CZM Book Club: The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion: Part Two

work a straight job again. And the irony is that, like, over the course of time that it took me to reach that point in my career, we hit a period a level of tattoo acceptance in society where it's like I actually don't think any degree of tattoos makes you ue hirable now as long as they're not like Nazis shit. Yeah yeah, because like I see people I go, I can go into a fucking bank to like starting to count and see somebody with a hand tattooed.

and like that's just not a social issue anymore. Like no, like there, I can't imagine anyone being like I'm standing up for the rights of the tattooed because it just has become like I'll walk across like seventy year olds who have like fucking sleeves and shit these days, like it's wild how it happened in like five years, just like went from I don't know, some sometimes shit like

that hits a tipping point. Pot was kind of the same way where like one day all of the adults in my life were like I remember when I got my first tattoo, and my mom was like, you know, that's closing down some options for you. And then you know the same thing with pot where it used to be such a serious thing, and then like all of the old people I know are like buying weed and smuggling it into Texas.

could happen here show. But it's just stories that we think that you all would enjoy or that you all ought to hear. And the first one that we're opening with is my novella, a novella called The Lamos Slaughter or The Lion, which is a it's technically horror, which I didn't realize when I wrote it that I was a horror book. And I say this sometimes on the Internet and people are like, chapter two begins with a deer killing a man and ripping his heart out in

front of a crowd of undead animals. I'm like, yeah, but I didn't think about it as horror. Anyway. That's the story we're starting with, and I've just spoiled part of it because this is going to be chapters three and four that you're hearing today. It's going to be four episodes as an eight chapter book because it's a novella,

which is shorter than a novel. And where we last left our heroes, Danielle Caine had just come to Freedom, Iowa looking for information about why her friend Clay, who had lived in Freedom, Iowa, had later killed himself, only to discover that magic is real, and it is very, very scary, and a man named Anchor has now died. Chapter three. I zipped up my hoodie when I stepped outside. It's amazing how fast a hot June day gets chilly

with the sun gone. One hundred people or more overflowed the patio and onto the grass, bearing torches or stabs, or holding empty hands at their sides. A few faces were bare, others bore ski masks or bandana masks, or homemade bird masks or bank robbing style bright plastic animal masks. It was so quiet. I could hear the toads from the river. It was so quiet. I could hear the

oil and the torches burning. It was so quiet I couldn't help but mistake every shuffled foot for the lungless rasp of one of those demon creatures I knew were lurking somewhere. None of that could shock me. Nothing could shock me. Six ski masked figures hoisted a pine coffin to their shoulders, because apparently I was in the kind of squatted town where people have pine coffins lying around in case someone gets murdered by the local pet demon.

I recognized Doomsday by her tattooed hands. She was a pallbearer. A hand touched the center of my back and startled. I jumped for a moment. All those strange hidden faces turned to look at me, and some gazes lingered for far too long. Sorry, Vulture, whispered in my ear. He was unmasked, as was Britn. When the pallbearers left for the street and the crowd followed, those two walked with me alongside me, flanking me like guards escorting a prisoner,

or you know, like friends trying to comfort someone. In that strange procession, I got a chance to see more of both the town and its denizens. Though the landscape was masked by darkness and the people were just masked. Torchlight and the realization that magic exists in the world lent a beauty even to those mass manufactured Midwest houses. Every single one might be holding mysteries beyond imagining, most presumably just housed the punks and hippies and widows who

surrounded me. A handsome small man in overalls and a ball cap joined us at the back of the march, and Vulture whispered in introduction, Danielle, meet Kestrel, my partner. But Kestrel, after shaking my hand and holding Vulture for a moment, ducked back into the crowd. I didn't have a chance to really get a first impression of him. We wound our way up the hillside, passed a half collapsed school and its attendance sport field and a rusted

hulk of a yellow school bus. Passed a burnt out post office, passed a fire station that was clearly lived in. The only electric light I saw shown inside a small grocery, which was lit up by its bank of fluorescence. The place was filled with furniture, tools, and food, well lettered and red and yellow. Along the facade were the words everything for everyone. A folding sidewalk sign out front read

a free market shouldn't mean everything is free. We continued past the coffin leading the way, A few of us straggling behind the crowd just after the market, a few abandoned lots were filled with spires and mounds and bare saplings. When the procession turned off the main road and we wound our way along c plywood paths, I recognized a permaculture garden. The spires were stacked tires, presumably packed with

dirt and growing potatoes. The mounds were like long barrow graves, but they were likely hugeo monds, each built around dead logs designed to break down into raised beds for gardens. Several vegetable beds were marked off and showed a wide variety to harvest in the coming months, spinach and beans, cauliflower and spring onion, penelin peas. The spinly young trees were newly transplanted and likely had yet to bear fruit.

