InsaneJournal

FIC: Hellfire Tales: Down The Rabbit Hole 2/2
full header & first part


He followed Xander out the door of the bar. He looked back at the three story adobe building with it's wooden porch and shuttered windows on the upper floors.

“There's no wires—” Matt realized as he looked around. No wires, no phone poles. Nothing stringing from the streets to the buildings like you would expect.

“It's all ran underground, keep everything looking authentic. The Mayor was big on appearances when he had the place,” Xander shrugged. “Satellites up on the rooves for tv and internet.”

“How many people live here?”

“Oz, Dev, Keith and Mitch live at the Full Moon. Top floor's turned into apartments. Basement they've got a recording studio. Oz has his offices on the second floor. Faith, Tara, Andrew, Wes, Spike and I all have houses here. For the time being Clem's staying at the Whisky Rose, one of the whorehouses. Angel's staying at another of the whore houses, the Gilded Cage, which he hates but too damned bad. Tor, Kyle, Heidi and Rhonda are thinking about the offer to move out here.”

“How the hell do you afford it?” Matt blurted.

Xander shrugged. “Dingoes do pretty fair with their internet sales of their albums. Andrew's got a couple video games he's got out and working on a third. Oz does computer programming and holds a few copyrights and patents besides the band. I do some restoration work and custom cabinetry things like that. We piddle around and do a bit of this and that and keep the lights turned on. Not like any of us need a whole lot, and we keep busy enough we don't have time to worry about what we don't have. For now, at least Faith, Wes, Andrew and I are kinda--on sabbatical.”

Matt bit his tongue and didn't ask more. That was...a fairly detailed answer even if it really felt like a non answer to Matt.

The Whisky Rose was a four story building across the main street, which really was wide enough to be a six-lane strip of freeway. The scale and sprawl of Hellfire was as odd as everything else.

The interior of the building was dark, save for the three small and rather dim lights above the bar.

“Go ahead look around, have a seat, whatever. I won't be long. Clem's just up on the second floor.”

While the name seemed appropriate for the bizarre down the rabit hole straight to the Old West of Hellfire—who the hell was actually named Clem these days?

He wandered toward the bar. It was the only lit area after all, and the shadows of the place were more than a little unnerving, as if there were actual ghosts in the ghost town watching.

Two menus on the bar, one a single piece of parchment glued and varnished almost onto a piece of stiff leather. The writing was almost calligraphy, which he knew the word only due to Gerard fucking with lettering on album art design on the bus. Fancy, old fashioned, listing drinks and their prices, both in cash and trade a shot of the house whisky worth a dime or a bullet. Some better whiskys on the menu along with a few grades of vodka and tequila, beer, even a couple wines.

The other menu...

Matt gaped.

Prices by the hour, and the kink. A handjob was a dime or a bullet, and the rates went up from there.

Group rates even.

The throaty chuckle made him nearly jump a foot in the air.

Where the hell had she come from? She was probably the same height as him, without the heels clicking on the wood floor as she sauntered toward him. Brassy coppery-blonde hair piled up on her head with few artful ringlets trailing down around her face, kohl around her eyes, drawing attention away from the crows feet there rather than to them somehow. Her eyes were golden-amber, and a color Matt really had never seen—not naturally at any rate, he didn't think it was really a color eyes could be naturally, at least not on a human, an animal maybe.

A tattooed collar of thorny-vines across her collar bones and disappearing over pale shoulders, a rose in the center her chest, right above the impressive swell of cleavage threatening to spill out of the corset/bustier thing she wore. Red silk covered in black lace and looked like something that Alicia would spend a fortune on and have Mikey on his knees begging when she wore it. Her black skirt didn't exactly look like a skirt. Petticoat maybe? Was that what they were called?

“Well, look it you, darlin',” she smiled and shook her head. “Hablas ingles?”

“Uh yeah...barely speak Spanish,” Matt frowned staring.

“Huh, that's a new one on me. A Mexicano soundin' like a durn Easterner.”

