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NOTE: These stories are
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El Viento del Diablo
A Sparrow Hill Road story
by
Seanan McGuire
Start at the beginning of the Sparrow Hill Road series

Rose knows what she's got
Rose knows that she's hot
Rose flashes the fools;
Rose smiles, watch 'em drool.

El Viento del Diablo gets Rose tonight.
No Rose if you lose;
Take care what you choose...

-- "El Viento del Diablo," Bruce Holmes.

The true secret of the palimpsest skin of America is that every place is different, and every place is the same. That's the true secret of the entire world, I'd guess, but I don't have access to the world. All I have is North America, where the coyotes sing the moon down every night, and the rattlesnakes whisper warnings through the canyons. And in North America, the daylight, the twilight, and the midnight are each divided and divided again into thousands upon thousands of realities that never seem to touch--barely even seem to exist in parallel--while secretly, they're like horny teenage lovers who can't keep their hands off of each other. They're stealing kisses at the drive-in, the midnight girls with their daylight boys; they're slipping love notes to their twilight sweethearts, they're telling lies to keep their friends from ever figuring out. They're ripping holes in the world every day, every hour, every second, and they're doing it because people are just people, no matter what onion-skin level of the world they think of as their home. People are just people, and people don't like being fenced in.

The true secret of the skin of America is that it's barely covered by the legends and lies that it clothes itself in, sitting otherwise naked and exposed. It's a fragile thing, this country and this world of ours, and the only thing it can do to protect itself from us is lie.

Things that happen in the daylight echo all the way down to the midnight. It works the other way, too. What happens in the midnight will inevitably make itself known in the daylight, given enough time to echo through the layers, to pass hand to hand down all those chains of secret lovers. What happens in the dark always shines through into the light.

There are times when I truly wish that people weren't so good at forgetting that everything is connected to everything else. Because those are the times when people get hurt.

***

The itching at the small of my back is a low, constant burn, the sort of thing that hasn't been a problem since that hot June night when a dead man ran me off the road at the top of Sparrow Hill. My car went up in flames, my body went with it, and things like the steady itch of healing flesh ceased to be my problem. Try telling that to my back. It's been itching for three weeks now, ever since the Queen of the North American Routewitches decided that dying young in the 1940s shouldn't deny me the right to have a tramp stamp tattoo of my very own.

I squirm against the seat of the battered El Camino that's currently devouring miles along I-75 North, the highway that runs between Key West and Detroit. I'll hop out when we hit the Michigan state line, catch another ride, and make my way toward Buckley Township. There's a phantom rider I know who runs a cargo route through there. He can give me a ride along the ghostroads to the Last Dance, where Emma can hopefully tell me what the hell the sore spot on my skin really means. Hopefully. Fifty years dead and gone, and I'm still no better at some aspects of this "ghost" shit than I was the night Bobby pushed me into the ravine.

I squirm again, attracting the attention of the man behind the wheel. I try to turn my squirm into a seductive wiggle, smiling at him from under coyly lowered lashes. I couldn't tell you his name if you paid me, but I've met his kind before. He'll keep me in the car as long as I don't make trouble, or until we hit the state line. Then he'll put his hand on my thigh and ask whether I want to make a few bucks to help me get wherever it is I'm going. I'll tell him the ride's worth more than the money, and things will proceed from there. Same dance, different partners.

I was a virgin when I died. There's a sort of weird irony to that, because I really don't remember why I thought was so important. I just wanted to be loved. I still do, I guess but it isn't an option anymore, so I have sex with strangers in truck stop parking lots and rest stop bathrooms in exchange for the life they let me borrow and the rides they're willing to give me.

It's not a living, exactly, but it's the only thing I've got, and that makes it good enough for me.

The smile didn't do the trick. The man looks at me oddly, brow furrowed, like he's no longer sure just what I'm doing in his car. I know that look. That's the look a man gives a girl when he picked her up hoping for sex without strings, and has suddenly realized that sex without strings isn't always a good idea. I don't normally get that look until after the fucking ends, when they decide that "a pretty girl like you" who does the things I'll do must be nothing but a whore. Styles change, music gets hard to listen to, and hemlines bounce up and down like kids on a trampoline, but hypocrisy is the one thing that never goes out of style.

"Where did you say you were going again?" he asks, sudden suspicion in his words.

