“Toll is a hybrid?!”
“That’s what he told me,” Blare replied. “‘Toll’ is that huge angel dude we hate, right? And now the kid’s saying he’s a half-demon, too…man. That’s nuts.”
“How could I not have noticed something like that??” Peal wondered aloud. “When did that even happen to him?! Could it have been before I was born…?”
“Who cares?!” I exclaimed. “All this means is that Knell is in more danger than ever! God, no wonder he lost an arm…I don’t even want to know what Toll has planned for him. I just want to know how soon we can get him out.”
“Well, he has to shapeshift for me to get him out, but he has to get that silver out before he can shapeshift…Took me about three days when I had to do it. Technically it was 68 hours, 13 minutes and 29.484-”
“So we have to just leave him there for three days?” I interrupted. “We can’t do anything for him until then?”
“He could be faster than me; you never know. I can check on him for ya.”
“We’ll do that, then,” said Peal. “You two can stay at my place, and Blare will go down and check on him every day. And in the meantime, we’ll have to find a way off the Satellite.”
Blare blinked. “I thought our tickets were round-trip,” she said to me.
“You weren’t thinking of using the shuttle to escape, were you??” asked Peal. “As soon as Knell disappears from his cell, an alarm will sound, and Saint Toll will be after us in minutes. Then, all he has to do is tell people a dangerous test subject is trying to leave the Satellite, and all traffic to and from Earth will be stopped. We need our own personal transportation if we don’t want to end up trapped here.”
“So, do you have a ship?” I asked her.
“No, unfortunately. But as a former field researcher, I know some people who do. If I ask nicely, maybe one of them will agree to lend me theirs.” She flashed her wings. “It’ll take a while for the replies to come in, so for now let’s just go home.”
“This is actually kinda freakin’ cool,” said Blare as we started walking. “We’re pretty much gearing up to do an action-movie car chase, but in space! Do angels have police? Are there gonna be sirens??”
“No sirens…we don’t really have an equivalent to the human ‘police force’. If anyone will be chasing us, it’ll be some security robots and some very angry scientists.” Peal grinned. “You’re right, this is pretty exciting. No one I know has ever done anything like this before…no one’s ever wanted to.”
I didn’t care about the excitement. As a demon hunter, I’d already had enough action-movie exploits to last a lifetime. I was just worried about Knell, and it was starting to feel like I was the only one.
I spent that next couple of days mostly lounging around Peal’s apartment, brooding. Blare ended up eating most of the food I’d brought, but I didn’t have the energy to scold her.
It was probably the first time in my life that I didn’t have work to distract me from my troubles, and the depression was crushing me. I just felt so useless. All I had done so far was get Blare to the Satellite and track down Peal, and both of those things could have been accomplished without my help.
Blare’s skills were necessary. Peal’s intel was necessary. But I had nothing to offer. I was just extra, almost a liability.
At the end of the second day, Peal gave me an update on the ship inquiries.
“So far, everyone who’s replied doesn’t remember who I am,” she said. “But there’s still hope. If worst comes to worst, I know where to go to steal a ship…”
I just barely nodded in her direction.
She looked at me. “My skill is telling me…that perhaps you need to be cheered up this time,” she said.
“Bring Knell back safe and in one piece. That’ll cheer me up.”
“No, I mean the way you did it. With the talking.”
“Peal, I really don’t feel like being your practice dummy right now…”
“This isn’t about me, this is about you.” She sat down beside me. “I…still like you, you know. I don’t want you to be sad.”
“I’m not sad, I’m just…frustrated.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know why in the hell I even came up here. I should’ve just saved myself the thousand bucks and sent Blare alone. I’m not doing anything; I’m just sitting around and taking up space!”
“Well, is there anything you can do to help right now?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t think it’s fair to be mad at yourself if that’s the reality of the situation. Sometimes, people are just useless.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “You are very bad at this.”
“Um, I didn’t mean that negatively…besides, is it even true? You do things…like, you got me out of my depression, and you’re always keeping Blare out of trouble…”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“No, those things are important! That’s YOUR skill! Maybe it doesn’t seem like the most valuable thing in this particular situation, but…I mean, do you ever think that Knell doesn’t need you to be a hero?”
“…What are you talking about?”
“He’s an amazingly powerful alien hybrid. If he wasn’t worried about you, he could have anything in the world that he wanted; he wouldn’t even have gotten into this situation in the first place. So to him, you’re actually pretty useless all the time.”
“And this is supposed to be cheering me up…?”
“Wait, I’m trying to make a point! What he values in you is…these little useless things. The way you can motivate people and get them to stay focused, and…the fact that you’re a reliable friend! So it doesn’t really matter if you can’t directly help him escape. Because without you…he’d have nowhere to escape to.” She looked at me expectantly.
It was a pretty good pep talk. Especially for Peal. I decided that I could at least pretend to feel a little better about being a pointless waste…so I gave her a small smile.
Her face lit up like a firework. “Yes! Yes, yes, I did it! I knew I could do it; since yesterday I’ve been studying just for this moment, and it finally paid off!” she cheered.
Then she stopped her victory dance. “Uh, I mean…I’m glad you feel better. Because this is about you.”
Peal was still Peal.
Just then, Blare returned from her daily visit to the zoology lab. She entered the room slowly, looking positively bewildered.
Panic began to set in. “Blare, what is it??” I demanded.
“Uh…well, he did get the silver out,” she said. “But he wouldn’t go with me, not even after I explained the plan. He said- now, he said you’d know what this means- he said he ‘has to end this’.”
I understood it. But with all my heart I wished he hadn’t said it.
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