Sparrow Hill Road 2010 By Seanan (12 page)

"Aren't you supposed to add 'and be not afraid' or something to that?" I ask,
moving to enter the trailer.

The Queen of the Routewitches gives me a small, faintly amused smile, and
asks, "Why would I do something like that? I'm here to answer your questions.
I'm not here to lie to you."

Somehow, that fails to reassure me in the slightest. Still, in for a penny,
in for a pound, as my grandmother always used to say, and I've come too far to
turn back now. I shrug, green silk sleeves moving against my shoulders. "Okay,
then. Let's rock."

***

The trailer of the Queen of the Routewitches is decorated in Early Vagabond,
with a few exciting traces of Thrift Store Chic. Not the sort of thing I'd
expect to see from royalty, but the more I think about it, the more sense it
makes. Routewitches don't like to buy anything new when they have a choice in
the matter. Things get stronger the further they've traveled, and the more
hearts they've had calling them "mine." As the Queen, she had to have her choice
of the best the country's flea markets and antique shops had to offer, and if
that meant things never quite matched, well, I didn't think that was necessarily
going to be a factor.

She motions me to a seat at a battered card table with a slightly-stained
lace tablecloth spread across it. "I'll be right with you," she says.

I sit.

When she returns, she has a red glass wine bottle in one hand, and a deck of
cards in the other. "Now, what is it that I can do for you tonight?"

"Bobby Cross," I answer.

"I thought as much. I asked myself, 'what could bring the Phantom Prom Date
to walk the Ocean Lady, even knowing how dangerous it is for someone like her,'
and the only answer I could come up with was 'revenge.'" She places the bottle
between us as she sits, waking me with faint amusement. "People are pretty
simple, really."

"It's not about revenge," I protest, but I'm lying. It's been about revenge
for decades. It's been about revenge since the day I understood just what was
really going on. "It's about stopping him. He needs to be stopped."

"I didn't say he didn't. I only said that this was about revenge—and it is.
Lie to me, if you like, but take care not to lie to yourself. That won't make
things better when the cards are down, and you've done what you feel needed
doing." The Queen begins to shuffle the cards, sliding them through her hands
with quick, practiced ease. "Sin applies even after death, Rose Marshall, and if
he's what's held you here all this time, disposing of him could very easily send
you to your eternal rest. Were you in a state of grace when you died? Do you
think you're in a state of grace now?"

"I don't know." There's something about the cards that pulls my eyes to them,
making it difficult to look away. "I don't think it matters, really. He has to
stop. It's gone on too long now."

"Bobby Cross. Some men don't need introductions, do they?" She stops
shuffling, sets the cards between us, and looks at me. "Ask your question, Rose
Marshall, and we'll see what we can see."

I swallow, hard, and ask, "How do I stop Bobby Cross?"

"Ah." The first card is flipped, sleek black muscle car with red headlights
racing along a midnight road. I can't tell the make or model, and I don't need
to; I know what this represents. "The Chariot," she says, voice sweet as cherry
wine. "Robert Cross loved to drive. He loved the speed, and the thrill of the
chase, even when all he chased was the wind. He chased that wind all the way to
Hollywood, all the way to the silver screen. They called him Diamond Bobby. Some
people say James Dean died the way he did because he was chasing the ghost of
Bobby Cross, trying to catch up with a legend." Her eyes dart up toward me, gaze
piercing and cold. "You know the truth in that, don't you?"

I don't speak. I don't need to. The Queen quirks the smallest of smiles and
flips a second card, little girl with hair the color of late-summer wheat
standing in front of an old-fashioned movie theater. "The roles came fast and
the lines came easy, and still he kept racing to catch up with the next big
thing, the next thing that could prove to be worth chasing. They said he'd be
one of the greats. But he was getting older, and he was afraid."

"Everybody gets older," I say. Everybody who lives to have the chance. I've
watched my family grow old and die, leaving me alone in the world, and I'm still
sixteen, and I'm still here, and all because of Bobby Cross.

