Speaker 1: Uh, I'm doing the intro right now. I'm Robert Evans.
Speaker 1: This is the podcast. It could happen here book club edihione,
Speaker 1: and that's my job.
Speaker 2: I'm done. Yep. You know that's that's closer to true
Speaker 2: than it usually is. That that that's my job or
Speaker 2: that I'm done both. Oh good, okay, because Cool's own
Speaker 2: book club is where at least this month is where
Speaker 2: Margaret reads you stories. Oh yes, and particular I read
Speaker 2: you from the Lammle Slaughter of the Lion my the
Speaker 2: first book in the Danielle Kine currently duology of novella's.
Speaker 2: A novella is a short novel. They're fun to write.
Speaker 2: I recommend them. They're fun to read.
Speaker 1: In the Spanish that a novella was a lady novel,
Speaker 1: I don't. I hope that's a correct joke about Spanish.
Speaker 2: I may be wrong. My Spanish is terrible, you know.
Speaker 2: It's funny. It's like, for a little while I knew
Speaker 2: enough Spanish to actually kind of answer these things about
Speaker 2: like because I used to pay attention to old Spanish
Speaker 2: fiction projects. But I don't know enough to play off
Speaker 2: of that joke successfully.
Speaker 1: No, no, so probably not a joke. No, was reasonable
Speaker 1: or a good idea to make because I don't know
Speaker 1: enough Spanish.
Speaker 2: And here we are and it's a shame. There's no
Speaker 2: it's been done live editing or we're just only forward.
Speaker 2: The only direction, the only way out is through Robert.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. What hand dare? Seize the fire?
Speaker 2: I feel like I could seize the fire. I feel
Speaker 2: like it wouldn't be hard. Yeah, yeah, what's that there's
Speaker 2: that study that like it's like like twenty five percent
Speaker 2: of American men think they could find a grizzly bear
Speaker 2: or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I I feel like I feel like
Speaker 1: I have a shot. The other years ago, I read
Speaker 1: a story there's a guy who got attacked by I
Speaker 1: think it was a grizzly up in Canada. Like his
Speaker 1: dog got attacked and he just like threw just a
Speaker 1: sheer crapshoot of fate, swung at it with like a
Speaker 1: stick he found on the ground and killed it, and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like I feel like there is some some percentage of
Speaker 1: people who will get lucky. So all we need to
Speaker 1: do is have enough of us try to fight a
Speaker 1: grizzly bear. A couple of people will make it work right.
Speaker 2: I have found I often run combat simulations and there's
Speaker 2: always a five percent chance of success no matter what,
Speaker 2: because if you roll a natural twenty, it's a critical hit.
Speaker 2: That is that every time you do.
Speaker 1: Occasionally come across stories like that where it's like, oh yes,
Speaker 1: some dude just roll a twenty.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, good stuff. Well, shall we get
Speaker 2: back into it. Yeah, we are on chapter seven out
Speaker 2: of eight. So this is the last episode of the
Speaker 2: Lamoslaughter of the Lion. Wow. And if you like this book,
Speaker 2: you can go out and buy it. It's a book.
Speaker 2: You can buy it in print. They can't stop you.
Speaker 2: The man will try to stop you. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 2: but he hasn't the power. Yeah. The man might try
Speaker 2: and stop you from stealing the book, but I'm not
Speaker 2: going to stop you from stealing the book. Yeah either way. Yeah. So,
Speaker 2: where we last left our heroes, they are in a
Speaker 2: treehouse and they're like, ah shit, we figured out the
Speaker 2: obscure clue, but it didn't really do us any good.
Speaker 2: And truly the complicated thing. Eulixes down below the treehouse
Speaker 2: waiting for him. What are they going to do? Well?
Speaker 2: For an hour at least Brynn cried in the hammock
Speaker 2: about the death of her friend as I tried to
Speaker 2: comfort her. The sun set behind the hill after an
Speaker 2: interminable day, and Eulyixi ran off into the gloaming, his
Speaker 2: guardian bowl keeping pace alongside. The birds remained watching us
Speaker 2: with their dead eyes, but they made no move to
Speaker 2: follow us. As we went down the ladder and headed
Speaker 2: for town. We were hungry and thirsty, and there weren't
Speaker 2: really words left for us to say. By the time
Speaker 2: we made it as far as the look out rock,
Speaker 2: it was full dark and every light in town was
Speaker 2: on the streets below us were swarming with a commotion
Speaker 2: of lanterns, headlamps, and torches. Brynn broke into a run,
Speaker 2: and I went after her down the hill, taking the
Speaker 2: steps two at a time. The first house we reached
Speaker 2: was a run down split level. A pickup truck was
Speaker 2: idling out front, and a family was loading bags and
Speaker 2: boxes onto its bed. What's going on, Brenn asked. A
Speaker 2: white woman in her mid thirties set down a laundry
Speaker 2: bag full of clothes and put her hands to her
Speaker 2: head to rubber temples. Bren where have you been out
Speaker 2: in the woods. What's going on? We're leaving, she said,
Speaker 2: everyone's leaving. The cops are on their way. What that
Speaker 2: punk kid, Eric, the tall one, he said he went
Speaker 2: into town to cool off. Says he saw more cops
Speaker 2: in the parking lot at Walmart than he could count.
Speaker 2: The manager at the food bank, that old guy with
Speaker 2: the ponytail, the one that likes us. He told Eric,
Speaker 2: the cops are going to raid. He's lying, I said, what.
Speaker 2: The woman looked at me for the first time. He's
Speaker 2: fucking lying, I said, I looked at Brynn. He's just
Speaker 2: trying to get everyone panicked so that we leave Doomsday alone.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Brynn said. The next house down was
Speaker 2: overgrown and covered in graffiti. Vulture and a stranger were
Speaker 2: walking out of it, each with a sack of concrete
Speaker 2: over their shoulder. Brynne and I saw them and started running.
