by Leah Cutter
Hunter more or less gently knocked him out.
The group seemed dazed. “What happened?” the gay guy asked.
“Where are we?” the one girl asked.
Just then, the chant sprang up again. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. I closed my eyes and opened my area of knowing.
Directly across the river from us was another group. Plus a second and third, farther up the riverbank, one on this side, one on the far side.
Damn it. This damned cult. There were too many of them. Even Hunter couldn’t fight through all of them.
The guy I’d brought down finally opened his eyes. “You! You…you tackled me again?” he asked.
“Relax, princess,” I told him. “I’m sure everyone still thinks you’re still as much of a man as they ever did.” I stood up, then reached down a hand to help him stand.
He resisted, staying on the ground.
I shrugged and turned to Hunter. “I don’t know what to do,” I told him. “There are too many of them.”
Hunter nodded. “We would need many more blood brothers to take them all down.”
Before I could suggest to Hunter that we should get to it, the guy on the ground said, “Wait. There’s another way.”
“Tell me,” I ordered him.
He shrank away from me but continued. “The water god’s soul. It’s in an urn. Break the urn, and the water god will stop the dread one from rising.”
“You guys captured Poseidon?” I asked, pissed off. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“We thought it was just a game,” the guy said, defeated. “You have to free the water god. Before the fireworks.”
“I bet I know where that urn is,” I said to Hunter. “On the main float for the parade. Poseidon’s float.”
It would be protected by Minneapolis’ finest. No one would be able to get through to it.
But we had to.
“Come on,” I said.
I didn’t run. Not really. But I might have started jogging quickly back up to the street where we’d left Hakeem.
The fireworks would go off in less than thirty minutes.
It would take a miracle for us to get from the river to downtown in time.
Fortunately, Hakeem was that miracle. He’d waited for us—as trusty a steed as any I’d seen in the movies. However, he also proved just how crazy he was on that trip. I’d never been scared riding in a car before. I swear that man went down sidewalks trying to get us there on time.
Of course, we couldn’t drive up to the parade. Traffic was at a dead standstill for blocks around it.
“I’m sorry, my friend, this is as far as I can take you,” Hakeem told us.
“This is far enough. Thank you,” I said.
Hunter looked at me, then looked at the stream of people pushing toward us. “Are you ready?”
I was never going to be ready for this insanity. But all I said was, “Let’s go.”
Then I braced myself as Hunter picked me up under one arm and took off.
Ξ
Even Hunter had to slow down once we reached the parade route. “You can put me down, now,” I told him dryly.
“Sorry,” Hunter said. He kept a hand on my shoulder, not because he thought I’d run away, but to keep us connected.
I pulled out my phone and started calling people. The first one I reached was Tess. “Where are you?” I shouted into the phone.
It was hard to hear her, but I thought she said that she was at the corner of Tenth Street.
“Has Poseidon’s float come by yet?” I asked.
“Which one was that?” she asked.
Really. I was going to tie her up and force her to read a book one of these days.
“He would have been carrying a trident,” I told her. “A big pitchfork!” I added before she could ask me what a trident was.
“Oh. Yeah! He came by. Huge statue laying on a gold couch.”
Hakeem had dropped us off at Seventh. That meant the float would be directly in front of us soon.
“Thanks!” I said as I hung up. “This way,” I told him.
“I’ve never worked with a spy network before,” Hunter told me with admiration in his voice.
I wasn’t about to comment on the quality of my “spy network.” I was just lucky they’d had the information I needed.
Then again, I knew that I might owe all of them dinner or something afterward, even if they had been going to see the parade on their own.
Hunter took the lead now, weaving us elegantly through the crowd. He couldn’t go superhuman speed but he still got us through the press of people faster than I would have.
“There! There it is,” I said, pointing at the float just coming down the street.
Ugly urns lined the float. The one we wanted rode at the front point. I could see black clouds surrounding it, as if they were caging whatever was trapped inside.
“You see it?” I asked Hunter, turning back to see him.
He nodded.
Between us and the float were lines of cops and security. Even more cops walked directly beside the float.
But we had to get to that float. We had to break that urn.
“You know what?” I said, turning toward Hunter. “I think it’s your turn to save the world this time.”
The smile that broke across his face was astonishing. Though Hunter was older than I was, and had seen things I didn’t ever want to think about, he still had a boyishness to him sometimes.
A young man looked out at me.
“Really?” he asked, incredulous. “But I…I thought it would be you. Again. Always.”
“Nope,” I said. “We’re blood brothers, right? Sometimes it’s going to be me who saves your ass. Other times, it’ll be you.”
“I can do this,” Hunter said proudly. “I can get to the float. Break the urn. Free the god.”
“You go do that,” I told him.
Hunter clasped me on the shoulder and squeezed, gently, once.
Then he took off, flowing through the crowd, the corridor of cops, heading straight to the float.
One of the security guards broke off from the rest of the group.
Holy shit. He moved like Hunter. Faster than the eye could track him.
