Page 29 of Hallow Hill at Halloween: Part Two

“We need to see a projection of Athena and hear her voice,” Evie told her.

“Why?”

“So that I can mimic her look and sound,” Jeff answered without hesitation.

“What are you?”

“Lorcan,” Jeff said.

“Lorcan,” the Oracle repeated. “I’ve heard of that. I knew you were coming, of course.”

“If you knew I was coming, you also knew what I wanted.” Jeff was sorry as soon as he’d said it. He knew better than to irritate someone when you’re seeking help from them. “Ah. A bad joke. Forgive me for being rude.”

The Oracle raised her chin to punctuate the appearance of looking down on them. “What do you have to offer?”

“What do you want?” Jeff replied, glancing at Evie as if to ask what they might give.

“A favor,” the Oracle responded with a smile that could only be described as cold, then pointed at Evie. “From her.”

“What sort of favor?” Evie asked.

“No. No. No,” she said in the most irritating sing song. “That’s not part of the game. You must agree without knowing what the favor is.”

“What if it’s something beyond my abilities?”

The Oracle’s smile fell. “You think I’d specify a favor you couldn’t perform. You offend by underestimating me.”

Evie was shaking her head, that was beginning to feel light. Possibly from the fumes. Still, she had enough wits about her to bargain. “First, I meant no offense. I confess to not knowing the breadth and depth of your talents. As to the favor, I stipulate one condition. It can’t be something that causes harm to anyone. Anything else I will do.”

The Oracle looked away and appeared to be contemplating, or calculating, before resuming eye contact with Evie. “Accepted.”

Evie steadily held the Oracle’s gaze, but not without effort. She knew why people weren’t lined up to talk to history’s most famous seer. There were aspects of the demi-deity that were downright scary.

The Oracle raised her palm and blew across it. Her breath became a living scene. A life-sized holograph of Athena became clear right in front of Jeff and Evie, no more than five feet away. She was laughing and talking to a bevy of river nymphs. The production couldn’t have been better for Jeff’s purposes if he was present in Athena’s reality.

In half a minute, he turned to Evie. “Got it.”

Evie looked at the Oracle. “Thank you. We’ll be going.”

“Don’t forget,” the Oracle sang as they departed.

The sound made Evie shiver, but she brushed aside thoughts about what sort of favor might be asked of her in the future. After all, what wouldn’t she do to get her mom back? She thought she might’ve heard laughter as she whisked Jeff back to Hallow Hill, but decided her imagination was acting out the Oracle’s creep factor.

When Medusa decided to run, she left much the same way Jeff had arrived, as a mist invisible to almost all species, Lorcans being one of a handful of exceptions. Following her trail was effortless because the mist that was her essence was visible to him, like faint glitter in a snow globe.

What was a problem for Jeff were the sights and sounds of passing through the nightmares of humans. He wouldn’t wish such experiences on the vilest of creatures. What he would wish is that he hadn’t seen the things he was seeing.

While Medusa was energized by the suffering she witnessed, Jeff was too good at his core to not be horrified. And he was horrified to the point of concern for his own sanity. He knew he would fail if he didn’t bolster his psychic armor and turn on the speed. He also determined to distract himself by devising a plan for capture. Mid pursuit might not be the ideal time for strategy, but if anybody could do it, they wouldn’t call him.

Even his typical hunts involved creativity on the spot. Lorcans could be bound with tantalum, a rare precious metal and the most stable element on Earth. He carried various sizes of tantalum rings with him which was risky because it wasn’t beyond the bounds of imagination that a target could use his own tools against him. But Jeff was a positive thinker when it came to rundowns.

Jeff never allowed himself to entertain the idea of failing. To date. And he hated that he’d appended a qualifier to the end of that thought.

He was never asked about his secrets, but if he had been asked, he’d likely say the path to successful capture and release was patience.

The trick was having the patience to wait until his target shifted into a form with an appendage suitable for a ring and then, of course, getting it on them before they shifted again. That task would be impossible if he was tracking Lorcans in their prime, but those who’d outlived their special gift couldn’t control what form a shift took or how long they would hold it.

Magic-kind didn’t spend much time reflecting on matters of spirit, possibly because most were sufficiently long lived to be tired of living by the time their bodies reached an expiration date. But Jeff’s innate kindness forced him to approach the idea of a hereafter with thoughtfulness. After years of internal conflict, he’d concluded that capturing his elder kin and releasing them to enjoy life in a different, better way was a supreme mercy. He could live with that.

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