Shotgun Sorceress

Chapter thirteen

Texas Hold ’Em

“What kind of problem could you solve for them?” the Warlock asked.

“Jeez, I don’t know,” I replied. “It’s not like they e-mailed a memo. If certain people had bothered to share basic information with me, none of this would have happened in the first place.”

I frowned, getting angry at Benedict Jordan and my father all over again.

The Warlock tugged at the crotch of his tuxedo pants, looking unhappy. “So what now?”

“Well.” I picked up my backpack and shrugged into it. “We could get some shade under one of those planes, but I think we should look for civilization. I’ve got only one bottle of water, and out here that won’t last the four of us even until sundown. It also won’t last us much of a hike in this sun, so does anyone see anything nearby?”

Cooper squinted off into the horizon. “I think there’s a gas station or something over that way.”

I followed the direction of his gaze, and saw the sun glinting off a red-and-white sign a mile or two away, the logo and lettering unreadable at our distance. Near it was what looked like a low building, and beyond it, a gray water tower that was barely visible against the sky.

Cooper loosened his tie and slipped off his tux jacket; his dress shirt was already drenched in sweat, clinging to his tight ab muscles. The Warlock followed suit, and I stowed their jackets in my backpack.

“I think before we wander off toward the Great Unknown, we should check the planes for supplies,” Cooper said, rolling up his sleeves. “Just in case the survivors left behind some water or food or something. And I don’t know about you guys, but I could use a hat.”

We checked out the nearest, mostly-wrecked planes first, and found more corpses that none of us felt like moving in order to search the aircraft. As we moved farther through the airplane graveyard, we spotted an American Airlines regional jet that had plowed deep furrows in the rocky earth during its touchdown, snapping off at least one of the wheels. The crew and passengers had gotten all the doors open, and from them hung the deflated remains of the emergency slides.

“I bet there’s something still in that one,” Cooper said. “If the crew was sticking to protocol, they wouldn’t have let people take any luggage off.”

“Should we try to break into the luggage hold?” the Warlock asked.

Cooper shook his head. “Probably any bottled water would be in the passenger compartment.” He looked at me and then at the limp yellow slide. “That thing looks hard to climb. If we boosted you up high enough to grab the edge of the door, do you think you could pull yourself in there one-handed?”

I nodded. My stump didn’t hurt and was actually feeling a bit numb for a change, so I thought I could use my elbow for leverage if necessary.

Cooper looked at Pal. “Do you mind if we stood on you to get some extra height?”

Pal blew a chord that I took as a sigh. “I suppose there’s not another way for you to get up there. Please don’t stand directly on my vertebral crests, because that hurts.”

“He says it’s okay,” I told Cooper. “Stay off his spine bones if you can.”

My familiar knelt and Cooper and I got on his back. Pal stood and moved directly beneath the airplane’s main door. After some awkward false starts, Cooper was able to balance on Pal’s thorax and I was able to climb up on Cooper’s shoulders and sit on him like we were preparing for a chicken fight.

“Okay, steady,” Cooper said. “Step onto my hands and I’ll push you up.”

Clutching his head for balance, I gathered my feet under me and stepped out onto his outstretched palms. He grunted as he pressed me upward; Cooper’s wiry but he’s plenty strong. I grabbed at the lip of the open hatch with my flesh hand and swung my other elbow up onto the edge and pulled myself inside.

The short blue carpet covering the aluminum floor smelled like dirt, cleaning chemicals, and stale coffee. I quickly got to my feet and surveyed the passenger compartment. No corpses here, which I was very glad to see; the overhead luggage compartments were mostly open, and I could see bags and other items still inside.

“Looks like we’re in business, guys!” I called down to the others.

