Thomm Quackenbush's Blog

Roselyn had promised Arden a murder documentary to decompress from yoga. The presence of a cursed swordsman with a mechanical rig would not interfere. She gathered her cards back into their case, wished Shane and Steven luck in breaking his curse, hugged Clive in a more than perfunctory way, and booted the latter three from Roselyn's apartment. While the door closed, she promised she would talk spells over with Roselyn once the show ended, and they could call if needed--but she would prefer they not need for a few hours.

Shane considered this more than fair in trade for the reading.

"You haven't slept?" she asked Steven when they got back to the street, though partly because she couldn't imagine unconsciousness with a curse on her head and sword taped to her hand. The streetlights had turned on while they were inside, assembling his rig and path, bathing the streets in a thin, yellow light.

"Not since the job," he said.

"And you are not exhausted," she said, having no need of a question. "Once we break this curse, you are going to sleep like the dead." Shane paused, wondering if this phrasing was callous, but Steven was a big boy. He had accepted the possibility that this all ended with him rendered to bloody tatters. She added, "I prefer sleep, but I'll make do for the next 68 hours or so."

"I don't need sleep either," said Clive, trying to keep pace with Steven and the conversation.

"You very much do," Shane reminded him, "no matter that you feel jazzed from creating another 'masterpiece.' Go home."

"That does not remotely sound as fun," he noted, throwing an arm around Shane's shoulder. "When did you become so maternal?"

"I promise Steven and I will limit the amount of fun we are having in trying to prevent him from exploding. You're going to find us some sacred sheath--no, not a sex toy--on the internet. Then I want six hours of uninterrupted sleep from you."

Clive's eyes went from delighted to pleading in a flash. "For a magical sword whose name you don't know, whose purpose is shrouded, you want a sheath? Maybe a vibrating one, silicone--"

"No," Shane said flatly, not wishing to encourage this.

"A scabbard, then? Bejeweled? Rhinestones?"

Shane would not welcome his next joke. "That is a much better option, yes."

"Fool's errand, that's what this is," Clive confided toward--but not to--Steven, whose lips pinched in annoyance.

"Only because you are our beloved, irreplaceable fool, but I don't think it is useless." She kissed him lightly on the cheek. "We should explore every option, and you should sleep at some point so you remain useful to me tomorrow."

"This seems pandering, but you did kiss me in the cheek and promise to buy me a vibrating sheath--"

"I did no such thing."

"--So I will allow myself to be persuaded."

Clive took off without much further complaint -- but not without any.

"You think Junior needs sleep?" Steven asked what Clive was barely out of earshot.

"Not as much as you need a break from him."

Steven rubbed the back of his neck, making no other response.

Shane called a car. Her own was back at Annandale.

She had a few safe houses in the area for such situations -- and these were not rare. The places were not always cozy, furnished with cast-off furnishings from the curb. Beyond reading cards, this is where Arden excelled, making temporary homes out of detritus. Then, Roselyn and she warded them to make them defensible--though they could only repel generalities. The cost of time and supplies would be prohibitive to cover all bases.

These were often rented out from under them--which worked to Shane's advantage. Anyone looking for a goblin under her protection would only find five college students trying to live in a space meant for two.

"You need to tell me about this kid," Shane said as they waited on the corner.

He considered the lie. Shane could see it in how his eyes squinted as though against sunlight that had receded hours ago, and then his brow eased.

"I don't know him. Spent a month with his mom between jobs about sixteen years ago, give or take." He laughed once, no pleasure at the memory. "Guess it took. Didn't know until the mermaid's contract. Wasn't sure that I totally believed it until your friend. She wasn't the first to say it, just the only one who read me cold and didn't have a stake in manipulating me."

"You took a job that might kill you for the chance you might meet a son you did not know you had, and might not?"

He looked at her as though she had missed something crucial, something he could not convey to her in words because it was so far out of her experience. "You don't have kids."

She did not have to point out that, as far as they could be sure, neither did he, so assuming this position with her was tenuous. Even if the kid was what Steven thought, it was half his genetic information, not his son. Fatherhood should mean more than neglecting a condom.

"I sort of did have a tween for about 48 hours," Shane said, voice dropping. It was not a matter she liked to discuss with those who had not been present, and she tended to change the subject when her friends mentioned the girl. Shane's face tensed, remembering the rich earth scent of the child's hair, her encompassing embrace, how no one had ever made Shane feel so unreservedly loved. Sending her away was a mercy--for the girl, for the world--but it would always feel a little like abandonment. "It was complicated."

He softened, reading Shane's sincerity in her discomfort. "It tends to be with kids. What happened?"

Shane swallowed, then gave a laugh she could not mean, all breath without vocalization. "Oh, the usual: opened a portal so she could resume being a fairyland in another timestream with a guy who wanted to worship me."

The joke had no impact on him, failing to rise to the level of something implausible. "You had her for a couple of days," Steven said. "Would you have stolen this sword to keep her safe?"

Shane's mouth twisted. "Ten times in a row. Eleven if I didn't have to send her away."

"Then maybe you get it."

"Is your son unsafe?"

Shane expected this would provoke him, a crack in the gruff facade, but she erred. The question of danger was more familiar to the swordsman. "His mom was. Murdered. Not a pretty death, the way I heard it."

"Why does the mermaid have him?"

His mouth turned up at her apparent ignorance. "It's not like that. She could get him back. It's how they work."

Shane was not aware that this was how mermaids worked. She knew the mythology of them as well as any American girl--and a little better, given that the Disney canon had once been used to torture her--but she did not consider them helpful creatures. They were far more likely to sink ships and waylay sailors. Steven was sure his statement was true, so Shane would follow suit.

The driver pulled up, barely looking at them. Shane gave him an address within walking distance of the safe house. She would not endanger him by revealing the exact location.

They had gone only a few miles before the front windshield shattered in a concussive crack. Several things shot through Shane: the satisfaction that she had left her friends in safety, the guilt that she had drawn some poor driver into this, the annoyed fear that it had escalated so quickly, and the bright scorch of a .22-caliber hollow point to her left shoulder, followed by a buzzing numbness. She guessed the last one, but she had been shot enough to have a sense of holes and explosions.

She ducked down, ordering the men to do the same. Shane could and had survived what would be fatal wounds in those who couldn't think their injuries away. Still, she suspected this ability would not remain intact if anything damaged her brain. This shot had been perilously close to testing her hypothesis.

The driver needed no warning--and made the rookie mistake of screeching to the muddy edge of the road and fleeing, his sneakers slapping the asphalt as he bolted toward cover. Shane did not hear subsequent shots, which told her that the shooter knew their target, and that this driver was not it. Many killers would have been too content to obliterate everyone tangentially involved, though she couldn't feel great about being shot.

She curled tighter. Blood slicked her side, dark and sticky. Not life-threatening, but aching.

That shirt is ruined.

It was a stupid thing to think, but the thought came all the same. A black V-neck she actually liked. The amethyst hoodie had been with her since college. Roselyn could probably get the blood out--Shane gave her ample practice--but bullet holes were another matter, too conspicuous, and not worth sewing. She did not remember gunshots to her limbs bleeding this much, and felt the scalding bullet fragments still embedded. She granted herself an extravagant few seconds of concentration to extrude them from her muscles and bones, pushed out like splinters. It felt like vomiting backwards.

Steven collapsed in the backseat. Shane thought he had taken a bullet, but that wouldn't have posed a threat to him; it would have passed through him.

No more shots came. This wasn't a spray-and-pray situation, nor was it a drive-by.

Steven was crouched awkwardly, the sword making it impossible to lie flat. A wise man would have stayed hidden until they could hatch a plan, which couldn't be involved, given the time constraints.

He rolled out of the car, yanked the sword down his arm, and charged. No battle cry. Just snarl and forward momentum.

He moved like a man assuming he was already dead--except for the blade keeping him animated. His chest was a canvas for bullets: thud, thud, thud--three impacts Shane could count, maybe more. The sword absorbed the damage, but it couldn't absorb the noise or the consequences. The suburban street echoed with gunfire, ricocheting off brick and vinyl siding. Porch lights flicked on down the block.

Shane grit her teeth, watching him rush into open fire, cursing that this was the plan now. It was not Shane's plan, and thus not a good plan, but it was what was happening, and Shane did not see the point in waiting in the car until it was over. Her bleeding had stopped, and a few stiff breaths told her that her body likely didn't contain metal that should not be there. Shane pressed a hand to her shoulder and cursed, then followed.

Steven screamed something in Cantonese and swung the sword in a wide, two-handed arc at two men in business suits. Neither were masked, which was almost worse. They had no fear of Steven living long enough to tell anyone about them.

She hung back, circling around behind the abandoned car. Her shoulder ached, though it was only the fading memory of pain. Steven was absorbing bullets--she could hear the gasp of them through the air--without reaction.

