by Devon Monk
“Hello, Delaney.”
I stopped in my tracks, my heart racing, sweat instantly pricking under my arms. The headache was stronger now, an avalanche of jagged edges pounding inside my skull.
But the bigger thing filling me was fear. Fear of that voice and the creature behind it.
Chapter Six
I knew the day was sunny. I knew there was a salty breeze blowing strands of my hair across my face. Vaguely, I could feel the weight of the dragon pig in my arms. I could see the Jeep, right over there, as distant and maddening as a locked exit in a horror movie.
It would only take me walking, one step after the next, just a few short feet, and I’d be in that vehicle. Door locked. Safe.
But my feet would not move. It was everything I could do to breathe against the fear, to break the rust off my lungs and inhale.
“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”
His voice was soft. That’s what I noticed first this time, and every time I’d heard him. Because I had heard him before. Hadn’t I?
Yes.
A nightmare, a dream, a forgotten darkness right behind me, unflinching in the sunlight.
“You can speak,” he said. It was what he always said, I realized.
And just like the other times—
—how many? One? Three? Ten?—
—I did not speak. There was power in words. I didn’t want him to steal my power away.
Correction: I didn’t want him to steal any more of it away. Because he had taken something from me. I knew he had.
The dragon pig in my arms shifted a little. Maybe looking up at me. Maybe restless to go home so it could eat a bench.
It did not hear the voice. I knew that too.
Which meant he was not a demon. Which meant he was not real.
That was so much worse.
“Still so silent,” he said, this voice in my head, this aberration, this manifestation of my creeping insanity, of the injury to my soul that hadn’t healed properly.
That manifestation walked around me, I could hear his footsteps, the heavy heel as if he needed weighted boots to keep him in contact with the ground. As if it took some effort for him to move in this reality, this state of my mind, my madness.
Not real, I told myself. He is not real.
“What’s this now?” He was beside me, somehow moving while all the rest of the world stood still. “Are you ignoring me? Because, Delaney…”
…he was at the edge of my vision. Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look…
“…we both know that’s not going to work, don’t we?”
Then he was there. Right in front of me.
My height, which made it worse because his eyes—gold with deep umber flecks—were level with mine. His lips were thin and disapproving. His shoulders were wide, made even broader by the severe uniform he wore. It was not from any military I’d seen in the mortal world.
The gray, tailored jacket and slacks with slashes of red stitching made me think of cooled coal, lava cracking, burning.
At each shoulder, a hard black stone held back the flow of a cape that was also gray and black, licks of red flame shooting up from the hem. There were medals on his chest, made of the same black stone.
“Still shy?” he asked. “How cute.”
I scowled and lifted my gaze to his eyes. Met them straight on.
Not real. This is not real. He is not real.
“There, was that so hard?” His smile slid over his lips like oil. His gaze calculated every emotion on my face.
I made sure there wasn’t enough for him to add zero to one.
“You have been doing so well, Delaney. We’re almost there.”
Not real. I pushed my foot, trying to walk through the hallucination, but I was stuck, welded flat, frozen.
“You have impressed me. Your resourcefulness. Your strength. No one knows, do they? That you see me? That you hear me?”
A flicker of panic fluttered under my skin. I wanted to call out for help. Wanted to tell him to get away from me. Wanted to scream.
“Shh,” he said, raising his hand to my mouth and pressing one black-gloved finger to my lips. “This is just for us, our special time.”
I could feel the warmth of the leather against my lips, the soft pressure of his finger gently silencing me. Could smell the burn of stones and some other scent that reminded me of lightning.
I wanted to squirm out of my skin.
His eyes widened slightly, and as if sensing my revulsion, he pulled his finger away. Then he dropped his gaze to the ground, his shoulders pulling back. Almost as if he were putting space between us.
I sucked in a hard breath. Had I been breathing? Had I been holding my breath all this time? Panic was doing weird things to my brain, and time skidded like a rock skipping over flat water.
The dragon pig in my arms wasn’t moving. The leaves in the trees weren’t moving, even though this was the coast and there was always a breeze.
“You only need one more thing,” he said, bringing my attention back to him.
He’d stepped back a pace and pulled his hands behind his back, in parade rest. His intensity had been dialed down several hundred ticks.
Even his eyes looked different, brownish swimming there in the yellow, softening that hard glare, humanizing it.
Still not nice, I thought, and still not real.
But even that small space between us helped. The feathery fingers of panic receded, the need to scream was gone.
I felt like myself, well, as much of myself as I could be while hallucinating. I felt like I had ground to stand on.
“When you have that one last thing, then this,” he used two fingers to wave between us, “will no longer be necessary.”
I could ask. Just open my mouth and make him tell me what the hell this was. What he wanted from me, and what he was.
There was more I could ask. That thought tickled the back of my brain. This was familiar. We’d been here before, he and I. I didn’t know how many times, but I knew I’d seen him before and forgotten.
Just like that, my heart was beating too fast again, my breathing going reedy.
How long had this been going on? Had it been years? All my life?
