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- As respectable citizens of Night Vale -
Listeners, the Sheriff's Secret Police have indicated to the Night Vale PTA that they will have a booth at this year's career fair, where young Night Vale residents talk to prospective employers, quietly winnow their fellow applicants from the pool with the judicious use of belladonna and foxglove, and make their binding blood oaths to their new bosses, all in that short, sweet hour between the rooster's last shriek and the dove's morning cry.
The Secret Police recruitment will be judged by unknown criteria, although rumor has it that it involves jello molds and aconite. Wait, listeners, I am told that this a lie, that there is no aconite, that aconite does not exist, there is no blue flower in that vase.
Right, where was I? Oh, yes, we ought to extend a warm Night Vale welcome to the newest member of the Sheriff's Secret Police, Deputy Fitzgerald, who will represent the Sheriff's Secret Police at the career fair. She recently transferred from Canada — oh, those Canadians, so polite! did I tell you about my sister's mother's cousin's daughter? well, she's Canadian, and let me tell you — sorry, Night Vale, sometimes I just get so enthused! But Deputy Fitzgerald deserves a big Night Vale hello. She immigrated with her sister, Ginger — you know, the wolf — and they've been renting the Glow Cloud's second apartment. Surely we can find them better accommodations! I've told them to check Big Rico's message board; surely her future-self will send a message with a lead that pans out.
- As a front-page story -
"Howl, by Fredericka Lounds," Freddie typed. No, references to obscenity trials were behind her, along with ripped jeans and Birkenstocks.
She backspaced and tried again: "Dangerous Creatures Roam the Night! by Fredericka Lounds. Foolhardy and life-threatening experiments have been conducted on campus of late—" No, the editor of the paper would laugh at her before rejecting it, and she'd never get anywhere if she punched Ryan Keeter in the face. Someday one of her leads about Keeter's alternative revenue streams would pan out, because there was no way official college funding could have supported that London conference, and she would take over the paper, but until then she needed to play nice.
Freddie shut her laptop roughly and dug out her notes again, spreading everything out.
Item: her rough sketch (laughably rough, but the art lessons would come) of the creature's snarling maw; the hand resting on the creature's head seemed a fragile restraint, no matter how effective.
Item: her hastily scribbled recollection of their conversation in the botany greenhouse. She had scrawled it down on napkins from the student union since the computer lab was full and she didn't want to wait the half hour it would take her to get home before recording everything.
Item: a police report concerning the assault of a RA from the department of plant biology and pathology, witnessed by one Fredericka Lounds, during the theft of an experimental strain of monkshood. The cops, inured to campus shenanigans, had elected to ignore the marijuana plant two pots over; Freddie had been in the greenhouse to interview the RA — anonymously — about the need for supplemental income due to the terrible grad student stipends.
Item: snapshots of the woman — Brigitte Fitzgerald, according to her cell phone records — during the days following their encounter; in some of them, she had smears of blood on her hands and face. Brigitte had disappeared sixteen days later, on the new moon.
Item: recorded conversations and associated surveillance photographs between various botany professors and Brigitte, who was wearing a labcoat and a name badge proclaiming herself to be Dr. L. Chaney; her eyes were still like iron, though.
Item: four discarded syringes, bagged in medical waste pouches, filled with a substance that her contacts in the chem lab couldn't identify other than to say what it was not: not heroin, not insulin, not cocaine, not depo, not not not.
Item: one disc, holding copies of everything on Brigitte's laptop, including notes about doses, a full moon calendar, a dissertation's worth of research into Aconitum, and pages and pages of stories, with impeccable citations and sourcing, about werewolves.
Item: one photograph, taken with a telescopic lens, of a flexed hand tipped with claws.
Fuck playing nice, she had a story. A ground-breaking, change the nature of everything we believe about reality, all of the book contracts in the world story. It would not defeat her.
- As agents of S.H.I.E.L.D -
"No, bad dog!" Darcy said, grabbing the nearest object she could find (that wasn't her brand new, not released to the public yet, winning bets with Tony was awesome SI tablet) — a copy of People from six years ago, and why was the antechamber to Fury's office filled with outdated copies of People — and swatting the dog — wolf — four-legged snarly beast-animal-thing on the nose. "I am not a chew toy! Keep your snout away from me, there's a safety circle, buddy."
