Chapter Three

It was my turn to guess. 

“Person, place, or thing?” I asked.

“Person,” Jerry answered. 

We’d been playing twenty questions for most of the night, and his answers had included, among others: the Teletubbies, Count Chokula, Shrek, and the Large Hadron collider. I’d guessed them all so far.

“Is it someone real?” I asked.

“Who am I to say who is or isn’t real? Is anyone real? Is anything?” From the light of the burn barrels, I could see that his face was much redder than I would have thought natural.

“I meant is this a nonfictional person?”

“Oh. Well in that case, yes. They’re real. But a lot of people on the internet might argue otherwise.” He didn’t even realize how bad he was about dropping extra hints.

“Is this someone I’ve mentioned in the blog?”

“Yes!”

“Is this someone who wants to kill us?”

“Not to our knowledge.”

Okay, that narrows it down significantly.

“Is this person aware of the blog’s existence?”

“I don’t know. She hasn’t brought it up, but—”

“Is it Rosa?”

He crossed his arms. “I don’t know how, but I know you’re cheating.”

“I guess I’m just lucky.” Jerry laughed and nodded in agreement. I guess my attempt at overstated irony had gone undetected.

The truth was, I figured out right away that there was a pattern to his answers; they were all something we’d talked about recently. (He had just found a conspiracy theory website arguing that the Teletubbies were real creatures being held in a secret military base—shortly thereafter, he bought a case of Count Chokula off of eBay using my laptop and debit card—his celebrity crush was… you get the point).

Jerry was consistently drawing from a short well of inspiration. Just like how he only ever threw rock in paper/rock/scissors. Winning was only a matter of exploiting the pattern. My personal best so far was when I got “Aunt Jemima” in six guesses immediately after listening to him complain about how long it had been since he made waffles. Sure, that might have been slight metagaming, but I considered it part of the strategy.

To be honest, my heart wasn’t really into the game at all, but we needed a way to pass the time, and this was much less depressing than his first suggestion of acapella karaoke, and slightly less awkward than his second suggestion of truth or dare. 

He let out a loud, graceless yawn and said, “It’s getting pretty late. Do you think we’ve been forgotten about?”

“Doubt it.”

“I’m still pissed about my smokes. Hey, you didn’t bring any with you, did you?”

“No.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. I would kill for a cigarette right about now.” He stretched, popped his knuckles, and crossed his arms again, then gave up and let them hang. After a moment, he continued, “You know, in a strange kind of way, this is relaxing.”

From the dim light of the fire, I could just make out a smile on his red face. I had to assume that by now, my own face looked about the same.

“Are you saying you’re enjoying this?” I asked.

“No, no, no, I’m just saying it’s not so bad. These may not be ideal circumstances, but at least you finally get a night off from work, right? Plus, I’ve been needing to get some exercise.”

“I don’t think this counts as exercise.”

“It’s close enough.”

“Is it?”

He took a hair tie from around his wrist and pulled his overgrown locks into a bunch on the top of his head. To me, it seemed like a completely pointless thing to do, considering our circumstances. “Do you think the girls are going to be joining us?” he asked.

“God, I hope not.”

Something squeak-barked and skittered through the shadows at the edge of the firelight. It sounded like a roided-up possum, no doubt watching us and wondering what we were doing here. That was one thing we all had in common. I held my breath and trained my ears, waiting to see if the animal was going or staying, but Jerry didn’t pay it any mind.

“You think they had fun at the party?” he asked.

I shrugged. Or at least, I did my best version of a shrug. Given our current situation, such a gesture wasn’t exactly possible, but I think he understood my intent.

We’d held the welcome back party for O’Brien at the gas station the night before. Jerry brought me to work early so he and I could help Rosa put up decorations during her shift. She baked smiley face cupcakes, and I provided a record player and some vinyls. Jerry volunteered to bring one of his homemade piñatas, but after what he said at Vanessa’s funeral, I shot that idea down right away. I offered to let him be in charge of making the banner instead, and he jumped at the opportunity with enough eagerness to trigger my suspicion, but not enough to warrant follow up.

I didn’t expect him to come, but I invited Deputy Love to the celebration as a professional courtesy. He surprised everyone by showing up early, eating all of the cupcakes, then leaving before O’Brien ever got there. That was probably for the better; this was going to be the first time she stepped foot inside the gas station in weeks, and I wanted to ensure it was a positive and welcoming environment. 

