Aspen (9 page)

Jynx stood and handed Aspen a bottle of water from the bedside table. “Creek said you might have a headache. He called it a ‘mage hangover’.”

“You told him what happened?”

Jynx shrugged. “When I got you back here and we couldn’t wake you, yes. Creek said you were in some kind of hibernation to recover from using your magik. He’s hard to understand, but the gist was that it takes a lot out of a witch to heal someone. Most can’t do it at all.”

Aspen sipped the water. “I didn’t know that, I was just trying to help Vincent.”

Jynx sat on the bed beside her. “And you did good, but I’m guessing you shouldn’t do it again unless you have a safe place to rest and someone to look out for you, because you were out of it. Even Creek yelling in your ear didn’t make you flinch.”

Aspen drank some more water and set it aside. “Good to know. Did Creek have any other pearls of wisdom I should know about?”

“Only that I should leave you alone and let you sleep. I think he threatened to cut me into small pieces if I woke you, but like I said, he’s hard to understand.”

Aspen blinked at her. “You let him get away with that? You must be slipping.”

Jynx waved her hand. “He didn’t mean it. I’ve known Creek since I was barely old enough to sit on those stools out there. He was just watching out for you.”

Aspen stood and staggered toward the bathroom. “He’s got a kind old soul in there somewhere. I’m going to get a shower and hope it makes me feel human again. You’re welcome to stay and read.”

“Because that’s exciting,” Jynx muttered.

Aspen stepped out of the bathroom forty minutes later feeling refreshed and human again. She’d dressed in a pair of jeans tucked into knee-high boots and a pastel purple top that left her arms bare. She was surprised to find that Jynx was gone, but not overly so. Jynx was a free spirit and bound to do what suited her at the time without saying much. Odds were good that she’d gone to the diner to get something to eat or was making use of the makeshift shooting range behind Creek’s trailer.

It was cooler than she’d expected when she stepped outside and she shrugged into her leather jacket before heading up to the diner. She rounded the corner near the door and spotted Jynx loading gear into the back of her car. Aspen crossed the lot and looked over her shoulder.

“Going somewhere?”

Jynx hefted a pack and lowered into the trunk amidst a collection of weapons that looked like it belonged in the back of a military vehicle.

“Piper is going to be in hospital a few more days, I thought you and I could go check out this Devil’s Lake. Maybe we can dig something up about your dead guy. Are you ready to go?”

Aspen blinked. “What, like, now? Tonight?”

Jynx turned and folded her arms. “Why not? We’ve still got daylight and Midnite here has more than enough lights to set up a camp by.”

Aspen hadn’t expected to leave so soon, but there was really no time like the present. Michelle would be able to cover her shift until she got back, so why not?

“Sure, let me grab a few things.”

Jynx pulled a piece of gum out of her pocket and bit into it. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Aspen returned to her room where she packed her own gear bag along with some of Martel’s cameras and ‘ghost hunting’ gear. Most of it looked like baloney, but night vision could come in handy and who knew what was out there?

She added her pistol to a tactical holster Raven had given her and then retrieved her spell book from its hiding place in the floor. The book, with its thick black and purple binding, and antique pages was her prized possession. It had taken her the better part of two years to rebuild the one she’d lost, and another three to compile a repertoire of magik that actually worked outside the Faewild.

She held the book to her chest, hefted her gear and returned to the parking lot where Jynx was twirling her pistols around her fingers like an Old West Pistolero. She holstered them when she saw Aspen coming and popped the car’s trunk again. Aspen dropped her bag in alongside the others and closed the lid.

“What’s the book?” Jynx asked.

“Spells. You never know what we might need.”

Now it was Jynx’s turn to be surprised. “You actually have a spell book? I thought they were all tomes of ancient mysteries and dark powers. Daddy always said to burn the books and salt the ashes.”

Aspen held her book a little tighter. “Not all are like that. There are books of evil out there, far more than there are books of light, but this isn’t one. I’ve been collecting new spells since I… Since I was in high school. They’re the good kind.”