We kept walking, and as the path turned back over on to itself and spiraled through the field, it left me dizzy with the fire in the air and the magic I'd seen, and the strangeness of the place. The garden went on forever. I was walking forever, trying as hard as I could to keep myself grounded, keep myself focused the ground beneath my feet. At last we reached the tree line. The trees were my agor younger, still threatened by their undergrowth, between us and the forest, and

the liminal space at the edge of the garden. Four wooden posts marked four graves. A fifth grave sat empty. Whispers began to break the ceremonial silence. I made my way to the grave posts ornately carved and oiled stakes about as high as my waist, with lettering running down their lengths. Daniel Rojas, Benjamin, Philth Simmons, Danielle Keeler, Desmond Smith. Daniel's name was followed by what I presumed was his name in Mayan pictographic script, Benjamin's by Norse ruins, Danielle's

by Irish ogum Daniel and Danielle. Half the graves in Freedom Iowa bore a version of my name. What a fun coincidence, What a great evening I was having A hush, went over the crowd once more, and the pallbearers set the coffin upright in front of the empty grave. There was no lid an the anchor's naked corpse faced the crowd. Loving hands had cleaned and stitched his wounds, and while his chest was mangled and his ribs were broken, He was not so horrific to look at as I would

have expected. Four pallbearers climbed down into the grave. One masked man was tall enough that his head was still visible, but Doomsday and the others were lost to sight. The remaining pallbearers eased Anchor from the coffin and into the waiting hands of those below, and he was set gingerly into the grave. He was to be buried naked, without chemicals or fiberglass or steel, or even the pine box,

but not without ceremony, not without love. The crowd helped the four grave attendants climb out, and townspeople lined up to put handfuls of soil into the grave. Still no word had been spoken. Wildflowers had taken over the oldest grave nearby. Clay was buried somewhere outside Denver and a mind anecured field adorned only with cut flowers slowly rotting

in a fiberglass box. Maybe he belonged here where the weeds in the wild could grow over his body, where he could feed the soil that fed the people who'd known him. Or maybe he was better off where his mother could visit. Anchor named himself better than anyone I've ever met, Thursday said, standing at the foot of the grave, alongside the now empty coffin. I know he picked the name because he'd spent so long as a sailor, but he kept us grounded into the bedrock of both the

land and our collectivist ideals. I don't know that there's one person here who would live in freedom right now if it weren't for Anchor's work as a mediator, A facilitator. Sure, more than that, his work is a friend. No one is perfect, but as far as I can tell, Anchor got all that being imperfect out of his system when he was younger, before half of us were born. The world is darker for me now, and it will be from now until someday when I join him buried here

in the black earth of freedom. The masks were off and I saw faces hung down in silent prayer. Anchor's death was needless, and there's no ignoring that what he made we should unmake. What he summoned, we should unsummon. We'll get by on our own. Thursday shuffled back into the crowd and into Doomsday's embrace, and he started sobbing. A stranger went up one of the tallest men I'd ever seen, the pallbearer who had stood head and shoulders

above the edge of the grave. His arms were freckled from the sun, and torchlight glittered on the studs of his punk vest. He had an easy charm to him, the kind of easy charm that raises red flags and anyone who's known a lot of handsome, entitled men, Anchor was more a father to me than my pops was. He said, I guess that's not saying much as it. A few people chuckled at that, but I don't I think it's right to sugarcoat any of this. People ain't perfect.

