Ever walk in on your parents having sex? Or, worse, one of your parents with someone that isn’t one of your parents? I want you to take that feeling, throw it out the window, and think of a new most awkward feeling. The air in the room was thick with that. If an eight and a half foot monstrosity with too many eyes in places where eyes don’t go can look sheepish, this thing somehow did, as though it had just let a fart in a funeral.

  “I c a n e x p l a i n,” it began, raising its hands up in the universal ‘I’m not starting anything, just hold on’ motion. In a flash, a woman was standing before us where the thing from another world had been. Still the tallest in the room at 6’ 2”, solidly built. Indian, maybe? “Well then,” she said, keeping her hands raised, more to keep her balance from the sudden, unexpected shift of perspective. Her accent said ‘Indian woman that went to Oxford.’ “I know everyone’s tense, but there’s no need for weapons.”

  “We’ll see about that. You here for somebody, or are you just poaching?” Dr. Hensley sounded angry at her simple presence, talking in the same voice one would use for, say, a serial child thief.

  Her eyes flashed as she turned, her face going from friendly neutrality to incandescent rage in a matter of moments. I mean that literally, they flashed. Like they had little lights in them. “Do you have any idea what you’re accusing me of? I am nothing like my brethren, and I will not have you stand there any accuse me of such things without having even spoken to me, doctor,” she said, somehow making a six figure per year profession sound a lot like “unrepentant asshole” in terms of tone. “No. I am not ‘poaching’. Point of fact, I am looking to do quite the opposite. Or I was, at least, until your friend here somehow managed to, ah.” She faltered. “…How did you manage to pull me through, exactly, little one?” She turned to look at me, all that anger gone, replaced with confusion. At least she wasn’t mad anymore, right? I was gonna take my Ws where I could get them at this point. Small victories.

  As she asked, I was involuntarily doing my best goldfish impression, opening and closing my mouth over and over again as words failed to form, like some kind of asshole.

  “What do you mean, ‘here for the opposite?’” Maria asked, coming in clutch with the redirect. “What are you planning?”

  “I’m rejoining the cycle, Ms. Reaper. I’m tired of,” she paused, letting the stoic expression drop. She looked, above all else, tired. Bone-deep, soul level burnt out. “Of all this. Of everything. All of the fighting, and the intrigue, and the judgment, and the hatred, and…” she trailed off, almost looking ready to cry. “I want simplicity again. I thought maybe if I found a child that had been stillborn, I could just sneak in and be someone’s miracle baby. Coming back from the dead to bring them joy, and bring me peace besides.”

  “Wait wait wait, you can do that?” Oh, now my words decide to show up. Lazy bastards. “You can just sneak in and stick yourself in someone’s baby or something?” I asked, more than slightly horrified at the idea of someone’s kid getting soul-punted to house a cosmic horror.

  “It’s usually done during a pregnancy, but, I admit, I was a bit desperate. I can’t seem to shift back, however, and it would appear I’m stuck in this realm as well as this form. You appear to have made me mortal somehow. Something approaching it, at any rate,” she said with a shrug and a smile. “The issue being I don’t exist, legally speaking, making my existence a bit more troublesome than I’d like it to be.”

  “If you’re really here trying to rejoin the cycle… join us, then. Prove it,” Maria said, the words somehow both a spark of hope and a challenge not expecting to be met.

  The woman sighed, looking rather like she’d rather be anyone and anywhere else. “If that’s your price, fine. I wanted out of all that, but if it’ll take that to prove I’m not on their side and have something like a normal life, then so be it, I guess.”

  “Great! Meet your new partner,” Maria said, grinning.

  “What?!” We spoke in unison, each of us giving the same look to the woman who’d just sentenced us to something neither of us yet understood.

  “You heard me. You’re going to be working together. You’re new to all of this, the world outside the mundane included,” she said, pointing to me. “And you’re experienced with that world, but have the same amount of experience ferrying souls that she does, judging from your build. Warrior, I’m guessing?” she said, gesturing at the woman.

  “One of the Powers, yes. A foot soldier, nothing more, but I left that part of me behind a long time ago,” the formerly monstrous woman said, her tone saying just how tired she was of answering that question. “I’m just me, now. Donna. That’s all. No more Rumiel, no more hunting, no more killing because I was told to, understood? I won’t be a pawn again. Never.” An edge of anger and panic began to color Donna’s words as she spoke, her whole body tensing, ready to strike out at some threat only she could see.

  “Easy, easy.” Maria reached out, gently laying her hand against Donna’s arm. “It’s okay. You’re here now, and you’re safe here. The wards here should hold against anything short of a full scale incursion. The only reason you’re able to walk here in the first place is the good you hold in your heart. There’s no malice or ill intent, or you would’ve been struck down the moment you set foot on the grounds. You’re free here, Donna. Breathe.”

  Donna did just that, keeping her eyes shut tight until the wave of panic passed. Looking back, I think she handled herself with aplomb, considering the crapfest she came from. When she finally opened her eyes, she was calm again. “Alright. I can do this. How long is she in for?”

  “A few days at most, barring anything unforeseen, unless the doctor says otherwise?” Maria turned to Dr. Hensley.