Speaker 2: Brynn Danielle. Vulture loped over like he wasn't holding fifty pounds.
Speaker 2: You're all right, What the fuck? Brynn asked the cops.
Speaker 2: Vulture started, we heard, Brynn said, who's watching Doomsday? I
Speaker 2: asked Thursday, As Vulture said, the rest of us are
Speaker 2: getting ready. Where's Rebecca. She's dead, I said, Doomsday might
Speaker 2: end up that way too, and soon she was the
Speaker 2: only one left who could dismiss Ulixey and Eric knew it.
Speaker 2: Bryn stayed behind to help Vulture, but I ran down
Speaker 2: the hill. Barricades of lumber, brick and trash blocked the
Speaker 2: street at every bend, with only small gaps still left
Speaker 2: open to let through the vehicles of those who sought escape.
Speaker 2: Lengths of rebels are thrust forth from anchors long ago
Speaker 2: embedded in the concrete. Freedom Iowa had been preparing for
Speaker 2: this night since its first day. There was a fire
Speaker 2: in the air, a certain spark that's only found in
Speaker 2: the otherworldly calm of conflict. But it was all wrong.
Speaker 2: It was all a distraction. The cops weren't coming. I
Speaker 2: was sure of it. I ran downhill, my feet slapping
Speaker 2: on the pavement. I ran past anxious people, excited people,
Speaker 2: terrified people. I wasn't any of those things. I was furious.
Speaker 2: The largest mass of lights and people was by the bridge,
Speaker 2: the most logical choke point. Probably people there were getting
Speaker 2: ready to delay the police long enough for Doomsday's ritual
Speaker 2: and for everyone else to escape through the woods. That's
Speaker 2: how I would have planned it. I reached the block
Speaker 2: with Doomsday's house, but the place was unlit. It looked abandoned, No,
Speaker 2: not abandoned. A hooded figure crouched over in the side
Speaker 2: yard the wardstone. Whoever it was they were pulling up
Speaker 2: the ward stone. My fast beating heart, my ragged breath,
Speaker 2: and the rhythm of my feet were all I could hear.
Speaker 2: My legs burned and ached, I could feel my pulse
Speaker 2: in my wounded hand. My lungs had long since given
Speaker 2: up complaint. Anger alone fueled my body. Hey, I shouted,
Speaker 2: which was all I could get out between my failing breaths. Hey.
Speaker 2: The figure stood up just as I started up the embankment.
Speaker 2: They turned toward me, a crowbar in one hand. You
Speaker 2: shouldn't fuck with someone who has a crowbar. I launched
Speaker 2: myself toward them a desperate tackle. The crowbar struck my
Speaker 2: left shoulder. I was lucky, I suppose, since as likely
Speaker 2: as not they'd aimed for my head. The claw that
Speaker 2: split my skin and sent blood into the air. My
Speaker 2: antagonist went down me on top. I spun around behind them,
Speaker 2: got their neck in the croak of my right arm,
Speaker 2: and applied pressure a sleeper hold, choking off the blood
Speaker 2: to their brain. Useful self defense for someone as small
Speaker 2: as me. They fell unconscious. It wasn't Eric, it was Kestrel.
Speaker 2: The white wardstone lay cracked open to a black geode.
Speaker 2: The house was no longer protected. Shit. I stood up.
Speaker 2: He wouldn't be out for long, just ten seconds or so.
Speaker 2: I needed something to tie him up with. The world exploded,
Speaker 2: sort of, it felt like it at the time. It
Speaker 2: was a gunshot, really, but it was louder than noises
Speaker 2: of any right to be. And the bullet crashed into
Speaker 2: the wall of the house not two feet fet from
Speaker 2: my head. Get down, I heard. I didn't register the command, though,
Speaker 2: so I didn't follow it. Another shot, this time from
Speaker 2: behind me. Gunshots are kind of like a nonverbal way
Speaker 2: of communicating get down. And after that second shot, I listened.
Speaker 2: I dropped down next to Kestrel. If he was conscious,
Speaker 2: he wasn't showing it. I might have killed him. It
Speaker 2: never killed anyone before. It turned out that I didn't
Speaker 2: very much like the thought of having killed somebody. It
Speaker 2: bothered me more than I expected. Then a rapid back
Speaker 2: and forth of bullets, and I saw the squat figure
Speaker 2: of Thursday on the porch, calmly firing and a two
Speaker 2: handed grip. A figure ran off toward the tree line.
Speaker 2: A tall figure, an Eric tall as fuck figure, more accurately,
Speaker 2: his punk rock spikes gleaming in the muzzle flash as
Speaker 2: he fired wildly behind himself. I staggered to my feet
Speaker 2: to go after him. Then my brain turned itself back
Speaker 2: on and I dropped to the ground again because there
Speaker 2: might be bullets up there, and because I had just
Speaker 2: taken the pointy end of a crowbar to my central mass.
Speaker 2: So what the fuck did my body know about still working?
Speaker 2: Eulyxe is the revolution, It was kestrel talking his mouth
Speaker 2: right next to my head. Eulixe is the lamb that
Speaker 2: will slaughter the lion. Doomsday is going to end it.
Speaker 2: Doomsday is going to end the revolution. At least I
Speaker 2: hadn't killed him. I was going to add it to
Speaker 2: my bucket, right next to visit Antarctica and torch something
Speaker 2: evil was going to be make it through the whole
Speaker 2: of my life without killing anyone. You're fucking wannabe, he
Speaker 2: whispered conspiratorily, like he was imparting the wisdom of the ages.