I'm not perfect. None of you all is perfect. We do bad things, people do bad things. We do good things too, but you don't get props for not hurting people. It's the bad things we do that define us. I don't know what bad thing Anchor did, but I know it was something beside me. Vulter's jaw had dropped as far open as it could without falling right off, and he kept breathing in short little breaths, like he was about to speak about to interrupt the man. Instead, he

started walking toward him. People ain't perfect. But Anchor and Clay and Rebecca and Doomsday they found something that is. They pulled Ulyxe right out of the river, and Eulyxe knows right from wrong. Eulyixe hurts. Predator's end of story hurts people who prey on people. Anchor knew that when he cut open his palm to bring an endless spirit up from the river, and we know it now. If we want to respect Anchor, then let's respect the best thing he ever did for the world, even if it

killed him. Chaos reigned for a moment as everyone jostled to replace the tall man. As he left the head of the grave, an elderly Chicano woman raised her hands and let out a short, wordless shout, and order was restored. She looked at the line and pointed to Vulture as next to speak. A year ago, there were only three people in this town. Who do you have even heard of? Endless spirits? Vulture said, Two of them are dead, and

the third one Rebecca. She's off living in the woods, and I bet she doesn't even know what's happened yet. Eric Talis, Fuck, You're my partner's best friend, and I've got nothing for respect for you, and the best way I can think right now to show you that respect is to tell you that you're a terrible person and you deserve to die. The hell Eric Talis fuck knew how to roar what It doesn't feel nice when someone feigns respect for you while telling you that you should

be dead. Then shut the fuck up about Anchor. Vulture then looked at the grave. Anchor, I loved you, You're great and will stop the evil demon. That probably wasn't an evil demon when you summoned it, but maybe it was, and it definitely is now, and maybe you shouldn't have summoned it. What the hell is going on, I asked, Bryn. Everything's about to go to shit, she said. She strode into the crowd to join the argument, leaving me alone at the edge of the forest. She was right, Everything

went to shit In the end. Both sides or and against the murder of a man by an immortal deer fell to accusing the other of disrupting the funeral, and the small faction of would be mediators managed to interject. They proposed the problem should be addressed in the morning at a general assembly, and the town agreed. It almost

came to blows. It wouldn't have been my fight, but I probably would have acted to protect at least Vulture in Bryn, if not the days I fingered the armament on my belt, glad I didn't need to use it. With nothing left to say, half the crowd dispersed, while some people stayed to pay their respects to anchor of women in paper mache masks took turns with sledgehammers, driving a memorial stake into the earth like railroad workers setting a tie. I didn't notice Eric until he was right

next to me, looming over me. You must be Danny Kane, he said. I didn't correct him. How'd you know Clay used to talk about you, he said. I nodded. Listen, Danny, you showed up on a pretty weird day. This isn't exactly us at our best. He was doing that thing where he used my name in sentences to try to charm me. Since I hated the name Danny. It wasn't working. Clay trusted you, so I'm going to trust you. If you want to know what's really going on, Let's go

for a walk or something. I looked around for Vulture and Brin, but they were gone. Even the days were nowhere to be seen. I could find my way back to the house, sure, but it was hard to imagine someone so callous as to leave a newcomer alone on a night like that. On a whim, I went with him. I could always stab him if he tried anything. After all, we stopped in the everything for everyone. A few townspeople were there, filling baskets with potatoes and carrots and greens

breakfast foods. Mostly the place was a bizarre mix of grocery and thrift store, without cash registers or clerks. Near the front, a refrigerated stand held fresh bottled juice and homemade sandwiches. Someone had written take one if you're hungry, with sharpie on the shelf. I took a bottle of green juice. The same person, with the same handwriting had carved returned me when empty, asshole into the glass. Eric, for his part, grabbed a juice box from a stand nearby,

labeled prepackaged snacks. Please don't hoard. Simple as that. We walked out the door. No money, no accounting, no ration cards, nothing, trust alone. I'd found a town that worked on trust alone. We walked another two blocks to the school yard, and Eric strode off towards the playground. I followed him. I didn't open my juice because that took both hands, and I don't follow strange men as the darkness without at

least one hand free for fighting. We sat at a picnic table lit only by the moon, and Eric sensed my discomfort and set several feet away on the opposite bench. I opened the juice and the smell of celery and apple and ginger rose up. I took a sip. It was delicious. You know why we get to have things like this, he asked, poking the plastic straw through the

top of his juice box. A combination of dumpster diving, farming and food bank handouts, I asked, Because no one has any authority over anyone else, he said, ignoring my literal answer, Because no one is trying to accumulate material goods, political sway, or even social capital a wheeled against anyone else. All right, I said, it was, I admit the world

