Chapter 2

Lucy’s dress fluttered in the breeze; the items she carried clinked softly together. Beau’s features were unreadable in the dim light but her stride suggested irritation. The gravel of the forgotten parking lot crunched softly beneath their feet.

The most permanent residence they had for the last seven years was parked at the edge of the gravel. The four-wheel drive Bronco had seen better days. The moonlight muted the pocked body full of dents and scratches.

“I mean… can you believe the nerve of them?” Beau said as she leaned close, examining the driver’s side door.

“Honestly,” Lucy said, “it’s a bit difficult to make it out what with all her other battle scars.”

“It’s the principle, Lu.”

“Well, they did prove good bait for the Chupacabra. I’ll give you that,” Lucy said as she opened the back of the vehicle.

Beau leaned back against the Bronco. She cradled her injured arm against her chest while she scanned their surroundings. Lucy held her breath as she lifted the heavy crate full of oil, transmission fluid and odd tools out of the back. Her fingers felt along the edge of the floorboard until they found a catch and the floorboard sprung open, a feature courtesy of Lucy’s own invention. Five rifles sat in their rack accompanied by eleven handguns. Lucy was particularly fond of the knives which she kept arranged in an ostentatious display of a radiating circle, blades pointing outward. The projectile weapons were hidden away in velvet boxes; the throwing stars aligned next to the daggers.

Lucy turned her attention to a large wooden box that occupied the majority of the left side of the trunk. She lifted its wooden handle, pulling out an accordion drawer of ingredients. Its contents were amassed for Beau’s experimentation with witchcraft. Wormwood, witch-hazel, feverfew, ashwood, and other herbs were dark in their glass vials. Black salt for protection and holy water for the damned, their usual clientele. An array of three glass vials lay conspicuously on the lowest shelf.

“Would you like to do the honors?” Lucy motioned at the bottles.

“You bet your sweet ass,” Beau said sarcastically.

She nudged past Lucy and positioned herself solemnly in front of the vials. Lucy took up Beau’s place as lookout. She pulled the bowie knife she lovingly called “The Goblin King” from her boot and began idly tapping it against the side of her thigh.

Beau smiled as she traced her fingers along the glass containers. The first vial looked as though it contained a dark smoke that undulated on its own. She plucked out the second vial and tried to place the quill inside. It was several inches too long.

Beau frowned. “It’s too big for the vial.”

Lucy glanced over. “So?”

“So it won’t line up in an orderly fashion. Do you see how pristine this case is? Wait. Why are we low on holy water?”

Lucy began to whistle.

“Lucy?” Beau raised her voice.

“I may have borrowed some to-” The rest of her sentence was mumbled.

“You used the holy water on what now?”

Lucy was well-trained. She kept her attention on their surroundings, though she seemed very interested in the area that kept her back to Beau.

“I may have found a mama cat with a litter of kittens and thought they needed all the help they could get.”

“You used the holy water on some stray cats.”

Lucy glanced back at Beau. “B, you didn’t see them. They were pitiful and all of them were orange! Molly needed some good luck.”

“Molly?” Beau cocked an eyebrow.

“They were all orange, B,” Lucy said as though that explained everything.

Beau shrugged back not understanding her friend’s twisted logic.

“They’re all orange,” Lucy repeated, “They’re poor, living on the street. I know Weasleys when I see them.”

Beau shook her head. “You know that’s what the bad guy says, right?”

“How do you know I’m not a bad guy?” Lucy smiled.

“Well, you can get some from that cathedral in town before we go.”

“Oh no!” Lucy peered around to Beau. “It was my turn last time. Remember that priest, His Holiness Creepy McHugs-a-Lot?”

Beau placed the .32 that had been fastened to her hip between a rifle and a sawed-off shot gun. She put away Lucy’s rifle, closed the compartment and slammed the trunk shut.

“Yes, but you used up half of what we had and your contraption didn’t work,” Beau said, holding up her bandaged arm. “Payback, it’s a dick.”

“That’s not the saying,” Lucy said.

