by Sarah Kuhn
“Because it’s trapped?” Lucy asked.
“Not just that.” Scott cocked his head to the side, like he was trying to make sense of what he was hearing. “Because it’s lonely.”
“Lonely?” I repeated, my voice incredulous.
“Yes, it’s . . .” Scott’s eyes widened, and he swallowed hard. “The feeling is overwhelming. It’s so lost, so alone . . .” Tears welled in his eyes. He paused and gave the trap a gentle pat, like he was trying to console what was inside. I found myself misting up, touched by his unabashed empathy, how he always felt so deeply for those in need—how he had the ability to do that even when this particular thing-in-need had spent a good deal of time trying to kill us.
“I want to help you,” Scott whispered, pressing his hand more firmly against the trap. “I promise, that’s all I want, if you’ll stop hurting people. Tell me how I can help you.” He frowned and shook his head. “It’s shutting down, trying to pull away from me again.”
“Well, make it stop!” I blurted out, frustration getting the better of me. “Remind it that we did what it wanted, we brought it here, now it needs to fulfill its side of the bargain. Or else.”
He shook his head again and gave me a soft, teasing smile. “I think this requires a more delicate approach, Aveda Jupiter.”
I blew out an exasperated breath, even as warmth bloomed in my chest. Where did he get off being so cute and nice and well . . . sexy during such a tense moment in our investigation?
Scott turned back to the trap. “I don’t want to harm you,” he said, his voice earnest and laced with compassion. “Tell me . . . tell me about what’s been happening. Please.” He cocked his head again, listening, and sucked in a deep breath. “It’s communicating with me again. And it’s actually giving me a lot of information. But it’s jumbled, incoherent, let me see if I can . . .” He fell silent, listening again.
“What, what?” Bea pestered.
“First of all,” Scott said, staring intently at the trap. “Whatever we’ve captured—it’s the puppy.” He turned to look at us, his eyes incredulous. “But it’s not . . . the whole thing.”
“What?” Evie squeaked.
“It’s basically a scrap of the puppy,” Scott said, turning back to the trap. “A piece that was broken off and sent into the dress.”
“So the majority of the puppy is still out there? Like, in the world?” I said, my heart sinking. I’d thought—hoped—maybe this would be the end of it.
“And is this little piece o’ puppy what we’ve been chasing around the whole time?” Bea asked.
“Yes, I think so,” Scott said. “To both of those things.” He frowned again. “It’s coming out garbled, but I think what it’s trying to tell me is that it keeps breaking off this little piece of itself and sending it out into the world.”
“To do eeeeevvvvilllll,” Bea whispered theatrically.
“But every time this piece has been broken off and sent somewhere, it’s made the whole thing—the puppy/human combo platter—weaker,” Scott continued. “Before now, the puppy was able to pull itself out of places as soon as it sensed it was in danger.”
“So that’s why we didn’t find it in my original dress after the fashion show debacle,” Evie said.
“And why the way it affects people has been so erratic,” Bea chimed in. “Remember how Evie and our OG Bridezilla were so frakballs pissed in the bridal tent and then all of a sudden just weren’t?”
“Yes,” I said. “Not to mention Cakezilla Carol’s back-and-forth personality switcheroo at the bakery. It must have been jumping all over the place that day.”
Scott nodded. “If I’m deciphering what it’s telling me correctly, moving around like that used to be easy for it. The fact that it’s currently trapped in here”—he tapped the trap—“is adding to its confusion.”
“Can you ask it to tell us more about its connection to the human?” Nate said.
“And most importantly, who is that frakkin’ human?” Bea added.
Scott pressed a hand against the trap again. “Take me back to the beginning,” he said softly, his voice taking on that earnest quality. Once again, I admired his ability to be so kind to something that had been causing us so much grief. He sounded like he truly wanted to understand it.
We all fell silent for another weighted moment and I focused on taking deep breaths, trying to release some of the tension from my body, so I could focus on whatever the puppy was going to tell us next.
