Chương 89: 87: Kind Stranger

While we drank our coffee (which was delicious, fyi), we discussed weapons. Fortunately, Jack and Megan had played plenty of sports in their respective high school careers. I wasn't sure a lacrosse stick was ideal, but it was probably just as good as a shovel. Not my shovel, obviously, but some random shovel.

At the end of the day, a long stick, capable of bashing monster heads, was better than bare hands, even if it wasn't quite as good as a sharpened stick, capable of stabbing monsters, or an edged blade, capable of slashing. Coffee done, Missy and David went inside to find the weapons that made the most sense for them. As soon as they were inside, Jack said, "I thought you wanted to go to Emma's enclave." It wasn't an accusation, but it wasn't really a question either.

"I do." I eyed him for a moment. He'd been very quiet during the weapons discussion, not volunteering any suggestions, even when his dad had asked his opinion. I could tell he was angry, but not where it was directed, and the easiest way to find out was to ask.

"Who are you angry at?" He snorted.

"Sorry. Was I making it too obvious?"

"You're practically grinding your teeth over there, so sort of. But you can be angry if you want. I'm sure you've got plenty of reason."

"You don't even—" He pulled in a breath, rolled his eyes.

"Sorry. I just…"

"You really don't need to apologize. It's fine if you're angry. I just need to know how that affects what we're doing. Do you not want to help your parents level?"

"No, no, I totally do." He leaned forward.

"It's a great idea, and I'm amazed that you managed to talk them into it. Sure, it's a little annoying that it took you twenty minutes to do what I've been trying to do all week, but that's okay. No, it's that…" He paused, searching for the word, "… that asshole my sister's involved with." He practically spit it out, glancing toward the door to see if anyone was close enough to overhear.

"She wasn't in the room and he made a comment about me leaving with you. Like, it's impressive, almost, to mix homophobia, misogyny, and pure sleaziness into, I don't know, two sentences. But I wanted to kill him. And—I could have." He let out a breath that I hadn't seen him holding, and his head bent.

"I could have," he repeated quietly.

"It would have been easy. Shadow step behind him, stab him in the kidneys, shadow step away. He wouldn't have had a chance. And I was so tempted." He sighed.

"I guess I'm mad at myself as much as anyone."

"For—not killing him?" I said extremely tentatively.

"No." His eyes met mine, half-laughing.

"Of course not. For having the thought. I don't want to be that guy."

"Good." I exhaled, a loud enough 'whew' to be heard.

"I sympathize, but yeah, let's not start killing the people who annoy us." For a second, I thought about telling him about the deaths that could be attributed to me in the past few days. Pen's dad, her brother. I knew they weren't really my fault. I knew the System would call them justified. But the weight of responsibility still felt uncomfortable. I didn't, though, because he didn't need me to make the moment about myself.

"What does she see in him?" I muttered instead. He rolled his eyes.

"Sports. She's a jock, he's a jock. They work out together. She says he's just 'competitive.'""Do you think your parents will be safe with him?" I asked, still keeping my voice low. He looked surprised.

"Yeah, of course." He glanced at the door, frowned, then said slowly, reluctantly, "I think he's just a jerk. I don't think he's evil or anything. He treats Megan okay."

"All right." I nodded, then made a face.

"I do still think we should try to get your parents some levels before we leave, though. I don't know what the roads will be like, but it's awfully dangerous out there for anyone without levels."

"Do you think it would be okay if…" He hesitated.

"Spit it out."

"If we took them to Bryce's parents' place before we go to Emma's? I know it's not exactly on the way to New Jersey, but we probably want to avoid the Beltway, right? DC's gotta be a nightmare. So if you wanted to swing wide, we could go out to Spruce Gap first and then up 81 instead of 95. That'd take us through Harrisburg instead of hitting DC and Philly."

"About that…" It was my turn to glance at the door. This was not a conversation I wanted anyone to overhead.

"I have a, um, alternate means of transportation. But I don't really want anyone to know about it. Not you, of course, I don't mind you knowing. But not Bryce or anyone he might talk to."

