As the singer’s voice hit another crescendo, I slapped my hand against the steering wheel and then smashed the power button off.
“No!” I shouted. “No more of this crap! If you want to listen to country music, Cheetoh, you listen to it on your own damn time! I can’t take it anymore!”
“Fine!” She crossed her arms, nostrils flaring as if smoke were billowing out. “Then leave off! Don’t you dare put on that computer trash.”
“Computer trash?” I swerved the car in anger.
Salem leaned forward and punched the radio. It crunched into the dash, destroying our entertainment center. Both Cheetoh and I whipped around and screamed at him in outrage.
This really was the road trip to hell.
We’d already driven through the mountains. Had it not been for the bickering over the radio and the complaints about how often I had to pee, we might have enjoyed the scenery, but the mountains were now distant memories in the rearview mirror.
Cheetoh took turns driving with me because Salem couldn’t drive. It was something I’d have to consider once we were in Toronto. He had an ID, and I could teach him, but the thought of that much time alone was unnerving. We were getting along. I just hadn’t let us have a moment alone since we left Silverbrook. It wasn’t obvious, given we were stuck in a vehicle together and sharing hotel rooms en route to hell, but my distance would become clear eventually.
I curled up in the passenger seat and felt Cheetoh pull my fuzzy, pastel pony blanket up to tuck me in. I was warm and ready to fall asleep, but my mind had other plans. My thoughts drifted back to Salem. What was he thinking back there? Was he thinking of me?
Was he thinking we’d sleep together again? A shiver trickled down my spine. Did he want it as much as I did? Goddess, it was pathetic how much I wanted it. The cool paleness of his soft skin. The hardness of his body surrounding me…
I knew Salem cared about me. I knew he was loyal, but how much of that was driven simply by who I was? By the powers of a Demi-god and necromancer?
Why did I want him? I mean, aside from him being so attractive and likable.
Salem had a heartbeat. A strange, alien heartbeat. He could eat human food when he chose, but his hunger was for flesh—and I tried not to think about that, especially now, after we had kissed and his mouth had been all over my body. Salem had thoughts and feelings, like Cheetoh. And Cheetoh had loved—or at least she believed she had. Could Salem love?
Could the dead, with no need to procreate and a hunger for human beings, truly love? Rafal had been a true draugr: cold, lifeless, merely reanimated. In the chaos of the Restless Dead, I hadn’t seen his soul, if he had one. I only hoped he had found peace. Rafal had been one step away from a rotting ghoul. Had he loved? Salem mourned him as he would a real friend, so there must have been something there…
I thought of the calm, powerful pulse of Salem’s heartbeat beneath my palm.
I grumbled, realizing I was still awake, and shuffled around to look out the passenger-side window. I would think about this later. It was night, and there was nothing but endless glittering white stretching out under starlight. Since leaving the mountains, we’d crossed into snow-dusted plains in every direction. We had to keep driving until the new moon. Once we hit a straight stretch of open road, with the moon a hidden circle of darkness climbing the horizon, I’d punch through the veil and throw the door open to my mother’s hell dimension.
Kevin’s thoughtful, kind face came to mind, and Cheryl’s bright smile.
I had only known them for a short time, and I couldn’t save everyone from my mother’s soul prison, but for the few souls I had met in Sunnyvale, I would go to hell and face my mother to free them.
Somehow, the prairies were colder than the mountains. Stepping out of the washroom, I realized I was colder than I had ever been in my life—and hungry.
As I headed toward the gas station door, Cheetoh eyed me suspiciously from the pump. “I packed a veggie tray and fruit in the cooler. You don’t need snacks!”
I feigned confusion and shrugged. “Sorry, what? I can’t hear you! I’m gonna grab some snacks!”
We’d stopped to refuel in the middle of nowhere. It was our last stop before we made the jump into my mother’s dimension. Cattle stood, frozen and miserable, all around the small station in an endless pasture. Having grown up in the mountains, the vast nothingness of the Canadian prairies unnerved me. I kept looking for trees, snowy peaks, and mountainsides.
I felt lost, so exposed here, so visible.
I couldn’t wait to get to Ontario and see trees again.