I wanted to see. People always say anarchy can't work because you can't trust people to rule themselves, to which I've always said, if people are as untrustworthy as that, how do you trust them? To rule one another. You can't. I had already figured I was older than the fellow, but I realized by now just by how much. It Wasn't that I disagreed with what he just said, but there was something in the way that he said it, something in his tone or his uncynical platitudes. I believed

in anarchism, Eric, he believed you, Lyxe. We can trust you Lyxe. I know this sounds crazy, but he doesn't crave power. He doesn't have wants or needs. He just is. He is the power of the people to strike down anyone who takes power over the defenseless. He is that power, manifest, that power incarnate in the flesh. A figure was crossing the field toward us, and I've shifted in my seat

so I could see it and Eric both. So your argument, I said, is that man Anchor, the one whose heart I just saw ripped out of his chest, did something terrible. He had it coming. Is that so hard to believe it? It wasn't. Not really. I'd lost track of the people in my life who'd committed horrible acts, of people who'd stolen from the hungry and desperate, of the men who fine in company were monsters to me when alone Anchor, I didn't know him at all. What do you think

he did? I asked, I don't know. Eric said, I've got my suspicions, the silhouette said as it approached the table. Close up it was Kestrel, Falter's partner. He sat down on my side of the bench, much closer to me than Eric Clay's gone, been gone. He said before that he was fighting with Anchor. They broke up on rough terms. Neither one would talk about it. Anchor spent more time with the days after that, with Doomsday. I don't trust her. Kestrel lit a cigarette, took dramatic pauses to suck in

smoke like he thought he was in a movie. They were both ridiculous, which didn't mean they were wrong, but they were both ridiculous. We know Eulixe only has power when the sun's up, Kestrel continued, He's comatose or whatever at night. We also know he was summoned on summer solstice, and I'd bet Freedom Iowa on it that he can only be dismissed on the solstice too. You think Eulixe is killing his summoners and self defense Eulixe doesn't act

in self defense. Eric said, no, Kestrel said, taking a drag. I think Eulixe killed Anchor because I think Anchor and Doomsday were going to dismiss him in order to summon something worse, something that would let them take power. All right, I said, why are you talking to me? Then? What do you want from me? I'm not gonna say that. I can't think of ways you can help. Eric said, but I'm talking to you because I saw you talking with them, and I wanted to warn you. You're new

in town. Everyone loves fresh meat. More than that. Everyone knows you knew Clay. For someone who's trying to take some like Doomsday, that means your social capital. Aren't you Vulture's partner? I asked Kestrel. It's been rough since Clay left. Kestrel said that house clicked up tight, got more secretive. Vulture has been more distant and after tonight, after tonight, I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen with me and him. He lit a second cigarette at

the end of the first one. He wasn't smoking as an affectation. He was smoking because he was scared. As hell and trying to keep his cool. What's your plan, I asked, I don't know, Eric said, then he thought that over, no, I know what my plan is. I'm just not going to tell you right now. I don't know that I can trust you, but I'll tell you

what I hope happens. What do you hope happens. I hope everyone wakes up tomorrow morning with a clear head and we get together and realize you Lxie is the reason we have nice things, and that any talk of trying to get rid of him is bullshit. I hope that Doomsday and Rebecca leave town and never come back. And while I want those things for my own reasons, I also think they're the only way that Doomsday or Rebecca will get out of this alive. Tiredness came over me. Suddenly.

All I wanted was to be in my sleeping bag, somewhere alone, with headphones on, ignoring the world. I hope Danny. Eric said that you're able to convince Doomsday she should leave, And there it was the least it was all out on the table. I didn't like it, whether he was right or whether he was wrong. I didn't like him trying to use me, or maybe Doomsday was too, and Eric was the one who was actually being upfront about it. I'd heard enough. I got up to leave. My name

is Danielle. The walk back to the house, it was getting downright cold. A few people lingered on the street, a few people sat on stoops. The farther down the hill I got, and thereby, the closer to the river, the fewer people I saw. A block from the house, I saw those devil birds on power lines, silent, just watching by the front door. I saw Thursday, silent, just watching. The house so invitingly Gothic by the light of day.

When I just walked into town was a monolith of black and glass and evil magic by night, which, to be honest, I would have expected to be more attractive to me, considering my usual temperament. Was wondering where you'd gotten off to, Thursday said. As I mounted the steps, y'all left before me. I wasn't looking to argue, but I was pissed. Went off really quick to talk some shit over. Thursday said. We decided someone needs to head out to the woods to Rebecca's place warn her about everything.

