Page 43 of Thunder Road

“Come on, it’s time for bed.” Vic held out his hand for Simon and gave him a kiss.

It didn’t take either of them long to get changed and through the bathroom. Simon pulled Vic against him in bed, loving the way they fit together. “Sweet dreams,” Simon murmured, already starting to drift off. “Looking forward to sexy times in the morning.”

Simon stood on the small pad of concrete that surrounded the Morris Island Lighthouse. The sea loomed just a few feet away, deep and cold.

When it was built, the lighthouse had been reasonably inland, but storms gradually left the tower surrounded by water. The wind buffeted Simon, and he shivered.

“You know what you need to do,” a ghostly voice whispered. “Bring us back to fight the danger.”

“I’m planning to,” Simon told the disembodied voice. “A lot has been forgotten.”

“Remember us, and we will do our duty. We swore a vow that did not end with death.”

Simon woke with a start. Vic mumbled and turned over but didn’t rouse.

I need to see if I can summon the ghosts of the guardians to help. They might not all answer, but if some of them lend their assistance, it will strengthen the new wards.

The next morning, a leisurely round of sixty-nine followed by slow, lingering love-making was well worth the wait. Simon and Vic showered together, not quite ready for round three, but with promises to pick up where they left off once Vic got home from work.

After Vic headed for the station, Simon set his laptop on the kitchen table and pulled up an ensorcelled encrypted video meeting program right in time for his appointment. One by one, Father Anne, Gabriella, and Miss Eppie flickered into view.

“Good morning, everyone! Nice to see you all,” Simon greeted them, raising his coffee cup in a toast.

“Good morning to you, Sebastian,” Miss Eppie replied. “And to everyone.”

“Same,” Father Anne chimed in. “It’s been a hot minute.”

“I swear every day goes faster than the one before it.” Gabriella shook her head.

“Vic and I drove to the South Carolina lighthouses—at least to the ones most likely to have any protective mojo left.” Simongave them a quick recap of their adventure, relating which sites he thought were their best bets for any spellcasting and renewed wardings and which had minimal or no power remaining.

“Well, first off, I envy you the drive,” Father Anne admitted. “It sounds like fun. I hope you got to enjoy yourselves at least a little.”

“There are some mighty fine places to eat on that stretch,” Miss Eppie pointed out. “The view is fantastic, but the crab cakes are even better.”

“Yes to all that,” Gabriella replied. “And now I’m hungry!”

They all laughed, easing the tension that went with the subject matter.

“I looked over the notes and photos you sent me from the lighthouse keeper’s journal.” Father Anne eased into the main topic. “And I found someone who was a direct descendent of the Charleston light’s keeper, who was able to corroborate. So I’m feeling pretty good about the incantation and the general outline of the protections.”

“Four lighthouses that were once operational are now either tourist attractions, converted to houses, or defunct,” Simon added. “Three of them would have access problems if we needed to make regular visits to maintain new wardings. There is a faint hint of energy left on the fourth, but I didn’t know if we needed to include it since the other lighthouses are stronger.”

“Teag Logan has been going over the information you’ve sent him from Vic and Ross,” Father Anne said. “He agrees that it’s likely the troll has been breaking the bargain with the motorcycle gang for quite a while, focusing on taking people who won’t be missed. That means the entity won’t be as weakened as he might have been, so we need to be braced for a more formidable foe. He won’t like being on a diet.”

“Damn,” Simon muttered under his breath. He hadn’t doubted Vic’s research, but this was one time when he had hoped Teag would find a flaw in the data.

“I want to reach out to the ghosts of the lighthouse keepers,” Simon added. “One of them contacted me and wanted to be involved. I think for some of them, the protective wardings were considered almost a holy obligation.”

“That makes sense,” Father Anne agreed. “Even though most of the keepers had families, it was a semi-monastic life, and it took a person with a highly protective nature to deal with the hardships.”

“I can’t imagine how it was in the days before phones and computers,” Miss Eppie said. “They might have had radios and telegraphs, but they didn’t get back to shore often. I imagine they read a whole lot of books.”

“It raises the question of whether someone in the know chose keepers who had at least some supernatural abilities,” Simon mused. “They also needed to be open-minded enough to be willing to work the protective wardings and not freak out over it being magic.”

“Oh, I imagine a bit of psychic know-how went into it,” Gabriella agreed. “Certainly didn’t end up that way by accident. It also meant that someone at the Coast Guard must have known, since they were in charge of the lighthouses.”

“Technology and cost-cutting led to automating the locations, but I wonder if a change in the people in charge also meant that the new bosses either didn’t know or didn’t believe in the supernatural protections, so they weren’t worried about what happened when there wasn’t anyone to carry on,” Simon replied.

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