Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nicholas Meyers Jr. was twelve the first time he met his father, his biological father. His mamá, a student from Oaxaca studying for her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at UC San Diego, had married Nicholas Meyers Sr. just before his birth, none of which he had known until Meli, just Meli, was waiting with his mamá when he got home from school on the last day before summer vacation.

“Look at him, you haven’t prepared him at all,” the strange man waiting with his mamá said in Spanish as soon as he’d shut the door.

“I’ve prepared him plenty.” Mamá held up a hand and beckoned him nearer.

Mush crossed the room to her side. She ran her fingers through his hair. Mush turned to look at the man. He had long hair, hanging in braids, and dark skin. He was wearing a leather jacket caked with dust and jeans that might once have been blue but were faded to nearly white and more stain than fabric. “Who’s this cabrón?”

The man laughed.

Mamá cuffed the back of his head. “Manners.”

“Maybe there is some hope for him.” He looked Mush in the eyes. “I’m your papi.”

Mush scrunched his nose up. “No, you’re not.”

The man rolled his eyes and looked at Mamá, “Please tell me you didn’t tell him I was dead.”

Mamá sniffed. “I didn’t tell him anything about you. Nick is the only father he’s ever known or needed.”

The man frowned at her, glanced at Mush, and then back to his mamá. “I still can’t believe you named our child after a gringo.”

“Nick is not a gringo, his mother is Chicana.”

“Wouldn’t know it from how he acts.”

Mush still didn’t understand who the man in front of him was, but he knew he didn’t like him very much.

Meli turned his attention back to Mush and looked him up and down. “Well, what do they call you? No, let me guess. Little Nicky?”

Mush scrunched up his nose, he wasn’t little. “I’m Mush, some papá you are if you don’t even know that.”

Meli screwed his face up. “What kind of a name is Mush?”

“I lost a bunch of teeth at once and couldn’t talk very good, so it’s what the other kids called me, also English was hard to pick up.”

“And you let them call you that?” Meli glared at Mamá. “Does he even know what he is?”

She stiffened. “Of course, he knows what he is. What type of mother do you take me for?”

“The type who deprives their child of important information.”

“Being a nagual is forever, I was hoping we’d get lucky and you’d be dead before he could ever hear of you.”

The man chuckled. “Plenty have tried, no one has managed yet. Have you taught him anything else?”

“Everything he needs to know. Every new moon since he could walk we’ve gone out to the dunes so I could teach him.”

“And what does your husband think of that?”

“I told him it’s a family tradition to go and offer worship to Cihuacoatl.”

Meli snorted. “I still think she and old Quetzalcoatl were just a pair of naga who got themselves deified after they died.”

“And I still think that you aren’t Nahua, so your opinion of our gods is irrelevant.”

“Well I’m sorry my people’s lands got conquered by the fucking wolves.” Meli glared at Mamá and she glared right back. He broke first and turned his attention back to Mush. “Well, cub, I’m Meli, your papi.”

Mush looked at his mamá again.

She sighed but nodded. “Biologically,” she added. “Nicholas is your papá in every other way, we met after this alley cat skipped town on me,” She stared at the man, her eyes unblinking. Mush wasn’t sure if she was challenging him to say otherwise or trying to burn a hole in him with her mind.

“Seems to me it was you who skipped town on me,” Meli gestured around the living room.

Mush glared at the man. “If you’re my father, then where have you been?”

“Around, I have responsibilities,” Meli glared at mamá, “not all nagual have the freedom to hare off and study the white man’s science.”

Mamá rolled her eyes.

“Like what?” Mush asked, stepping between his mother and the rude man, biological father or not.

“Your mamá has told you about the seals?”

Mush glanced at his mother and nodded. She’d never hidden the fact that she was one of the werejaguars from him, even if they did have to hide it from his father. He didn’t understand why she didn’t just bite his father but trusted that she had her reasons. She’d always told Mush he’d become one someday though, and had gone over some of their history. As much as he figured she wanted to trust a twelve-year-old with, which was considerably more than Mush would want to trust a twenty-five-year-old with.

“Well, you're going to spend your summer tending them with me. Too few learn the old rites, and I’m not going to let my own son be one of them.”

“Like you don’t have other kids,” Mamá said.

Meli rolled his eyes. “Only one young enough to learn, but poor girl didn’t change on her own and got bitten by a werewolf before I could get to her.”

Mamá narrowed her eyes. “I hope you killed the wolf.”

“Already dead by the time I got there.” Meli didn’t look happy about that.

“He’s twelve, let him have his summer vacation.”

“He’s twelve, he’ll most likely turn next year. If he doesn’t I’ll be by to bite him. It’s time he learned.”

Mush looked between Meli and Mamá, he didn’t want to go, but the resigned look on his mother’s face told him everything he needed to know about how he was going to spend his last summer as a human.

Mush stifled a laugh. Watching Hotshot terrify Morris Delancey was more fun than he’d expected. The man had a flair for drama, which probably worked well for him in court. The only downside was that he wished he could have been the one to make Delancey pee himself, it was the least he deserved for all the times he’d beat Blink up in high school. How dare he ever lay a hand on the boy. He was almost disappointed when Hotshot choked him out.

Hotshot laid Delancey down on the ground. He produced a small bottle and syringe from one of the pockets of his coat and started filling the syringe.

David hopped over the railing and start climbing down the crates to join them. “You carry sedative with you?”

“Not usually,” Hotshot said and pulled the needle out of the bottle. He replaced the bottle in his pocket.

“What is it?” David asked.

“No clue,” Hotshot said. “Jesse made it and told me the safe dosage.” He flicked the side of the syringe to get the air to rise to the top and pushed the plunger in until a tiny drop of the clear liquid came out of the tip.

“Should have left the air in,” Mush said.

David shot him a glare.

“Like you weren’t all for killing him.”

“Because I think it would be safest for us, not for fun.”

Hotshot shoved Delancey’s sleeve up and examined the inside of his arm.

“Revenge, not fun.”

“Murder for bullying isn’t justice,” David said.

“He and his brother terrorized Blink for four years. If he’d been the only gay kid they were bullying he would have killed himself.”

David stopped and frowned.

Hotshot found whatever he was looking for and injected Delancey. Mush didn’t see any obvious change, but the asshole was already unconscious, so there wasn’t much to judge by.

“There’s an Outsider messing around directly with their brains. They may not be responsible for their actions. We’re pretty sure Oscar definitely wasn’t.”

Mush shrugged. “Better safe than sorry, not like this city isn’t filled with a thousand more trust-fund brats.”

David glared at him.

Hotshot rolled his eyes. “Just for that, you get to carry him back.”

“Why me?”

“You’re the bigger asshole, and every minute that goes by gets us further from the full moon and closer to the new moon.”

“Fuck that,” Mush looked around the warehouse at what was available to him. “I’m shoving him in a crate and stealing one of their dollies.”

David looked at Mush and then at the crates. “Better than rolling him up in a rug at least.”

Folding the unconscious Delancey into the crate hadn’t been the easiest thing, the thug was going to be a bit sore when he woke up, and rolling a crate around Brooklyn at 4 am didn’t attract no attention, but, all things considered, it worked out pretty well, better than anything either of the dogs had thought of. They finally reached the abandoned building and he was watching Hotshot fish in his pocket for the keys.

“You don’t seem too concerned about someone watching us,” David said,

“Is anyone looking at us?” Hotshot said, pulling the keys out.

David looked around then back at Hotshot. “They aren’t.”

Mush looked around. David was right, no one was paying them any attention anymore, it was a little creepy. “If you know how to make an attention ward, why didn’t you put one on Delancey? Would’ve made this whole thing much easier if we could just carry him as is.”

“One, it doesn’t work on people.” Hotshot rolled up the security shutter. “Two, I don’t know the spell.” He pushed the door open. “Three, it took Jesse three days and four chickens, so we didn’t exactly have the time or resources on hand unless you have some farm animals in your pants.”

David pulled the shutter down behind them then closed and locked the door.

Mush pushed the dolly to the edge of the basement stairs. He considered just shoving the crate down them, but it might injure Delancey, which was something they weren’t trying to do — for some reason. Would have been more fun to do if the bully had been awake anyway. He set the crate down near the edge and pulled the dolly away.

Hotshot pulled a crowbar out of his coat and started prying the crate back open. David and Mush waited for him to finish and lift the lid before each of them grabbed one of Delancey’s shoulders and heaved him out of the box together.

They carted him down the stairs to where their boyfriends were all waiting, with a large amount of junk food and a number and variety of energy drinks that would have killed an elephant faster than Thomas Edison. Someone, obviously Race, had gone shopping while they were gone.

“Everything go alright?” Graves asked.

“Had to finish cleaning up the site from their earlier escape,” Hotshot glared around the room, “but catching Morris went off without a hitch. Didn’t even realize I wasn’t one of his hired goons until I started choking him.”

Graves sighed. “Did you have to choke him?”

“Nothing worse than he deserves.”

“He’s a student at the university, that makes me responsible for him,” Graves said and came over to examine the boy Mush and David had set down on the floor.

“Have you ever even seen him before?” Blink asked.

“Of course not, there’s something like fifty-thousand students enrolled.”

“Alright, let's get him chained up.” Jack stood up and clapped his hands. “Then we can maybe go home and grab food and a nap before class.”

“I don’t have any meetings today, so I can keep an eye on him,” Hotshot said, “but you all need to come up with a plan to keep at least one guard on him at all times.” His eyes traveled over everyone present except for Graves. His eyes stopped on Blink and then darted first to Mush and then to David, “And for the love of fuck, someone bite Blink. Things are only going to get more dangerous from here.”

Mush made a point of looking anywhere but at his boyfriend. He moved across the room and grabbed a hold of Morris’s arm again. He looked at David. “Let’s get him chained up.”

David spared a glance at Blink before coming over and helping him. It wasn’t that either of them needed help carrying Morris’s weight, it was just that a human body was awkward to move, especially when it was all floppy like Morris was.

They carried him into the abandoned bathroom and set him on the ground near the prepared chains and, were those manacles? He’d been expecting handcuffs at best, where the fuck had Hotshot and Graves gotten manacles? He picked one up, it was forged, good quality steel too.

“Where the fuck did they even get these?” Mush asked, showing the shackle.

David took it and examined it. “I have no idea, it doesn’t look that old though. Maybe one of them is a hobbyist blacksmith?”

“I hope that's it, I hate to think there’s that much of a market for these, outside our circles I mean.” Mush gestured between the two of them.

They bent down in unison and proceeded to shackle Morris to the pipes the others had already prepared. David gave them a few tugs, they seemed pretty damned secure.

“Speaking of our circles,” David started.

Mush glanced at him and saw that David was looking back through the open door. He could tell without looking who David was looking at. It wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have, but he supposed he had to.

“What do you want to do about Louis?” David asked.

Mush sighed, looked down at Morris to make sure he was still unconscious, and then leaned against a broken sink. “I have no idea. It’s not like I’d really thought that far ahead, somehow I didn’t think you would out me.”

David rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry about that, Sarah didn’t realize—”

Mush waved David’s platitudes away. He knew it wasn’t really any of the wolves’ fault, it just felt good to have someone to blame.

“Even beyond that though, we let you know that he knew about us almost a month ago, so you must have started making some plans.”

Mush snorted. “I’m pretty good at compartmentalizing, I thought I’d have more time, and with Racer,” he gestured toward the open doorway, “trying to break my phone with so many messages, I stayed pretty focused on getting Spot and Oscar back in the right bodies before anyone found out and decided to hunt them down.”

David nodded.

“I just,” Mush raked both of his hands through his hair, “I wish I had more time. I don’t even know for sure how I feel about him, you know?”

“You don’t?” David asked, leaning on the broken sink next to him.

“Look, I love him, but do I love him, love him? Do I forever love him?” Mush shrugged and looked around the room. “I know you all mate for life, but we don’t. My mother can barely stand my biological father, not that I blame her, he’s a cranky old bastard. My step-father is human, he doesn’t even know about nagual.”

David’s eyebrows raised a hair but he didn’t say anything.

“So yeah, not the same as you guys. You and Jack may already be planning your lives together, but it’s different for us.”

David’s eyebrows raised higher. “We aren’t… I mean, I’m too young to take a mate… forever.”

Mush snorted. “You honestly think you aren’t already?”

David opened his mouth.

“Don’t even pretend. I’ve seen the way you two saps look at each other.”

“Fine,” David said, although he looked like it was anything but fine, “what are you going to do about Louis. Hotshot’s right, this is going to get more dangerous and he needs to be able to regenerate.”

Mush raked fingers through his hair again. “Look, I don’t know. If I bite him and then we break up, then I’m leaving a gringo nagual lying around, that’s not going to look good for either of us. If you bite him and we break up, then it might literally kill him if he, what, imprints on me?” He looked at David to see if that was the right word, but the oboroten didn’t have any reaction, he just continued staring at him like he was trying to see right to his soul, if there even was such a thing. “So maybe the best option is if I break up with him now and then you bite him.”

“Then why don’t you?” David asked, his stare still just as intense.

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

Chapter Text

“What do you think they’se talking about?” Race asked around the crumbs of a pop-tart in his mouth.

Jack shrugged. The list of things Davey and Mush could be talking about ranged from negotiating a formal duel to discussing linguistics. “Could be almost anything.”

“Well I hope they hurry it up, I want to get some sleep before class.” Blink said, his eyes narrowed at the open door through which came Davey and Mush’s soft voices could be heard.

Soft voices meant they weren’t planning to fight to the death, at least Jack hoped it did.

“That’s what the energy drinks are for,” Race held up the can of Monster he’d already chugged down.

“You were supposed to save that until after you take a nap, you’re never going to get any sleep before class now,” Jack said.

“Come on guys,” Spot called, “whatever you’re talking about will be clearer after you sleep.”

There was a moment of silence and then the two boys came out of the bathroom, their faces both looking a little spooked. Jack really wondered what they’d been talking about.

“I’ll keep watch today, but one of you three,” Hotshot pointed at Davey, Mush, and Spot, “needs to be back here by 5 pm to take over.”

Race looked like he wanted to argue. Jack slapped his hand over Race’s mouth. They were all exhausted, physically and emotionally, so nothing Race was going to say would be a good idea. Race licked him, because he was Race, which Jack had expected and didn’t react to.

“Come on princess, let's get you home and get you a nap before you say something we’ll all regret.”

Race glared at him but didn’t try to say anything else as Spot led their way out of the once abandoned building and current bully prison.

At some point on the way home, Jack fell asleep on Davey’s shoulder. He didn’t dream, which was a small mercy, he’d rather have some time before he had to confront the nightmares he knew were coming. Davey nudged him awake at their stop.

Morning came far too soon, even if Jack had learned his lesson and not scheduled any classes before 10 am for the semester. He was the last one up and had the dorm room to himself for long enough to shovel half a box of Froot Loops down his throat. He ate fast. He didn’t feel safe being alone. Not even in the dorm room. He tried to tell himself he was being unreasonable, but those guys had been staking out their building. He didn’t think anyone would break into a dorm and kidnap him in broad daylight, but he couldn’t be sure, and that unnerved him. He wished Davey was there, or even Spot. Hell, even Race would make him feel better.

Jack decided he needed to pay more attention when they practiced fighting. Not that he hadn’t been taking it seriously, losing an arm to Davey’s father had wounded his pride enough to encourage him, but now he was afraid for his life, and Davey’s, and his brother’s, and his best friend’s. Fuck.

He finished eating and rushed off to English, although he’d never be able to tell what the teacher said, he just had to hope any assignments were in the syllabus. As much as he didn’t want to die, he’d still prefer not to bring a failing grade home to his ma, and the last semester had been close enough. Jack grabbed a pile of the slop of the day from the dining hall and then headed to his drawing class, where he paid just as much attention as he did in English, but was better able to conceal it because he was able to doodle some low-effort trash that seemed to keep the instructor happy. At the end of the class, he glanced down to discover he’d drawn a sea cave filled with skeletons. At least the teacher had just thought it was pirate-themed. He crumpled it up and threw it in the trash on his way out the door. When Jack got back to the dorm, Davey and Spot were already there, along with Mush.

“Divvying up guard duty?” Jack asked.

“Already did,” Spot said, then tried and failed to conceal a yawn.

“So who’s on shift tonight?”

“I am,” Davey said.

Jack frowned, he was hoping to have some time with his boyfriend, or rather to give his boyfriend some time with him. Not that he thought he was that special, but Davey needed some time to process what he’d done the night before.

“So what are you talking about?” Jack asked, sitting down beside his boyfriend.

“How annoying you are,” Spot said.

Jack stuck his tongue out at his brother.

“I submitted your name for consideration for the most annoying award at the next Westminster Dog Show,” Mush said.

“And I still say that Jack isn’t a member of a recognized breed,” Davey said.

“You saying I’m a mutt?” Jack asked.

Davey shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh haha, you all are horrible, you know that?” Jack asked.

Davey leaned against him. Jack could feel the tension in him, like a coiled spring, no matter how much he was engaging in the playful banter.

“At least none of us gave our brother a nickname based on his disability,” Mush said.

“Crutchie knows I love him,” Jack said, putting an arm around Davey’s shoulders and rubbing a small circle with his thumb.

“That doesn’t mean he likes it,” Mush said.

“What do you know about it?”

“He’d kill anyone else who called him that,” Spot said.

“Maybe I should convince Albo to use it as a pet name then,” Jack said.

“You need to let that go,” Spot said.

“You’re just saying that because it keeps Albert from competing with you for Racer’s affections.”

Spot raised an eyebrow at him.

“I know, I know. I just always pictured Crutch with someone nicer.”

“Speaking of Charlie, has he found anything yet?” Davey asked.

Jack snorted. “I’m pretty sure he intends to tell you before me, so…” Jack gestured in the air, not sure where he was going.

“I’ll text him tonight then, it’ll help keep me awake.”

“You planning to stay the whole night?” Jack asked.

Davey nodded. “This way each of us gets two nights of good sleep and one night of misery, as opposed to two nights of misery and one night of good sleep if we tried switching.”

“I’ll come with you then.”

“Jack, no. There’s no reason for you to be exhausted.”

“Jack, yes. Look, if I get too tired I’ll take a nap or something, it’s better no one be alone with Morris anyhow.” Not to mention that Jack would feel safer around Davey.

“Just remember you’re there to guard the prisoner, not fuck,” Mush said.

Jack glared at the nagual. “You bite Blink yet?”

Mush didn’t seem to have a comeback to that. He sighed and looked down at his hands.

“So what were you guys talking about?” Jack asked again.

“Whether or not to let Race try cleansing Morris,” Davey said.

Jack felt his brow wrinkle. “I thought that was the whole point of catching him instead of killing him?”

“It was,” Spot said, a frown just creasing the area between his eyebrows, “but some people don’t think he should be allowed to cast a spell without supervision.” He glanced at the other two boys in the room.

“All I said is that so far every one of his rituals has had some unintended consequences.”

“And all I said,” Mush glared at Spot, “is that maybe we should bring Morris with us to the meeting instead of letting Race meddle with him. The other chyrlid ajha are better qualified to figure out what’s wrong with him.”

Jack looked between Davey and Mush and then at his brother. “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea, he’s proof that there’s something wrong with their kids here.” He looked at Mush. “As long as you’re sure they’re not already involved.”

Mush shook his head. “They’re not, they’re afraid of most Outsiders, like everyone should be.”

“Most?” Davey singled out the one word.

“One person’s Outsider is another person’s god. You can’t advance very far in the study of magic without dealing with them unless you want to do differential equations for every spell.”

“Which is safer,” Davey said.

“Says the dog who calls on Fthaggua,” Mush met Davey’s gaze.

Davey frowned and looked away. Jack wondered what that was about but decided not to press the issue.

“Come on, we should go. Hotshot is already pissed enough at us, no point in making him wait.” Jack stood up and held his hand out to Davey.

They got to the building about half an hour early. Hotshot didn’t complain about it.

“Good, he’s your problem now.”

Hotshot was sitting on a single folding chair at the base of the basement stairs where we could see the bathroom across the lit expanse of concrete.

“I take it he’s awake?” Jack asked.

Hotshot just nodded. He started to fold up the chair, then looked at the two of them and stopped, putting it back down. “Jesse will be here at 6 am, he doesn’t have any classes tomorrow.”

Davey nodded.

“Good luck.” Hotshot climbed the stairs two at a time, not sparing a glance back for them.

“Changing of the guard, huh?”

Jack and Davey turned to see Morris standing in the dark bathroom door. His eyes were narrow, the rest of his features were impossible to see in the gloom.

“I knew you fuckers did something to Oscar.”

“If we had some way to put someone into a coma, then why wouldn’t we have used it on you already?” Jack asked.

Morris shrugged. “Magic is fickle. You probably tried, or maybe you need to wait for Saturn to be in the right house of the zodiac. How the fuck would I know?”

“We didn’t do anything to Oscar,” Davey said.

“Still claiming he went to you for help?” Morris snorted. “A pack of fucking werewolves?” Morris spit on the ground. “I should have known by how close-knit all you fucking fags were in school, could have used some silver and killed two types of freaks at once.”

“Last I checked we weren’t the ones who were going to turn into a fish,” Jack said.

“It’s a blessing, the mark of our superiority.” Morris pushed his chest out. “You can’t imagine the beauty of our cities, older than anything you fucking surface dwellers ever made. Ten thousand years old, never damaged by war. We’re superior to you in every way.”

Jack took a step toward the Delancey brother. “Right, tell me again who killed your father?”

Morris lunged forward as far as his chains would let him.

“Jack,” Davey said from behind him, but Jack tuned him out and took another step forward.

Morris took a step back. “Why don’t you unchain me and we’ll see how well things go for you? My fists could use a workout, and I remember you being real soft.”

Jack’s hands curled into fists. “I don’t think you’ll find me that soft anymore.”

Jack started to take another step forward but a hand grabbed his shoulder. He looked back to see Davey holding him back. Jack sighed and took a step back. As satisfying as showing Morris what he’d learned from Hotshot would be, it wouldn’t be fair to beat up someone they were already holding prisoner.

“Nice try Morris, but this isn’t Guantanamo.” Jack turned around and walked back toward the stairs, dragging Davey with him. He pushed Davey toward the chair and sat down on the ground next to it.

Davey sat down. The fingers of his left hand resting on Jack’s head and massaging his scalp. “You sure you still want to be here?”

“Hey,” Jack looked up at Davey, “I signed up for this when I asked you to bite me, I’m not going anywhere.”

“You must be psychic then, because I didn’t foresee us holding your school bully prisoner in an abandoned building.”

“Does it really count as abandoned anymore? We’re here all the time, and that’s not even counting whatever Hotshot used it for before we needed it.”

“I hope you two aren’t about to fuck over there, I’d rather not have to gouge out my eyes,” Morris called across the basement.

Neither of them even bothered to look at him.

“Wish we’d had time to soundproof his cell. We should add that before the next time,” Jack said.

Davey wrinkled his nose. “The next time?”

“You expect me to believe this is the only kidnapping we’re going to be responsible for.”

“You aren’t even responsible for this one,” Davey said.

“Don’t give me that, where you go, I go. Besides, I’m an accessory after the fact at this point.” Jack looked Davey over, there was tension around his eyes. “How’re you holding up?”

“Just wishing I’d brought some homework to pass the time.”

“Well, if you need a way to pass the time, I’m right here, and I’m pretty sure Morris won’t actually gouge his eyes out.”

Davey snorted. “Not sure I’m ready for that level of exhibitionism yet.”

Jack laughed. “Guess not. But that’s not what I was asking about and you know it.”

Davey sighed. “I know. I just…” Davey clasped his hands together and studied them.

Jack didn't interrupt him, he just spared an eye to make sure Morris was staying put. He was. Not that he had a choice.

“I trained my whole life for that.”

Jack focused all of his attention on Davey.

“My whole life, Jack.” Davey took a deep breath. “I mean, sure I learned how to fight Outsiders, ghouls, reanimated corpses, and all that type of stuff too, but not every oboroten bumps into those. Every oboroten who lives long enough will have to kill a human to protect their pack at some point. I knew the day was coming, but I thought I’d have longer. If it wasn’t for that asshole,” Davey kicked a bit of concrete in Morris’s direction, “jumping to conclusions, I might have made it another century before I had to kill someone.”

“Oh boo-fucking-hoo,” Morris said. “You’re a monster, you kill people. It’s what you do. Now you’re trying to make their deaths all about you. At least try to be an honest monster.”

“Like you gave two shits about any of them.” Davey stood up and glared at Morris. “You didn’t even know what they looked like. Do you even know all their names?”

Morris snorted. “No, do you?”

“I’m not the one who sent them to their deaths.”

“No, you’re just the ones who killed them.”

Chapter Text

“Well, we’re alone in the dorm. Want to do something while we have the chance?” Race asked.

Spot was about to agree, but when he opened his mouth all that came out was a yawn.

“Oh, I see how it is,” Race said, giving Spot a mock glare. “You’re leaving me for your pillow.”

“No, I’m leaving you for your pillow.” They were already in Race and Jack’s room, so collapsing onto his boyfriend’s bed was easier than going back to his own room.

“But where am I supposed to sleep?” Race asked, the corner of his mouth turning up.

“Get down here before I pass out,” Spot said. He hadn’t realized how tired he was until he was lying down. He almost didn’t notice how cold it was in the dorm. Almost. He started pulling up Race’s covers so he could get under them.

“At least take your shoes off first.”

Spot frowned but managed to kick his shoes off after a few attempts. Once he had, Race helped him with the covers and joined him under them. Despite his stature, Spot was usually the big spoon, but he was tired and cold enough that he snuggled up to Race instead of the other way around. Race was warm.

Race rolled onto his side and flung his arm over Spot, letting it rest against his shirt just over his belly button. They lay together in cozy silence for a bit. Spot felt his breathing starting to even out.

“You doing okay?” Race asked, jerking Spot away from the edge of sleep.

“Wha?” Spot asked, at his most eloquent.

“Emotionally I mean, a lot went down last night.”

“Yeah, and we talked about it last night,” Spot said.

“But now you’ve had a chance to sleep on it.”

“Barely.”

Spot could feel tension building in the body at his back.

“Look, I’m not mad at you for asking, but not much has changed.” He thought about rolling over, but he was so comfortable where he was, even if Race was all tense, that he decided not to. It was nice to feel like the one protected for once. “Am I happy I had to do it? No. But I’m glad I could spare Davey some of the trauma of killing those guys.”

“But what about your trauma.”

“Not all of us had fathers worth remembering, Tony. I’m still a little worried I don’t feel more, but the only thing I feel is relief. He’s gone. He’s finally, definitely, gone. I’ll never have to see him again. I don’t have to worry about bumping into him on the street. He wasn’t much of a father anyway, if you didn’t notice by the way he tried to kill us.”

“I don’t know if I could do that,” Race said.

“Well your father wasn’t an asshole,” Spot said. “At least not to you or your mom.”

They lay together in silence again, just when Race’s breathing was starting to even out, Spot spoke again. “Honestly, I think I had it better than Dave.”

“How do you mean?” Race asked, his voice thick with the sleep he’d almost found.

“I know the person I killed was an irredeemable ass, we don’t know anything about the guys he killed. Maybe they were decent family men who just fell in with the wrong crowd.”

“You don’t believe that,” Race said.

“No, if they were hanging around my father they were probably the same sort of creeps. My point is that we don’t know, and neither does Dave.”

“See, this is why I didn’t want you to become a werewolf. I’ve been hiding from the government ever since I turned.”

Spot started to say something but Race pressed a finger to his mouth, shushing him.

“Even if they weren’t looking for me, I didn’t know that, so the stress I put myself through was still real. Besides, turns out the other shifters are even more paranoid than I was. When it was just me, if I’d been found out, I probably would have gone with the government goons quietly, but now I have all of you to protect.”

“Well, if protecting me is what keeps you from doing something stupid like trusting the government, especially the Trump administration, then I’m glad I made Dave bite me.”

“Don’t think I’m not still mad about not being the one to do it.”

“Mm-hmm, and why is that?”

“I had a bunch of who’s-your-daddy jokes saved up.”

Spot snorted once before drifting off to sleep.

Jack and Dave were just coming in when he was going out for his morning workout. The bags under their eyes had bags.

“Long night?” Spot asked.

“I’d say you have no idea, but then I remember you lived with him for a few weeks,” Dave said.

“Oscar might just be an actual saint,” Jack said.

Spot and Dave both turned to look at him.

“What? If he was my brother I would have done him in years ago. It’s a miracle Spot’s alive as it is.”

“As if you could take me,” Spot said.

“I woulda waited for you to be asleep. I know I can’t take you in a standup fight, that’s why I’m dating him,” Jack thumbed over his shoulder at Dave.

“I love you too, Jack.” Dave pressed a kiss to Jack’s temple and then stumbled toward the door to their bedroom.

Spot got out of the way.

“When’s your shift?” Jack asked.

“Tomorrow night. Mush gets him tonight.”

“Well, given what an absolute treasure of a human being Morris is, it’ll be a miracle if he survives that.”

Spot shrugged. The only thing keeping him from doing the same thing to Morris as he did to his father was the fact that Delancey might have been innocent on account of possession. He’d had that same Outsider inside of him. He’d said things he’d regret until he died, in the hopefully very far future, because of it. Or he hoped because of it. He didn’t think he had any internalized homophobia, but what if it was buried way down there?

Spot nodded to Jack and Dave and continued out the door on his way to the gym, musing about changing his major from biology to psychology, maybe then he’d have a better chance of understanding himself and this whole fucked up situation. Besides, a psychiatrist was still a type of medical doctor, right? And fuck knew the werewolves could all use some therapy.

Classes that day and the next were much easier to handle, two full nights’ sleep might have had something to do with that. Too bad he wasn’t going to get another one for a while. He stopped at a store on the way back to the dorm room and bought some energy drinks. They tasted like ass and made him feel worse, but it was his night to watch Morris and he’d need to be able to not just stay awake, but react when Morris tried something. Assuming, of course, that he hadn’t already tried something and Hotshot or Graves had had to put him down, which might have been the best-case scenario. They were both used to killing and didn’t really know Morris, so their trauma would be minimal, and it would save the rest of them a lot of headaches. Spot reminded himself that Morris was possessed, but the time he’d spent as Morris’s personal punching bag, also known as Oscar, hadn’t endeared the older boy to him.

He walked into the dorm room and dropped the bag near the minifridge. He didn’t bother putting the drinks in before collapsing onto his own bed. The temperature wouldn’t improve the flavor. Dave was lying in his bed. He’d taken his shoes and pants off, but hadn’t gotten out of his button up shirt or sweater before passing out. Race was still in class, Jack was either in class or passed out in his own room, and he had a few hours before he’d have to worry about leaving for Hotshot’s building, so Spot set an alarm on his phone, rolled over, and tried his best to fall asleep.

How are you having so much trouble with this? Oscar asked in his head.

Spot squeezed the thin strip of fabric in his hands so hard that his, or rather Oscar’s, knuckles turned white. He glared at the hated face in the mirror, the face he was stuck with for the time being. He pried his fingers off the fabric only to see it squashed and wrinkled. There was no way he’d be able to wear it now.

What’d you do? Oscar seemed able to sense his emotions, Spot wasn’t quite sure how, might have had something to do with the asshole already knowing about the link between them and how to manipulate it.

I turned your favorite bow tie into a wrinkled mess.

Mother fucker, do you have any idea how annoying those are to iron? What am I asking, of course you don’t. Oscar sent. And don’t worry, you won’t have to find out, I wouldn’t trust you with an iron anywhere near my clothes. Go back to my closet, hang that one back where you found and it and grab the yellow tie with the same pattern.

Spot grumbled under his breath, not that anyone could hear him, and did as Oscar had said. Don’t you think this is all a little much for dinner with your family?

No, Oscar sent, I don’t. Sunday dinner is one of the few times I get to really dress up, I’m not going to let you ruin it for me.

Maybe you should have thought of that before you trapped me in your body. Spot walked back into the bathroom and looked at Oscar in the mirror. He was wearing suspenders. Fucking suspenders. He sighed and put the tie around his neck. At least this one he knew how to tie.

You’re the one who fucked it up somehow, and what are you complaining about? Enjoy being tall for once.

You ain’t that tall.

Compared to you I’m a giant. Then again so are the munchkins.

Spot rolled his eyes and hoped Oscar could feel it through the link.

Okay, are you back in the bathroom?

Yeah.

I suppose it’s too much to hope you’re any better with a necktie than a bowtie?

I know how to tie a tie. Spot wished Oscar was within strangling range, of course that would mean strangling his own body. He tightened the tie a little, choking Oscar’s body a tiny bit, but stopped and chuckled.

Oh really, which knot did you use?

What?

Which tie knot did you use? Four-in-hand? Half-windsor?

Uh… the normal one?

Four-in-hand then?

Spot shrugged.

You can’t use that one, I wouldn’t be caught dead in a knot that plebeian. Undo it.

You have got to be kidding, I just got it on, and your brother is waiting.

He’s used to it. Now undo and do exactly what I tell you, the longer you take the more he’ll work you over before you go.

It took Spot five tries before the tie was close enough to the way Oscar wanted it.

Do you seriously call your little brother Crutchie or is there some other name I should know? Oscar asked just as Spot was flipping his collar down.

Charlie.

Spot walked out the bathroom door into the hallway and was met with an elbow to the solar plexus. He doubled over and gasped, resisting the urge to fight back. Oscar didn’t fight back. After he’d caught his breath he looked up to see Morris adjusting his golden cuff links. He was wearing a black pinstripe suit that made him look like a mobster.

“What’d I tell you about spending that long in the bathroom?” Morris asked.

Spot asked Oscar.

That only girls and fags need that long. Oscar responded.

“That only girls and gay guys take that long,” Spot said. He couldn’t bring himself to say the f-slur, even if Oscar would have.

Morris punched him in the stomach. “Fags. Only girls and fags.”

“Only girls and fags,” Spot echoed back, still trying to catch his breath. Did Morris hit Oscar harder than he’d ever hit them or did Oscar feel more pain? Maybe Morris just knew where all of Oscar’s most vulnerable points were.

Spot sat up in bed. He’d had a few nightmares like that before but the timing on this one was weird. Being beaten up by Morris on the regular had been pretty horrible, maybe even traumatizing, but given recent events he’d been expecting nightmares about his father. He scratched at the back of his head.

There was a brief knock on the door before it swung open and Race walked in, wearing the shirt he’d been shot in. At least it looked like it had been washed.

“Why are you wearing that?” Spot asked.

“What? I like this shirt.” Race ran his finger through one of the bullet holes. “These just add character. Besides, I figured I’d point them out to Delancey while we’se guarding him tonight.”

“We?”

“Yeah. Jack went with Davey, Blink went with Mush, so I assumed I’d be going with you.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Spot tried to think of a response to that that didn’t make him sound like a jerk. He couldn’t think of any so chose to stay silent.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Yes, dear.”

Race whacked his chest with the back of his hand.

The night turned out to be less eventful than he’d feared. Morris spent most of the night asleep, and what time he didn’t spend sleeping was spent glowering at Spot. Either the assholed was settling into his situation or he was more concerned about Spot beating him up than he was about either Jack or Dave. Given that he didn’t know the level of violence Dave was capable of, that made sense. Spot was just glad the night of babysitting passed quietly.

The rest of the week went by pretty fast. Before he knew it it was Sunday night, the day before the new moon, and they were all assembled in the basement of the building for combat training, with Morris watching on from his bathroom cell. Spot hadn’t been sure if it was going to happen or not, but Morris already knew what they were and it wasn't like things were going to get safer for them anytime soon.

“What’s with the weapons?” Morris asked. “Trying to find the right one to off me?” A bitter grin was fixed on his face. He was challenging them to try something.

Race started to respond to the chained-up bully, but fell silent when Spot shook his head. Ignoring him was the best option, and everyone else must have come to the same conclusion. No one answered Morris’s question.

Spot picked up a rusty gladius and dagger and faced off against Dave.

“So, this how we’re going to settle the arm wrestling question?” Spot asked.

Dave shrugged. “The outcome will be the same. This way you won’t have to lose twice.”

“Don’t think I don’t know you’re about to kick my ass.” Spot curled the arm holding the dagger, showing off his bicep as best he could. “But I don’t think you’d win both.”

Dave grinned. “Keep telling yourself that.” He lunged forward, wrenching the claymore up from the floor, with one hand, as he moved.

Spot danced back, the tip of the blade only scoring a narrow line on his thigh. He raised the gladius up over his head as the claymore passed the level of his face and dashed forward with the dagger. He made it inside the other boy’s guard, but Dave spun to the side and brought the giant blade down at an angle, bypassing the gladius. It bit into his shoulder, but Spot managed to drop and roll away before Dave took the arm off.

Spot threw the dagger. He missed Dave’s guts, where he’d been aiming, but managed to get him in the thigh.

Dave reached down with one hand and pulled it free with a gush of blood. “Femoral artery, would be fatal.” He nodded at Spot and tossed the dagger back at him, it hit in the same place.

Spot tried to stifle the gasp of pain, but despite both his father and Snyder he wasn’t as used to experiencing it as Dave was, so some sound escaped when the already bloody blade sunk into his flesh, and again when he wrenched it out.

“Let’s try to avoid arterial hits,” Hotshot called from where he was watching Jack get taken apart by Mush. “It’s hard enough to keep the building clean as it is.”

“Oh boohoo, I’m sure shapeshifting freaks really care about cleanliness. Why don’t you just lick it up like the dogs you are.” Morris said.

Everyone ignored him except for a single snicker from Mush.

Chapter Text

“So Joey and I will stay here tomorrow with Race while he tries to cleanse Morris and you meet with the deep one emissaries?” Graves asked.

Race nodded.

“I’ve been thinking,” Mush said.

“Nothing good can follow that,” Jack said.

“Your fingers all grow back yet?” Mush asked.

Jack flipped the Latino boy the bird, most of it at least, he was still missing the tip of his middle finger.

“I think we should take him, and Race, to meet the Chyrlid Ajha representatives tomorrow night.”

Race frowned. He’d been looking forward to having another excuse to try some magic. “Why?”

“Well, all offense intended, they might have a better idea what to do than you do. Then any of us do.” Mush gestured around the room.

“So, they can look at him after the cleansing puts him in a coma or turns him into a tolerable approximation of a human.”

“We’re still not sure it’ll do either of those things,” Davey said.

“Then why did you kidnap him?” Race asked.

“Because it was better to try than to just kill him. Mush is right though. They might know more about this than us, and he’s proof that an Outsider has contaminated the cultists.”

“Fine.” Race crossed his arms.

“So we all go meet them then?” Spot asked.

Mush glanced at each of them then shook his head. “The deal was only three of you. Since Morris is technically one of them I don’t think they’ll object to his presence, but only three of you can come.”

“So just me, Davey, and Spot as planned?” Jack asked.

Mush shook his head. “Race has the connection to Oscar now, they might be able to do something with that, or sever it, he needs to go now.”

“And Davey knows the most about all of this, and Spot used to be one of them,” Jack said. “So, looks like I’m staying behind.” Jack crossed his arms.

“Jack—” Davey started to say.

Jack held up a hand. “No, I get it. I just wish I could be there for you all.” He looked each of his roommates in the eye before turning and narrowing his eyes as he looked at Mush.

“You can wait here with us,” Hotshot said.

Jack shrugged. Race figured there wasn’t much else he could do.

“Unless, of course, you want to tell us where the meeting is so we can wait nearby in case of trouble?” Graves pinned Mush with a look.

“Not even if I knew, if there’s any trouble, it won’t be coming from their side.”

“You implyin’ we’re gonna start something?” Race asked.

“Just being honest about your long, long history as a species.”

“You know we’re not like that,” Davey said.

Mush shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe you’re just a better actor. Delancey is probably the biggest risk.”

“What’d you mean by, ‘if’ you knew where it was?” Hotshot asked.

“They’ll let me know the location at sundown.”

“Thought they didn’t have cell phones?” Spot asked.

Mush rolled his eyes. “They have other ways of communication.”

Race had no idea what those ‘other ways’ involved, but Mush’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head just after sunset. Even an hour and a half later Mush was still rubbing at his temples every so often. Which wouldn’t be so alarming if he wasn’t the one driving.

The covered figure next to Race groaned and tried to struggle.

Davey reached under the tarp and applied some pressure until the prisoner stopped struggling again.

“That can’t be healthy for him,” Race said above the sound of traffic around them and the ancient engine growling beneath them.

“It’s not like I want to explain why we’ve got a man chained up in the back of this pickup,” Davey said.

“We could just say it’s a fraternity initiation.”

“I don’t think many frat boys ride around in the back of trucks like this,” Dave said while eying the tailgate that looked like it was about to fall down again.

“I get why you have to be out here,” Race pointed at Davey, “but I still don’t see why I couldn’t ride inside with Spot.” Race turned around to look at the cab through the dirty and cracked window. “I could squeeze between him and Mush.”

“Mush thinks you’d be too distracting,” Davey said.

“To Spot.”

“And I might need help with Morris.”

“Which Spot would be better for, so then I could have plenty of room inside and you and Spot could sit on Morris.”

“I think Mush just likes him more,” Davey said.

Race’s mouth dropped open and he clasped his chest. “No one likes Spot more than they like me. Except for me of course — Spot is an angel — but no one else. He’s so grouchy all the time.”

Davey snorted. “If you hadn’t noticed, Mush isn’t exactly a ray of sunshine either.”

“Yeah, but he’s a cat, they’se all like that. Asking you to rub their belly one minute, clawing the fuck out of you the next. Don’t even get me started on kittens, they looks so cute and tiny, but that just means their claws are sharper. That’s why I’m a dog person.”

“Well, that’s one reason,” Davey said.

“I thought you didn’t like us being compared to dogs?”

“I don’t like it when nagual or chyrlid do it.”

Race nodded then raised his eyebrows. “What would your father say?”

Davey chuckled and crinkled his nose. “That I should kill you all and come home.”

“That’s some family you got there,” Race said and looked at their surroundings. They’d left the city quite a while ago, they were probably somewhere in Connecticut by now, the ocean was sometimes visible off to the right of the smoke-spewing truck. He wished he could find out where they were, but after negotiations with Mush, only Spot had been allowed to bring a phone, in case of emergencies, and after turning off the GPS and promising not to reactivate it.

“How much farther do you think it is?” Race asked.

“We turned off the highway about two miles back, and we’re heading toward the ocean. As to how much longer,” Davey shrugged.

Race glanced at the covered figure beside him. Delancey’s chest was rising and falling in a slow rhythm. He was pretty sure that meant he was still out of it. Race had been trying to pay some attention to all the spooky shit Davey did, even if he didn’t think he’d master half of it if he lived to be a thousand, which was an actual possibility.

After another fifteen minutes, Race guessed, the truck ground into a parking lot. There weren’t any other vehicles present, which wasn’t too surprising, the beach wasn’t a big draw at night when it was just above freezing.

There was a sputtering sound followed by what sounded like a small explosion. Either Mush had turned off the engine or it had fallen out. The driver-side door screeched open with the sound of metal grating on rust that was older than any of them, and Mush exited first, followed by Spot through the same door.

“We’re here,” Mush said.

Spot peaked over the edge of the bed at Morris. “How’s he doing?”

“I had to choke him back out twice,” Davey said.

Spot started to make a face then stopped, his brows wrinkling and head tilting to the side. He shrugged.

Davey stood up then bent back down. He heaved Morris up onto his shoulder and then climbed over the side of the bed and out of the truck, dropping to the ground with a heavy thud.

Race scrambled to follow.

“Which way now?” Davey asked.

Mush pointed not toward the beach but toward an overgrown trail between some trees.

Davey lead the way followed by Mush.

Spot grabbed Race’s hand and together they headed toward the underbrush.

Just a few feet away from the parking lot it was almost pitch black, only the stars above and some lights out across the water, that were probably on Long Island. Race wished he had his phone if only for the flashlight, he couldn’t see what he was stepping on. He considered asking Spot to get out his phone but didn’t think the fish people would appreciate it, assuming they even knew what a phone was of course.

How much did he fish people know about modern technology? Not that they probably didn’t have technology of their own, or maybe just magic, the spells he’d seen them use in the battle with his parents were impressive, if nothing compared to the bullshit Pulitzer had been able to pull off. Then again, all that magic had pretty much come from just the rod the one had been holding. Was the rod enchanted then? Could he make one? That would be handy as fuck in a fight. Was it even magic at the point? He was pretty sure most of what everyone was calling magic was just drawing energy from compactified dimensions and sending it back through them. If he could just figure out the right equations he could use it to make a kick-ass wireless router. It couldn’t be that hard he figured, and if the dimension was compact enough, which string theory suggested it had to be, then he’d be able to get reception from the router anywhere on Earth, probably anywhere in the galaxy. Of course, then he’d have to deal with aliens trying to use his network. How good were little green men at hacking into wifi? Probably better than he was at keeping them out.

Race walked into Davey’s back.

“Watch it,” Davey said, his voice just above a whisper, but still thundering in the near silence of the night.

Spot snickered.

Race took a step back and looked around. They were near the beach, at the base of a shallow cliff. There was a spot in the cliff face ahead of them that looked even darker than the night around them. A cave maybe?

“This is the place,” Mush said. He pulled a glowstick out of his pocket, cracked it, shook it, and held it up to reveal less of a cave than a crack in the stone, the green light not reaching its depths. “Come on.”

Mush handed the glow stick back to Davey, who took it in the hand that wasn’t holding Morris to his shoulder, and then slipped into the void ahead of them.

Davey sighed and set Morris down. He handed the glow stick to Race and then turned to examine the entrance.

“I’ll take his head, you take his feet?” Davey asked Spot.

Spot nodded.

“You follow us with the light. Hold it up as high as you can.” Davey said, followed by mumbling something that might have been “cat-eyed ass,” but might not have been either. He bent down and picked up Delancey’s shoulders.

Spot bent down and took the feet.

Race held the light up. At least he had something to do while he followed them into the narrow crevice, he was the only one who didn’t have to squeeze to fit in.

The space opened up on the other side. A little. It was less of a crack in the wall and more of a narrow hallway, at least until it ended about twenty feet in. At its widest, the cave was maybe eight feet across. Roots trailed down the walls and a few even hung in the air above them.

“This is the place?” Race asked, unsure he’d even qualify it as a cave, it really was just a hole in the wall.

“This is the place,” Mush said.

“How long until they get here?” Spot asked.

Mush shrugged.

“I’m never going to make it to class tomorrow,” Spot said.

“Should’ve thought of that before becoming a dog,” Mush said.

“Well I’m not leaving Tony, and I don’t see you offering up any alternatives, even to your own boyfriend.”

Mush shot a glare at Spot and opened his mouth. He stood there, looking like he was about to say something, then shut his mouth and turned around to face the rock.

“It shouldn’t be too long,” Davey said.

“Why not?” Race asked.

“They had a scout watching from the water’s edge, probably to make sure only the agreed-upon number showed up.”

“Well, the agreed-upon number didn’t show up.” Spot nudged Delancey with his toe. “We brought an extra.”

“Who was obviously not moving under his own power,” Mush said without turning around.

“Could have been a trick, they don’t know that he isn’t faking,” Spot said.

Mush turned and glared at him again.

Spot held his hands up in mock surrender. “I’m just saying, they’d better show, I’ve missed enough sleep for the year.”

“Get used to it,” Mush said.

“They’re here,” Davey said.

Race turned to look at the entrance. An imposing figure, with four arms holding a very large spear at the ready stood in the entryway. With only the green light of the glow stick to go by, Race couldn’t be sure of colors but thought the person might have been blue. Their eyes were completely black, so it was impossible to tell who they were looking at, but Race got the feeling they were sizing them all up. The figure had to be pushing eight feet tall, and Race didn’t think either Davey or Mush would be able to take him. He glanced at the spear they were holding, the tip looked like the electrum weapons he’d seen in the mirror. A small thrill of terror ran down his spine. This was the most vulnerable he’d felt since meeting Davey.

The imposing figure must have reached the same conclusion Race had, because they relaxed their grip on the spear, slightly, and stepped further into the space and to the side, allowing a smaller figure to enter from behind them, followed by another.

“There’s at least two more outside,” Davey said. He looked relaxed, but Race could hear the tension in his voice.

The two smaller ones were a murky brownish-black color, at least in the green light. The crestless one in front was a bit taller and darker than the one who followed and held a familiar-looking stone scepter. Race narrowed his eyes on the magical rod, both remembering what he’d seen it do and wondering what else it could do. His palm itched to get his hands on it, but a glance at the imposing guard told him what a bad idea that was.

The two stepped fully into the room, almost side by the side, but the one who had entered last stayed half a step back while unshouldering a modern-looking nylon backpack. It was clear who was in charge. They all turned to look at the one fingering the stone rod. A flicker of blue-green light shone in one of the carved runes and vanished.

“You brought one more than was agreed,” the leader said with a surprising wet Boston accent, their voice tickling at something in the back of Race’s mind.

“He’s one of yours,” Mush responded.

“Then why is he bound like an animal?”

“He tried to have us killed,” Davey said, “and he’s probably being influenced by the Outsider.”

“So you claim,” they said and took a step forward, kneeling next to Morris. They pulled the bag off of his head, frowning at the bruise marks on his neck when they saw them. They tugged at Morris’s hands and examined the shackles being used. They reached their hand up without looking at any of them. “Key.”

Davey dropped the key in their hand without any comment.

They unbound Morris and tossed the shackles and key at Davey’s feet. “So like the people of the air.”

At the mention of the people of the air a shiver ran down Race’s back, he knew why the voice had seemed familiar, it was only the glow stick’s strange light that had kept him from recognizing the figure immediately. “Says the thing that cut off my mother’s arm.”

“Race,” Davey started to say.

The crouching sorcerer cut him off with a gesture and stood up, turning to look at Race. “We were being attacked. I did what was necessary. Besides, I seem to remember it growing back.”

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t believe how much that itches,” Jack said.

Race shot his roommate a glare then focused back on the creature in front of him. “Lot of good that did her when you just let Pulitzer kill her the next day.”

“And how do you propose I could have stopped him?”

Race looked down at the rod in their hand.

“You know nothing.”

“I know you sat by and let me get orphaned.”

Something in their expression changed, but Race didn’t have any experience reading fish body language and couldn’t tell what. They turned their attention back to Morris and knelt down beside him again, reaching out with a talon to poke him in the arm.

Chapter Text

Davey cursed their luck. Of course, the representative from the chyrlid would be the one who cut off Race’s mother’s arm. Of course they would. Hell, with the way their luck was, he was just lucky Pulitzer hadn’t ended up somehow being the representative. He looked from where the leader was scratching some sort of basic sigil into Morris’s arm at the rest of the people in the now cramped cave.

It looked like Sean was trying very hard not to look at the shortest of the chyrlid in the cave. Shortest if you didn’t count the fins on their head at least. The chyrlid, on the other hand, was staring at Sean. Davey couldn’t tell exactly where their pupils were pointed but could tell by the eye movements that his roommate was being examined with great detail. Davey took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. Why have one unfortunate coincidence when you could have two?

“Mrs. Conlon, I presume?” Davey asked the red chyrlid with two short fins atop her head.

She flinched back. “How—”

Whatever she was about to ask was cut off by Sean’s soft question. “Mama?”

Her black eyes flicked from Davey back to her son and somehow grew wider. “Sean? That is you?”

Neither of them moved, they just stared at each other for a long moment that seemed to stretch into eternity as everyone in the cave, except the still unconscious Delancey and the chyrlid examining him, focused on the mother and son.

Davey tried to imagine what thoughts were going through either of their heads at that moment. He couldn’t put himself in either of their places well enough to even guess. He wasn’t anyone’s mother, or father, and couldn’t fathom the idea of abandoning his child if he somehow was ever in a position like that. As for Sean, running into his fully transformed mother, not a week after killing his abusive father…

“You’ve changed,” Sean said.

“You’ve grown,” his mother said.

“He can’t have grown that much,” Race said.

Sean rolled his eyes.

Sean’s mother turned and glared at Race. “Do you mind, wolf?”

“Mama,” Sean said and waited for his mother to look at him, “I’m a wolf.”

That got a reaction from the sorcerer kneeling over Delancey who turned to focus their full attention on Sean.

Sean’s mother first reeled back as if struck and then darted forward. She reached out with one webbed and taloned hand, stopping just short of touching Sean’s face. “What?”

Sean put an arm around Race’s shoulders and pulled him against his side. “And this is my boyfriend, Anthony. I think you met his parents, briefly.” Sean’s face was stony as he said it. The face of a man who’d already killed one of his parents and wasn’t about to let anything the other said hurt him.

Sean’s mother pulled her hand back and looked at the two of them. Water that had little to do with the sea started moving down her face.

“You let the wolf bite you?” The sorcerer said, standing up and facing the two boys.

Sean turned to face the darker red chyrlid. “No, I made someone else bite me.”

They wrinkled their brow. “You threw away eternity with your family for this,” they gestured at Race.

“Hey, this,” Race gestured up and down his body, “has been more family to Spot here than any of you have ever been.”

“Tony,” Sean said, his brow wrinkling.

Race turned to look at Sean.

“Look, you’re not wrong, but this isn’t how I pictured you meeting my parents.”

“I already met your real mother,” Race said, “but at least this one ain’t tried to bean me with a lead pipe like your father did.”

Whatever mix of emotions Sean’s mother was feeling had been indecipherable, but anger became a clear winner at the mention of Sean’s father.

“A lead pipe?”

“He wasn’t the one with the pipe,” Sean said, “but he’ll never hurt anyone again. I made sure of that.” He took his arm from around Race to make a show of cracking his knuckles.

Sean’s mother took a step back. “You don’t mean?”

“He took that guy’s,” Sean pointed at Morris, “money to kill us. Only they didn’t know we were werewolves. Didn’t go well for them, and I wasn’t about to let anyone else kill the bastard.”

She reached out with one hand and then stopped, pulling it back.

“You didn’t tell me anything before you left. I had to find out about all of this by luck. Hell, if I hadn’t been sent to the same shitty foster home as Tony I wouldn’t have even known what I was until his brother,” Sean gestured at Morris, “came and told me we were related and that he needed my help to not turn into a fish.”

Sean’s mother looked like she wanted to say something but a glance at the sorcerer and she held her tongue.

“As touching as this isn’t, let’s try to focus on what this meeting is for,” the sorcerer said. “Perhaps we should begin with introductions. You may call me Meredith.”

“We may call you?” Race asked.

“It was my land name. It will be easier for you to pronounce than my actual name.” The sorcerer looked at Sean’s mother.

“Hannah,” the woman said, her eyes never leaving her son.

Meredith focused on the guard who’d come with them.

The guard rolled his eyes before speaking. “Heard.”

Meredith turned her attention to Mush and Davey.

Davey glanced at Mush, who made no move to go first, then back at the sorcerer. “David.”

“Sean and Tony,” Sean indicated himself and Race, “if anyone wasn’t already paying attention.”

“Nicholas,” Mush said last.

“And him?” Meredith asked, bending to examine Morris again.

“He’s Morris,” Race said. “Delancey.”

Hannah glanced from Sean to Morris.

“And yes, I know my dad killed his dad,” Race added before looking at Meredith, “and I know you cut my mother’s arm off with your fancy stick.”

“This is why I didn’t want to bring him,” Mush said.

“You’re the one who changed your mind,” Davey said.

Meredith looked at Race with a single eye ridge raised then turned back to Mush and Davey. “Then why did you bring him?”

“He has a link with Oscar, Morris’s brother, who’s currently in a coma in the hospital ever since we performed a cleansing ritual to reverse the body swap that happened between him and Sean while they were performing the Inward Gaze.”

Hannah gasped and wasn’t able to resist the urge to touch Sean after that. She grabbed his face and turned his head as though trying to see if he was alright.

“And how, exactly, did the most basic spell there is result in the darkest magic known?” Meredith asked, their voice full of anger and tight control.

“Oscar has a link to an Outsider, it clogged up the connection between them and trapped them in each other’s rivers,” Davey said. “We think Morris has the same connection, which is part of why we brought him.

“That and I wouldn’t let them kill him,” Race said.

Davey shrugged. “We couldn’t risk him telling Pulitzer what happened. We wouldn’t be able to stand up to him.”

Meredith nodded. “You seem to know a lot about what happened to the pup’s parents and what Pulitzer is capable of?”

“The university has a collection of interesting books,” Race said.

“Vision of Things Past?” Meredith asked.

Davey nodded.

They raised an eyebrow ridge in something that might have been approval or might have been skepticism then turned to Hannah. “Prepare the seal while I examine the young one.” They turned their attention back to Moriss.

Hannah tore her eyes from Sean and knelt next to the purple backpack she’d brought. “Step back further into the cave please. I’ll need some room.”

It grated against every bit of his father’s training, but Davey nodded and retreated into the back, and only, corner of the crevice, pushing Race behind him into the corner proper. Sean stepped to his side. He didn’t think Mush or the chyrlid would attack, but it was the most defensible position possible under the circumstances.

Hannah pulled a jar packed tight with red sand, a jar of water, and a small clay bowl out of the pack, and set to work creating the seal necessary for the Inward Gaze on the cave floor.

Meredith pressed a talon against the skin on the inside of Morris’s arm and scratched a simple sigil into this skin, pressing just hard enough to leave a red mark, but not hard enough to draw blood until the very end. Their talon sank into the unconscious boy’s skin a fraction of an inch more and they pulled it back with a single tiny droplet of red blood glistening on the end. Meredith opened their mouth and put the droplet on the center of their tongue. An uncontrolled shiver ran through the chyrlid’s body and they spit the blood out onto the sandy cave floor, followed by several more gobs of spit as they tried to get whatever they’d tasted out of their mouth.

Hannah stopped what she was doing as she and Heard both turned their attention to Meredith.

“Like octopus ink mixed with the void of space,” Meredith said before spitting on the ground again.

“So they were telling the truth?” Hannah asked, her eyes darting to her son and then back to the elder chyrlid.

“So it would seem.” Meredith looked at Hannah’s hands, still holding the sand. “Use the thivolki variation of the seal, we can’t risk forming a link with any of them.”

Hannah blinked and nodded then returned to her work.

Meredith pointed at Sean. “Let me taste you, I need to know if you’re also infected since you share a link with this Oscar.”

“Shared. It moved to Race after he tried to do something to it.”

Meredith narrowed their eyes at Race but turned back to Sean. “Both of you then, but you first.”

Sean frowned but pulled off his coat and rolled up his sleeve to give the sorcerer access.

Meredith repeated their actions, scratching the same sigil into Sean’s flesh followed by taking a tiny droplet of blood. A deep frown creased the scales of their face when they saw how quickly the wound on Sean’s arm sealed. They muttered something under their breath that sounded like, “another one lost,” and regarded the drop of blood for longer before placing it on the very tip of their tongue.

Another involuntary shudder ran through their body, leaving Davey worried that they hadn’t been as successful with cleansing him of the Outsider’s taint as he’d thought. He focused on Sean, he hadn’t been acting strange since he got back in his body. Well, that wasn’t true, they’d all been acting strange. Their whole lives were strange, even accounting for being werewolves. Why couldn’t the problem here be something straightforward like an encroaching ghoul warren stealing school children? Then it was easy to know what to do. Of course, Graves had to go and throw a wrench in his ability to regard ghouls as simple monsters.

Davey didn’t know how long he’d been staring at Sean until Sean looked sideways at him and then back at Meredith. Davey turned his eyes back to the sorcerer.

They were considering the tiny lingering red stain on their talon tip. “A potent sensation. Whatever lost arts wove your kind into existence were not subtle.”

“And the Outsider?” Davey asked.

“I didn’t detect anything, but I don’t know how he compares to the taste of other fleshwarpers.”

Davey and Mush both frowned at that description, no matter how accurate.

“You next.” They pointed at Davey.

Davey frowned but pushed the sleeve of his sweater up and unbuttoned his cuff to expose the inside of his arm.

They repeated the small ritual and tasted his blood. The shudder was less pronounced. Maybe because they were expecting the sensation this time or maybe because there was some fundamental difference between his blood and Sean’s.

“I can taste how long the wolf has been in your blood.” They turned their attention to Race. “You next.”

Race took off his jacket, he was only wearing a tank top underneath, so didn’t need to do anything else to prepare.

Davey paid close attention as they performed the ritual this time. It didn’t look like a complicated ritual and could be handy to know. Assuming, of course, that it didn’t have some horrible cost. Also assuming that it even was a magical ritual and not just some innate ability of a fully transformed chyrlid. If they were fully transformed. Davey eyed the four-armed one, was that the natural progression of the species? Was it the result of some intentional ritual, some accident of fate, or some personal quirk of genetics?

