Page 17 of Dark Stars

They appeared by his truck.

"Where is my poor car?"

"I'll take care of it before we go to sleep tonight. Near as I can feel, it's right where you left it, unnoticed and unscathed."

"At least there's that. So what's our first step?"

Bobby stretched and shook himself.

"I wish it was a sauna or a hot tub, but pleasure must wait. The police station. I could probably feel out where all the rune circles are located, but it would draw attention that we don't need back on us, and why do the work that the cops have already done?"

"Smart,"

Alejo said with a grin.

"I've never sneaked into a police station before. Usually I just flirt with a cop and get the information that way. It's actually concerning how many cops, especially the older ones, are okay with me flirting with them."

"Seriously?"

Alejo's grin widened.

"Seriously."

"Who decided flirting with cops is the most effective method?"

"I don't have your spooky primordial powers, Flick, and sometimes the easiest methods are the best. Why use arcana when smiling and winking will get me just as far?"

"Scamp. Come on, let's go do things my much more boring way."

They walked the few blocks to the police station after a quick google provided how close it was to where they'd appeared.

As it was late at night by that point, the only staff was minimal and probably enjoying what seemed like a quiet night.

Bobby got them through the back door, the security measures so trifling they may as well be non-existent.

"Would anyone's computer do?"

"I think any cop can look up any case, but details can be locked down to certain people?"

Alejo said.

"That was always my impression. If we can get into the sheriff's computer, that'll be our golden ticket."

He grinned.

"Want me to flirt with someone and keep them distracted while you sneak in?"

"Amusing as that would be, so I could swoop in and possessively snatch you away and do inappropriate things in the evidence room, no,"

Bobby said.

"We'll just stick close to the dark."

"Go back to the evidence room bit."

"Later."

Snagging his wrist again, Bobby slunk around the shadows of the building, keeping them unnoticed without having to do more than ask the dark nicely to keep them obscured.

As hoped, the Sheriff wasn't even in his office, but over in a little corner that served as a breakroom pretending to drink coffee as he flirted shamelessly with a longsuffering subordinate. Bobby made a face.

"Flirting seems to be the theme tonight."

"Yeah, but she works for him. Gross."

"Agreed."

He closed the door to the sheriff's office part way—enough to help them go unseen, but not so much that anyone would notice and go 'wasn't that open a minute ago?'.

"I don't suppose you can handle the breaking into the computer thing. I have my way, but my ways and electronics don't always get on very well."

Alejo snickered as he sat down, and peeled a post it off the bottom of the monitor.

"Don't need to break in when Sheriff Genius puts his password right here."

Bobby was physically pained.

"He's the Sheriff."

"Why do you think the best hackers are just really good at talking to people?"

Alejo asked. He logged on and started clicking through things that clearly made sense to him, but absolutely none to Bobby. The work he did for Jones and Harold rarely involved this kind of thing, and much more of the 'find something evil and incapacitate or kill' variety.

After a few minutes, he got up and went over to the printer in the corner as it began to spit out pages.

"Printing out the files, including locations—by coordinates, even, which makes this even easier."

"Ridiculously easy,"

Bobby said. He reeled Alejo in close and kissed him quick and sharp, then led the way back out of the police station. Back at the truck, he took the papers and looked over the coordinates, pulling them up on his phone until he'd marked them all out.

A perfect circle, exactly as expected.

"Would it be better if we split up?"

Alejo asked.

"No, definitely not,"

Bobby said.

"You could break the rune circles easy, but I worry about any traps that may be meant for my kind and, no insult, too much for you."

"No insult taken. I saw what just breaking an altar did to you—and that altar was for you. I can't imagine how much worse it is when they're meant for others. And we're dealing with your fifty-times great grandfather."

"Not quite that many."

Bobby grinned and opened the passenger door.

"Come on, let's get going. Stopping for food first, because I have reserves that desperately need replenishing, and while I don't normally need to eat, that will help to speed the process."

