There was no way around it. Rowan was going to have to do something he hated. Being the Trickster god, he had four forms he could shift to. The coyote was the most practical and his favorite, so he spent most of the past twenty-five years in that form. The raven was exhilarating and useful—and as long as some hillbilly didn’t start shooting at him, it might have been his favorite. He had been shot at a few times in both coyote form and raven form, but it was considerably easier to scavenge foot and stay warm at night. He virtually never used the last two forms, and he would have to pick between them soon.
He had been alone in the bathroom for five minutes, and the goons waiting outside would come to check on the guy he had illusioned into existence if nobody came out of either the men’s room or the lady’s room, which was a dead-end. They might even realize that Rowan might have magic to make illusions, which would get messy quickly. Illusions worked best when nobody expected an illusion.
So, it came down to choosing between his octopus form—getting flushed down a toilet and working his way through the sewers—or his spider form, which might mean getting stomped on or swatted the moment somebody spotted him. He hadn’t liked spiders before ascending, and he only marginally appreciated them more since gaining the ability to become one. The worst part of being a spider was being small. Even humans that didn’t want to kill you could accidentally step on you. Then there were the birds—they would love to eat you, and when your body is smaller than a quarter, they look ginormous!
The door began to swing open, and Rowan took a look from the toilet to the door and decided to risk being stepped on. He pulled in his magic and shrunk to a form smaller than a quarter. He silently skittered across the tile, which was even more disgusting from this close-up, and made the small leap to land on top of a dress shoe. After careful positioning, he clung to the inside hem of a dress slack.
From this vantage point, he couldn’t see but could hear, and he figured he was much less likely to be spotted.
“Where did the big guy go?” Thug One said.
“Damn it! What if that was our guy, and he had some way to teleport?” Thug Two asked.
“Teleporting isn’t real,” Thug one said. “He’s in here. Keep the door shut, and let’s see if he’s invisible.”
There were slapping sounds as Thug One walked around the room, hitting every surface. Rowan hoped the guy was going to wash his hands after that.
“Teleporting isn’t real, but invisibility is real?” Thug two scoffed. “I heard about a guy who got across the city in two minutes.”
Rowan, who was hitch-hiking on Thug Two and was responsible for keeping the door shut, listened intently for anything indicating he was about to be swatted. If he felt even remotely threatened, he would inject so much venom into this guy that he’d be the subject of the next National Geographic special.
“I’ve never heard of somebody popping from one place to another.” Thug One let out a hmm. “But, I heard of a guy who could do this chameleon thing—not really invisibility, but he’d just blend right into a wall. By the time you knew he was there, he’d have already stabbed you.”
“Maybe our guy is a shapeshifter,” Thug Two suggested. “Check the toilets and the sink.”
Rowan started pondering titles for the TV special they’d make about him. Maybe Jurassic Spider, The Man Spider, or The Horrors of Arizona Bathrooms. They’d have to workshop the titles.
“Jonathan, Gabriela is going to vaporize us if we come back to her, and all we’ve got is information on where the kid was before we let her get away.”
Thug Two, now Jonathan, stood real still. “Dillan, I think I just heard a flush from the lady’s room.”
Jonathan and Dillan rushed out of the bathroom to confront an empty hall. From Rowan’s vantage point, he could see the ladies' room door swinging shut, but nobody was in sight.
“Let’s double back to the house and see if they left anything behind before we report to Gabriella. We’ve got to give her something,” Jonathan suggested.
Hitchhiking on somebody’s leg was a wild ride for Rowan. The swinging, the impact, and the disorienting shifts in momentum made him glad his spider constitution was up for the erratic journey as Jonathan carried him from the restrooms, past the food court, and back toward their vehicle. The wildest part of it was the vibrations. As a spider, he was attuned to every sensation of the fabric he was clinging to as it moved and whipped about. He had to fight every spider reflex that demanded he react.
Stolen story; please report.
Rowan tried to reposition himself to avoid being squished as Jonathan hopped into the seat. He could have escaped at nearly any point after they left the restroom and before they made it to their car, but he decided to stick with them. At this point, he had no idea where Gretta, Miguel, and Sofia were, and keeping tabs on these knuckleheads and learning more about their ringleader, Gabriela, seemed like the more strategic move.
