by Leah Cutter
And if Chinaman Joe didn’t have it, we could certainly special order it.
The front table still had all the fourth of July sales merchandise on it—the red, white, and blue striped glass dildo (which I actually liked—particularly the part about it guaranteeing fireworks) as well as the colorful assortments of condoms and lubes and party gels, for stimulating, elongating, chilling, heating, whatever you desired.
I’d argued with Chinaman Joe the week before about changing the display. I’d wanted to keep it—we were still selling a lot of the glass dildos.
But the Aquatennial celebration was starting in a few days. Chinaman Joe insisted that we change the display to be something “more watery.”
Whatever the hell that meant.
I looked critically at the display as I walked in. Maybe I could keep the red, white, and blue glass dildo still on the table—it was mostly blue, after all. Then just add some more blue dildos and condoms.
Hopefully, that would make it “watery” enough for Chinaman Joe.
Though knowing him, he’d complain that I’d tainted the waters, somehow. Minnesota was the land of ten thousand lakes, if one was to believe the tourist board. Water—the lakes, the rivers, hell, even Minnehaha Creek—was important.
I relieved Amy, who was all dressed up for her date: tube–top dress that was two sizes too small for her, her “good” Birkenstocks, and enough blue eye shadow for someone to mistake her for a hooker.
“Thank you so much!” Amy told me as she stuffed her smokes into her tiny clutch purse.
“Good luck,” I told her.
“Here’s hoping!” she said with an exaggerated wink.
“I don’t want to know the details,” I instructed her. Really, hetero–sex? It was bad enough having to watch it on the DVDs I had to review for the store.
After Amy took off, there wasn’t much for me to do. Of course, there were still backorders to fill. Chinaman Joe, like any good twenty–first–century business, had a rousing internet trade. We were supposed to box orders when no one was at the physical store.
Instead, I went back up to the front display to start changing stuff.
Chinaman Joe had printed off a list of the Aquatennial events and left it on the back table in the break room. Friday night would start with waterskiing on the Mississippi. Saturday would be more waterskiing, as well as the logrolling event.
The whole lumberjack thing had never done it for me. But even I liked to watch dumbass guys fall on their asses as they tried to stay standing on rolling logs in the water.
Sunday was one of my favorite events. I remembered going down to Lake Calhoun with my dad to watch the milk–carton boat races.
I was pretty sure Sam would stick her nose up at such plebeian entertainment.
Didn’t matter. I’d still go, with or without her.
The following Wednesday was sure to be a big night for us at the store—that was the torchlight parade. I didn’t think I could get Sam to go to that either. I’d probably volunteer to work. The parade route went right up Hennepin Avenue. Lots of tourists likely to stop by the store either before or afterward, on their way to or from the fireworks.
Huh. I stopped and looked at the brochure again. The “marshal” of the parade was Poseidon. With his own float and everything.
Oh please. I’ve met real gods. Whoever this Poseidon was would just be a man, playing a part.
Right? It wouldn’t be the actual god Poseidon. It had just been a fluke the first time. Dealing with Odin and Loki.
I still wanted to go to the parade and see for myself. I hadn’t seen any gods in the last six months, not since the twilight battle between Loki and Odin.
At least Sam knew I hadn’t been making that shit up. There had been gods. And a war between them, that only myself and Hunter and probably a few of the other “crazy” ones could see.
I couldn’t think about Sam now, though. I changed the display up front, adding more blue velvet to the table to make it “wavy.” Changed the music in the store, too, from my usual ’70s and ’80s rock to old–school jazz, starting with sax.
I wasn’t about to admit it was my usual breakup music. Natasha, my ex, had pointed that out, that I must have known about her cheating since I’d switched over to that music for about a week and a half before she left me.
She was wrong. I hadn’t known about her cheating. I didn’t have any kind of pre–cognition ability. The TV shows and the movies had that part of paranormal abilities wrong: You only got one ability. Hadn’t believed it until it happened to me.
