Ghost Walk by Brian Keene Page B

wheels groaned. At the front, Dee shuffled her legs, hooves clattering against the pavement.
    “I know what I’m doing,” he told the horse. “Trust me.”
    Dee chomped her teeth together. They sounded like a mousetrap snapping shut.
    “There’s just no pleasing you, is there?”
    A car drove through the parking lot, hip-hop music blasting from the speakers. The bass rattled the windows. The driver’s face was painted to look like a skull—white and leering. Obviously, they were getting a head start on the holiday. Levi waited for the car to pass. If the driver parked next to him, he’d be unable to proceed until they left.
    When the coast was clear again, Levi pulled a canvas tarp off a long wooden box and laid it aside, stirring up dust. He sneezed. The box was padlocked, and covered with charms to protect its contents from thieves, witchcraft, and the elements. The sigils were painted onto the wood, and in some cases, carved deep into the surface. There were holy symbols and complex hex signs, as well as words of power. Levi ran his fingers over the two most dominant etchings.
        
    I.
N. I. R.
I.
SANCTUS SPIRITUS
I.
N. I. R.
I.

        
    SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS

       
    He’d carved them himself, just as his father had taught him, carefully inscribing the words from The Long Lost Friend and other books. Levi smiled. All of the books had been passed down to him from his father. He wondered what his father thought of him now, as he looked down on Levi from the other side. Was he proud of his son? Did he approve? Did he understand that sometimes you had to use the enemy’s methods and learn the enemy’s ways if you were to defeat them? Or, like the rest of Levi’s people, did his father disapprove, even in death?
    There was no way of knowing—not until the day when Levi saw him again. The day the Lord called him home. He prayed for that moment. Yearned for it.
    And feared it, too.
    Dee whinnied softly and pawed at the pavement again with her hooves.
    “Okay,” Levi said. “I’m hurrying.”
    He pulled a key ring from his pocket and removed the padlock. Then he opened the box. The interior smelled of kerosene and sawdust and dirt. They were comforting smells. They spoke of hard work and effort and honesty. Many people had boxes like this, on the backs of their buggies or in the beds of their pickup trucks. Usually, they held tools. Chainsaws, shovels, hammers, spare engine parts.
    Levi’s box held different tools; the ones of his trade.
    He sorted through the contents, pushing aside a bundle wrapped in duct tape. The package contained a dried mixture of wormwood, gith, five-finger weed, asafoedita, and salt—a charm against livestock theft, to protect Dee when Levi left the buggy unattended. As long as it remained in the box, no harm could befall the horse. Too bad that didn’t go for the rest of the buggy, which was why he’d asked the store manager to keep an eye on it for him. He’d tried perfecting a charm for the buggy, but so far his efforts had been unsuccessful. The last time he’d tried it, Levi parked the buggy in downtown Lancaster. A street gang had tagged it with spray paint ten minutes later. He’d been ready to forgive them until they turned their attention on Dee. Then the charm had kicked in and Levi had shown them the error of their ways.
    The memory made him smile. The looks on their faces…
    But as long as Dee and the box were safe, that was all that mattered.
    He moved a few books and trinkets around, and found what he was looking for.
    A stick.
    Levi’s stomach fluttered. His lips felt numb. He started to sweat.
    He didn’t want to do this, but he had no choice. The girl was getting farther away. If he didn’t follow her now, he’d lose her for sure, and thus lose any chance he might have of learning the entity’s true name. Then, whatever befell this community would be on him. He was charged with the task.
    Swallowing, Levi reached into the box and pulled out