“It’s the non-misogynistic version,” Beau said as she opened the driver’s side door.

Lucy slid into the Bronco, as Beau turned the ignition. The heaters blasted on as they gunned down a gravel road illuminated only by moonlight. The warehouses crept slowly by in varying ranges of decay. Bethel was a town on the decline. The thin shotgun houses that passed by were primarily abandoned with faded eviction notices and boards nailed across windows.

Beau scattered gravel as she banked onto the main road that led to the last part of Bethel that appeared to be populated. As the headlights snapped forward, the reflectors along the middle of the road glowed, dimly inching to the next turn like an endless strand of Christmas lights.

“I’m starving. How about some,” Lucy glanced at her watch, “3:00 AM breakfast? You hungry?”

“What kind of question is that?” Beau said. “I’m always hungry.”

The homes were dark and businesses sparse. In the distance, the glow of neon grew brighter. They soon distinguished a well-lit gas station with a crooked sign boasting a 24-hour restaurant called “Mamacita’s”.

A tinny bell sounded as Beau and Lucy walked in. A smell of old grease pervaded the building. The two clerks didn’t acknowledge their entrance. Amongst the various dirty magazines and assorted cigarettes, a small television was nestled in a corner. The male clerk sat, loudly chewing gum, watching Sigourney Weaver run from tentacles and acid. The woman thumbing through a magazine behind the counter glanced up at the pair.

“Restaurant open?” Lucy asked pointing over to the empty tables.

“I’ll be with ya’ll in a minute,” she said.

In the far corner, Beau sat down with her back to the corner, the gunfighter’s seat. She rested her arms on the table and with a sharp intake of breath gingerly cradled her arm.

“Never again, Lucy,” she said staring across the table at her friend. “I’m not using anymore of your inventions.”

“Any good invention has to have some beta testers,” Lucy said with a shrug as she perused the menu.

“Well, in this scenario I didn’t get a crappy smartphone,” Beau said, holding up her arm. “I got mauled.”

“Did you turn the pump in a clockwise manner as you pumped it?”

“No,” Beau said, “I wasn’t informed that I needed to.”

“Well, there’s your problem,” Lucy said as she set down the menu and looked at Beau, “you have to turn it so that the gears run in sync with-“

“Nope, don’t care,” Beau interrupted, throwing her hands up in exasperation and wincing from the effort.

Lucy shook her head and went back to examining the menu. After a moment of silence she said thoughtfully, “The goat’s blood really did the trick in getting it to the trap.”

“Covering them in it made it that much better,” Beau replied.

After studying the menu for a few minutes in silence, Lucy glanced up to see Beau smiling thoughtfully out the window.

“What?”

“Oh, a couple of things. Firstly, I was thinking of when I hit that guy,” Beau paused, savoring the memory. “Yeah, that was nice.”

“We need to be careful of knocking people out,” Lucy said. “According to Deacon, temple hits are highly deadly. “

“It was just a love tap!”

“If we could just get the chloroform I asked for,” Lucy trailed off.

Beau snorted, “I think even the company knows not to trust you with that.”

Lucy stuck out her tongue and replied, “Anyway, what were the other things?”

“Hmm?”

“That you were so happily pondering, like two seconds ago.”

Beau smiled wide.

“Two down, one to go.”

Lucy returned the smile, “It’s been a long time coming. Let’s just hope that it doesn’t take another five years to track down the remaining ingredient. That’s a lot of work to do without money.”

“Let’s just hope the company stays out of this little expedition of ours,” Beau said, giving Lucy a serious look.

“It’s been kind of quiet from them lately. Nothing for what? Five weeks?”

“Yeah.”

“The refrigerator’s broken.”

The woman from the counter stood bleary eyed at the end of the table. Her name tag read ‘Becky’.

The pair were a bit startled at her sudden appearance. It wasn’t often that someone successfully snuck up on them. Lucy was the first to respond, her eyes scanning the menu.

“So, nothing cold? Or what?”

“What?” Becky asked, looking around confused.

