Page 56 of Etched in Stone
He still remained the white blond viking.
“Yeah, I bet so. Because honestly, why else would anyone be climbing this mountain on Halloween?” he said as she pulled back.
“But you’re not-”
“Khargal? Nah, I’m only half. My mom was a full-blooded American and I was the apple of her eye, but she was always cold. Loved her sweaters.”
“Ray said that it affects every person differently, the uh- transfer. What about your father?”
“Oh, he’s shattered into a couple of thousand pieces. There are some nasty people out there, you know?”
“I know. There was this guy back in New York that tried to throw me off a roof! Then he tried to shoot me.”
“He dead yet?”
“No. Pablo was made a guest of the federal prison system, and I was promised that his paperwork would get lost.”
“Pablo? He got a last name?”
“No. He’s like Madonna. Or Cher. He has a penchant for pastel suits and was shot in the neck by his wife, but unfortunately, it didn’t kill him. Then he killed his wife, or at least said he did. I didn’t independently verify that information. Mainly because he got homicidal on me like thirty seconds later, so I just assumed he was telling the truth.”
“And your guy didn’t kill him?”
“No. He offered, but I suppose I’m more of a pacifist at heart. I didn’t have the heart to ask him to murder a murderer, even if he deserved it.”
“Huh.”
“Huh?”
“Huh.” The golden grizzly laid back down and appeared to be deep in thought. “So why are we climbing this mountain, anyway?”
“Because the sigil told us that this was the pick up location?”
“Sigil?”
“The medalliony thingy?”
“The one with the blinky light in the middle?”
“Yeah.”
“Ha. I’ve been calling it a thing-a-ma-gig. Told I have to get up to the top of the mountain by Halloween or… else.”
“Else?”
“It’ll explode. Like a nuclear bomb.”
Ray chose that moment to swoop in, flying fast and landed on the chest of the half man, half alien.
“Whoah, dude!”
Jesse wasn’t sure who was more surprised, Ray or the man. They both looked at her with some sort of wonder.
“I didn’t mean for it to come out like that,” she explained, “but… but- that guy is here for the same reason we are.”
Ray gave him a good look over. Then he actually smelled him, like a large sniff.
“This guy has a name,” said the guy. “Erlend. And your guy is very heavy.”