“I'm from New Jersey,” he offered.

“Don' that beat all,” she shook her head. “How on earth did you wind up in here, darlin'?”

“Uh...I'm waiting on Xander. He went upstairs to..uh, check on Clem.”

“Mmm, Xander.” she licked her lips. “You're just as tasty too I bet, got the same air about you.”

“Uh...” Matt stared wondering if he shouldn't make a run for it back to the Full Moon, she was leering and kind of oozing sex the way Devon had earlier.

“Aw, sugar, don' look so scairt,” she smiled with a shake of her head, somehow managing to pull off nearly motherly, despite looking like a prostitute from a cowboy movie and spilling out of her corsety thing. The oozing and leer vanished. “Why I'll be! Little Dulcy's blood aren't you? You are! You just have to be!” She crowed.

Matt eyed her warily.

“Dulcy was one of my girls. Sweetheart was here from fifty-five to sixty-three when that bandito loco finally got enough to buy out her debt and took her back to his home town in Mexico. What's your name, sugar?”

“Matt.”

“Matt what, darlin?”

“Cortez.” He offered warily.

“You are my sweet little Dulcy's blood! Matteo Cortez was that bandito loco's name. Woulda shot that bastard if Dulcy woulda let me. Hardassed crazy bounty hunter that wasn't above holdin' up a stage now and again if he was desperate enough for money. Poor Dulcinea, she was just the sweetest little girl. Just fourteen when I bought her contract at the auction. Sheltered little darling the youngest of nine in an old Californio family known for their palominos. The only boy was the seventh of the family. The sister between them—Esperanza.” she shuddered. “Poor dear got sold to one of the...Southern brothels whisked right off. Dulcy—always believed her sister was alive. Best off if the girl'd died fast. Most from up here don't last all that long down there which is a mercy really. The older sisters were all married off and safe enough when that fool Esteban made his deals and sentenced his little sisters to hell, quite literally in poor Esperanza's case. Bet they had a riot with her, poor child was set to sail to Spain and a take her vows at a convent there when her brother sold her. “

She leaned over the bar and a long red nail caught under his chin. Matt managed not to squeak and run just barely. Her finger tip was as cold as ice against his chin. “Oh yes, I can see it now. You got Dulcy's eyes. Aren't you just, somethin', sweetheart. Aren't you just somethin'?” She shook her head. “Took a little doin' but I managed to gift my sweet little Dulcy with immunity from my kind's seduction for her babies, and the kind that would be passed on. Couldn't influence you if I burned myself up tryin' and I wouldn't, yer one of Dulcy's blood. Oh she was so sweet, tasted as sweet as her name and had a touch that would make anyone whimper. Somethin' tells me you have that touch.”

Matt stared.

“Oh yes, sugar, she spent most of her time with me as my girl. I woulda kept her and I think that damned Cortez mighta let me too, but I sent her along with him. They offered me a place along with them but that woulda been nothin' but trouble and runnin'. The one thing that Cortez an' I ever saw eye to eye on was Dulcy bein' the sweetest thing in creation and needin' loved good an' proper. An' damn well keep her secret safe. Had the sight Dulcy did. Dreamt from time to time as a little bit of a thing but oh hellfire did that child come into her gift after bein' exposed to a thing or two around here. Told me her grandbaby'd come to town after the Mayor was blown to hell. 'Bout gave up on you finding your way here, sweetheart, been more than ten years since that old snake got blown sky high.”

The sound of Xander's boots on the wooden stairs made him turn his head. “You tell Xander Ol' Whisky Rose said hello, sugar.” She whispered and he shivered at the ice cold breeze that ran over his cheek and the back of his neck.

He turned back to her and she was gone, as if she'd...vanished into thin air. He wanted the fuck out of there now.

“You okay?” Xander frowned.

Okay. What the fuck? He...was going to just...chalk that up to he dozed off. Yeah. That was it. Weird dream. He hadn't slept for shit for a couple days. Zoned out, dozed off weird dream inspired by the freaking bizarre that was Hellfire. Yeah. That was it.

