Highway to Hell

by Rosemary Clement-Moore

Overview

Maggie Quinn was expecting to find plenty of trouble with Lisa over Spring Break. Destination: South Padre Island! Give a girl a bikini, a beachfront hotel, and an absent boyfriend, and it’s as good as a road map to the dark side. And Maggie and Lisa plan to enjoy every bit of it--just like nice, normal college freshmen. Fire, brimstone, and demonic sorority girls: these ladies are officially off the clock.
   But Maggie doesn’t have to go looking for trouble. Trouble has started looking for her. One dead cow and a punctured gas tank later, she and Lisa are stuck in Dulcina, Texas—a town so small that it has an owner. And--you guessed it--lately life in this small town hasn’t been all that peaceful. An eerie predator is stalking the ranchland. Cattle are dying mysteriously, with strange bite marks on their hides. And judging by the rising body count, whatever's doing the killing is getting bolder by the day.
   Everyone in town has a theory, but not even Maggie’s psychic mojo can provide any answers. And the longer the girls are stranded, the more obvious it becomes that something is seriously wrong. Only no one—not even Maggie’s closest ally—wants to admit that they could have been forced on a detour down the highway to hell.
   It looks like fighting evil isn'at a job with vacation time.

"A first-rate mystery."--School Library Journal


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780375891939
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	07/08/2019
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	14 Years

About the Author

ROSEMARY CLEMENT-MOORE is also the author of Prom Dates from Hell, Hell Week, The Splendor Falls, Texas Gothic, and Spirit and Dust. She grew up on a ranch in south Texas and now lives and writes in Arlington, Texas. You can visit her at ReadRosemary.com or follow her on Twitter @rclementmoore.


From the Hardcover edition.

Read an Excerpt

Some people think that Texas has only one season, that it's summer all year long. In fact, the Lone Star State does have four seasons: Hot, Humid, Horrible, and Hellacious. But when I decided to road-trip with D&D Lisa to South Padre Island, I didn't think that last one would be so literal.

I shouldn't have been surprised. I'm Maggie Quinn: Psychic Girl Detective. Lisa is an amateur sorcerer. We aren't exactly normal college freshmen. Yet there we were, doing the normal college thing, setting off on a Rite of Passage: Spring Break at the Beach.

An odd choice, since I hate any water deeper than a bathtub, I already have a boyfriend, and if you couldn't tell from her nickname, D&D Lisa isn't the beer and boobfest type. Neither am I. But we'd wanted to take a road trip, and the destination had started as a joke. Then I pitched an article to the editor of the Bedivere University newspaper-who seemed amused by the whole World's Least Likely Spring Breakers angle-and to my surprise, Lisa went along with it.

In the end, our reasons don't matter, except to explain how we came to be cruising down State Highway 77 in the smallest hour of the morning, even though we knew-better than most-what kinds of things go bump in the night.

I flexed my hands on the Jeep's steering wheel and sank lower into the seat. It was a long drive, which hadn't seemed so daunting until I realized how much of it was through landscape so desolately featureless, it made me think Dante must have visited here before he wrote The Inferno.

“If I owned Hell and Texas, I'd rent out Texas and live in Hell.”

Lisa paused in fiddling with the radio. “What's that about?”

I shrugged. “Something I read once. Like . . . Did you know Velasquez County has more cows than people in it?”

There was just enough light from the dashboard to see her roll her eyes. “Remind me to never go up against you on Jeopardy!”

Under a nearly full moon, the coastal plain was as flat as a silver-gray sea, cut by a black ribbon of highway and a smaller thread of railroad tracks running alongside. Now and then we'd reach a crossroads, where there might be a grain silo, a water tower, or a tiny fruit stand, deserted for the night and only adding to the barren atmosphere.

