by C. T. Phipps
Yolanda let out a gallows laugh. “He thought we were serial killers.”
“Weren’t you?” I asked.
“How many monsters have you slain?” Larry asked from the back.
I didn’t have an answer for that. “Yeah, well, I try to kill things because of what they do rather than what they are.”
“Power doesn’t corrupt,” Yolanda said, frowning. “Power reveals corruption. That was what Alex said to us.”
“I think that’s from Dune. Wait, no, that was power attracts the corrupt.” I said, remembering the latter books that involved sex ninjas and Duncan Idaho defeating them with the power of his penis. Yeah, that was weird.
“Knowledge is power, power corrupts, therefore knowledge corrupts,” Robyn said. “Which is why everyone in America should remain as stupid as possible.”
“We’re doing a good job of that,” Emma muttered.
Yes, she voted for the other guy last election.
“Oh shush, you,” I said, snorting. “By the way, you’re a goddess.”
“Huh?” Robyn said.
“Demigoddess like Hercules and Gilgamesh,” I said, shrugging. “I was trying to figure out a way to break it to you gently, but we’re kind of on a time schedule here. I don’t know what that means exactly, but I suppose you can open shopping malls and officiate weddings.”
“Maybe she can perform exorcisms,” Emma suggested. “The Power of Robyn compels you.”
“Don’t be like Alex,” I said, amused more than annoyed. “I remember him discussing the Gospel of Batman.”
“No, that would be Robin,” Robyn said. “The letters i-n ending versus y-n. In any case, I don’t believe in gods so that’s just silly.”
“Do you believe in spirits?” I asked.
“No,” Robyn said, crossing her arms.
“Yet you believe in magic and fairies,” I said, trying to get her beliefs straight.
“Yes,” Robyn said. “Also aliens. That’s in addition to all the supernaturals I can see and talk to.”
This was going to be harder than I thought. Also, who the hell believed in aliens? That was ridiculous. “So, Yolanda, Alex found your trail of murdered supernaturals and was going to kill you but decided it was better to spare your life.”
“Yes,” Yolanda said, looking out the window. “Since that time he’s been directing us to the worst of the supernaturals he can find that the FBI can’t touch.”
“Wow, that’s all sorts of awful,” Robyn said, pausing. “Except, well, the vampires really are murdering hundreds of people every year and covering it up so no, forget I said anything.”
I told him to eliminate them both, Raguel said. I considered them too consumed with hatred to ever be anything more.
And now? I asked.
Everyone is entitled to be wrong once. I’ve only been wrong three times so far.
In all of eternity? I asked.
Yes.
“Well, I’m going to take a big risk in trusting you,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Because this is an all-hands-on-deck emergency if we have to bust Alex out.”
“Are we?” Robyn asked. “Can’t he just brain-zap people in letting him go? That’s what Dr. Jones does.”
Larry surprised me by speaking first. “Alex can’t do that kind of magic. Near as I can tell, what you can do is determined by your personality. Mind-control requires someone who views people as objects and has the willingness to warp someone’s soul, as what we believe and decide is our fundamental nature.”
“Well I can do it if he can’t,” Robyn said. “As long as they’re at least semi-attracted to girls.”
“If they’re not?” Emma asked.
“I’ll try harder,” Robyn said.
I tried not to imagine kissing Robyn but did anyway, which I chalked up to her nature-given sexiness powers. Yeah, that was it.
“Well, I’m willing to help you, Deer-Girl, but I’m going to need something in return,” Yolanda said, her voice taking on a cold and downcast voice. “A favor.”
“Yeah, sure, anything, I promise,” I said, pausing at a stoplight and not paying too much attention.
Emma and Robyn stared at me, which I saw in my rearview mirror.
I blinked before banging my head against the steering wheel. “Idiot!”
Yolanda looked confused. “Is something wrong?”
“Please don’t ask me to kill the Pope,” I said.
“I…won’t?” Yolanda said, now even more confused.