Had I known something was wrong between us subconsciously? Hell if I know.
The night went on. I was able to get my smokes, that sweet nicotine flowing through my system again.
Sam hated my smoking. Wasn’t about to stop for her, though.
About 11, I was considering closing the place down. Hadn’t seen a customer in an hour, even though there was a sign in the window that said, “Come in and cool down before you heat up.” All the orders were filled. Hell, I’d even washed the floor. Again.
When the door at the front chimed, I looked up expectantly. Customer? Hooker looking for a free condom sample?
Worse. It was Sam.
“You are here,” she said as she came toward the counter.
“I told you I would be,” I replied, stung.
She just gave me A Look.
Okay, so maybe I’d been lying when I first told her I had to work. But she should have known this was where I’d end up.
Where I’d always end up, a dead–end job at a sex & toy shop.
“There’s been another bomb,” Sam explained.
“Shit. Really? Where?”
“They caught it before it went off,” Sam said. “The guy had climbed up under the First Avenue bridge. Had it set to go off tomorrow, during the waterskiing show.”
“Fuck,” I said. There would have been hundreds, maybe over a thousand people standing on the bridge watching the show. “I’m glad they caught the son of a bitch.”
“Cassie…” Sam started, then didn’t finish. “It wasn’t the same guy. Not the one you showed me.”
“Copycat?” I asked. That always happened on the TV cop shows. They had copycat killers. So couldn’t there be copycat bombers?
Sam shook her head. “Same bomb. Same signature. But different guy. Asian guy. Tall. Skinny.”
“That’s not possible,” I told Sam. “Look, I know what I saw. I saw the first guy planting that bomb. And he moved like Hunter.”
“That’s just it,” Sam said. “No one moves like Hunter. Not another person I’ve ever met or seen. Are you sure it wasn’t Hunter? Because this guy also worked at the VA.”
I stood silent, stymied. “Hunter isn’t involved,” I told Sam quietly. “If Hunter wanted to kill a thousand people, he’d do it with his bare hands.” I wasn’t afraid that Hunter would take a rifle to the top of the Foshay Tower and start shooting at pedestrians. He wasn’t that kind of crazy.
“Not even if his ghosts told him to do it?” Sam asked.
“Fuck no,” I said, though the same thing had occurred to me.
Hunter didn’t have ghosts like that. Or at least that’s what I told myself.
“Hunter’s not involved,” I insisted.
“Okay,” Sam said. She looked down and away from me.
Normally, I wouldn’t have picked up on that sort of thing. But I knew Sam. Knew the kind of shit she might pull.
Especially since she’d done it once to me. Gone and talked about me to my mom.
She had that exact same sort of look.
“You’ve already told the police,” I accused her. “About Hunter. About how he moves.”
“If he’s innocent, it’ll be fine!” Sam protested.
“Get out. I’m closing early,” I snapped at her.
“It isn’t just that,” Sam said, stubbornly staying where she was.
I hated that she still looked gorgeous, even though I was completely
furious with her. I focused instead on emptying the small amount of change that I kept in the till, wrapping it in the evening receipts, then stuffing it into the small slot at the top of the safe.
When I looked back up, Sam was still standing there.
“The cops want to talk with you as well,” Sam said quietly. “Because you identified the other bomber. And it’s a different guy.”
“Swell,” I told her. I didn’t want to hear any more. I flipped the breakers, throwing us both into darkness.
“Fine,” Sam said. “I told them you’d be at your old apartment.”
“Thank god for little favors,” I said, sarcasm dripping from every word.
Sam opened and shut her mouth before she turned and left.
Great. One more thing between us that would need fixing. Later. If there was still an us.
But I couldn’t worry about that now. I had to get to Hunter. To talk him off the wall if the police had already arrived. Or go and bail him out of jail if they’d arrested him already for being belligerent and violent.
If they didn’t arrest me first.
