Did Mr. Not-a-Priest wear a cross? I tried to picture Cam in my head, but couldn’t pull up that particular detail. It would be fitting, and magic passed for faith often enough… Okay, so it was looking like he wasn’t responsible, but I couldn’t rule him out completely. I’d have to get a better look.
Duke butted his head against my hip, rocking me. “All right, all right. Let’s do this.” I tucked Cam’s pack back in with the rest-mine had a suspicious damp spot, and I gave the dog the evil eye-and we went in search of facilities.
I found a nice big patch of grass, suitable for the occasion, and a very relieved Duke did his business quickly. I cleaned it up like a good citizen, but there was nothing in the world that would compel me to get back into that truck before I absolutely had to. Every part of me was stiff.
Glancing around, I realized I had a fairly decent open area and I decided to stretch out. Sword katas were all well and good-those I do for love. But to get myself limbered up, there were a few others I could run through real quick, work the kinks out of my muscles and joints.
Duke cocked his head in puzzlement as I looped his lead around my wrist, and set about going through a few slow stretches. I could feel my muscles loosening immediately, and for a few moments, I closed my eyes and just flowed through the motions. It was so easy to lose myself in the movements.
“Am I interrupting?” Cam-short-for-Cameron’s voice made me open my eyes, and I very nearly came around swinging. Thankfully, the ex-priest didn’t notice, more intent on feeding half his ham sandwich to the dog. “I thought he might be hungry.”