Larry laughed in the back.
“Just how many promises did you break before realizing they were important?” Emma asked, shaking her head.
“I plead the fifth,” I said, sighing. “The important thing is that I don’t start breaking them now.”
“Eh, promises are made to be broken,” Robyn said, stretching her arms about and putting them behind her head. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“A giant deer god eats me,” I said, making a note how I’d started dealing with much bigger spirits than I ever used to. “Call it an alien if it helps.”
“She’s killed a couple of god aliens before,” Emma said, stretching out her hand before closing four of her fingers. “Pinky swear.”
Robyn looked between us and I wondered if she was going to unbuckle her seatbelt and make a dash out the door. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“That’s why promises are important,” I said, sighing. “It’s also why spirits don’t deal with humans very often. We’re a race of lying liars who lie.”
Not that they were much better. They could tell you the absolute truth and deceive you. They could also just lie and it would be up to the human to prove it. They were much like politicians in that respect.
The Millennium Falcon pulled into Southtown roughly around this time. Southtown was the aforementioned “uncool crappy part of town.” It was about fifteen different diners that served food that could only be eaten with maple syrup, six hardware stores, a few tractor supplies, and numerous cheap hotels that all had trees as the theme.
It would be the kind of solid working-class environment you could raise your kids in if not for the fact that it was also a place utterly soaked in drugs, penny-ante prostitution, and the human population of the town that considered the shapechanger population to be interlopers. You know, despite the shapechangers and their relatives having been here for three hundred years. Still, because of the Deerlightful’s present state of danger, I was feeling charitable.
“You know, this is why we need to fight against Alice and Dr. Jones,” I said, looking around at the various hundred pickup trucks and jeeps that seemed to be the only cars available.
“So our town can look like a flannel convention?” Emma asked, looking around. “Which, admittedly, it already does.”
“No,” I said, completely changing subjects. “To keep the heart and soul of Bright Falls from greedy developers and people who would kill the local forest goddesses so they can fulfill promises made in haste.”
“I didn’t ask you to kill any forest goddesses,” Yolanda said, more confused now than ever.
“Not you,” Robyn said, rolling her eyes. Clearly she was a lot more on the ball than I’d hoped her to be.
“This is America, goshdarnit,” I said, not wanting to invoke any specific gods. “It’s my job as the shaman to protect the environment and the people who make their living from it! The people who made this country great!”
That was when a jeep full of drunk teenage boys all wearing shirts with the Confederate flag on it passed by, yelling sexual epithets at us.
Yolanda turned and looked at me.
I watched them drive away, not stopping for the red light. “Michigan fought for the Union.”
“Please don’t go John Mellancamp on us, Jane,” Emma said.
I grumbled. “I just want my parents’ damn diner. Is that so wrong?”
“Are you as lost as I am?” Yolanda said, looking back at Larry.
“I h
aven’t a clue about half of what she’s saying,” Larry said, chuckling.
“Good, then it’s not just me,” Yolanda said.
Robyn frowned. “Listen, Jane, if you don’t want me to kill my baby-murdering parents then that’s your business.”
“No, I’m totally against baby murder,” I said, clenching my teeth. “It’s just a lot more complicated than that.”
“I’ve had a baby,” Robyn said, her voice firm. “It’s really not. I could have left my child to die but I didn’t, because I’m not a monster. My mother did, multiple times, and that’s why she has to be destroyed. If she didn’t want to have me, she shouldn’t have, but she did and that’s a promise. At least not to throw me away along with my siblings like garbage.”
It was hard to argue with that logic. “I’ll tell you everything I’ve learned after we take care of this business with Alex and you can decide.”
“So is Gerald Pasteur the vampire really your baby’s father?” Larry asked, curious. I was glad for the interruption. “Dhampir children have special needs.”
“No,” Robyn said. “Gerald just helped me raise him for a few months. Sparrow is as human as I am, which is apparently not as human as I thought.”
“And Gerald is what, then?” I asked, actually curious. “Just your ex-boyfriend?”
