There was a small chant and then Joe drove the palm of his hand into Larsson’s head. She fell backward, rapidly shifting back into human form, leaving behind a ghostly visage of something that was all teeth and anger. Almost immediately it tried to bite at Joe, but he just batted it aside with the back of his hand, causing it to blow into wisps and disappear in the wind. With a ceremonial tone Joe decreed, “The deal is concluded.” And then, with a satisfied smile, Joe trudged over to Storm Before the Calm, dragging stray body parts in his wake. Joe amusedly met SBtC’s eyes and swung his arm wide, motioning back towards Larsson.
“I would like to pay my debt to you, incurred from your assistance in killing a Craven One, by ensuring that your Alpha is at her strongest for the challenge against her rival. She’ll have no Wendigo spirit in her body and her arm will grow back at least as strong as it once was. Do you accept?” SBtC looked at Larsson’s body, as whole and unmarred as we had ever seen it and nodded.
“The deal is concluded,” Joe stated in a ceremonial tone, before turning to walk away.
“Wait a second, what about us!” McCoy yelled.
As one, the thousands of crow eyes turned to us and glared. I wanted to turn and run, but there was nowhere free from their eyes. Joe’s body turned in parts to face us, before striding right up to us, his feet cracking the ground as he walked, his face grim. I gulped, but McCoy was standing her ground, so I did too.
When he inches away, she started speaking. “I would like to consider our debt to you paid, incurred from your assistance in killing a Craven One, by virtue of us also assisting in killing a Craven One. Do you accept?”
A slight smile of amusement cracked Joe’s face. It might’ve been comforting to some, but all I could think about is that those teeth had been used to rip apart human flesh. “Someone's trained you properly,” he commented, “You are wise to ask.”
McCoy didn’t blink, but simply reiterated, “Do you accept?”
Joe’s smile widened even further, “Yes, I accept.”
To which McCoy responded, face still blank but affecting a similar ceremonial tone, “The deal is concluded.”
Joe tilted his head, clearly amused and then turned to Carlson who had found his feet despite the pile of vomit. There was an awkward moment of Joe staring at Carlson and Carlson trying not look at Joe and thus have to see the pile of gore behind him.
Carlson broke first, “Good evening, uh, sir.”
Joe just shook his head, voice honied again, “Oh, just call me Joe.”
Carlson took a look at the gore that Crow Killer Joe had walked through and his cheery smile and nodded, not willing to argue. Joe asked, “I would like to pay my debt to you, incurred from your assistance in killing a Craven one, by a token of favor. Do you accept?”
Carlson cast a wary eye over at us. I had no idea what to do here, but McCoy fiercely nodded. Carlson nodded, “Uh, yes, I accept.”
Joe handed him a single black feather, voice slipping once again from honied to ceremonial “The deal is concluded.”
Immediately, there was a storm of crows beating their wings as they took flight simultaneously, we all ducked, despite our best efforts, and when we looked back up, the crows and Joe were gone. I eyed McCoy, “How did you know that we owed him a debt at all?”
She shrugged, moving towards Larsson’s unconscious body. “Same way I know how to talk to Vampires and decipher their doublespeak.”
I considered that for half a second before realizing she had skirted the question. “That’s not an answer,” I yelled after her as the sirens started to approach in the distance.
I heard her laugh a little, “No, it is an answer. It’s just not an answer that satisfies you.” Before I could continue, she was offering her hand to a stirring Larsson, talking with her politely, “You best get out of here, lest it officially look like you were colluding with the police.”
Larsson took her hand and was pulled up. “I suppose we should. Thank you all.”
I waved, “No, thank you. Couldn’t have done this without you.”
She smiled, and motioned to two followers, “Well, perhaps we’ll have to work together again in the future.”
Storm Before the Calm nodded along, “Yes, that would be desirable. It is good to see unawakened who aren’t complete morons.”
I hung my head and pinched my nose. “It was meant as a compliment,” I thought to myself, “He’s just really bad at compliments.” To my right, McCoy chuckled, before saying aloud, “Safe travels everyone.”
