Highway to Hell (27 page)

“It's a barrier,” I said. “It seems to either ward off demons or break their connection with the material world.”

“Salt is a component of holy water,” he said pensively. I wasn't even sure he realized he was speaking aloud. “It's dissolved in the water before it's blessed.”

Henry's expression was pinched with doubt. I'd seen that
look on other people on our adventures, when they found themselves starting to take something seriously instead of just going along.

“So this is how the demon is getting out?” asked Lisa. “The drought cracked the ground and let the oil seep out around the pipe?”

I nodded. “The pipe runs down to the reservoir below the salt dome, so bingo … chupacabra escape route.”

Henry brushed at his pants leg, sending a cloud of mosquitoes into the air. Justin cast a worried look at the sky. “It's getting really dark, guys. We'd better start back.”

Grabbing my camera from its padded compartment, I ignored the way his words resonated with my Spidey sense. “Let me take some pictures real quick.”

He set my backpack down, away from the oily ground, and looked at Lisa. “Do you think your boyfriend knows there's a La Brea Tar Pit in his backyard?”

“I'm sure he doesn't. That thing could kill cattle, even if it doesn't lead straight to Hell.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and checked the signal. “Two bars. We must be near the Big House.”

“Why?” asked Justin, swatting at a bug. Since we'd stopped moving, the mosquitoes had gotten braver, diving in through the repellant, not at all affected by the fumes from the seep.

“There's a cellular relay on the tower.” She moved her thumbs over the text pad on her phone, pausing only to slap at the line of insects on her arm. “Zeke may be out of range. Coverage sucks except in this five-mile radius.”

A mosquito whined in my ear while I tried to take a
picture of the oil seep. The light was so bad, I had to use the flash to get any detail. It might as well have been dusk. Another bug stung my leg and I shook it off as I took one last shot.

“You realize what this means.” I lowered the camera and put the lens cap on. “Nobody summoned the demon. The drought is the common factor every time the chupacabra shows up.”

“You want me to say it now?” Justin slapped his neck, his fingers coming away bloody. “You were right. And I was wrong.”

Lisa glanced between us. “Right about what?”

Justin looked sheepish. “I was worried about your guy Zeke.”

She blinked, and then gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, sure. Because if he likes me, he must be the type who'd summon a demon.”

“That's not what I thought at all,” he protested.

When she turned her glare on Henry, he slapped a mosquito from his arm and shrugged. “Don't look at me. I just figured it was insurance fraud. Of the nondemonic kind.”

“Nice. You guys are just … just such …” She brushed at her hair with both hands. “God! These bugs are driving me nuts. I can't even argue right!”

Justin swatted at the air in front of his face. “Okay, look. Maybe we can talk about this somewhere else. Because chupacabra or not, I'm getting bled dry here.”

That turn of phrase shook awake the instincts that should have been paying better attention. “Yeah.” I hurried to secure my camera in the backpack. “We should get out of here.”

Justin grabbed my pack from me and swung it onto his own back. “Don't argue,” he said. “Just run.”

“Okay.” The insects were thick around us; I could barely hear him through the whine in my ears. “I'm running.”

Henry and Lisa didn't have to be told. They were both fast, and got ahead of us quickly. Justin waved them on, and they took off, the long-legged pair of them, racing for the car.

I'd never run a half a mile in my life. My lungs burned and there was a stitch in my side like a knife through my ribs. But every time I stopped moving, I was instantly swarmed, mosquitoes landing on me by the dozens.

A sharp pain on my neck. I clapped my hand over the sting and felt a squish, and something else—something awful—run up my arm. Incredible that in the midst of so much physical misery, the psychic shock could even register.

I looked at my hand and the smear of greasy black. No legs, no wings. Just sooty, viscous goo that began to dissolve in the salt of my sweat.

“Oh my God.” I was so shocked I forgot how to move my legs. Justin overshot me and had to come back.

“What's wrong?”

I showed him my hand. “These aren't mosquitoes.”