  “It should be fine, once the healing takes effect it’s more to keep up appearances than anything else, honestly. However, you’re still healing, so back in the bed you go.” The doctor pointed at the bed, looking at me like something between an unruly student and a disobedient dog.

Stolen story; please report.

  “And if I don’t?” I hated being talked down to, and this guy was really starting to climb my last nerve in the ten minutes I’d known him.

  “Then I cut off your pain meds and put you on ibuprofen and bedrest.”

  I got back in the bed.

—-

  The days went quickly, with visits from my parents, my coworkers, and various friends interspersed with a lot of naps, daytime television, staring out the window with a pensive look on my face, and hitting the magic happy juice button that dispensed my pain meds every hour on the hour like clockwork. On my last day, I had two final visitors, neither of whom I expected. In walked Knuckletats and Sergeant Flannel, the two friends that had accompanied Mikey to take Bobby on his long drive down a short road. They introduced themselves as Caleb and Brandon, respectively, and apparently wanted to apologize on behalf of their comatose friend. Mikey wasn’t the violent type, to hear them tell it. Far from it. Hated guns, hated hurting other people. A giant teddy bear, full of nothing but love and caring for others, which was why it had hit him so hard when he found out his wife had been sleeping around. I’d never seen someone apologize with their hat literally in their hand before outside of TV and movies, so it was novel as well as unexpected.

  As they left, the doctor entered, paperwork in hand. I was a free woman, even as much as I still ached. He led me through a staff only area to get to the exit of the hospital without getting hounded, and out I went, in to the sunlight. My car was waiting for me, cleaner than I had ever seen it, literally. I’d bought it after a dust storm, and the lot hadn’t had a chance to clean it. It somehow always managed to stay dirty, and yet, here it was. Spotless, with new tires and wheels. I only knew it was mine because my key beeped it open. The interior had been vacuumed, detailed, even shined where it could be shined. I was about to get in and head out, my doctor’s note to skip work in hand, when I felt someone staring at me from behind.

  “Where are we going?” It was Donna, the woman… monster… thing from inside. She still looked like a human, despite what I’d seen lay beneath. “I’m hungry, would food be an option?”

  “Who is ‘we’? I don’t know anything about a ‘we.’ You speaking French?” I asked. It seemed like it was worth a shot, okay?

  “Very funny. I have no money, no place to stay, and know nobody on this side of the veil that would be willing to help me. We’re meant to be partners. Are you going to just abandon me in the parking lot like this?” Donna asked, hands on her hips as she looked down at me. It felt like being looked down upon by my mother, down to her wielding Catholic levels of guilt like a surgeon’s scalpel.

  “Alright, alright, get in, we’ll figure it out on the way or something.” I got in the car, and the first thing to catch my eye were the new gages someone had installed on my dashboard. Oil pressure, other things I didn’t understand. It looked like something out of a rally car, and I understood precisely none of it, so I resolved to ignore it until I could talk to someone who did. I also resolved to never talk to someone who did, because that meant having to talk to a car guy. I turned the key, and the car rumbled to life.

  Let me explain something. I drive a Toyota Corolla. I still do, that same Corolla. Corollas ain’t supposed to rumble, ever. If they do, it’s something you take it to a mechanic to have fixed, because something’s rattled loose or gotten all grindy on something else. This was a rumble that felt like someone had gone and upped the performance enough to be noticeable, something I didn’t think you could actually do to a Corolla.

  I found a little note taped to the inside of my windshield, signed “The Shop”, reading “We did what we could. It took swearing and some lube, but we did what we could to make this not a pulsating ball of suck, fail, and sad. You’re welcome. P.S. We hate your car and you by proxy.” A third pedal had sprouted next to the first two, and my nice, safe, slightly boring automatic transmission gearshift had been replaced with a manual shift reading six gears, along with the rest of my center console.

  “Are you alright?” Donna looked over, concerned. Clearly, I had utterly failed to conceal the look of mild existential horror that had washed over my face.

  “No? Yes? They did something to my car. I’m glad I can drive a stick, just… what the fuck?”

  “Let’s take it for a test run, shall we?” Donna grinned, apparently unfamiliar with the concept of traffic law.

  “Let’s not and say we did, I’m still sore from getting shot. I just wanna go home, turn on Netflix, and sleep for a week. I even got permission, see?” I held up my doctor’s note. “I get to sit at home and rest while I convalesce, so I’m gonna do that.”

  There will come a day when I learn not to challenge fate like that. It hasn’t happened yet.

  I pulled out of the hospital parking lot, careful to feather the throttle lest I ram-rod my car up someone else’s tailpipe, and started out on to the road, slowly getting a feel for my new toy. The steering felt lighter, more crisp, like the car actively wanted to go where I told it to instead of having to be coaxed. Whoever had gotten hold of my car was either a devil or a wizard, I was sure of it.

  After a short trip to Wendy’s, including an explanation of how ordering at the speaker box worked, namely you do not shout over the driver unless they tell you to order for yourself, we finally arrived at the apartment complex I called home. The drop top hearse in the parking lot really should’ve been a clue that I should’ve just pulled back out and gone to eat my lunch in the park.

  I am not a clever woman.