by C. T. Phipps
Alex put his arm around me. “You did an amazing thing, Jane. Not many people get to look upon the face of their god.”
I wasn’t sure if it made more faithful or less faithful. Eh, at least I had other gods to pray to in case I wasn’t feeling particularly charitable. I sighed, “Yeah, I suppose there’s that. By the way, what’s our situation?”
“Our situation?”
“We good, bad, or ugly?” I said, pausing. “Because if I have a choice, it’s Clint Eastwood.”
“Clint Eastwood it is,” Alex said, frowning. “I also could have handled things better.”
“Well, if you slept with Jeanine, I’d have deer-kicked you out a window,” I said, pausing. “Which is unfair and a double standard but I totally would have.”
Alex smirked. “She’s not my type.”
“Not a big fan of tall, buxom, gorgeous women?” I asked.
“I’m a fan of you,” Alex said.
We kissed.
“Ugh,” Emma said, looking away. “Gross.”
Robyn put her hand around Emma. “You know, I’ve got some friends who would absolutely love you. One is a werefox.”
“Really?” Emma asked. “How’s that work?”
Robyn grinned.
The next thirty minutes or so was spent cleaning up the battlefield as much as possible. Lucien burned the bodies with dragon fire and we made sure every last one of the spiders was destroyed. Kate Madison was a no-show but, honestly, given how we’d treated Steve Caldwell, I didn’t really begrudge her escape.
I did find, however, that Judith and her brother had woken up and were sitting on a log nearby. Neither of them was saying much, so I decided to be the one to handle their situation. Despite the fact that Jones was dead, I wasn’t about to forget David had been involved and was still a potential enemy. I wouldn’t put it past the Ultralogists to try and turn Judith into their new leader either. If she wasn’t brain dead from having her soul kicked out.
Walking over to them, I waved to Judith first. “Hey, kiddo. We’re probably still going to Hell, right?”
Judith didn’t respond. Instead, she just stared forward with a vacant expression. I suddenly felt like a dick about the brain dead thought.
“Yikes,” I said, cringing. “So, what will happen to her?”
“Her soul was parted from her body by my father possessing her,” David said, shrugging. “I’ll try to have Alex summon it back, or you if you want to try, but in all likelihood she’s gone. Her body is likely to generate a new soul, though. It happens sometimes with traumatic brain injury or other actions that result in the soul moving on before the body recovers. I will welcome my new sister to the world and teach her better than my father.”
“That…” I tried to respond but found myself at a loss for words. “That opens a lot of theological questions.”
“Thankfully it’s my job to answer them,” David said, his expression one that didn’t match the horror of what he was describing. He looked calm and relaxed rather than someone who had just lost his family. “Is my father truly dead?”
“Yes,” I said, not wanting to get into the specifics. “He got introduced into a much greener and pleasant-looking fate than the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark but still close enough for government work. As powerful as wizards get, you don’t want to mess with gods.”
“Said by the woman who killed one,” David pointed out.
“Yeah, well, every rule has an exception,” I said, frowning. “We need to talk.”
“I am at your disposal, Shaman of Bright Falls.”
There was a time I would have been happy to hear those words from anyone, friend or foe, but they didn’t have quite the same ring now that my mother was coming back. Also, having dealt with two gods and a wayward archwizard, it didn’t feel like I had quite as much to prove. The fact David was transparently trying to flatter me also bugged me. Wasn’t he supposed to the Token Good GuyTM of Team Ultralogist?
“You’re going to have to face justice for your crimes,” I said, staring at him. “Even if you warned Alex about it, you helped your father do all sorts of evil…badness.”
“Evil badness?” David asked.
“Listen, I’m still new at this,” I said, frowning. “I’m not great speeches. You defrauded millions of people with your corrupt church.”
“I wish to return to it,” David said, staring at her. “I can reform it and make it a legitimate religion. There are many truths about the world my father hinted at or denied. Ones I can reveal. Things that would be of comfort to the living about the dead as well as otherworldly. I would also not require worshipers to beggar themselves.”
I stared at him. “Honestly, chief, I’m not sure it wouldn’t be better for Ultralogy to dry up and disappear.”
“That’s not really for you to decide but those who worship its tenets.”
He had me there. I also was painfully aware there wasn’t exactly much I could actually do to him. I mean, we could link him to the attack in the forest, but unless we wanted to expose the fact we’d killed a bunch of people here, it wasn’t like we could arrest him for it. I wasn’t a police officer, either, which never seemed like a bad thing until now.
Can I kill this guy? I asked.
He has committed no murders. He has stood by and let them happen, though.
I notice that’s not a yes-or-no answer.
The corrupt are a harder thing to judge than the openly monstrous. Yet, ironically, they often do more harm.
I took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m not comfortable shooting you for sins of omission.”
“Thank you,” David said, lowering his gaze. “However, let me make restitution.”
I stared at him. “How’s that?”
He pulled out his checkbook, a little soaked but only on the edges of the actual checks.
“You want to bribe me?” I asked, opening my mouth in horror.
