After a week of laying low, Constance wanted to return to the mansion. It had always drawn her, just as it drew all the souls it desired. Even in the end of days, it continued to draw her, like it had in life and death. And she needed to see her children. They were too delicate, too emotional for her to leave behind permanently. In her mortal form she had less energy than she had grown accustomed to and she felt that would be helped in the house.
Billie Dean wanted to head out of state, but Constance wouldn't hear of it. They spent the week traveling up the coast, avoiding large catlike predators and discovering how little civilization was left in the fog-choked state. Food was hit-and-miss. Bigger towns had been looted or were too dangerous to delve too deeply into. Smaller towns had either boarded everything up or were completely decimated by traveling raiders.
Neither woman was in her prime and neither felt entirely safe relying on the other for protection. It made for restlessness nights even when they camped in relatively nice locations. That night, they stayed in what had been a quaint bed and breakfast, tucked back from the main highway behind a grove of pecan trees. They had to break a window to get in. The place was deserted but well-stocked; someone's business that they had closed up when things were getting bad, with apparent intentions of reopening someday soon.
After they had sealed the window with a length of cardboard scrounged in the garage, the women had settled into the place as best they could. Candle-warmed beans and old bottled water weren't the best of provisions, but it filled their bellies. Despite there being several guest rooms, the women shared a room by unspoken agreement. Even with the door bolted, neither slept very well.
Constance woke several times because the room sounded wrong. It was too still. Trapped in her mortal body, she was cut off from many senses she had grown used to over the years. When the silence woke her yet again, she rolled over onto her back and sighed. She pressed a hand to her forehead and opened her eyes. Then she froze.
Someone was standing at the foot of the bed.
A quick slide of her eyes sideways found Billie Dean's sleeping form still in the other bed. Constance shifted her attention back to the foot of her queen-sized bed and saw the figure still standing there. It was darker than the rest of the room, which appeared almost purple in the moonlight diffused through the thick curtains over the window. The individual wore a wide-brimmed hat, but that was the only feature she could distinguish from its otherwise black form.
Constance tried to call out to Billie Dean but found herself unable to speak or move. It felt too real to be a dream. She was too physical now to be confused about what her remaining senses told her. She could feel the cotton sheets and smell the dusty carpet. One didn't pick up details like that in dreams.
Billie Dean sat up quite suddenly with a loud gasp. "We have to find the Relics!"
The thing at the end of Constance's bed disappeared and she found herself able to move freely again. She sat up as well, grasping at her collarbone reflexively.
"Oh, my God," said Billie Dean as she swung her legs out of the bed. She massaged her temple. "I just had the most insane dream."
Constance was on her feet, pacing, trying to decide whether to get dressed or have a cigarette. "Somethin' was in the room."
"What?"
"Somethin' was in the room!" Constance grabbed her cigarettes and lit one. "Just before you woke up. A dark shape was standin' at the foot of the bed. It went away as soon as you started shoutin'."
Billie Dean lit a cigarette too. Her hair was a mess and looked like she aged a couple of years overnight. "Maybe it sent the dream. I dreamt that Michael had these…things. Relics. Holy items. Unholy items? If he brings them all together and uses them, any hope for restoring the world we knew….is over."
Constance sucked on her cigarette. As much as she wanted to dismiss the dream as being just that, she knew the medium too well. Not everything she saw made sense, but it was usually true.
"Well," she huffed, hugging her middle. "What are we meant to do about it? What can we do?"
Billie Dean side and sank into herself. "I'm…not sure. I just know he can't get them. We can't let him."
Constance paced a few steps, eyes on the ceiling. She used to pray every night. It had been years since she'd said a true prayer. "Why not?"
"Why not?"
"Yes," Constance said quietly. "Why not? Maybe it's time this world was put out of its misery."
Billie Dean flicked her ash on the floor. A tiny sliver of her old self cringed inwardly but they would be gone in a couple of hours and likely never come back to this place. The chances anyone else would see the mess were slim.
"Why even bother resisting any of it, if you feel that way?" Billie Dean wanted to know. "Why not just…let everything happen the way it will, huh? Sweet Jesus," she muttered and rubbed her temple some more.
Constance hit her cigarette then set it on the edge of the dresser so she could change. They had collected a small amount of clothing during their escapade, the first new clothes Constance owned in years.
"Where the hell are we runnin', anyway?" she countered. "We've been narrowly escapin' monsters for a week now and for what? There's nothin' out here to run to."
"So that's it?" Billie Dean said derisively. "We just give up?"
Constance tugged her blouse on and checked her hair in the small mirror above the dresser. She looked hideous: Old and wrinkled. Worn out. She had always hated her wrinkles and had fought back the signs of age ferociously. As a ghost, she could look however she pleased. Over time she had youthened her appearance to what it was when she was at the peak of her beauty, in her late 20s. Before time and life with Hugo and his offspring took their toll on her.
"Michael needs the Relics," Constance said, picking her cigarette back up. She was through defending her desire to return to LA. She looked at the medium through the mirror's reflection. "Well, I know where one of them is."
—
"How do you know it's one of them?" Billie Dean asked later, when they were driving away from the bed-and-breakfast.