Shane feared for a second that these attackers were myrmidons -- amoral agents of order meant to eradicate supernatural drama queens -- but this wasn't how they worked. They let humans do their dirty work. If they used guns, it would only have been a last resort to set up a chain of events to implicate someone else.

No, these were assassins, and human. Given how publicly they did, not the best assassins money could buy, but confident. Their presence meant Steven had been tracked.

Her stomach turned--not from the blood loss, but from the guilt. Whoever was after Steven had waited until they left Roselyn's, where her wards might've held. Had Steven and she stayed in Roselyn's apartment, Shane was split on whether they would be munching popcorn while watching a murder documentary or would be the only standing witnesses to a triple murder.

If these were men, they were not protected by the veil that stopped people from noticing the paranormal. Any one of the drivers passing -- of which they did without pause on this country road -- could be calling for the police, who would arrive too soon. Shane did not have enough of a read on the assassins to decide if they would flee the authorities or begin a shootout. She couldn't allow the latter, nor could she pass up the chance these men presented her for more information.

Steven shouted at the men, but Shane could not comprehend anything but the texture because Steven shouted in Cantonese, a language whose music, but not meaning, Shane had absorbed.

The assassins ceased shooting, understanding that even point-blank range wasn't going to tip the scales in getting the sword. So, they were not the stupidest assassins, who might have kept shooting until they ran out of ammunition.

Shane stood twenty feet from the scene, trying to find her angle. If she could grab one of the assassins, he would provide her a wealth of information despite the language barrier, and, if she felt it necessary, she could have told that one to shoot the other.

If she spooked them, would they try for a headshot?

The first assassin approached Steven calmly, as though at a business meeting and not murder, as though not facing a man built like a brick house with a blade the length of his arm. The assassin wore a slate-gray suit without a wrinkle on it, his gun hanging loosely at his side; not raised, just present, though the acrid scent of gunpowder ghosted on the breeze.

He said something in Cantonese, voice velvet over steel. He waved over his shoulder at his compatriot, thicker of frame with a sweep over lacquered hair in the front of his head, who lowered his gun without hesitation. The assassin did not need to scream to make his point. Shane didn't catch these words, but she knew the rhythm: the "We are just having a civil conversation where we both get what we want: You give us the sword, and you get to live." She doubted that this ever worked, but people did seem to like using it.

Steven growled back in Cantonese, slicing the air with his sword in punctuation. The assassin remained unbothered, one hand drifting into his coat, perhaps to scratch, possibly to reach for something less obvious than a gun.

The assassin said something else. Not a command. Perhaps an offer.

Steven's posture loosened, and he took a step forward. The assassin's vulpine smile spread.

Steven lowered the blade like an offering, the blade gleaming in the low light. The assassin leaned in--smug, expectant, curious--at this peace offering.

With a roar, Steven snapped the hilt up through the assassin's neck, slicing with practiced fury. The blade bit into flesh--or should have. The assassin's head stayed firmly atop his shoulders. No blood. No scream. Just a furrowed brow, touching his neck like someone swatting a fly. He felt his temple appraisingly, confused, and finally incensed.

Shane counted three bullets going through Steven from Pompadour, but there might have been more. Steven didn't bother flinching.

In this shattered confusion, Shane stepped from the safety of the car, hands raised, blood wet on her fingers.

"English?" she called, voice steady but loud enough that they could not ignore.

The first assassin looked at Steven, who was still stymied that the sword had somehow missed its mark.

"Yes," said the man, finally seeing her. He smiled with surprising kindness, though it was patently fake, like his oddly perfect teeth. His face was lean, just well fed enough to remain on the right line from being gaunt, maybe thirty years old--and not a hard thirty. He did not raise his gun an inch, cooly assessing her as not a threat. "You are with him?"

"Assisting him for the moment," said Shane. "You want the sword."

"Yes," said Perfect Teeth calmly, which was impressive in a man who had just been beheaded. She could almost admire the gall of it. He stood within arm's reach of a cursed swordsman and gave her his attention. "What is it you want?"

"For him not to have the sword."

He nodded, smiling again, but it was not a pleased one. "Would you like us to have it?"

Shane dared a step forward, eyes on Pompadour, whose hand remained on the gun, though not the trigger.

"I would like him not holding the sword," Shane said. "But I would rather it not kill him." Shane took another step. "Or you, in fact."

That earned a dry chuckle. "It will kill me?"

Shane lowered a hand. "Before you shot up our ride share, it would not have. Steven just beheaded you."

Perfect Teeth's hand played over his neck as if to say My head is intact.

She wanted to signal Steven to do something unfortunate, something she did not want him to do if it could be avoided. It could not be if Shane's improvised plan were to have the desired effect.

Steven had already embedded and retracted the sword from Pompadour, and then strolled back to where he had been standing despite the bullets flying through his back.

Shane rubbed her eyes. "Him too. He will bleed out."

The Perfect Teeth lost his veneer of amusement. "What did you just do?" he demanded, his moustache quivering in horror.

Shane would not be intimidated, though the Drakkar Noir emanating from his skin made her want to gag.

"You've shot him how many times now? And he's not hurt."

Perfect Teeth measured this. "Because this man has the sword," he concluded. His perfect smirk dimmed, calculating. "What a clever thing, a sword whose wounds are delayed."

"If you take it," Shane said, "he would turn into slop."

"Miss..." Steven began to warn before she revealed too much.

"However," she added, "you both just got killed, and you are very much not dead. Yet. So, I am hazarding a guess that you don't die until he lets that sword go." She gestured to Steven. "By all means, though, test it out. Steven, hand them the sword. They want to see."

The assassins conferred in hurried Cantonese, but Shane got the gist. This was not a theory they cared to test. Perfect Teeth looked Steven over with new eyes--not as a threat, but a trap. He then noticed Shane's bloodstain. "He stabbed you?"

The truth would do her no good. These men accepted the cursed sword as a possibility. Still, she could not trust that they were so invested in the paranormal world that they would know what a steward was and why it was a terrible idea to kill one. These were triggermen, foot soldiers. They were not capos. They did not know what they were tasked to retrieve.

"Yes," she said, "which is why I am helping him break the curse. I'm not keen to die today." It was not worth mentioning that a shoulder wound would not kill most people.

"Why did he stab you?" asked Perfect Teeth, not hiding his suspicion.

"Accident," Steven said. "She came up behind me. Surprised me."

"What good is her help?" asked Perfect Teeth, turning to Steven. "She is only a little girl."

"Got you to stop, didn't she?" said Steven. "Don't underestimate her."

Perfect Teeth walked around Shane, hmming. She hated the sound of it, the appraisal.

"Then we will make her useful. We will take her," said Perfect Teeth in a voice that did not invite disagreement. "When you can hand us the sword without killing us, you may have her back."

"I need to help him break the curse," Shane protested.

"And you will prove to be more motivation for him to do this," Perfect Teeth said, "because our interest in keeping her safe will only last maybe a week. After this, I believe we have other uses for her, and you may have it on your conscience that you left her to them."

Shane's stomach dropped, having again to rejigger the plan on the fly, having to yet again deal with men who thought threatening her would get them anything but misfortune.

When the man was behind her, hopefully trying to estimate her value on the open market, Shane mouthed at Steven, "Play along."

His eyebrow quirked, which was all the confirmation she would get.

"Sorry," she whispered.

When Perfect Teeth stood before her again, lording his power over her, she widened her eyes with contrived fear.

"Please don't do this," she pleaded, knowing this would not move the man. "It won't work. He doesn't care that much about me."

"I don't think that's true," said the assassin. "I think this man will come for you."

The window where Shane's strategy might work was small and closing fast. Shane darted around the assassin to throw her arms around Steven.

She had promised not to touch him, yes, but he would have to forgive this.

"Don't let him take me," she cried into his shoulder, saying into his mind, Let him take me. I will not let him do anything to me. Go to Roselyn and tell her what happened. She will have Huginn track me. I am going to get as much information from him as I can, and then I will escape. If you understand, say, "I'll kill you if you hurt her."

The connection could not be one way only. No matter her promise--or the intent behind it--Shane could not stop the flow of information into her. However, she was startled at its nature and direction.

"I'll kill you if you hurt her," he growled as the assassin peeled Shane from him.

"You give us the sword, you get the girl back," the assassin said. "No one needs to get hurt."

"Except you," added Shane, not caring to stop herself, "because your head will topple to the ground if you piss him off enough to drop the sword."

Roselyn's apartment smelled of cedar and solder. It had not entirely calmed from the rig's construction-physically, certainly, but even psychically-the ache of all this frenzy nestled in the roots of Shane's teeth. Clive's energy at having created his masterpiece-though he was not shy about labeling a tenth of the things he touched as his "masterpiece"-was particularly palpable. Shane and Roselyn, accustomed and occasionally charmed by their friend, found his enthusiasm amusing. The swordsman, Shane hardly needed to note, did not.

