Chapter 25. Jenny #2
He curled the tip of his tentacle. Tiny barbs emerged from the endmost suckers. He studied them like he was checking a manicure. “I thought you didn’t judge people by their appearance, Jenny. Wasn’t that part of your big enlightenment before you ran off?”
“Fuck this.” Annette brushed past me, her knife raised, only to bounce off an invisible barrier in the doorway. She scowled and tried again, with the same result.
Alex pointed to the doormat. “‘An it harm none, do what you will.’ It’s an elegant little contract.”
I tried to enter. It was like stepping into a sheet of plastic wrap. The spell clung to my skin. I continued to push, and the air hardened like steel. I focused on my right fist, trying to drill through. All I got for my attempt were bruised knuckles.
Alex removed his sunglasses and tossed them past us and into the yard. He wasn’t wearing his eyepatch anymore. R’gngyk had grown him a new eye, yellow and rheumy and slightly larger than his human one.
“I can see magic,” he said. “All these spells Temple and his family built up over the years, I can read them like billboards on the highway. Every connection, every nodule of stored power, every trigger. Not only that, but once I got inside, I could adjust your shop’s defenses. That magic doormat serves me now.”
His smile grew. “I rewrote your contract. If you want to enter, you have to accept the terms. Harm none. Not me, not my followers, not even R’gngyk.
And before you decide, I should tell you I cut out those pesky self-defense caveats, too.
Once you enter, I could skin you alive without you being able to throw a single punch. ”
His cockiness hadn’t changed. I could use that.
“Deal.” I unclenched my fists and stepped through the doorway.
“Dammit, Jenny!” Annette tried to follow. She rebounded so hard, she bumped into Ronnie.
“Take care of Temple.” I caught her eyes and tried to make her understand the words I wasn’t saying. I have a plan. Try to wake Temple up and get him to undo what Alex did. I’ll keep him busy as long as I can. Also, if this doesn’t work, I love you both.
Annette scowled but gave a small, tight nod. I imagined her thinking, You’d better know what you’re doing. If you get yourself killed, I’ll kick your ass.
I faced Alex and gave him my best fake customer-service smile. “As long as you’re here, would you care to check out our wide variety of used books?”
· · ·
“Jenny Winter.” Alex shut and locked the door behind me. “How long has it been?”
“Twenty-eight years.” I slipped past him and retreated out of arm’s length. Unfortunately, the hall wasn’t long enough to get out of stretchy tentacle’s length. “Our ten-year reunion.”
He chuckled. “That was so awkward. Everyone else was talking about their careers and their families, and then there was Jenny Winter, alone and purposeless. You’d walked away from everything and everyone that gave your life meaning.
I’m glad you finally found your true calling, selling used books and cheap junk to tourists. ”
I REMEMBER THIS ONE, said Artemis. I DON’T RECALL HIM BEING SUCH AN ASSHOLE.
My senses were turned up to eleven, and my limbs twitched with the instinctive drive to fight this twisted thing that used to be my friend.
I wanted to punch Alex’s face in and I wanted to hug him and I wanted to shake him until all the bitterness and corruption fell out.
Instead, I simply asked, “What have you done with Morgan and Sage?”
He waved his hand dismissively. “I assume they’re upstairs in those locked rooms? The house didn’t want to let me through those doors. I could have forced my way in, but why bother? I don’t need them anymore.”
Thank you for protecting them. I hoped the house could feel my gratitude. Knowing the kids were safe freed me to focus entirely on Alex. “How long have you been planning this? I saw the photocopies you made.”
“The benefits of being a teacher’s aide. Unlimited access to the Xerox machine.” He shook his head in mock-sadness. “I didn’t have everything figured out back then, but I saw the signs. By the time we graduated, I knew you didn’t have what it took.”
The punching urge was quickly overpowering the hugging urge. “You saw what being a Hunter cost me, Alex. You saw what it turned me into.”
“Exactly. You weren’t strong enough.” He waved his tentacle at me. “Felipe and the Guardians Council were a bunch of overcontrolling assholes, but they were right about the world needing protection.”
“Were they? I quit more than thirty years ago. The world has been fine without me.”
“Have you seen the world lately?”
HE HAS A POINT.
“The world hasn’t been overrun by demons or monsters or eldritch horrors since I quit,” I amended. “Not until you invited this one to my front door. You don’t have to do this. There’s still time to—”
“Zip it,” he said. “You’re here to watch, not to make heartfelt speeches about the power of friendship like some dumpy, middle-aged Care Bear.”
