Chapter 32

Domo arigato, Mr. Hard Cock-o!

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Shepherd angrily demanded. “What do you mean, my son was the price for ... a prophecy? Do you think I’m stupid?”

Demie looked at her. “No, just uninformed. You can believe it or not, but given that you came alone and without a SWAT team, I expect that your co-workers didn’t believe either?”

Shepherd continued to look frustrated. “Nobody remembered that I had even been pregnant! All records of Seth were erased. That’s absolutely impossible, and yet it happened. It’s almost like...”

“Magic?”

We all looked at Kate, who had spoken. She continued, “Not impossible, but a really difficult spell. Those with strong ties to the child like you will remember him, which is why Cassandra wanted you dead, but brief, incidental connections or hearsay would just be hidden away in people’s minds, unreachable. Computer records are another thing, but it’s not unheard of for magic users to hire a hacker to get full erasure.”

“Oh, come on!” Shepherd yelled as she stood up, wincing and holding her side where her patched knife wound was. “Magic? Ridiculous.”

“How do you explain your bullets turning to air, then?” That was Other Tom.

“I ... must have forgotten to load the gun.”

Now I spoke up. “Magic aside, why was Cassandra interested in your son? Well, my son too.”

“MY son,” she retorted. “You were a sperm donor, however that happened. And I don’t know. That Cassandra woman said that Seth was special somehow.” She paused. “And while we’re on the subject, how did you manage to get me pregnant?”

Demie stood up and looked down at the blonde detective. “That was me, Dianna. When Tom came, I redirected his sperm all the way inside you.”

“But ... he came inside you...”

“Mm hmm...” Demie extended her tongue ... and kept extending it. When it reached seven inches and the end opened up like a tube, Shepherd scrambled backwards.

“Wha--what the fuck are you?!”

In Arnold Schwartzenegger’s voice, Demie responded, “Da Sperminator.”

Other Tom laughed. I didn’t.

Shepherd saw her pistol, still on the kitchen table, and rushed for it. Nobody tried to stop her, since it was empty. Nevertheless, she held it out toward Demie as if it would offer her some kind of protection. “You are going to help me find Seth!”

“Nope,” the demon responded.

We all looked at Demie. She looked back at us.

“A deal’s a deal,” the demon explained, and then turned back to Dianna. “I didn’t know your kid would be the price, but I agreed and I got my prophecy. It’s done.”

“Tom?” Shepherd looked from me to Other Tom and back, not knowing which of us was the one she knew. I raised my hand.

“I’d like to help, Dianna, but I don’t know how without Demie, or Kate’s magic.”

She was starting to look desperate. “But she transformed my bullets into air? Isn’t that magic?”

Kate and I looked at each other. “We’re not sure how she did that,” I replied. “Based on what we know, she shouldn’t be able to cast any spells after losing her virginity.”

“How many women are you fucking, Tom!?” Shepherd was starting to lose it ... her eyes were wide, the whites showing.

Let’s see ... Demie, Kate, Vicky in 504 ... actually, did Kate count, since we hadn’t had intercourse yet?

“That was rhetorical,” Kate said, putting her hand on my shoulder.

Oh, right. “Demie, can we reach out to Konnie?” I asked. The Pukwudgie network had found Demie’s brother Eros for us.

“She and I are even now. She also said that she was moving on with her tribe, so I wouldn’t even know how to reach her now.” The demon went to the front door and opened it. “You need to leave, Shepherd.”

“But ... but...”

“Now.”

Dianna gave each of us a pointed look, and then strode out.

A week had passed since Dianna had left, and things had calmed down. Other Tom and I were getting along again after buying some new clothes and separating our wardrobe into half a closet each. Demie didn’t need clothes so we had room. He had even agreed to try to find a job and a separate life himself, so we weren’t both hanging around the apartment all the time.

I had asked my roommates how limited Other Tom’s lifespan was as a changeling, but none of them knew, not even Other Tom himself. The magic that made him was supposed to be temporary, but nobody had tracked a changeling replacement from start to finish due to its secretive nature. He could die later today, or in a few weeks, or maybe even years from now.

There was a knock at the door. I tensed up ... since we were in a secure apartment building, that either meant a neighbor or something bad. I looked through the peephole in the door.

I blinked and looked again. Yep, it was the same. I opened the door.