“What do you think they’re fighting over?” she asks.
“Those two? Who knows. A girl. A pool game. One of them scratched the other’s vinyl Grease soundtrack. The only time the two of them don’t fight over something is when one of them’s in jail. Now, keep going. You were saying something about your friend?”
“Cassie. Cassie Newell. She teaches a Folklore and Mythology course at Littleton College. She thinks it’d be interesting if you dropped by to give a seminar for her students. You know, share your experiences.”
“That’s such a bad idea I can’t even begin to describe it. She’s Grey, I take it?”
“She’s a medium. Pretty good one, too.”
“But she doesn’t advertise that to her students.”
“Not directly. They just know her as the weird professor whose course everyone tries to get into. She’s a lot of fun.”
“I’m sure she is, but the point is, how can she expect me to go talk to a bunch of normal kids about all the monsters I’ve seen? I don’t care how liberal today’s colleges are. I’d get laughed out of the classroom for being a wacko and then sued by the parents for wasting their money.”
“No, no, it’s not like that. She doesn’t want to hear ‘The Adventures of a Retired Aegis Envoy’. She wants to present you as a roaming expert, sort of like Indiana Jones. Only instead of golden monkey idols you collect myths. You’d actually be telling the kids the truth about the world, only doing it in terms of legends.”
I hate to admit it, but it does sound interesting. Since I stopped involving myself in every Grey squabble in this damned town I’ve had a lot of free time on my hands. I’ve never done anything like what Lisa’s suggesting, but that’s part of its appeal. Maybe I need a change.
A muffled explosion from behind us makes me wince and pulls me out of my contemplation. A light spray of sand drifts down over us, followed by the wafting scent of freshly lit charcoal. Damn it. The wands are out. Metaphorically speaking.
I look back. The fight has followed us, more or less. The two meatheads are about twenty yards away from us, yelling and blustering. There’s space between them now, but instead of trading body hooks they’ve graduated to angry finger pointing. To the uninitiated, it looks like each of them is accusing the other of something heinous. To my eyes, they might as well be aiming Uzis at each other. I move to stand in between them and Lisa, peeking over at the boards.
The crowd has noticed the explosion and are gathered at the plank railing overlooking the beach. I can see a couple flashes of light where cell phone cameras have begun recording the event for posterity. Not long ago that would have been cause for panic in and of itself, but nowadays this town is famous for its inexplicable phenomena. According to some web sites, that is. If you look at others, you’ll find articles describing everything from our mass hysteria to the elaborate frauds designed to entice the tourist trade. That being the case, nothing the cameras can capture should make a difference to the rest of the world.
Unless one of the Housers makes the other one explode. That ought to be worth a few YouTube hits.
By reflex I take a step in their direction as my hand moves inside my well-worn brown leather jacket to the 40 caliber Springfield XD in my waistband, but as soon as my foot touches sand I stop myself. I turn away, keeping my body between them and Lisa. If a stray spell lobs our way I’m safe from it, but she’s as vulnerable as everyone else in the world.
“So, does the Cassie have an area she’d like me to focus on?”
Lisa is very aware of what I’m doing. She hasn’t once asked me to intervene in any Grey business, though since she’s Grey herself she has to be feeling pressure from the rest of them. She’s kept herself neutral, though I think she preferred things the way they were before a man almost broke her skull with a beer bottle. I’d taken him out into the middle of the bay in a borrowed rowboat and dropped him off. I’d never asked if he could swim. I heard he made it home, but I’ve never actually seen him again with my own eyes.
More shouts behind us, and flashes of color like police car takedown lights throw staccato shadows out in front of us. A sizzling whiplike crack sizzles in the air. A cheer rises up from the railing as a particularly brilliant flash illuminates a hundred square feet of sand and ocean, but they’re too far away to hear the cry of pain that accompanies it.
Lisa tucks her neck deeper into her scarf. A chill wind has started to creep over the damp sand.
“Um, I think she’s talking about Northern European folklore now.”
I think for a second. It’s tough to concentrate. The explosions are distracting, and one of the cousins is shouting something about fighting fair. “I had to clear a nest of boggles from a Scottish village once.”
“It’s a start.” She links her arm with mine and we stroll on. The flashes of color from the duel behind us, glittering red and gold and green, are almost romantic.
Our stroll takes us further down the beach, and we gradually separate ourselves from the brawling cousins. I half expect her to make mention of it again as the lights and din of battle fade behind us, but she keeps the conversation on the class and how interesting it would be for me to be an actual college professor. I keep telling her I don’t think it’s that easy to earn that title, but she chooses not to debate me and instead elects to talk right around me. Eventually we complete our loop back to the parking lot behind Thibaux’s, the two-story bar that anchors the corner of the Crawl, the nightclub-infested stretch of boardwalk that lines this section of the bay.
