Page 5 of Dark Stars

The church was a rather mundane looking thing. If not for the Willow Grove Evangelical across the front in the world's most boring font, with italics for more godliness, he would have thought it was just another dentist's office or something.

"I don't think Jesus comes around here much,"

Alejo said.

Bobby laughed.

Alejo grinned, cheeks flushing slightly, before he ducked his head and led the way into the church.

The place seemed empty as they stepped inside, but Bobby had no idea if that was normal or not.

"Are churches always like this?"

"I have no idea. I don't go to these sort of white people churches,"

Alejo replied.

"I don't go to church at all anymore, unless Mamá drags me. Which she rarely does these days. Churches always give me weird vibes, like something crawling along my skin."

"I know the feeling well,"

Bobby said.

"Holy places don't like me much. Well, not this type of holy place."

Alejo gave him a look, but clearly knew not to bother asking more questions.

"Report said the priest was last seen here in the nave, but that it looked like his office had either been the site of a fight, or was tossed fast and ugly. Or both, I guess."

He jutted his chin at a door behind the pulpit.

"Guess it's probably through there."

Bobby led the way this time, tasting the barest traces of that primordial miasma. Of home.

"The cultists were definitely here, but as friend or foe, I can't tell."

That would require reaching into the primordial dark, which might very well give him away to whichever troublemaking relative he was dealing with this time. That was the last thing he wanted, at least for now.

"Oh, good, we might be dealing with Christian cultists,"

Alejo said.

"Those are my favorite."

His breath hitched on the word, and Bobby could suddenly taste his pain, his fear, they were so strong and sharp.

He stopped, turned sharply, stared into eyes that were filled with unshed tears before Alejo blinked them away.

"What happened to you back home, Alejo?"

Bobby reached up, curled his hand around the back of Alejo's neck—and felt the barest hints of incredibly powerful brujería before Alejo jerked away.

"Do— don't touch that,"

Alejo said.

"Just leave me alone. I'm not going to hurt anyone."

"But what kind of trouble seeks to hurt you?"

Bobby asked.

"It doesn't matter because it can't find me. Can we just get on with this?"

Bobby hummed thoughtfully, but for now the mystery would have to remain, because everything he could use to figure it out would reveal him. Being careful was so boring. He picked up the amulet he'd given Alejo, stroking his thumb over it, enjoying the tingling vibrations of his mother's power, the way the resonance was already changing to match Alejo's. In time, the amulet would work for no one else.

His father wore a collar made entirely of the material, an extravagance so great, even his mother's family was aghast, and they hardly stirred over anything.

"Bobby…"

Alejo whispered.

Shaking himself, Bobby stepped back.

"Let's get back to work."

He turned sharply and strode down the hall, opening doors as he went. Bathroom, storage room, some sort of lounge or meeting room, a breakroom… and finally the office. The miasma was slightly stronger here, as though it had lingered instead of simply passing through, but that made sense, as they had clearly tossed the place.

"I smell no violence here, not against the living, anyway. They were looking for something, but whether or not they found it I cannot say."

"How do you smell so much?"

Bobby threw a grin over his shoulder before he bent to right a knocked over chair. Kneeling, he picked up the papers scattered on the floor around the desk, stacking them neatly on one corner before going around the room to collect papers that had gone further astray.

Nearby, Alejo was going over the bookcase that took over one wall with a fine-toothed comb.

"This is a weird mix of books. It's got everything from War and Faith to something that is very obviously gay erotica. Remarkable."

"Are you serious?"

Bobby joined him at the shelves and pulled out the book in question.

"No, that's definitely not the kind of book a preacher should just have out in the open. This is about a demon and a human getting it on."

Alejo abruptly looked ready to throw up.

"No one with any sense would ever 'get it on' with a demon."

He jerked away from the bookcases and went to the desk instead, sitting at the seat behind it and pulling the papers Bobby had gathered close.

Bobby slotted the demon loving book back onto the shelf and looked over the others, which were indeed a strange mix. It was the farming book, though, that bothered him the most. This wasn't a farming town. Not even close. This town survived on factories and tourists. No preacher needed a book on small-scale farming best practices.

Bobby grasped the book and pulled—and instead of coming out, the book tilted and a muted click filled the room.

"Secret passage! Yay! An actual secret passage!"

Alejo stared at him, looking torn between surprise and amusement, before he scooped all the papers into the knapsack he'd brought along, swung it on his shoulder, and came to rejoin Bobby at the bookcase.

