Page 46 of Dark Stars
After a few minutes, he got up and went overto the printer in the corner as it began to spit out pages."Printing out the files, including locations—by coordinates, even,which makes this even easier."
"Ridiculously easy," Bobby said. He reeledAlejo in close and kissed him quick and sharp, then led the wayback out of the police station. Back at the truck, he took thepapers and looked over the coordinates, pulling them up on hisphone until he'd marked them all out.
A perfect circle, exactly as expected.
"Would it be better if we split up?" Alejoasked.
"No, definitely not," Bobby said. "You couldbreak the rune circles easy, but I worry about any traps that maybe meant for my kind and, no insult, too much for you."
"No insult taken. I saw what just breakingan altar did to you—and that altar wasforyou. I can'timagine how much worse it is when they're meant for others.Andwe're dealing with your fifty-times greatgrandfather."
"Not quite that many." Bobby grinned andopened the passenger door. "Come on, let's get going. Stopping forfood first, because I have reserves that desperately needreplenishing, and while I don't normally need to eat, that willhelp to speed the process."
"Back to that cute diner we ate atbefore?"
"Sounds good to me."
They were still a block away, though, whenAlejo grabbed his arm and drew them to a halt, making Bobby look upfrom his phone. "Cultists." He looked around, then all but draggedBobby off. "Guess we'll just overload on snacks at the grocerystore and head off to the first location."
"Guess so," Bobby said with a sigh, dreamsof an open-faced meatloaf sandwich with mashed potatoes and toomuch gravy slipping away.
The store was too bright, too loud, and tooshiny somehow. This wasn't the kind of light he enjoyed, artificialand plastic, incredibly fucking painful. He kept his head down andjust followed Alejo's lead, weaving up and down aisles until theyhad so much food Bobby genuinely wasn't sure where the hell they'dput it all. Well, he had a truck; they didn't lack for space, butstill.
After what felt like hours, they were backoutside, and he dutifully helped arrange things in coolers andboxes until Alejo seemed satisfied. "Can I drive?"
Bobby handed over the keys, and slid intothe passenger seat, content to let his thoughts drift over thetrail he'd take to each of the rune circles. Alejo had voted forcounterclockwise, which would make each subsequent breaking easier,where clockwise, the overall power would hold longer, so thebreaking would be harder and take longer to draw attention. Therewould be attention, that was inevitable, but if they started at thesix o'clock mark and worked counter, everything was going to get alot uglier a lot faster—but it would also be over faster, so longas he could stay ahead of the trouble, and the breakage would befar greater.
Eventually they came to yet another nationalpark parking lot, the fact they were trespassing at this hour theleast of their concerns. "Come on," Alejo said, scrambling out ofthe truck and climbing into the bed before Bobby had even finishedwith his seatbelt.
When he climbed up, Alejo had spread out ablanket—where the hell had he gotten a blanket? The grocery store?Since when?—and was setting out all manner of food. Fried chicken,meatloaf, a bunch of different sides, a veggie platter, brownies,cookies, chips, cheese and meat. "Wow."
Alejo laughed. "Did you pay no attention inthe store?"
"Not really, it was…loud and plastic.Normally it doesn't get to me so much, but I'm worn thin after thatstupid altar breaking."
"Hence enough food to feed fifty, since Ididn't know what you'd like best, and variety is usually a goodthing."
"It looks wonderful." Alejo handed him apaper plate, one of the large, thick and sturdy ones people alwaysused for things like Thanksgiving and Christmas, and he piled ithigh with whatever would fit. Then he grabbed a fork and set towork in earnest, devouring it all bite by bite, bones andeverything. When the plate was cleared, he filled it a second time,and then with half as much the third time.
After that, he started on the sweets,ensuring Alejo had everything he wanted before making short work ofnearly everything that was left.
"Okay, when I bought enough food for fifty,I didn't think you'd equate to 49," Alejo said, laughingdelightedly. "That was so impressive. Did I get enough? Should wego get more? Do you think a pizza place would be willing to deliverout here?"
Bobby grinned. "Tempting, but we'll save thepizza for later. Shall we to work? The first point we need is aboutthree miles from here—"
"Well, thank god we're not starting offimmediately with another nine—"
"And then they're about three miles aparteach from there, so it's definitely going to be a long, miserablenight."
"I brought water, electrolytes, proteinbars, jerky, your trail mix, and various other survival andemergency supplies. I assume your bag has much the same."
"It does. Let's get to work."
Bobby held Alejo's hand as long as hereasonably could, simply for the pleasure of it, until the trailstarted going from Idle Saturday Hikers to Crazy People Who DidThis for Fun. Thankfully, this trail was a beginner level, so therewasn't all that much work to do. Later, they'd be getting into theterritory of the moderate and advanced trails, though by then atleast the sun would have risen.
After the nine-mile hike earlier, through anarea that didn't even have a trail, this was almost too easy. "Sofar, this venture is a cake walk. Makes me uneasy."
"Why are easy things called cake walks?"Alejo asked.