I bite back a sigh before it can get away from me, trying one more smile as I reply, "Toward Detroit. I gotta get to my aunt's place before Sunday, or she'll call my folks and tell them I'm late. They'd be pissed if they found out I went to Florida for Spring Break, you know?" It helps that I'm sweet sixteen forever, dewy-eyed peaches-and-cream girl, no matter what I do to myself. Death has its privileges.

But something about me is bothering the driver, and whatever I'm trying to sell, he's not buying anymore. The car slows as he eases off the gas, navigating us toward the side of the road. "I misunderstood. I'm not going that way after all."

He's lying. I know he's lying, and he knows I know he's lying, and it doesn't matter, because there's not a damn thing I can do about it. He's the one with the car, and he knows I'm not carrying any weapons, because the outfit I'm wearing leaves me nowhere to hide them. Bikini top, cut-off shorts, rainbow-stripe socks: the very picture of a party girl trying to get home before she's missed. He never asked what I was doing in Key West without a bag. They never do.

"Oh," I say, letting my smile slip away into confusion. "I--I'm sorry? Did I say something wrong? I'm just trying to get home." It's too late; I see it in his eyes.

The car drifts to a stop on the shoulder of the highway, and I step out before he can ask for his jacket back. Once I'm out of the car, he'll have to decide whether it's worth pursuing me. They almost never take that risk. He's like all the others, because he doesn't say a word as he leans across the seat, slams my door, and hits the gas, leaving me alone, too-warm and still healing, on the side of the road.

Sighing, I stick out my thumb and start walking. Another ride will come along eventually. Another ride always does.

***

The best thing about having a jacket is the way it makes me live again, at least until the sun comes up the next morning--dawn to dawn, that's the longest a borrowed life can last. The worst thing about having a jacket is the way it makes me live again, especially when it's afternoon in the middle of Georgia, and the sun is beating down like it has a personal grudge to settle. The novelty of sweating wore off an hour ago. I wipe my forehead as I trudge along the median, giving serious thought to taking the jacket off and letting myself drop into the twilight, where I may be cold, and hungry, and itchy, but at least I won't be broiling.

The car that just blazed past slows, hazard lights coming on as it pulls off to the side of the road. I recognize a ride when it's offered to me. Tugging up the collar of the jacket to make it look a little less ill-fitting, I break into a jog.

It's a bottle-green Ford Taurus with a dent in the passenger-side door. The man behind the wheel looks like he's in his late twenties, sandy hair, brown eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. He lowers the window as I come jogging up, and asks the question that begins this ritual--a question that pre-dates cars, and highways, and even the United States of America:

"Where are you heading?"

Something about the honesty of his expression pulls the real answer out of me before I have time to consider: "Buckley Township, up in Michigan."

"I've never heard of it."

That's why honest answers are a bad idea. Name big cities, major thoroughfares--places people know. You're more likely to get a ride if the driver believes you're heading for a real place. "From here, you just drive toward Detroit." I muster a smile. "Please? I'll go as far as you'll take me." I don't tell him any stories, don't try to sell him any lies. I'm too tired and too hot for that. I just wait.

That seems to be the right approach, for once. After a moment, he nods, and unlocks the door. "Hop in," he says. "I can get you a good chunk of the way there."

"Thanks," I say, hooking the door open and sliding into the smooth, well-worn embrace of the front seat. "Thanks a lot."

"Don't mention it," he says. The engine starts and we pull away. I allow myself to relax, trying to ignore the sweat trickling between my breasts and the constant itching on my back. Maybe this day won't be so bad after all. I've got a coat; I've got a ride; there's even the chance I'll be able to talk the driver into pulling off somewhere for a milkshake and a cheeseburger. You try being dead for fifty years and see if you can describe a better day.

So why do my nerves feel like they're on fire, and why do I feel like I'm missing something?

The driver stays silent until we're back in the flow of traffic, moving through the sea of station wagons, pickup trucks, and sport cars. Then he glances over, light glinting off his lens, and asks, "So what's your name?"

His accent is familiar, all the flat plains and open spaces of Michigan tucked into his vowels and hidden in his consonants. He sounds like home. "Rose," I tell him--and since this is a day for honesty, I add, "Rose Marshall."

"Well, Rose, I'm Chris." His smile is as quick and bright as the light that glinted from his glasses. "I'm heading for Detroit. So I guess I can get you most of the way to Buckley. You have family there?"

"I used to." My own accent is tissue-thin and faded from the road; I could be from any part of the country or every part of the country at the same time. I offer a smile of my own, and add, "I grew up there."

"Heading home?"

"Something like that."

Chris nods. "Well, then, Rose, let's see if we can get you home."