Roselyn wiped from her hands, the table, and Steven's cloak the varied oils it took to assemble and install the rig. The towel would be a rag hereafter, useful for nothing more. Shane noticed spots of blood on it and said nothing. These were slight, and Roselyn would not have appreciated such an insubstantial injury becoming a cause for concern. There was machinery, not magick, in the rig; her blood wouldn't spoil anything this time.

Steven spied the blood too, looking at Shane with a question she could not quite parse. It wasn't a matter of whether the cuts were a subject worth discussing. It was not strictly concern, as Steven's self-interest was unbroken-and Shane appreciated someone straightforward in this way.

Instead of answering, she went to find something to drink.

In the kitchen, the raven waited, his feathers so black they glistened purple in the overhead light. There had been no open window-the day had been too cool for the extravagance of fresh air, and the evening would not improve this-but Shane thought Huginn only cared about manufactured boundaries when it suited him-or when he was too weakened to evade the concrete. She apprised him of Steven and the sword, and he told her he barely had a suggestion for its origin, which wasn't especially helpful, but she enjoyed company in not having simple answers.

"Technically," Shane said, "you never promised not to touch him, and I bet you could get some juicy thoughts out of him before he swatted you."

Huginn grumbled at her, saying that he would not allow her to break the promise with a "technically."

"It wasn't a promise promise," she said for the sake of saying it, but not because she cared actually to quibble, "to say nothing of a thrice promise." She tapped her shoulder, and he flapped once to make it his perch.

When she returned, Clive's Army surplus bag had disgorged a kaleidoscope of metal and glass, none of it labeled. Shane recognized some of it from his utility belts, like the EMF reader that didn't work unless he smacked it like an old vending machine - which he did now, and it responded by issuing a beep that could only be called surly.

Steven sat rigidly in a kitchen chair-it lacked cushions that his sword or the rig might tear apart, and was a street corner find of negligible worth anyway. The newly fashioned harness cinched his shoulders backward, the sword resting in its ribbed cradle along his spine. To say he was uncomfortable was redundant, but Shane did not believe it was the sword or rig alone that made him that way.

Clive did not help this by rising to circle the swordsman, muttering to himself. He tapped the sword's pommel with a silver tuning fork, frowned at the non-response, and noted something in his notebook. He crouched, angled a UV flashlight under Steven's forearm, peered at the sheen of sweat already forming, and flicked the light off without comment.

Steven shifted subtly whenever Clive got too near the blade, recalibrating his weight, edging slightly between Clive and the steel as though shielding her friend from it-or it from Clive.

"If that's diagnostic," Shane said, "I'd love to know what it's telling you."

"Oh, I am just fucking about," Clive said, cracking a smile. "But it feels safer doing something. Who's to say I won't get lucky and find the sword's off-switch?"

Steven looked to Shane to intercede, but she only shrugged. Clive was due some harassment for being helpful, and she might be due some luck as the resident prophecy sponge.

She leaned against the sofa, sipping water from a chipped mug, debating if another round of questioning with Steven would get her anywhere. Huginn issued a low, gravelly hum that did not translate to anything much; it was just a sound he liked. Godly or no, he was still a bird.

"We need outside input," she said aloud, with audible reluctance.

Roselyn, fluffing the pillows on the sofa and replacing the blanket there, didn't look over. "The Codex and Huginn failed you already?"

Huginn shook his beak at Roselyn and growled in a way that sounded like, "Churlish spell-wife."

"Huginn had exactly one suggestion, and he said it was idiotic. The Codex doesn't do well with inference. I asked for 'immortality-linked weapons,' and it sent me to a page about Holy Grail knockoffs. There ought to be occult Boolean operators..."

"Sounds like a search algorithm Clive would design while stoned," Roselyn muttered.

"Rude," Clive said, then added with a shrug, "but wholly fair, as rude things often are. Maybe once Shane lets me digitize the whole of mystical knowledge, I'll get on that."

If she could, she surely would. As she could not, her shoulders sagged at what she must order. "Call her."

"What's wrong with outside help?" asked the swordsman, able to read her tone, even if he could not read her expression.

"We have a diviner. A card reader," Roselyn clarified. "Shane and she have history. Not exactly a bad history, but history.

"A man got between you," Steven guessed. "Not Junior."

Clive winced. "I'm standing right here. Women have-nay, should-fight over me." He considered his audience. "Not present company, but I maintain a catfight in my honor would not be unjustified." He opted to stop the joke here, which Shane thought showed personal growth.

"Not relevant," Shane sighed. "Call Arden."

"Seems like any diviner worth her black salt should know to be here already," Steven said in a subdued snarl that confused Shane. What could be the harm?

Three prim knocks fell on the door.

"She's early," Roselyn noted.

Arden strode in, her russet hair loosely braided down her back, wearing yoga pants and a flowing peasant blouse in faded amethyst. The pants, which flattered her form so well that it was only Arden's sobriety that kept her from being avidly pursued. Arden did teach yoga five times a week, so she was entitled to them. Shane preferred not to contemplate Arden's ability to contort and stretch.

Her gaze flicked across the room, taking in Steven's size and ensemble, Roselyn's tension, Shane's contemplation over the mug, and the raven on Shane's shoulder nuzzling her hair. If she took anything from Clive, Shane did not know what it was.

Arden sniffed once, displeased.

"You need a reading," she said, her lips pursing at this work. She held up her hand. "Say nothing. Least amount of information."

Steven's eyes narrowed. "The diviner."

"Observant." She held up her woven bag. "Roselyn promised me post-yoga serial killer documentaries, but I see fate has other plans." She turned to Roselyn. "Put the kettle on?"

Roselyn nodded. She didn't apologize for the state of the apartment, though she might have been sorry that it gave Arden even more unwanted information to bias her reading.

"Bless you." Arden dropped her bag beside a mismatched chair, then addressed Steven, "You know cards?"

Steven folded his arms, a muscle in his jaw twitching. "I don't read them."

Arden's mouth twitched, unimpressed. Shane suspected Steven declined to read most things that were not contracts. "Didn't ask if you did. Most don't, or they don't do so well. If they did, perhaps we could avoid these things."

"You won't be the first to try to read my fortune," Steven added, rising to consider her.

Arden slumped a little. Shane had witnessed a dozen men and women take this standoffish tack with Arden, as though it was all superstition, even when they came to her in the grips of the supernatural-and a few times when the recipient of the reading was the supernatural. The cards, Shane knew, were no better than any other tool, but they responded to Arden.

"Then you know the cards are unimportant," said Arden. "It might as well be urine or squirrel entrails, if this is how the gods chose to speak. We should all be grateful it is something so clean and easy to have at the ready."

Arden shot Clive an impatient glance, then nodded to the kitchen table. He at once stacked sketches and stuffed leather scraps under his arms to put elsewhere so that Arden's workspace would be uncluttered-though "uncluttered" would have to be taken liberally. This dining area had been a construction zone, and that would not be wholly obviated without Lysol and a thorough vacuuming.

Steven glanced down at Arden-nearly a foot shorter but utterly unintimidated by him or the scenario. She stared back, hands on her hips, tapping one foot against the floorboards. She sniffed sharply, irritated by how much information even a cursory look had provided. It was among the reasons she resisted reading for any of her friends: she knew them too well not to feel the urge to sand off the rougher edges of their potential doom.

Arden dropped her bag on the counter with a thump. Inside: five decks, polished stones, a bundle of dried yarrow wrapped in red thread. (She had many decks in a meticulously organized chest in her bedroom, which she permitted Shane to examine once-and only once, as Shane put decks back in the wrong order.)

Arden pressed the bridge of her nose, scanning the contents, then pulled out a battered Rider-Waite, worn at the edges like a book that had been read too often-a classic, as the others looked too like watercolors or cartoons to suit Steven's credulity.

She held the deck out to Steven. "Shuffle until you're satisfied. Hold the quartz for energy isolation. Dear Goddess, above and below, do not say anything unless I ask you," Arden warned. "Whatever steampunk disaster has enveloped you should not taint my foreknowledge. I just came here to shut off my brain and learn why someone killed their husband with a lobster pick."

Clive raised his hand. "What is a lobster pick?"

Roselyn thwacked him on the arm. "No questions."

"I don't think my lobster pick question is going to prejudice the reading," he sulked.

Arden arranged a series of chairs around the table, forming a loose horseshoe shape.

Steven did as asked, one-handed shuffling that suggested countless hands of poker he did not need to bluff to win, and then handed the deck and crystal back. Arden squeezed the stone, then cut the deck once.

Steven sat on the wooden chair across from Arden.

"Oh, absolutely not," she said. "I will tolerate people looking on when we are dealing with 'Does the person I worship love me back' - I do not give those readings; if you have to ask, she likely doesn't - but we are clearly beyond the need for such pretense or courtesy." She shooed him toward the living room.