Jynx’s next question was interrupted by Creek, who appeared carrying two carryout containers. He held them out sheepishly and muttered, “I kno’ yer goin’ out to Debbil Lake. Take these wi’ ye.”

Aspen took the containers gratefully. “Thank you, Creek. We’ll be back as soon as we can and put an end to whatever Martel got into before the Mistress comes back around.”

“Jes’ be careful.”

Aspen hugged him, not caring that he smelled of unwashed yeti and bacon grease. He was a good friend. Jynx started the big car’s engine and Aspen climbed inside. “Don’t worry, Creek, we’ll be back in a few days. Save my room for me.”

He closed the door and leaned down to look through the window. “Be careful.”

Jynx put the car in gear and accelerated away. Aspen could see Creek watching them from within the cloud of dust, like a scarecrow on an empty field.

The sun was just a faint glow on the horizon when Jynx got out to move the barriers at the end of the lonely dirt road that led to Devil’s Lake. A warning sign indicated that the area had been condemned and trespassers would be prosecuted. Jynx stuck her gum to the sign, moved the barriers and drove through. Once they were on the other side, Aspen put the barriers back and cast a minor spell to erase their tire tracks, which she hoped would keep curious eyes from following them to the village.

The town of Devil’s Lake started as a mining camp at the edge of a small spring-fed lake. When silver was found, the camp boomed into a village with more than five hundred souls, primarily miners and prospectors in search of the precious metal. Once the silver veins had been excavated out, the majority of workers moved on to richer mines. Those left behind made a go of mining the thin veins of coal that seamed the area. The town made a modest recovery until an accident ignited the sulfurous coal and destroyed the mine. The town was condemned and the mine abandoned as too dangerous to work any further.

In the 1980s the area became known as haunted when a group of tourists were found at the edge of the access road, frightened and half-starved. Though four of their number survived, three were never seen again. After that incident, the area was marked off-limits and fenced off, with only the one access road left to monitor the fires.

Being marked as off-limits hadn’t kept ghost hunters and adventure seekers out, though. More than seventeen explorers had vanished in the last twenty years, alone, with numbers closer to fifty if rumors and legends were to be believed.

Jynx parked the Charger on a stretch of hard-packed clay and looked out at the cluster of buildings around them. “This is a Midnight Road.”

Aspen’s brows knit. “A what?”

Jynx didn’t look at her. “A Midnight Road. It’s what my grandfather always called places of evil, where the veil is thin. Something really bad happened here.”

“If you listen to the stories, it is still happening. We should set up camp before it gets any darker,” Aspen said.

It took some time to gather the gear and set up a camp not too far from the car, which Jynx parked in such a way it was facing back the way they’d come. As she worked, Aspen felt herself drawn to the buildings behind her. They were old and looked like every ghost town in every horror movie ever made, with weather-worn wooden walls and roofs made of tarpaper. The windows of the nearest building, an old gas station with rotting pumps, were broken, but the glass in the older buildings near the heart of the village looked intact. Trespassers, it seemed, were only brave enough to explore the outskirts of town and not the heart, where the safety of the tree line was less certain.

It was full dark and the bugs were out by the time she’d finished putting together the old tent Jynx had provided and stowed her sleeping bag and other gear inside. When she was through, she started setting up some of Martel’s “ghost hunting” equipment while Jynx got a fire going and set about warming the burgers and fries that Creek had sent along. She placed two infrared cameras, one facing each direction down the main street, along with an electromagnetic field reader. When she was done, she joined Jynx by the fire. Jynx handed her a somewhat soggy burger and sat back on an old stump to eat.

“What do you think?” Jynx asked.

Aspen looked at her burger suspiciously. It smelled like Creek had added mustard. “About what?”

Jynx bit into her burger. “This town, this whole place. Why do you think Martel came all the way out here?”

Aspen bit her own burger and chewed while she thought. There was an odd feeling to the small town, but that was to be expected. It was abandoned, after all. But there was something else, something more sinister that she couldn’t put a name to.

She swallowed and looked at Jynx. “It feels odd. There is more to this than just the place being abandoned. From Martel’s notes and what I found so far, he was here trying to debunk that the place was haunted. His story was that the missing people were just accidents blown out of proportion by the media.”