“What’s available since the fridge is broken?” Beau asked a bit annoyed.

“I…,” Becky started then stopped. Her back straightened and she smoothed her hair into place. “Hawthorne and Beaumont, your next assignment will be found in your motel room.”

Beau and Lucy sat up. Speak of the devil and he doth appear, this time in the form of their waitress. The two exchanged a look, silently communicating their mutual alarm of what the oracle had overheard.

“Can’t you contact us at a decent hour?” Beau asked. “Get out of her so she can bring us coffee!”

Lucy hid her smile behind her menu.

“Beaumont, you are awake and not engaged in any of the activities listed in article 3.4. I am in full compliance to contact you now.”

Becky looked disapprovingly over her glasses and pulled on her ear. The gesture was familiar. Lucy scooted closer to the waitress.

“Cynthia? Is that you?”

Becky glanced to Lucy and responded, “Hello, Hawthorne.”

“I am so amazing at spotting them,” Lucy nearly shouted. “What did I say, B?”

“Yeah, amazing,” Beau said dryly. “Listen, Cynthia, we’re tired, hungry and injured. You’ve delivered your message. Now please, go away.”

Becky looked at Beau’s bandaged arm.

“How exactly did you injure yourself, Beaumont?”

“Knitting,” Beau said, her face completely serious.

Lucy snorted and Becky huffed.

“Have it your way,” Becky said and slumped forward, her hands gripping the table edge.

Becky looked back up at the pair, her eyebrows bunched together. Lucy smiled sympathetically. Becky stood straight and cleared her throat.

“Um?”

“Ok, I’ll have a Rawr Mamacita with a big,” Beau said as she stretched her arms wide, “big cup of coffee.”

Lucy hummed, looking over the menu, “Make that two and ditto on the coffee.”

Becky fumbled, pulling her writing pad from her pocket, and wrote the orders down. She warily eyed Beau and her bloody shirt, but seemed too tired or bored to really care.

Lucy glanced over her shoulder at the television set.

“Which Alien is that?”

Becky gave a cursory glance back to the counter before answering,“There’s more than one?”

Beau and Lucy gave each other a look.

When the waitress left, Lucy whispered, “Norah would have had a conniption.”

Beau nodded as Lucy read her mind.

“It’s her birthday,” Beau said, turning her attention to her phone.

“Yeah,” Lucy said, staring out the window.

Lucy’s thoughts turned dark. She glanced up in the direction where Becky had disappeared into the kitchen.

“I hate when they jump in like that. Those poor people.”

Beau responded, not looking up from her phone, “Yeah, but at least they never remember.”

“I would want to remember,” Lucy said. “Wouldn’t you?”

Beau grunted but didn’t say anything. Lucy looked out the window again. The sun was rising, painting the sky a dove grey.

“Hey, Earth to Lu! Move your arms. The lady’s got a full load.”

Beau sat across the booth, waving her hand. Lucy looked back wide-eyed, shocked at spacing out. She apologized to the waitress as Becky set down a giant omelet peppered with tomatoes and onions and a steaming cup of coffee.

“Is that all?” she stood with her arms crossed.

“Actually,” Beau pointed down at the menu that still lay on the table, “can I get an order of that to go, please?”

The waitress nodded and walked away. In the span of two minutes, she had returned with a saran wrapped Styrofoam bowl.

“Your tiramisu,” she said unceremoniously, “anything else?”

Beau shook her head, her mouth full of omelet, while Lucy stared at the bowl. The waitress pulled out her pad and ripped off their check. She darted away before they could bother her further.

Beau and Lucy were ravenous after the fight and ate quickly. Outside the window, the coming dawn slowly lit the horizon in spreading orange and pink. Beau was the first to push away, pulling some bills from her pocket for the tip. Lucy stood and stretched, letting out a high pitched squeak. She walked to the front counter and pulled out her wallet.

On the screen, Ripley was running through a fire-infested futuristic prison. Lucy watched as she handed the cash to the male clerk. The bell sounded as Beau exited the store behind her, the door slowly swung shut. The clerk passed Lucy her change and returned his gaze back to the small television.

