“Except no.”
I sat in the driver’s seat, staring at the dive in front of me, my fingers tight around the steering wheel. At one point in its existence, the bar had maybe been called “Cowboys.” I was guessing this based on the cardboard cutout of a cowboy propped up near the door, and the fact that there was a sign on the roof that had an “O,” a “W,” and a “Y” on it. Other letters had fallen off or rotted away.
In short, it was clearly the worst place in the world, and I could not believe I was going to have to set foot in there.
Blythe was in the passenger seat, eyebrows raised as she looked over at me. “I’m telling you, this is where he is.”
From the backseat, Bee snorted. Her hair was loose tonight, and she pushed it back with impatient hands. “Why would anyone want to hang out here?” she asked. “This is a place where you end up on a true-crime TV show.”
Truer words had never been spoken, but Blythe folded her arms over her chest, staring at the bar. “In any case, this is the place where he is.”
Before we’d driven out of Ideal, Blythe had done a quick tracking spell on Dante. Apparently, his fingerprints on Saylor’s journal had been enough, and after a brief ritual done in a Shell station bathroom, Blythe had come out with a location in mind.
Stupidly, I’d assumed we’d be heading to a house. Maybe an apartment. Not this truly sad dive bar in eastern Georgia.
We’d been driving for about five hours, and while the sun had just gone down, the parking lot was already packed, telling me that the clientele here at “OW Y” took that whole “five o’clock is drinking time” thing seriously.
I was not looking forward to a night sifting through the local drunks for one guy.
But if this was where Dante was, then this was where we had to be. Still, I had some reservations.
“We’re teenagers,” I reminded her now. “They won’t let us in.”
“We’re girls,” Blythe countered. “They’ll let us in.”
She probably had a point there, but I still wondered if maybe Bee and I should hang out in the car.
Leaning forward, Blythe continued. “Plus we have mind-controlling magic. Haven’t y’all ever used the Mage’s powers to get into bars?”
I looked over at her, scowling. “Um, no, we don’t use the special superpowers Ryan got because Saylor died in order to score beer, actually.”
But then Bee leaned in closer and said, a little sheepish, “One time, Ryan used it to get us into that new restaurant in Montgomery? The one it’s hard to get reservations to?”
I turned in my seat, blinking at her, and she shrugged. “It was our one-month anniversary, and he wanted to take me somewhere special. It didn’t hurt anyone.”
Rolling my eyes, I turned back around to face Blythe’s triumphant smile. “Okay,” I said, taking the keys out of the ignition. “Fine. Let’s go use the powers of the gods to dodge creepy guys and drink cheap beer and find this other guy who apparently holds the key to everything.”
We stepped out of the car, gravel crunching under our feet. The door was open, and loud, raucous music was pouring out into the night. I could hear the stomping of feet on the wooden floors, and the smell of stale beer and fried food hung like a fog over the building.
I stood there at the base of the steps leading up into the bar as Bee and Blythe walked in front of me, heading on in. “Seriously, why this place?” I muttered, but Blythe didn’t answer me. After a minute, I sighed and followed.
I wish I could say that “OW Y” was not what I expected and that I learned a valuable lesson about not making snap judgments, but no. No, I was totally right, and it was totally gross. The music was too loud, and despite the name of the bar—or what I was guessing was the name of the bar—I didn’t see a single cowboy hat. I saw a lot of baseball caps, though, and more fraternity shirts that I could count, plus a fair amount of giant belt buckles.
“Wait at the bar!” Blythe shouted over the music (some ungodly bro-country song about trucks and rivers and girls in short shorts), and I caught her arm before she could disappear.
“Don’t you need us?” I asked, and she shook me off with an irritated look.
“Let me find him first,” she called out. “Better if I do that part on my own.”
With that, she turned away and was promptly swallowed up by a wave of plaid and denim.
Sighing, I wove my way through the crowd, making my way to the bar. Not that I wanted a beer—ew—but I did want somewhere to sit and a bottle of water. This place was packed, and also hot as Satan’s armpit.