Page 21 of Cursed: Ride or Die
When finished, sometime after his third beer, Aunt Judith said, “Show me your hand.”
Slade held out his hand.
Judith ran her fingers around the edges of what appeared to be a tattoo, done in black ink. Sometimes, if Slade stared hard enough, the symbols almost formed words.
Long moments passed, Judith humming softly. “This is intricate work. He’s very powerful. I must consult my sources.”
Sources? “What you gonna do? Break out a crystal ball?” Grandma used to joke about using the decorative crystal ball on her dining room table to keep an eye on Slade. She did seem to know things.
Like him shoplifting cigarettes on a dare.
Judith gave him an indulgent smile. “No, silly boy. I’m going to consult the message board. Someone has likely heard of this before.”
Message board? Like a Ouija board?
She opened a drawer on the coffee table and pulled out a state-of-the-art laptop.
What the fuck? She smiled again. “Living simply doesn’t mean I can’t keep up with the times. After hearing you go on about my lack of Internet during your last visit, I decided to learn some new tricks.” She tapped a few keys. “How long can you stay?”
“Stay? Here?” No hooking up if he stayed here.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I take advantage when I haven’t seen any family in years?” Judith’s no-nonsense expression clearly said,You will stay here.
“I can stay in one place for a month before moving on,” Slade groused.
“What happens if you try to stay longer?”
Slade recited his symptoms, wincing at the memory of bleeding from his eyes and ears.
“That’s one nasty curse. Designed to make your ending painful.” Judith cocked her head to the side in a thoughtful gesture. “Or give you plenty of warning. Because he couldn’t kill you outright, he gave you the choice of killing yourself.”
Yep, Sorcerer Asshole. “I’m staying at a motel in town.”
“Nonsense. You’ll stay here. I have the bed made up in the room you used last time.”
Last time, when he’d been a raving lunatic ready to kill for a fix. “What about Internet speed? I work online.”
She glared. “I might be old, but I do have modern conveniences.” Judith tapped her finger against her laptop. “Two hundred megabits per second. What did you expect? Dialup?” No arguing with Aunt Judith. Or rather, no arguing and expecting to win.
“What’s with the house?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“From the outside, it looks kind of… deserted.” For lack of better words.
Decent Internet, a comfortable guest room? He could do worse.
“It discourages strangers. Those Iwantto see come anyway,” she said. “Besides, how will we maintain the stereotypes about Appalachia for all those tourists who come here? We want to keep them as tourists, not have them for neighbors.”
Someone Judith wanted to see arrived four days later, on foot.
Judith’s face lit up when a stranger joined them at the breakfast table. Tan, weathered skin, touches of gray showing at the temples and dressed in a blue work shirt, blue jeans, and heavy boots so worn the steel toes peeked out of the end.
“Why, Vernon! I didn’t expect you for a few more days,” Judith exclaimed, doing a damned fine impression of a smitten schoolgirl.
Vernon took the cup of coffee she offered, snagged a biscuit off the plateful on the table, and bit into the plain, unbuttered bread. “Got the results early. Time being short and all, I figured I needed to get on down here.” Sky-blue eyes, brilliant against his dark skin, turned on Slade as Vernon held out a hand. “Vernon Johnston. Folks ‘round these parts call me Vern.”
Slade wiped his hand on the cloth napkin Judith insisted on and shook. “Slade Slater.”
