Chapter Five
The damp night clung to the GTO like a shroud, inside and out. Stacy, having failed to fall asleep, idly punched through several stations on the radio, then gave up.
A gas station zipped by on the right. Silas was straining his memory, trying to recall which turnoff he needed to take.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“The wild and mysterious land on this far side of the bridge was anciently known as ‘New Jersey,’” Silas said. “In modern times, it has come to be called…‘New Jersey.’”
“You sure it wasn’t just plain ‘Jersey’ before?” Stacy shot back.
“You’re right,” Silas said. “When it was entirely inhabited by cows.”
“Where are we going?”
“San Francisco,” Silas told her. “Eventually.”
“You won’t make me hitchhike, then?”
“You’re in the car, aren’t you?”
“You didn’t seem so happy about it at first.”
“I got over it.” Silas shrugged. “Mostly. It would help me get over it the rest of the way if you could tell me the whole story.”
“You mean why the package is me, and not just the deck?”
“That’s a good question to answer,” Silas agreed. “Also, maybe tell me about what the package is. And why are the gargoyles of New York so anxious to stop you from leaving? Is it you they want, or is it the deck?”
Stacy said, “I guess they want the package.”
“Including you?”
“I don’t think so.” Stacy bit her lip. “I mean, why would anyone want me?”
“Come on, doll,” Silas said. “There are a lot of reasons why someone might want you. Tell me more about the package.”
“It’s a deck of cards,” she said. “A tarot deck. A very old deck.”
“Either they’re worth a lot of money or they’re magical,” Silas suggested.
“I think both. My father gave it to me. It’s…” She hesitated. “It’s basically my inheritance.”
“Must be worth a lot, for the gargoyles to put up such a fuss.” Silas considered. “You sure it’s not stolen from the gargoyles?”
“Pretty sure,” Stacy said. “Not one hundred percent. I think my father had it for a very long time.”
“Fair enough. So are you the client? Are you the one who called the bookie and arranged for transportation?”
“I don’t know who the bookie is,” Stacy said. “I called a friend of my father’s. I’m going to give them the deck, so I asked them to arrange transportation. They said they would send me someone who could get me there in time and keep me safe. Then I guess they called the bookie. Then they called me back with instructions.”
“Your father’s people are magical?” Silas asked. “I mean, they’re wizards or pixies or something?”
“Pixies?” Stacy looked startled. “I don’t know. Maybe they are. My father…I guess you would call him a wizard. His name was John Kane, did you know him?”
Silas snorted. “I’m not really part of that scene. I’m not a magician and I…well, I know a few of them, but mostly to trade with. I fell into this world on accident.”
“My father taught me magic from when I was a child,” Stacy said. “But he was very secretive and said it was something just between us and not to let others know what we could do. He told me that it might attract dark forces and to be careful when and where I used my powers.”
“You know magic,” Silas said. “Why didn’t you help out with the gargoyles?”
She said, “Who says I didn’t?”
“No offense, I mean, you’re the client…or, the package, but a nice fireball or something really could have made the escape much simpler.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know very much. A few cantrips, really…nothing solid. Nothing I thought would help us. Mostly tricks, illusions, you know?”
“So you’re warning me not to look to you for magical help for the rest of the trip.”
“I’m telling you I have helped you and I will help you again. But hopefully we don’t need fireballs, right?” Stacy peered into the darkness split by Betty’s headlights. “But look, I thought magic was a rare thing, it was the kind of thing you encountered only here or there. Like, my father took me to the spring of a nymph up in Yonkers, once. And he introduced me to an old woman in Coney Island who really could tell fortunes.”
“Nope,” Silas said. “Turns out there’s a ton of magic. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting something or someone that’s magical. There are sacred springs and fortune tellers, but also ogres, demon princes, elves, orcs, trolls, undead, you name it.”
“Why don’t you see it more often?”
“You see it all the time,” Silas said. “But it’s hidden behind the Seeming. Just on the other side of the Seeming, on the other side of that veil I was talking about, there’s a whole Other America. A whole Other Earth, in fact.”
“An America not run by Gerald Ford?”
“Pretty sure this America isn’t run by Gerald Ford,” Silas muttered.
“And Other America and Other Earth stay hidden behind the Seeming,” Stacy said.
“It’s a veil,” he told her. “An illusion spell, but a really big one. I don’t think it works on the magical creatures themselves, they see each other. Also, once you’ve seen through the Seeming to see, say, a gargoyle for what it is, then the Seeming won’t hide it again from you. At least, not immediately. Those goons in the pinstripes…at first they looked like men to me, but, at a certain point, I could see they were gargoyles. And I’ve been told that if you see through the Seeming enough, at a certain point, it just stops working on you entirely.”
“Told by a wizard?” she asked.
“By a rabbi,” he said. “Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. Your dad was a wizard, but he didn’t tell you any of this stuff?”
Stacy shook her head. “Does New York have a lot of gargoyles?”