My night was just getting better and better.
In the meantime, I had to go save my blood brother.
Chapter Two
The good thing about Hunter getting better—having actual counseling to deal with the PTSD he’d developed from his time in the Army, the ghosts, and everything else—was that he no longer lived on the streets.
Sam had pulled some strings for me, and gotten Hunter into a halfway house. Not the kind that specialized in drunks and addicts, but one of the few in the city that worked primarily with vets and their issues.
Unfortunately, that meant Hunter would be easier to find. Not just by me, but by the cops.
What the hell had Sam been thinking by telling the cops about him? That he might be a lead? And then turning me over to them?
The night was still steaming, almost as much as me, when I stepped out of Chinaman Joe’s. The temperature had dropped maybe to the mid–80s, but the humidity was still high. Still felt like I’d walked into car wash, the air thick with water.
No relief was in sight, either. It was supposed to stay hot and sticky through the weekend, maybe not rain until the following week.
Luckily, I managed to catch the last bus out to the VA housing in northern Minneapolis. The bus was mostly empty, just a few drunk kids still partying near the front of the bus, a couple of burned–out construction workers who’d probably pulled sixteen–hour shifts and slept against each other in the middle of the bus, and me and the two homeless guys in the back.
It was only three blocks from the bus stop to Hunter’s place. The main road had strip clubs, of course, with a couple twenty–four–hour convenience stores and a motel that sold rooms by the hour.
Just walking half a block off the main road made a world of difference. Not as many streetlights as I would have liked, but it was primarily residential, the noise from the road dying quickly.
The houses were mostly dark and black, all the good citizens long since gone to bed. Tiny, emaciated trees lined the boulevard. People here didn’t water them. Couldn’t afford to. Hulks of rusted cars lined the driveways and yards. One place had half a dozen old washing machines lined up before the front porch, like a bank of slot machines.
Hunter’s residence looked like the rest of the houses on the block, except more cleaned up. The yard was kept well–mowed since they passed out extra food if one of the inmates worked more.
They probably had to hold a lottery or something, since the guys who lived there were vets and duty bound.
I didn’t see any cops in the street, didn’t hear any sirens wailing in the distance. Either they were still on their way, or I was too late.
The guy at the front desk just inside the door of the house knew me. I think his name was John. Or Jonas. Jim, maybe? Something with a “J.” He stood behind the door to the front office on my right, only the top half of the door open. To the left ran a large staircase going up to the dorms. The hallways were always brightly lit—too many of the guys had nightmares, or could be spooked in the dark.
He was a big guy. I was just under six foot with my boots and hair spiked. He had at least a full head on me. Broad as a fucking barn. Skin that dark black color that would make him a hell of a night spy. Bald as the day he was born, with the brightest eyes I’d ever seen, and a voice that would make most women melt, rich and full.
Too bad I wasn’t most women. Guys had never done it for me. He was never sure what to do with me, since I never reacted like any other woman he’d ever met.
“Hey, Cassie,” the guy said. Jesse, maybe? “Too late for visiting hours, you know?”
“I know,” I told him. I slid a cigarette out of my fresh pack. Had I already smoked that many? Damn it. I must have been more stressed than I realized.
I wordlessly passed the cigarette to him. He took it, then nodded.
Bribe accepted.
“Been any trouble tonight?” I asked him, knowing I’d just blown casual all to hell.
He looked sharply at me as he put the cigarette behind his ear. “Trouble?” he asked. “No. Is there gonna be some?”
I could see the tactical side of his brain click on, his eyes taking in me, the surroundings, calculating every weapon in hand’s reach, every exit, every entrance.
Stuff that Hunter did every time he walked into a room, no matter how many times he’d been there before, no matter how much counseling he’d received.
I shrugged, knowing he’d see the motion even if he wasn’t looking at me anymore. “Cops, maybe. Come to talk with Hunter.”
