by R. L. Naquin
“Over here,” Kam said. She stood at the far end, staring up at the wall.
I hurried over, with Riley and Darius in tow. My stomach did a backward flip with a half gainer. “Holy shit.”
The words were painted with a brush this time, rather than sprayed. The evidence lay on the ground, bristles dried in a puddle of red paint. Words covered the better part of a wall and dripped in a bloody, dramatic way.
Out in the desert
At a mountain gate
Caught between stalagmite teeth
Used as dino bait.
Red rover, red rover, let Ceecee come over!
Tag, Aegis! You’re it!
Chapter Eight
The four of us sat in a nearly empty coffee shop, barely touching our breakfasts. My stomach was too full of bile and anger to have room for much else.
I dropped my fork on my plate in a puddle of syrup. “How the hell are we supposed to know where to go next? ‘At a mountain gate’ gives us nothing to go on.”
Kam poked holes in her hamburger bun with a sharp French fry. No surprise that she couldn’t eat. The idea of a hamburger at eight-thirty in the morning made me queasy. “Maybe she’s just not giving us any clues. Maybe all she wants is to play this stupid game with you, but not actually give you any chance of winning.”
“So, you’re saying she’s a cheater.”
Kam shrugged. “How many murdering psychopaths who also play fair can you name?”
To be fair, I wasn’t sure I could name any murdering psychopaths, fair ones or otherwise.
Riley sipped his coffee and made a face. “I miss Maurice’s coffee.”
Darius nodded. “I spend most of my time on the road. Maurice’s cooking was a vast improvement over the majority of my meals.”
We sat in silence, all four of us prodding food we weren’t going to eat. When my phone rang, interrupting the quiet, I jumped.
“Zoey, I need you in Idaho.”
“What?”
Bernice’s voice was sharp and impatient. “Idaho. I need you in Idaho.”
We’d already called Bernice before breakfast and told her what we’d found—and hadn’t found—at the Bug Ranch.
“Why Idaho? And when did this come up?” All three of my breakfast companions gave me questioning looks. I shook my head at them.
Bernice sighed. “I’m sorry. The goblins just sent me a message. A rash of chupacabra sightings are coming in from Pocatello. I need you and Riley out there to sort out the O.G.R.E. squad so they can stop it from happening and do some damage control.”
My gut clenched and I pushed my plate a few inches away. “Bernice, don’t you think we should be trying to figure out where the killer is planning to go next? Can’t the O.G.R.E.s wait?”
Bernice was silent long enough that I thought we’d been disconnected. When she spoke, goosebumps ran up my arms. “If the Covenant is broken, it won’t matter who’s trying to kill the Aegises. You’ll wish you’d been taken along with them. Get to Pocatello, Idaho. Please, Zoey.”
I swallowed hard and nodded, though she couldn’t see the motion. “What about Kam and Darius?”
“Let me talk to Darius.”
I handed the phone across the table, my hand shaking more from the dire tone Bernice used than from the words themselves. Though, the words were pretty chilling, too. “Your turn.”
He wrapped his enormous hand around the phone and held it up to his ear. “Darius.” He nodded, scowled, then nodded again. “All right.” He handed the phone back to me.
I looked at the display. Bernice was gone.
“That’s it?” I asked. “Go to Idaho? What did she say to you?”
“Tuscaloosa.”
My heart sank. “We have no clue where the next victim might be. And now Bernice is sending us half a country apart. What if we miss a clue?”
Riley grabbed my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “It’ll be okay. Have some faith in the universe. We don’t know what to do next anyway, so we might as well do some good while we wait.”
I tried not to roll my eyes or make any other petulant moves. “I guess.”
Kam dabbed at a bit of butter on her sleeve. “Damn. That’ll stain. Where’s Tuscaloosa?”
Darius swallowed the dregs of his coffee and unfolded his bulk from the booth. “Alabama. Long drive. If we leave now, we’ll get there around nightfall.”
Kam cringed and slid out. “Yeah, we’d better get going, then. I hate when he changes in the car.”
I could not for the life of me imagine being cooped up in the cab of a pickup with Darius in the first place, let alone when the sun set and he went from big scary guy to terrifying mothman.
We paid the bill and said our goodbyes in the parking lot.
Kam gave me a hug. “It’ll be all right,” she said. “Riley’s right. This wouldn’t be a fun game for this dame if you weren’t where she wanted you to be. You’ll get a clue when you need it. And when you need us, we’ll haul ass to be wherever you need us to be.”
I gave her a weak smile and hugged her back, hard. “Thanks. I hope you’re right. And I hope we can get to Ceecee in time. I prefer rescue work to sleuthing.”
Riley hugged her goodbye, and I hugged Darius. “We’ll find Clara alive,” he whispered. “I swear it.”
I let his words comfort me. When a mothman made a vow, the universe was obligated to listen, right?
As they got into their beat-up truck, Kam’s voice drifted across the parking lot. “Tuscaloosa’s in the south, right? Would it be too much for me to dress in a southern belle gown? They still wear hoop skirts there, right?”
* * *
The trip from Amarillo to Pocatello took two days. Unlike Kam and Darius, Riley and I were humans. We had to sleep for more than a few hours a day.