No, someone would have known. There were too many people in this town with too many gifts and powers. Someone would have known that I was…whatever this was. It couldn’t have been going on for long.
Maybe only since…something flickered there. A clue. Something had happened recently, and that’s when this had started.
It hadn’t been long ago either. It had been night, I remembered that, I’d been awake because Ryder was gone, because Ryder was always gone…
“Now, now,” he said again. His voice buzzed through my memories, and scrambled the pieces I’d almost put together.
“There’s no need to think so hard,” he said. “All we need is for you to find one more thing. And you know what that is, don’t you, Delaney?”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Ah, well, you will. Once you see it, you’ll understand. And I’ll be there to guide you. Then…” He clapped his hands in a soft whump and rubbed his palms together. “Everything is going to change. Big, big, change.”
“Boss?” Shoe’s voice was sudden, loud, and too close. I jerked as if I’d been shot, and twisted toward him. He was walking my way from the far side of the parking lot, and all I could do was stand there breathing too hard, blinking too fast, and shaking.
“Shoe?”
He gripped a coffee carrier with two big cups in one hand and his phone in the other. He was not a tall man, built like a pallet of bricks with a few extra bricks stacked in the middle. Shoe had a wicked sense of humor, didn’t say much unless he had something to say, and was ten for ten finding the good chocolate Myra thought she could hide from us all in the station.
“Something wrong?” He scanned the area around me, sharp eyes clear. He was a good cop. If there was something weird going on,
he’d see it.
Was there something weird going on? I was just…walking. Right? Walking out to my car?
“There’s, well, no. Just…” A moment, a flash. A man’s hard yellow eyes, his eggbeater voice, and then nothing but that damn lingering headache. “…gotta take care of something,” I said.
His gaze ticked over to my Jeep. “A pony?”
“Xtelle.”
“Again?”
“Signed the contract this time.”
“Think that’s a difference maker?”
“We’ll find out.”
“I’m allergic.”
“To what?”
“Whatever she is. Can’t take care of her. No fenced yard. Hives. Systemic shock.”
“I’m unloading her on Jean.”
His left eyebrow twitched up for a second. “You need a hand?”
I knew he was asking if I was okay.
“With anything?” He nodded toward the Jeep.
“Thought you were allergic.”
“Only on contact.” That eyebrow quirk again, and a smile.
This was good, normal, and whatever strange moment I’d had, whatever memory I’d been chasing…
…a man with yellow eyes…
…faded away. I dug my thumb into my temple, the pressure welcome against that low-level throb.
“Working the theft case with Hatter?” I asked.
“Just got back from canvassing Bertie’s neighbors.”
I waited.
“If I had found something other than coffee,” he lifted the cardboard carrier, “I would have led with that.”
“Keep me updated.” I started to the car, and just before I opened the door, there was something else I knew should tell him. About a robbery. Something missing.
A quick flash of Jame stopping me on the way to the casino for a chat filtered through my head, then was gone, as quickly as liquid sucked up by a sponge.
“Am I forgetting something?” I asked the dragon pig in my arms. It grunted and wriggled, impatient to get into the car.
“Right. Fine.” I unlocked the door, tossed the dragon pig down into the driver’s seat so it could hop over to the passenger side. Then I slid into place behind the wheel.
“…can not believe you made me wait out here for so long. This is neglect. You’re neglecting me. I will file charges.” Xtelle moved around and I heard the distinct crinkling of wrappers being shoved between the seat cushions.
I readjusted the rearview.
Still a little blonde pony. Still the big, wide, eyes.
But now her face was smeared with chocolate.
“Where did you get the candy?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turned her head, then ducked out of my line of vision.
“I can hear you trying to wipe it off.”
“What? What’s that, Delaney? I’m certainly not eavesdropping on your private business with that swarthy police officer who didn’t even offer us the latte he was carrying.”
“Xtelle.”
She sat back up. “Fine! I ate chocolate. Is that against your boring Ordinary rules?”
“Depends on where you got it from. I didn’t have any in the car, so you’ll want to think real hard about what you’re about to tell me next.”
“You are a terrible dresser,” she said.
“That’s one. Three strikes and you’re out, Xtelle.”
“And your hair is stringy.”
“Two. Gonna go for the whole enchilada?”
She narrowed her pony eyes, and her hooves clicked together as she crossed her stubby arms. “I…acquired it.”
“Details.”
“With magic.”
I waited.
“What?” she asked in false outrage. “I just told you the truth. The truth, Delaney,” she moaned. She stuck her tongue out several times like she was trying to get rid of a bad taste. “I hope you’re happy.”
“I’m not. Where did you magically get this chocolate from?”
She mumbled something that sounded like “your butt.”
“And we’re just gonna go for three and a miss,” I said.
“The store! Okay? I got it from the…” she waggled her hoof north, “sweet shop place right down the road.”
Gods, I was so glad she wasn’t going to be my charge. “Everyone pays for what they want in Ordinary. I hope you’re ready to wash dishes for a week.”
