Chapter Forty Three
I debate going back to tell the others what Eri did, but I know I’d lose her if I do that.
She could become anyone. I’d never find her again so I follow after her through the wall.
I know I’ve only been inside the Chamber of Commerce for an hour, two at most, but it’s jarring being back outside with the crowd.
Even more so when I realize the band that marched through town is back for round two.
The town square is on the other side of the road the band is on, a crowd of townsfolk and visitors on either side.
They fill the town square and push up against me and the side of the Chamber of Commerce. It’s packed here.
“Are you okay?” A small boy asks me. He has a pumpkin balloon and he’s dressed like a bat.
He looks between me and the hole in the wall with wide eyes.
He looks me over slowly, taking in the blood on my hands and face and torn clothing.
“Are you a superhero? Is that why you came out of the wall? Can you lift a horse?”
“Um, yeah, I am,” I lie and crouch down beside him. “Hey, I don’t know about the horse thing but do you want to help me catch someone bad?” I was always good with the kids when I was assigned to the daycare and pre-school. I pray I can use some of that kid mojo to get the drop on Eri.
He comes closer and looks around before he whispers loudly to me. “Like a super villain? We’re just visiting my cousins for the weekend and I’m not supposed to talk to anyone I don’t know. I’ve never seen a real super villain. Just fake ones.”
“Yes, exactly like that! I’m so glad you’re here. I bet it’s been, um, a lot of fun. Did you see where the other lady went? She had on a really evil gold dress.”
“I did,” he says with a nod and points towards the road where the marching band plays. “She went that way. She looked really mad.”
“Not as mad as me.” I turn to look for Eri and spot her immediately. Blond hair and the flash of a gold dress slipping into the marching band.
I hold my hand out to high five him. “Thanks, bat boy. I owe you.”
He slaps his hand against mine in a high “You’re welcome!”
I start moving and push my way into the marching band but it’s rough going.
I catch a sax to the back and someone swings a clarinet at my head.
This is bullshit. This marching band is feral.
I’m never going to get through them in one piece if I don’t do something.
Every second I don’t see Eri she gets closer to getting away.
She’s not getting away. Not before she pays for what she did to my husband. I duck past a clarinet and see Eri. She’s in the town square now. She vanishes into the crowd and I surge forward to run after her but I’m cut off by a brass instrument.
“Watch it!” A tuba player doing some weird twist dance with the rest of the band slams into me and I snap. I grab them by the front of their uniform and jerk them to a stop. “Hey, heyyy! What are you doing? No, not my tuba!”
I don’t listen. I go right for their tuba and rip it off of them before I shove them back into the pack of dancing tubas. Let’s see how he likes getting smacked around by a horn.
“What are you going to do with my tuba?”
“This.”
I launch the tuba into the town square after Eri.
I don’t care if anyone else gets in the way.
If they can’t dodge a tuba, then that’s a skill issue.
The brass instrument sails through the crowd and crashes to the ground.
The band stops playing. Everyone freezes.
They aren’t sure where to look. The band does though and they start pointing at me.
“She threw the tuba!”
“Someone stop her.”
“Help! My tuba was a rental!”
I ignore them and walk forward because there’s only one person that’s not staring at me. Eri. She’s standing facing away. Her dumb gold dress is bloody and torn, her perfect hair matted. When she does slowly turn to look at me it’s nice to see that she hasn’t healed from the damage I did to her.
Eri and I stare at each other in silence until a man approaches me. He’s a sheriff and holds his hands up to me in a lame attempt to calm me down.
“Now, missy, you can’t just be causing a ruckus. That’s destruction of property and at least two counts of public endangerment.” I glance at the sheriff before I look back at Eri. I don’t care what this man thinks he’s going to do. I know what I’m going to do.
“Now, you’re going to have to come-”
I ignore the sheriff and point at Eri. “You took him from me!”
The god puts up her hands and shakes her head. “We can work something out. Power? I can give you riches beyond your wildest dreams. I can give a world of your own, one to make in your image. Let’s be reasonable about this. It’s just a guy. He was only-”
“He was my everything and you took him,” I interrupt and give her a mean smile, “and now I’m going to take everything from you.”
The sheriff goes quiet and looks at Eri and then around to the crowd.
Some people have dropped down into low crouches and covered their ears.
Mothers hold their children while fathers look unsure of what to do.
I know what they should do. They should run.
Take their loved ones home where they’re safe and protected.
Where monsters like Eri can’t get to them.
“If this is a public dispute, you’re going to have file a civil-”
“Shut up,” I tell him, my voice rising. “I’m not doing any of that. I’m going to kill her. Now, officer, if you want me to go anywhere, you’ll clear out this square and leave her to me!” I end on a shout, my voice echoes, the words bounce off the buildings and back to me.
“Now,” I tell the sheriff.
Because he’s a man, he doesn’t listen. He grabs his walkie talkie and calls for back up. “I’m going to need-”
I tune him out and start walking towards Eri. Whatever the sheriff thinks he’s doing, he’s not. He’s got bigger fish to fry with an entire cult running out of the Chamber of Commerce. No doubt they'll be making their way out into all of this soon.
The crowd scrambles to get away from me when I get close and a path to Eri appears like magic.
Neat. Eri backs up but she stops after a step, like she’s finally realized running won’t do her any good.
When she drops into a fighting stance I’m glad.
I thought she’d given up. I’m about to charge at her when my world stops.
“Meadow!”
I freeze and over Eri’s shoulder see the last person I expected to see. “Buffy?”
“Sorry I’m late, I got held up.” She has a bruise on her cheek but there’s nothing else to show that she was attacked. She looks around the town square and then from Eri to me. “Meadow, what’s going on?”
