18 – Birdwatching

Erika lowered the barrel of her gun, dropped the magazine, and racked the slide, ensuring it was empty. Both arms felt sore. Even with ear protection, she felt like she was developing tinnitus. The first time she fired the gun, Leslie only let her load one cartridge; she found out why when she almost took her chin off, not expecting the gun’s kick.

Now, as she pressed the button that wheeled her target back toward her, she couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride at the little holes dotting the sheet.

“I’ve been around guns my whole life,” Daniel said, stepping up alongside her. He poked a finger in one of the bullet holes, clearing the edges with room to spare. “I think that one kind of scares me.”

“Did you see Sofia’s grenade launcher?”

“That’s different. It’s supposed to launch grenades. This is like a mini-Bolter or something.”

Erika paused, frowning as she tried to parse what he said. “Did you know that every time your mouth moves, strange sounds come out?”

“Nice grouping,” Leslie said, arms folded as he loomed just behind them. “Still pulling right.”

Erika clicked her tongue in annoyance. She was fairly happy with her performance, even if the holes only occupied the right side of the target. “Maybe the sights are pulling right.”

“Maybe. Mind if I give it a test?”

Erika shrugged, leaving her gun on the booth’s counter as she made way for Leslie to take over her spot. He sent her target back out to the far wall, loading a single cartridge in her magazine while it moved. Erika watched him square up, aiming for only a moment. Her over-ear headphones dampened the thunderous boom of the .50 AE automatically.

Despite knowing he only loaded one bullet, Leslie still fully cleared the gun in the short time it took for the target to return to the booth.

It now sported one extra hole located in the dead center of the bullseye.

“Seems alright to me.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Erika waved him off—she knew even before handing the gun over that she had work to do. She was better than she had been, but paper targets didn’t run around or shoot back. Of course, given her only magical bullets were a bit too intense to use in a regular fight, even with someone like The Monk, she wasn’t planning on relying on the gun.

Her trusty baseball bat would always be there.

“Piper wanted you to know that she’s hosting a roast tonight,” Leslie said as he started packing up. He bought a whole fancy leather case for his carbine. “You’re invited.”

“A roast?” Erika asked, puzzled.

“Beef,” Daniel interrupted. “Slow cooked in a crockpot with potatoes and carrots.” He sounded like he could not wait to get home. It was a wonder he wasn’t drooling.

“Dinner. That makes more sense.” Erika shook her confusion off as she holstered her own pistol—the giant lug was nearly impossible to conceal. Open-carry was illegal in Chicago, so she had to shove it into a hastily sewn pocket on the inside of her coat. “I’d love to, but I’ve got a hot date tonight. I’m sure my parents and Carter would go, if the offer is open to them.”

“I already asked Leah, and she agreed,” Leslie confirmed. “You’re doing something with The Stalker?”

“Yeah, we’re going to—”

Leslie held up a hand, stalling her cold. “I think I’m good not knowing what you two are up to, as long as you’re staying safe.”

Erika rolled her eyes, making her exasperation as obvious as possible. “I think there is a low chance either of us gets pregnant, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I definitely don’t need to know what you two are up to.”

“She’s technically dead, so she probably can’t get pregnant no matter what we get up to…” Erika trailed off, now humming in thought. She turned to Daniel. “Is it necrophilia—”

“Erika.” Leslie hauled his gun case up and over his shoulder, giving her a firm look. “You call if something happens.”

Erika patted him on the arm, teasing done with. “I’ll call Rick, that way you guys don’t ruin your dinner. If something serious happens, I’m sure he’ll loop you in.”

“As long as you call someone.” He clapped her on the back and led her up and out of the shooting range.

“Jeeze,” Erika muttered as they stood at the exit door.

Rain poured down. They had considered going to Leslie’s outdoor shooting spot back when it had been a mere light drizzle, but Erika was glad they hadn’t. One step outside and Erika might as well have dunked herself in a pool. Having thought ahead, Erika pulled a trio of umbrellas from her armory and handed two off to the others, but even with them, all three were hesitant to leave.