“Yeah, yeah...just dozed off. Been a long week,” Matt offered.

Xander looked a bit skeptical but didn't react to the throaty laughter that sounded by Matt's ear or the click of heels walking away.

Xander shook his head a bit with a glance toward the shadows. “These old buildings have unusual noises sometimes. Nothin' to get all that worried about.”

“Uh huh, sure,” Matt agreed. “Uhm, your friend okay?”

“Clem? Yeah. As good as he's getting at the moment. He was freaking a bit over you guys showing up. He'd forgotten we'd told him that you were coming. He really got a number done on him.” Xander sighed with a shake of his head.

Matt didn't ask what kind of number was done on Clem. He couldn't help but wonder, because Xander didn't sound all that...optimistic, more resigned, like as good as he was getting at the moment might be as good as it he ever got.

The quiet struck him. He didn't even remember church being so quiet—even with the thick brick walls of his parents church there'd been the rustle of cloth and the creak of a pew as someone shifted, a few hundred people breathing, someone invariably coughing or clearing their throat, a baby or toddler fussing. This was just silent. No breeze to so much as stir the dust around. No sound drifting out of the Full Moon Saloon, but the more than foot thick adobe the buildings seemed to be made of—no, not likely to let out, or in, much sound.

He was used to cities, the venues, hell even the hum of the bus on the highway when it was quiet, everyone sleeping, other engines going by. This was just silent and all the creepier in a way because it was so pristine and something about the town that wasn't...dead. They'd had to stop...some abandoned mining camp or something to get pictures and be inspired or what the hell ever—he left the crazy ass artsy shit to the others. The mining camp had been eerie, empty and dead and just freaky in it's lifelessness except for the freaking opossom that had been startled and in turn scared the hell outta them. Damn thing had looked like an overgrown rat.

This town with it's massive adobe buildings wasn't crumbling down, dying and dead for all it was empty. It was so...pristine, not so much as a loose board on the plank sidewalks or a sliver on the rails that he figured once had been to tie horses too. Not so much dead as sleeping, as...as waiting.

“This place...is so fuckin' quiet,” Matt blurted.

“Yeah it takes getting used to,” Xander agreed.

“So..what? I mean why the hell would you build this out in the middle of nowhere here? Mining or something?”

“Nah, think they found a little bit of copper but nope, never was a mining town,” Xander shook his head.

Matt looked up at the sign over the Whisky Rose's door. “You know some of the stories?” Okay maybe that wasn't the brightest question.

“The Whisky Rose was owned by a woman named Rose Whitmore and was the swankier whorehouse in town. The Den of Iniquity down at the other end of town was—scary. Kinda a metaphorical...all you can eat buffet for psychopaths and predators. About the only rule on harming the prostitutes there—even on the sign on front door—you kill it, you bought it. The Gilded Cage was basically an S&M place.” Xander shrugged. “Couple of the other bars had strippers or dancers who'd do business on their own time.”

“You kill it, you bought it...nice,” Matt managed.

Xander shook his head. Almost—blase about you kill it you bought it, even if it was from over a century ago.

“So why'd you want me out of the bar?” Matt tried.

“Tara and Andrew get nervy, neither one of them do real hot with new people. That Brian guy doesn't seem to notice anything but Oz and business exist and the kid seems to be the same kinda—geeky as the two of them. And he's just a kid.”

“Twenty, twenty one, 'bout the same age as them...”

“Tara's twenty-nine. Andrew's twenty-seven. And they weren't as young as that kid at fricken fifteen.”

Matt nodded.

“Tara liked you. Hell, she actually managed to speak in front of you, just...she's only really up for so much of new people more than one at a time.”

“Psycho ex boyfriend?” Matt guessed.

“Psycho ex, yeah. Boyfriend no. Willow's lacking in the qualifications for the 'boy' department. Course these days Willow's lacking in the sane and human departments too.”