***

It's a much nicer day when viewed through a car window, flashing by at a speed feet can never match--the speed my hitchhiker's heart tells me the world was meant to move, miles turning into dust and memory behind us. The heat of the day is no match for the air conditioning, which cools the sweat from my skin and leaves me grateful for the coat I'm wearing. I sort of wish I had some pants, instead of my coquettish party girl cut-offs, but my clothes turned solid when I donned the coat, and taking it off would give me a whole new set of troubles.

Chris turns out to be a pleasant sort of driver, the kind of man who picks up a hitchhiker not because he wants something, but because he doesn't want to see a girl walking alone along the highways of America. He makes polite conversation and halfway funny jokes, the kind that get funnier the longer you think about them. I realize after we've been driving for about half an hour that I like him. That's rare, these days, when hitchhikers are viewed as either predators or victims looking for a wolf to take them down.

"So what brings you this way?" asks Chris--a question with no good answer, since "I'm trying to reach a diner that's only accessible to the dead, so I can grill a bean sidhe named 'Emma' on what the hell is wrong with me" isn't likely to go over well.

"I was visiting friends," I say, as vaguely as I can. The idea of calling the Queen of the North American Routewitches a friend is ludicrous, but it's easier than telling the truth. "I'm just heading home."

"No car?"

"Not for a long, long time." Oh, I miss driving; miss the feeling of my own wheels burning down those miles, turning those roads into history and those horizons into possibilities...I shake myself out of it, saying, "Not this trip."

"Hitching's not exactly safe."

That's a line I've heard before. I flash him a smile that's more sincere than it might be, and ask, "What is, anymore?"

He laughs. He's still laughing when we go around a bend in the highway and I forget all humor; forget the sweet chill of the air conditioning, forget the itching in my back. All I can remember--all I can think about or know--is the taste of lilies and ashes, overwhelming the world of the living in a veil of mourning yet-to-be. It's too thick to be coming on this fast, like a hurricane blowing out of nowhere and turning a blue sky black with bruises. But here it is, heavy and hard and thick enough that for a moment, I can't breathe.

There's only one thing in my world that can bring the taste of inevitable tragedy on this fast, and it's the one thing I'm not prepared to deal with. Not now, with the ink still drying underneath my skin and a man I like enough to save in the driver's seat beside me.

"What's wrong?" asks Chris, seeing the sudden tension in my face, the sudden whiteness of my complexion.

"N-nothing," I say, taking shallow breaths to filter the cloying lily air. "Nothing at all."

The sky on the ghostroads is black with the shadow of an onrushing storm, and there's nothing I can do to get out of its path.

Bobby Cross is coming.

***

I've been on the ghostroads for three years. I know how to take substance from a borrowed coat, how to beg a ride from a stranger, how to fall from the daylight into the twilight. I can't control my movement from the twilight to the daylight--it happens or it doesn't, according to some pattern of forces I don't understand--but the older hitchers assure me I'll learn, if I can keep to the roads for long enough.

That's the big concern, the one that's shared by every hitcher I meet: the fear that I won't last enough to learn the things I need to know. I'm dead. I should be nineteen years old, I should be burning rubber out of Buckley, heading for a future too big and wide to even imagine. But I'm not. I'm sweet sixteen and cold in the ground, and the last thing I should be worried about is dying. And still...I am afraid.

The man who ran me off the road is named Bobby Cross; he's not dead, but he runs the ghostroads just like we do. They say he can cross between levels with a thought, burn rubber from the midnight to the daylight without making any of the usual stops or customary payments. They say he doesn't follow the rules of the living or the dead--and they say he eats ghosts, rips us out of the world and turns us into nothing but the distant scent of incense on the wind. That's why he ran me off the road to begin with. He was hungry, and he looked into my living heart and saw a meal that just needed preparation.

He has my scent, knows the shape of my soul and the nature of my death. I'm the ghost that got away, and he'll take me if he can. That's what the older hitchers tell me, and I believe them. I don't know who listens to the prayers of the dead--Hades or Persephone or some other screwed-up ghost god I didn't pay attention to in English class--but I pray a lot these days. O Lord who art probably not in Heaven, deliver me from men who've killed me once and would kill me again, if I gave them the chance. O Lady, hallowed be thy name, get me the hell out of here.

Please. Deliver me from evil and deliver me from darkness, and leave me on the ghostroads for a thousand years if that's what it takes to pay for my sins, but please. Deliver me from the arms of Bobby Cross.

