Page 26 of Kings of Sherwood

Another crackle.

Advise subject is now licking the machine.

Jesus.

The scanner sputters again—more chatter about the gas station, something about a busted taillight, a deputy asking where to get coffee that won’t give him “gut death.”

Nothing about anything important. Nothing about us.

I lean back in the chair, rub my jaw.

Either they’ve moved to encrypted comms, or they’re just this fucking useless. And smart money’s on the latter.

I sigh and push back from my desk. My room’s not really set up for work, but it’s not really set up for sleeping either, since I haven’t been doing much of that lately.

I took the primary bedroom—obviously, because it’s my damn house. But all of these are so big that there’s hardly a difference anyway. I try to keep things reasonably comfortable and neat, but looking around at the rumpled bedsheets, the work shirts I’ve not-too-gracefully tossed on the armchair, the untied boots leaning by the door, I can see why Scarlet’s always carping about us getting a maid.

I don’t know what to do, and I don’t like not knowing what to do.

I’m stressed out, and that’s not my usual state of being. I leave that to Scarlet. Occasionally Tuck, if I need to be angry and punch something out, I’ve got LJ. Me? I usually just supply the...I don’t know. The brains of the operation. I’m an ideas man. I follow whims. That’s how we ended up with a random orphan girl in our house in the first place.

In hindsight, might have been a bad decision. But it was also the only decision I could make. And I don’t really know how any of us could have ended up in a traditional relationship, come to think of it. Going on dates, meeting the parents.

The parents. I look at the ceiling and bite my lip hard, putting my hands behind my head.

Whatwouldthey think of her? Or think of the guys, for that matter? This whole damn situation their only son’s gotten himself in?

I don’t usually trouble myself too much with useless what-ifs. Dead is dead, and whether there’s any kind of hereafter isn’t anyof my business and doesn’t really figure in to what I do here on earth anyway.

But lately...

Well, ain’t one of us in this house that doesn’t have daddy issues, let’s put it that way. Suppose I’m just letting mine come to the surface at last.

Must be the stress.

It’s not that I can’t fight off anyone who’d be coming after us. Wheatley’s boys are built out of donuts and fluffed-up timesheets to pad out to overtime. Hardly crack sharpshooters, especially if they’re not being paid—which, judging by the patter on the scanner, they aren’t.

And anyone else? Well—

A few raps at the door.Shave and a haircut, two bits.

I roll my eyes. “Come in.”

It’s Scarlet. Practically bangs the door open.

“Did you feel that?”

I don’t move, except to roll my eyes again. “Feel what?”

“It was...I don’t know. A surge of something.”

“Electrical?” I glance at the scanner. “Nothing like that.”

“No,” he says. “More like a—you know. Something...”

“Magic?” I finish for him. It’s funny how neither of us really like saying the word, even though there’s pretty much no better term for what we are and how we work.

“Yeah,” he says. “I was wondering if maybe it was something about what Tuck was talking about. Ley lines and that kind of thing...” Scarlet trails off, his eyes knifing sideways at me.

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