“You just worry about that heirloom,” I told him, embarrassed that I was having such a difficult time. And no sooner did I say that than I slipped again and cut my hand on something sharp. “Son of a bitch!” I yelled, pulling my hand up and seeing my palm immediately turn red.
“What?” Heath said, rushing over to my side.
I closed my fist and gritted my teeth. “It’s nothing,” I told him, realizing that dusk was quickly fading. “I just hurt my hand a little.”
“Let me see,” he insisted, already turning to set aside the heirloom.
“No! We don’t have time, Heath. We’ve got to get back to your car before we’re completely out of daylight.”
Heath looked as if he wanted to argue with me, so I got up and took a slight leap down the slope to level ground. I managed not to trip this time and turned back to him. “Can you jog with that thing?” I asked when he came up next to me.
“You set the pace and I’ll keep up,” he promised.
I started off, feeling a slick wetness slip through my fingers and I made sure to keep to Heath’s left so that he couldn’t see my hand. I knew that if he realized I was bleeding pretty bad, he’d stop and want to do something stupid like take care of me.
Within fifteen minutes we were nearly to the SUV, but twilight had come fully onto the landscape and I could feel a chill run down my spine. I hated being out here, exposed like this, so I turned on a little extra speed and was glad when Heath did too.
We reached Heath’s Durango in no time, and although I was winded, I felt very glad for the safety it offered. That is, until I rounded the car to my side and happened to pass by the flat tire on the rear passenger side.
“Shit!” Heath growled after I’d pointed it out to him.
I eyed the area around us nervously. “How fast can you fix it?”
After settling the urn in the backseat, Heath lifted the rear lid to the SUV and began to rummage around for his jack and the spare tire. “Quick,” he assured me.
I offered to help, but he insisted it would go faster if he did it himself. I knew he was right, especially since my hand was a mess, but I still felt a little helpless as I watched him work.
Because I was still wearing Gilley’s sweatshirt, I decided to make sure I stuck close to Heath and kept my eyes and ears peeled for any hint of an approaching menace.
The landscape was quiet—not even the crickets had started up yet—which made it even creepier. I kept feeling like we were being watched, but I couldn’t manage to locate the source, so I just kept my eyes on the road and shifted nervously from foot to foot.
Meanwhile, Heath was really struggling with the lug nuts. He would place the wrench on one and have to jump on it several times before it would move. I was worried he’d knock the car off the jack, but luckily, that didn’t happen. Still, I gave him and the car a little room until he’d managed to get all four of them off.
As the darkness around us deepened, the air turned decidedly chillier and I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself, while Gilley’s sweatshirt sagged around me like a potato sack. “How’s it coming?” I asked, looking up and down the road.
“It’s coming,” he said, and I could detect more than a hint of irritation in his voice. I walked a little bit away from the car, determined to give him some space until he’d gotten the tire back on, and that’s when I felt something I can only describe as a terrible evil headed straight for us.
“Heath!” I whispered, feeling that evil approaching from the road. “Come here!”
“I’m a little busy right now, Em,” Heath grunted as he worked to tighten the bolts on the spare.
“I think we need to get in the car,” I told him, inching backward.
“Hang on,” he said.
I turned around and grabbed him by the arm, pulling on it hard. He dropped the wrench. “Hey!”
I ignored that. “Get in the car!”
Heath’s eyes finally lit with understanding and his attention also went to the road. Without a word he reached out to me and pulled me toward the passenger-side door, shoving me inside before running around to the driver’s side and sliding inside.
The SUV was still on the jack and we were pitched slightly forward while we sat still for a minute, waiting for something to happen. “We need to move!” I told Heath, knowing we were about to be in deep, deep trouble.
Heath’s hand shook while he inserted his key, but after rolling the engine over, he hesitated putting the gearshift into drive. “I gotta let the jack down!” he said, his hand moving to the door handle almost at the exact moment a tremendous WHACK sounded against the rear quarter panel.
The car jostled and there was a grinding sound before the rear tire plopped down hard to the ground.
Accompanying all of that was a low, terrifying rumble, vibrating through the steel of the car and rippling the hairs along the back of my neck.
Heath and I were both pinned to the seat by fear, not daring to move or utter a sound. Very slowly I moved my head to look at Heath, but caught a glimpse of his window instead. Something glistened in the dark before a red eye emerged; glowing and demonic, it glared at me with pure hatred.
I screamed at the top of my lungs and that seemed to set Heath into motion. He gripped the gearshift and shoved it back two notches while pressing down hard on the gas. The SUV rocketed forward and Heath spun the wheel hard.
We fishtailed, half on the pavement of the road, half off, and all I could think about was that Heath hadn’t gotten all the bolts on the spare.
If he had the same thought, he didn’t let it interfere with getting us the hell out of there. We whipped around in a circle, moving off onto the opposite shoulder, and then sped down the road, gaining speed with every passing yard.
We got about a mile or two before the rear end of Heath’s car began to wobble, and I knew the spare was about to come off. “You’ve got to slow down!” I shouted. “Heath! If you lose that back tire, we’ll roll!”