As Lucy left, she heard the static voice, “This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off.”

Survivor. That word shot a sharp pain through her shoulder.

The drive was short to their motel room. The ZZZ Motel sat close to the freeway. The lobby, rooms, and parking lot were in disrepair. Everything seemed to be painted in a dingy shade of beige. The Z’s of the motel’s roadside sign were stacked vertically on top of one another with only the lowest Z and a small “vacancy” light flickering red. The marquee sign was dark but Beau could still remember the sign advertising the women’s most important requirement of a motel: a dirt cheap rate.

The cleaning services were nonexistent. Beau swore the radiator was filled with some type of toxic mold, as she and Lucy both suffered terrible coughs whenever it was turned on. They had only blankets and layers of clothing to warm them the past few weeks as they tracked the Chupacabra. Beau was perfectly content with the chill, but Lucy had engineered a pair of electric socks that she hooked up to a car battery to ward off the cold. The small electrical fire she started the night before had left an indistinguishable burn in the dirty carpet.

Beau rattled the key in the chipped red door marked by a dangling 9 that might have been at 6 at some point. When she turned on the overhead light, she spotted a water bug scurrying out of sight into the dark bathroom. The two twin beds were still unmade from when they had left that morning.

“Home, sweet home,” Beau muttered, as she set down the tiramisu and the gun she always carried.

In moments, Lucy came crashing through the open hotel door. Her invention clinked loudly against her toolbox and the collection of knives she had stacked haphazardly in her arms.

“What are you doing?” Beau asked. “Why are you bringing all those in?”

“Biweekly sharpening time!” Lucy replied as she gingerly allowed the stack to crash onto her unmade bed.

Beau shook her head. She closed, bolted, and spoke a simple ward against the door. Nothing ever noticeably happened when she did a spell that small, but she could always feel a certain hum of electricity in the air as though every particle polarized with those few words.

Beau eased herself into the wooden chair closest to the door. She was bone tired. It was as though that small ward had tipped the scales of her strength.

Magic was a balance of give and take. In the past week, there had been a lot of taking on Beau’s part. She had tattoos in Hebrew, Mandarin, Gaulish, Akkadian, Sanskrit, Latin and a few extinct languages that spanned her back and arms. They offered limited protection. If she wanted to accomplish anything substantial with magic, she had to be ready to pay the price.

The thing about magic was that anyone could do it, if they were willing to pay the price. The complex spells often required rare ingredients, but the most difficult part of magic was what it took from the caster. Once, Beau had lost her sight for days after a major spell. Then there was the time she lost all feeling in her hands and feet for a month. Beau shuddered when she remembered that month. Every night she had to painstakingly examine her feet and hands for any cuts or injuries. One night, she found a nail that had pierced her shoe and extended an inch into her heel. She had seen many horrifying things, but the sight of that nail, bloody and dark from rust, made her retch and grow a bit faint as she pulled it out . Not to mention how pissed she was to have to get a tetanus shot. Thankfully, the most common aftereffect Beau felt was a weariness that sunk deep. That she could handle.

Beau fished a book of matches out of her pocket and another small package of brightly colored and striped candles.

“Use yellow. It was her favorite.”

Lucy stood quietly behind her. She was in her flannel pajamas and her face was bright red from a thorough scrubbing. The thick grey socks she wore hummed quietly and had an orange extension cord that trailed off behind her bed.

“Not the socks again, Lu!”

“Don’t worry,” Lucy said as she made her way carefully over to the other chair, making sure that the cords snaked around the cluttered floor easily. “These are new and improved. And my feet, they are nice and toasty.”

“At least have the fire extinguisher close by?”

“Waaay ahead of you,” Lucy said as she set a miniature fire extinguisher on the table along with two forks.

Beau smiled at Lucy. There was not much of an argument to be made when Lucy set her mind on an invention. Lucy busied herself with the unwrapping the tiramisu while Beau pulled a yellow candle out of the box. Lucy lit the candle and Beau switched the light off. In the dim, flickering light of the candle, the pair looked more like two tired little girls than the grown women they had become. Their eyes were intent on the flame.

