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“I want to join the group.”
Elliot and Z sat on Z’s couch, watching reruns of old detective shows. They picked at the leftover Chinese. Z nearly dropped her box of noodles.
“YES! This is very good!” She set her food down on her coffee table. “What helped make up your mind?”
Elliot stared at the wall again. “In the past two days, I was attacked by a banshee, I found out witches were real and oh bee tee dubs, I’m a witch too and I always have been, a brogrammer started to stalk me and I think he can see through my magic, I harassed my roommate like I was a poltergeist, I lost my job, and just to like really wrap things up in a neat little package, I was hit on by a demon.”
“Whoa!” Z said. “A demon?”
“We met at coffee,” Elliot said. “Kind of a random meeting?”
“Were they hot?”
Elliot blushed. “Yeah, she was…”
Z laughed. “So you’ve had a lot on your mind.”
“The damn done burst.” Elliot looked down at her cold Chinese. “I’m drowning in it.”
Z nodded. She put her hand on Elliot’s shoulder. “We want to help. Tomorrow we can go meet Gimble. She’s eager to have a real meeting with you. She’s curious about what you can do.”
Elliot nodded. “And if I don’t pass the test?”
“There’s no test,” Z said. “Gimble just likes to have a running list of abilities going. It helps direct people to where they need to be.”
“What, like a witch dispatch? Are we like a weird 3-1-1 of the city?”
“When you dial 6-6-6 you get connected to the witchy help hotline. For hexes, press 2 now.”
Elliot let out a little laugh. “Does… does it have to be tomorrow? Can we go now?”
“I know you’re anxious. Gimble needs to clear her schedule and get herself into the right headspace. In the meantime, you have plenty of time to relax.”
“I should find a job, I guess…”
“Yeah, if you need to.” Z poked at her noodles. “I’d get on unemployment and enjoy the time off for a bit if I were you.”
Elliot raised her eyebrows and considered this.
“Are you excited?” Z asked. Elliot looked over at her. Z’s eyes shone in the low light of her apartment.
“I’m scared as hell,” she said.
Z beamed. “Don’t be. We’ve been waiting for you.”
“What if I fuck it up? What if I disappoint you?”
“Oh pish posh,” Z said. “You won’t.” She leaned over and hugged Elliot. Elliot hesitated, and reluctantly accepted the hug.
“Tomorrow,” Z started, “you can worry about all of that. But that’s tomorrow.”
Elliot nodded.
“Now, I need you to tell me everything about this demon. Did she have horns?”
Elliot laughed. “Yeah, like a ram.”
“Ooohhh. Did you smell them?”
“What? No! Don’t be weird!”
Z laughed. “You should go find her. Did she give you a number? Wait, can she use phones? How does that work?”
“She’s a bookseller in Pioneer Square.”
“Yeah, we’re going. Get your coat, I want to see this hot ass demon.” She stood and pulled on Elliot’s arm.
Elliot blushed furiously. “What??”
“She clearly likes you,” Z said.
“I don’t know…”
Z rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. “I assure you, you are immensely likable.”
Elliot sank into the couch. Z laughed.
“She asked to see you again, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s go, then! I’ll be your wingman. Fight off the other demons or whatever.”
Elliot wanted to die. But she put her coat on. They walked out to the bus together, Z rambling on the entire way, but Elliot couldn’t hear her. She practiced in her head what to say.
The fog rolled in from the Sound as Elliot and Z descended into the city. Elliot loved it. She loved the way the streets disappeared into the mist, the way it was wet, but not raining, cold, but in a hoodie sort of way. There was a peace in fog she didn’t know where to find anywhere else. Seattle had it by the bucket full. Its misty, moody winters held a place in her heart she wouldn’t soon let go of.
