I didn’t know how long she and Jean had been here, but I was starting to get hungry. And tired. Also, I still ached, but didn’t want to take the morphine boat into night-nightville.
“What else is important, Mymy?” I asked. “I’m fading pretty fast here.”
She looked at me, looked over at Jean, then made a sort of half nod. “Are you sure?” she asked Jean.
“I think so. Yes. I am.”
I glanced at Jean, who just raised her chin like I was going to challenge her about something. But I had no idea what was going on. Until I glanced over at the door and Hogan, who had been here earlier and gone out for some errand I’d missed, walked back into the room.
“My ass is numb,” he said. “I thought you’d never call me in from the waiting room. And also, I’ve been listening in at the door.”
I had a moment of my heart beating so hard it hurt. But then Ryder squeezed my hand. “We got this,” he said again. It was beginning to be one of my favorite things to hear him say.
“Have a seat, Hogan,” Ryder said. “These women are about to blow your mind.”
Oh.Oh. We were going to tell him. All of it. The rest of it. Bring him into our merry little band of life-on-the-liners. Bring him into our family.
It meant something. It was a big decision and a part of me hoped Jean wasn’t making it just because I’d been hurt.
“You’re up.” Myra sort of waved at Jean, giving her the floor.
Jean took in a breath, let it out, then turned to face Hogan. He read her mood and pushed a stool over near her then dropped down on it. “All right. Go.”
“Gods are real. They vacation here. They put down their god powers, and live like mortals. You know a lot of them. They’ve all left town recently because we’ve had some problems lately.”
Hogan’s eyes flickered to the brace on her leg, cast on her arm, then back to her. He leaned forward, arms across his knees, fingers laced, and nodded. “Go.”
“Okay, so it’s more than just gods. There are also some supernatural creatures in town. Um, vampires, werewolves. Valkyrie, gillmen, giants, elves, nymphs, gnomes, sirens, kelpies. Like alotof different kind of creatures. They’re not vacationing. They just live here because it’s safe. Usually safe. Because we keep it that way. Us Reeds. And well, Ryder too, and a couple other people, but mostly us Reeds.”
She waited. He waited. We waited.
“Speak,” she said, exasperated.
“That it?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want to know if you believe me. If you think I’m insane.”
“I know you’re insane, but that’s a thing I like about you.” His smile was bright white against the darkness of his skin. “You think I don’t believe in that sort of thing? Gods and monsters and all that?”
“Nobody believes in those sorts of things,” she said.
“Uh-huh. There’s some churches that would argue with you on the gods. They’re all about the believing.”
“God. One.”
“More than one kind of church, more than one kind of god gets believed in.” He shrugged. “You say there’s monsters, I say fine. So long as they come to my bakery, not that new one that doesn’t even use real butter, and just so long as they don’t try to hurt you.”
“Hogan….”
“No. I don’t care about what’s in this town as long as it has you, Jean.”
“Aw…” I accidentally said out loud.
Jean threw me a scorching glare and Ryder snorted.
