Chapter 8 Atlas
Atlas
It didn’t take us long to realize that something was really fucked up about where we were.
The streets were empty. We didn’t pass any other vehicles on the roads.
The shops were open, and the lights were on, just as they had been when we’d driven past them to go to the ritual, but there weren’t any people inside, almost like everyone had blinked out of existence.
“You thinking Avengers: Infinity War or Zombieland?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at the witch in the passenger seat.
She didn’t answer; she just glowered out the window as we passed a popular department store that should have been bustling with people. Instead, the parking lot looked like a junkyard where cars went to die.
“The hospital on Route 9 is closer, but the one in Asheville is better,” I said.
“No hospitals.” Wes groaned from the backseat.
“Shut up,” I said, glancing at my brother in the rearview. He looked like shit, his skin pale white, his features twisted in excruciating pain.
“I can heal him,” she said. “I just need some rest, and then I’ll be able to do the spellwork.”
“Forgive me if I don’t trust your secret special magic powers, not after what just happened.” I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “You’re not a miracle worker.”
“I’ve healed demon wounds before.” She clenched her fists in her lap. “I need to recoup my strength. Maybe the others went back to the motel. We should check there.”
“The others?” I scoffed. “Look around you, witch. There are no others.”
“We need sacred ground,” she continued, like my protests meant nothing. “We need to head back to the estate. I have herbs and candles there, not to mention the eons of ancestral magic in the earth.”
“Herbs and candles?” I scoffed. “Look at him! We need stitches and antibiotics and—”
“Listen to her, Atlas,” Wes said. “She can heal me. She knows what she’s doing.”
Yeah, I fucking bet.
I took a deep breath and debated what to do. Even if we went to the hospital, I didn’t know what to look for. Yes, we needed penicillin, but would that even work against demon magic? How much was I supposed to give him?
On the other hand, witches had been known to do a better job of treating and patching up wounds than the best doctors. Maybe with a little rest and some witchy-woo-woo shit, she could get Wes back on his feet.
“Fine,” I snarled. “Where to?”
“The motel first,” she said. “If this isn’t our own personal hell, maybe my sisters went back there. If it is, we’ll head to Asheville.”
I didn’t like it, not one fucking bit. But if Wes was on board and Marta thought she could fix him, I’d hesitantly go along with it. Like she said, the hospitals in Asheville were better than the ones out here in the sticks, so I figured I could always hit it up if it came to that.
But the closer we got to the motel, the more that ominous pit in my stomach grew.
The roads were abandoned, and cars literally stopped in the middle of the highway like their drivers had disintegrated behind the wheel.
When we finally got there, I grimaced at the desolate building straight out of every one of my favorite horror movies.
The lights flickered on the sign, and the rooms were dark inside, no doubt containing flesh-eating monsters ready to peel our skins from our bones.
“Well, this is cheery,” I said, grabbing my pistol to check that it was loaded. I’d emptied my clip during the ritual, but I had another in the bed.
Marta didn’t respond, just opened the passenger door and rushed out.
“Wait!” I shouted, but she didn’t listen to me. “Fucking hell.”
I glanced in the back seat and checked that Wes was still breathing. He leaned back with his head on the rest, his inhales labored and his exhales pained. But at least he hadn’t faded yet.
“I’m gonna go in there after her,” I said. “You stay alive, understand?”
Wes gave me a half-hearted thumbs-up and grimaced.
I got out and went to the back of the truck to retrieve my extra clip before loading it up.
Then I followed Marta into the room she’d been sharing with Bridge.
Holding my gun out in front of me, I cautiously pushed the door open, preparing for a zombie or a demon or I didn’t know what, something gruesome.
Instead, I lowered my weapon when I found the witch coming out of the bathroom.
“They’re not here,” she whispered.
“Don’t fucking run off like that again,” I said.
“They’re not here,” she repeated, louder this time, curling her hands into fists at her side.
“Yeah, I heard you the first time,” I said. “Did you check the other room?”
She shook her head as I headed outside and down the corridor leading to Isobel’s room. But it looked the same as it had when we left. That sneaking suspicion became a full-blown conspiracy theory when I went to the room after that, and the room after that, and found no one.
The motel office was empty. The rooms were empty.
This entire world…empty.
When I got back to Bridge’s room, Marta stood next to Bridge’s bed, gathering books into a suitcase.
“Witch,” I said, “there’s no one here.”
She glanced over her shoulder before returning to her task.
“I need you to take me back to my bike,” she said. “And then we’ll head to the clubhouse.”
