Pointing at the oni demon, I said, “Do you speak English?”
The oni demon nodded, his tusk ring clicking.
“OK,” I said. “The rest of us would be more comfortable if you don’t yell—and if you need to yell at all, do it in English so that everyone who can’t speak Japanese can understand you.”
Hick Boy chuckled at this.
“And you,” I growled, pointing up at Hick Boy. “I thought you Southerners were all about hospitality and being good ol’ Christians or whatever. Where are those Southern sensibilities your mama taught you? Huh?”
“My hospitality doesn’t extend to freaks,” he said.
“Bold words for a guy in flannel. It’s summer and not 1976.”
I saw Mousey Girl’s eyes widen with terror. I needed to calm down the situation if I didn’t want to get into yet a third fight in two days, and my sassy comebacks weren’t helping. I made a calming gesture and said, “I have an idea—if everyone will sit down, I think I can fix this.”
Hick Boy and oni demon stared down at me for a long moment before finally sitting down in agreement.
“Good,” I said, “Presumably you all are here to drop out.”
Several nods greeted me, with Hick Boy adding, “I didn’t sign up to go to school with a bunch of freaks.”
“I’ll get to you in a minute,” I said, glaring. “First, you.” I pointed at Mousey Girl. “You’re scared, right?”
She nodded.
“I’ve seen you around. You live in the dorms? Gardner Hall?”
“No, I live off campus. I came up to visit a friend, but—”
“You saw lots of weird creatures about, so you just went home where it’s safe?”
Again she nodded.
“So might I offer you an alternative? See that guy over there?” I gestured at the stone gargoyle. “He’s a protector. And given that he’s here, willing to leave this place, I’m willing to bet he has no one to protect. Do you?”
The gargoyle closed its stone eyes in despondence. It let out a long sigh that sounded like pepper being ground, then shook its head. I bent down close and tentatively put out my arm, as I’d read these little protectors preferred. Seeing my arm before it, the gargoyle’s eyes widened in awe. Without further hesitation, it leapt from the chair to my arm, its stone claws gripping my jacket sleeve. Ah, well—the jacket was ruined anyway. That grinding-pepper noise picked back up, but it wasn’t sighing. Was that … was it purring? It seemed to like me. Up close, I saw that the gargoyle had several runes carved along its body—beautiful, really.
I walked over to where Mousey Girl sat, scowling at how she cowered in her seat as the gargoyle on my arm got closer. “Problem?” I pointed at Mousey Girl, then gestured to the gargoyle. “Meet Solution.” She still seemed nervous that the stone creature was so close, so I added, “Why don’t you two just go for a walk together? Out in public with lots of eyes watching you. The campus is a safe place to get to know each other. And if it works out … well, this could be a win-win.”
Mousey Girl considered this before finally nodding and standing up. The gargoyle jumped off my arm and the two of them left together.
“Freaks,” Hick Boy snorted.
I turned to glare at him again, but what had just occurred had given me a change of heart. Instead I sighed.
“No, not freaks. Just different. You say your Southern sensibilities don’t extend to them. But is that the right thing to do? I mean, deep down?”
I walked over to the shoulder cherubs and, extending my hands, invited them to jump on. I carried them over to Hick Boy. He tried to move away, but before he could I said, “What? Scared of something smaller than a ferret?”
He shook his head defiantly and took a deep breath. “I don’t know what you are trying to do, but—”
“Shh … just listen.”
The angels began talking in his ears and—miraculously, in a world where miracles left with the gods—Hick Boy listened. The thing about shoulder cherubs is they don’t tell you what’s right and what’s wrong; they don’t even tell you you’re right or wrong. They tell you your right and wrong. Everyone has a different moral compass. Well, not everyone … and some of those who do have one clearly need to get it recalibrated …
Sorry. I’ve clearly let my analogy run away from me.
