by Rob Cornell
She smirked to herself at her reference to Ghostbusters. Her uncle used to tease her that she had no sense of humor. If the Agency—as UniLover called them—hadn’t made him disappear, he would be here to see she had learned to laugh a little now and then.
The Tribune lay on the table in front of her, bought from the dispenser out front. She unfolded it, found the classifieds, and pulled them loose. She turned through the pages until she located her ad.
Seeking a true believer who wants to show the world the truth. Only mortals need apply. Otherworldly rewards promised. Interviews conducted at Loop Starbucks from 9am-12pm, Monday and Tuesday. Must have hunting experience.
The last sentence would communicate her need for someone who could handle a gun. She hoped it would get that across at least. She hadn’t been able to think of any other way to word it without it sounding any more suspicious than the strange message already did.
Of course, she hadn’t indicated any way for “applicants” to recognize her. She felt confident enough she would recognize them. Zealots had a certain look about them. This would also give her a chance to vet them before she had to actually engage with them. It would keep things a degree safer. But only one degree.
Chances were this strategy could get her killed. Or worse…
Imprisoned.
Some of these zealots liked to try to tame supernaturals to serve their own needs. And there were few with as much potential use as a unicorn.
At a minute after nine, the first candidate shambled into the café. He wore an orange hunting vest and a ratty camouflage sweatshirt underneath. With the temperature outside in the eighties, the sheen of sweat on his face and the stains under his armpits came as no surprise.
The fool had dressed up for the occasion. Hey, look at me. I’m a hunter.
Elka lifted the fashion section of the paper open to cover her face enough that she could still peer over its top edge. The orange-vested creep scanned the café with narrowed eyes, brows drawn together. When his gaze came to her, she turned her attention to the paper, pretending to read, but only looking at a picture of a skeletal model on a runway wearing what looked like a chandelier with all sorts of glittering things dripping off it.
The I’m-a-hunter man’s gaze skated past her, roving over the rest of the café. Then back it came, like a surveillance camera behind the counter of a gas station. He did this six times before he crept farther into the café.
Elka had figured on a number of fakes and crazies to answer the ad, but she hadn’t considered the persistence of a zealot. So if this man were truly a believer, he might not leave for some time. Calling over a real potential applicant would likely draw this man to her as well.
Poor planning.
But then, she knew this ruse could easily fail. She just couldn’t figure out a better way. Finding true believers who didn’t have holes in their brains was impossible. She had to draw them to her.
Ten minutes passed as the wild-eyed hunter strolled between the tables, looking around as if he were the manager checking on his patrons. He had a habit of sniffing, nostrils flaring at regular intervals.
Elka kept her eyes down at her paper as he curled his way around her table. She could feel his gaze. He smelled of cheap cologne, a heavy cloud of it surrounding him. Not the sweaty mortal stink she had expected, but no less putrid. She had to hold her breath to keep from puking.
He sidled around the back of her chair and continued his search, snaking closer and closer to the counter.
When Elka dared a glance over her shoulder, she noticed the hunter had caught the attention of one of the baristas. The barista stared at the man while wiping his hands on his green apron. Then he whispered something to the girl next to him who had just handed over a drink to one of the half-dozen people lined up, waiting for their own caffeine fix.
The girl joined the male barista in staring at the man. They exchanged words. The male nodded, wiped his hands on his apron again, then moved around the counter toward the hunter.
Over the din of the crowded café, Elka could only pick up a few words of the conversation between them. But she heard must order something from the barista and meeting someone from the hunter. They exchanged a few more words. The hunter raised his voice slightly. The barista kept his own even but firm.
Then the hunter turned and beelined for the front door, mouth curled in a cross between a scowl and a pout.
Elka rested her newspaper shield onto the table and took a deep breath.
An hour later, she had read most of the paper and drank another latte. The caffeine made her shaky. She desperately craved a cigarette, but couldn’t abandon her post to slip outside and risk missing a potential helper, not to mention her seat.
That’s when the man in the plaid shirt and the Chicago Cubs cap sat down across from her. He had a warm smile on his face that reminded Elka of her father, even though the two looked nothing alike. This man just gave off that fatherly aura that immediately set you at ease.
Despite that, Elka started when he sat. He seemed to have come out of nowhere.
“Easy now,” he said as he rested a paper cup on the table. The smell of the café’s house came across the table. Either this mortal didn’t stink like the others, or he wasn’t mortal.
“Who are you?” she asked.
His smile quirked as if wanted to chuckle but held it in. The lines in his face deepened when he did this, making him look like he was in his late forties. The lines, especially the crow’s feet, added a wisdom to that fatherly grin.
“Don’t mean a thing who I am,” he said. His country drawl made Elka thing of Andy Griffith. She and Aunt Jill used to watch hours of Matlock together—before her murder. “Only thing matters is who you are.”
A heavy pit dropped in Elka’s stomach. She steadied herself to keep her voice even. “And who am I supposed to be?”
“I’m being rude,” he said. He took off his ball cap and set it in his lap. Streaks of gray ran through his dark brown hair. His hair looked greasy. It lay matted down in some spots and sticking up in others. “Name’s Farmer. Earl Farmer.”
