Chapter 2: Rebel With A Cause

Annabelle wrenched the gearstick of Boleskine back with an audible thud that shook the car body between them with her left hand. Her right hand, holding a lit cigarette between index and middle fingers, was pressed to the wheel; left dropped to the wheel, right raised to her mouth. Dropped back away, dangled out the window, smoke trailing into the night air.

Red, besides her in the passenger seat, looked behind them wildly, their dark eyes wide with fear.

Just visible in the shadows, a hundred feet behind, was a pinprick light.

“How can you be so fucking calm?!” Red demanded, stomping their feet on the dashboard.

Anna’s cool green eyes drifted to the right to level on Red, off the road. They were going at 70 – now 75 – mph, Red could see on the dashboard dials lit up in front of them, but it was clear in the brief bars of light rushing across her shadowed face that she wasn’t even breaking a sweat.

“We’re ahead.” Anna said.

“He’s gaining on us!”

Anna’s gaze shifted to her mirror. “No.” She said, curtly. The pinprick hadn’t shifted forwards relative to them; if anything, it was drifting back.

“What do we do if he – if he pulls out a gun or something? Or if he has some power-“

“Then we cope with that.”

Red scowled, and pressed their face into their hands. They nervously played with their namesake mop of hair, their feet stomping back and forth – left on the dashboard, right on the floor, both on the dashboard, both on the floor-

“Stop that.”

“I’m nervous!”

“You’ll scuff it.”

There was a loud revving sound outside, in the dark. It cut through the air, and threw Red jerking nervously in their seat again.

Red stuck their head out of their window and looked back. The pinprick was closer..

“I mean you’ve got no idea what that guy’s carrying-“

“He doesn’t know what we’re carrying, either.”

“Yeah, but I do, and I don’t like our chances!”

Red glanced in their mirror again, gangly frame almost fully hanging out of the window and straining their seatbelt to the breaking point.

Behind them, the dark, empty fields, brown shot through with dead yellow hours before in the day, whirled past. The occasional billboard flashed past as they tumbled through the Texan night. Underneath, the uneven road sent them rattling, shaking up even more fizz into Red’s body.

A pinprick like the slit eye of a dragon, getting closer…

“I think I could hit him from this distance-“

“No.”

“I think-“ Red was moving their hand to the glove department.

“No.” Anna pressed her hand into Red’s chest, pressing them back into her seat. For a second, she had no hands on the wheel; she quickly moved one back. “You’d probably just hit a coyote or something.”

“I’m a good shot-“

“We’re going 80mph and it’s pitch black, odds of screwing the centre of mass from this distance is infinitesimal."

“Who said I’m aiming centre of mass-“

There was another loud rev from behind; Red instinctively jerked their head to the side, and saw the nearly outlined figure of the motorcyclist, now almost behind them.

Glanced back at Anna, taking another drag, completely unbothered.

“There weed in that thing?”

“You watched me buy it.”

“Well I’m just fucking wondering how you’re not even a little bit rattled by all this-“

“I’m a big girl.”

“And I’m not?”

“Not a girl.”

“Yeah-“

There was a pause filled only by tiresong.

“Or mature.”

“Fucking-“

“You got us into this!”

Anna’s voice rose for the first time. Her eyes were glaring at Red through the gloom now, billboard lights reflected in them as she shifted gears again.

Red rolled their eyes in return. “I mean, it’s fucking crazy right? Because James Dean was a faggot.”

“…What?”

“He was bi. You didn’t know that?”

“No I don’t know the first thing about James Dean-“

“Wait so you were talking to his reincarnation with no idea who he even is?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Alright but like, John Peel, was at least, kind of obscure. James Dean? Rebel with a Cause? C’mon?”

“Well, the basics. But..he was bi? Speculatively?”

“No, it’s like, confirmed, I think – point is, I was right!”

“That didn’t mean you should have called the huge burly biker from rural Texas a faggot to his face, Red.”