***

The second shock of Bobby's approach comes hard on the heels of the first one, the smell of wormwood and gasoline laying itself across the lilies and ashes until it almost washes them away. My teeth snap shut, back arching in a shocked, involuntary motion that makes my tattoo burn like fire. Bobby isn't just coming, he's here, he's here, he's within a mile of us, and the power of his presence is enough to blur the lines of the accident ahead--I can't see the shape of it, can't see whether there's a way to avoid it. He's too big and too loud, and too damn strong. Right now, I can't tell the victims from the bystanders, and the fact of my failure burns.

Chris all but radiates concern as he tries to watch me and the road at the same time, only a lifetime of good driving habits keeping him from veering onto the shoulder. Poor bastard. He tried to do a favor for a pretty girl on the highway, and what does he get? Some chick having what looks like a seizure in his passenger seat. He can't know that I'm fighting my own urge to flee, to drop down to the deepest levels of the twilight and let him handle what's ahead of us alone. The coat I'm wearing gives me life, until I choose to give that life away, and for his sake--because he was kind to me--I won't let go. Not until I know what Bobby's here for.

Not until I know whether Chris can be saved.

"Rose?" It isn't the first time he's said my name, but it's the first time I've heard it, and hearing is enough to snap me back into my own head, the lure of the ghostroads fading. "Rose, are you okay? Do we need to stop?"

We need to run, run so far and fast that Bobby Cross will never find us. But I can't say that. So I swallow the words, force myself to settle in my seat, and answer, "No. I mean no, I'm not okay, and no, I don't need you to stop. Not yet. Next time there's a rest area? I think I need some water." Some water, an exorcism kit, and a priest or two would be more like it. They don't sell those at the Gas-N-Go.

"Deal," says Chris--and he sounds like he means it, like he'll go inside with me instead of promising to wait in the car and then blazing out of the parking lot the second my back is turned. He's a nice guy. That somehow makes it worse, and I find myself hoping, hoping hard, that Bobby is ahead because he, like any natural disaster, sometimes strikes without warning, and not because he's on my trail again.

The first shock is past; I'm beginning to feel my way into the accident ahead. It's a big one; eight cars, at the very least, and death enough to keep the bean sidhe and the doom-crows satiated for years. That must be why Bobby's here. An accident this large is like an all-you-can-eat buffet for him, and the menu will feature all the finest dishes. Not everyone who dies on the road leaves a ghost behind, but enough do...and enough of those ghosts are shaped by the road to make them his chosen fuel.

I take a breath, hold it until my lungs ache, and let it slowly out again, digging deeper into the accident. We're five miles out, which is good. It's between us and the next exit, which isn't. If Chris were less of a nice guy, this is where I'd say something lewd, suggest he pull off and take me into the trees to pay for my passage--but I know his type well enough to know that won't work. If I try it, he might leave me by the side of the road, which solves the question of how we're getting me away from Bobby, but leaves him undefended. He won't stand a chance if he drives alone into what's ahead. He's a part of it, my nice guy; I can smell it now. The car is filled with the scent of lilies, too strong to be nothing but a warning. Maybe I can stop Chris from dying, and maybe I can't, but if I leave him here, nothing will protect him from Bobby.

There won't be any rest stop; the accident is too close, and the taste of ashes is too strong. "Could we maybe slow down a little?" I ask, doing my best to look sick but-not-that-sick, unsettled by the heat and the speed and the road, but not quite into the territory of serious illness. It's a difficult masquerade, and not one I have much familiarity with.

Maybe it helps that it's not entirely a lie; I really am feeling sick to my stomach, and the pain in my back is bad enough that it feels like my tattoo is trying to burrow all the way into my flesh. Chris nods, easing back on the gas. "Sure, Rose," he says. "Just let me know when you're feeling better, okay? Are you sure we don't need to stop?"

"Not yet," I say, and smile wanly. It's the smile that does it.

He's still looking at me when we come around the bend, moving slower than we were, but not slow enough, and the taste of ashes and lilies takes everything away even before Chris starts swearing, hauling hard on the steering wheel, tires finding no traction on asphalt slick with oil and rough with bits of broken glass and broken futures. He's shouting, and the air stinks like burning rubber, and someone's screaming, and I think it's me--

And he's lost control of the car, he doesn't know it yet, but the car does. She's trying to help, tires straining for purchase, engine screaming with the effort of survival. She's too young, the bond between them too fragile, and in the end, she's just a machine, barely aware enough to know that she's about to--

And the smell of wormwood is heavy over everything, the stink of it, like a corpse unembalmed and left to rot by the side of the road, but that's what he is, isn't it? Just a corpse that won't lie still, a corpse that makes more corpses, zombie dragster, bastard son of the silver screen. Bobby Cross is here, Bobby Cross is coming--

And I'm wearing a coat, and I realize too late what that means, what the onrushing wall of twisted steel that used to be cars means if we hit it while I have this coat on--

--and we slam, hard, into the segmented body of the single beast called "accident," and everything is blackness, and the smell of burning.