"Age may come for us all, but there are...ways...to beg indulgence." She
turns a third card, and there's the truck stop on the Ocean Lady, neon bright
and seeming to glow even when it's only ink on paper. Her fingers caress the
image, ever so lightly, like they might caress a lover. "He came to the King of
the Routewitches in the summer of 1941, a living, breathing man whose need and
desire burned bright enough to set him on the path of the Atlantic Highway. He
was no routewitch, no ambulomancer or trainspotter. He was just a man. That's
why, when he walked this far and begged for audience, his request was granted."

My stomach lurches with the sudden need to lose what little I'd managed to
eat in the bar. "Bobby Cross made his bargain with the routewitches?"

"No." Her answer is sharp, silk circling steel, and she raises her head to
glare at me. "Not only ghosts are allowed to come to us for answers, and the
road answers the questions it decides deserve response. Bobby Cross asked the
King how he could live forever, and the King sent him to the crossroads, where
bargains can be made, if you're willing to pay them. He made his own choice, and
he made his own deal, and when next the time for the passing of the crown came
due, our King removed himself from the throne, and I was chosen. Place no blame
without the knowledge to support it."

"But Bobby—"

"Routewitches are born in the daylight and live in the twilight. We die in
the midnight, and the ghostroads are the closest thing we have to a true home.
Without them, the Ocean Lady will not open her arms or her heart to us, and we
wither and die. Who has once worn the crown and sets it aside is no longer
welcome on the ghostroads." The Queen's gaze remains coldly challenging. "When
our King realized what he'd allowed by answering Bobby's question, he exiled
himself by passing the crown along. He died in the daylight. He has been more
than punished for his sins."

I want to argue with her. I want to list off the names of Bobby's victims,
starting with my own. I don't say a word.

The Queen gives a small, sharp nod and turns another card, two roads crossing
in the desert night. "When you go to the crossroads, you take your chances with
the bargain you'll be offered. There's no backing out once you begin. Bobby
Cross requested eternal life, time to race every road he could, and something
came up out of the deepest levels of the midnight and granted him his heart's
desire."

Bobby Cross rode out into the desert one night, following another successful
movie premiere in a string that seemed like it would go on forever, and he was
never seen again. There was no body, no wreck, nothing but some skidmarks
cutting across the pavement, and the disappearance of the greatest star of an
age. Had he managed to drive into the twilight, where the cameras couldn't find
him, after making his bargain?

I was starting to believe that he had. I swallow, and ask, "So what was the
catch? Nothing's free. Not when it comes from the midnight."

"Clever little ghost." She turns another card, and my stomach lurches again,
dinner demanding the right to make a return appearance. The likeness is so exact
that it could have been painted from a photograph, sixteen-year-old girl with
her wheat-colored hair lightened by lemon juice, wearing a green silk gown that
was risque, once, and now seems almost hopelessly old-fashioned.
Sixteen-year-old girl with wide, trusting brown eyes, and all her life ahead of
her.

If only I'd stayed home that night. If only I'd waited for Gary to call, to
tell me why he was so late. If I could take it back I would, all of it, every
second of that night and all the nights since, all the time that slipped away
since the night that I looked in the mirror and saw the girl on the painted
card.

"Eternal life was an easy thing to grant. All it takes is convincing the
ghostroads that a person is already dead, while leaving them among the living. I
could do it, if I had time enough, and reason, and wanted to anger the Ocean
Lady. But eternal youth...now that's a harder race to run." She turns another
card, broken mirror this time, blood clinging to the shards at the center. "If
Bobby wants to stay young enough to enjoy his side of the bargain, he has
to...do things. Things that might not seem so pleasant."

"You mean he has to kill people."

The Queen of the Routewitches smiles as she takes her hands away from the
cards and opens the bottle of wine. The sharp, overly-sweet smell of cheap port
fills the trailer. "I mean that it's time we discussed the topic of payment."

Well, crap.

***

Nothing's free in the twilight; everything's an exchange. Sweet-talking
someone out of their jacket for a few hours of stolen-back life. Preventing one
accident at the cost of causing another. I don't know why I thought for half a
heartbeat that dealing with the Queen would be different. "I think I left my
wallet in my other coffin," I say, as dryly as I can.