It’s still early yet, only a little past nine, so the place hasn’t yet been overrun with the usual knot of budding twenty-two-year-old alcoholics, Friday night tourists and career drunks, and as far as I can see only one person has puked in the parking lot. There are only a dozen or so cars in a lot that can hold three times that, so I have plenty of time to assess my Jeep as we’re walking up to it. All four tires are still inflated, none of the windows or mirrors have been busted and there doesn’t seem to be any new graffiti. It’s a good night. I pop the locks and we’re just about to jump in when a car swings in tight, almost clipping my hip with its side mirror. I have a flash of indignant rage that passes when I see the chubbiness behind the wheel.
There’s no mistaking SBPD Detective Adam Farelli. From a hundred feet away he looks like a sumo wrestler who’s fallen off his game. From fifty he’s a man hula-hooping a mammoth donut under an ill-fitting suit jacket. From ten he’s a testimony to the willingness and sense of humor of his tailor.
Adam is a rarity: a vanilla human who’s aware of the magic around him. I’ve been helping him acclimate to the world of the Grey, giving him weekly lessons in mystical etiquette and the best procedures for dealing with the seemingly infinite number of variety the supernatural comes in. I said he’s just a garden-variety human, but I strongly suspect he’s a sensitive at the very least. He always seems to know when there’s trouble with a Grey influence. It’s one of the things that led me to take him under my wing, and it was a good thing I did. Ever since I quit my job as Superstition Bay’s custodian, a position that wasn’t ever official anyway, his plate has gotten a lot fuller. He says he understands, but he always asks for another margarita after he does.
He doesn’t get out of the car (that’d take way too much effort), just rolls down the passenger side window. He’s barely stopped jiggling from the sudden deceleration. He leans sideways, looking at me with grim eyes.
“Ian, I’m glad I caught you.”
“How’d you know I was here?” I never was one to advertise my travel plans, and even less so once people started magically catapulting random objects at me from a distance.
“Laura,” he says, as if it should have been obvious. It’s not, though I know who he’s referring to. Laura Ames is a witch who works with the SBPD dispatch unit. I’ve met her, but I’m lost as to how that relates to him knowing where I was, since I can’t be tracked by any means supernatural. When he sees my blank expression he explains.<
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“Not you, Ian. She was tracking her.” He nods at Lisa. “Hi, Lisa. We just assumed you’d be together.”
I don’t like it when people find loopholes in my immunity. Adam wouldn’t hurt me, neither would roughly half of the police department here, but if they could figure something like this out, then anybody could. I’ve tried to come up with solutions, but any spell that could render Lisa invisible to remote viewing just gets snapped the first time I touch her.
“Why didn’t you just call me?” I ask him, pretty reasonably, I think.
“Couldn’t risk you saying no.”
“To what?”
“We need your help,” he says, and I can tell he’s keeping his voice even through effort. He’s worried I’ll say no. He wouldn’t even ask me if it wasn’t a Grey thing, and lately Grey problems aren’t my problems. To be honest, if it was anyone other than Adam I’d have laughed in his face. Probably why he was chosen to come for me in the first place.
“What’s happened?” Lisa asks, dipping her head into the open window. Adam doesn’t flinch away from her face. He knows she doesn’t go out without her special, non-petrifying contact lenses in.
“It’s Stirling.”
He doesn’t need to say anything more than that; I know exactly who he’s talking about. There’s only one person in town who goes by that name, a Grey who lives a short distance up the coast from here. He’s a vague figure in the town. Everyone knows he’s a powerful magical adept, with a well-schooled talent for spellshaping, but as far as I know there are only a handful of people around who know he’s an immortal. How long he’s been around varies according to who you talk to, but it’s believed that he’s no less than four hundred years old, and none of those years have been gentle.
I’ve never had the occasion to learn any more about him than those bare bones. He and I have never gotten along very well. In truth, he’s always seemed to hate me even before it was fashionable to do so. He’s a bit of a recluse, rarely being seen anywhere about town. I don’t think there’s anyone around who’s had the chance to learn much about his endless life.
“Stirling? Really? He’s the most boring immortal I’ve ever heard of. Never even leaves his house. What’s he done that’s worth tracking me down?” I ask Adam.
He fixes me with a square, expressionless look.
“He died.”
No More Devils: A Visit to Superstition Bay Page 32
