Hurricane #47: The Future (Patreon)

The possum set his bass back in its rack and nodded, rubbing his chin. “That was pretty tight. I think you’re convincing me, Stormy.”

Serrano grinned. “I was pretty sure I could.”

“Mmm.” Franklin pointed at her. “And you convinced her.” He pointed at Sarah. “So what convinced you?” Back at Serrano.

“Convincing him.” She pointed at Jake the maned wolf, sitting behind the drum set.

Jake laughed, holding up his drumsticks. “You said you’d learned that who’s supporting you really matters, and asked if I thought Carl was supporting either of us. And, yeah, well.” He shrugged and played a ba dum tish.

The possum grinned. “I thought you said you joined because you’ve seen Stormy naked.”

Serrano put her hands on her hips, staring daggers at Jake. He looked away, adjusting an imaginary halo. “Okay, that didn’t hurt.” He pointed at Serrano and Sarah. “Although in context, it was all kinda terrifying. You two are a little scary.”

“No,” Serrano said. “We are very scary.”

Jake’s grin grew several notches more nervous.

Sarah snorted. “I’m still not sure about this.”

“You’re here,” Chiltepin pointed out. “And while you keep getting all self-conscious when we talk about that, you’re a natural performer once we get singing.”

“Thanks.” Sarah rubbed her ear.

Franklin nodded, then clapped his hands. “So. If you’re all up for it, let’s get back together on Monday with the lawyers and start drawing up papers. Equal partners in an LLC.”

Serrano raised her brows, but nodded after a moment. Legalities were something the Spikes had only done under duress, and they’d trusted Sergeant Eddie far too much. So had she, although the anger at what he’d done to her with Sark overshadowed the anger at her certainty he’d been bilking her. Franklin seemed so breezily laid back, it was easy to forget the guy had been in a wildly successful rock band for decades; he probably knew a thing or two about the business side. And “equal partners” sounded promising.

Chiltepin came over closer to Serrano and Sarah as Franklin wandered off toward the kitchen. “Where did you say you found Sarah again?”

“Remember when I said I summoned a faerie who tried to kill me?”

Chiltepin squinted. “Yes.”

“Well, we’re getting along much better now.”

“Much better,” Sarah agreed.

“I’m going to assume you just don’t want to tell me,” Chiltepin said after a moment, “because it’s much less worrisome than assuming you’re telling me the truth.”

Both Serrano and Sarah nodded simultaneously. “Good choice.” “Absolutely.”

Chiltepin looked between both of them, squinting again, then shook her head and walked after Franklin.

• • •

“I can’t believe you can afford this.” Serrano looked out from the third-floor condo’s living room window, an almost panoramic view of a small city park.

“Serrano, you can afford this. We have the same base salary.”

“Yeah, but you have money left over from being a faerie warrior. Somehow. I know what our base salary is and what this place’s mortgage must be, and they don’t line up. Also, I can’t believe I have a salary from being in a fucking rock band.”

The wolf put on a light jacket, standing by the front door. “It’ll be tight if the profit sharing doesn’t kick in before my savings run out, but I’m not too worried.”

“This sounds so damn capitalist. Let’s go eat a few stockbrokers or something.” She headed out with the wolf.

Sarah locked the door and headed down to street level with the coyote. “I was more thinking burgers.”

“Fine, but we’re going to have to go off to some other reality branch and trash a city later. I’m feeling way too nice and civilized lately.”

Sarah laughed.

“Oh, you were right about skyscrapers.”

“Huh?”

“They feel pretty cool when you step on them.”

The wolf looked down at her as they walked along the street, brows lifting high. “I never said anything about having stepped on skyscrapers, Serrano. I just agreed I wouldn’t try to talk you out of finding out yourself.”

“So you’re saying you haven’t stepped on any?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Okay, we’ll make it a date.”

Sarah lifted both brows. “You are joking, right?”

“Yeah. Well. Unless.” Serrano shrugged. “As crazy as it might sound, I can tell when there are big storms in other parallel versions of this world, because they’re all connected to me now. I just have to focus on them.”

“Meaning what, you could find a city which was going to be wiped out by a storm and just jump in and help?”

“Yeah. And I could probably bring you with me. I don’t think there’d be any harm, cosmically speaking.”

The condo was in the Parkcrest neighborhood, a slowly gentrifying, queer-friendly and artsy neighborhood. As they turned the corner, they entered a retail block, full of cafés, cocktail bars and hipster food joints. “I think you’ve become more terrifying than I am.”

“That’s sweet of you.” Serrano grinned. “And I noticed you haven’t said ‘no’ yet.”

Sarah bobbed her head back and forth as if considering, then abruptly pointed across the street at Jeffrey’s Giant Burgers. “Here we are.”

“You picked it just because of ‘giant,’ didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

The teenaged cacomistle behind the counter did his best to be professional, but it clearly took a monumental effort for him not to undress both of them with his eyes. Serrano couldn’t decide whether to be amused or annoyed, so split the difference by messing with him a little. After she finished ordering, she leaned over the counter. “If you keep looking at your women customers that way, you’re going to get slapped,” she murmured.

His huge ears went bright red. “I didn’t mean to be—”

“It’s fine. I’m just saying, don’t look at us,” she gestured between herself and Sarah, “and imagine us in the corner booth, over there,” she pointed and leaned over even further, enough to dare him not to stare down her cleavage, “starting to make out all hot and heavy.”

