59. Chapter 59
It was the first truly ominous letter. After a long day and hundreds of dull desert miles, Jase would’ve preferred finding a Grand Canyon overlook with Lindsey and watching the colors of the sunset mirror the red and orange canyon rock.
She’d never been there and it was one of the few places in the country that made Jase and his problems feel small.
They were halfway through the envelopes now, and Graham was intent on cracking the next seal. Rather than argue, Jase decided he’d head back this way as soon as he cashed his check. Canyon roads were better on his bike anyway.
They’d set up tents at an RV park and climbed back in the car for the thirty-mile drive northeast. The sixth map ended near Willow Springs, Arizona, at an isolated bar called Not Your Oasis.
A row of bikes stood like a moat of spokes and chrome in front of a one-story, battered wood building that was a patchwork of different colors and textures as if parts had been torn down and rebuilt over decades. Aside from a shed behind the bar, there wasn’t another building in sight.
“Not very friendly,” Helen observed.
“We don’t have to take a picture here,” Jase said, bending the kinks from his back.
Sleeping in the Squire last night had been a bitch, especially after the kiss that swelled his dick uncomfortably until he took care of it.
No pussy was worth losing three million bucks.
At least, that’s what he kept telling himself.
“I’ll run in. The rest of you wait in the car. ”
Lindsey pranced out of the back seat as if she hadn’t heard him or didn’t care.
He wasn’t surprised. She’d been punishing him in small ways all day.
Accidentally smacking his ass with a pole as they bagged her tent, letting gas station doors slam in his face, sitting across from him and pretending not to notice her dress hiked far enough up her thigh to leave nothing—including the color of her underwear—to the imagination.
Red. They were red, like her dress.
“I need to use the bathroom,” Helen said, also climbing out.
“Why didn’t you go at the campground?” Graham asked.
“I’d rather not sit on a pit toilet any more than I have to,” Helen said.
“Fine, let’s all go.” Graham begrudgingly got out of the driver’s seat.
They passed through a narrow gap between a couple of well-kept Harleys. If his was the kind of heart that ached, Jase would’ve reached out and touched one.
“I don’t like this. Dad’s trying to get us killed,” Graham said on the porch steps. “I thought the letter was a joke.”
“It’s just a biker bar. Don’t be so dramat—“
Jase cut himself off when he noticed the sign nailed to the door barely muffling the squeals of heavy metal music on the other side.
Private establishment of the Desert Demons. Everyone else FUCK OFF. This is your warning shot.
Desert Demons. Jase was familiar with their work.
It takes three days to die in the desert, unless you’re with a Demon—a motto he remembered from a dive on Route 66 near Joseph City where another solo rider warned Jase not to tangle with anyone with the Devil tattooed on their arm.
“They start with the hooves and add another body part for every kill,” the rider had said. “It’s the bastards with horns you really have to watch out for. Once a Demon has their horns, they’re made. A Demon for life.”
Keep your wits about you, and you’ll be fine. If not, I’ll see you soon, today’s letter had warned.
“Shit,” Jase muttered. His old man and Graham weren’t being dramatic. They might actually die here.
Carved into the wall beside the door, darkened with what he hoped was red marker and age, was Whole lotta holes in the desert.
“Change in plan.” Jase turned to his brother. “Everyone back to the car.”
Lindsey and her lack of self-preservation once again ignored him and pushed through the door as if her long hair and sundress bought her free passage into Hell. Jase rushed to catch her before the Demons ate her alive.
She realized her mistake a few steps into the den of sweat and leather as two dozen pairs of bloodthirsty eyes bored through the smoke to see who dared to enter their lair.
“Jase?” she asked, shrinking back into him.
He tucked her behind him and said quietly, “Stay close to me.”
“What the fuck you doing here,” someone called out. It wasn’t a question.
The door closed behind Graham and Helen, plunging the room into near darkness.
Hardened bodies shifted closer in the red glow from the neon lights behind the bar.
A pockmarked ghoul with greasy black hair and a tattoo on his forearm of what might’ve been the Devil without hands and a head blocked the exit.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Jase told his brother.
Graham stepped between Helen and the man guarding the door. “We shouldn’t be here.”
