The man and woman Frigg knocked out came around eventually, and Hatter and Shoe took all four of the people into the station to process them.
Frigg said she was driving me to the hospital to make sure I didn’t have any cracked ribs or a concussion. I very calmly refused, in a loud voice, until I got my way.
Somewhere in the endless hours that both crawled by and seemed not to move one iota, Myra and Jean showed up, both of them mad as hell.
“Inside,” I said. “I want to get out of the wind.”
We moved the conversation into the house, and Spud, who had been barking his head off for hours whined and wiggle-rubbed beside my legs, happy to finally see me.
Dragon-pig looked like it wanted to eat a small building, spit it out, then eat it again.
“Give me a minute, they need to pee,” I said. “Well, Spud does.”
“No,” Jean said. “You sit. I’ll take them out. Come on, Spud. Good boy. You coming dragon-pig?”
Dragon-pig grumbled and growled, stomped its little pink hooves, then stopped in front of me and snorted spouts of fire.
“I am fine,” I said. “Go out with Spud and Jean.”
Dragon-pig gave one more spout of fire, then, to my utter surprise, bumped the top of its head into my shin, in a little love tap.
It trotted off after Jean, who had hooked a leash on Spud and was holding the door open.
Myra sat on the couch next to me and pulled me into a hug. “I hate that I wasn’t here,” she said.
“You would have been there if you needed to be. Family gift, remember?” I hugged her back, trying not to wince as my ribs reminded me that, even though the woman couldn’t brawl, she’d sure wanted to bring the hurt.
“I should have been here anyway.”
“Frigg was here,” I said. “That’s probably why you didn’t need to come. I had backup.”
“I’m your backup,” she said fiercely.
“Yes, you are.”
She searched my face, assessing my mood, which was calm, then nodded. “Okay.”
“Did you smell cinnamon, Delaney?” Frigg asked.
“Outside?”
“On the people.”
I thought back. The scent of water and moss, the smell of dusty sand, the broken green of roses and rhododendron bushes. The man behind me, so close I could see the weave of his jeans, did he smell like cinnamon? Did the woman who jumped me smell like cinnamon?
Yes.
“I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to it, but yes. There was a sweet spice smell. Why? What does it mean?”
“I think they were sent here by demons.”
Neither Myra nor I said anything because that was not what either of us expected.
“Not the demons inside Ordinary,” she clarified, looking between the two of us. “A demon outside of Ordinary.”
“Well, fuck.” I rubbed at my eyes. My head hurt. “I know where I’ve seen them before. They were in the diner this morning. Eating and being creepy.”
“Creepy how?” Myra said.