The air hummed around the werewolves, causing them to blur around the edges, and then start being transparent. After a few seconds, they were gone, leaving us alone with the mountain of carnage and lake of blood.
“So, now what?” Carlson asked.
I motioned towards the flashing lights in the distance, “We sit around for the next few hours, alternating between giving orders, being debriefed, and waiting for someone to come collect the evidence.”
“And then we drink,” McCoy added, “To celebrate we’re alive.”
“And so, I can dream without remembering that,” I added waving at the carnage.
Carlson hazarded a glance at the devastation again, “Yeah, I could go for a drink.”
Epilogue
Movie Night
That night went much as we expected, but what I didn’t expect was the horde of media attention that we got. Apparently, ‘Morbid Mountains of Mutilated Corpses’ was sensation worthy news. The MCD got a lot of credit for dealing with the menace, and several Chicago Aldermen, including Trevor Lockwood and Michelle Fererick[139], lauded us as heroes and advocated for more support for our program. Which led to us getting publicly recognized by the mayor. Slate did the talking for that event, thank god.
However, the popularity spike also led to a dramatic increase in workload. I spent my days traveling all over the city dealing with every single event that may or may not have been metahuman related and answering a few questions for reporters. Spare time was at a premium, but when the buzz died down, it was time for a proper celebration.
I managed to find McCoy late one Thursday afternoon. She had spent most of the day dealing with reports of what seemed to be tiny faeries causing trouble around the University of Chicago campus and was in a horrifically foul mood. Thankfully, I had thought ahead. I knocked on her office door and stuck a plate with a donut into the room before entering myself. There was a shuffle, a snatch, and I heard her say with a stuffed mouth, “What do you want?”
I poked my head in and saw that the donut had already disappeared in its entirety. “We’re having a movie double feature Saturday night. Terminator 1 and 2 at Miles’ place to celebrate living. You wanna come?”
She choked on her donut, probably in surprise, and I sat there mildly amused as she alternated between struggling to say yes and coughing up donut. After a few moments, she found the water on her desk, washed the donut down, and glared at me.
“Ass,” she stated.
I smiled wider, but didn’t argue. “Starts at 7 pm. I’ll text you the address,” I said, producing another donut from behind my back.
She took that one too and then slammed the door in my face.
“Bring something to share!” I yelled through the door.
✽✽✽
I spent most of Saturday helping Miles out with some research. Apparently, there had been an incident in Prague where someone with gifts needed to be defibrillated and their powers automatically kicked on as a defense mechanism. Unfortunately for the doctors, their powers dealt with magnetism, and turning those powers on had fried the room as they produced enough magnetic force to burn out the electronic devices and send various medical supplies flying to all corners of the room. Miles had gotten the idea about somehow triggering Carla’s own healing powers on herself through a similar process in the hopes of helping her wake up. I was the guinea pig.
“Son of a bitch,” I said for at least the fiftieth time that day. Miles looked studious. The
first time I had fallen over after getting shocked, he nearly had a heart attack and insisted we stop the entire thing off and stop out of concern for my health. I didn’t have the heart at the time to tell him that it was half surprise that I had actually felt something, and had foolishly insisted we continue.[140] Now, even though my responses were getting more severe, Miles had been desensitized. He started setting up another run, ignoring the fact that my arm was still slightly spasming. Desperate for relief, I looked towards the oven. 6:45, people would be showing up soon.
“Hey, not that I don’t love this entire thing, but should we wrap it up for the night?”
There was a methodical pause as he placed the paddles back in their recesses and checked his watch. “Didn’t realize it was getting so late,” he murmured.
“I guess time flies when you’re frying people,” I jested, trying to pull myself back onto the stool. For the first time in a few hours, concern crossed his face. I worked quickly to squash it, “What, I’m not allowed to make jokes about becoming a….” I sputtered, “I got nothing.”
Miles smiled slightly, “Guess that electricity is really getting to you. Best we rest. Pick this up next week?”
