Sparrow Hill Road 2010 By Seanan(58)

The corsage smells like lilies and ashes, or maybe the smell of lilies and ashes is rising from the parking lot around us, routewitch facing off with road-ghost fifteen minutes after midnight on prom night. This is the sort of thing that's rare enough to have power all its own, and in the far distance, I can hear the sound of an engine, screaming.

Bobby Cross is coming to collect what he's been promised.

I'm running out of time.

***

Bethany's friends—minions, whatever they are to her—are still inside the high school, probably sealing the exits with salt and watching through the windows, smart enough not to get involved now that the odds aren't in their favor. The ash-and-lily smell is getting choking, Bobby burning road between him and Buckley.

"Come on, Bethany," I urge. "The doors are closed. You haven't taken anything from him, you don't owe him anything. Go inside, and don't look back. This doesn't have to happen."

"This always had to happen," she says, and takes another step forward.

She's taller than I am, more solidly built. She's probably on the track team, a sport where she doesn't have to count on anyone else to support her. Routewitches like things that let them cover distance. She looks utterly confident as she closes on me, and she should look confident, because I'm a slip of a girl in a confining silk dress, doe-eyed and breakable.

It's too bad she isn't really thinking this through. I'm a slip of a girl who's spent the last fifty years in and out of truck stops, riding with bikers and arguing with fry cooks on exactly how much they get to slap me around before I start slapping back. And I don't have to worry about getting hurt for keeps. She goes for my ribs, sharp stabbing motion, all her momentum behind it.

I go for her eyes, nails hooked into claws, and the fight is on.

There's nothing sexy about two girls really going at it, especially not when they're in a parking lot in the middle of a summer night. Bethany shrieks when I scratch her and starts swinging wildly; the knife misses, but her elbow doesn't, and sends me rocking back a few feet. The gravel underfoot makes it hard to keep my balance. I scramble to get upright and charge forward, burying my shoulder in the pit of her stomach. The air goes out of her in a hard gust, and she lands on the pavement on her ass, gasping.

"Stay down," I snap, already half-winded. Bethany snarls, sounding more animal than human, and scrabbles to her feet, lunging for me again. I'm not prepared. Her hand catches my hair, and then she's whipping me around, sending me flying away from her. I land hard on the pavement, skidding to a stop at least six feet away.

I'm barely back to my feet when I hear the sound of two hands, clapping slowly. For the first time, I realize that I'm tasting wormwood, and I turn toward the sound, already sure of what I'll see.

Bobby Cross meets my eyes, and smirks. "Nothing like a good chick fight to start a night off the right way, is there, Rosie-girl?" he drawls. Bethany is struggling to get her breath back, raking fingers through her hair, making herself presentable. The irony of Bobby Cross being her dream date hasn't escaped me. "You're a sight for sore eyes. Or maybe just a sight to make eyes sore. Tired of playing hard to get?"

"Come get me, and find out," I suggest. I'm not breathing hard. I look down, and see the shredded petals littering the pavement around me, like the leavings of a flower girl at a funeral. It would have bound me here, kept me flesh and blood, but Bethany left it on the ground when we started fighting. One or both of us must have stepped on it, shredding it and destroying its power over me. Amateur mistake for an amateur routewitch.

It's the last one she's going to make. Bobby takes a step forward, one hand half-raised in my direction. Then he stops, and snarls. "You were supposed to cut it off her," he says, finally turning toward Bethany. "I came here because you promised she'd be meat when I arrived. That you'd cut that warding off her body. You trying to welsh on me, girl?"

"No!" protests Bethany, eyes widening. For the first time, she seems to know that she's in danger...and it's too late for me to do a thing about it. "She fought back. I didn't expect she'd be able to fight back."

"Fifty years, you didn't think she'd have a trick or two?" His boot heels click as he closes the distance between them, fast, so fast it's like he barely moved at all. Bethany screams when he grabs her wrist, and screams again when he jerks her against him. "You're going to learn, girly. You can't break a deal with me."

"Aunt Rose!" She twists to look at me over Bobby's shoulder, and her eyes are the pleading eyes of a trapped animal. "Please, help me! Don't let him—"

"You're the one that said family didn't mean anything, Bethany," I say. Her eyes widen, hope draining out of them. I feel like I'm going to be sick. But I can't save her from Bobby, not here, not now, not when she made the bargain of her own free will. The only thing I can do is offer myself in her place...