"Please tell me it's an invisible airplane. Please." Jack folded his hands in front of his face as if he were praying.

"It's not an invisible airplane."

"Dang." He snapped his fingers.

"Magic carpet? Superman-style flying? Flying animal? Did you tame a dragon? Oh, say yes, that would be even cooler than an invisible airplane." The door opened. I was half-laughing, but I put my hand to my lips, not in an obvious shush signal, but tapping them to let him know I wasn't saying anything more. David had the aforementioned lacrosse stick, but Missy had found a fireplace poker.

"Oh, good idea," I said when I saw it. It hadn't come up in our discussion, and it wasn't as long as a lacrosse stick, but it was a lot heavier than one. She was holding it clutched in both hands like a baseball bat though, looking decidedly anxious. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Hey, so." I stood up and gently lowered the poker.

"Good enthusiasm, but this is gonna be easier than you're imagining. You need to do some damage to get the experience points, so you will have to hit the monsters, but the hard part is for me and the dogs. And Jack."

"I don't want him getting hurt again." Missy's grip tightened.

"Yeah, no. The hardest part for us will actually be keeping the monsters alive long enough for you to get a hit in." Missy relaxed her grip on the poker.

"Those rats were huge. And there were so many of them."

"Yep. But they're dead. The big swarm is gone. There might be some little packs around. Mischiefs, they're called."

"Mischiefs?"

"The name for a pack of rats. But look." I spiraled my finger around to indicate the dogs, just as Bear came back with yet another piece of loot from the giant rat mischief. She'd accumulated a little pile at the bottom of the steps that I hadn't checked out yet.

"All the dogs are very happy to fight rats. And their levels are so high by now that the average rat can't even break their skin. You honestly don't have to worry." I noticed Bryce standing in the doorway. His expression was odd, unreadable to me. Even [Uncanny Insight] didn't tell me what he was thinking. But I didn't have the time, the energy, or the motivation to worry about it. The last thing I wanted was for Bryce to invite himself along on this little expedition.

"Sorry we're not including you on this one," I said to him before he could step outside.

"I'm not sure how many monsters we'll find, since that big rat swarm has already been killed. But Missy'll be safer on the trip to Spruce Gap if she's gotten a class." Ha. He couldn't really argue with his girlfriend's mom being safer, especially since I'd implied they'd finally agreed to go to his parents' house.

"Uh, yeah, of course," he said, a little stiffly, and walked away from the door. I was lying about just trying to get Missy a class. I wanted both her and David to get a few levels, too, enough to make them comfortably stronger than Bryce. I didn't want to leave them if the power differential wasn't on their side. Was I being unfair to him? Sure. I didn't know the guy, had barely said three sentences to him, if that, and had no reason to believe he'd stab his girlfriend's parents in the back. On the other hand…

I headed down the steps and scooped up the items in Bear's little pile. I started to just stick them in my pockets to look at later, but then I stopped myself. How many times had the loot I hadn't looked at been exactly the thing I needed? Enough that I wasn't going to be an idiot again. I tapped [Analyze] and held it while I looked at each item, one by one. A matchbook, three matches already gone, guaranteed to light under any conditions.

A spatial keyring, able to hold an unlimited number of keys, with a tag that read "Beulah's Multiversal Salvage & Repair." Huh. Did it belong to Beulah or was she advertising? A battered coupon book. Most of the coupons were gone. The ones that remained were for restaurants that looked like the multiverse's version of cheap Chinese food. There was also a plastic dinosaur, a pair of brand-new socks, a black button, and a pretty rock. [Analyze] had nothing interesting to say about any of them.

They were exactly what they looked like.

"Wow, that's cool," Jack said, looking over my shoulder.

"What is?" None of the junk seemed all that cool to me. Maybe the keyring, but it didn't have any keys, and how many keys did one person need to carry?

"The book." With a glance for permission, he took it out of my hand and turned it over, examining it.

"I wonder what it says?"

"It says—oh." I stuffed the collection of junk into my pockets and slid my hand into my pouch. A second later, I pulled out a translation stone.