My hands shake when she asks me that. “She killed him.” I whisper, even though I want to scream.
“Who?”
“My husband.”
Buffy comes closer. She moves slowly, whether that’s because of me or Eri, I’m not sure. “I missed your wedding like an asshole?”
That makes me laugh. Tears prick my eyes and I blink to force them back. I sniffle. “Yeah, you did.”
“I’m fucking sorry, Meadow.”
“I know, Buffy.”
She moves to the side and motions for the people near her to get up. “Go home. Now.” She snaps her fingers at the people across from her. “Get inside if you know what’s good for you. It’s not safe here.”
“Now what the fuck is going now? This is my town! I will have order!” The sheriff yells from behind us.
We ignore him and the crowd scatters off.
Some run to their homes, but I see some of them stay.
They huddle at the edges of the square or in the road with the marching band who decides to stay put right where they are, which is definitely a choice.
I hope they aren’t staying because of the tuba thing.
“Is Wrath okay? I’ve been worried but we had a little end of the world sitch because this bitch needs a midnight snack situation.”
“He’s good. Mostly healed. He helped me track you and Charlie here. He’s a little tired, but should be here soon with backup. Who is she?” Buffy asks.
“A god or whatever. Doesn’t matter. She’s dead.”
Eri snarls when I say that. “I am a Hallowed World Eater! I am eternal and holy beyond all comprehension. I am divine.”
“World cuisine snack attacker. Got it.” Buffy looks at me and gives me a sad smile. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around lately.” She holds out a hand to me. “Or that I haven’t been bringing you on patrols. I didn’t mean to.”
I take her hand and squeeze it. “I know you did it to keep me safe. Sorry Roy got you jumped. If it makes you feel any better I snapped his neck like a glow stick.”
“Morbidly, that does make me feel a lot better. Thanks.”
“Anytime. I’m a witch now, too.”
“I heard. Sunday tattled.”
“Sunday is such a snitch.”
“Are we going to fight or are you two gal pals going to keep yapping? Doesn’t anyone care that I have a schedule to keep?” Eri looks put out. It would be funny if I wasn’t so keen to see her dead.
“Not particularly," I tell her, “but since you asked so nicely I’ll get back to beating your ass.”
“Wait a hot minute.” Buffy points at Eri. “You did that?”
“Yeah.”
“Niiiice.”
“That’s it!” Eri screams and a second later she’s slinging magic at us in the form of lightning bolts.
Buffy throws herself to the side to dodge them but I don’t.
I deflect them and send them right back to Eri before I start hitting her with my own.
After blocking the first two she starts getting hit.
She can’t keep up with my attacks. It’s satisfying to watch Eri overpowered by my magic. She’s not as strong as me.
Some god she turned out to be. What a loser.
I lift my hand and fire a bolt at her chest. I aim for her heart and it strikes true.
My magic hits her in the heart in a fiery blast and Eri falls.
I don’t wait for her to get up to know if she’s down for real or not, I go to Eri.
She’s on her back, arms and legs splayed like a starfish.
I stand over her and look at her. I don’t see a god or even a person. I see a selfish and controlling ghoul.
I drop down into a crouch beside her and for a second, I think about doing exactly what I promised her about ripping her heart out, about killing her.
Then I hear a tiny cheer. I look up to see bat boy and his pumpkin balloon.
He’s towards the edge of the square with his parents but he’s a few steps away from them and jumping.
He waves his balloon over his head like a tiny maniac cheering for me.
He looks so small, so much like the boy Jaak was when he made his deal with Eri.
“You got her! You got her! You did it! You’re a hero!”
I jerk away from Eri. Reality presses in around me. This isn’t me. I can’t do this. I won’t do this and become what she is.
I stand up and wave at bat boy with a forced smile. “Thanks for helping with justice today, bat boy!”
“You’re welcome!”
“Well now I feel like I overreacted with the jumping and everything,” Buffy says from where she’s still laying on the ground.
I smile and walk over to her and hold a hand out to help her up. “Better safe than sorry.”
She takes my hand and stands beside me, giving the town square a once over. “This place is pretty cute. I mean, I’ve never been anywhere outside of Sweet Tooth but this is nice. Very cutesy.”
“It is. I like it here.” I’m not lying, I do.
I think of the house that knows me, the one that’s probably still guarding the now useless book I left in its charge, the one that Jaak carried me over the threshold of.
I think of stuffed waffles with Jaak and the toy store.
Hell, I even think of the floral shop. All of my memories with Jaak are here.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “A lot of good memories.”
“You’ll have to tell me about them,” Buffy says and when she holds out her arms to me, I don’t think, I hug her. I hug her tight and I cry. Buffy smooths a hand over my hair and rubs my back. “I should have been here. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have been alone.”
I ignore that. There’s no way she could have been here with the way it all went down.
“I wasn’t alone. You would have liked him.”
“Oh yeah? Tell me about him.”
“His name was Jaakobah, but I called him Jaak. He was sweet and smart. He was the kindest soul I ever met. The best one. He was gentle and good to me.”
Buffy hugs me tight. “Did Jaak have a whole tall, dark and handsome vibe going? Like very tall?”
I nod, face still on her shoulder. “Yeah, he did. He was beautiful.”
“I can see that. Also horned. Oh man, what’s the word for it?”
I freeze. “What? What are you talking about?”
Buffy snaps her fingers with a grin. “A minotaur! That’s what the word is! I saw it in a docuseries on ancient art Elijah made me watch. Gotta say, your husband looks way cooler than the one Theseus fought, though. Big axe, really great hair. Real horns and hooves vibe.”
I pull back from Buffy to look at her. “How do you know that?”
She jerks her chin behind me with a smile. “Because he’s walking towards us.”