His hands were white on the steering wheel and his face was just as pale, but I felt him ease off the gas and focus on maintaining control of the car.
My eyes darted again and again to the side mirror—I was terrified that the demon would chase us down, but if it was coming after us, it was impossible to tell. And just as I had convinced myself that maybe we’d lost it, we literally lost it. The spare tire, that is.
I cried out as the car jostled, then began to fishtail in earnest before spinning around in a 360. Then I felt it tilt and my body slammed into the door just as I felt Heath’s side of the car leave the ground. The road ahead tipped. I shut my eyes, and just prayed.
Chapter 11
By some miracle we didn’t tip over, but it was several seconds before either of us could get ahold of our breathing.
Heath was the first to recover himself, pulling out his cell and calling Brody. When he hung up, I asked, “Is he coming?”
Heath nodded. “He’s on his way. He’s working the midnight shift, so he’s got a little time before he has to be at the hospital, and he’s the only one I could call who wouldn’t ask me a lot of questions.”
“We couldn’t call Pena?”
Heath shook his head. “He’d want to know why I took you up into the foothills close to the burial grounds.”
“Will Brody get here quick, do you think?” I stared nervously out the windshield at the road. We’d spun fully around to face the way we’d just come.
“I told him to get here as fast as he could,” Heath said. “Don’t worry, he will.”
I didn’t speak the thought that came into my mind, namely, that I hoped Brody arrived before the demon did, because I was pretty sure that thing was once again on the prowl after us. “How far away from it do you think we got?”
Heath looked at the dashboard. “Four and a half . . . five miles,” he said.
I gulped. Not far enough.
Thankfully, Brody arrived about five minutes later and drove us back to the Pueblo. It was o
n the ride back that the kind doctor noticed my hand. “What’d you do now?” he asked, reaching out to lift my wrist.
From the backseat I heard Heath shift forward. “Em!” he said. “When did you do that?”
My hand was locked in a fist and I knew it was still bleeding a little. “It’s nothing,” I said, trying to shrug it off. “Nothing that a little peroxide and a few Band-Aids can’t handle.”
Brody’s eyes darted from the road to my hand and back again. “Oh, that looks way more serious than a little peroxide and a few Band-Aids,” he said. “Heath, how about I drop you at Rocky’s garage so you can get a tow for your SUV and I’ll take your girlfriend to the hospital and have a look at her hand?”
“Sounds good, cuz, thanks.”
“I love how the two of you decide what to do with me without even consulting me,” I said.
Heath leaned over the seat and kissed my cheek. “Honey?” he said.
“Yeah?”
“How about you go with Brody to the hospital while I get my car towed?”
“Was that so hard?” I asked.
“It was a little,” he said with a chuckle.
“Men,” I grumbled. Still, I was very troubled by the fact that Heath was going back out on that road to get his Durango. “Heath?”
“Yeah?”
“Maybe you should wait until tomorrow to get your car towed.”
Heath sighed. “It’s in the middle of the road, Em. I can’t leave it there.”
“But—”
“How about if I call Pena and ask him to meet me there too? There’ll be three of us then, with an extra car in case we need to get away fast.”
I didn’t like it, but what could I do? Heath was right; he couldn’t leave his car in the middle of the road. What if someone hit it?
A few minutes later, I thought of something else. “Heath? What about Gilley? The note we left him said that we’d be back before dark, and it’s way after dark now. He’ll be worried.”
“I’ll call him and explain,” he assured me just as we arrived at Rocky’s garage.
“He’ll be hungry,” I reminded him.
“He can order room service on me,” Heath said easily, leaning in to kiss me again before getting out of the car and waving good-bye to us.
I thought that once Heath got a look at his bill, that’d be the last time he gave Gil that option, but I didn’t push it because I was too tired and my hand hurt.
When Brody and I were under way again, he asked me, “What’d you cut your hand on, anyway?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a rock or a piece of glass. It’s tough terrain out in the badlands.”
“So, what were you guys doing out there, anyway?”
“Pena hired us to bust the demon that killed Milton and Beverly.”
I felt Brody’s eyes on me. “He did?”
“Yep.”
“Huh,” Brody said. “That’s big for Pena. This thing must’ve really gotten to him.”
“You saw the condition of his station, Brody,” I reminded him. “After encountering that thing firsthand, I can safely say that it’d get to anybody.” Heath had suggested we not give too many details about what we were up to—or the demon attack on Heath’s car—lest it get back to Pena that we were in a place we shouldn’t have been.
Brody was quiet for a bit before he shifted in his seat and said, “You think it’ll come after anybody else?”
“I do.”
“Like who?”
“Like any and all Whitefeathers,” I said. “By birth or by marriage, that thing’s out for blood.”
Brody was quiet for a minute before he asked his next question. “Do you think it’ll come after Ari?”
I cleared my throat, wondering if I should be straight with him or cushion it a little. I decided that cushioning it might get the nice couple killed, so I told him the honest truth. “Yes,” I said. “I think it’ll come after her, you, Heath, Heath’s mom, his uncles, cousins, and even me.”