Speaker 2: You act like you're a revolutionary, but you're a fucking poser.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, maybe it would have been okay
Speaker 2: if I'd killed him. It wasn't like I was probably
Speaker 2: gonna make it to Antarctica either. I staggered to my feet,
Speaker 2: then almost fell back over when the report of a
Speaker 2: pistol exploded in my ear. Thursday was next to me,
Speaker 2: his arm around my back supporting me. Get inside, Thursday said,
Speaker 2: Jesus Danielle, Get the fuck in the house. Hestrol was gone.
Speaker 2: I saw him running after Eric. What kind of asshole
Speaker 2: calls someone a poser? No one's answering, Doomsday said. All
Speaker 2: of her composure had been stripped away by days of
Speaker 2: stress and fear. Her hair was a wild tangle, and
Speaker 2: she clutched at her phone in a shaking fist. She
Speaker 2: hadn't taken it well when I told her what Kestrol
Speaker 2: had done to the Wardstone. She'd taken it even worse
Speaker 2: when I told her what had happened to Rebecca. I
Speaker 2: sat on the edge of the bathtub in my sports
Speaker 2: brawl while Thursday cleaned the wound on my shoulder. They're
Speaker 2: mixing and pouring cement, Thursday said, would you answer your
Speaker 2: phone while you're mixing and pouring cement. Yes, Doomsday snapped,
Speaker 2: I'd answer my goddamn phone. This is pretty bad, Danny,
Speaker 2: Thursday said, trying to mop at the blood that dribbled
Speaker 2: down my chest. Danielle, I said, for fuck's sake, my
Speaker 2: name is Danielle. Like I can clean it out, and
Speaker 2: if you want, I've got a sewing needle. I've never
Speaker 2: been given no one's stitches, never even read a book
Speaker 2: about it. The basic idea seems kind of simple, right,
Speaker 2: Clay could stitch a wound. I mean, you're not like
Speaker 2: bleeding out or something. I think I'm at least as
Speaker 2: worried about the blunt trauma as the cut. Your confidence
Speaker 2: is really inspiring, I said, Hey, I never signed up
Speaker 2: to be a doctor. I'm just doing what needs doing. Okay, Sorry,
Speaker 2: I said it didn't mean anything by it your hand
Speaker 2: all right? I still had the bandana tied tight around
Speaker 2: my right hand. The pain was a dull throb but
Speaker 2: nothing compared to how bad my left shoulder hurt. It's fine,
Speaker 2: Come on, come on, Doomsday said, praying to the room
Speaker 2: with her phone to her ear. You ever read the
Speaker 2: Man Who was Thursday Thursday asked, what I'm trying this
Speaker 2: bedside manner thing. You're looking pretty pale, even for you.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to keep you thinking about something else. No,
Speaker 2: I've never read it. That's where I got my name,
Speaker 2: Thursday said. It was written about anarchists, like a one
Speaker 2: hundred years ago. There are these seven anarchist leaders, each
Speaker 2: named after a day of the week, and Thursday, well,
Speaker 2: the first Thursday. He's the only one of him who,
Speaker 2: it turns out, wasn't a cop the whole time. You
Speaker 2: know how the first Thursday gets it in the end, well,
Speaker 2: actually the beginning how, I asked. He's so committed to
Speaker 2: his ideals of anti oppression that he refuses to drink milk.
Speaker 2: But since he is you know, British, he has to
Speaker 2: like drink something I guess in his tea or whatever.
Speaker 2: So he drinks powdered chalk all the time, and one
Speaker 2: day it kills him. Huh, I said, No, seriously, it's
Speaker 2: hilarious that shit was making fun of vegans before vegan
Speaker 2: was a word. Okay, I said, Anyway, Doomsday named me
Speaker 2: after the book. She told me I was the only
Speaker 2: person in the world she knew wasn't a cop undercovers. Right,
Speaker 2: they're lying anyway, so they'll swear up and down their
Speaker 2: God's gift to revolutionary politics. Me. I was set on
Speaker 2: this no politics thing for a long ass time. Now
Speaker 2: I'm a damn third generation Central American leftist, and I
Speaker 2: didn't even want to be a leftist at all. I
Speaker 2: guess my dad would be proud. All right, Hey, look
Speaker 2: at that. The bleeding stopped, he said, I smiled. No, no,
Speaker 2: it started again. Shit, don't smile. The bathtub was slowly
Speaker 2: filling with bloody toilet paper. God, God, God, fucking Doomsday.
Speaker 2: Put her phone down carefully on the porcelain sink, barely
Speaker 2: containing her rage. Clay's dead, Anchor's dead, Rebecca's dead. You're
Speaker 2: not dead, and you're not going to be dead, Thursday said.
Speaker 2: The wards are down. I don't even know how to
Speaker 2: dismiss you, Lixy. And now now the fucking cops are coming.
Speaker 2: The cops aren't coming, I said, Eric, he just said
Speaker 2: that to stir up the town. You've been here two years.
Speaker 2: The cops aren't coming tonight. If they were evicting us,
Speaker 2: you'd have heard about it before tonight, probably been warned
Speaker 2: to clear out, not unless the cops were serving a
Speaker 2: warrant for something serious. Thursday and Doomsday looked at each other.
Speaker 2: Someone's got a warrant, I said, Kestrel knew. Doomsday said, yeah,
Speaker 2: Kestra would have known. Thursday agreed, knew what the cops
Speaker 2: are coming for. Doomsday. Thursday said what I used to
Speaker 2: live in Alaska. Doomsday said, I was married for fifteen years.
Speaker 2: It was good for a while, but I couldn't get pregnant.
Speaker 2: My husband got worse and worse. I shot him. He
Speaker 2: deserved it. It wasn't self defense, not in the immediate sense,
Speaker 2: not in the way that I could have proved in court. Jesus,
Speaker 2: I said. Doomsday took a deep breath. Neighbors heard the shots.