Meredith spat Race’s blood on the ground. “You have a taste of the same rough beast in you. Not as much as the youngling,” they gestured at Morris, “but a trace. I can also taste your confluence with his brother.”

“Confluence?” Race asked.

“The link you stole from me,” Sean said.

“I didn’t hear you complaining at the time,” Race said.

“I was trying to get back into my body at the time.”

“Yeah, being taller must have been really weird for you.”

“Children,” Meredith said.

Spot rolled his eyes and looked away from his boyfriend.

Race smirked at Sean and clasped his hands behind his back.

Chapter Text

The sleek, scaled form slipped out of the cold water and waves of the gulf with a grace Mush hadn’t expected, even after seeing the trio of chyrlid ajha battling the werwolves in the mirror Race had made. Another pair of figures slipped out of the waves behind him, transitioning from sea to land with more grace than Mush could manage the change from two legs to four, and he liked to think he’d gotten pretty good at it.

Arranging the meeting hadn’t been easy. First, he’d had to explain some of what was going on in New York to his mamá. He hadn’t covered everything, hadn’t mentioned anything about the fact that he’d found oboroten there. She never would have let him return from winter break if she’d known. There was no way she’d ever believe that they weren’t a threat to him. Neither would his papá, if his papá knew anything at all about nagual and oboroten, which he didn’t. He had a feeling that Meli probably would have approved but that filled him with even more shame for not telling his mamá.

After informing his mamá about the chyrlid cult he’d uncovered that was still operating in New York City, it hadn’t been too hard to convince her that they needed to visit the Gulf of Mexico to try and contact some friendlier ones. The main problem with that was that the chyrlid were shy on their best days. He’d performed the ritual to call their attention every night for the last week, before a single emissary had been willing to approach him. He’d had to agree to trade them a hyperbaric welding torch in exchange for this meeting. It had taken him another week to find and purchase the one that was sitting on the sand to his right, his mamá still wasn’t happy about the cost..

The black scaled one in the lead was naked, which wasn’t unusual, scales combined with the more or less constant temperature gradients of the sea alleviated most need for clothes. They only ever seemed to wear webbing and nets when they needed places to stow things that they couldn’t just carry in hand. The one approaching wasn’t carrying anything but the two that stopped just before stepping out of the surf carried a spear and a trident.

“You are the one who asked for a meeting?” The black one asked in low, heavily accented, Nahual.

Mush hadn’t been expecting that. The accent was unfamiliar, but as far as he knew the person before him might have first learned the language before the arrival of Cortés. Mush steadied his legs and looked right at the place where the chyrlid would have once had a nose. “I am.”

“You’re barely more than a tadpole.”

At least his mother hadn’t held his youth against him, then again she was only two hundred years old. “I need your help.”

“And why would we help you?”

“You’ve helped us before.”

“Yes, before you were driven to the south. Before our spawning ground was attacked.”

“You’re spawning ground is in danger again.”

“Our spawning ground is to the north, where your kind no longer go.”

“Where I did go,” Mush said.

A single scaled eyebrow ridge raised.

“In the place called New York City there is a man named Pulitzer.”

The chyrlid nodded.

Mush took it as permission to continue.

“He’s made some sort of a deal with an Outsider. At least one of their children, your children, is infected with it.”

They started to take a step forward and then stopped themselves. “You’re certain?”

Mush glanced back over his shoulder. His mother was waiting at a distance. It was the full moon so he was reasonably certain she wouldn’t be able to hear anything he said unless she had a directional microphone secreted somewhere on her person. He knew she had at least two guns and who knew how many knives on her already, so a microphone wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

He decided it was worth the risk, he wouldn’t get very far with the chyrlid if he lied. “I met one of the children, who wasn’t infected but didn’t know he was one of your children either. Another one, who did know, reached out to him for help in stopping their transformation.”

“Why would they wish to stop it?”

“Honestly? He’s the most repressed homosexual I’ve ever seen, and I know ones who grew up Catholic. I think he’s just desperate to get away from his family. Well, that and he was already changing at just eighteen.”

They frowned but let Mush continue.

“They were performing the Inward Gaze to conduct preliminary research, but somehow the Outsider’s influence caused the ritual to go wrong and now they’re stuck in each other’s bodies. We don’t know what to do.”

“We?”

Mush sighed, trust a chyrlid elder to pick up on that. “I’ve been… collaborating with some oboroten.”

The elder angled their head to one side and then the other, examining Mush. “And yet you don’t seem to be dead.”

“They’re barely more than children.”

“As are you.”

Mush couldn’t really argue that since the only one who was younger than him by any significant amount was Race, and Spot was older than he was, not that he was a werewolf. Yet.

“Your words are troubling, but you must understand they are difficult to believe. Your ancestors have dealt fairly with us, but your allies’ ancestors have not. We have abundant reason to doubt their motives.”

Mush sighed, leave it to the wolves’ violent nature to make everything harder for him. “If you could meet with us there, we could bring you proof.”

“It could be a trap.”

“I’m only asking for a meeting, and I’ll be there, I won’t leave you alone with the oboroten.”

“That is far outside my range, but perhaps something could be arranged. There would have to be conditions though. We have no intention of trusting any oboroten.”

Mush nodded, it was the best he could hope for.

“Maybe try and take this a little seriously,” Mush said.

Race shrugged again and looked at the chyrlid elder. “So can you break my link with Oscar?”

“If that’s the best course of action,” Meredith said. “I wish you could have brought this one’s brother with you.”

“Why would that matter?” Race asked.

“Maybe because he’s still in a coma and we don’t know why?” David asked, though he didn’t mean it as a question.

“He committed body theft, he should be left to die. It’s not like he could ever become one of us now,” the tall guard, Heard, said.

Spot and David shot glares at the four-armed man.

Spot turned back to Meredith. “He didn’t intend to steal my body, it was an accident.”

“Probably,” David added.

Spot turned his glare on David. “It was an accident. I think, out of everyone here, I know him best.”

There was a snort from the floor.

All eyes swiveled down to see that Morris was regaining consciousness.

Mush considered choking him out again. It was the least the bully deserved, even if he was possessed by an Outsider.

“I think I know him a bit better than you do, faggot.” Morris pulled himself up into a sitting position and rubbed at the cuts and bruises the shackles had left on his wrists. “I still can’t believe I didn’t realize you fuckers were werewolves.”

Mush bristled at being confused for a wolf, even if the elder Delancey brother had no way of knowing what he was. He opted not to raise a stink over it though, he wasn’t supposed to be this far North into oboroten territory, so the fewer who knew what he was the better.

Morris turned to look at the three chyrlid ajha in the cave with them. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but why haven’t you gutted these freaks yet?”

“Why did I make you guys keep him alive again?” Race asked.

“Revenge for us not letting you kill Oscar,” Spot said.

“I’m afraid you aren’t in your right mind, child,” Meredith said.

“You can’t be working with them? These fuckers killed my father!” Morris struggled to stand up.

Mush put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

Morris glared up at him and looked like he was about to start a fight.

“Quiet, child,” Meredith said again, putting their hand on Morris’s other shoulder and ordering Mush to release the possessed boy with a sharp look.

Mush let go and took a step back.

“I’m not a child!” Morris said and tried to escape from the elder’s grasp.

“You are to us,” Heard said, taking as much of a step forward as the low ceiling allowed him. “Stop this, you are safe here.”

“Safer than with Pulitzer,” Hannah mumbled under her breath low enough that Mush was confident his new moon-enhanced hearing was the only reason he heard her.

She’d been part of Pulitzer’s little cult. Morris and Oscar had been infected by an Outsider, probably as part of whatever pact had made Pulitzer into such a potent sorcerer. Was she infected or had he only infected the younger ones? When had he made the pact? What were the terms? There were too many unknown variables.

“Yeah? Well, I don’t fucking feel safe.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Meredith said.

Morris glared at them, but some level of respect instilled him in by his family must have made him decide to trust the sorcerer. Either that or the simple math that there was no way he was fighting his way out of the tiny cave. “You still haven’t said what you’re doing with them.” He spat on the ground near Mush’s feet.

“An Outsider has its hold on you, child. They brought you to us to be cleansed.” Mush supposed that was arguably true, even if not how any of them would have phrased it.

“Like I’d ever trust a werewolf.” Morris’s eyes were wide as he looked at the four other boys, his right hand was clenched in a fist while his left hand probed around the floor before finally grasping a fist-sized rock.

Mush sighed, he should have known Morris wasn’t that good at math. He stepped forward, pressing the heel of his boot into the back of Morris’s hand.

Morris dropped the rock and snatched his hand back.

“That wasn’t necessary,” Hannah said.

Mush shrugged. Morris had done worse to Blink.

“I still say you should have just let me cleanse him,” Race said.

“That left Oscar in a coma,” David said.

“I knew you fags were behind that,” Morris strugged again to rise.

Heard pushed him back down with the butt of his spear.

“What ritual did you perform on him?” Meredith asked Race.

“I performed a cleansing ritual that Oscar selected,” Davey glared down at Morris, “on both him and Sean in an attempt to clear up enough of the Outsider gunk for them to switch bodies back.”

“Gunk?” Meredith asked.

“That’s what it looks like from inside,” Race gestured at the seal Sean’s mother had just finished.

“Forgetting the second ritual?” Mush prompted.

Meredith cast a glance at him and then looked back at the oboroten.

“Well, we was looking for a way to break the link between Spot and Oscar, since it was letting the Outsider influence Spot, and since Oscar was using it for some less than wholesome purposes.” Race cast a glare at Morris. “So I reverse-engineered the variant of that,” he pointed at the seal again, “that Oscar and Spot had used, and I managed to model the part that caused the link. After that it wasn’t too hard to figure out the math—”

Meredith held up their hand. “The bond exists in seven dimensions, that wasn’t hard?”

Race blinked. “Seven? I only modeled at five and that seemed to account for everything in the seal.”

Meredith sighed, a low wet sound that vibrated the gill flaps on their sides. “And the mantra?”

“I didn’t think it was that important. It’s not even like the pronunciation matters.”

“The intent however—”

“How do you expect me to mathematically model intent?”

“Clearly I didn’t. Go on, describe this ritual you performed.”

“Fine, so anyway,” Race glared at Meredith, “I noticed that the sigil they were using for the cleansing ritual also had a component in the right dimensional range, and I knew that Spot and Oscar would be unconscious in the middle of it after Davey finished the cleansing. I figured out how to cut the link between them, but I didn’t know where to cut it. Did they meet in the middle or did one of them make up more of the link? I didn’t want to leave any Oscar in Spot, but I definitely didn’t want to lose any of Spot.”

“Thanks,” Spot said.

Race smiled at him then turned back to Meredith. “So I figured out how to… crimp it.”

“Crimp it?”

“Yeah, press it down really small so that it would be a while before anything could get through. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but we were waiting for Mush to find the proper way to do things.”

“I would like to see your math.”

“No can do,” Race said. “Mush wouldn’t let us bring anything electronic so that we couldn’t be tracked here.”

Mush rolled his eyes.

Meredith frowned but nodded.

“If that was all it was supposed to do, then how did you wind up with the link?” Mush asked, he hadn’t heard a full explanation yet.

Race blushed and rubbed at the back of his neck.

“The end of the ritual involved him kissing Spot,” David said. “Apparently he wished that he could take the problem away from Spot while he was doing it. I’m guessing his intent, combined with the power he ascribed to ‘true love’s kiss—’”

Mush snorted.

“—and the fact that his ritual didn’t take all seven dimensions into account, had some unexpected side effects.”

Meredith shook their head. “And this is why no one less than one hundred years old should even consider practicing magic.”

Mush wanted to protest, but looking at Race he didn’t feel like he had much of a leg to stand on. Based on his expression, Mush guessed that David was feeling the same way.

Meredith pointed at David. “I will examine you first so that I have the shape of an untainted oboroten’s flows. Then I’ll look at you,” they pointed at Race.

A small frown tugged at the corner of David’s mouth but he stepped onto the red seal, at least Mush assumed it was red, the green light of the glow stick was still the only light source in the tiny cave.

Meredith stepped in across from him and they both sat down.

Hannah placed a dagger and a bowl of seawater between them and backed out of the circle.

Meredith began the chant.

Chapter Text

Spot watched as Meredith reached out and touched Race, entering his rivers to see what damage the link with Oscar had caused. He wouldn’t have been surprised if they intended to scout the link too, maybe even get a peek at Oscar’s rivers if the link was wide enough.

He was aware of his mother staring at him but wasn’t sure what to say. He hadn’t expected to ever see her again, let alone a week after murdering his dad. He’d say it was a funny coincidence if he believed in those anymore except that he couldn’t see how this could be anything but a coincidence. Whoever had arranged for all of them to meet had to have done it using computers. Influencing class and dorm room assignments was a lot easier than forcing Morris to pick his father as the goon to send after them. Or that might have been intentional on Morris’s part. His mom showing up though? She was a former member of Pulitzer’s cult — maybe even a current member. It would make sense that she’d be sent to this meeting.

Spot looked at his mother.

Their eyes met.

“So why’d you work for Pulitzer?” Spot asked.

Based on her blink, his mother hadn’t been expecting that question.

“You looked pretty cozy with him when you and Meredith,” Spot gestured at the person sitting opposite his boyfriend, “watched him murder Race’s parents.”

She flinched at that. “I didn’t know…”

“Know what? That he was selling the cult’s kids to an Outsider or that the werewolves you just saw murdered had a kid?”

“That they had a son.”

“Yeah, well… I guess you weren’t supposed to.” Spot raked a hand through his hair. “They knew they were going there to die. They made sure there was no way anyone could track them back to Race before they went in.”

“We wouldn’t have hurt a child,” his mom said.

Spot gestured at Morris. Not the best audience for a mother-son reunion if he was being honest with himself.

“Don’t start on your Outsider bullshit again.”

“Why would we make that up?” Dave asked.

“Because you’re hoping these chickens,” Morris gestured at Spot’s mom and Heard, “will help you against us. Because you know you can’t take us yourselves. You know you’re going to lose.”

“Lose what?” Dave asked. “We’re trying to save you from an Outsider not win a board game.”

Spot realized they hadn’t even bothered trying to question Morris. They’d spent so much time trying to figure out what to do with him that the thought hadn’t even occurred to them. Unless Hotshot and Graves had done it. They really needed to clean up their act. Things were too dangerous to not at least try to get information from every source available.

Morris mimed locking his mouth and throwing away the key.

“Pulitzer’s goal is complete domination of the surface world,” Spot’s mother said from behind him and Dave.

Spot turned around to look at her. “So you’re saying you did know about the Outsider then?”

“That’s not what I said, Sean. Don’t twist my words,” The glare she gave him, the tone of voice she used, they were almost familiar. It had been a long time though, “but there’s a reason I didn’t leave you with them.”

Spot blinked. He’d never even wondered about why he wound up in the system instead of with the cult. They had to have systems in place for a parent changing and having to leave children behind who couldn’t breathe water. He could have grown up rich. He could have grown up with an Outsider in his head. Spot thought back on what he’d been like when he was in Oscar’s body, what the thing had made him say — at least he hoped it was the thing, he didn’t want to imagine he was capable of hurting Race like that if he was in his right mind. He was almost grateful he got sent to the Refuge.

“Why didn’t you do anything to stop him?” Dave asked.

“I told the other elders, not that—” his mother made a phlegmy sound that might have been a word and gestured at Meredith, “didn’t already know from… that night.”

“The night these fuckers murdered my father you mean.”

“No, that was the night before,” Dave said.

“You’re not helping Dave,” Spot said.

Dave shrugged.

“And we didn’t murder anyone,” Spot said.

Morris leveled a look at him.

“Before last week I mean. And I still count that as self-defense.” It was easy enough to say even if he wasn’t sure he believed it himself.

“Arguably, but we could have taken them prisoner. It was an execution,” Dave said.

Spot turned to look at his roommate. “You’re really not helping here.” He turned to Morris. “You? Shut up before I gag you.” He’d look better with a gag. He turned back to his mom. “You, talk.”

His mother glanced at where Meredith was still in the ritual circle with Race, their eyes shut, and then over at Heard who just shrugged. She sighed. “He should have changed by now. Once he changed it wouldn’t have mattered anymore. He’s hardly the first of us to ever develop delusions of grandeur and want to fight back against the people of the wind. Which is understandable when you consider how many times we’ve had to move our spawning grounds to escape them.”

“So why didn’t you do anything before now?” Dave asked.

“Beneath the sea there are elders who are at least ten thousand years old. They can afford to take the long view.”

“Why hasn’t he changed yet then?” Spot asked.

She sighed and ran taloned fingers over the crest atop her head. “He might have dried his blood — like you have,” she pointed at Sean.

“So that he’d never change?” Dave asked. “That doesn’t sound like something a chyrlid supremacist would do.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she said. “I suppose he must have found some means of delaying it.”

No shit. Wish he’d shared with the class, would’ve saved us a hell of a headache.

“A ritual,” Dave said.

“Maybe not, or not specifically. There are drugs that can weaken the connection of the mind with the body without completely severing it, at first. He might have found some mixture that keeps him just close enough to retain the ability to change. There’s also some meditative practices that can draw the mind away from the body.”

“How did he close the city to us?” Dave asked.

Sean watched his mother’s scales pale in the green light. She knows something, and she’s not happy about it. Sean blinked, when had his brain gotten so active with commentary?

“I wasn’t there,” His mom said.

“But you know something,” Spot said.

“I don’t know anything,” she said.

Bullshit. “Bullshit.”

Sean narrowed his eyes and glanced at Morris. He could almost swear he’d heard Delancey talk, but the other boy was still glaring at all of them in silence.

“He had a daughter, Katherine. He loved her more than anything.” She took a deep breath and looked at Spot. “One day she was fine, the next day she was dead. It was just after he told us that the werewolves wouldn’t be able to send for reinforcements.”

“But I’ve met Katherine,” Davey said.

“I went to high school with her,” Spot said.

Stuck up rich girl.

Spot turned to Morris. “Like you weren’t ten times as stuck up.”

Morris’s eyes widened and looked from Spot to one of the people behind him.

Spot turned around to see both Dave and his mother giving him a strange look.

“Did you not hear him?” Spot asked.

“He didn’t say anything,” Dave said.

Spot scratched his head. What the fuck? “Neither of you heard anything?”

I’m in your head, dumbass.

Spot turned back to Morris. “Well, you can just get the fuck out of my head.”

Morris sneered at him.

You really can’t tell the difference between me and that palooka? I’m hurt.

Spot looked at Morris, he hadn’t moved at all. Not even a twitch of his eye. He wasn’t the source of the voice. Spot’s stomach fell, feeling like it might as well have fallen out. He closed his eyes and thought into the darkness behind his eyelids. Please tell me you aren’t who I think you are?

Well, I ain’t the tooth fairy. The familiar mental voice that he should have recognized responded.

Spot opened his eyes to see his mother and Dave looking at him with concern.

“Oscar is in my head.”

At least there’s plenty of room in here.

Dave’s eyes went as wide as dinner plates.

His mother just looked confused.

Spot opened his mouth to try to explain, not that he had any idea what to say.

A screech like nothing Spot had ever heard before erupted from the circle of sand.

Spot spun to see that the sound was exploding from Race’s open mouth. Blood flecked spittle flew of the blond’s mouth as the noise went on. No human throat could have made that sound without suffering permanent damage, but Race’s vocal cords must have been regenerating even as they were ripped apart.

Spot lunged for his boyfriend but was caught from behind. He twisted back only long enough to see that Dave was holding him.

“Let me go.”

Either Dave didn’t hear him over the screech or didn’t think it was a good idea. Spot struggled.

Stop, if you interfere with the ritual who knows what might happen. Oscar thought. Look at the elder.

Meredith looked like they were having a seizure. They pried their eyes open, first one and then the other, with what looked like a supreme act of will. While still convulsing they focused their attention on where the palm of their hand had been resting on the back of Race’s. Slowly, so slowly they pulled it back. Familiar black goop seemed to stretch between Meredith’s palm and Race, stretching between them like tar. Meredith pulled their hand free with one final tug, leaving a stream of black gunk boiling in midair, no heavier than a cloud.

The room felt colder. Not that it hadn’t felt freezing to begin with, but Spot was pretty sure he hadn’t been able to see his breath before.

Race kept screaming.

Dave took his arms off of Spot and made some sort of strange gesture with both his hands.

Free, Spot wanted to lunge for Race, but the black vapor was between them, and he wasn’t sure what would happen if it touched him. Not to mention that Race was still in the circle of sand. If Spot touched him would he go into Race’s rivers? Would Oscar? Who knew who would end up in what body if that happened. He reached out toward Race, unable to think of anything to do.

Mush chanted something behind him, and Spot spared him a glance just long enough to realize that the nahual was holding his hands in the same position as Davey. His mom’s hands were in that position too, one held like a shield the other like a sword pointed at the tiny bit of living void in the cave with them. They both joined Mush in the chant. Some small part of Spot’s brain, or maybe Oscar’s, noticed that they all had different pronunciations, but the words were still the same.

Meredith moved. They grabbed the spear from Heard and moved toward Race. Spot was too horrified to do anything but cry out as they flipped the spear around and aimed it at Race’s chest. Pictures of Race getting stabbed danced across his mind. Startled into action he tried to lunge for the chyrlid elder, but his legs refused to move, it was like some force was fighting him for control of his own body.

Don’t interfere. Oscar sent.

Meredith extended the spear, but to Spot’s immense relief Meredith didn’t plunge the electrum spear tip into his boyfriend’s chest. They sliced his clothes off and then pressed the tip of the spear to his chest. Race’s skin burned and puckered around the tip. Meredith traced across his chest, leaving behind a bloody wound in the same shape as the symbol Jack had been painting on Race with henna for the last month.

Race’s screams stopped and he toppled forward to the cavern floor.

The black something in the air started to shrivel.

Dave and Mush advanced on it, somehow forcing it into a smaller space.

Spot felt his arms move of their own accord, making the same gestures as his mother, the same chant coming unbidden to his lips.

This is my body asshole. Spot sent to Oscar, at least that’s who he hoped was taking control.

Oscar ignored him and kept chanting.

The black cloud seemed to divide, spinning itself into gaseous black tendrils and trying to strike at them. His hands moved, blocking the smoke reaching for him with his right hand and slashing at it with his left. But the tendril slipped out of the way.

Dave made a slashing gesture at the tentacle with his hand, but somehow his gesture severed it from the whole. The severed bit boiled away to nothing in an instant.

Fucking show off. Spot was pretty sure that thought was Oscar’s.

His mother only kept one hand up to shield herself.

Mush joined Dave in slashing at the void spinning in the air, pantomiming the violence he’d seen them both enact during training sessions, but somehow shredding the blob until nothing remained.

The last shred of black smoke, missed by the two born shifters drifted toward Morris. Spot felt a moment of hesitation from Oscar, but prodded him into action. He copied the same gesture Mush and Dave had used and sliced it apart just before it reached the Delancey on the ground, who had been staring at everything happening in horror.

“Yeah, well for now it’s a timeshare,” Oscar said with Spot’s mouth.

Dave glanced at Spot then down at Race. “Please tell me Sean is still in there with you, because we don’t have time to deal with that too.”

Spot tried to move his mouth and was pleased to find it obeying him again. “Yeah, I’m still here.”

“What the fuck was that?” Morris asked.

“What Uncle Joe saddled the two of us with,” Oscar said with a sneer. It was strange feeling his mouth make the shape.

“The Outsider we’ve been talking about,” Dave said before kneeling next to Race. “What happened?”

“One moment.” Meredith spun the spear around and pointed it at Morris. “Remove your shirt.”

“What?”

“Do what they fucking say,” Oscar said

“Like fuck I will, they’re in league with these fucking werewolves.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Spot said. Oscar didn’t fight him when he took two steps over to Morris and started ripping his shirt off.

“Hey!”

“Hold him,” Meredith said once Morris’s chest was bare.

Spot and Mush each grabbed an arm and pinned the boy to the sandy floor.

Meredith used the spear tip to carve the same symbol into Morris that they had Race.

Morris kept struggling against them but seemed to lose some fight once the glyph had been finished. Spot looked at Mush and then over at Race. Mush must have caught his meaning because he moved a hand so he had one on each of Morris’s shoulders and gave Spot a nod.

Spot crossed the room and sat down next to Race. He pulled Race’s head into his lap and gave him a look over. There were flecks still drying blood all over his face and scattered through his hair. If he didn’t know it was impossible, Spot would have said the wound on Race’s chest looked infected. The silver burned skin was discolored and puckered.

“Did you have to use that?” Spot asked the elder while gesturing at the spear still clutched in their hand.

“The mark needed to be enduring. Anything less and it would have healed too quickly to offer any protection.”

“You still haven’t told us what happened,” Dave said.

“The ritual that was ‘crimping’ the link expired. It must have also affected this Oscar’s link to the Outsider.”

“This Oscar? I’m right here,” Oscar said.

Spot wished it was possible to glare at himself. He settled for thinking, Shut up, in the general direction of the other boy’s mind.

Meredith flinched back from Spot, what passed for a nose crinkled up and their eyebrows pulled low. “Yes, well, your physical body then. With your essence missing, your body offered no resistance to the entity, it poured through your body and down the link to this one.” They pointed at Race. “Neither of us was prepared for the assault.”

“So what, exactly, happened to my body?” Oscar asked.

Meredith looked away from Spot toward the cave entrance. “Whatever the Outsider wanted.”

Chapter Text

There was a loud knock on the door.

Jack’s brow furrowed. It was almost 1 am. Everyone should have been asleep. He should have been asleep, except that he was too worried about his boyfriend, brother, and best friend to fall asleep. He shut his laptop, he’d been trying to do some homework, but his English teacher might as well have written in Russian for all that he was getting out of it. Not that he shouldn’t probably take a few classes in Russian now that he thought about it.

There was a second louder knock.

Jack got up and walked out into the hall. “Who’s there?”

The only answer was another, still louder, knock.

Jack frowned and took a deep breath, wishing the dorm room came with a peephole. He grabbed the door handle, turned the lock, and tore the door open. He intended to read the riot act to whoever was knocking on his door this late, but he was greeted by only darkness

At first, Jack thought the hall lights were out, but he realized it was too dark for that. He took a step back and tried to swing the door shut, but something held it in place. The darkness moved into the room, flowing like an oil spill in the air.

Jack ran back into his room and slammed that door shut, but the liquid void flowed first through the crack below it and then the cracks around it. The door seemed to decay to nothing as he watched, and then the inky void was in the room with him. He ran to the window, but it was no use, there was no way he’d get through the bars, they were specifically put in place to prevent students from exiting their dorms via the window after all.

He felt the darkness reach him, it was like being touched by ice. He opened his mouth to scream but it filled his throat.

Jack was being shaken.

He sat up, gasping for air.

He blinked against the light.

His ears were ringing. He saw lips moving in front of him but couldn’t focus on whoever it was, couldn’t tell what they were saying.

There was another shake.

Jack took another ragged breath.

“Jack?”

He blinked until his vision cleared. Hotshot was holding him, Blink and Graves behind him. Graves looked concerned, but Blink’s eye was almost bigger than his mouth.

“You back with us?” Hotshot asked.

Jack nodded and looked around. He was in the basement. Of course, he was. He and Blink were waiting for word from the rest of the guys. He’d fallen asleep. It had just been a nightmare. Probably. Maybe.

“What happened?” Graves asked.

“Just a dream.” Jack tried to stand but his legs filled with pins and needles and wouldn’t move.

Graves frowned. “Tell us anyway.”

“It was stupid. Just some sort of blob attacking me while I was alone in the dorm.”

“Blob?” Hotshot asked.

“Kinda. It was just darkness. Darkness and cold,” Jack shivered at the memory, “so cold.”

Hotshot and Graves relaxed, a little.

Jack and Blink’s phones buzzed.

Blink pulled his phone out and looked at it. His eye widened again. He unlocked the phone and scrolled through something before looking back up at Jack. “You should look at it.”

Jack frowned and pulled his phone out. It was a crime alert from the campus app. Why would he care about that? Jack unlocked his phone and looked at it. There’d been a break-in on campus. A break-in in his dorm. A break-in on his floor. The alert didn’t specify which room, but he knew how their luck ran.

“No way.” Jack showed the alert to Hotshot. “What the fuck is happening?” He blinked and looked back at the alert. “What are the odds that my dream was just a coincidence?”

“Nonexistent,” Graves said.

Jack resisted the urge to throw his phone against the concrete floor. He’d managed to only destroy one phone so far and was trying to keep it that way. He closed the university’s app and opened the secured messaging app and pulled up his brother’s contact. Hope your meeting is going well, make sure you guys come here and don’t go to the dorm once you're done. He didn’t know why he was bothering, that had been the plan all along. He hit send, then sent a similar message to Mush. He hoped things weren’t going too wrong for them.

“Any response?” Blink asked.

“Their phones should be off,” Hotshot said.

“They might be on their way back,” Blink said.

“Unlikely, cleansing isn’t a short process,” Graves said.

Jack took note of the small shudder that ran down the professor’s spine and felt worried about Race.

“So what do we do about this in the meantime?” Blink asked.

“We?” Jack asked. “Wasn’t your dorm that was broken into.”

“Yet,” Blink said.

“Who could be responsible?” Graves asked.

“The cult,” Hotshot said.

“But how would they know?” Jack asked.

“Maybe they built a mirror,” Hotshot said.

“Wouldn’t that have brought them here though?” Jack asked.

Hotshot blinked and glanced toward the stairs leading up. He turned and gestured toward the side of the room where their training weapons were stored. “Better prepare then.”

Graves glanced at Blink. “We should have brought body armor.”

“We should have forced the issue and had someone bite him,” Hotshot said and looked at Graves with a raised eyebrow.

“Now?” Graves said. “You want to have this conversation now?”

“The circumstances have changed,” Hotshot said.

“Not that much,” Graves said.

“You’re always saying you think you should try to repopulate your species.”

“Not with white boys,” Graves said and looked over at Blink, “no offense.”

“None taken.” Blink took a step back from the husbands and gave Jack a wide-eyed look.

Jack got up and walked over to the stash of weapons and retrieved the rusty pair of shortswords he’d been training with. He looked over his shoulder at Blink while the other two retrieved their more impressive weapons. He didn’t think the machete was the right call for his ex-boyfriend, but it wasn’t the sort of situation for learning something new though. Besides, Davey probably knew best. He grabbed the rusty machete and turned around to hold it out for Blink.

Blink was all the way across the room. Jack sighed and crossed the room, switching his grip on the curved weapon so that he was holding it by the blade. He held it out to Blink. Blink stared at the handle and tried to take a step back, but he was already in the corner and there was nowhere left to go.

“Look, no one here expects you to fight. We don’t even know if anyone is coming here. But if someone comes, you might need this.”

Blink stared at the handle.

Jack set it down on the ground in front of him and crossed the room back to pick up his mismatched swords. He gave them a few test swings; their familiar weight wasn’t doing much to comfort him.

“Maybe we can leave before they get here?” Jack said.

“If they have a mirror they’ll catch us wherever we go,” Hotshot said.

“And if they don’t have a mirror they won’t find us here because of the attention ward,” Graves said, swinging his two longer swords in a pattern that left Jack wondering how they didn’t hit each other.

Jack gave his swords another swing and wished Davey was there.

“What if we go to your dorm room though?” Blink asked from his place in the corner. “Whoever it is already hit there.”

“They haven’t sent an all-clear yet, so you won’t be able to get in,” Graves said.

“Not to mention we don’t know what they did to the room,” Jack said.

Blink knelt and tapped the machete’s handle like it was a snake that wanted to bite him. It wobbled on the ground. His hand shook as he picked it up and stood.

The basement was silent except for their breathing.

Jack looked toward the stairs, almost expecting the darkness from his dream to come rushing down the stairs toward them at that moment.

Nothing happened.

“Okay, they’re not here yet,” Hotshot said.

“And again, may not be coming,” Graves said.

“How else would they know about our room?” Jack asked.

“Maybe because Morris knew about your room?” Graves didn’t mean it as a question.

“You think he told someone,” Jack said.

“Having spent time with him, I think it’s impossible he didn’t tell someone,” Graves said.

“Then why didn’t they do anything sooner?” Jack asked.

“Probably thought he was full of hot air,” Hotshot said, “until he disappeared.”

“But why did I have a dream about it?” Jack asked.

Graves blew out his cheeks and looked at Jack.

“That means he doesn’t know,” Hotshot said.

Graves rolled his eyes.

“I gathered that for myself, thanks,” Jack said and turned his attention back to the stairs.

The silence stretched on.

The buzzing of the fluorescent bulbs was like a roar in Jack’s ears. The next loudest sound was Blink’s breathing, followed by his own he imagined.

Nothing happened.

Jack swung the blade around again and looked around the basement, ignoring the chains leftover from keeping Morris chained up for a week.

Hotshot’s attention was still fixed on the stairs.

Graves had sheathed the swords across his back, Jack hadn’t even known they had sheaths, let alone seen Graves put them on. He was balancing a laptop on one hand and looking at a mass of squiggly lines and equations that were way beyond any math class Jack had ever taken.

Blink was sitting cross-legged on the floor, the machete across his knees, and staring at his phone.

Jack wanted to ask how much longer they were going to wait for something that might not even be coming, but the oppressive silence didn’t want to be broken.

He spun his swords around again and looked at the stairs.

Chapter Text

Race pried his eyes open. He felt like he’d run a double marathon on an empty stomach and his chest was on fire. He didn’t feel like he should still be alive. The first thing he saw was Spot’s face, which was reassuring. He was looking off to the side, his lips were moving but there was a ringing in Race’s ears so he couldn’t make out the words. His head felt like it was resting on something soft. He blinked and realized based on the angle of Spot’s face that he must have been using Spot’s lap as a pillow. He realized Spot was running the fingers of one hand through his hair.

He closed his eyes and relaxed, waiting for the ringing to go away. Waiting until he thought he could understand the voices in the cave, even if what they were saying didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

“Anyone get the number of the train that hit me?” Race forced out through lips that felt too dry.

“You are such a walking cliché,” said a voice that sounded like Spot’s but wasn’t.

Race tore his eyes open and looked up at the boy cradling his head. There was a partial sneer on his face. Had something gone wrong with the spell he used? Obviously. Oscar was back in Spot’s body. He tried to sit up, Oscar was just about the last person he wanted touching him, but his body’s only response was to flare with pain.

“Do not use my mouth to insult him,” Spot said and it did sound like Spot.

“Wha?” Race was in too much pain to articulate anything more.

“Try not to speak,” Meredith said.

Race looked into the green-tinted darkness beyond Spot’s face and saw the chemical light glinting off Meredith’s scales. He was taken back to their river for a moment. At first, he didn’t even think there was a river, only white-capped waves over a deep stormy sea, then he’d seen specs of color below the water. He dove in and found a strong current that tore between spires of multihued coral. He couldn’t remember what happened after that though.

Race opened his mouth to ask something but whoever was in Spot’s body put a finger against his mouth to shush him.

“Oscar’s in my head. Not sure why he just woke up, but it’s probably related to the spell you did to crimp the connection, which just expired, letting the Outsider into Oscar’s body and then into your body—”

“And then into mine,” Meredith said. Their eyes narrowed to slits.

“Why does my chest burn?” Race asked around, hopefully, Spot’s finger.

“They carved the Elder Sign into your chest, with the electrum spear,” Davey said from somewhere out of his line of sight.”

“His blood empowers it more than ink alone,” Meredith said, “and the pain will help keep the Outsider at bay.”

“It will?” Davey asked.

“Outsiders are not like us. They have no concept of pain, not like we do at least. It’s the greatest tool against possession we have.”

“Is there any way to use that to help him?” Davey asked.

Race didn’t like the sound of that.”

“Yes, as several of you are about to find out.”

Race really didn’t like the sound of that.

“We must go to Innsmouth and we must go now. The sign alone won’t hold for long.”

“Now?” Spot asked or maybe it was Oscar.

“He needs to be cleansed immediately, as does he,” they pointed off somewhere, probably at Morris, “and as do I. I didn’t pull out of the link quickly enough. Even now I can feel the Outsider’s chill moving within me. It is good that he’s a fleshwarper, no chyrlid vhel has ever survived the cleansing.”

“This is what you came in?” Heard’s face was upturned and his mouth was stretched in a grimace as he regarded Blink’s truck.

“I’m not riding in that,” a frowning Morris said from where he was being held in Heard’s two lower arms. No one trusted him to not try to escape.

“You already did,” Spot said.

“I think that’s older than I am,” Hannah said.

“It probably is,” Mush said as he tried to open the front door. He had to yank the handle two more times before it opened.

Race watched from where he was propped up between Spot and Davey. Apart from feeling like his chest was on fire, the rest of his body — below the neck — was a mixture of numbness and pins and needles that only grudgingly obeyed his brain.

“I’ve seen wrecks at the bottom of the sea that look safer than this,” Meredith gestured at the truck.

Mush stepped back and glared at the three fish people. “Look. If you want this done now, then this is all we have, unless you’re hiding an amphibious assault vehicle somewhere.” He looked around at the empty parking lot.

“How exactly are we going to fit 8 people in that thing?” Race asked.

“Nine,” Oscar said through Spot’s mouth.

“Eight bodies,” Davey said.

Spot looked like he was trying to glare at himself.

He’d looked like that a lot since Race had woken up. This was bad. Race knew it was bad. They couldn’t leave Oscar in there, but there wasn’t a link between Spot’s body and Oscar’s anymore, and if he understood what Meredith was planning, he wasn’t going to have a link to Oscar’s body for much longer either. Of course, they didn’t know what condition Oscar’s body was even in at this point.

Race tried to think back on the moment before the darkness had overwhelmed him. Had he seen anything? He didn’t know.

Hannah produced a tarp from the backpack she’d brought into the cave. “Three of you in the cab, the five of us,” she gestured at Heard, Morris, Meredith, and Race, “in the bed under the tarp.”

Race eyed Heard. “Not sure we’ll all fit. He’s three people all on his own.” Race tried to point at the four-armed man, but neither of his arms responded. He ended up just shrugging a should in Heard’s direction. “Why can’t you guys just swim and meet us there?”

“Just how quickly do you think we can swim?” Meredith asked and held up a taloned, part-webbed hand. “Our adaptations allow us to swim twice, maybe three times as quickly as you, but it would take us the better part of a week to make the trip. You don’t have that long,” they pointed at the seeping chest wound they’d given him.

“Heard would be hard to conceal, and part of the drive will be during the day,” Hannah said.

Heard shrugged.

“Are you suggesting we leave him behind and trust ourselves to the care of the fleshwarpers?” Meredith asked.

“Do you really still think they’re a threat to us?”

“If one of them wasn’t your son wouldn’t you?”

Hannah looked over her shoulder at them. “But one of them is my son,” she turned back to Meredith, “and they didn’t do anything when you carved one of them up with silver.”

Meredith looked over at Race and then back at Heard.

Heard shrugged again.

Meredith scowled. “Very well, but leave the spear with,” they made a gurgling sound that rasped through their gill flaps.

Heard walked over to Hannah and handed her the spear then turned and walked back toward the beach without saying a word.

Race tried to watch him go but his neck didn’t quite want to turn. Whatever the fuck was going on with his body was exhausting. It was only because of the nightmares he knew he’d have if he tried to sleep now that he wasn’t thinking of trying to take a nap on the impending drive. For the first time he was grateful for the burning in his chest.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance that clock is accurate?” Davey asked tapping at the dashboard.

Race jolted and tried to sit upright, but his body still felt like it was asleep from the neck down. It responded a little, but not well. He was wedged between Mush and Davey. Spot had tried squeezing in with them, but Oscar had declared it too uncomfortable. There’d been some sort of interior argument at that point, based on Spot’s — Oscar’s? Sposcar’s? — facial expressions, and they’d gotten in back with the other fish people.

The clock said 10:15.

“No chance,” Mush said and reached into his coat pocket. He tossed his phone over Race and Davey plucked it out of the air.

“Finally realized we’re not a risk to you?” Davey asked while holding the power button until the screen lit up.

“More like I realized this beast needs two hands to steer and there’s no way I can let Blink know that we’re not going back to that abandoned building tonight.”

The phone screen lit up with the time, 2 am, then started vibrating with notifications. Race saw Blink and Jack’s name scroll by before Davey pulled the screen out of his line of sight.

“They panicking already?” Mush asked.

“How do I unlock it?”

Mush told him the code, which Race was pretty sure was not Blink’s birthday.

Davey was silent for a while. Race would have said the only sound in the cab was his finger gliding over the screen, but the thunderous rattle of the somehow not dead engine drowned out almost all other sounds.

“What happened?” Mush asked, his voice more serious.

“Our dorm was broken into,” Davey said and started typing something.

“The building?” Mush asked.

“Our room,” Davey said, “probably.”

“Probably?”

“The alerts didn’t say the room, but it was on our floor.”

“And with your luck…”

“Our luck.”

“I really don’t want to be included in that,” Mush said.

“Which is why the only Nagual in the country ended up rooming with Jack’s ex.”

“I’m definitely not the only one in the country. I know a few who won’t give up our claim to Aztlán.”

“That doesn’t sound like it’s in this country,” Race said.

“It wasn’t before you took it from Mexico.”

“How do you manage to not get caught?” Davey asked.

“We don’t travel in packs.”

“The break-in?” Race asked.

“They think it might be the cult, they’re holed up in the basement at Hotshot’s expecting an attack any moment,” Davey said.

“Fuck,” Mush said.

“We have to go help them,” Race said.

“You wouldn’t be able to help someone change a lightbulb right now,” Mush said. “How would the cult know about Hotshot’s building?”

“They think the cult may have built a mirror.”

“I don’t think that’s a common ritual, I’d only ever read about things like it before. Mostly warnings about why not to try tampering with time.”

Davey reached behind Race’s head and managed to open the window, it screeched as it fought against the rust that had held it in place. He pushed Race’s head in Mush’s direction and shoved his head out.

Despite happening right behind him, whatever conversation Davey was having with the passengers under the tarp was ripped away by the wind and growl of the engine.

Davey pulled his head back in and shoved the window most of the way shut. A chill draft creeping down Race’s neck let him know that Davey hadn’t gotten it all the way shut.

“Hannah’s never seen him use temporal magic, but he has an extensive library.”

“Must be nice to be rich and white,” Mush said.

Davey typed something out on the phone. “I let them know, but I don’t think it’s going to calm them much.”

“I think they’re jumping to conclusions. Your dorm was a known location. Morris already knew where it was, so his mother probably knew, there’s no reason to jump to magic for why the cult would hit there. Assuming it was the cult.”

“You can’t think it’s a coincidence?”

“Of course not. But we clearly don’t know all the players in this yet.”

“So we’re not going back?” Race asked.

“They’re probably not in any danger and even if they are they know how to run,” Mush said. He was biting his lower lip and shifting his hands on the steering way like they were itching to make a U-turn.

“They’ll get Blink out if anything happens,” Davey said, “Jack will at least.”

“I should have bitten him.”

“Or let me do it,” Davey said.

“Or let you do it,” Mush said, “he wouldn’t exactly be safe in my world.”

“Then why did you start dating him in the first place?” Race asked.

“I was planning on just being roommates-with-benefits, but it’s like he wormed his way under my skin somehow.”

“You make him sound like a disease,” Race said.

“As far as my mamá is concerned.”

“Not big on you being gay?” Davey asked.

“Not big on me dating a gringo,” Mush said.

“I can’t imagine me biting him would improve her opinion then,” Davey said.

“She’d get over it. Might take a century, but she would.”

“How long until we get wherever we’re going?” Race asked.

Mush shrugged.

Davey checked the phone. “Four hours.”

Race groaned.

The drive was boring.

It was pitch black for most of the drive and every time he started to nod off to sleep it felt like he was falling into an infinite cold void and he’d snap back awake with a gasp. Davey managed to fall asleep at some point, and Race heard Oscar’s powerful snores coming from the truck bed on and off throughout the drive.

Were Oscar and Spot switching control even as they slept? Did they need to sleep or could one sleep while the other steered the body? Obviously, they could sleep though. What happened if they couldn’t get Oscar out of Spot? Their brains had been sort of leaking into each other toward the end of the last time, so would they just sort of end up merging into one mind if they were left like this too long?

Race started going over his calculations from the crimping ritual. Maybe there was something there he could use to put Oscar back to sleep. Not that that would be fair to Oscar, but if it was Spot or Oscar, it would always be Spot. Of course, if he believed the fish person riding in the bed of a pickup truck that was more rust than metal under a tarp, then the spell’s equations should have taken seven dimensions into account. He started trying to map out how the link would have been formed but went cross-eyed. He could just about handle five-dimensional geometry in his head, seven dimensions wasn’t going to happen. There was no way his little laptop wouldn’t overheat and melt if he tried to use it either. How the hell did fish people do the math? Computers wouldn’t work well underwater, unless they had some sort of magic computers, which would be cool. On the other hand, they were immortal and didn’t seem to mind spending time doing things, so maybe they just sat down and took the months and years it would to do by hand. He knew himself well enough to know that that wasn’t going to happen, so he’d either have to get his dad to buy him a gaming desktop or he’d need to find out if there were any computers on campus he could use. Davey and Mush would both blow—

His thoughts came to a stop as the truck did.

“We’re here,” Mush said and reached over to nudge Davey awake since Race still couldn’t move.

Race looked up. They were parked in the driveway of a smallish house. The house looked old, like from the 1800s old, but was well maintained. It abutted a small section of beach hidden away from any neighbors by low hills. The light of the rising sun was blinding as it reflected over the small bay.

“This is it?” Race asked, he’d been expecting something less… pleasant.

Mush pried the door open, the sound of rust grinding on rust serving to wake Davey more than the nudge had.

Davey blinked his eyes open and looked around. “This is it?”

“That’s what I said,” Race said.

Davey frowned and turned, putting one hand under Race’s legs and the other behind his back he started to scoot both of them out of the front seat. Mush took him from there and let Davey get out. He was being carried by a lot of different men lately, but he was too tired to think of a good joke.

Spot climbed out from under the tarp, being careful to keep it covering the other three passengers, and looked around the area, then he looked around a second time.

“It’s all clear,” Spot said.

“For the moment, depending on who lives in that house,” Oscar said.

It was strange how even with the same vocal cords the differences in accent and facial expression made it clear which was speaking. Race didn’t plan on having to get used to it though.

“The house is safe, but we’ll move beneath the tarp.” Meredith said.

Oscar helped the fish people out of the bed while keeping the tarp wrapped around them like a blanket. It was awkward but they managed.

Race looked into the bed from his place in Mush’s arms.

Morris was lying in the bed scowling up at the sky.

“You coming?” Oscar asked.

“Not going to help me?”

“You got legs, use them,” Spot said.

“I don’t know what fucked up magic you fucked with to trap my brother in your body, fag, but I’m going to get him out and kill you.”

“The only thing stopping me from breaking your jaw right now is your brother being trapped in here,” Spot said.

“Don’t let me hold you back,” Oscar said.

“Enough,” Meredith said, “he’s being possessed by an Outsider, no one will be breaking anyone’s jaw.” They turned their attention under the tarp to Hannah. “You’re a mother, deal with them.”

“I’ll get him,” Davey said as he managed to crawl out of the cab.

“Don’t lay your pansy hands on me,” Morris said and sat up scowling at all of them.

Mush looked around their surroundings while Morris climbed out of the truck bed. Race saw the moment he decided to run.

Davey clocked Morris in the side of the head and had him in a chokehold before he’d made it three steps.

“We need him conscious,” Meredith said and started walking toward the door with Hannah beside them.

“We’re going in?” Race asked.

Davey sighed and loosened his grip on Morris’s neck, picking him up bridal style instead. With how many times the bully had been choked out now, it would be a miracle if he didn’t have some brain damage. Unless fish people were better at healing than humans.

“The old temple was torn down decades ago, the house was moved to conceal the catacombs, it’s the only holding our kind still have here.”

“Rest of the town has turned into a tourist trap,” Mush said.

“Such is the way of the chyrlid vhel,” Meredith said and knocked on the door.

Morris struggled to get out of Davey’s grip.

“Stop it or I’ll bite you,” Davey said. Race knew it was an empty threat, especially the morning after the new moon, but based on the terror that flooded Morris’s eyes, he didn’t.

The door opened, Race got only a brief a look at the person who answered, very fishy looking, before their already wide eyes widened further at the site of the fish people on their doorstep and they retreated inside.

“Elders, we’re honored,” the person said.

“We require access to the temple,” Meredith said.

The person nodded and motioned them inside.

Meredith stepped inside and paused. “Send word to the city, I’ll need,” they gargled something that maybe started with an N, “to finish what must be done.”

The figure nodded.

Meredith lead the way further in. The rest of them followed.

Race got only a brief look at the person who’d opened the door. If he hadn’t known they were part fish person, they would have been the ugliest human he’d ever seen. Bulging eyes and a gaping mouth. He guessed the man was well along the way to going below the waves forever. Race glanced at Meredith and Hannah. Mostly forever.

He heard the door shut behind them after Davey had carried Morris over the threshold; things seemed too solemn for a marriage joke though.

It was obvious that Meredith had been here before when they lead them directly into a small den toward a wall of bookcases. With a deft motion, they passed their hand over a metal plaque on one of the shelves and the neighboring bookcase swung open like something from a movie.

They grabbed a pair of torches, actual torches with rags wrapped around sticks, from just inside the entrance and lit one somehow, using it to light the second. They passed one to Hannah and then turned with the other leading the way into the void behind the bookshelf.

The stairs leading down on the other side were all made of black stone. Just like the stairs below the house where his parents had died. He couldn’t tell if a shiver ran down his spine or not, but Mush gave him a concerned look. It was the least malicious look Mush had ever given him. He wondered if Mush had made the connection too.

Meredith lead them down and into twisting passages. They passed, at turns, cleaning supplies covered in cobwebs and strange statues that seemed almost to move in the flickering light of the torches. At least he hoped it was only an illusion of the firelight.

They reached through a room full of stone platforms. The walls were the same black stone carved with stylized figures of the fish people and snakes — or maybe eels. He noticed a pool of water on the far side of the room, like something out of a Roman bath.

Meredith lead the way through an arch in the far wall into another room. Here the black stone walls were cut through with veins of what looked like gold. Based on his sudden discomfort, it looked like gold to Mush too. The floor and walls were carved with runes and the now almost familiar characters of R’lyehn. In the center of the room stood an altar of the same dark material.

Meredith motioned Mush toward the altar while they moved behind it to put their torch in a waiting sconce on the wall.

Mush walked over to the black stone block.

Race could see an indent on top. It was the approximate size and shape of a human body. There were old rune-etched leather straps looped through iron rings anchored to the black stone.

Meredith knelt on the far side of the altar. There was a sound of scraping stone and they came up with a knife. The handle was gold, carved in the shape of something like an octopus and waves. The blade was straight steel that looked like it had been folded a lot based on the patterns along the cutting edge.

At least it wasn’t silver.

Chapter Text

Mush set Race down on the altar, slotting him into the indent.

“I don’t suppose there’s any way to not do this?” Race asked.

“The chyrlid fazh have their own methods, if any still live, but they are mad and would be more likely to dissolve you than help you,” Meredith said. “No doubt there are still more methods, but I do not know them.” They turned to look at Spot and waited until he’d finished taking Race’s clothes off. “Are you familiar with this ritual?”

Spot started to shake his head then froze.

“I’ve studied it, never had a reason to use it,” Oscar looked over at Morris, still held in Davey’s arms, “didn’t know I had a reason to use it I mean.”

“I hate when you do that,” Spot said. If he kept trying to glare at himself like that he was going to end up crosseyed.

Meredith gestured at two sigils, located on opposite sides of the room, and said something with phonemes Davey wouldn’t be able to reproduce but was probably Spot’s mother’s chyrlid name. “Take the first. Abomination, take the second and try to follow along with,” they repeated Hannah’s other name.

Hannah moved to the first sigil.

Oscar sneered — an expression Davey had thought he was done seeing on Spot’s face — at Meredith but didn’t say anything as he moved to the other sigil.

Meredith looked at Mush. “Bind him.”

Mush nodded and started securing the worn leather straps around the naked Race’s ankles.

“You could at least buy me dinner first,” Race said.

“In your dreams,” Mush said while fastening the wrist straps.

Meredith looked at Morris and then up to meet Davey’s gaze. “Keep him quiet but don’t injure him further, wolf.”

They managed to put more dislike into the word than even Mush had ever managed.

Mush finished tightening the last strap and looked down at Race. “Those aren’t too tight?” It even sounded like he meant it.

Race gave a wobbly half-shrug. “I can’t really feel much below my chest.”

Mush nodded and stepped back from the altar.

Meredith crossed the room to Hannah and took Heard’s electrum-tipped spear from her, then returned to the altar. They manipulated the head of the spear somehow and pulled the blade free.

“What’s that for?” Race asked.

“I will need to break the sign,” they gestured at his chest. “The Outsider must be present throughout your body before I begin,” their eyes closed a tiny amount, “cutting.”

“This is really going to suck isn’t it?”

“It will be an intensely unpleasant experience for all of us,” Meredith said and looked over at Morris. “One we will be repeating.” They gestured Mush over toward Davey and then nodded at Hannah.

Hannah began making strange noises. Singing perhaps? Her voice hit bubbling altos and bass notes so low it felt like his bones were vibrating. The progression of notes was harsh and like nothing he’d ever heard outside of a nightmare. There was no rhythm he could find.

Oscar joined in, trying to match her, but Spot’s vocal cords didn’t stand a chance of hitting either the highs or lows that his mother was capable of and lacked the wet quality. Oscar’s addition was discordant, flat, and dull compared to the elder chyrlid’s.

Meredith had closed their eyes and was swaying to the nonexistent beat.

Their eyes snapped open and they held the spear tip up, looking down at Race.

Race gave a slight nod, all the motion he could make.

The electrum blade descended and bit into Race’s chest just above where the Elder Sign had been carved.

Race bit down on his tongue and managed not to scream as Meredith dragged the blade across the sign, breaking whatever hold it held over the Outsider’s presence.

Race’s back arched and his mouth moved but no sound came out.

His eyes, which had clenched shut at some point, flew open. Davey watched as an inky blackness flooded them, turning the blue to black as the uncaring void. They didn’t even reflect the dancing light of the torches; it was like staring into the depths of space. Something else was there with them, looking out of that void at them.

The sigils engraved in the leather restraints flared with a dim red light.

Hannah’s voice wavered but she kept singing.

Spot’s eyes widened but he didn’t move from where he was standing, whether because he was restraining himself from interfering with the ritual or because Oscar was, Davey couldn’t tell at that moment.

Meredith set the spear tip aside and picked up the knife with the marbled, almost damascene, blade.

Race was writhing in his bonds.

Meredith pressed a hand down against his head and took the blade to his forehead.

They pressed the tip of the blade into Race’s forehead and pulled it back through his scalp. They weren’t gentle, which was, of course, the point of the ritual.

Race screamed.

Oscar’s voice waivered but he kept singing.

Davey looked over to see Spot bent over trying to drag his legs forward with his arms, but they stayed planted where they were. Davey couldn’t imagine the argument going on in his roommate’s head.

Race screamed again.

Davey looked back to see Meredith making another cut along his hairline. Like the last, the cut was shallow enough that it healed behind the knife. They turned the knife and brought the cut down across, and through the cartilage of his nose.

Race bucked up against the bonds, threads of white breaking through the black of his eyes.

On and on the cuts went.

Race screamed until his throat was so full of blood that he could only gurgle.

Davey was forced to set Morris down when the boy started vomiting. He kept heaving long after his stomach was empty. Davey focused on keeping watch on the elder Delancey because it was preferable to watching what was being done to Race.

Oscar managed to keep Spot from interfering with the ritual, Davey didn’t like that Oscar had that much control over the body, but it was helpful at the moment.

Mush gasped.

Davey looked up and saw a ball of blackness stuck to the tip of the knife.

Meredith completed one last cut and pulled the blackness away from Race.

The darkness squirmed like a dying bug stuck to the tip of the blade, reaching out in every direction looking for salvation that wouldn’t come.

Meredith adjusted their grip, holding the blade upright.

Hannah’s song changed. It was rhythmic at last and filled with aggression.

Oscar did his best to copy her.

The darkness faded in the firelight, pulsed, faded further, and vanished.

Meredith set the bloody blade down and took a step back. They sagged against the wall before motioning in the direction of the altar.

Mush stepped forward and loosened Race’s bonds.

Race rolled onto his side and coughed up what looked like two entire lungfuls of blood. When he was done he pulled in a ragged breath. His body was covered with blood from the

Davey blinked and Spot was at Race’s side, murmuring something in his ear.

A ragged sob tore its way out of Race and he broke down in tears.

Spot turned him around and lifted him off the altar, not even caring about how much of Race’s blood was soaking into his clothes. A brief flicker of disgust across his features let Davey know that Oscar very much did care.

Davey was better prepared this time and had Morris in a headlock before he’d made it one full step when he tried to run.

“No way, you fags aren’t doing that to me,” Morris said.

Meredith rolled their eyes. “We are.”

Davey picked Morris up again and carried him across the room to the altar.

Race was curled up at Spot’s feet. He’d been ritually washed in a large basin of seawater in the next room, something Spot had demanded to do himself and then redressed. He’d mumbled a few words to Spot but was passed out now.

Davey set Morris down in the indentation on the altar, which had also been washed with seawater, as had the dagger. Which didn’t seem hygienic enough to him, but he didn’t know much about the chyrlid. Given what had been done to Race, Davey wasn’t even sure how Morris was expected to survive this experience.

“Remove his clothes and bind him,” Meredith said.

“No!” Morris tried to lunge off the altar. “No, no, no, no, no.”

Davey pinned him and Mush started unbuckling Morris’s belt and stripping off the clothes he’d been wearing for the last week.

“Stop this!” Meredith stepped forward and put their hands on either side of Morris’s head. “Twice tonight you have already seen the darkness that has laid claim to you. You must reject it and let us cut it from you.”

“Fuck no!”

Mush struggled with getting Morris’s shirt out from under him and Davey had to lift the other boy up a bit to help.

“Will it even work if he doesn’t want to take part?” Hannah asked.

Meredith sighed. “So long as he’s still willing to fight to survive it will work.” They frowned down at Morris.

Mush buckled the straps and double-checked that they were all secured before nodding at Davey. They were tighter than they’d been for Race, but Race at least hadn’t been trying to escape the ritual, even if the thing inside him had been.

Davey released his grasp on Morris who started straining against his newest set of bonds. The runes glowed a dim red, holding him in place.

Davey and Mush backed away from the altar. Davey wasn’t looking forward to seeing the ritual performed again, and based on the way Mush was staring at the floor, it didn’t seem like he was any more eager.

He wondered how Jack and Louis were doing and remembered he still had Mush’s phone. Davey pulled it out but it wasn’t getting any signal. He sighed, he should have expected that. He glanced around at the walls. If the stone blocks and the full story of ground above them weren’t enough to block the signal, then the veins of gold running through the rock would make an effective Faraday cage all on their own.

Davey passed the phone over to Mush while Hannah and Oscar began their staccato song again. It sent a shudder down his spine. It had faded into the background while he watched Race being vivisected, but the sound brought all of that back.

No one else in the room looked any better.

Morris started panicking, straining against the bonds with a strength born from terror. The light the runes gave off increased, but not by much.

Davey could only imagine what it would take to break the leather restraints. Even a giant like Heard wouldn’t have been able to if his guess was correct. Not that Heard would have fit on the altar. This temple had to be intended for the use of the unchanged, he assumed, no doubt they had much larger complexes on the ocean floor. He wondered how they hid them from sonar and satellite maps. Maybe they lived in caves below the level of the sea floor?

Davey blinked.

Morris had started begging.

Meredith was holding the ritual blade above him, their knuckles white where they gripped the blade. Their eyes shut and they murmured something that might have been a prayer.

The blade descended.

Morris’s begging turned to screams.

Between the screams and singing Davey almost didn’t hear the footsteps approaching from behind. If they’d been human footsteps he might not have at all, but the sharp talons made a clack against the stone and they weren’t making any attempt to be silent.

He glanced sideways at Mush who nodded at him.

Davey closed his eyes and waited for Morris to take a breath. It sounded like there were around a dozen chyrlid approaching.