“The one that does business for the Dingoes big on haggling?” Matt changed the subject, not really wanting to go near the raw tone to Xander's voice.

“Oz?” Xander snorted and shook his head with a tired smile. “Nope. Haggling takes more than monosyllabic answers. Oz isn't big on talking.”

“Brian's persistent.”

“At talking to brick walls?”

Matt laughed. “Yeah, sometimes. Considering some of the groups he's tour managed and managed. Amounts to talking to brick walls sometimes.”

“Bout the most he's going to get is them on this Riot Festival this summer, and willing to tour with some of his bands from time to time if it suits them. He going to live with that?”

“Yeah. He'll annoy and try again from time to time, but he's almost hoping they keep like they have been. Kinda cool to see the one in a million that manages to do it on their terms ya know?”

Xander nodded. “He's gonna yap Oz's ear off for a couple hours?”

“Oh hell yeah,” Matt agreed with a snort.

“So...ten cent tour. The Whiskey Rose is kinda out because of Clem but...look around the rest of main street if you want?”

“Sure,” Matt agreed with a shrug, he glanced over his shoulder with the feeling of being watched. Whisky Rose was standing in the doorway of her establishment watching them and just faded away.

“You sure you're okay?”

“Yeah.”

Xander gave him a skeptical look but led the way down the board walk to the massive building that seemed to be the court house as well as housing a half dozen lawyers' offices on the second floor and three apartments on the third floor. Next door was the sheriff's office which housed the jail on the third and fourth floors of the building and a walled court yard behind the two buildings that...held a gallows still in perfect condition, chains affixed to one adobe wall of the court yard that still looked to have bullet holes in it...and a stone block with weird brown and black stains on the top of it...

“Judge Beam seemed to be creative and if he was bored when the verdict for execution was arrived at by the jury, it depended if you got shot, hung or beheaded. They just whipped a few without killing them too according to the records Andrew was digging at and gave himself nightmares with.”

Matt stared at the stone block again, realizing what the discolorations likely were. Okay, tour of Hellfire just totally shot past the freaky-as-hell-record of the tour of the Tower of London years before, the first time they'd hit Europe—in a van no less, Otter still drumming and Bob doing sound for the free ride through Europe because he'd never been there. Matt's skin had crawled then. Frank had laughed at him, and spent a couple drunken weeks shouting “boo” at Matt every time he managed to sneak up behind him or bounce out from around a corner at him. Mikey hadn't been much better trying to freak him out with ghost stories.

He passed on the walk through of the jail. The court room was kind of absolutely gorgeous. The room practically glowed. It was spotless and the wood polished to a shine. The judge's bench and the jury box, the tables for the prosecution and defense, chairs, the benches in the gallery were all ornately carved of what Xander said was mahogany.

Weird, honestly. Cowboy movies always seemed to have them using the saloon or the church in town as the courthouse. So much so that it seemed that was what it was supposed to be, and Matt bet was a helluva lot more likely than the elaborate ornate courtroom Hellfire boasted.

Agatha T. Vine was one of the six lawyers. Her office was paneled in light golden pine, and the furnishings were all museum pieces, delicate feminine chairs and the desk almost dainty looking for all it's size. Ceramic knick knacks on the shelves tucked in cubbies between leather bound law books over a century old. The other offices seemed cleared out. Books and whatever else gone, furniture half missing, even a bit of dust and a cobweb or two, effort made but a bit of dust and empty was what you would expect but Agatha T. Vine's seemed like she was out to lunch and going to be returning any second.

He thought he saw a small, pinch-faced woman in a dark, kind of drab brown severe old fashioned dress, gray hair knotted tight on her head and wire rim glasses perched on the edge of a kind of sharp, narrow, beaky nose.

“Just showing Matt Hellfire, Miss Vine. His boss came to see Oz at the Full Moon.” Xander smiled in the direction of the corner.

The woman faded away with a “hmph” that sounded like his great aunt annoyed at something.