Speaker 2: I guess sheriff showed up. I tried to talk to them,
Speaker 2: tried to make them understand. They didn't understand. Damn, I said,
Speaker 2: you shot them too. I wasn't going to prison. Doomsday said,
Speaker 2: for that, motherfucker. Okay, so maybe cops are coming, I said,
Speaker 2: Kestrel must to snitched me out. I never would have
Speaker 2: thought fucking hell. Thursday said, it's almost like you can't
Speaker 2: summon other worldly beings into existence. Let them loose on
Speaker 2: your enemies and set up a culture of worship around
Speaker 2: them without people getting all crazy. You were in favor
Speaker 2: of summoning him, Doomsday said, I know. Thursday said, Hell,
Speaker 2: I'm still glad we did it. It was worth a shot.
Speaker 2: I've got until dawn to figure out how to un
Speaker 2: some in him. Doomsday said, what hand dare sees the fire?
Speaker 2: I said, pardon? I told them what I learned from
Speaker 2: Clay's notebook, which wasn't much. Doomsday put her hands to
Speaker 2: her temples. I think you read the signs right. Clays
Speaker 2: mis quoted poetry Rebecca's figuring Solstice's solstice? But how how
Speaker 2: do we dismiss him? And with the police there as
Speaker 2: likely as not, Oh Jesus, I said the cops. If
Speaker 2: eulyxes around cops, he'll slaughter them, Doomsday said, and everyone
Speaker 2: who's ever lived here will wind up running or in prison.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be on the run, I said,
Speaker 2: No one does. Doomsday said, then what's the plan? I asked.
Speaker 2: We somehow get everyone out before the cops show up,
Speaker 2: somehow on smmon Eulyxe before the river runs red, and
Speaker 2: somehow evade the remaining police somehow. Thursday asked, all the
Speaker 2: while avoiding Eric in Kestrel, I would go with stop
Speaker 2: more than avoid. Thursday said, but yeah, what was the line?
Speaker 2: Doomsday asked suddenly, what hand dare sees the fire? And nodded.
Speaker 2: Doomsday got a Glinton Or I had never seen before.
Speaker 2: It was frightening. Maybe Elixie took down Anchor for the
Speaker 2: same reason I took down those sheriffs self defense. Maybe
Speaker 2: we summoners can control him. Maybe I could turn him
Speaker 2: on Eric Hell after that, when we summoned him in
Speaker 2: the first place, we named these hills this river as
Speaker 2: his territory. If I renew the summoning, I could name
Speaker 2: a whole lot more than that. I could name the world.
Speaker 2: The only way out is through. Thursday asked what hand
Speaker 2: Dare sees the fire? Doomsday agreed no, I said. I
Speaker 2: didn't want to fight with them. I just wanted to
Speaker 2: go home. Only I had a home. What I've been
Speaker 2: through Way too much shit for you to switch sides
Speaker 2: on me now, I said, And I know what the
Speaker 2: other side looks like. Eric Kestrel, All of them, they
Speaker 2: say they want to make the world better, but they're
Speaker 2: just supplanting one authority for another. And they'll fucking murder
Speaker 2: anyone who tries to stop them, because that's what power
Speaker 2: does to people. I believe in a messy, imperfect world
Speaker 2: where we just collectively or individually figure things out. So no,
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna let you switch sides. And what do
Speaker 2: we do? I don't fucking know, I said, we figure
Speaker 2: something out, Brennan. Vulture came in, slamming the door behind
Speaker 2: them and startling all of us. Brynn took the gun
Speaker 2: from Thursday, knelt with one knee on the dining room chair,
Speaker 2: and started reloading the mag How many bullets do you
Speaker 2: think Eric shot? I asked four in Rebecca, and it
Speaker 2: had to be at least three more outside the house.
Speaker 2: How many can it's mag hold can't like think like that,
Speaker 2: Brynn said. Bullet County is some next level shit. You
Speaker 2: see some with a gun. It's loaded, same as you
Speaker 2: treat your own gun like it's loaded, even when it's not.
Speaker 2: Still I said, still nothing, Danielle. You see a gun,
Speaker 2: it's got a bullet ready to shoot. Vulture, for his part,
Speaker 2: took over treating my shoulder. He want stitches, he asked,
Speaker 2: what are my options? I can stitch you up and
Speaker 2: I'll probably do a decent job, but not a great job.
Speaker 2: I could not stitch you up, maybe hit it with
Speaker 2: butterfly bandages and splitting your shoulder and to keep you
Speaker 2: from moving and reopening the wound. Or you do what
Speaker 2: you should do, which is get someone to take you
Speaker 2: out of here, get you to an emergency room. What
Speaker 2: would you do, I asked? He bit his lip. If
Speaker 2: I were you, just come to town chasing after your
Speaker 2: old friend's ghost, I'd use the excuse to cut out.
Speaker 2: You're not in any shape to stand behind a barricade.
Speaker 2: You're not any shape to go to jail. There's no
Speaker 2: shame in leaving now. He was right, of course, it
Speaker 2: was a liability still just leaving after all of that.