A pair of guards nearly as tall as Heard, but with only two arms, entered the room first, each holding a golden trident. They leveled their weapons at Davey and Mush in a wary gesture but didn’t advance any further.

They were followed by a six-foot-tall chyrlid. There was a slick of green scales around his eyes but otherwise, his scales were midnight blue. He wore an ornate piece of golden jewelry around his neck, something between a torq and a breastplate, and the webbing between his fingers was pierced with green gemstones. He held a sigil-hewn wand in one hand.

He glanced once at Mush and then Davey. He made a small gesture and the two guards lowered their weapons and assumed positions on either side of the entrance.

Davey swore he could feel their eyes burning into the back of his neck.

Seven more chyrlid entered.

The leader made a different gesture and they divided. Six of them taking up position on other sigils on the floor like the ones Spot and his Mother already occupied, the seventh murmuring something to Spot and Oscar and then taking their place.

The newcomers joined in with the singing.

That left two waiting in the outer room.

Davey’s entire brain itched.

He was surrounded.

On a rational level, he didn’t think they meant them any harm. But the part of him that his father had spent a lifetime shaping was screaming at him to do something. His brain flashed with images of how he could disarm the guard behind him and calculations of how many of them he could kill before they took him down.

Chapter Text

Mush’s entire brain itched.

He was surrounded.

They had gold weapons, a lot of them, and he was unarmed.

He could feel the guards’ eyes burning into the back of his neck.

On a rational level, he knew he wasn’t in any danger, but the gold in the room already had him on edge. It was like he could hear his mamá’s voice screaming at him to get out.

A look to his left at David’s tightened lips and rigid posture let him know that the wolf’s thoughts mirrored his own. Except about the gold. Mush glanced at the electrum spear tip still sitting on the altar where Morris was screaming and then at the wand held by the leader of the new arrivals. He had to admit that David had plenty to be worried about too.

A fresh round of screaming drew Mush’s attention back to the ritual taking place.

A thin tendril of darkness was curling around the knife’s tip as the chyrlid priest maneuvered the sharp blade through Morris’s flesh just above the ribs.

Meredith finished the slice and started to raise the blade, trying to pull the Outsider’s influence from the Delancey brother, or so Mush assumed. The tendril was offering more resistance than the larger mass that had been in Race though and tugged the knife blade down before retreating back into Morris.

Mush wasn’t sure if the difference was how long Morris had been possessed, how he’d been possessed — they still had no idea what Pulitzer had actually done to the brothers — or just that Morris was an unwilling participant in the rite. Maybe it was just that Meredith was already exhausted from cutting the thing free from Race.

The one with the emerald-pierced webs and golden plastron neckpiece circled around behind the altar.

Meredith and the man looked at each other and Meredith handed the ritual knife over and took a step back.

The newcomer examined Morris while the chant continued.

With Oscar’s caterwauling removed and seven other voices added the song was much fuller. It was strange and sounded like something from another world, which it was. It hit booming lows that vibrated Mush’s bones and hit highs beyond even his new-moon-empowered hearing. He wondered if even the wolves would have been able to hear them if it were the full moon. With a full chorus, the echoes and reverberations had the chamber ringing like a bell.

Meredith stepped back from the altar and moved to Spot’s side to check on Race, who was lying with his head in Spot’s lap while the shorter boy ran fingers through his hair, again. Meredith moved their fingers to his pulse point. Spot murmured something to them that Mush couldn’t hear.

There was another scream from the altar.

Mush managed not to turn and look. As much as he’d been all for killing Morris it didn’t make watching this any easier.

Another, louder, scream.

Mush looked before he could stop himself.

The midnight blue chyrlid finished the slice and pulled the blade out of Morris’s rent flesh.

A viscous mass of darkness came free with it.

The tiny portion of the Outsider squirmed on the knife like a mass of arteries somehow pulsing without a heart. It seemed to be trying both to reach the man holding the blade and the wounded boy it had been pulled from.

Like when you stare at a picture for a long time and then look at a white wall, the Outsider was such an ultimate shade of black that it played tricks on his eyes. He swore he could almost see the echoes of color in it. Not colors he had any name for though.

His brain rebelled and he blinked before looking away.

The chant changed again.

The black thing on the blade was banished back to whatever outer dimension it had come from.

In the silence that followed the banishment, the newcomer set the blade down next to Morris with a sound that echoed like a mausoleum door being slammed shut.

Two of the singers approached the altar, undid the restraints holding Morris to the table, and carried him out into the antechamber.

Mush noticed that the bloodstained boy was sobbing as he was carried past.

The man behind the altar said something that might have been “elleeth” and everyone in the room turned to look at the man standing behind the altar. He was looking directly at Meredith. He said something else in R’lyehn and Meredith’s responded in kind.

Mush looked over at David who was just as confused as he was but had been sidling over toward Spot and Race. The tall boy was more stealthy than Mush gave him credit for.

The man at the altar said something in a harsh tone.

David froze and Mush thought he’d been seen, but they both glanced at the man and his attention was locked on Meredith.

It was strange seeing them chastised after all the chastising they’d been doing. Not that most of their points hadn’t been accurate. The bunch of them really were a bunch of screw-ups who were in way over their heads.

Meredith stood up from where they’d been knelt down next to Race and walked toward the altar, gesturing around the room at them while saying something.

He really needed to learn R’lyehn.

David took Meredith’s place at Race’s side, mouthing something to Spot that Mush couldn’t see from where he was.

The chyrlid’s discussion ended and Meredith turned around. They looked at Mush and then at David, seeming surprised to find him where they’d just been. “Take him into the antechamber.” They gestured at Race. “Wait there, the archpriest will have questions for you once the final cleansing is done.”

“Final cleansing?” Spot asked.

Meredith gestured at themself. “I have also been afflicted.” They glanced back at the altar. Mush noticed their hands were shaking. Not that they didn’t have reason to for it.

Spot scooped Race up in his arms and stood.

Davey and Mush followed him out of the room and were, in turn, followed by the two guards. They walked past the two guards who'd; been standing guard in the antechamber and the two guards who’d followed them from the inner chamber crossed the room to stand guard at the exit.

Spot set Race down on one of the stone platforms and placed a kiss on his forehead.

Mush looked at both exits from the room and the guards.

“And to think we started the night holding one of them prisoner,” David said in Spanish, his voice just above a whisper. Based on his accent he’d been taught by someone from Spain, not anyone from America.

“You think they don’t speak Spanish?” Mush asked, his voice just as soft.

“They might,” David shrugged, “but they definitely speak English, and probably Welsh.”

“Welsh?”

“That book written in two languages Race found. I’ve been working through it. Apparently their original spawning ground,” David gestured around them, “was found in what’s now Wales before 9000 BCE.”

Mush blinked. “As fascinating as that is, it doesn’t help us right now.”

“We’re the only two who are combat-capable. We can’t count on Spot not to get in the way.”

“Because of his mother or Oscar?”

“Oscar.”

“That’s not even starting on the fact that those tridents definitely contain enough gold to hurt you and might be alloyed with enough silver to hurt me. Which doesn’t even address that they probably have a hundred years of experience on us, each.”

Mush looked at the guards again.

The guards were watching them with scowls on their faces. Most of their attention was focused on David and himself, but they weren’t ignoring Spot and Race.

“Is this killing you as much as it’s killing me?” Mush asked, still in Spanish.

“I can practically hear my father screaming at me,” David said.

“My father is laughing,” Mush said. “My mamá on the other hand—”

“You two still yapping?” Oscar asked. He was sitting on the platform next to Race.

David and Mush both turned to glare at him.

“We really need to sort that out,” Mush said in English.

“You think?” Oscar asked.

Mush noticed that the fingers of Spot’s left hand were still lacing their way through Race’s curls. He hoped Spot still had control of the hand, the thought of Oscar doing that while Spot was trapped in the body was almost worse than knowing what his mamá was going to do to him when, not if, she found out about this.

“I don’t even know where to start,” David said. “You’re both sharing control of the body?”

“Yup,” Spot said.

“You’re both taking this pretty well,” Mush said.

“I assume he already knows everything?” Oscar asked David while gesturing at Mush.

David nodded.

“We had plenty of time to get used to sharing headspace,” Spot said.

“Yeah but you were turning into an asshole by the end of that,” Mush said.

“That was mostly the Outsider I think,” Spot said.

“Mostly?” Oscar asked.

“Don’t pretend you aren’t still 98 percent asshole.”

“96 percent, tops,” Oscar said.

A scream from the direction of the altar sent a chill down all their backs.

“Right. So given that you yahoos were somehow able to capture my brother and get in touch with the elders, I’m guessing you do more than just dabbling in sorcery,” Oscar said to David.

“We’re werewolves,” David said.

Oscar blinked and yanked Spot’s hand away from Race. It looked like he tried to hop off the platform he was sitting on but Spot managed to control the legs.

“Calm down. It’s not like that,” Spot said.

“You’re the fuckers who killed my father!” Oscar said.

“We went to high school with you, Oscar. We didn’t kill anyone until last week.”

“Because that makes it way better,” Oscar said, then blinked.

It was beyond strange watching the two minds argue with each other, the complete changes of expression that raced across the face each time one took control. The only thing he could compare it to was the scene from the Lord of the Rings movies where Gollum was arguing with himself.

“Wait, you aren’t a werewolf. I was in your body through the full moon,” Oscar said.

“I got bitten right after we thought you’d been evicted,” Spot said.

“Race and I are the natural-born ones,” David said.

“Just went on a biting frenzy then?” Oscar asked.

“Hardly.”

“Do they know what you are?” Oscar gestured at the guards.

Spot tried to thread his fingers back through Race’s hair, but Oscar shuddered at the contact and jerked the hand back.

“Well they just heard me say it,” David said, “but I don’t think they did. Meredith, Hannah, and Heard already knew though.”

As though summoned by the mention of their name another of Meredith’s screams tore through the air.

Oscar flinched and looked toward the open archway.

“Look,” Spot said, “we know what happened to your father, and it wasn’t right, but Pulitzer murdered both of Racer’s parents, so let’s not pretend your side has clean hands.”

“How do you know that?” Oscar asked.

“I was sent to find out what happened to the last werewolf pack in New York City,” David said. “There are rituals that can reveal things if you know the right place to look.”

Oscar sagged and stopped trying to get away. “I was five the last time I saw him,” Oscar said. “I barely remember him.”

Mush wasn’t sure what to say. It wasn’t a pain he could relate to — he had one too many fathers as it was — and it was weird seeing one of the bullies who’d made Blink’s life a living hell on the brink of tears. He knew that somehow David and Spot had both developed some level of affection for the asshole, but hadn’t understood how until just now.

He climbed up on the stone platform next to Race and Spot. It was uncomfortable, but he’d slept on worse, and even though he’d trained to stay up for longer than this, and in worse conditions, he’d also been trained to grab rest when and where he could.

“Wake me if they decide to kill us.”

Chapter Text

Jack was exhausted.

Blink had fallen asleep some time ago.

Graves had yawned once.

Hotshot was still poised and ready to spring on anything that came down the stairs.

Jack pulled his phone out and looked at it.

8 AM.

He had class in an hour.

The only notice on his phone was the all-clear from the school. It was probably safe for him to go back to the dorm. Physically safe at least. If it was the cult they could have left some sort of spell or — with Pulitzer’s money — tiny recording device behind. Still, it would start to look weird if one of them didn’t go to the dorm, wouldn’t it? He was too tired to make any sort of decision. Jack pulled down on the screen and let it snap back up to see if there were any new messages.

There weren’t.

“I don’t think anyone is coming,” Jack said.

“Probably not,” Graves agreed.

“I should maybe go see what they did to the dorm?”

“You’re not going alone,” Hotshot said.

“Blink can come with me.” Jack pointed at his sleeping ex-boyfriend.

“Because he’d be great in a combat situation.”

“They sent the all-clear. There’s no one waiting there,” Jack said and held up his hand before Hotshot could protest. “Yeah, fine, there might be a spell, and there could be a recording device. But it’s going to look really weird if none of us come home.”

“He’s right about that,” Graves said.

“It’ll look weirder if it’s just one of you,” Hotshot said.

“I’ll say Race had a panic attack over it and Spot and Davey are taking care of him while I assess the damage.”

Graves shrugged.

“Fine, it’s probably time for us to go grab some sleep too,” Hotshot said. “Go check out the dorm then go sleep at Blink’s. Let us know when the others get in touch.”

Jack nodded and went to wake Blink up while trying not to envy him too much for managing to sleep.

The door was gone.

Just gone.

Two crossed lines of police tape were the only barrier to entry.

Jack ducked under the tape and Blink followed him into the entryway. Nothing there looked out of place except the missing door. Maybe it wasn’t going to be that bad?

He crossed the room and opened the door to his and Race’s room.

It was a disaster.

It looked like a tornado had been through the room, and for all Jack knew it had been.

“This is pretty bad,” Blink said.

“Thanks.” Jack turned and pointed at Davey and Spot’s room. “Check in there for me.”

Blink nodded and went to open the door.

Jack walked into his room and looked around.

Clothes were thrown around everywhere making it hard to even take stock of what else had been done. He checked his and Race’s desks first, digging through a pile of underwear that had landed on Race’s, and found that both their laptops were gone.

“Fuck, I had unsubmitted homework on that.”

Nothing else seemed to be missing, but he didn’t have time to be thorough about it. He walked over to the other room.

“Anything?” Jack asked.

“Laptops are gone,” Blink said. “Can’t tell about anything else in all of this.”

Jack sighed. He considered grabbing some clothes, but as far as he knew they might have all been cursed. “Let’s go, there’s nothing we can do right now.”

Blink nodded and they left the room.

“Think the cops are going to have questions.”

“I dunno. They took their report already,” Jack said and looked back at the police tape, “who the fuck do I call about getting a new door?”

Blink shrugged. “Think about it after you sleep.”

Jack nodded and pressed the button for the elevator.

He was staring at his academic adviser, trying to explain how he’d managed to miss a class for the entire semester. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go, he’d just forgotten that he’d signed up for the class.

He was also naked.

Looking down at himself in horror he realized he was also blond.

Jack blinked and suddenly he was standing across from the naked blond instead. It was Blink, although he didn’t quite look right. He definitely didn’t seem to be aware he was naked. He was desperately trying to explain to Jack why he should be allowed to withdraw so that it didn’t tank his GPA.

Jack knew he was dreaming, but this was a weird one. Even for him. Given what he’d dreamed about last night this was a step up at least.

He tried to look anywhere but at his naked ex-boyfriend.

He screwed his eyes shut.

“Think of Davey. Think of Davey. Think of Davey.”

He opened his eyes and it was still Blink, who looked offended. There was something else nagging at Jack, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.”

“Excuse me, what the fuck does my grade have to do Davey?” Blink asked. “How do you even know who Davey is?”

Jack realized what was wrong. Blink had two blue eyes. No eyepatch in sight.

“Wait, is this your dream?” Jack asked.

“Dream? You’re calling my grades a dream?” Blink asked.

“You know you’re naked, right?”

Blink blinked and looked down at himself.

He shrieked and ran out of the room.

“How the fuck am I in Blink’s dream? We’ve never even done the ritual.” Jack looked around. “How do I get out of here? Can I just wake up from someone else’s dream?”

He stuck his head out into the hallway to watch Blink run down the corridor and into an open sky where the floor disappeared. He managed a few steps in the void before he looked down at started to fall.

Just as Blink dropped the entire world, including Blink, dissolved around Jack.

“Guess he woke up.” Jack looked around at the blackness he’d been left in.

It wasn’t actually black, more of a murky gray, as he stared at it he could make out shapes behind it, like looking through a really dirty window. He stared at one of the shapes and took a few steps toward it trying to figure out what was going on. He was looking at a long rectangular shape. A couch? A bed?

Someone was laying on top of it. They weren’t covered with anything.

Jack leaned in closer to get a look at whoever it was.

He blinked a few times until he managed to get a glimpse beyond whatever the gray was. He was staring at his own face.

“So now I’m having out-of-body experiences,” Jack ran a hand through his hair, “great.”

As he looked closer at himself he noticed a ribbon stretching out from his body and vanishing into the grayness. He reached out with his hand and was able to run his fingers along it. It looked shiny like some sort of bluish metal but felt more like the kneaded eraser he used while working with charcoals.

He traced the ribbon up from his body, continuing to run his hand along it until he found where it ended at the back of his dream self’s head.

“Well guess I can’t get lost at least.”

There was a sound from behind him.

Jack spun around and saw a weird explosion of colors, except it seemed to be in slow motion. He stepped toward it and realized it was coming from the area of Blink’s bed. As he looked closer images were starting to take shape in the writhing mass of colors. He realized Blink had fallen back asleep and was starting to dream again.

Maybe he’d done this last night? Maybe that was how he’d known about the break-in while it was happening. But how was this happening? And why now?

“I mean magic, obviously,” Jack said out loud, “but why is this happening to me?” He looked down at his dream body and then over at the gray image of his sleeping body. He watched himself rollover.

He turned around and looked at the gray-toned walls of the apartment.

“Well, I’m not going to find any answers in here.” He took a step forward and reached out toward the wall. His hand passed through it almost as though it wasn’t there. He wasn’t sure if there was any resistance or if it was just that he expected there to be. He stepped out through the wall into the street beyond.

Jack was standing in mid-air, but it wasn't like he weighed anything as a dream.

A low humming vibration filled the air. It pulsed with a strange harmony, like a thousand hearts beating together. Or a million.

“Guess the city really does have a pulse.”

He started walking down the street. It was the middle of the day, but everything was still obscured by the gray veil that seemed to separate the dream world from the real one. He looked down at the street five stories below him. There were occasional little pops of color from some of them. Daydreams maybe?

He wondered if he should try to use whatever was happening to maybe scout out the cult. Maybe the house in Staten Island? If he could find it. Then again, if anyone was going to be able to see his disembodied self, then it would be Pulitzer. So that was probably a horrible idea. Besides, if he had to walk there it would take forever.

“I somehow made it from Brooklyn to Manhattan last night though.”

He closed his eyes and tried thinking of his dorm room. He opened them and found he was still suspended in the air above the street.

“Huh. Well, maybe I can fly. Not like I’m actually standing on anything.”

Jack lifted his feet up and tried to will himself forward.

He just sort of hung there, above the street, with his knees pulled up to his chest.

“Guess not.”

Jack put his legs down, wondering why it mattered, turned, and walked back through the grayscale wall of Blink’s dorm into the bedroom he was sharing with his ex for the morning. He sidestepped around the blur of colors that was Blink’s current dream. Didn’t seem to be anything specific, just a mix of colorful sounds and emotional impressions.

He frowned down at himself.

“Maybe if I just…”

He hopped up on the bed and tried to lie down into himself.

There was a brief falling sensation and then his eyes snapped open. Which was weird because he thought they’d already been open but realized those had been his dream eyes not his real ones.

“My life is weird,” Jack said.

Blink mumbled something that sounded like, “dishwasher,” in his sleep across the room.

Jack hung up his phone and stared at it.

Still no word from Davey, or Spot, or Mush.

Something had gone wrong, which wasn’t exactly a surprise if he was honest with himself. He just had to hope it wasn’t anything too horrible. Unlike the conversation he’d just had with university housing.

They wanted to know what had happened to the door and somehow thought that they’d had something to do with it. Also, apparently, they were supposed to buy their own dorm insurance, so the university’s insurance wasn’t going to cover their missing laptops or anything else that was missing.

He knew he didn’t have anything like that, and he didn’t think Race or Spot did either. Unless their parents had gotten it for them. Then again they were all adults and their parents probably couldn’t do that for them anymore. Except maybe Denton, Race had only been seventeen at the start of the school year. Davey was the most likely to have it though, that was the type of detail he’d think of. So two of them might be able to get new laptops.

The bigger problem was what was on the laptops. Nothing showing they were werewolves, of course, Davey’s paranoia would never have allowed anything like that, but there were scans of the books Race had found in the library. Which, at the very least, meant that whoever had done it now had access to the spell Race used to make the mirror.

He sighed down at the blank screen of his phone and unlocked it.

Jack typed “Dream Travel” into the search bar and hit the little search button. A screen full of travel agencies came up. He tried “Travelling in dreams,” but that just brought up a list of dream vacation plans. Okay. He tried “Entering other people’s dreams” which brought up a bunch of sites about Dreamwalking, that at least sounded kind of right.

He clicked the first link.

The site looked new agey, which probably meant it wasn’t very accurate, but maybe whoever wrote it knew something. Or maybe he was going crazy and it had just been a really weird dream.

Blink stumbled out of the bedroom bleary-eyed. His dorm was nicer than theirs. Only two students to a room and they got a small sitting room instead of just an entryway. Jack resolved that if he ever found out who had rigged their housing, he was going to have some strong words with them.

Blink was glaring at his phone. “Have they texted you?”

“Nope,” Jack said while glaring at his own phone. He stopped glaring at it and looked up at Blink. “I thought I heard you mumble something in your sleep. Bad dream?”

Blink shrugged. “Arguing with my advisor then realizing I’m naked, nothing supernatural if that’s what you're asking.”

Jack sighed and looked back down at his phone. He wasn’t going crazy, which was somehow worse.

“Do you think they’re alright?”

“I think they’re alive,” Jack said.

“That’s not exactly what I asked.”

“Do you really want my answer?”

Blink slouched down onto the couch next to Jack. “No, I don’t think I do.”

Chapter Text

Spot was feeling crowded in his own head.

Not my fault. Oscar sent.

It’s one-hundred-percent your fault, Spot sent back, if you hadn’t been so desperate to stop the change.

I don’t remember you complaining at the time. Someone was in a hurry to get turned into a furry by his boyfriend.

If you ever get your body back I'm turning you into a furry.

Bite me, Oscar sent.

Exactly.

Race stirred in his arms.

Spot focused his attention on the boy he was spooning, lifting his head up a little to get a look at Race’s face. Still asleep. Despite how long they’d been lying on it the stone slab still felt cool to him. Then again everything felt cold these days.

Baby.

If we get you back in your body we’ll see how you deal with it, Sean sent back.

The screams from the other room had been over for a while. Meredith and Morris had been brought into the room with them, bathed in the pool of seawater, and laid down on platforms of their own.

Dave and Mush had both fallen asleep at some point, and Race was still asleep in his arms. Spot had tried falling asleep but hadn’t been able to. It didn’t feel like a good idea for all of them to be unconscious at once, no matter how certain he was that Dave and Mush would be up in an instant if anything happened. He and Oscar had gotten some sleep in the bed of the pickup on the way to the temple, so he wasn’t as exhausted as he could have been.

His mom was the only one who knew what was going on left. He could hear her voice and that of the man who’d taken over Morris’s cleansing from Meredith speaking in the other room. Not that he could understand the small snippets that reached his ears.

What are they talking about? Spot sent.

Why should I tell you?

Because we’re stuck with each other at the moment, and if they’re plotting to kill us I’d like to know.

They’re not to that point. Oscar paused and used Spot’s eyes to glance in the direction of the open arch. Yet.

Yet?

I switched our bodies. May not matter to them that I didn’t exactly mean to do it.

Well, it’s not my fault, so would they kill me just to get to you?

You’re a dog. I don’t know if they’ll care.

We’re a dog.

Does this mean I’m going to have to deal with your dog breath from the inside? Spot could feel his lips curl into a sneer.

If they can’t get you out of my head within two weeks.

What happens in two weeks?

Full moon.

It was a few more hours before anyone came into the antechamber.

Spot thought he might have dozed off once or twice, but not for very long.

Mush and Dave were still sleeping like the dead. At least they looked like it. He wondered if things had been exhausting enough for them to let their guard down this much.

The what? High priest? Walked into the room and the four guards keeping them in there — or at least felt like they were keeping them in there, none of them had tried to leave — raised their tridents as one and brought the gold buts down on the stone floor with a sturdy clang.

Mush was sitting up in an instant.

Dave’s breathing changed. If Spot hadn’t been watching them he wouldn’t have noticed, but he could tell Dave was awake now.

Looks like your roommate could sleep through anything.

Spot let himself smirk.

“It is time we speak,” the priest said. His English accented with something Spot couldn’t identify. Probably something older than any modern language.

Dave sat up.

The priest looked him over but showed no surprise at the sudden movement. “You are one of the wolves?”

Dave nodded.

“It is strange for one of you to come to us in peace.”

Dave sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not you who needs to apologize, nor would words alone ever be sufficient.”

Dave nodded again.

“You are the leader of the wolves?”

Spot sat up, keeping one hand on Race, “He is.”

The priest glanced sideways at Spot. “You are the child who has been lost to the wolves?”

“Abandoned to them more like,” Spot said. He felt a small stab of pain when he noticed his mother standing behind the priest, but he wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t true.

The priest looked behind at where Spot was looking.

“Would you rather have turned out like him?” His mother gestured at the platform Morris was still recovering on.

That’s a pretty good point, Oscar sent. I’m pretty fucking messed up.

“This is beside the point,” the priest said. “This one,” he gestured at Morris, “was afflicted with Outside contamination, and not a variation I’ve seen before. You claim the one you call Pulitzer is responsible? Present your evidence.”

Spot blinked and tried to think about what evidence they had. Morris was all the proof they’d brought, but the priest had cut the Outsider out of him, so he kind of thought that should have been enough.

But that doesn’t prove Pulitzer did it, Oscar sent.

Do you have to eavesdrop on my thoughts?

Not like there’s a lot else going on in here.

Spot pictured himself flipping off Oscar as hard as he could.

“Meredith and Hannah have both seen how powerful Pulitzer is,” Dave said. “The only way he could have gotten that power is with the aid of an Outsider.”

“Perhaps,” the priest said.

“Archpriest,” His mother said, “he does wield an unnatural amount of magic.”

Is there such a thing as a natural amount of magic? Spot asked his passenger.

Of course, Oscar sent back, magic is a perfectly natural part of the world. Just because the surface dwellers have forgotten about it doesn’t make it something inherently supernatural.

Then how can he have an unnatural amount of magic?

Same way a person could have a natural amount of strength or an unnatural amount. Lifting a paint bucket is one thing, lifting a Toyota though.

“Which is worrying, but it does not mean this,” he gestured at Morris, “is Pulitzer’s doing.”

“His first born daughter disappeared just before he declared the werewolves would no longer be a problem,” Hannah said.

“Which meant he raised some sort of barrier that made it impossible for any of us to leave New York City. For years,” Dave said.

The priest, archpriest apparently, scratched the scales on his chin.

“It is possible you are right, but you bring insufficient evidence to prove anything.”

“How else would they get the connection with the Outsider?” Spot asked.

The archpriest pinned him with a look. “Perhaps one of them was experimenting with magic they shouldn’t have been? I believe your passenger’s name is Oscar?”

“I didn’t invoke anything,” Oscar said. “I haven’t read anything darker than the Pohnpei Testament.”

Except he hadn’t actually said the last part in English. Spot felt his throat constrict and the sound that came out was more like a series of musical gargles. Somehow he knew what Oscar had said though. Was it just because Oscar knew what he said? Were their brains bleeding together again already?

“And yet you are inhabiting another person’s body.”

“The only ritual we performed was the Inner Sea, but something went wrong,” Oscar said.

“It was the Outsider,” Spot said, “it was everywhere and gummed up the link between us, so when the spell ended, we couldn’t get back in our own bodies.”

“You must have been good friends to have performed the ritual enough times to have that strong of a confluence?”

“We did it a whole bunch of times in a short timespan,” Spot said.

Fuck, Oscar sent.

“Why?”

Don’t tell him.

“We were trying to figure out how to avoid turning into fish,” Spot said.

Oscar rolled Spot’s eyes. It was very disorienting to lose control of what he was seeing like that.

The archpriest and the guards all bristled at that admission. His mother was the only chyrlid present who didn’t, and he had no doubt it was only because she already knew.

“Look, I wasn’t raised to expect it to happen. As far as I knew I was turning into a monster.”

“So you chose to become a werewolf instead?”

Spot shrugged. He didn’t owe this man any explanation for his choices.

Oscar took over the vocal cords. “Look, I’m only eighteen and I was already changing. I’ve never even had a chance to live. Not with that asshole,” he gestured at Morris, “running my life for me. I wasn't looking for a way to stop it, just… delay it.”

“Well, whatever else he may have done, it seems Pulitzer isn’t effective as a community leader,” the archpriest said.

Oscar snorted.

So you want me to be respectful but you don’t have to be? Spot sent.

I’m a registered Republican, were you expecting me not to be a hypocrite?

Spot snorted.

“I don’t suppose you have any idea how to get him out of my head?” Spot asked.

“Such spells are forbidden, but not entirely unknown to us,” the archpriest said, “but we would require his body to return him too.”

The archrpiest made a gesture and turned to leave.

“That’s it?” Dave asked.

The archpriest looked back. “You came to us for cleansing, you have all been cleansed. Even if I was certain Pulitzer was the threat you claim, we cannot act on the surface, what more would you have of us?”

“What about Morris?” Mush asked. “He can’t go with you. Are you just going to leave him with us? How do you know we won’t just kill him?”

“You went to the trouble of bringing him,” The archpriest said.

“What about them?” Dave gestured at Spot.

“I don’t know of any means to remove the extra mind without having a willing or vacant receptacle. If you can bring his body back here, then I may be able to correct it. Unless one of you would like to volunteer to host the extra persona instead?”

Spot saw the instant Dave opened his mouth and beat him to it.

“No, Dave. We’re fine.”

Dave turned to face him. “For how long though?”

“No idea, but we don’t know how long you’d last either. And of the two of us it’s more important you keep a clear head.”

Gee, thanks, Oscar sent.

Dave scowled but didn’t fight him on it.

“We could put him in Morris’s body,” Mush suggested, “make one super Delancey brother.”

“Fuck no,” Oscar said.

Mush shrugged.

The archpriest looked them over one last time and swept out of the room.

One of the guards picked Meredith up and carried them out after, followed by the archpriest’s entourage. Soon the only chyrlid left was his mother.

“Sean?” She asked.

Spot took his hand out of Race’s hair, where it had been stroking through his curls without him even being aware of it, and hopped down off the platform.

He crossed the room to his mother and folded her into a hug. His feelings toward her were pretty fucking confusing, but he had a chance to say goodbye to her this time and wasn’t going to mess it up.

She tensed up for a moment before folding her arms around him and returning the hug.

No one said anything while they stood there.

Spot pulled back and looked at her.

“I have to go,” she said.

“I know,” Spot said.

“I’ll be here when you come back with Oscar’s body.”

Chapter Text

His chest itched.

Race moved his hand to scratch at it.

As soon as his nails made contact it stung. It was like scratching a bad sunburn. A really bad sunburn.

He pulled his hand away and opened his eyes.

Race saw blue sky above him filled with puffy clouds.

Someone was snuggled up next to him.

He turned his head to see Spot’s dark hair.

They were in the back of Blink’s truck.

His chest was the only part of his body that was bothering him. Which given the last thing he remembered was unnerving. He’d been sliced to literal ribbons. Over and over Meredith had cut him. He’d thought he was going to die. He’d almost wanted to die. Almost.

Race looked at the hand he’d scratched himself with. Holding it up in the air. He crinkled each finger, well he tried to, he could never quite get the pinky and ring finger to curl alone, but he tried as best he could and then shook his hand out.

He moved his legs a little and stretched.

He had full control of his body again, so he assumed the ritual had worked. Which was good. He would have hated to go through all of that and have still been stuck with a passenger.

He stretched out as far as he could and rolled onto his side to get a better look at Spot. He was frowning in his sleep and the occasional snore escaped him, distorting his face in a way Race wasn’t used to. Race guessed that meant he was still stuck with his passenger.

There was a groan from his other side.

Race turned his head to see Morris laid out next to him, mostly naked and lying on top of the tarp they’d covered the bed with when they were on their way to Innsmouth. He looked bad. Not rush him to the hospital bad, but definitely just got out of the hospital because his insurance wouldn’t pay for anything more than stitches bad. Except that there weren’t any stitches. His whole body was a mass of healing cuts though. The fact they were already healing was pretty amazing all by itself, because unless he was misjudging the time, then it had to have been less than twelve hours since Meredith had filleted them both. Did they use magic to heal him faster or did fish people just heal that fast?

Race pulled himself up.

Spot protested but didn’t wake up.

They weren’t back in New York City yet, he was sure of that much. He hadn’t been outside the city much though, barring a family vacation to Disneyworld Denton had taken him on, so he had no idea where they were.

Race looked himself over. He was back in his clothes. He assumed that meant Spot had dressed him. Which meant Oscar had watched.

He did his best to stifle a shudder at that thought.

Race reached down and checked Spot’s pockets, finding his phone without waking him. He tried turning it on but the battery was dead. He flipped the phone over. The battery was missing.

He frowned and turned around, banging on the window.

Race saw Davey jump, and was just the tiniest bit satisfied with himself that he’d finally managed to surprise the always composed boy.

Mush hadn’t reacted at all.

Davey slid the window open. “How are you feeling?”

Race shrugged. “My chest feels like someone took a blowtorch to it. This what it was like when Blink spilled that shit on you?”

Davey nodded. “Nothing else wrong?”

“I mean, it’s going to haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. What do you want me to say? I was fucking tortured, Dave.”

Davey’s shoulders slumped and he gave Race a sad half-smile through the tiny window. He considered apologizing but decided that he was the one who was tortured and didn’t have anything to apologize for.

Race looked past Davey out the windshield. He could see the New York skyline in the distance. He had no idea how long it would take to get there though.

“How long until we get there?” Race asked.

“Half an hour until we hit traffic,” Mush said, “then who the fuck knows.”

“And why do we still have Morris?”

“He can’t breathe water yet so they couldn’t take him with them,” Davey said.

“So he’s our problem again,” Mush said.

“Do you think he’s going to be any better now that his link with the Outsider is gone?” Race asked.

“No,” Mush said at the same time that Davey said, “Maybe.”

They glanced at each other and shrugged.

“Any word from Jack and Blink?”

“My phone battery died.” Mush’s lips thinned and his nostrils flared.

“Does one of you have the battery for Spot’s phone?” Race held the phone up with the empty battery compartment showing.

Race couldn’t translate much of Mush’s response to that but was pretty sure he’d just learned some choice Spanish curse words. Mush reached into his pocket and pulled the battery out. He passed it over his shoulder.

Race grabbed it and stuck it into the phone, snapping the cover back into place and holding the power button while he flipped it over.

The first messages to come up were the slew from the night before that he’d already seen when Davey was using Mush’s phone. After waiting a few minutes some new messages came in. Race read them and turned his head back toward the window.

“Hey Davey, what’s dorm insurance?”

“It’s the insurance you pay for to replace stuff in case your dorm gets broken into or burns down, why?”

“So you have it?”

“You don’t?”

Race just looked at Davey, his expression blank.

“Right, of course you don’t.”

“Jack says all our laptops are gone,” Race said.

Davey swore.

“Also the door.”

Davey blinked.

“The door?”

Race showed the phone screen to Davey. There was a picture of the entrance to their dorm room, criss crossed with police tape, and with only two empty half hinges left on the door jam.

“So they aren’t still at the building?” Mush asked.

“Your dorm room,” Race said.

“Well tell them to get back to the building, or at least make sure Hotshot is there, we need to drop the prisoner off again.”

Davey glanced over Race’s shoulder in Delancey’s direction and then turned his head to Mush and dropped his voice so that Race had trouble hearing what he said next over the roar of the engine and the wind. “The prisoner is awake.”

Race turned to look at Morris. His eyes were shut, but he was inclined to take Davey’s word on it.

Mush and Davey were discussing something behind him, but he ignored them and started texting Jack.

Get back to the building. We’re still stuck with an asshole.

Are you guys alright? How’s Davey? Jack replied.

Race rolled his eyes, trust Jack to be thinking with his dick.

I spent the night getting tortured, but Davey is fine.

What? Why would they torture you? I mean Race I could understand.

Race blinked, then remembered he was texting from Spot’s phone.

This is Race you fucker.

Oh, Jack sent, followed by, well why did they torture you?

It was the only way to break my link with the Outsider.

Wait, when did you get a link with the Outsider? Jack asked.

About the same time it took over Oscar’s body.

What the fuck?

Yeah, everything is super fucked up, Race sent. Probably too much to talk about over text. Just make sure you guys are at Hotshot’s Lair in 90 minutes to let us in.

If he’s still talking to us after last night, and if the place hasn’t been attacked.

Race looked at the battery indicator on the phone, still had plenty of charge. The signal was a little spotty, but he figured it would get stronger as they got closer to the city.

Text us if you can’t, Race sent, followed by, This is the only phone we have that works right now.

It was an hour after sunset when they pulled up in front of Hotshot’s Lair in Brooklyn.

“Check your phone to see if Jack said anything,” Race said.

Spot had woken up not long after Race had sent the last message to Jack. They cuddled in the back of the truck for the last hour and a half of the ride into the city. Oscar didn’t chime in with anything, Race hoped that meant that maybe his boyfriend’s passenger was still asleep.

Morris spent the time still pretending to be asleep, but Race had caught him peaking around a few times when he thought no one was paying attention.

“Nothing,” Spot said after checking the phone.

Mush pried the door of the cab open and climbed out. Davey followed him and managed to slam the door back shut on his first try. They circled around to both sides of the bed and looked down at Morris.

“We all know you’re awake,” Mush said.

Morris opened his eyes and glared at the cat. “You aren’t getting me back in that basement. This can go one of two ways, you can let me walk out of here,” he sat up and looked around at the busy street, “or I can raise a really big stink and get you all caught right now.”

“Like you aren’t going to run directly to either Mom or Pulitzer,” Oscar said.

Race had to stifle a shudder hearing that voice so close to his ear. At least it felt like Spot was still the one holding him.

Morris sneered at his brother. “So what if I do? At least you freaks will have a headstart to get out of town. Which is more than you deserve.”

Mush and Davey frowned at each other.

“I feel like we’ve had this conversation before,” Mush said.

“Maybe,” Morris shrugged, “but we’re in public this time.”

“Pulitzer doesn’t care about us,” Oscar said, “any of us. We’re just sacrifices to whatever that black stuff is.”

“As far as I know that was something they put in me,” Morris said.

“Why would we do that, just to take it back out,” Davey said.

“To try and convince me to turn on my family.”

“And the elders just went along with it?” Oscar asked.

“They’re just afraid of what Pulitzer represents. You’ve heard him. It’s our time to claim the surface world and grind the humans,” he gestured around the street, “under our heal for a change. They just can’t see a world where we aren’t forced to hide away in rotting old villages and the bottom of the sea.”

“Give me your phone,” Race whispered to Spot while Morris was ranting.

Oscar gave him a weird look, but Spot handed it over.

Race stood up and hopped out of the bed of the truck. He opened the camera app on Spot’s phone and pointed it at Morris.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Morris asked.

Race glanced at the people on the sidewalk and then hit record on the phone.

“Brooklyn Horror, Scene 27, Take 1!” Race was careful to say it loud enough that the people walking by would hear. A few paused to look at him.

Morris blinked at him.

Mush clapped a hand over Morris’s mouth and started wrestling him out of the truck while everyone watched.

Davey caught on and grabbed Morris’s legs.

Morris struggled and bit at Mush’s hand, but Mush only grimaced and didn’t remove it.

Race heard Spot hop out of the truck behind him. He followed Morris, doing his best to keep the struggling boy in the frame, just in case anyone was paying attention.

“Is he okay? Those cuts look serious,” a woman behind Race asked.

“Thanks,” Oscar said, “you wouldn’t believe how long that makeup effect took me.”

“Oh, it’s very realistic, are you a professional?” She asked.

“Nope, just film majors working on a student film,” Oscar said.

Davey and Mush switched places and Davey fumbled at the door with one hand until he got it open. They carried Morris inside. Race followed, keeping the camera recording. He heard Oscar still lying to the lady as the door closed behind him, but he didn’t hear anyone calling the police, so he counted it as a win.

He waited by the door for Spot while Davey and Mush dragged Morris downstairs.

Spot came in after another minute. He locked the door, put a hand on either side of Race’s face, and pulled him in for a long kiss. About the point where Race’s lungs started burning Spot pulled back and looked him in the eyes.

“That was genius,” Spot said.

“I have my moments,” Race said and pressed a kiss to Spot’s lips. “Now come on, let's find out everything that we missed.” He grabbed Spot’s hand and pulled him toward the stairs to the basement.

“Oh yeah, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled about me being here,” Oscar said while Spot followed him.

“So Oscar’s in Spot, again?” Jack asked.

“Is there anyone on this planet you didn’t tell?” Oscar asked.

“Medda, Charlie, Albert, Race’s Dad” Davey ticked their names off on his fingers.

“Your sister knew?”

“Of course,” Davey said, “I’m still surprised she didn’t cut off one of my limbs when she found out though.”

“See, you say things like that, then expect me to believe that you are the good guys?” Oscar asked. “You’re all real casual with the threats of violence.”

Davey frowned but didn’t deny it.

Mush shrugged. “I can’t say we’re any better.”

Oscar blinked at him. “We? You not a werewolf?”

Mush blinked at Oscar and swore under his breath. Race was guessing he hadn’t meant to let that drop. Mush glared at Davey.

Davey held his hands up. “Don’t blame me. I managed to keep your secret, for once.”

Mush sighed and looked back at Oscar. “We can talk about it when he,” Mush gestured at Morris, who was in the circle with the rest of them and looking like he wanted to be anywhere else, “isn’t in earshot.”

“What, you don’t trust me?” Morris asked. “I’m hurt, truly.”

Morris wasn’t restrained at the moment, but he was on the far side of the basement from the door. If he tried to leave it would be a three-way race between Davey, Hotshot, and Mush to see who could tackle him first.

Race wondered if they should have a designated Morris-tackler just to make sure the three didn’t all run into each other. Then he thought of how hilarious that would be and decided not to suggest it.

Chapter Text

Davey rubbed at his head.

Morris had tried to make a break for it and he and Mush had collided when they both moved to grab him. Hotshot had been better prepared and managed to dodge them to restrain Morris.

His pride hurt far more than his head.

It didn’t help that Race was still rolling on the floor laughing.

Jack’s phone buzzed and he looked down at it, then showed it to Davey.

Davey read the message and sighed.

“What is it?” Sean asked.

“The police want to speak with all of us about the dorm,” Jack said.

“Hope they find plenty of evidence of what you’ve done,” Morris said from underneath Hotshot.

“They’re investigating your cult breaking into our room, not us,” Race said.

“We have money, you don’t. The cops are on our side,” Morris said.

“He’s not wrong about that,” Jack said.

Hotshot finished securing the knots around Morris’s wrists and ankles and got off of him. He pulled Morris up into a sitting position and shoved him back into the circle.

Morris gave Hotshot a look of pure hatred.

“So I’m guessing that pulling the Outsider out of him didn’t help his disposition like it did Oscar’s?” Race asked.

“It’s been in him longer,” Jack said.

“And it’s not like Oscar recovered overnight. It wasn’t until he’d been in Sean’s body for a while that he started to be bearable.”

“Gee, thanks,” Oscar said.

“About the same amount of time it took for me to start turning into a homophobic jackass,” Sean said.

“The difference is I never wanted to be the asshole I was,” Oscar said. “he’s thoroughly comfortable with his head shoved up his own ass.”

“Could have fooled me,” Louis said. “I seem to remember you hitting me just as hard.”

Oscar looked down and away. He opened Sean’s mouth to say something but stopped himself.

“We can’t keep him chained up here forever,” Hotshot said.

“He’s already said he’ll immediately rat us out to Pulitzer if we let him go.” Mush said.

“The chyrlid wouldn’t take it well if we killed him at this point,” Davey said.

“I should probably ask you not to,” Oscar said, still not looking at any of them.

“You sound so enthusiastic about keeping your brother alive,” Jack said. “Even less enthusiastic than I would be if we were talking about Spot.”

Sean flipped his brother off.

“We need to figure out how to get Oscar back into his body,” Graves said.

Davey pulled the small notebook out of his pocket where he kept notes on the rituals he’d studied and thumbed through it. “I might know a way.”

“I thought you said you didn’t know the Rite of Exchange?” Oscar asked.

“I don’t,” Davey found the page he was looking for. “But I do know a ritual called The Breath of Life, which is rather poorly named.”

“And it swaps minds too?” Oscar asked.

“Not as such. It transfers one mind, and requires the body the mind is going into to be ritually murdered beforehand. I didn’t suggest it before because… well…”

“Yeah? Well… thanks,” Oscar said.

“Why would that work now?” Louis asked.

“Because whatever might be in Oscar’s body isn’t something we want around,” Davey said. “The trick is that we’ll need to figure out a way to remove just Oscar’s mind from Sean, or else we’ll just wind up with both of them in Oscar’s body.”

“Let me see the spell, I can probably figure something out,” Race said.

“That won’t end up with yet another weird side-effect?” Mush asked.

Race stuck his tongue out at the nagual.

“I can’t believe you moronic faggots managed to kidnap me,” Morris said.

Everyone in the basement shot him a glare.

“We don’t really need your tongue,” Hotshot said.

“We don’t really need any of him,” Louis said.

“What are we going to do with him?” Mush asked. “We do actually have classes we need to attend.”

“And I don’t?” Morris asked.

Everyone ignored him.

“He can’t be left here alone,” Hotshot said.

“We need to meet the cops,” Jack said.

“ACAB,” Race said.

“Agreed,” Davey said, “but we still need to meet them. I’ll need the report number for my insurance.”

“I knew you’d have dorm insurance,” Jack said.

“You don’t?” Louis asked.

Mush looked at his boyfriend like he’d grown a second head. “You. You, have dorm insurance?”

Louis wrinkled his nose. “You don’t?”

“Of course, I do. But I thought for sure Davey would be the only other one.”

“What am I supposed to do if someone breaks in and steals my eyepatches? Huh?” Louis flicked his patch up, exposing the scars and empty socket beneath, “Just go around like this and listen to little kids cry?” He flipped the patch back down.

Mush bumped his shoulder against Louis’s. “Kids are stupid anyway.”

“Let’s never have any,” Louis said.

Mush nodded.

“After you guys meet with the cops, maybe we could go check on what conditions my body is in now that’s it possessed?” Oscar asked.

“Mush and I can keep an eye on him for now and tonight,” Louis said.

Mush frowned but didn’t say anything.

“You guys go meet with the police,” Louis said.

“Yeah,” Jack rubbed at the back of his neck, “before we do that.”

Davey didn’t like the sound of that and neither, it seemed, did Sean.

“What now?” Sean asked.

“So when whatever happened at the dorm happened. I had a dream that I was in the dorm and this big mass of darkness broke in. Which normally I’d think was just a nightmare—”

“Except that we don’t get to chalk anything up to coincidence anymore,” Davey said.

Jack bumped shoulders with him. “Yeah, but then earlier today when Blink and me were sleeping I somehow got into his dream.”

“Wait what?” Louis asked.

“Yeah, when you had the dream about your adviser,” Jack said. “And after you woke up from that I was kind of… outside of the dream. Like I was in your dorm room, but everything was gray. I could see myself, and you, sleeping. I was able to walk out through the wall and look around. Couldn’t really get anywhere though. I went back to my body and laid down into it?” He looked at Davey.

Davey took Jack’s hand and gave it a squeeze that he hoped was reassuring.

“And then I woke up.”

“Sounds like dreamwalking,” Mush said.

Davey nodded and squeezed Jack’s hand again.

“I don’t remember that being mentioned as a standard oboroten thing,” Jack said.

“It’s not,” Davey said. “Anyone can learn to do it, in theory, some people are naturally more in tune with the Dreamlands.

“Usually artsy fartsy types,” Mush said.

Jack narrowed his eyes at the nagual before looking at Davey, “But why did it happen now? Why hasn’t it happened before?”

There was nothing Davey could do but shrug.

“Well that was pointless,” Jack said.

They were standing outside the police station. The cops had taken their report, and Davey had gotten the information he’d need to give his insurance, but had spent the first part of the interview trying to get them to admit to stealing the door themselves as a prank, and the second half trying to find out if they could think of anyone who would want to prank them.

“Don’t suppose you can claim you owned all our laptops?” Race asked.

“Fuck, how the hell are we supposed to do homework now?” Sean asked.

“I had an entire English paper on mine I still needed to submit. I’m going to have to rewrite it in two days, with no computer,” Jack said.

“At least you got to enroll for the semester,” Oscar said, “now I’m at least half a year behind.”

“You could probably make it up in summer school,” Race said.

“Why don’t you and Jack go to the dorm and pack up as much of our stuff as you can, and we,” Davey gestured at Sean and himself, “go to the hospital and check on Oscar?”

“Pack it up?” Race asked.

“We don’t have a door, we can’t stay there,” Sean said.

“And that’s not even counting that whoever was there could come back at any time,” Jack said.

“So where are we going to live?” Race asked.

“Back home for now,” Sean said.

“What about Davey?” Race asked.

“Like Mom wouldn’t be thrilled to have him again,” Jack said. He leaned forward, pressed a quick kiss to Davey’s lips, and then turned to Race. “Come on, let’s go.”

Race gave Sean a peck on the cheek and followed Jack in the direction of the dorm.

“Come on,” Sean said and lead the way in the opposite direction.

“The three of us, together again,” Oscar said.

“Shut up,” Davey and Sean said in unison.

“You guys are no fun.”

“You’re pretty flippant for someone whose body might be dead,” Sean said.

That got Oscar to be quiet. At least out loud. As far as Davey knew his roommate could have been arguing with him in his, or should that be their, head.

Davey was walking down the street having a conversation with two people who were sharing a single body. He tried to figure out the exact moment his life had gotten so weird. He was a werewolf, so it wasn’t like it was ever normal, but things had taken a very weird turn ever since he showed up in New York City.

They had to take the subway to get to the hospital, because of course Oscar’s family had paid for one of the best private hospitals in the city. No one spoke again until they’d made it on the train and taken a pair of seats well separated from the other passengers. Sean’s glare helped with keeping anyone from sitting too near.

“What do we do if my body is dead?” Oscar asked. “I don’t want to die. I just performed the Inner Sea. I didn’t do anything forbidden. I don’t deserve to die.” He was starting to sound hysterical.

“You didn’t just perform the spell,” Sean said, “you also failed to mention that it would form a confluence between us, and then you used that connection to try to fuck me.”

“I,” Oscar started then didn’t say anything else.

Davey glanced to the side. Sean’s face was bent down studying his feet. It looked like Oscar was trying to find the words to say something he didn’t want to say.

They sat in silence until after the next subway stop.

“You’re right,” Oscar said finally.

Davey had no idea what to say to that so decided to answer Oscar’s original question. “If we can’t get you out of Sean, it’s only a matter of time before your minds merge. Neither of you will exactly die, but neither of you will exactly survive either.”

“You’re a real ray of sunshine there, Dave.”

Davey shrugged. He could have phrased it better, but Oscar had asked what would happen. He didn’t even tell them the worst part, which was that he had no idea how long they had before their minds became inseparable. They rode the rest of the way in silence after two girls ignored Sean’s glare and started trying to flirt with them. They got off at the station nearest the hospital and walked up to the street, leaving the oblivious girls back on the train.

“You actually going to let Racetrack modify the spell?” Oscar asked.

Davey sighed.

“So far his spells have all worked,” Sean said.

“So far he’s cast three spells,” Davey wanted to point out that the blond didn’t have that much experience, “One worked, and it’s the most basic, one had unforeseen consequences, and the last one is what caused everything that’s happened to us in the last twenty-four hours.”

“The mirror barely counts,” Sean said, but didn’t say anything else to defend his boyfriend.”

“So we’re not letting him?” Oscar asked.

Davey sighed again. “The fact that he was able to come up with the spell to weaken your link at all, and be as successful as he was, not to mention how fast he did the calculations for the mirror, shows he does have a knack for it.” It hurt something deep inside of himself for Davey to admit it. “I’m going to need to double-check his work though.”

“If you can,” Sean said, “you’ve seen his math.”

“I may not be a genius, but I can follow math,” Davey said, trying and failing not to clench his jaw shut.

They walked in silence the rest of the way to the hospital.

“I’ll distract the nurse, you check the computer,” Sean said.

Davey nodded.

“Wait, what?” Oscar asked.

“We’re not family,” Sean said, “they probably ain’t going to just give us your room number.”

“And even if they did, we don’t want the cult knowing we showed up,” Davey said.

“I wish you wouldn’t call us a cult,” Oscar said. “It’s not like the human world has given us the easiest time of things.”

Davey gave him a look.

“Fine. Pulitzer and my family are pretty culty, but we’re not all like that.”

They walked into the hospital and headed for the elevator. The first floor was too busy for a distraction to be efficient. They picked an upper floor and scouted around until they found an understaffed nurse’s station.

They split up and Davey went down a hall, keeping his head up and striding with confidence. No one ever questioned a white man walking down a hallway with confidence, even when they were somewhere they weren’t supposed to be. He took note of the security camera placements. There were more than he would have liked, he just hoped they wouldn’t do anything that required them to be checked.

Davey waited until he heard a mild commotion and then looped back to the desk, keeping his back to the cameras as best as possible. The pair of nurses were bent over Sean who was convulsing on the ground. Faking a seizure seemed a little obvious to Davey, but against people trained to help people and not act like security it looked like it was very successful.

They hadn’t bothered to lock their computers, so he didn’t have to try and guess anyone’s password. It took him longer than he would ever admit to figure out how to search for patients, but he typed in Delancey and found the room number. He was relieved to see it wasn’t the same number as their dorm room and Hotshot’s apartment. The number, 512, didn’t appear significant at all. He backed out of the search field and escaped the nurse’s station without being seen by anyone. He went and waited in the men’s room. It took longer than he would have liked before Sean joined him.

“How’d you get away from the nurses?”

“Told them I didn’t have insurance,” Sean said.

“They were plenty happy to let us go after that,” Oscar said.

“First time experiencing life as a poor person?” Sean asked.

“Let’s just say I’m learning to appreciate what I had,” Oscar said.

“Let’s go,” Davey said. Flushing a toilet and running the sink so there’d be some appropriate noise when they exited.

They made it to the elevator and rode up to the fifth floor without trouble. They followed the signs and found their way to Oscar’s room. At first, Davey thought someone might have been visiting him because the door was open, but as they got closer he realized the door was gone. His stomach dropped.

“Fuck,” Sean said.

They reached the edge of the room and looked in. The bed wasn’t just empty, it had been made. Davey stepped in and looked around. There wasn’t anything left in the room to show that Oscar had ever been it. He walked back out of the room.

“Let’s go,” Davey said.

“Let’s go?” Oscar asked. “Where the fuck is my body?”

“Gone long enough for them to clean up and move your file,” Davey said. “We can talk about it somewhere that isn’t here.” He turned and walked toward the elevator, trying to show the confidence he no longer felt.

Chapter Text

“Again.”

Mush stifled a groan, he knew letting it out would just get him more to do. He ran down the dune he’d just climbed, dragging the macuahuitl his mamá was training him with.

“Carry it.”

He didn’t quite manage to stifle the groan that time. The thing was almost as tall as he was. What more did she expect from a ten-year-old?

When he reached the bottom of the dune Mamá gave him a disapproving look.

“You know the rules, hijo. Two sprints, now.”

Mush managed to swallow what he wanted to say. He dropped the macuahuitl in the sand, turned around, and started trying to sprint up the dune, the sand sliding away under him with every step.

He kept his eyes focused on the stars in the moonless sky above. There were so many more than in the city. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. Mamá had told him stories of things that came from the stars, and worse stories about the things that lurked in the empty void between them, for as long as he could remember.

His legs burned.

His lungs burned.

Mush made it back to the top of the dune. He could see more dunes stretching off in every direction. They were near the border. He saw the lights of a jeep in the distance, heading their way. There was a small stab of fear, far more visceral than the general anxiety the stars gave him. Every month his mamá brought him out there. Every month he was worried that ICE would find them in the dunes. They were in the country legally, but it wasn’t like ICE was going to care about that.

He turned and sprinted back down the dune.

“Mamá, la migra!” Mush pointed back in the direction he’d seen the lights.

She knelt down to look him in the eyes and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, hijo. I’ve protected this place. They won’t find us here.” She pulled him into a quick hug. “Now, you owe me one more sprint.” She pointed back up the dune.

Mush was lying in bed with Blink.

He brushed Blink’s blond bangs out of the way. His boyfriend tended to let his hair obscure his eyepatch, not that he wore that to bed. Mush ghosted a finger over the scars on the left side of Blink’s face, careful not to wake him.

They’d only been together for six months, but if he was honest with himself, he was in love. The night before when he’d found out that the cult might have been coming for them he’d been more terrified than at any other point in his life. It had taken every bit of self-control he had not to turn the truck around. David’s relative calmness was probably the only thing that had kept him from doing it. Of course, David’s boyfriend was an oboroten and not in as much danger.

Mush ran his fingers through Blink’s hair.

Blink wasn’t like the rest of them though. He wasn’t as hard as the rest of them. Even Jack and Race had an edge to them. Maybe something they were born with or maybe something from the foster care system. Either way, it was something Blink didn’t have. Mush didn’t want to see that change and if Blink fully joined their world it would have to.

Of course, if Blink didn’t fully join their world then the best-case scenario was Mush having to watch him grow old and die. Well, the best-case scenario was probably Blink wising up, dumping him, and going on to live a full life very far away from everything supernatural. The worst-case scenario was that something coming after him would kill Blink to get to him.

In the end it wasn’t his decision to make.

It was almost time for his alarm to go off anyway, so Mush leaned down and pressed a kiss to Blink’s lips. It was only a moment before Blink started kissing back. Mush pulled back and let Blink open his eye.

“Good morning,” Blink said.

“Good morning,” Mush said.

The alarm on Blink’s phone went off.

Mush reached over and silenced it. They still had plenty of time before class. Blink hit snooze about 10 times every morning.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Blink said.

“We were gone barely more than twenty-four hours,” Mush said.

“During which I spent a night terrified that something was coming to attack us, and I don’t know how to fight.”

Mush sighed. At least it wouldn’t be hard to bring up what they needed to discuss.

“Look, I don’t really know how to say what I’m about to, so just bare with me and remember that I love you.”

Blink frowned a little, but nodded for him to go on.

“Are you sure you really want to be with me?”

“What?”

“I said this wasn’t going to sound great,” Mush said, “but are you sure? I’m not human. I can’t promise things are ever going to get less dangerous. In fact, I can pretty much promise they’re going to get more dangerous.”

“So? I’ll learn to fight.”

“Blink… Louis, you’re one of the most gentle people I’ve ever met. There’s a light inside of you. I don’t want to see it die. But if you learn to fight, if you become one of us, if you go through what we do, then it’s going to die.”

“And you wouldn’t love me if I lost that?” Blink turned away from him.

“No, Blink.” Mush maneuvered so his face was back in Blink’s line of vision. “I’m worried that if that dies you might not love me anymore, that you’ll resent me for letting it happen. For causing it to happen.”

“If this light could survive regular fag bashings from the Delanceys, it can survive anything.”

“I love you,” Mush said, “but I can’t promise I’ll love you forever.”

“I never asked you to,” Blink said.

“I know, but if you become a werewolf you might,” Mush said.

“So why don’t you bite me?” Blink asked.

“Then what happens if we break up?” Mush asked. “I leave you here? A white nagual in the middle of werewolf territory? You’d be ripped apart. Or I bring you with me? You don’t speak Spanish and you’d barely get a better welcome in Mexico, which isn’t even addressing the mortal citizenship issues, which aren’t nothing.”

Blink pulled back and looked him full in the face. “I notice all your problems with everything are based on what happens when we break up.”

Mush squinted his eyes shut.

He felt a finger under his chin.

“I’m not going to break up with you now just because you think we might break up in the future,” Blink said. “But you’re right that I’m probably not cut out for being a nagual.”

Mush opened his eyes.

“Okay, we’ll get you to David tonight.”

“I got the feeling that whatever he did to bite Spot wasn't something he enjoyed,” Blink said. “It can probably wait until closer to the full moon.”

Mush frowned. He wanted Blink bitten as soon as possible, but even with First Moon’s Blessing, Blink wouldn’t get the full regenerative abilities until after his first full moon, so there probably wasn’t any point to forcing David to do it sooner.

“I don’t deserve you,” Mush said and pressed a kiss to Blink’s lips.

“Who’s he?” Mush asked when they reached Hotshot’s building.

David and Jack were standing outside of it with a messy-haired blond kid wearing a backpack who might have been Spot’s height if he wasn’t leaning on a pair of forearm crutches.

“Charlie?” Blink asked.