Elka chuffed. “And are you?”
“Am I what?”
“A farmer?”
“Well, ain’t that the most original joke I heard in a long while?” His voice was soaked with sarcasm, but his big grin stayed planted on his face.
She didn’t know this man, had no idea of his agenda, should have felt scared, yet couldn’t help but smile herself while her cheeks warmed, feeling a little shame at the same time. “I’m sorry.”
Earl waved a hand. “Don’t worry none. I’m pulling your leg.” His grin fell away. His eyes took on a serious intensity. “But time for fun’s past now. We have serious business to discuss.”
The mix of feelings in Elka made her feel like a wet rag in a washer on the spin cycle. She liked the man, then worried about insulting him, and now felt a tremor of fear work through her.
She put her hands in her lap under the table so Earl couldn’t see them shake.
“What kind of business?”
“You put that ad in the paper, right?”
Elka’s gaze dipped down to the newspaper in front of her, then back up to meet Earl’s eyes. “How did you know it was me?”
“I had a dream last night. I was reading a newspaper. The words on the page started glowing. So bright I thought my eyes might cook like a couple of eggs. Then, in the middle of all this golden light, I see your face. The light is like a halo around you.”
The whole time he spoke his mouth stayed straight and his eyes grew more intense. His voice was filled with the kind of wonder a kid has at the first sight of the presents under the Christmas tree.
Elka’s sweaty hands trembled more. She flattened them against her thighs and rubbed the sweat into her denim skirt. The light blouse she wore might as well have been a wool sweater. The café’s air-conditioning did nothing to break the sweat running down her back and between her breasts. Her bra felt like
a metal vice.
“Anyway,” Earl continued, “I woke up this morning, went straight to the paper, turned the page to the one I dreamt about, and saw your ad. I knew it was you. So I came here—”
He pointed at her.
“—and here you are.”
A dream? Was this man a sensitive? She still hadn’t figured out for sure if he was mortal or not. No reason to beat around the bush. “What are you?”
“From what to who, huh? I guess you’re asking if I’m human or some kind of beastie like yourself.”
That caught her like a gutshot by a cannonball. The breath huffed out of her as if physically struck. All that sweat turned to ice on her skin. The wild switch in her body temperature made her feel like she could come down with pneumonia at any second.
How do you know what I am?
She thought she had asked the question out loud.
Earl stared at her, waiting as if she hadn’t yet spoken.
She realized she hadn’t. And couldn’t. The fear had her by the throat.
Earl’s smile returned. All the serious intensity slipped off his face like a mask. Sweet old Andy Griffith had come back after a commercial break.
“Don’t fret a thing, sweetheart. Your secret’s safe with me.”
She still couldn’t talk. Years of careful lessons passed down from her family told her to run. A people hunted for a hundred generations had evolved until the urge to flee when cornered had become a part of their blood.
This was a mistake.
It didn’t matter how this guy knew what he knew.
What mattered was escape.
She grabbed what remained of her latte, peeled off the lid and splashed it in Earl’s face.
He cried out and covered his face with his hands.
Elka shot to her feet. Her chair clattered to the floor behind her. Without a backward glance, she sprinted for the exit, weaving around tables, bumping into chairs, ignoring the shouts from those sitting in the chairs. Her heart raced. The instinct to flee took over her body. She had to fight to keep from shifting into her true form like her instincts insisted.
On the mortal plane, that part of her natural self would get her killed.
In this place, you have to learn to control who you are, no matter what your blood demands.
Her father’s lesson, not part of what her people had evolved to for survival’s sake.
She reached the door and shoved against the glass, pushing her way out into the stifling humidity. On a whim, she turned to her right and ran along the sidewalk, dodging the people taking their time as they strolled along, unhunted, safe in their own world.
She almost made it to the end of the block when a massive black man stepped into her path. Her momentum drove her right into him before she could stop running. She hit him like hitting a wall. Only this wall had arms as thick as the lilith trees from her home world her mother used to tell her about.
They’re the most beautiful things. I wish you could see them. Maybe someday.
He wrapped those lilith arms around her and dragged her into the doorway of an empty storefront with a For Lease sign in the window.
“Chill,” he whispered in her ear as he squeezed her against him. “I don’t want to have to put you out with a choke hold. Earl wouldn’t like it.”
There was no way she could break out of his hold.
She could scream. But that could draw the attention of law enforcement, and with Kenny’s sloppy murder in her recent past, she didn’t dare chance it.
Besides, she had a feeling he could wring the breath right out of her before she could make the meekest noise.
She stopped struggling. Tears stung her eyes. Her heart felt ready to burst.
Another unicorn trapped in a long history of her people’s constant struggle against the hunters who prize them.
I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m a shame to our kind. But maybe I’ll finally see you again in the Great Beyond.
Her captor let go with one arm, but easily kept her pinned against him with the other, her face smashed against his chest. She couldn’t see what he was doing with his other hand. But she soon felt the needle sink into the side of her neck.