"Back to that cute diner we ate at before?"

"Sounds good to me."

They were still a block away, though, when Alejo grabbed his arm and drew them to a halt, making Bobby look up from his phone.

"Cultists."

He looked around, then all but dragged Bobby off.

"Guess we'll just overload on snacks at the grocery store and head off to the first location."

"Guess so,"

Bobby said with a sigh, dreams of an open-faced meatloaf sandwich with mashed potatoes and too much gravy slipping away.

The store was too bright, too loud, and too shiny somehow. This wasn't the kind of light he enjoyed, artificial and plastic, incredibly fucking painful. He kept his head down and just followed Alejo's lead, weaving up and down aisles until they had so much food Bobby genuinely wasn't sure where the hell they'd put it all. Well, he had a truck; they didn't lack for space, but still.

After what felt like hours, they were back outside, and he dutifully helped arrange things in coolers and boxes until Alejo seemed satisfied.

"Can I drive?"

Bobby handed over the keys, and slid into the passenger seat, content to let his thoughts drift over the trail he'd take to each of the rune circles. Alejo had voted for counterclockwise, which would make each subsequent breaking easier, where clockwise, the overall power would hold longer, so the breaking would be harder and take longer to draw attention. There would be attention, that was inevitable, but if they started at the six o'clock mark and worked counter, everything was going to get a lot uglier a lot faster—but it would also be over faster, so long as he could stay ahead of the trouble, and the breakage would be far greater.

Eventually they came to yet another national park parking lot, the fact they were trespassing at this hour the least of their concerns. "Come on,"

Alejo said, scrambling out of the truck and climbing into the bed before Bobby had even finished with his seatbelt.

When he climbed up, Alejo had spread out a blanket—where the hell had he gotten a blanket? The grocery store? Since when?—and was setting out all manner of food. Fried chicken, meatloaf, a bunch of different sides, a veggie platter, brownies, cookies, chips, cheese and meat. "Wow."

Alejo laughed.

"Did you pay no attention in the store?"

"Not really, it was…loud and plastic. Normally it doesn't get to me so much, but I'm worn thin after that stupid altar breaking."

"Hence enough food to feed fifty, since I didn't know what you'd like best, and variety is usually a good thing."

"It looks wonderful."

Alejo handed him a paper plate, one of the large, thick and sturdy ones people always used for things like Thanksgiving and Christmas, and he piled it high with whatever would fit. Then he grabbed a fork and set to work in earnest, devouring it all bite by bite, bones and everything. When the plate was cleared, he filled it a second time, and then with half as much the third time.

After that, he started on the sweets, ensuring Alejo had everything he wanted before making short work of nearly everything that was left.

"Okay, when I bought enough food for fifty, I didn't think you'd equate to 49,"

Alejo said, laughing delightedly.

"That was so impressive. Did I get enough? Should we go get more? Do you think a pizza place would be willing to deliver out here?"

Bobby grinned.

"Tempting, but we'll save the pizza for later. Shall we to work? The first point we need is about three miles from here—"

"Well, thank god we're not starting off immediately with another nine—"

"And then they're about three miles apart each from there, so it's definitely going to be a long, miserable night."

"I brought water, electrolytes, protein bars, jerky, your trail mix, and various other survival and emergency supplies. I assume your bag has much the same."

"It does. Let's get to work."

Bobby held Alejo's hand as long as he reasonably could, simply for the pleasure of it, until the trail started going from Idle Saturday Hikers to Crazy People Who Did This for Fun. Thankfully, this trail was a beginner level, so there wasn't all that much work to do. Later, they'd be getting into the territory of the moderate and advanced trails, though by then at least the sun would have risen.

After the nine-mile hike earlier, through an area that didn't even have a trail, this was almost too easy.

"So far, this venture is a cake walk. Makes me uneasy."

"Why are easy things called cake walks?"

Alejo asked.

"You never googled it?"

"Never thought about it until now."