“Hey Blink,” the shorter blond said, “don’t suppose you can tell me what I’m doing here?”

“I have no idea,” Blink looked at Jack and David.

“He refused to hack a hospital unless we gave him more information,” Jack said.

“Why do we need to hack a hospital?” Mush asked.

“That’s what I wanted to know,” Charlie said, “among other things.” Charlie shot a glare at David.

“Not out here,” David said.

“What are we waiting for?” Charlie asked.

“Spot, he has the key,” Jack said.

“What is with all this cloak and dagger bullshit?” Charlie asked.

Mush beckoned David over and waited until he was closer. “You have to be the worst oboroten,” he said.

David started to bristle.

“About secrecy at least,” Mush said.

David deflated a little. “You’re not wrong, but let’s not forget the nagual who was caught within a month of getting here.”

Mush shrugged. “Or the werewolf who outed him to his boyfriend?”

“That was his sister,” Blink said.

“Twin sister,” Mush said.

David rolled his eyes.

Blink glanced up and down the street then faced David. “Oh, we decided. When the full moon gets closer I want you to bite me.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Or maybe Spot.”

David nodded then smirked. “Why not Race?”

“I don’t want to deal with an eternity of ‘who’s your daddy’ jokes.”

David snorted.

“And Jack lost all biting privileges when he dumped me,” Blink said.

A small wrinkle creased David’s brow but was gone almost as fast.

Mush eyed the shorter boy’s crutches. “He’s not going to be very effective in combat.”

Blink snorted. “Better than me, he’s got a mean streak you wouldn’t expect.”

Mush looked Charlie over again. At least this blond wasn’t his problem.

“Chuck?” Race’s voice came from behind him.

“No,” Spot said from just behind him.

David looked over his shoulder and sighed. “As far as my father would be concerned, he already knows too much.”

“You’re not biting him,” Spot said.

“That’s his choice, Sean.”

Mush took a step back so that he could see everyone present again and they weren’t just talking around him.

“Were you just going to let your little brother die of old age?” Mush asked.

Spot frowned at him and glared across the way at Jack.

“Let’s get inside, then you can yell all you want,” David said.

Spot scowled but pulled out the key from his pocket.

The expression on his face changed his lip curling up on the side. “Oh, boohoo, you have a family that gets along. Cry me a river,” Spot said but Mush knew it was obviously Oscar.

Spot scowled at himself and walked toward the door.

“I should have known Racetrack would be involved,” Charlie said as they all approached the door behind Spot.

“Involved?” Race asked. “I’m the source baby.” He tapped himself on the chest.

Everyone rolled their eyes except for Spot who gave a fond shake of his head as he opened the door and ushered them all in.

“Why didn’t Hotshot or Graves let you in?” Mush asked once they were all inside and the door was shut and locked behind them.

“Hotshot had a deposition he needed to be at,” Jack said, “and Graves didn’t want to leave him unguarded for that long.”

“Leave who unguarded?” Charlie asked. “What are you idiots up to?”

Jack ran a hand through his hair.

Spot blew his cheeks out and looked away.

“Not exactly filling me with a lot of confidence here guys,” Charlie said.

“They’re all werewolves,” came out of Spot’s mouth.

Everyone except Charlie turned to glare at him, including Spot himself, somehow.

“What? There’s a lot to cover and you bozos would spend forever,” Oscar turned to look at Charlie, “Magic is real, they’re werewolves,” he stopped and looked at Blink, “except maybe the pirate over there.”

“Yarr, matey,” Blink said.

“I got trapped in your littlest big brother’s head so we’ve got a timeshare arrangement going on.” Oscar looked down at his hands. “I’m Oscar, by the way, sorry for the… everything. If you’re as good at hacking as Jack-ass over there think’s you are, then I really need your help finding out what happened to my body. Oh, and we’re holding my brother hostage downstairs.” He looked over at David. “That about cover everything?”

“Sounded like everything,” Spot said, trying again to scowl at himself.

Charlie just kind of looked around at them. He finished by looking at Jack, seeming to study every inch of his face.

“Good joke guys, but I need to go meet Albert.”

“We’re not joking,” Jack said. “Everything Oscar said was true.”

“Oscar. In Spot’s body?”

Jack ran his hand through his hair again. “Look. I know how crazy it all sounds, but that was pretty much the gist of it.”

“Uh huh,” Charlie said. “Your poker face has gotten better.”

“Come on, Crutchie” Jack said and motioned Charlie toward the stairs.

“You got something in the basement that’s going to jump out and scare me?” Charlie asked while he followed his brother.

“Maybe,” Jack said and started down the stairs.

Charlie chuckled and followed him down.

Mush, Blink, David, Spot, and Race looked at each other and waited in silence.

“What the actual fuck?” Charlie’s shocked voice carried up the stairs.

“Guess he saw Morris,” Blink said.

“My exact reaction every morning,” Oscar said.

Mush pulled a knife out and offered it to David. “Go show him some magic, it’ll speed this up.”

David scoffed at the offered knife and pulled out one of his own.

Mush shook his head and popped the knife away.

“Where were you hiding that?” Blink whispered into his ear.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Mush asked.

David turned and started down the stairs, followed by Race who was always eager to experience any manifestation of magic. Mush almost wished he could stop him. Letting Race know that such rapid rituals were possible was going to bite them all in the ass sooner rather than later.

Mush looked over at Blink. He was going to be stuck with these wolves for a long time by the looks of it. He reached over and took Blink’s hand in his own as they walked down the stairs together.

They passed Graves on the way down. The professor looked exhausted and didn’t bother to acknowledge any of them on his way out.

Charlie was staring at Morris when they reached the basement. His jaw was working, but no sound was coming out.

David moved into Charlie’s view and flicked open his knife.

Charlie jumped and took a step back.

Davey drove the blade into the palm of his hand and out the back. Which Mush thought was a bit overdramatic. He scattered the blood onto the concrete floor.

“Cth'nglui Fthaggua Ktynga n'gha-ghaa fia'l thagn! Iä Fthaggua!”

There was a flash of crimson light, a smell of ozone, and the blood, both splashed on the floor and still on the werewolf’s hand burst into blue-white flame and burned away, leaving only the faint scent of burned flesh.

David held his burned hand up in front of Charlie and kept it there until it had healed. He rubbed the soot off on his pants and then offered the hand to Charlie for examination.

Charlie just kind of stared at the offered hand and then at all of them.

“You need to show me how to do that!” Race said.

Davey did his best to ignore the boy who was almost bouncing up and down next to him.

Jack helped Charlie back to the base of the stairs and sat him down on the bottom step.

“It’s a lot, I know,” Jack said.

“You going to turn into a wolf now?” Charlie asked after a long pause and more than once darting a look at each of them.

“It’s a bit far from the full moon, Crutch,” Jack said.

“Fuck it,” Mush said, surprising himself.

Everyone turned to look at him.

Mush eyed Morris but decided it didn’t really matter what he knew. He pulled his shirt off over his head. “My boyfriend has made the horrible decision to become a dog, so I suppose I’m stuck with you assholes for a while.” He dropped his shirt to the ground and looked over at David. “Thanks for managing not to out me to anyone this month though.” He toed off his shoes and socks.

David rolled his eyes.

Mush started on his pants.

“Whoa,” Charlie said.

“What?” Mush asked. “I’m not going to wreck my underwear for this.” He pulled his pants and underwear down in one motion.

Charlie’s eyes bulged and he looked away.

Mush could almost feel Spot’s, or more accurately Oscar’s, eyes roaming over his body.

“What the fuck?” Morris demanded.

Everyone ignored him.

It had somehow only been two days since the new moon so finding the familiar shiver at the base of his spine took no time at all. He drew the shiver up his spine feeling it spread out into his body. Pooling first within his mouth he felt his teeth start to change.

“You really should watch,” Mush said to Charlie who was still averting his gaze. He let the shiver spread down his throat as he spoke. The effect it had on his voice was enough to snap the younger boy's head up.

Once he had Charlie’s undivided attention he let the shiver into his eyes, watching the dim basement grow brighter, and then let the transformation loose in the rest of his body, falling down onto newly formed paws as thick black fur spread over his entire body.

He let out a low roar.

Chapter Text

“I thought you said you were werewolves?” Crutchie asked.

“And I said it’s not the full moon,” Jack said.

“So what the fuck is he?”

“He’s a nagual,” Oscar said, “a werejaguar.”

“There’s werejaguars?” Crutchie asked.

“And weresnakes,” Davey said.

“And at least one werehyena,” Race said.

Davey and Blink both shot glares at him.

“What?” Race asked the blinked. “Oh, right.” He turned to look at Crutchie. “Forget about hyenas.”

Spot buried his face in his palm.

Mush gave another subdued roar and started changing back.

“So see, we really need your help, Crutch,” Jack said, sitting down on the step next to his younger brother.

“You’re a werewolf?” Crutchie asked.

“Now, yeah.”

“Now?”

“Race and Davey are the only natural-born ones,” Jack said, “well and Mush, but he’s,” Jack gestured in the empty air, “you know.”

“How long have you known?” Crutchie asked.

“Almost as long as Race,” Jack said. “We was rooming together at the Refuge when he changed for the first time. I woke up with a panicking dog in the room.” He chuckled. “Neither of us really knew much about it until we got put in a dorm with Davey, somehow. He figured out about Race the same day.”

Davey cleared his throat.

Jack looked over at his boyfriend and nodded before turning back to his little brother.

“Look, Crutchie, I know this is a lot, but we don’t really have time for the full story. Oscar is stuck in Spot’s body, and Oscar’s body has gone MIA, we really need to see what happened to it.”

Crutchie laughed, it sounded just on edge of crying though. “Oh, of course. You’re holding one of our high school bullies prisoner, and need my help to get the other one out of Spot.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I knew you guys were in some sort of shit when you had me hacking your dorm room assignment, but — this is, I don’t even know.”

“Can you hack the hospital?” Oscar asked.

Crutchie snorted. “Easy.”

“Easy?” Jack asked.

“Everyone knows they have the worst information security,” Crutchie said. Crutchie turned and looked across the basement. “We shouldn’t do it here though unless you’ve got good wifi, even then you wouldn’t want to risk anything getting tracked back here.”

“Are you going to get tracked back?” Jack asked.

Crutchie gave him a withering look that was answer enough.

“It’s better to minimize all risks,” Davey said, “and we don’t have wifi.”

“Let’s go find a Starbucks,” Crutchie said.

“Who’s staying with chuckles?” Spot asked and thumbed at Morris.

“We’ll stay,” Blink said.

“We will?” Mush asked.

Blink nodded and attempted to wink at his boyfriend.

“Remember you’re supposed to keep him from escaping,” Jack said. “Not spend your time,” he gestured in the air, “canoodling.”

Blink stuck a tongue out at him.

“Canoodling?” Davey asked.

The five of them were crammed together in the back corner of the largest Starbucks within walking distance. It wasn’t as secure as Davey would have liked, but he wouldn’t have been happy with anything less than a bunker on a remote island, so Starbucks would have to do.

The employees, and Crutchie, had given them some strange looks over the number of pastries they’d ordered, but at least no one would ever be able to accuse them of loitering.

“How are you not already sick?” Crutchie asked when Race came back to the table with another tray full of oversized muffins.

“Give me a break, I was tortured yesterday,” Race said.

“What?” Crutchie asked, partially closing his laptop screen so he could get a better look at Race.

“Maybe not in the middle of Starbucks?” Davey asked.

“Technically this is the back of Starbucks,” Race said.

“Technically the back would be behind the counter,” Jack countered.

“Less talk, more finding my body,” Oscar said.

Crutchie shivered. “That is so creepy. And don’t think you’re getting out of telling me everything, Jack.”

“Well we’re back to living at home until we get a door again,” Jack said.

“And until we know who broke in in the first place,” Davey said, “and remind me to thank Medda for letting me stay again.”

Jack, Crutchie, and Spot all snorted.

“If you tried to stay somewhere else I think she’d have kidnapped you anyway,” Spot said.

Jack nodded.

Crutchie opened his laptop back up and started typing again. He pulled up a screen full of black images. He typed a few things and frowned at the screen.

“What time did you say?” Crutchie asked.

“February 4th just after 11 pm,” Davey said after consulting his phone.

Crutchie typed something in and the little black squares filled with video feeds. Not very good quality, but he saw an orderly moving in one of them, and some nurses talking at a station in another. He moved over closer to his brother so Davey could get close enough to see too.

“You’re in already?” Davey asked.

Crutchie pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes at Davey.

Davey sighed and looked at the screen.

“5th floor,” Davey said.

Crutchie typed something and the row of videos changed.

Davey leaned past him and studied the screen before pointing at one, stopping just short of touching the laptop’s screen. “That one.”

Crutchie brought that feed up.

“The door is still there. Maybe fast forward?” Davey said.

Crutchie rolled his eyes but the video sped up.

Jack saw something happen and then the feed went black. “What happened?”

“Every camera in the hospital goes down after that,” Crutchie said and typed something. The screen jumped back to the hallway shot after.

“Slow it down this time,” Davey said.

Crutchie shot the other boy a glare, “Look, I get that you’re used to dealing with these idiots,” he gestured around the table, “but I know what I’m doing.”

“Are you sure you aren’t Sean’s biological brother?” Davey asked.

Crutchie stuck his tongue out.

“Or maybe he and Race’s son from the future?”

“Bite your tongue,” Crutchie said then looked up at Davey with his nose crinkled. “Can that actually happen?”

“Nah,” Race said, “apparently the timeline has guardians that take offense to that sort of shenanigan.”

“I meant could you two have a kid?”

Everyone looked at him.

“What, I don’t know how,” he leaned in and whispered, “werewolves,” his volume returned to normal, “work.”

“You’ve been reading too much Omegaverse fanfic,” Race said.

Crutchie blushed. “Shut up, you read just as much as I do.”

Race shrugged, making no attempt to deny it.

“The video?” Oscar said.

Crutchie turned back and hit play on the video, letting the grainy footage advance frame by frame.

It was a few frames before anything happened, then it looked like a door halfway down the hall started to bulge like soft clay. In the next frame, it bulged further into the hall. The frame after that showed splinters of the door flying through the air, but there was something else around them.

“Is that just the video quality or is there something… coating the pieces?” Oscar asked.

Crutchie advanced another frame and the pieces were fading out, vanishing into the grain of the video. If he hadn’t seen the previous frame Jack would have thought they were just extra static in the image.

“They don’t have higher quality?” Oscar asked.

“Hospitals aren’t known for their IT departments,” Crutchie said.

Crutchie advanced the frame again and there was no sign the door had ever existed. He advanced a few more frames and they saw a dark-haired figure in a hospital gown step out of the room.

“Is that me?” Oscar asked, squinting Spot’s eyes down at the screen.

The person’s head turned between frames, going from looking out into the hallway to staring directly at the camera. It looked like it was Oscar, his body at least. His face and arms were gaunt, and his legs didn’t look like they should have been able to hold him up. All the skin they could see was lined with dark veins, but the most striking thing was his eyes. Pitch black. So dark they seemed like glitches in the video. Jack almost felt like he was being watched through the screen. He hoped that wasn’t possible.

Crutchie pressed the arrow key and the entire screen went black.

“That’s it?” Oscar asked.

“That’s it,” Crutchie said. “Every camera in the hospital goes dead after that moment.” He typed something in, showing the rows of black squares again. “And they still haven’t recovered.”

“Well, at least we won’t have to get you to delete our visit,” Davey said.

“And at least there’s no recording of Spot here trying to fake a seizure,” Oscar said.

“The Outsider did a real number on your body,” Race said. “Almost looked like a skeleton there.”

“That’s probably just from being in a coma for a month,” Spot said.

“I’m more concerned with the fact that something is wearing my body,” Oscar said.

“Thought you’d be used to that by now,” Race said.

“At least when this asshole,” Oscar pointed at his, that is Spot’s head, “I knew what he was up to and we were in the same situation.”

“Wait, what?” Crutchie asked.

“Oh yeah, they was in each other’s bodies for most of Winter Break,” Jack said.

“So we celebrated Christmas with a Delancey?” Crutchie said, his nose wrinkling up.

“It wasn’t a picnic for me either,” Oscar said.

“Christmas with the Delancey’s was worse,” Spot said. “I had to spend the whole time in a suit.”

“It’s called class you ape,” Oscar said then shook his head. “Rewind, let’s watch that again.”

Crutchie backed it up to just before the first frame where anything happened and arrowed through it again. Then again. And a fourth time.

“You ever find out anything about our dorm placement,” Jack asked while Crutchie arrowed through for a fifth time.

“Oh yeah, I haven’t figured out who did it, might not be able to, but the logins all came from the same proxy server here, which was bouncing from a proxy in Ethiopia.”

“Ethiopia?” Davey asked.

“Is where the next proxy is, doesn’t mean they’re there. If they’re any good they definitely wouldn’t be,” Crutchie said and played through the video for Oscar again.

“And this same person did everything?” Davey asked.

“Someone using the same proxies was responsible for you getting put with Spot, you and Spot getting put with Race and Jack, your sister getting put with Katherine, you getting assigned as Blink’s lab partner, and Blink getting Mush assigned as his roommate.”

Jack let out a long whistle.

“Yeah, I was wondering why anyone would go to all that trouble for you assholes,” Crutchie said, “but now I’m guessing this has something to do with,” he gestured at all of them.

Davey shrugged.

“Which don’t think I don’t still have a million questions about,” Crutchie turned to glare at Davey, “that you’re going to answer.”

Davey sighed.

“Maybe you should make a pamphlet,” Jack said, “So You Just Found Out That Werewolves Are Real.”

Davey rolled his eyes but smirked.

“Maybe ‘Magic is Real and Ten Other Things You Need to Know,’” Race said.

“Less chit-chat,” Oscar said. “More finding my body, and maybe an old priest and a young priest.”

Crutchie played through the video again.

“I don’t suppose you can hack into our dorm security cameras and see who attacked our room?” Davey asked.

“Not from here,” Crutchie said.

“But you already hacked it once to find the room assignments?” Jack asked.

Crutchie and Race both looked at him like he was an idiot.

“It’s not going to be on the same server,” Race said.

“The hospital’s was,” Jack pointed out.

“How many times do I have to point out how bad hospital IT is?” Crutchie asked.

“Meanwhile Universities have a bunch of bored CS majors sitting around,” Race said.

“So what, they let them do security for them?” Spot asked.

Crutchie snorted. “No, they need to protect themselves from them. That’s why it took so long to look into your room assignments.”

“Look into Sean, Race, and Oscar winding up in the same biology class when you have the time,” Davey said.

“Sure, but we’d better go check out your dorm,” Crutchie said.

“I thought you said you couldn’t hack it?” Jack asked.

“I said I couldn’t hack it from here. The easiest way to hack anything is just to get access to it. So one of you is going to need to get me into the security office.”

“How exactly does that help me find my body?” Oscar tapped the screen where the video of his body walking out of his hospital room was playing for at least the seventeenth time.

“The door to our dorm room was missing the same way that door is missing,” Jack said, at least having the answer for one question. “Which means our dorm was probably your next stop.” He paused and looked down at the screen watching the exploding bits of door being consumed by the darkness. “That reminds me a lot of the dream I had about the darkness breaking into the room too. I don’t suppose you know of any way for me to use that dreamwalking thing to scout things out for us?” He asked Davey. “Assuming I can figure out how to do it again.”

“I know it’s possible,” Davey said, “but the Dreamlands aren’t entirely safe either.”

“This one of those if you die in your dreams you die in real life things?” Jack asked, his eyes opened wide.

“No, but if you die in your dreams you’ll never dream again,” Oscar said, “which would really suck for an aspiring artist.”

Jack swallowed.

“‘Course, that’s the rules for humans. Not sure if it’s different for you.”

“Do we still heal faster in there?” Jack asked, looking at Davey.

Davey shrugged. “Oboroten society heavily frowns on anything that separates mind and body. Too many chances for something else to get in.” He nodded his head in Spot and Oscar’s direction.

“Would Pulitzer be able to see me?” Jack asked, shifting his attention to Spot’s body.

Spot, or more likely Oscar, shrugged. “He’s a powerful sorcerer, so it’s very possible. He does like to show off some of it, but he didn’t exactly hand out an itemized list of everything he can do.”

“Didn’t you ever wonder where his power came from?” Davey asked.

“Just experience I assumed,” Oscar said. “He kind of controls all our access to information on sorcery. I was lucky to have that one family book. It was my dad’s.” He tried to glare at Race, but his heart wasn’t in it.

Race didn’t rise to the bait. “Let’s go get Chuck into the dorm, see if it was you who took our door.”

“What’s the plan?” Jack asked.

“One of us raises a big stink with security about their complete failure to protect our stuff, and while they’re trying to placate him, Charlie goes in and takes a look,” Race said.

“And who’s going to raise the stink?”

“Please,” Race said, “I was born for this.”

Chapter Text

“What do you mean, ‘I should have bought insurance?’” Race screeched in the distance. “The University pays you to be my insurance.”

You sure you want to date that? Oscar asked.

Spot smirked to himself. Absolutely.

I still think I’m better looking, Oscar sent, was better looking at least.

Charlie was scrolling through the footage. There was a giant gap just after the break-in, but whatever had been done to the cameras had been fixed by the next afternoon. They were staring at the screen watching the last minute of footage coming from the thirteenth-floor camera.

A figure wearing a hospital gown, open at the back, walked into frame from under the camera.

“Wait, pause it,” Oscar said.

Charlie paused the footage.

Spot watched his eyes focus on Oscar’s exposed butt. The dorm’s security cameras still weren’t great, but the resolution was a lot better than the ones at the hospital.

“My ass isn’t half bad,” Oscar said.

Everyone turned to look at him and Spot resisted the urge to glare at himself.

“Anyway,” Charlie said.

Everyone looked back at the screen.

Charlie started the footage again.

Oscar’s body walked down the hallway toward their door and turned to face it. It opened its mouth and stuck its tongue out at the door. At least that’s what Spot thought it was doing at first. The mouth opened wider and wider and what’d Spot thought was a tongue came out further and further.

Spot found himself regretting that the cameras were higher resolution than the hospital’s.

Is that me about to be sick or you? Oscar asked.

Both I think.

One of them swallowed down the bile that was rising in the back of their throat. What he’d thought was Oscar’s tongue was a thick tendril of darkness, that somehow looked wet while also looking like a hole cut into the screen. It coiled and pressed against the door, which started to crack. The black appendage sunk into the cracks and, in an instant, the door disintegrated the same as the door in the hospital. The dark tendril dissolved into the air like smoke, leaving Oscar’s body standing there with its mouth agape, lower jaw unhinged.

It shook the jaw from side to side, rehinging first the left and then the right side, before closing the jaw. It turned to glance at the camera then, eyes black voids in the footage, and the camera went dead.

“Why do I get the feeling I’m not getting my body back?” Oscar asked.

Spot was getting used to sharing his mouth with the other boy’s mind. Which worried him in a different way.

“He was performing,” Jack said.

“What do you mean?” Spot asked.

“He knew the camera was there,” Jack said. “That was a performance for our benefit.”

“Our benefit?” Charlie asked. “You think, whatever that was,” he gestured at the black screen, “knew we’d be watching the video.”

“It expected someone to watch the video,” Dave said. “It didn’t take that long to destroy the hospital door. It didn’t mug for the camera like that either.”

“It didn’t know there was a camera watching that door,” Race said.

“But you think the message was for us?” Charlie asked. His eyes were wide and Spot noticed a slight tremor in his hands.

Spot put his hand on his little brother’s shoulder. “Relax, Charlie, the message was for the four of us. It broke into our room, I don’t think it knows about you.”

“Probably,” Oscar added.

“You’re not helping,” Spot said.

“There’s an Outsider wandering around New York in my body.” Oscar pulled Spot’s hand off of Charlie’s shoulder. “I’m not exactly trying to help him, and honestly, he should be a little scared so long as that thing,” he gestured at the blank screen, “is out there. Who the fuck knows what it wants.”

“Bet Pulitzer does,” Spot said.

“Maybe,” Dave said, “he seems like the type of sorcerer who’s only interested in power and wouldn’t bother to learn what his patrons want.”

There was another shout from the direction of the front desk. “Ey, get your hands off me.”

“Times up,” Jack said.

Charlie typed something quick on the keyboard and the screens returned to showing the live feed. He pushed back from the desk and grabbed his crutches.

Spot offered his brother a hand up, not that Charlie needed it, but it would get them out of there faster.

Charlie gave Spot’s hand a rueful look before taking it.

They hurried out of the security room and back to places where students were allowed to be.

“I hope he doesn’t get permanently banned from the building,” Dave said when they heard Race getting escorted out.

“There’s other dorms,” Spot said, “and I’m not sure how safe that room is ever going to be.”

“And there’s the demon mold,” Jack said.

“Demon mold?” Charlie’s eyes were huge.

“It’s just mold,” Dave said.

“That showed up after some of the Outsider was loose in our room,” Spot said.

“You were unconscious for that,” Dave said.

“Race showed me the video.”

“Which Oscar now has,” Jack said.

“I don’t even have a body of my own,” Oscar said.

Charlie took a deep breath and then another one. “This is a lot. You all get how this is a lot right?”

Jack put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “You’re doing great, Crutch.”

“Don’t think for a second that you’re getting out of me yelling at you,” Charlie said and then turned to Dave, “or that you’re getting out of explaining all of this.”

“I told you we should have a pamphlet,” Jack said.

“At least I’ve got the spiel rehearsed at this point,” Dave said.

“Why is your room this… red?” Race asked.

“That’s what I want to know,” Oscar said, “makes me feel like my eyes are bleeding.”

“Exactly,” Race said.

“Are you two seriously ganging up on me?” Spot asked.

He was lying on his bed staring up at the ceiling. Race was over at his desk looking through books the book pictures he’d had on his phone and transferred to Medda’s old Kindle Fire.

“It’s not my fault you have no aesthetic,” Race said.

“Or sense of style,” Oscar added.

“If you guys hate me so much then why don’t you just date each other?”

Oscar snorted. “After everything I’ve done? If I get my body back I’m fleeing the continent before blondie hunts me down and kills me.”

“And if he doesn’t get his body back I’m kind of stuck dating both of you,” Race added. “At least until both of you turn into one franken-mind, which had better still be into me.”

“You’re probably safe on that front,” Oscar said, “but let's try to avoid it anyway.”

“Aw, you think I’m cute?” Race turned around and batted his eyelashes at them.

“I’m a deeply repressed gay man. I think literally every man I’ve ever seen is hot.”

“Even Donald Trump?”

Spot felt his body shudder. “Okay, not every man.”

“Davey or Jack?” Race asked.

“Either,” Oscar said.

“Okay, can we not have this conversation while he’s in my body?” Spot said.

Race snorted. “Fine, touchy touchy.”

“How’s that going by the way?” Oscar asked.

“Oh, great. Davey still hasn’t shown me the spell, so I’m just sitting over here trying to figure out how to model the human mind, somehow separate from the human brain. Which, how the fuck does that work? How are both your minds using one brain at the same time? That shouldn’t be possible. At best you should have merged immediately.” Race spun around in the chair and narrowed his eyes at them. “Unless we don’t just have one brain.”

“What, you think I’m in his enteric nervous system or something?” Oscar asked.

“Ooh, look who was paying attention in class,” Race said.

“I’m a bio major the same as both of you.”

“I should change that,” Race glanced back down at the small tablet in his hand, “I never really liked biology. Too icky.”

“Why’d you major in it then?”

“I was trying to figure out how to cure myself.”

“Same,” Oscar said. “Guess that’s the one thing I don’t need to worry about anymore.” Spot felt his mouth curve down into a frown. “I didn’t really want to dry my blood forever though. I just wanted some time to figure out who I am before I had to go to the sea.”

“Well, now you’ll just have to figure out how to un-dry your blood,” Race said.

Oscar snorted. “If the elders haven’t figured it out in the last ten thousand years, what chance do I have?”

“What chance did you have of holding it off?” Spot asked.

“Pulitzer managed it,” Oscar said, “and it’s not like I knew he was selling us to an Outsider at the time.”

“Okay, ignoring the fact that you’re inside of my boyfriend, somewhere, talking to you like you’re a person is weird.”

Oscar looked away from Race.

Spot felt his lips press together and twist to the side and what almost felt like tears started to prickle around his eyes.

“Yeah,” Oscar said.

“Yeah,” Race said.

Silence stretched on in the room.

Spot looked around his bedroom. He’d been in it every day for most of high school. He hadn’t spent much time looking at the decorations, or lack thereof, in the last few years. He was willing to concede, if only to himself, that it was maybe a little too red. But just a little.

He cleared his throat. “So did you mean the enteric nervous system?”

Spot looked over in his boyfriend’s direction in time to see him jump a little at the breaking of the silence.

Race gave him a half glare then stuck his tongue out at him. “No, I meant all the extradimensional stuff we already have going on. Although the ENS isn’t a bad thought.” Race tapped the tablet against his cheek. “Except that you can both talk and it’s not like your gut has Broca’s area.” Race shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. What I meant was that we can somehow regenerate nerves and brain damage. I don’t know if that causes any memory loss or personality changes, but it’s possible that we have like… a backup brain floating around.”

“A backup brain?” Spot asked.

“And you think that’s what I’m in?” Oscar asked.

“I said it was possible,” Race gestured in the air, “but what do I know? If anyone has ever bothered to create a model of exactly what we’ve got going on across the dimensions, Davey doesn’t know about it.”

“Someone must have,” Oscar said, “it’s not like Dave knows everything about werewolves, is it?”

“Seems like he does sometimes,” Race said.

Spot frowned. “You know he isn’t keeping anything from you on purpose.”

“Do I? It’s not like he hasn’t forgotten to mention things before.”

“Because they’re normal to him. It’s like when you forget that not everyone has every rule of Dungeons and Dragons memorized.”

“You guys are such nerds,” Oscar said.

“There’s the Oscar I know and hate,” Race said.

Oscar sneered at him but Spot could feel a slight crinkle in his eyes that he imagined made him look more rueful than spiteful.

The kick struck him in the side. He was pretty sure he could feel it in his right kidney, which couldn’t be good. You shouldn’t be able to feel your insides like that.

“What are you?” His assailant asked.

He looked up from the floor, squinting to see him clearly. He usually avoided the head — he didn’t like to leave marks where anyone would see them later; it was the main reason he always made him wear long sleeve shirts — but he’d lead off with a punch to the face that had dropped him to the floor. He must’ve been really mad this time.

“What.” Kick. “Are.” Kick. “You?” Kick

“A dirty faggot,” he groaned out after curling into a ball

“No.” Another kick landed. Bigger. Harder.

He looked up at his assailant. That had always been the right answer before.

The figure looming over him was so tall. Impossibly tall. He felt like a child about to be stepped on by a giant.

“No, stop.”

His mother intervened and the giant turned and backhanded her.

“No, mama,” he reached out with one hand, his other limbs still curled around his belly.

The giant punched his mother. “This is what you get for raising him to think he’s better than me.”

There was defiance in her eyes, but she didn’t say anything as he punched her again.

“I caught him making out with Kelly. Fucking Kelly.” He pushed her to the floor. “He’s not just a little faggot slut, but he’s dating poor trash.”

Mama wasn’t on the floor anymore. She was sitting across the room with a tumbler of brown liquid in her hand.

She didn’t say anything as the giant turned back to him and started stomping across the room back to him with murder in his eyes.

Spot snapped awake. Waking up from a nightmare wasn’t new to him by any means, but it had gotten a lot more common in the last few months. Still, that one had been weird even for him. He was lying on the side of the bed, Race was spread out across all of his side of the bed, and most of Spot’s, arms and legs spread out like a starfish. At least he’d left all the blankets for Spot.

Was that my nightmare or yours? Oscar asked.

You had the same nightmare? Spot asked.

Yeah, started with the time I got beaten up after Morris caught me making out with your brother, but then mom actually tried to intervene instead of sitting there drunk off her ass like normal.

That was the impression of Oscar’s family dynamics he’d gotten from spending a month living in the other boy’s shoes.

Yeah, that was some memories from my childhood. Spot sent.

Your mom really loves you. Must be nice. Oscar’s thoughts were tinged with a wistful feeling.

It’d be nicer if she hadn’t run away to become a merwoman when I was 6, but I guess it was a shitty situation all around.

Still is.

So we shared the same nightmare. Spot changed the subject.

That didn’t even happen when we were swapped and had a wide-open hole into each other’s head.

I think that was a preview of our future, Spot sent.

One mind with double the trauma, Oscar sent, great. That guy is going to need so much therapy.

Let’s not give up yet.

Did you have any sense that we weren’t just one person in that dream? Because I sure as fuck didn’t. That was a moment of our minds fully merging. We don’t have long left. Oscar’s mental voice felt resigned.

We were asleep. Our conscious minds weren’t involved. All of our barriers and sense of self were gone. I don’t think things are that dire yet while we’re awake.

I hope you’re right, Oscar sent, but how long before combining while we sleep leads to merging while awake?

Spot didn’t have an answer to that. No one did. What are you going to do if we can’t get your body back?

If? You’re being nice. You saw it the same as me. I don’t think the Outsider is going to leave it in very good shape, but it’s not like there’s anything I can do. Oscar sent along with a twinge of suppressed terror. If your boy toy here figures things out, then they’ll exorcise me from you and I’ll die. If he doesn’t then we merge together and I’ll still basically die.

We could try to find another body to put you in, Spot said.

So you’re suggesting I should murder someone else so that I don’t die? How does that align with your morals?

There’s some people who deserve it, more than you do for sure.

You mean Morris.

I don’t not mean Morris, Spot sent.

I’m not going to murder my brother, Oscar sent back.

Do you think he’s going to change for the better now that he’s free of whatever that thing is? Don’t forget, if we don’t get you out of my body then you’re murdering me.

Oscar didn’t respond for a while. Spot could feel bits of confusion and angst drifting from the direction — if there was such a thing in his brain, he didn’t have a better word than that for it — of Oscar’s presence. Spot couldn’t remember if he’d been able to feel Oscar’s emotions like this since Oscar had woken up or if this was more recent. Every little thing could be a sign that their individuality was about to slip away. He didn’t want to stop being him. Would he even know when it finally happened or would they just slip closer and closer together and forget that they’d ever been two people?

Whoa, calm down, Oscar sent.

Spot realized he was starting to hyperventilate. He’d never had panic attacks before finding out he was part fish but was sick of them already.

His breathing abruptly changed as Oscar took it over.

Deep breath in. Oscar breathed in.

Deep breath out. Oscar breathed out.

Oscar repeated it.

Spot wasn’t sure if it helped or if it was just the surreality of the situation that shocked him out of it, but he did calm down.

Look, I won’t murder you. I’m sure your twink can figure out some way to pull me out of here and just kill me. He’ll even enjoy doing it.

You don’t deserve to die either, Spot sent.

I sure as fuck don’t, but this ain’t my body.

You never did answer if you think Morris will get better now.

What does it matter?

If he doesn’t, and he’s still a threat, there’s a good chance Dave and Mush will decide to off him anyway.

You going to let them just murder him?

I killed my father with my own hands, Spot sent. Not that I think I could stop Dave or Mush anyway.

Let’s just try and get my body back. Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks.

Chapter Text

“How’re you feeling?” Oscar asked Morris while dropping a pillow and then some blankets on the ground next to him.

“Like you fucking care.”

“You’re my brother,” Oscar said. “You’re also the biggest asshole I know, but I do care.”

“Assuming I was willing to believe that my brother was somewhere inside that thick skull of yours.”

“When we went to Disneyworld the first time the music in the Haunted Mansion entrance scared you so much you peed yourself,” Oscar said.

Race swallowed a laugh. The sound that came out was halfway between a cough and the sound of him drowning on his own spit.

Morris glared at Race then back at his brother.

“My wrists hurt,” Morris pulled his manacled arm and tugged at the chain, “and I’ve only had cold pizza and water for like a week. Not to mention the fucking torture session they put me through.”

“That was the elders and it was a holy ritual,” Oscar said.

“Wasn’t exactly a picnic for me neither,” Race chimed in after watching the brothers argue.

“Shut up, fag,” Morris shot at him.

Race rolled his eyes. At least Morris was predictable.

Morris turned back to Spot, well Oscar, both of them. Race hoped he didn’t have to get used to it. Not that Oscar and Spot would stay separate for long, so he wouldn’t have to. Not that he was going to let that happen.

“I don’t know what the dogs told the elders, but the fact that those cowards didn’t immediately kill them tells me all I need to know.” Morris spit on the ground. “They’re traitors the same as you.”

“Stop harassing the amazing fish-hole,” Race said. “I need your help with something.”

Oscar sighed and walked over to him. It was weird that Race could tell which of them was in control by just the way they walked. It was subtle, but Spot walked more like someone looking for a fight while Oscar was lighter on Spot’s feet.

“Whatcha need, Blondie?”

“You out of my boyfriend’s body,” Race said and held the old tablet he’d borrowed from Medda and loaded with the PDFs from his phone. He had the book that had alternating R’lyehn pages and ones in some long-lost pidgin of German and Latin. “Anything in this that will help with that.”

Oscar’s brow furrowed but he took the tablet. His eyes opened wide when he got a look at what was on the screen then narrowed as he started scrolling through the pages.

“Where did you get this?”

“School library,” Race said.

“No, really. Where did you get this?”

“No, really. The school library. Special Collections. They inherited some books from Miskatonic after it burned down.”

“Which is where our books from Innsmouth wound up,” Oscar said.

Race nodded.

“What else do they have?”

Oscar wasn’t even looking at the screen he was so focused on Race.

“I don’t know everything. They don’t have a card catalog for it. I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to even get access, and then I had to sneak in an extra phone to take pictures because they confiscated mine. Everything I got pics of is on there. The ones in R’lyehn are that one, a copy of the Book of Eibon and pics Dave took of that little book you have.”

“You took pictures of my property?” Oscar said, his eyes narrowing down at the tablet.

“No, weren’t you listening?” Race asked. “Davey took pictures of your property.”

“You’re in love with this?” Oscar asked.

“Unfortunately,” Spot answered.

Race stuck his tongue out at both of them.

“Is there anything useful in it?” Spot asked.

“I’m looking. This isn’t a short book.” Oscar scrolled through more pages, scanning them as he went. “It’s mainly a history of our people.” He scrolled further. “I think I’ve heard of this book. There should be, yeah, here,” he turned the tablet around so Race could see a spell diagram, “some rituals to commune with Mother Hydra, Father Dagon, and the Sleeping God.”

“Mother who?” Race asked.

“Hydra and Dagon, the two oldest members of our species. Well, that’s your,” Oscar frowned and looked Race over, “the names given to them by the people of the air.”

“Would any of them have an answer?” Race asked.

Spot frowned. “You know Dave’s rule about demon summoning.”

Oscar rolled his eyes. “They’re the eldest members of our species and our god of life and death. They ain’t demons.”

“To the surface dwellers they are,” Morris said.

“Shut up,” Race was pretty sure both Oscar and Spot had said that at the same time.

“I don’t know that either Mother Hydra or Father Dagon would be willing to help us,” Oscar said, “and the Sleeping God is, well—”

“Sleeping I get it,” Race said. “So why even have a spell to commune with him?”

“Supposedly his dreams can reveal many secrets. But you’re kind of just along for the ride.”

“You just learn about whatever he’s dreaming about right now you mean?” Race asked.

“Yeah.”

“Interesting, but not going to help us unless we get insanely lucky.”

“Yeah.” Oscar scrolled further through the document.

Race turned his attention to Morris who was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. Race eyed the chains, the manacles, and the pipe they were looped around. It all looked secure to him.

Race stood up and crossed the room to the pipes while Oscar kept scrolling on the tablet.

Morris watched him with a glower but didn’t say anything.

Race gave the pipe a tug.

It didn’t move.

He gave the chain wrapped around it a look. Doing his best to eye each link as he walked down from the pipe toward Morris. They all looked secure.

His feet were knocked out from under him and he fell to the ground.

Race rolled to the side, away from Morris, thanking Davey for the reflexes that kept him from getting kicked.

Morris’s foot impacted the concrete inches from his head.

Race rolled over again before spinning up onto his feet. He had four years of dance to thank for that ability.

“You fucker!”

Race looked over his shoulder to see Spot storming in their direction.

He held his hand up.

Spot stopped.

“I’m fine.” He turned back to Morris. “Nice try fucker.”

“That used to keep you down longer.”

“Because I was faking.”

“Like hell you were.”

“Werewolf,” Race pointed at himself. “I just didn’t want anyone wondering why you weren’t able to beat me down like everyone else.”

“Don’t think that means you’re off the hook for what you did to him,” Spot’s voice came from right behind him.

“You let Oscar off.” Morris sneered at them.

“Trust me, they didn’t,” Oscar said.

“Yeah, I just don’t feel like punching myself in the face,” Spot said.

“Shoot me if I ever decide to trust you again,” Morris said.

“I’ll shoot you for less than that,” Spot said.

“No more killing,” Race said.

“What about Pulitzer?” Spot asked.

Race turned back and met his boyfriend’s gaze.

Spot’s shoulder’s slumped and he, or Oscar, turned and walked back to where they’d dropped the tablet.

Race hoped it wasn’t broken, they were a little light on tech at the moment.

“I hope I’m there to watch him rip you all limb from limb,” Morris said.

Race walked back to the base of the stairs and sat down on the bottom step.

“We really need to get some chairs down here,” Race said.

“A table would be nice too,” Oscar said.

Race looked at Morris, then Sposcar, then Morris again.

What did he want to do with Pulitzer? When he’d first seen what happened in the mirror he’d been all for murdering the man. When he’d seen Oscar and Spot frozen in the kiss that had led to their current situation he’d been all for murdering Oscar too, and still intended to slap the shit out of him as soon as he had a body again.

But then he’d watched Davey and Spot kill.

He’d watched them snuff the light out of those thug’s eyes. He wasn’t sure why that had driven death home to him so much more than watching his own parents die in the mirror. Maybe the thin veil of glass between the present and the past had left it feeling too much like television?

Race pulled out his phone and found one of the videos the others had taken of the mirror. He turned the volume on his phone down low enough that only he’d be able to hear it and scrolled until he found the part he wanted. The view wasn’t super good, since he could see his head, and Spot’s next to it, blocking part of the view, but it was all they had.

“I shouldn’t be surprised that you have the manners of a dog too. Such a pity though. I’d offer you your lives if you had anything I wanted, but you don’t,” came Pulitzer’s voice from the phone.

Race watched again as the band of crimson light shot from the dark sorcerer’s hand toward his parents' necks. He saw it hit, saw the flesh start to split, and then the mirror cracked at the instant his mother died.

It still hit him like a sword in the gut. A sensation he now had intimate experience with. He’d had the videos that had been taken of the mirror since the day after, but this was the first time he’d looked at them. He hadn’t been able to force himself before.

Race backed the video up and watched it again studying the look of defiance on his parents’ faces as they died.

He turned his phone off and shot a glare over at the back of Morris’s head.

Race looked back down at the black screen of his phone. A drop splashed on the screen. He reached up and ran a hand down his face, wiping the tears off his cheeks.

He rubbed his wet hand on his pants.

“Here’s something,” Oscar said and turned around to walk over to him. He stopped when he got a look at him, “you alright?”

Race couldn’t tell if it was Oscar or Spot who asked the last part.

“I’ll be fine, what’d you want to show me?”

He could tell it was Spot who was studying his face before either of them spoke again. He nodded after a long moment and Race watched Oscar’s expression flicker into the place on his boyfriend’s face. It was bad that he was getting used to it.

Oscar sat down on the bottom step next to him and handed the tablet over.

Race looked down and saw a page of R’lyehn. He switched over to the facing page. He couldn’t make out much, but he was able to pick out a section that was clearly a short chant of some type.

“Sath—”

“Stop, don’t say it out loud,” Oscar clamped a hand over his mouth.

Race licked his hand.

Oscar pulled the hand back and frowned at it before wiping it off on his jeans. “Gross.”

“I warned you,” Spot said.

“So what’s it do?”

“Apparently it attracts the attention of an Outsider called,” Oscar took the tablet back and looked back at the page of weird squiggles that passed for writing, “The Patient One.”

“And that’s good?”

“Of course not, but it might be useful.”

“Useful how?” Spot asked.

“Well, specifically for us, if said before going to sleep it will allow you to commune with them in your dreams.”

“I thought we just concluded that dreaming gods aren’t the best source of information?”

“According to this they’re not asleep. They just exist deep in the Dreamlands. But they’re awake, and according to this,” Oscar pointed at the tablet, “they are said to ‘watch at the center of all time as the universe revolves.’ Sounds like they might be a good source of information.”

“If they don’t swat you like a bug for bothering them,” Spot said.

“Well, the ritual is here. So presumably they’re at least somewhat willing to deal.”

“Deal for what though?” Spot asked.

“Well if it’s souls we can give them Pulitzer’s,” Race said straightening his spine. He wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to kill Pulitzer, he wouldn’t know until he was in the situation, but he decided he wouldn’t stop anyone else who wanted to do it.

“I think there’s a prior claimant,” Oscar said.

“So what do they want?” Spot asked.

“The book doesn’t say.”

“What else can this incantation do?” Race shook the tablet.

Oscar took the tablet back and scanned through the text. He made a face, wrinkling his nose and looking like he was trying not to gag. “Apparently there’s a way you can use it to summon their blood.”

“Why would you want to do that?” Race asked.

“It’s a viscous black substance that will cling to someone and drown them where they stand.”

Race’s eyes lit up. Sure it sounded gross and drowning was supposed to be the worst way to die, but it certainly sounded like it could be useful in a pinch.

“No, I won’t tell you how,” Oscar said.

“Good call,” Spot said.

Race stuck his tongue out at them. Him. Spot’s body.

Oscar scrolled a little farther, on the tablet.

“It also says that if thirteen people say the incantation during the right celestial alignment they can summon the Patient One.”

“No demon summoning,” Spot said.

Race closed his mouth and glared at Spot’s body. It was kind of convenient only having one person to glare at.

“Look, the dream thing is already too close for comfort. If it wasn’t literally life or death I wouldn’t even consider letting you do it.”

“Excuse me?” Race asked. “Letting me? You’re not the boss of me. I mean you are, but not like that!”

“I don’t need to know what kinky shit you two get up to in the bedroom,” Oscar said.

“Bold of you to assume we limit it to the bedroom,” Race said.

“Look, I didn’t mean to boss you around,” Spot said. “I just don’t think any of this is really a good idea.”

Race frowned. Spot wasn’t wrong, and Davey’s no-demon-summoning rule did make sense. At least unless you knew a lot about the Outsider you were going to summon and what it was likely to ask for. He figured his first experiment should probably be something small too, and this Patient One sounded like kind of a big deal. What was the saying? Never summon anything larger than your head?

“Okay, so I say this chant before bed, and then I go ask this Patient One how to get your body back?” Race asked. “And how to separate the two of you so that we can put only one of you into it? Actually, we should probably make a list of questions.”

“What makes you think it’s going to be you asking the questions?” Oscar asked.

Race opened his mouth to say something but Spot beat him to it.

“Because he’s most likely to understand the answers,” Spot said.

“If he can remember the questions,” Oscar said. “How good are you at remembering things in your dreams?”

“I—” Race stopped. How good was he at that? He closed his mouth. He remembered his dreams okay, but when he was in them how much of his life did he remember? Would he be able to remember the list of questions?

“And how good are you at remembering your dreams?” Oscar asked.

“Average,” Race said.

“So shitty like the rest of us.”

“So the spell is useless then?” Spot asked.

“To any of us, probably.” Oscar shrugged. “But there is one person who might be able to get something out of it.”

“You are not experimenting on my brother,” Spot said.

“It’s not like he won’t volunteer,” Race said.

“No,” Spot said.

“I don’t think that’s your choice to make,” Oscar said.

Chapter Text

“No,” Davey said.

“I’ll do it,” Jack said.

Davey rolled his eyes and looked at his boyfriend. “You really want to bargain with an Outsider?”

Jack turned and looked Davey in the eye. “Of course I don’t. But I’m the only one who can.”

“Any of us could learn to dreamwalk,” Davey said.

“Not in any sort of reasonable time,” Oscar said.

“I hope it eats your brain,” Morris said from where he was sitting against the far wall of the basement.

No one responded to him.

“He’s not ready,” Davey said, still looking into Jack’s eyes.

“I’ll get ready,” Jack said, narrowing his eyes.

“I can help with that, actually,” Oscar said and pulled the small black book from his ritual kit out.

“You are not using that to help them,” Morris said.

“It’s mine, I’ll do what I want with it,” Oscar said.

“It’s Dad’s, you are not using it to help the creatures that fucking killed him.”

Oscar turned around to glare at his brother. “The people who killed dad are dead. We’re alive. Well, sort of,” he gestured down at Sean’s body, “I’ll use whatever means I have available to save myself.”

“And fuck me, right?” Morris asked.

“You were cleansed. There’s nothing wrong with you anymore. I mean, besides you being you,” Oscar said.

“Then why am I still chained up?” Morris jangled his chains to demonstrate.

“If we let you go are you going to run directly to Pulitzer?” Race asked.

Morris gave him a withering look. “At least you’d have time to get out of town.”

“Do none of you guys own a ball gag or something?” Oscar asked, looking over Davey, Jack, and Race.

Davey snapped his finger. “I knew I forgot something at my parents’ house.” He said it with all the sarcasm he could muster.

“Hey, I don’t know what gay guys get up to,” Oscar said. “All I have to go on is internet porn.”

“Not the best source,” Jack said.

“But what’s your favorite site?” Race asked.

“We are not talking about this,” Davey said, scrunching his eyes shut. “We’re talking about breaking the no demon summoning rule.”

“It’s not a demon summoning,” Race said, “it’s like, exactly the opposite. One of us would be going to the demon realm.”

Davey opened his eyes and leveled a flat gaze at Race. “That’s worse. You get how that’s worse right?”

Race moved his hand as though flicking away the criticism.

“Not helping, Race,” Jack said and turned back to look at Davey. “I can do it.”

Davey took note of how Jack’s eyes, open just a little too wide, showed how afraid he was. “It’s too dangerous. What if you trade something without understanding what you’ve offered it?”

Jack narrowed his eyes at him. “I’m not that stupid.”

“That’s not what I—” Davey stopped himself. “What if the Patient One won't let you go? What if you get lost and can’t find your way back?”

Jack’s look softened.

Oscar cleared Sean’s throat.

Davey and Jack both turned to look at Sean’s body.

“There’s some sigils in here that should help strengthen his tie to this world,” Oscar shook the book, “and there is a way you could make it even harder for him to get lost.”

“What’re you thinking?” Race asked.

“If he was in a confluence with someone — although it would be even better the more of you were in on it — then he’d have an anchor here for him to find his way back to.”

Davey blinked.

He hadn’t been expecting that. It was a sound hypothesis on Oscar’s part. It would be easy enough to do. He looked up and was met with Jack’s eyes. The green depths were always so easy to fall into. Had he only known Jack for 5 months?

Mush had brought the ritual for severing the coven link back with him. So it wasn’t like he was making a lifetime commitment if he agreed to anchor Jack to this world. But… was that what he wanted?

Davey pulled his eyes away from Jack’s, knowing that Jack had already seen the heated blush that had risen to his cheeks. He focused on his hands until his face felt like it had returned to a normal temperature.

He looked back at Sean. “I’ll do it.”

“So you’re not going to try and stop me from doing this?” Jack asked.

“Could I?” Davey countered.

“Not really. I get that it’s dangerous, but this,” Jack gestured at Sean and then over at Morris, “can’t go on.”

“You think you have the balls to kill me, fag?” Morris asked.

Jack rolled his eyes. “I meant that once we deal with Pulitzer we can let you go.”

“You think I won’t just go to the police and report you for murdering a prominent philanthropist?”

“Are you trying to get killed?” Oscar asked.

“Like I said, no way any of these fairy fucks have the balls,” Morris spat on the floor.

“I literally murdered my own father in cold blood,” Sean said.

Race frowned at him.

“So you say,” Morris said. “Who knows how many people you’re holding hostage in this building?”

“We aren’t holding you hostage,” Race said. “A hostage is someone you hold to compel someone else to do something. Youse just a prisoner.”

Morris sneered at him.

“And with as loud as you are, if there was anyone else in the building, you’d have heard them by now,” Jack said.

“You could have attention wards or just regular soundproofing,” Morris said.

“So you blame us for killing your father,” Davey said, “but don’t think we’d kill you?”

“You’re the ones who keep telling me it wasn’t you who killed him.” Morris shrugged.

“Don’t bother trying logic on him,” Oscar said. “He’s immune.”

“The enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak,” Race said.

“Huh?” Jack asked.

“It’s one of Umberto Eco’s signs of fascism,” Davey said.

“Well he is a Trump supporter,” Oscar said.

“So are you,” Morris said.

“Under threat of violence, and if we’d been old enough to vote in 2016 I wouldn’t have voted for him. I would have just told you I did. It’s what I was planning to do next year.”

“You always were weak.”

Oscar just shrugged.

“If we’re going to do this, we need to figure out exactly what questions Jack needs to ask,” Davey said.

“We need to know how long before the two of us end up as one asshole,” Oscar said.

“And how to separate them,” Race said.

“And how to get rid of the Outsider in Oscar’s body,” Sean said.

Davey took some notes down on his phone.

“Where can we find Pulitzer to off him? Unless, of course, he’s still in that creepy abandoned house in Staten Island.”

“How the fuck do you know about that?” Morris asked.

“That’s a yes,” Oscar said, “if big mouth over there didn’t make it clear.” He smirked over at his brother.

Morris clenched his teeth and Davey noticed the vein in his neck was throbbing.

Davey eyed the chains, scanning along them foot by foot. They looked secure, he’d have to double-check them later.

“Or just his house,” Oscar said, “I’m guessing you still know where that is?” He looked at Jack.

Jack nodded.

“I’m sure you’ll be happy to know how much his daughter dating you pissed him off,” Oscar said.

“Really?” Jack asked. “You’re not just saying that?”

“I wonder how’d he’d handle knowing that she’s dating an oboroten?” Davey asked.

“What?” Morris demanded, jumping to his feet and taking a step toward them.

“My sister,” Davey said.

“You might remember her as the girl that was fake dating your brother around Christmas,” Race added.

Morris lunged for him but was stopped short by the shackles.

Davey eyed the chains again. He didn’t see any weak links.

“He’d have tiger kittens and then try to murder her,” Oscar said.

“Why’s Morris so worked up about it?”

“Pulitzer pretty much promised her to him when he was sixteen,” Oscar said, “I don’t think he ever told her, of course.”

“Gross,” Race said.

“Why?” Davey asked.

“After the government murdered everyone in Innsmouth, there were only two ‘pure,’” Oscar made air-quotes around the word, “chyrlid ajha left who were young enough to have kids. They went and found as many other descendants as they could to get together all the ones who had blood wet enough to go to the sea. They went to the sea decades ago though, and Pulitzer has gotten a lot more eugenicsy with it, trying to breed us back to purity.”

“Based on how your body reacted to having your blood dried, I think you were pretty pure already,” Davey said.

“Not pure enough for Pulitzer,” Oscar said.

“But he’s not pure either, is he?” Race asked.

“And Hitler didn’t have blond hair or blue eyes,” Sean said.

“Don’t compare a great man like Joseph Pulitzer with that petty human dictator,” Morris said and tugged at his chains again.

“You’re human too,” Oscar said.

“Take these off,” Morris rattled the chains, “and I’ll show you how human I am.”

“How many times are you going to make Davey beat you up?” Race asked.

Oscar ignored his brother and looked back at them. “The chyrlid ajha, chyrlid vhel, and chyrlid fazh are all human. We’d definitely all be in the homo genus, and should even still count as the same species given that we can all interbreed. At most, we’re different subspecies.”

“You grow gills and live forever,” Race said.

“You grow claws and live forever,” Oscar said.

“And I wouldn’t count us as human anymore,” Race said.

Davey frowned. He knew his parents would agree with Race, but that was because they thought oboroten were superior to humans, and he knew that Race’s words came from a place of deep inferiority.

“You’re humans with—” Oscar stopped and gestured in the air as though grasping for a word, “I don’t want to call it a disease, but it does spread by bite right?” He turned to look at Davey.

Davey nodded. “And birth.”

“So you’re just humans with a commensalistic infection?”

“It’s definitely not a bacteria, I can tell you that much,” Race said.

“How can you be sure?” Oscar asked.

“Because he made me scrape his spit onto slides every full moon for a year,” Jack said.

“So a virus then?” Oscar asked.

“It’d have to be a huge virus. It’s got to include the entire genetic code of a wolf in it,” Race said.

“Not all of it,” Sean said. “We’re both mammals, so a lot of the genes are already there. Not to mention all the junk DNA in there, so how many specific genes would it have to include?”

“You’re all such nerds,” Morris said.

“Hey!” Jack said. “I don’t know what they’re talking about either, it’s alright to admit when people are smarter than you.” He leaned over to Davey and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“You are such a dork,” Davey said and turned to press a quick kiss to Jack’s lips.

“I’m going to be sick,” Morris said.

“You know where the toilet is,” Race said.

“Why don’t I just puke up right here?” Morris asked. “Let you all deal with the smell.”

“One, you spend more time here than any of us, so that hurts your more than us,” Race said, “and B, we’re not going to get you more food until Blink and Mush get here for their shift.”

“Maybe I’m planning to go on a hunger strike.”

“He’s bluffing,” Oscar said. “You should see what a baby he is if he skips lunch.”

“Or how he inhaled their Winter Tide dinner,” Sean said.

“It’s gross, right?” Oscar asked

“Does he even chew?” Sean asked.

“It’s a miracle he doesn’t choke to death.”

“Okay, as weird as it is for me to be the one doing this, we’ve gotten way off topic,” Jack said. “Let’s maybe focus in on the questions?”

“Right,” Race said. “How precise do we need to be with the wording?”

“There’s not many details about how big of an ass the Patient One is,” Oscar said after looking at the tablet again. He swiped to the side and zoomed in. “There’re some notes in the margin on the Gothic side though. They’re cut off in this photo and definitely not a language I recognize.”

He handed the tablet over to Davey.

Davey looked down. He pinched the tablet to zoom out. He hadn’t noticed the marginalia when looking at the page before. It was tiny on the side of the page, almost out of frame.

“Race?” Davey asked.

“Yeah?”

“How big was this book?”

“Big. Like three feet tall and two feet wide. Two feet wide closed I mean. Like four feet wide when open.”

Davey held his hand up. “I get it.”

He zoomed back in on the writing. It was written in the Latin alphabet, or an adaptation thereof. The spelling had the look of something that didn’t align precisely with the phonemes of the alphabet though. Something like Polish maybe.

“It’s definitely a Balto-Slavic language.” He tried sounding out some of the words. “Probably Baltic. Maybe a proto-Lithuanian dialect?”

Oscar shrugged at him. “I know R’lyehn and Latin.”

Davey pulled out his phone and searched for an English/Old Lithuanian online dictionary. He tapped the link to open one and tried typing one of the words in. It came back with no translation available, which didn’t mean much. He scrolled through the list of words the website did have translations for and it didn’t have a broad selection. Besides that who knew if the spelling had drifted since whenever the marginalia had been written?

“Nothing simple. I’ll have to take some time with it later,” Davey said.

Sean or Oscar nodded.

“You two… three,” Davey gestured at Sean’s body and Race, “text Mush and start brainstorming questions.”

“And what are you going to be doing?” Sean asked.

“We,” Davey gestured between himself and Jack, “need to perform the Inward Gaze a few times to establish the link.”

“Oh,” Race said, “you’ll be fucking.”

“What?” Oscar asked and looked at them, his eyebrows almost at Sean’s hairline.

“You mean you didn’t have the urge to jump Spot’s bones every time you did the ritual?” Race asked.

“Only a little more than normal.” Oscar shrugged.

“Well, either you wanted to fuck my boyfriend a lot — which we’ll be talking about once you’re back in your body — or loving the person you’re doing the ritual with makes the experience way more intense.”

David relaxed his face and thought about math problems, managing not to blush.

They were sitting on the floor of Jack’s room. The ritual diagram was getting sketched out in red pastel on pieces of posterboard around them and a candle sat on a metal tray in the center of the rough circle.

“I still think the concrete slab in the basement would be better,” Davey said looking at the plush carpeting around them.

“For the ritual, yeah,” Jack said. “But I don’t want you tackling me down there. What if Ma walked in on us?”

“I think I can control myself.”