There was another long pause.

“I have no real response to that.”

Anna took an exasperated drag.

“I mean, does he not remember?”

“What?”

“Like, remember sucking dick and shit! As his past self? Like sure, I know dead souls willingly reincarnate into dickheads who maybe wouldn’t see eye to eye with them in life all the time – I’m a prime example – but surely he remembers sex shit James Dean did, right? I mean he died pretty young, and those are pretty potent memories-“

“Do you?”

“Well yeah! I remember all sorts of shit Parsons did. I remember..”

Red looked awkwardly at the road.

“Dude jerked off with L Ron Hubbard.”

“Must be weird having memories of having a dick.”

“Well they’re not mine but – weirder part is knowing what the Scientology dude’s cock looked like.”

Anna dropped her stub out of the window, watched the ember tumble away towards the burning red pursuer light behind them. “Crowley was bi, but I don’t remember any of that. No sex, nothing like that. Don’t even really remember what his dick looked like.”

“You don’t remember much, do you?”

“A few fuzzy things here and there. Forgot a lot once my reincarnation was done. I’m pretty glad I did, I had a mean craving for heroin when I woke up that night –“

There was another loud rev, very close this time.

Red had been pulled out of the reality of the situation by the conversation, but they snapped instantly back into their underlying panic with that sound.

Eyes wide, they put down their feet, wrenched open the glove department, let the gun in there fall into their ready hand.

“Red-“

Red was fiddling with the revolver, buckteeth giving their face the look of a desperate panicking rat in the half-light, checking it was loaded.

“Red don’t-“

They threw themselves almost fully out of the window, twisted their body, took aim, and fired, while Anna cursed besides them under her breath.

The first bullet went flying wide into the fields behind.

The second went the same, on the other side of the road.

The third disappeared into the shadows, but there was an audible sound of metal hitting metal, and for a second Red thought they saw a flash just below the headlight of the motorcycle whose silhouetted rider was now fully visible, hair swirling in the wind.

“I think I hit his bike!” Red said, wildly grinning. They wobbled, and took a second to pull back inside the car as it accelerated, almost dropping the gun. They turned to beam proudly at their girlfriend. “He’s not even wearing a helmet, I think I can get him in the skull-“

Anna sighed as Red tried to lunge back over to the window, grabbed them by the scruff of the neck, and held the struggling gun enby pulled almost sideways over the gearbox as she rolled up the window.

“The fuck did you do that for?!”

“Look, we’re almost at the highway. You really don’t need to kill him, he’s not gonna chase us that much farther.”

“How would you know?”

“I have a reckoning.”

“Yeah well-“ Red turned to open the window, but found it locked. “Hey! Turn off the fucking childlocks!”

“You’re not murdering him. That’s not happening. Put the gun down and-“

Red gave a kind of inarticulate scream of rage, punched the window with gun in hand, when that failed to even crack it, pointed it at the glass and pulled the trigger.

There was a deafening bang that neither of them heard the end of because their ears were both blown out before the resonating echoes had faded away into the rattling car ambience; a shower of glass was thrown out into the night air and scattered all over the road and fields around. One shard, thrown inwards, slashed across Red’s hand and missed by a fraction of an angle sawing completely off their thumb; it bounced intact and landed bloodied on the dashboard. Another shard, thrown in front of the car on the road, went clean through the front tire and slashed it open.

That turned out to be irrelevant, because Anna’s hands had wrenched at the wheel in the second as she pulled them in agony to her ears and tried instinctively to move away from the miniature explosion that had just gone off about a foot from her head, and then not returned as she screamed and swore and scrabbled at her head.

Boleskine lurched sideways off the road, crashed through a barrier, span across the mud, and came to a stop back-end first against the base of a billboard.

There was an enormous crash that neither of them heard as the trunk was smashed in; destabilized, the billboard wobbled. If it had toppled forwards it would have crushed the car and killed them both, but luckily it fell backwards, and landed in the field mud with another unheard boom.

