Chapter 14

Under the command of Captain Ellis, the Guardians moved like a well-oiled machine. Within minutes of their arrival, they'd loaded the unconscious troll and the two alleged traffickers into the APC in chains and under heavy guard. They supervised the removal of Lucy's jeep and the truck it had landed on by a towing service.

After a brief conversation, Ellis handed Lucy a set of keys, got in his own vehicle with a driver, and departed with the APC.

As I loaded our stuff into our new ride, Lucy thanked the security guard who'd kept an eye on the alleged traffickers and took one last walk through the market to check on the magic vendors. Some were hostile and turned their backs on her. Others responded with respect or even camaraderie. I was impatient to get moving, but I figured she had good reason to invest a few minutes helping with cleanup.

I itched to find out more about the Guardians and why their interactions with civilians were so polarized. Asking too many of that sort of question was likely to make Lucy suspicious, so I'd have to find another way to satisfy my curiosity.

About fifteen minutes after Ellis and the other Guardians left, two armored police vehicles turned into the lot, lights flashing.

Lucy emerged from the market and joined me by the jeep. "Just in time," she said dryly. "They'll document the scene, fill out their reports, and be on their way." She waved at the officers in the lead vehicle. One raised his hand briefly, but they didn't stop to speak with her. "Might as well leave them to it," she added, circling around to the driver's side. "At this point, we're not going to get that rest we wanted at the roadhouse before things get crazy there, but we can at least get showers and some food. Sorry."

"It's fine," I told her as we piled into the vehicle. Daisy was already dozing in the back seat. "If there's time to get coffee on the way, that's all I'll need."

"Oh, there's always time to get coffee," Lucy assured me.

Malcolm snorted. "Nothing like bonding over shared chemical dependence."

"Hey," I protested. "It's not chemical dependence. I just need caffeine to function."

"That is the literal definition of dependence, Alice."

"He's got you there." Lucy stuck her sister's vampire bobble-head to the dash with a piece of chewed gum, turned the key in the ignition, and stomped the gas. "Let's get the hell out of here."

Our drive to the roadhouse was relatively uneventful. To pass the time, I asked Lucy to tell us about some of her more interesting cases.

The really good ones were classified, she said, but she described an encounter with a nest of basilisks much like the one her partner was currently involved in eradicating. Dealing with serpents whose bite, stare, smell, and spit were guaranteed to either drive you mad or kill you required strategy—and a substance Lucy called acira, which sounded a lot like magic-infused napalm.

To get to our destination, we drove south out of the city and then west in a long loop around areas shaded black on Lucy's dashboard GPS. One such area she identified as the territory of the coven she'd alluded to earlier.

The only visible signs of the territory's perimeter were pentagrams and runes carved into trees along the road. I saw no walls or gates, but I assumed closed meant anyone who tried to cross that perimeter wouldn't like what happened to them. I wondered what Carly would think about witches having territory that could be closed to outsiders.

My curiosity finally got the better of me. "Why did the coven close their territory?" I asked.

Lucy chuckled. "From what I hear, this time it was because their High Priestess wanted her eldest daughter to marry a witch from another coven. Her attempt at matchmaking didn't go so well, apparently. Several members of her family developed very unsightly and painful sores in the shape of male genitalia."

"Oh, man," Malcolm said in awe. "Alice, you have got to remember to tell Carly about that."

"We have a witch friend back home named Carly," I explained to Lucy. "She's always curious about what other covens are up to."

"Well, if she likes that story, she'll love the one about the enchanted chinchilla."

I was about to ask what she meant when we reached the top of a particularly steep hill overlooking a wide valley. My mouth fell open.

"Holy crap—what the hell is that? " Malcolm leaned over my shoulder to stare through the windshield.

"That," Lucy said ominously, "is the famous Jupiter Sinkhole. Pictures just don't do it justice, do they?"

When she'd said earlier that we had to drive around a sinkhole, I'd wondered why that was something that would add an hour to our journey.

Now I understood.