Both said a quiet “Happy Birthday, Norah” and blew out the candle.

When the light was turned back on, it revealed a small wisp of smoke trailing from the tip of the candle. Lucy handed Beau a fork and they both tested the tiramisu. Lucy made a face.

“Oh, that’s real bad.”

“I need to wash that down,” Beau said as she stood and walked over to a small fridge.

“You would think that in all the places we’ve been, we would have found at least a passable tiramisu. Are we asking for too much?”

Beau leaned down, opened the door of the fridge, and grabbed the red folder and a beer out of the broken fridge.

“I mean nothing is going to compare to your mom’s, but this is just downright shameful!” Lucy continued as she picked at the desert with her fork. Beau popped the top off the bottle and nursed a swallow of the tepid pilsner.

“The refrigerator is broken,” she said as she slapped the folder down on the table. The pair stared at their new case file without moving.

Lucy’s phone began to ring. Looking down, she grimaced and showed Beau a screen that read “Millicent”.

Lucy answered it and set it to speaker.

“Hi, Milli!” she said.

“Why is this chupacabra bleeding?” Millicent’s voice was shrill. “Do you understand how precious these creatures are?”

“Tell that to my arm after it used it for a chew toy,” Beau replied.

“Oh, don’t give me that! You provoked it! I know you did. I could simply ask the men you tied up over here.”

Shouting voices could be heard in the background.

“For the millionth time, shut up!” Millicent screamed.

“Milli, Milli, listen,” Lucy started placating, “it was a tough case, but you know we called you ASAP.”

“Yeah, to clean up your mess. This is just-”

“Would you rather we don’t call next time?” Beau interrupted.

“Now, I didn’t say that, did I?” Millicent answered, calming slightly.

Beau and Lucy exchanged a look. As overprotective of magical creatures as Millicent was, they both knew her soft spot for taking those wounded or abandoned to her sanctuary. She would rather have been hanged than let an injured creature be abandoned on her watch.

“Well, I guess you have a job to do. Goodnight, Millicent,” Beau said and ended the call. Lucy frowned at Beau.

“Don’t hang up on people, B. It’s rude and it was on my phone.”

“I’m sorry, Lu. But it’s been a long night and I just had no energy for that conversation.”

Lucy walked over to her bed and laid down with her socks humming a threatening sound. Beau sighed. Sometimes, she wished she could do better. She switched off the lights and climbed into her ratty motel bed for what she hoped was the last time.

After a moment of silence, Lucy said, “Tomorrow will be seven years since-”

“Yeah,” Beau replied.

They hadn’t spoken the name in years. As though it was a curse. As though what it took wasn’t enough and it would rear up soon to take what little it had left the girls. Neither said it, but both thought the same thing.

Dreamland.

6 Months After Dreamland

On a Tuesday afternoon, a storm brewed in the west casting the skies into a coal grey gloom. Lucy’s family home dated back to the 1800’s. The rooms and windows had been built tall to stave off the heat of the oppressive Arkansas summer. Lucy’s feet were quiet as she walked barefoot back to her room in the back of the second floor. Her door creaked as she pushed it open with her shoulder and flicked on the light. The ceiling fan swayed and ticked rhythmically as it began to turn. Gingerly, Lucy pulled the arm sling she wore on her left arm up and over her head. She winced with pain as she rotated her shoulder slowly. The doctors had instructed her to wear the brace three weeks more to prevent any ‘long term damage’. Lucy had only smiled at the irony of that statement. She walked over to her bed and picked up her hairbrush. Rain began to patter on her window. The light of the ceiling fan dimmed a moment and then brightened to full intensity.

“I hope the power doesn’t go out,” Lucy could faintly hear her mother say to her brother down the hallway.

She could see the treetops sway and lightning flash across the sky from her window. Her hand reached up and pulled her hair band off. Her hair fell free still holding the wrinkle where the band had held it. She went to drag her hand through her hair when she touched something hard at the crown of her head.