“Yeah,” Robyn said, sighing. “Sort of. He was one of the few people who ever treated me as something worthwhile.”
“Vampires only possess, they never love,” Larry said.
“And I suppose you know this from experience?” Robyn asked.
“Yes,” Larry said, crossing his arms. “It’s not me trying to say all of them are evil. It’s just that when you gain the power to control men’s minds and live forever, it’s impossible to keep seeing people as equals. Love is something that needs to be between equals.”
“That’s a very sweet sentiment coming from someone who used to murder people because they’re magical,” Emma said.
“Thank you,” Larry said, not missing a beat. “Though for me, it was because when I lost what I loved, the only thing I could fill it with was hate. Yolanda knows what it’s like to be hollowed out like that.”
By the way Larry was speaking, it was clear his feelings for Yolanda were more than just professional. I wondered if he’d gotten into hunting just because she was into it. Then again, maybe I was misreading the situation completely. They could be married for all I knew and I could be imagining a great unrequited love on his part.
I doubted that. Hunters tended to be single men and women or passed down from parent to child. There was something about the profession that required a lone-wolf mentality. I hadn’t actually met any other hunters before now but it wasn’t like TIME hadn’t published plenty of articles about monsters as well as the people who slayed them.
The Lumberjack Inn wasn’t difficult to find, as it had a twenty-five-foot-tall Paul Bunyan statue in front of it that probably cost more than the hotel itself. It was originally an okay place to stay according to my dad, but the years hadn’t been kind to it and was now more the kind of place that charged by the hour. That didn’t seem to be the case now since it was packed with cars and vans marked with the Ultralogy sigil (a blue tree and a white deer in front of it—which offended me on multiple levels). There were also a number of police cars, including the sheriff’s own, that made me think Alex was in deep trouble.
“Yo, supernatural hitmen,” Robyn said, as we pulled into the parking lot of the gas station across the street.
“You mean us?” Yolanda said.
“Yeah,” Robyn said, taking a deep breath. “Just so we’re clear, I’m like super-important to these guys, so please kill anyone who tries to kidnap me. Cool?”
Yolanda glared back at her.
“Will do,” Larry said. “Scout’s honor.”
I took a deep breath. “You stay here, Robyn. Emma and I will go across the street to see about Alex.”
“We will?” Emma asked. “But what if we need to break out Alex like Robyn said?”
“Then they’ll hear gunfire.”
This is why I like you, Raguel said before letting forth an deep, booming laugh.
Chapter Fourteen
I decided to take my walking stick with me despite the fact that it felt like all of the magic I’d poured into it had dribbled out. It was supposed to have stored spells in glyphs I’d copied from a book. Spells that would let me hurl wind and fire at my enemies. Now it felt like a stick I’d bought from the hardware store. That was disappointing. Still, one should never underestimate the intimidation value of people thinking you were a wizard.
Walking over to the Lumberjack Inn with Emma, I couldn’t help but have my attention go to all the construction going on over the railway tracks. The Deerlightful wasn’t in Southtown, being part of North Row (wow, our tiny town had a lot of districts), but it wasn’t that far from our present location.
“I feel like Biff Tannen has bought our town and is turning it into that bad timeline from Back to the Future Part II.”
“Wouldn’t that make Lucien into Biff?” Emma asked.
“Hush you,” I said, frowning. “I was referring to your sister.”
“I know you were, but my family isn’t the Mr. Potters of the town,” Emma said, looking both ways with me before we crossed the street. “That was just my grandfather. Alice wants Bright Falls to be a safe haven for shapechangers around the country. A place we can live in peace away from all the people who’d want to do us harm.”
“You’ll forgive me if I missed the part about blackjack and hookers in building the Promised Land.”
“Yeah, she’s not exactly Moses either,” Emma grumbled. “However, we have to take what we can get.”
“What does the rest of your family think of all this?” I asked, thinking about talking to some of the other O’Henrys. It was a long shot, but I needed to come up with a serious plan to save the Deerlightful.