Two seconds later, all turned black.
Chapter Twenty-One
IF SHE STILL HAD HER wings, this could have gone a lot easier. But instead of flying off the roof of the few stories of headquarters that rose above ground, Jessie had to take an alternative route.
One of the school bus-sized trash bins stored in the lowest floor of the building.
The trash room resembled a warehouse with the aisleways running between garbage bins instead of storage boxes. It sort of reminded her of the warehouse at the end of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, where they tuck away the ark in a crate among thousands of similar crates carrying who knew what.
This was also one of the only places outside Jessie’s suite not lit by fluorescent bulbs. Several shaded lights hanging from the metal rafters lined the aisles, each casting a yellowish light from incandescent bulbs.
The trash had softer lighting than even Wertz’s office.
Only it wasn’t Wertz’s anymore, was it?
The stink was worse than what Jessie had prepared for. Despite the vapor rub she had slathered under her nose, she could still smell the mixed rot of garbage filling the room. Not all of the bins were full. Most of them, in fact, weren’t. But even the empties stank as Jessie passed them on her way to the far end of the trash room.
She carried a backpack stuffed with as many clothes that would fit, as well as her wallet with her Agency-issued bankcard that she would probably get one use out of before they cut her off. They wouldn’t do that, though, until she used it that once, even if they discovered her gone before she could reach a bank. They would anticipate her using the card. They would use it to pin her location.
She also had to consider the possibility that they had somehow put a homing device on her. They had done it to her dad, planted one in the bottom of his foot. Her mom had cut it out for him.
Jessie seriously hoped she wouldn’t have to do the same.
Either way, the Agency had access to magic. They could put together a tracking spell. Use blood from their bank made up of “donations” from Agency employees. She had tried to clear any trace of herself from her suite, but they had forensic specialists who would eventually find something.
They would find her.
She just had to stay one step ahead of them long enough to get out of range of any spell and stay off their radar for the rest of her life.
Because they would never stop looking.
At the room’s far end was the huge freight elevator that could fit two of these bins at a time. The elevator carried the bins to ground level, were put onto a trailer, and hauled off to the Agency’s own private landfill some fifty miles south.
She knew all this from a casual conversation with the head of waste management where she feigned interest in his day-to-day work. Obviously, not many people showed such an interest, because the poor guy blabbed for close to an hour about all the systems in place to deal with all the garbage generated by the Agency’s daily functioning.
Jessie had learned from her dad—always have a way out.
So she had made sure she had a way out of the Agency.
Dad would be proud.
In anticipation of the totally gross method of transportation off this fucked up reservation, Jessie had dressed in her least favorite clothes. A pair of jeans that didn’t fit her anymore, the waistband cutting into her belly, giving her a freaking muffin top even though she was in perfect shape. An old sweatshirt with holes in the pits and a faded University of Michigan logo on the chest, given to her by her werewolf stepdad at a Wolverine’s game in Ann Arbor.
She also had her hair tucked up into a knit cap to keep as much stink out of her hair as possible. For shoes, she hadn’t many options. While her boots were her favorite of the three pairs she owned, the Chuck Taylors or the Vans
would let any wetness in the bin soak right through her socks.
Tucked in her pocket she had a bandana to tie over her face like a western outlaw. Probably wouldn’t help much.
Anyway, the mismatched outfit was the best she could do. A little gross suffering would be worth getting the hell away from the likes of Borscht and his cunt lackey, Kinga Kowalski.
Damn. I’m whipping out the “C” word on her. And I’d probably say it to her face if I had to see her again.
Teeth clenched and face warm from just the thought of Kinga, Jessie used her anger as fuel to push her to go through with her plan.
She approached the bin nearest the freight elevator. Each bin had a metal ladder at one corner. According to Jay, the garbage dude, they used those to get in and hose out the bins, and occasionally to retrieve something not meant to go to the landfill.
She didn’t ask him how that would go.
She didn’t want to know.
Of course, she was about to find out for herself.
She climbed up the ladder and peered into the bin.
The smell blasted her. No single scent came through on its own. It all mixed to make a uniform stench that coiled in through her nose and hit the back of her throat, making her gag. She hung onto the ladder’s top rung and slapped her free hand over her mouth, trying to hold back from upchucking. The garbage didn’t need her help making it anymore gross.
This is a stupid idea. It’s a movie cliché too. Like I’m Princess Leia blasting a hole in the grate to the trash compactor to escape the storm troopers. Who am I kidding?
Then she weighed her options on a mental scale—Kinga Kowalski on one side, nasty trip in the trash on the other.
Fuck it.
She climbed higher, swung a leg over the lip of the bin, hesitated a second, then swung the other leg over and dropped into the garbage.
Thankfully she didn’t sink all the way to her neck like she imagined. Just up to her knees. Debris of all kinds surrounded her. Take-out boxes with petrified leftovers inside. Old printers and fax machines. Wads and wads of paper. (Guess the Agency doesn’t believe in recycling.) Coffee filters crusted with wet grounds. Orange peels. Banana peels. All sorts of rotted things that might once have been vegetables.