I rummaged through the galley compartments first. They had been ransacked pretty thoroughly already, but I found four unopened water bottles in an overlooked bottom bin along with some packets of shortbread cookies and pretzels. Someone had left a tote bag filled with beach towels on her seat; I emptied it out, keeping the SPF 45 lotion at the bottom, and loaded it with the water and snacks. Upon checking the rest of the luggage compartments, I found a bone-colored straw cowboy hat I snagged for myself, a gray felt cowboy hat I thought might fit the Warlock, and an olive-drab boonie hat for Cooper.

I went back to the hatch and dropped the bag of loot down to Cooper. “I think I can get myself down on the remains of the slide.”

I sat down, swung my legs over, and awkwardly lowered myself so I could grab the slide. I nearly lost my grip, and half slid, half fell the fifteen feet or so to the sandy earth, landing on my back.

“Are you okay?” Cooper stepped toward me, looking concerned.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” If I’d learned one thing in the year I’d gone to hapkido with Mother Karen, it was how to make nice with the ground during sudden encounters.

We traded the bottle of sunscreen around and slathered it on. Cooper and the Warlock briefly argued over who got to wear the gray cowboy hat but rebuffed my offer to go back into the plane to find another one.

“Well, let’s get moving; maybe we can find some help over there,” Cooper said, his cheer sounding only slightly forced. He tried a couple of other old words for random simple charms, with no effect. “But I have to say, this magic block worries me. Someone went to a lot of trouble to set it up. It’s taking a whole lot of power, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it except try to figure out what’s happened here,” the Warlock replied.

We walked out across the scrubby field toward the red-and-white sign.

“We need to find a phone to let Mother Karen know what happened,” I said.

“If someone’s gone to the trouble to suppress magic, what are the odds that the phones are still working?” the Warlock asked.

We continued in silence. The sign soon became legible: it bore a cartoon cowboy in a red-checkered shirt tipping a red ten-gallon hat alongside the words “Howdy Y’all! Welcome to Rudy Ray’s Roadstop.” There were a couple of gasoline and diesel pumps out front under a corrugated steel awning tall enough to shelter a semi and what looked to be a kerosene pump and air pump off to the side. Something low and flat out back was reflecting a lot of sunlight; I wondered if it was some kind of greenhouse. The Roadstop was a single-story brick building with a flat gravel roof. It was a fairly standard convenience store construction with a few folksy flourishes like the hand-painted cartoon cowboy signs advertising ice, beer, wine, and homemade pecan pies in the windows. The parking lot was empty of cars except for a burnt-orange Toyota Prius with a Texas Longhorns bumper sticker. The lonely car was covered in a thick layer of caliche dust and looked as if it hadn’t been driven all summer.

There was a “Y’all Come on In, We’re Open!” sign on the glass front door. Once we got fairly close, I was able to see past the glare reflecting off the windows into the store. “Hey, check it out, the lights are on. Somebody’s really here.”

“It looks as though I’m rather too large to fit through the door,” Pal told me. “I shall wait for you in the shade by the fuel pumps.”

I went to the door first, cautiously pushed it open a crack, and stuck my head inside. The air was cool, a little stale, but clearly the place had working air-conditioning. I heard something I first thought was ice rattling around in a blender. The front part of the Roadstop was a little café area set up with a half-dozen small round white tables and chairs to the right and a glass-fronted food service counter along the wall to the left. The food service area had a refrigerated section for ice cream (all the tubs were empty and clean) closest to the door, I supposed to attract the attention of hot, tired travelers. Past that was a section that advertised various pies and pastries—nothing was left but a few dry-looking brownies—and to the right of it, what looked to have been a hot food area that once served chili dogs and tamales and such. Beyond the café tables was a small grocery store area, mainly rows of wine coolers and beer. Most of the shelves of dry goods were empty, as were the refrigerated drink coolers along the back wall. To the far left was a glass door that led into a dark room; a sign on the door read “The Liquor Locker—Over 21 Only.”

Directly across from the door past the café tables was a separate counter of Texas-themed T-shirts, caps, postcards, and other souvenirs. Between the postcard display and an old-fashioned manual cash register I could see a booted pair of feet propped up on the glass countertop.