“I—you saw that too?”

“Miss Vine is one of Hellfire's few corporeally challenged residents, yeah.”

Matt bit his lip to not just burst out laughing and keep laughing until he lost his mind over that. He was sure his eyes had to look like some anime characters at the utter nonchalance and absurdity of 'corporeally challenged'.

“Miss Vine gets a bit irate at the five letter g word and the four letter d word—and I don't mean damn.”

A “Hmph” came from no where and everywhere, and a feeling of irritation crept into the air.

“We're leaving, Miss Vine,”

“You have a very lovely office,” Matt offered feeling a bit ridiculous, and mostly wanting to run like hell. He wasn't anything but relieved when Xander led him back out of the building that held the courthouse and lawyers offices.

“Every building around here have a ghost?” Matt managed to ask once back out on the planks of the raised sidewalk, he didn't think he'd ever been so happy for desert heat and sun.

“No. But Hezekiah is still at the Blacksmith's, found out he was there by accident. There's Damnation Jones at the Purgatory Saloon, Whisky Rose haunts her place. Miss Vine. There's a cowboy that rides through town every hour on the hour at night, his circuit takes him about thirty minutes to complete. That's about all of them I think. The jail and the courtyard were cleaned and so was the Den of Iniquity. Edmund and Frederick at the Schuman Boarding House. Think that's it.”

Matt frowned. “Are you trying to freak me out?”

“Nope, they're just...there.” Xander shrugged. “You saw Miss Vine.”

Matt nodded uneasily. “You believe in this shit?”

“I dare you to go tell Miss Vine she's dead and you're just hallucinating her...”

“Oh HELL no,” Matt shook his head not willing to even go back in the building now that he was out of it, let alone go...taunt the rather snippy looking Miss Vine. Just no way in hell.

“I should go work on Dawn's trunk. Making it for her for a graduation present. She's getting her Masters from Oxford. Sanding is going to take forever. I swear it's not haunted.”

Matt nodded.

The livery stable, which housed Xander's workshop, was right next door to the blacksmith's building but the ghost that was supposedly there didn't so much as peek out the window thankfully. Like every other building in the town it was made of insanely thick adobe and it's massive scale even more massive than most of the others. A faint smell of...well, Matt supposed it was horse, straw and leather. He wasn't really sure what a horse smelled like, not like there was a lot of livestock of any sort in the blue collar New Jersey neighborhood he grew up in or any of the places he'd been since, but it stood to reason that the animal and faint manure smell was horse.

The office was taken over by Xander evidently. The two computers and mini fridge kind of really fucking bizarre in contrast to the simple old oak desk. The craftsmanship was excellent and the thing was probably worth a fortune being as old as it was and looking so amazing, even with it's scuffs and nicks, but it was simple and sturdy and downright plain compared to the ornate stuff in the courthouse and lawyers offices, even the sheriff's desk. Matt couldn't have cared less about the incongruity of the computers and mini fridge when the mini fridge had beer in it. So what it wasn't noon yet? Nah, had to be past noon, Matt decided. It had been around eleven when they'd driven into Hellfire. Either way, who cared? Ghosts deserved at least one beer, damn it. He followed Xander on through the building sipping at the bottle of beer.

The tack room still held tack. Bridles and halters and harnesses and saddles and shit. When it came to bridles and halters and leadlines Matt really wasn't sure which were which. The leather old and stiff and finally something that looked old and fading and crumbling in the bizarre ghost town.

The walk through the stable section was a little eerie, like everything else about Hellfire. The wooden gates—doors? Whatever they were—of the stalls, the stalls themselves, all heavy wood and not a splinter in sight. Not the shiny polished wood seen most everywhere else but like the board walks and hitching posts in weirdly perfect condition, almost like it was waiting for the horses to show back up.

“I'm not sure you want to go back there,” Xander stopped him as he looked at the door beyond the stalls.

Matt stared warily at the door. “You said this building wasn't haunted.”

