Hurricane #46: The Revelation (Patreon)

Sarah, Mrs. Webb and Serrano had all taken their seats at a table rather than the bar, the wolf and the coyote sitting on one of the elevated “leaf” tables suspended over the small-for-a-giant table the mouse sat at.

“So this strips you not just of your position, but your home?” Webb narrowed her eyes. Just as with Cormac earlier, her tone made her opinion of this outcome ice clear.

Sarah shrugged, uncharacteristically hunched over her slice of pizza. “I’ve spent more time away from Faerie than I’ve spent there the last few centuries.”

Serrano fidgeted. “If you need a place to stay…”

“I’ve still got the hotel booked.”

“For how long?”

“Does it matter?”

“It matters because this is my fault!” Serrano snapped. Then she slumped, propping herself up with an elbow on the table and that hand on her forehead. “You’re homeless and on another world, Courtney is homeless and on another world, and both of those are my fault and I have no fucking idea what I can do about either one.”

“I don’t know who Courtney is, but I know you’re wrong about me.” Sarah sat up, leaning forward and putting a hand on Serrano’s shoulder. “Hey. Come on.”

Serrano didn’t look up. “Come on, what? You said you’re exiled because of what happened here. With me. You didn’t stop me when you had the chance.” She wiped away the start of tears she damn well wasn’t going to let out. “Which is bullshit, anyway, since Ulohne wasn’t giving you a chance to stop me.”

“No.” Sarah sighed, taking the coyote’s hand. “I was exiled because when the Queen asked me directly if I would have killed you if I had the chance, I couldn’t say yes.”

Serrano lifted her head and stared at her. “I…” She swallowed. “Oh.”

The wolf let her go after a moment and gave her a tired smile. “What are you going to do? I’ve got some money banked here, so I can coast for a while without trying to find a job, here or some other world. But if I’m not mistaken, the only reliable income you had was from that coffee shop you stepped on after eating the manager.”

“I didn’t step on it, I destroyed it with a lightning bolt.” Serrano cleared her throat. “Anyway, I can still get performing gigs.”

“You killed your music manager, too,” Sarah noted.

Oh. Right. Hmm. “Look, I’ve had some bad bosses.”

Sarah laughed, shaking her head.

Sergeant Eddie also managed the Iron Spikes, and oh yeah, they’d all seen Serrano striding out—nude—from the recording studio basement where Sarge had mysteriously drowned. The coyote slumped again. “Actually, the cops are probably waiting for me at my place, all things considered.”

“We’re working on smoothing that out.” Mrs. Webb took off her glasses, pulling a cleaning cloth out of her blouse pocket and giving them a wipe. “But it would be wise for you to stay on campus tonight.”

Serrano looked up. “Who’s ‘we’ and how the hell do you smooth that out? And do you still call that a microfiber cloth at that scale?”

“‘We’ is the college, Serrano. You may not be a student or staff, but we feel a measure of responsibility for you. And a great deal of gratitude.”

Okay, it was still easy for her to feel all self-conscious. Good, she guessed. “Thanks. To all of you.” She cleared her throat, then tilted her head at Sarah as she sipped on a double IPA. “You know, I noticed we skipped over what you’re going to do, other than stay in your hotel.”

The wolf grunted. “Sit around and wait to crumble to dust, I guess.”

Serrano’s ears lowered. “Is that something faeries do when they lose their purpose?”

She punched Serrano in the shoulder. “I’m being metaphorical.”

“Ow. Right.”

“But it does feel that way. Guardian isn’t a job like a barista. It’s part of what I am.” She snorted and finished the pint she was on. “What I was.”

The mouse pushed her glasses back up on her muzzle, pulled out her phone again, nodded once to herself, and put it away. “What about your powers?”

Sarah blinked. “What about them?”

“Do you still have them?”

“Yeah. I’m still…” She trailed off, and snorted. “I feel like you’re leading me into a linguistic trap by getting me to say ‘I’m still me’ or some such.”

“Hey, you are still you,” Serrano pointed out. “Which apparently still means being a terrifying magical badass when you want.”

Sarah shrugged again. “Eh.”