I had read there was a mountain-like ridge not far from Toronto called the Escarpment. It wasn’t the Canadian Shield, but between the Escarpment and Lake Ontario, at least I would have something to look at.
As I opened the gas station door, I briefly wondered what it would be like to have living friends. People who ate and drank, who had to pee, got tired and needed sleep, and had to dress in layers of clothing to stay warm in this goddess-forsaken climate.
Both Salem and Cheetoh slept, but they only did it out of boredom. And they only had bodily functions when they chose to eat and drink.
None of it was out of necessity.
A lot of the time, they were awake in their rooms, reading, listening to music, or doing whatever they did with their spare time, and as far as I could tell, they only ate to keep me company or to remember the taste of something. They could go days—or months—without sleeping or eating, easy. There was no biological need for any of it. As I understood it, vampires powered down like computers during the day, but could also sleep for years if they wanted. And while the undead hungered, vampires wanted blood, zombies and draugrs wanted flesh, and mummies required life force. So, some undead slept, some didn’t sleep. For some, blood was a thing; others needed human organs… I didn’t get it.
Monitoring their habits would be good for figuring out which undead the laypeople were dealing with, but what I did not understand was why there were so many undead things, and why they each had different accompanying curses for their immortality…
Things.
I thought of Cheetoh making me salads and snacks, and the relief in Salem’s eyes when I awoke in bed with him after he carried me home from the horrors of that snowy mountain forest.
Did they love me?
Could they love me?
Even if I were to ask Cheetoh and Salem directly whether their love was genuine or an obligation, they wouldn’t know. I had resurrected Cheetoh, and now, Salem as well. I was their master, and they were compelled to love and be loyal to me.
More and more, I wanted to be around living people who weren’t obligated to be with me, and who weren’t bound to me by dark magick. People who had dreams, went to school, had jobs, and had daily struggles that had nothing to do with blood, bones, and rot—and what if I could talk to other magick users on top of that? How great would that be? Instructors and professors who could tell me what’s-what and why—wouldn’t that be amazing? Despite my previous experiences with other magick users, I was eager to meet my fellow magickal students. I wanted to be a part of the living world and safe to move around within it. I wanted living, magickal friends.
It was a tall order, I knew it. Especially since I had evil ulterior motives to burn the school to the ground if I didn’t like what they were doing there, but there was a small voice in my mind, maybe even my heart, that said, “What if…”
What if I found a place where I belonged and had a chance at a real life?
A tacky math poster in an empty office fluttered into my thoughts.
I immediately grabbed two bags of chips. If I wanted sweet chili corn chips, then I’d eat sweet chili corn chips, damn it! The bags crunched in my hands as I gripped them tightly.
I stared out over the shelves and through the big windows, glaring at Cheetoh. Health food be DAMNED!
There was a cough and the subtle shuffle of shoes on tile. Looking up, I realized the store clerk was watching me.
I scowled and proceeded to grab a bag of roasted nuts before I walked over and placed them on the counter along with my chips.
“Do you own the cows too?” I asked, attempting conversation, though my tone sounded far from friendly.
There was a long pause as I looked outside at the cattle, while the clerk decided how she was going to respond to me. “No, they belong to some rancher. I just work at the station.” She scanned my items. “Are you getting the gas too?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
I pretended to pick something off my jacket and then said, “The sign in the window says free coffee. Where can I grab that?”
The clerk finished ringing me up. “That’ll be fifty-two dollars and eighty cents—and the coffee’s over there.” She pointed to a small counter by the slushies. “But it tastes like shit.”
I punched in the code for my debit card. “Thanks.”
Once the transaction went through, I grabbed my snacks and headed over to the coffee counter. This far out in the country, there were rarely milk alternatives offered, so I made myself a black coffee. I’d hate it, but in a few hours it would be my turn to drive, and I’d be happy for the caffeine.
As I pushed the door open to leave, I sipped it.
It did taste like shit.
“I’m just saying, what’s the point in offering free coffee if it’s going to be black sludge?” I begrudgingly sipped more of the cold muck. I was desperate.
Cheetoh swiped at my cup, attempting to grab it and save me from myself. “What are you doing? Don’t drink that. You just said is disgusting!”