Was it the bomber? Or one of the people Hunter had been teaching at the VA?
I hoped like hell that someone was recording this on their phone. Because it was about to get epic.
Hunter didn’t try to go around the asshole. Instead, he struck out with a flat palm.
I think if it would have connected, the punk would have gone flying.
But he shifted to the side.
I saw what was wrong immediately.
Hunter flowed. He was smooth, never a wasted motion.
This guy was jerky. Fast, sure. But he wasn’t smooth. Black lines swirled around him, and those damned vines poked out as well. Was he moving so quickly because he was traveling across the alternate worlds? Hunter said they only could move like he did because they cheated.
Then another jerk joined the first.
Hunter didn’t slow down one bit.
The blows fell fast and furious. As did the kicks. They sparred. They fought. They punched and hissed, all the while moving like ninjas.
The cops around them didn’t know what the fuck to do. They couldn’t approach, not without getting injured themselves. Hunter and the others were moving way too fast. The cops yelled, while the crowd cheered on the fighters.
I winced every time Hunter’s head jerked back, as if he’d been hit. Man, he was going to be a massive wall of bruises.
The other two weren’t as good as Hunter. But there were two of them.
Minneapolis natives may be assholes sometimes, but they pick up after themselves. Took me a few frantic moments to find a discarded can of soda, probably dropped on the curb by a tourist.
I figured I should go buy a lottery ticket next, because I actually hit the guy I was aiming at. In the head.
The guy was only distracted for a second, but Hunger saw his opening and finally got in a solid blow. The shithead flew across the space, plowing into two of the cops standing four feet away.
The way his chest was caved in, I don’t think he was getting up again anytime soon.
The second guy didn’t last much longer. Hunter nailed him to the float, pummeled him with fists flailing too fast to be tracked.
Then Hunter used the asshole as a springboard. Up, up he went. He seemed to hover through the air as he rose to the top of the float. Without even pausing, he kicked out at the urn.
To my eyes, the clay disintegrated like sand under the impact. Water sprayed everywhere.
Then the drops flowed up, into a mini–tornado. Inside the spinning column of water a bearded merman appeared, with a huge trident in his hand.
Tentacles shot down from the clouds. Poseidon—I mean, that merman couldn’t be anyone else—writhed, struggling to free himself.
Fuck. Even if I could throw that high, I doubted getting hit with a soda can would distract that thing beyond the clouds, the owner of those tentacles.
“Come on, Poseidon! Do it!” I shouted.
The merman finally wrenched the arm holding the trident free. He shoved it above his head, spearing the darkness, shooting lightning through the clouds.
An unworldly shriek echoed out over the crowd. It pierced my bones, diving down into my very soul, making me shiver even in the summer heat.
The crowd echoed the screams. The noise rolled around both inside my head and through the canyons of tall office buildings.
For just a moment, Poseidon looked down at me, his gaze piercing.
I wanted to back up, but I was always more stubborn than the average citizen, so I held my ground and met his eye.
He nodded, once, before he flew up into the clouds.
Thunder rolled through the sky ominously.
Hunter calmly jumped off the float and held his arms out to the cops so they could handcuff him, take him away.
I was going to have to make sure that he got introduced to Michael John Adams. And then got some more therapy.
Though, given the look on his face, saving the world may have been the best therapy for him.
Before the cops could question him or me more, the clouds suddenly opened up and the rain poured down. It wasn’t coming down in drops, no, this was buckets of water dumped abruptly on us from the heavens.
In my mind, I heard the hissing of the non–men as they melted, the rain washing them away like a bad dream.
I kept up with the crowd for a bit, then cut away, and away, until I was walking by myself. For the first time in a few days, I felt clean, as though the rain had finally washed away all the grime and silt and slime from the Jacobson Consortium.
Loki waited for me at the end of the alley.
“Not bad,” he said. He looked different this time, half of his face a mass of scars.
“Thanks,” I told him. He also looked very solid, wearing a modern white dress shirt, jeans, and black–and–red cowboy boots.
Great. Did taking the ghost tripper drug mean I had more visits from the gods to look forward to?
“You’ll have to take better care of him,” Loki said, looking beyond me.
I turned. A pale vision unfolded, showing Hunter being taken away by the cops, to a scary gray building with razor wire and guards with rifles and dogs.
“I will,” I said. I didn’t understand all the freaky shit about being a blood brother. And Hunter was likely to get on my very last nerve frequently.
We’d never be anything more than brothers.
However, I’d never have to be alone again.
Once he got out of prison.
Ξ
Despite being soaked through to the skin, I made my way as quickly as I could to Chinaman Joe’s. Hopefully he hadn’t noticed, the shop had been open, and I’d be able to get away with missing part of my shift.
The icy cold AC of the store sent shivers across my shoulders and goosepimples up and down my arms. They weren’t helped by the look on Tom’s face.
“Chinaman Joe was here,” Tom said quietly.
Fuck.
