in Cuchillo. I took a deep breath. “So. Pal thinks I’m possessed by a devil. I think maybe it’s one of the larval Goads from your hell.”
He blinked at me as though I’d just told him the sky was blue. “Well, obviously.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“I’ve done plenty of exorcisms. No biggie.”
His breezy tone annoyed me. “It’s a biggie if you can’t work magic!”
“Miko needs magic to do whatever she’s doing, yeah? So this dampening field can’t be everywhere. We find a weak spot in the field, exorcise you, take Miko to school, save what’s left of the town, and we’re out of here.”
He unzipped my backpack and withdrew a well-used, elbow-length brown suede barbecue mitt. “Try this on your claw. Rudy found it in his shed.”
I pulled the mitt on; I had to keep my finger-claws together but that was probably just as well. That hand wasn’t really useful for anything but mayhem and destruction. At least the worn pigskin would keep me from forgetfully scratching an itch and mangling myself.
“But what if only diabolic magic works out here?” I asked. “The devil possessing me sprouted the claw right off the bat. What if Miko’s not using standard magic?”
Cooper reached into my pack and pulled out a Gatorade, cracked the lid open, and handed it to me. “We’ll be fine. Drink up, get your strength back. We might have a lot of walking ahead of us if we can’t get those SUVs started again.”
I followed Cooper out to the parking lot, sipping the Gatorade slowly. My stomach was threatening another return-to-sender and I knew I had to keep the drink down if I could. But the scene in the parking lot before me was making that especially hard. The carnage was even worse than the death-memories had suggested, and flies were buzzing around the human wreckage. At least none of it had been reanimated by my touch.
Rudy and Pal were at work with shovels in the field across the highway, digging what I guessed would become a shallow mass grave in the rocky caliche. The old man had apparently seen so many grotesque oddities since Miko took over the town that he was able to take a giant spider monster pretty much in stride.
The Warlock was kneeling beside a severed head, frowning down at it. “These dudes don’t look so good.”
“Decapitation does that to a guy,” Cooper replied drily.
“No, I mean they look like they were sick. Look at their skin. This one’s got jaundice and a rash.” The Warlock stood up and started digging in his tuxedo pants pocket. He produced a small carving of a phallus; it was maybe three inches long and looked like it was made from a quartz crystal. “Jessie, come here and hold out your hand. Your good one, I mean.”
I did as he asked. He touched the crystal phallus to my palm and it glowed brightly, flashing several different colors. He cleared his throat, looking pained.
“So, do you want the good news, or the bad news?”
“Uh …” I was afraid to choose.
“Well, the good news is you don’t have crab lice, scabies, chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, HIV, or donovanosis. Nor do you have viral lycanthropy.” He pushed his gray cowboy hat back to sit higher on his head.
“Viral lycanthropy?”
The Warlock looked grim. “Some lyes change to beast-form when they come. That’s a surprise you don’t want on your birthday, believe me. So I check for everything. And it’s nice to know when you don’t need the condom.”
“Doesn’t that thing check for vampirism?” I cocked an eyebrow at him.
“No need. The icy hands and body glitter and neck-staring always gives ’em away.”
“So what’s the other news?”
“You’re fertile—guess that means the ol’ contraceptive charm isn’t holding up out here—and also you’ve got viral hepatitis.”
“What? Goddamn it. Is it B or C?”
“Uh …” He touched the phallus to my palm again. “Both.”
“Shit on a stick! Goddamn it!” I kicked the severed head across the pavement.
“Well, the viruses are just in your bloodstream; it could be your immune system clears them before they get settled in,” the Warlock replied.
“What if my immune system doesn’t clear them?”
He paused. “Then we might have a problem, if we’re stuck here for a long time. Curing hepatitis can be kind of tricky; we’d need a really good healer for that.”
“Better than Mother Karen?” I asked.
“Maybe, yeah,” the Warlock said.
“As bad news goes, that kinda sucks.”
“It could be weeks before you get any hepatitis symptoms,” Cooper replied. “Maybe even months.