Wayward Son (Simon Snow, #2)(41)

I thought maybe these three were different. They are different. What’s a vampire doing with a magic wand? What kind of devil is that Simon guy? (Is he a devil? Or just some kind of sphinx I’ve never seen before? There’s so much I haven’t seen.…)

But my no-scheme scheme isn’t working on them.

They’re going to lose me as soon as they don’t need me anymore. And then I’ll never know their story.…



* * *



We stop at a motel on the outskirts of Denver. I was worried about who we were going to send into the lobby—the black guy, the white devil, the Middle Eastern girl, or the pungent vampire. (Probably the white devil, right?)

But it’s one of those dives where every room has its own external door. The witch girl picks a room, puts her hand on the doorknob, and says, “Open Sesame!” It’s that easy.

Then she tries to magic the skunk funk off her friends. Both of them reeked of it when they got out of the truck.

I stand back and watch. “Do you have a tomato-soup spell? That’s the only thing that works on skunk spray.”

“Skunk…” the Simon one says. “That makes so much more sense than badger.”

Once we get in the room, the girl and the vampire collapse onto one of the beds together. (Which I did not see coming, but all right.) And Winged Victory settles on the carpet, against the door. (Maybe his kind doesn’t need sleep.) That’s when I realize I’m their prisoner. Which … fair enough. I’ve been in this situation before. I can still talk my way out of it.

Problem is, I still want to talk my way into it.

I sit down on a sunken brown couch. “I can take first watch,” I say after a while, when I think the girl and the vampire are asleep. (I did not know vampires need sleep; I’ve never gotten this close before. Maybe this one is a hybrid. Can you be half vampire? Can you catch a mild case? Maybe he’s one of the Next Blood. All the High Plains Maybes are worried about the Next Blood.)

Simon doesn’t answer me.

“I may as well take first watch,” I try again. “I’m still too wired to sleep.”

He sighs. “How’re you going to watch yourself?”

“I keep telling you guys—you can trust me.”

“Why should we?”

“Because I’m a good guy. And I like to help.”

“Because you’re a good guy…” he says. I can’t see his eyes in the dark. “What if we aren’t?”

That is an extremely solid question. I’ve guessed wrong before.

“Try again,” he says. “Tell me what you want from us.”

“I want to know about magic,” I say.

“You already seem to know a lot.”

“I want to know everything.”

“We don’t know everything.…”

I’m sitting up now. “I want to know whatever I can. Why are you here? Are you friends? Are you a team? A family? What are you? I’ve never seen something like you before.”

Simon laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Like I’m gonna tell all my secrets to someone who calls me a something.”

“Jesus,” I say. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m screwing this up. I really could help you guys. I have a vehicle, I know my way around—I know about America. I helped you out of that mess at Carhenge, but I could have helped you avoid it.”

“You chased us into it!”

“That was an accident!”

“So we let you tag along on our holiday, and then you what, post a documentary about us on your YouTube channel?”

“I wouldn’t.”

He sighs again. “Go to sleep, Shepard. We’re not going to hurt you.”

I lie down again, trying to think of another tack. They’re all going to be gone in the morning, and I’m going to have a headache.

“We’re good guys,” Simon says.





32





BAZ


Bunce spelled that kid six ways to Sunday. (Which was a little excessive; “Six ways to Sunday” almost always is. I’d be surprised if he remembers his own name when he wakes up.) Then she cleared his mobile.

I couldn’t help her with the spells. I’m still not … right from the gunshots. My skin has closed and mostly healed—I look like I was shot twenty years ago, not twenty hours—but my chest aches. And I feel listless. Like my undead body had to make some steep sacrifice to hold on to its “un.”

We only slept for a few hours. Simon didn’t sleep at all.

Bunce uses another spell to steal a car. Simon wants a convertible, but Penny insists on something low-profile this time—which, in America, means a giant white monstrosity called a Silverado. (Silverado, Tahoe, Tundra. Everyone gets it, America, you’re very American.)

The Silverado makes the Normal’s truck look like it hasn’t hit puberty yet. This one’s so high off the ground, it’s got its own steps. There’s a full-sized back seat and more places to set a drink down than in my sitting room back home.

(We literally have three “pickup trucks” in all of England, but here they’re everywhere. What is it that Americans have to pick up that the rest of the world doesn’t?)