***

I've been on the ghostroads for eight years. Long enough to see my classmates marry, start families of their own, put the yearbooks on the shelf and forget the girl who starred on her very own page in her Junior Year, the one titled "In Memoriam." Long enough to see my boyfriend graduate. He saw me once, when I was young and careless, and it broke something deep inside of him, in the space where mourning lives.

Long enough to learn to slip between the twilight and the daylight like a bride slips between the sheets on her wedding night; long enough to learn what it means when I touch a trucker's hand and taste ashes, when I flag down a ride and smell lilies on the wind. Hitchers aren't death omens, but we're psychopomps, if we want to be. "It can make you crazy," says one of the older hitchers, a lanky man who goes by "Texas Bill," whose eyes contain a million miles of desert road. "All those lives, all those deaths--leave them. Find another ride, and keep your sanity."

Emma at the Last Dance (which is the Last Chance sometimes, they tell me, and those are the times where you need to be wary and beware) says something different. "By the time they hear me singing, it's too late," she says, and she sounds sadder than any living soul should sound--but she's not really living, is she? The rules are different for the bean sidhe, and I don't know quite how they apply to her. "You get an early warning. You get a chance. That's just this side of a miracle, Rose. You should treat it like one."

I listen to them both, but I've made up my mind, and not because of anything either of them said. No; what made up my mind was a white-haired old trucker who bought me a grilled cheese sandwich and showed me pictures of his sister, of her little house in Florida, the place he was going when he retired. Just four more cross-country runs, he said, and his skin smelled like lilies and ashes, and I knew, even if he didn't, that he was never going to see his sister's little house on the beach. And I didn't help him. I didn't even try. I told him I didn't feel good, ran for the bathroom, and fell back down to the ghostroads, where the dead are the dead, and the living don't look at us that way.

His truck crashed on I-5, blind curve, bad driving conditions, a perfect storm of bad luck and bad decisions. Word in the truck stops is that his body wasn't even recognizable when they pulled it from the cab. That doesn't bother me as much as it should--being dead for eight years has given me a very different outlook on death--but what came after is another story. One of the trainspotters was near the place where the crash happened, riding the rails from San Diego to Vancouver, and he came looking for me as soon as he figured out what rail line I was closest to. That's the trouble with trainspotters. They can see the future (sometimes, when they're looking in the right direction), but they're limited in more ways even than the hitchers.

"He came in the stink of wormwood and soured gasoline," said the trainspotter, grabbing my hands. I wasn't wearing a coat. He caught them anyway. Damn wizards. "He came like the wind out of the west, like a crow to the battlefield. He came on black wings of burning rubber and shadow, and he drove his victim as a wolf drives a fawn. He has claimed another soul, Rose Marshall, and you might have stopped him, had you cared enough to rouse yourself to action. Shame, shame on you, shame and a thousand nights of wandering lonely. Shame, and all the sorrows of the road."

"You're a little behind the curve on cursing me," I snapped, and I yanked my hands out of his. The trainspotter looked at me sadly, a thousand miles of broken hearts etched into the lines on his face. I shook my head. "I already have all the things you're wishing on me, and Bobby Cross is not my fault."

"No. He's not. But he is your responsibility." And then he turned and walked away. His message had been delivered. I was no longer his concern.

But Bobby Cross was mine. So let Emma and Texas Bill make their recommendations--it doesn't matter. That man died because I wouldn't help him, and while I might not have saved his life, having me there could have saved him from something worse than death. Maybe Texas Bill is right; maybe trying to change the fates of the living will make me crazy. Right now, I don't care. Bobby Cross is not my fault. If anything, I'm his. That doesn't mean I can sit back and let him rule these roads.

Sometimes, all a dead girl can do is stand up and take responsibility for the things that gather in the shadows.

***

One nice thing about being dead: I bounce back a hell of a lot faster than the living. I open my eyes to find myself sprawled on the asphalt, broken doll cast to the side of the road, with an aching head and skinned patches on my hands and knees. My tattoo is burning like a brand, the pain somehow focusing, rather than distracting me. I manage to lift my head, despite the ringing in my ears, and scan for Chris.