“Haven’t yet,” Jack said and threw a smirk at him. “We both know how irresistible I am.”

“I’m not answering that. Your ego is already the size of a small moon.”

Jack looked up from where he was finishing the diagram and shot him with a finger gun and a wink at the same time.

Davey groaned. Why was he in love with this idiot?

Jack made the last mark with his pastel and stood up to look at it. “Double check it for me?”

Davey nodded and stood up from where he’d been sitting in the center of the diagram. He pulled out his phone and found the scan of Oscar’s book. He gave Jack’s work a careful look over, and then again, before focusing on the small section that was different between the diagram Jack had gotten used to laying out and the one that would establish the link between them. He triple-checked that part.

He turned to Jack. “Looks good.”

“First try?” Jack asked.

“It’s not like you haven’t gotten a lot of experience with this sort of thing.”

“Guess that’s true,” Jack said then looked up at Davey. “You ready?”

Davey swallowed and nodded.

“You sure you want to do this? I know it’s a big deal and I don’t want to pressure you into anything you’re not ready for.”

“You need to have an anchor back to this world,” Davey said.

“Hey. Don’t do this because you feel obligated.” Jack crossed his arms and took a step back. “I can get Crutchie to be my anchor. He’s been my little brother since way before Medda adopted us.”

Davey took a step forward and put a hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“I love you, Jack Kelly.”

Jack looked up and Davey let himself get lost for a moment in the green depths of his eyes.

“I love you and I’d be honored to enter into this partnership with you.”

He noticed a few tears at the corner of Jack’s eyes.

“For sure?” Jack asked.

“For sure.” Davey leaned down and pressed his lips to Jack’s.

Chapter Text

Jack was lying enfolded in Davey’s arms. He reached out and checked his phone.

5 am.

They had a few hours before either of them had to be at class.

He stifled a laugh at the thought. It felt so strange to worry about classes. It’d been a week since any of them had made it to more than one class. Still, if they didn’t want to tank their GPAs they either had to start attending or enter full withdrawals for the semester. He’d recommended the withdrawal but the death glares from Davey and Race had shut him up.

Jack felt the moment Davey started stumbling toward consciousness and the moment he snapped to full alertness. It was strange but in a good way. He swore he could almost feel himself being held in Davey’s arms. They’d performed the ritual three times in quick succession until they’d both agreed they could feel something, or more accurately until they couldn’t keep resisting the urge to get more physical.

There’d been no changes in Davey’s river of light, it was as breathtaking as ever. But they’d noticed some changes in his own. The walls had been a mix of blue-gray stone and blue crystal when they’d last performed the ritual, almost two months before, but now the blue crystal had replaced everything. He was pretty sure the blue-gray stone had been what was there when he was still human and the full transformation to crystal meant that he was now fully transformed into a werewolf. Unless it meant that he now had full control. He wondered what Racer’s river looked like.

Jack closed his eyes and relaxed back into Davey’s arms, focusing on the sensation he was getting from Davey. There was a small twinge of something he liked. He couldn't quite tell if it was love or lust. Or maybe both.

Davey’s breathing hadn’t changed at all. He was trying to fake still being asleep.

“I know you’re awake,” Jack said.

Davey’s breathing changed before he spoke. “How?”

“I felt it the moment you woke up.”

“Interesting.” Davey put his chin on Jack’s shoulder and pressed his cheek against the side of Jack’s head.

“So I’d say we’ve definitely got a connection now.”

“A magical one,” Davey said.

“I think we were pretty magical before too.”

“How can you deliver a line that corny with a straight face?”

“Years of practice.” Jack shrugged. “It’s early, do you think we should do it again?”

“I don’t think we need to practice that,” Davey said, “I think we have it down pretty well.”

Jack laughed. “I didn’t mean that. I meant the ritual.”

Davey blushed. “Oh.”

“I mean, if you think the link is strong enough to anchor me, then I’m not against practicing the other thing.”

Jack was almost late for class. Not that it would have mattered. Science wasn’t his thing and nothing about becoming a werewolf had changed that, except maybe to make it worse. It was a little hard to take Life Science seriously when he could turn into a wolf. Still, there were core requirements he had to satisfy even for the art school.

They were covering the parts of the cell. He’d missed the first lecture while babysitting Morris, but at least he already knew that the mitochondria were the powerhouse of the cell. That was all he knew though.

Jack scrambled to take notes and at least this stuff made more sense to him than math had. More importantly, at least he didn’t know anyone in the class so no one was bullying him for his notes either.

After Life Science he had Spanish. There was a foreign language requirement too. He’d picked Spanish because he’d taken it in High School and figured that would make it easier, which it did, but was starting to think that he should have switched to something else this semester. Spanish would have been most useful if he was still a human, but he already knew some of it and could have used Duolingo to keep going. Given how many weird languages kept coming up in werewolf life he felt like he could have been contributing more if he’d picked something else. Too bad NYU didn’t offer classes in R’lyehn. Not that he’d have been much use with only part of a semester where he kept missing classes under his belt. At least he could pick up where they were in Spanish.

Jack had an art studio last, the one class he was always ready for, and then it was the weekend.

Spot had somehow talked Hotshot and Graves into taking the night watch Friday and Saturday night. Jack had no idea what his brother must have promised them for it. There was a time when he would have said a kidney, but now he knew that neither of them needed a spare. The rest of them would all get one full night of sleep so that all six of them could meet at the once abandoned building, finalize the list of questions Jack was going to ask the Patient One, and then he was going to take some Benadryl and a nap to go meet with the Outsider.

Jack knew he’d volunteered for it. Jack knew it had to be him. Jack knew why it had to be him. That did not mean he was looking forward to sending his brain off to ‘commune’ with something.

Of course, he also wasn’t looking forward to the hour-long commute back to his ma’s house for the night. Losing their dorm room was a major inconvenience. At least Davey had agreed to wait for him after his one class and lab so Jack wouldn’t be alone on the way back.

He shook his head and realized he was halfway through painting a portrait of Davey.

It wasn’t the first time he’d painted his boyfriend, or the first time he’d zoned out a little while painting, but he was supposed to be painting a landscape this week.

Jack sighed.

He set down his palette and took the painting off the easel, leaning it against the legs. He’d finish it later.

He went to the supplies cabinet and pulled out a fresh canvas.

Jack set the canvas down and looked down at the partial portrait of Davey.

He hadn’t had the right colors on his palette, so it was Davey entirely in the colors of the Desert Southwest. He wasn’t sure what it meant that he’d rendered his boyfriend’s brown eyes with cactus green.

As he looked at it, Jack could almost feel a small itch in his head. Like something was missing from his immediate environment. He focused on the feeling and realized he could feel where Davey was waiting for him in the cafe on the first floor of the building.

Jack shook his head again, like a dog trying to clear water out of its ears. He smirked at the comparison in his own head. That feeling had been the whole point of why they’d done the ritual so many times in a row, but right then he needed to be focusing on class.

Jack was sitting in his older brother’s room. He’d pulled the chair from Spot’s desk and was sitting backward on it, leaning his chin on the back of the chair while Oscar paged through his little black book.

“So is that where you keep the numbers of all the hot fish girls?” Jack asked.

“No, it’s where I keep the true names of all the octo-boys,” Oscar said.

Jack was about to ask what true names were but Oscar stopped on a page and started scanning it. Jack knew he wouldn’t remember to ask later but decided to let it slide.

“Okay, so normally dreamwalking requires some preparation.” Oscar turned the book around so Jack could see a rough circle made of sigils. “Symbols to help anchor the walker to their body in this world while propelling their mind beyond.”

“Into dreams you mean,” Jack said.

“Sort of,” Oscar turned the book back around and flipped a page. “Dreams are just the nearest part.” Oscar flipped the page again and looked up at Jack’s face.

Jack knew his brow was furrowed and Oscar sighed upon seeing it.

“Look, you’re all artsy. You ever used Photoshop?”

Jack nodded.

“You know how layers work in that?”

Jack nodded again.

“So the real world is the top layer. Dreams are the next layer down. Then there’s the top layer of,” Oscar frowned at the book, “that’s not really translatable, so let's just call it the Astral.”

“That the place where I was able to walk around a ghostly version of the city?”

“If it still looked like the city, then yeah,” Oscar said. “The layer after that would be the city how people think of it.”

“So basically hell,” Jack said.

“Some of us love New York,” Oscar said.

“Because you grew up rich,” Jack said.

Oscar frowned and shrugged. All three of them knew he couldn’t argue with that.

Jack let the subject drop. “What’s after that?”

Oscar flipped another page. His brow furled.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

“There’s nothing certain after that.”

“No one’s ever come back you mean?”

“None of us have. I don’t know if anyone caught you up on what we learned when we met the elders, but we,” Oscar gestured down at Spot’s body, “have a much stronger connection with our bodies than the people of the air do. Apparently, our mind, body, and the ocean are very tightly entwined.” Oscar consulted the book. “The links can stretch, but it’s dangerous for us to venture too far from our bodies, we can lose the ability to change.”

“How far is too far?” Jack asked.

“Apparently this far,” Oscar stabbed at the page he had open.

“So that’s why you and Spot don’t need to worry about changing anymore?”

Oscar nodded.

Oscar got up, walked over to Spot’s desk, and rummaged around until he found an old notebook. He flipped it open and then started searching for a pen that worked. He went through three before finding one that wasn’t dry.

“How do you live like this?” Oscar asked.

“I don’t, this is all shit I left behind when I went to college,” Spot said.

“Then why didn’t you throw it out?” Oscar asked.

Spot shrugged.

Jack was getting used to watching his brother have conversations with himself, which worried him. It hadn’t even been a full week. His life was weird.

Oscar sketched a few symbols on the page and handed it over to Jack.

Jack glanced down at it, it might as well have been Greek to him. Might have been for all he knew.

Oscar walked back to the desk and came back with some scissors.

“Put a drop of blood on that one.” Oscar indicated one of the symbols with the point of the blades and then handed them to Jack.

“What’s this for?”

“It’s what we use to project out a little bit. You probably don’t need it given what you’ve already done, but it will let me walk you through what I can right now.”

It took Jack a few tries to cut his finger. They weren’t safety scissors, but they were blunt enough that they might as well have been. He put a drop of blood where Oscar had indicated, then watched as the tiny cut sealed shut before his eyes.

“Okay, now lay down on the bed.”

Jack got up from the chair, giving it a small kick as he went to make it spin around a few times. He sat down on the bed, threw his legs up on it, and lay down.

Oscar set the paper down on his chest.

“Close your eyes and clear your mind.”

Jack closed his eyes and then opened them. “Clear my mind? How the fuck do I do that.”

“Close your eyes you idiot,” Spot said.

Jack closed his eyes again.

“Just listen to my voice,” Oscar said. “Try not to think. If a thought crosses your mind acknowledge it and let it go.”

Jack tried his best.

“Deep breath in,” Oscar said. “Acknowledge your thoughts and let them go.”

Jack was finding that easier said than done, but he was having some small success with it.

“Deep breath out.” Oscar kept that rhythm going for a while.

Jack got better at letting the thoughts go. He wasn’t sure if his mind was clear, but he acknowledged that thought and let it go too.

“Now let yourself drift, just a little. Just a little out of your body. See what’s nearby.”

Jack was relaxed enough that drifting out of his body was easier than he expected. Almost like the mere suggestion of doing it was enough. He hoped it wasn’t some sort of hypnotic bullshit. He was pretty sure Spot wouldn’t let Oscar get up to anything. Unless of course Spot thought it was funny. They better not put his hand in a bowl of water while he was having an out-of-body experience.

He could see his body, and Oscar or Spot sitting next to him, mouth still moving, through the murky gray veil that separated the upper level of the dream world from the physical.

Jack could hear the heartbeat of the city echoing somewhere in the distance. It sounded a little different. He wasn’t sure if that was because of the walls, for what little they mattered here, or if it sounded different in Staten Island. Did New York City have one heart, or was each borough its own thing?

He was distracted from his musing when he noticed a shimmer of colored light coming from his brother’s head. Jack looked at Spot’s head closer there was a thin green light. It flickered out and was replaced with a band of thin red light. It looked almost like electric sparks and little solar flares reaching out of his head and arcing back in.

Was that normal? He didn’t remember anything like it around Blink. He hadn’t seen a lot of other people. He glanced down at his own body. There weren’t any lights. Of course, he wasn’t in his body at the moment. He turned back to his brother.

Jack watched it flicker a few more times before realizing the two colors seemed to be rotating around his head. The speed wasn’t constant though. He took a step back and walked around his brother.

Oscar had stopped talking or at least stopped talking to Jack. It looked like he was talking to Spot, or that Spot was talking to him. The body — what a morbid way to think about his brother — was silent but he could see expressions flicking back and forth across his face as control alternated between them.

Jack looked again at the light again. It flickered to green when Oscar was in control and Red when Spot was. Maybe he was seeing the colors because there was too much brain in there to fit in just one head. Could he get a peak at what was going on inside his brother’s head?

He considered trying to get a peak. He should be able to pass through Spot’s head just like he could everything else. But, that was how he got back into his body. What if that got him stuck in Spot’s body too? The last thing they needed was three people in there.

Jack took a step back, he’d have to let Davey know about that later, but it was best that he focused on what he’d come there for. He turned, took a few steps, and passed through the house’s outer wall. The heartbeat of the city was louder outside but still sounded different than it had outside of Blink’s dorm.

He needed to try and pierce deeper. Oscar had said the next layer was safe enough for him, so Jack didn’t figure it couldn’t be too dangerous if neither he nor Spot had thought to warn him about it. But how, exactly, did he go deeper?

He closed his eyes, focused on the beating heart of the city — after all Oscar had said the next level would look like a more idealized form of the city — pictured the symbols Oscar had written, and took a step forward.

The sound around him changed. It was deeper, more intense.

Jack opened his eyes.

He was standing on a marble balcony. In front of him, a city stretched. It didn’t look anything like the New York he’d known all his life, but somehow it felt the same. Delicate skyscrapers of gleaming metal and light. It was sunrise, and it smelled like it had just rained. Only a few wispy clouds remained in view, just enough to allow for light rays to be seen.

It was beautiful.

His fingers itched to draw it, to paint it.

He felt a tug from the metallic line that connected him to his body.

Jack took a step back, closer to the waking world and his body.

He turned and saw Spot looking down at him with concern.

He guessed it was time to wake up.

“So this is the list of questions?” Jack looked over the piece of paper in his hand.

Race nodded at him.

They were sitting on the first floor of Hotshot’s Secret Lair with Davey and Mush. Davey was using a hand pump to inflate a mattress — he’d insisted they stop on the way and buy it. Spot and Blink were downstairs keeping three eyes on the prisoner.

“How do we expel the entity, currently inhabiting the body known as Oscar Delancey, from said body?” Jack read the first question. “You guys have Hotshot help write these? Sounds like legal speak.”

“No,” Davey said.

“But maybe we should have,” Race said.

“We don’t how literally it’s going to take the questions,” Mush said, “so we’re trying to be as precise as possible in the language.”

“We probably could have done better,” Davey said, “but we’re short on time.”

Jack nodded.

“How can one, and only one, mind be extracted from the body known as Sean “Spot” Conlon?” Jack read the second question.

Davey nodded.

“How can the abilities, possessed by the being or beings inhabiting the body known as Joseph Pulitzer, which would be defined by the average Child of the Air as extranormal, be removed?”

Mush nodded.

“Not sure how well I’m going to do at remembering that one. It feels like trying read the Scarlet Letter again.”

“Well, we don’t have CliffsNotes to get you through the test on this, so figure it out,” Race said.

Jack looked up and caught Race rolling his eyes. He noticed Race’s brows were furrowed together too.

“Look, I get you’re worried about Spot. We’re all worried about Spot,” Jack said.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Mush said.

“Oh don’t even start with that.” Jack shot Mush half of a glare. “You know he’s the one of us you like the most, and stop pretending you don’t like the rest of us.”

Mush rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out at them.

“You’re clearly a beacon of maturity,” Davey said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Race said then pointed at Jack. “Get back to memorizing them questions.”

Jack rolled his eyes, there seemed to be a lot of that going on, and looked back down at the list. This was serious and he needed to pay attention.

He read through the list, mouthing the words along.

“So what’s this thing going to want in exchange for our answers?” Jack asked after another few read-throughs.

“Who knows,” Race said.

“It could be anything,” Mush said. “Ranging from a drop of blood to a promise not to eat fish to your willing enslavement for all time.”

“Oh, that’s very comforting,” Jack said and shot a withering look at Mush before looking back down at the questions.

Jack read through the list a dozen more times while the other boys sat in silence until Davey broke it.

“I’ve been trying to translate the marginalia. It’s a warning not to do…” Davey grasped in the air, searching for the word, “something. I have no idea what though. The word doesn’t match anything I’ve found yet.”

“So it’s going to ask me for something, and I shouldn’t give it to it? Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose?” Jack asked.

“Maybe you can bargain with it and it’s a warning not to accept its first offer?” Race asked.

“Or warning not to even try talking to it,” Mush said.

“Well, I’m talking to it, and I’m trading it something,” Jack said.

“Jack,” Davey said, “don’t agree to anything too extreme.”

“Spot’s life is on the line here, Davey.”

“I know, but I can’t imagine he’d want you to sell yourself for him. We might still be able to find something else to save Sean.”

“You know,” Mush said, “Spot’s not really even facing death here.”

“If he and Oscar merge then neither of them will exist anymore,” Race said and glared at Mush.

“Sure they will. They’ll be mixed together, but if you make chocolate milk, the milk and chocolate both still exist.”

“We aren’t talking about food,” Davey said.

“You are your mind,” Race said doing his worst impression of a kindergarten teacher. “If your mind stops existing, you stop existing. If you can’t reverse the mixing of the chocolate and the milk, then they don’t exist anymore.”

“They do, though,” Mush said.

“So you just want to let Sean and Oscar mix?” Davey asked.

“Of course not,” Mush said, “but this isn’t death we’re fighting against, so I don’t think it’s right to make Jack think he needs to be willing to sacrifice himself to save his brother.”

“That’s not your decision to make.” Race bared his teeth at Mush.

“No, it’s his,” Mush said and narrowed his eyes at Race, “and I think he should know as much as possible before he has to make it.”

“I wish one of you was going instead of me,” Jack said.

Davey reached over and squeezed his hand. “You’re the only one who can. Just remember where I am.”

Davey closed his eyes and Jack felt a nudge, he couldn’t think of any better way to describe it, coming from the itch where he could always feel Davey now.

Jack did his best to push back at it. From the way Davey’s eyes flew open, he knew Davey had felt something back from him.

“You ready?” Davey asked.

Jack read through the list of questions one last time, closed his eyes to make sure he could recite them from memory, and gave a shaky nod.

“How many should I take?” Jack looked down at the bottle of bright pink pills in his hand.

Everyone else was gathered around him on the second floor. Hotshot and Graves were downstairs again with Morris. The windows were filthy with something — it looked almost like smoke, but there weren’t any signs of fire damage in the building — and admitted only streaked, gray light despite the afternoon sun shining outside.

“I say take the whole bottle,” Race said.

“Racer,” Spot said and shook his head.

“What, it can’t kill him,” Race shrugged.

“How long do you want him to sleep?” Davey asked. “He needs to wake up to give us the answers.”

“I still think this would work better with weed,” Oscar said.

“A bottle of store brand Benadryl is cheaper,” Mush said.

“Yeah, a bottle that says we shouldn’t use them as a sleep aid,” Blink said.

Jack opened the bottle and shook out a small handful. He threw them back and swallowed them dry. He choked a little, he had no idea why he thought that was a good idea, but he managed to force them down.

“We have water,” Davey said.

Jack tried to smile at Davey but stopped and wondered when his eyes had started to water.

“Why am I in love with you?” Davey asked.

“Dropped on your head as a child is the only reason I can think of,” Mush said.

“Worked out good for me,” Jack said.

Davey sighed and knelt to pull a blanket and pillow out of his backpack. He threw the pillow at Jack’s face.

Jack missed his grab, so it hit him full in the face, but he managed to catch it before it hit the ground.

“I probably deserved that,” Jack said.

Davey just hummed at him while spreading the blanket out on the inflated mattress he’d brought upstairs and old carpet scraps that made up the floor on this level.

Jack set the pillow down at one end of the blanket and lay down on it.

Davey handed him a small piece of paper with the incantation printed on it in Davey’s neat but cramped handwriting. He brought it up to where he could see it.

“Just say it once,” Davey said.

“Got it,” Jack said and focused on the strange words, glad that Davey had written them out phonetically for him, he’d seen what they looked like in the book and it wasn’t anything he could have hoped to pronounce.

“Sath anga kad ish tud rin yib wlin wlah tis til.”

He got the strangest feeling of being watched and a shiver ran down his spine.

“Anyone else feel that?” He asked.

Everyone else shook their head.

“Well, I guess it did something.”

“Close your eyes,” Davey said and put a hand on Jack’s scalp. He started rubbing Jack’s scalp.

It felt very calming.

Jack closed his eyes and cleared his mind the way Oscar had shown him, doing his best to fall asleep.

Chapter Text

Jack had a blurry memory of climbing down some stairs, several flights worth he thought, but the first thing he had a clear memory of was standing naked in a cave illuminated by a pillar of fire on the far side. The fire was bright enough to light every nook and cranny but still flickered enough that the partial shadows on the wall seemed to move.

He stepped into the room and realized he was naked.

Jack sighed.

He looked around at the walls to see if there was anywhere to go or any sign of the Patient One.

He froze.

The walls had looked like unworked stone from the entrance, but now he could see that the shifting half-shadows showed scenes that were anything but accidental. He turned around counting a dozen or so carved figures staring back at him from the walls. Almost human except for their strangely pointed faces. The artistic style wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen before, nor were the clothes the figures were wearing.

“So is one of you the Patient One?” Jack asked.

The carved walls didn’t answer.

Something else did.

“They are not.” A voice echoed off the walls.

Jack couldn’t tell where it came from and spun around but didn’t see anyone.

“Are you the Patient One?” Jack asked.

He heard a footstep from the direction of the pillar of fire and turned to see two figures stepping out from behind it, one on either side.

“We are not,” one of them said.

He couldn’t see their features clearly, because the only source of light was behind them, but they looked human, if tall. Their skin was dark and their clothing looked like they’d stepped out of Black Panther. Given that he was dreaming, maybe they had.

“Can I get directions to the Patient One?” Jack asked.

“Deeper,” the figure on his right said.

“Your path cannot be altered now,” the figure on his left said.

They stepped closer and to his sides. He managed to get a good look at them. Two men, both taller than Davey — well over six feet, maybe even pushing seven — with skin so black it was almost blue.

The thought of Davey made him look for the link they now shared. Jack could feel that Davey was farther away, although unlike when they were on campus he couldn’t pin down a specific direction. He reached for it and nudged it a little, hoping Davey got the message that he was, well awake wasn’t the right word, conscious was probably closer.

After a moment there was a nudge back.

He looked at the two figures who were studying him as though he was a piece of meat or maybe a bug they were contemplating crushing.

“So, who are you guys?” Jack asked.

“Kai’ckul,” the one on the right said.

“Nasht,” the one on the left said.

“So you’re like the welcoming committee?”

Kai’ckul inclined their head.

“Your soul is worthy enough, you may pass,” Nasht said.

Jack felt a little offended at the ‘enough.’ Also, a little surprised that he was worthy of anything.

“How?” He asked.

“Beyond the fire,” Nasht said and pointed, “it will not harm you.”

Jack eyed the swirling pillar, looking like something out of the Prince of Egypt. “Where am I?”

“The Cavern of Flame,” Nasht said.

The way he said it made it sound like someplace Jack should have heard of. For all he knew it was covered in every Dreamwalking 101 textbook out there, not that they had one.

“Don’t suppose you guys have any clothes?”

“Everything you need is beyond the flame,” Kai’ckul said.

Jack frowned and turned his attention back toward the flame.

Squaring his shoulder, he crossed the cavern toward the light. He glanced at the strange carvings on the wall. He considered asking his guides who the carvings were supposed to be, but got the feeling he wouldn’t like the answer.

He stopped in front of the pillar.

Jack reached a hand out. The fire looked real and he could feel the heat coming from it. Still, it was a dream, so maybe the guards were right and it wouldn’t hurt him.

Or maybe they were lying.

Could he regenerate in a dream? Was he even still a werewolf in a dream? Was being a werewolf part of his body or of his mind, or was that a meaningless distinction? Jack rubbed at the place where the shimmering cord left his body.

He stuck his hand into the flames.

It was hot, but like a shower that was a little too warm.

Jack pulled his hand out and examined it.

It looked fine.

He took a deep breath and stepped forward. It seemed like he was doing that a lot in his dreams. It could be a metaphor for his entire life at that point.

It was like stepping into a too-hot shower, but he took another step and was out of it.

In the alcove behind the pillar of flame, he saw stairs leading down and two tables made of a beautiful green stone. There were swirls of darker and lighter colors. It reminded Jack of marble, but the color was more vibrant. One of the tables was stacked with clothing, pieces of armor, and a pair of matched short swords with pommel stones the same green as the tables. The other table was piled with food, coils of rope, and other things.

Jack wasn’t planning to be here long enough to need any of that, he hoped. He did take the time to put on some clothes, blue jeans and a shirt, some leather boots, and a leather vest. There was a leather cowboy hat sitting on the table. It looked like it was just his size.

Jack gave the hat a rueful smile and shook his head. His family, his life, was in New York.

He pushed the hat to the side to reach a belt that was under it. He ran the leather through his fingers. The smell was a bit different than he was used to, and he realized it had subtle stripes of amber. He looked down at himself, the vest and boots had the same patterning. Whatever the leather was from, it wasn’t any normal animal, not that anything had been normal in a while. He put the belt on, taking the time to attach the scabbards of both swords. Once Jack had on everything he thought he’d need, he pulled the blades out and gave them a few practice swings. They felt just like the ones he trained with at Davey’s family’s house. It was like they’d been made for him. Maybe they had been.

Jack resheathed the blades and turned toward the stairs.

There was a strange stretching when he took the first step.

He stopped and looked down at himself. The cord looked the same, loosely trailing off into invisibility. No, it felt like it was more in his mind. He realized Davey felt much further away than he had before. Jack glanced back, the pillar of fire was still visible, but he somehow knew that he’d just passed to a deeper layer.

Jack turned back and took the second step.

His link with Davey stretched further.

Jack took a deep breath.

Jack took the third step.

Seven hundred steps.

Seven hundred steps pulling him further away from Davey.

There was a constant ache in the back of his mind now. It verged on physical pain. Or would if he had an actual body, but he didn’t.

Felt like it though. His toe itched.

Jack nudged the connection with Davey. It felt like a long time before there was a weak nudge in response.

There had been torches along the walls on the way down, but the last one had been a ways back. The dim outline of a door was in front of him, green-tinted light and the smell of fresh flowers came through the cracks.

Jack opened the door.

There was a forest on the other side. It looked to be maybe mid-morning, although he wasn’t sure how he could tell without being able to see the sun.

Jack walked into the clearing and felt Davey grow yet further away.

He turned around and saw that the door opened out of the trunk of a tree.

“Welcome to Wonderland I guess,” Jack said.

Indeed.

The voice echoed through his mind like the slam of a coffin lid in a crypt.

Jack spun around.

The clearing was filled by an immense being. A titan with night black skin, wrapped in a dark leather cloak.

He looked up. The being’s face was missing, just a swirl of undifferentiated flesh. Above the swirl there was a single bloodshot eye that stared right at him. Below was a point of emerald light that stared right through him.

“Are you the Patient One?”

The figure bristled. What Jack had taken for a cloak moved. It was enfolded in wings, not a cloak, and something else was moving under them.

We are that which you called to. The voice came again. Coming from nowhere and everywhere. In the echoes of his mind, he could almost make out, not a sound, but a feeling like a small child crying.

“I, uh.” Jack swallowed. “I have some questions.”

We know why you have come.

“You’ll answer my questions?”

Paint us.

Jack blinked. “What?”

For three answers you will paint us three times. Two you will sell, one you will keep.

“I, uh, I mean I haven’t really sold anything before.”

The buyers will come.

Jack knew there was a catch to this — he knew there was probably a very important reason why paintings of this thing should never be made — but his brother’s life was in danger. All their lives were in danger. They couldn’t hide from Pulitzer forever. They were involved in the disappearance of six members of his cult. He’d promised his daughter to one of those missing members, which he hoped he got to tell Katherine about someday. The being or beings before him had him over a barrel and they both knew it.

It knew his answer before he even spoke it.

Behold. It spread its wings wide.

Jack’s vision swam.

The forest glade and everything else was gone.

Everything was the Patient One.

Somehow he could see the front, the back, the top, the bottom, the right side, and the left side of the being all at once. He could even see himself standing before it. It was like being inside a painting by the unholy offspring of M.C. Escher and H. R. Giger. Patterns within patterns. Space within space. And everything was horribly alive.

Jack noticed there were things crawling on the Patient One. He knew they usually joked about Outsiders being demons, but if those things weren’t literal demons, then they were what the person who came up with the word had gotten inspiration from. Skin dark as the night and shiny as a beetle. Legs that bent the wrong way. Whiplike tails that forked. Fingers surmounted by sharp claws. Bat wings. Smooth expanses of black nothingness for faces, surmounted by curving ebony horns. They had no eyes, but somehow Jack knew they could see him.

The things crawled all over the Patient One. Nuzzling their faces against the body of their father? Mother? God?

All the while the Patient One’s gaze kept him transfixed. Blood red eye staring at him from every direction. Emerald eye staring from within, seeing his mind, his thoughts, his spleen.

It closed its wings.

Space folded back in on itself.

Jack saw in only three dimensions again.

A scream he didn’t remember starting fell silent on his lips.

The Patient One stood before him again, a manlike form in a titanic cloak of wings, but they weren’t in the forest anymore.

They stood on a cratered plane. Above them, more stars than he’d ever seen in his life wheeled across the sky. The stars moved so fast that they almost blurred as they spun across the sky.

His link with Davey was tight and oh so thin. His brain hurt. It was hard to think of anything but how far away Davey was. It was like a part of him had been gouged out. He reached for the link, tried to prod it, but either there was no response or it was so weak he couldn’t feel it.

To reveal that which lies within, compel it to assume its true form.

The Patient One’s words etched themselves into Jack’s mind. Which was good because he was in too much pain to process anything else.

Next, a mathematical equation seared itself into his frontal cortex. It was huge and he had no idea what it meant.

To banish the Haunter of the Red Abyss: One must chant “vak viraʒ” while they proceed. With a hyssop branch, spread a mixture of bitter almond milk, nagual blood, and juniper berries. Then present a symbol of life and the Haunter’s power will be broken.

The words forced themselves into Jack, and with that, the Patient One was gone.

He was alone on the lifeless plain of stone. The silent stars raced overhead.

Jack didn’t remember falling to his knees, but at some point he must have. He couldn’t breathe. Which he knew was ridiculous, his mind didn’t need air. But it did need Davey. He wanted to just lie down and die. His body was heavy, it felt like there were fifty-pound weights attached to every joint.

A tingle came from his link with Davey, or maybe he only imagined it.

He had to get back to Davey.

Jack forced himself up to his feet, his body screaming as it pulled against gravity.

He looked around. The terrain wasn’t the same in every direction, far from it, but he had no idea which direction to go. He clung to the link in his mind and took a step in the direction where it pointed him. If he could remember who had suggested the link he’d kiss them if he made it back — when he made it back.

He dragged one leg forward and then the other.

The ache lessened by a tiny, tiny amount.

A piping sound filled the air, echoing from somewhere behind him. He wouldn’t call it music. There wasn’t any rhythm to the noise. No musical logic. Just random patterns that were at turns harmonious and dissonant. It was like someone beating a dozen bagpipes with two dozen flutes and an oboe.

Jack did not turn around.

He forced himself to take another step.

Chapter Text

Mush checked Jack’s pulse, timing it on his phone. It was slow and steady at just over forty beats per minute, just like it had been since he’d fallen asleep. His breathing was slow and deep, just like it had been since he’d fallen asleep. It was almost midnight and he hadn’t shown any signs of waking up or much of anything else. He’d had rapid eye movements for the first forty minutes, but they’d long since faded away.

Blink wiped the sweat off David’s forehead.

The werewolf had started getting antsy about twenty minutes after Jack fell asleep. At forty minutes he’d started rubbing at the back of his head. At 90 minutes he’d screamed out Jack’s name and fallen to the ground in the grasp of what sure as fuck looked like a seizure. After a few minutes of that, he’d gone catatonic. His eyes were open and blinked, and he moaned or twitched on occasion, but was otherwise unresponsive.

Spot and Race had gone downstairs around sunset to take over from Hotshot and Graves who’d come up to take a look at the situation but hadn’t been able to offer any solutions before going home.

“They’re going to wake up, right?” Blink asked.

Mush had no idea.

“Of course they are,” Mush said.

“When?”

Mush had no idea.

“By morning,” Mush said.

Blink looked at his phone. “That’s still a long way off.”

Mush shrugged.

Davey twitched.

“It’s weird seeing Davey like this,” Blink said.

“Yeah,” Mush said.

He’d never seen the werewolf so vulnerable before. David was, arguably, the biggest threat to him in the city. The cult wasn’t negligible, but Morris was the only one who knew about him and wouldn’t be hard to kill if necessary. An oboroten would always be the biggest threat to a nagual, and his boyfriend was about to become one — Mush looked down at the duo lying on the floor — assuming David ever woke up at least.

He scooted around David and Jack until he was next to Blink and leaned back against the wall.

Blink dabbed at David’s forehead again. He’d been having spells of sweating followed by bouts of shivering too.

“Why isn’t Jack like this?” Blink asked.

“Because Jack’s mind is someplace very far away,” Mush said. “He might as well be in a coma.”

Blink leaned up against the wall beside him and put his head on Mush’s shoulder.

Mush put an arm around Blink and pulled out his phone with the other hand. He opened up a word game and started to play.

David groaned and then spasmed.

Mush rolled his eyes and moved forward to grab the werewolf’s shoulders. He wasn’t sure why he bothered, it wasn’t like he’d do himself any serious harm. Still, at least this way he wouldn’t rip up his clothes.

David started blinking, a lot, then gasped and tried to sit up.

Mush released his shoulders.

“About time,” Mush said.

“Mush,” Blink said and scooted closer to David. He held an almost empty water bottle out.

David pulled himself up, then grabbed at his head..

Blink offered the bottle again.

David noticed it and accepted it. Taking a single large sip and swishing it around his mouth for a long time while he kept blinking before swallowing.

“Why are my eyes so dry?” David asked.

“You’ve been out of it for hours,” Blink said and offered the water bottle again.

David took the time to look at the bottle and shook his head.

“What happened?” Blink asked.

“I’m not sure,” David said and rubbed at the back of his head.

“Bullshit,” Mush said.

David rolled his eyes. “Jack kept going further away. The link between us started getting annoying, then painful, then he was ripped even further away all at once. It felt like my brain was pulled out through the back of my eye sockets. All I could feel was the hole that was left without him.”

“So why are you awake now?” Blink asked and looked over at Jack with his eyebrows drawn close together.

“He’s closer now.” David looked over at Jack’s still vacant body, shuddered, and looked away.

“Falling out of love already?” Mush asked.

David glanced back at Jack and then at Mush. “He’s not in there. It’s just… wrong seeing him like that.”

“How long before he’s back?” Blink asked.

David closed his eyes and then shrugged. “Maybe 20 minutes? I’m just guessing based on how long it took for him to get this far away originally. No idea if it’ll take him or less time coming back.”

It was an hour before Jack took a ragged breath and opened his eyes.

David pounced on his boyfriend in a way that Mush thought was very reminiscent of a jaguar and not a wolf. The way he was clinging to Jack and nuzzling at his neck was all wolf though. He wondered if David even knew he was doing it.

“Never let me do that again,” Jack said.

“Did it at least work?” Mush asked.

“Take your time,” David said.

“I have the answers,” Jack said.

“What was it like?” Blink asked.

“Getting to them was kind of fun,” Jack said, “except that every step got worse the further from Davey I got.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have established the link,” Davey said.

Jack’s attention snapped back to David. “No, Davey.” Jack put a finger under his boyfriend’s chin and raised it up until they were looking at each other. “I never would have made it back if it wasn’t for you.”

Jack pressed forward and captured David’s lips with his own.

Mush watched them make out until they started making noises and then looked up at Blink. “You used to date him?”

Blink glanced down, made a disgusted face, and looked back at Mush. “Yeah, and he dumped me if you can believe it.”

The wet noises stopped for a moment.

“Hey, I apologized for how I did it,” Jack said.

Jack looked like he was about to say something else but David’s mouth interrupted.

“We’ll be downstairs when you guys are done,” Mush said and headed toward the door.

He offered his hand to Blink who accepted it, and together they walked down the two flights to the basement.

Spot or Oscar looked up as they came in, Mush didn’t know either well enough to tell them apart at a glance the way everyone else seemed to.

Race was buried in a tablet.

Morris was asleep against the far wall and based on his breathing he wasn’t faking.

“Everything all right?” Oscar or Spot asked in a soft voice.

“They’re awake,” Mush said.

“And making out like they’ll die if they don’t,” Blink said.

Spot’s body blinked.

Race snorted but kept reading.

“Don’t suppose you found out how it went before they started?” Someone who Mush was pretty sure was Oscar asked.

“He said he got the answers, but that was about as far as we got,” Mush said.

“Hope they don’t take too long,” Probably Oscar said.

“It’ll be a while,” Race said.

“How do you know?” Blink asked.

“Been trapped in a room while they went at it in the entryway,” Race said.

“And he had to pee the whole time,” Definitely Spot said.

Blink snickered.

It was almost an hour later when David and Jack made it down the stairs looking, and there was no other English word for it, rumpled. Hands clasped like they were afraid they’d never see each other again if they let go.

“Please tell me you still remember the answers,” Definitely Oscar asked.

Jack shuddered. “Don’t worry, the Patient One made sure I couldn’t forget them, ever.”

“Ever?” Race asked.

“Yeah, it’s like they just happened. It’s been, well I think months for me to get back, and they’re still fresh as the moment they shoved them into my head.”

“It wasn’t even twelve hours,” Maybe Spot said.

“Here,” Jack said.

David clasped Jack’s hand so tight his knuckles went white.

“So what are they?” Race asked.

“I’ll need some paper and a pen for one of them,” Jack said.

Blink looked around the room. “We’re fresh out.”

“Can’t you use your phone to write it down?” Mush asked.

“It’s an equation,” Jack said. “A huge one. I don’t understand any of it. I think it’s literally mostly greek. I can write it down, but I don’t have any fucking clue how to describe it and it would blow up my phone’s calculator.”

“There’s websites for stuff like that,” Race said and stood up.

Mush thought the blond math geek was resisting the urge to rub his hands together.

“We’ll worry about that later,” Mush said since David seemed too lost in Jack’s eyes to take control of his pack at that moment. He pulled out his phone and opened up the notes app. “Which question is the equation the answer to?”

“The second one,” Jack said.

Mush nodded, it made sense. “What was the answer to the first question?”

“To reveal that which lies within, compel it to assume its true form.” Jack’s voice took on a strange quality while he said it and he shook his head after as though coming out of a trance.

Mush typed it down and double-checked it.

“He didn’t say how to do that?” Blink asked. “Or do you all know already and I’m being dumb?” He looked around at them.

Mush shrugged.

“The whistle,” someone in Spot’s body said.

Mush started to turn to look at them, but stopped when he realized David had flinched. He focused his attention on the oboroten.

David shot a glare at Spot’s body and then fished in the pocket of the vest he was wearing. He pulled out a small plastic bag folded over itself, grabbed it by the corner, and shook it so that the bag unfolded. There was something silver in it.

“You carry silver?” Mush was surprised even while his thumb moved along the silver rings he himself was wearing.

“Worse,” someone in Spot’s body said.

“I don’t know if it would work on the Outsider in Oscar’s body,” David said, “but it forces any of us,” he gestured at all of them including Mush, “to transform.”

Mush frowned. “Forces?”

“Regardless of the lunar phased. It’s how I bit Sean.”

“It was ugly,” Almost Certainly Spot said, “real ugly. Blood everywhere.”

“That isn’t exactly filling me with hope of getting my body back,” Definitely Oscar said.

“Maybe it’ll just force it out of his body?” Jack asked.

They all looked at each other.

None of them had the answer.

“What about the third question?” Mush asked.

Jack’s eye twitched. “To banish the Haunter of the Red Abyss: One must chant ‘vak viraʒ’ while they proceed. With a hyssop branch, spread a mixture of bitter almond milk, nagual blood, and juniper berries. Then present a symbol of life and the Haunter’s power will be broken,” he said in a flat monotone.

Jack shook his head. “That’s fucking creepy.”

“Do you have to do it every time?” Race asked. “What was the answer to the third question.”

Jack started to glare at Race but stopped and recited the answer again.

“I hate you,” Jack said after finishing.

“Well at least I was able to make sure I got it all down,” Mush said reviewing his notes.

“Good. Let’s not do that again unless we need to,” Jack said.

Race opened his mouth.

Probably Spot slapped a hand over it and only sighed when Race licked it, then wiped his hand off on Race’s shoulder.

“Gross,” Race said.

Definitely Spot just gave him a look.

“You’re the one who’d rather date him than me,” Obviously Oscar said.

“Anyway,” Blink said, “is anyone else worried about the ‘Haunter of the Red Abyss’ thing?”

Mush stopped and looked down at his phone. That was what the Patient One, through Jack, had called the source of Pulitzer’s power, and probably the thing in Oscar’s body but, “If that’s the same Outsider that’s in Oscar’s body, why didn’t it give us the same answer for the first and third question?”

“Shit,” Spot’s body said.

“Don’t suppose you can go back and ask?” Race asked.

Jack said, “No,” at the same time that David took a menacing step forward, his eyes fixed on Race.

Race held his hands up. “It was just a suggestion.”

“It was a shitty suggestion,” David said before stepping back and wrapping his arm around Jack.

“What was the price?” Mush asked.

Jack shuddered. “Three paintings.”

“Paintings?” Race asked. “It only wanted three paintings?”

“They want me to make three paintings of them,” Jack said.

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Race said.

“You didn’t see their true form. I’m not even sure how I could begin to paint that. I swear I could see inside of my own head while they were showing themself to me.”

“Still, just three paintings?”

“Letting images of something like that into the world could be dangerous,” Davey said.

“I assume part of the price is that you can’t just destroy them afterward?” Mush asked.

Jack shook his head. “I have to sell two of them and keep the other.”

“You ever sold a painting before?” Maybe Oscar asked.

Jack shook his head. “But they said the buyers would come.”

“Well that’s ominous as fuck,” Probably Spot said.

Chapter Text

Well at least if do get my body back I’ll already know the material in all my next classes, Oscar sent.

Spot ignored his passenger in favor of writing down notes as fast as he could.

He looked down at his notebook and resisted the urge to sigh. His handwriting was illegible. He never thought he’d miss his laptop this much. But unless Oscar’s body still had them and hadn’t destroyed them, it would be a while before he had one again. Medda did alright for herself, the house had been inherited but she still had enough to pay for the needs of four adoptees and that didn’t leave a lot left in her budget. She couldn’t afford to buy both Jack and him new laptops at the spur of the moment, and they didn’t have any sort of insurance that would pay for it. Not that it would have helped yet. Dave did have dorm insurance, and it would still be a few weeks before he saw a dime. They were all stuck using what old electronics they’d scrounged up at Medda and Denton’s, and the school computer labs, for the time being. Not that homework was at the front of any of their minds.

You guys have Morris’s keys. You could try stealing our laptops from the apartment, Oscar sent.

You heard that? Spot asked. He didn’t think he’d been sending his thoughts to Oscar.

With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he realized he could feel Oscar’s shock, and if he focused he could feel Oscar’s thought process. He hadn’t noticed before because Oscar was one of those people who didn’t have an inner monologue. The wall between them was getting thinner.

Shit, Oscar sent.

Yeah, Spot sent.

He pushed down his terror and started copying the notes on the board down again. He rushed because he’d fallen behind, which didn’t do anything for his handwriting.

I hope your twink figures out that equation fast, Oscar sent

Won’t do us any good if we don’t find your body and kick out the current inhabitant.

There was a sense of gnawing worry that grew into anxiety from Oscar.

Spot gave up on taking notes.

We’ll get your body back.

Not according to your brother, Oscar sent. The solution was to ‘compel it to assume its true form,’ not cast it back to the Red Abyss, whatever the fuck that is.

Spot couldn’t argue with that. I get the feeling we’ll have the chance to find out exactly what it is.

The professor finished their lecture and dismissed the class. Spot was glad it was the last class of the day. He needed to talk to Race. He didn’t want to put more stress on his boyfriend, but he needed to be informed that they were starting to merge. Dave did too for that matter.

He pulled out his phone and checked the time — not that he needed to, he knew what time the class ended — but it was something to focus on that wasn’t the impending sense of panic he was feeling. Or Oscar was feeling. Or they were both feeling.

Spot hoped they didn’t form into some sort of feedback cycle, each of them making the other more panicky until they hyperventilated and passed out.

He stopped walking. He breathed in through his nose while counting to five and then out through his mouth while counting the same.

Try and stay calm, Spot sent.

Easy for you to say, Oscar responded, a large dose of terror bleeding through with his words.

If we pass out we’re fucked. Slow breath in and slow breath out.

Spot almost panicked again when he lost control of his breathing. He hadn’t noticed when Oscar took over before. Maybe because he hadn’t been consciously breathing at the time. Losing control of his breathing when he was paying attention was a whole new source of panic.

Okay, this isn’t working. We need to trade off breathing, Oscar sent.

Spot took back control of his breathing, in and out for two counts of five then he handed it back over to Oscar.

He had no idea how long they stood there — or how many people gave them weird looks and curse words while they stood in the middle of the sidewalk — but they got it together enough to head for the subway station.

You know, I never had these problems before I found out I was part fish, Spot sent.

Yeah? Well, you’re lucky, I’ve had them my whole life.

Never saw you have one in school.

You didn’t know me in grade school. Morris started trying to beat the anxiety out of me for embarrassing him, so I learned to bury my panic until I got home and was alone in my room.

That doesn’t sound healthy.

You’ve met my family, what part of that dynamic screamed mental health awareness to you? Oscar asked.

Point, Spot sent. He was going to say something about getting therapy when it was all over, but had to jump out of the street when two motorcycle cops with their sirens blaring rushed through the intersection with no regard for the pedestrians crossing the street.

ACAB, Oscar sent.

Definitely wasn’t expecting that from you.

Just because I’m a rich white guy? The one demographic they sort of actually work for?

Also because you’re an asshole.

An asshole from a group that hasn’t historically had good relationships with the surface government.

Doesn’t mean you didn’t benefit directly from the cops being bastards.

You’re not wrong, but I am trying to be better here, Oscar sent.

“So I’ve got good news and bad news,” Race said.

“Give us the bad news first,” Oscar said.

“Excuse you,” Race said, “Did I ask either of you to choose? The bad news isn’t going to make any sense without the good news.”

“Fine, just cut to the chase blondie,” Oscar said.

“You going to let him call me that?” Race asked.

“Yes,” Spot said.

Race huffed and tried to glare at him, but wasn’t able to put any actual ire into the look.

“So what does the equation say?” Spot asked.

Race stopped failing to glare and turned around to look at the two pieces of poster board they had tacked to the second-floor wall of Hotshot’s building — where Race had been holed up since Jack's trip working on the equations. Both pieces of cardboard were covered in tiny numbers, variables, and equations. They’d watched Jack write them, but they didn’t look anything like his brother’s handwriting, he’d been in that weird almost trance the whole time he drew them out. It was creepy. Spot was more worried than he’d ever admit about what meeting the Patient One might have done to Jack. It wasn’t like it had to play by any rules or had only charged what it said it had.

“So this,” Race gestured around all of one board and half the writing on the second, “is a spell to separate your minds and block them off from each other.”

“Well we should use that soon because more things are starting to… bleed,” Oscar said.

Race’s face whitened. “That’s where the bad news comes in. Although I can’t believe I’m actually calling it bad news instead of great news. Amazing news. The best news in the universe.”

“Racer,” Spot said.

“Right,” Race said then pointed to a specific equation, “Spot will get total control of the body and Oscar will be walled off with no access to anything. You won’t be able to talk to each other. You won’t be able to control the body. You won’t be able to see, hear, taste, smell, or get horny. Absolute solitary confinement.”

“Fuck,” Oscar said.

“Okay, let’s maybe hold off on that until the last possible minute,” Spot said.

“Worse news,” Race said. “We can’t do it right now, but this,” he slapped the board, “is complicated as fuck. We need to set an exact date so I can actually do the math and get the ritual circles set up right.”

“After Davey verifies your math, right?” Oscar asked.

“You don’t trust me?” Race asked.

“With my life? No.”

“Smart man,” Race nodded.

“So if that,” Spot pointed at the left half of the math, “will separate us. Then what does the other part do?”

“It modifies Davey’s body-swapping spell so that only one of you gets transferred.”

“Well that, at least, sounds good,” Oscar said. “Better than being trapped in my own mind while I go slowly insane at least.”

Spot felt his body shudder. He was only mostly sure it was Oscar’s. The idea of being trapped with only your own thoughts, blind, deaf, senseless. People in comas at least got to either be unconscious or have some senses to focus on. Not that that didn’t still sound like a literal hell, but leaving Oscar alone with himself — after the things he’d done and the way his family had treated him — might be the cruelest thing they could do to him.

The second shudder was all Spot’s.

“How far out can we set the ritual date?” Oscar asked.

“I’ll need at least,” Race turned and looked over at Jack’s equations, then down at the tablet he was still borrowing from Medda and scrolled for a minute.

I think he forgot we’re here, Oscar sent.

Give it time, Spot sent.

My life, and apparently sanity, are in the twink’s hands, I’m allowed to be worried.

“I can tell when youse talking to yourself like that,” Race said without looking from the tablet.

“Just waiting for your answer,” Oscar said.

“I know, I know. Hold on to your uvula. I’m calculating how long it will take me to calculate this.”

They stood in silence, external and internal, for about a minute before Race put the tablet down.

“About two weeks.”

“All that, and the best you can give me is ‘about?’”

“Do you want to do the math?”

“I still don’t get what math has to do with sorcery.”

“That’s because your idea of sorcery is consorting with demons,” Race said, “and Davey won’t let me consort with them.”

“No consorting with anyone but me,” Spot said.

“Gods, not demons,” Oscar said.

“That distinction is purely cultural and you know it,” Race said. “And we already went through the list of your gods, and none of them can help. So unless there is a demon you want to make a deal with?”

“No,” Oscar said.

Spot could feel his passenger’s resignation.

“Let’s just do it,” Oscar said, “set the date for three weeks from last Saturday then.”

Race pulled out his phone and looked at it. “So March 2nd?”

Oscar shrugged.

“You sure?” Race asked. “You’ll be trapped in Spot’s thick skull—”

Spot rolled his eyes.

“— and I don’t have any idea when we’ll be able to transfer you out. If we even get your body back in working condition.”

“Our emotions are bleeding through now. Three weeks might already be longer than we have.”

Race’s eyes widened and he nodded. “I’ll text Davey and get started on the math.”

Oscar nodded.

Spot crossed the room, leaving his boyfriend to get lost in equations, and sat down against the far wall.

You sure about that date? Spot asked. We might have a lot longer.

You willing to bet our lives on that?

Spot thought about it. I don’t want to. But Mush was sort of right when he said that us merging wouldn’t really be death. I might be willing to risk that to keep you out of a near literal hell.

Ah, I’m touched. Oscar’s mental voice was laced with humor.

Asshole.

Gym bunny.

Whatever. But don’t forget, we don’t even know if we’ll ever be able to get you out. Maybe I don’t want someone trapped in my head for the rest of my life.

Fuck, I almost forgot you were immortal. You just had to go and get bitten by a werewolf.

The original plan that night was to bite you.

What? Oscar’s question came with a thrill of terror deep in the pit of their shared stomach.

We didn’t know you were still in my head. Your body wasn’t waking up. We knew you weren’t a chyrlid anymore, so thought maybe filling the gap with something else would work.

So why didn’t you? Oscar asked.

Davey couldn’t bring himself to do it without your consent. Spot sent. But I figured as long as he’d already gone through the hell of a forced change we might as well get something out of it.

It was really that bad?

They hadn’t tried anything like it before, but Spot did his best to dredge up the memory and send it to Oscar.

There was a long pause.

Spot could feel his stomach turning and started to worry he might vomit.

You okay? Spot sent.

No, Oscar sent. He went through that just to try and save my dumb ass? Fucking hell.

Yeah.

And then didn’t do it?

You couldn’t consent, Spot sent.

Yeah.

There was another long pause.

Spot watched Racetrack work on math. He’d started scribbling on the wall with something. It wasn’t a pencil. Spot just hoped it wasn’t his own blood. It didn’t look red, or wet, but it was the type of thing his boyfriend would do. He opened his mouth to ask—

Look, I’m not good at this. I don’t know how. Most of the apologies I’ve ever given have been lies. Either to keep Mom happy or because Morris beat them out of me for being gay, Oscar sent.

Spot felt his body take a deep breath, even though Oscar didn’t need it to keep talking.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry for using the confluence to try and sleep with you. I’m sorry for kissing you the last time we performed the Inner Sea. I’m sorry for everything I did to you, your boyfriend, your brothers, and anyone else in high school. I am an asshole.

Spot blinked.

I just wanted to say that. At least to you.

Thank you. Spot didn’t know how to respond to that, except to send, you were an asshole. You aren’t anymore. Spot focused back on Race. Well, not any more than the rest of us.

Oscar’s only response was a sad chuckle that escaped Spot’s lips.

“Keep it down over there,” Race said, “I’m doing math!”

Okay, I’m a little less sorry for bullying him, Oscar sent.

Spot managed not to laugh, but it was a close thing.

Chapter Text

Race had been working on the math for most of a week.

When he’d gone over the Patient One’s instructions with Spot and Oscar he’d implied there were only two equations, but that was because he didn’t want to get into explaining what the first part actually was, and knew they would have just fallen asleep if he’d even tried.

The meat of it was a mathematical description of an eight-dimensional energy field to entrap someone’s mind. There were also instructions for targeting a specific mind inside of Spot’s body, the Patient One had even precalibrated them for Oscar. It was unnerving to know that an Outsider already knew everything about them. Besides the Outsider that was running around in Oscar’s body — which couldn’t have known everything, or else the cult would have come and murdered them all by now.

He hoped Pulitzer or his cultists didn’t get the idea of contacting the Patient One. Race didn’t, for a second, think the thing would have any loyalty to them. Well, maybe it wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize Jack until he’d paid for the three answers they’d gotten, but maybe it would just make not killing Jack until after he’d finished the paintings part of whatever it charged Pulitzer.

Race looked at his exploded graphs of the eight-dimensional mind prison. It was unnerving to realize how big the universe was and how small he and all his problems were. There were things moving, less than a hair’s breadth away from him at that moment, that could destroy the Earth and everyone on it by accident. He kind of wished he was worse at math so that he didn’t understand exactly how thin the veil keeping those things, not away — some of them could cross it whenever they wanted — but hidden, was.

Race shook his head and focused back on the math. He’d been living with the knowledge that a gamma-ray burst from a nearby star could wipe out all life on Earth since he was twelve, he could handle knowing that a god might trip on the carpet and do the same thing just as well.

“You’ve been in there forever, Racer,” Albert said from just outside of his locked bedroom door.

He loved having a brother in theory, but working on spells had been easier when everyone in the dorm had known what he was doing. Living back at home with two people he couldn’t tell, who kept trying to get him to spend less time cooped up in his room, was maddening. At least Chuck had been read-in so when he was around he tried to keep Albert out of Race’s hair — not that that was such a chore for Chuck.

“I’m working on homework,” Race called in the direction of the door.

“You cannot possibly have that much homework,” Albert said.

“You don’t know what college is like,” Race said.

He’d rather be doing the math at Hotshot’s building, but he needed a computer for some of the math, and his old gaming rig was the only one he had thanks to Oscar’s body.

“Come on Race, Denton says you have to come out,” Albert said.

Race frowned. If his dad wanted him out he’d have to come out. He glanced at the clock in the corner of the computer screen and scowled. “Nice try but dad’s still at work, and I came out of the closet years ago. Speaking of which, shouldn’t you be busy being Chuck’s boy toy right now?”

“Why am I the boy toy?” Albert asked.

“Because you’re the himbo in the relationship.”

“Well you’re the himbo in your relationship, and if you keep doing all that homework you’re going to get unsightly wrinkles. You don’t want Spot to trade you in for a younger model in ten years, do you?”

Race snorted. Wrinkles weren’t something he had to worry about, and if Davey was right about the mating for life thing, then he and Spot were stuck with each other so there wouldn’t be any trading in. Unless of course Spot and Oscar merged, which counted as Spot dying, and so Race ended up dying of a broken heart while Sposcar found some new twink.

There was a muffled knock from the front door.

“Don’t think this is over,” Albert said before stomping off.

“Please be Charlie,” Race mumbled to himself.

He worked in silence for a little bit before the sound of Albert’s loud footsteps came back down the hallway toward his door.

“Maybe you can get him out of there,” Albert said to someone.

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Davey said.

Race bolted up from the chair, unlocked the door, and threw it open. He grabbed hold of Davey’s arm, yanked him inside, and slammed the door in Albert’s face.

“I’m definitely telling Denton about this.”

“Go ahead if you want me to tell everyone you’re a tattle tale,” Race said to the door before dragging Davey over to his computer.

“Did you bring it?” Race asked.

Davey frowned but nodded. He pulled some folded sheets of paper out and handed them to Race.

Race snatched them, almost ripping the corner off one, and unfolded them.

“This would be easier if you’d just emailed it.” He spread the pages out over the keyboard and studied them, squinting at Davey’s cramped handwriting. At least it was neat.

“My father would literally, actually execute me if he even knew I had this ritual. I’m not sending it by email.”

“How is your handwriting this neat? It’s unnatural,” Race said.

“Years of copying snippets of grimoires into a tiny notebook whenever my parents left the house.”

“So wait, this spell came from a book your parents own?” Race asked.

“Yeah,” Davey said.

“Then doesn’t your dad have to execute himself?”

“I don’t think they know they have it. The book is in French. My father doesn’t speak French, and my mother isn’t fluent.”

“Okay, and why do you have the spell if it’s so evil?”

“So that I’d be able to recognize if it had been cast.” Davey pointed at a ritual circle that took up the entire side of one of the pages. “It leaves a large footprint that isn’t easy to clean up.”

Race frowned down at the page. “It takes two altars, both of them carved with runes?”

“And they have to be made out of virgin stone,” Davey said.

“How are we supposed to afford that?” Race asked. “You maybe should have brought it up sooner.”

“I didn’t remember. It’s not like I spend my free time looking for the opportunity to steal someone’s body.”

“That’s good because this body is all mine. You’re not stealing Spot from me by stealing my body,” Race said.

“How will I ever live?”

“With Jack, the least impressive of Medda’s kids,” Race said.

“I’ll just have to make do.”

Race lifted the diagram up to the last part of the equations, looking for where they linked together. He wondered how much of Davey’s spell was even necessary. As far as he’d been able to tell so far, the ritual circles, although he was being generous in calling them circles, existed just to channel energy into the hyperdimensional constructs that composed the spells. The relevant sigils were just smaller versions of the larger circles that seemed to help direct the energy, like subroutines in a larger program. But only a handful of the symbols used in the circle were like that, and only one carved into each altar, he was pretty sure that all the rest of the symbols were just pseudo-religious nonsense that could be left out without altering the spell at all. Not that Davey would ever let him no matter how much time it would save Jack in carving them. Could Jack even carve stone? He’d have to learn if they were ever going to get Oscar all the way out of Spot. Also, why did it have to be virgin stone? There wasn’t any meaningful difference between unworked stone and used stone. They were chemically identical. It couldn’t possibly matter.

“Here,” Race pushed his chair away from the computer and spun around while it rolled back, taking the pages with him. “Check my math on the separation spell while I start trying to figure this mess out.”

“As much as possible we’re doing it as written,” Davey said then knelt down in front of the computer and started scrolling.

“Doesn’t that hurt your knees?”

“I’m used to it.”

“Your dad?” Race asked.

Davey inclined his head in a slight nod but didn’t say anything.