Something had come out of the ground here—something so big and fiery, it had left a hole several miles wide and maybe a quarter-mile deep in the center, like the caldera of an enormous volcano. The earth in the pit and for a mile around it was blackened and lifeless, dotted with the skeletal frames of vehicles and houses.

From here, we also had a good view of the city. I was struck by how much smaller it was than back home. Not just fewer skyscrapers—fewer everything . Fewer interstate highways, fewer sprawling suburbs, fewer shopping centers and schools. And no massive airport—just a small, regional-looking airport with a single terminal and a couple of runways.

What the hell was I doing here? And what if I couldn't get us back home?

Malcolm put his hand on my shoulder. Don't freak out , he said, his voice urgent. If you freak out, I'll freak out, and Daisy sure as hell will freak out, and then we'll really be up shit creek. Just pretend it's the sarlacc pit and take deep breaths.

Out loud, he said, "Dang, you're right. Pictures definitely do not do it justice." He poked me hard in the shoulder—which was a thing he could do now, because we were in another world.

I shook myself out of my paralysis. "Yep, way bigger in person," I managed to say.

"That's what she said," Lucy quipped, and laughed.

Malcolm and I exchanged a glance, nonplussed. There was just enough of our world in this one to keep me constantly off-balance.

"How far to the roadhouse?" I asked.

"About an hour. Makes you want a drink, right?" She navigated a series of sharp turns along the side of the hill. "The first time I saw the sinkhole in person, I needed one too. Here." She reached under her seat, pulled out a flask, and handed it to me. "Go easy. That's a special homemade recipe made by a vampire friend, and it's no bark and all bite."

I unscrewed the cap and took a whiff. "Holy smokes," I gasped. The smell of it seared the inside of my nose. I took a swig and coughed. "Thanks," I croaked.

"Don't mention it," she said. "Really, don't. Trev only gives it out to his very special friends, and I'll fall off that list if news gets out about it. Plus he'll kick my ass—or he'll try, anyway."

"Our secret." I took one more sip, then handed back the flask. She returned it to its hiding place under her seat.

From our vantage point, I saw the gray ribbon of the highway we were on as it bypassed the sinkhole and the no-man's-land around it and disappeared into the hills in the distance. Somewhere down this road was the roadhouse. I hoped it was just what it sounded like: a roadside dive bar full of restless souls, run by a sarcastic bartender with a seen-it-all attitude, a well-stocked selection of whisky, and a willingness to pour generously. That at least would be a welcome reminder of home.

When we were about a minute from the roadhouse, Daisy got up, stretched, yawned to show all her teeth, and sat expectantly on the back seat.

Lucy glanced in the rearview mirror. "Can she read the GPS?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," I said, rubbing my face. My eyes were gritty. I longed to be clean. I looked forward to a shower, a stiff drink, and finding out why Daisy wanted us to come here—not necessarily in that order.

When we reached the turnoff, Lucy barely slowed the jeep to make the turn into the nearly empty gravel parking lot. Our wheels kicked up a spray of rocks and dust as she fishtailed, cut through the lot, circled around back, and slid to an abrupt stop near a screen door I assumed led to the kitchen.

She put the vehicle in park and turned off the ignition. "The owner prefers I park around back. Some of his best customers won't stop in if there's a Guardian vehicle out front." When I didn't respond, she waved her hand in the front of my face. "Alice? You okay?"

"Fine." I cleared my throat. "You know the owner?"

"Yep. I've been through here a couple of times. He doesn't like Guardians much—hell, most vamps don't—but I helped him with a problem the first time I stopped in, so we're cool."

When I didn't reply, she paused with her hand on the door. "He's not a Court vampire, if that's what you're worried about. I wouldn't bring you here if he was." She grinned. "Oh, and fair warning: he'll probably invite you to his bed, since he has a thing for dangerous brunettes. If you feel like saying yes, I won't judge you. You could do worse."