A steely voice broke into the staring contest Darcy had going on with the four-legged snarly beast-animal-thing. (Darcy was holding her magazine in front of her like a shield, but she didn't trust that it'd last. Where was an Avenger when you needed someone between you and sharp, pointy teeth?) "My sister is not a dog."
Darcy broke eye contact, hoping that it wouldn't be taken as a sign of submission, and looked up. Whoa, the woman could give Maria a run in the stone-cold scary department, and all she was wearing was jeans and a black t-shirt. Her dark hair, streaked with white, was pulled back into a ponytail, and, huh, track marks scarred her arms. Her eyes were fucking terrifying, and she bared her teeth in what was definitely not a grin and was way too much like her furry companion for comfort. Said furry companion had backed up to stand by the woman's legs and, holy shit, came up to her hip. But hey, Darcy could keep an eye on both of them at once now.
"Sooooo," Darcy said, "sister, huh? Like, Greek gods consorting with animals, freaky Loki and horses territory or something else?"
"That's classified," Director Fury broke in, and Darcy was definitely not relieved to have him appear out of nowhere. Nope, no relief here. "Specialists Fitzgerald," he continued, "join me in my office." The furry Fitzgerald lifted her lip and gave one more growl before striding into Fury's office, and Darcy kept an eye on both of them until the tip of the furry tail disappeared through Fury's door. Then she slumped back into her seat. "Ms. Lewis, you'll need to fill out form GR830-W4." Darcy didn't groan. "Now, Ms. Lewis."
"Aye, aye, sir!" she said, grabbing her tablet and pulling up the correct form. Folder GR830: Contact (aggressive) with folklore entity. Hey, that wasn't aggressive, it was just healthy boundary setting. GR830-B2, GR830-J6, GR830-W4, "Contact (aggressive) with folklore entity (werewolf)."
Whoa, werewolves. Awesome.
- As pieces in an ineffable game -
Crowley and Aziraphale were enjoying a nice cup of tea in Aziraphale's theoretically-a-bookshop, when lightning struck, annihilating one of the piles of books that occasionally crept out of its place on the shelf to take a walkabout. Aziraphale winced, "Oh dear," he said, "that was the one with the Voynich Cypher."
A person-shaped figure* appeared from the ashes of the cypher, and the Voice of God, Highest of the Heavenly Hosts, etc., etc., known as Metatron to the local poker group (they played for kittens and rainbows), said, "Hello, Aziraphale." He politely ignored Crowley.*
*Insofar as an entity made out of golden flames could be considered person-shaped. It's enough to make you start questioning your definition of how a person is shaped, because the suggestion of a person was definitely there, but the flickering outline and celestial glow made the guise rather dodgy.
*Being politely ignored by an angel is rather akin to the feeling of the dentist's drill reverberating through your skull. It's a sudden combat to see what will triumph: the strength of the angel's perception of reality or your will to have a continued existence.
Beside Metatron the floor started boiling, and another person-shaped figure* arose from the hardwood.* Beezlebub, Lord of the Flies, Prince of Hell, etc., etc., said, "Crowley, thou hadzzzt dizzapointed uz." He glared at Aziraphale, which rather made the angel feel as if he were taking a nice bath in the sun.
*An entity made of red fire, this time, and as approximately person-shaped as Metatron, which is to say not very. However, the whiff of hellfire and infernal radiance did help differentiate between the two.
*Nevermind that the floor underneath Aziraphale's establishment was not an elevator but was, in fact, inhabited by bookstore and novelty shop with a certain reputation and paint on the windows.
"Excuse me," Aziaraphale said politely, "if I might inquire, what brings you here today?"
Metatron and Beezlebub exchanged a glance. "I must admit," Metatron started, "that I am very disappointed in you, Aziraphale. I thought you knew better than to rely on chicanery to inflate your statistics."
"Crowley," Beezlebub said, "thou art subject to the mozzt exquizzzite punishments for lying in your report." By which Beezlebub really meant getting caught; lying about the temptations one performed was tradition, and demons were surprisingly traditionalist at heart. It could be because it's so difficult to change the decor when it features fire, boiling rock, melting lava, and a little bit of soot.
Crowley and Aziraphale continued to radiate deceit and wronged innocence, respectively.