Constance watched the road fly by in the gray predawn light. "I heard Michael and Pietre discussin' it a couple of weeks back. Pietre was sayin' somethin' about some relics and Michael said something' about the Seal of Samael. He said he thought Jeremiah had it, but they couldn't find it. I thought then it might be that necklace he always wore. The fool never would take it off. Not even for sex."
"Didn't want to know that," Billie Dean inserted. Fortunately, she had to focus on her driving, so she didn't have to visualize.
"Don't act so prude," sniffed Constance.
"Nothin' to do with prude," said Billie Dean. "I just don't want to think about your sex life."
"Only because yours died long before I did," smirked the other woman.
"About the seal..?" prompted Billie Dean, to get her back on track. The jibe didn't bother her. Not only was it fairly accurate, it was something she would except her old frenemy to say.
"I took it off him when he died," Constance said after a moment, her words strained. Thinking about his crucifixion was painful. "I needed…something, you know? Something of him to remind me…" She fluttered a hand as she choked up.
"Where did you put it?" asked Billie Dean. Not just because she wanted to find out. She knew that pushing the topic ahead would help keep the other woman from cratering to her sorrow.
Constance cleared her throat and when she was composed, said: "It's at the house."
Billie Dean knew exactly which house she meant. "You know we can't let him see us," she cautioned. "After we ran off…He's bound to be angry."
"I can handle Michael," said Constance, with more confidence than she felt. "But you're probably right. We'll go in, get the medallion, I'll say hello to my children—"
"Really, Constance?" Billie Dean boggled. "We really should just—"
"I am going to see my children," Constance stated emphatically. She stared hard at Billie Dean's profile.
The medium spared her a quick glance then pressed her lips together. She badly wanted to tell the woman off, but she also needed her to get the Seal of Samael. So she swallowed the urge to give her a scathing earful and just drove in silence the rest of the way to Los Angeles.
…
Desiree was just a kid when she encountered a zombie outside the cemetery back home in New Orleans. She remembered knowing something was strange about him, especially when he fought off the bullies who tried to steal her Halloween candy. The way he moved and his weird way of communicating let her know something was odd about him. But to her he was a hero. He saved her candy and the boys never came near her again after that.
A few months later, Desiree's powers began to manifest. A few months later, she was living at Miss Robichaux's Academy at the worst possible time. She was brought in having to defend the coven against the Voodoo Queen and her people, something that was especially difficult for her as a biracial believer in voodoo. She wasn't left much choice, though, and when it came down to it, she had to defend herself. Once the line was crossed, there was no going back.
Almost as far back as she could remember, the supernatural had been a part of her life. But even an old hat like her found it strange to be chasing religious fairytales through the wasteland of America. She and two of the other girls of her generation, Azalea and Kerri, had already acquired the Rob of Wormwood for Fiona and Michael. That turned out to be nothing more than a bit of literal wormwood, the sort one would use to brew absinthe.
The Seal of Abaddon and the Pentacle of Ashtaroth were supposed to be in the same location, in Colorado. Driving there was treacherous, between the badly neglected roads and the ice. In one area, several large trees had fallen across the highway and through traffic had made a new path off road. It was a bumpy way to go but it got them around the barricade.
"Don't you think it's kind of…creepy?" Azalea asked after she finished a bite of stale cotton candy. "You know. How he knows shit?"
Desiree, who was driving, shrugged a shoulder. "If he is who everyone says he is, it makes sense he'd know things. He's got one foot in the spiritual plane, the other here. He sees and hears things most people have to do magic to see and hear."
Azalea twirled a dark curl around her finger and thought about that. "I've seen some pretty crazy shit in the spirit world," she admitted. "I remember the first time I got a spirit to contact me through a Ouija board, it didn't go away when I said 'goodbye'. It messed with my shower that night and with the dishes in the morning. I was freaking the fuck out. I'm sure my parents thought I was nuts. None of us knew, you know, that shit was real."
"We're here," Desiree announced and put the car in park.
They both looked out through the foggy windshield at the structure before them. The white edifice was three stories with a reddish-brown roof, built in a manner that reminded Desiree of pictures of old asylums.
"The Stanley Hotel," Azalea murmured appreciatively.
"Yeah," agreed Desiree bitterly. "It had to be spooky central. It couldn't be Red Rocks, oh no."
Azalea smiled and unfastened her seat belt. "The sooner we get inside, the sooner we can leave. Besides. We're bad-ass witches. Nobody's gonna mess with us."
…
Author's Note:
I generally try to keep OC stuff to a minimum but the Wild Hunt traditionally is a pack of witches (or other supernatural entities) and Michael can't be everywhere at once. Not one of his powers, sadly. So he needs some grunts to hunt down the relics for him. Plus I needed some red shirts to send into the Stanley Hotel. For those that don't know, that's the real life inspiration behind the Overlook Hotel in Stephen King's book/film The Shining. I'll be bringing us back to Murder House soon but I promise the visit to the historical haunted hotel will be a fun romp.
Next time: Michael's getting ready for his birthday. A killer celebration takes time to get set up.