Page 26 of The Witching Hours

Tristan put the phone to his mouth. “She said…”

“I heard.” The dispatcher interrupted. “We’ll be in touch if there are further developments.”

Tristan handed the phone back to Jeanette. “She said they’d be in touch if there are further developments.”

Jeanette was ready to argue with the dispatcher about her use of the word “if” and her department’s shameful lack of both commitment and even more shameful response to the urgency in emergency.

Tristan thought it was unfortunate the line was dead because he would’ve liked to hear what Jeanette was going to say next. When the girl got her dander up, she was a force of nature.

“Good Lord, Tristan!” she said. “What was that? It was like some B movie. Who thinks that shit happens in real life?”

It took a second for him to get on her frequency and gather that she was talking about the incident at Larry’s and not the exchange with some bored 911 operator.

“I guesswedo. Now.”

He still sounded a little shaken and she suspected his pride might be bruised.

“You know even you can’t take on a passel of smelly bikers. Right?”

It was a relief to know that she didn’t think he’d let her down. He was replaying the event in his head. Baz had smelled like oil, sweat, stale body spray, and who knows what else?

“He did smell, didn’t he?”

Jeanette managed a small giggle relieved that she felt like she could take her attention away from Tristan for a moment. When she did, she realized they were speeding down a stretch of road that had no lights, no signs, and no other cars.

“Um. You know where we are, right?”

Tristan pulled in a still-shaky breath. “I, uh, wasn’t paying attention when we left. I was just thinking about getting away.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” She looked around again. “But now I think we’d better start figuring out how to get home.”

“True.”

“There’s a sign.”

An eighth of a mile ahead there was a lighted mini billboard. When they got a little closer, they could see that it was an ad for Lafitte National Park.

“Guess I turned the wrong way,” Tristan said.

“Understandable. Anybody might’ve done that. Why don’t you pull over and stop for a minute so we can program your GPS to get us the hell outta here.”

As soon as he pulled over, they were simultaneously smacked by the realization that they were stopped on a dark unknown road, surrounded by tall trees. Tristan was speculating that it was his imagination that the thick Spanish seemed to move ever so slightly in a breeze that wasn’t there.

He switched the headlights to bright thinking more illumination would be comforting. He was wrong. If anything, it made their surroundings even creepier. The brights picked up the fact that a mist had formed and was slowly rolling along the ground. That was unexpected since they’d had a sunny day with relatively low January humidity. Nonetheless, it was there. Tristan knew that, if he stepped out of the car, he wouldn’t be able to see anything below his ankles. He hoped it stayed right there and didn’t climb higher. He wouldn’t want to have to drivehis way out of a fog in a convertible with wetland ditches on either side of the road.

Tristan was learning the lesson Jeanette had learned when she’d dashed to the parking lot to call 911. He realized the lack of enclosure could mitigate the fun. A car with no top has two sides can provide a marvelous feeling of freedom, being one with nature. It can also mean complete vulnerability to weather or anything that might crawl or fly into the car with you.

The fact that it was getting undeniably cooler caused Tristan’s thoughts to wander to Larry’s merch on the wall and his intention to get Jeanette a thick, oversized hoodie.

Whatever Jeanette had been thinking, she decided to make light of it. “Spooky, huh.”

Tristan’s smile, lit by the dashboard, was more bravado for her sake than good humor on his part. When he looked back at the dash, he said, “Fuck no.”

“What?”

“GPS isn’t working.”

Jen looked at the screen like he was either mistaken or attempting a prank. “What do you mean?” One look at the frozen screen found her wishing it had been a prank. “It’s showing us the route from Larry’s to the French Quarter.”