“It has several large families. They claim they run the place, and maybe that’s true. In my experience, if you stay out of their way, they usually leave you alone. As long as you’re not in a few businesses—construction, labor unions, things like that.”
“How about you?” she asked. “Are you a pixie? How did you fall into Other America by accident?”
Silas hesitated. He looked into the mirror, saw Betty and the demon’s claw wrapped around her chest. He blinked away tears, grateful for the darkness.
“Look, this car,” he said. “It’s not a normal car.”
“It’s a Pontiac GTO. You call it Betty.”
“Yeah. But, I mean, it has some supernatural and…spiritual qualities.”
“A demon in the tank, you said.”
Silas nodded. “It didn’t always have those abilities. When it…developed its powers, I guess you might say, I had to drop out of stock car racing.”
“Stock car racing, huh? I guess that’s where you learned to drive like a maniac at two hundred miles an hour but not crash.”
Silas chuckled. “Well, no, I think I’d have to say I learned to drive like a maniac as a kid, driving moonshine around the hills of Alabama.”
“A traditional American occupation.”
“True.”
“You see bog monsters and sprites up in the hills as a kid, then?”
“Not that I could ever be sure of,” Silas said. “Though certain kinds of moonlight cause ripples in the Seeming, and some of those stories you hear coming out of the hills and hollers have real fact at the bottom of them. My grandmother was what we call a Granny Witch, she gave a fair word of warning about haints, so I heard a few things.”
“But you were saying about yourself, when did you first encounter this Other America?”
Silas saw the turnoff he was looking for. He took the left, past the ramshackle former pizza joint and the field full of stumps.
What lie could he tell her that was close enough to the truth to be believed? “That I could be certain? After I had quit racing and taken up…other pursuits. I was driving this car, and I heard sirens behind me. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw trolls.”
“What do trolls look like?”
“Big, scabby, scaly bastards. Like you’d think. Kind of like if André the Giant was covered with the worst full-body dandruff you ever saw. Nasty teeth.”
“So fast they can run after cars?”
“No. Most trolls are bigger than most humans, but not much bigger. So they drive cars. And in and around Pennsylvania, trolls have infiltrated the state police.”
Stacy giggled. “You’re not saying…”
“I am,” Silas admitted.
“They’re the highway pa-troll!” She chortled.
Silas nodded. “As best I can tell as a layman, approximately fifty percent of all magic boils down to puns.”
“What’s the other fifty percent?”
“Spite.”
They were driving up into the hills. The woods were dark and thick, and Silas continually checked his mirrors for signs of pursuit.
“So you saw that you were being followed by trolls, and this was your first experience with Other America.”
“Yeah,” Silas lied.
The road rounded a corner and the church appeared. It was a little building enclosed in a yard, with a cemetery behind it. There was absolutely nothing special to notice about the chapel, other than the roses growing around the marquee.
“You told me you wanted holy water,” Stacy said. “You weren’t kidding.”
Silas parked in front of the church and turned the lights off.
“Does holy ground repel gargoyles or something?” Stacy asked.
“No,” Silas said. “Some other kinds of magical creatures, maybe. We’re not here for the holy ground, not exactly. But you need to know something, so that what’s about to happen doesn’t seem too weird to you.”
Stacy laughed, a sharp bark. Then she threw her head back and guffawed like a horse for nearly a minute.
“I didn’t intend to make a joke.”
“No,” Stacy said. She struggled to stop laughing and regain control. “No, you were being serious. But listen, at this point, nothing will seem weird to me.”
Silas pushed the latch to open the glove compartment. He pushed aside the mummified hand and carefully collected the speed loader, the six vials, and the six corks. Stacy watched, frowning.
“There’s this order,” Silas said. “They’re Catholics, I guess. Priests and nuns and such. But they’re a secret order within the church, and they identify themselves with the sign of the rose.”
“That’s the worst sign of secret things ever,” Stacy said. “Literally, that’s what the Rosicrucians did. To do something sub rosa, under the rose, means to do it secretly. A rose literally means look for secrets here. It’s like a neon sign, announcing a secret society. Are they nuts?”
“Maybe they are Rosicrucians,” Silas said. “I don’t know.”
“But really, the rose is the worst sign for a secret organization.”
“I’ll pass on your critique. But early on, when I was…starting on this road, a priest of the Ordo helped me out.”
“The Ordo is this group?”
“The Ordo Arcanus.”
“Which means the ‘Secret Order.’ Another terrible name.”
Silas suppressed the thought of himself dumping Stacy by the side of the road and driving away. “He helped me out, sister, and taught me how to find the Ordo. And they’ve been an ally.”
“Are you going to talk about the fact that there’s a mummified hand in your glove compartment?” Stacy asked.
Silas sighed. “That’s a long story.”
“Is it a hand of glory?”
“It’s the hand of a B-movie actress.”
Stacy frowned. “Are we going to spend the night here?”