I paused, before nodding, “Yeah, let’s crack this thing.”
Miles nodded resolutely and went about packing away the defibrillator and other medical supplies. I managed to plant myself on the stool, and while I wasn’t exactly thrilled at letting him do all the cleaning, my legs insisted. Still, it was painfully quiet, so I decided to fill the void with a question that had been nagging at me.
“Hey Miles,” I asked shakingly.
“Hrmm?” he asked distractedly.
“When we were in the shade, you told me that I had wings and more. What did you mean by more?”
There was a pause as he stopped cleaning up the wires and looked at me, clearly weighing his words. For someone else, I might’ve been worried about them trying to spare my feelings, but I knew Miles. This was him trying to find the right words to paint an accurate picture of what he saw.
“They weren’t really wings. At least not what we typically think of as wings. They were more a multitude of disparately sized ethereal arms and hands woven together in the semblance of wings?” he tried before shaking his head slightly, not entirely happy with his descriptor.
“Oh?” I managed, not entirely sure what to make of that and struggling to imagine.
He grimaced slightly, looking for clarifying words. “Like, if you weren’t paying attention it was definitely wings without any notable features. But the closer you looked the more arms you could see until they didn’t look like wings anymore, just entwined limbs coming from a central point. Kinda like one of those many armed Hindu gods?” There was a pause before he added, “Wearing a tactical vest and jeans, which if anything made the entire thing more surreal.”
I shot him a disbelieving glance. “What?” he asked defensively, “It was a really odd juxtaposition. I was expecting robes.”
I didn’t know what to say after that, so we sat in silence trying to internalize the wildly incongruous image. Eventually, our reverie was broken by the doorbell. He took a look at the half-cleaned supplies. “Grab the door while I tidy up?” he asked, motioning towards the door with his head.
“Sure thing,” I said, reluctantly standing up.
It wasn’t an easy walk. My legs shook and it took far too much energy to make sure I moved in a straight line. I spent too much brain power focusing on each step and hoping a random spasm didn’t send me to the floor. When I reached the door, I leaned against the wall, buzzed people in, and waited, not trusting myself to move. I took a few deep breaths and let my healing do its job. After a few seconds, I heard voices in the hallway, which meant that Jacob and McCoy had probably carpooled. I readied myself, so that right when they knocked, I swung the door open, putting me face to face with Lindsey Niccols. I, the embodiment of grace and poise, greeted them with a hearty, “Good Even-I wasn’t expecting you.”
McCoy laughed and pushed past us with three cases of beer piled high, “Good even-i to you too. I was at the morgue and we got to talking about how the case wrapped up and she mentioned she had Saturday night off, and I invited her. Hope no one minds.” I turned to catch her face, and she just winked at me.
I wanted to hug and strangle her at the same time.
“I can leave if you want,” Lindsey commented from the doorway.
My mind rebooted, “No, no, no, no, no, no. Just caught me by surprise is all.”
“Six nos of surprise even,” Lindsey quipped with a slight blush and smile, before asking “Bathroom?”
I blushed slightly and moved out of the way so she could come in and pointed her towards the bathroom.
McCoy sidled up to me as she walked out of the room. I looked her dead in the eye and declared, in the same tone she had with me Thursday morning, “Ass.”
She chuckled, “Carlson dipped out at the last minute chasing a lead on the leak and I figured payback was in order. Although, she seemed reluctant to show up until I mentioned you’d be here.”
“Oh?”
McCoy waggled her eyebrows at me.
I suddenly felt like a flea confronted with a human’s shoe, insignificant and at great risk of something catastrophic happening. “Oh,” I managed to whisper.
Thankfully, Jacob showed up with his girlfriend, Quinn Michaelis, and was promptly swarmed by people who wanted to meet her, saving me from everyone noticing my blush.[141]
Eventually, it came time for the movies to start. Jacob and Michaelis had claimed the loveseat very early on, by the din of being a couple, leaving the rest of us to fight over the remaining seats. McCoy had grabbed a stool so that she wouldn’t have to maneuver around the lovebirds’ tangle of booted feet and Miles grabbed the opposite end of the sofa, leaving just enough room for Lindsey and me to sit next to each other. I suspected Miles and McCoy were conspiring at this point, but I didn’t mind. Miles brought out a giant bowl of popcorn, McCoy passed around booze, and we sat back and enjoyed the show.