"You each claimed the Fitzgerald sisters in your reports!" Metatron clarified. "Both of you say that the eldest sister's return to humanity while they vacationed in Tadfield is a victory; the only difference is that one set of paperwork says that Heaven's work has been done and the other set of paperwork says that the Other Side's work has been done. Really, if you're going to make your claims on the most tenuous of blessings and curses, at least get your stories straight. Additionally, Tadfield is outside of your sphere of influence, and that caught the auditor's attention."
Beezlebub added, "Curing lycanthropy, Crowley, is not acceptable behaviour."
"Excuse me," Aziraphale interrupted, "but did you compare notes?"
Crowley's tongue flicked out to taste the air. "Might one say," Crowley said delicately, "that you have an Arrangement?"
Metatron and Beezlebub glanced at each other and looked away. One might even say they flushed as their respective flames took on shades of red and gold.
Metatron hmmmed. "Well, after our last encounter with ineffability, it seemed wise to stay current on the Adversary's arrangements."
"I am a spy in the angelic rankzzzzz," said Beezlebub.
"And," Aziraphale continued, "if all of these statements are true, might the Fitzgerald's sisters love for each other eclipse their anger with each other and their past violence, creating a blessing and finding fulfillment in positive emotion?"
"Or," Crowley interrupted, "might Ginger's incandescent rage at denying the call of the wolf and their past as unrepentant murderers, who now walk free, spread more malaise than their touching bonding inspires happiness?"
Metatron blinked, fading out of existence for a nanosecond before coalescing once more. "I believe," it said, "that Schroddergum's cat* might apply."
*Neither Aziraphale nor Crowley, who were both conversant enough in 21st-century colloquial English — Aziraphale watched educational programs on YouTube and Crowley eavesdropped on Aziraphale's SoHo neighbors — to know the famous story of the cat, the box, and the rat, opted to to correct Metatron.
"Yezzz, Crowley, I accept your report," Beezlebub said, and then both figures poofed out, leaving behind ash and the rather unpleasant aroma of melted floor.
Aziraphale took a very precise sip of his tea before replacing his teacup on his saucer.
Crowley added a shot of whiskey and gulped his tea down before making his mug wink out of existence. "Tadfield is such an interesting place,*" he mused.
*Tadfield was not, in fact, an interesting place. Tadfield was a relentlessly normal and boring place; the most interesting thing about it was one Adam Young, Anti-Christ (retired), who lived there, and that ceased to be interesting upon young Mr. Young's retirement during the late Unpleasantness. Tadfield was such a relentlessly normal place that it was inhospitable to all supernatural entities, although sometimes transcendental beings got a pass. Normal supernatural entities — like, say, werewolves — became perfectly human upon entering its circle of influence. It became an in-demand vacation spot amongst a certain sort of people, bemusing the locals who responded by opening more ice cream shops.
- As sisters: together forever and out by sixteen -
Brigitte thought that the sunlight should fuck off and die. Why was there so much light in their bedroom? The windows never let in this much light, that's why they liked it. And why were the bathroom pipes always so loud? Her head was screaming.
Better question: why was she in this room? Pamela had burned down the house before Brigitte ran; their bedroom doesn't exist.
Whoever was in the bathroom turned off the tap and shoved the door open. It bounced against the back wall, and then Ginger flopped down onto Brigitte's bed.
Ginger was dead.
Brigitte groaned and pulled the duvet over her head.
"C'mon, B," Ginger said, poking her in the ribs, "get up."
"Fuck off, Ging," Brigitte snapped, smacking Ginger's hand through the duvet.
"Quit being a bitch. If anyone should be a bitch here, it's me. You stabbed me, B." Brigitte felt Ginger roll off her bed and the squeak of bedsprings as she dropped down onto her own.
Brigitte pulled the duvet down and looked over at her sister, whose lips curved in a smile. Of course she got her way — Ginger always got her way, and Brigitte had never learned to truly ignore her.
"I turned into a werewolf for you! I hid a body for you! I talked to Pamela for you! Fuck off, Ginger."
"Hey, together forever or out by sixteen. We were glorious, B, and they'll never forget us." Ginger laughed in delight. Then she changed, transforming into her six-year-old self, ringlets pulled back in pigtails, pink skirt twirling around her knees, and the white top, already streaked with mud and dust, that she had loved. She bounced back to Brigitte's bed, smacked Brigitte around the general vicinity of her knee, and darted off. "You're it!" she called.
Brigitte allowed herself one sigh before throwing the duvet off and letting the — magic? — take her. Fuck it, she was going to catch Ginger and then make Ginger chase after her.