Red was crouched foetal in their seat, holding their ringing ears with bleeding hands.

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Anna lay next to them, slumped, stunned, eyes wide open and staring into the dark.

“Are you ok!” Red shouted, far too loud.

Anna didn’t hear it; she just continued staring.

As a light besides them passed across her face, Red saw blood trickling down her cheek. They weren’t sure if it was from a piece of the window or from hitting her head during the crash.

Red grabbed their girlfriend’s arm, panicking even worse now. “Anna you-“

Behind them, in their deafened peripheral vision, Red saw the motorbike pull to a stop, and the rider dismount. His face was shadowed, but he looked to be looking in the trunk.

Red’s temper flared.

“Hey!”

They undid their seatbelt, let the door fly open as they leaped out into the dark and hit the ground running, curving round the back of the car.

“Get outta-“

A crowbar fell inwards to meet them out of the dark like a meteorite from space, smashing into their ribs and knocking them back. They hit their head on the car door, and fell sprawling and screaming gibberish to the ground. They tried to crawl away, but James Dean’s reincarnation – they hadn’t bothered to remember what that fucker was called – stepped forward, closed the car door, and hit them again, in the back. They were too winded to scream, and simply collapsed face first in the mud as he began to beat them.

Back in the car, Anna, unable to hear this, was slowly coming back to her senses. Out of the window, she saw the motorcyclist swinging down the crowbar he had taken from the trunk down again and again, and as her eyes focused, quickly processed what was happening.

She scrabbled to be free out of her belt and out the door, and rushed around the side of the car.

“Stop.” She said, trying to get the fear in her voice under control and measure herself.

Laid in the mud, illuminated by only the dimmest starlight and leaklight from the headlights of the car and bike behind, Red was a shadowy figure on their side covered in mud and blood.

The motorcyclist kicked them in the ribs one last time, then raised his crowbar and stepped forwards.

Anna’s hearing was fading back in a little in her good ear, and in the headlamps’ light she could lipread enough to make out what he said with the sound.

“This is no business of yours, lady. Leave it. I’ll deal with him, you get out of here.”

Anna glared, so icily that he actually stood a step back from the girl a foot shorter than him and a hundred pounds lighter.

“You’ve done enough. Leave them alone.”

He grinned nastily. “Called me a faggot…can’t let that go..Who was he the reincarnation of again?”

“Jack Parsons..”

“Don’t know who that is..” He kicked Red in the face; they groaned, tried to crawl away, received another crowbar blow to their head for their troubles. “No one important, huh?”

“Leave. Them.”

He stepped forwards, and put a hand spattered with Red’s blood on Annabelle’s bare shoulder, gripping tightly. He stank of alcohol, this close. She winced, glanced away, pawed at her dress pockets for bandages, began to wind them around her own bloodied fingers.

“Yeah that’s right…” He let go, moved back towards Red. “Just lick your wounds, good girl. I’ll finish here, then I can take you back to the diner on my chopper…We can get some drinks..”

“About that..”

He turned back in time for her bandage-wound fist, trailing light behind it in the dark like a comet, to smash directly into his face.

He was unconscious as his feet already as he staggered backwards, eyes blinking wildly, fell, hit his head on the hood of Boleskine, and slumped into the mud next to Red.

“I wasn’t binding my wounds.”

Anna calmly unwound the enchantment wrappings from her hand, then moved over, and with some difficulty, took the moaning but conscious Red by the waist and dragged them back into the car.

“Fucking..” Red drooled blood across Anna’s chest. “What the fu- even- I-“

Anna managed to get them sat in the passenger seat. She leaned over, took her phone from where it had mercifully managed to land undamaged on the gearbox, used the torch to do a quick survey of her environment and the state of Boleskine as Red swore and complained in the background. Satisfied, she got back in, started the car, then drove off. She made sure to avoid James Dean Redivivus lying half-dead on the ground; his bike was not so lucky. It crushed under their car’s wheels as they trundled back onto the road.