Bobby stepped over a fallen tree stump, and once they'd resumed walking, replied, "As with many things in this country, the answer is slavery. Plantation owners used to host these dances and the big deal dance of the evening was the cake walk, or prize walk, where the enslaved did these crazy elaborate dances and whichever one performed the best won the prize, which was a big, fancy cake. The dancing wasn't easy, and there's theories the enslaved were making fun of their slavers the whole time by mocking them via the dances, but they made it look so easy that it gave rise to the idiom. Also where you get 'take the cake'."

"Fascinating."

They lapsed into an easy silence then, Bobby leading the way along the path, the moonlight enough for Alejo to just see by, along with the fireflies that showed up in drips and drabs to accompany them, a little trail of flickering lights wandering a dark trail that could turn dangerous at any moment.

His legs weren't happy with him after all the work of the past day, hiking through woods and caves and secret passages. Alejo must be even more miserable, but he hadn't said a word about it, save for a joke about first dates.

What would he like for a real first date? They'd sort of skipped past all of that. After all the recent tumult, simply going to dinner or the movies seemed so tepid.

"So if the cave trek was our first date, was the picnic in a park our second?"

Alejo laughed, and around them the fireflies seemed to flicker in a way that echoed the sound, as though they too were laughing.

"I went on a picnic date once. The food was soggy, the wine tasted like it had turned to vinegar, and the guy kissed like a slobbering dog. It was terrible. I couldn't get out of there fast enough, let me tell you."

"I don't really do dates,"

Bobby said.

"Don't really do much of anything unless I'm in the rare mood to fuck somebody. Most of the time it's just me, my books, and whatever work Jones and Harold need me for. Guess I was waiting for the boy of dark stars."

"Guess so, Flick."

Alejo grinned as they drew even at a curve in the path, working around some boulders that had probably been there longer than time. Maybe had once been part of a mountain, or in the bed of a stream long gone.

"I can't believe that's my nickname, that after all the eons I've been alive, all I've done and lived through, we've settled on Flick."

"It's always rather anticlimactic, I'm afraid. Unless it's Camila's quincea?era. That was extra climactic. The fireworks were borderline illegal climactic, but my father's precious angel baby princess can do no wrong."

He rolled his eyes.

Bobby's mouth curved in a sly grin.

"Mmm-hmm. And who is your mother's most beloved darling?"

"I have no idea,"

Alejo said loftily, cheeks burning.

"Probably my eldest brother."

"I just bet."

"Oh, shut up."

They lapsed back into silence after that, but as ever, it was a warm, comfortable silence, like a blanket on a cold, snowy day. No pressure to talk, no anxiously wondering what the other was thinking—not that Bobby had ever really stressed what others thought, but Alejo was his.

Though they were still tired despite their napping, they made good time and reached the first circle just past four in the morning, where dawn was thinking about arriving, but any real light was still an hour or so away.

They were perhaps twenty or so feet away when Bobby heard something. He reached out and grabbed Alejo's arm, signaling him to halt. He pressed a finger to his lips and took over the lead again, sending silent requests to the dark to keep him enfolded and unseen.

He crept up to a tree that had two trunks, forming a crude V that made it easy for him to stay out of sight while watching what was happening a short distance away, perhaps ten or so feet now.

They didn't speak, or spoke in a way he couldn't hear, not without using powers that would possibly alert them to his presence. Not human, he didn't think, or at least not entirely human. They moved far too easily in the dark for that.

One of them was fussing with something in the middle of the circle, while the other restlessly prowled the small clearing it was set in. Not a natural clearing, though. No, by the smell of it, things had been chopped and burned to make this space. Hardly surprising. There weren't going to be thirteen perfect clearings just waiting to be misappropriated for dark rituals, not without a whole lot more planning than his relatives were generally inclined toward.

He felt movement behind him, Alejo's soft, easy presence, and then a gentle squeeze to his arm that was easy to interpret as what should we do?