✽✽✽
Four and half glorious hours later[142], the credits rolled on Terminator 2 and we broke off into smaller groups. We were all slightly inebriated, McCoy and Jacob more than the rest of us. Lindsey and Michaelis[143] were discussing something. Apparently, Michaelis was getting her doctorate from UIUC where Lindsey had done her undergraduate work, which meant they had quickly bonded over something called ‘Unofficial’ and had then burrowed themselves in private talk for the majority of the post cinema evening. I wasn’t sure what they were talking about since McCoy, who had polished off both the expensive beers I had bought her as a thank you and one of the cases she had brought on her own, was loudly arguing that Voigt would’ve handily beaten a T-800 in a fight.
“Just look at body count. Voigt killed more and tougher than the T-800. Plus, he isn’t programmable, which means he isn’t hackable,” McCoy loudly advocated.
Miles chimed in, playing the part of devil’s advocate and loving it immensely, “I think it depends on how many people Voigt had eaten.”
Jacob was in the pro-Terminator camp and thus the brunt of McCoy’s ire. The poor bastard. “The number would be irrelevant. The Arnoldator is coming from the future, where they’d have access to our full case files, including how we took down Voigt. Superior information and tactics beats raw power any day.”
“Well you’re just all kinds of fucking wrong. Firstly, if we’re talking prep time, Voigt was an electrical engineer. We could’ve rigged an electromagnet or something. Secondly, without prep time, raw power will win,” McCoy retorted.
“No, cleverness wins. Take a look at the Spartans and you…”
“PREP TIME,” McCoy bellowed, cutting them off, “THE SPARTANS HAD PREP TIME WHERE THEY CHOSE THEIR BATTLEGROUND!”
Lindsey caught my eye, and I motioned for the door. She politely disengaged from the short co-ed and met up with me.
“Making friends?” I asked with a
teasing tone.
“Maybe,” she said, sliding into her coat. “She’s slightly socially awkward.”
“Aren’t all computer people like that?” I asked, sliding my shoes on.
“Maybe, but she seems exceptionally off. Plus, she’s really far away going to school in Champaign.”
I snorted dismissively, “You’re making excuses now.”
She laughed slightly, warming the atmosphere and my heart several degrees, “I suppose I am. We exchanged phone numbers. Next time she comes up for a visit, we’ll try and set something up.”
We slid out the door, heading into the chilly autumn air. She leaned into me and without thought I put my arm around her. It felt right. I soaked in the moment as we walked through the Chicago night.
However, all good things must end. McCoy’s insinuations started ringing through my head. I looked over at Lindsey and caught her smiling. Emboldened, I broke the silence.
“Hey Lindsey?” I asked cautiously.
“Mmmmm?” she responded throatily.
“Would you like to go out to dinner and show with me next weekend?”
She stopped, standing up, curiosity sprinkling her eyes, “Are you asking me out on a date?”
Crap. I screwed up. McCoy lied, abort, abort, “Yes.” Fuck, why did I say that. Stupid mouth.
She shook her head, a smile growing on her face, “Well, so much for me asking you out.”
My brain spun. So many questions and implications. “Huh?” I managed.
“I got tired of being old-fashioned and waiting for you to ask me on a date, so I was going to ask you out. You beat me to the punch by like five seconds.”
I stood flabbergasted for the five seconds she would’ve needed. It wasn't supposed to be that easy. Eventually, I found my voice and asked, “So, that's a yes to next Saturday?”
Her smile fully blossomed as she almost tackled me, arms wrapping around, and squeezing me in my hug. Nuzzled in my chest, she spoke. Her voice was probably muffled, but I could hear every word, “Of course it's a yes.”
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