"What?" he asked, rattled from his assumptions.

"You and your wound-up trauma vibes are in my way. The cards will tell me," she said. "If I'm doing a reading, you had your chance with Shane and declined to tell her."

No matter how much friction, probably undeserved, existed between them, Shane took delight in Arden putting men in their place.

"She's not wrong," Shane said. "And she will throw cards at your face."

"I would never do that to the cards," Arden replied.

Arden began dealing-not the usual neat cross or circle the inexperienced expected, but a chaotic array stretching to table edges. As the cards touched wood, Steven's gaze hardened.

Shane felt the shift in her gut, her skin bristling with goosebumps, Huginn's talons digging into her flesh.

Clive made the sign of the cross, though he believed in Jesus as much as he did Bigfoot-or less, since he had seen a real Bigfoot once in the backyard of a bait shop owner and the only Jesus to introduce himself had been a phony. Shane suspected Clive had no inherent sense when something magical appeared before him, but he enjoyed the pantomime.

Arden laid out the cards slowly, each flick of cardboard deliberate. The chairs around the table became altars, supporting the spread as it expanded, geometric and artful. Arden had answered people with single draws. For Steven, Arden had drafted half the deck, face down, awaiting action.

Steven's jaw flexed, but he stepped back to Shane's side, too near her for the no-contact promise he extracted, looming like a storm front, hands on but not in his pockets. With the rig on, doing otherwise would have torn holes or, Shane worried, interfere with the mechanisms. It was not precision work, looking more haphazard now that Roselyn and Clive were not actively tweaking it. She glanced at him but said nothing. Whatever his opinions of divination, he didn't think it safe to ignore.

Shane noticed for the first time how Steven eyed the door and windows. What man like him, employed as he was, didn't continually assess the nearest exit? But what would he hope to escape? He came to Shane in desperation-as much as he could express this-yet he still wanted to know he could disappear.

Shane doubted Steven would need a quick getaway, but she was not the one with assassins at her back and death before her.

At least not actively at the moment, but she had been there. It was usually a wise idea to have a plan B.

His arms twitched like they didn't know how to be at rest. He hadn't wielded the sword long, but he had lost the comfort of not having it actively drag him down. He rubbed his nose and eye as though coming in from a dust storm. "Alright, Miss. You were staring at your book and consulting with that bird before. You got something for me?"

"My best guess?" Shane said, though she could have found better if she could have stolen a few more hours of interrogating her diary. "You're in the possession of-or possessed by-Tyrfing."

"That's a guess?"

"A best guess, based on what the Codex is sharing and a little bit what Huginn thinks," said Shane, clear that she thought this adjective did all the necessary heavy lifting. "Tyrfing kills anyone struck by it, and must always be put away with blood still warm on it. Technically--and you always have to consider the technicalities with these things--the person struck by it would never live to see another day, so maybe it just blinds you. Better, yes, but not ideal. You haven't stabbed anyone, right?"

He shook his head. "So, you think that's this sword?"

"Maybe," said Shane. "If you bear it in battle, you will always be victorious."

"And if I sheath it without blood?"

"Unclear." She perked up. "Was there a sheath?"

"No," he said. "Wouldn't that have been nice and neat?"

"Maybe that's it. We find its sheath, and we can fix everything. We put the curse back in its box, then throw it at a mermaid's tail or into her tentacles-listen, do we know for sure mermaids don't have tentacles?"

"Assuming I kill someone with it first."

"Covered in warm blood does not necessarily mean killed," she said. "I know a guy who could cover all of you with relatively fresh human blood for a surprisingly affordable rate."

He grunted, "A guy?"

"Well, a vampire, but still. It's fair market value and, as far as these things go, ethically sourced from the willing, the coincidentally dead, and expired blood donations, so you wouldn't have to feel overwhelmingly guilty about it," Shane said. However, she understood Steven had not felt guilty about many things in his life, and a bloody sword would not be what changed that.

Shane's fingers tightened on her diary's spine.

With him so close, Shane could not ignore the thought. It would be a casual and intentional mistake to brush his shoulder or arm. An accidental stumble as she moved to refill her water. It might not get her much. Unguarded thoughts were disordered, which is why she preferred to bring the topic up subtly beforehand, but he gave her no insight yet, only what she could glean from her observations. Arden's cards would improve that-grabbing him amid the reading would give Shane a library of thoughts to peruse-but nothing beats probing someone's mind against their expressed wishes while you talked to them about their cursed sword.

Violating the sanctity of someone's mind, even for their own good, probably didn't speak well to her character, so she would behave until the moment she couldn't.

She had dealt with an evasive man, years before, though that one had been raised by fairies or elves or something-his true pedigree was a mystery to her. Whoever raised him had made his thoughts unreadable. At least that guy had the grace to be in love with her-and she was not entirely not in love with him in a certain sense. Steven regarded Shane with slightly more respect than might be due to someone occupying her office, but he did not like anyone he did not have to - and it was a rare circumstance that one had to like anyone.

"Anything else?"

"Tyrfing might be capable of killing a god," added Shane, who did feel like that was crucial information to impart before someone faced a god on the street. Shane had met few who could qualify as anything but descendants and hangers-on, who would still prefer not to be run through with a sword. "I don't think that is applicable. In the Eddas, someone stabs at Odin, who turns into a hawk and flies away rather than fighting. Though if my choices are fighting with a swordsman and turning into a cool bird, I'm probably going with the bird."

Huginn growled.

"Though, of course, ravens are the most fabulous of all birds, and no one should ever say otherwise," said Shane with a sheen of sarcasm, adding, "And Odin was a dick, as evidenced by his one eye."

The bird burbled like laughter.

Steven did not seem amused by this banter, which did not lessen Shane's desire to share it. "And that's the end of the curse?"

Shane winced at the question, as she could give factoids, but those didn't reach more than the weight of cocktail party or dissertation anecdotes. "Somewhat? A king told some dwarves to make Tyrfing, and they laid three curses on it, including that it would kill the king--which it did. He tried to kill the dwarf who made it, which seems like the sort of bad manners that get you cursed in the first place. I don't mean to imply dwarves are untrustworthy, but I have long learned to be careful and kind in dealing with supernatural creatures, especially mischievous ones."

"Nah," Steven said, "dwarves are usually assholes-the fantasy guys, not people with dwarfism. King should have known better, dealing with dwarves, though they make solid weapons." He pulled the sword back into his hand, swinging it once. "This isn't Tyrfing."

Shane asked, "How do you know that?"

"Tyrfing had a gold hilt."

She didn't love her newfound trivia being contradicted, nor that he let her go so long in her guessing. "Do we know that magical swords have to keep their appearances? Maybe the hilt got less pretty once all its curses were exhausted."

"Except the one keeping me alive."

"It's a working theory," said Shane. "At least that the sheath might help."

"But we have no idea where this would be," Steven said, "or if it even exists. And, if it does, how to get it here in under three days."

"Maybe Arden's cards know."

"Yeah, maybe," he said like a man who had tried to believe in such easy answers one too many times. "What do you get out of all this? It's obligatory. I get that. You don't have a choice, and you have to die if you want to quit. But why do you do it?"

"Like what purpose do I choose to find?" Shane asked.

"Sure, if that's how you want to put it."

"I am inherently helpful. Maybe it's that stereotype that women are more nurturing, which always felt reductive. But, when given the choice, I want to pick the one that hurts the least." Shane frowned, wearing undifferentiated memories. "It doesn't always end up that way."

Steven rubbed his hand over his scalp. "I met more female stewards than male, so maybe you are onto something. Men, we take the quick route, which ends up in violence more than you'd like. You face the world with a gun in your hand? You end up shot. Someone with more finesse and a quicker draw takes your place."

"And women don't?"

He chuckled coldly. "Nah, you are killers. You wouldn't be here if you weren't. But women don't stab you. They poison your coffee. They don't usually go for the lobster pick."

Arden placed the final card, tapped it once, and exhaled hard through her nose. Her body language shifted: the predator now reluctant to pounce. She cracked her back with a stretch and called from the kitchen, "Should I address this to you or Shane? You prefer secrets even in dire circumstances. Even, notably, from the cards, which does seem a waste of your time-and you already know how it is in short supply."

Roselyn came from the kitchen, a steaming insulated mug of tea in her hands, which she left beside Arden, mindful not to drip on the labyrinth of cards. Her eyes were wide, taking it all in, eager to hear the conclusions her rig was meant to soften.

"Say it to me," Steven said, flicking the sword to his back.

"Clive will take notes," Arden said, not asked. In a flash, Clive had a clean page in a notebook and one of a fine liner at the ready. "We may need them later, and he has oddly elegant handwriting despite outward appearances."

"I am a born artist," Clive explained. "I can do nothing sloppy."