The choked scream she let out was quiet enough for her mom not to hear. It was probably the most noise she had made in a month. She flipped her head upside down and shook her hair violently to rid it of the beetle she thought had landed there. Through the curtain of hair, she saw something fall to the ground. She stomped down on what she thought was a bug but found instead a thick red piece of paper. Confused, she stooped and picked up the paper to inspect it. It was a business card. The glossy finish caught the lamp light as she flipped it over. In black block letters it read:

                                                                  |

                                                           13 Wicker Rd.

                                                  Thibodaux, Louisiana

                                                         We’re waiting.

That was the beginning of the cards. In total, Beau and Lucy found 77 cards in increasingly bizarre locations.

Beau found her first while she was bored out of her mind from not being able to walk and her only pastime was finding ways to scratch beneath the white plaster that encased her leg. The long, jagged scratches on the left side of her face and back and left arm were no longer hot, angry welts but rather hard lines of scabs. The hospital walls were painted a mind-numbing beige color that made the back of Beau’s mind itch from boredom and restlessness. There were no well wishes scrawled across her cast, only funny messages and drawings that Lucy added on each of her daily visits. It was the most Lucy did to communicate to anyone and so Beau allowed her to scribble while she prattled on about the woeful state of TV programming.

One slow afternoon, Beau tried to use a wooden spoon to scratch a particularly annoying itch when she fished out three crimson cards. The fat yellow marker Lucy had been using to color in a little sun stopped suddenly when she saw the cards.

The next day Lucy’s dad was perturbed when a load of whites were stained pink by five red cards. They should have been deteriorated yet when she opened the washer she found the cards floating free and unscathed. He couldn’t see the cards and swore that one of her brothers was responsible for the pink laundry.

Then Beau had her first non-hospital meal. The bacon cheeseburger was as big, warm, and artery-clogging as any proper American could hope for, but Beau found she lost her appetite after she pulled a red card from her first bite. The burger left a ketchup grease stain as Beau threw it against the wall.

The last straw came as Lucy leaned against the kitchen counter and poured herself a bowl of cereal. Her mom, Anne, was saying something about therapy that she wasn’t paying attention to. Lucy dropped the colorful cardboard box, when she saw nothing but red cards spill into her bowl. Anne rushed over to her side and stooped to pick up the dropped cereal box. Lucy gripped her arms around herself in a tight squeeze. Her mom sighed as she stood up with the box and set it on the counter. She didn’t see the cards.

Concern colored her face but when she spoke, her voice was devoid of emotion.

“We’re waiting. 13 Wicker Road. Thibodeaux, Louisiana.”

The scream that Lucy let out was blood-curdling, but it almost made her mother happy to hear her daughter make any noise at all.

***

The solid door shuttered under Lucy’s fist. Morning birds trilled their song through the pine and hardwoods around the house. The door opened slowly and Beau squinted out at Lucy.

“Do you know how hard it is to get out of bed with a full leg cast?” Beau said, her hair and pajamas rumpled.

“We’re going to Godforsaken Louisiana!”

“You’re talking again? That’s great, Lu,” Beau replied as she rubbed the sleep from her eye. Lucy pushed past Beau.

“I’m serious, B,” Lucy said as she marched into the house and set her purse down on a table. “We are going to Louisiana.”

Beau walked past Lucy to the coffee maker. Her hands fiddled with a filter as she stifled a yawn.

“What’s the point? We can’t trust them.” Beau said and pointed to a card on the dining room table. “It could be him for all we know.”

“I don’t think it is. I think it might be answers. The address is about a nine hour drive from here, near the Gulf. It wouldn’t take too long to finally get a fucking explanation, B.”

Lucy paused and searched her bags before continuing, “Anyway, I’m ready for the possibility that it’s trouble.”

There was soft clank behind Beau and when she looked back, there was a handgun sitting underneath Lucy’s hand.

Beau smiled at Lucy and asked, “Nine hours, huh?”

“Seven if you drive.”