It had been worth a try. Giving the villain a chance to change their mind was part of the script. As was their derisive refusal.
Because it was Alex, I tried one more time. “You’re smarter than this. You know what happens to people who conjure up ancient deities of death and destruction. The sucker who opens the way always ends up being the first meal for whatever monstrosity or devil or demonic wiener dog shows up.”
“Demonic wiener dog?” His forehead wrinkled, and then he laughed. For a moment, he sounded like the Alex I remembered. “The clerk at the city pound. He was trying to conjure hellhounds.”
“He kind of did.” I shook my head at the memory.
“The hellhound just possessed the wrong dog. And then that little, yippy dachshund from hell burned and ate the guy. But hey, maybe your buddy Ringo won’t do that.
Maybe he’ll just drive you mad and keep you as a pet.
Or rip out your soul and wear it as a hat for ten thousand years.
Or pluck your memories and snack on them like popcorn. ”
“Typical Jenny.” He entered the gifts side of the shop and spun a display of personalized glittering keychains.
“Did it ever cross your mind that I might know what I’m doing?
No, of course not. You never trusted us.
It was always the Jenny Winter show. You had to be the strongest and smartest, the only one who knows what’s best for everyone. ”
“You’ve been dealing drugs to children, Alex. Mutating and controlling them.”
“Shut up.” His hate hit me like a train. He struck the display, sending glittering keychains flying. The rack crashed to the floor. “You don’t get to judge me. You shot a sixteen-year-old girl with your bow, then you stabbed her through the heart with that sword.”
Old friends were like family. They knew precisely how to hurt you. “The Guardians Council ordered me to kill a rogue Hunter.”
“Hope worshipped you,” Alex said bitterly. “Just like the rest of us did in the beginning. Hope dreamed of being just like the great Jenny Winter.”
Hope was supposed to have been my replacement.
At twenty-three years old, after ten years as a Hunter, I was past my expected expiration date.
The Council had a Hunter on six of the seven continents, and I was the oldest by a good three years.
We all assumed it was only a matter of time before some machete-wielding gremlin or vengeful nereid ended my winning streak.
Along with Hope’s mentor, a middle-aged woman named Louise with a strong Fargo accent, I acted as a combination mentor/babysitter until she was ready for solo hunts. The Slay Team had even been involved with her early missions. She was smart and tough and fun. I liked her.
But she was too eager and too angry. She’d begun going on unsanctioned hunts, tracking and killing at least six people: criminals who’d avoided the police or gotten off on technicalities.
When the Council tried to rein her in, she rebelled against them.
She put Louise in the hospital with a concussion and a cracked sternum.
They sent me to stop her. I should have said no.
It had taken me five weeks to find her. Artemis could have told me where she was, but the goddess refused to get involved.
I WEPT FOR YOU BOTH, BUT I COULDN’T ABANDON HER ANY MORE THAN I COULD ABANDON YOU.
Unspoken between us was my choice to abandon Artemis.
ALL CHILDREN brEAK FROM THEIR PARENTS. YOU CAME BACK TO ME WHEN YOU WERE READY.
There was no condemnation, no passive-aggressive guilt tripping. Not this time, at least. Only the goddess’s gladness at my return.
“Don’t say it wasn’t Hope’s place to be judge and executioner,” Alex continued. “That’s exactly what Hunters are. That’s exactly what you and the Council were to her.”
“I know.” My stomach hurt from guilt and regret I’d carried for thirty-three years. “They ordered me to kill my sister in Artemis, and I did. I should have tried harder to talk to her, to help her. It’s why I left, Alex. You know that. It’s why I ran away from everything I was.”
“Did you really?” he snapped. “Because here you are again, showing up with your sword and bow, ready to kill me just like you killed her.”
Madness limned his words. How much of that madness was from his connection with R’gngyk and how much came from his own jealousy and bitterness and resentment?
“I don’t want to kill you, Alex.”
His tentacle coiled around my wrist. I instinctively stepped into the hold, bringing my other fist up to strike.
My hand stopped halfway to his sternum. Icy pain electrified the nerves of my arm.
Alex flinched, but when it became clear I couldn’t hurt him, his expression pulled into a smirk. “Didn’t Felipe teach you not to pull your punches?”