It was actually two large bookcases built into the wall, or seemingly, because the rightmost one had popped out ever so lightly in the middle. Bobby grabbed the edge and pulled, swinging it open wide enough they could both see what lay beyond.

Stairs, damp and mildewy. The scent of damp wafted up, along with that miasma that signaled the cult.

"They came through here, but I don't know if they found it and went, or came to the church through it."

"Are we going down?"

Alejo asked.

"Please say yes."

Bobby's mouth curved as he shot Alejo a look.

"You really are a troublemaker, aren't you?"

"My dad says trouble magnet,"

Alejo replied with a sigh.

"Come on, I never get to go down into a secret passage. In a church, to find a missing preacher, while hunting cultists. Come on, my siblings will seethe with jealousy."

He looked at Bobby with wide eyes that probably got him out of worlds of trouble, the little brat. "Please."

"Fine,"

Bobby said, jerking past him and hastening into the passage before he lingered too much over that pretty little please and how much he liked it. Alejo was entirely too young for him to be noticing like that.

His stupid brain helpfully reminded him that his mother was millions of years older than his father, who was a few thousands or so years old now himself.

The stairs were slick and green, which seemed strange when there was no major body of water close enough to cause such a thing. Smelled brackish too, which was stranger still. They were still hours from the ocean, far too inland for sea water and fresh water to mix.

"Why does it smell like a watered-down ocean in here. Okay that sounded less stupid in my head."

Bobby laughed.

"Shit—"

was all the warning he got as Alejo slipped and crashed into him, sending them both tumbling painfully down the stairs to land in a puddle at the base. Alejo groaned where he was sprawled on top of Bobby, head on his chest. "Sorry."

Bobby huffed and got them upright.

"Are you hurt?"

"Only my dignity, like usual,"

Alejo said.

"You? You're the one who took the brunt of it."

"I'm fine,"

Bobby said, because that was true. It wasn't like his body was entirely real, not by human definitions of the word. Any injuries he'd suffered were already fading away.

"You know, so far I've just been curious why your family sent you all the way across the country. Now I wonder why they sent you here alone."

Alejo heaved the sigh of the eternally suffering, but didn't otherwise reply, only retrieved his knapsack. He pulled something out of it before swinging it back on one shoulder. A flashlight. Bobby supposed a human, even one with arcana, might need help seeing in the dark.

They seemed to be in some sort of… storage room slash antechamber. Wood, old and rickety and slick with more lichen. There were crates, boxes, bags, and against one wall was an entire wine rack of all things, one of those crisscrossing style ones that Bobby didn't know the actual name of.

"Well, I don't like the look of that,"

Alejo said, going straight to the wine rack. He set the flashlight on a nearby crate before swinging his bag down again, this time pulling out a pair of gloves that fit like a second skin. Why was that so distracting?

Bag returned to his shoulder, Alejo pulled down one of the bottles and held it directly in the beam of the light.

"That's what I thought. Blood wine. This one is human, but I bet there's all kinds in here."

"Blood wine? Jones has mentioned that stuff. On a scale of one to ten for anger, any mention of it sends him straight to twelve."

Alejo gave a sharp laugh.

"Yeah, I guess it would, given he's the kind of vampire we don't mind having around."

He returned the bottle and pulled down another one.

"Unicorn. That is disgusting."

Another bottle.

"Werewolf. They've got an alarming variety down here, and so much of it, I see at least thirty bottles."

"Thirty-seven, and by the look of the dust, the three missing from those bottom slots were only recently removed."

Alejo swung the flashlight where he indicated.

"How did you see that? You know what? Nevermind. You wouldn't tell me anyway."

"Me and the dark are old friends,"

Bobby said.

"So someone keeps a disturbing amount of blood wine down here, and has either recently begun to drink it or sell it. Wonder if this is connected to our mystery or just a side quest."

"Let me get some pictures. Can you hold the flashlight while I do it?"

Bobby snorted and turned off the flashlight as Alejo handed it over.

"I can do better than that."

He spread his right hand, reaching into the well of arcana that was always there for him, until there was a pinpoint of light at each fingertip. The lights floated up, expanding and strengthening, moving around until the room was filled with soft, greenish light.

"Show off,"

Alejo said.

"You couldn't do that from the start?"

"It takes moderate arcana to create and maintain, and we don't know what dangers we may yet be facing."

