Chapter 15 #2
The extremely distraught driver rolls down the window and, with a lot of hand motions involved, demands, “What the hell were you doing? I nearly hit you!”
“I was testing whether you were a serial killer. If you accelerated your testicle monster, it would tell me that you are a serial killer, but if you wrangled it to a stop, I would know that you’re not. You have passed my test. Now, human, would you drive us to civilization?”
“You… I’m sorry, you think I’m the serial killer in this group?” he asks while rolling his window back up.
“I’ll give you fifty bucks to drive us,” I shout.
“You guys look like you’re from some cult. I’m not going to be a sacrifice for fifty bucks. Won’t make that mistake a third time,” he says, and then he zooms off as I’m left looking down at our cult attire.
“What’s a cult?” Torin asks curiously. “And are we in one?”
“It’s like… when a group of people obsessively follow the words of one person.”
“Ah, so I’m in a cult. I’m in your cult. I will follow all of your words if you reward me with sex.”
“No! He just looked at our clothes, as well as the fact that you tried testing whether he was a serial killer, and came to a very valid conclusion,” I say.
“I can take your clothes off, if you’d prefer. Then we’ll be in a naked cult.”
I ignore all of that. “When the next car comes by, we’ll simply ask if we can use their phone.”
“You still haven’t shown me what this ‘phone of magic’ does.”
“Because I’m afraid that you’re going to snap it in half like you did the TV!”
“Is the TV that thing I saved your life from?”
“It is.”
“I have since learned that you can witness people having sex on those things. I read it in one of your books.”
“Oh joy, you’ve learned about porn,” I say dryly.
“And porn is… something… you can see on the TV?”
“You can see it on more than just the TV. It’s like a video… like someone, for example, acts out a scene—”
“Sex.”
“Sure. Sex. They act out sex and someone else records them so people can watch it later.”
“How does it work? How do you capture a scene and then put it onto another thing to watch later?”
It occurs to me that I really have no fucking idea because it just… works and I’ve always just known it works. “Magic.”
“Ah. Understandable,” he says with a nod. “I would like to watch porn.”
“Why is it you know some things very well but other things you have no idea about?”
“It all depends on whether I read about them in my cult leader’s sex books. I am a very curious man. I’m also interested in what your legs do when you put them on the ground.”
“They cling tightly to your waist while you walk. It’s illegal for me to walk too much. This earth is not prepared for my body.”
Torin snorts. “Sounds concerning. I definitely should keep carrying you, then.”
“You sure should. I’m your cult leader, after all.”
“I will do anything you wish.”
“I’m pleased I have found a servan—I mean, a… follower as good as you.”
“This follower will do anything you want. Do you want me to be naked?”
“I bet people wouldn’t drive past us if you were,” I mutter. “But no, no. We’ll just wave them down next time.”
It’s two more miles of Torin walking and me reading before another car approaches.
I can feel his body tense up as he prepares to leap in front of them to test their serial killer capabilities, but I just jump off and wave down the car, though his expression indicates what a foolish move he thinks I’m making.
The vehicle slows but the woman only cracks open the window an inch.
I plaster on my soft and friendly smile. “Hey! Our car broke down and I just need to call my friend to pick us up. Is there any way we could use your phone?”
She seems to spend a ridiculously long time contemplating this before looking over at the man in the passenger seat. He’s a pretty buff guy who looks like he could snap me in half and even give Torin a run for his money.
“Sure, but if you don’t hand it back, I will get out of this car and beat the shit out of you,” she says before smiling sweetly and handing me the phone. When she does, her fingers brush against mine, and I feel a tingle of magic rushing up them as I realize that she’s a shifter.
Interesting.
I have no idea what Imani’s or Mickey’s numbers are, so after quickly checking the date and time on the phone, I call the front desk of the Magical Interference Unit. “Can I get transferred to Imani, please?”
“One second,” a woman says before I’m transferred. Imani answers almost right away, which has to mean that my luck is turning around.
“Special Agent Hill speaking.”
“Hey, Imani, I just wanted to let you know I was back.”
“Where’d you go? Did you finally go on vacation? Get laid? Ha. I’m hilarious. We both know that didn’t happen. No, seriously, where’d you go?”
I’m completely flabbergasted that Mickey told absolutely no one that I went through the Door that I might not have come back from or might have been murdered, especially after having been gone for days. Literal days.
I choke all that down. “Whatever. Can you come pick us up?”
“Right now?”
“Preferably.”