“He asked me to give you this.”
It was a large, brown envelope. I knew what it contained.
Chinaman Joe was going to fire me.
I opened the envelope anyway. Maybe it was just another reprimand.
Nope. Formal firing papers, or rather, a reduction in staff notification.
Fuck.
Tomorrow morning, when I went back to Jacobson Consortium, I’d have to pee in a cup. Then they’d fire my ass as well.
It didn’t matter if that meant I’d finally be able to talk about their practices. I was still out of a job. Probably unemployable.
After I took out letter, I realized that there was still something at the bottom of the envelope.
“What’s this?” I asked. It was a key ring with two keys on it.
One looked like a building key. The other was a regular house key.
“Beats me,” Tom said, far too casually.
“Come on. Spill,” I told him. I was too tired, cold, and cranky to put up with his bullshit.
Where was I going to live? I only had enough rent for one month. I was going to have to cut way down on my cigarettes, too, if I wanted to eat for the next couple of weeks.
Tom just shook his head. “It’s a key to the offices,” he said.
“Offices?” I asked. “What—oh. The offices upstairs?”
Tom shrugged. “He just said to tell you ‘the offices’ if you asked.”
“Okay. Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for taking the shift for me.” Even if I still ended up getting fired.
Tom gave me a guilty grin. “Chinaman Joe said he’d keep me on for a trial basis.”
“Good,” I said. “No, really, that’s good.” I knew Tom would fit in well with Amy, Laura, and Travis. Plus, he’d bring in an entirely new clientele. Hell, he’d probably be better for the business than keeping me on would have been.
I turned and left the shop.
From the outside doors, if you turned left, you went into the shop. If you turned right, there was another door that was blocked off—used to be to the restaurant next door, before they blocked it off.
Straight ahead was another door, that led to the offices upstairs. I hadn’t been up there since I first started working for Chinaman Joe, four years ago now.
The key turned easily. The stairs were narrow but clean, well lit with sconces all the way up.
The wooden–floored hallway stretched off to the left, above the store. Chinaman Joe’s office was up here, though he rarely ever worked there. There were a couple of other doors, closed, locked.
At the end of the hall was an old–fashioned door: Wood, with a frosted glass window in the top.
My name was written there on the door, in big block letters. Underneath were the words, “Investigation Services.”
What the hell?
The other key opened the door.
The room was pretty plain. Just a desk that looked like it had come from an industrial surplus store, plus chairs on either side that were mismatched and looked like they’d been hauled in from one of the thrift shops. A battered four–drawer cabinet sat next to some equally weathered bookcases that ran along the wall, under the windows.
In the center of the desk sat another envelope. I sat down in the chair opposite the door and pulled out the papers.
A contract? No. Incorporation papers.
A limited–liability partnership between me and Chinaman Joe, with him the majority partner in an investigation company. But also the silent partner. I’d run the shop.
The papers spelled out that I’d agree to, and pay for, the regular government inspections of my business, including the regular telepathic examination.
This was why no one worked freelance. The government wouldn’t allow individuals to run their own services. They
had to be incorporated. Those were the other papers, the full corporation that I’d be running.
Getting the right papers, with the right signatures, was a bitch.
But Chinaman Joe had done it.
How? Who exactly did he have dirt on, to get them to agree to this arrangement?
Had my mom helped? It wouldn’t have surprised me.
Did he have dirt on her?
I wasn’t about to try to go through the contracts right now. I was still cold, exhausted, and on edge at the same time.
I had so many things to do in the morning. Let Jacobson Consortium fire me. Go pick up my few things from Sam’s place, maybe have another talk with her.
Or maybe I could just grab my stuff without another “talk.”
I wasn’t about to call her with news of my new gig. Though she’d be happy for me she’d be worried, too worried, about me fucking it up, instead of supporting me and trying to help.
Hell, I’d probably get more support from Dr. T.
I was going to have to call Michael John Adams, too, and get him to take Hunter on as a client.
Set up my “spy network” to start sending me my own clients. Like Hakeem. And the working girls. And my mother. And, hell, who knew? Maybe Sam would send people to me as well.
It was going to be a hell of a lot of work. Chances were, I’d be even more broke than I currently was.
But I’d have the opportunity to use my powers for good. And I wanted to do that more than anything else.
I didn’t sign the papers right then, though I knew I would. Instead, I gathered them together and left, locking the office door behind me.
My office door.
Who knew? Maybe I was ready to leave home and grow up. Not that I’d ever admit that to anyone.
Except perhaps to Hunter, who may have already known.
Epilogue
“Hey, buddy,” Steve said, walking into Gary’s hospital room.
Gary was at least sitting up that day. His eyes shone feverishly bright and his skin was still pale. The doctors didn’t know what was wrong with him, but they’d kept him in the hospital for observation, as well as to get his fever down.
Steve suspected it was still the curse or the Great Old Ones or whatever the hell that whole fucked–up shit had been that was still working its way out of Gary’s system.