“And you’ve demonstrated talents beyond fighting and magic, also,” Mrs. Webb added. “If you choose to return to them.”

Sarah gave her a look that would have been successfully withering if they were at similar scale. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’d told Serrano that I’d found some music I wanted to play for her, and it’s the next song in the queue.”

Serrano squinted, considering. Wait. “Did you find a recording of Sarah singing?”

Sarah’s eyes widened and her ears lowered. “There’s no way—”

The mouse held up her finger in a wait for it gesture as the current song faded away. The next song started with a clear soprano voice, the first line sung a cappella.

If I could show you all the joyIf you could look into your eyes like I doI’d love to take you down toward the riverWhen you are dryAnd if you have a little timeI’ll spend the next lifetime by your sideI’ve learned to understandThere’s more to this world thanThe morning and the sky

Serrano’s ears lifted as she listened. It wasn’t just that the singing was good, the everything was good: the band, the recording, the production. And while she wouldn’t have guessed Sarah’s singing voice would be that, well, beautiful, it was somehow unmistakable. “Holy shit.”

“How did you find this,” Sarah hissed. The wolf’s ears had folded into her hair, and she’d sunk into her seat as if she were about to slide all the way under the table.

“I’m a librarian.”

“That’s a CD from a different branch of reality!”

“I’m a research librarian.” Mrs. Webb laced her fingers together. “At a magical college. And I’m very good.”

Serrano made the “time-out” sign with her hands. “Wait wait fucking wait. The most I’ve been able to pry out of you was that you ‘tried’ being a singer ‘for a few years.’”

“I did.” Sarah remained in her sulky slouch.

“You had a band! You had an album! Popular enough for a librarian in another world to find!”

The wolf looked away. “This is the only one besides the EP we put out first, and the label dropped us because it didn’t sell well.”

Serrano sputtered, and flailed her arms. “You—label—band—this—” She pointed toward the nearest speaker with both hands. “Gaaah!”

“The coyote makes a good point,” Mrs. Webb said, deadpan.

Sarah sat up. “I just…look, it was a weird time in my life. Call it the faerie version of a midlife crisis.”

“I will not call it that, first because you’re basically immortal, second because right now is way more of a midlife crisis for you anyway, and third because you’re really fucking good and I’m weirdly pissed off that you kept downplaying it.”

Sarah spread her hands. “What are you trying to tell me, Serrano? You think I should pivot from being a faerie warrior woman to singing with a bar band?”

“That CD wasn’t with a bar band! You can do better than a bar band!”

“You can do better than a bar band.”

“That’s what I’ve been…” She trailed off, furrowing her brow. Yeah, it was what she’d been trying to do, and Carl and Gene hadn’t been wrong about her treating the Iron Spikes like her backing band. But Sarah’s implication that the Spikes might as well be a bar band, well, that wasn’t wrong, either.

“Hmm?” Sarah was giving her a guarded but inquisitive stare.

“Sorry, I’m having one of those moments of revelation where I realize I’ve sort of been a fucking idiot.” She finished her beer. “I should go talk to Chiltepin.”

It was Sarah’s turn to furrow her brow.

“It’s not about doing it all on your own. It’s about who your band is. The question is just whether I can sell her and Franklin on a band with three hot canine women singers. I mean, both the harmonies and aesthetics would be great, right?”

“Sure. Who’s…” She trailed off into yet another brow furrow, followed by a sudden look of alarm and holding up her hands. “No.”

“Hey, you said there’s no rule of the universe that says I can’t be both a storm god and a rock star. That means there’s no rule that says you can’t be both a faerie warrior and a rock star.”

“I am not going to audition for your cousin’s new band. Get it out of your mind.”

“Okay, fine.” She looked up at Mrs. Webb. “Julia, can you send me Sarah’s CD?”

Sarah glared up. “Don’t even think about it!”

The mouse pulled out her phone and tapped on it. “I just sent you a link.”

Sarah covered her face, growling.

• • •

The song Sarah sings is “Hard,” by Grey Eye Glances. (Perhaps in some alternate world, she was their lead singer.) You can hear the song here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DpRGhS_tYI