He wasn't as lucky as I was. He's also sprawled on the pavement...but he isn't moving. Maybe I'm not that lucky, either; maybe I'm only still moving because being dead makes me harder to kill. My legs won't answer my command to move, and the ringing in my ears is getting worse. It's with relief that I release my hold on flesh and bone, feel my borrowed coat drop through what had been the substance of my body only a moment before, and climb, finally, to my feet.

Things are different here on the edge of the twilight. Black clouds streak the sky like spilled ink, and the broken cars glitter with firefly brilliance in the process of slowly--so very slowly!--fading into darkness. People stand near the broken bodies of their cars. Not that many, not one for every driver who must have died in the collision but...enough. Only one stands out to my eyes; the one to whom I owe assistance. Chris is standing by his own fallen body, a look of deep confusion on his face, like he can't quite understand. I've seen that look on too many faces, on too many roads. I should give him time to come to terms with what's happened. At the very least, I should give him time to recover from his shock. But the air tastes of wormwood, and there are many things here, on this borderland highway, but what there isn't is time.

My skirt rustles against my ankles as I start toward him, the green silk as clean and crisp as it was on the night I wore it for the first, and last, time. The prom gown is no surprise, not here, not with Bobby close enough to taint the shape of the world. The length of my hair is no surprise either, lemon-bleached curls loose against the sides of my neck. The wind that blows around us doesn't touch me. Nothing touches me but the consequences of my own motion. So it goes, when the dead come too close to the day.

"Chris," I say. "Come on. We need to get out of here."

His head comes up, confusion in his eyes. It only deepens as he sees the way I've changed. He picked up a scruffy hitchhiker in a coat two sizes too big for her, and now he's facing a prom princess from an era that ended before he was born. I've slid out of date one inch at a time, and there's nothing I can do about it. "Rose?" he asks.

"Yes." I walk faster now, all but running--but I mustn't run, I don't dare run. I can't pull him onto the ghostroads without his consent, not this soon after his death, and I definitely can't pull him any deeper into the twilight if he's fighting me. Run and I'll frighten him more than he already is, and if that happens...if that happens, he'll be lost forever. No afterlife for Bobby's victims. No second chances for the souls he claims. "Come with me, and I'll explain."

"What--what happened? I lost control of the car..." His eyes flick to the body on the asphalt, confusion starting to thin as terror takes its place. "Where did you get that dress? What's going on?"

There are no answers I can offer; not without making things worse than they are right now, and that's saying something, given that he's standing over his own corpse and I'm waiting for the bogeyman to descend. I close the last few feet between us, reaching for his hand. "Please, Chris. We don't have time."

"I don't know, Rosie my girl," says the voice behind me. It's cool and crisp, California accent painted over something sweeter and slower, something out of the deep Southern states, where the nights are long and wise men know the cost of a crossroads bargain. Maybe if he'd stayed at home, he would have known better. Maybe. "There's a case to be made for your having run shy of time some sixty years gone. Can't say I think much of granting you time on top of that just because you got all dressed up for me."

The graveyard chill that sleeps inside me when I cast my coats aside melts away, replaced by a tight, hot ball of fear. I take one more half-step forward, until I'm almost touching Chris, and whisper, "Stay behind me. If you value your soul, stay behind me."

Chris doesn't say a word, nothing but terror in his eyes. I don't care. Let him be afraid of Bobby; let him be afraid of me. I have other matters to worry myself about. So I turn, squaring my shoulders.

"Hello, Bobby," I say.

And Bobby Cross--Diamond Bobby, Hollywood legend, gone but never, never forgotten--smiles.

***

This is Bobby Cross, has been Bobby Cross since that night in 1941 when he drove out of the daylight and into the dark:

Short by today's standards, five foot eight and compact. A dragster's build, the kind of man who makes hearts melt and panties dampen. Dark hair. He used to wear it sleeked and slicked and shaped to within an inch of its life, but not anymore; unlike the ghosts he leaves in his wake, Bobby is among the living, and still allowed to change. Now it hangs loose and careless, that tousled style that's so popular with the kids I see at the races, or lounging on the beaches. He looks as young as they do, as effortlessly carefree and strong, and it's been long enough since his day that he doesn't even get the "hey, aren't you...?" reactions anymore.