“You fuckers have a death wish? This is a private establishment. Can’t you read the fucking sign?” the bartender asked, his bald head shiny as a cue ball, with enough chains around his neck to choke a horse or four unsuspecting visitors.
Two men playing pool stopped shooting and held on to their cues.
Jase’s eyes darted around the room, which was getting smaller and darker by the second.
A quick inventory showed several hands on holsters and at least two ungodly large knives unsheathed.
More concerning than the weapons were the number of horns.
The Demons with horns didn’t seem to have guns.
They didn’t need them.
“Fuck,” Jase cursed to himself. Someone was going to die today, and M?tley Crüe was going to play the funeral procession. He called out, “We’re looking for Billy McClean.”
“Didn’t you hear the man? This is a private establishment,“ said another ghoul who emerged from the smoke closer than the others.
“We’ll keep the girls,” someone in back shouted. A chorus of jeers and whistles sounded in agreement.
Graham urged Helen closer to Lindsey, keeping both women huddled within the shadows of the Young men.
“Jase,” he said. “The letter.”
“We’re just here for Billy McClean. Is he here or not?” Jase barked in his hardest voice, blocking Lindsey from the men closing in from the left.
“What you want with McClean?” the bartender asked.
“He knew our old man.”
“Doubt it.”
Jase barely registered the first beats of “Metal Health” taking over on the jukebox. Brass knuckles cracked on ready fists. A few more steps and those knuckles would be within swinging distance. With their numbers, the Demons wouldn’t need to waste bullets.
Christ, Dad, what were you thinking?
Then he remembered. “Tell him the Kid sent us.”
“Let’s take these fuckers outside,” said a Demon with quivering jowls, a set of hooves, and a hell of a lot to prove.
A man in a red bandana sitting at the bar held up a hand to stop the mob’s progression. After a short conversation with the bartender, the red bandana stood from his stool.
“If you’re playing some kind of game on Billy, you should know, we’ll kill you,” he said as evenly as if he was offering news of inclement weather.
“There’s no game, man,” Jase said, hoping they held it together long enough to give the letter to Billy. Whatever was inside the envelope was their ticket out.
The red bandana disappeared down a hall on the other side of the bar as someone in the back crowed, “I call the one in the skirt.”
A few clapped, others whistled in agreement. Jase reached behind him to take a fistful of Lindsey’s dress in his hand. He didn’t think any display of claiming her would make a difference here.
“What’s the problem?” she asked under her breath. “I thought these were your people?”
“These aren’t anybody’s people.”
I’ll never, ever join a motorcycle club, Jase vowed.
“I really have to pee,” Helen whispered.
“Not now,” Graham said.
“Can you throw a punch, if you had to?” Jase asked under his breath.
“Sure,” Lindsey said. “I’ll aim for the balls.”
Jase glanced behind him at Graham, whose tight grip on Helen’s arms stretched the muscles beneath his T-shirt.
“You?”
“To get out of here?” Graham asked. “Yes.”
Shouts and breaking glass from the back raised the hackles and shut the mouths of every Demon in the room.
“He’s not here?“ a woman hollered. “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”
A wild blond mane exploded from the back hall, screaming, “Where is that no-good piece-of-shit asshole?” She noticed the four of them. “And who the fuck are you?”
“Uh, we’re looking for Billy,” Jase said.
“You got her. Hand over the fucking Kid.”
Jase pulled the letter from his back pocket and held it out to her. “This is for you.”
“I thought you said he was here?” Billy asked the man in the red bandana, who shrugged and returned to his stool.
The woman who was Billy McClean smacked the bartender on the back of the head as if he’d been the one to deliver the news, and he retreated like a beaten dog, saying, “No, they said the Kid sent them.”
“What is this?” She eyed Jase’s offering.
“It’s from our dad,” Jase said, noticing a full Devil on her arm with a pitchfork in its hand. “Jason Young.”
Through thick bangs, her severe eyes softened with recognition. She snatched the envelope and said, “You look like him. Where is he? When I heard he was here I almost had a heart attack.”
“He’s…” Jase shook his head. He had to say it out loud eventually. “He’s dead.”
With barely a tick of emotion, she muttered, “I guess I should’ve known.”
“You knew him?”
“Of course I knew him. We were Billy and the Kid.”