I had the foresight to veto Jerry’s idea of turning off all the lights, waiting for her to drop by for her evening rounds, and jumping out and yelling “surprise!” While she probably would not have panicked and shot us all, I didn’t see any reason to risk it. Instead, she was greeted by dance music, hanging balloons and streamers, and a banner that spanned the entirety of the gas station before looping back in on itself. The text read: “Thank God you’re finally back Deputy Amelia O’Brien Our Favorite Deputy We missed you so much Please don’t ever leave us again Fuck that other guy He could never replace you!!!” (Come to think of it, that might have had something to do with why Deputy Love left so early.)

When she saw us, she cracked a rare smile.

Sadly, she wasn’t able to stick around for long. Less than five minutes after her arrival, she was called away for some emergency involving another sinkhole opening up at the Matherne farm. We were extremely lucky (or—depending on how you look at it—she was extremely unlucky) that she came back to work when she did. It wasn’t even twenty-four hours before things went to hell all over again, which leads us back to:

“My turn! Person, place, or thing?” At least Jerry was into the game. I decided to give him what I thought would be an easy answer by choosing “breadbox.” It really felt like he was almost there after thirty-two hints when he asked, “Is it something you put bread in?”

“Yes.”

“Is it a toaster?” Thirty-three.

“No.”

“Is it a microwave?” Thirty-four.

“No. Who puts bread in the microwave?”

“Is it a dryer?” Thirty-five.

“Why would you put bread in the dryer?”

“To toast it in case the microwave is broken. Duh.”

I took a second to ponder whether or not something like that would even work. The practicality was absurd, but the principle was sound. I felt like he deserved a win just for creativity.

“That’s it. You got it. The answer was ‘a dryer.’”

“Really?” he said excitedly.

“Yep,” I lied.

“How many turns was that?” he asked.

“Nineteen exactly,” I lied.

“Damn, I’m good. You wanna play again?”

I did not. I wanted to go home. Or to a bookstore. Or even back to work. Anywhere but here, but that wasn’t an option. Instead, I stretched my arms to try and work the crick out of my back and answered, “Sure.”

“Okay,” he started. “I’ve got a good one. Let’s see if you can beat your current record of six.”

I asked, “Person, place, or thing?”

“Place.”

“Is it the creepy underground murder-chamber we find ourselves trapped inside of right now?”

He made a face like he’d accidentally swallowed a bug. “You’re cheating! I don’t know how, but I know you’re cheating.”

I took a moment to look around at said murder-chamber, but in the dim firelight from the barrels, there wasn’t much to be seen. A few crumbling support columns. Plenty of dancing shadows. Piles of garbage in varying states of decay. A bright red pentagram about six feet wide painted on the mold-covered wall next to a ladder, brush, and open can from Sherwin Williams.

I looked back at Jerry and asked, “Shall we play again?”

“Maybe in a minute,” he responded, his voice suddenly serious. “Hey, is it okay if I ask you a personal question?”

Oh God… I tried to imagine what Jerry might consider “personal” and scared myself. I reluctantly answered, “Okay...”

He cleared his throat, then asked, “Do you have a boner right now?”

I let the question linger, just in case I’d misheard or misunderstood. I wanted to give my brain ample time to compensate for the confusion. After all, it wasn’t like we were going anywhere anytime soon. But after a proper moment, I concluded that there was nothing wrong with my hearing.

Just to be safe, I worded my response carefully. “Are you asking me if I have an erection?”

“Yeah. Sorry, is that too personal?”

“No. And also, no.”

“Well I do! It’s totes platonic, though. I’ve been sporting wood for at least an hour, and I have no idea why. Super rock hard. For real, I could chisel diamond with this thing.”

I offered my best theory, “Maybe it has something to do with these chains and ropes cutting off your circulation.”

“Yeah,” he said, “Or it could have something to do with the fact that we’re hanging upside down and all my leg blood needed to go somewhere.” 

He had a point. We were suspended about eight feet off the ground inside this dark room for what must have been hours, with chains and ropes tied tightly around our respective bottom halves. Our upper bodies were left free to dangle, save for the chain nooses padlocked around our necks—an extra disincentive to stop any attempts to wriggle free from these binds.

“Could be,” I said. “Or, you know, maybe you found a new kink.”

When I heard the metal door scrape open a few seconds later, I was actually relieved that we were finally getting this show on the road. Not to sound ungrateful, but there’s only so many times I can play twenty questions without going insane.