The point is, shoulder cherubs … the words they whisper into your ears are guided by that moral compass. And whatever they were saying to Hick Boy, it worked. His shoulders relaxed, his fists unclenched and he actually smiled—not the prettiest thing, but definitely an approvement for him.
I pointed to the oni demon. “Now, you. What’s your name?”
“Takashi.”
“Good. Now, Takashi, loosen that ring in your tusk and … smile.”
The oni demon pulled out the tusk ring and tried to smile, which, judging how big those tusks were, was not an easy task, and did not yield the most aesthetically pleasing results. It was awkward, not very human-like, but somehow endearing.
“Now, might I suggest one more thing?” I said to the two monstrous smiling buffoons. “Oni demons, amongst other things, are famous for distilling their own saki.” Takashi nodded proudly. “And Southerners are famous for their bourbon. Why not have a drink together first, kill each other later? Or at least talk it out. Can you do that?”
“Hai.” Takashi bowed his head, then, correcting himself, said, “Yes.”
The good angel whispered in Hick Boy’s ear, but he didn’t move. Then the devil said something and Hick Boy’s smile turned unquestionably wicked. “Don’t mind if I do.”
The two of them left at that—although that wicked smile of Hick Boy’s was a bit worrisome. Ah, well. God didn’t create the world in a day.
Phew, I thought, sitting down in a now-empty room. That went better than expected. Satisfied with my little display, I picked up a magazine, but before I could settle I heard, “Katrina Darling? Given that you just cleared the room, I guess you’re next.”
I looked up, expecting to see a human counselor, but what—or rather, who—greeted me was Medusa.
As in the one-of-a-kind, Queen-of-the-friggin’-Gorgons, Medusa.
“Ahh, hi,” I said, gulping, trying not to stare at her snakes. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m a huge fan.”
Chapter 13
Snakes and Sages
Living for over three hundred years gives you a lot of time to see just about everything you want to see. But while Medusa was one of my idols, she’d only become seeable in the last four years, and I hadn’t yet had the pleasure.
And believe me, the pleasure was all mine.
She was beautiful—creamy skin, flawless symmetry, everything you’d expect from a Greek goddess, all topped with the more-than-intimidating nest of vipers cascading around her head, surprisingly similar to a regular hairstyle. But what surprised me was her age. Sure, I was living proof that someone could live an incredibly long life yet still resemble a teenager, but I would never have guessed that my idol—Medusa, Queen of the Gorgons—and I would actually have something in common! As I followed her out of the waiting room, I noticed every fashionable article of clothing on her body with delight.
We have the same fashion sense! Medusa’s stylish, just like me!
Oh, GoneGods, I was fangirling so hard.
Medusa led me into a tiny room just big enough for a small desk and two chairs. In an effort to maximize space, several shelves had been fashioned to the wall behind her and climbed all the way up to the ceiling. They housed all sorts of files and books, and one of them even had Medusa’s purse and several of her personal effects out, like a cubby or open-ended locker. Good thing, too. This room was barely a closet.
An old PC sat on the desk. She gestured to one seat and, taking the other one, began tapping away at her keyboard. Two of her snakes rose high about her head and, using their mouths, picked up a bowl of jellybeans. They placed the bowl in front of me.
“Help yourself,” Med
usa said, not looking from the PC’s screen.
The two snakes flicked their tongues at me. Snake hospitality?
“Johnny and Alfie are two of my nicer snakes,” Medusa said, punching Enter twice on her computer keyboard. “ ‘Katrina Darling—Major Undeclared. Gardner resident.’ Interesting—says here that under ‘Roommate Preference,’ you ticked none. An Other roommate?”
“Changeling.”
She looked away from the screen. “Yikes—they’re …”
“Monumental tree-huggers?”
“Quite literally, in my experience,” Medusa said. She gave me an appraising look, not unkindly. “But something tells me you can handle it. After all, you were quite resourceful in the way you handled the tension in the waiting room.”
