any, which is why it’s so important you stop screwing around and manifest,” says Erin sharply. “Dodger. You need to get us someplace safe. Unless you think what we’re looking for is in Fremont?”
“I don’t even know what we’re looking for,” she says. “You haven’t told us. You’ve spouted a lot of crap about the Up-and-Under and A. Deborah Baker and killer death alchemists, but you haven’t followed it up with ‘and we just need to find the magic Denny’s where they sell the coffee of conjuring and everything will be hunky-dory.’ It’s like playing D&D with an unprepared dungeon master. You’re the one who knows the rules to this bullshit game.”
Erin blinks. “Good call,” she says. “I think it’s about a half mile that way.” She points, as both Roger and Dodger stare at her.
“What is?” Roger asks, after a moment’s bewildered silence.
Erin grins. “The Denny’s. Come on.”
Three creations of terrible alchemy sit crammed into a booth in the all-night Denny’s, pressed against the red vinyl seats, looking at their menus. “Maybe it’s a sign that this has all been too much for me, but pancakes sound really good right about now,” says Roger.
“Get whatever you want. Just keep in mind that we can’t use credit cards,” says Erin. “I have plenty of cash.”
“Maybe don’t say that so loud?” Dodger glances nervously around. “Some of the people in here look like they’d mug their mothers for fun.”
“I’d like to see them try.” Erin’s grin is feral. “Remember: you were made to control the universe, and I was made to make sure you’d get that far. I’d love a good, easy mugging right about now.”
“Are you sure you should be mentioning the ‘control the universe’ thing in here?” asks Roger.
“People don’t listen,” says Erin. “Everyone thinks of themselves as so important, so integral to the human condition, that someone must be hanging on their every word, but that’s not true. It never has been. Maybe when there’s a witch trial on, I guess. No one’s listening to us. Which is sort of funny when you consider how important the two of you are. No. We need to hide, we need to lay low, and part of that is being completely natural and open about everything. It keeps people from looking at us too hard. No one with anything to lose would be sitting in Denny’s after midnight, eating pancakes.”
“This is so weird,” says Dodger.
“Isn’t it great?” Erin smiles again—more normally this time, lips drawn tight over teeth—and goes back to looking at her menu. “I think I’m going to have a milkshake.”
Dodger’s phone rings.
All three of them go silent, turning to look at her backpack as if it’s suddenly revealed itself to be full of venomous snakes. The phone continues ringing. In a light, pleasant tone laced with menace, Erin asks, “What part of ‘we’re trying to lay low’ means ‘leave your phone on’? If there’s a GPS locator in there, I may as well kill you both and hope Reed will believe me when I tell him that this was a long game to let me determine how close to manifestation you were.”
“I did turn it off,” protests Dodger, rummaging through the backpack until she comes up with the small box of her cellphone. The screen is blank. She rummages deeper, and produces the battery, which she slides across the table to Erin. “See? I took the fucking battery out.”
The phone is still ringing. Roger looks at it nervously. “When did you get a fancy battery-free phone?”
“I didn’t.”
Erin picks up the battery, turning it over in her hand before fixing Dodger with a hard look. “You’re not lying to save your own skin?”
“I don’t understand enough of what’s going on to lie to you.” Dodger pops the back off her phone and holds it up, still ringing, to show Erin the empty cavity where the battery ought to be. “This isn’t scientifically possible.”
Roger laughs. He doesn’t say anything: he just laughs, helplessly, sinking lower and lower in his seat, until his head is almost level with the top of the booth.
Dodger sighs. “Right. Should I answer it?”
“There aren’t many people who could call you on a dead phone. You’re one of them. Pick up.”
Dodger nods, and presses the button on the side of her phone before raising it to her ear. Roger stops laughing.
“Hello?” she says.
Leigh hasn’t spoken to the Cheswich girl since she was a baby, red-faced and squalling whenever taken more than five feet from her brother.