He wore cargo pants, combat boots, a black leather jacket, and an apron splattered with blood (or more likely, red paint). In one hand, he held a machete. In the other, an oversized meat hook. And on his face, he wore the stupidest mask I had ever seen, like some kind of nightmare cartoon rabbit with black fur, sharpened buck teeth, and pointy elongated ears that scraped the top of the door frame as he entered.

He walked into the room slowly, one deliberate step after the other. Pausing between each, breathing heavily behind his mask, his shoulders heaving with each intake of air.

Don’t get me wrong. I know it sounds cool on paper. I would be willing to bet he practiced this walk in the mirror beforehand. He probably even had theme music playing in his mind. But from where we were hanging, he looked like a drunken toddler shuffling around in an ill-fitting diaper. It took a fair amount of effort to keep from rolling my eyes.

He aimed the machete at me and said something in what I assume would have been an intimidating voice, if not for the mask muffling it into incoherence.

“What?” I asked.

He repeated himself, now louder but still muffled.

“What’s he saying?” Jerry asked.

“I have no idea.”

The man in the mask let out a muffled scream and shook both weapons at us.

“Dude, just take the mask off!” Jerry said, mid-muffle.

“Yeah,” I added. “We know that’s you, Beaux. We’re not idiots. You’ve been scoping out the gas station for the last week and you reek of discount body spray and strawberry vape oil.”

Beaux finally took off the mask, revealing the look of annoyance on his chubby face.

“You shit sticks don’t even know what kind of hurt you’re in for, do you?”

Turns out, we were wrong about Beaux after all. He wasn’t planning on robbing us. He was planning something much, much dumber.

O’Brien dropped me off at the gas station for shift change at sundown. I thought she might have a chance to come inside and catch up, but as soon as she pulled into the parking lot, she got a call over the radio about an emergency down by the abandoned railroad tracks to nowhere (something about a bunch of stolen mannequins—I didn’t get the details).

She hit the road before I made it inside, where I was expecting to find Jerry. Instead, I found this dummy wearing his rabbit mask, holding a machete and a pistol. He forced me into the cab of his pickup (which he had outfitted into a cage of loose barbed wire). Then he drove me deep into the woods, down an old dirt road, and up to a giant metal bunker door. At gunpoint, he marched me down concrete steps to an underground hallway, past metal chambers half-flooded with stagnant rainwater, and finally into this huge empty kill-room where he tied me up with chains and hoisted me into the air to hang next to Jerry.

And that’s how we got here.

While Beaux wasn’t the first person I’d have expected to resort to kidnapping and torture, I wasn’t exactly surprised either. After a few long seconds of him giving us both the crazy eyes, I realized Beaux was actually waiting for an answer. 

“Sorry,” I said. “I thought you were being rhetorical. I guess… no? We don’t know what kind of hurt we’re in for?”

“Oh, you think you’re so smart, don’t you? Well you know what?” He made a face like he was gearing up for a sick burn, but all he could come up with was, “You're not!"

“Come on, Beaux,” I pleaded. “Just let us down from here. We can pretend this whole thing never happened.”

“No we most certainly won’t!” Jerry interjected. “As soon as you let us go, I swear I’m headed straight to the sheriff’s station to hand your bunny-ass in, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me or change my mind!”

I muttered a quiet, “Casper Van Dien…”

Jerry must have caught the hint, because he started to backtrack. “Oh. Ohhh. Yeah, you know what? You’re right. Never mind, Beaux. I forgive you. Now let us go. Or else!”

Beaux forced out a laugh. I think he was shooting for intimidating, but landed on cringey. “You ass hats aren’t going anywhere. This is where you die!”

I sighed and said, “Are you still mad about the whole poop-vandal thing?”

“Wait,” Jerry said. “This is the poop-vandal? I heard about this guy. Dude! You’re famous!”

“Enough!” he screamed. He lowered his weapons, cleared his throat, and tried to get back into his groove. There was something interesting in how hard he was trying to impress us. “Did you know that the Ancient Chinese used death from hanging upside down as their most feared form of torture? They called it pàng tùzǐ.”

Again, I caught myself waiting for him to continue, only to realize he was asking us a genuine question.

“Oh, uh, no. No, I didn’t.”

“I did!” yelled Jerry.

“Let me explain to you the different stages of pain you will go through before finally succumbing to death’s merciful embrace. First, your lungs will be slowly crushed under the weight of your other organs, until the very act of breathing becomes nearly impossible. As you fight for air, your heart will overload from the extra work of pumping blood all the way up to your toes. Soon, the vessels in your eyes will rupture, and you will go permanently blind. And after it’s all done, and y’all are finally dead, I will bleed the three of you dry and leave your bodies down here to rot.”

