I Brake for Biker Witches by Angie Fox Page A

anyone else feel that?"
    "You mean like low in my stomach?" Ant Eater asked.
    "Yes." And tingling up my spine. It wasn't necessarily demonic—I knew exactly what that felt like. But it was something else . Something I'd never felt before.
    The radio crackled. "Maybe we need to stop and get some snacks," my Jack Russell terrier suggested.
    "No," everyone said at once.  
    In his defense, Pirate was a dog with a one-track mind, usually trained on food. Because of our powers, we could hear him talk, and talk…and talk. We should never have given him a head set.
    At least the sweet-smelling troublemaker was riding shotgun with Bob. I didn't want Pirate up here with me if we ran into trouble.
    Our headlights reflected off a lone green highway sign up ahead. "Well would you look at that," I said under my breath. In big, white letters it read: Zzyzx.
    Pirate gave a yip. "I just won the alphabet game."
    "Wait." Ant Eater's voice sharpened. She was the scariest biker I knew. That's why she always rode shotgun. "You see that? Dead ahead."  
    "I see it." My pulse thrummed with anticipation. A figure of a man stood under the sign. We wouldn't have seen him so far out, except he was glowing.
    Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the mule. We couldn't even take one ride through the desert without trouble.
    I could almost hear the witches going for their spell jars.
    We slowed as we approached, our headlights trained on a bald man with a thick, braided beard. I strained for a better look as recognition wound through me.  
    "Holy hell," Frieda whispered.
    I remembered where I'd seen him before. Frieda had been carrying his picture for as long as I'd known her. She'd post it over her bed, clip it on her spell books, have it handy wherever we happened to be. She'd rub him on the forehead and hum the same tune every time.
    This was Mister Love in an Elevator.
    He'd been dead for as long as I'd known her.
    I ground my bike to a halt about ten feet back from him. Close enough to talk, far enough to throw a switch star if it came to that.  
    Frieda would tan my hide. I said a silent prayer for him to behave.  
    One by one, the Red Skull witches cut their engines. I took my helmet off and hung it over a handle bar.
    Frieda had already scrambled out from behind one of the bikers toward the front. She approached the phantom slowly, all the while holding a spell jar behind her back. It swirled with a brackish, blue and gold liquid.  
    Grandma stood next to me as I dismounted, one hand on my weapons belt. I tilted my head toward her. "What's she got?"
    "Ghost zapper," she said, her voice gritty from years of hard riding and semi-truck exhaust, "It blasts their energy field. Damned thing better not be expired."
    Good point. We didn't get too many ghosts.
    This one wore leather chaps, a black leather jacket and a Texas bikers t-shirt.
    I pulled a switch star from my belt, just in case. It was flat and round. Five blades curled around the edge.  
    The white from Frieda's zebra print leather pants glowed in our headlights as she tottered forward on four-inch red wedge sandals. "Carl? Is that you, baby?"
    Sweat tickled the back of my neck. Frieda was a sitting duck if this didn't work.  
    Amusement sparked from the ghost's heavy lidded eyes. "Well don't you look pretty?"
    She stopped a few feet in front of him, her red dice earrings swaying as she shook. "Are you…alive?"
    He wound his thumbs under his black leather belt. "Aw, now you know I'da come back for you if I was." He glanced past Frieda, his bottomless blue eyes locking on me. "I wouldn't be back now. Except we need your help."
    Dread pooled in my stomach. This couldn't be good "Who's we ?"
    The ghost eyed me. "We got a new gang going, for those of us who have passed on."
    Oh lordy.
    "Shouldn't you be in heaven or something?" Frieda asked.
    "Not yet, baby." He touched her fluffy blonde hair. It ruffled slightly as his fingers moved straight through it. "You still need us, whether you realize it or not.