“Are you sure we should leave the area?” I walked closer to her, watching as she packed her things. “What if the other Harlots can fix this? Maybe we should stay close to the woods.”
Marta took a deep breath and sighed. “I think we’re in the liminal.”
There it was, the thing I’d been dreading to say out loud, and she’d just flopped it into the atmosphere between us like a dead fish. Even if I suspected it, all the air rushed out of my lungs, and my stomach lurched.
“Have you ever heard of anything coming back from a liminal?” She raised an eyebrow and looked at me.
“Well…no,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way.”
The witch clenched her eyes shut, a blush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks, almost like she was holding back tears.
“We’re fucked, Atlas,” she said. “This is so much worse than I thought.”
I didn’t know what enraged me more: that she’d so easily sunk into this useless despair or that it was her stupid coven that had gotten us into the mess in the first place. Blinding white fury snaked up my spine, pooling in my mouth, and I couldn’t stop what came out next.
“Yeah? And what did you think? That a demon clawing through the wards to slice and dice my brother meant we’d end up in fucking Eden?
” It was cruel, but I had nowhere else to direct my anger, and I couldn’t contain it.
“That you could wave your magic fingers, and it would all be over? Wake up in Aruba, perhaps? No, you fucked this up, witch. Now, fix it.”
She snapped her gaze to me and squared her jaw, her pouty lips pulling into a thin line.
“This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t touched the demon in the first place,” she snarled. “The spell should have worked.”
“Well, it didn’t,” I roared, taking a step toward her.
She countered with a step toward me, staring up my body with those bright mahogany eyes, burning with indignation. “I can see that. I’m not fucking stupid.”
“You’re also not a fucking quitter.” I towered over her, heat pluming off me, mingling with the reckless inferno burning in her stare.
“So stop feeling sorry for yourself and get your shit together because, if we are in a liminal, we have bigger things to worry about now than who fucked up what part of the ritual. And…”
I trailed off as I realized how close we were.
Our torsos were millimeters apart, our pants combining in the electric space between.
For half a heartbeat, I thought about leaning down to kiss her, to collide the decade’s worth of tension brewing between us and let out a little steam.
I dropped my focus to her mouth, where her delicate pink tongue swiped against her perfect lips.
“Did you find anything?” came the pained voice from the doorway, punching me back to reality. I blinked and jumped back from Marta, turning to see Wes slumped against the door.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I rushed toward him and wrapped an arm around his waist to hold him up. “I told you to wait in the truck.”
“You were taking a long time. I thought about dying but figured you’d kick my ass if I did. So I came to check on you.”
“You’re Goddamned right.” I couldn’t even think about losing him.
“To answer your question, no,” Marta said, returning to her books. “No one’s here. We’re alone.”
“Are we…” Wes winced and tried to straighten himself. “Are we in the liminal?”
“I think so.” She zipped up her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and turned to face us. “Maybe the demon was too powerful for the salt circle. Maybe someone fucked it up. Either way, it doesn’t matter now. We should head back to the Harlot estate. I can pull on the strength of the magic there.”
Wes swayed in my arms, his knees almost buckling under me.
“You should go wait in the truck,” the witch said. “You’re practically a ghost.”
He snorted a soft laugh. “That sounds about right. How many times have we almost died, Atlas?”
“That’s not funny, brother,” I said, helping him out of the room and back toward the vehicle.
“I mean, at least ten,” he said. “Fate was bound to catch up to us someday.”
“I don’t want to leave my bike,” Marta said, drawing my attention. “But I also don’t think we should split up. If this is the liminal, then that demon might be around here somewhere. I don’t know if we managed to pull him in with us.”
I shuddered at the thought. Trapped all alone in a pocket reality with a witch that hated me and a lust demon certainly sounded like my own personal hell.
Maybe Wes was right. Perhaps fate or the ancestors or some twisted, fucked-up karma had led us here just to punish me for all the shit I’d done.
How could we possibly hope to defeat a demon in the prison we’d created for it?
It wasn’t like we had the power of other witches to help us create another liminal, if that was even possible. But first things first.
“I don’t wanna leave Josephine, either,” I said, my heart yanking at the thought of my baby all alone at that repair shop, busted into pieces, no one to put her back together again.
“But we don’t have another choice. Besides, we’re in the liminal.
None of this is real. Your bike, my car, they’re waiting for us in the human realm, so we should spend our time figuring out how to get back. ”
Marta nodded and walked toward the passenger seat. “Go get your things. Let’s head home.”