His eyes got wide, and his muzzle opened, no noise coming out.

Sarah grabbed Serrano’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry. She’s very badly socialized.” She marched the coyote off to the side toward a table.

Serrano mock-pouted. “You’re no fun.”

“Serrano.” A rabbit girl sitting at one of the barstools spun around on it to face them.

She stopped and tilted her head. The bunny wasn’t someone she recognized, yet she somehow looked familiar. Maybe the build? The voice? “Uh, yeah?”

The rabbit looked around, then pulled her hood up with one hand while she touched the small ruby pendant she wore with the other. She shimmered, changing into a much more familiar form—a human one.

“Courtney!”

She changed back to the bunny form before pulling the hood back down. “I got a charm to wear in public, so I could, you know,” she waved a hand, “not be grabbed and hauled off to a lab as an alien life form or something.”

“Right. But, uh, I thought Snep was sending you back, uh, back home.”

“Home’s about fifty-eight different kinds of messes. All the damage from what they’re calling ‘the megastorm’ led to continent-wide blackouts, which led to a global economic meltdown, a few civil wars, just…” She shook her head. “It’s not like I couldn’t move back to a new city and get a new job, and I guess I probably will. But Professor Irsaw and Professor Snep offered me a scholarship and housing at the school if I wanted to take it, and…” She spread her hands. “A chance to go to the magic college, right?”

“Yeah.” Serrano smiled awkwardly. “I…uh…” Shit. What could she say? Hey, I’m glad bringing the coyote apocalypse to your world has a personal silver lining for you, at least.

Courtney sighed, thrusting her hands in her pockets. “Look, I understand why you did what you did, and I don’t know if you could have done anything else. Cormac told me about a Faerie Queen who would have done worse if you’d failed.”

“She would have,” Sarah said.

Courtney looked up at the wolf. “Right, you’re the other faerie. Cormac’s sister.”

Sarah nodded. “Hi.”

“Hi. Anyway, I also know it wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t let Sark and his cronies control so much of…everything. So.”

Serrano swallowed. “So.”

“I should get back to my food.” The rabbit took her seat again, turning away.

“Hey, our band might be doing a show at Saint John’s in a week. First show together, sort of a practice gig. If you’re interested…”

Courtney hesitated a moment, then nodded. “I might check it out.”

“Speaking of food, they just called our number,” Sarah said. “You get that booth, I’ll pick it up. Nice to meet you, Courtney.”

“Yeah.”

Serrano bit her lip, then headed to her seat.

• • •

“This is the place, huh?” Chiltepin stopped just inside the entrance to Saint John’s, looking around dubiously. “Does it even have a stage?”

“Over there.” Serrano waved the others inside after her. “Come on, it’s great.”

“It’s a shithole.”

“Oh, shitholes are the best,” Franklin said cheerfully, looking around with his hands shoved in his pockets. “I remember starting in places like this. Good place to start over.”

“I remember starting in places like this, too, and they’re not fond memories.” Chiltepin grinned wryly.

Franklin patted her shoulder. “If things go the way I expect, we’ll be in bigger places in no time.”

The bear behind the bar looked over as they approached. “You must be Serrano’s band.”

Chiltepin lifted a brow. “Well, I wouldn’t say—”

“Yep,” Franklin said. “Obsidian Rose.”

“Right, right.” The bear paused, giving Franklin a measured look. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

The possum shrugged. “I just have one of those faces.”

“Right.” He waved a hand. “Come this way, check it out.”

Serrano headed to the bar. Sarah looked between the two coyotes, then followed Serrano; Jake trailed after Franklin and Chiltepin.

Sarah pulled out a bar stool and discreetly wiped it off. “So what’s good here?”

“Beer,” Serrano said, dropping onto the neighboring seat. “And highballs.”

“Ah.”

Another bartender approached, filling their water glasses. Serrano turned to place an order, then yipped, doing a double-take. It was the black vixen, now wearing a burgundy dress just as revealing as the blue one she’d had on when they’d first met.

“Three fucking Lords. It’s you!”

The vixen swished her tail, setting the water pitcher down. “What can I get both of you?”

Sarah looked between the vixen and Serrano. “It’s her, who?”

“The bartender!” Serrano was stabbing her finger in the air. “With the weird drink and the sympathetic magic! The one who started all this!”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Not this again.” She addressed the vixen. “Something sweet and strong with bourbon.”

“Of course.” The vixen started mixing a drink as she continued speaking with Serrano. “So did it work?”

Serrano opened her mouth, then closed it. She had no idea how to answer that. After a moment, she crossed her arms. “I became a storm goddess.”

She kept mixing up Sarah’s cocktail, some Manhattan variant with coffee liqueur, completely unbothered. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’ then.”

Serrano put her hands on the bar, leaning forward. “What did you put in that drink?”

The vixen twisted an orange peel and flamed with a lighter—or did she just snap her fingers and produce a flame for a moment?—then dropped it in the glass before handing it to Sarah. “Are you sure you want to know? It is my version of the Hurricane, not the original recipe.”

“I knew it. Yes!”

She looked to one side, then the other, as if checking to make sure no one could overhear. “One part aged dark rum. One part pineapple-infused dark rum. One part fresh lemon juice. And one part of the secret ingredient.” She leaned forward and finished in a stage whisper. “Passion fruit orange guava syrup.”

Serrano’s eyes narrowed. Sarah visibly stifled a giggle.