Something struck her, though, as she and Z walked down the glacial cut hills of the city. She thought about the banshee, about the things she had seen that she had quietly put away to never think about again. A foghorn sounded, and a ferry slowly emerged from the fog, slipping out between buildings and gliding over the water. The fog moved, for lack of better words. It rolled and drifted, obscuring everything inside it. But when she looked, when she really LOOKED…
There was a shape, a lumbering, spindly shape that crept through the Sound. It had to have been as tall as a small sky scraper, but its legs were no bigger around that a telephone pole or two. It lifted its leg carefully, moving forward, and gingerly put it down again. Elliot stared, her ears twitching in thought. She wondered how many people saw it, or how many people refused to believe they did. Another foghorn sounded, but this one sounded off. Somehow, it sounded organic.
Z noticed Elliot staring. “They come out when it’s foggy,” she said. “I don’t think they’re interested in people at all. We’ve never had any trouble with them.”
“They don’t eat people?” Elliot asked.
“Just seagulls, I think.”
“Oh, well…”
Z laughed. As they entered the boundaries of Pioneer Square, she said, “So where is this store?”
Elliot fumbled for the card. “I don’t know. There’s no address…”
“I bet it’s one of those old stores that existed before they built the city up.”
“I dunno. How old do demons get?”
“No, like the underground city.”
Elliot rolled her eyes. “That’s a tourist trap. I’ve done it, it’s kind of disappointing.”
“You do touristy stuff? Can we do touristy stuff together?” Z linked her arm through Elliot’s. Elliot pulled her arm away.
“What if there’s, like, a secret underground city?” Z said.
Elliot didn’t say anything. She watched the stairs that went down to basement shops as they passed.
“Hey,” Z said, her voice dropping. “What’s the nerd that’s been following you?”
“Last I saw him, he was wearing a green coat. Dog guy, with grey fur and glasses.” Elliot strained her neck to look at some signs by another set of stairs.
Z turned Elliot just enough that she could see the nerd, lurking at the edge of the crowd.
“Fuck,” Elliot said.
“That’s him?”
“That’s him.”
Z flexed her hand and cracked her knuckles. “Imma go hit him.”
“No no no!” Elliot pulled her away. “What if he’s dangerous?”
“Then he’d better be more dangerous that me,” Z said.
Elliot caught sight of the nerd again, but something felt off. She scanned the crowd around them, and behind them she spotted him, the same guy, same glasses, same coat. “He’s behind us too,” Elliot said.
Z pulled her jaw shut. “Okay, plan B. Head to the Link station. We’re going to be quiet about it, like we have someplace to be. And then we’ll head to Beacon Hill.”
“What’s at Beacon Hill?” Elliot asked, trying as casually as she could to fast walk away from the scene.
“Our escape.” She pulled out her phone. “Hey,” she said. “We’re doing a quick escape. Can you have Morgan or Ethan open the door for us? Yeah, the Beacon Hill one. Thanks boo.”
Z looked around. The Link station was four blocks away, and that nerd was getting closer. “Okay, plan C, follow me.” She took Elliot by the hand and pulled her into an alley. She wrapped her arms around Elliot.
“Hey, come on,” Elliot said.
“Hug me. I need you to do this, please.”
Elliot carefully put her arms around Z. Z closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
The air screamed. Elliot didn’t know the air could scream, but it did, as if it was surprised. Elliot didn’t blame it. Very suddenly the world exploded around her, every molecule gaining and losing sentience in a split second, burning bright with unlimited and utterly constrained thought.
Elliot gasped for air. They stood in the Pioneer Square Link station. Z pushed her into an elevator, and Elliot heard a train clang clang down the tunnel. They got to the platform just as the train arrived. Z pulled her on the train and nearly flung Elliot into a seat. Elliot lay back, still gasping for air. As soon as the doors closed, Z patted Elliot on the back.
“What. What Fuck?” Elliot said.
Z smiled. She made an explosion motion with her hands and mouthed “magic!” Elliot let her head fall back.
“Too bad about not getting to the bookstore though,” Z said. “But we’ll get there.”
“When I stop dying I’m going to kick you into the sun.”
Z beamed. “Grumpy Elliot’s back! I missed her.”
Elliot closed her eyes. This was all too much.
She had really wanted to see Right Determination again…
[g]