Surprises are part of the game when you live in the magical community. There is always some new variation on a power or some player you didn’t see coming. You get used to it and even learn to prepare for those moments. You train, study, and lay in bed at night trying to imagine what new craziness someone might throw at you. Yet, nothing had prepared me for Carter to just appear in the middle of nowhere. I could imagine how he might have tracked and followed me. None of those methods would have allowed him to just appear at my location with no warning. The implicit threat wasn’t lost on me. It said, I can find you whenever and wherever I want. I felt my hand clench around the tire iron. Carter noticed and raised an eyebrow at me.

“Really?” He asked.

I shrugged and tossed it to the ground. It wouldn’t help. “No, I guess not.”

“Good,” he said in an approving voice. “Especially since I’m not here to fight. I’ve been meaning to have a conversation with you. I don’t suppose you brought that rather exceptional witch with you?”

“No.”

“Pity. I’d like to talk to her as well.”

“Talk? Is that what the kids call murdering these days?”

Carter sighed. “How’s about this? Why don’t we call a twenty-four-hour truce? That’s more than enough time for you to get back to that appalling old woman and launch whatever plan you have. Agreed?”

I stared hard at the man, trying to gauge his intentions and sincerity. “Why?”

“Because I want to talk to you. That’ll be easier if you’re not waiting for me to do something dastardly any second.”

“Dastardly?”

Carter grinned. “It’s a fun word.”

“This is turning into a very weird conversation.”

“Perhaps. So, can we agree to a truce?”

I thought it over for a second. It seemed pretty clear to me that Carter wouldn’t be here if he doubted he could take me in a straight fight. More to the point, I was desperately alone. That made a truce advantageous to me. On the other hand, I had no idea how close he was to finding his shiny new divinity. I also had no way of knowing if he’d actually keep the truce. In the end, it was his demeanor that sealed the deal for me. I knew what people on the verge of violence were like. Carter didn't fit the bill.

“Fine. Twenty-four hours.”

Carter nodded. “Good. I’m sure you have questions, but I’d like to ask one first if you don’t mind.”

“Alright.”

“To my knowledge, we’d never crossed paths before Denver. I don’t even know your name. So, what made you decide that we’re enemies?”

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“You mean other than throwing my friend out of a hotel window?”

Carter held up a finger. “You came looking for me, not the other way around. Your friend is also remarkably potent. I was just defending myself. But, yes, aside from that, why have you zeroed in on me, a complete stranger, as your enemy.”

“I know what you’re trying to resurrect. I know that it’s bad news for everybody if you succeed. I don’t always like the world the way it is, but I don’t see myself liking that world better.”

“You sound awfully certain of yourself for someone with no information.”

I almost said the first knee-jerk bit of sarcasm that popped into my head, but an image of Victoria Ambrosia intruded on my thoughts. I saw her standing over that brazier, heating those hooks, preparing to rake and tear through the skin and flesh on my back. The moment was so intense, so palpable, that my heart started racing. I couldn’t catch my breath, and all I could think about was running away. In a moment of blazing clarity, I realized I was having a panic attack. The realization was so utterly perplexing, so far outside of my normal experience, that it actually helped a little. I turned away from Carter. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, let him see me lose my shit.

My eyes landed on George. I focused on him. I watched his chest rise and fall as he took wheezing, painful breaths. I walked over to him in an attempt to cover my own attempts at controlled breathing. It’s a panic attack, I told myself. It’s like any other kind of unreasoning fear. Focus through it. You’ve faced real fear, real death, you can get through this. One of George’s eyes was swollen closed. I’d broken his nose so badly that it looked like a deformed mass on the front of his face. The whites showed around his one good eye as he tried in vain to pull away from me. I talked to myself in my head as I stared down at the sorry excuse for a human being. It took almost a minute of positive self-talk, but my racing heart eventually settled back into something like a normal rhythm.

I gave George a solid kick in the ribs. He didn’t really need the kick, but I needed some plausible excuse for having spent so much time glaring down at him. I turned and walked back over to Carter. He lifted an eyebrow at me.

“Feel better?” He asked. There was no judgment in the question, just an idle curiosity.

“I didn’t want George to get lonely. You know how children can act out if they think daddy’s forgotten about them.”

Carter snorted in brief amusement. There was no indication on his face about whether he believed my excuse. I hated to admit it, but I didn’t understand this man. There was a sort of normality about his posture and expressions that belied the brute potency of his power. After that display in Denver, I’d expected him to come at me with single-minded intensity. Everything about him said we were just hanging out to have a chat. A casual observer would never know that the fate of the world might well hang on the subtext of the conversation. Unfortunately for me, I did freaking know and had no idea what to do with it. I banished demons and gave elves a spanking when they took things too far. I had no business being here.

It dawned on me that maybe that was why Carter was so at ease. He knew I didn’t belong here as clearly as I did. If Jessie was right, I might be the right person twenty years from now. After I’d built a reputation as fearsome as Uncle Bill’s, Carter might take me seriously. Right now, though, he probably saw me as some kid who’d accidentally fallen into a seat at the grownups' table. He hadn’t expected it but saw no harm in letting me in on the conversation. Christ, I mused, what if Carter is trying to use this as a teachable moment? I wasn’t sure how I’d react to that, so I made a mental note not to ask him about it. There were some kinds of ignorance that left me feeling perfectly comfortable.

“All right,” I said. “You say I don’t have any information. Then, why don’t you enlighten me? What is it that you know that I don’t that makes you think resurrecting some bloodthirsty, old-timey goddess will have good results?”

Carter stared at me with an inscrutable expression for long enough that I started feeling twitchy. Then, his face cleared.

“All right,” he said. “Let me explain.”