Did Wee’git really used to call you Angel Tits?
Granny Nita threw back her head and cackled, surprising everyone. Yes. Oh, my Fucking Monolith.
“Sarah,” Jared said. “Can you contact the fireflies?”
“I’m trying,” Sarah said. “They haven’t answered.”
He held his hand out to her and she took it. Jared wanted the firefly he’d seen to answer. He heard traffic. Heard Sarah’s breathing. Felt her warm hand in his.
We need you, Sarah broadcast.
You are this close to pissing Sarah off, Jared added. Do you want to ruin your relationship with her? Show up or get fucked, you losers.
Granny Nita’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you talking to?”
“Wait,” Jared said.
A tiny spot in the ceiling began to glow, hotter, brighter, and then the firefly was hovering above their heads.
“Polymorphic-being-in-the-human-form Jared, you are chaos personified,” the firefly said.
“Is that a fairy?” Lourdes said.
“We are Ultra. Dimensional. Beings. Not fireflies. Not fairies.”
“Hi,” Sarah said.
“Sarah!” The firefly’s joy rang like church bells slightly out of sync. “Sarah, Sarah.”
“Do you know where Jared’s mother is?” Sarah said. “Can you help us find her and bring her back?”
The firefly snapped, an arc of hot light sizzling. “No. I alone am here to watch over you. The others are protecting the villages from the ogress. She can kill us. For now, she consumes the transformative skins of her dead pack to maintain her power.”
“What does that mean?” Sarah said.
“She has hidden polymorphic beings in this universe. She uses their organs to create a thin film that acts as a transformational field, allowing the coy wolves to present as human beings. She can’t forage in our universe, so she’s consuming her own magical work to stay alive.”
“Oh, God,” Mave said. “She’s planning to use Jared’s organs for skins?”
“Unlikely. Both transformational skins and trans-universe travel require enormous energy. We had to disintegrate Jared and the ogress and help him create a dimensional bridge between the universes. He can do only the trans-universe travel or the transformation, not both. We suspect she wants to gain enough control of him to travel universes at will.”
“To make Jared her puppet,” Sarah said.
“Her name is Mystery,” Jared’s grandmother said. “Babylon the Great, the Mother of Abominations of the Earth.”
“Yes,” the firefly agreed. “The ogress is a horror.”
“Something’s coming,” Wee’git said. He dropped his human form and sprang into the air as a raven, bolting out the balcony door.
Jared could see what Wee’git could see: the thing that used to live in his bedroom wall, the thing that loved to suck his toes, the thing that used to be human but was not not not. Flickering in and out of shadows, in and out of the apartment wall.
They’re coming for me and I’m going to go with them, he thought at his grandmother.
She clutched her chest. You don’t have the strength. You’re going to get yourself trapped and you won’t help Marguerite. What use is it to have both of you in hell?
I’m not leaving her alone with the ogress’s goons.
You know you can’t do this alone.
I know.
Sarah isn’t experienced enough.
She isn’t coming with me. I won’t let her.
“You’ve all gone quiet,” Mave said. “I don’t like being left out.”
“We’re plotting, Mavis-Anne,” Granny Nita said. She turned back to Jared. “Are you going to do what they want?”
Lie, lie, you idiot, he told himself. But he couldn’t. “Yes.”
“You don’t have the expertise to bring the ogress through without us,” the firefly said.
“Jared,” Sarah said. She looked as if she wanted to say more, but she stopped and wouldn’t share thoughts with him.
“It’s a suicide mission,” Granny Nita explained to Mave. “Sweet Jesus, Jared, the good Lord gave you looks and then decided that was enough blessings for you.”
Jared laughed. “He really did.”
“I’m going with you,” Sarah said.
“You aren’t.”
“You don’t own me.”
Out, Jared thought.
Sarah, still standing close, slumped against his shoulder and he lowered her to the couch. Oh, she was going to be so pissed when she woke up. It was a good thing he was going to be vaporized, otherwise Sarah would do it to him herself. He looked up at the firefly.
“Can you take her somewhere safe?”
“No,” the firefly said. “Our power is collective and I’m alone.”
“Okay,” Jared said. “But will you try to stop us if me and Sophia bring the ogress back?”
“No,” the firefly said. “We won’t hinder your insanity.”
“Fair enough. As long as you’re watching out for her, I’m happy.”
“Tu diabólico fuego,” the firefly said. “El guerrero y te sedujo.”
His insides quivered like jelly, ha ha Santa’s belly, ha ha. Giddy. Not jolly but scared. He could feel the sorcerer’s amusement as a van parked in front of their apartment building. A murder van. A van to be murdered in.
I love you, Jared told his grandmother.
Marguerite will understand if you stay with us.
I barely survived getting Dad killed. There will be nothing left of me if I get Mom killed too.
Wee’git, perched outside, saw three men get out of the van, followed by the girl, Mallory, carrying a small plastic cooler. He hopped on his branch, broadcasting, Run! Run!
Sometimes you can’t run, Jared thought. Sometimes the only way is through. All the fuckheads in his life who’d outnumbered him, spoiling for a fight, and he’d always known he was going to get his ass kicked. All you could do was as much damage as possible. Hope it was enough to make them think twice the next time they wanted to make you their dog.
Sophia, he thought. Sophia, Sophia.
He felt her attention, like the moment before a grizzly charged.
Sophia, do you want your shot at the ogress?
“Mallory’s coming now,” Jared said, waiting for Sophia to answer but receiving nothing.
The twins stood, choosing weapons from the patio table.
“I love you, Aunt Mave,” Jared said.
“What’s happening?” Mave said. “Someone please tell me what’s happening.”
Are you hungry, Bob? Jared thought.
High above all their heads, Bob whipped his tentacles in excitement.
The apartment buzzer rang. At first no one moved to answer it, then Lourdes pressed the respond button.
“What do