It's his eyes that give him away. They aren't remarkable. They're pale brown--plain, even--but something about them makes people take a step back and give him a wide berth. The living aren't meant to see the things he's seen, or ride the roads he's ridden.

The smile that slides across his lips doesn't reach those eyes as he looks me up and down, and offers a cool, "Same old Rosie. You trying to play the hero on me? You should know better. All those years of running away, you're going to make your stand here and now?"

"Got a better idea?" Chris's hand is on my shoulder, and oh, I just met him, and oh, it doesn't matter; he's every driver I couldn't save, and if I don't at least try, I may as well give in right now. "Why did you do this? These people didn't hurt you."

"Why do you take rides when people offer them to you? Why do you take their coats, drink their coffee, suck their cocks?" Bobby's smirk is painful to behold. "We're not so different, Rosie girl, except that I admit what I am--and you, I'm afraid, are about at the end of this road."

"Let them go." I take a step forward, watching Bobby all the while. I'm faster than he is. He's got powers I don't understand and weapons I can't touch, but I'm faster. If I can get the ghosts out of here, maybe I can drop into the twilight before he catches hold of me. Maybe. "They're all fresh ghosts. They can't be what you really want. I've got a lot of miles on me."

"What makes you think that makes you worth more, and not less? A lot of things call for virgins in place of whores."

"But the road treasures the things that have travelled the furthest." The thrift store fashion of the routewitches; the battered, duct-taped shoes of the ambulomancers. Distance is just about the only thing that's universally respected on the road.

Bobby's smile this time is slow, dark, and horrifying. Whatever it is he does to the dead, it can't be painless; not if he's looking at me like that. I stand my ground, the tattoo burning hot against my skin. Apple said the tattoo would protect me, that the Ocean Lady was allowing me to take it away because the routewitches feel responsible for Bobby's darkness. I have to believe her. There's no choice; not here, and not now.

"I've been tired of you for decades," he says. "I'll take you and let them go...but not, I think, in the order you're hoping for. First you give yourself to me, and then, once I'm sure you're not going to pull any little hitcher 'tricks,' I'll let them go."

The sky is getting darker. I want nothing more, right now, than I want to run. "Why should I believe you?"

"Because, Rosie, darling, you don't have any choice. You can rabbit-run the hell out of here and pray I'm not toying with you--I might be--since if I am, I'll just grab you and take every soul still standing as my due. Or you can surrender, admit that I've won, and wager that I'm a man of his word."

I don't want to. But he's right. I have nothing left to lose; not with Bobby Cross standing right there. "I accept your terms," I say, and hold out my hands. "I'm yours."

I have no coat, no borrowed life to wear, but it's no surprise when Bobby's hand clamps down on mine. Chris says something I can't make out, finally realizing, I suppose, that something more important than his death is happening in front of him. Maybe that's a selfish way of thinking, but if there's proof of existence after dying, I'm it, and here I am, approaching my own ending.

I thought I knew what cold was. I was wrong. Bobby's fingers redefine cold, tell me that every frost and snowfall I've ever known was just the prelude to the main event. Winter radiates from his skin as he tightens his grip and yanks me into an embrace. My skirt tangles around my ankles; I all but fall into his arms.

"So eager," he says. "I always knew you would be." And Bobby folds me in his arms, and lowers his mouth onto mine.

***

I've been on the ghostroads for sixty years. The girl I was, the girl Bobby killed, is barely a memory now--I barely remember her. Life was only the beginning. I've seen all the joys America has to offer, walked away from them, and come back to find them transformed to something glorious and new. I've met monsters and danced with gods. It's been a good time, and a bad time, and one hell of an adventure. And I still wish I hadn't died.

He's young, this Florida fry cook, so young that I must seem like some sort of fantasy, the beautiful girl who walks in and says she'll do anything he wants if he'll do her one little favor. Two, really--if he wants to do any of the things his eyes say he's thinking, he'll need to give me a coat. Right now, I think he'd give me a kidney if I asked for it.

"It's...it's like this red round ball, like an apple, and flowers all around it. I think lilies, and some sort of funky white flower. I mean, it's pretty, but it's sort of weird, too, y'know?" His tone turns apologetic. "Most folks get little things when they get tattooed drunk. Like, hearts and birds and the names of their moms. It's probably going to cost a lot to get that lasered off."

"Maybe I won't." I look over my shoulder at him, smiling as coyly as I can with the itching in my back threatening to drive me crazy. "Is that all you have to say about it?"

"It's pretty," he repeats, like that's the secret password to my pants. "It's all flowers and fruit and shit, but it's pretty."