“Thanks.”
“That said, I’m not sure how I feel about encouraging students to start drinking at,” she looked at her watch, “ten-thirty in the morning.”
“Yeah, well …” I blushed. “College life,” I added lamely.
“So, you want to drop out?
“I just don’t know if this place is for me. I mean—if my first day is any indication, then I definitely don’t belong here.”
“So drop out,” Medusa said without any hint of sarcasm or irony. “I did.”
“Excuse me? I heard that … I mean, aren’t you a student here.”
“Was. They opened up the school for Others last semester and I was the first to enroll. For my one and only semester here I studied Sociology—which is really just a funny way to say ‘Studying Humans.’ I even got a 3.96 GPA. I had a full scholarship—which, given that I donated the Golden Fleece to Other Studies, they kind of owed me. Loved it here.”
“And you dropped out?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
The largest snake on her head dipped into her purse and pulled out a badge. “Thanks, Marty,” she said, handing it over to me.
Looking at the badge, I said, “You’re a Paradise Lot Police Officer?”
“Not yet, but if everything goes right, I will be in two years.”
“So what are you doing here? Isn’t Paradise Lot …” I thought about it. “Where is Paradise Lot?”
“Oh, you know the place,” she said. “That island in England’s Lake District. The new home for most Other refugees. I’m not there now because the school asked me and a couple other Others to come to campus at the start of the semester to talk to humans who want to drop out because of Other attendance. They figured a familiar head of snakes such as myself”—the snakes all hissed, as if saying “Tadaaaaaa!”—“would help with the adjustment … so, surprise, here I am.”
“And Paradise Lot Police—what’s that about?”
“I took a look around me and asked myself, ‘Where can I do the most good?’ My choices were to stay here, study humans, then get a job with some political party or activist group … or I could go to Paradise Lot and help out my own kind there.”
“So you chose to become a cop?”
“Paradise Lot is quickly becoming the only Other-majority city in the world. You know what that means?”
“That Others enjoy a good wordplay on classic literature?”
She shook her head. “There are so many kinds of Others from different traditions, religions and folklore that the mish-mash of cultures in such a small place will mean a lot of conflicts. And right now, because Others are the newcomers, we need to prove that we can not only live on Earth but that we will be productive, peaceful citizens. If the world turns on their TV and sees fighting in Paradise Lot, their distrust of Others will only grow. I went there to do my part in keeping the peace.
“But that doesn’t mean I can’t come up here to show humans like you that we Others aren’t to be feared. After all, if the big, bad, turn-you-to-stone Medusa is a nice gal, then maybe, just maybe the other Others are nice, too. Right?”
“Yeah … I have to say you are not what I expected.”
She leaned forward and put a hand on my arm. Several of her snakes, including the big green viper that came out of the crown of her head, winked at me. “Girlfriend—we never are,” she said with a smirk.
I chuckled.
“You have a nice laugh—and a kind smile,” Medusa said. “You’re also cute as a button, smart—a great sense of style.” She looked down at my outfit appreciatively and I enforced every ounce of my willpower to not let out a high-pitched fangirl squeak. “A girl like you should not only fit right in, you should be the belle of the ball.”
“You’d think. I mean, if you watch all those college movies … Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds, Van Wilder—”
“—Legally Blonde,” we said in unison.
“Yeah,” I said, laughing. “Exactly. I mean—look at me. I’m basically Reese Witherspoon without the annoying voice.”
“So what’s the trouble?”
“Last night, it was … it was terrible.”
“Yes, you’ve mentioned. What happened that was so bad?”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to rehash what happened. It did surprise me that Medusa hadn’t heard about it yet—she wanted to be a police officer, didn’t she?—but I would be feeling this way regardless of what had happened. If I were to be totally honest with myself, I was already feeling uneasy before all the stuff at the library. “It doesn’t matter,” I finally said. “Let’s just say that it’s painfully evident that I don’t fit in here.”