Arden's eyes flicked over the cards, her nose wrinkling, not from smell, but data overload. "You're cursed," she said bluntly but with no real worry. "We don't need the cards to tell us that." She tapped an Empress and Two of Cups, both reversed, watching them flutter onto a chair to become more petals on a flower of cards there. "She's lying to you. Whatever you think she is, you don't understand her yet-and she does not care. You are not her partner, and never were."

He sucked in his cheeks, appreciating this detail, his head shifting between a nod and a shake such that it became a figure-eight. Then Steven spoke softly, "Does she have what I want?"

Arden looked back at the cards as though they might have changed when she looked away. Arden's gaze flicked to him, but she didn't answer that question, pointedly so. Instead, she traced her finger to the next set of cards. "Masculine energy enters here-not yours-and something, I suppose, unrestrained. Or, no, barely under control, and by someone who should not be holding those reins. You don't know him. You will, but he will only complicate your situation."

The answer did not satisfy him. Steven tilted his head like a dog hearing thunder from which it had no intention of running.

Shane rose from the sofa, putting an unnecessary bookmark in her diary, and drew closer. She skimmed Clive's notations in passing, then peered at the spread on the table and chairs, knowing that the art meant one thing-she had a cursory awareness of each card-but that Arden's placement put a story in context.

"Am I allowed to be curious?" Shane asked.

Arden gazed up and said with more affection than scolding, "When have you been anything else?"

"Explain the cards to me. Steven is allowed to keep his secrets-for now, per our agreement that I don't grab him-but I don't have to take that from cardboard."

Arden's head listed to one side, acknowledging the point. "You are the steward. You are due as much information as necessary. Again: say nothing until I ask you to correct me." She pushed the Hanged Man, Knight of Swords, and Justice, all reversed, from the edge of the table. They crossed and fluttered like maple seeds to a chair. "Your swordsman-"

"Steven," Shane filled in automatically.

Arden cocked a cautioning eyebrow that Shane should refrain from more information, continuing, "He's trapped, bound by something, but it's not imprisonment as such. Something stops him from falling to his death, but he is due for a bad end. It is an end he might deserve, as he is not a force for good in the world. He is largely indifferent to the harm he causes, though he is also not evil, per se. Self-justifying-barely-and selfish, but not evil."

Steven didn't blink, but his jaw twitched.

"May I speak?" Shane asked.

"Briefly," she said again.

Shane did not excel at brevity, soul of wit though it supposedly was. "Accurate," she decided on.

"He cannot stay this way long. It's a false release at best to see where he goes on his way down." She touched the Ten of Swords near the center of the table.

Steven grunted dismissively.

"I am aware you have a sword," said Arden, dismissing him back. "That's not what this says. The worst for you is almost a guarantee, but you may get a choice where it happens." She tapped The Devil, reversed, crouching on the edge of the Ten of Swords, the following link in a waving path of cards. "There is freedom for you, but not liberation. It's an illusion, an escape from your immediate predicament into a more significant trial. Frying pan into the fire." The Star, reversed. "And you don't have any hope left, but someone will. Someone has lost big, and they think-or will think-you are the one who can get it back." She drew a meandering line to The Moon. "Nothing looks right under moonlight. No one is what they seem, so you are following shadows cast by things that are no longer there or applicable. It's all deceit."

"Who's lying?" Shane asked. Off Arden's look, Shane added, "Asking for clarification should not fall under the same umbrella as telling you things."

"The question is who isn't," Arden replied. "Because right now? I'm not seeing a single honest player."

Shane motioned to the leering skull on the Death card. Shane knew enough not to take it literally. "Thus, Transformation?" Shane asked.

Arden smiled at her retention of day one of Tarot 101. "Not for him, necessarily. He's the knife. Other people are what gets carved." She hummed to herself. "Which might be surgery instead of mutilation. Sometimes, there are things inside us that are as good as cancer."

Steven breathed once, long and slow, like a man counting down to calm himself.

"Me?" Shane asked, as she liked to know what to anticipate.

Arden looked down at the cards. "You aren't directly mentioned, no, so any transformation you receive is entirely your affair. Also, you are not dishonest. You sometimes decide not to tell us things, though we wish you would."

Arden picked up a card tenderly from the middle of the spread, tracing her thumb over it-the Page of Pentacles. "There is a child. A young man, perhaps. Who is he?" Arden asked, her voice softening, almost tender, but it was not a question to which she requested an answer. She meant it only for herself, or the cards, and neither had the answer.

Shane looked sidelong at Steven, who gave no reaction, which was as good as a confession. If it didn't hit the mark, Steven would have allowed himself the privilege of further skepticism.

"He is the center," said Arden, "but not the way you expect." She gave a mirthless laugh as she tapped a final card, the Tower. "It's a cliche, ending a dire reading with the Tower. That's the card you don't want to see, and it is exactly where this ends up: catastrophe. Whatever you think you are saving, you will be disappointed. That is genuinely on you, though. You can build new structures from rubble, or you can let them bury you."

"How sure are you about all this?" Steven asked. "These things are interpreted. I hear that in your voice, so this is a version of the story."

Arden did not look up, making it too difficult for Shane to read her expression, but answered in a calm voice, "The cards give me the elements, and I transmute them into what makes sense to me, having the least amount of outside information, which is infuriatingly much, looking at you. I wish I had done this in the hallway, so I wouldn't have had any idea what you look like or what you are wearing. Why are you wearing a- No, I don't want to know. "

Steven stared at the spread as if it were a blueprint for a house fire. "So, what else could this all mean?"

Again, that laugh without humor. "It means what it means. I could read another ten cards here, and they would only affirm what I've said, because this is the information the gods gave me about you, knowing the theories I would reach. You could hand these same cards to another reader, and they might tell you a story you like better, but this is the one I've given you. Make of it what you must, but the story is yours now."

"It's a lot of-what do you call it?--present tense. Where I am right now," said Steven.

She shook her head. "They prefer the Now with me. When you look at what Clive has written, you may find nuances only possible on reflection."

"I don't have a lot of time or urge to reflect."

Shane didn't know how much of a future Steven expected or hoped for. She would do what she could to help him reach a fourth day. He would finish his job and receive his reward. If he was in a backwater bar, sucking down another beer, watching the flypaper swing, this time next week was barely a concern, as long as he got what he wanted: that boy, whoever he was.

Clive hesitated, then handed him the notebook page, neatly filled top to bottom in perfect penmanship.

Steven read over the page, his eyes feeding on the words, squinting, his lips twitching, reading them to himself. Then he crumpled the page, tossed it vaguely toward the garbage can, and missed.

He didn't pick it up.

He had memorized it, at least as much as he cared to, and perhaps this was the best thing to do with prophecy: know it and discard the evidence.

"We need to take the sword. For science reasons," Clive told Steven, the words carrying the weight of an apology--though not a sincere one. Clive couldn't give a straight apology with a gun to his head, but he had not couched it behind much of a joke. He had faced down a genocidal angel with nothing more than industrial metal on his earbuds. Still, a grizzled, filthy man with a sword had immediacy enough for some nervousness.

Steven studied the three, pausing on Clive, considering his worthiness for a reply, before shifting to Roselyn. "Miss, with respect, we're going to have to do this my way."

Roselyn's arms folded, her natural elegance tempered with a resolute, cold edge. "How are you in a position to dictate terms? We'll do it in the most effective, compassionate way," she said, "compassionate" sounding like a profane amplifier from her lips.

"My sword," he said, as if that explained everything. "So, my terms. Shane doesn't touch me. Non-negotiable." He nodded to Roselyn. "You take the sword." His gaze locked onto Clive, and his expression might, if one were generous, have been mistaken for a smirk. "And Junior is going to come over here."

Clive's eyes widened as he had already grown comfortable being overlooked by Steven. "Why?"

"Now, I'm sure you all are trustworthy folks -- salt of the earth. That said, I'm thinking you don't want Junior getting messy, and you aren't so concerned with caring the same to me. So he's going to stand right there next to me, and he'll let you know when it's time to hand that sword back." Steve's grin was thin and toothy. "He doesn't want to be in the splash zone. Me? Not so bothered because I trust you aren't going to do anything stupid."

Shane heard the threat beneath the smile. Steve spoke fluent menace. He couldn't harm Clive -- he needed Shane's cooperation, and hurting her allies would end that in a heartbeat and put her in mind of getting rid of him -- but it was an apparent attempt to assert control he did not have. If they decided he was more trouble than he was worth, they could throw the sword somewhere unreachable, and he would die horribly in a puddle of viscera (Shane assumed, having not asked enough particulars of his delayed injuries). Gooifying him wasn't their style, which he must suspect, but he would know it was still an option should he force their hands.

On the other hand, Steven knew he could brutalize them before he died, and he might prefer not to go to his death alone.