“The puppy and the human,” Scott finally said. “Are currently existing in a sort of symbiotic relationship. They’re feeding off of each other, learning from each other.”
“Oh em gee, they’re like the Trill in Star Trek,” Bea exclaimed. She waved a hand at Evie, Lucy, and I. “Just in case the jocks here need a simplified explanation of ‘symbiotic.’”
“We got it, Bea,” Evie said.
“The puppy’s connection to the human is what’s helped it gain the level of sentience it has,” Scott said. “It keeps getting more and more aware the longer they’re bonded. But its increased awareness also means it’s feeling . . . conflicted. About what they’ve been doing.”
“You mean the whole attacking brides-to-be to the point of nearly killing them thing?” Lucy snorted. “So it’s developing a conscious?”
Scott nodded. “Of sorts. It’s telling me . . .” He studied the trap hard, concentrating. “At first it liked being sent out into the world. It thought these adventures might help it find more of its kind. But as time has gone on and that hasn’t happened . . .” He shook his head. “It doesn’t like hurting people.”
“So help us out with that,” I said, unable to keep the impatience out of my voice. “Tell us who its human helper is, so we can take this whole symbiotic Trill mess down.”
Scott pressed his hand against the trap again. “Its thoughts are becoming fragmented. Breaking up. I’m not getting any clear answers, except . . .” He cocked his head to the side. “Home. It wants to go home.”
“It wants to go back to the Otherworld?” Lucy said. “Because that place sounds truly dreadful.” She gave a delicate shudder.
“Maybe for you, but for the puppy it is home,” Bea said.
I blew out a long, frustrated breath. “Say we figure out how to send it back. How do we know that’s the end of it?”
“We don’t,” Scott said. “But maybe it could be the beginning of the end. Maybe it will somehow attract or pull the rest of the puppy with it.”
“How do we send it home?” Nate asked.
“It’s telling me . . .” Scott paused again. “It’s telling me I can use our current connection to ‘talk’ to the portal. To get the portal to hear what it wants, open up, and welcome it back to the Otherworld.”
“So you’re like a conduit for puppy demon feelings,” Lucy said, her voice wry. “How sweet.”
“Because it’s bonded to the dress so tightly, we’re going to need to dump the whole dress in the portal, though,” Scott said.
“Evie and Aveda,” Bea said, “y’all need to be on high alert when we try this. Just in case one of those freaky bolts comes out and tries to eat Nate again.”
“This is so exciting!” Maisy cooed, sidling up to Evie. I jumped. I’d forgotten she was there. Even though Maisy had been cleared of evil-doing, I wasn’t feeling anything remotely warm or fuzzy toward her. She’d still thought the best course of action last night was humiliating me and ruining Evie’s engagement party.
“Once again, my shop is home to a momentous event in San Francisco’s supernatural history,” Maisy continued. She shoved her phone in Evie’s face. “Care to give your pal Maisy an exclusive interview?”
“You’re not my pal right now,” Evie said, brushing the phone aside and frowning at Maisy. “I know Annie got a little crazy at the engagement party, but you didn’t have to do what
you did.”
“I was only doing what I thought was best for you, Evie,” Maisy sniffed.
“Since when has that ever been true?” Evie said, rolling her eyes. “Your blog used to portray me as Aveda’s slobby, mousy, hapless assistant who was then Aveda’s reckless, out-of-control, power-hungry assistant. You called me ‘Rude Girl,’ remember? And lately, you and your commenters have been pushing the idea that Aveda is some kind of . . . of . . .”
“Attention-hog diva and raging bossypants bitch who can’t stand to let anyone else have the spotlight,” I supplied.
“Yes!” Evie cried at Maisy. “You set up this idea that we have to be perfect superheroines, but—”
“But your definition of ‘perfect’ changes constantly, is completely unrealistic, and is always the exact opposite of the way one of us is supposedly acting,” I continued.
