Page 68 of Tricks for Free

“Shut up,” I said genially.

Sam frowned. “Is this because I’m not human, or . . . ?”

“Oh, no, honey, I don’t give two shakes of a dead dog’s dick about that, and neither will anyone else worth knowing,” said Rose. “We have all sorts of people in the family, living and dead. You’ll fit right in. It’s mostly the idea of Annie dating at all. She always said it was a waste of time.”

“We’ve only managed to have three dates,” I protested. “One was at the carnival, one was at a roller derby game, and one was at Lowryland.”

“So you found a boyfriend who likes to do the shit you like to do? Miracles never cease. Now.” Rose sobered. The air in the room seemed to chill. Her hands were still shoved into her back pockets, but she suddenly looked much older than her apparent sixteen years, and there were shadows in her eyes I didn’t want to challenge. “Why did you send her,” she hooked a thumb toward Mary, “to drag me off the ghostroads and into whatever you living people are trying to do to each other this time? I’ve got shit to do, little Annie, and my thumb didn’t bring me here.”

“I need to ask you about routewitches.”

Rose went still.

Routewitches are common, as humans with magic go. That’s a very qualified statement. Maybe one person in a thousand has the potential to become a routewitch, and most will lose or bury that potential before they hit their teens. I don’t know what the actual numbers are, but if more than one person in ten thousand can actually hear the highways sing, I’ll eat my skates.

It’s commonly understood that most, if not all, road ghosts—ghosts like Rose—were or could have become routewitches when they were alive. Not only that, their natural habitat brings them into regular contact with the routewitches, whether they want it to or not. Routewitches and road ghosts represent one of the frontiers where the living and the dead collide, no matter how hard they try to keep themselves separate . . . and quite honestly, most of them don’t seem to try at all.

“I don’t know what you’re expecting me to tell you,” said Rose stiffly. “I’m not a routewitch. Even if I could have been, once, that kind of magic belongs to the living. I haven’t been among the living in a long, long time.”

“I know,” I said. I glanced to Cylia before looking back to Rose, and saying, in a careful tone, “Someone is siphoning off my magic, Aunt Rose. I can’t start fires. I can barely feel the fire. It’s being drained away. And someone stole Sam’s luck, which meant that when I touched him, the siphon took the energy that lets him transform.”

“I gave him some luck back, but when I tried to take a slice from Annie to supplement it, whatever’s been draining her—wait, what?” Cylia’s head snapped around as she stared at me. “What do you mean, magic?”

“I’m a sorcerer,” I said with a shrug. “Surprise.”

“She sets shit on fire. It’s pretty sexy,” said Sam.

“Too much information, monkey-man,” said Mary.

Rose blinked. Rose snorted. And then, without further ado, Rose burst out laughing. She pulled her hands out of her pockets and put them over her eyes, bending slowly forward until her elbows were resting on her knees and her entire body was shaking with the effort of continuing to breathe. Which was honestly just dramatics, since she was already dead.

Sam leaned a little closer to me, careful to keep from touching my skin as he asked, quietly, “Is she okay?”

“Rose has a weird sense of humor,” I replied, not bothering to lower my voice. I glared at my dead aunt instead. “Which is fine, except for the part where it gets in the way of her getting on with things and telling me what I need to know.”

“Oh, man. Oh, Annie. Oh, jeez, I want to be there when your parents find out about this one.” Rose straightened up, wiping phantom tears from her eyes. “If I promise not to tell them about him, will you promise to call me before you take him home to meet them? Please?”

“Yes, but I need you to tell me about routewitches,” I said.

“Am I the only one upset by the idea of her,” Cylia pointed at me, “having the power to set things on fire with her mind?”

Rose shrugged. “Matches are cheap. Setting fires is good for a parlor trick, but it’s not as useful as it sounds. Are you asking whether a routewitch could steal your magic, Annie?”

“Yes,” I said.

“No.” Rose shook her head. “That’s not how routewitches work. They couldn’t steal your luck either. Those aren’t road concepts. They can’t take them.”

“What can they take?” asked Sam.

“Excuse me?”

“You said luck and magic aren’t road concepts, so routewitches can’t take them,” said Sam. “That makes it sound like there’s something they can take. What can they take?”

“Distance,” said Rose. “Routewitches can steal distance.”

I frowned. “Meaning what, exactly?”

“Distance is potential, and potential is power,” said Rose. “If you walk a hundred miles, that’s a hundred miles of power slathered all over your skin. A good routewitch can peel that away from you. It’s the basic driving force of the snake cults, only less scaly, and less stupid.”