“Just because you had a bad day doesn’t mean you’re going to have a bad year. A day is a day. And in my experience, what happens today doesn’t predict what will happen tomorrow.”
“I think it does. If anything, it predicted that I’m not like everyone else.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Medusa said, petting her lead snake. “If I was like everyone else, I wouldn’t have Marty here keeping me company.”
“Yeah—but you’re Medusa. You are literally a legend! I’m just—”
“A Darling.”
“Excuse me?”
“You are Katrina Darling—that’s somebody.”
“Yeah, but—”
“So drop out,” she repeated.
I looked up at her, once more surprised. Wasn’t she supposed to be trying to convince me to stay?
My shocked look was met with a kind, warm smile of understanding. “Or stay—it doesn’t matter to me. But whatever you do, do so because it is where you can do the most good.”
“That’s just the thing. I don’t know if me staying will lead to any good.”
“Do you think you can do more good somewhere else? That’s why I left.”
I didn’t say anything.
Medusa’s snakes hissed impatiently and the former Queen of the Gorgons closed my file. “For what it's worth, I think you should stay. The way you helped the students in the waiting room proves you have a knack to bridge the divide between our species. McJames could use more students like you.”
I shook my head hesitantly. “I don’t know …”
“And you don’t need to know. Not right now. Just think about it. Get through the weekend. From what I hear, McConnell Hall is having a big party tomorrow.”
I smiled. She hears about parties but not on-campus murders. She’d have a rude awakening at police orientation. “Yeah—the O3 costume ball. ‘Ringing in the Apocalypse.’ ”
“The apocalypse already happened, and we’re still here.”
“I know,” I said. “If I had been on the planning committee, I would have suggested the party be called something like ‘The World Without End’ or something like that.”
Medusa tilted her head, nodding in approval. More than approval—like she was proud of me or something. It felt nice to have someone so warm and inviting look at me like that, especially my literal hero.
“Yeah,” Medusa said. “Like I said—I like your style. The weekend … OK? If it doesn’t go well, then you can come back here and drop out. Deal?”
I didn’t move.
; “Deal?” she repeated with more force in her voice. I was painfully aware of every snake on her head staring at me intently, like they were trying to turn me to stone.
I nodded. Reluctantly. “Yeah, sure. Will … will you be here?”
“Sadly, no—I’m back to Paradise Lot later today. But someone else will be here, and I’ll be sure to put in your file that you are a special case. A very special case, indeed.”
Chapter 14
The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth
The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth (… So Help Me, GoneGods)
* * *
I left Student Admin feeling more confused than ever. TV dads (my primary source of fatherly advice, given that I ate mine a few centuries back) always tell their daughters that they don’t have enough life experience to make the right decisions. They imply that life experience comes from age, from doing and seeing things. From living. I’d been alive for over three hundred years and I still didn’t feel I had enough life experience to decide anything.
My stomach grumbled. Seeing that it was almost noon, I walked down into off-campus housing (affectionately known as the Student Ghetto) to find something to eat and—lo and behold—what is the first place I stumbled upon? A Döner kebab shop opening up.
Two birds, one kebab, I thought as I walked in, thanking the GoneGods for small miracles.
“I know what you are,” I said. “You are Mergen—or rather, Mergen’s avatar.”
I found Mergen sitting in an alleyway behind the Religious Studies library (a building that was adjacent, but oddly unconnected to the Other Studies library).
At my words, a weak smile appeared on Mergen’s face—and I knew that I was right. Or the Old Librarian had been right. He was Mergen. Score one for you, librarian. Your last point before the buzzer, I thought with a heavy heart. Mergen’s eyes brightened and there was a glint of hope in them. I guess that’s what happens when someone acknowledges your existence, and I suspected that in the four years that he’d been mortal, I was the first person who actually called him by his name.
Myths & Magic: A Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection Page 187