"Here, use this." I handed it to Jack.

"What is it?" He asked the question, but before I could even start to answer, the stone dissolved into his hand and his eyes widened.

"Oh, wow. Oh, man. That's just..." He looked down at the book he was holding and breathed out an awed, "What the fuck." Then he laughed, delighted, and started flipping through the pages.

"What's going on?" David stepped forward, Missy right behind him.

"What is it? A book? But that's no language I've ever seen. Is it related to Cyrillic?" Missy asked.

"It's a restaurant guide." Jack laughed again, stroking the book's cover.

"Coupon book," I corrected him.

"I gave Jack an ability stone. It gave him the [Universal Language] ability."

"Plus a nice little XP bonus and a permanent 10% XP boost," Jack said.

"I'm not gonna use it all right away—gotta save some, just in case I run into another fire elemental. But that's gotta be what, almost three full levels? That's amazing, Olivia. Thank you so much. I can't believe—" His grin was huge before he looked down at the book again, shook his head, and said, in a slightly quieter voice.

"Thank you so much." [Uncanny Insight] told me he was remembering how we met—that ill-fated fireball—and fighting back tears. Why didn't I have the corollary skill of [Uncanny Appropriate Behavior] to tell me what to say? I turned to his parents.

"I picked up these ability stones in—" I stopped.

"Uh, when visiting a friend. Trying to, anyway. I do have a couple left, but you have to be Level 5 to use them."

"They give you an ability that lets you understand any language?" Missy asked. David had noticed my stumble. I could see it in the slight wariness on his face.

"That's right. Something like it, anyway."

"Any language at all?" Missy asked again.

"I've been working on my Japanese for three years and I'm still mediocre at best. And Hindi proved absolutely beyond me. Will this make me fluent overnight?"

"Mom's fluent in four languages," Jack said, sounding proud of her and having recovered from his moment.

"How many do I know now? Do you know?" Missy shook her head.

"That's so unfair. But I want one. Level 5, huh?"

"I'm not entirely sure how they work, because—" I stopped again. I didn't want to mention the Sarathi, either. Keeping secrets was not my forte. In fact, I was kind of lousy at it.

"Well, because I'm not." I turned, so I didn't have to look at David's frown, and saw Bear trotting up the street. She was carrying her latest loot between her front teeth, with her lips pulled back. It looked like an envelope.

"Huh. I wonder what that is?" I said, not at all like a person hoping to change the subject, and walked down to the end of the path to meet her, Zelda at my heels. It was an envelope. A cream-colored envelope, the heavy kind with a satisfying weight to it. Bear had been very careful, and only a single corner bore teeth marks. On the outside, in flourishing, perfect handwriting, the words "Kind Stranger" were written. On the inside was a thank-you card.

A nice one, not the cheap kind that you buy in bulk boxes, but the one-off kind that costs real money and you use for the present you're authentically thankful for. The help-with-college-tuition thank-you card, not the bottle-of-wine hostess-gift thank-you card. The person with perfect handwriting had written on the inside, too. Dear Kind Stranger, Thank you so much for everything you've done. I know you must still be in the area because your dog keeps returning to the scene of your victory.

I hate to impose, but if at all possible, would you stop by before leaving the area? I'd follow your dog to come to you, but I have three small children and can't leave them alone. With extreme gratitude and heartfelt hope, Betsy Sheridan She'd written her address at the bottom. I scowled at the card. Three small children. Lovely.

"Was this the lady on the porch?" I asked Bear. Bear wagged her tail. Yes. Nice lady. Good smells. Treats! She'd tried to warn us. Three small children, and she'd still taken the risk of coming outside to tell us to run.

"Oh, Bear, what do we do now?" I muttered, tapping the card against my leg.

"What is it?" Jack asked. He, his parents, and Riley had followed Zelda and me out to the street.

"A card from one of your neighbors." Bear turned to go, but instead of leaving, she looked over her shoulder at me. Come now?

"Well, maybe she has some monsters for us to kill," I said optimistically, and gesturing to what felt like a crowd, added, "Let's go see."