None of that sounded right, but I wasn’t about to tell Beaux that he needed to up his torture game. “Oh no,” I said, trying to muster the energy to sound sincere and failing.

“Hey,” Beaux yelled, pointing his machete at the guy hanging on the other side of Jerry, “What’s going on with that one?”

By “that one,” he was referring to Mel, the third victim hanging upside down with us. Poor Mel was the newest part-timer. He had been shadowing Jerry when Beaux came in to kidnap him. This was only his first day, and he was already in a secret underground torture chamber.

Jerry answered, “Yeah, he passed out like right off the bat. Ten seconds after you left, it was like, boom. We’ve been trying to wake him up, but he is out cold. Hey, Mel! Mel, wake up! You’re missing the villain monologue!” Jerry swung an arm towards Mel, but we were all suspended just out of reach of one another.

“Is that guy... dead... already?” asked Beaux.

I rocked my elbows back and forth until the chains had twisted me around enough to see the young part-timer hanging there with drool flowing up his face and eyes rolled back into his head. I studied him for a moment, but couldn’t detect any sign of breathing. “Yeah,” I answered sadly, “I think he is.”

I jerked my arms in the reverse twisting motion until I was again facing Beaux.

“Wow!” he said with a strange smile. “I did it. I took my first life. Now I know how it feels.” He dropped his weapons, curled his fingers, and giggled. “This power! It’s amazing. It’s something you pathetic sheep are never gonna feel. You’ll never get the chance to know what it’s like to snuff out another person’s very existence.”

Jerry chuckled and said, “Okay dude.”

“This is it! I have everything I need now! Do you idiots wanna guess what’s about to happen next?”

“No,” we answered in unison.

“Now I have everything necessary to summon forth the beast, Cayergan. Do you want to know who Cayergan is?”

Jerry responded, “I just want my cigarettes back, man.”

“He is an eternal being from another world, stronger than you can even fathom. I’ve given him everything he needs to come forth into our realm, except for the final ingredient: the blood of a man in tortured anguish!”

Beaux went to the corner where the chains were connected to three different crank devices and turned the wheel of the one connected to Mel until his body lowered all the way to the floor. He quickly removed Mel’s chains, listened for a heartbeat, and dragged him across the floor to the spot in front of the pentagram. There, he got down on his knees and fished a large pocket knife out of his cargo pants, flicked it open, and kissed it like a total weirdo.

“You losers are going to see something you’re not even worthy to behold. The gates of hell are about to open, and you will literally be in the presence of the dark lord Cayergan. Tell me, have either of you seen an actual god before?”

“Yes,” we answered in unison.

I looked over at Jerry. “Wait, really? When did you see a god?”

“It was back when you were in the hospital getting your leg thing taken care of. There was this bat-god named Plabu or something trapped in a microverse inside a bottle of tequila. Things got weird. Of course, I was on a lot of mushrooms at the time, so I might have imagined it all. What about you?”

I answered, “Remember that time we were all escaping zombies in that underground cavern and got separated by those giant hands that burst out of the walls? I got sucked into this throne room of a dark tree god. He turned out to be pretty cool though. Of course, I was on a lot of painkillers at the time, so I might have imagined it all.”

“Our lives are awesome,” Jerry responded.

“Hey!” Beaux yelled, “I’m being serious here! No fantasy! No make-believe! This is real! And you’re about to see it for yourselves. Behold!”

With two hands around the hilt, he plunged the knife into Mel’s chest.

Mel’s eyes shot open, and he screamed and bolted to his feet.

“It worked!” Jerry yelled. “Mel is a zombie!”

Mel looked at the weapon sticking out of his chest and screamed even louder.

“Run, Mel!” I yelled. “Go get help!”

Beaux struggled to get to his feet, but Mel spun around, punched him square in the face, and darted out the door into the hallway.

“Get back here!” Beaux wailed as he threw his hook after the escaping victim. It clanged harmlessly against the wall several feet from the door before falling to the ground. Beaux huffed and ran out after him.

A few minutes later, Beaux came back into the room with his head hung low, his eyes red and watery, and snotty blood flowing messily from both nostrils. It seemed like that punch might have left Beaux with a broken nose, but as pathetic as he looked, I couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry for him.

He growled at us, “This is all your faults!”

“Yeah? How do you figure?” asked Jerry.

