Slate Gray

Chapter 13: Ace Slate

After crisscrossing town for a few hours, on high alert for a forest green muscle car, we get a text that Perrin has made it to Malone's park. Which is our signal to wander on over to the dealership Jerome Hughes once owned. Simultaneous strikes make for maximum efficiency.

The block is mostly commercial establishments and industrial buildings, their signs and lights dark at this time of night. We park next to a utility pole down the street and Dad hops out to rummage in the truck bed.

"Is this legal?" I ask, climbing onto the tailgate and snuggling deeper into my peacoat. "Strictly speaking, that is?"

"Strictly speaking? No." He produces some sort of climbing harness and steps into it, fiddling with buckles and carabiners, yanking them tighter. "Pass me the bolt cutters."

"Baby's First Crime," I chuckle to myself, handing them over.

Dad grumbles something akin to "terrible" and "father" as he tugs on workman's gloves and hangs the cutters from his belt. "If anyone shows up, just say I'm doing routine maintenance."

"You mean I shouldn't tell them you're cutting power to the entire block so we don't get caught on the dealership's cameras?"

"Yeah... Don't say that."

He scales the utility pole with ease and I tip my head to follow, a little thrill warming my chest at the criminal nature of our activities. Once at the top, he snips something thick and metallic and a shiver replaces my thrill as the street is plunged into darkness. Our light sources drop to two, the truck's headlights and the full moon, and I reassure myself that shivering is a natural reaction to being hemmed in on all sides by night. Humans statistically don't do well in the dark. My unease has absolutely nothing to do with all the things that might be lurking nearby.

"Alright, we don't have a ton of time." Dad's tan boots send up tiny poofs of dust when he lands. "If their security's any good, then they already know they've lost power. And if it's crap, then they'll figure it out soon. I'd say we have about thirty minutes tops."

"That's a weirdly specific timeframe. Makes me think you've done this before," I hint, dying to know how many electrical wires he's murdered.

Dad turns an incriminating shade as he stows the harness and straps a black headlamp to his forehead. "Why does salt repel demons?" he quizzes in lieu of an explanation, his professorial mask sliding into place. Someone needs to tell this man that a lesson isn't a conversation.

"Cuz it's a pure, naturally occurring element," I indulge him. "Same with iron. They mess with a demon's chemical make-up since they're not from our plane of existence." Grabbing Mr. Trusty Shotgun from the truck bed, I load him up with said salt and iron rounds. "Some religions still use it to purify a space, even if they don't know the science behind it."

Dad rewards me with a nod, looking dorky as hell with that headlamp on. But I don't refuse the second one when he passes it to me. "So, since salt is like demonic acid, the most important thing is to create a barrier near the entrance," he coaches, slinging a large bag of rock salt over his shoulder. "They can't cross it and we have a way out if things get hairy."

"That would've been nice to know last night."

"Well, someone went off book last night," he snipes back.

The moon hangs heavy as a beachball and our headlamps bounce along the ground as Dad leads me over the property line. That familiar dread pummels me in the gut and fear slithers through my blood like electricity. It's amazing that more people don't notice this kind of thing. And even if they do, they brush it off, preferring ignorance over facing their demons.