“Which conveniently pits us against each other, playing into the idea that there can never be more than one female superhero being awesome at a time, which is totally gross and sexist and mostly just gives you an excuse to pick other women apart,” Evie added.
“And I think we’ve definitely had enough of that,” I said, straightening my spine and giving Maisy my most imperious Aveda Jupiter look.
“My god, yes,” Evie said. “We love each other, we’re both awesome, and we both have various personality quirks that make us human.”
“Which is what makes us really fucking good superheroines in the first place,” I finished.
And then Evie and I just grinned at each other. Our best friend near-telepathy was alive and well, and it felt so damn good.
“Nevertheless,” Maisy said, clearly struggling to maintain her cool. “I thought you were trying to undermine Evie, Aveda. She is the bride and—”
“And that doesn’t make me more important than anyone else,” Evie sputtered, her shoulders tensing. “I really wish everyone would stop acting like it does.”
“Hey,” I said, resting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It’ll be okay. The wedding’s in a week and after that you can go back to being less and/or an equal amount of important in relation to everyone else. Buck up, little camper.”
She met my overly serious eyes, and I cocked an eyebrow to let her know I was kidding. She giggled, her shoulders relaxing.
“So shall we . . . ?” I inclined my head at the trap and the portal.
She nodded. “Hell, yes.”
As she turned to confer with Nate, Lucy put a hand on my arm and pulled me aside.
“Darling, I must commend you, that was some ace maid-of-honoring,” she said with a wink.
“Yeah,” Bea said, sidling up to us. “And you didn’t even need my awesome mind control to do it.”
“I . . . well . . .” I was so unused to getting compliments from either of them.
“You really comforted her,” Lucy said, patting my arm.
Huh. I had done that, hadn’t I? I’d reacted instinctively, been honest, and offered up the first comforting thing I could think of. Not bad, Annie Chang.
“Thank you,” I said to them.
“We also wanted to offer a bit of an apology to you, Aveda,” Lucy said, knotting her hands together. “We expressed some . . . concerns to Evie about making you maid of honor in the first place, and I know we’ve been the first to pounce whenever something’s gone wrong.”
“Well, I haven’t exactly done everything right,” I murmured. “To put it mildly.”
“Maybe not,” Bea said. “But we also kinda blamed you for stuff that wasn’t your fault or where, like, your intent wasn’t really bad.”
“We were still viewing you through the diva lens,” Lucy said. “And not acknowledging that you have truly made great strides in character.”
“And even when you weren’t making those strides,” Bea chimed in, “you’ve always loved Evie. I know that for a fact. You’re doing some amazeballs maid-of-honoring and we should step up and give you credit for that.”
“Well, thank you,” I said again. My voice was faint, but my lips tilted into a genuine smile.
“Annie!” Evie called out. “Bea, Lucy. Come on, let’s do this.”
I gave her a nod and we gathered around the portal.
“Okay,” Bea said, settling in next to the trap. “I’m going to man—sorry, woman—the trap here. Scott will do his spell to try to connect the puppy with the portal and then hopefully we’ll be all good. Evie and Aveda—”
“Keep watch for rogue energy bolts. We got it,” I said.
Bea popped the trap open and nodded at Scott. He closed his eyes, concentrating. The dress slithered out of the trap like a wary snake.
“That’s it, that’s it,” Bea murmured. “Go into the portal, little puppy dress.”
The dress slithered over to the portal, a pool of ivory chiffon flowing over the floor. It stopped abruptly at the edge, then pulled back, as if it sensed evil.
“Come on,” Bea muttered.
The dress hesitated, as if it didn’t know where to go. The bottom of the skirt reached out, as if testing the waters, and tapped the edge of the portal—then abruptly recoiled as if it had been burnt.
Then—before any of us could quite process what was happening—it flung itself into the air, speeding across the room in a haphazard arc, a blur of fabric cannon-balling over our heads.
“Shit!” Evie spat out, ducking before the thing smacked into her.