“Yes.” Silas decided not to explain any further. Since the idea of sleeping in the church seemed obvious to Stacy, there was no need to talk about his dreams. “We’re also going to get that holy water.”
“Let’s do it.”
Stacy climbed out of the car and Silas followed. The song of crickets pierced the night. Silas’s boots crunched loud on the gravel walk as he and Stacy walked around the side of the chapel to the adjoining rectory. The door was a perfectly ordinary rectangular door with a peephole and a doorbell. Beneath the peephole, a brass rose was screwed into the wood.
Silas knocked. Moments later, a short man with a pink, cherubic face and a thinning crown of blond hair answered. He wore a black shirt and trousers and a white clerical collar.
“Is there shelter here,” Silas asked, “for a brother traveling on the rose?”
“There’s always room for a brother. My name is Father Benedict.”
The priest stepped aside and ushered them in. He stepped out onto the gravel briefly, peering this way and that, and then shut the door.
“Are you followed?” he asked.
“We were chased out of New York,” Silas said. “Gargoyles. Not sure which family. But I’m pretty sure we lost ’em on the turnpike.”
“You’re Silas Danger.” Father Benedict looked at Silas with piercing blue eyes.
Silas said, “I knew Father Francis.”
“He told me.” Father Benedict smiled. “But everyone knows about you.”
“I’m not sure whether that makes me feel confident or deeply unsettled,” Stacy said.
“Deeply unsettled is the better answer,” Silas suggested.
Father Benedict clapped him on the shoulder. “Nonsense! You’re a brother and sister, traveling on the rose. At this hour, I assume you’ve come for a place to stay. I’ll give you a bolster and a blanket—Father Francis told me about your needs. And for you, miss—”
“My name is Stacy Kane.”
“Miss Kane, there’s a guest room in the rectory. We keep it made up so that it’s ready at a moment’s notice. I’ll just get you fresh towels.”
“What needs?” Stacy asked. “You make Silas sound like a vampire, who has to sleep in dirt.”
Father Benedict chuckled, a frothy, bubbling sound. “An anti-vampire, who has to sleep in a church.”
“You have to sleep in a church?” Stacy asked.
“Sometimes it helps. Father Benedict, we could also use supplies. I don’t know if Father Francis ever mentioned…”
Father Benedict snapped his fingers. “Do you have the vials?”
Silas handed over the glass tubes and their cork stoppers. “Thank you.” He suppressed his urge to offer payment. He’d made that mistake once, early on, and Father Francis had lectured him for an hour on the sin of simony, buying and selling holy things.
Which, if buying and selling holy things was really a sin, Silas had a lot to repent for. Simony was practically his business.
Father Benedict clasped his forearm. “We’re rooting for you. Give me just a minute.” Then he disappeared down the hall into the rectory.
“Why are they rooting for you?” Stacy asked.
“I don’t know,” Silas said, “but I’m glad someone is.”
“So you never really told me how you fell into Other America,” Stacy said.
“I told you I saw a troll.”
“Yeah.” Stacy nodded. “But first you said you quit stock car racing and started doing whatever it is you do now. Being a courier, I guess. After the car gained its supernatural powers, you said, then you looked in the mirror one day and saw a troll.”
“The mirror pierces the Seeming, dollface,” Silas said. “That was the point.”
“Yeah, but my question is, how did the car gain supernatural powers? That seems way more interesting to me than the fact that you saw a troll in a state trooper’s uniform.”
Silas felt his spine stiffen. “I don’t know, you see a troll, you might find it pretty interesting.”
“You think I should drive all the way to San Francisco in a car named Betty with supernatural powers but without knowing what those powers are or how Betty got them?”
Silas’s nostrils flared. “You could take the bus. I’ll meet you at the other end.”
“I don’t think I’m getting my money’s worth.”
“You told me you weren’t the client.”
Stacy bared her teeth just as Father Benedict returned, holding a short stack of bath towel, hand towel, and wash cloth. Under one arm, he had tucked a pillow and a blanket.
“Here we are,” he said brightly. “Can I show you to your room?”
“Yes.” Stacy narrowed her eyes and stalked into the depths of the rectory. Father Benedict smiled mildly and handed Silas the blanket and bolster.
“Thanks, Padre,” Silas mumbled.
Father Benedict followed Stacy. Silas turned and let himself into the chapel. The room was shadowed, but he had been here before, more than once, and could make his way around by memory.
He didn’t feel comfortable too close to the altar. The little church was old and simple, but it had the good classical church shape, which was a rectangle. At one end was the most holy part, with the altar. This was where the power of the building was concentrated. It was the power that Silas needed, but standing too close to it made him feel fidgety.
He walked to the far end of the rectangle, by the front door. On the very last pew, he laid the pillow and blanket down. Then he shrugged out of his jacket and boots and set them in the vestibule outside the front doors. Finally, he lay down on the pew.
He didn’t pray before sleeping. But he did thank the Lord for a place where he could sleep without dreams.