Her horsey mouth fell open, and her eyes went so wide, she looked like a cartoon. I bit the inside of my cheek and counted down from thirty to keep from laughing.
Then her eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t.”
“I absolutely am.” I started the car.
“But I’m a…a little pony.” She jumped up and did a little prance in place. “I am to be admired while I frolic the days away. I am to be petted and fed sugar cubes from the palms of muscular, naked men. I do not do menial tasks.”
“If you thought taking that form would get you out of work, you are mistaken.”
“Pony work,” she said.
“And?”
“Ponies don’t do dishes.”
“Demons posing as unicorns posing as ponies do. Unless they have something else they can use as payment.”
“Oh! I have this cursed—”
“A form of payment within Ordinary’s rules and laws for supernaturals, mortals, gods, and others.”
Her pony lower lip wobbled. “You’re mean.”
“This? This is me being lenient. You know the ways of mortals, Xtelle. You know the ways of the mortal world. You might be able to meddle and cheat and steal out there.” I pointed north. “But inside Ordinary you must follow the law. Stealing gets you jail time.”
She paused, and I wondered if she was weighing the merits of being locked up for a few months against doing dishes.
“You’d lock up a pony?”
Ah. She thought that form was going to get her out of all sorts of human things. Wrong. Clever. But wrong.
“I would.”
“In a…barn?”
“In a jail. You don’t think the holding cells are the only place we put criminals?”
She drew back in horror, her whole body sinking back into the seat, as that realization hit her. “You have…a magic jail?”
“Something like that.”
“Why haven’t I ever heard of it?”
“You’ve been in Ordinary for all of three minutes. Frankly, I think you just set a record for how quickly I’ve threatened to throw someone into it.”
“Perhaps I’d be treated better there,” she huffed.
“Yeah, no.” I put the Jeep in reverse, drove out of the parking lot, and onto Hwy 101, the main drag through town. “Start thinking about how you’re going to apologize for those chocolates, and how you’re going to pay Stina back for them.”
“Ponies don’t have money!”
“Looks like you’ve got a dilemma on your hooves. Better figure it out in the next couple minutes. We’re almost there.”
She scowled and stared out the window, muttering under her breath quietly enough I couldn’t catch anything except the expletives.
I ignored her and rolled right up to the red and white-striped Sweet Reflections, parking a short distance from the door.
“If there are customers in there, you’ll remain outside the building. Quiet as a pony. A real pony. We’ll go around back. Stina is local and a gorgon. You can talk to her because she knows about the supernaturals. You are not to speak unless it’s just Stina and me there. Got it?”
She crinkled up one eye ridge, stared straight at me, and pawed the back of my seat once.
Dear gods, save me from sarcastic unicorn pony demons.
“That’s a yes?”
She waited, then pawed the back of my chair again.
“Good pony.”
And oh, the look she gave me. I ducked out of the car before she could aim a kick at my head. I strolled around to the back of the Jeep, opened the ta
ilgate, and pushed a cardboard box covered with a moving blanket to one side, looking for the length of rope I kept there.
A cool shiver ran down my spine, pooling in the small of my back. I paused and carefully studied my surroundings. Wide old graveled parking lot, three cars parked along one side—two from around the area, one with out-of-state license plates. Traffic moving normally, business across the street—a small motel and an office building—showing no unusual activity.
The shops next to the Sweet Reflections were a realtor to the north, and a trio of shops under one long, shared roof to the south: resale clothing, a clock store, and a touristy beach collectibles place.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
So what was this feeling of wrongness?
I picked up the rope and closed the tailgate. I mentally backtracked my movements. I’d been talking to Xtelle, then felt a chill, then pulled the rope out of the trunk.
For a moment, I thought, something…something about a box and a blanket, but then the headache snapped behind my eyes, pounding to the beat of my heart. The wind picked up, buffeting my shoulder like someone buddy-punching my arm, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what thought I’d been chasing.
Just in case I’d missed a message, I pulled out my phone. Nothing. If something was really wrong, if something really bad was about to happen, Jean’s family gift would kick in, and she’d call me.
The Jeep rocked, and through the window I saw the dragon pig taking an exploratory nibble out of the seat back.
“No,” I said, striding up and yanking open the dragon pig’s door. “No eating the car. Seriously, if I have to keep telling you that, I’m just going to leave you in a shed at home. Or at the bottom of an empty swimming pool. Or somewhere a dragon pig can’t get out of.”
I honestly had no idea where that might be.
The dragon pig removed its mouth—which had been stretched way too wide and had too many pointed teeth for a real piggy—gave a little grunt, then sat in the chair, its butt pointed my way.
“Pout all you want. Vehicles are off limits. You know how much it cost to find a new bumper for Ryder’s truck.”
“Ryder Bailey,” Xtelle said. “Where is that man of yours, Delaney? Did he dump you for someone smart or someone with better boobs?”
I inhaled, exhaled, then shut the front door and opened the back. “This is a rope.” I held it up.