Race pulled out his phone and spent a few minutes trying to find out how much the stone was going to cost. He wasn’t even sure what to search for. After a few failed attempts he tried looking for blocks artists would use to carve something the size of a human. Those were all marble though and would cost at least three grand, not counting shipping and delivery. Were they supposed to get them delivered directly to Hotshot’s? How would that work with the attention ward? The deliverymen would have questions. Well, Jack could probably just pretend to be an eccentric artist.

Race sent a text to Oscar, by way of Spot’s phone. Hey asshole, any chance you can still access your family money?

Damn, I left my credit card in my other body.

Can you order a new one?

To what address? Oscar asked.

Yours? I bet Spot could pick the lock.

Before I agree to any breaking and entering, what’s this about? Spot asked.

We need two big ass stone altars. Like 8 foot by 4 foot by 4 foot, and they have to be virgin stone. So unless you’ve got a quarry hidden somewhere? Race sent.

Which ritual is this for? Oscar asked.

The one Davey probably doesn’t want me mentioning even on an encrypted app.

Well since my body is probably useless, we don’t really need to worry about that.

Race rolled his eyes.

We’re not leaving you trapped in your own mind forever. Even if you’re right about your body there’s plenty of people out there the world could do without. Race sent.

And two of them are named Delancey, Oscar sent.

We’ll figure out a way to get the rock, Spot sent before Race could reply. Leave Captain Self-sacrifice here to me.

“So what’s it like, turning into a wolf?” Oscar asked.

“You think one of us is going to want to bite your stanky ass after you get a body again?” Race asked.

He was lying on his bed trying to snuggle with Spot, and Oscar talking was kind of ruining the mood, but they couldn’t do anything about that yet. At least not since Davey had stolen his computer so he could check his math.

Race had tried to protest, but Davey had said that spending a little time with Albert wouldn’t kill him and that he didn’t want to let him spend too much time lost in sorcerous math.

“No,” Oscar said, “but I think the full moon is in three days.”

“It is?” Race grabbed his phone out of his pocket and checked the date.

Oscar was right.

Race glared at his phone.

“You didn’t know?” Oscar asked. “I thought you werewolves would have that memorized.”

“I do.”

“Then why do you sound so surprised.”

“I knew it was on the nineteenth. I just didn’t realize it was the sixteenth.”

“What date did you think it was?” Spot asked.

“I don’t know. The tenth?”

Spot snatched his phone out of his hands. “No electronics. You’re spending so much time doing math you’ve lost touch with reality.”

“Technically I’m making touch with a greater reality.” Race tried to snatch at his phone but Spot rolled onto his side and put the phone on the floor.

Based on the sliding sound that followed that, Race was pretty sure his phone was now somewhere under the bed. He tried not to think about what else was down there.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Race said.

“Huh?” Spot asked.

“Oscar asked what it feels like.”

“Oh, right,” Spot said.

“But what does it feel like?” Oscar asked.

“Kind of like cracking your knuckles, but it’s your whole body at once,” Race said.

“Huh.”

“You’ll find out in two days,” Race said.

“You forget the date again? It’s in three days,” Oscar said.

Race rolled his eyes. “Why does no one pay attention to Dungeons and Dragons.”

“I’d say because I was too busy getting laid in high school but we all know that’s a lie,” Oscar said.

“I managed to get laid and play,” Race said.

“Same,” Spot said.

“Yeah, well some of us squandered our youth trying to appease tyrannical assholes and now don’t get to have a future,” Oscar said.

“It sounds almost like you want to die,” Race said.

“I’m just trying to be realistic.”

“He’s also depressed as fuck,” Spot said.

“Look, even if we can’t get your body back, we can find you someone else’s.”

“I’m not letting you murder someone just so I can have a body.”

“We wouldn’t be. I’m sure Davey and Mush will have us murdering someone else before long.” Race wasn’t lying either. He wasn’t happy about it and planned to keep his hands as clean as possible, but if they were going to murder someone there was no point in letting the body go to waste.

“Well it’s not like I’ll be able to stop you,” Oscar said.

“That’s the spirit,” Race said, “bitter resignation to your inevitable fate.”

Chapter Text

“You’re sure about this?” Davey asked.

Blink nodded.

Davey unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt to make some room and reached for the familiar tingle. He drew it up into his head, directing it to pool in first his mouth and then the rest of his face. There were popping sounds and a stretching sensation in his face that he’d never been able to find a good way to describe.

A whole spectrum of scents flooded his nose adding a new dimension to Mush and Blink’s room. He could tell they’d had sex the night before and that Blink’s sheets hadn’t been washed in a long time. It was for the best that his larynx had changed enough to keep him from speaking.

He paused the change once his muzzle was complete and he was sure that he wasn’t at one of the parts of the change that was too disturbing to look at. He tried not to think about how much he probably looked like a furry at that moment.

Davey made eye contact with Blink again.

Blink was doing a good job of hiding his anxiety, but Davey could smell it.

Blink pulled his shirt off and angled his bare shoulder toward Davey.

“You sure you want it there?” Mush asked. “It’ll be pretty obvious if you go to the beach.”

“Where else would you suggest?”

“I got mine right here,” Jack gestured at the side of his hip.

Blink frowned at Jack and looked back at Davey. “The shoulder is fine.”

Davey opened his jaws wide and moved to the side so he could get a good angle for the bite. He bent down and placed his teeth on either side of Blink’s shoulder blade just in contact with the skin without breaking it.

He glanced sideways at Blink.

Blink nodded.

Davey bit down. His teeth sliced into Blink’s skin. The feeling of Blink’s muscles tensing. The taste of blood in his mouth. Some small corner of Davey’s mind noticed that it tasted different than Jack’s had. He opened his mouth and pulled back, letting his face return to a human shape while forcing his fingernails to change into claws.

He cupped his left hand and stabbed into his palm with his right index finger. Once there was a small pool of blood he pulled the claw out and moved his cupped hand to let some of the blood flowing out of Blink’s wound mix in.

Once there was enough he stirred their blood together with his finger and then used the blood to write a sigil of transformation on Blink’s shoulder, in the center of the bite wound. He dipped his finger in the blood and drew a circle around the sigil, and then a square around that.

Davey moved the hand with the blood above the sigil and then his other hand, which he contorted into a representation of a different sigil, over that.

“Yupozahflah yanah’yar ahahzahf.”

He switched the position of his hands.

“Yupozahflah yanah’yar ahahzahf.”

Sparks of greenish light sprang up around the sigil drawn on Blink’s shoulder, like a tiny thunderstorm.

Blink made a face.

Davey wondered what it felt like, he’d never thought to ask Jack.

He raised both hands over his head.

“Yupozahflah yanah’yar ahahzahf.”

The bloody mark and the blood cupped in his hand burst into heatless green flames and burned to nothingness in less than a second.

Blink shivered.

“That’s it?” Blink asked.

“That’s it,” Davey said.

“So I’m a werewolf now?”

“Not quite,” Davey said, “you might heal a little faster at the moment, but you won’t be an oboroten until your first change in two days.”

Blink nodded.

“Thank you,” Mush said.

Davey locked eyes with the nagual and gave him a curt nod. He’d gotten used to working with a nagual, and didn’t even think about it most of the time, but sometimes it still hit him. His father hated nagual. His father blamed them for everything wrong in the supernatural world, especially the near plague of ghouls in the Southwest. Yet here he was working with one. If his father ever found out he’d be dead. Except there was no way he could keep everything from his father forever.

That was something to worry about if they survived confronting the cult. The cult that had killed over forty well-trained adult werewolves twenty years before. The cult they were facing with two late twenty-somethings, five teenage werewolves, and one teenage nagual. Plus Oscar’s disembodied consciousness.

“I can literally feel you brooding over something,” Jack said.

Davey shook his head and gave his boyfriend a half smile.

“I did bring the ritual for that back,” Mush said. “I can break your link pretty much whenever.”

“No,” Davey and Jack said in perfect unison and then looked at each other.

“Okay, that was creepy,” Blink said and then rubbed at his shoulder.

Davey looked at the bite. The teeth marks were already scabbed over and looked well on their way to being fully healed. After Blink changed it would look like nothing more than a faded scar. The same way it would look for the rest of his now extended life. Assuming of course that any of them survived the cult.

“You’re doing it again,” Jack said.

“If you’re not worried about the link and being life bonded to his idiot,” Mush pointed at Jack, “then what are you worried about?”

“Eight shifters against a cult that wiped out every oboroten in New York City. Before we at least had some element of surprise, but depending on what Oscar’s body has gotten up to, that’s probably gone by now.”

“We could always give up,” Mush said. “It’d be safest and it’s a big country.”

“That you’re not welcome in,” Blink said.

Mush shrugged. “You’re not wrong, but apparently my birth father manages to travel around the U.S. checking on the places where my ancestors bound Outsiders. And by ‘my ancestors’ I mean him personally.”

Jack whistled. “Your dad is that old?”

“Older than Columbus is all I know for sure,” Mush said. “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know the conversion between whatever calendar he was born under and the Gregorian calendar. Or just refuses to figure it out.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear that your father is in the country,” Davey said.

“The same way you pretend that I’m not here?”

“Exactly.”

Mush laughed.

“Can I put my shirt back on?” Blink asked. “It’s cold in here.”

“Oh, yes,” Davey said.

“Do we know anything about Oscar’s body?” Blink asked.

Davey frowned.

“There’s no way he’s getting it back,” Mush said.

Davey nodded. He wasn’t happy about it, but given what they’d seen in the surveillance video there was a good chance it was already dead and just a puppet for the Outsider, and with the Patient One wanting him to use the whistle on it, there wasn’t going to be enough left of Oscar’s body to fill a paper cup.

Jack put an arm around his shoulders.

“But isn’t Race working on the spell to separate Oscar from Spot right now.”

“They’ll merge together if he doesn’t,” Davey said.

“Which I still think you should prefer to letting Oscar die,” Mush said.

Jack started to say something but Davey beat him to it. “Regardless of how any of us feel, Oscar doesn’t want to kill Sean and knows the risks.”

“He doesn’t know you won’t be able to put him back in his body though,” Blink said.

“I’m pretty sure he does,” Jack said.

“I think Sean is the only one still in denial,” Davey said.

“So after everything you’re just going to kill Oscar?”

“Worse,” Jack said.

“He’ll be trapped in a corner of Sean’s brain. Awake but without any access to the sensory portions of the brain or any way to communicate with Sean. It’ll be hell,” Davey said.

“And you’re just comfortable with that?”

“No, but Oscar knows and still wants to do it.”

“Probably thinks he deserves it,” Jack said.

“I’m not going to say he doesn’t deserve some suffering for high school,” Blink said, “but I think being trapped in hell inside of an immortal is overkill.”

“We might find another body for him,” Jack said. “It’s not like we have a shortage of people you two want to kill.” Jack gestured between Davey and Mush.

Davey frowned. Jack wasn’t wrong, but he didn’t like hearing it phrased that way.

Jack bumped Davey’s shoulder with his.

He looked up to see Mush looking at him. They locked eyes and he knew what the nagual was thinking. He nodded.

“We have Morris,” Mush said.

“His even bigger asshole brother?” Blink asked.

“Oscar knows Morris, so it’d be easier for him to assume his life than some random person who found out our secret,” Davey said.

“And if it’s a choice between Oscar and Morris, I feel like Oscar deserves a second chance more than Morris,” Jack said.

“Is it really our place to decide that?” Blink asked. “This feels like a problem in some sort of ethics class.”

Jack shrugged. “I’d be more worried about how Oscar would deal with seeing the face of his abuser in the mirror every day.”

“At least it’s not a bad-looking face,” Blink said.

They all stopped and looked at him.

“What? I mean sure, he’s the biggest asshole any of us know—”

Mush mumbled something in Spanish that Davey was pretty sure meant, “You haven’t met my father.”

“—but you can’t deny he’s good-looking,” Blink finished.

“I can and I will,” Jack said.

“You know, the two of you aren’t that different looking,” Mush said.

“I will fight you,” Jack said. “I know you’ll kick my ass, but I will fight you.”

“No, he’s right,” Blink said, squinting his eye at Jack. “I wonder if that’s what Katherine saw in you, that you looked like her betrothed fish.”

“I’ll fight you too,” Jack said. “And then get my ass kicked by your boyfriend.”

“It’s good that you understand that,” Mush said.

“You don’t look that much like Morris,” Davey said.

“Excuse you? That much? I do not look anything like Morris.” Jack said. “Besides, what does that make Oscar making out with me mean if I look like Morris?”

“No one ever said he had good taste in men,” Mush said.

Race was scribbling like mad with what seemed like an entire ream of paper in front of him. He was sitting naked on the floor.

Davey was standing behind him trying to keep up with the mad speed at which the blond was completing calculations.

“I can’t decide if this is the gayest shit I’ve ever seen or the nerdiest shit I’ve ever seen,” Morris said from where he was sitting in the corner. He gave his chains a tug to make them clank. “I bet you’re loving it though, aren’t you Oz?”

“Fuck off,” Oscar said from inside Sean’s also naked body.

Davey noticed that Oscar was checking Race out though. But he wasn’t going to say anything if Sean wasn’t stopping him.

“I feel like I’ve been scarred for life,” Charlie said, looking anywhere but at his naked brother.

Davey checked his phone. “Ten minutes until moonrise, start your breathing exercises.”

Sean sat cross-legged on the floor. Blink, though fully clothed, sat down next to him and they both started taking slow steady breaths.

All the shifters, plus Charlie, were there except Hotshot and Graves who were still doing their level best to remain aloof from all the younger shifters. Davey wanted to get to know them better, since it seemed like they were going to be stuck with each other for the foreseeable future, not that he had any idea what he’d talk to them about, except for pestering Graves with ten thousand questions about the Bouda.

Race was still scribbling away like mad and not even making an attempt at the exercises.

“If you don’t at least try, you’ll never learn to control your changes,” Davey said.

Race made a dismissive gesture in the air.

“Racetrack,” Davey said.

“David,” Race said.

Davey rolled his eyes.

Race paused and looked up at him. “Look, we both know that ship sailed a long time ago. My time is better spent on this,” he gestured at the pages.

“And you’d have more time to spend on that if you could control the change.”

“He can’t control it?” Charlie asked. “I thought he’d been a werewolf the longest of any of you? Besides Davey I mean.”

“If you don’t stop talking now I’ll hump your leg,” Race said and turned a sheet of paper over to scribble down an integral.

“It’s a sore spot, just let it go, Crutch,” Jack said.

“But you’re wearing clothes,” Charlie said, “So you can control it?”

Jack nodded.

“But you’re an idiot.”

“I can feel the brotherly love from here, Crutch.”

“This would be easier if you guys would shut up,” Blink said.

“You’re not even changing tonight, you’ll be fine,” Mush said.

“It’s called practice, Mush.”

Davey noticed that Sean’s breathing was still even and had stayed that way through the whole conversation. It was impressive.

Race was still working on the integral.

Davey gave up on trying to convince him to try. Maybe once Sean got the hang of it he’d have more luck.

A shudder ran down Davey’s spine as the moon cleared the horizon.

“Whoa.” Blink’s eye shot open.

“It’s weird, right?” Jack said.

“What was that?” Blink asked.

“Moonrise,” Davey said.

“You’re going to have a real rough next twenty-four hours,” Jack said.

Davey blinked and looked at his boyfriend.

“He is?”

Jack’s eyes moved to Davey and he scratched the back of his neck. “Oh, yeah. Guess maybe I didn’t mention that? But you remember how I was, right?” He looked back at Blink. “My senses were like switching into overdrive, my emotions were all over the place. I almost called Crutchie just to scream at him.”

“What did I do?” Charlie asked.

“I thought you were the one responsible for me and Spot winding up in the same suite and no one believed me that you were capable of it. Blink here swore you were an angel.”

“He is an angel,” Blink said.

“Nah, if I’d thought of it that would have been a great joke,” Charlie said.

“Asshole,” Sean muttered under his breath. If it hadn’t been the full moon Davey wouldn’t have even caught it. He was pretty sure it was directed at Oscar and not Charlie, although he had to admit either was possible.

There was a snapping sound and Sean started to change.

Blink watched with rapt attention. He’d shown interest in their changes before, but his focus was more intense now.

Sean arched forward, his back cracking and growing longer.

“It really doesn’t hurt?” Blink asked.

“Not normally, only when the whistle is used,” Davey said.

“Whistle?” Charlie asked.

“It forces you to change, real bloody,” Sean said, his voice dropping an octave as he spoke.

“Why do you have something like that?” Charlie asked.

“Sometimes you need to change and it’s the new moon,” Davey said.

“Or sometimes you’re at war with another race of shifters and might want to incapacitate them,” Mush said.

“I didn’t know about the pain when I made it.”

“But you knew it would force us out of form,” Mush said.

Davey shrugged. There was no use in denying it. His father’s hatred of the nagual had inspired him to choose that ritual as his first magical experiment.

“You guys really hate each other that much?” Charlie asked.

There was a loud crunch as Sean’s pelvis reshaped itself.

“I really don’t see how that can’t hurt,” Charlie said.

“Your pain sensors are all deactivated,” Mush said, “so you just feel the motion. It’s weird but it doesn’t hurt.”

“Right.” Charlie wrinkled his nose.

Sean completed his transformation with a shake like a wet dog trying to get dry.

“Ah, who’s a good boy?” Charlie asked.

Sean turned around and snapped at the air in Charlie’s direction.

“Oh yeah, you’re so scary,” Charlie said.

“And you said he was an angel,” Jack said to Blink.

“Don’t worry Charlie, you can pet me tomorrow night,” Blink said.

“Excuse me?” Mush planted his hands on his hips.

Blink stuck his tongue out at Mush.

“Is that what you look like?” Charlie asked Jack.

“Course not,” Jack said, “I’m bigger and much better looking.”

“Sure you are, Cowboy.”

“You’re really going to make me do this, huh?”

“Of course I am,” Charlie said.

“You just want to see me naked.” Jack pulled his shirt over his head.

Charlie made a gagging sound.

Jack chuckled and unbuckled his belt.

“Oh goody, this again,” Blink said.

Jack flipped his ex-boyfriend off.

Sean made the closest approximation to a laugh that a wolf’s anatomy could manage.

Jack tried to toe his shoes off before realizing he’d worn boots that day. He sighed and bent down to unlace them.

Chapter Text

Charlie was pinned to the floor by a large brown wolf. It would have looked frightening if he wasn’t laughing while the wolf tried to lick every inch of his face.

“You asked for it,” David said.

Charlie was laughing too hard to respond.

Mush wasn’t even sure how the boy was still managing to breathe at this point. His face was an alarming shade of red.

“I don’t have time to pet you, I need to get this done before moonrise,” Race said.

Mush blinked and turned to see Race still writing out numbers as fast as he could while Spot’s canine form rolled its eyes. Mush pulled out his phone and checked the time, a move he realized was being copied by David.

Their eyes met and they both looked at the still very much human Race.

Spot jumped in a circle, looked at Mush, and then looked at Race.

Mush nodded and walked over to the naked blond.

“Moonrise was twenty minutes ago,” Mush said.

Race kept writing down numbers.

Mush snatched away his pencil.

“Hey.” Race reached for the pencil and Mush pulled it further away. “I need to finish this before moonrise or I’m going to forget where I was.”

“Moonrise was twenty minutes ago,” David said from the other side of Race.

Race turned and looked first and David, then at Mush, then at Spot, and finally at Jack who was still pinning Charlie to the ground but had stopped licking his brother in favor of watching them.

“Did you just math your way into controlling the change?” Mush asked.

Race looked down at himself, then back at Spot, then back down at himself. “I…”

Spot scratched something in the dust on the floor.

Mush looked over to see the word, ‘Nerd.’

Spot looked down at the word, rolled his eyes, and scratched the word, ‘My,’ above it in what might have been different handwriting. Paw-writing?

“Yeah, take that Delancey,” Race said. “I’m his nerd.”

Mush figured he should have guessed the first message was from Oscar, although it wasn’t like it was something Spot wouldn’t have said to his boyfriend.

There was a cracking noise from Charlie’s direction.

Mush knew what it was, what it had to be. He tried to ignore it. The need for maintaining total situational awareness his mother had drilled into him forced him to look over just in time to see Jack stand back up into human form. It was a little annoying how much control he had for someone who’d been a shifter less than six months. Mush had been sixteen before he’d had close to that level of control. If he was being honest with himself, he still couldn’t make his changes look as graceful as the stupid oboroten could.

“Racer!” Jack ran over and pulled Race into a tight hug. “I knew you could do it.”

“But how did I do it?” Race asked. “What if something we did broke my ability to change? What if I’m not a werewolf anymore?”

Race pulled away from Jack and patted himself down like he was checking for something in the pockets he didn’t have because he was still naked. “Wait, that would be great!”

Spot barked.

“Oh shit, right, you’re a werewolf now. Okay, if I’m cured you’ll just have to bite me.” Race nodded to himself. “But why am I cur— Ow!”

Race looked down at the hilt of a knife that had just been shoved into one of his lungs and then up at David who’d put it there.

If David hadn’t done it, Mush had been about to do it himself.

“You stabbed me,” Race said.

Spot growled at David.

David reached out and pulled the knife free.

The wound sealed shut.

David wiped the blood off the blade on Race’s chest.

“Where did that even come from?” Blink asked.

“Where did what come from?” David asked.

“That knife.”

“What knife?” David held his hands open, they were empty.

“He also does birthdays and bar mitzvahs,” Jack said.

“It’s up his right sleeve,” Mush said, confident that he was the only one who’d seen where the knife had gone. It was one of five that he knew the oboroten had on him. He suspected at least two more.

David snorted and looked directly at Mush’s lower arm where a sheath was strapped against his forearm under his sleeve in the same position as the one David had used on Race.

Race looked between them. “As fascinating as the impending ‘who has more weapons hidden on their person’ dick-measuring contest is sure to be, can we get back to Davey stabbing me? If I had been cured then I’d be dead now.” He glared at David.

“I could smell that you weren’t cured.”

“Like you could be sure with all this around,” he gestured at Spot then blinked at Jack. “Why are you naked?”

“Charlie wanted to see me change?”

“How did I miss that?” Race asked.

“How did you miss moonrise?” Jack asked.

“Stop trying to distract me, we’re talking about your boyfriend trying to murder me.”

“In the worst-case scenario it would have deflated one lung,” David said. “You have two, we’d have plenty of time to get you to a hospital.”

Mush tried to swallow a laugh but failed.

“Oh, I bet you think this is really funny,” Race said.

Mush pointed at his chest. “You have some blood there.”

Race threw a glare at all of them and sat back down on the ground.

Mush chuckled then turned his attention back to David. “Changing the topic, did you manage to get what we’re going to need to deal with Pulitzer?”

David nodded.

Jack knelt next to his backpack and unzipped the main compartment. He pulled out first one, then two, and then three Tupperware containers, one full of white fluid and two full of small items.

He picked the liquid-filled container up. “Bitter almond milk, just followed a recipe for making homemade almond milk, but used the bitter almonds,” he picked up one of the other two containers, “that we got off Amazon.”

David grabbed the third container and opened it showing a bunch of small dark balls. “Juniper berries, also from Amazon.”

“And the Hyssop?” Mush asked.

“We’ve got two potted ones in Jack’s room that we’re taking care of, as big as we could find.”

Mush nodded.

“So as soon as you bleed, we’ll have everything.”

“I just wish we’d been given exact amounts,” David said.

“It’s odd that we got instructions that exact,” Mush gestured at the reams of paper in front of Race, “for one answer but such vague ones for another.”

“Uh,” Jack rubbed at the back of his neck, “I think I do know how to mix it all. We’ll need to grind those up,” he pointed at the container in Davey’s hand, “with like a pepper mill, then add about a cup to the almond milk. We shouldn’t add the blood until right before we use it though. About a handful I think.”

“You think?” Mush asked.

“Just kind of a feeling I have coming from the same place as the answers do whenever you ask me one of the questions.”

Mush opened his mouth.

“Don’t you dare,” Jack said.

Mush closed his mouth with a smirk. On some level he knew that it wasn’t funny, it was something an Outsider had left behind in the other boy that suspended his control of his own body, but he was willing to admit he was a bad enough person to laugh at it.

“And the hyssop needs to be fresh-ish. So we should finish the base and then we’ll have to plan in advance when to go for Pulitzer.”

“Somehow I doubt he’ll give us time,” Mush said.

David nodded.

It was a day later and Blink was sitting naked on the floor. He’d even taken off his eyepatch when David hadn’t been able to promise that the transformation wouldn’t damage it. Mush had seen his boyfriend’s empty socket plenty of times in bed, but seeing the scarred tissue in full light was a bit unusual. He’d caught everyone except for Jack and Race staring at it at some point. Though to be fair, he didn’t know if both Spot and Oscar had stared and he knew Race hadn’t only because he was still lost in the hyperdimensional mathematics of sorcery.

The other oborotni were all naked too. David had said something about it being tradition to welcome new oboroten by changing together. Mush assumed it had something to do with being pack animals. By nagual tradition, only a parent or the one who bit someone would even try to join someone during their first change.

Even though he wasn’t supposed to even try to control the change the first night, Blink was still breathing on the floor. It was more to control his temper than anything else. Mush hadn’t even known his boyfriend had a temper until that day. At least not for anyone but Jack. Blink hadn’t even gone to class. Every stray sound and scent had him launching into a rant.

Morris was making gagging sounds in his corner of the basement.

Race was scribbling on the papers again. If he was still upset at being stabbed he’d put it aside in favor of having David check over his work.

“Does this ritual need a three-dimensional ritual circle?” David asked.

“Four-dimensional,” Race said. He shuffled through the papers until he found what he was looking for and set them side by side. “See, this part and this part will have to be moving. This one goes clockwise around the circumference,” he pointed at one and then the other, “and then this one will have to run perpendicular to that one around Spot’s body.”

“I’m not sure I can lay that out,” Jack said.

“Just think of it like a moving sculpture.”

“I’ve never done a moving sculpture.”

Race batted Jack’s complaint away. “You’ll figure it out.”

Jack rolled his eyes and then turned to David with his eyebrows near his hairline.

Mush would think their antics were more amusing if his boyfriend wasn’t about to turn into one of them. There was a genuine chance that he was stuck with the naked idiots forever.

“I still don’t understand why I have to change,” Race said. “You know I won’t be able to change back, and we can’t lose any time on this.” He thumped the pile of papers.

“Because it’s tradition,” David said.

“And just think about how much you love math, I’m sure you’ll change back then,” probably Oscar said.

It looked like Race was about to say something but stopped and there was the sound of five men’s breathing being disrupted at once.

Mush’s eyes sought out Blink, ignoring the other four wolves transforming around them. He wished he could help. Wished he could join the four others in welcoming his boyfriend into the fold, but they were forever apart. At least he’d always be able to defend Blink when he was weakest each month.

Blink’s nose crinkled.

He looked like he was about to sneeze but instead of an explosion of air, there was an explosion of face as his nose and mouth rocketed into a hairless muzzle. Blink went a bit cross-eyed trying to look at it. The sound of his bones breaking and pockets of air releasing as his joints realigned filled Mush’s ears. The look on Blink’s face was concerned but not alarmed.

Mush watched as over the course of two minutes his once human boyfriend turned into a near-hairless wolf. It wasn’t the most flattering look Blink had ever had, but for some reason, it wasn’t until almost the end of his transformation that golden fur started to sprout from his skin, spreading from the top of his head down his back and then down onto his body. Everyone’s change was different, and he’d never seen anyone manage to make it look graceful, except for Jack, but it was still the oddest transformation he’d ever seen.

Blink’s wolf form was still missing his eye. Mush hadn’t been sure if it would be. He’d been told that the bite couldn’t heal pre-existing wounds, but he hadn’t been sure if the animal form would have the same wounds or not. Oborotni, and he had to admit nagual as well, didn’t often bite people who weren’t in what they viewed as peak physical condition. He wasn’t even sure how shifters built muscle. The normal way was making tiny rips in the muscles and letting them heal back a little bigger, but the regeneration shared by the nagual and oborotni should have either meant that micro-tears healed so fast that muscle growth was impossible or they should have grown so fast that lifting a single weight would give them ridiculous physiques.

Mush leaned to the side and Blink’s canine form hurled through where he’d just been.

“If you want to tackle me you’re going to have to try harder than that,” Mush said.

Blink trotted back into view and had the decency to look chagrinned.

David’s dark wolf form darted out and bent down to Blink in a playful bow.

Mush didn’t think adult wolves still play-bowed but had noticed, to his surprise, that werewolves seemed to have more in common with dogs than they’d probably like to know. He wasn’t sure if it was something resulting from the mix of human and wolf minds, or just the result of all the werewolves he’d met — nearly all in the room with him — being more familiar with dogs than wolves.

Blink bowed back and launched himself at the young alpha. Mush didn’t care how many times David denied the existence of alpha wolves, it was evident to everyone that he was in charge of the rest, except maybe Hotshot.

David lunged forward, hitting Blink in the shoulder with his snout, and then running off. Blink dashed over and hit Race with his snout, starting off a five-way bout of canine tag.

Mush rolled his eyes.

“Keep it down, some of us are trying to sleep,” Morris called from his prison corner.

The wolves got louder in response.

Mush was sitting on the floor watching Morris who was pretending to sleep. He and David had noticed that Morris did that a lot. He stayed up as long as he possibly could until he passed out from exhaustion, then started over. He was always waiting for them to let their guard down.

The fingers of Mush’s left hand were rubbing through the thin fur on Blink’s belly.

The wolves had tired themselves out. Blink was dozing next to him, Jack and David were in a small pile near the door, and Spot was pressed against Race’s side.

Race had managed to change back, the siren call of calculus working better for him than the thousand-year-old techniques David had tried teaching him. The same techniques his mamá had taught him. He hadn’t thought about it before, but it was strange that nagual and oborotni used the same techniques. He might have assumed that it was a result of them being the only ones that worked, but looking at Race it was obvious that other solutions existed.

A banging sound echoed down the stairs.

His head swiveled to the stairs.

David jumped to his feet, tail sticking straight out behind him as he spun to face the stairs.

The banging sound repeated.

There was the sound of breaking bones as David started shifting back to human form.

Mush pulled out a knife from the small of his back and headed for the stairs as a third bang came from above.

“I’ll take a look, back me up as soon as you can,” Mush said.

Blink moved to block him.

Mush sidestepped and started up the stairs.

“Anyone trying to break in is probably expecting werewolves, they’re way more likely to have silver than gold.” Mush rushed up the rest of the steps.

Someone was pounding on the farther garage door.

He sprinted up the stairs to the next level and to the nearest window, which was also the farthest from the door they were pounding on.

There was a short semi or delivery truck backed up to the garage blocking one lane of traffic. It was late but New York wasn’t called The City That Never Sleeps for nothing. Angry drivers were squeezing past it and honking.

The truck’s passenger door was open and someone was pounding on the garage door again.

Jack squeezed next to him and looked out the window.

Mush felt another small twinge of annoyance that Jack had managed to resume human form and join him before David.

“Is that a delivery?” Jack asked.

“It’s a delivery truck and someone dressed like a delivery man,” Mush said.

“Same thing.”

“Which is more likely, an actual delivery at,” Mush pulled out his phone and looked at the time, “2 a.m., or an ambush by cultists.”

“Who thought that disguising themselves as a delivery would be inconspicuous?” Jack asked. “Pretty sure they wouldn’t bother knocking either.”

David came up and peeked over his head out the window.

“You guys would hear them if they tried to sneak up on us, this way they can get us to open the door for them.”

“Attacking a pack of oborotni on the night of the full moon doesn’t make any tactical sense though,” David said.

“Unless they have cameras in that truck and are planning on outing werewolves to the world,” Mush said.

“Doesn’t seem like something a group with as much to hide as they have would want to do,” Jack said.

“And if they wanted to do that, Pulitzer had Race’s parents at his mercy, he could have kept them alive to do that,” David said.

“Maybe he changed his mind in the last 15 years,” Mush said. “Maybe he has more power in the government now and doesn't think he needs to worry about being found out.”

The supposed deliveryman tried again.

“Are you guys going to do something about that or not?” Race shouted from down the stairs. “It’s kind of distracting and figuring out the integral of a six-dimensional waveform isn’t simple even for me.”

“So what are we going to do?” Jack asked. “They haven’t given up yet, so either we need to run for it or we need to deal with them.”

Mush frowned and glanced over at David to see a similar expression on his face.

There was a cracking sound. Mush and David looked over to see Jack’s face turning into a muzzle.

Jack pushed the window open a tiny amount and took a deep breath through his elongated nose. He took a second, deeper, breath and then shut the window, careful not to let it make a noise as it shut.

“I don’t smell any chyrlid,” Jack said. His consonants were misshapen by his long tongue and his voice resonated strangely in his muzzle. “I mean beside Morris.” His face snapped back into shape.

Mush looked back down at the delivery truck.

The driver pounded on the door again.

“That’s the most persistent delivery driver I’ve ever seen,” David said.

Mush considered. It was unlikely they had gold weapons. “Get some pants on. I’m going to spring the trap.”

Jack opened his mouth but shut it when David nodded.

David pressed the ring of keys to the building into Mush’s hand then put his hand on his boyfriend’s arm. “Come on, Jack.”

The oborotni headed for the stairs and Mush took one last look out the window before following them down the stairs to the ground floor.

Mush crossed the bare concrete floor to the garage door, flipping through the keys as he went. He took a deep breath and unlocked the door as the fake deliveryman pounded on it again.

The pounding stopped when he started raising the door.

“About time,” the deliveryman said when his face was revealed.

He was a dark-skinned man with round-framed glasses. He looked to be maybe thirty and wasn’t wearing much of a uniform except for a striped and stained shirt with what Mush was pretty sure was the name ‘Matt’ embroidered on the pocket. He had a clipboard in his hand.

There was a small forklift mounted on the back of the truck. It blocked part of the door. Was it there to provide cover for the squad of cult goons that had to be waiting behind the truck’s roll-up door?

“Nicholas Meyers?” The man asked.

Mush took half a step back. He hadn’t been expecting the assailants to know his name. He was revising the odds of them having gold weapons up, by a lot.

“Look, is that you or not?” The man said. “We don’t usually deliver at this time of night, but the instructions on the order were very precise.”

“Order?” Mush asked, hoping to delay the ambush while he tried to think by keeping the man prattling on about his cover story.

“Yeah, two blocks of granite for,” he looked down at the clipboard and turned over the first page to look at the second, “Antonio Higgins, care of Nicholas Meyers. This address, which he had to drive around the block three times to find, by the way, at this time.”

“We’ll take them!” Race’s voice shouted from somewhere back by the stairs followed by loud footsteps.

Mush just hoped Race had pants on, he could tell by the sound that he didn’t have shoes on.”

“Antonio Higgins?” The man asked.

Race appeared beside him.

“Yeah,” Race nodded.

“Sign here please.” The man handed the clipboard and a pen over.

Race took the clipboard, looked at both pages of paperwork, holding them up to the light to read, then scribbled something that might have been a signature where the man had indicated.

The man accepted the clipboard and pen back and checked the signature.

Mush resisted the urge to laugh. The situation was ridiculous. This couldn’t be an actual delivery driver. There was no way.

The man pounded on the side of the truck. “Alright, let’s get a move on.”

Mush took a full step back, preparing for the door to snap up and a group of thugs to come pouring out.

There was the sound of a car door slamming shut from the far end of the truck.

The first delivery man, Matt, unlatched the back door and let it roll up with a snap.

Mush blinked.

There wasn’t anyone in the back.

There were two large blocks of granite.

Another man in different pants but the same shirt as Matt came around the other side. The name Henry was embroidered on his shirt. He started doing something with the mechanism holding the forklift in place.

“These are freshly quarried right?” Race asked.

Matt flipped a page on the clipboard, shrugged, and spun it around to show Race. “Paperwork says it is, but I just deliver the stuff.”

Race nodded.

Mush stuck his head out the open garage door and looked up and down the street, scanning the nearby rooftops as he did. There didn’t seem to be any armed people lurking around.

A car honked at the delivery truck.

Matt turned around and flipped them off.

Chapter Text

“What the actual fuck?” Jack asked.

Spot sniffed at one of the granite blocks, the deliverymen had just left. It smelled less earthy than he expected.

It’s from a quarry, it wasn’t dug out of the dirt, Oscar sent.

The rosy color of the mottled stones reminded him of Medda’s countertops. Maybe it was from the same quarry.

“I don’t even know what just happened,” Mush said and raked a hand through his hair.

“We got a delivery.” Race was examining the same stone as Spot.

“Did anyone here actually order these?” Dave asked.

“No, I can’t even imagine how much this cost,” Race said.

“Especially for 2 a.m. delivery,” Jack said.

Blink’s golden form nuzzled Mush’s hand.

Mush scratched his head and didn’t seem to realize he was doing it.

Spot moved over to Race’s side and shoved his head under Race’s hand.

Race gave him a quick scratch and rubbed one of his ears before going back to examining the stone.

The sensations sent a small thrill through his body.

Why does it feel so good to get petted? Oscar asked.

No idea, but it explains where dogs came from.

“Where did they come from?” Mush asked.

Race pulled his copy of the delivery paperwork off one of the stones and looked at it. “The Adirondack Mountains.” He resumed pacing around the stone and put his arms around one like he was trying to hug it. “Anyone have a tape measure? I want to double-check the sizes with what it says on the paperwork. They’se smaller than what I would have ordered, but if they’re this size,” he shook the paperwork, “then it’ll still work.”

Is he actually this thick or is he just trying to annoy Mush? Oscar asked.

Could be either, but he looks pretty lost in mathland right now.

And you’re in love with this?

Deeply.

And I thought I had mental health issues, Oscar sent.

Spot touched the part of him that was his inner wolf and let a growl echo through his mind.

I’m shaking in your booties, Oscar sent.

It’s fur patterning, not booties.

You’re a weredog and you know it.

I will end you.

Yeah, probably, Oscar sent, I’m having your boyfriend lock me away forever in your subconscious if you don’t remember.

Well, that was sobering. Spot focused back on the conversation the others were having. He guessed that no one had brought a tape measure. He couldn’t say he was surprised.

Jack was holding the papers that came with the two blocks. “There’s a website on here, I’ll get Charlie on it tomorrow.”

“If it doesn’t lead him back to the same server in Ethiopia I’ll die of shock,” Dave said. “Everyone try to get some sleep, I’ll keep watch and wake someone up in a few hours to take over.” He looked at Spot. “Sit on your boyfriend to make sure he gets at least some sleep.”

“Hey!” Race said.

Spot nodded.

How is it possible to be this tired and still awake? Oscar asked.

Welcome to life as a werewolf, Spot sent.

Glad I’m only visiting.

Good news is it looks like you’re getting out at some point, Spot sent.

What? You saw what my body has been up to.

Whoever arranged for those altar stones seems to think we’ll need them, Spot sent, and whoever they are, they’ve been driving this forward since the beginning.

If they knew the future they’d be dead.

Spot shrugged. Oscar did know more about magic than he did, so there wasn’t any point in trying to argue with him about it.

And assuming the stones were sent by the same people, Oscar sent.

Charlie should know something by tonight. I can’t imagine a quarry has great cybersecurity.

It’s a miracle he let Morris and I graduate high school. If I was in his place I would have nuked our grades to glass.

If I’d known he was this good, I would have told him to, Spot sent.

The lecture they were in ended. Spot shoved his unused notebook into his backpack.

I’m going to fail everything this semester, Spot sent.

Probably, but less talking, more going home so we can nap before tonight. Also, I think we have fleas.

Spot rolled his eyes, zipped up his backpack, and scratched at an itchy spot on his back.

See?

Even if a flea did bite us, the wound would heal instantly, Spot sent.

Maybe it was a silver flea.

A silver flea?

Look, I’m basically dying in two weeks, I get to be weird now.

Spot rolled his eyes again and threw his backpack on. It was just before noon, he had a short day on Wednesdays, but it was going to take at least an hour to get home. He missed having a dorm room.

Spot was lucky enough to get a seat on the bus, pushed up against the window by someone in the adjacent seat who could have been on a football team. Maybe he was. Spot tried to stay awake for the ride, but the rhythm of the bus wheels and being up for most of the last forty-eight hours lulled him into a doze.

His clothes were itchy and uncomfortable, bothering him at each stop when he drifted into a moment of lucidity before falling asleep again. The bus seat was really uncomfortable and his underwear was riding up in a weird way. His body felt thick and heavy but he figured that was just because he was exhausted. He couldn’t keep this up, he needed more sleep. He’d sleep all afternoon, go to Hotshot’s warehouse, change, and then go right to sleep. He wished he didn’t have to take the bus so far, he could have just taken the subway two stops to his apartment, but there was a chance his mom would be looking for him or Morris there, so he didn’t have any choice but to go home to his mom’s house.

He wrinkled his nose. That didn’t seem right. He didn’t have two moms. Did he? Or did he have three moms? Somehow he’d forgotten the one who had gone to the sea. She’d been the most beautiful woman in the world when he was a child. She was still beautiful, but in a very different way. Three moms didn’t seem quite right either. He was too tired to dwell on it and fell back asleep until the next stop.

The bus slammed to a sudden stop, his head hit the back of the seat in front of him, the driver laid on the horn, and there was a ripping sensation in his head as they realized what had happened.

Fuck, Spot sent.

Fully merged us is a really confused person, Oscar sent.

Like you’re super lucid when you’re half awake? Spot asked.

Hah. The joke’s on you. I’m a mess of anxiety and self-loathing even when I’m well-rested.

I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen a therapist? Spot asked. Because you really, really need one.

Oscar’s only reply was a mental image of Morris hitting him in the face.

The bus started moving again. Spot rubbed the top of his head. It didn’t hurt anymore, but it seemed like the thing to do.

We’re running out of time, Spot sent.

Maybe it’s just like when we shared that dream. The barriers are thinner when we’re part asleep?

That might be what caused it, but can’t you feel how our minds are closer together now? It feels like the barrier between what’s me and what’s us is a lot thinner now.

Fuck. I don’t suppose your boyfriend can separate us sooner? Oscar asked.

You know more about all the magic shit than I do.

Yeah, but your boyfriend does it all wrong.

It works. Mostly, Spot sent.

Do you think he would still be able to separate us if we were fully merged? Oscar asked.

Why do you keep asking me?

Who else am I going to ask? Muscles Mc’nobrain next to us? Oscar glanced over at the man sharing the bench with them.

Maybe he’s a genius sorcerer who could fix all our problems with a snap of his fingers, Spot sent.

Fine, ask him. Then Davey will kill us both and we won’t have to worry about anything anymore.

Spot swallowed down a chuckle.

“So what’d you find out?” Jack asked.

“You’re lucky the quarry’s website is with a cheap hosting company,” Charlie said, sitting on top of one of the plastic-wrapped blocks.

Spot was pressed against Race’s side. His boyfriend had managed to math his way out of changing for three days and had been able to change back the night before. Spot wondered if this meant Race had gotten total control of it, or if it was just his hyper fixation on the sorcerous math that was keeping him human.

Guess you’ll find out next month, Oscar sent.

Fuck, if he does have it under control then I owe him a public proposal.

What?

I made a bet to try and force him to get control of it.

And you bet him that? Oscar asked.

It’s what he wanted.

The two of you are painfully sweet for a pair of asses, Oscar sent.

“So what did you find?” Dave asked.

“As I’m sure you idiots guessed, whoever placed the order used the same proxy server in Ethiopia. Weird thing is they did it directly from that server. Their previous activity hopped through a few servers stateside first.”

“Maybe they were in a hurry?” Race said.

“The order was made three months ago,” Charlie said.

“Wait, what?” Race asked. “We didn’t even know we’d need those things until last week.”

“Maybe they just backdated the order,” Dave said.

Charlie shook his head. “I’m not saying it’s impossible, but first they would have had to change every timestamp along the way, and second the quarry’s records show those,” he gestured at the two blocks still sitting in the garage area of the first floor, “were quarried special for this order two months ago.”

So? Spot asked.

Fine, maybe they can see the future, Oscar sent.

“Spot and Oscar hadn’t even switched bodies three months ago, had they?” Jack asked.

We hadn’t, Oscar sent.

Spot shrugged.

Race scratched him between the ears. “Thought you said I shouldn’t try to do that?”

“The Hounds would rip you apart,” Mush said.

Spot felt Oscar nod his head.

“So how are they doing it?” Race asked.

“I have no idea,” Mush said.

A member of the Great Race could do it, Oscar sent.

The what?

They’re historians. The Historians. They send their minds forward and backward in time to possess people, learn everything they can, and then go home to record it in their library.

So why don’t these Hounds kill them? Spot asked.

They’re strict non-interventionists. Recording but not changing.

So it can’t be one of them then. Spot turned and looked at the granite blocks. Because that looks like an intervention to me.

Oscar’s reply was the mental equivalent of a non-committal shrug.

Charlie’s phone buzzed.

He pulled it out, glanced at it, then froze for a second. He unlocked it and started scrolling.

“Problem?” Mush asked.

“Albert is outside,” Charlie said. “I can’t believe he fucking followed me. We need to discuss boundaries.”

“Of course he is,” Race said. “He might as well be stalking me.”

“He followed me, not you,” Charlie said.

“Why didn’t he just knock?” Jack asked.

“He says he can’t find the building,” Charlie said.

“The attention ward,” Dave said.

“Attention ward?” Charlie asked.

“The one ritual oborotni use with any regularity,” Mush said, “it prevents anyone from finding the building who doesn’t either know where it is already or is lead to it. If he followed you he’d find himself distracted by something just as you walked up to the building.”

“Will he see the building if I walk out?” Charlie asked.

“No,” Dave said, “not unless you point it out to him.”

“You going to point it out to him?” Jack asked.

“No, but what’s my excuse for being in Brooklyn supposed to be?”

“Just lie and say you’re at home, then you just have to beat him there,” Race said.

Charlie’s jaw dropped and his eyes narrowed as he looked at Race. He picked up one of his crutches and gestured down at his legs. “Do I look like I’m going to be winning any races?”

“Take an Uber,” Race said.

“He still followed me here, I’m going to have to tell him something.”

“You any good at lying?” Mush asked.

Charlie switched his glare to Mush.

Mush threw his hands up in surrender. “Just asking.”

“The problem is it has to be something he’ll believe, and that gives me an excuse to keep hanging out here with you jackasses.”

“Ow! Leggo!” Albert’s voice came from the now open door.

“Well that was inevitable,” Race said without looking up from his equations.

“Why did you have to start dating him?” Jack asked.

“Because he’s better looking than any of you,” Charlie said as Dave dragged Albert into the building by the ear.

“Spot’s ten times better looking than Red, even right now.” Race’s left hand dropped down and gave Spot a quick pat on the head.

Kiss ass, Oscar sent.

Spot snorted.

Dave shoved Albert toward the group and shut the door.

Albert looked up. Spot noticed that his eyes focused on Charlie first before scanning the rest of the room and then landing on Blink.

“Why is there a wolf in here?”

Spot yipped.

Albert spun to look at him.

“Why are there two wolves in here?” Albert sidled closer to Charlie and maneuvered himself between Blink and his boyfriend.

Spot was offended.

Even as a wolf you’re short, Oscar sent.

Shut up, Spot sent and growled at Albert.

Albert moved to put himself between Spot and Charlie.

Do you feel better now? Oscar asked.

Yes.

Dave shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jack, would you mind demonstrating?” Dave asked.

Jack sighed and pulled off his shirt.

“Whoa!” Albert turned around so that he couldn’t see Jack and was looking only at Charlie. “What the fuck is going on here?”

“I’m not talking to you,” Charlie said.

Albert started to open his mouth.

“Following me shows a big lack of trust on your part.”

“Your brother is stripping for me right now.”

“Better get used to it,” Race said.

Albert turned around, opened his mouth to say something, closed it as his eyebrows rose, then opened it again. “Are you seriously still doing homework? Right now? Surrounded by wolves?”

“No, I don’t even know the last time I did homework. I’m working on a spell. Well, a pair of spells. Well more like two sequences of spells.”

“There’s a wolf right next to you. That doesn’t worry you at all?”

“He’s tame,” Race said.

Spot growled, low in his throat.

Race looked down at him. “Fine, you’re not tame, but you love me — and don’t think I’m not holding you to that bet, you owe me a public proposal.”

Fuck, Spot sent.

Oscar’s response was just laughter.

“Get over your bashfulness,” Jack said, “I’m not repeating this demonstration.”

Albert spun around. “Oh god.” He slammed his eyes shut.

“Please don’t make me pry your eyes open,” Dave said.

“Look. I don’t know what type of kinky shit you all are up to and I don’t want to know,” Albert said.

“Probably shouldn’t have stalked me then,” Charlie said.

“I wasn’t stalking you,” Albert said, his eyes still closed, “I just wanted to know why everyone was acting so weird.”

“Well if you open your eyes you’ll find out,” Race said.

“I’m good.”

“I promise you it’s not sexual,” Dave said.

“Well I don’t exactly know you very well, and I still don’t want to see my boyfriend’s brother naked.”

“Oh grow up,” Mush said.

“I’ve literally never even met you before, and I won’t be eighteen for a month, so no.”

“Look, I’ll turn around and keep my legs together, you’ll only see my butt,” Jack said and turned around.

“Nope,” Albert said.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Race said and set his stack of paper down. “What about me, are you willing to see me naked so I can demonstrate?”

“Demonstrate what?”

“Look, it is easier just to show you. Jack, put your pants on.” Race undid his belt buckle.

“Fine by me,” Jack said and bent over to look for his underwear.

“Okay, he’s got his underwear on, you’se safe,” Race said.

Albert opened his eyes, looked at Race who only had a hoodie on at that point and slammed his eyes shut again. “Race!”

“What? We had gym together, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to be part of your weird sex cult.”

“It’s not a weird sex cult. The weird sex cult meets on Sundays.”

“That’s very reassuring,” Albert said.

“Just open your eyes,” Charlie said.

“Fine.” Albert opened his eyes and stared at the floor near Race. His cheeks as red as his hair.

“Close enough,” Race said, closed his eyes, and frowned.

Nothing happened.

“Uh—” Albert started.

“Shhh,” Race said, “if you wanted fast you should have gone with Jack.”

Race took a deep breath and then another.

His frown deepened.

There was a cracking sound from near the ground and Race fell forward onto his hands.

“Race!” Albert took a step forward only to be stopped by Dave’s hand clamping down on his shoulder.

“Get off of me, his leg just broke! What is wrong with all of you!”

Race looked up at Albert, his jaw snapping and starting to reform into a muzzle.

Albert let out a strangled sound and jumped back into Dave.

Spot knew that Jack had been the better choice. His brother’s transformations were smooth and almost beautiful. Even changing of his own free will, Race’s seemed like he was fighting something within himself which gave the change a look more reminiscent of a horror movie. Still nowhere near as horrible as what the whistle had done to Dave though.

Yeah, that shit would give John Carpenter nightmares, Oscar sent.

Stop eavesdropping on my thoughts.

Stop thinking them with our shared brain.

When Race was done changing he pranced over to Albert who was still staring at him, eyes wide as plates.

“What the fuck?”

“He’s a werewolf, dumbass,” Charlie said.

Albert spun around, coming face to face with the surprisingly intimidating wall that was Dave’s chest. He froze for a moment before stepping back to the side so that he could glare at Charlie.

“I wasn’t stalking you. I was worried,” Albert said.

“Doesn’t change the fact that he’s a werewolf,” Charlie shrugged but some of the bite was gone from his words.

Your little brother is gone for Red, Oscar sent. Going to give him the shovel talk?

Nah. He should already know what I’ll do to him if he hurts Charlie. Well, what I’ll do to whatever Charlie leaves. Then Jack gets the leftovers.

Oscar didn’t respond, but Spot could tell he was brooding over something.

What is it? Spot asked.

It’s nothing. Is there a word for missing what you never had? Oscar asked.

Probably something in German, Spot sent.

“So you’re all werewolves?” Albert was asking when Spot focused back on the world around him.

“Close enough,” Dave said.

“I’m still human,” Charlie said.

“And who’s he?” Albert pointed at Mush.

“That’s Blink’s boyfriend,” Jack said.

“Wait, is Blink a werewolf?” Albert asked.

Mush glanced down at the golden wolf lying next to him that he’d been petting the whole time.

Albert followed his gaze. “Holy shit, Blink?”

Blink rolled his eye and nodded.

“Blink is a werewolf?” Albert spun around and looked at Spot. He glanced around the room and then back at Spot. “Spot?”

Spot nodded.

There was a cracking noise and Race started changing back.

Spot looked away. He didn’t like seeing Race like that. Given how awkward the transformation was versus Dave’s, Spot was pretty sure that Race had found a way to brute force his way through the transformation and was still fighting against being a werewolf.

Thinks the man who fought so hard against being a chyrlid, Oscar sent.

Pot meet Kettle, Spot sent back.

He noticed Albert was watching Race’s change with a look of horrified fascination.

“Show him your little trick too, David,” Mush said.

Spot looked at Dave in time to see him roll his eyes. “It’s not a party trick.”

“I know that, but it’s flashy and convincing.”

“Fine.” Dave stepped into Albert’s line of sight, blocking his view of Race.

Dave allowed the nail of his left pinky to transform into a claw.

Albert’s right eyebrow arched up.

Dave cupped his right and then sunk the claw into the palm. He let some blood pool before pulling his claw out. He turned around and wiped the bloody tip of his finger off on Race.

“Hey!”

Dave turned back around and held his blood-filled hand out.

“I ain’t drinking that,” Albert said.

“Just watch,” Jack said.

“Cth'nglui Fthaggua Ktynga—”

Blood-red sparks ran along Dave’s hand and the blood burst into blue-white flames. There was the unmistakable stench of burned flesh. Dave looked more surprised than Spot thought he should have, but held his burned hand out and let Albert watch it heal.

Albert stumbled over to Charlie and sat down next to him.

“Didn’t you used to have to say more words before that happened?” Jack asked.

Dave nodded.

Chapter Text

“You can’t tell Dad,” Race said then hopped back up on the other stone block and started doing math again.

“Magic is real, and I can’t tell anyone?” Albert asked.

“Tell Chuck all you want, but no one not in this building right now needs to know.”

Jack and Davey were murmuring to each other about something.

Race tried to tune them out. He almost had the calculations done for separating Oscar from Spot. Well, for trapping Oscar in Spot’s subconscious. He had no idea what they were going to do after that. Although the presence of the freezing cold stone he was sitting on meant someone expected them to find a body to shove Oscar into.

“That’s the spell you used to incinerate the bodies, isn’t it?” Jack asked Davey.

“Bodies?” Albert whispered to Race.

Race sighed and looked over at Albert.

“Yeah. We got jumped by some goons after Oscar went into a coma, they tried to kill us.”

“So you fucking killed them?” Albert asked.

“I didn’t. Davey and Spot did.”

Spot gave a small growl from beside him.

Race gave the red wolf a pat on the head.

“And then Davey used that fire spell he just showed off to get rid of the bodies?” Albert asked.

Race shrugged and looked back down at his work. He was less happy about the deaths than Albert was, but he hadn’t had a better solution then and he hadn’t thought of one since. Separating Oscar from Spot was something he could do, so that’s what he’d decided to worry about. He worked on the math for a while in silence, managing to ignore Davey’s worries about whatever demon he’d gotten to summon. It was just typical that he got to break the rules he’d set but Race wasn’t allowed to summon anything.

“Are you just going to stay naked?” Albert asked.

Race looked down at himself. “So that’s why it feels like I’m sitting on a block of ice.”

He put his pencils and the papers aside, hopped off the rock, and pulled his underwear and pants back on before getting back on the rock.

“So why are Spot and Blink still wolves if you can change at will?” Albert asked.

“They’se recently bitten, haven’t learned how yet,” Race said.

“And Jack’s boyfriend can cast spells,” Albert said.

“Hey,” Race looked up from his paper, “I can cast spells too.”

“Not that quickly,” Mush said.

“Some of us prefer substance over flash,” Race said.

“And Davey doesn’t trust you enough with fire to teach you,” Jack said.

Race blew a wet raspberry at Jack and then flinched. He’d just gotten spit all over his attempt to find the volume of a six-dimensional solid. He held it up to the light, it didn’t look too bad. He set the page to the side to dry and grabbed a different problem to work on.

Saturday night Race was lying on his bed one way and Albert was lying in the opposite direction, his head dropping off the foot of the bed.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were a werewolf?” Albert asked.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” Race said.

“Yeah, you made Davey explain everything to me, but clearly Jack already knew, why didn’t you trust me.”

“Jack only knew because he was literally in the room the first time I changed.”

“You told Spot.”

“Like three months ago, after an animated shark jaw bit me and the bite closed up in front of him. The shark jaw put him in the hospital.”

“What?”

“What?”

“Animated shark jaw?”

“Yeah, in retrospect it was pretty cool. Bit scary at the time though.”

“Where were you?”

“Abandoned building in Red Hook where my parents offed the Delanceys’ father.”

“What?”

“Yeah. That’s not why they bullied us though. They didn’t know until recently that it was my parents. They was just jerks.”

“No shit.”

“Well, Morris is just a jerk,” Race said. “Oscar was a bundle of abused self-loathing lashing out at the world that hurt him.”

“Was?”

“Well, he’s better now, mostly. Technically he might also be dead. Did we tell you that his body is being puppeted by a demon and his mind is stuck inside Spot?”

“Wait, what?” Alber sat up and looked at him.

“Yeah, it’s a long story. And I’m not going to say that a miscalculation on my part might have contributed, but how was I supposed to know how many dimensions the telepathic link they had going on was? I mean really. The spell book didn’t exactly give accurate dimensions. The Patient One was much better at providing something that made sense.”

“I’m just going to pretend I understood any of that and nod.” Albert lay back down.

“Probably for the best.”

“Your life is weird.”

“Yeah.”

“So now you’re done with all your math?”

“I’m done with that math. I have who knows how much homework to do,” Race gestured in the vague direction of his desk.

“So literally all that time you’ve spent locked in here was you working on that spell.”

“Recently. Over Winter Break I was working on a different spell.”

“What was that one for?”

“To break the psychic connection between Spot and Oscar. It mostly worked.”

“Mostly?”

“Sort of?”

“Your life is weird.”

“Our lives are weird.”

“If Charlie ever talks to me again,” Albert said.

“You shouldn’t have stalked him.” Race shrugged.

“I wasn’t stalking him!” Albert sat up and chucked a pillow at Race’s head.

Race managed to catch the pillow before it hit him in the face. He guessed that maybe Davey’s training was doing him some good. He leaned forward and put the pillow behind his head.

“You followed him all the way to a random street in Brooklyn. That seems pretty stalky to me. You should apologize to him.”

“I was worried. He was acting weird.”

“He’s allowed to act weird.”

“You were all acting weird.”

“I’ve always been weird,” Race said.

“Yeah, because you’re a fucking werewolf.”

“I didn’t know that until I was like twelve.”

“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“I was trying not to get hunted down by the government.”

“You really think the government hunts down werewolves?”

“They hunted down the chyrlid.”

“The what?” Albert asked.

“Spot and Oscar’s fish-folk relatives.”

“Spot was really turning into a fish?”

“Fish-man, and he woulda been the sexiest fish man ever.”

“You are so weird.”

“And you are so gay,” Race said.

“Pan,” Albert corrected.

“So gay for Charlie then. He has you cock-whipped.”

“He did. But I don’t think he’s ever going to speak to me again.”

“You just need to apologize.”

“I did.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t grovel.”

“I don’t think I did anything worthy of groveling.”

“He seems to disagree. And honestly, you’re lucky Davey and Mush have mellowed. Six months ago you’d be chum in the harbor by now.”

Race was pretty sure he could hear Albert roll his eyes. Given that it was only three days after the full moon he probably could. He wasn’t going to try changing his ears to hear better like he’d seen stupid Jack doing. It was aggravating how good Jack was at controlling his body while Race was still shocked that he’d managed not to change for three nights in a row. Davey’s training didn’t have anything to do with it either. The first night he’d been so focused on trying to work out what the shape of the sigil representing Oscar’s mind was that he hadn’t even realized he’d been pushing the needling sensation of the transformation away. The second and third nights, when he’d managed to change back after turning into a wolf, he forced himself to work on a difficult proof in his head and somehow managed to use that to bludgeon the needles back to the base of his spine where, as far as he was concerned, they could fucking well stay. He hadn’t managed to finish the proof either time.

“I’m not exaggerating,” Race said.

Albert jumped. “Huh?”

“About them killing you six months ago. I’m sure their parents would still want them to do it. Well, that or bite you. Of course then whichever one didn’t bite you would have to kill you.”

