Page 17 of Cursed
Tony nodded as if answering an unspoken question. “Cool.” He glanced at his watch. “Oops, break time is over. I need to go play. I hope you’ll come back. All the food is good, but Pax’s is the best.”
With a wave and a smile, Tony headed back to the stage, stopping to greet other diners along the route. Evan glanced toward the Peachy-Cue truck and saw Pax watching Tony fondly.
They listened to a couple more songs, but without ordering more food, Seth and Evan didn’t have an excuse to keep taking a table. Evan dumped their trash in a bin and gave Tony a salute as they left the lot, heading toward the nearby shops.
“That was pretty damn awesome,” Seth remarked.
“The whole setup is great. I’m glad to see all the trucks doing so well. Having live entertainment is certainly a draw, but people wouldn’t come back if the food wasn’t good,” Evan replied.
“I never thought peach and barbecue could go together, but that was amazing.”
Evan chuckled. “Didn’t know you were quite that much of a foodie,” he teased.
“Just calling it like it is.” Seth looked at Evan as if assessing his expression. “What are you thinking? I doubt it’s about fried pickles.”
“They were good too, and the candied bacon was damn near orgasmic,” Evan replied.
“I wouldn’t go quite that far?—”
“But I was just thinking that it’s going to be hard to get Tony and Pax to believe us,” Evan continued. “I mean, it always is. It’s a crazy story unless they’ve heard rumors about theirrealfamily history.”
There’s an immortal killer witch who wants to sacrifice you to his dead master so he and his coven can level up. We’re monster hunters, and we’re here to save you.
“We’ll have to figure out a way to cut through the skepticism,” Seth replied. “We’ve always managed before.”
“I know, but I still worry,” Evan replied.
“How bad are the ghost crowds?” Seth asked as they walked back to where he had parked the truck. Evan had told him what it was like when they were in Charleston, another city with a long history of being known as haunted.
“Distracting,” Evan replied. “They’re everywhere. Most of them are repeaters, so no consciousness, but I keep feeling like I need to say ‘excuse me’ for walking through them even though they’re too weak to actually manifest.”
“You take it in stride pretty well.”
Evan shrugged. “Been doing it all my life, although I think my ability to see and talk to them has gotten stronger with all the practice since we’ve been doing what we do.”
“It’s like there’s an invisible city on top of what most people see.”
“That’s a good analogy, except that the people are from every time period. So native people, early settlers, colonists, sailors,and everyone else from the last three hundred and fifty years. Sort of like a costume party gone wild,” Evan replied.
Evan could see their truck as they turned a corner. Seth was choosy about where he parked, careful that he couldn’t be easily boxed in either by accident or on purpose. The truck sat where they had left it, first in the row of curbside parking spots where pulling out would be easy.
Seth slowed and so did Evan. “What’s up?” Evan asked.
“Something’s not right,” Seth growled.
Before Evan could ask more, a man stepped out from behind a parked van and took a swing at Seth. A second man came at Evan from the other side of the vehicle.
He had no idea whether the attackers wanted their wallets or were hired by Vernon to scare them off, but Evan didn’t have time to wonder. Training took over, and all the sparring he and Seth did between jobs paid off as Evan evaded his opponent and landed a punch to the jaw that set the man back a pace.
“Leave town.” The man swung again and landed a bruising hit to Evan’s shoulder.
“Who hired you?” Evan asked while evading another punch. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Seth was fighting hard to hold off his own opponent. The street was quiet, but sooner or later someone was likely to notice a brawl in broad daylight.
At least so far, the two men hadn’t pulled weapons.
“Stay out of it,” the man snapped. “What happens here is none of your business.”
A police siren screamed, not far away. The two men ran. Seth and Evan gave chase, but the next intersection opened to a busy street, and they lost sight of the strangers in the crowd.