“We’re actually out right now. We wouldn’t be able to for a few hours. Does that work?”
I grimace. “Not the best. Can you connect me to Mickey?”
“Sure. I’m glad you finally got a vacation. I hope you’re more pleasant to be around than before you went in,” she says, like she doesn’t at all recognize the peril I was in… that is, if I was in peril and wasn’t actually off having sex with some god in a giant beautiful palace.
“It wasn’t a vacation! I ran through a Door chasing after the god and ended up in another realm. I was gone for days!”
“You must have lived,” Imani unhelpfully points out.
“You are the worst friend I could possibly have asked for. Connect me to Mickey!”
“I’m not the worst, I’m just glad you’re okay. We’ll talk in a few, though, okay? I’ll call you.”
I grumble about all of that while she transfers me to Mickey.
“Hellllllllo,” a woman who is definitely not Mickey says.
“Is this Joy?” I ask.
“It issss.”
“Is Mickey there?”
“No, he’s at home.”
“Is he sick?”
“No. He’s sleeping in.”
“It’s like four in the afternoon on a workday! Can you contact him? I need someone to come pick us up.”
“No, he gave us his phone, his badge, and even his gun, and told us to have at it.”
“Why does a medical examiner, let alone a necromancer, have a gun?” I ask.
“I don’t know, but I have it now,” she says. “I wish it was a revolver so you could hear me spinning the cylinder. I’m playing with it right now.”
“Can you come pick us up before you shoot someone?”
“No can do. I don’t have the car. And I already shot someone earlier, but it’s okay because they were already dead.” And then she hangs up on me.
I grit my teeth as I seethe a bit before sliding the phone back through the car window. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” she says, and I assume she’s now going to realize that all of my friends suck and take pity on me and offer me a ride, but instead, she rolls up the window and zooms off.
“So when are they coming?” Torin asks.
“They’re not.”
“That’s just sad. My people would break their backs to carry my body home. And then after they snapped in two, they’d still drag me home… not that this ever happened. I merely wanted to paint you a picture of how far they’d go for me. Your own friends just ignore you.”
I scowl at him. “I did get some shifter magic when that lady touched me, though. I can’t quite tell what kind.” I flex my hand and try to focus on the magic to see what it is.
“Shift and find out.”
“I guess I could. Maybe it’s something small so you can carry me in your arms while you walk the rest of the way,” I say as I pass him the book and then will my body to shift.
The shift is so smooth that there’s just a slight swelling of magic in my body before I tear right through my clothes and land on four hooves.
Kit stares at the monstrosity I’ve just become, which means that I get to see all of it. “Hell no,” I say, although I’m not quite sure how I’m talking when I’m not opening my mouth.
“HA! How sparkly! You radiate sparkles.” Torin cackles. “I’ve always wanted to ride a unicorn.”
And without waiting, he leaps onto my back just as I’m shifting back into a human because there is absolutely no fucking way I’m going to be seen with a rainbow tail and iridescent coat that seems to shed sparkles.
Torin ends up straddling me when I return to my very naked human form on my hands and knees on the side of the road.
Of course, that’s when the third car pulls up.
The driver takes one look at the grown man riding on the back of another man who is wearing exactly no clothes before taking off.
And because Kit is standing off to the side, I get to see the wonder the man witnessed before leaving.
“That one was definitely a serial killer, but he was intimidated,” Torin decides while I attempt to smack him off my back.
“Get. Off. Me!”
Of course he doesn’t because he’s a stubborn man. “Just shift back!”
“I’m not fucking shifting back!” I insist, collapsing onto the road so he’s given no choice but to remove himself from my back. “I’m going to lie right here and die of shame. How delightful that there is a ditch you can roll my body into.”
“You are so ridiculous,” he says as he scrapes me off the road and places my naked body on my feet. “Go on now, shift back. I’ll give you lots of pats if you do. And an apple.”
“I don’t want your pats,” I snap.
Torin coaxes, “I’ve carried you for many miles. Carry me.”
“I don’t want to. It’s humiliating.”
“I didn’t find it humiliating carrying you. I really enjoyed feeling you pressed against me.”
“Then you can enjoy it for the remaining two miles.”
“I would, but… I think I hurt my ankle,” he says. “I… I can’t even put weight on it. Look at it.” He pulls up his pant leg while doing some weird hop thing.
I stare at his perfectly normal-looking ankle. “Looks fine.”
“Well, it doesn’t feel fine. Please? It’s not like you have any clothes anyway.”