Speaker 2: But what I'd do if I were me, Vulture continued,
Speaker 2: Let's stick around and see what goes down. I watched
Speaker 2: Brynn through the open bathroom door as she loaded an
Speaker 2: extra mag Dozens of cops were en route. A demon
Speaker 2: slept nearby. I had seen two corpses already, and the
Speaker 2: wards were down. I had already been bitten by an
Speaker 2: undead goat, crowbarred by fanatic, and shot at by an
Speaker 2: asshole fucket I said, I'll go down fighting. Vulture put
Speaker 2: his fingers to his lips and hopped with joy. Then
Speaker 2: he took out his phone and took a photo of
Speaker 2: my wound. I've always wanted to stitch someone up, he said,
Speaker 2: I'll do it before and after for Instagram. It turned
Speaker 2: out he'd done it plenty of times on dogs as
Speaker 2: part of an animal rescue operation in New Orleans. I
Speaker 2: was long past the point of nervousness regardless, but he
Speaker 2: did a fine job. You're right about kestrel, I asked,
Speaker 2: as he was fussing with the last stitch. Well, I
Speaker 2: thought I loved him, but I don't anymore. As easy
Speaker 2: as that, as simple as that, not easy. He didn't
Speaker 2: want to talk about it, and I realized I shouldn't
Speaker 2: risk upsetting a man who was in the process of
Speaker 2: reassembling my body with needle and thread. When he was
Speaker 2: done with my shoulder, he unwrapped the bandana around my
Speaker 2: bit in hand. I don't know what I'd expected, maybe blood,
Speaker 2: maybe open wounds or teeth marks. Instead, my skin was whole,
Speaker 2: already healed, but my hand was modeled with the pale
Speaker 2: gray of overcooked steak, not the white of scar or
Speaker 2: the pink of new skin. It hurt like it was
Speaker 2: still healing, though, and I had the sudden fear that
Speaker 2: the pain would never stop. Then I remembered the rest
Speaker 2: of my situation, and honestly, my hand didn't seemed like
Speaker 2: the worst of my problems. Vulture tied a spare t
Speaker 2: shirt around my arm as a sling and chastised me
Speaker 2: not to move my arm, and I stood up. As
Speaker 2: a group, we made our way out to the front door,
Speaker 2: heading for the bridge and the relative safety of the crowd.
Speaker 2: The moon hung heavy and low on the horizon, and
Speaker 2: I focused on my breathing, reminded myself just how tough
Speaker 2: I was, how not close to panic I was. We
Speaker 2: had it made it halfway down the block when the
Speaker 2: cop cars poured out of the woods in a cacophony
Speaker 2: of red and blue light. A crowd on the bridge
Speaker 2: overturned a school bus and it began. Police raids are
Speaker 2: always at like four am or some shit, always after
Speaker 2: the witching hour, when they think everyone's not only asleep,
Speaker 2: but going to be groggy as hell when they wake up.
Speaker 2: It's honestly pretty smart. That's actually why Robert Evans stays
Speaker 2: up very late. Just yeah, I don't I want to
Speaker 2: go to bed after I know we're safe from a raid. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there were a couple hours of night left, but only
Speaker 2: a couple of hours. None of us were sleeping. We'd
Speaker 2: had enough warning that most of the town had cleared out.
Speaker 2: The fifteen or so who remained were there for the
Speaker 2: same purpose. We were to keep Doomsday safe long enough
Speaker 2: for her ritual whatever it was going to be safe
Speaker 2: from the police, safe from Eric. Most of us were
Speaker 2: veterans of riots and demonstrations across the country. It wasn't
Speaker 2: going to be a mourning of civil disobedience. However, the
Speaker 2: police were there and forced to arrest a cop killer,
Speaker 2: and we had no way of knowing if they'd come
Speaker 2: in with less ethal weapons like pepper spray, or just
Speaker 2: come in guns drawn. The police were massed up on
Speaker 2: the far side of the bridge, dozens of cruisers, four vans,
Speaker 2: two swat humvi's, and a prison bus. It wouldn't have
Speaker 2: been enough to handcuff and drag off everyone in town,
Speaker 2: but it was more than enough to mass arrest those
Speaker 2: of us who remained. Their preparedness to arrest us was
Speaker 2: bizarrely comforting. They were stopped in their tracks, though by
Speaker 2: an overturned school bus. You can block a hell of
Speaker 2: a lot of road with fifteen tons of yellow steel,
Speaker 2: And there was something beautiful about watching the military style
Speaker 2: of police vehicles emasculated by something designed to get kids
Speaker 2: to school. Brinn helped me get a black t shirt
Speaker 2: oh it tied over my face as a mask, then
Speaker 2: donned her own. The police had cameras, and it wouldn't
Speaker 2: do much good to escape now, only to be arrested later. Still,
Speaker 2: with everything that had happened, I couldn't bring myself to
Speaker 2: believe it mattered. I had no real expectation of surviving
Speaker 2: the coming day. We made it to the bridge just
Speaker 2: as the police rammed the bus. The steel of the
Speaker 2: humbva struck, the steel of the bus struck the steel
Speaker 2: of the guardrail, and the whole bridge shook from the impact.
Speaker 2: Townspeople lined up to push broken down vehicles up against
Speaker 2: the back of the bus. A band's touring van replete
Speaker 2: with black metal stickers, joined a DIY ice cream truck
Speaker 2: and a box truck as reinforcements. We set the brakes
Speaker 2: and slashed the tires. The police backed up to ram
Speaker 2: again again with each impact. I prayed our side had
Speaker 2: been smart enough to drain the bus's fuel tank. They
Speaker 2: gave up ramming, leaving us with a moment's calm, presumably
Speaker 2: while they awaited further orders. We crowded around Doomsday and
Speaker 2: never realized she was so short, not until she was
Speaker 2: masked and hiding. Most people had their attention on the
Speaker 2: bus and on the bridge, and the police gathered on
Speaker 2: the far bank. But my friends looked elsewhere. They looked
Speaker 2: at the woods, at the street, at the masked figures
Speaker 2: gathered around. They watched for hands that might reach for waistbands.
Speaker 2: As unpleasant as it was to have the massed power
Speaker 2: of the state waiting to take us into custody, waiting
Speaker 2: for comrades to betray us was worse. The woods were inviting.
Speaker 2: I could make my way over the hill, and by
Speaker 2: daylight I might be out of range of police blockades
Speaker 2: and eulyxes wrath alike travelers. They say, watch out for themselves.