Saliva spewed with his words. “You lied to me! You tricked me into believing Mel was actually dead!”

Jerry snapped his fingers and said, “Bitch, get off it. You were the one who brought us down here to torture us to death. You don’t get to turn around and cry over how we weren’t nice to you.”

“I’m gonna kill you!” he howled.

“Yeah, yeah. So you said,” Jerry taunted back.

Beaux wiped off his upper lip and flicked the voluminous nose blood at the ground, then hissed, “You have no idea how powerful I’m gonna be! You’re gonna learn your place! You’re all gonna respect me! And when I’m done, I—”

He stopped mid-sentence. The color drained from his face. He turned and looked at his bloody spatter on the floor, then at the pentagram on the wall.

“Wha-what?” he stammered to nobody in particular.

Jerry gave me a look that said, ‘This dude’s cheese has fallen off his cracker.’ I nodded in agreement.

“Oh, yes, of course.” He was speaking to the wall.

“So, like, you want to let us down now, or what?” I asked.

Beaux looked at me with a giant ugly smile. “Do y’all hear that, too?”

“Hear what?” I responded.

“That voice? He’s right there!” Beaux pointed at the pentagram. “He can hear me, and he’s telling me that I’ve done well. The blood was good. My blood. Of course. He just needs more. It’s so obvious now. All he needs to come forth is for me to make the ultimate sacrifice. Then I will be rewarded.”

Beaux picked up his machete with his right hand and held it to his left wrist, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“This is it. This is why he chose me to summon Cayergan. Because he knew when the time came, I would have the strength to do what was necessary.”

“Who chose you for what?” I asked. “I’m lost.”

“Yeah,” Jerry said, “Me too. Was Mel a zombie or what?”

Beaux opened his eyes, forced another fake laugh, and said, “There is a man in town. He found me; he offered me a job; he gave me purpose. And now I’m part of something greater than myself. All he asked is that I summon Cayergan into this world. It’s all part of the great plan. And soon, it will be finished. It is an honor to be able to give my life so Cayergan can rise!”

He closed his eyes and lifted the machete... 

I held my breath.

...Beaux slowly put the blade against his skin.

I waited...

...for like thirty seconds.

I exhaled and took another breath.

Beaux quickly pulled back the machete and took a pose like he was about to strike.

Here it comes.

I braced myself.

Beaux slowly closed the gap and rested the blade against his wrist.

Eventually, Jerry’s voice crept into the silence. In his best Emperor Palpatine voice, he croaked, “Good… Good... Let the hate flow through you. Let darkness be your strength. Poooop Vaaandaaalll...”

“Dude, quit it!” I said. “You’re going to mess him up.”

Beaux roared and threw the weapon to the ground and screamed at us, “You bitches have no idea what it’s like! How hard I’ve had to struggle! I’ve gone my entire life putting up with cock-burgers like you two trying to keep me down, and I’m sick and tired of it! Soon Cayergan will come and wash the old world away and all the people that make life worse, all you people, will get exactly what you deserve!”

I had forgotten that he still had a gun until the moment he pulled it out of his waistband and said with a smug smile, “Watch closely. This is what real strength looks like.” Then, he put the gun in his mouth.

I closed my eyes and waited for the noise. Moments later, when he still hadn’t pulled the trigger, I opened one eye to see that he was frozen. The gun deep in his mouth and tears rolling down his face.

“Hey man, I have an idea,” Jerry said. “We all see you riding that struggle bus over there. Why don’t you let me down from here... Give me the gun...? And let me kill you. Yeah? Right? Sound good? You want to die. I want to kill you. It’s a win-win.”

Beaux pulled the gun out of his mouth to the sound of a wet plop and spat onto the ground.

“You? You don’t have what it takes to kill somebody.”

“No, really, I’ve totally got a hard-on for homicide. Just ask Jack.”

“It’s true,” I said, “Before he worked at the gas station, Jerry was the only surviving member of a murder cult.”

Beaux reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Marlboros, fished one out, lit it between his teeth, and immediately started coughing and gagging. He tried to play it off, holding it in place while his eyes turned red and overflowed. This very well might have been the first time he’d ever smoked a cigarette, and it seemed obvious that he was only doing it now to try and look cool in front of us.

“Hey!” Jerry barked. “Are those my smokes?”

“No! You don’t own anything anymore. I own you! These are my smokes now!”

“Gasp!” Jerry yelled. “You monster! Now I’m definitely going to kill you. Just let me down from here.”

