Chapter 16
WALTER TAPPEDhis fingers on the steering wheel and tried not to fidget as he and Bing drove down the dark Wisconsin highway. For the first time since joining with Monkey, Walter felt uncomfortable in his own skin. It wasn’t the anxiety he’d felt before, though. No, the problem was that he was starting to doubt what he felt. He remembered yearning for Bing, but this driving need that pounded through his blood was new. Was that Monkey? Or the result of finally getting the man he desired?
“Damn it!” Bing snapped as he thumbed off his phone. It looked for a moment like he was about to throw it out the window in disgust. Both the curse and the show of temper were unusual for him. It seemed Bing was as unsettled as Walter.
“Can’t get anyone?”
“Voicemail for everyone! Nero, Yordan, even Cara, and she’s supposed to be on sick leave.”
“She the one who got her leg snapped by a kangaroo?”
Bing nodded, his expression tight. “She would have been able to fix it by now.” He glanced over at Walter. “She’s a D&D cleric, whatever that means.”
“Really?” Walter gasped, knowing exactly what that meant. “That’s so cool.” He’d played a cleric when he was a kid, and they had some real advantages—mostly the ability to heal a snapped knee. “So, like, every D&D player type is real?”
Bing shrugged. “I didn’t ask.”
“You didn’t ask?” Walter gaped at him. “How can you not ask? I mean, this is my childhood turned real!”
“I asked about the monsters. There have been a few of those.”
Oh, right. Trust Bing to go for the serious threat while Walter was envisioning running around in leather chaps and… well, doing exactly what that woman had been doing. Though fighting vanishing kangaroos in Wisconsin would never have lived in his imagination until he’d seen it for real.
“What can you tell me about the kangaroos?” he asked.
“What?”
“We’re going to see the Kangaroo King. It would stand to reason that he’s in charge of the kangaroos that attacked my set.” He looked at Bing. “Doesn’t that make sense?”
“Nothing about the paranormal makes sense,” he groused. “But yes, that is logical.”
“How very Mr. Spock of you. Okay, so tell me about those kangaroos. Why did they destroy my set?”
“It was the F people.” Walter didn’t think it was possible for Bing to sound so sour, but sure enough, the man’s face was pinched, as if he’d taken a bite of a sour apple.
“The F people? Oh, you mean—”
“Don’t say it!”
He chuckled, even though he could see Bing was deadly serious. “The tiny winged creatures like T-bell. Did they do a spell or something on the kangaroos?”
“I don’t know. They were in the center of the dead zone in a fight with other F creatures. Then suddenly there was this huge battle, and herds of kangaroos ridden by little jockeys swept through the area. It was crazy.”
Walter was silent for a long moment as he waited for Bing to sayGotcha!OrPunked!Or something like that. Only he didn’t. Instead, he looked the way Walter would imagine a guy with PTSD would look—tight, sullen, and staring out the window with a haunted expression.
“That bad?” he asked.
Bing swallowed and nodded. “The battle was bad,” he said. “Chaos like you wouldn’t believe, but everything was on such a big scale that I couldn’t do anything more than what Yordan told me to do. Fight that. Protect that. It was intense, but it wasn’t really scary, mainly because I didn’t have time to be afraid.”
“But it’s over, yes? The lake is back to normal, the world isn’t going to end?”
“Yes. But there were a lot of paranormal creatures pulled here because of the lake. We’re still mopping them up. And the mystical energy in the area is really thick. I think that’s why your aunt brought you here.” Bing looked at him. “She’s using the mystical energy to manifest Monkey in you.” Bing took a deep breath, but Walter held up his hand.
“I don’t want to talk about Monkey right now.”
“But you need to push him out. You can’t—”
“He’s fine right now. He’s under control.I’m fine.” Except, of course, he wasn’t. Was he like Eddie Brock with a Venom-like symbiote in his body now? Was that bad or good? He didn’t know, so he deflected. “Tell me why the little winged ones have you so freaked-out.”
