As Mr. Price drove off in his car—Cliff riding shotgun since his own vehicle was temporarily ornamental—I kept a firm grip on the briefcase holding everyone’s contracts. Of course, we’d taken photographs of them as soon as they were signed, both to provide copies to the signers and to serve as back-ups, but things could get murky if the originals were lost. Since Charlotte was a new client, I would hate to set a poor precedent by making things more complicated for her. That was, after all, the opposite of what a good accountant should do.
Asha finished helping Troy into the car they’d shared over, setting him upright and helping him buckle the seatbelt. My guess was that his next stop would be a nearby hospital. He didn’t seem to have broken anything, but he was no doubt in need of getting a few things x-rayed and hopefully receiving some painkillers.
With Troy settled, Asha walked back over to me, a half-smile curving across her face as she looked at the house that had held her captive for much of the evening. Charlotte stood on the porch, once more in the appearance of a woman wearing a century old style of dress. Despite her technically genderless nature, somewhere along the line, I’d begun thinking of Charlotte as a “her.” That might not have been proper, but she’d yet to correct me, and referring to a client as “it” felt wrong on multiple levels. Especially for a parahuman.
“Be honest with me: am I going to wake up tomorrow and be able to pretend this was all a bad dream?” Asha asked.
“Honestly, I’m not sure. Lots of people do, but you went in pretty deep. If you try, really try with all your might, then you might one day be able to lie yourself into believing it was something other than it was.”
“I figured you’d say something like that,” Asha replied. “Thing is: I am terrible at lying to myself.”
“Then you might be good and well stuck on this side of the curtain.”
“It could be worse. At least I know the monster under the bed has certain laws he has to follow. Who knows, maybe when I get home, I’ll go buy a copy of that role-playing book and see exactly what those rules are.”
“Shouldn’t you get some sleep instead?”
It was Asha’s turn to laugh, and she did so freely, letting out a half-frantic giggle that was probably a mixture of relief at being free and terror at the truths she’d learned about the world. “No, Fred. I don’t see myself getting any decent sleep for a long time.”
“In that case, go to the book’s website. There are free .PDFs you can download. Should keep your brain occupied until sunrise.”
“Good to know.” Asha’s mad bubbles of laughter subsided, and she looked at the imposing silhouette of Charlotte Manor against the moonlight flooding down on us. “How do you do it, Fred? How do you live every day knowing that there are all sorts of terrible, horrifying things that really could be waiting in the shadows? How do you even get out of bed?”
“It helps that I’ve met a lot of those ‘things,’ and most of them are just like regular people. They work, they worry, and they do their best to survive. Even Charlotte, for all the craziness she put us through, was just afraid of being killed. But, at the end of the day, I suppose I have a source of comfort you don’t: I am one of those terrible, horrifying things.”
“I didn’t mean it like . . . I’m sorry.” Asha jingled the keys in her hand as she turned away from me. “It’s been a long night. I need to go home, decompress, and try to make sense of all this.”
“I find a good merlot helps tremendously,” I told her.
“Not a bad idea.” Asha glanced back at me over her shoulder. “Good luck with everything, Fred. Maybe I’ll see you around some time.”
“For all our sakes, let’s hope next time is a bit tamer.”
Asha gave a curt nod, and then headed to her car. She slid in, pointedly ignoring whatever Troy was talking to her about, and revved the engine. Moments later, they were gone, little more than fading tail lights on the half-deserted concrete road.
“Credit where it’s due: she took that better than most people,” Charlotte said from the porch. “The mages used to initiate new recruits in my basement, and a lot of them just broke down after learning about the supernatural world.”
“Hard to blame them.” I walked up the steps and took a seat on one of the antique rocking chairs set out on the porch. “Truthfully, it took me about a week to leave my bed after I’d made the transition, and I was arguably far better off for it.”
“You seem to be coping well these days.” Charlotte sat down next to me and extended her hand. “Though, I bet a drink would help. You said merlot, right?”
“Yes, I—” A quick glance showed me that there was now a wine glass filled with red liquid on the table next to me, where previously there had been only empty space. “How do you do that?”
“Built-in magic, remember? After all, I was meant to be a fortress, and running out of supplies is a big concern during a siege. One of my more useful tricks, too. It’s not like I can set up contracts with vendors for outside food or anything.”
“Actually, you can.” I took a deep breath of the wine and found it enticingly complex. The first sip hit my tongue and left me appreciative of Charlotte’s tastes in vintages. “Or, rather, I can on your behalf. I can also arrange upgrades for you as well, if you’d like. Internet, new fixtures, whatever you’d like; assuming you can finance it.”
“Money isn’t an issue. Those mages left a couple tons of gold squirreled away in one of the hidden rooms in my basement.”
I snorted very unbecomingly into my wine glass. “Did you say tons of gold?”
“They weren’t building a sanctuary and hiding from the law without good reason,” Charlotte replied.
“If you have all that money, and the ability to keep yourself repaired, then why open a bed and breakfast in the first place?”
“Same reason everyone reaches out, I guess. I was lonely.” Charlotte ran a hand along the armrest of her hand-carved chair. “When the mages were gone, I was all by myself. That’s no way to live, not even for something like me. I could have been a haunted house that scared people away, but I wanted company. So I became a place where people would enjoy themselves, make fond memories, and come back to visit. I know, kind of crazy given how big of a secret I was keeping.”
“No, Charlotte. I don’t think that’s crazy at all. I’ll do my best to keep you running and get people to visit. I know how it feels to be lonely, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, let alone a new friend.”
Charlotte smiled, and a glass of wine appeared in her hand as well. She raised it up and tilted it slightly toward me. “I’ll cheers to that.”
We clinked glasses, despite one of them being illusionary, and took our drinks. It didn’t matter that hers was fake, or that the image she was putting in front of my eyes was equally illusory. The sentiment was real, and that was far more important than a silly thing like corporeality.