"I think I'll pass." Robotically, I got out and put my backpack on my shoulders. I opened the back door and Daisy jumped out, landing in the gravel beside me. She gave herself a long shake. "This had better not be the reason you wanted us to come here," I told her under my breath.

She sneezed and stretched.

"Alice, what are we going to do?" Malcolm hissed. "It can't be him , right? It's a coincidence."

"I couldn't be that lucky," I muttered.

Lucy slung her bag over her shoulder. "Let's see about getting a room to clean up."

We walked around the building. On the outside, it looked like any number of older roadside dives I'd seen, except for the wards carved into the exterior walls. Most of them were dormant. Others tingled on my skin. The building was three stories. I imagined the ground floor was the bar and the upper floors were rooms available for travelers to rent. The parking lot was enormous, and tire tracks indicated the field next to the building was frequently used for overflow parking. The roadhouse was clearly popular.

We climbed the front steps with Lucy in the lead. The windows of the double doors were covered, preventing us from seeing inside, but rock music drifted out.

Lucy shoved the doors open and marched inside like a Western lawman entering a saloon full of drunken desperadoes. I followed her in with Daisy at my side and Malcolm behind us.

The doorway wards flared as we passed. They blazed blue for Lucy and Malcolm, gold with multicolored threads for Daisy, and a rainbow of colors with black threads for me. The tall, blond man behind the bar watched the wards as we entered, studied us, and finished pouring a drink. The wards alerted staff to the type of beings who crossed the threshold.

Only a half-dozen patrons were drinking in the middle of the afternoon: three at the bar and three others alone in booths. One of the solitary drinkers was a troll. Everyone else appeared to be human—but then again, that didn't mean they were. I saw no other employees besides the bartender.

The room was enormous, with a raised stage at one end, a wide staircase at the other, the main bar in the center, and a second smaller bar near the stage, not currently in use. Despite my uneasiness, I relaxed just a little. A mostly empty bar in the middle of the afternoon was familiar territory, even in the Broken World.

The bartender slid the drink across to the man in front of him and wiped his hands on a towel. "Welcome to Hawthorne's," he said, his eyes on Daisy. "If that wolf causes any trouble, I'll shoot her."

Daisy showed him all of her teeth, but didn't growl. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought she'd just grinned at him.

"Nice to see you again too, Joey." Lucy dropped her bag on an empty barstool. "We've been on the road and we need a room to get cleaned up." She slid a card across the bar. "And a bottle of Charles's finest later."

Charles . Unbelievable. I'd traveled through a mirror to a whole other world and still ended up drinking at Charles Vaughan's bar.

Joey took Lucy's card. "You just passing through, or meeting someone later?"

"Meeting an informant around sunset. We'll need a booth. You got a band playing here tonight?"

He nodded. "Yeah, a damn good one. I'll reserve you a booth far enough away from the stage that you can hear each other. You need any backup with your informant, give us the signal."

"You got it." She slung her bag over her shoulder.

"Will the owner be in today?" I asked.

Joey slid two old-fashioned door keys across the bar to Lucy. "Second floor, room 202. He might be in later," he told me. "Never can tell. You got a message for him?"

"No," I said, maybe a little too quickly. "No, just wondering. How'd he get the idea to name this place Hawthorne's?"

He shrugged. "Told me he used to drink with Nathaniel Hawthorne. Not sure if I believe him, but he's old enough. Not many roadhouses get named after famous authors."

Back home, Charles had named his bar Hawthorne's for the same reason. I needed a drink now more than ever.

The bartender gestured at my wolf. "You want to get her some dinner before things get busy?"

Daisy licked her chops.

My stomach grumbled. That breakfast sandwich had long since ceased to hold my hunger pangs at bay. "Dinner would be good," I said. "For us too."

"We ain't got room service, but I'll have someone bring you up something," Joey said. "The parking lot'll be full in about ninety minutes. You let me know if you're heading out after, or you want to stay the night."

"We'll be back down soon as we're cleaned up and eaten." Lucy headed for the stairs. "Come on, Alice. Let's wash off this road dust."

I adjusted my backpack and followed her.