“My parents are ambivalent. They’ve been numb since Victoria’s death. Brad is looking forward to whatever job he gets when the Shadow Pine Project is done. Clara doesn’t want the town to grow. It was bad enough with all of the crime she had to deal with before, but she’s had to double the size of the police force,” Emma said, speaking of her family as if they were a collection of strangers. As far as I knew, she was only close to her Clara while her parents kept her trained like one of Pavlov’s dogs. Alice would probably sell her to a rich couple in search of an exotic pet.
I stared at her as we reached the other side of the street. “Isn’t it the mayor’s job to decide how big the police force is?”
“He just does whatever my family tells him to do.” Emma wrinkled her brow. “I suppose, technically, we are the Mr. Potters of the town.”
I snorted. “Listen, I want this town to prosper, I’m just worried it’s not actually going to improve things but make the one percent of the town’s population even wealthier while the remaining ninety-nine percent get even poorer. A lot of small businesses are getting bought up or closed down. Mine in particular.”
“Those businesses were getting closed down anyway,” Emma said, showing she was still an O’Henry. “Besides, aside from the Outlands, Bright Falls’ biggest appeal is its environment. They’re not going to tear down everything green and ruin the very reason people might come here to our future tourist trap of a town.”
“There’s a difference between a golf course and a forest, Emma,” I said, sighing. “You know as well as I do. Eventually, we’ll all be running on O’Henry land or getting shot at by hunters.”
“Yeah, well, the Lorax isn’t doing us any good either,” Emma muttered. “Did you really care before this started to affect you?”
She had a point there. Any further questions I might have asked were blunted by the arrival of Alex and Sheriff O’Henry. Alex wasn’t wearing handcuffs or showing any signs of restraint. Indeed, he was wearing his FBI uniform and I could see the bulge under his jacket indicating
he was still armed too. Not that owning a gun made Alex dangerous. Unlike me, he did have access to all sorts of nasty killing spells and supernatural martial arts—ones he hated using.
Clara looked amused and was wearing the stereotypical sheriff’s hat that always looked better on a park ranger than a member of law enforcement. Indeed, her expression went beyond amused to the genuinely happy. It was an odd expression for someone who had uncovered a mass grave of newborns earlier that day.
“Hello, you two,” Alex said, walking over and giving me a hug before a short kiss on the lips.
I blinked, feeling immensely guilty about kissing Lucien. “Oh, hey! Glad you’re not arrested for murder!”
Emma elbowed me in the side. Perhaps it wasn’t a great idea to announce that to the world.
“Yes,” I said, glad she did that. “Because that would be bad.”
Alex gave a pained smile. “Yes, it would seem while certain parties believe I did kill Dr. Jones, they don’t seem too interested in pursuing the subject now.”
“The evidence is very flimsy,” Clara said, giving a wink. “It would be imprudent to throw any kind of wild accusations at parties unknown just yet. You can be sure we’ll be on this murder case, no matter how many years it takes. I will say, though, our suspect list is leaning toward an out-of-towner we don’t know. Race unknown. Sex unknown. Possibly male, possibly not.”
“Subject is hatless,” I said, staring at her sideways. “What am I missing here?”
Clearly, Clara wasn’t taking the murder of the evil cult leader quite as seriously as she should. Wait, maybe she was taking it exactly as seriously as she should.
Clara gave me a thumbs-up, then Alex, before walking back to the crime scene.
“She thinks I killed Dr. Jones and is happy about it,” Alex said, sighing. “Clara believes he’s involved in the infant murders despite the lack of evidence.”
“Yeah, well, he wasn’t. Just to be clear, you were planning on killing him, right?” I asked, making sure I’d gotten everything correct.
“Yes, but not this way,” Alex said, looking over at the room with the yellow police tape. “His spirit will move on from where he was killed and possess one of his followers. All it will do is lead to another innocent death and interrupt his operations for a little while.”