“Ready to catch us a monster?” asks Carly brightly.
“No,” I whisper at the exact same moment that Virago’s eyes narrow, that she nods emphatically.
“
Yes
,” she tell us, her voice ringing out with strength.
We set off down the corridor together, the oddest pairing of the Three Musketeers that ever existed:
a knight from another world, a public access television station producer…
And a woman who wants something she can never have.
Honestly, that sounds much more dramatic than it needs to be.
I can be realistic sometimes, and this is just the way it is.
I’m already in a relationship with Nicole.
Virago is from another world, destined to return there as soon as possible.
I would have probably continued on with my relationship with Nicole if Virago had shown up, Nicole and I acting like nothing had ever happened.
I wouldn’t have known that there was someone out there who was perfect for me.
I would never have known how much I was missing.
But now I do know.
And it’s the simple truth to say that it breaks my heart.
“What, exactly, are we looking for again?”
Casting an amused glance at Carly, Virago shakes her head almost ruefully as she rolls her shoulders back.
“An enormous beast,” mutters Virago, glancing up at the bright sun.
The three of us stand together in a small cluster down by the commercial fishing vessels at the docks.
It’s a powerful scent of fish that’s surrounding us currently, and I’m trying to take small breaths through my mouth because the odor from the boats, the warehouses and the crates, rising in steady waves from the heat baking us, is pretty horrific.
Virago is currently staring out at the water, Carly’s staring at Virago (and pointing her camera at Virago unwaveringly as it balances on her shoulder), and I’m standing beside both of them as we watch the undulating surface of the bright blue bay and look for…
Well.
I don’t really know what we’re looking for either, to be honest.
“Different patterns in the water,” Virago explains quietly, as if she heard my unspoken question.
“We’re looking for currents underneath the surface that might show us that there’s something large moving under the water.”
“But couldn’t a random current be a big fish or a shark or something?” I ask her, staring hard at the blue ocean.
Nothing much moves save for the rhythmic surface.
“Granted, that may be the case…but this is where it was last sighted.
So a random current
may
be another creatures.
Or we may just get lucky, and it could be the beast,” says Virago quietly, narrowing her eyes at the water.
She’s right: according to the tweet that someone directed at Carly’s public access news Twitter account, the beast
was
just sighted here about ten minutes ago.
Carly had gotten an alert on her phone as we were loading the camera into my car, and then we’d taken off quickly from the LEM public television station, speeding through the relatively quiet streets of Boston, thankfully a little less busy than usual because it was a Sunday.
We arrived here at the docks, and there was, of course, no beast in sight.
The tweet had been mostly ambiguous about detail—if the beast was out of the water or in the water, it hadn’t said.
But since the tweet was the most recent eyewitness account, we’d had to follow it.
The other eyewitness sightings had also placed the beast in this general area, though the most recent ones had said that it was hiding out between warehouses, not in the water.
But when we walked around, we saw nothing really out of place, and I assumed that a gigantic monster-type thing would probably knock over some crates at the very least, or leave a trail of water behind it.
But there was nothing.
Maybe people were getting spooked?
Eyewitness accounts, police usually say, are almost always less than reliable.
But I still thought it’d be pretty hard to mistake seeing a monster out and about on dry land.
“How long do you want us to stare at the water, Virago?” Carly quips, but Virago shrugs her shoulders easily, sighing out.
“It’s difficult to judge.
You do not have to wait with me, my friends.”
Her jaw clenches and flexes as she swallows, taking a deep breath.
“I’m sorry that I may have brought you on a merry goose chase.
I just need to find the beast,” she whispers now.
“Before he hurts a single soul.
I will not let that happen.
Not on my watch.”
There were hundreds of eyewitness accounts of the beast today.
Most of them saw something out in the water, which is causing a flurry of “Loch Ness Monster?” questioning on social media web sites like Twitter and Facebook, and just as much speculation on the public access news station’s comment threads.
Three or four people (the most recent before the tweet that Carly received) supposedly “saw” him out of the water, and even then, they couldn’t corroborate their story with anything specific, only thought that they saw a shadow moving between buildings down here by the docks.
So, probably, all clues considered, the beast is probably still in the water.
Which is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
And still, Virago feels responsible that we’re not finding it.
“It’s all right,” I tell her soothingly, reaching out to touch her arm with gentle fingers.
She glances sidelong at me with a relieved expression.
“We’ll find him,” I tell her adamantly.
I mean, of
course
we’ll find him.
There’s never been a part of me that thought we wouldn’t.
She glances out at the water with grim resolve and a nod, and for a moment—just a moment—I let my eyes trace the curve of her chin, her jaw, her cheek.
I watch her unabashedly, gaze at her like I’m memorizing her.
And maybe I am.
“Oh, shit, I’ve got to take this,” mutters Carly, almost dropping the camera in the ocean as she drags her smart phone out of her back pocket and glances down at it with a frown.
“It’s Deb.
Be right back.”
She sets the camera down on the concrete we’re standing on and sprints away, holding the phone up to her ear, pressing her palm to her other ear, and already muttering a greeting into it.
God, what terrible timing.
Virago and I are alone.
And my heart’s already beating too quickly, my palms are already too sweaty, and my mouth is as dry as a desert.
The wind off the bay sweeps over us, bringing the fresh, salt scent of the ocean with it, pushing away the overpowering smell of fish from the docks.