It seemed like there should be more traffic-other spring breakers, semis on their NAFTA routes, minivans loaded up like the Griswolds' station wagon in Vacation-but since we'd passed Corpus Christi, the signs of civilization had dwindled to zero. We'd passed the last minimart an hour ago, and with nothing on the horizon but more road-and eventually Mexico-I was beginning to regret the twelve ounces of Coke I'd downed to keep alert in the unrelieved boredom.

“You didn't have to come with me,” I pointed out.

Lisa had given up on the radio and plugged my iPod into the adaptor. “Is it so weird to want to do something normal?”

I glanced at her silhouette, arching my brows wryly. “For you? Yes.”

“I'm taking a break from my sorcerous studies. It will be just like the old days, except that instead of sitting around in the caf mocking the jock-headed and lame, we'll be sitting on the sand mocking the drunk, sunburnt, and slutty.” She bent her long, denim-clad leg to an impossible angle and propped her foot on the dash. “Besides, I'm ahead on all my coursework, so what else am I going to do? Sit around and play World of Warcraft all week?”

Our friendship had endured four years of high school, freshman semesters spent at colleges half a country apart-not to mention the forces of darkness. In the past year, one of us had summoned a demon, one of us had vanquished it, and our friendship had nearly fallen apart. Then we'd had to team up to defeat a sorority who had the devil on speed dial. Lisa had saved my life, which went a long way toward reestablishing trust between us.

That's a grossly abbreviated summary of events, of course. The important thing is, Lisa isn't a bad person, though she sometimes thinks she is. Really she's just . . . complicated. Which I guess you would have to be to summon a demon, even sort of unintentionally, in the first place.
So I could see her wanting a break from that for a week. As for myself, a feature article for Bedivere U's Daily Report was just an excuse. My real reason was tiny, pink, colicky, and possessed of a wail like an air-defense siren.

I'd been an only child for eighteen years, and while I didn't mind sharing the bright center of my parents' universe, I'd been completely unprepared for the disruption that my infant sister brought to the house. Lately I spent long hours away on campus, or at my boyfriend's apartment. But with school out for the week, and Justin going out of town, too, I was at loose ends. I would have jumped at a chance for a trip to the moon.

Lisa clicked through my playlists, looking dissatisfied with the selection. “You're going to have fun this week, right?”

I glanced at her doubtfully. “Surrounded by the drunk and disorderly? We are going to study the natives, not to become them.”

“Which does not preclude having a good time. You're not going to be all goody-two-shoes?”

“What does that mean?” Since I had already taken the unprecedented step of lying to my parents about our departure time in order to avoid the “Two girls driving alone at night” speech, I really didn't appreciate being called a killjoy.

“Don't get pissy. I just don't want you to mope around because Sir Galahad isn't there.”

“Sir Galahad” is my boyfriend, Justin. He and Lisa had started off on a bad foot, though they've since reached a kind of détente. Lisa, in her D&D terminology, says that Justin is a Lawful Good Paladin. She doesn't always mean it as a compliment, but it's absolutely true, so it's hard to take offense.

“Just because I have a boyfriend doesn't mean I require a guy to be happy. And if I ever do, just shoot me.” Needling me was Lisa's way of breaking up the monotony of the drive, but that didn't stop me from getting defensive. “Besides, it's good to have some time apart.”

“You're sure?” She prodded me like a bug under a microscope. “It doesn't irk you he's spending the week with this buddy of his?”

The only thing more provoking than Lisa in a good mood was Lisa in the throes of boredom. “Why should it irk me?”

“It's your first school break as a couple.” She was fishing, and I was determined not to take that bait.

“Henry's been his best friend since forever. They're going to hang out and do guy stuff. It's not any different than you and I going off to do girl stuff.” I shot her a look.
“Not that I can remember why that seemed like a good idea.”

“Because we're best friends.” Lisa unplugged my iPod and replaced it with hers. The screen cast her face in a cool glow, at odds with her devilish smile. “And when I take over the world, I'll appoint you to a place of distinction in my Council of Evil.”

“Can't wait.”