“No,” the man said. “I want to pay wergild without anyone actually being dead. I have already done so with Alex and will do so with the others. I will also pay restitution to the victims of the church as well.”
“Listen, pal, there’s nothing—”
He handed me over a check for two hundred thousand dollars.
My eyes widened. “Uh—”
“I will also purchase out your family’s stake in the Deerlightful Diner from your siblings to give to you. Enough to let them live their dreams and you to have your family property. Your diner can be a kitsch tourist trap in the middle of the new downtown.”
I opened my mouth to growl at him then found myself not speaking. “I can’t believe I’m thinking this. I’m sorry, Raguel.”
Mortals are flawed. Arthur and Merlin made many such deals for better as well as for worse.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Screw it. You’re not a terribly bad person and I need money to live.”
“Thank you,” David said, sighing.
“I’ll be watching you, though,” I said, lying. The truth was, as soon as he left Bright Falls, he was no longer going to be my problem.
We both knew it.
“Good luck, Ms. Doe,” David said, smiling. “You have a great number of enemies but it is my hope you’ll be able to deal with them.”
“Yeah, enemies,” I said, muttering. “I still have no idea who sent all that magical bric-a-brac to Ranger Taylor.”
“Probably the same individual who sent the Grand Temple of Ultralogy a number of boxes of evidence showing Agent Timmons was involved in a dozen assassinations of slavers, vampires, and cannibal monsters. The same people who clued him in to believing Kim Su was taking up residence here in town.”
I stared at him. “Excuse me?”
“I’ll show you the evidence and we’ll destroy it together,” David said, his expression remaining inscrutable. “It was my payment to Mr. Drake for his cooperation. If I’d offered to help Agent Timmons, he would have turned me down.”
“Who sent it?” I asked, ready to put
a bullet in his head. I was not going to respond well to blackmail, especially of friends.
“Marcus O’Henry,” David said, not sounding scared in the slightest. “The former master of Bright Falls is the name of your enemy.”
I went still. “He’s locked up in the Super Pen, watched twenty-four seven.”
“That is no deterrent to those who have magic or money,” David replied. “I suspect it was more the latter than the former.”
I decided I would pay a visit to Marcus O’Henry after all of this. “You mentioned getting rid of blackmail material on Alex was what you paid Lucien. What about Alex?”
“He simply required me to explain something else,” David said, frowning. “That Agent Laura Lee escaped with my help. The person my father killed was a glamoured follower. My father never questioned it in his arrogance.”
I stared at him. “So you sent someone else to die in her place.”
“Yes,” David said. “I never claimed to be a good person. My actions were motivated by a desire to destroy my father, though. I suspect now that he has been dealt with, Laura will come out of hiding. Hopefully with her help I can remove any potential predators who will challenge my leadership of the church. People with supernatural abilities who will question my ascension given they were my father’s lieutenants. I can turn them over to Laura in exchange for keeping our tax-exempt status. We’ve survived worse scandals.”
“You’re an awful person,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t think Ultralogy is going to get any better under you.”
“Perhaps,” David said, smiling. “Nevertheless, my ambitions are more modest and I prefer to be a source of comfort rather than simply a parasite. You don’t have to worry about Alex and Laura, I don’t think. Anyone can tell by the way he looks at you that he loves you.”
“You don’t get to talk about Alex and me,” I said, staring at him. “Also, leave Robyn alone.”
“She’s welcome to return to the church,” David said, stretching his arms out. “Certainly we could use a woman who can perform genuine miracles.”
“Or I’ll kill you,” I said, gnashing my teeth.
“Of course.”
A better person would have returned the two hundred-thousand-dollar check or told him he could take his money and shove it. Unfortunately, a lot of better people didn’t have bills to pay or a home they were hoping their parents would have when they returned. I hated myself for deciding to keep the money, but I would get over it.
You are not a bad person, Jane.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I just do bad things. I have one planned right now.”
Oh?
“You’ll like it,” I said.
With that, I walked away. We’d saved the day, killed the bad guy, prevented the destruction of a beautiful pocket of magic in the world, and maybe made the world a slightly less crap place. There was only one thing left for me to take care of.
Marcus O’Henry.
Epilogue
It took a lot of effort to get myself a visit with Marcus O’Henry in the so-called Super Pen in South Dakota. Knowing people like Alex helped, but it turned out I had to sign like sixteen confidentiality agreements and also undergo three background checks. In the end, even that wasn’t enough and Alex had to contact a guy called the Revered Elder of the Seventh English Rite in order to make it happen. Frigging Star Chamber.
Even so, that actually made it quite a bit easier to skip past the paperwork of being a supernatural trying to visit the supernaturals-only prison without getting locked up by the incredibly racist guards within. I wasn’t officially there so I didn’t have to talk to people beforehand, sign in, or be recorded when they finally moved me to the transparent steel box they were keeping O’Henry inside of.
The thing was roughly the size of an apartment with a couch, television set, specially prepared meals, bathroom with shower, and a bed that looked much comfier than mine. The fact it was transparent and watched at all times (except now) did little to calm me. It bothered me that while the Super Pen was supposed to be a super-max run by dirtbags, money talked even here.