We didn’t exactly meander up there, but we didn’t rush, either. No one had been hurt, and to be honest, we both were sort of expecting Bernice to call and send us looking for Ceecee—or Ceecee’s body—at any second.
But that didn’t happen. We made it to Pocatello, Idaho, without anything derailing us and sending us in another direction. It looked like we would be working a different sort of job for Bernice until the killer decided she wanted to play again. The thought gave me chills.
“Why couldn’t I have a useful skill instead of feeling other people’s emotions?” I asked, coming out of the bathroom after a shower. “Divination or mind reading? Something like that.”
“Your gift has saved all our asses more than once,” Riley said, taking the towel from me and drying my hair with it. “You have what you have. And I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”
I closed my eyes and leaned into him. “That’s sweet. But so far it’s not helping us one bit on this particular problem.”
He handed me my towel and kissed my forehead. “Buck up, little lady. We’re going out.”
“Out? We just got here.”
“Bernice called while you were in the shower. I’ve got a lead on where we might find the absentee O.G.R.E. squad.”
“Seriously? Cool. Should I get dressed up?” I knew this was a silly question. Neither of us had brought much with us, thinking we were making a quick run to Kansas and back again. No evening gowns in my duffel bag. I should’ve asked Kam if I could borrow something when I had a chance. She seemed to have a bottomless wardrobe.
“No, get dressed down.”
I folded my arms over the towel I had wrapped around my body. “Where exactly are you taking me?”
He grinned. “A seedy bar in the worst part of town. It’ll be great.”
I fixed him with a dead stare. “Awesome. You really know how to sweep a girl off her feet.”
* * *
The bar wasn’t nearly as seedy a
s I’d expected. My boots stuck to the floor less than I’d have thought, and the table we grabbed only had a few dirty glasses on it. The server was quick to clear them before she took our order.
I’m not a big fan of beer, but it seemed more appropriate in the dark, smoky room than a girly drink with a fancy umbrella in it. No telling how old the cherries might be.
We sipped and watched as people came and went. According to Bernice, we were looking for a guy named Frankie the Imp. I had no idea if Frankie would turn out to be an actual imp, or even what an imp might look like.
“Sounds more like a gangster than a biker,” I said.
“He might not be a biker. I have no idea.” Riley watched a plate of food go buy and licked his lips. “Do you want onion rings? I want onion rings.”
Our server had introduced herself as Janis when we sat down. Riley smiled at her now, and she came running.
I totally understood. The first time he smiled at me I nearly fell off the sidewalk.
“Another draft?” she asked, grinning so wide I thought her face might crack open. She completely ignored me, of course.
The sparkle in Riley’s gray eyes gave away his amusement. I let him have his moment. It didn’t hurt me at all to have some other woman flirt with my boyfriend. In fact, you never knew when it might come in handy.
“Any chance we could get some onion rings, Janis?” he asked, beaming up at her.
“Absolutely, sweetheart. Anything else?”
He leaned toward her and touched her hand with one finger. She bent closer to hear him.
“Would you let me know when Frankie the Imp comes in? We came an awful long way. I’d hate to miss him.”
Her smile faltered, and she flicked her gaze toward me and back to him. “You’re cops, aren’t you?”
She looked so disappointed, I wanted to hug her. I wasn’t sure why. Whether we were cops or not didn’t affect her chances with Riley.
“Not at all,” Riley said. “We’re...” he trailed off, making a show of looking left and right, as if he might be overheard. “We’re paranormal investigators. We’re hoping to interview him, but we’re trying to keep it quiet right now.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You mean, like that ghost-hunting show?”
He nodded. “Something like that. More like the Bigfoot shows, though.”
Now she did the side-to-side looking around thing, as if she were in on Riley’s big conspiracy. Her voice dropped to a stage whisper—the quietest a person can get in a busy bar and still be heard. “You know there’s a creature running around the outskirts of town. I’ve heard things.”
“That’s why we’re here,” he said with a wink.
Janis brought her face even closer. “My cousin Sadie saw it. You should go talk to her.”
Riley smiled. “She’s already on our list. But we’ll tell her you sent us.”
She patted Riley’s hand and nodded. “I’ll put in those onion rings for you, hun. Soon as I see Frankie, I’ll send him over. Quietly.”
When she was out of earshot, I laughed. “Well, that was something to see.”
“Don’t laugh. I bet we get extra onion rings.”
He was right. Our plate of golden, greasy rings was considerably larger than the one a few tables over. They were far too hot to eat right away, since Janis had probably been hovering over the cook, waiting to run them out to us. Or rather, to Riley. While we waited, a burly guy, maybe four feet tall, with a shaggy mop of dark hair appeared next to our table.
“I hear you’re looking for me.” His eyes were almost lavender, a color that had to be the result of contact lenses. They gave his eyes a piercing quality that felt like he was examining my soul for wrinkles and lint.
His inspection went on long enough to make me squirm in my seat, then he shifted to Riley, giving him the same, burrowing examination. Riley held still and waited. After a moment, the other man nodded and took a seat across from me.