“Wait, why?”

Race blinked, he’d forgotten they hadn’t outed Mush to Albert as a cat. “Werewolves don’t have great international relations.”

He was pretty happy with that save.

“Yeah, well I’m good. No one needs to bite me.”

“Not even Chuck?”

Albert’s cheeks turned an interesting shade of pink. “We’re not talking about that.”

Race chuckled.

Albert glared at him and looked around for something to throw, but noticed all the pillows were already behind Race’s head.

“Good choice though. Turning into a dog once a month is overrated. Everyone else talks like it’s the greatest thing ever.”

“Is there a cure?”

“Not that I’ve found, but there’s a lot of books I haven’t read and Davey doesn’t know that much about it.”

“He seemed to know a lot when he was explaining it to me.”

“Okay, sure, he knows everything the werewolves tell each other, but he doesn’t know where the mass comes from and goes to when we shift. I mean, you’ve seen how much I can eat, right?”

Albert’s lips curled in a grimace.

“We all eat like that. But we don’t weigh more. Obviously, the weight is being shunted into an extradimensional space—”

“Oh, obviously, yeah,” Albert was looking at him like he was crazy.

Race chose to ignore that and continue on, “but how? If I just sever that link will I go back to being human? Well, become human, since I was born a werewolf. Or was I?”

“You don’t know.”

“My parents were werewolves, so it’s not like I got bit. But was I human before I first changed? I don’t know. And everyone gets all weird when I talk about trying to find a cure for myself. Which, I notice, no one did when Spot wanted to find a cure for being born part fish. When he and Oscar want a cure for how they were born it’s fine, but when I want one I’m suddenly throwing away some great gift that’s never brought me, or my family, anything but pain, ya know?”

“Uh. No,” Albert said.

“You could at least try to empathize with me here.”

“I really couldn’t.”

“You’re no help.”

“I’m not trying to be,” Albert said. “I tried to help and now my boyfriend isn’t talking to me.”

“He’ll get over it after you grovel enough,” Race said, “but right now we’re talking about me. You can vent after I finish.”

“Why do you get to vent first?”

“Because I’ve been holding this in longer than you and Charlie have been dating.”

“Fine,” Albert fell backward and let his head dangle off the end of Race’s bed again, “continue.”

“See, you’re a much better listener than any of them.”

“Even Spot?”

“Well Spot’s not bad, but he tends to offer me solutions when I just want to bitch. And, of course, Oscar is in there right now and he’ll just make fun of me.”

“I thought you said he wasn’t that much of an asshole anymore.”

“Yeah, but I never said he wasn’t still an asshole.”

Compared to what he’d spent the last week working on, Race had expected that organic chemistry would be simple. Either he was very tired or very wrong though, because he was staring at the textbook — which he’d been forced to buy since the one he’d illegally downloaded was lost with his laptop — and it didn’t make any sense to him. Then again he’d missed half the classes and bought some borderline illegible notes off one of the other students, so maybe he was just missing something obvious.

“You’ll bust your brain if you keep staring at that,” Jack said.

“Well, I’m trying not to fail all my courses.”

“Yeah, but pick your battles.”

“This can’t actually be this hard. I’m just tired.”

“We’re all tired Racer,” Spot said, “but I don’t think even you can make sense of the black magic that is o-chem.”

Race raked a hand through his hair. He refused to admit defeat.

Spot gave him a peck on the cheek.

“I’m going to go upstairs to hold stuff while Jack paints. You okay down here?”

The three of them were alone in Hotshot’s building.

Race glanced over at Morris, who was faking being asleep again, and ran his eyes down the length of the chain. It looked solid.

“Yeah, I’ll keep an eye on sleeping ugly.”

Morris twitched.

Race smirked.

“I thought you said we looked alike,” Jack said. “You calling me ugly?”

“You saying you’re not?” Oscar asked.

“You didn’t think so when we were making out.”

“That was before you let yourself go,” Oscar said and patted Jack in the stomach.

Jack grumbled something and headed for the stairs.

Spot laughed and followed his brother.

Race looked over at Morris again. “I know you’re awake, you’re not fooling anyone you know.”

Morris didn’t move.

“Fine, you’re more tolerable this way anyhow.”

Race bent back over his homework.

“This is seriously how life works?” Race asked the quiet room after struggling for another fifteen minutes. “I take it back, Outsiders aren’t the weird ones at all.” He spun the book upside down to see if it made more sense that way. He couldn’t say he was surprised when it didn’t help. Maybe if he just banged his head into it hard enough something would sink in?

There was a sharp pain at the base of his neck and then he fell forward onto the book. He couldn’t feel anything from the neck down, but he heard something dripping onto the open page below him. This wasn’t what he’d meant.

“Fuck that felt good,” Morris said from just behind him.

Race was pulled back into a sitting position, he still couldn’t feel anything from the neck down. There were spatters of blood on the side of his book.

“Come on fag, you’re my ticket out of here.”

Race’s point of view changed as he was lifted up but he still couldn’t feel much of anything. He tried to move his mouth but couldn’t tell if it was working. He tried to look to the side but only his eyes moved. Blood splattered onto the ground.

He realized that not only had Morris severed his spinal cord, but he’d also left whatever he used to do it wedged in there, preventing him from healing.

Race couldn’t do much but get pulled up the stairs next to Morris like a sack of potatoes.

Morris pulled him across the first floor, past the slabs of granite, and toward the garage doors.

Race got dropped by the door on his stomach, his head spilling to the side so he could only look back toward the stairs they’d come up. A slight tingle started in his toes and fingers, but then he was pushed forward and lost all feeling again.

“Can’t have you healing on me. I’m bringing your head to Pulitzer on a silver platter. If you’re a good little fag maybe it’ll still be attached to your body.”

That wasn’t good. Race wondered if his heart was beating faster because he was feeling something like panic, but not being able to feel the rest of his body left him feeling disconnected.

He tried to speak again. To shout for Spot and Jack. But nothing happened He thought maybe his mouth was moving but he didn’t have any control over his lungs. Were his lungs even still working? Was his heart? He couldn’t tell.

Race heard Morris trying to get the door open.

“You fuckers lock the doors from the inside? Smart.”

Morris bent down into this field of vision and started checking his pockets.

“Don’t get turned on or anything. Not that you could right now.”

There was a jingling sound and Morris dangled Race’s keys in front of his eyes.

Race would have smirked if he could.

“First thing I’m going to do is take the longest shower in history. Then I’m going to burn these clothes.”

There were more jingling sounds as Morris started trying the keys on the door.

“Why the fuck do you have so many keys?”

Because he’d kept a copy of every key he’d ever had. He liked the jingling sound and heavy weight in his pocket. Not that he’d be inclined to explain himself to Morris, even if he could speak.

The jingling went on for longer than Race thought it should. Maybe Morris was trying the keys more than once?

The sound of keys clinking stopped and his body moved forward.

Race was pretty sure Morris had kicked him, not that he could feel it.

“You’re shitting me. All these keys,” his key ring bounced off his head onto the floor, which did hurt, “and not one of them opens the fucking door.” Morris was shouting by the time he finished. “Fine, I guess we do this the hard way.”

Race was hauled back up.

A pins and needles sensation started at his toes.

Spot and Jack came running down the stairs.

Based on the look in Spot’s eyes when they fell on him, Race was pretty sure he was a mess. He had no idea how much blood there was, but given that it regenerated it probably looked like a Japanese horror movie in there.

“Let him go,” Jack said, taking a step toward them.

“Uh-uh,” Morris said.

There was the quiet sound of metal slicing through flesh and the sensation in his toes vanished.

Jack froze.

“What do you want?” Spot asked.

“All you fuckers dead, and yes, that includes my fucking brother.” Morris spit on the ground.

“Love you too, bro,” Oscar said.

“Well we aren’t just going to kill ourselves,” Jack said.

“So what do you want?” Spot asked again.

Race’s field of view moved as Morris dragged him away from the door.

“Whichever one of you fags has the key can unlock that. Then we leave.”

“So you can kill him on your own time?” Oscar asked. “I don’t fucking think so.”

Race was close enough to hear Morris’s teeth grinding.

“Fine. You open the door, and I let blondie here go once I’m on the other side of it. Can’t really take him on the subway like this I guess.”

Jack glanced over at Spot.

Spot gave a slight nod and pulled the keys out of his pocket.

Morris pulled Race back further.

“After you,” Morris said.

Spot walked across the room, his eyes never leaving Race’s.

“Don’t think you can run away if you hurt him,” Jack said. “Some of us can still shift.” He held his hand up and his fingers twisted into claws.”

Morris swallowed before answering. “You wouldn’t risk revealing yourselves.”

“Do I really seem like someone who makes good life choices?” Jack asked.

“Open the door,” Morris said.

Spot took one last look at Race and then looked down at the lock to maneuver the key in. “If you hurt him, the things I will do to you will make that cleansing ritual look like a trip to Disneyland.”

“You have a funny definition of hurt. I’ve literally got a shiv in his spine.”

The padlock clicked open.

Spot pulled it loose and stepped back from the door.

“Nice try, fag. Open it.”

Spot rolled his eyes but stepped forward and yanked the door up, then backed away again.

“Good dog,” Morris said and started dragging Race in the direction of the open door.

Race could hear people on the sidewalk outside but it didn’t sound like they’d noticed them. He assumed the attention ward was preventing them from noticing the hostage situation happening feet away.

Jack was sidling around the room, getting closer to Race and Morris with each slow step. “Let him go, you got what you wanted.”

“Fine, take your girlfriend back.”

Race was sent flying forward and onto the ground.

He heard footsteps running away and then two people scuffling behind him.

“Let him go,” Jack said.

“He’ll let Pulitzer know where we are,” Oscar said.

“We can’t just chase him down the street. Help Race, I’ll call Davey.”

Race heard the blade get pulled out of his neck and felt pins and needles start spreading through his body.

He was rolled over and Spot was leaning over him.

“How are you?” Spot asked.

Race tried to speak but didn’t have control of his diaphragm back yet. He rolled his eyes.

“If he’s good enough to be dramatic then he’ll be fine,” Oscar said.

A shiver ran down his entire body as his spinal cord reconnected.

Race coughed.

A few specks of blood landed on his boyfriend’s face.

“How the hell did he get loose?” Race asked. “I checked the chain.”

“No idea,” Spot said.

“His thumbs looked fucked up,” Oscar said.

The door rattled shut.

Jack walked over. “You okay?”

“It didn’t hurt, but my back feels sticky.”

“Yeah, you’ll forgive me if I don’t hug you.” Jack offered him a hand up.

Race accepted the help.

“Did he take your phone?”

Race checked his pockets and pulled it out.

“Good.”

“So what do we do now?” Oscar asked.

“Go get Race as cleaned up as you can in ten minutes, at least enough to be seen in public, then we need to book it. I’ll pack up our stuff,” Jack said. “Davey’s going to get in touch with everyone else and text me with where to meet up.”

“What the hell did he even cut me with?” Race asked.

Spot knelt and picked up something that had a sharp edge and was covered in Race’s blood. He wiped it off and Race realized it was half of a door hinge.

“Where did he get that?”

“Probably from where the bathroom door should have been. Less talking and more cleaning. We have to be out of here in nine minutes,” Jack said and headed for the stairs.

Chapter Text

Davey checked his phone again.

3:17 am.

They weren’t there yet.

He considered sending Jack another text.

“They’re on their way,” Mush said. “Don’t bother them.”

“Easy for you to say,” Blink said, “I’m right here.”

Mush shrugged.

They were in Central Park. It was technically closed and wasn’t a place where anyone wanted to be after 9 pm, but five of the seven of them were shapeshifters, and while he still had no idea when Graves was able to change, it was the half moon so he knew that he and Mush would both be able to force it if need be.

“I knew letting you use the building was a mistake,” Hotshot said while staring at his phone.

“It was, but the attention ward might still protect it,” Graves said.

“I suppose we’ll know soon enough.”

“I still don’t get why I had to come,” Albert said. “You guys kidnapped Morris?”

“In our defense, he did try to have four of us killed first,” Mush said.

“You probably didn’t have to come,” Davey said. “Morris never saw you. But you were at Jack’s getting fucked by Charlie—”

“Hey!” Albert tried to slap a hand over Davey’s mouth.

Charlie laughed. “He didn’t even have time to put his underwear back on.”

Albert spun around to look at his boyfriend. “You’re the literal devil. You know that? I’m dating the devil.”

Charlie shrugged.

“I thought you guys weren’t speaking after he stalked you?” Mush asked.

“I didn’t stalk him!” Albert said and looked like he wanted to rip at his hair.

“He groveled,” Charlie said.

“And why do you guys all have bug-out bags at the ready?” Albert turned to look at all the rest of them.

“My father,” Davey said.

“Mi mamá,” Mush said.

“Mush’s mother,” Blink said.

“Hard learned lessons,” Hotshot said, gesturing between himself and Graves.

“How long will it take for Morris to let Pulitzer know what happened?” Blink asked.

“Well he didn’t have his phone so he can’t just call him,” Davey said.

“And we took his keys so he can’t just go home,” Mush said.

“That and the travel time to Pulitzer’s house would be about the same as back to his apartment,” Davey said.

“So, assuming Pulitzer is at home, about an hour,” Charlie said.

“Which would mean he got there about an hour ago,” Albert said, checking the time on his phone.

“So they should be descending on my building within the hour,” Hotshot said.

“Your building?” Davey asked.

“A client’s building.” Hotshot shrugged.

“And they just let you use it?” Charlie asked.

“They’re in prison for twenty to life. The law firm got the building when he couldn’t pay his bills and has been trying to sell it. Strangely no one ever seems to show up to see it though,” Graves said.

“So you used an attention ward to steal a whole building,” Davey said.

Hotshot shrugged.

“Aren’t lawyers supposed to follow the law?” Charlie asked.

“You going to report me to the Bar Association?” Hotshot asked.

“Is it even against the law to steal a building with magic?” Albert asked.

“No, of course not,” Davey said.

“Well, I don’t know. I thought you guys had your own society with your own laws and government and shit,” Albert said.

“This isn’t Harry Potter,” Mush said.

Albert started to say something but Davey stopped him with a look.

There’d been a noise in the woods.

Footsteps were approaching.

“It’s us,” Jack’s voice called through the darkness. Low enough that Davey only heard it because he was listening.

Davey sighed in relief.

Jack led Race and Spot into the small clearing the rest of them were in.

Davey yanked Jack into a hug.

“Right, since he’s distracted, how did you idiots let Delancey escape?” Hotshot asked.

“He got loose somehow and severed my spine,” Race said making a gesture at the base of his skull.

Davey turned to look at them. His left arm still holding Jack pressed against his body.

“Luckily Spot had the only set of keys, so Morris needed to negotiate with us to get out of the building.”

“How’d he get loose?” Mush asked.

“Dislocated his thumbs from what it looked like, but we didn’t get a chance to examine the chain on our way out,” Oscar said.

“And he somehow got part of a door hinge,” Spot said. “No idea how long he spent sharpening it.”

“Why was Race alone with him?” Hotshot asked, his eyes not leaving his phone.

“I was working on setting up the separation ritual,” Jack said.

“And we wanted to help him,” Oscar said.

Hotshot raised an eyebrow and glanced away from the phone just long enough to shoot a glare at Davey.

Davey rolled his eyes. They had made a mistake, but it was understandable. They’d all let themselves get too lax with keeping an eye on Morris.

“So what do we do?” Race asked.

“And why is Albert here?” Jack asked.

“We get ready to leave town,” Davey said. “And Albert—”

“Was kidnapped along with Charlie,” Albert said, not letting Davey describe the situation he’d found them in again.

Davey knelt and picked up a bag. He handed it to Jack. “I packed you a bug-out bag.”

Jack took the backpack and unzipped the big pocket. “I wondered what this was for when I saw it in the closet.”

“Couldn’t give us a warning?” Charlie asked. “You could have at least let me bring my laptop.”

“Too easy to track back to you,” Davey said.

Charlie frowned at him. “You should trust me more than that. But what about Ma and Smalls? We can’t just leave them there.”

“And Denton,” Albert said.

Davey looked at Hotshot, who was ignoring him.

He looked back at Charlie and Albert. Maybe they needed to call them and get them out? Explaining would be difficult though.

“Unless Pulitzer is feeling really froggy, he’ll just have them watched,” Oscar said. “They’ll be safe, we just can’t go near them.”

“What happened to Spot’s accent?” Albert asked.

“I’m sharing my body with Oscar right now,” Spot said, his Brooklyn accent back on full display.

“What?”

“Look, it’s a long story,” Race said. “Spot and Oscar are in a body-timeshare arrangement while Oscar’s body is possessed by a demon. That’s all you need to know right now.”

“What the fuck?”

“We know,” Jack said.

“So we’re just going to skip town and we can’t let them know where we’re going?” Charlie asked. “That’s going to kill Ma.”

“And Dad,” Race said.

“Will they be happier going on the run with us?” Davey asked.

He was at a loss for how to proceed. He knew what his father had drilled into him and he knew what his father would tell him to do, but he was pretty sure none of that was a good idea. Still, Pulitzer knew about them now, and there was no way they could stand up to him yet. Soon, maybe, but not yet.

“Fuck,” Jack said.

“They’re safer not knowing,” Mush said.

“They’re safer not knowing that they’re being monitored by an evil cult?” Charlie asked.

“They’re not evil,” Spot said. “Not most of them anyhow. They’d be willing to kill werewolves because we had a war with them, and there weren’t any clean hands after that, but it’s been almost fifteen years, they won’t kill innocents, not even for Pulitzer.”

“Except for the paid thugs like Morris sent after us,” Race said.

“The actual chyrlid aren’t bad, but Pulitzer has attracted a bunch of regular humans with money and promises of immortality. He treats them like mushrooms though,” Oscar said.

“Wait, he can make them immortal?” Charlie asked.

“Probably not,” Oscar said.

“Probably?” Race asked.

“Look, he shouldn’t be able to do half of the magical bullshit he can, but if he can make them immortal, I seriously doubt it’s a form of immortality anyone would want.”

“Mushrooms?” Albert asked.

“He keeps them in the dark and feeds them shit,” Charlie said.

“Oh,” Albert said.

“So where are we running away to?” Race asked.

“I vote San Diego. I’ll be safe enough and it’s still technically oboroten territory,” Mush said.

“New Mexico,” Graves said.

Hotshot glared at him.

“We have some friends who will help hide us if we stay away from the cities, and if Meli can hide there so can you,” Graves said. “Wait twenty years and this will all have blown over.”

“How are we supposed to finish high school?” Albert gestured at Charlie and himself.

“There are online schools,” Graves said.

“How’s that going to affect my college acceptance and scholarship offers?” Charlie asked.

“Well you’ll be changing your names and identities, so badly,” Hotshot said. “I’m going to have to go back to law school and sit the bar again.”

“Maybe I’ll give Engineering a try this time,” Graves said.

“You all are way too comfortable just giving up,” Jack said.

“What else are we supposed to do?” Mush asked. “They know who we are, they know what we are. Morris even knows about me so they’ll break out the electrum to use on us. Plus now we’re stuck with two mortals.”

Charlie stuck his tongue out at Mush.

“Look.” Jack turned to Davey. “You brought all the stuff we need for the Haunter of the Red Abyss, right?”

Davey nodded. He’d kept backup quantities in his emergency bag, and had grabbed a branch off the hyssop before fleeing Medda’s house.

“And you have the whistle for dealing with Oscar’s body?”

“Oscar’s body?” Albert asked.

“Your brother literally just told you it’s possessed by a demon, did you think he was kidding?” Oscar asked.

“Kind of,” Albert said.

“Anyway,” Jack said, “so we have everything we need to take out Pulitzer and his Outsider buddies, and once we deal with them the rest of them won’t be as much of a threat.”

“You’re assuming he hasn’t told them all who we are, which he definitely will,” Race said. “And how many of them still remember the war and will have it out for us on principle?”

“If Pulitzer is dead maybe we can beg the ones that helped you guys to intervene and make peace,” Jack said.

“That’s a big maybe, Jack,” Spot said.

“It’s better than running away to New Mexico,” Jack said.

Davey blinked. Based on Jack’s art he would have thought Jack would be all for running away to New Mexico.

“Who are you and what did you do with my brother?” Charlie asked.

“Look, I’m not in High School anymore,” Jack said.

“You didn’t even graduate a year ago,” Charlie said.

“You’re like six months older than me,” Albert said.

“Fine, maybe I just started to appreciate what we have here.” Jack looked Davey in the eyes.

Davey refused to acknowledge the warm sensation that flooded his body.

“You’d have all of us in New Mexico or San Diego too,” Davey said.

“Yeah, but this is our home, and isn’t that worth fighting for?”

“But is it worth dying for?” Hotshot asked.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but we aren’t easy to kill,” Jack said.

“They’ll have electrum, that’ll kill all of us, except maybe Graves,” Davey gestured at the werehyena.

“It won’t,” Graves said.

“But Pultizer still could,” Hotshot said.

“Not if we break his power first,” Jack said.

“He’s not wrong,” Race said, “and I know you got guns, Hotshot, so we don’t have to melee with his followers.”

“Not sure I’m comfortable with that,” Oscar said.

“And how many of you even know how to use a gun?” Hotshot asked, looking up from his phone for a moment.

Davey and Mush raised their hands. Spot looked like he was trying to but Oscar was fighting him.

Hotshot’s eyes focused back on his phone. “Shit.”

“What?” Race asked.

“A bunch of people just showed up.”

“Here?” Albert asked and started looking around.

“At the building,” Graves said.

“What, did you have a Ring camera somewhere?” Race asked.

“A hidden camera at the top of the building facing down at the doors,” Graves said, “and one on the building across the street.”

Davey circled behind Hotshot so he could see the screen. Jack and everyone else followed.

It took a moment for him to realize what he was seeing. The camera mounted on the building had a fisheye lens and was pointed away from the building at an angle, to prevent half the screen from being filled with just the wall of the building. The overall effect was disorienting.

“You recording this?” Charlie asked as he got into position last.

“Yeah.”

“So you have recordings of us coming and going?” Mush asked.

“No. It deletes anything older than 24 hours,” Graves said.

There were three SUVs on the street in front of the building, and several people in dark clothes milling around on the street, trying not to look as conspicuous as they were. It didn’t look like they could find the building.

“Why can’t they find it?” Race asked. “Morris must have given them bad directions.”

“My attention ward is better than that,” Graves said.

“Wait, then how did the delivery drivers find it?” Jack asked.

“Delivery drivers?” Graves asked.

“You didn’t wonder where the multiton blocks of granite came from?”

“We assumed you’d gone and gotten them,” Hotshot said.

“How?” Spot asked.

“Oscar comes from money,” Hotshot said. “It wasn’t impossible you still had access to some of his resources.”

“If I had money do you really think I’d let Conlon keep dressing like this,” Oscar gestured down at Spot’s body.

“I assumed you were lying low.”

“Look, I’m just saying, he’s gay, he could dress better.”

“Can we please focus on the situation at hand?” Davey asked, still focusing on the screen in Hotshot’s hand.

“Fuck, there’s Pulitzer,” Oscar pointed at an expensive-looking SUV pulling up in front of the building.

The back door opened and a figure got out, he was hard to see at that angle, but they could all tell who it was.

“And there’s Morris,” Race said.

A shorter figure followed Morris out of the SUV.

“And Oscar?” Jack asked.

“Motherfucker,” Oscar said. “Well, at least we know where my body went.”

The door closed.

Oscar’s body walked straight toward the building.

Davey saw the moment when the goons watching it all looked away simultaneously. He’d never had a chance to observe an attention ward in action like that before, it was interesting, if alarming, that whatever had control of the body was able to ignore the ward.

Morris barked an order at the goons and pointed at the building.

They still didn’t seem to be able to see it.

Morris grabbed one and shoved him forward toward the door.

“Glad to see being locked up didn’t ruin his charm,” Spot said.

After that, the goons seemed to be able to find the building.

Oscar’s body opened its mouth and a darkness — so absolute that Davey almost thought the pixels in Hotshot’s phone had burned out — spread out and consumed the door.

Some of the thugs stumbled back at that, but a barked order from Morris had them rushing through the hole where the door had been.

Davey kept his eyes trained on Oscar and saw the exact moment it looked up at the camera they were watching through. It gave a smile like a rictus and the feed went dead.

“What happened?” Albert asked.

“Oscar’s body doesn’t like being on camera too long. Just likes to do that little trick and then EMP them,” Race said.

“Do you think he knew we were watching or does he just do that to every camera he walks near, just in case?” Charlie asked.

Davey shrugged.

“Pulitzer too good to get out of the car himself?” Mush asked.

“Yes,” Oscar and Jack said at the same time.

“But, he’s there, at the building, right now. All our problems in one place,” Jack said, “and we have everything we need to stop them right here.”

“He’s not wrong,” Charlie said.

“Our training weapons were all in Hotshot’s Lair though,” Race said.

Davey frowned, he couldn’t believe he was entertaining this. He hefted up his duffle bag. “I have weapons for Jack and me.”

“We have ours,” Hotshot said.

“I have weapons for Blink and me,” Mush said.

“That just leaves the two of us,” Spot said.

“Four of us,” Charlie said.

“You two aren’t coming,” Davey said.

“Why not?” Albert asked, his eyes narrowed.

“You’re human,” Race said.

“Do either of you have any combat training, at all?” Davey asked.

Albert glared at Race and then shook his head.

“I guess I’m more of a ‘guy in the chair’ anyhow,” Charlie said.

“I dunno, we could attach some razor blades to your crutches and I bet you’d be a terror in a fight,” Race said.

“He’d have the element of surprise at least,” Mush said.

Charlie glared at Mush.

“So we’re going to do it?” Jack asked.

“We still don’t have weapons,” Race said.

“You can borrow one of mine,” Jack said. “Two people with one sword is probably better than one person with two.” He looked at Davey.

“In this case.” Davey could see arguments both ways, but given the skill levels involved the extra sword didn’t add as much to Jack’s combat effectiveness as Race.

“What about Spot?”

“We can stop at a hardware store for a sledgehammer,” Spot said.

“So we are doing this?” Jack asked.

Davey felt himself nod before he even realized he’d agreed to it. “Not at Hotshot’s though.”

“What?” Jack asked.

“Rushing in there would be guaranteed death,” Mush said. “With our numbers, we’re better off with an ambush.”

“So?” Race asked.

“The house in Staten Island.”

“Where my parents died?” Race asked and swallowed down something.

“It’s our best chance,” Davey said.

Chapter Text

Mush couldn’t believe he was going along with this.

They were all going to die.

Blink was going to die.

For all that, he was still crouched in the back of a delivery van Spot had hotwired, wearing black clothes and some light body armor from his bug-out bag, with a buckler strapped to his forearm and a machete at this side. He was staring at a second machete, clutched in his hand. It was for Blink. Blink, who was driving the stolen van. He was the one of them with the most experience driving a large vehicle — even if his truck wasn’t as long as the van — but the least experience in combat.

Mush glanced at Charlie and Albert and conceded that maybe Blink had the second or third least combat experience. Either way, Blink had the personality least suited to it. Mush wasn’t sure if he should let Blink go with them. He’d be in danger the whole time. He’d much rather that Blink took Charlie, Albert, and the van and drove off into the sunrise.

“So I notice you guys are going in guns blazing,” Charlie said and then looked them over, “or swords swinging. What are we going to do?” He gestured between himself and Albert.

Maybe no one was riding off into the sunrise.

“Leaving,” Jack said.

Albert nodded.

Charlie elbowed Albert in the side and glared at his brother. “You can’t expect me to sit around on my ass while my brothers might be dying.”

“I can and I do,” Jack said.

“Well if wishes were horses then beggars would ride,” Charlie said.

“Look, we can talk about buying you a horse later,’ Jack said.

“Stop being obtuse,” Charlie said.

“Jokes on you, I don’t know what that word means.”

“You can’t just win arguments by playing dumb.”

“It’s worked for me so far.”

“You,” David said, and pointed at Jack, “can sit down. You,” he pointed at Charlie, “can get on your phone and be ready to help direct us.” He unzipped part of his duffle and pulled out a wad of wired earbuds. “Everyone take a pair and plug them into your cellphone. We maintain radio communication for as long as we can.”

“As long as you can?” Albert asked.

“Underground solid stone isn’t the best for your cellphone signal,” Race said.

“So I’m the guy in the chair?” Charlie asked.

David nodded.

“You know that would be a hell of a lot easier if I had my laptop.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Hotshot dug into his bug-out bag and pulled out a small laptop that he shoved in Charlie’s direction. “You can use my Chromebook. The password is gravelight with a capital G and a one in place of the I.”

“That’s not very secure,” Charlie said, “not even a special character?”

“Deal with it,” Hotshot said.

“What about him?” Charlie pointed at Albert.

“Guy in the chair’s driver,” Mush said.

Albert let out what looked like a sigh of relief.

“Everyone happy now?” Spot asked.

Jack started to say something but was silenced by his brothers' glares.

“I’d like this plan a whole lot more if we’d seen more than three floors of this place,” Hotshot said.

David gave a helpless shrug. “It’s all the intel we have.” They were sitting together watching the video of the mirror on David’s phone along with Spot. Mush had already reviewed it twice.

“It’d be even better if the video wasn’t fifteen years old.”

“You’ve never been down lower?” Graves asked Spot, Spot’s body at least, it was obvious the question was for Oscar.

Oscar shook Spot’s head.

“The upper part of the house is still abandoned. The first floor looks like it does in that video, just dustier. I’ve never been above that, and I’ve never been below that meeting room, that’s where he conducts all cult business.” He looked back down at the phone in David’s hand. “Do you have… no, never mind.”

David looked up and locked eyes with Mush before they both shot looks at Spot’s body. He could guess what Oscar had been about to ask, but it definitely wasn’t the time.

“Heard anything about it?” Jack asked, ignoring the unasked question.

Oscar shook Spot’s head and met Jack’s gaze. “Rumors of dark things imprisoned down there. Morris used to tell stories, he claimed Uncle Johann snuck him down there, but I think it was bullshit.”

“Uncle Johann?” Race asked.

“Weasel.” Oscar rolled his eyes.

“His first name is Johann?” Albert asked.

“It’s German,” Oscar said.

“You can make fun of his name later,” David said.

Mush set down Blink’s machete and pulled out his phone. He sat down cross-legged and pulled up his own video of the mirror. Something about the construction nagged at him. He’d ignored it when they were watching it at the time, but there was a chance that it was relevant now.

“Did your people build it?” Mush asked.

“It’s similar to the catacombs beneath the church in Innsmouth,” Oscar said. “Bit of a weird place for that type of stone though.”

“What are you thinking?” David asked.

“That it might be one of the places we sealed something before we were driven off,” Mush said.

“Could the nagual have built the complex beneath Innsmouth?”

Mush considered it. He skipped back on the video and looked at the construction again. “I don’t think so. There were carvings and motifs there, pools of water for the chyrlid.”

“They’re both giant stone blocks that cut off at ground level though,” Oscar said, “and the masonry techniques used seem the same. It’d be weirder if they weren’t built by the same people.”

“Maybe the chyrlid found the one in Innsmouth abandoned, or bartered it from the nagual, and then adapted it to suit their needs?” David suggested.

“It did have the looks of something that had been there longer than us,” Oscar said.

“Thought you guys were immortal, who knows how long you’ve been using that space?” Race said.

“Our ‘breeding ground,’” Oscar made air quotes, “used to be in England though. We didn’t relocate here until the sixteenth century.”

Mush restarted the video again. He noticed a small mark on the corner of one of the blocks. He zoomed in, but the video quality was only so good, but he could make out a mason’s mark consisting of four lines and some blobby semi-circles. “I think it’s polyp made.”

“I thought their cities were supposed to be all giant towers,” Race said.

Mush and Davey both looked at Race like he’d grown a second head.

“Revelations of Glaaki, volume four,” Race said.

Mush suppressed a shudder, those books had an evil reputation.

“It probably was a tower originally,” David said. “But it’s millions of years old.”

“That’s some impressive construction,” Charlie said.

Mush decided there were more pressing things to worry about.

“We’re off track.” It looked like David agreed with him. “We know where we’re going and can set up an ambush in the meeting room. If we go too far down we may run into things that are best left buried.”

“Especially if they’re under New York City,” Mush said.

David nodded.

“You guys are definitely going to be explaining that later,” Charlie said.

“We can burn that bridge if we survive to see it,” Race said.

“None of that,” Jack said. “The only one dying tonight is Pulitzer.”

“And maybe Weasel,” Spot said.

“And probably Morris,” Oscar added.

“He’s your brother,” Spot said.

Mush hoped that if they survived they got that problem fixed soon, watching Spot argue with himself was surreal.

“Who was perfectly fine pronouncing my death sentence less than two hours ago,” Oscar said.

“Nice family dynamic you have,” Charlie said.

“Did you assume I came from a good homelife?”

Blink put the van in park but didn’t kill the engine.

“We’re here,” Blink said.

There was a knock on the backdoor of the van.

Everyone turned to look at it.

“Who’s back there?” Davey asked.

“No one,” Blink said, “It’s 3 am. The sidewalk was empty, I swear.”

Everyone who had weapons drew them.

The knock repeated.

“Who do you think it is?” Albert asked.

“Can’t be the cult. Oscar would have just eaten the door by now,” Race said.

Mush sighed, sheathed his machete, and reached for the door.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Jack asked.

“Nope.” Mush opened the door.

“Nicholas Meyers?” The man in the delivery uniform who was waiting on the other side asked. The same man who’d delivered the granite blocks.

“You know I am,” Mush said.

The bespectacled man shrugged and shoved a long parcel wrapped in brown paper at him followed by an electronic clipboard. “Sign here, please.”

“Why are you doing this?” David asked.

“It’s what I get paid to do,” the man whose name tag still read Matt said.

“You’re the one responsible for all the coincidences,” Davey said.

“And the server in Ethiopia too, I bet,” Charlie said.

Mush signed the paperwork.

“You might be half right,” Matt said before turning and walking over to the delivery truck that was waiting across the street.

“Okay, that truck wasn’t there when I parked,” Blink said.

“Fine, they can definitely see the future,” Spot or Oscar said.

The large truck drove off.

“Wish they’d actually lend a claw to the fight,” Jack said.

Mush looked down at the heavy box in his arms. “Let’s see what they did give us.”

He pulled the box the rest of the way into the back of the van, set it down, and then pulled the backdoor shut.

“We’re in a stolen van,” Blink said. He was still in the driver's seat but had turned sideways on it so he could see them all.

“Yup,” Spot said.

“How did they find us?”

“Obviously they can see the future,” Race said.

“Which is, of course, impossible,” Graves said, regarding the corners of the van with a wary look.

Mush turned the nails on his right hand into claws. He knelt beside the box and cut through the tape with his index finger.

“Why do I find that hot?” Blink asked.

“Brain damage,” Race said.

The van was tight enough that Mush didn’t have to lean far to hit Race in the back of the head.

“Hey! It’s not my fault I’m the hottest person in the van.”

David pulled the box a little closer and opened it.

“That was addressed to me,” Mush said.

“It’s not mail, there’s no law about me opening it.”

“Actually I think there might be,” Jack said.

“So he can sue me.”

“Just like a wolf, taking what they want with no regard for the original owners,” Mush said, though there wasn’t much heat behind it.

“Fine, you open it,” David said and shoved it back.

“No, no, by all means. Colonize my box,” Mush said.

“Okay that sounds sexual,” Blink said.

“I’ll open it,” Oscar or Spot said and yanked it open.

The first thing Mush noticed was the grenades. He started to panic, convinced it had been a booby trap, but then realized they all still had their pins. He was already halfway in front of Albert though, he didn’t even remember moving. At least David had moved to cover Charlie, so he wasn’t alone in his paranoid reaction.

“If they wanted to blow us up they would have just left them in our dorm rooms before the semester,” Race said.

The blond wasn’t wrong, but Mush wouldn’t ever admit that. He stood up and straightened his shirt, doing his best to look dignified.

Spot pulled something else out of the box, it looked a bit like a sledgehammer, but the handle wasn’t quite long enough and the back of the hammerhead was a spike.

Spot let out a low whistle. “This’ll do.”

Race reached into the box and pulled out a pair of daggers. “Guess I won’t need to borrow your sword after all,” he said to Jack.

Jack nodded.

“Anything else in there?” Charlie asked.

David sat down next to it and pulled out something that was technically a laptop but was too big to fit on anyone’s lap.

Charlie let out a low whistle and made a grabby motion at it.

David handed it over then turned back to the box and started pulling out the grenades.

“Are those real?” Albert asked.

“They feel real,” David said.

“Where’d they get them?” Blink asked. “They can’t be legal.”

“If they can see the future, I don’t think they’re worried about human laws,” Mush said.

He counted the grenades. Thirteen.

“Do you think that’s the exact number of grenades we’re going to need or something?” Race asked.

“Might just be all that could fit in the box,” Jack said.

“We’re wasting time,” David said and pulled two sets of black clothes and body armor out before turning the box over, a charger for the laptop fell out, but David ignored it. “I’m guessing these are for you two,” Davey gestured between the clothes and Spot and Race, the only two of the shifters not already dressed like heavily armed cat burglars. “There’s nothing else in there, so get changed, and then it’s time to go. We need to get in place before Pulitzer comes back.”

Mush nodded and grabbed a pair of grenades from David’s lap.

“Why do you get grenades?” Race asked while yanking down his pants and underwear.

“You all are way too comfortable with nudity,” Albert said and spun around so he couldn’t see them.

“You know the answer to that question,” Spot said to Race before pulling his shirt over his head, ignoring Albert’s embarrassment.

Mush inclined his head at Spot.

“Mush, Hotshot, Graves, and I will carry the grenades,” David said.

“There’s an odd number though,” Race said. “Can’t I have one?”

“No,” David and Mush said in near unison.

David divided the grenades up, three each, and gave the thirteenth one to Spot.

“Hope this isn’t bad luck,” probably Oscar said.

“Might be good luck actually, thirteen comes up a lot in sorcery,” Graves said.

“Most prime numbers do,” Race said.

“Let’s go,” David said, grabbing his wrapped sword. He exited the van and slung it over his back.

The others started following him.

Mush shoved his trio of grenades into his backpack and threw it over his shoulder. He reached down to grab Blink’s machete but found it was already in Blink’s hand. He opened his mouth to say something but Blink stopped him

“I know you don’t want me to go. But I at least know how to swing this,” Blink made a chopping motion with the sheathed blade. “I’m not letting them go in there alone, and I’m sure as hell not letting you go in there without me. I’ll follow your lead, but I’m going.”

Mush was filled with conflicting urges to heave a great sigh or push Blink down on the ground and make love to him in the back of the van, but there wasn’t time for that. He hoped there’d be time for it later. He settled on just a single nod before hopping out the back of the van to follow the others.

Blink closed the back doors of the van as he got out.

They circled around to the front of the van.

“So first you kidnap me in the middle of the night. Then you give me a stolen van to drive?” Albert asked from the driver’s side window.

Charlie was opening up the giant laptop in the passenger seat and had plugged the power adapter that fell out of the box into the van’s weird little outlet. He had Hotshot’s tiny little laptop open too. “Comms check.”

Mush felt his phone ring. He pulled it out of his pocket, answered it, and plugged in the earbuds he’d gotten from David.

“Mush online,” he said, trusting the tiny mic to pick up his voice.

“Shouldn’t we have code names or something?” Race was holding the mic directly under his mouth.

“No time,” David said.

“You already made up code names for all of us though, didn’t you?” Blink asked.

“We should get going,” David said.

“That’s a yes,” Jack said.

“What’s mine?” Race asked.

“Big Mouth,” Jack said.

“That should be Dave’s,” Spot said.

“Look, we’re not using code names,” David said. “They already know who all of us are anyway.”

“They might not all know though,” Blink said.

“Morris knew and Morris is all mouth,” Oscar said.

“Okay, I’m driving away now. You guys keep arguing in the street though,” Albert said and started up the van.

“You guys want me to direct you to the front of the house or the back?” Charlie asked in Mush’s ear.

“Back,” David said.

“Down to the end of the street,” Charlie pointed, “then down three houses on the right.”

“Perfect, I know which way not to go,” Albert said while throwing the van in reverse.

Mush turned and faced down the street while the van beeped its way into the darkness behind them.

David made a hand gesture and started forward.

“That means to follow him,” Jack whispered over the group call.

“Why is it a phone call?” Race asked. “Wouldn’t a walkie-talkie app be better?”

“Those use your data,” Charlie said. “You’ll keep regular phone reception longer. If you guys are going to make a habit of this, then radios would be a good investment.”

“Comm silence, please,” David said.

Mush stifled a chuckle. If Blink wasn’t right beside him walking toward probable death the situation would have been hilarious.

Chapter Text

“Looks empty,” Jack said.

“It always does,” Race said. “That’s the point.”

The eight of them were hiding in the alley behind Pulitzer’s house, or temple, or whatever it was. They’d walked down each of the streets surrounding the house once to scope out the situation before creeping into the alleyway. It was a good thing Staten Island did sleep, otherwise, an army of cop cars would have descended on them already. Even with that, they were pushing their luck. Eight men dressed all in black and carrying weapons, some of them carrying very large weapons, wasn’t exactly inconspicuous, no matter how stealthy they were trying to be.

“First story or second story?” Mush asked.

“First,” Davey said. “It’s riskier, but he’d be a fool if he didn’t add security precautions to the upper floors after the last time.”

It went unsaid that the last time was when Race’s parents had died in, well below, the building just ahead of them. Jack pushed that thought aside. There were more of them, they knew more about what they were facing, and he, at least, intended to survive. He wasn’t convinced Race’s parents hadn’t come here to commit suicide in the hope that it would prevent Pulitzer from finding Race.

“You think he won’t have an alarm on the first floor too?” Race asked.

“Of course, he will, but the issue is the booby traps. He and his cronies still need to be able to get in,” Hotshot said with a vague gesture at Spot.

“So I’m a crony now?” Oscar asked.

Hotshot ignored him and continued. “Which means he can’t have the first floor as thoroughly booby-trapped as he can the upper levels.”

Davey nodded.

“Spot and I will go first and find a way in, you six wait here and come over the fence on my signal,” Davey said and gave Jack a glance.

Jack knelt and cupped his hands on his knee so he could give Davey a boost while Race did the same for Spot. There was a quiet thump from the other side of the fence when Spot landed, but Davey didn’t even make that.

Jack turned and peeked through the slats of the wooden fence with one eye. He couldn’t see much in the dark. It was after the half-moon by this point, a few hours closer to the new moon than to the full. He took a deep slow breath picturing the full moon in his mind’s eye. Remembering the feeling it filled him with. Inch by inch he lured and nudged the itch up from the base of his spine and into his eyes. Itchy eyeballs wasn’t the most pleasant sensation, but his vision sharpened in the darkness.

Davey and Spot were crouched low moving along the back of the house. There were several large windows and a set of french doors that they were checking as they went along. Jack wasn’t sure exactly what they were looking for but trusted that they knew what they were doing. After examining each possible entrance they moved back to the one they’d checked second.

Davey pulled something out of his pocket and handed it over to Spot.

Spot took it and started working on the window.

Davey tilted his head and glanced around the yard.

Jack saw a reflection of street light in Davey’s eyes and knew his boyfriend had shifted his eyes too. There was also a subtle point to his ears and Jack watched as one of them twitched toward the street as someone drove past.

Jack pushed and prodded the itch into his ears, feeling them stretch followed by a moment of dizziness as his inner ears shifted.

There was a small noise of glass and stone and Jack looked over to see Spot setting a pane of glass down on the ground outside the window.

Davey reached through the opening and unlatched the window. Then he looked over at the fence and gave a quiet, high-pitched, whistle.

“That’s the signal,” Jack and Mush said at the same time.

“What was?” Race asked in a loud whisper.

“Just go,” Hotshot said and gave Graves a boost over the wall.

“You know you guys have comms, right?” Charlie asked in their ears. “You don’t have to do the weird owl-hooting bullshit.”

Jack boosted Mush, then Blink, and then let Blink help him over the fence.

He crouched and crossed the yard to Davey’s side.

Davey slid the window open and looked inside.

Jack forced the itch further down his face into his nose. There was a quiet cracking as bone and cartilage reshaped.

Mush’s eyes snapped to him for a moment then back to the open window.

The dominant scent was dust, there were curls and dust rhinos on everything in sight, followed by the lingering scent of the chyrlid. The undertones were of dried blood and something else. Ozone maybe.

Mush and Hotshot stepped forward and looked through the window, examining the floor beyond. Hotshot nodded and Mush took a tentative step through the open window. Nothing happened. Mush motioned for them to follow and stepped further into the dust-filled room.

“No alarm?” Race whispered into his mic.

Davey pointed at something on the window sill and then to the bottom of the window where a wire with alligator clips on either end was stretching between them.

Hotshot grabbed a ball of dust off the floor. “If the whole house is like this we’re going to leave a trail that even a toddler could follow.”

“Main walkway is on the other side of the door,” Oscar said. “It’s why we picked this room. He keeps the areas he walks through swept plenty clean these days. So unless they randomly check this room, they won’t know.”

“As long as we don’t trail this dust behind us,” Graves said. He was kneeling next to the window with the missing square of glass.

Graves slid the pane back into the window, while Hotshot slid the window shut, and was somehow able to retrieve the alligator clips without setting off the alarm. If he focused on it, Jack realized he could hear a high-pitched sound coming from the electrified wires.

“So clean well,” Graves said.

Jack moved across the room and pressed his enlarged ear to the door.

Davey joined him.

He didn’t hear anything but the subtle electrical whine of the security system.

Davey pulled his ear away and looked at Jack.

Jack shook his head.

Jack took a step back and Spot took his place, bending to look under the door.

“I don’t see any alarm on this door,” Spot said.

Davey nodded and grabbed the knob with his gloved hand.

They all took a deep breath and Davey opened the door into the room.

No alarm went off. At least nothing audible.

“Hey, Crutch?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, Jack?” Crutchie answered in his ear.

“Don’t suppose you can tell if we set off any alarms in here?”

“Well, I can tell you there’s no phone lines or internet lines coming out of the house, but I wouldn’t know about anything internal or wireless.”

“How do you know there’s no phone lines?” Race asked.

“There was some interesting stuff preloaded on this laptop,” Crutchie said.

“Cut the chatter,” Mush said.

Oscar led the way into the hallway with Spot’s body. Pausing at the entrance to wipe the dust off their shared feet before stepping out.

Davey dusted his feet off and followed. He looked up and down the hallway. “It’s clear, let’s go.”

One by one they dusted themselves off and crept out of the room.

Blink went last, taking time to bend down and sweep the dust that had wafted into the hall back into the room, before closing the door and blowing the last of the dust back into the crack under the door.

“So I’m guessing Blink keeps your dorm room clean?” Race asked.

Mush rolled his eyes and didn’t say anything.

Oscar led the way to the kitchen in silence. The floors had been swept in the last fifteen years, so there weren’t obvious footprints leading to the wall that concealed the entrance anymore. Oscar grabbed something on the opposite side of the room and the wall swung open. The smell of moist stone and a distant note of fresher blood wafted out and to Jack’s canine nose. There was also a tiny sound as something snapped and fell to the floor. He looked down at the floor and saw two broken halves of a toothpick. Davey, Mush, and Hotshot were all staring at it too.

“Why are we stopping?” Blink asked.

“There was a toothpick,” Jack said.

“A toothpick?” Blink asked.

“Rigged on top of the door to let them know if anyone had used it,” Davey said.

“So just put it back,” Blink said.

“It broke,” Hotshot said.

“Well, we’re in a kitchen, maybe we can find one here,” Blink said.

“These are all empty,” Oscar said and gestured around at the cabinets.

“Well, guess that’s why these were in my pocket,” Race said and held up a small bright pink box.

“No way,” Albert said. “How the fuck could that guy know you’d need that?”

“Focus on driving,” Crutchie said.

Davey examined the place where the toothpick had fallen and then scanned along the door jam — if a secret door could be said to have a door jam — until he found something that satisfied him. He took the box from Race and compared one of the toothpicks with the one on the floor.

“Exact same brand,” Davey said.

“I really want to know how he hasn’t been eaten by the Hounds,” Mush said.

“Let’s go,” Davey said.

“Any trick steps we should know about?” Jack asked and turned to look at Spot.

Oscar shook his head.

They all turned to face the stairs.

Hotshot went in first.

“We’re going underground,” Jack said.

“Got you, hope I’m able to do something to help before you lose connection,” Crutchie said.

“I don’t suppose anyone has a cellular repeater in their pocket?” Mush asked, looking at Spot and Race.

“I’m fresh out,” Spot said.

Jack waited with Davey until everyone else had gone in. Davey gestured for him to go first and then pulled the door shut behind them, being careful to wedge the new toothpick in place as it swung shut.

“Radio check?” Davey said.

“Still clear,” Crutchie said.

There was an occasional drip of water, echoing over some great distance, and the guttering sound of the torches they passed along their way down the curling, moist, dark stone steps. It wasn’t until after the first bend that they found the first of the torches. The light it gave off was dim, but after the darkness of the stairs down to that point it was welcome.

“They left torches burning?” Blink asked in a whisper.

“I think they’se the same torches as fifteen years ago,” Race said while taking a closer look at one. “Nothing’s actually being consumed here.” He poked at the base of the flames and then snatched his finger away. “Still burn though.” He shook his hand out but it had already healed.

“He took the time to make magical torches?” Jack asked.

“Running an electrical line would have been simpler,” Graves said.

“But that wouldn’t be a display of his power,” Davey said.

They descended further in silence. Jack remembered thinking the stairs had only gone down around thirty feet when he’d seen them in the mirror, but hadn’t appreciated how steep they were. When they reached the hallway at the bottom of the stairs they must have been over fifty feet below the ground. One thing was certain, they were well below the water table. The ceiling was still dripping with water and the corridor smelled musty. The scents of blood and ozone were stronger here. Twisted little stalactites were hanging from the ceiling where the water was leaking in, and answering stalagmites beneath them on the floor. He had no idea how long the corridor had to have been here for that to have happened.

There were three doors along the right-hand wall before the corridor turned sharply, at a less than ninety-degree angle, to the left. The middle door led to the room where Race’s parents had died.

Chapter Text

The other six shapeshifters spread out down the hallway, but Race didn’t seem to want to step off the bottom step into the corridor and Spot couldn’t bring himself to leave his boyfriend.

One of us should check what’s around the corner, Oscar sent.

Let him have his moment, Spot sent. Once we get you back in a body we can take you to where your dad died and let you have a moment too.

Oscar didn’t say anything in response to that, but their minds were bleeding together enough that Spot could feel how twisted up Oscar’s emotions were.

“You ready for this?” Spot asked his boyfriend.

“None of us are ready for this,” Race said. “Except for maybe Hotshot and Graves, this doesn’t look like their first rodeo.” He gestured over Spot’s shoulder with his chin where Hotshot and Graves had already cleared their room and were looking around the corner at the end of the dark stone corridor with a palm-sized mirror.

Spot eyed the second door in the hallway — the one that opened to the meeting room — and turned back to Race. “That’s not what I meant.”

Race’s shoulders collapsed and he looked down at the ground. “I know.”

“Hey.” Spot put his finger under Race’s chin and lifted it up until he could see Race’s blue eyes again. “What’re you feeling?”

“Sad. Angry. Scared, no terrified, and…”

“And?”

“Excited.” Race tried to run a hand through his hair but it was still covered by the black balaclava that had come with their clothes. “It’s not right. But this is my chance to make Pulitzer pay.” He turned around to face the stairs then spun back around and pointed at the door Dave was just getting around to opening. “My parents were murdered right there. I went to the fucking Refuge because of what happened in that room.” He looked caught between hysterical laughter and tears.

Spot reached up and put his hand on Race’s cheek. “Hey.”

Race’s eyes focused in on him.

“You’re doing great. Everything you’re feeling is valid.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to want revenge,” Race said, his face turning into Spot’s palm.

“It’s human. Society frowns on it, sure, but we’re a bit outside of society's rules at this point.” Spot gestured around the dripping stone hall with his other hand and nudged a tiny stalagmite with the toe of his boot.

Race took a deep breath, with just a hint of shudder to it. “Okay, let’s do this.” He took the final step into the hallway.

Spot moved his hand to the back of Race’s neck and pulled him in for a quick kiss before turning to lead him by the hand past Mush and Blink who were checking the abandoned storeroom behind the first door.

Dave took a picture of the still-closed middle door just as they reached him.

Spot looked at where the camera was focused and saw the head of a toothpick in the doorjamb.

Doesn’t even trust you guys, huh? Spot asked his passenger.

Would you? Oscar sent.

I’d trust you.

Sure, now that you’ve seen inside my head and walked a mile in my literal shoes.

Jack pinched the tip of the toothpick and pulled it free as Dave swung the door open.

Spot caught a flash of eyeshine from his brother’s eyes and glanced at Jack’s ears. Sure enough, they came to subtle points and were flicking around seeking the source of every sound. Dave’s ears were the same way.

Think you’ll ever have that level of control? Oscar asked.

Spot gave the mental equivalent of a shrug. Maybe one day, if we survive the night. He tightened his grip on Race’s hand for a moment.

Race squeezed his hand back.

The first thing Spot noticed about the room beyond the door was that the furniture had changed. The couch was gone and the wooden chairs had been moved against the walls. In the place where Pultizer had been sitting fifteen years ago had been replaced by a blackened throne.

“Well that’s ominous as fuck,” Race said.

Dave examined the floor and then motioned them forward. “Don’t touch anything.”

“Oh, well I was going to pick up all the cursed things, but thanks,” Blink said.

Everyone paused and turned to look at him.

“What? I’m not allowed to be an asshole like the rest of you?”

“Right, anyway,” Jack said and stepped into the room.

“You didn’t mention the throne,” Mush said.

Spot felt Oscar take control of their vocal cords. “It wasn’t here.”

“When’s the last time you were here?” Dave asked.

“Summertide.”

Oscar moved them toward the throne and bent to examine it while being careful not to even brush against it. The base was hewn from the same stone as the walls, floor, and ceiling. It was carved with reliefs of chyrlid figures kneeling and prostrating themselves. He couldn’t tell what they were supposed to be worshipping. The person on the throne? Nothing? A dark cloud? There were also R’lyehn glyphs filled with tarnished silver in an arc on the back of the chair, just above where he imagined Pulitzer’s head would be. Oscar started to reach toward them and Spot jerked their arm back.

What?

It’s silver dumb ass.

Oscar pulled the arm further back. Right, sorry.

“What does it say?” Dave asked.

“It’s a name,” Oscar said, “not sure saying it out loud is a good idea. But this part,” he gestured at a central glyph, “is the word ‘abyss’ in the unpresent tense.”

“What the fuck is the unpresent tense?” Albert asked in their ears.

“R’lyehn only has two verb tenses. Present and unpresent. Either it’s happening right now or it’s happening at some other time.”

“As fascinating as the language lesson is, let’s try to focus,” Hotshot said.

“So do we wait in here for them to come back and jump them in the hall or do we wait for them next door so we can make sure everyone we want is definitely in here before we strike?” Jack asked.

Spot was about to offer his opinion.

Look at your boyfriend, Oscar sent.

Spot wrinkled his brow and glanced around the room, finding Race staring at the wall by the door. There was a deep gouge in the stone about four or five feet long. It was just at the height of Race’s neck.

Spot’s stomach twisted up and crossed the room to Race’s side as quickly as he could without running.

“Racer?” Spot asked.

“This is where it happened,” Race said. He reached his fingers out toward the gash in the stone but yanked them back before he could touch it. At least fifteen years hadn’t left any sign of the blood that must have once soaked the wall.

Spot put an arm around Race. He considered turning him away from the wall but decided against it. “I know.”

“They stood right here,” Race reached out toward the damaged wall and yanked his hand back again. “Pulitzer killed them right here.”

“And he’s about to get his,” Oscar said with Spot’s voice.

“Do you think,” Race stopped and swallowed something down, “do you think they thought of me before they died?”

Spot did turn Race away from the wall at that point and looked up into his teary blue eyes. “I know they did.” He pulled Race into a hug. Race buried his face in Spot’s shoulder and there was a single muffled sob that no one else in the room commented on.

“I wish we knew how long before they get back,” Dave said.

Race pulled back — out of Spot’s arms — wiped his tears off on this sleeve, and turned to face the rest of the group.

Spot followed suit.

They had work to do. There’d be time enough for all of them to have emotional breakdowns later.

“We’ll let you know when they pull up,” Charlie said.

“You were supposed to drive away, not keep watch for us,” Dave said.

“He forced me to come back,” Albert said.

“I made an executive decision,” Charlie said, “you need to know when they pull up, and you’ll need us here to pick you up after.”

Assuming there is an after, Oscar sent.

“It’s too dangerous,” Jack said.

“Well you’ll just have to survive this stupidity if you want to yell at me,” Charlie said.

Dave put a hand on Jack’s shoulder and Jack cut short whatever he’d been about to say.

“Be ready to retreat if they see you,” Dave said.

“Wish we’d left them with a grenade,” Spot said while fingering the one attached to his belt.

Dave shrugged.

“We can’t be sure what order they’ll come into the room, so it’s better if we wait further down the hall,” Dave said.

“Yeah, because breaking in on him worked so well the last time,” Race gestured back at the reminder of his parents’ decapitation without looking at it.

“They had no way of knowing the power they were facing. There’s more of us and we know how to stop him, and we won’t let anyone catch us out in the hallway first.”

“We don’t really know what I’m capable of though, except eating doors,” Oscar said.

Dave took a deep breath. “We need to see what’s deeper in, maybe we can find more information.”

He turned and led the way out of the room without waiting for anyone to say anything.

Spot took Race’s hand and followed him.

Jack came out of the room last and closed the door, slipping the toothpick back right where it had been.

Past the very sharp turn at the end of the first hall had been a second shorter hall and then another set of dark stone steps curling down into the earth. Dave, Mush, and Graves had some sort of quick argument with their eyes before agreeing to follow them down. They’d quickly discovered that they lost phone signal about ten feet down the second set of stairs so Mush and Blink agreed to wait at the top of the stairs to keep in touch with Charlie and give the rest of them some sort of signal when Pulitzer and his goons arrived. After reaching the first landing of the even longer stairs, which spiraled still deeper into the dark earth, it was agreed that Jack would wait there because with his enhanced hearing he’d be able to hear Mush’s signal. Race agreed to stay with him because they weren’t about to leave anyone alone anywhere in that place. Spot wasn’t happy about being separated from Race, but he couldn’t deny that Oscar might be able to offer valuable insight about anything they found down there, and so he continued on with Dave, Hotshot, and Graves.

The broad hall split in two ahead of them, but Putlizer’s enchanted torches only led down the left-hand path.

“Do we take the obvious path or do we think he’s hiding the interesting stuff the other way?” Hotshot asked.

“He’s arrogant enough I doubt he worried about anyone penetrating his defenses this far,” Oscar said. “Or that he’d want to walk in the dark.”

Hotshot nodded and led the way down the illuminated corridor.

As they went, it curled back around in the direction of the stairs until they reached a small chamber, more just a widening of the corridor, where there were a pair of doors. Spot was pretty sure the one on the left would lead to a space directly beneath the meeting room above.

“Blood’s coming from this one,” Hotshot said and pointed at the door to the left.

“Let’s check the other one first,” Graves said and pulled out a small case containing locksmithing tools. He probed around the edges of the door twice before tackling the first of three locks.

Are lockpicks just standard issue with being a werewolf? Oscar asked.

Yup, Spot sent, guess I was always destined for it. He fingered the set he always kept on hand.

You were destined for the sea, and there’s plenty of burglars out there who don’t get furry once a month.

Most of them just smash and grab though, Spot sent.

Fine, locksmiths then. Plenty of people, Oscar sent.

Graves popped the last lock but didn’t open the door. “Any rituals on it?”

Oscar took over and checked the bottom half of the door for any glyphs while Dave checked the top.

“Nothing here,” Oscar said.

“Or here,” Dave said.

They both stepped back and Graves opened the door.

The room on the other side was made of the same dark stone as everything else but the seven walls were cluttered with papers and strings like the lair of some conspiracy theorist. The walls were all of different lengths and something about the asymmetrical nature of the room bothered Spot, even while he couldn’t quite identify what it was. There was a desk near one of the corners with a few books and a piece of pale, rune-carved stone resting on it.

“His study?” Spot asked.