Vulture went off to do that. The rest of us came back to the graveyard. You were gone by the time we got back. I didn't say anything. I'm sorry, he said, it was a dick move to leave you there. Thanks, Brent's still up, I think, worried about you. I opened the door and walked in, following the tiny led lamps that vaguely lit the damask wallpaper the entry. In the living room, Brynn sat cross legged, worrying her way through a cup of tea. The room was lit only by

candles and jars squatters no candles. Safety you leaving in the morning, she asked, I don't know, I said, My safety insanity insisted I should go. My curiosity and stubbornness insisted I stick around. Wouldn't blame you? Yeah, do you want tea? She asked. I sat next to her on the couch, and she poured me a cup from a silver teapot. I took it and drank some nettle. By the taste had been made at least half an hour ago. By the tipidity still, the act of drinking it was enough,

and I calmed down some. I showed up in December. Brynn said, I was traveling with this guy I used to date and he'd known. Ben said he wanted to see where they'd buried him. We didn't know the whole story, of course, but we showed up right after a storm, got his truck stuck in the snow by the high way, hiked in, We go see Ben's grave, and everyone is so nice to us. I think there must have been sixty people who helped dig out our truck. The next day,

my partner took off. I stuck around. Did you know about Eulyxey?

the river. People told me the whole story. It's strange how quickly it's normal. They're being magic in the world. It's strange how little changes about who we are as people. Maybe I said, I didn't really believe her though. If magic was real, everything had changed. My room's in the attic. She said, if you want, you could sleep next to me, maybe cuddle. If you'd rather not, I'm good to sleep on the floor, or you could take one of the couches down here. Cuddling sounds nice, I said, it should

have been nice. The moonlight came in through the circular window and she laid on her back as I nuzzled up with my head on her. It had been months at least since I'd been with anyone, even slept next to anyone, and my skin was alive at her touch. I could hear her steady breath, smell her pheromones. For a moment, just a short, peaceful moment, I was able to revel in that simple pleasure. Then my mind went back to racing through the day. Why didn't they shoot it?

I asked what she was halfway to sleep, Doomsday Thursday. Why didn't they shoot the deer? It's immortal? She said, like that was just a natural logical thing. How does it work, then, what's the deal? It's only active during the day, kills predator animals by ripping out their hearts, those stay dead. Any prey animal that dies around here, it raises from the dead or whatever by well ripping out their hearts. Those aren't immortal. Though a friend of

mine ran over an undead goosen Er truck. It stayed dead that time. That's fucking crazy, I said, yeah, Brynn said, I thought the whole thing was kind of cool until tonight, though I could see that the conversation drifted off because Brynn was half asleep. I closed my eyes, but it was all too much, the town, Elixie, Brynn all too much to take in. My heart rate increased, my breathing got a little shallow. What's wrong? Brinn asked? Panic attack?

Are you okay? Not really, I told her, because I wasn't. It hit like a fever or drugs or something, and a panic attack just drops you through the ice into freezing water. Even when you drag yourself out of that water, you're left with the memory that forever and always you're walking on ice. It's worse than anything. It's worse than watching a demony a stranger's heart. Is there anything I can do? She asked, No, I said, talking about it

makes it worse. If she were someone I knew if she were someone my body trusted, she might have been able to help a little bit, distract me with words or touch. But she was just another alien thing in this alien world I'd landed in. I'm sorry, she said. She squeezed me for a moment, then her body jerked as she fell into sleep. I wasn't going to be joining her for a while. After the worst of it, the paralyzing fear passed, I slipped from the bed and

down to the front porch. Thursday still stood there just outside the door, sentinel, his pistol held in his hand. I couldn't sleep, I said me either. He nodded at the power lines. The gould birds were still there, their little chests still splayed open, their eyes boring down on us. The fresh air wasn't fresh enough, and I wasn't looking for conversation. I went back inside and made my way to the attic. Brynn was sleeping in the bed, bliss full. I curled up in the corner of the room, hugging

my knees. I would leave in the morning. No answers were worth this. Slowly, over the course of another hour, I fell into a restless slumber. That's the end of chapter three.

realized I wasn't going to leave, not yet. I'd never lived with myself. Brynn was relaxed, and I tried my best to mimic that I hadn't slept well enough for long enough, but I had slept and that mattered. I tried asking about banalities. How does this work? You've got meetings every morning pretty much, yeah, Brent said. We get together, hash out the kind of stuff that needs doing, update everyone on news once every couple of months. We make decisions.