“What was your first clue?” He grabbed my arm and pulled me back into motion. “Come on. We're almost there. I see the barn.”

As soon as he said it, I realized I could
smell
the barn, and cow shit had never smelled so good.

I heard a sound through the whine of the mosquitoes and looked up to see the rental car, four-wheeling toward us like the armored cavalry in a Ford Escort.

Henry, at the wheel, fishtailed to a stop, and Lisa leaned over the front seat to open the back door, shouting, “Get in!”

Like we had to be told twice. Justin pushed me through and jumped in after. Henry gunned the engine, taking off almost before Justin got the door closed. He was sprawled half on top of me, which would have been nice under other circumstances, like if my lungs weren't about to explode and the speed over the bumpy ground wasn't rattling us around like dice in a cup.

“Hey!” Justin yelled through the bucket seats. “Dale Earnhardt. Try not to kill us.”

If Henry eased off the accelerator, I couldn't feel it. “What the hell?” There was a note of hysteria in his voice. I think he was at the end of his ambivalence. “I mean, really. What the unholy, bloody hell was that?”

Lisa craned around to look at us. “You guys okay?”

Justin tried again to sit up, with more success. “Maggie?” he asked, searching my face anxiously. “Say something.”

My heart was pounding so hard I was worried the top of my head might blow off. “You think,” I wheezed, “this is what … they mean by … ‘don't mess with Texas’?”

“We're okay,” he told Lisa, still gripping my hand tightly, which was incredibly hot and uncomfortable, like wearing an oven mitt while in a sauna. Not that I pulled away.

Through the back window, I saw that under the charcoal sky, the swarm was a visible mass, preparing for an offensive.

“What's the plan?” Lisa asked. “There is a plan, right?”

“Back to Dulcina?” said Justin. “Can we make it?”

Henry was adamant. “Hell, yes.” The wheels of the Escort kept scattering gravel. “We're not stopping until we get to a church and a priest.”

“Guys!” It took all my breath to break in. “We can't lead these things back to town.”

“You think they'll follow us there?” Lisa asked.

I blinked the sweat out of my eyes. “We can't risk it.”

Henry skillfully avoided a ditch-sized pothole. “Do you even know what those things are?”

“Demon mosquitoes. I think they're the same stuff as the chupacabra, only a zillion little ones instead of one big one.”

“Did it shape-shift?” asked Justin, like this was a perfectly reasonable possibility.

“How should I know? I didn't even think they could come out during the day.”

“Look at the sky,” said Lisa. “It's hardly daylight, the clouds are so thick.”

“Guys.” Henry nodded to the road. “Intersection ahead. I need a decision.”

“Back to Lady Acre.” As soon as I said it, I felt the
rightness
of the choice. Henry took the turn in a hail of gravel. Justin gave a grunt as I fell against him, my elbow landing in his ribs.

The road was only a car and a half wide, which was a problem, since there was a big silver pickup coming straight at us.

H
enry swerved the Escort onto the shoulder and the truck did the same. The wheels spun on the dirt, then caught some traction and we were back on the road.

Lisa twisted in her seat. “That was Zeke. He must have got my text.”

“Stop the car,” said Justin.

Henry's foot was already on the brake. Lisa jumped out, waving her arms like she was waving in an airplane. The truck's brake lights were bright in the gloom; then, after a beat, the reverse lights came on, too.

Lisa stuck her head back in the car. “Drive. I'll tell him
where we're going.” She slammed the door and ran for Zeke's pickup, which had returned to the gravel road.

“Not sure how she's going to explain this to him,” said Justin.

We watched until she climbed in; then Henry stepped on the gas. “I don't know why,” he muttered. “Mosquitoes from Hell. What's not to understand?”

Justin slapped a pair of bugs that had made it into the car with us. “How are there so many of them?”

I looked at my shirt, which was spattered with squashed bugs and blood and tiny black spots of demon spooge. They were staying dead, which was good. It meant they could be killed.