The soft wind moves through Virago’s hair, her high ponytail that—while it no longer sports a wolf’s tail—is still soft and fine and ink-black, looking velvety enough that I want to reach up and touch it, run my fingers through her hair just to see what it would feel like against my skin.
Virago, glancing out at sea still, clenches her jaw, sighs out quietly as she shakes her head and rocks back on her heels.
She murmurs quietly:
“You know, my lover would call me foolish.”
I feel the world fall away from beneath my feet.
There is such a deep, sharp pain that pierces me at that moment that I’m utterly speechless.
But I grapple with it for a long moment, take a few deep breaths, try to sound normal:
“Oh?” I reply, coughing a little.
“Well,” says Virago, rolling back her shoulders, shaking her head a little as she widens her stance, crosses her arms, continues to rake the bay’s blue surface with her equally blue eyes.
“My former lover, truly.
We’ve not been together for six moons or so, since we parted ways.”
Her gaze flicks to me now, one brow up as she searches my eyes.
“She would tell me that I am foolish to sit here, watching the water for a beast I do not know is even there.”
I stare at her, my breath coming far too quickly in me to explain away, my mouth open.
I probably look dazed, as I stand there trying to calm my racing heart, but I don’t even care as I shake my head, clear my throat again, the purest joy I’ve ever known washing through me.
Oh, my God.
She said “she.”
That’s it.
That’s
it
.
She’s gay.
Thoughts, emotions, vibrant feeling begins to spill through every part of me, and I’m grappling with all of it, but a specific thought comes to the forefront:
Does that mean that all of the times I thought she was coming on to me…she
actually was?
Okay, now’s not the best time to go over all of that, Holly.
Think.
I lick my lips, don’t have a clue what I’m supposed to reply with, so I go with my gut:
“that’s not the nicest thing to say to your girlfriend,” I tell her, one brow up while inside I do an elaborate dance of joy complete with metaphorical tambourines.
Virago shrugs elegantly, her mouth narrowing to a hard line.
“Elladin was always very…pragmatic.
She thought that my being a knight was foolish.
Too dangerous, she thought, but also a childish dream.
She saw that I had a good head for ciphers and urged me to become a bookkeeper in her father’s tavern as it was steady, constant, safe work.”
Virago spreads her hands, shakes her head.
“I had no stomach for bookkeeping, though.
I knew what I must be, knew it from the earliest of ages, knew it was in my blood and my bones to become a knight.
I had to follow my heart.
And Elladin did not agree with this, thought it was too fanciful to follow one’s heart.
So we parted ways.”
I stand there, my nose wrinkling, as I try to imagine Virago as a bookkeeper.
I fail utterly.
I mean, it’d be admittedly sexy to imagine her in a poet’s white shirt, elegantly dipping a feathered quill into a pot of ink, but she’s just…not really the type.
She wields a sword.
She wants to slay a beast.
She’s not a “sit there” kind of lady.
“Well,” I whisper, feeling my cheeks become hot, but pushing through the words anyway:
“from where I’m standing you’re not foolish.
You’re here because you want to help people.
And that’s the best thing in the world…”
I trail off, take a deep breath, flounder.
I don’t know what else to say.
“In my opinion, anyway,” I finish stupidly, my voice soft.
She’s casting a sidelong glance in my direction, and the corners of her mouth are pulled upwards, her full lips curving into the most beautiful smile, just for me.
“That’s very kind of you, Holly,” she tells me, then.
And she reaches across the space between us, takes my hand in her own warm one, and squeezes it once, twice, gently, her long fingers folding into my palm like they fit there effortlessly.
She stands, holding my hand for a long moment, a too-long moment, perhaps.
Then she lets it go, and my warm, tingling hand drifts down to my side, my heart racing inside of me as she looks back out to sea, the cold ocean breezes washing over me, making me shiver, the wind playing with her ink-black ponytail and passing over her beautiful face...
“All right—I’ve got some bad news, ladies,” Carly mutters, trotting over to us with a grimace, shoving her phone back into her pocket.
She shrugs, rocks back on her heels.
“Unfortunately, I think we’ve been given a bad lead.
There are now reports coming in that some sailing vessels a few miles out at sea are seeing a massive creature under the water.
Big as a whale, they’re saying, but it can’t be a whale because it has
spikes
along its
spine
, so I’m kind of thinking that’s our little monster guy.
Anyway,” she sighs, wrinkling her nose, talking fast, “Deb’s calling me in, so I’ve got to head back.
I can keep you updated, but—for right now—beast boy seems to be out of our hands until it decides to swing back to shore.”
Virago inclines her head to Carly.
“Thank you, Carly.
You will keep us posted?”
Carly salutes, then smiles at the both of us.
When Virago turns to look back over the ocean again, Carly gives me the cheesiest grin imaginable, and two thumbs up signs.
Then she’s lifting up the camera and all but sprinting back to our car with the ancient piece of equipment on her shoulder.
“I doubt that the beast will hunt fishing vessels if it is still wounded.
And even if it is not, it is not stupid,” says Virago, her blue eyes flashing.
She turns to me, folds her arms carefully in front of her.
“We just have to bide our time.
Wait.
But what of the ritual?
I must think of a way to lure the beast back toward shore if only for the ritual.
And it is so soon…”
Worry tightens her features.