Beaux spat out the cigarette, walked angrily over to the crank wheels, and started lowering Jerry to the ground.

Holy shit. I couldn’t believe it. Is this plan actually working?

Once he was down, Beaux unlocked and stripped the chains from Jerry, tossed the gun onto the floor next to him, and stood underneath me, gripping the machete like a baseball bat.

“Whoa,” I said, trying to lean away from the weapon. “Not so close, man.”

There was determination in his eyes. “Okay asshole. Here’s the deal. You can’t back out now. If you don’t spill my blood and open the portal, I’m going to kill your friend and—”

BANG!

Jerry didn’t hesitate.

Beaux screamed and flopped onto the ground, hugging the foot with the fresh bullet hole while Jerry walked calmly over to the cigarette Beaux had spit onto the floor. He picked it up, put it between his own lips, and took a puff.

RRROOOAAARRROOOSSSHHH!

In an instant, the room became bright hot. The fires from the burn barrels flared up, roaring, and growing, forming into a trio of giant swirling cyclones of burning red and blue—loud, blazing spirals that climbed up to the high ceiling.

The heat from the flames swept over me, forcing me to close my eyes while the force of whatever was happening rocked my chains back and forth. I held my breath and opened one eye to see a crystallic sparkling light in the center of the pentagram, brighter than the brightest flames. It grew from the size of a pinprick into an enormous churning, turbulent vortex of pure shimmering lights.

“Well check that out,” Jerry said.

Beaux laughed frantically, and I think he was just about to give us a self-congratulatory “I told you so” before an enormous skeletal hand reached out from the void and grabbed him around the waist.

Strangely, I can’t describe exactly what this hand looked like. It was, at the exact same time, the size of a normal human arm and the size of Manhattan Island. It was a color that has never existed. It had five fingers, and each fingertip split into five more fingers, which each broke into five fingers, which broke into five more fingers ad infinitem. I could somehow hear the creature’s arm moving with my eyes, and the smell of its flesh was remarkably similar to gum drops. (Jerry later insisted that it smelled like spiced rum.)

Beaux let out a gasp as the fractal fingers squeezed around him. His skin hissed as the bone-hand absorbed every square inch of surface area, then the arm dragged him slowly through the twisting void and into whatever existed on the opposite side.

“Holy shit!” Jerry yelled, “that asshole still had my wallet!”

“Jerry!” He looked back at me, and I pointed at the spot on the ground where dumbass Beaux’s foot blood had formed a small puddle. Somehow, the liquid was bubbling and vibrating in tandem with the ripples of the vortex. “You have to figure out a way to close the portal!”

Jerry put the cigarette between his teeth, unzipped his fly, and pissed right into the pool of blood. 

Amazingly... That worked! 

A noise like the crack of thunder filled the room and the portal disappeared, along with all of our light as the fires from the burn barrels immediately extinguished themselves.

In the darkness, all I could hear was the sound of Jerry pissing on the ground. When he finally finished up, he said, “Wow, that’s a relief. Man, I gotta tell you I’ve been holding it ever since he kidnapped us. Boner’s not all the way gone though. You ever pee with a semi before? It’s like shooting a sniper rifle.”

“You feel like letting me down now or…”

“Sorry, I’m on it.”

It took about ten minutes for him to find the right wheel in the dark and lower me to the ground. By the time we got the chains off, we could already hear the sirens growing louder in the distance.

 

***

 

Deputy O’Brien looked somewhere between tired and aggravated. I thought it was nice that she was the one who took our statements. This was, after all, our first chance to spend any real time together since she got back. Once we finished explaining exactly what happened to Beaux, O’Brien took her notes, balled them up in front of us, and threw them onto the ground before inviting us to “try again.” Our second version of the events left out the part where an evil being reached across worlds to grab Beaux and drag him into a hell dimension.

According to her sources, Beaux’s murder chamber was the basement level of some kind of satellite power plant from the fifties. The place was shut down and demolished decades ago, and eventually nature reclaimed it. From the look of things, the poop-vandal-turned-sacrificial-dope had been living out there by himself. Officially, he was a lone gunman, a single maniac, and with him gone we had nothing to worry about.

Unofficially, the three of us knew this was only the tip of the crapberg. Someone had gone through a lot of trouble. Someone had hired Spencer to collect the shapeshifter. Someone had hired Beaux to kidnap us and summon another demon. Someone in our town was pulling a lot of strings and moving a lot of chess pieces, and I knew it was only a matter of time before someone got everything they needed.

Then what?