Jynx took another big bite and talked while she chewed. “I don’t think they were accidents. Something bad happened here, something real bad. I can feel it.”

“That’s why we are here. To find out what happened and what killed Martel,” Aspen said.

Jynx finished her burger and started smothering her fries in ketchup from a pile of ill-gotten packets. “I still don’t get why you’re so interested in his case.”

Aspen shrugged. “Why are you?”

“Because I have the attention span of a chipmunk and need something to keep me from going nuts while Piper is in the hospital,” Jynx said.

“How’s she doing?”

Jynx stopped chewing. “She’s all right. Doc has her in something called an induced coma while she heals. Nothing I could do there right now.”

Aspen nibbled on a fried potato and stared at the fire.

“What about you?” Jynx prompted.

Aspen didn’t look from the flames. “I told you. If I don’t, nobody will.”

Jynx spat into the fire. “Yeah, I heard you. But there’s more to it than that.”

Aspen raised her eyes. “You know me that well after two days?”

Jynx smiled and rubbed an insect bite on her wrist. “I do. So, spill it, girlfriend.”

Aspen paused and nibbled on another fry. “When I was in college, I was studying to be a composer. My roommate was a forensic science major named Tanika. She was a real pretty girl and a good friend. Our third semester, she was walking back from a Bulldogs game when two boys caught up with her.”

Jynx looked away. “Shit.”

Aspen slapped at a mosquito feasting on her neck and wiped the blood on her jeans. “Yeah. They cut her up real bad, too. When the cops showed up, they did almost nothing. They said there were small crimes and big crimes and, in the scheme of things, one girl was a small crime.”

Jynx kicked her seat hard enough that wood chips flew away into the darkness and stared at the fire.

“I came back from class one morning to find her swinging from the ceiling fan. No note, no nothing, just my dead friend,” Aspen continued.

She wiped tears away from her eyes. “There are no such things as small crimes to the victims. Martel is dead and somebody somewhere deserves to know why.”

She stopped talking and examined her burger. Somehow, the meat and cheese didn’t look so appetizing. She set it aside and stood. “Feel like taking a look around this dump?”

Jynx tossed her takeout container onto the fire. “Why not? I ain’t going to sleep until we know it’s safe.”

The old main street was scarred and pitted blacktop with a center line so faded that it was nothing but a smear of yellow against grey pavement. It vanished to the north and was flanked by a variety of buildings that looked almost untouched by time and vandals. As they neared the old station, Aspen raised her hand and sent a wisp of light through the broken window. She could see it flickering through the holes in the station’s walls and the shattered doorway, which showed the small building was empty save for an old desk and a bedroll covered in dust and debris.

“That’s a neat trick,” Jynx said as the ball flew back to Aspen’s hand.

Aspen held the ball and stroked it lovingly. “It’s a will of the wisp, the first spell my momma ever taught me.”

“Is there any chance you can teach me?” Jynx asked.

Aspen sent the ball winging away toward the next building. “Maybe, you are part fae.”

The next building was in better repair than the gas station, but still bore the signs of neglect and abuse. The crazily leaning sign had once read ‘General Store’, but time and vandalism had changed it to ‘Gen tor’ and left it swaying in the breeze like an old kite. The wisp fluttered through the window and circled around the first floor. Aspen crept up to the entrance and peered inside. More old sleeping bags sat on the floor. The way they were arranged, partially unzipped and wrinkled, they gave the impression their occupants had just been roused from a fitful sleep. Only the dust, weeds, and debris gave away that they had been that way for years. Aspen briefly wondered what had happened to them. Campers weren’t known for leaving their gear behind.

“Somebody bailed in a hurry,” Jynx said.

Aspen stepped onto the sidewalk and leaned through the door. “Several somebodies. There are four bedrolls, four backpacks and enough military rations for a week in here.”

The store had been gutted at some point in the past. Now, only the old metal shelves remained, pushed up against the walls to form a sort of barricade. Four sleeping bags lay in the middle amidst a pile of gear that included backpacks, military meals and an old camp toilet.