Andy’s eyebrows raised, and he mouthed, Son? at me in a scandalized sort of way that nearly reduced me to a giggle, but I managed merely to nod. He unlocked the door and opened it, pointing the shotgun one-handed and with pinpoint precision at the man who stood there.
He just about blocked the entire entrance. Lyons was not so much fat as solid. Tall—he towered over Andy by a good six or seven inches. He was built like a linebacker, all shoulders and hard bulk, but it was swathed in an expensive blue suit. He must have had his shirts custom-made, considering that neck size. Only in Texas would that suit have been paired with a bolo tie, complete with a big chunk of turquoise to wrangle the braided-leather cords. When he smiled, he revealed perfect veneer-white teeth in a tanned face that, despite its round cheeks, looked dignified and strong.
“I’d shake hands,” Lyons said, apparently completely unruffled at having double barrels pointed his way, “but yours seem busy. May I come in, Mr. Toland? Miss Caldwell?”
I put my hand on Andy’s shoulder, and he lowered the shotgun but didn’t take his stare off the man. “Come in, Mr. Lyons,” I said, and struggled to put myself in Southern Hospitality mode. I wasn’t feeling it. And I didn’t have my shoes on. “May I get you any iced tea?”
“I’d love some,” he said, and took a step inside.
That was when I noticed the boots.
They definitely did not match the suit. I supposed everybody was allowed an eccentricity, and these definitely were one. Some cowboy boots can play at dress-up, but these were a workingman’s boots, battered and scarred from years of hard use. They were brown, paled by the sun and water and wear.
They gave me the oddest feeling as they walked into my house like snakes slithering over the threshold. Andy, though, didn’t react, and I decided it was just my own nerves getting to me.
I caught sight of the die-hard protesters outside, lined up silently, waving their signs. One of them saw me looking, and pointed to the sign he was holding. It read THOU SHALT NOT SUFFER A WITCH TO LIVE, with the Exodus citation below it.
Then he pointed at me, made a finger gun, and pulled the trigger.
I gave him the finger in silent reply, shut the door, and locked it. Then I turned back, with an artificial smile on my face, and went to the kitchen to pour three iced teas.
By the time I’d carried the glasses back to the coffee table and fetched the sugar and spoons, Andy had relaxed sufficiently to put the shotgun completely aside. Lyons didn’t seem to care one way or the other; he was sitting as if he were in his own home. “Miss Holly,” he said, and accepted the tea with a charming smile. The only thing the man lacked to make him look like an affluent oil baron was a thousand-dollar Stetson. “You’re too kind. It’s getting a mite warm out there.”
“Then you’d think those jackasses would go on home,” Andy said. “Hate to see ’em get some kind of stroke.”
“Now, now, those people are exercising their perfectly legal right to assemble and their right to free speech,” Lyons said. “Those people got convictions, and they’re not afraid to stand up for them. I respect that. I’d think you’d respect it, too.”
“In my time, men of conviction ran the risk of taking a beating, or a bullet,” Andy answered. “Ain’t got no room to respect liars, and fools who believe ’em. As far as I can tell, your world’s got no consequences for telling lies and making threats, and that’s toxic, mister. It lets cowards be bullies, and make no mistake, that’s what these folks are. Bullies. I’ve known heroes. They damn sure ain’t heroes.”
Lyons studied Andy for a moment, sipping his iced tea. Then he turned to me. “Is that how you feel about it?”
“I think someone stirred up a mob, maybe even using magic,” I said. “And put them to work to drive the witches out of Austin. And I think that someone is probably you, Mr. Lyons.”
The smile slipped, like a greased belt on an engine, and for a second I saw the cold, calculating man behind the good ol’ boy mask.
And I saw the power.
Witches aren’t superheroes; we don’t have Spidey sense or any ability to detect things beyond our particular specialties. But from time to time, some things are so powerful they make themselves known, regardless. Even a regular, normal person would feel it.
And Andy and I both knew, in that cold second, that what was sitting there sipping iced tea pretty as you please was not a human being at all. Not in any sense we could have named it.
I expected Andy to make a grab for the shotgun, but he was smarter than that. A shotgun wouldn’t do squat in this moment of revelation. Something like Pete Lyons sneered at mere human violence. We were small before him. Small and very fragile.
The smile came back. “Good iced tea, Miss Holly. Thank you for your hospitality.”
“What are you?” I asked.