Mostly we just kind of share information and bicker. But it turned out that I didn't care. I should have cared. The functioning of a leaderless and formal commune on land stolen from the bank should have mattered to me a great deal. Like I was watching the video on Falter's phone, I saw Anchor die again and again. That took up too much of my mind. The Assembly Hall was the

school's auditorium. Half the building was collapsed, which didn't really bode well for the rest, but Brent assured me that the auditorium was, you know, more or less structurally sound. We walked through the doors and took seats near the back. One hundred people at least were in that room, and half as many more filtered in after us Vulture was

already there, nocturnal by choice. He hadn't slept yet and had gone out the door at dawn after stacking the table high with pancakes and taking a picture of the result for Instagram. A middle aged black man climbed up to the empty stage, and someone closed the doors to keep down the sounds of the kid's plane tag out front. We're not doing a normal meeting this morning. Y'all know that, right,

he paused. No one objected. I've been asked to facilitate today because apparently I'm one of the only folks on the facilitator's council that isn't pissed as hell at one half of you or the other. If anyone has objections to my process, just let me know now or at any point. You're great, Mike. Someone shouted, I'm pissed at both halves. Another person chimed in. Last night, things got pretty heated in the graveyard. The facilitator continued. We buried

a man a lot of us loved. A lot of us are worried about secrets the man might have been keeping, bad things he might have done. A lot of us are worried about Ulixe, about him going rogue. Most of us are worried about this fight tearing us apart. We've put a hell of a lot of work in a free tom Iowa. However, sure you are that your side is right, keep in mind that the other side is just as sure, and both sides are so stubborn because they're convinced their way is the only thing that can

save this town. You're fighting because you all want the same thing. You all want to save this town. That's what I'm going to ask you to keep in mind as you're thinking over what you're going to say. I'm going to ask one person from each side to frame the debate. We're going to hear from the room, and then we're going to settle this reasonably and come up with a plan of action. Eric Eric stood up strode on to the stage. He was an imposing figure with

his smile and his punk jacket. In a clear, loud voice and at moderate length, he told the town that Ulixie was benevolent to those deserving of benevolence and vengeful to those who weren't. I sympathized. I saw myself as someone who is the same. Vulture spoke next, hopping up on stage full of his manic, nervous energy. We're big kids, and we can handle our own problems. That was all he said. He hopped back down and took his seat.

The crowd erupted after that, and the facilitator did a magnificent job of keeping people focused on the issues at hand, ruthlessly cutting down ad hominem attacks and preventing the conversation from descending into a symbol back and forth between two people. But it stayed a pitch debate between entrenched sides, and the core of each faction had no interest in listening. Can I get a quick show of hands, the facilitator asked, after half an hour, just a temperature check of the

room to see what people are thinking. Raise your hand one hand only if you think we should give Doomsday and Rebecca are blessing to dismiss Eulyxe. More than three quarters of the room raised their hands. No, it counted. It wasn't a vote. Now, raise your hand one hand only if you think we shouldn't let Doomsday and Rebecca dismiss Youulyxe. Ten hands went up. When they went down,

Brynn rose to her feet to speak. There's a part of me that just wants to agree with what some people are saying about how great it is new Laxi around. There's a part of me that always wants is going to be sympathetic, because holy shit, there's magic here, and isn't that what we've always wanted all our lives. There's a part of me, the greater part of me, yeah, that thinks we've got to get rid of it because it fucking murdered someone last night. But that's not what

I'm going to go on about right now. Instead, I want to say something about process. She took a deep breath. Public speaking clearly wasn't her favorite thing. What are we going to do right now? Are we trying to reach consensus about what we today can do as a community? Consensus decision making isn't supposed to be one side against the other. It's not some masochistic form of voting in which you have to try to convince everyone to have

the same desires and goals. It's a tool for finding out where people agree and where people disagree, a tool for finding out what we can do together and what we can't do. You have any suggestions about what we might be doing instead, the facilitator asked the man seemed to have no ego attached to his work. No, Brennan admitted, I guess, and I'm sad to say it. We're at an impasse. We the whole town assembly can't officially encourage Doomsday and Rebecca, but three quarters of us can and

will Eric stood up that we can't solve this. Here is the first thing you all have said that I agree with her and her Lot would have us just talk, just talk, talk until it's solstice and it's too late to stop them. When someone's doing something wrong and talking won't do any good, you don't just keep talking about it. You fight. He stormed out. Kestrel in his wake, Vulture watched them go, his eyes full of sorrow. Well, Brynn said, as much to her self as to me, I think