I slunk deep into the passenger seat and mantled over the last sips of the odious black liquid.
“I’m addicted,” I pouted. “And besides, the moon is approaching the horizon. I can feel her. I need every ounce of energy I can muster if we’re going to pierce the veil.”
“The moon is female?” Salem asked from behind me. It was the first time he’d spoken since—maybe the entire car ride.
I looked at him through the rearview mirror, still cradling my crappy coffee, and arched my brow. “Why, it’s not feminine to you?”
“Not to me, no. I have always known the moon as Máni, and he is male. I believe that’s where the expression ‘the man in the moon’ comes from,” he explained.
I shrugged and returned my eyes to the road. “Celestial beings, deities of seasons, and places like rivers and volcanoes, they all have multiple genders, faces, and names. My mother is a death goddess, but there’s also Thanatos and the Grim Reaper, and they’re both male gods. They’re all death gods, but it’s often who you believe in that will appear to you, so the moon is male to you and female to me.”
Salem sat forward, his closeness giving me goosebumps. I silently reprimanded my body for responding to him.
“Do the moon gods share the moon together? Do they know of each other?” he asked.
I could smell the light masculine oils he used in place of cologne, and I hated how much I enjoyed them, the scent stirring places deep within me.
I considered opening the window to get a sobering hit of cold air before I replied, “They know of each other and interact, but mostly in the human world. Otherwise, they all live in their own pocket dimensions, and each one thinks they own the moon personally.”
He nodded. “Do they ever fight each other?” There was a little excitement in his voice as he asked.
“Oh, yeah. My mother has definitely fought other death gods, but I’ve never seen anything serious come of it. I mean, they can’t destroy one another, but they can significantly harm each other. There is no wound you can deal a god that they won’t eventually recover from. Whether it takes months or centuries, they will recover. They don’t always agree, and they’re all unique, but they are also a part of a greater whole, like different sides of a diamond.”
“Too confusing,” Cheetoh said. I could feel her eye roll from the passenger seat.
“I don’t pretend it makes sense. I just know they all exist, and that they are a part of each other,” I replied.
A chill crawled up my spine and told me the new moon had breached the horizon.
My voice hardened. “Cheetoh, pull over. It’s my turn to drive.”
“Buckle up, everyone. We’re about to change realities,” I warned as I shifted into gear.
As I drove, the night stretched out before me. This far out in the plains, there were no city lights. In every direction, it was darkness speckled with starlight.
My foot pressed harder on the accelerator. Tanner and the mischief stirred deep within me, and somewhere inside the car, the grim rustled amongst our belongings. I could feel everyone brace themselves as we prepared for our little dimension jump.
I firmly gripped the steering wheel and slowly pressed the gas pedal to the floor. As our vehicle accelerated, it felt like we could lift off—and maybe we would. Maybe that’s how it worked.
A thundering click echoed through the plains like a massive latch unlocking. It reverberated in my chest. I squeezed the steering wheel as hard as I could and kept my eyes on the horizon. I could almost see the black circular shadow that was the new moon as I sped toward it.
“Hold on!” I shouted, my heart pounding.
The plains stretched out in front of us and then snapped back into place. We advanced on the horizon at an incredible speed.
As we drew nearer, a colossal hooded figure materialized. It lay across the land like a goddess-damned mountain range—in fact, I had thought it was a mountain range.
The midnight hood slipped back, revealing the head of a beautiful giant woman, her porcelain face a stark contrast to the darkness surrounding her.
“Cecile!” Cheetoh screamed.
A second, and then a third head, turned to look at us—one a younger woman, and the other a skeletal monster.
We were almost upon her when her massive, clawed hand came out of the sky, ready to smear us across the earth.
“Cheetoh, the wheel!” I yelled.
My mummy immediately grabbed it, keeping it steady. My hand shook as I tore it from the wheel. I summoned my power into my palm and visualized it shooting out in a massive wave.
“Fuck you!” I screamed, thinking we were going to get smashed.
My pink-and-black energy shot out, growing as it hurtled toward the monster. It hit the outstretched palm, and the world shook with the roar of the giant.
The new moon was a black hole in front of us. We flew into its ebony eternity and were gone from human reality.
