Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

kid. An adrenaline roller-coaster ride, fear and exhilaration combined.
    She didn’t mind that part. What she minded was the dead-cold scaries, the way her nightmares made her feel. Channeling was getting to her. Seeing too much. Hearing too much. Feeling too much.
    It was one thing to run a con on the dumbs. It was a whole other thing to feel like the con was real.
    Not all-the-time real. Just some of it.
    And with Virgil, most of it.
    Voices whispering. Chanting. Screaming. Fires burning and knives dripping blood.
    Christ Jesus, it was enough to send her whimpering back to the nuns who had done their best to terrorize her into being a good little girl all those years ago.
    Unhappily Cherelle decided that she was getting to be as crazy as Virgil. Maybe it was catching, like herpes.
    The Bronco hit a pothole so hard that Tim whacked his head against the passenger window. “What in hell do you—” he began.
    “Shut up,” Cherelle cut in savagely. “You’re not the one who has to do it. You just stand around and look smart and pretty and make nice with the females. I’m the one sleeping with the devil and hearing all the screams of the damned.”
    Tim gave her a startled, sideways look. “Uh, you feeling all right, Cher?”
    “Fucking fantastic, why?” she asked through her teeth.
    “You’ve been acting weird.”
    “Well, ding-dong, we have a big ol’ winner. I’m a channel, remember? I’m supposed to act weird.”
    “You’re doing a hell of a job of it.”
    She had started to tell him just what she thought of his half-wit, shit-for-brains comments when she spotted the glow of light from the old man’s house. Fiercely she clenched her fingers around the steering wheel and gunned down the bumpy driveway.
    There was barely the smallest hint of color along the eastern horizon when she got out, slammed the car door, and gulped air. Without waiting for Tim, she started up the dirt path lined with colorful river cobbles that looked black in the darkness. There was one light on in the old house. The position told her it was the living room, which often as not served as the old man’s bedroom. He spent as much time pacing as sleeping.
    The front door opened before Cherelle was halfway to the house. Golden light licked out toward her like a rectangular tongue. With the determination of an actress stepping into the spotlight, she pulled her role more tightly around her.
    Showtime.
    A gaunt, angular man who was barely taller than Cherelle’s five and a half feet stalked stiffly toward her. As usual, Virgil was wearing several old shirts, one over the other. On top of that he had on his customary flapping black jacket, army-surplus pants from the days when uniforms were still made of wool, and boots that were as hard and gritty as the ground itself. The only thing unexpected about him was the cheap wooden box he carried under one arm.
    Before she could open her mouth to offer a bland, peaceful greeting, he shoved a wad of cash into her hand.
    “Four hundred,” he said.
    It would have broken the mood to stop and count the cash. Besides, Virgil had never stiffed them with a payment. So Cherelle murmured something that could have meant anything and passed the wad off to Tim, who had just caught up with her.
    “I see the need is very strong in you tonight,” she said to Virgil. Then she bit the inside of her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. When you got right down to it, there wasn’t much difference between hooking and channeling. In both jobs the whole point was to make the mark feel good no matter how pathetic he actually was. “Would you be more comfortable inside?” she asked without real hope.
    “No good inside,” he said impatiently. “Let’s move on. Dawn’s coming sure as hell.”
    Even before he finished talking, Virgil set off up the rise behind his cabin. The steeply sloping, rugged trail led to the base of a bluff that was a wide swath of black against the stars and moon. His steps were short but not hesitant. He didn’t bother with the pencil flashlight in his jacket pocket. He knew the way to the vortex spot Lady Faulkner had discovered on his property. At least, he let her think she had discovered it. He had led her there and then waited, seeing if she would pass the test. None of the others had.
    Lady Faulkner did.
    She knew right off he had himself a vortex place. A whacking good one, too. She told him she felt it like electricity the first time she touched the three big red