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It was five minutes before Khrys was scheduled to step on the floor for the Friday night set, when her phone vibrated once, to warn her it was about to ring.
Please, she thought, anything but that ringtone. I’m begging, here.
The universe was indifferent, or just plain mean, because it was that ringtone. The super chirpy one that sounded like Lisa Frank on a sugar bender. The one that meant it was her roommate and cousin, Dajan.
Khrys sighed through perfect white teeth and texted the DJ on deck to keep spinning -- small fire to put out, she’d be there soonest.
“...Dajan.”
“Hiiiiiiiii, Khryyyyyyys!” Dajan sounded breathless and excited -- like a five year old after cake and ice cream. This could be fine, or it could be a disaster precariously poised to start a cascade of nonsense that would splash all over Khrys’ normally well-ordered but enjoyable life. “Don’t worry, I’m fine.”
That wasn’t as reassuring as Khrys hoped. In fact, it wasn’t reassuring at all. “That’s good, cuz. You know I’m about to go on right?”
“Oh, cripes, I forgot the time difference. I’m in Oregon.” Having left only 48 hours ago, that meant Dajan was either using off roads humans didn’t have access to or was driving like a bat out of hell and having the devil’s luck with all the speed traps. Either could be true. Her cousin was a mutt as fae folk go -- they weren’t entirely sure of all her lineage yet, so the strange and wacky things that befell Dajan, which she somehow always came out of just fine could not be left to mere coincidence. “The car’s fine too. I mean, it will be. But I got to see the Mothman, how cool is that?”
“Wait...wait...wait, what?” Khrys asked, thumbing up the volume and flipping the call to video so she could see her cousin’s face.
Dajan looked like her normal self: Brown skin, dusting of freckles, big green eyes making her look younger than her 30 years, enormous fluff puff of auburn ringlet curls that refused for any reason to lie neatly. Pointed ears. Okay. She looks like Dajan. She sounds like Dajan. Dajan knows my number by heart. “What’s the password,” Khrys demanded.
“Never tell anyone you looked like Eliza Thornberry when you were in grade school,” Dajan sighed. “It’s really me, Khrys!”
“Who the heck is the Mothman, and why is it important I know this five minutes before my set?” Parkour and DJing did not seem to be a really well made match, but Khrys made it work now that she had mp3 players and touch screens located strategically all over her club.
“Oh,” Dajan sounded crestfallen, like someone had popped a balloon with her name on it...and nobody ever had balloons with the name ‘Dajan’ on them. “I’m sorry about that. I was just excited. It’s totally been a day. After the car crashed, I kind of did too, and then I woke up and I didn’t want to look at it yet, so I--”
“What happened to my car , Dajan?!”
“Oh, I didn’t tell you that part? It crashed. Important: I did not crash it. It crashed. That distinction matters before you get mad.”
“I’m already mad! I mean angry! You didn’t crash my car, but my car crashed. Tell me how this happened and it’s somehow not your fault.”
“It’s not!” squeaked Dajan in protest. “I was just driving minding my business, and then the car sped up. I know enough to take my foot off the gas and put it on the brake, but it didn’t do anything except the car went faster and then I crashed into the house.”
“You crashed. My car. Into someone’s. HOUSE?”
“No. Your car totally crashed into the house by accident because of the big magnet. I think it’s a big magnet. I’m not sure. I haven’t seen it. But it was big enough to yank the Jerrica into the side of the house. Except it can’t really be big, now that I think about it, because Ford said it was a magnet gun …”
“Gun?! SOMEONE POINTED A GUN AT YOU?!”
“No, Khrys. Are you listening? It was an accident. The magnet gun wasn’t even being pointed at me or the car, gods! It was like being tested or something for safety reasons only something went kerplunk when it should have gone kaplooey.”
Khrys took a slow deep breath. She could feel her blood pressure creeping upward. She walked over to the bar and took a spritz of water to her face, then thought better of it and dumped the whole bottle over her head. Her makeup was waterproof anyway.
“So you’re fine, the car’s not fine. Do I need to find you a mechanic in East Bumfuck Oregon?”
“No, the other guy is going to fix it. For free.”
“Free.”
“Yeah, free. Cool, right?”
“Dajan, there’s a catch. What’s the catch, Dajan?”
“No catch! They said it’s one brother’s fault I crashed, so the least they could do is fix my car and let me stay over until it’s fixed.”
“So you’re in a house. In the middle of the Oregon woods. Which you crashed into. With my car. Which was pulled. By a magnet. In a gun. And these brothers. Offered to repair it. And let you stay. Free of charge. Am I on the same page with you cousin?”
“So far, yup.”
“Dajan, what part of this does not scream ‘Pulled from the headlines murder story’ to you?!”
“None. The dudes are both totally old guys. Sweet old guys. With sweet grandbabies. Oh wait, no, grand niece and nephew. They call them their grunkles. Is that not the cutest?”
Khrys whimpered and swallowed a scream of obscenities at her cousin’s extraordinary ability to underestimate other people and their potentially life threatening deviant motives. “You’re sure there’s no catches.”
“They fed me dinner. Okay, it was TV Dinner from the supermarket, but I’m not dead or in the throne room, right. They’ve had plenty of chances to hurt me and they haven’t. Should only be a couple of weeks before the Jerrica is back on the road.”
“WEEKS?!”
“Beggars can’t be choosers, right, and I’m not paying for room, board or repairs at all. And I got to meet the Mothman, right? I’m totally coming out ahead.”
“Dajan, you’re their hostage until they fix your car, if they really fix your car.”
“Nahhhhhhh!” Dajan laughed, bubbly like blowing into a Mountain Dew. “Their house is like this tourist trap thing. Lots of people will see my face, so if their intentions were ill, they’d have to kill every visitor who came by, and that would be silly. Because then they would go to jail and not make money off the stuff they’re selling in the gift shop.”
Oberon deliver me from Dajan logic.
What Khrys felt continued to be the opposite of reassured. “I can’t argue with any of this because none of it makes any flipping sense! Text me daily. You miss one, I’m casting a locator on you. I mean it, Dajan.”
“Okay, okay, worrywart nervous pants.”
“I’m glad you’re having fun and enjoyed your visit with the man sized moth or whatever. I gotta go. I need to do my set and speak English words that people expect to hear strung together in that particular order. Get some sleep and I’ll be watching for that text.”
“Night cousin.”
“Yeah, yeah. Good night.”
Khrys sent a quick text to the Fixer: Lil cousin D lost in Oregon. May go missing. May need posse.
Then, with the grace of a professional, she stepped into the elevator that would take her to the overhead DJ cage and the catwalk she’d be throwing herself off of. Parkour would practically be a relaxing full body massage after that conversation.