Speaker 2: The situation was hopeless, no reason for us to all
Speaker 2: go down. Brynn found my hand with hers, and her
Speaker 2: strength made its way into me. Collective safety sometimes Trump's
Speaker 2: personal safety. Friends who aren't willing to fight alongside one another.
Speaker 2: Aren't friends. Ten long minutes later, a helmeted cop stuck
Speaker 2: his head over the top of the bus, then another
Speaker 2: Things were about to get worse. A masked figure threw
Speaker 2: the first stone. Her aim was true, and the cop
Speaker 2: dropped down from the edge of the bus. More rocks
Speaker 2: followed a hailstorm to keep them at bay. They were
Speaker 2: too armored for us to hurt, but hurting them wasn't
Speaker 2: the point. The point was to drive them back. Tear
Speaker 2: gas canisters arked through the sky, and people with work
Speaker 2: gloves throw them back or tossed them down to the river.
Speaker 2: Then flashbanks. You never get used to flashbanks. It could
Speaker 2: have been one, or it could have been several, a
Speaker 2: blinding flash of light that stops her vision, like a
Speaker 2: stuttering film that holds too long on a single frame.
Speaker 2: By the time I regained my senses, several cops had
Speaker 2: made it to the roof of the bus. Two had
Speaker 2: riot guns aimed at us, one had his pistol drawn.
Speaker 2: More tear gas rained down, and the poisonous smoke was
Speaker 2: soon indistinguishable from the morning fog. Visibility dropped to only
Speaker 2: a dozen yards, only enough to see the bridge and
Speaker 2: the bus. The forest behind us was scarcely a silhouette.
Speaker 2: The cars on the far bank were invisible but for
Speaker 2: the red and blue light that lit up the air.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't be long before dawn. If I were Eric,
Speaker 2: I told Doomsday, it come now. With the fog and
Speaker 2: the gas. I know five cops were atop the bus,
Speaker 2: and enough guns were drawn that some of the fight
Speaker 2: went out of us. Next to me, Thursday was sweating
Speaker 2: with fear. Both his hands were in the kangaroo pocket
Speaker 2: of his hoodie, holding the gun. He wanted to use it,
Speaker 2: he knew he shouldn't. I was living a nightmare. When
Speaker 2: Eulyxie comes, Doomsday said, I need three of you. I'm
Speaker 2: standing guard, Thursday said, which left Vulture, Brynn and me.
Speaker 2: A public address system on the hum v began an announcement.
Speaker 2: I scarcely registered it, something about being under arrest, something
Speaker 2: about her hands in the air. Eric says, he doesn't
Speaker 2: want to hurt you. I whirled at the voice. A
Speaker 2: masked figure stood a few feet from us. He must
Speaker 2: have come from the woods. Kestrel. Vulture put his body
Speaker 2: between Doomsday and his so recently ex lover, What the
Speaker 2: fuck do you want? Look, just drop this, drop all
Speaker 2: of this. Let you lyxe be. I heard Bryn's baton
Speaker 2: flick open, saw a flash through the air. She put
Speaker 2: all of her nod in considerable weight into the blow.
Speaker 2: I saw Kestrel's face twist to the side, his body
Speaker 2: soon follow He didn't fall, so she shoved him. He dropped.
Speaker 2: You told the cops about Doomsday. You beat Danielle with
Speaker 2: a crowbar. You think we'll listen to you? Do you
Speaker 2: know who the fuck we are? Do you drop it?
Speaker 2: A policeman atop the bus aimed his handgun directly toward us,
Speaker 2: twenty yards through the fog. If he fired, there was
Speaker 2: no telling whom he'd hit. Brynn dropped her baton. It
Speaker 2: clattered to the pavement, not six inches from Kestrel's face,
Speaker 2: and the shiny black steel glittered in the morning light.
Speaker 2: The morning light, the small crew of us met each
Speaker 2: other's eyes, and we waited breathless. Doomsday put her cold
Speaker 2: hand in mine. I took Brind's and she took vultures,
Speaker 2: and we were a circle. EULIXI crawled out of the
Speaker 2: river to the bank, then leaped thirty feet to the bridge.
Speaker 2: A policeman atop the bus, dropped his riot gun and
Speaker 2: it clattered. No one spoke a word, only the sound
Speaker 2: of idling police vehicles fought against the subtle of the river.
Speaker 2: Eulixe bounded atop the bus began weaving his way through
Speaker 2: the five cops eyeing them stop. An officer commanded, as
Speaker 2: though he were speaking to a person. Eulixe lowered his
Speaker 2: head three horns, facing the man, he edged forward. The
Speaker 2: cop planted his feet, but the antlers pushed him back
Speaker 2: back towards the edge of the bus.
Speaker 1: Stop.
Speaker 2: The officer shouted fired. Time froze, we froze with it,
Speaker 2: but Eulixe kept moving. The officer tipped over, collapsing atop
Speaker 2: the bus, and the demon punctured the man's chest with
Speaker 2: his antlers. Time returned. Just as his death cries shattered
Speaker 2: the air. Another officer opened fire. His gun exploded in
Speaker 2: his hand, and his face went up at a flash
Speaker 2: of fire, searing his flesh to the bone. He collapsed,
Speaker 2: never to rise. I threw up fear revulsion. I don't know,
Speaker 2: but the contents of my stomach were out on the ground.
Speaker 2: I wasn't the only one. Eulyxe turned toward the police
Speaker 2: raised his front hoofs and slammed them down onto the
Speaker 2: steel of the bus like startled birds. The police scattered
Speaker 2: to the woods, away from the river and away from
Speaker 2: our town, leaving their cruisers and compatriots behind more of
Speaker 2: Eulyxes's magic. The wounded officer on the bus continued to
Speaker 2: cry out sobbing. He kept crying until Eulyxe pried open
Speaker 2: his ribs and masticated his organs. I couldn't wish that
Speaker 2: on a soul, no matter how much I despised them.