Marcus O’Henry was wearing a orange jumpsuit but somehow still managed to look dignified. He was one of the older werewolves in the world, well over seventy, but still looked to be about forty. It was the nature of shapeshifters that we were more likely to die of violence than old age, though my grandfather had been an exception.
Marcus was a handsome man with a slight resemblance to Michael Douglas and that had helped him become the “face” of shapeshifters in the Reveal. The fact he’d already been leader of the werewolves in the United States and had influence over the ones on three other continents hadn’t hurt. It was what made his trial so important, since it showed shapeshifters were willing to abide by the same restrictions as we did.
“Ah, the traitor,” Marcus said, turning around to face me. “Did you enjoy the gift I sent your way?”
“I’m glad we’re avoiding the part where you pretend you weren’t responsible and going straight with being the Kingpin behind bars,” I said, walking up to him. Wow, I was on a roll with the Daredevil references. “Mind you, Vincent D’Onfrio could probably intimidate me through transparent steel. You? Not even close. I keep thinking of Romancing the Stone with Kathleen Turner. My mom watched that movie religiously.”
“This conversation is already boring me,” Marcus said, frowning. “I prefer communicating with adults rather than women barely out of training bras.”
“Ageist and sexist,” I said, nodding. “Nice. In any case, Marcus, yes, I figured out it was Barzini all along. That’s a reference to The Godfather, by the way.”
Marcus narrowed his eyes. “I take it Taylor and Jones are dead?”
“They’re neutralized, let’s just say that,” I said, not wanting to give him reason to go after Andy.
“How did you get all that magical hardware out to them?” I asked.
Marcus shook his head contemptuously. “You really thought my arrest would be the end of it? My daughter may have seized my assets, but I still have influence. Also, I never let her know about where I’d stored all my finances.”
“You super-rich people are why it’s a trickle in trickledown economics and not a river,” I said, shaking my head. “Always hiding money so nobody else can spend it.”
“It’s why we’re super rich.”
He had a point there. “So what was the point of it all?”
“A reminder,” Marcus said, shrugging. “My daughter needed to understand that if she wants to increase the family’s wealth then she’s going to have to ask permission first. Destroying the Shadow Pine Project was as easy as influencing her into going after cursed land in the first place. Her advisors are still my people and they listen to me. Did you think she came up with the fact she needed the Deerlightful Diner on her own? No, that was my little touch.”
“Wow,” I said, staring at him. “Evil is petty.”
“Less so than you think,” Marcus said. “I know where you, your brother, and your sister live. I could have you eliminated at any time. I wonder how your mother would react to that? I think it would cause her to recant her testimony.”
I rolled my eyes. “Really? That’s where this is all headed? You wanted to show off so you could intimidate my mother and other witnesses?”
“It’s already worked,” Marcus said, smiling. “Half of the witnesses have either run away or been eliminated. You should have hidden, little deer.”
“Your plan failed,” I said, sighing. “The Shadow Pines Project may have failed, but Alice has already arranged for the state government to reimburse her for the land and has bought the crappy town next to Bright Falls, Deer Park. They’re re-zoning it to be part of Bright Falls. Lucien has even gotten the money from the vampires in New Detroit to build an airport there.”
Marcus’s expression slightly changed, becoming the beginning of a sneer, but he didn’t show much else in the way of tells. “You shouldn’t be dealing with vamp
ires. They are a disgusting race of demon-blooded degenerates.”
Technically so were we, but I didn’t feel the need to protect the reputation of vampires. “You dealt with vampires before. You knew the Reveal was coming and that’s how you murdered Lucien’s family.”
Marcus snorted. “The Drakes were stuck in the old ways. They had to die. As for the vampires, they respected me as an equal.”
I doubted that was the case but, admittedly, I only knew one vampire and I treated him like crap. “I also dealt with the attempt at blackmailing Alex. David gave me the little storage unit where all of the information was located and I burned it to the ground. There was a lot of evidence in there, irreplaceable stuff.”
Marcus smiled a—and I hate to use this term, but there was no other way to describe it—wolfish grin. “Do you think I’m restricted to what he actually did? That was just a taste of what I could do. I can make him a pedophile, a serial rapist, a terrorist, or worse. His past as a hunter was just convenient because he was actually a murderer of our kind.”
“Only the ones who deserved to die,” I said, looking at him intently. “In retrospect, I think he made a mistake leaving you alive.”
“You can’t kill the Devil.”
“You’re not the Devil,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a little doll made of sticks, pieces of a business suit I’d found in one of his Pinewood closets, and hair, which he’d shed copiously on the suit. It was tied together with a ribbon and I’d spent all night making it with Kim Su’s help.
Marcus paused, looking hesitant for the first time in our conversation. “You brought a voodoo doll to kill me?”
“That is a prejudiced comment against a fascinating religion,” I said, waving the doll around. “This is sympathetic magic, not in any way related to my spiritual beliefs. But yes, I’m going to kill you with it.”