“Hello, anyone here?” I called.

The ice-chopping noise stopped abruptly, and as a chair squeaked and the boots slipped off the counter I realized the sound had been snoring. A thin man with a thick gray handlebar mustache popped up behind the cash register, running his fingers through his sparse white hair nervously.

“Sorry, folks, must have nodded off there awhile. Come on in! My name’s Rudy, and mi hacienda es su hacienda!”

I shrugged at Cooper and the Warlock. They shrugged back. We cautiously stepped inside.

“I ain’t had a supply run in a while, so I’m short on snacks, I’m real sorry ’bout that.” The man ran his hands over the front of his red Western-style shirt, apparently trying to smooth out some of the wrinkles. “But I got Cokes and beer in the back if y’all are thirsty. Got the good Mexican and Passover Cokes, too. No corn syrup in my store if I can help it! Don’t know if that junk really causes diabetus or not—the ’betus took my wife, Yolanda, God rest her—but real sugar tastes better if y’all ask me.”

I was actually pretty thirsty, but didn’t know if we could trust this guy or not. “Thanks, I think we’re good for right now … but can you tell us where we are?”

“You’re in Cuchillo, Texas.” The man’s tone was an odd mix of pride and dread. “Really, you’re about a hunnert yards past the city limits—it’s a dry town, or it used to be. I don’t ’spose anybody there much cares about the potential for moral turpitude from ol’ debbil whiskey anymore.”

“What happened here?” Cooper took his hat off and set it on a nearby café table.

The old feller scratched his scalp nervously. “I can’t rightly say. We sort of had our own Hurricane Katrina blow into town and set for a spell, and things ain’t been right since.”

He looked at me. “You folks come through the hole in the sky, or did you take a wrong turn on the highway?”

Rudy said “highway” the way cancer patients say the word “cure.”

“We dropped down onto that big pile of hay out in the field,” I replied. “I don’t suppose you know what that’s about?”

He looked profoundly uncomfortable. “I can’t say. Don’t really understand it myself, but … well, the sky’s how most folk end up here these days. I keep praying the highways will open back up so we can get some help, but I guess the good Lord’s up to his old mysterious ways again.”

“How are the highways closed?” the Warlock asked. “Roadblocks, or the National Guard, or what?”

Rudy shook his head. “There ain’t no roadblock, none you can see, anyway. Like, for instance, say you got on the highway out here and tried to drive toward Lometa. After a mile or two you’d find yourself thinking you want to stop the car and go back where you came from, and after another mile your heart would be poundin’ and your hands would be shakin’ and you’d be so scairt you wouldn’t be able to keep going. And if somehow you could keep your hands on the wheel and your foot on the pedal … you’d find yourself turned around on the road driving back this way and not know how it happened.”

Rudy paused to scratch the gray stubble on his chin. “But you probably wouldn’t find any of that out, not unless you had a ’lectric car, because you can’t so much as light a match round here anymore. Never mind gettin’ a gasoline engine or a generator started.”

I looked up at the fluorescent lights. “Do you get your power from the electric company?”

“No, miss, I ain’t been on the city grid for years. And the electric company went under same time as everything else round here.”

“Then how are you running the lights and coolers and stuff?” I asked.

Rudy smiled, looking proud and profoundly sad all at the same time. “Come take a peek out back. I ain’t got no weirdo Texas chainsaw monkeyshines going on out here, I promise.”

We followed him through a door beside the cash register at the food counter. He led us down a hall past an employee restroom, the storeroom, and what looked to be his own living quarters and exited at a loading dock at the back of the building.

Before us was a solid acre of blue-gray solar panels shining in the afternoon sun.

“Ain’t it a beauty?” Rudy asked. “It was my daughter Sofia’s idea, going green like this. One thing we never lack out here is sunshine! The panels are real expensive if you buy ’em whole, but Sofia knew where to get the parts, and she and I spent six months building this out here with some help from some buddies of mine. My little gal’s smart like my daddy was; he helped engineer the Hoover Dam back in the day. She’s a physics professor at Cuchillo State. Was, anyway.”