“Half of them are normal mosquitoes. Ow!” I slapped at another that had crawled out of my hair to bite me. I missed, and not one, but two buzzed off. Justin smashed them against the window, leaving a pair of black streaks.

“Did you see that?” I asked. “Every one that bites us instantly breeds another.”

“That's impossible,” said Henry. He looked in the rearview mirror. “Isn't it?”

I eyed him askance. “You're really not getting the demon concept, are you?”

“Impossible is relative,” said Justin. Against the false dusk of the storm clouds, a darker mass seemed to move parallel to our flight. “Just keep driving.”

When Henry stopped by the trail to the shrine, the three of us looked at each other for a heartbeat of “What now?”

“Should we wait them out in the car?” Henry asked.

“I don't think we can.” I could see—or maybe See—the insects coming, descending from the sky like a plague of Egypt. “We'll be trapped.”

“That settles it,” said Justin, grabbing my hand. “Let's go.”

“Lisa and Zeke aren't here yet.”

“They'll catch up.” He opened the car door and pulled me out behind him.

The demon bugs were on us in an instant. They buzzed in my ears and tangled in my hair, stinging my neck and arms. Justin beat at his clothes, trying to keep the fiends from finding their way in. He pushed me toward the trail, sounding more like a drill sergeant than a boyfriend. “Let's go.”

More running. Henry led the way down the path through the live oak trees, and Justin brought up the rear. Between the cloud-darkened sky, the heavy air, and the tremendous effort just to move one foot in front of the other, I felt like I was underwater. I could barely hear Zeke's pickup pulling into the trailhead.

The infernal insects kept stinging. They tried to fly up my nose and get in my eyes. I ran blind, swatting at the air. I tried to hold my breath but couldn't last, and sucked in a compulsive gasp through my fingers. Something horrible and bitter hit the back of my throat, making me gag and spit.

Oh, God. Impossibly, a chill ran through my overheated body. Had it gone up or down? I couldn't tell.

“What's wrong?” asked Justin.

“Bug,” I wheezed, and then spit again.

“Did you get it out?”

“I think so.” I was panting as we reached the hollow in
front of the shrine. In its circumference the air seemed thinner, cooler. Easier to breathe. My legs tried to collapse underneath me, my bruised ankle screaming, my arm aching, but Justin hauled me back onto my feet.

“Keep walking. Your heart has to slow down.” He was winded, too—even Henry huffed like a steam engine. And I wasn't dead yet. Go, me.

“Now what?” asked Henry, catching his breath.

I propped my hands on my knees, still wheezing. Still worried. “I don't know.” At least I could think. The swarm had thinned to an annoyance, and when I slapped a mosquito on my arm, all that was left was a smear of wings and legs. No goo.

But all around us, the hellish buzz droned on.

Lisa and Zeke came tearing into the glade. As if he'd crossed some invisible line, I felt a shift when Zeke entered the grotto clearing, a charge in the air. Immediately he began pelting me with incoherent questions. “What the hell? I thought the chupacabra … And now Lisa says it's a
demon?”
He gestured to the gauntlet we'd all just run. “What the … How … Jesus!”

“There's no time to explain.” I caught his eye, hoping he would calm down enough to help, but not enough to start to rationalize again. “Just work with us for the moment, okay?”

“They're not coming in.” He looked around us, as if the absence of the swarm was as incredible as its existence. “Why are they not coming in?”

“Because your grandmother knew what she was doing,” said Lisa.

Zeke stared at the four of us, from Lisa's unruffled
confidence and my red-faced exhaustion, to Justin's steadfast reassurance, to Henry's tightly reined panic.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” His laugh verged on hysteria. “You expect me to believe that the Virgin Mary can save us from monster mosquitoes?”

“Pull it together, Zeke.” Lisa's voice was as sharp as a slap. “You've just got to trust me.”

He searched her gaze, seeming poised in indecision. I held my breath—figuratively, since I was still operating on an oxygen deficit. From the moment he'd stepped into the circle of the grotto's influence, I
knew
that Zeke's cooperation was vital.