Shane wondered what else he knew. Yes, he was aware enough to find the nearest steward--they were not many, but stationed where a conspiracy theorist might assume--and Red Hook happened to be the site of the sword drop-off. She doubted he came ignorant of her. People in his position did some homework. She hated being at any informational disadvantage, but it was a frequent state. She contemplated accidentally tripping and using his bare forearm for balance long enough to read his thoughts. She doubted he would not have anticipated such a ruse. Better to think moves ahead, even if she was unsure he was playing the same game.

Clive shuffled over to Steven, his hand upturned as though requesting alms. "I am capable of asserting when it has gone too far without anyone suggesting they will crush my bones as insurance," he muttered, half to himself. "I want that on the record."

Shane almost echoed Roselyn, making explicit that bearing a cursed sword didn't come with the authority to force compromise. But she could allow him this, knowing she might not be so generous later. Also, she would leap upon him and forcibly change his mind before he dislocated much.

Clive swallowed and placed his hand above but not on Steven's, though he snatched it without hesitation. His hand trembled in Steven's grip--caged and fluttering like a baby bird.

"You got soft hands, Junior," Steven said, too close to his ear. "Just remember: don't be shy. Your girlfriend probably likes those soft hands like they are."

"She's not--" Clive started, then sighed. "Must we? Here, I am the paragon of helpfulness, and this is how I am treated? I, the second-best artist in this filthy town, am so abused?"

Steven extended the sword to Roselyn, blade down, ignoring Clive's melodrama.

She stepped forward. She'd faced better monsters than Steven and hadn't flinched. She placed the sword on the nearest folding chair like a grenade with a loose pin. The nature of curses was amorphous, and there was no sense in getting stained through prolonged contact.

Steven flexed his fingers, shaking his hand as though to restore feeling, banishing stiffness Shane was unsure the sword had let him feel.

Shane started her watch, hoping to accrue a large enough cushion of minutes between the sword leaving his hand and the first injury.

At 3 minutes, 23 seconds, a red slash opened along his ribs. Blood poured. Steven did not react until he realized Shane's eyes were on his side.

"They shot at me. I dodged," Steve said flatly. "Sword hit me when I landed."

His voice was calm, but Shane saw the tension in his jaw. He flexed his liberated hand again, the other clamped around Clive's wrist.

"Still okay?" Shane asked.

"It's not deep."

"How long until it is?" Roselyn said.

Steven didn't answer--he just touched his shoulder.

A scrape bloomed on his cheek. His arm gushed red, steaming in the basement's coolness. His knuckles shredded as though he had punched his way through a wall. Another hole exploded from his arm--a bullet, or maybe a serious puncture--and then a gash tore open in his torso, his sternum audibly cracking like a wishbone. Shane's eyebrows arched in silent question. Steven gave a short shake of the head. Not yet.

Did adrenaline dull the pain, or was it sheer stubbornness? Most people would be screaming by now. Steven bore it all in silence, stoic and slightly smug, which made Shane feel more pity than sympathy or respect. She could help someone who cared more about his survival and could be strong enough to show weakness. A stiff upper lip too often earned a punch--not from her, as she stuck to pacificism when possible, but the universe writ large.

Mystical mechanics rarely obeyed biology, but Shane hoped some glandular mercy would cushion his agony. Otherwise, he bore mortal injuries like his father had indoctrinated him into thinking crying was for girls.

His shoulder snapped backward, fragments of bone shooting free with the blood.

5 minutes, 32 seconds.

"Give him back the fucking sword!" Clive yelped, his hand convulsing in Steven's tightening grip.

Roselyn tossed it to Steven with no delicacy, and he caught it clumsily, fumbling it like a slick beer bottle in a bar fight. He was not a man built for grace, but it was enough of a distraction that Clive fell and scampered free of Steven's reach.

His restoration was instantaneous. Shane had feared they'd need to wait an equivalent time for the injuries to recede, a show she didn't care to watch in reverse.

His shirt clung with fresh blood, but Steven's eyes did not betray haziness at the loss. His healing didn't come at the expense of his humanity or the vitality of people around him--something that Shane had suspected would be the case but might have better warned her friends. Every time Shane repaired from a significant injury, she turned pale with daemonic energy, draining those around her of their thoughts--and occasionally plants of all their life in the absence of enough sapient, human minds.

"You look happy," said Steven, catching her scrutiny.

She hadn't meant to, but she couldn't deny how her lips had betrayed her. "Good information," she admitted. "Whatever that sword's doing comes from it, not you. It's a link, not an infestation. Self-contained magic."

"Dumb it down."

"Links can be cut. Parasites have to be poisoned and extracted, usually slowly. I had a cousin who got saddled with a worm during voluntourism in some jungle. He had to cut his skin open, wind the worm around a pencil, and twist it out over a week--a half-turn at a time. It would have broken and polluted him or dug in if he pulled it all at once."

"Is that important to know?"

"Only in that this isn't happening to you," Shane said. "Also, it's weird my cousin didn't just go to a hospital. Surely that would have been more sanitary."

Once sure his precious hand had survived its canary-in-the-coal-mine duty -- and after only two restrained-for-him jerking-off jokes -- Clive was ebullient at the minor challenge of a five-minute danger window in constructing their stopgap.

They didn't speak much after the sword was back in Steven's hands. Roselyn and Clive circled their subject, pointing at him like a statue needing restoration. Shane took in the scene more holistically--Steven, yes, but also her friends as they found their element.

Eventually, Roselyn glanced at Shane and gave the slightest nod--permission or a prompt. Either way, Shane took it.

Steven blinked slowly. "You got a plan, Miss?"

"Yes. Do what Roselyn says."

Steven tilted his head like predators sometimes did before pouncing or passing judgment. "Which is what?"

Roselyn raided what she could from the storage areas beneath the art building, deciding her apartment would make a better staging area, one less likely to be intruded upon by security guards or those intent on finding the sword.

"Your wards can hide me?" Steven asked.

Roselyn inhaled. "I trust them enough that I am offering up my place. Take that as you will, but the basement of the art building is not a defensible position."

After resetting this space to be closer to what it was when they arrived, Shane asked, "Do we need the tarp?"

Clive laughed. "Leave it. If we should have brought the tarp to Roselyn's, our issues would be so much worse than a mess."

The geometry of fitting Steven and the sword in the backseat of Roselyn's car threatened the sanctity of its doors and windows. Clive declined to sit there, confident he would end up decapitated for his trouble. Only Shane was willing, as she had once had her throat slit, and it wasn't too bad -- but Steven refused until they piled material between them to make a barrier.

"I can manage to sit in the car with you without touching you," Shane said, a little miffed that he requested her help and wouldn't believe her promise.

"I'm willing to take a precaution or two," he said.

Back at Roselyn's, Clive darted around to clear the clutter into a workspace. He stripped the dining nook table of its decorative bowl of pinecones (which Roselyn insisted were not belatedly seasonal, just textural), replacing it with butcher paper to conjure schematics, duct tape, and a small armory of fasteners and scrap leather. Before Shane could negotiate fitting Steven into one of the chairs, Clive was already piling paintbrushes and screwdrivers on a dining room chair, his tongue between his teeth.

Shane rummaged through her bag for her book to give herself something to make her purposeful while she waited for her friends to summon their creation. "Are you going to lick them?" she asked Clive.

"I wasn't going to lick anything here," Clive replied, licking his thumb to smudge graphite from a skeletal sketch on the paper. "I do not lick most things, and I do not appreciate the accusation. Who is starting these rumors?"

Steven sat in one of Roselyn's under-stuffed chairs, elbows on knees, sword still in hand, looking the most uncomfortable Shane had ever seen a man in this apartment. The sword hadn't left his grip since Roselyn returned it. His posture was relaxed the way prey plays dead--hoping danger won't notice.

Shane sat across from him, diary open, pen spinning between her fingers.

"You're staring at me like I'm going to do a trick," Steven muttered without looking up.

"I'm observing."

"You're creeping."

She raised an eyebrow. "I'm a paranormal diagnostician. Creeping is half the job."

He exhaled through his nose, tired. "Quit trying to get a reading. You won't touch me."

Shane leaned back. "I don't need to touch you to get a baseline. But it'd be faster."

"No."

She nodded at the sword. "Don't you want to be rid of it?"

"I want to be paid without dying. Kind of indifferent to the sword on its own."

"You think she will give you the money and a clean break?" Shane asked. "She let you be cursed. She may not have your best interests in mind."

"I wouldn't trust her if she did," he said. "I hold up my end." He shrugged, and the movement nearly dislodged the blade from its awkward rest along his thigh. He adjusted it like a cat swiping a twitchy tail into place.

Clive and Roselyn drew up plans like generals at war: muttering, sketching over each other's diagrams, arguing over whether the rotation lock should be brass or salvaged from a ceiling fan bracket. A half-eaten granola bar became a paperweight. Clive burned a fingertip. There were no raised voices, just the occasional string of curses to machinery and gods.