“So,” he said, helping himself to a scorching onion ring and biting into it without flinching. “An Aegis and a reaper looking for me. I have to assume the Board sent you. Yes?”
Riley and I exchanged a look. “Yes,” I said. “We’re here to set things right.”
“How much?” He snagged another ring. Saliva sizzled in his mouth when he bit through the crunchy coating.
“How much what?”
“My team is owed a pretty hefty amount in back pay. We didn’t just walk off the job because we wanted more vacation time, you know. We have families to feed. Bills to pay. Working for free isn’t the American way.”
Part of me wanted to give him a rundown of all the shit I’d been doing for free. How much my entire life had been upended and tossed into a tornado. But I understood where he was coming from. Being an Aegis wasn’t so much my job as who I was. As much as I might have wanted to a few times, I couldn’t quit. I couldn’t stop being who I was. This guy? He’d been doing his job until long after the paychecks kept coming before he and his team halted work. Sure, it put the world in danger for him to walk away, but you wouldn’t see a lot of human cops continue to walk their beats if they weren’t getting paid anymore. Why would these guys?
My purse jerked and nearly fell off the table. Muffled sounds rumbled from within. I’d completely forgotten Gris had climbed in on the car ride over. He’d tossed all my stuff out of the glove compartment and turned the space into a comfortable apartment. For the last day or so, he’d been in there reading the owner’s manual for my car and memorizing my insurance number. Knowledge is power, I guess.
I cracked the bag open and peered inside. “What?”
“Let me talk to him, please, Aegis. This is my job, for heaven’s sake.” Gris sat on a package of tissues, hands on his hips, glaring at me.
I slid my purse toward Frankie. “Um, someone would like a word.”
Frankie bent over the purse and looked inside. “Yes?”
“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Griswold Octavius Barnabus Ozimandeus Abernathy. I am your Board liaison, and have full clearance to offer you a considerable bonus, as well as back pay owed to you and your team.”
I coughed into my napkin to keep from laughing. Every time Gris introduced himself, the name got longer. I regretted not bringing him out to the Cadillac Ranch with us, since it meant he’d met Kam and Darius separately, giving him two new names—Octavius and Barnabus. I wondered how long his name would get if he ever had the misfortune to wander into a cocktail party.
Frankie frowned. “We’ve heard nothing from the Board for six months.”
Gris’s speech sounded practiced to my ears, though I supposed that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. “We sincerely apologize for the temporary disruption in the flow of communication. There was an unfortunate break in the chain of command, but that weakness has now been uncovered and rectified. Rather than have you report to a coordinator as you did in the past, we’d like to offer you a promotion, making you the coordinator for your own squad. You will then report directly to Art Ferguson, head of the Human/Hidden Liaison division.”
“Not Covenant Enforcement?”
“The two departments have merged for the time being.” Gris spoke in a straightforward, no-nonsense voice that didn’t invite further questions. Board business was Board business.
Frankie’s piercing eyes burrowed into my purse as if he were trying hard to read the toxic shock warnings on a box of tampons buried in there. “This promotion. I assume there will be an appropriate raise to go with it?”
“Of course.”
Frankie scratched his chin. “You have paperwork to reflect this?”
“Indeed. If you’ll join me somewhere we can speak privately, I have everything you need right here with me.”
Frankie rose from his chair, then nodded at me. “I’ll have this back
to you in a few minutes.” He grabbed my purse and walked off into the men’s room with it.
I frowned at Riley. “What the hell just happened?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I think you just gave your Amazing Magic Purse of Holding to some thug in a biker bar and he took it to the bathroom with him.”
“Maybe he started his period.” I picked at a piece of fried batter that had cooled enough to eat. “These are really good.”
“Did you know Gris brought contracts and a checkbook?”
I bit into a ring and sucked in air to cool the inside of my mouth. “Maybe his body is a tiny TARDIS. Otherwise, I have no idea where he put them.”
* * *
An hour later, with contracts signed, back pay delivered, and my purse returned to my care, we found ourselves in the midst of a party. The O.G.R.E. squad for the northwestern United States sat around us, drinking, laughing, and gorging on a third plate of onion rings.
I marveled at the creatures around me. In the short time I’d been involved in the world of the Hidden, I’d met very few creatures who could pass as human, thereby affording them the freedom to walk the streets, interact with the general public and hang out in bars like this one. Kam could pass without a thought, as long as she kept the gems embedded in her wrist covered. Darius could pass during the day, though he was still imposing as hell in his human form.
Several humans with supernatural abilities had flitted through or were part of my life, my mother, my friend Andrew who read auras, and Emilia, the psychic whose shop was up the street from my office.
Riley was a different sort of human. He hadn’t been born with any special gifts—aside from devastating good looks and enough charm to convince a mermaid to hand over her comb and mirror. The Board gave him a reaper ring as part of his job, and that gave him the freaky powers he sometimes manifested when pressed, like the ability to see people who were invisible, ward off fear spells, or scare the bejeebus out the Hidden with the activation of his Super-Reaper-of-Doom voice.
The O.G.R.E. squad was different. Every one of them was Hidden. And every one of them came damn close to not passing for human.