What do two thugs who work for the lord of destruction listen to while in the car? The answer is nineties pop-rock. Rowan would have never guessed Counting Crows was popular amongst the warmongers, but you don’t know somebody until you’ve ridden on their shoe for a hundred miles.
“I was thinking,” Dillan said, “after the Lord gets an avatar, do you think we’ll still have to do grunt work for his mother or will be in line for a promotion?”
If spiders could gasp, Rowan would have. All he could do was remain still, which he was already doing, while his mind reeled. The Warlord was the official title of the god whose domain was power, innovation, and strategy, but Rowan knew him before his ascension. The Warlord’s real name was Marcus Ramirez, and he was a bit of a dick, but Ellie had insisted that he was necessary for the ritual. They needed someone with enough raw magic channeling power to make the ritual possible, and Marcus was that guy. Even before ascending, he was the most powerful sorcerer Rowan had ever met. The other gods had started calling him the Lord of Destruction after he ascended because he was so careless and broke everything he touched, but he had taken that mocking nickname and owned it.
In all of the time that Rowan had known Marcus, he had no idea that Marcus’s mother was as much of a pain in the ass as her son. Then it clicked for Rowan: Gabriela wanted her son back on Earth.
Rowan was broke out of his reverie when the SUV they were riding came to a stop. Jonathan and Dillan got out of the vehicle, and Rowan risked a glance from Jonathan’s pant leg. They were back at the small cabin, where Rowan discovered that Gretta could shift into a Tiger.
“Looks like they left the door unlocked,” Dillan said.
Jonathan and Dillan walked into the small cabin and searched all three rooms.
“I wonder if this is useful?” Jonathan asked.
“It’s a stuffed rabbit,” Dillan said without interest.
“The kid likely sleeps with it, and it might have her scent all over it. Maybe the dogs can use it to track the kid if it comes to that,” Jonathan said.
“Maybe,” Dillan said. “It looks like it was freshly washed, but bring it along if you want.”
“Should we take the sheets, too?” Jonathan suggested.
Dillan shrugged. “How about you grab the pillowcases? They’ll be easier to carry, and if they still have a scent on them, they should work as well as the sheets.”
“I don’t see anything else here,” Jonathan said.
“Well, I didn’t expect a note telling us where they ran off to, but we at least drive a bit west to see if they were dumb enough to stop somewhere obvious,” Dillan said. “I don’t want to call Gabriela with nothing.”
Jonathan put the pillowcases and stuffed rabbit in the backseat of the SUV, and then they pulled back onto the road.
“Pull up a map,” Dillan said. “I don’t know the roads out here, but maybe we can guess a destination.”
Rowan could hear the tapping on the car’s navigation system.
“Not much out here,” Jonathan said. “Looks like you can take this backroad up to the interstate; otherwise, you are headed onto the reservation.”
“Let’s drive the route toward the interstate. If they went to the reservation, there’s more than one way to leave, and we’ll have to find another way to track them.”
The sunlight was all but gone from inside the car, and Rowan was growing sick of songs from Matchbox Twenty when Dillan slowed down.
“There’s something weird up ahead,” Dillan said.
“I don’t see anything,” Jonathan said.
“When we were coming over that hill, I thought I saw a flash from glass or metal off the side of the road, and as we’ve gotten closer—well, look, that scrub is growing super thick.”
“They’re trees; that’s what they do,” Jonathan said.
The car slowed further, and Rowan could hear the crunch of gravel.
“Yeah, but look how healthy this particular stand of super thick trees and grass is,” Dillan said.
The car dinged as Dillan opened his door. Jonathan got out as well.
“Look at this,” Dillan said with excitement. “I think they ditched their car here.”
A moment passed as Jonathan walked over to the car concealed in a lush stand of Palo Verde, wild oat grass, and witchgrass.
“Let’s call Gabriela and have her bring a tracking dog and ATVs,” Jonathan said. “If Miguel and Sofia are on foot, they aren’t going anywhere fast, and we don’t need to stumble around the desert in the dark.”
“There’s nothing around for miles,” Dillan said. “We finally have them cornered. We should have this wrapped up by lunch tomorrow, and the Lord will be with us by the weekend.”