Speaker 2: Doomsday started chanting, too low under her breath for me
Speaker 2: to follow. Doomsday. The voice came from town, and it
Speaker 2: was angry. Eric approached, unmasked and seemingly unarmed. He strode
Speaker 2: up like he owned the place, like everything was going
Speaker 2: according to plan, never mind the corpses. Thursday turned and
Speaker 2: his hands started out of his pocket. Don't Doomsday, said,
Speaker 2: dropping the ritual. He's goading you Eulxes watching Doomsday, you
Speaker 2: pretentious fuck. You don't have an ounce of magical power
Speaker 2: in your body. Thursday was twitching. I looked over my shoulder.
Speaker 2: Eulixe was staring intently. Whatever we were going to do,
Speaker 2: we had to do it soon. We had to do
Speaker 2: it now. As soon as Eric was done trying to
Speaker 2: wield Eulixe like a weapon, the demon was going to
Speaker 2: turn on Doomsday. Who knew what would happen from there.
Speaker 2: Eric was trying to wield Eulixe like a weapon. It
Speaker 2: came over me in a flash. Oh fuck this, I said.
Speaker 2: I dropped out of the circle and went to Thursday.
Speaker 2: I reached into his pocket, took out the gun and
Speaker 2: pointed it at Eric. Eulixe bounded down from the bus
Speaker 2: and was halfway between us. Eric a grin across his face,
Speaker 2: raised his hands in surrender. Eulixe looked at me, looked
Speaker 2: at Eric. Don't hurt me, Danny, Eric said, in a
Speaker 2: mocking tone. Eulixe charged Eric. The beast took the young
Speaker 2: man by the throat and dragged him thrashing down to
Speaker 2: the river. He didn't scream. As soon as his face
Speaker 2: touched the water. He stopped struggling as soon as he
Speaker 2: shot Rebecca. He must have known how he would meet
Speaker 2: his end. He tried to meet it with dignity. We
Speaker 2: watched from the bridge, all of us strangely calm as
Speaker 2: Eulxe drowned him in the waters. After Eric was dead,
Speaker 2: Eulxe let go of his throat, and the body lay
Speaker 2: half in the river and half on the rocks. The
Speaker 2: water's slow current tugged at him, gave him a strange
Speaker 2: semblance of life and motion. Eulyxes stepped gingerly over the
Speaker 2: corpse to stand knee deep in the water. He cast
Speaker 2: a long look back at us. I can't pretend to
Speaker 2: read a deer's expressions, and even less so a demon's.
Speaker 2: But for once, the beast's eyes seemed passive. They didn't
Speaker 2: pry into my soul anymore. They didn't read my thoughts
Speaker 2: and desires. He stepped deeper into the river until the
Speaker 2: water was at his neck. He ducked his head under,
Speaker 2: and he was gone. Thursday took the gun out of
Speaker 2: my shaking hand, and everyone turned their gaze from the
Speaker 2: river to me. We thought he was hunting as summoners
Speaker 2: to save his own skin. I said he wasn't. He
Speaker 2: was hunting as summoners because his summoners were predators, hands
Speaker 2: that dared seize the fire. He attacked Eric, not me,
Speaker 2: because Eric was goading us to attack. Eric was trying
Speaker 2: to use him as a weapon. Eulyxe knew that Anchor,
Speaker 2: Rebecca and Clay used it as a weapon. Clay ran
Speaker 2: when he figured that out. Then he killed himself because
Speaker 2: he knew Eulxe was right to be after him. I
Speaker 2: don't know how many times he and I talked about it.
Speaker 2: The revolution is about taking power away from the oppressors,
Speaker 2: not becoming them. Ourselves were in this case, not crowning
Speaker 2: an endless spirit as king. I thought Clay had killed
Speaker 2: himself because he couldn't come back to freedom. That wasn't
Speaker 2: it at all. Clay killed himself because he recognized the
Speaker 2: full weight of what he'd done to the world. I
Speaker 2: was the innocent summoner, Doomsday said. Eulxe didn't kill me
Speaker 2: because I was the innocent summoner. And you know it
Speaker 2: don't need to go out like Clay either. Thursday said,
Speaker 2: is Eulyxe gone? Then? Vulture asked on the twelfth page,
Speaker 2: what hand dare sees the fire? Doomsday said, on Solstice today,
Speaker 2: Eric tried to use him Today, Solstice thins the veil
Speaker 2: between worlds being used like a weapon. Today it was
Speaker 2: enough to convince Eulyxey to depart. Since departure was an option,
Speaker 2: I nodded. That's what Clay was trying to tell us.
Speaker 2: The world was quiet there in the morning. As people
Speaker 2: limped to their feet, the sirens still flashed, though no
Speaker 2: cops remained to drive the cars. Bird song came though
Speaker 2: after some time, and the sun began to burn off
Speaker 2: the fog. What will you do now, I asked Doomsday.
Speaker 2: Five of us were crowded into a booth at a
Speaker 2: diner in the middle of nowhere, Minnesota. Next Hi Brynn
Speaker 2: was cleaning her nails with a folding knife. Across from us,
Speaker 2: Doomsday and Thursday sipped black tea, their faces deadpan. Vulture
Speaker 2: sat with his legs astride a backward chair, and he
Speaker 2: was grinning like the sun had never been brighter. I
Speaker 2: don't know, Doomsday said, find somewhere else, I suppose you guys,
Speaker 2: You guys. Vulture tilted his chair dangerously forward and to
Speaker 2: lean toward us conspiratorily. I was thinking, Clay and Rebecca
Speaker 2: camp be the only ones who knew magic like that, right,
Speaker 2: Elixie can't be the only endless spirit out there. So
Speaker 2: I was checking my phone in the car right because
Speaker 2: Doomsday told me I wasn't allowed to post any more.