“What’s it doing?” Lucy squawked.
“It seems very much like it’s trying to avoid the portal,” I growled.
“Scott, are you still connected to it?” Nate called out.
“No, it’s broken its link with me,” he said, his voice laced with frustration. “Hold on, I’m trying to get it back.”
The dress landed in a pile of chiffon next to the dressing rooms. Evie and I were already on it, racing toward the thing. But just as we reached it, it swept itself off the floor again and danced out of our way: a macabre, disembodied ghost of a dress. It whizzed past Dave’s bar, upending a box of panties, and finally dived behind a rack of clothes in Shruti’s pop-up.
Evie and I were hot on its heels. “Is it hiding?” I hissed.
I scanned through the racks of Shruti’s clothes, my eyes finally landing on a flash of white. That little bastard was hiding behind a crush of vintage petticoats. Evie saw it too and lunged, but I held up a hand. Trying to grab this thing only seemed to make it flit away from us.
I concentrated on the flash and reached out with my mental feathers, trying to clamp on. But just as my feathers closed in on it, it zipped out of sight. “Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
My innate stubbornness kicked in, and I reached out again anyway, trying to envision the flash of white I’d just seen, trying to find it with my mind. One of my mental feathers brushed up against something . . . something solid . . .
And just like that, it slipped away.
I concentrated harder, sweat beading my brow, the beginnings of a headache creeping around my temples. The shop was still way too warm. My mental feathers brushed up against something again, and this time I reached out wildly, trying to latch on to it, trying to grab hold of something I couldn’t see . . . but I felt it, dammit. I knew I did. I pulled hard and backed up from the rack, half expecting nothing to emerge.
But there it was: the possessed dress. Wriggling in the air as I towed it away from its hiding place. A surge of triumph welled in my chest.
I did it. I moved something I couldn’t see!
I felt the dress resisting me with all its might, pushing against my mental feathers. I held on harder, my mental feathers clamping down with all their might.
“I’ve got it!” Scott bellowed. “I’m connected to the puppy again, but it won’t talk to me, it won’t . . . and I still can’t pull it out of the dress.”
&nb
sp; “Try the guiding spell on the whole shebang,” Bea yelled out. “The dress, too!”
“Yes, excellent proposal, Beatrice,” Nate added. “Perhaps the force of Scott and Aveda combined . . .”
I glanced over at Scott. I was focusing so hard on towing the dress, I could barely see straight, but I saw that he was also concentrating on the dress, on working his spell, on pulling it toward the portal. The dress moved another fraction of an inch. I clamped on harder with my mental feathers, willing them not to give out.
“That’s it!” Evie cried out. “You guys have it!”
I staggered backward, keeping a hold on the dress, Scott’s spell towing it along with me. I felt the support of it in my mind, bolstering my feathers, giving us a stronger grasp on the whole thing. But holding on to it was still taking every ounce of energy I had.
Just a few more feet . . . Just a few more . . .
Blood roared in my ears, and my face was soaked with sweat. I could barely hear, could barely see, I was focusing on this one thing, on keeping hold, on not letting go . . .
Then, just when I thought I couldn’t take anymore, the dress flung itself into the portal’s waiting arms. The portal gurgled, sparked, and pulled it inside—then went still yet again.
I was breathing hard, sweat making my shirt stick to my back. My power ponytail had come partially undone, and I was sure I looked like a big mess. I met Scott’s eyes. And we smiled at each other. It felt like we were existing in a small, private plane of the world, just us, closed off from everyone else and basking in the triumph of a mission accomplished.
“Wow!” Lucy exclaimed, breaking the moment. “That was amazing.” She looked from me to Scott, a devilish grin spreading over her face. “Also, you two are so totally doing it.”
DEMON ENCOUNTER REPORT
Submitted to: Sergeant Rose Rorick (Demon Unit, SFPD Emergency Service Division), Dr. Nathaniel Jones (Aveda Jupiter, Inc.)