“Huh,” Jerry? Maybe? said. “Hunter went out earlier. Missed curfew. Isn’t back yet.”
Had Hunter seen that the cops were coming to get him? Gotten his pre–cog abilities straightened out so he could focus on just this timeline?
Loki had really messed up Hunter’s abilities big time. Not only had Loki partially slit Hunter’s throat and put him in the hospital for a few weeks, he’d “gifted” Hunter with better foresight. When Hunter first regained consciousness he’d been drowning in his sight, too much too fast, overflowing.
But that had at least convinced Hunter that he needed to talk to the doctors. They’d helped him sort out the data coming in, teaching him how to pick and choose which events to pay attention to, which ones were merely coincidental.
As far as I knew, Hunter was still getting treatment. He’d stopped taking the ghost tripper drug, even when his abilities finally went back down to their normal, unpredictable levels.
“Speak of the devil,” Jeremiah, perhaps, said, looking over my shoulder.
Hunter loomed in the doorway behind me. Had he been outside the door, listening to us? Or had he just come up? I would have thought the house guy wouldn’t let one of his own sneak up on him. Me—I expected Hunter to constantly be a shit and scare the crap out of me by just appearing out of nowhere.
“Hello, Cassie,” Hunter said.
Hunter looked good that night. Plain white T–shirt that showed off the tan he’d been working on—he was no longer the whitest white guy I knew. His newly–shaven bald head reflected the hallway lights. Corded muscles made up his arms. Hunter wasn’t bulky—he was the definition of whipcord thin. And strong. He wore his usual khaki pants and military boots.
I had to admire him for wearing something so heavy on his feet even in this heat. I’d put away my Doc Martens for the summer.
“We have to talk,” I told Hunter, turning toward the door he’d just come through.
“You’re late,” Jerry? called after us.
“I’ll make it up to you,” Hunter promised as he followed me out the door. “Take on your shift next week.”
I stopped and looked at Hunter, shocked. When did he start exchanging shifts for favors? Normally, he’d just tell the guy to fuck off and go and do what he pleased.
Maybe the therapy was working. Maybe Hunter was merging more with society.
Stranger shit had happened.
Hunter sat down on the top concrete step leading up to the halfway house, looking off into the distance.
I didn’t have to see his face to know he had that thousand–yard stare going.
“So when will the cops get here?” he asked conversationally.
“You know? You saw?” I asked. I collapsed down next to him, relieved.
He shook his head. “Figured that was about the only thing that would get you to come and see me, on your own. Either that, or you’re pregnant.”
I snorted. “As if.”
Hunter shrugged. “Never know what Sam might have talked you into,” he added quietly.
I squirmed, a little uncomfortable. It was too close to the truth. I’d sworn I wouldn’t change, that I wouldn’t let Sam transform me into something else, even if I did now have paranormal abilities.
I was also aware I hadn’t been that successful.
“It wasn’t me, but Sam who told the cops,” I told him.
“Figures,” he said.
I got out a cigarette. Out of habit, offered him one, just to watch him grimace and turn me down.
“You’re supposed to smoke twenty–five feet from the doorway,” Hunter said sourly as I lit up.
“Bite me,” I told him. “Anyway, you know about the first bomb, down on University, right?”
Hunter nodded.
“I got an ID on the guy who planted it. The reason no one could find him was because he moved like you, Hunter,” I told him.
“Like me? What do you mean?” Hunter asked.
I nearly rolled my eyes. Dude had never understood just how different he was.
“You move faster than anyone I know,” I explained. “Faster than human.”
“Ah. That.” Hunter nodded. “The ghosts taught me.”
“I know,” I said. “But have you taught anyone else?”
“Sure,” Hunter said. “Eight, ten people, at least. Down at the VA hospital.”
Crap. That meant that not only Hunter would be under suspicion, but a whole bunch of other crazed vets.
“I wanted to see if I could,” Hunter told me quietly. “Since I couldn’t teach you.”