His expression fell into misery. “Well, all this is how I got lights and cool air.”

I wanted to ask what happened to Sofia, but sensed that it wasn’t something he wanted to talk about. He silently led us back into the café section of the building.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a working phone or CB radio, would you?” Cooper asked Rudy.

The old man shook his head. “No, sir. I got a radio, but if you’re looking to talk to somebody who ain’t here in Cuchillo, it won’t work. The landline don’t work, and I haven’t been able to get a signal on my cell phone since this mess got started.”

“When did it happen?” I asked.

“ ’Bout a year ago, give or take a month or two. The days’ve been kinda running together in my head.”

Rudy glanced out the window toward the highway. Nervously, it seemed to me. “It’s a far piece into town, but somebody usually comes by to give new folk a lift. Have a sit if y’all want to wait; drinks are on the house if you want ’em.”

Cooper frowned slightly. “I thought you said cars don’t work here.”

Rudy’s expression was unreadable. “The people in town still have some horses and mules and such. Haven’t had to resort to eating ’em quite yet.”

“We might take you up on those drinks in a little while,” Cooper said, beckoning the Warlock and me to follow him outside to the shaded gas pumps where Pal was resting.

“I don’t like this,” Cooper said, his voice hushed even though we were surely out of Rudy’s earshot.

“What’s to like?” I replied. “There’s been some kind of local apocalypse and the phones don’t work and we can’t escape.”

“He says.” The Warlock crossed his arms.

“Do you want to coldcock the old guy and ransack the place looking for his cell phone?” I asked. “Because I sure don’t.”

“The healing crystal works,” Cooper said. “So, obviously some magic can still function here. I think we should try to open a mirror to call for help.”

“How?” I asked. “You guys have never been good at that kind of magic in the first place. I could try it, I guess, but I don’t have a pointer.”

Cooper suddenly looked a bit embarrassed. “I do.”

He got his wallet out of his back pocket and pulled out the folded card containing a lock of my father’s hair.

I stared at the pointer. “Where did you get that?”

Cooper cleared his throat. “I found it on the floor of Mother Karen’s office, near the fireplace.”

I gave my boyfriend a hard look. “And why were you in her office?”

“You were really upset, and I didn’t know why, and I thought I should try to find out.”

“Did you mirror my father while I was asleep?”

He paused. “Yes, I did.”

Cooper’s admission made me unreasonably furious. “Goddamn it all to hell—”

“Jessie, he is kind of a jerk, but I think he actually means well—”

“I am not calling that jackass and asking him for help!”

“He seemed very concerned about you, and told me he wanted you to contact him again. And he might be our only option here.” Cooper held the card out toward me. “I think we’re in over our heads. And I think Magus Shimmer has the power to get us clear of all this.”

“No way,” I fumed.

Pal heaved himself to his feet on the oil-splotched concrete, looming above me. “Surely my ears deceive me. Surely you are not refusing to do what you can to help us all get out of this dust-blown, sweltering, fly-infested gulag because your pride has been injured?”

I bit my lip. Pal was right. And apparently also really pissed off at me. My hand still trembling, I took the card from Cooper.

“Fine. I’ll give it a try. But I’m going to try contacting Mother Karen first, just so you know. What are we going to do if the mirror magic won’t work because of the suppression spell?”

“We’ll figure something out,” Cooper said.

“Do you have the power of creation in that hell fragment of yours?” Pal asked.

Yes, I do.

“Try the spell in there. Mirror magic should be workable from within a hell dimension,” Pal said.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go back inside; I’ll ask to use the ladies’ room and try opening the mirror in there. If that doesn’t work, I’ll go into my hellement.”

“Hellement?” Cooper frowned. “What hellement?”

“It’s sort of a long story,” I said. “I’ll explain later once I understand it myself.”