Shane offered Steven a book to occupy him in the absence of providing her an enlightening conversation. However, Roselyn's library was either artistic or occult. He paged through a photography book with his free hand, finding the monochrome nudes without trouble. He lingered over these with no outward appreciation and embarrassment -- Shane thought he ought to give the latter, but at least could have gleaned insight from the former -- but more focus than he gave to anything else in the room.

Behind them, Roselyn and Clive disassembled a camping chair for the aluminum tubing. Roselyn had zip ties between her teeth and a grease pencil behind one ear. Clive held something upside-down and declared it "visionary," to which Roselyn replied, "It's a bike chain, Clive. We are not reinventing the wheel."

Shane tilted her head, still watching Steven, who had even lost interest in the naked ladies. "You don't strike me as noble."

"I'm not."

"So you chose this line of work for the dental plan?"

His mouth twitched, half-smile, half snarl. "Maybe I like cursed objects."

"Maybe you just like trouble and think you are a cursed object."

He looked up, eyes catching hers like the snap of a mousetrap. "Maybe I get some use out of this sword before you break the curse--or even if you don't. Maybe I can do something with it before it kills me."

"Like find the guys who want it and cleave them in twain?"

Steven sucked his teeth. "Guys like that are wasted being in one piece."

"I'm sure they think the same of you," Shane said, goading him, but only slightly.

He shook his head slowly, not rising to the bait or even acknowledging it. "They're the bad guys."

Shane stilled, absorbing this information. "Does that make you the good guy by default?"

"No. I think I'm useful, and I don't want people who don't deserve it to get hurt," he said. "We both know how big that field of gray is."

From the table came the unmistakable sound of a Dremel going to war with something not meant to be Dremeled. Sparks spit. A puff of smoke wafted toward the ceiling, at which Clive cheered.

Steven barely blinked. "Are your friends insane?"

"They're artists," Shane said. "Artistry often looks like madness from the outside."

"Looks like a fire hazard."

Shane allowed herself a faint smirk. "You're the guy walking around with a blade that tries to murder you every time you let it go. Aren't you more comfortable with hazards than peace?"

Steven didn't answer, but his hand tightened on the hilt.

Minutes passed. Clive disappeared into the bathroom and emerged with a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a roll of gauze.

The sound of a bolt locking into place echoed through the room.

"Okay," Roselyn announced. "It's awkward but probably functional. Like Clive."

"Hey," Clive said, not looking up from the table where their collaboration rested. "I am made in God's image. A mad god who devours his young, but a god nevertheless."

Steven stood--slowly, warily--and moved toward the table.

Roselyn slipped the Frankenstein of leather, brass, gears, and reinforced plastic over his sword arm. He pulled his shirt free--which took no real effort given how tattered it had become--and Roselyn installed it across his torso. Clive busied himself tightening metal strapping over the pommel, quillions, and guard, then slipped a circle of paracord over Steven's thumb.

"It'll need tuning," Roselyn said, "but the rig shouldn't fall apart before he does."

She just tightened a bolt, then stepped back, arms crossed, watching the contraption with a frown as he jerked his sword arm. He did not trust them enough to release the sword, even though it would have been three minutes before he regretted it.

"It'll work?" Shane asked.

"Well," Roselyn began, matter-of-fact, "it'll fail slowly and can probably last three days before doing it. We'll see it coming. As far as I can imagine, it'll seize up more than fall apart. Then he just has to be sure the sword is touching some part of him when it does."

"Flick your wrist up while pulling the thumb cord," Clive directed Steven. He then took an unnecessarily big step back.

Steven did as requested. Nothing happened. Clive slipped under Steven's arm, showing a deficit of self-preservation or a surfeit of confidence; his screwdriver and a squeeze tube of petroleum jelly deployed within ten seconds. Steven barely had the time to swear under his breath.

Clive resumed his distance, then motioned for Steven to try again.

The next attempt produced no more results than the last. Steven cleared his throat with suspicion.

"Once more," Clive directed. "I feel good about this one."

Steven attempted the flick and pulled slowly, once more, in a gesture that Shane could not help but find sarcasm. His eyes opened a little more as the sword jerked up his forearm. When he straightened it, it traveled over his tense bicep and shoulder, then down his back, where it rested along his spine. Sitting that way without piercing the unfortunate seat would not be comfortable. Still, it did not badly impede his standing. Absent the fear of slicing his butt if he moved the wrong way--which would not bother Steve more than a bullet had--it did not appear to interfere much with his range of motion.

"It's one-way," Roselyn said, factually and without apology. "You must pull it down with your left hand to reset it."

Steven sneered but looked impressed. "Like giving myself a hug," he said with false cheer.

"May I explain?" Clive asked, already puffing out his chest.

"Do you have to?" replied Steven.

"On the off chance this is helpful to you, yes," he said. "Also, because artists are a proud lot, and I wish my work to be appreciated sufficiently." He stepped to Steven's side as though presenting the prize at a game show. "We have a reinforced track on top of a bike chain to draw the sword to his back. Every six inches is a copper rivet through the leather that connects the sword's metal to this bruiser's skin. We opted for copper for its conductivity and because we had these on hand from a massive blue-ring octopus sculpture that proved less exciting in reality than it did in my head. For the scientific and apparently magical potency, I would have preferred gold rings, but Red Hook lacks a suitable pawn shop for the brokenhearted to give these up. Also, our cash reserves are low and not to be expended on outfitting strangers with something so cool." He looked expectantly at Shane, who nodded this was accurate. "So, copper it is. The curse seems to transmit through this well enough that it doesn't see a difference between touching metal that is touching Steven and just touching Steven."

"Curses are made of electricity?" Shane asked.

"Many things are made of electricity," said Clive. "Things we do not lick."

Shane laughed. "How much did you know that would work?"

"We have our five-minute window if it didn't."

"I do not have a carpet shampooer to eradicate his blood."

"We'd know before he exploded too much," said Clive. "At least three minutes before it's going to stain. Plus, it still wouldn't be the most blood that has ever been loose in this place."

Shane caressed the device without breaking the prohibition on touching Steven. There were no crystals or sigils, no whiff of smoke or essential oils. Roselyn had not bothered with witchcraft.

"No need to muddle things up with my own magick," said Roselyn, guessing the target of Shane's examination. "A cursed sword is enough, and this only needs to keep him from breaking contact, not breaking the curse. That's your department."

Steven pulled the sword down, which involved more force and jerking than Shane liked but clearly no more than anyone else in the room expected, and then activated the mechanism three more times. It grew only smoother and quieter with each successful iteration, the unguents lubricating it more evenly distributed. When satisfied it wouldn't fly off and butcher him, Steven asked, "Mind if I hit the head?"

The sword on his back changed his posture--it made him seem taller and less dangerous than when hunched. Shane could've passed him on the street and not looked twice, shirtlessness and mechanism aside.

Shane gestured to the bathroom without looking up from her annotation of sword lore in her book. "Don't break anything if you can help it. If Roselyn has any security deposit left, I would hate to void it on your behalf."

He paused at the threshold, then leaned closer, voice lowering like they were confidants.

"The thing of it is," he said, almost sheepish, "I haven't had anything like a shower in... well, let's just say some time."

So close, the perfume of WD-40 and machinery did not compliment the aroma of rank sweat and coagulation accumulated on his skin. "There's men's body wash under the sink, some shampoo." Shane glanced at his closely cropped hair, thin in spots. Maybe it was tacky to have offered that. This was the first time Steven showed anything like self-consciousness, and she liked him fractionally better for that. He could be a person and not only a problem.

He sucked his teeth. He nodded toward Clive. "Boyfriend?"

Clive piped up from the corner, juggling a screwdriver as he skimmed his drawings of the device. "Nope. I'm a coconut-lime kind of guy."

Shane added wanly, "Roselyn entertains on occasion."

"Good," said Steven. "The kid gets on my nerves."

Shane bristled. She had every right to find Clive annoying--he was hers to be annoyed by. Steven had no right to assert this judgment. Clive was like an alley cat--drawn to trouble, content to sit just outside the splash zone when it came--but good enough for a cuddle and keeping the rats away.

When Steven disappeared into the bathroom, Shane breathed deeper. Not calmer--just deeper.

He was not gone long--definitely not long enough to have made that shower count--before he returned, the wet sword still clutched in his hand as he tried to put the mechanism on one-handed.

Shane moved toward him to fasten it, knowing she should get the practice as one of her unenviable stewardship duties but also because she hated a man who mistook martyrdom for self-reliance. He leaned away from her, and she earned more of his trust by letting no part of her skin touch his.

He did, at least, smell more like tangerines and tea than a man who had spent days on the run. She didn't suspect the leather and steel would encourage this freshness for long.