Dave examined the floor and then stepped into the room. The rest of them followed. He crossed to the desk and examined the stone before picking up one of the books. He examined the spine, which was unmarked, then opened it just far enough to glance at the first page. It was handwritten in R’lyehn. He handed it to Spot.

Oscar accepted the book and paged it open.

Dave examined the white stone tablet without touching it.

Graves picked up another of the books and flipped it open, then dropped it and jumped back as if it had burned him. Spot was only aware of it through his peripheral vision because Oscar had their eyes focused on the journal he was holding. Learning to focus on what was in his peripheral vision without being able to move his eyes was just one of many interesting experiences he’d had since his body had become a time-share.

Hotshot reached out for the book Graves had dropped but Graves swatted his hand away.

“What is it?” Dave asked.

“Volume 12 of the Revelations of Glaaki,” Grave said.

Oscar stopped reading and turned to stare at the book on the ground. Spot could feel a wave of horror and panic building somewhere just beyond his subconscious mind. It looked like it was taking every bit of Dave’s willpower not to run out of the room.

“I don’t suppose anyone has a lighter?” Dave asked.

“As if it would just burn,” Graves said.

“Everything burns if you try hard enough,” Hotshot held up a grenade.

Dave glanced at the papers on the walls surrounding them. Oscar did too, then snapped his eyes back to the book in his hands. He let it drop to the floor.

“Let’s leave and blow this room up later,” Oscar said.

Oscar spun them around and walked out the door, keeping his eyes focused only on what was on the other side. Hotshot came last and swung the door shut behind them.

“You guys figure out anything before panicking?” Spot asked.

“Panic was warranted,” Graves said. “In that book is a name, and if you see that name, even if you don’t read it, just if you see it, then it can possess you at any point.”

“That was a research journal. From what I could get out of it he’s been researching mind transference,” Oscar said.

Dave nodded. “The sigils on the tablet looked similar to what Race has been working on.”

“We should check this room, too.” Hotshot nodded at the other door.

Graves pulled out his tools and turned to the door.

Oscar dropped to Spot’s belly and looked under the door. There were a pair of small white stones anchored to the floor near either end of the doorway. “Shit, there’s an alarm ward.”

Graves stopped probing and looked down at him.

Dave dropped onto his belly next to them and looked under the door.

Oscar pointed at one of the stones.

“Are you sure? It could be something else,” Dave said.

“Look at the air around it. The slight heat shimmer,” Oscar said.

Spot focused on what his eyes were seeing and could see a slight warping of the air, it was very hard to see in the tiny space beneath the door.

“Fuck,” Dave said and stood back up. He pulled his little notebook out of a pocket and started flipping through it. “You should be safe to unlock the door. Just don’t let anything living cross the threshold or he’ll know we’re here.”

“Us specifically?” Hotshot asked.

“Dave reached a page in his notebook and scanned the cramped notes within. “It looks like the Ward of Sovov, so he’ll see whoever breaches the ward.”

Graves resumed work on the locks on the door. There were three on this one too. He had them open in even less time than on the last door. “He must use the same three keys on each door.”

“Will an object set off the alarm?” Hotshot asked.

“It shouldn’t,” Dave said.

Graves turned the knob and gave the door a light shove. It swung open a few inches, revealing that the shimmering air from the door jam filled the entire space. Hotshot nudged it a little further open with the tip of his sword.

Spot caught sight of a pair of white marble altars in a somewhat familiar diagram.

“Well those look very familiar,” Dave said.

“I didn’t think even he’d be up for something that blasphemous,” Oscar said.

“The wealthy and powerful have no concept of blasphemy,” Hotshot said and pushed the door further open so they could see the rest of the room.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Oscar said.

Spot took over control of the body. The sight before them was gruesome, but he was able to keep Oscar’s revulsion from churning their shared stomach too much, even if he could feel it like it was almost his own.

There was a large tank against the wall near the door, with a number of smaller tanks attached to it, by narrow tubes of glass, all of them held in place by elaborate ironwork that someone had gone to the trouble of making fancy with embellishments and scroll work. Inside the tank was a man, floating in a yellowish fluid, his chest was broken open and all of his internal organs were removed, but he wasn’t dead. Each of his formerly internal organs was in one of the outer tanks, connected by elongated veins and plastic tubes so that they still functioned. The lungs weren’t doing much underwater, but gill slits on the man’s neck kept him provided with oxygen. He looked suspended halfway through the change from surface human to chyrlid.

Chapter Text

“Mush says two SUVs are pulling up,” Jack said.

Race hadn’t heard anything. To say he was envious of Jack’s ability would be an understatement. All being a werewolf had ever given him was anxiety, and here was Jack walking around with goddamn superpowers. The small part of his mind that pointed out he could learn to do that too if he actually tried, was easy enough to shove back down and ignore. Race turned and ran down the hall the others had taken as far as he could without getting out of sight or earshot of Jack.

“They’se here!” Race didn’t quite shout it. His voice echoed back to him from the forked corridors in front of him. The torch flames seemed to shudder as the soundwaves passed through them, and the echoes coming from the dark corridor came at irregular intervals. By the time the last echoes had returned to Race’s ears, there was something cold and distant about them — like the sound of a tomb being opened. He was pretty sure it was just nerves, but maybe he should have been quieter given that anything could be lurking around any and every corner, and that wasn’t even addressing what could be hovering around them just across a paper-thin dimensional barrier. He turned and looked over his shoulder back toward the stairs. Jack was still there, although he’d buried his face in his palm and looked like he was mumbling something to himself.

“Quiet,” Hotshot’s voice hissed from behind him.

Race jumped, actually jumped.

“Don’t do that,” Race hissed back and spun to look at them. He froze when he saw their faces — Spot’s face was almost green — and then looked down the hall lit by the guttering torches. “What was down there?”

“Later,” Davey said.

Race frowned but they didn’t have the time to argue. Pulitzer could already be in the building. He turned back around and saw that Mush and Blink had joined Jack at the landing of the stairs. The five of them hurried to meet the other three.

Jack took one look at Davey’s face before asking, “What the fuck was down there?”

“Later,” Spot said.

Jack frowned but didn’t push.

Davey unshouldered his pack and set it down on the floor. He knelt next to it and pulled out a Tupperware container that sloshed with an off-white liquid. He held it out toward Mush. “Bleed in this.”

Mush took the container and produced a knife from somewhere.

Race looked away and saw Davey pull another container out and opened it to reveal two sad little strands of purple-flowered hyssop.

“That’s it?” Hotshot asked.

“It’s hyssop, it’ll work.”

“They’re tiny,” Race said.

“It’s not the size that matters,” Davey said.

Mush set his container down next to Davey. The milky liquid was now a shocking pink color.

“We need to finalize our plan,” Mush said.

Davey nodded. “First priority is that someone needs to use one of these to get that,” he gestured with one of the small growths at the pink liquid, “onto Pulitzer. He’s too powerful and we can’t win if that doesn’t happen.”

“Second priority is Oscar.” Davey patted a pocket and looked around at all of them. “It’s best if we can get him separated and just one person blows the whistle while none of the rest of us are around, otherwise we’ll be helpless while it forces us to change.”

“But not the person who blows it?” Graves asked.

Davey gave a short, sharp nod.

“There’s two SUVs, and I can’t see either Pulitzer or Oscar driving, and I don’t think Morris’s hands would be in shape for it,” Mush said.

“So there must be at least two drivers, but if there were only two or three others, they could have all fit in one SUV,” Davey said.

“So we’re looking at seven people minimum, but could be as many as twelve,” Hotshot said.

“Versus eight of us,” Spot said.

“Not great odds,” Blink said.

“How skilled are his thugs?” Davey asked Oscar. “The ones your brother sent after us were all brawn and no skill.”

“The same,” Oscar said.

Davey nodded and looked at Hotshot, Graves, and Mush. “Won’t be a problem then.”

“So after someone negates Pulitzer’s power, assuming this works,” Hotshot pointed at the blood and almond milk.

“It’ll work,” Jack said.

“Someone needs to separate Oscar’s body from the rest of the group and use the whistle on it,” Hotshot continued.

“I feel like I’ve got the best shot at that,” Spot said.

“We do, you mean,” Oscar said.

“If it’s going to follow anyone, it should be us since we had the connection to it,” Spot said.

“I had the link to it last though,” Race said, “and it had to be cut out of me. So don’t you think it might hate me more?”

“So both of you bait it back down here then,” Hotshot said.

“Here?” Race asked.

“It’s remote from where the rest of the fighting will be, so you should be able to use the whistle without affecting the rest of us,” Hotshot said.

“That still leaves one of them going through hell,” Davey said and pulled the ziplock bag he kept the whistle in out of his pocket.

“Better one than all of us,” Hotshot said.

“And someone will need to keep its attention while the other person blows the whistle,” Graves said.

Davey looked from Graves to Spot and Race. He didn’t look happy. He locked eyes with Spot and Spot gave a quick nod. Davey handed the bag to Race.

“Glad to see I’m being consulted in this,” Oscar said.

“You know it’s the right choice,” Spot said.

“Yeah, and I more than deserve it for what I did to all of you. Well, not them,” Oscar pointed at Hotshot and Graves. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want to be asked though.”

Everyone but Spot, Blink, Race, and Graves went silent.

“Wha—?” Race started to ask but Spot covered his mouth.

“They’re on the floor above us,” Davey said in a low voice.

Race’s eyes darted toward the stairs leading down to where they were standing. They were the only barrier between them and the man who killed his parents. Between them and whatever was in Oscar’s body.

He took a breath to try and steady himself.

It didn’t work,

He took another.

Davey threw both of the little sprigs of hyssop into the blood mixture and sealed the Tupperware before handing it to Jack. “You have the chant memorized the best of us.”

“Literally couldn’t forget it if I wanted to, and I do want to,” Jack said.

Davey nodded and turned back toward the way he’d just come from, he made a gesture and started down the corridor away from the stairs. The others turned and followed, with Spot tugging Race along by the hand. They walked to the fork between the lit and unlit paths. Davey hesitated only an instant before leading them into the darkness.

“Aren’t the bad guys in the other direction?” Blink asked.

“We need to let them get settled. Also one of them might come down this way to check on things.”

“Weasel caught my parents while he was patrolling,” Race said.

“Does he always have someone patrol?” Hotshot asked Oscar.

Oscar nodded. “If he’s in the building.”

They moved further down the dark hallway until Davey stopped. At least Race assumed he did. He couldn’t see much. It wasn’t pitch black, but only because of the distant torches in the main passage, so it may as well have been. It felt like they were all holding their breaths. The only sound Race could hear was his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. It seemed so loud he wasn’t sure how everyone else couldn’t hear it. Maybe they were just being polite by not mentioning it. Race’s lungs started to burn from holding his breath.

Jack poked him in the side. “Breath idiot.”

Race gasped in a breath.

“Slow and steady,” Davey said under his breath, just loud enough for Race to hear.

“Someone’s coming,” Mush said.

Everyone focused on the sliver of light in the distance.

It felt like an eternity before Race heard the echo of a footstep from ahead. A moment later the distant point of light flickered as someone crossed the hallway.

Mush and Davey were moving before Race could even blink.

The rest of them followed, but the other boys’ headstart held.

The figure in the light didn’t hear Davey and Mush’s footsteps until almost the last second. Whoever it was had just enough time to turn and face them. He tried to dodge Davey’s grasp, but that pushed him directly into Mush who grabbed him in a headlock, one hand over the man’s mouth.

An instant after that his neck was broken.

Mush eased the body to the ground just as the rest of them reached the scene.

“Uncle Johann,” Oscar whispered.

Race looked over at Spot and saw a strange mixture of grief and relief on his boyfriend’s face.

“You going to be alright?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know,” Oscar said, “But we need to get this done. I’ll have plenty of time to work through my trauma after I’m trapped in Spot’s subconscious.”

There was a retching sound followed by something wet hitting the floor.

Race spun around and saw Blink heaving his stomach’s contents out. Given how long it had been since any of them had a chance to eat, Race was impressed there was any lunch left for him to lose.

Mush took a step toward Blink, one arm outstretched, but stopped and took a step back, his arm falling to his side.

“Come on, it won’t be long before they miss him,” Davey said and turned down the corridor leading to the stairs.

Jack, Hotshot, and Graves followed him.

Race swallowed down something in his throat, fingered the silver whistle in the plastic bag in his pocket, and followed after them with Spot at his heels.

He tried not to think about the cooling body they were leaving behind as he climbed the stairs, careful to keep on the pads of his feet as he’d been taught, even in the light boots they’d been given. He guessed their footsteps were pretty quiet and almost mixed in with the distant echoes of water dripping.

His phone vibrated in his pocket.

Race jerked.

“Why isn’t your phone on silent?” Mush’s voice hissed from somewhere behind him.

Race tapped his earbud to answer.

“Hello?” Charlie asked in his ear.

“Yeah, we’re a little busy right now, Chuck.”

“Oh thank fuck, are you fuckers all alright?”

Davey tapped something on his phone and joined the call. Charlie had probably somehow been calling all of them.

“Glad to have you back, but we need to be quiet right now,” Davey said.

“But you’re all okay?”

“Except for Weasel,” Blink’s shaky voice carried from both behind and the earbud at different times.

“What happened to—”

“He’s dead, we’ll talk about it later, just maintain our comms for now,” Mush said.

“Ooookay,” Charlie said.

They finished their climb up the stairs in silence.

Davey motioned for them to stop and traveled the rest of the way to the corner of the hallway outside Pulitzer’s little throne room alone. He pulled out a sliver of mirror and used it to check around the corner before returning to them.

“Two guards in front of the door. They look about the same caliber as the goons Morris sent after us,” Davey said.

“Probably are,” Oscar said.

“Another car is pulling up,” Charlie said in their ears, “It’s Mrs. Delancey’s.”

Oscar swore under his breath.

Davey motioned them back down the stairs until they were past the first turn.

“Try to take Morris and their,” Davey gestured at Spot, “mother alive. Nothing else in the plan changes. Let’s just wait for her to join them.”

“Why don’t we jump them before she gets down here?” Oscar asked.

“Because we won’t know when she’ll show up and it increases the likelihood of her getting caught in the crossfire,” Davey said.

Oscar nodded Spot’s head but his eyes were staring off into the dark recesses of the stairs without focusing on anything.

Race hoped he wouldn’t do anything to mess up the plan, but he had to admit that he didn’t know what he’d do if his mom was in that room. Then he remembered his mom had been in that room, and she’d died there.

Race squared his shoulders.

“She’s talking to the guards,” Jack said with his pointed ears twitching toward the top of the stairs, then a few breaths later, “She’s in the room— and she’s hugging Morris, treating him like a little baby.”

“Not far off,” Oscar, Spot, or both said.

“Let’s go,” Davey said and started up the stairs.

They advanced past the top of the stairs and paused before the turn with Davey and Mush in the lead.

Mush pulled out a pebble and looked over at Davey with a raised eyebrow.

Davey shrugged.

Mush reached the tips of his fingers around the corner and somehow flicked the pebble down the corridor. It made a small sound near the base of the stairs from the house above.

Davey and Mush were around the corner in the blink of an eye.

The rest of them rounded the corner just in time to see Mush lowering a dead body to the ground and Davey snapping the further man’s neck before lowering him to the floor.

Race opened his mouth to say something but snapped it shut when another sound filled the corridor. It was like a yawn mixed with the whine of an electrical transformer. It pulled at the shivering sensation that coiled at the base of his spine. He wasn’t even sure he was hearing it with his ears so much as feeling it. He could tell everyone else was hearing it too.

His eyes drifted toward the door into Pulitzer’s throne room. A deep blackness one that he’d only seen on camera before was seeping through the cracks in the weathered wood.

“Okay, now that’s just performative bullshit,” Race said, “It’s unlocked idiot!”

Davey turned and glared at him before pulling his broadsword free from its sheath and facing the vanishing door.

“There goes the element of surprise,” Jack said while pulling out his swords.

“We got three down first, better than I expected,” Hotshot said.

Race pulled out his daggers just as the door bulged into the hallway and shattered into shadows of nothingness, vanishing into the void.

Chapter Text

Spot was through the now vacant doorway the instant the hungry void that had consumed the door was gone. Whatever was in Oscar’s body, it hadn’t been expecting a flying tackle. Hotshot lead their second wave into the room followed by Davey and Mush.

There was a wall of thugs between the entrance and Pulitzer’s throne. Morris was glaring at them from just beside the throne, though after his imprisonment he wasn’t in much shape for a fight. Race had no idea how dangerous Mrs. Delancey might be, but reminded himself that she’d seen her husband killed by a werewolf so she wasn’t going to be at all sympathetic to them.

Oscar’s body recovered enough to roll over and force itself on top of Spot. The body punched down at Spot’s face, and only a quick roll to the side prevented it from connecting. The ancient volcanic stone cracked at the point of impact. Spot glanced at the broken stone and slid down to escape the body’s grasp.

Race rushed forward and kicked it in the groin as hard as he could — which was more than a little cathartic for him. He was rewarded with a grunt of pain and the body spasming. Whatever was in control was apparently still using the body’s nerves and reacted to pain. Which made sense given the nature of the ritual the chyrlid of Innsmouth had used to cut the things contamination out of him.

There was a shriek of rage and a gunshot sliced through Race’s arm, leaving a trail of fire behind it. Silver. Of course.

He looked up to see Mrs. Delancey on the far side of the general melee the room had become leveling a small pistol at his head for a second shot.

Race spun to his left and into a cartwheel toward the door — he kicked Oscar’s body in the crotch again as he went — sending her second shot into the wall. It wasn’t exactly anything Davey had taught him, but falling back on dance and gymnastics wasn’t the worst he could do given the circumstances. Or so he thought until his injured arm almost gave out under him.

Oscar’s body flipped over and jumped to its feet in a movement that Race suspected didn’t adhere to the laws of physics. Why had he agreed to this fight again? Spot tried to sweep Oscar’s legs out from under him but Oscar’s body jumped over Spot’s leg.

It was impossible to tell where the two hollow pits of darkness that were Oscar’s eyes were looking, but Race had a pretty good feeling they were focused on him. Well, that was according to plan at least. He gave a little wave and darted back out the door before Mrs. Delancey’s third shot could land.

Spot scrambled out after him and Race gave him a hand up. They looked up in time to see Oscar’s gaunt body step out of the empty doorway, black pits still fixed on them. They turned and sprinted toward the end of the hallway.

Oscar’s body made some sort of low growl. The sound, if it was a sound, sliced through the air and made the shiver at the base of Race’s spine shudder.

“It’s angry,” Race said.

“Mission accomplished then,” Spot said.

They rounded the sharp corner toward the stairs inches ahead of a wave of darkness that must have erupted from Oscar’s mouth, but Race wasn’t going to turn around to double-check.

Hand in hand he and Spot sprinted for the stairs.

Spot dropped his hand and shoved him forward when they reached the top.

Race took them two at a time on the way down. His upper left arm still burned where Mrs. Delancey’s bullet had hit him. He grabbed at it with his right hand and felt for an exit wound. Finding one he sighed in relief, at least the bullet wasn’t still causing more damage. He ignored the beep in his earbud as his call ended and he lost connection with Charlie and the others.

He reached the next level and bolted down the hallway.

Spot’s footsteps followed him.

“Think’s he’s still following us?” Race asked.

The shiver in the base of his spine followed by a growl was all the information he needed. Race pulled the whistle out of his pocket. They had to be far enough away from the others to use it. They were almost to the fork in the passage. He opened the bag and braced himself for the touch of the silver as he reached in to grab it.

“Down!” Spot tackled him to the ground.

A wave of darkness passed right over their heads.

Race’s hand slammed into the floor and the whistle went skittering down the unlit hallway.

“Fuck!” Race said, and tried to push Spot off. The first time he’d ever objected to Spot being on top of him.

Spot rolled off of him.

“Blow the whistle!” Spot hissed at him.

“You just knocked it down there,” Race scrabbled to his feet while trying to point at the corridor.

“I was trying to save your life!” Spot said.

The sound of expensive shoes pounding on the stone reached their ears. They looked up to see Oscar’s body racing toward them.

Spot shoved Race toward the dark passage. “Find it and blow it!”

Spot squared his shoulders and turned to face the advancing threat.

Race rushed into the black hallway, fumbling to get his phone out of his pocket. He unlocked the screen and spent precious seconds trying to find the flashlight setting before getting it on.

“You won’t escape us that easily, guardian,” a guttural voice said behind him, echoing from everywhere and nowhere.

Race spun and saw Oscar’s body staring at him. A silhouette against the flickering torch light.

Spot lunged at him but the body knocked him to the ground without even turning to look in his direction. It looked like they’d gotten really lucky with that first tackle.

“Oh fuck.” Race swallowed.

Oscar’s body bolted toward him and tackled him to the ground, one leg landing on either side of his hips.

Race’s phone landed near him, casting light across the hallway at a disconcerting angle.

Race scanned the ground near him until he saw the glint of silver, there just past their feet. Fuck.

Race tried to buck the body off of him, but Oscar’s body grabbed his wrists and pinned them to the ground.

He looked from the whistle up into the black pits that were Oscar’s eyes. The hungry darkness inside seemed to bore into him. It was like the thing inside of him could see Race’s soul, if werewolves even had a soul. If souls even existed. He shook his head, he couldn’t get distracted by the super-strong weirdo straddling his hips and pinning him down.

Spot pounced on Oscar’s back and tried to pull him off of Race, but Oscar’s body didn’t move. He might as well have been a fly trying to move Everest.

“Spot!” Race locked eyes with his boyfriend and looked down at where the whistle was.

Spot looked and saw it, then his eyes darted back to Race’s.

Race was distracted by Oscar’s mouth opening, and then opening more like a snake about to swallow its prey whole. Maybe that was just what it was about to do.

He looked back at Spot’s eyes. “Just do it, I don’t have a lot of time here.”

Spot rolled off of Oscar in the direction of the whistle.

Race’s attention was now completely occupied by the darkness that was starting to form in the back of Oscar’s throat. It looked like a glitch in reality — like someone just took scissors to the fabric of spacetime and he was staring into the infinite nothingness behind it. He wished he hadn’t read all those physics books or spent so much time studying sorcery. It left all sorts of room in his head for new things to be terrified about. Jack would probably just be wishing he could get a paint that color.

The darkness started creeping out of Oscar’s mouth, dripping down towards Race like molasses. What was molasses even used for? Not the time Race. He turned his head to the side, he wasn’t sure if the darkness was going to eat him like the doors, or if it was going to try and creep into him. Back into him. He really didn’t want to have to go through the chyrlid cleansing again. The first time still gave him nightmares. That was assuming the thing didn’t just hollow him out for use as a skinsuit like it had Oscar.

Oscar’s body bent its face lower.

Something less a sound and more like a red hot knitting needle drove itself into both of Race’s ears.

The hands holding his wrists spasmed open.

Every muscle in Race’s body contracted, forcing him into an upright position and his eyes so wide open that it felt like they might bulge out of his head.

Oscar’s body fell off of him and convulsed on the floor.

Race tried to focus on what was happening to Oscar, but his own ears were filled with a hot ringing.

His spine arched backward and a scream tore itself out of his lips as every one of his ribs snapped and ripped out of his chest.

His muscles contracted again and he was forced to curl forward, his shattered ribs catching in the fabric of his shirt and colliding with each other. He screamed again. He screamed so loud he could feel the blood vessels bursting in his larynx only to heal again in an instant.

Spot knelt at his side and started whispering reassuring nonsense. At least it sounded like nonsense, Race was having trouble focusing on anything but his own screams and on Oscar’s body. As horrible as the whistle’s effects on Race were, they didn’t compare to the one it was having on Oscar’s body.

It had wrestled back to its feet, and black splotches were appearing on his hands and face like he had some cursed version of the measles. The body was alternating between clawing at its ears like it was trying to rip the sound out and clutching them like it had the worst migraine in history. Race could empathize as all the bones in his left arm shattered and started ripping through his skin as it reshaped into a leg.

Race tried to keep screaming, but there wasn’t any air left in his lungs. He coughed up what felt like a gallon of blood before managing to take a ragged breath.

The splotches on Oscar’s skin grew and started to merge together. They were starting to look wet, and as Race screamed in agony he saw one start to run like a melting birthday candle. Which wasn’t a bad description of how Oscar’s body was starting to look overall.

A shiver ran through Oscar’s body that reminded Race uncomfortably of Jell-O, and it fell forward onto the ground. Race watched as Oscar’s hands seemed to dissolve into black goop that clung to the bones beneath almost like tendons. The fingerbones scraped against the floor as it tried and failed to push itself back up.

Race’s muzzle erupted out of his face at the same time as Oscar’s lower face melted revealing his jawbone. The thing let out a wet gurgle. The somehow blacker holes that were its eyes focused on Race. The black sludge that had been Oscar’s flesh was starting to ooze out through his fancy clothes.

Race tried to move away but his legs chose that moment to start contorting into paws and the pain was too much for him. A fresh, bloody scream pulled itself out of him.

All that was left of Oscar was a slime-encased skeleton in expensive clothes. It pulled itself toward Race by its fingerbones.

“Tony,” Spot said, “I love you.”

Race tore his eyes away from the thing trying to crawl toward him and met Spot’s eyes. Spot placed a soft kiss on the tip of his muzzle and then stood up. Race watched him pull out the grenade, clench down on the handle, and pull the pin.

Race tried to lunge for Spot, but his body wouldn’t obey him, and his last arm bones shattered as he tried to stop him.

Spot launched himself on top of the thing that had been Oscar, the grenade pressed to his chest.

There was the sound of thunder and everything went dark.

Chapter Text

Davey swung his blade in a downward slash. The dockworker, based on his boots and smell, lost the arm he’d been holding a gun in. The man clutched at his stump with a scream that Davey did his best to ignore.

Mrs. Delancey screamed and produced a gun from her expensive clutch. She fired. Race jerked back. Davey didn’t see where he’d been hit but could tell from the following cartwheel that it hadn’t been fatal.

Davey lunged past the unarmed man in front of him, blade aimed for a killing blow at the man beside him. The second man tried to use his gun to parry but only succeeded in turning a killing blow into a gut wound, that would probably still kill him.

Race and Sean made it out of the room with Oscar’s body in hot pursuit.

There had only been five goons in the room, lined up between them and Pulitzer’s throne. Mrs. Delancey stood beside the throne, she had shoved Morris behind her and was still holding the small revolver.

Hotshot and Graves finished off the two goons on the other side of the room with quick stabs to the heart, while Mush had gone for a neck blow on the one just in front of Pulitzer. Fatal, but he’d gotten his machete stuck in one of the thug’s vertebrae.

A shot rang out.

Mush grunted and stumbled back. There was a hole in his face, right through his left eye.

He fell to the ground.

There was a scream of rage from behind them and Louis charged into the room toward Mrs. Delancey.

The one-armed man had already passed out from blood loss and would be dead soon without medical intervention, which wasn’t coming. Davey pulled the dying man with the gut wound off his sword and into a chokehold for use as a shield then maneuvered the two of them between Mrs. Delancey and Jack, her aim was more dangerous than he’d expected.

Louis tackled Mrs. Delancey.

The gun clattered to the ground.

Pulitzer sighed.

“Enough of this.” Pulitzer didn’t even raise his voice.

He waved his hand and a band of blood-red light shot out,

Davey felt himself blown backward and pressed into the wall, the dying man still pressed against him. The force they were driven into the wall was enough to cause some of the man’s guts to squelch out through the wound. He gasped in pain and fell unconscious.

Jack must have lost his grip on the Tupperware as they were knocked backward because Davey saw it go sailing past him to impact on the ground in the middle of the room, spilling its contents across the floor.

Morris wrestled Louis off of his mother and pulled him into a restraining hold.

“Don’t try anything, faggot.”

“Thank you, Mr. Delancey, but there’s no need for such crass language,” Pulitzer said. The man stood up and paced toward them.

The sound of a distant explosion echoed from the doorway. Sean’s grenade.

Pulitzer quirked an eyebrow. “I do hope your two friends aren’t both dead. I wish to have a conversation with Mr. Conlon.”

He glanced in the direction of the missing door. “Why is it that you werewolves seem to be incapable of knocking?”

Pulitzer twitched a single finger and the man on top of Davey fell to the floor leaving him exposed. Davey took in the room at a glance. With a sinking feeling, Davey realized he and Jack were pinned in the same place Race’s parents had been when they died. Hotshot and Graves were pinned on the other side of the door. He focused his eyes on Pulitzer, doing his best not to look at where Mush had fallen.

“Mr. Kelly,” Pulitzer strode over to them, “I can’t say I’m not going to enjoy this. You never were good enough for Katherine. Is there anything any of you would like to say for yourself before I end this little game?”

“Vak virazh,” came a voice from the ground behind Pultizer.

Pulitzer spun around in time to see Mush snap the tiny bit of hyssop, scattering pink droplets on the hem of his pants. Mush had also sketched a mesoamerican glyph of something on the floor in his own blood.

Davey felt the strength holding him to the wall falter a tiny bit.

“Vak virazh,” Mush said and again flicked the pink fluid onto Pulitzer while pulling himself into a crouch.

Davey was able to pull himself away from the wall but couldn’t step forward.

Pulitzer made a gesture at Mush shooting out a band of crimson force, but it was weaker than any of the others had been.

Mush stood up, his left eye still a bloody mess, flicking the hyssop at the same time, sending a spray of bloody droplets out to meet the spell. The band fizzled into almost nothing and what hit Mush had no more effect than a strong breeze.

“Vak virazh,” Mush sent another spray of droplets at Pulitzer, splattering them across his collar and face.

The ruby light holding the rest of them to the wall flickered out.

Davey and Hotshot hit Pulitzer in the back at the same time and drove him into the floor face-first.

“Fuck!” Morris shouted.

Davey looked up and saw Morris grabbing at the top of his foot while Louis dropped to the ground and grabbed Mrs. Delancey’s gun.

“Don’t move!” Louis said and pointed the gun in the general direction of both Delanceys.

Jack and Graves moved in on either side of them putting a sword to each of their throats.

Louis spun and rushed over to Mush.

“I thought she killed you?”

Mush pulled his boyfriend into a hug. “She was using silver bullets, just scrambled my brain a little bit. I fucking hate the feeling of getting shot in the head though.”

“Agreed,” Davey said from where he was now sitting on Pulitzer’s back.

Jack looked over at Davey. “That was almost a little anticlimactic.”

“You think you’ve won?” Pulitzer asked from the ground, although his voice didn’t sound as unflappable as before. “When the younger Mr. Delancey returns from dealing with your friends you’re done for.”

“Shut up, Joe,” Jack said.

Davey locked eyes with Hotshot and looked toward the doorway.

Hotshot nodded, got up, and headed out the door.

Pulitzer was right, if the whistle had failed or Race hadn’t managed to use it they could be in big trouble. Davey just hoped they’d set off the grenade on purpose.

“That ain’t even Oscar and you know it,” Jack said.

“It is Oscar,” Mrs. Delancey said. “It’s who I always knew he could be, not the queer weak thing I somehow raised in his place.” She spit on Jack’s shoe.

“Charming family you got here, Morris.”

Morris tried to step forward but stopped when Graves’s blade drew a small line of blood from his neck. “Shut it, Kelly, before I shut it for you.”

Mrs. Delancey smiled at Morris’s words then glared at Graves. “If you hurt one hair on Maury’s head you’ll wish I just killed you.”

“Maury?” Jack asked.

“Shut it,” Morris said.

There was a chuckle from the door.

Davey looked over to see Sean, almost naked except for his boots and covered in soot and stone fragments, being helped in by Hotshot while a blood-drenched golden-furred wolf, with a limp from Mrs. Delancey’s gunshot, followed them into the room. It was an easy guess that things hadn’t gone according to plan.

“Oscar’s body?” Davey asked.

“It was already dead,” Oscar said. “What’s left now wouldn’t fill ma’s purse. The thing inside started evaporating away, but not fast enough, so we used the grenade to help it along.”

Mrs. Delancey made an outraged sound. “Filthy dogs. First my husband and now my son!” She tried to step forward but Jack’s sword stopped her short.

“Your son is right here,” Oscar pointed at Sean’s head. “Just a little relocated. Glad to see you too, ma.”

“You weren’t missed,” Mrs. Delancey said. “Who’s this,” she gestured at Sean’s body, “your boyfriend?”

Davey had never heard the word boyfriend filled with so much vitriol before.

“I wish.” Oscar’s shoulders dropped and he looked away, returning control of the body to Sean.

“So, we won?” Louis asked after it became clear no one else was speaking.

“You’ve won nothing,” Pulitzer said but his quick shallow breaths let Davey know he wasn’t feeling as confident anymore.

“Now what do we do?” Louis asked.

Race padded forward, his blood-soaked appearance giving him a more menacing air than he’d ever had in his life, and snapped his jaws in front of Pulitzer’s face.

“We execute him,” Sean said.

“Okay, but what about them?” Louis gestured with the gun at the Delanceys.

Half the room flinched at the blond’s casual disregard for firearm safety.

“No, you won’t do this to me again!” Mrs. Delancey stomped on Jack’s foot and grabbed for the hand holding the sword to her throat.

Jack reacted, the sword in his other hand extended in a thrust. Davey knew from the angle and depth that he pierced her lung.

Louis pulled the trigger on the gun he was holding. The shot landed in the other side of her chest.

She fell to the ground.

Louis dropped the gun.

“Ma!” Oscar and Morris both rushed to her side. Graves letting Morris go.

She gasped for breath. She reached up with one hand, covered in her own blood, and stroked Morris’s cheek. She opened her mouth to try and say something but gave a bloody cough instead. Her hand fell down at her side and the light left her eyes.

“You fuckers!” Morris roared to his feet and tried to lunge for Sean.

Graves had him in a chokehold before he could take more than a step. They all stood in silence while Graves rendered him unconscious.

“Thugs,” Pulitzer said.

“That’s enough out of you,” Sean said and spun around from Mrs. Delancey’s corpse, raising his sledgehammer.

“Wait!” Pulitzer said. “There’s two of you trapped in that body, I can help you. I can find Mr. Delancey a new body.”

“No sale,” Oscar said and brought the hammer down on Pulitzer’s head.

Davey wrinkled his nose. The spray of blood from the skull-crushing blow had gotten on his face.

“He may have had valuable information,” Hotshot said.

“And now he’s paste,” Sean said.

Oscar turned around and knelt at his mother’s side.

“I’m sorry, Oscar,” Jack said while staring down at the bloody sword in his hand.

Davey got up and crossed the room to Jack, pulling him into a hug.

Jack dropped his blades and collapsed into the hug.

Davey pulled Jack out of the room and led him to the storeroom next door. They sat down on the ground. Jack was holding his shoulders rigid, but his head was bowed and Davey could see the pinpricks of tears in the corner of his eyes.

“I take it you guys are done?” Charlie’s voice came in his ear.

Davey couldn’t bring himself to answer.

“Copy that,” Hotshot said, his voice carried by the earbuds, “we’re clear.”

Jack broke down, sobbing, in Davey’s arms.

“So what now?” Sean or Oscar asked half an hour later. Sunrise couldn’t be far off.

“We have to dispose of the bodies and decide what to do about that thing downstairs,” Hotshot said.

“Thing?” Race asked. He’d only just managed to resume his human form, but was still naked and covered in drying blood.

“Mr. Seitz,” Oscar said, “or what’s left of him.”

“Looked like all the pieces were still there,” Graves said.

Oscar shrugged. “He was Eldest on Land before Pulitzer.” He kicked at Pulitzer’s corpse. “We all thought he’d gone to the sea.”

“Disposing of the bodies won’t be hard,” Mush said, “just toss them in a room downstairs. But someone’s going to notice this many people suddenly missing. To say nothing of other chyrlid.”

“Fuck,” Oscar said.

“What?” Race asked.

Oscar turned to look at where Morris was bound and gagged in the corner. It was agreed he needed to be executed, but none of them had wanted to do it yet.

“Don’t worry,” Hotshot said, “I’ll make it fast, he won’t even feel it.”

Morris struggled against his bonds, but it was clear he had no real fight left.

“No,” Oscar said with a trace of a sneer. “The only way we get away with this is if someone in some position of authority quiets things down. Explains to them what Pulitzer did.” He kicked Pulitzer’s mostly headless corpse again. “Having access to my family’s money wouldn’t hurt either.”

Morris stopped and glared daggers at him.

“He’ll never go along with that,” Davey said, although he didn’t think that was where Oscar was going with this.

“My body is gone, but I’m still a Delancey. I know almost everything he does.”

“I thought you didn’t want to do that?” Jack asked.

“I fucking don’t,” Oscar said, “but I don’t really see that we have any choice.”

Morris’s eyes were huge and he was trying to get his bonds off but they’d taken how he escaped his last bindings into account.

“When will that ritual be ready?” Oscar asked.

“Two days, well one day now I guess,” Race said.

Oscar nodded.

“Louis,” Davey said, “get their keys, then go upstairs and find the ones for the SUVs parked upstairs. Charlie?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Have Albert drop you off upstairs. Albert?”

“Yeah?” Albert asked.

“Go and ditch the van somewhere, it doesn’t need to be that far, and then walk back here. We’re switching to their vehicles.” He turned to face Race and Sean, “You two find some clothes that fit,” he gestured at the dead thugs, “then use some of the other clothes to clean up. The professor stays with Morris, everyone else, two to a body, we’re taking them downstairs.”

Davey bent down and grabbed hold of Pulitzer’s shoulders.

Jack moved and grabbed his feet.

“I need to start working out if this is going to be a regular occurrence,” Jack said after they’d lifted the corpse.

Davey led the way out of the room, backward. The remains of Pulitzer’s head leaked congealing blood and spinal fluid as they headed for the stairs down.

“So I know you know what youse doing,” Jack said, “but why are we taking them down a level? Why not just leave them there?”

“Other chyrlid know about this place, they might come to the throne room, but according to Oscar none of them go down,” Davey said. “And this way the smell shouldn’t make it to the surface.”

Jack wrinkled his nose.

Chapter Text

“I killed her,” Blink said.

He was looking at Mrs. Delancey’s body as Spot and Race picked it up to carry it downstairs with all the others. Blink was definitely not looking at Morris who was glaring death at him through tears. Mush thought it might have been the most human emotion he’d ever seen on Morris’s face.

“Maybe,” Mush said. He didn’t think lying to his boyfriend would help anyone.

“Maybe?” Blink asked. “I fucking shot her.”

“In the lung,” Mush said. “And Kelly stabbed her in the other lung. Either wound could have been fatal alone.”

“But she could have survived one too?”

Mush gave a small shrug.

“So if I hadn’t shot she might still be alive. I killed her.”

“This is why I didn’t want you to become a shapeshifter,” Mush said. “We kill. It’s what we do. Not all the time, this situation is a little extreme even for us, but we do.”

“I was so scared when she shot you,” Blink said.

“I wasn’t really anything,” Mush said. “Your brain kind of blue screens and reboots when something goes through it. Not that I ever want you finding out.”

Spot and Race left the room, leaving them alone with Morris and the bloodstains.

“And now we’re going to kill Morris and replace him with Oscar?” Blink still wasn’t able to look at the boy he’d just orphaned.

Mush’s skin crawled. Body hopping was considered the darkest art for a reason. It was the most horrible thing that one person could do to another. Still, given the circumstances, he didn’t see any other choice. Morris didn’t deserve to be replaced, even as horrible as he was, but he probably did deserve to die, as much as anyone could. Oscar didn’t deserve to be locked away alone in Spot’s subconscious. He needed a body. He’d have an easier time pretending to be Morris than anyone else. And he’d been right, they needed the Delanceys’ influence to end the war.

“We don’t really have a choice,” Mush said.

“I still killed her,” Blink said.

“I know,” Mush said. He sat down on Pulitzer’s throne, it wasn’t as comfortable as he expected, and pulled Blink down into his lap. “I’m sorry you had to, but there was no way she was making it out of this alive once she showed up. If it wasn’t you, it would have been one of us.”

“How do you guys not feel guilty about it?”

“We do. We just trained to deal with it, from young ages...” Mush stopped and thought about Graves and Hotshot he didn’t know much about them but knew they’d both been bitten. “Well, some of us.”

“What now?” Blink asked.

“We go on.”

“Just like that?”

“Of course not, but what other choice do we have?” Mush said.

“Okay, but what about now, now? Like right now,” Blink asked.

“We grab Morris and go deal with the basement.”

“We’re in the basement.”

“The subbasement then,” Mush said and then stuck his tongue out at Blink.

“How many levels are there?” Blink asked.

“No idea.”

“And this was all built by a race of living tumors?”

“Polyps.”

“But they’re all dead now, right?”

“No, but this tower has been in use for decades, so it’s either abandoned or they don’t care.”

Blink opened his mouth to ask another question.

Mush closed it with a kiss.

Morris wasn’t so scared he couldn’t still make some disgusted sounds.

After the kiss, he looked Blink in the eye. “I’ll explain everything later, for now, let’s grab Morris and go down.”

Blink nodded and stood up, looking at Morris. “Heads or tails?”

“If I hadn’t already puked up everything I’ve ever eaten, this would do it,” Blink said.

The figure in the tanks seemed to be aware of them. At least the one eye that was still in the socket was swiveling around to look at them. The other eye was floating alone in a bottle three feet away, connected to its socket by a long strand of tissue.

Mush leaned closer to the narrow glass tube it was running through. The fluid filling all the tanks and pipettes was clear, but if it was just water then it had to be heavily enchanted, which knowing Pulitzer wasn’t impossible. But he would have expected any powerful magic he’d used to break with either the hyssop or his death.

The man’s brain and spinal cord were in the center of the network, tendrils of nerves and blood vessels spidering out into his head and all the other limbs and organs.

“Can you hear us?” Blink asked near the ear that was still attached to the poor man’s head. “Blink once if you can hear us.”

The man, Seitz was what Oscar had called him, blinked his eye.

“He’s stuck like this and he’s aware of it?” Jack asked. “I’m having trouble thinking of anything worse.”

The eye blinked again.

“One blink for yes and two for no, got it?” Blink asked.

One blink.

“So, can we put him back together?” Blink asked. “You four are all bio majors, right?” He gestured at Mush, Spot, and Race.

“We have one semester down,” Race said, “and part of a semester we’ve mostly all skipped. This wasn’t exactly in the 101 or 102 textbooks.”

“Think of it like dissecting a frog,” Hotshot said, “then do it backward.”

“Joey, honey,” Graves put a hand on his husband’s shoulder.

“Well, bro, the bad news is you’re dying in like 36 hours,” Oscar said. He was sitting on one of Pulitzer’s altars, his back to the divided man in the tank, with Morris laying on the other, paging through a journal they’d found in the room. “But the good news is Pulitzer was going to do the same thing pretty soon.”

Morris stopped struggling and looked at him.

“What?” Jack asked.

“It’s why Pulitzer has these,” Oscar gestured at the two altars and the engraved seals around them. The two altars that they could all tell were intended for the same ritual they were planning on performing. “Whatever he was doing to prevent himself from changing wasn’t going to last much longer. So his plan was to force Katherine to marry Morris, then take over his body.”

“He wanted to sleep with his daughter?” Blink wrinkled his nose.

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Oscar said, “but he wanted to retain access to his family resources and power. He’d leave everything to his daughter and her new husband and then not only does he keep it all, he gets our family’s money and connections too.”

Morris was chewing on his gag, desperate to say something. Mush moved and resecured it. They’d all heard enough from Morris.

Blink shuddered from his head all the way down to his toes. “Still, with his daughter?”

“Rich gringo shit man,” Mush said.

“Did your mom know?” Blink asked.

Oscar swallowed down something in his throat. “Yeah, she did. Thanked him for the great honor of hosting him in our family’s blood.”

“Holy fucking shit!” Mush turned toward the door. David had just led Albert and Charlie into the basement. Charlie was staring at the tank.

Albert ran back into the hall and puked.

“Lot of that going around,” Blink said.

“Decided we didn’t need overwatch?” Mush asked the werewolf who’d brought them.

“We’re out of comm range down here and everyone who knew about us is dead or in this room.”

“That we know of,” Hotshot said.

“They weren’t any use to us up there, and they’re safer down here with us than alone up there,” David said.

“You call that safe?” Charlie pointed at the tanks.

“I don’t suppose that journal explains this?” Mush asked and gestured at Seitz.

“Journal?” David asked and took a step toward Oscar. “You shouldn’t be reading anything down here, we don’t know what that thing’s name could be hidden in.”

“It’s a risk,” Oscar said, “but I don’t think it’ll be in here. He had to check his research notes a lot,” he shook the journal, “and I’m pretty sure his deal wasn’t with whatever was in that book.” He gestured in the direction of the door across the hall where they’d thrown all the bodies.

Davey frowned but didn’t say anything more.

“You guys are seriously just ignoring the man in the tank?” Charlie asked. His eyes hadn’t left Seitz.

Albert was standing in the doorway and didn’t seem interested in entering the room.

“I mean, he’s like the fifth most terrifying thing I’ve seen tonight,” Blink said.

“And he didn’t even see what Oscar turned into,” Race said.

Mush ignored them and looked back over at Oscar and Spot. “Anything?”

“He needed a test subject who was starting the change to research how to push it off,” Oscar said after turning a few more pages.

“So why is he in pieces?” Blink asked.

“Easier to observe in detail,” Oscar said.

“Any notes on how to reverse it?” David asked.

“I don’t think he ever planned on it,” Spot said.

“Are you in pain?” Blink asked.

Seitz blinked once.

“He’s awake?” Charlie asked.

“I’m going to be sick again,” Albert said.

“Look, we don’t have time for this.” Spot hopped down off the altar and walked over to the tanks. “From what Oscar says in here,” he gestured at his head, “you were a nice man and I know you knew my mother, Hannah.”

Seitz blinked.

“There’s three options here. We can try and find a way to fix you, but you need to understand that we’re idiots and our plans always go tits up. We can get in touch with my mom and send you the other chyrlid, maybe they can help you. Or we can put you out of your misery.”

“Spot!” Blink looked at the shorter boy in horror.

“He’s in pain and there’s no guarantee we can do anything about it,” Spot said.

“He’s right,” David said.

“How would we even move him without breaking half the tanks and all the glass work?” Jack asked.

“So do you want us to try to save you?” Spot asked.

Two blinks.

“Do you want us to try to transport you to your… our people?” Spot asked.

Two blinks.

“Do you want us to let you die?” Spot asked.

One blink.

“You’re sure?” David asked.

One blink.

“We can’t just kill him. He didn’t do anything to hurt us,” Blink said.

“He’s in pain and there’s no coming back from this,” Jack said.

“I’m not surprised you’d be fine with killing him,” Blink said.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Jack asked and stepped toward Blink.

“Just saying he wouldn’t be your first kill,” Blink said, taking a step toward Jack.

“I seem to remember you shooting her in the lung too,” Jack said, taking a step toward Blink.

“Which she would have survived if you hadn’t stabbed her,” Blink said.

“Jack stabbed someone?” Charlie’s eyes were opened wide as he looked around at all of them.

“Okay guys, stop blaming each other for murdering my mother. One of you idiots can bite a therapist later,” Oscar said. “Dagon knows we all need it.”

Mush moved to Blink and put a hand on his shoulder.

David pushed between Blink and Jack and whispered something in Jack’s ear.

“Neither of you is doing it anyway,” Spot said. “We’ll do it. Is there anything left in here anyone wants?”

Mush looked around the room. There were things they could have investigated but he didn’t want to know the answers. He was ready to be done with all of this.

“You going to burn the bodies next door?” Mush asked David.

David stepped back from Jack and looked down at his fingers.

He shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Someone might find that room and I think it could use a good cleansing fire,” Mush said.

“He’s not wrong,” Hotshot said.

“Every time I call on Fthaggua it’s like… it’s like it’s paying more attention to me,” David said.

“Our benefactor gave us plenty of grenades.” Graves held one up. “They’ll just have to do.”

“Give me one,” Spot or Oscar said.

Mush pulled one off his belt and held it out behind him.

Spot took it and turned to look at the array of vats and pipes.

“Get back upstairs, Charlie, and take Albert with you, these are dangerous,” Spot said.

“They’se dangerous to you too,” Charlie said.

“Not that dangerous, I already jumped on one tonight.”

Charlie’s eyes widened. “If I could tell Ma about that I would.”

“Come on, Crutch, let’s go. Maybe we can find a working toilet for your boyfriend to puke in,” Jack said.

“You get how none of this is normal, right?” Charlie asked but allowed Jack to lead him out of the room.

The rest of them followed. Graves had Morris’s limp form over his shoulder. It didn’t look like the bully had much fight left at the moment, or at least didn’t want to stay for the grenade.

“Goodbye, Mr. Seitz. It’ll be quick,” Oscar said.

Spot walked out of the room and closed the door, there was a grenade pin on his finger.

The explosion was loud and followed by some bloody liquid flowing under the door.

No one said anything as David opened the door to the next room.

Graves turned to follow Jack and Charlie.

“Wait,” Oscar or Spot said, “this is all the funeral she’s getting, he should be here.”

Graves stopped and brought Morris back.

Oscar moved in and knelt next to his mother’s body.

Graves set Morris down where he could see and then pulled his grenades off his belt. He handed them to Hotshot.

“You weren’t much of a mother. I know you didn’t love me. I’m not sure you loved anybody. You only gave me things because you didn’t want to look bad,” Oscar said. “Still, you weren’t the worst. I’m sure I’ll be unpacking this with therapists for the rest of my life, but plenty of gay kids get worse. At least you kept us comfortable.” Oscar looked over at where Morris had been set down. “Ungag him, let’s have one last argument for old times’ sake.”

David untied the gag.

Morris spit a little then worked his jaw.

“I don’t have anything to say,” Morris said.

“Alright, gag him again,” Oscar said.

“Wait,” Morris said.

Oscar held up his hand to stop David.

“Pulitzer was going to kill me and use my body. She was okay with that. Now you’re going to do it to me instead. Fuck you. All three of you.” Morris spit in the direction of Pulitzer and his mother’s bodies.

Oscar nodded and David re-gagged his brother.

Oscar stood up and moved over to his brother. He heaved the boy over his shoulder and walked down the hallway.

Chapter Text

Well, I guess this is goodbye, Oscar sent.

Is it weird that I think I might actually miss you? Spot asked

Very, Oscar sent.

“Do it,” Oscar said, looking up at Davey.

Oscar and Spot were lying naked on the solid granite slab. They still didn’t know anything about the man who’d delivered it, none of them had seen him since he delivered the weapons.

Morris was naked, except for the chains on his wrists and ankles, on the other slab. He hadn’t struggled since their mother’s funeral, but none of them trusted him not to try and run now. Oscar knew he would. At a certain point, it was instinct to try and save yourself.

“After Race traps Oscar in Spot’s subconscious, I’ll start the second ritual. We had to modify it, normally I’d suffocate you to death with a pillow,” David said. “But since that wouldn’t kill you, and we need Spot to still have a body, I’m going to give you an improvised lobotomy to disrupt your mind enough for Oscar to be set free and relocated.”

One of them flinched. Oscar couldn’t tell which, then Spot nodded.

“Do it,” Spot said.

David moved to the side and pulled out Race’s cigar lighter. He held it to some incense and wafted the smoke toward them. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it wasn’t patchouli.

I’m not sure how much of me is left anymore, Oscar sent. I think I might be more you than Oscar at this point.

Race started chanting and walking a geometric pattern around them.

I know the feeling. Discovering who we are as separate people is going to be weird, Spot sent.

At least you won’t be looking your abuser in the face every time you use a mirror.

You could just not, Spot sent. Throw blankets over all the mirrors like the heroine of a gothic horror story.

Please, have you seen Morris’s skin? I’m about to spend so much on cleansers and moisturizers.

Spot stifled a snort.

Oscar tried to say something else but he couldn’t quite figure out how. His link with Spot was stretching thin. He tried to open their mouth to ask if this was normal, but it wouldn’t move. His vision receded. Like a camera falling down a deep well. The circle of light shrank to a dot, then a point, and then it vanished. The smell of the incense vanished and even the slight ringing that always filled Spot’s ears was silent.

He was nowhere.

He didn’t exist.

It wasn’t that bad.

Oscar could have spent Spot’s biologically immortal life like this he thought. Although he didn’t have any real sense of time. Had it been seconds or minutes now that he’d been like this? Either way, he was about to be his brother.

Oscar was going to have to get used to answering to, ‘Morris’.

He was going to be Morris from now on.

It was a good thing Morris wasn’t the type to make friends. If anyone noticed how strange he was acting Oscar could always use the disappearance of his mother and brother as an excuse.

Except that he wasn’t going to be Oscar anymore. His name would be Morris now, so far as anyone knew. Anyone but a handful of werewolves. Meanwhile, he was just going to be a human. After all the body swapping he’d never go to the sea now. It was what he’d thought he wanted. But now he’d just lost every living family member above the waves. He almost wished he’d never tried to slow his change. He’d seen where that had led Pulitzer. The same place it had led him, into Morris’s body.

On the other hand, if he hadn’t tried he never would have found out how vile Pulitzer was. He never would have been cleansed of his link to a dangerous Outsider, and he hadn’t had to have it cut out like Race and Morris. He didn’t know if it was being in Spot’s body, the lack of the Outsider’s influence, or some of both, but he was starting to like the person he’d become, for the first time in his life he didn’t hate himself. He even almost had friends. Not that he didn’t expect them all to drop him once he was out of Spot’s body. He’d spent too long tormenting them for them to do anything else, but maybe he could make new friends. A few years of therapy and maybe he’d even be in the right headspace to look for a boyfriend of his own.

Or would he? What would happen when his mind was running on Morris’s meat? Would he start to act more like Morris? Oscar had gotten better without the Outsider, but Morris had still been an asshole. The idiot ran to Pulitzer the first chance he got. Oscar didn’t think he could handle turning back into an asshole. That much of an asshole at least.

What even was a person? Was he only nicer now because his mind was running on Spot’s meat? What was he about to become? He wanted to scream, to tell them to stop the ritual, that he’d rather stay locked here as he was than turn back into a monster.

But he was lost.

Trapped in Spot’s subconscious until he woke up as someone new. Someone he’d never been before.

Morris’s eyes snapped open.

Feeling returned to him all at once. The light of the candles was blinding. The smell of the incense was rancid in his nose. The sound of the almost-held breaths surrounded him. The still cold stone of the altar beneath his naked butt. The lingering taste of blood in his mouth. The pain in his bruised wrists.

He screamed.

He tried to sit up but the icy chains stopped him.

“Shh, you’re good.” Spot was next to him, a warm hand pressing him down.

He gasped for breath.

“Get him unlocked.” Spot said.

“How do we know that isn’t still Morris?” Race asked.

“Look, I don’t know who I am at the moment, but please get these things off of me,” the new Morris said.

Davey handed the keys to Spot who unlocked the shackles.

He sat up as soon as he was able and took time to catch his breath.

“You don’t know who you are?” David asked.

“I was Oscar, I think,” he said. “But I mean, I’m Morris now, I have to be Morris, that was the whole point, right?” He looked down at himself. The body he saw should have felt alien to him, but it didn’t. It felt like his body. “Or am I just Morris?”

“Just Morris wouldn’t be this confused and would be trying to kill us,” Spot said.

“You feel like killing any of us?” Jack asked.

“Not particularly,” maybe Morris said.

“What do you remember?” Davey asked.

Morris closed his eyes and thought back. He remembered being in Spot’s head. So he was Oscar, right? But when he thought back over the last few days, there were shadows in his memory. Shadows of Morris’s memories. He could see their mother’s death from Spot’s point of view, but he also had flashes of seeing it with Graves’s sword held to his throat. It was like remembering something he read in a book or watched in a movie though. He could remember it but it didn’t feel like it happened to him. He just remembered what he’d seen. What Morris had seen.

“I remember both. But Morris’s memories are… bleached.”

“Bleached?” Graves asked.

“Empty. I can see them, but they don’t make me feel anything.”

“What about Oscar’s memories?” Davey asked.

“They’re normal? I don’t fucking know.” possibly Oscar said.

“Well, having access to Morris’s memories is probably good,” Hotshot said.

“Yeah, it’s super cool to have memories of gay bashing myself.”

Maybe Oscar rubbed at his wrists.

He noticed the bruises and pain from dislocating his thumbs to escape were gone.

“Still gay?” Jack asked.

Probably Oscar looked to his side where Spot was naked.

There was a twitch from below his waist.

“Okay, that answers that,” Race said, “now stop checking out my man. You’ve caused enough trouble.”

Oscar turned away from Spot and swung his legs to the opposite side of the altar. He hopped off the stone. The body responded as if it had always been his.

“Maybe you’re bi now,” Blink suggested, “if you’ve still got some of Morris in there.”

“Or maybe Morris was a bigger closet case than Oscar,” Race said.

He thought back over Morris’s memories. His memories now. Sort of. He remembered fantasizing about Katherine. A lot. He didn’t feel anything about her now. He pressed on the memories, digging through more of Morris’s fantasies.

“Oh god,” Oscar said then doubled over and tried to vomit. They’d had to fast before the ritual though, so he only dry heaved.

“Shit,” Spot moved toward him.

“No, I’ll handle it, you put pants on,” Race said.

“What’s wrong?” Davey asked, kneeling at his side.

Oscar heaved again and a third time before he managed to shove the memories of Morris’s fantasies aside.

“The things he wanted to do to Katherine. The things he planned to do after they were married,” Oscar said and stifled yet another heave.

“What did he want to do to Kath?” Jack asked, his voice low.

“Let’s just say I don’t feel bad about offing his ass anymore,” Oscar said, “and he was my last living family member.” He shook his head to try and clear it. “I’m definitely gay and if any of you know a ritual to erase specific memories, I could use it. Either that or I need to start drinking and working on repressing a whole lot of shit.”

“Who doesn’t?” Race said.

“I feel like I just discovered a whole new category of PTSD,” Oscar said.

At least the shock had made it easy for him to distinguish between himself and Morris. It just sucked he was going to have to go by his shit brother’s name for the rest of his life. His stomach finally stilled and he stood up. He was taller. Not just taller than he’d been as Spot, but Morris had had about six inches on his old body. He could look Jack in the eye now.

“Anyone have some clothes I can wear?” Oscar asked. “We should probably get back to our place so I can start my new life and start cleaning this mess up.”

“You feel up to that?” Spot asked, he had some pants on now.

“As long as I don’t dwell on his memories I’m fine. I actually feel pretty great given all the shit we put this body through, a bit hungry though.”

“Maybe the ritual healed the recipient's body?” Race suggested.

“I guess it must have,” Davey said.

“Here’s what you were wearing when we captured you,” Jack said and handed some badly soiled clothes to him.

Oscar wrinkled Morris’s, his, nose.

“You have his wallet? They’ll never let us into the building looking like that otherwise.”

“There’s the Oscar I know,” Spot said.

“Bite me, short stuff,” Oscar said and accepted the wallet Davey handed to him.

Spot chuckled.

It was weird not being in Spot’s head anymore. He was alone in his head, well alone in someone's head, for the first time in what felt like forever. He was the only voice in there.

He took the clothes from Jack and started pulling them on.

Oscar sorted through his brother’s closet to find something to wear. At least Morris had owned some decent clothes. He’d taken a long shower in his bathroom and he’d let the shapeshifters make use of the guest bathroom and the one in his room, while he used Morris’s larger bathroom. Should he move into Morris’s room or move Morris’s clothes into his room? He didn’t know yet. Although Morris had had the bigger room, walk-in closet, and a jacuzzi. He’d be stupid not to take it.

After the shower, he was pretty sure he was mostly Oscar but didn’t know what he was supposed to do with his life going forward. All he knew was that he had to get used to being called Morris. Maybe he could find a nickname to go by. But Maury felt like an old man who told people they weren’t the father and Moe sounded like a bartender. He’d have to think about it later.

Morris had spent too much money on his underwear, which Oscar was enjoying at the moment, even if he wasn’t a big fan of boxers. He found some decent trousers to pull on and then browsed through the shirts. His hand lingered on the one that had been Morris’s favorite. He considered it for a moment. There was a memory of Morris and a drunk girl… he pulled back from the memory, snatched the shirt from its hanger, and threw it in the direction of the trash can.

Oscar went back to the shirts and saw one he didn’t remember Morris ever wearing. A button-down with a paisley pattern on it. He considered it. It had been a gift from their mother, which was why it was still here, but Morris had thought it made him look gay. Oscar took it off the hanger and put it on.

He walked out of the room and followed the sound of voices to the living room.