“Your city councilman,” Lyons said, perfectly calmly. “I got elected earlier in the year on a platform of clearing out corruption, you might recall. Well, I found some. I’m getting rid of it, and making this city safe for decent folk.”
“I know what you are,” Andy said. His eyes were slitted and dark, and he was as tense as Lyons was relaxed. “Seen something like it before, back in the wars.”
“The Zombie Wars?” Lyons shook his head and laughed. “Old West romantic nonsense. Like you, Mr. Toland. Fables like that are the reason we don’t need witches and their filthy ways. Corpses killing innocents? Horrifying nonsense.”
I knew the story of the Zombie Wars, from the Old West time when Andy had originally lived and died; corrupted resurrection witches had tapped into power that nobody truly understood to launch that war, and the good witches of the time had sacrificed their lives to stop it. Andy had been the last, and he’d died ending it.
“Is it?” Andy asked. “Holly Anne, you ought to know, some bits of that war didn’t make it to the history books. Like where those original bad witches got all that power from. Was a man by the name of Hattan—Joshua Hattan. He was a demon-raiser.”
I felt a jolt, because there weren’t many witches who truly practiced anything like dark magic—magic that was in and of itself completely evil. But demon-raisers . . . they were the blackest of the black. That was a power that could not be used for good; it would taint any action, no matter how pure it seemed. It was the power of rot and ruin, decay and doom.
“I killed Joshua Hattan,” Andy said. “But it ain’t easy to dispel a demon once he’s in this world. Clings on like a stench to anything once owned by the witch that raised him up. You a collector of old things, Mr. Lyons?”
“Why, yes, I do happen to love those bygone days, Mr. Toland,” Lyons said. “Pity about the knife. I thought you’d pick it up. I suppose someone did, eventually.”
The knife. The old knife, driven through the photo, pinning it to the lawn.
“Forensic technicians,” I said. “Using rubber gloves. It’s toxic, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. “Well, that all depends on your definitions, I suppose. Let’s just say it opens a window that’s very hard to close. Never mind. I have other things.” He stroked the turquoise hunk in his bolo tie fastener—a massive piece of intense blue-green stone, shot through with thick black veins. It almost looked . . . organic.
But it was a distraction. “Ain’t the tie as worries me,” Andy said. “It’s you wearing a dead man’s boots.”
“You’re welcome to try to take them,” Lyons said. There was that smile again, warm and deceptive and deadly. “Can’t promise you’ll be the same afterward, though. Once you touch them, you’ll have to have them. I killed a man for them. Wore them walking away from his corpse, still warm from his feet. They change you. They give you everything you want.”
“They burn you black inside,” Andy responded. He didn’t seem afraid, or angry. He just studied Lyons now with what I could only think of as pity. “Ain’t nothing of you left in there, Mr. Lyons. So what’s your plan? Drive out the witches, kill what resists like you did Portia, then claim this city for your own?”
“City?” Lyons’s smile didn’t falter. “Thinking too small, son. Austin’s just some provincial little cow town. I’m taking the state. Then I’ll take the country. Wait until you see what’s coming, Andy. Just you wait.”
He drained the tea and put the glass down, then offered his hand for a shake. I stood up and retreated, well out of range. Lyons made the same gesture to Andy and got the same response. “Well, then,” he said. “Guess we all know what’s what. Thank you kindly for the tea.”
“Get out,” I said flatly.
He didn’t object, and he didn’t linger. He walked straight to the door, opened it, and stepped outside. He gestured toward the people on the sidewalk—a peculiar little circular gesture—and as if he’d flipped a switch, they all stopped staring at our house, began chatting amiably with one another, and headed toward their assorted vehicles.
“Tell you what,” he said, turning to face Andy and me. “If you two pack your things and leave town within twenty-four hours, I’ll be generous and let you live. If you don’t, I’m going to have to kill you both in a very bad way. Then I’ll bring you back to serve me in the next phase of my plans.” He tapped his fingers to his forehead in a mock salute. “Good talk. See you soon, ma’am. Andy.”
I couldn’t stand that smile anymore. I kicked the door shut with a boom that must have shaken glass throughout the house, locked it, and leaned against it as my whole body started to tremble.
“Andy?” I gulped for air, trying to calm myself. “Andy, what are we going to do?”
And in that moment, when everything could have fallen apart, Andy said without a quaver, “We burn him down and salt his earth. Because that’s what needs doing.”