"We don't deal in money here." The Queen offers the wine bottle across the
table, eyes fixed unwaveringly on mine. "A favor, Rose Marshall. That's all I'll
charge you for your answers. One day, one of mine will come to you, and ask you
to do something. Refuse, and the hands of my people will be set against you
until such time as you run these roads no longer. Agree, and your debt is paid."

"I can't agree to every single thing I'm asked to do just because the person
asking might be 'one of yours,'" I protest.

"The one who comes to claim the favor will bring a password to prove that
it's for me," she replies, smooth and calm. "All you have to do is what you're
asked."

"I won't kill anyone."

"Pretty little ideals for a ghost with nowhere else to turn. Do your scruples
extend to Bobby, or has he forfeited his right to live?" The Queen smirks,
utterly amused, utterly patient. She knows she has the upper hand here. God help
me, so do I. "Agreed. You won't be asked to kill anyone, or deliver anyone to
any fate they have not earned. If these requests are made of you, our bargain is
done, and you owe me nothing."

If there's a catch here, I can't see it. I'm tired, and I really don't know
where else to turn. It was a whim that set me on the Ocean Lady...but it was a
whim that's been a long damn time coming, and it's time that this was done. "A
favor for my answers," I agree. "I'll do it."

"I thought you might." She keeps holding out the bottle, clearly waiting for
me to take it. "Go ahead. Have a drink."

The wine is sweet enough to be cloying; it burns the back of my throat,
setting my head spinning in an instant. The Queen pulls the bottle away, taking
a drink of her own before she sets it aside, and says, "So we have bargained and
so we are bound, Rose Marshall of Michigan, Shadow of Sparrow Hill Road. May the
Ocean Lady keep our bond in safety."

"That and a buck-fifty will get me half a cup of coffee," I snap. "How do I
stop Bobby Cross?"

"The eternal life is his, to do with as he chooses, but the eternal youth is
centered somewhere closer to the road." This time, the card she turns shows an
odometer, the mileage set at zero. "As long as his car is fed and tended, he
stays young and strong—strong enough to keep racing, keep running, and keep his
part of the bargain."

My skin is living-warm, and the Queen's trailer is well-heated, but I shiver
all the same. I can't help it. I've been chasing Bobby for years, and running
from him for even longer, and I know all about the bastard's car. I know what he
feeds the damned thing.

Bobby Cross's car runs on souls.

"He doesn't need to run them off the road—not exactly—but he does need to
harvest them from a very specific class of people. Ghosts are common. Specific
types of ghost are rare. There are so many of you out there, dying so many kinds
of death, that sometimes catching the ghost you want can border on impossible.
Bobby's car needs ghosts of the road to keep running, and to keep him young."

"And death on the road is the best way to get us," I say, very softly.

"Unless you're a routewitch, yes," she replies. "Routewitch ghosts are always
road ghosts. It's the last gift the road can give to us. So he picks his victims
carefully, and runs them off the road when they seem most likely to leave a
shade behind. After that—"

I hold up my hand. "I know what happens after that." I'm not always fast
enough, that's what happens after that. I don't always see the accident coming
in time, I'm not always in the right place, they don't always believe me.
Bobby's still out there, because I'm not always good enough to save them, even
after they're dead. "How do I stop him?"

"Take his car away from him." The Queen of the Routewitches looks at me
calmly. "Separate the two of them, and age will catch up with him. He'll live,
but he won't be able to stalk the ghostroads any longer. Not without his car to
carry him."

"Is that all?"

"It's harder than it sounds."

"I'll believe that, no problem." I rub my arms, trying to warm myself back
up. "Just take his car away, huh?"

"Yes. As for the how, well..." She smiles again. "I think we can help you
with that."

***

Tattoos and piercings are the only things I can't fake when I change my
clothes and shift my hair around to suit the places that my travels take me. I
can do clip-on jewelry, magnetic nose studs, fake belly button rings, but
nothing that actually changes the body that I died with. That sort of thing was
a lot less common when I was still among the living. My mother told me once that
she'd die before she saw any daughter of hers scribbled on like a carnival
hootchie dancer.