Bailey immediately walked inside.
“Danny-boy,” Barbra sing-songed in response. It was at that moment that I realized Bailey had been successful in channeling Danny. Apparently, Barbra realized it too. And that was the exact moment when I lost my hold on Barbra. Seeing or feeling Danny again provoked a rage inside her that was spilling into the air. It was a rage that was too much for me to contain with a potion.
“So the little spirit-tamer managed to summon you, after all,” Barbra said.
Bailey-Danny grimaced. “You never had to do any of this.”
Barbra let out another cackle, though the shrill noise sounded more like a scream in close quarters. “Didn’t have to do this? If you’d given me the damn gold in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to come after you!”
Danny-Bailey nodded. “Turn yourself into the council quietly and I’m sure Layla will gladly take care of the girls.”
“No one but me will take care of my girls!” Then her expression grew even angrier. “As if you even care about them! You nearly killed Hannah!”
Uncertainty and guilt tangled in Bailey’s expression. “I never meant to hurt the girls, Barbra. I was aiming for you. Come quietly and this can be resolved…”
Barbra’s arms began to spasm, jerking like they’d just been hit with a thousand volts each. A guttural howl wrenched itself from her throat, building into a resonant ululation that made my knees weak.
“Go!” Henner yelled as he turned to face us, dropping the equipment none-too-gently on the ruined hardwood. His arms were shaking almost as badly as Barbra’s. “We need to go!”
He seized Marty by the hood of his coat and began dragging us in a line in the opposite direction, through the kitchen and the back door. I felt absurdly like one of the plastic monkey pieces being dragged out of the barrel.
I made the mistake of looking over my shoulder as we hit the back door. Barbra’s spine had stretched, her torso lengthening, clothing falling in tatters to the floor as fur rippled over her skin. Twin antlers thrust, like spears, from either side of her head.
Our eyes locked, hers smoldering with hate.
She opened her mouth and let out a primal scream.
Chapter Twenty-one
Marty scooped me into his arms, wisely determining that I’d only slow them down if I had to run on my own. I could barely even walk. I felt like an especially uncoordinated drunk already, between the concussion, lack of sleep, and the exhaustion after using too much of my life energy with the Fiery Command Oil.
It was all I could do not to faint dead away as Marty sprinted across the backyard, hung a sharp left, and began running around the side of the building, past the pergola, trying to reach the hearse. Henner and Bailey were right behind us.
We’d just rounded the corner when the wendigo exploded out of the back door.
My arms constricted in fright and I pulled myself as close to Marty as I could. He made a choked sound, breath heaving with exertion, and I had to make a conscious effort not to accidentally strangle him as the wendigo loosed another hair-raising shriek.
Henner reached the hearse before we did and threw open the back door. Then he all but shoved me into the back with the casket. Bailey climbed in beside me. Then Marty started rounding the hearse, clambering inside the driver’s door as fast as physics would allow. The engine rumbled to life, thankfully not sputtering or dying on us at a crucial moment.
“Go to Roy’s,” Henner shouted to Marty over the roar of the engine. Then he faced Bailey and me. “If the wendigo gets close, knock three times!”
“Knock?” I began, but Henner slammed the hearse door shut as he turned around and ran back towards the Clemmons’ house.
“Henner!” Marty yelled after him.
“Go!” Henner called back, not bothering to face us as he started for the Mazda. “I’ll be right behind you!”
Marty gunned the engine, sending us peeling down the driveway in reverse before fishtailing onto the road at top speed. I was thrown forward, half my torso splayed out on the casket’s smooth surface. Bailey reached forward and pulled me back again.
Knock three times.
Did Henner mean on the casket?
There really wasn’t anything in the back of the hearse to knock... except the casket lid. But that couldn’t be right. The coffin was empty, so what good would knocking on it do? There was no way Lorcan would actually have Marty ferrying a corpse around. Right?
On the other hand, I’d just watched a single mother of two transform into a shaggy monster from Native American myth. So maybe the corpse in a box theory wasn’t as Twilight Zone as I thought. But even if there was a corpse in the coffin, how in the hell was it going to help us?
Marty blew through two stop signs on our way back to town, yelping in fright when he spied something in the rearview mirror. When I dared to peek through the back window, my shrill scream made Marty’s yelp sound tough.
“It’s right behind us!” I yelled.
“Henner said knock three times if we need help,” Bailey started, looking at me with concern in her eyes.
“So knock three times!” I yelled back, figuring we definitely needed help.
The wendigo was only about a mile behind us, scuttling along the road like a shaggy, overgrown tarantula. As I watched, it seemed to wrap itself in shadows and when it reappeared, it was much closer, landing only a few yards away. At its current momentum, it wouldn’t take any time to catch us.
Bailey didn’t just knock. She pummeled the casket lid. And then I knocked on the hearse itself, just in case she was wrong about the casket.
The absurdity of the situation suddenly dawned on me. We were going to be killed by a rampaging wendigo, and she was knocking on someone’s casket for help. How could I have been so irresponsible with Finn’s safety? What if this thing came after him when it was done with me?
When it was done with me…
I was about to leave my little boy alone and motherless…
No! I thought back immediately. I won’t do it! I’ll fight using everything I’ve got and I’m a Traveller Gypsy which means I’ve got a lot!
Marty took a turn in the road too quickly and the tires squeaked out their outrage as I went hurtling back onto the coffin.
“Mind leaning off the lid, lovely? You’re making it exceptionally hard to get out,” a voice sounded from within.
With an undignified sound, I took Bailey’s outstretched hand and scrambled into the bench seat along the wall. All the while, I looked at her in horror as she returned the expression. Then we both faced forward as the lid of the coffin creaked open and a figure rose, Lugosi-style, from the interior.
Lorcan Rowe seemed a little rumpled, but no worse for wear, after spending who knows how long in the casket. He brushed the hair from his face with a frown as he peered around.
“What are you doing in there?” Bailey demanded.
“And how long have you been in there?” I added and then shook my head, not really sure what Lorcan was going to be able to do to help the situation. I mean, he was just a man…
Or was he?
“What was I doing in there?” he started. “Well, I was sleeping!”
“Nevermind that!” Bailey started as she motioned to the rear-view window.