I just fucked that up. After the assembly, Brene and I joined a lunch que at the Everything for Everyone and sat at a table on the patio between the store and the garden. My plate was piled high with Tamali's in fresh picked salad. I could get used to this place. Everyone was in a sort of collective days, unable to process everything that had just transpired. On the edge about Eulixe on the edge about Eric, but trying their hardest to make it through the day, like everything

hadn't just gone to shit. So is it everything you dreamed it would be, Berne asked, sweeping her arms open. Oh yeah, this is the best demon infested town I've ever been to. As a matter of fact, Brynn put down her fork and looked me in the eyes. A family, three punks, two kids, two dogs walked past our table, and the adults waved he low, and a little kid not more than four, darted out to wrap his arms around Bryn's leg. She patted him on the head, and

he ran back to his family. Here's the thing, Miss Kane, Brynn said, this place, this is the best place most of us have ever had. Even when Desmond was at his worst, he wasn't half as bad as most cops. No one I've ever known has ever been as free as we are standing right here. That family had just walked past us, homeless in Chicago, they'd been homeless. We grow most of our food, We generate our own power, We make our own rules. We ignore our own rules when we feel like we've got to. We are the

kings of the fucking earth and freedom. Iowa no evictions here. You paint a pretty picture, I said. And I know this just sounds like I'm being all salty, but that picture doesn't look like what I saw last night. No, Brenda agreed. We went back to eating. It doesn't look like what I saw either. If we can't stop that thing, well I guess we're all going to have to run. No more freedom. She took a few more bites than

put her sandwich down again. And you know what really gets me about Eric, Besides that we were friends, what gets me is that I don't know what he's going to do. I don't know if he's going to hurt someone. And his whole goddamn point is that he's the one who thinks we need an outside arbiter of justice. If he hurts someone, as likely as not, EULIXE will get him too. How Daniel and Danielle die, You've got five graves, EULIXI kill them all. Daniel fell through the roof of

the school doing some repair work. No, it had been here for longer than a week. His family came for the funeral, then stuck around. They still live here, and Danielle overdose no one knew her family. People tried, vultures, spent a month trying to track down her, pass checked every missing person's report. We had two suicides too, just the spring. Lover's packed, their families came for their bodies.

That's a shockingly high death rate for a town of two hundred, I said, it is, Brynn said, but it's not because of Eulyxe. He only killed Desmond and now Anchor. That's it. He's never needed to kill anyone else because no one else sacks up. They're too afraid. People should be afraid to prey on others. Brynn said, she wasn't wrong. So what's the plan, I asked, Doom is going through her books trying to figure out how to dismiss Ulyxe. The rest of us were just trying to keep her safe.

A few more days until Solstice Thursay's guard in the house, vultures up on the lookout rock. We should probably swap out with him, let him get to bed. We'll talk about it all at dinner, probably figure out the next step. Maybe Doomsday was doing more than researching how to dismiss you, Ulixy. Maybe she was researching summoning something worse. Maybe I should convince Doomsday to leave. The thought came unbidd into my mind. I had no reason to believe a word Eric had said.

All right, I took the last bite of my Tamali, show me this lookout rock. We left the patio and made our way up to the top of town. A few people, I realized, were packing up into pickup trucks and station wagons and vans. It didn't look like they were in a hurry. Just in case, you know. We took a stone path through a yard almost entirely carpeted in flowers. The gray stone was laid artfully, the yellow and white blossoms sending up heavy scents past the yards

comparatively lackluster house. The path turned to dirt, with stairs reinforced by logs staked into the earth. I was proud of myself. At the top, a couple hundred feet higher, I was barely out of breath. Brinn she was still breathing through her nose. Vulture was up there, sitting on a finger of a rock that jutted out from the cliff side. That had to be the lookout rock. He was shirtless in the heat, his back covered in black work tattoos. Wearing only blue jean short shorts. He stood

and turned when he heard us. Huge on his chest, black ink against black skin was a Satanic goat's head. At least it only had two horns. Amongst the line work was thin surgical scarring under his pectoral muscles where his breasts had been seen anything, I asked a couple hundred people shouldn't be so happy going on about their lives, vulture said, But everyone I've seen has had his or her or their ribs attached to his or her or their spines. But it's not all bad. What do we

do if you see anything? I asked, Oh right, vulture said. He unslung a hunting horn from his belt, and, honest to God, hunting horn like the kind that comes off an animal with the tip cut off, so you can blow through it. Blow this, or you know, call someone there's decent. I'll signal everywhere in town and on the