Brody sighed heavily. “I’ve been telling Ari that we need to move closer to town,” he said softly. “I mean, it’s not like we can’t afford it now that I’m a senior resident at the hospital.”
“Then why don’t you?”
Brody shook his head, clearly frustrated by the situation. “It’s Ari’s dad,” he said quietly. “He’s got this pull over her that no one can break. We have a great marriage except when it comes to her dad.”
“Oh?” I said, remembering how cold Ari had been to her father, Vernon, at Molly’s house. “I didn’t think that Ari and Vern got along.”
“They do and they don’t,” he said, a note of bitterness in his tone. “I mean, Ari does whatever Vern tells her to do, but she’s motivated more out of fear than love. Which is why I want her to move with me into town, so we can get out from under his thumb and she can figure out how she really feels about her dad.”
“Why won’t Vern let her move?”
“It isn’t that he won’t let her go,” Brody said. “It’s more like every time she brings it up, he brings up Serena, and how she betrayed the tribe by leaving her husband and the Pueblo. Ari knows that if she goes, her dad’s gonna turn the tribe against her just like he did with his own sister.”
“We found the Whitefeather urn,” I said, the words leaving my mouth before I could really catch them. I knew that Heath wouldn’t approve of my saying anything to Brody, but he seemed like a genuinely good guy, and maybe he could give us some advice about how to handle the discovery.
Brody turned surprised eyes on me. “The urn?” he said. “The one that disappeared over twenty years ago?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In a cave up in the foothills. That’s where Heath and I were coming from when we lost the tire.”
“You knew where the urn was this whole time?” Brody asked, his tone sharp.
“No,” I said quickly. “We went looking for another urn of sorts.”
“Another urn?”
I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. I was starting to feel the exhaustion I’d been fighting the past few days creep over me again. Still, I managed to explain to Brody all the events that had led to the discovery of the Whitefeather family urn.
“So, who hid the Whitefeather urn in a cave up in the hills?” he asked me when I’d finished.
“That’s the big question, isn’t it? But not quite as big as what happened to the vessel that housed the spirit of the black hawk.”
“It’s either been destroyed, or someone’s got it hidden,” he told me.
“That’s exactly what we were thinking,” I said, right before I started to have second thoughts about revealing so much to him. “Hey, Brody, would you mind keeping all of this to yourself for the time being? We don’t know who from the tribe took the Whitefeather urn and until we figure out how to handle it, we don’t want anybody to know we have it.”
Brody turned left into the hospital parking area. “Sure, M. J.,” he said easily. “I’ll be discreet.” He then used his key card to get us into a section reserved for hospital staff. “I’ll take you in with me and get you patched up before the official start of my shift,” he said, finding a slot to slide his truck into. “That way you won’t have to wait for me to get a free minute. You’ll have to fill out paperwork afterward, but at least this way it’ll be quicker.”
I thanked him and we headed in.
As it turned out, I did have to wait. Heath didn’t come to collect me until nearly nine o’clock, and by then I was so hungry I could’ve wolfed down a crusty old pizza and been quite happy about it.
When my S.O. finally did come through the double doors, he brought Gilley along, and I was so relieved to finally see them that my irritation ebbed a bit.
“How’s your hand?” Heath asked the moment he found me in the waiting room.
I held up my palm, now covered in gauze. “They tell me it’s not fatal.”
He grinned. “Good to know
.”
“You spend too much time in hospitals,” Gil said, handing me a bag with a club sandwich, fries, and a chocolate cupcake in it.
After peeking inside, I sighed happily. “God love you, Gilley Gillespie.”
“Come on,” Heath said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “You can eat in the car. We’ve got some news to share.”
I ate rather ravenously while Heath drove us back to the hotel. “I see you got your car fixed,” I said diving into the sandwich the moment my butt landed in the front seat.
“Rocky’s fast,” Heath said. “Too bad he doesn’t do construction,” he added.
That reminded me of his house and I asked, “Have you heard from the insurance company?”
“Not yet, but they said it could take a week before the fire department sends them their final report.”
“Let’s just hope there’s no clause in your insurance policy excluding damage caused by paranormal activity,” Gilley said from the backseat.
Heath eyed Gil soberly in the rearview mirror. “No kidding. I’m just glad that no sparks flew when you and M. J. were in that jail cell.”
I felt a small jolt go through me (no pun intended). “Oh,” I said, “that would’ve been bad!”
Gil fished around in his backpack and held up an orange canister. “I was prepared,” he said proudly.
“What’s that?” I asked him, squinting in the dark.
“It’s a travel fire extinguisher,” he explained. “I’m thinking of making it part of our standard ghostbusting equipment from now on.”
“Good thinking,” I told him, and thought how funny it was that even three months ago I would’ve made fun of him for buying such a thing.
“Did Pena say anything about your car being in the middle of the road with a flat spare?” I asked Heath.
Heath glanced sideways at me. “Naw. I think he and Cruz got into another fight about the existence of the demon. He was in a really bad mood and didn’t talk much.”
We arrived at the hotel shortly after I polished off the last of my sandwich, and Gil brought Doc into our room so that my birdie could get a little one-on-one time with us while we discussed what to do next.