Alejo started taking pictures on his phone, pulling out several bottles to get close up shots of them. He then took a few of the rest of the room before finally putting his phone away.

"All right. Shall we carry on?"

"Let's."

Bobby closed his hand into a fist and the lights went out. He turned on the flashlight and returned it to Alejo.

"So what are your arcana strengths?"

"What?"

"You said you're neither vodun nor brujo, that no one really knows what you are. So what are you particularly good at?"

Alejo shrugged one shoulder as they ventured down some steps that shook ominously with every step.

"This is gonna sound stupid, but I have an affinity for bugs. Spiders, roaches, moths, centipedes, you name it, I seem to get along with it."

He rubbed the back of his neck, and for a moment something shimmered, like a tattoo made of blue light. Protection. Alejo was being protected from something. Likely hidden from it.

"On my twenty-first birthday, right as the sun went down, what must have been thousands of fireflies showed up."

Bobby stumbled to a halt.

"I'd never seen so many in one…"

Alejo turned as he realized Bobby had stopped.

"Are you all right?"

"Fireflies?"

Bobby said.

"Yeah, it was really weird, that's what I'm saying."

His frown deepened.

"Why, do fireflies mean something to you? Why do you know more about me than me?"

Bobby laughed, though it came out weak and ever so slightly shaky.

"Fireflies are mine. They are drawn to me, they are my friends as much as such a simple creature can be."

They were his avatars, but that was giving too much away. Ordinary beings did not have avatars. Only the divine did.

"Huh,"

Alejo said, and then broke into a smile that did funny things to Bobby's insides.

"Guess we're meant to be partners, then, huh?"

"I suppose so,"

Bobby said faintly, and tried to force his attention back to the matter at hand.

At the bottom of the death-trap stairs was…a river. Or something. It moved sluggishly, which explained why they hadn't heard it until now, and that brackish smell was stronger than ever.

"Why is there an entire ass body of water underneath the town?"

Alejo asked, swiveling the flashlight up and down the length of it.

"It smells salty, but not entirely oceany. I wasn't crazy about that. Damn it, what's the English for it. Salobre."

"Brackish."

"That's it."

He stilled as the flashlight caught something that wasn't water or rock. "A boat."

"Looks like it broke from its mooring somehow, then got caught in the rocks. Should I go get it, you think?"

Alejo looked at him like he'd lost his damned mind.

"You want to go swimming in dark water you know nothing about to get a boat that's not ours?"

"I mean when you put it that way…"

Alejo narrowed his eyes.

"Quid pro quo, smartass. You asked what I'm good at—what are you good at?"

"Strictly speaking, you didn't tell me what you're good at. You just said bugs like you."

"They do. Really easy way to freak people out. You have no idea how many times I made my siblings scream growing up."

Bobby grinned.

"I'm going to wager you have an affinity for earth-based arcana."

Alejo huffed.

"Yes, in fact. My parents said for years that it's shocking I don't have an affinity for death arcana, as it's so closely tied to earth arcana, and both vodun and brujería are particularly good at it. I'm no necromancer, though. Couldn't summon a ghost if my life depended on it. I can only mess with bones insofar as they're in—and so part of—earth, but it's not the same thing as necromancy. What about you?"

"I'm good at a little bit of everything, but the dark is where I live."

"Like shadowmancy?"

"After a fashion, I suppose. Which is why dark water doesn't scare me. If I get the boat we can—"

Voices. Distant but getting closer. The faintest speck of light off in the distance, likely coming from a tunnel in the rocks. Well, at least now he knew they needed to go upstream.

"We need to go,"

Alejo said, killing the flashlight and pointing back the way they'd come.

"We won't make it in time,"

Bobby replied.

"Even if we get up there, we won't get out of the church, in the car, and away before they're coming after us."

"So what do we do? Not a lot of places to hide. They'll see our footsteps no matter what."

Bobby scoffed.

"Ours are not the only footsteps here, so I doubt they'll even notice. We could hide in the water, or…"

He looked around for other options.

"Behind that cluster of boulders."

"That I can't see,"

Alejo muttered.

Bobby grinned in the dark, reaching out to poke at Alejo's cheek, disrupting his entirely too adorable pout. In the most pompous voice he could muster, he said, "Then you must trust your elders, young one."

"I'm going to punch you later,"

Alejo hissed.

"We need to hide!"