side of the hill. Maybe do both. I would do both, okay, I said, you're looking for cops on the highway, large gatherings of undead animals, or I guess in this case, very tall figures running around with my no good ex boyfriend, or especially making their way toward the house. Got it, I said. Vulture put his arm around my shoulders. Did you floss? He asked? What flossing is super important? Some

people say it's more important than brushing your teeth. It's easy to forget to floss at times like this, but you've got to live today, like you'll survive till tomorrow. He was being serious, kind of scarily. So yeah, I said, I floss good, Vulter said, then turned and started skipping down the hill. You never really answered my question last night, Brynn said. An hour or so had gone by and the sun was on us. She was sweating from the heat,

and her odor was good, like animal instincts. Good. What brings you here? You heard what happened to Clay right, I asked, Not really? Brynn said, just that he's dead. It should have been easier between her and me. We both liked one another. That much was obvious, but for some reason everything felt off, like we were actors reading from different scripts. Still, I needed someone to talk to. Clay was my best friend, I said. About a month ago,

he slid his own throat. Fuck. Brynn said, that's hardcore. Yeah, he didn't fuck around, I said, But he also taught me everything I know about traveling, squatting, politics, all of it. What happened. That's why I'm here, That's what I'm trying to find out. I said. We used to travel together, starting back when I was a runaway, and he was risking some serious felonies by helping me out. He wasn't into girls, and he wouldn't have creeped on me anyway. But I'm I'm glad we never had to try and

explain that to a judge. Our lives kept intersecting as I got older. Eventually we were some of the only dumb bastards still living out of backpacks. He hit his thirties and I think he was kind of in crisis for a while. Then he ended up at this place. He'd write me, say, you gotta come here, Danny. It's our dream. He'd say, it's the revolution, the real revolution, the one where we take power away from our pressors, not become them ourselves. I was always planning on it,

but I always had something else going on. No, that's not it. I was always putting it off because Clay, he was traveling to try to find home, I was traveling, because traveling was home. He wanted something like this. I was afraid of something like this, someplace that would lure me away from the road. I'm more afraid of growing roots than I am afraid of anything. Brinn put her arm around me. I let her. A year ago. We fell out of touch. He didn't get back to my

text much, didn't call. Then he left Freedom and slashed his throat in Denver. Did it in a hotel room on some class stick shooting he pulled from the trash. He left two notes. One was for whoever found him, saying he was sorry about the mess. He left a tip. The other note had my number on it and two sentences. These are the winds that cast us together. These are the winds that cast us apart. They cast as they wish,

and we have naught but to follow. I put my head between my knees for a moment, just a moment. Took a few deep breaths. So yeah, I said, I only just left Denver, like a week ago. Some of the old gang made it out to the funeral, most didn't.

I called around, reached some people, not everyone. Most people I reached had some excuse or another of the ten of us who were there, everyone was too drunk to process with a few days after the funeral, it was just me and Clay's mom shooting the shit for a week until there was no shit left to shoot, looking around for scraps of him, journals, notebooks, anything. There was nothing. You angry, I'm BURNE asked, Nah, I said, I'm angry, but I'm not angry at him, angry at the world.

Maybe I might have shown up here looking for someone to take it out on. Find out who's to blame. You know, the answer is no one, right, Yeah, I said, I know, but it's something I feel like I've got to do for him and for his mom. I skipped a rock down the hill. Listen to it hit other rocks on its way down. Why are you all being so nice to me? I asked, With everything going on, Clay used to talk about you, did you know that? Yeah, that's what people have been saying. He talked about you

like you were one of the endless spirits yourself. You weren't a traveler. You were the traveler in his eyes. And I can't speak for everyone else here. I was being nice to you because I thought you were kind of cute, I laughed a little. I have this wicked crush on you, Brennan continued, But also I'm celibate at least now, so I guess I just want to get both of those things out there before I get too hung up on you or lead you on. Also, there's a non zero chance we're both going to get eaten

by a demon sometime soon. I haven't let anyone in for a while, I said. After thinking about it, you're a total badass and you're a babe. I mean, you're everything I should want. But yeah, walls, lots of walls. I probably can't be with anyone on like this a perfect match, she said. Indeed, I want to keep hanging out, she asked, until we got eaten by a deer. D duh. That's chapter four, Chapter four, which means now you have to wait.