That'll have to be good enough, for now. We have sex on the floor of the store room after he gives me his coat, and he's gentleman enough to let me be on top, and it almost distracts me from the burning, for at least a little while.

Time to head to the Last Dance. Maybe Emma knows what the gift the Old Atlantic Highway gave me means.

Maybe after a burger.

***

There's a pause. Bobby's hand clamps down hard on my neck, his arm all but spasming...and then he's shoving me away, hand going to his mouth and anger in his eyes. "You bitch!" he shouts. "What the fuck did you do? What the fuck are you trying to pull?"

The tattoo is burning hotter than ever, but it's a good heat, clearing the chill of Bobby's fingers from my skin. I straighten up, glancing back to be sure that Chris is still there. He is, seemingly rooted to the spot. I'll have to get him to the Last Dance soon, or Emma won't be able to help him get anywhere at all. "I'm not trying to pull anything, Bobby," I say, turning back to my oldest enemy. "I said you could have me. It's not my fault if I'm too much woman for you."

"You did something," he spits. "What did you do?"

"To be honest, I have no idea." I take a step forward, gambling everything one more time. It's a gambling sort of day. "Want to try again? I'm still willing."

Bobby snarls. For a moment, he looks like a beast, some monster out of a fairy story, come to bar my way. "I don't know what good you think this is going to do you. You can't bring these people back to life."

"No. But you can't have them, either." I tilt my chin up. A cornered snake is still a snake. "What's it going to be, Bobby? Walk away, or try to figure out just how far I can push this?" I don't know what "this" is. Hopefully, neither does he.

He snarls again, and spits, "This isn't over." Turning on his heel, he stalks away--away from the accident, away from the shade of Chris, away from me.

Seconds trickle by like sentences of execution, and Bobby Cross--the man who killed me once, and would do it again, given half a chance--is gone.

***

"Deliver me from Bobby Cross," I whisper, and turn to face Chris, who is staring at me with confusion bordering on terror.

"I'm dead," he says.

"Yes," I agree. It seems like the safest option, just now.

"I'm dead."

"Yes." I gesture toward the wreckage of his car. "Bobby caused an accident, and you were in his way. I'm sorry."

"Is this your fault? Could you have stopped this?"

For once, I'm grateful to know the answer. "No," I say, and offer my hands. "I couldn't have stopped it. All I could do was be here when the crash happened, so that I could be the one to get you home."

"Home? But I'm dead."

"There are a lot of kinds of home, Chris." I slip my hands into his. His skin is cool--the dead are always cool--but he lacks the chilling, killing cold of Bobby Cross. I suppose that gift is reserved for the men who've sold their souls. "Now come on. You ever hot-wired a car?"

"What? No."

"Good. Then we can begin your death with a little education."

***

Only one car in the crash was loved enough to leave a ghost behind, a battered pick-up truck that seems to be healing by the second, the years wiping away like so much dust. Six more ghosts come out of the wreckage, all confused and shaken and uncertain of the rules that bind them now. I scan their faces, labeling them without really thinking about it--hitcher, homecomer, phantom lady. Emma can sort them out, help them decide who needs to move on and who wants to find a place in the endless arms of the midnight America.

I twist the wires until the truck gives a purring roar of acceptance, ready to drive us wherever we need to go. I give the crowd one last scan, and say, "I'm Rose Marshall. Some of you may have heard of me--they call me the Lady in the Diner." Murmurs, and shocked expressions. Sometimes it's good to have a reputation. "Now, you can come with me, or you can stay here. I have to warn you that the man who caused this accident may come back, and if you stay, you're on your own."

"Where are you taking us?" shouts one brave shade, somewhere in the crowd.

I allow a smile, feeling the tattoo burn my skin. Chris stands by the passenger side door, ready to let me drive this time. "I'm taking you home," I answer, and that's the truth, that's all the truth they'll ever need. I'm taking them home.

They climb in one and two at a time, these new ghosts of the road. I slide behind the wheel, pat the dashboard for luck, and whisper, "Oh Lord, who art probably not in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Oh Lady, deliver me from darkness, deliver me from evil, and deliver me from Bobby Cross."

"What?" asks Chris.

I shoot him a smile. "Nothing," I say. "Nothing at all." The wheel fits easy in my hands, and we roll forward, out of the daylight, down into the dark.

Story by Seanan McGuire, Copyright 2010
Image by Amber Clark, Stopped Motion Photography, Copyright 2010