Red’s head lolled.

Anna switched on the overhead lights, and looked over.

They drummed their finger on their hand, and their ears were both good as new.

A little antichrist healing, only the tiniest smidgen. That’d be it for the month, nowhere near enough to fully fix up Red.

“Fuckin..” Their face was a mess of cuts and bruises. They seemed to be missing teeth, and their hoodie had been torn open. Anna guessed a few broken ribs, broken collarbone, broken nose, maybe broken hip or arm.

“We’re lucky he decided to use that crowbar.”

“Wha-“

“You put the enchantment on it yourself.”

“Fuckin – couldn’t kill me!”

Red looked up, blackened eyes as wide as they could go. “Fucking hurt though!”

“Now imagine if he’d just shot you.”

“Did you kill him?”

Anna shook her head.

“Dumb fucking-“

Red gripped their head with both hands, groaned, and then threw up between their legs. The vomit was blood-streaked; they coughed and gargled, spasmed, and fell back.

“I’m dying..”

“No.”

“Did you see that-“

“Gut blood’s brown and coarse. That was from your mouth and nose.”

Red sighed, closed their eyes. “Relieved some pressure at least..”

“Try sleeping.”

Red spat blood at Anna derisively, who didn’t even look over. “And die in my sleep..”

“If a crowbar you yourself enchanted to leave non-lethal wounds kills you after a beating you brought on yourself by a series of stupid decisions, then I’d say that’s a kind of suicide. Death by stupid.”

Red laughed bitterly, then winced.

“You trust my code? You really think my spell was that reliable?”

“Completely.”

There was a silence as Red looked a little stunned and flattered.

“Fine…” They grumbled. “But I’m not sleeping.”

“That’s fine. We’ll stop at a service, get you some coffee.”

Anna checked her mirror. “Next guy’s a healer, anyway. You’ll be fixed up by morning.”

“How’d you know?”

“Some guy in the server made a sweeper daemon for healers across America, released a map a while back. I memorized it, just in case. One of those pins matches our next one near-exactly. Sure it’s the same guy.”

Red coughed. “And you didn’t tell me this?”

“I was a little distracted by you incessantly talking about James Dean.”

Red scowled. “The original guy wouldn’t have done that to me..”

“And the original Aleister Crowley wouldn’t have eaten you out, so what?”

“Ten bucks says he would.”

“Thirty bucks says Wikipedia in 6 hours will say he was definitely a top.”

“Fifty bucks says-“ Red spluttered, coughed, and then threw up again.

It was just bile this time, only a tiny spattering of blood.

They groaned, and buried their face in the hands as Anna sighed exasperatedly.

“You’re paying for the window and carpet.”

“I won’t dispute that.” Red shook their head, still in their hands. “I’m sorry Anna..”

“It’s fine. Just..” Anna paused, then frowned. “Where’d the gun go?”

Red looked up, then back and forth. “Shit…”

They punched the car roof, then screamed as that reopened the cut. They gripped their hand. “That thing cost half a grand! HALF A FUCKING GRAND, ANNA!”

“Well, I was gonna ask you to never use it again ever, but seems that’s moot now..”

“You fucking nuts? Never use a gun? What’s your idea of self defence-“

“Magic. Which I have. Which you have.”

“…I’m buying a gun again.”

“You really don’t trust your code, huh?”

“Oh don’t play to my fucking insecurities like that you flattering-“

Red stopped, gripped their chest.

“It’s..starting to hurt to…to talk..”

“Ave Satanas.”

“Fuck you..”

“Look. You sit back, shut up, I put on your true crime podcast, we got coffee and donuts, I don’t charge you for the car, you don’t get a gun. You start to look really bad, I’ll pull into a hospital, but it isn’t gonna come to that. Seem a fair compromise?”

Too weak to fight back, Red nodded gloomily, and they drove off into the Texan night.

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