“It's not. Not like Rose or Miss Vine or some of the others. That was the auction pens though. The lucky ones that ended up back there ended up at the Whisky Rose or The Gilded Cage, but the Rose and the Cage didn't—have high turnover. Most that passed through the auction pens ended up at the Den at best, or a helluva lot worse places elsewhere.”

“Worse than a you kill it you bought it policy on the front door?” Matt managed.

“Lot worse,” Xander agreed. “It's not really haunted, there's not any particular ghost or anything, just soaked up all the terror and pain and if you're sensitive to that sort of thing it's pretty bad, you can still feel it.”

“You know much about California history?”

“Grew up in southern California.”

“What were the old Californio families? The ones that would have palominos and shit?” He felt kinda like an idiot asking, but hell he'd never heard the term Californio before that he remembered. All he remembered from history class ages ago in school was they found gold in California about the same time as the Oregon Trail whenever the hell that was. And he did know, or at least was pretty sure, a palomino was a horse, though what the frick kind of horse was beyond him. He hadn't paid attention in school any more than he needed to pass, and he had never given a damn or had any need to know shit about horses or ranches or what the hell ever since.

“The pure Spanish aristocracy is what you're talking it sounds like,” Xander shrugged. “Not the mestizos. Strictly European ancestry, held massive land grants from when Spain had Mexico and the southwest, mostly the families of the younger sons of the titled class booted out chance at land here without fucking up the oldest son's inheritance. Really, really unlikely any mestizo was allowed in the ranks of that unless by default that the guy was born to one of the son's mistress and all the other heirs were dead, but then a pure European descent cousin was more likely to get the families land and whatever rather than a mestizo bastard. I know that much. Willow would glare at me and make me do at least part of my homework when we were in school. Jesse and I could usually con and puppy eyes the answers out of her though.”

The name Willow brought Matt up short. He didn't dare ask if it was the same Willow that had Tara so...destroyed. He had the sinking feeling it was. And that Willow was maybe Xander's sister or something.

Matt eyed the door a second more. No, he really wasn't willing to ask what the hell Xander meant by “sensitive” or find out if he was or not. He just...wasn't going to think about that. He followed Xander to another section of the massive livery building which once held the wagons and coaches. The bright halogen lights overhead seemed too bright and too modern and the hum of electricity actually noticeable.

The old stagecoach looked in perfect condition, like all it needed was a team of horses to be hitched to it and it was ready to go. That was kind of cool. Xander's big saws and whatever all he had for machinery tools in the large 'room' that was nearly as big as a barn itself, were interesting enough though he kind of passed them over in favor of the finished or near finished pieces—book cases and a table all with the same color of stain, some doorless cabinets that looked like they were for a kitchen maybe.

“Those are on hold until Tara gets the design how she wants with the wood burner, she's been practicing over there. Those are going up in her kitchen once she's got the design perfected and burned onto the doors.” Xander pointed.

'Over there' was a small workbench, sort of—2x12 planks laid over a couple sawhorses with sketches and wood burner and the design from the sketches on obviously scrap pieces of wood scattered on top. He'd never really thought of it, had never had a reason to, but the smells in the room so strong after the dust and empty of most of the rest of what he'd seen was striking. The chemical smell of wood stain and varnish didn't drown out the smell of the wood, both what was already made into things and the stacks of boards and logs—fucking logs? From where and why? But yeah logs—along the farthest back wall. If he'd been asked, wood smelled like, well, wood. That obviously wasn't quite right because the mostly subtle but a few stark differences of the scents in the air were really clear, enough to be almost weird. Who knew wood came in 'flavors'?

“That smells kinda like...a pet store, or Frank's dogs beds—without the dog.” Way to sound like a fucking moron, Cortez, Matt thought the second the words were out of his mouth. He took a swig of the beer.

