“Lunaris is magic. We don’t have to drive,” I said.
She blasted a romantic ballad from the driver’s cabin while I got up from the table.
“Lunaris manages to have a lot of personality for a person without a face,” Kessian said.
She slammed a cupboard at him.
“No offense meant!”
She slammed the cupboard again. Then once more. Then all of them banged open and shut, rattling the crockery inside. Her lights flickered, then turned red. At the same time, I heard the patter of rain against the window. Only one window, and the sky had been blue when we came inside. I turned, tracking the source of the sound.
Something shuffled outside, and a shadow passed by the curtained window, toward the front door. The handle began to turn.
I didn’t need to see it to confirm it. I knew from the frigid susurration of water, the murmur of a river we should have been too far from to hear. The wraith had found me.
The door’s deadbolt slammed shut, Lunaris locking the wraith out and us in. I dumped our cups in the sink, heading for the driver’s cabin.
Kessian, pale-faced, said, “Tal, what is that?”
I followed his gaze to the door. Black ichor trickled in through the lock.
My hand shot to my earring, touching the coin Uncle Marlowe had given me. I could banish the wraith here and now, but the amulet only had a singular charge. If I could get us to safety by other means, I shouldn’t waste it.
I took Kessian’s hand and tugged him toward the cabin. “Come on. Quick.”
We squeezed through and into the seats. Lunaris turned the key in the ignition for me as I buckled up. Seen through my wing mirror, the wraith pressed against the caravan door, its arm shoved through the lock, trying to pour itself inside. My wards bought us time, but they wouldn’t hold. They never had before.
I reversed with more momentum than I’d normally employ, hoping to dislodge the wraith. It clung on, a hissing screech like a scavenger bird trailing from the distended shadows of its jaw. I peeled away from the spa, putting as much weight on the gas as I could.
Beside me, Kessian had gone silent, clutching the handle above the window. I didn’t have time to scold myself for inviting him inside when I should have just left. I had to focus on the road.
Shearwater was a country town, and I took those narrow roads at a hazardous clip, driving close to the stone walls in hopes of crushingthe wraith in between, but it clambered like a spider onto the roof. The sound of its footsteps overhead made my blood pound in my ears.
“There’s a bag of bone powder in the glove compartment. Can you get it?”
Kessian broke from his paralysis, lunging forward to retrieve the silk pouch.
I said, “Pour a good amount of that into the cigarette lighter.”
“The what?”
Lunaris had chosen a very vintage model caravan for herself. I hadn’t known what a cigarette lighter was, either. “This thing,” I said, pulling out the metal cylinder.
He followed my instructions. They were unfortunately complicated. A black claw scraped the windscreen. The wraith slid down onto the bonnet, its gaze intent upon me, blocking my view of the road.
I slammed the brakes. The wraith slid, claws raking metal, and the recoil of our truncated momentum sent it sprawling into the road, where it broke apart like a cracked egg, only to re-form.
I reached across Kessian to take a piece of paper from the glove box, muttering, “Sorry, sorry,” under my breath as I nearly elbowed him.
“You’re always welcome to invade my personal space, but especially now,” Kessian squeaked, eyes trained on the creature rising up from the road.
I hurriedly folded the paper into a plane.
“It’s coming back,” Kessian warned me. “What else do you need to do? Tell me what to do!”
Lunaris rocked as the wraith climbed back onto the bonnet.
“I have to write the name of our destination and some runes on this, slide it into the heating vent, and Lunaris will get us out of here.”