Speaker 2: Pictures that were going to incriminate us to Instagram, so
Speaker 2: I had to waste my time some other way. And
Speaker 2: there's this forum I found where people track things like
Speaker 2: you Lyxi and most of his bullshit, but like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, some of it's probably not. Like there's this
Speaker 2: private club in Oregon and every couple of years local
Speaker 2: kids try to sneak in, but most of them go missing,
Speaker 2: and some of them just go crazy telling everyone about
Speaker 2: a bear without any skin. And there's a coal mine
Speaker 2: in West Virginia where translucent dogs had been attacking active
Speaker 2: And there's this bank in Canada that's being guarded by
Speaker 2: a headless man and and he was actually hyperventilating. He
Speaker 2: waved his hands up and down, unable to control his joy.
Speaker 2: And we could be demon hunters, I asked, coordinated. The
Speaker 2: Days reached down and sipped their tea. Brynn folded, shut
Speaker 2: her knife and put it on the table. Yeah, Brynn said,
Speaker 2: all right, of course, Doomsday said. Thursday nodded. I put
Speaker 2: my hand, still modeled with a lifeless gray though no
Speaker 2: longer painful, in the center of the table. The rest
Speaker 2: put theirs on mine. Vulture took a picture with his phone.
Speaker 2: You can't be serious, Doomsday said to him. We're wanted.
Speaker 2: We shouldn't even be talking about this here, let alone
Speaker 2: taking pictures. Yes for Instagram, though she'd glared, buy, I'll
Speaker 2: delete it. Jesus fucking Christ. He was still grinning. The
Speaker 2: server brought her hash browns and refilled my coffee, and
Speaker 2: I swirled the thick black stuff of life around the
Speaker 2: mug as I sorted out my thoughts. Looks like we're
Speaker 2: all outlaws now, I said. The police will be back
Speaker 2: and they'll be investigating the hell out of Free tom Iowa.
Speaker 2: It's not so bad as you'd think, Doomsday said. She
Speaker 2: pulled her hand off the stack, and the rest of
Speaker 2: us followed suit. Oh, no matter who you are, you
Speaker 2: go through your life every day of your life, sure
Speaker 2: that one day you'll die, One day the light will
Speaker 2: be gone from your world and the grave awaits right. Well,
Speaker 2: I don't think about as often as that, I lied.
Speaker 2: I looked at each of my new friends in turn.
Speaker 2: The days stern and serious brin As waled off as
Speaker 2: me a slight smile on her lips. Vulture, who clearly
Speaker 2: wasn't happy about being awake while the sun was up
Speaker 2: and was just as clearly had as much energy as
Speaker 2: the rest of us combined. It felt good to cast
Speaker 2: my lot with them. It felt good even to have
Speaker 2: friends to cast my lot in with. One day you'll die,
Speaker 2: one day you'll be in prison. Doomsday Face was impassive
Speaker 2: as always, but I was learning to read its warmth.
Speaker 2: Today though you're alive, today, you're free. That duh dun
Speaker 2: dunt dunt dun. Oh.
Speaker 1: I am excited for the second one, which I've read,
Speaker 1: and I'm excited to force you to write a third one.
Speaker 2: Oh. I started drafting it. Oh, excellent, excellent, So I
Speaker 2: may not need to actually invite you back here and
Speaker 2: trap you and and and some sort of Yeah, the
Speaker 2: book is just about escaping Robert Evans's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's like a reverse whatever that Stephen King
Speaker 1: novel is. Yeah, it's very you know, I thought a
Speaker 1: lot about that line that you had in there about
Speaker 1: how you never get used to flash bangs, because I
Speaker 1: had a slightly I have a slightly different relationship with
Speaker 1: flash banks, where maybe it'll be different now, but I
Speaker 1: got extremely used to flash bangs, but as a consequence,
Speaker 1: got less use to everything else, Like the thing that
Speaker 1: would particularly fuck me up was that the sound of
Speaker 1: the sound of a flash bang grenade landing next to
Speaker 1: you was almost the same as the sound of a
Speaker 1: glass bottle hitting the ground without shattering, And anytime that
Speaker 1: would happen, I would just like clinch up and immediately
Speaker 1: be like in hell. And it was the same with
Speaker 1: like little fireworks or poppers or anything like that, Like
Speaker 1: it was it was everything. Everything that was vaguely similar
Speaker 1: to a flashbang fucked me up. But the flash bangs
Speaker 1: themselves I was used to.
Speaker 2: Honestly, that makes sense to me, Like I've only had
Speaker 2: my vision stuttered by a flashbang once, and actually it
Speaker 2: was in Portland also, and yeah, we're a real flashbang town. Yeah,
Speaker 2: two thousand three, March twentieth, two thousand and three, somewhere
Speaker 2: in southwest Portland maybe northwest Portland. Before they charged us,
Speaker 2: they flash banged us. And yeah that like that freeze frame.
Speaker 2: I'm never forgetting that freeze frame, like I've forgotten most
Speaker 2: things that happened twenty years ago. Yeah, yeah, but no,
Speaker 2: that makes sense. The fireworks have never have not been
Speaker 2: my friend since then, although I slowly, yeah, pulled out
Speaker 2: of it a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I go back and forth on them. But yeah, Margaret, wonderful,
Speaker 1: very excited to continue this. But next we will have
Speaker 1: a different set of stories for you all.
Speaker 2: So every Sunday we're being at either a different story
Speaker 2: or a new start for a story that will continue
Speaker 2: for a different length of time, or possibly sometimes Robert
Speaker 2: and I will jabber about books, or maybe other people
Speaker 2: will jabber about books. Yeah, exactly, it's a miss, So
Speaker 2: look forward to that, everybody, and until next time, stay spooky.
Speaker 2: Yeah bye,