The 'that' in question was a trunk or maybe overgrown pirate chest. The bottom was on a low stand that seemed made of cinder blocks and a couple layers of 2x12 planks to put it at a comfortable working level. The lid was on the workbench and looked to be freaking carved from a single piece of wood, and still rough with sharp edges rather than the slightly rounded shape the top seemed to be meant to have.

Xander smiled. “Yep, it's cedar. Cedar shavings and chips are mixed in with a lot of pet bedding. Bugs don't like cedar. Fleas are what they're aiming at with pet bedding but moths that would ruin clothes or any fabric stuff like dolls or stuffed pigs stored away are the point of cedar chests.”

He really should know better than to open his mouth on shit that didn't involve music, guitars, equipment, the lighting and pyrotechnics for a stage show on a tour he was working on, cars or video games. “Stuffed pigs?”

“Yeah. Mr. Gordo.” Xander said looking kind of far away and sad. “Little stuffed pig that was Dawn's older sister Buffy's. Dawn has him now. Got a feeling he's going in the chest. She's got him boxed up and in my spare room closet here because she can't stand to look at him without crying. Cedar chest will be better for Mr Gordo than a plastic tub.”

Christ. Open mouth insert foot. Matt didn't ask. It didn't take much to guess that Dawn's sister had probably died.

“How did you end up living out here? Ghosts and shit and...it's...kinda...well, weird.” Matt finally asked a long while later from where he sat on a counter. His first beer had been finished and he'd taken up Xander's offer to go help himself to a second, and grab something to munch from the cupboard above the mini fridge in the office. The only sound for how long had been the steady rub of sandpaper over wood, hand-sanding the edges and rough off the trunk lid, Matt's crunching of pretzels and barely audible background noise level old country music with a woman singing—Patsy Cline, according to Xander. The sound of his own voice was almost jarring.

Obviously startling enough that Xander kind of jumped. “I'm boring you out of your mind, aren't I?” Xander asked sheepishly.

Matt shook his head. “Quiet with nothin' to do is a nice change, when there's not miles of road involved at least.”

He really hadn't been bored. Actually it was kind of soothing just to space off with the sound of sandpaper and wood, country music aside and that was so soft and seemed to suit that it didn't bother even if it wasn't anything he generally could stand. Miles of nothing on the road wasn't even exactly boring, more monotonously tiring and trying not to strangle someone who was grating your last nerve.

“Faith...inherited a lot of odd stuff from the Mayor. Wes, Faith, Andrew and I work for the same group—international historical society. End up in a...lot of strange places sometimes with archeologcial stuff. Go—take a picture of this cave to cross reference with this legend. Go—there's a civil war, don't let the book geeks get shot or eaten by wild life or fall off a cliff or something. Things like that. Been really interesting the couple times interpol and friends come knocking for someone to get into this or that smuggling ring that already has a presence on the antiquities market. Boss saying oh but of course whatever do you need...and landing us in all sorts of fun shit. Way more time sitting in dusty libraries and going crosseyed over copying some text that can't be moved from whatever museum or national archive it's in and taking six months of paperwork to be allowed to see but when it's not—it's really not. Wes and Andrew are more likely to end up with all the paperwork type stuff, go copying scrolls from wherever. Faith and I are more likely to get sent into a civil war in a jungle or some damn thing. Just...mostly tired and burned out, and a lot of other shit. All our accumulated downtime is being taken to just recover and the boss has promised not to call unless the world's ending.”

Xander shrugged. “I've got room to work on this kind of stuff which I haven't for too long. Andrew's working on another game. Wes is working on...some book. Reference type thing that'd give me a headache and I won't touch ever unless it's almost life or death. Faith's mostly stir crazy and making a dent in the rattler population waiting for the mere mortals to be recovered enough to go back out with her on expeditions again. She'd rather be out in the jungle exploring for cave drawings to take pictures of or something. But she doesn't want to go without either Wes or I and neither of us are up to...expeditions at the moment. Good of a place to be as any, quiet and the only annoying neighbor is Spike and he's tolerable mostly, just don't ever tell him I said that.”