"How are you with the cold?" Shane asked.

"Not a fan," Steven said. "I'm more of an autumn than winter."

"But it won't hurt you?"

He sniffed. "Wouldn't guess anything much would." His thick brows drew together. "Why?"

"Shirts are not made that can accommodate the rig, to say nothing of the skin contact."

It wasn't about modesty--such considerations were beneath his notice or caring--as much as visibility. The daemons had magic to pass as normal. Steven had only that people instinctively knew better than to look someone like him in the eyes.

"You've given up on making me inconspicuous?" he asked.

"It's Red Hook," Roselyn said. "There are weirder things."

Fortunately, Roselyn had been one of the weirder things, at least regarding her dress sense. "Try this," she said, handing over a black leather cloak from the Renaissance Faire. "It's mildew-chic. Retro plague doctor."

He tried to fasten it over his throat but struggled with the fine motor skills of tying the knot as though his fingers knew only gripping, stabbing, and punching.

Shane stepped in to do this for him as well. "At some point, you'll need to tell me what the mermaid is paying you," she said. "I am going to find out, and you would save us both some time."

"It's not money."

"You mentioned," Shane noted. "Then what?"

"Something I want."

That was the difference between them. Shane worked in layers and wanted every piece on the table before she moved. Steven was all impulse and grit and quiet deals. He wasn't reckless, just indifferent to what did not contribute to his plan. That made him dangerous in a way even the sword couldn't match.

Roselyn pulled Steven away to adjust the mechanism further based on what she had seen of his movements. However, Shane did not have a discerning enough eye to notice what was wrong with it. The man beneath it, however, was giving her clues. He didn't want life. Maybe a man in his position never does, knowing the bitter tang of existence gone too long. If Steven had wanted someone or something dead, he would not have contracted out. Material gain was beyond his caring. She knew those possessed of avarice, and they whined when cursed with a hoisted petard. Steven did not want magic or power--she knew this type too, and they would not have come to her for help without implying they hoped to take advantage of her hospitality.

What to get for the man who had nothing?

Shane's eyes flickered over his face, his squint as Roselyn tightened metal and leather as she sliced off a stray flap with a utility knife. She was gorgeous--Roselyn could not help it, and people tended to not let it slip their notice--and Steven did not care. Not in that way. He looked at Roselyn, and he saw something other men did not.

What could a man like Steven want that he could not get otherwise?

It took only a brief calculation for Shane to render her guess: something lost.

Or someone.

Shane called her confederates Roselyn Jacobs and Clive McKenna. When she requested they bring a tarp, Steven narrowed his eyes at her, his eyebrows hooding shadows over his eyes. She assured him it was necessary, and he was good enough not to question why, though this was his nature--infuriatingly so because this process of saving his life could have been abbreviated if he knew how to answer a straight question.

She met them in the basement of the art building, which was for storage and little visited by students. The cellar had cool concrete floors. She found one with a drain in the floor and a sink if it came to that.

Shane was prepared to assure Steven that Roselyn and Clive would help, but he did not ask. She chose to believe this was because he trusted her process.

When they arrived, Shane filled them in on what she knew and a chunk of what she suspected. Steven nodded that she had not missed any of the germane points but didn't expand on them.

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Of all the artists in my life, I have known Janice Chandler the longest, close to half a century--a fact I imagine faintly pains us both. Even when she was tiny, she had an ear for music, and the instinct to make sure everyone knew it. She was a born talent.

It's not everyone who can entrance bleachers of middle-aged country fans and an auditorium of shrieking Taylor Swift fans with equal aplomb.

(It helps somewhat that she is my cousin, but that's secondary.)

During the COVID lockdowns, Runnin' Shine released the album Nowhere to Go. Have the last few years influenced you creatively in any other way? Did you really write eighty songs during the lockdown?

During Covid, I felt like there wasn't much I could do as a musician except to use the time as productively as possible by writing an album. I wrote more songs that didn't make it onto Nowhere to Go, but I think that's pretty normal. Some songs just don't want to be recorded right away.
After Covid sort of subsided and we were allowed to play together as a band, I didn't feel like people wanted to experience new, original music as much right away. We played mostly popular covers to get people in high spirits. I imagine after not being able to dance and spend time out with their friends, they just wanted something fun and comfortable to look forward to. Plus, so many new albums came out during Covid, so people had plenty of new music to listen to.

How did you get your start as a musician?

This is a tricky question. I think I just am a musician, and I always have been. It just comes out in different ways throughout my life. As a little kid, I used to write songs in my bedroom and record them on a tape recorder, then in school I played in the band and sang in the chorus. As a grown up, I started a band.

We didn't know how long she had been dead, not versed in country things. One night, coming home, Amber noticed the tiny mother had splayed her wing over the nest. This might have been a maternal, avian technique with which we were unfamiliar, some method of keeping her eggs safe from the stiff breezes as spring turned to summer.

When her posture was no different in the morning, I let Amber know the bird had died above our notice, and I would give her a respectful burial when I returned home. Amber could not leave the task that long undone, not on days with threatening heat, not when leaving the mother on the nest might keep away a father to tend the eggs. The father of this species���the eastern phoebe���does more than fertilize and flee, sticking around to raise the brood. I do not believe he sits on the eggs, so perhaps he didn't see much of a point in lingering until there were mouths to feed or nests to make. I don't recall having seen two, but I would rather preserve the fantasy of hoping he would arrive in time to claim his nascent children.

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Shane did not struggle to accept mermaids as part of her world. She had met a dryad, siren, djinn, demons, probably aliens. She had served cappuccinos to fairy folk who thought it was cute to tip with twenties that turned to pennies. She had been instrumental in killing maybe a dozen vampires and one angel--though the angel had wanted to leverage her death into a holocaust, so that was less bragworthy.

A mermaid didn't move the needle of credulity. Shane would find it suspect if someone attempted to assure her mermaids were made up and couldn't possibly exist because they were biologically dubious (which, of course, they were, but so what? Shane was biologically dubious weekly). The merfolk were known enough to inspire songs that poisoned karaoke nights, so they existed. That was how the real world worked. If you got enough people behind the idea, it happened. If you made enough of them doubt, that was as good as a sucker punch that came with implosion, which daemons generally wished to avoid.

Shane Valentine was barely out of the Humanities building before she saw the swordsman, his left hand balancing the right but not doing much more than grasping the pommel. Being the steward of Annandale University--or, she supposed, being a steward anywhere--you get the instinct to inspect passing strangers for lethal weapons as a matter of course. Technically, the right stick in the wrong hand could kill the unwary, but it was more in the carrying than the item in that case.

The sword looked rusty--she could not guarantee it was rust and not dried blood, but both bespoke carelessness--and as long as his arm. The calculus was never tricky. Few people recreationally wielded swords on campus or in Red Hook proper. She would be sure to ask him why he thought he should be the exception just as soon as he was no longer armed.

The casual reader (or expert in ufology) squirms. The story of Linda Napolitano's abduction started out bizarre and exceeded unbelievable some time ago. With all these convolutions, how could the so-called biggest case in abduction research be true? If it is false, what does this say about the veracity of the phenomenon as a whole?

In an interview with NOVA, Hopkins said, "You ask the man on the street to explain what a UFO abduction is about, and he may get one or two things right. But, most people really don't have a clear idea of what happens." This might have been true when he began investigating decades ago, but the script of abduction was well worn by 1989--in part because of Hopkins. Per his obituary in The New York Times, "Mr. Hopkins was struck by the recurrence of certain motifs: the lonely road, the dark of night, the burst of light, the sudden passage through the air and into a waiting craft, and above all the sense of time that could not be accounted for." Alien abductions are sitcom fodder in the twenty-first century. If you stop a person on the street now, he might describe the mythology down to the implants. If an abductee under hypnosis didn't click these boxes, their story might seem suspect. Hopkins said on an April 1, 1997, episode of NOVA that this "has an absolute core of reality." Maybe so, but what surrounds that core is a primary concern, as evidenced by this case.

Hopkins notes (111):

recollection of the beach scene was blocked for Linda and the three men for many months, even though she had undergone hypnosis on the events of that night. Then, somehow, Dan, Richard, and the third man are allowed to "spontaneously" recall the Lady of the Sands. A letter is sent to me about their recollections, I bring Linda in for another hypnosis session, and she, too, recalls the scene. There is an unsettling���and unearthly���precision in all of this.

Hopkins' suggestion was not that the story only existed once Napolitano created it as much as that the aliens had triggered memories on her schedule. "My ace in the hole was the fact that she had no idea the three men also recalled the scene at the beach" (112). When he read Dan's letters about the Lady of the Sands incident to Napolitano, Hopkins recorded her reactions, which he considers entirely convincing and in no way practiced, as she would have no idea what they would contain. Except, of course, if she had a hand in writing them--something Hopkins barely considers.

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