From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

The mysterious forces of Good and Evil come together for another throwdown and it's a lucky thing that Maggie is leading Team Good. The college freshman and her best friend, Lisa, are working on a new rite of passage into adulthood with a road trip to a beach for spring break. On the way to South Padre Island, the girls hit literal and metaphysical obstacles that prevent them from leaving Dulcina, a little town in the middle of nowhere Texas. Something is killing the livestock. A small faction says coyote have been driven to kill bigger prey than usual, but a more vocal group is naming it el chupacabra. Lisa's potential crush, Zeke Velasquez, might belong to the most powerful family of Velasquez County, but his refusal to consider a supernatural predator may be endangering everyone. Soon Justin arrives bringing his best friend and future priest, Henry, to even the odds of survival for the side of Good. Using local mojo, religious faith, and Maggie's gifts, the Evil One should be headed down for the count. As Maggie's abilities develop, the opposing forces also seem to be getting stronger. It is great to witness her confidence grow, sending a subtle message to the reader about the strength of believing in oneself. Although there is more action, adventure, and suspense than in the two previous books about Maggie Quinn, the friendships and budding romances remain equally important. It is difficult to imagine teens who have enjoyed Charmed, Buffy, or the Twilight books not loving this series. Reviewer: Stacey Hayman

VOYA - Stacey Hayman

This novel is the third in a series apparently subtitled "Maggie Quinn: Girl vs. Evil." Maggie and her best friend Lisa seem to find demons to conquer everywhere. It's good that they have discovered that pure ocean salt will defeat a demon every time and that they tend to land in places (such as the middle of Texas on their way to spring break) where such salt is readily available. Maggie and Lisa are driving through Texas on their way to South Padre Island. Maggie is on a research assignment as she is also an intrepid girl reporter for her college newspaper, and Lisa has come along for the ride. Naturally, Maggie's ever-reliable Jeep breaks down in a remote town owned by a single family where cattle are mysteriously being killed by some animal that is not a wolf or a dog, but bigger and apparently self-regenerating. The girls take a room in the town's only motel, encountering handsome young cowboys, gossipy town mavens, and a strange Senora with psychic powers who never leaves the ranch. Ultimately, Maggie and Lisa must call upon Maggie's boyfriend (also a demon fighter as well as a demon researcher), the grandson of the mysterious Senora, and a would-be priest to fight off evil. This may be good escape literature for girls twelve to fourteen, but it can be scary, too. Good always ultimately wins over evil and it seems God is on Maggie and Lisa's side, but the source of demons and the theology thereof is a tossed salad of European and South American folklore, voodoo, demonology, and, apparently, Catholicism. The writing is witty, the plot engaging, and the philosophical underpinnings murky enough that it can be read as just another adventure for two high-spirited girls on the road.Reviewer: Myrna Dee Marler

Children's Literature - Myrna Dee Marler

Gr 7 Up

Maggie Quinn has psychic ability and a history of fighting demons and other evil manifestations, as proven in Hell Week (2008) and Prom Dates from Hell (2007, both Delacorte). She and her D&D-loving friend Lisa, who is a practitioner of spells and magic, are on a spring-break trip to south Texas when their jeep slams into a slaughtered cow on the highway. Stranded in a small town while the vehicle is being repaired, they meet many of the locals, some of whom are convinced that el chupacabra , a legendary evil creature, has been released from the underground and is killing their livestock. Doña Isabel, the wealthy matriarch of the area, seems to know something, but isn't talking; her handsome grandson, Zeke, does not believe in "Ol' Chupy," but he is forced to face the truth when humans as well as cattle are attacked by the demon creature. Maggie and Lisa are highly likable and genuine college freshmen, and when they spring into action against the terrifying creature, the adventure really takes off. The background information on the evil being is logical and believable, and the two belief systems of Catholicism and Hispanic magical culture sustain a respectful coexistence. This story flows quickly with thrills, chills, and a first-rate mystery.-Jake Pettit, Thompson Valley High School, Loveland, CO

School Library Journal