Matt nodded. A—hella lot more exciting—but the same in it's way as touring wearing you down to nothing. He could get that easily. It also sounded just a bit sketchy on what the hell the job was. Really sketchy. Probably not entirely legal either. He couldn't quite see Xander as a bad guy. He had a pretty good sense for the creeps and assholes even when the others thought he was just being a stuck up dumbass—he was generally proven right, and sooner than later at that. Good guy but...really sketchy on his job even dancing around outright bullshit on what he'd said.

“There you are Cortez!”

Matt nearly flew out of his skin. Brian was trying not to look irritated as hell standing in the interior doorway of Xander's workshop—there were a couple huge wooden barn-style doors that looked heavy as hell back near the stacks of wood, once for the wagons and coaches to be pulled in and out of no doubt.

“Turned you down for managing them?” Matt grinned.

“Yeah,” Brian snorted.

“Good,” Matt grinned even wider.

“Asshole,” Brian shot back with a dirty look. “You ready to go?”

Matt nodded. He wasn't but like he was going to say he hadn't gotten up the nerve to ask more about the damned ghosts and what Xander meant by sensitive yeah right.

*

“You going to be okay with that guy?” Brian asked as they pulled away from dropping Tyson off at his apartment building. Brian spent most of the trip back to Los Angeles smarting he'd been talked into giving Tyson two Fridays a month to go to Hellfire by a guy that barely seemed to talk and a kid that babbled geekery faster than Gerard.

“Huh?”

“Dingoes are taking two vans—you and that Xander guy'll be in one with the merch and the bands each have their own vans with equipment.”

“He's a good guy. Dingoes seem pretty good too. I liked all of them out there even if they're—weird to scary.”

Brian kind of sighed.

“They...are..”

“Fuckin' weird. But good.”

“You claimed that other asshole was good.”

Matt winced and shook his head. “Do not start. He is a good guy.”

Brian snorted. “Yeah well, you get to avoid him all summer. They're definite on the bill.”

“I know,” Matt swallowed.

“You're not going from schitzo drama queen to one eyed murdering weirdos on me are you?”

“Quit while you're ahead, Schechter,” Matt warned.

Brian snorted. “You were wrong--”

“I wasn't. I'm not. He's a good guy. Just—don't.” Matt shook his head. He wasn't getting into that or the fucking weird the last time...no, he just wasn't going anywhere near that. The day had already been long and strange enough.

“You sure you're going to be okay with that Xander? They just pointed and said Xander's shop was that way when I went to hunt you down. The big black guy in the first building told me actually how to get to the damn shop. Once he got done stammering and freaking out what I wanted with 'Massa Xanduh'. Massa Xanduh had the smithy and livery now and he didn't want Massa Xanduh sending him away. Guy was fucking huge, we're talking—fucking Shaquile O'Neal or something—and just goddamned panicking that maybe he should chase me away so Massa Xanduh didn't get mad he let someone snoop aroun' but Massa Xanduh had comp'ny with him and he just didn't know what to do.”

Matt stared. “Did he say his name?”

“Hekiah or Sekiah or Skyah or something like that. Could barely understand half of what he was saying he had the weirdest damned accent that was part something deep South like a mockery from Gone with the Wind and something else that I have no idea what.”

Matt supposed that made an unnerving sense if Hezekiah was tied to the blacksmith building and Xander had taken over the livery stable for his workshop, that the buildings were probably considered part of the same property and rented together? If they were actually rented...or however they did it in Hellfire because he doubted that there was much for formal leases or whatever between that group.

He shook himself. He wasn't going there. He really didn't want to dwell on ghosts being real, but he was kinda glad he wasn't the only one that saw one.

“Hezekiah,” Matt said. “Pretty sure that had to be Hezekiah. Xander said the guy who hung around the blacksmith place was Hezekiah. I didn't see him though.” Miss Vine and Rose had been more than enough.

“Whole fucking town is a trip,” Brian shook his head.

“Right down the rabbit hole,” Matt agreed.