“I don’t suppose you have full rain ponchos stashed away?” Daniel muttered.

“I will after today.” Erika looked up at the dark clouds. “Maybe it will let up in the next five minutes.”

“Come on,” Leslie said. “Just have to walk across the parking lot.” Despite his urging, he didn’t move as he stared at the rain.

“Speak for yourself, my stupid shitty-ass car leaks.”

Daniel turned a pitying look on her. “I told you—”

“It’s a work in progress, okay? New cars don’t grow on trees.”

“I can’t believe you show up to dates with that thing.”

Erika frowned out, staring down her rusted junker of a car. It certainly wasn’t impressive except in how impressively trash it was, but there wasn’t much she could do about it, at least not before robbing another dozen ATMs. If she wanted a marginal upgrade instead of another junker with a better coat of paint, it would probably take several dozen ATMs.

“I’m sure The Stalker doesn’t care,” Daniel said, switching to a consolatory tone. “There is a lot to like about you that doesn’t involve a garbage can with wheels.”

Erika huffed, folding her arms as best she could with a massive ingot of steel strapped to her side. “You’re saying you wouldn’t mind if I picked you up for a date in it?”

“No, I’d mind,” he said, tone carefully neutral even as his ears tinged. “I’d mind a lot, actually.”

Turning the other cheek, Erika huffed again. “Lucky I’m not picking you up then. My hot date will be thrilled I’m there and won’t even notice the car.”

“She’ll notice when she sits in a puddle and gets her pants soaked.”

“Getting her soaked is rather the point, isn’t it?” Erika snipped back, sending Daniel’s ears from a light tinge to a burning red.

Leslie cut the teasing short by throwing open the door, letting in a gust of rain-filled wind. “I’m going to pull the truck around,” he announced a little too obviously. “Erika, you’re on your own.”

Giving Leslie’s back a glare as he hurried out into the rain, Erika slicked off a layer of water from her front. “Thanks, Leslie,” she muttered to herself. She sighed, figuring she should get going as well, but stopped and looked to her side. Her eyes found Daniel’s red ears as he quickly averted his gaze. “Hey. Honestly speaking, are you jealous, even a little?”

“Of The Stalker?” Daniel hurriedly shook his head. “Not even a bit.”

“Wow. I feel a little insulted.”

“Envious, however?” He paused, letting his pedantic rephrasing hang in the air. “Kind of, but still not really.”

“Wow. Still feel a little insulted.”

“Erika,” Daniel said, placing a hand on her arm. “I mean this with all the love in the world: it is stressful enough just being your friend.”

Erika looked down at Daniel with an utterly flat look. “You’re saying I’d be a high maintenance girlfriend, is that it?”

“No offense—”

Erika raised an eyebrow.

“I mean… yes?” He rubbed the back of his neck, almost grimacing. “I don’t even think you can argue that you wouldn’t be.”

“Damn straight,” Erika answered with a laugh, just as Leslie’s lifted truck rolled in front of the door. “But hey, how many other friends have you got that take you on trips to kill gods?”

“I would never argue that you aren’t unique,” Daniel answered with a small chuckle. “Enjoy your date,” he added, opening the umbrella before rushing out the door.

Erika watched him climb into the truck, but didn’t even wait for them to pull away before hurrying out to her car—she had no desire to sit around and wind up in a conversation with the range owner, especially not while standing in an inch of water that had blown in thanks to Leslie and Daniel. Her car wasn’t as leaky as she implied, but the smell was worse than usual. Despite Rick and Anna having doused her trunk in bleach, the mildew stench only got stronger in the rain.

The short walk out to the car got her drenched, and she knew she was picking up the smell of the car just by being inside it. The Stalker had relatively deadened senses, and probably wouldn’t notice, but Erika would.

Erika sat back, engine off, just staring at the rain as it ran down her cracked windshield. Internally, she debated just calling the whole night off. The original plan to stalk those cultists from the other night looked miserable now; based on the forecast on her phone, it wasn’t likely to improve any later in the evening.

“Hey,” Erika said, phone resting against her ear. “How do you feel about a movie night?”

The Stalker, ever the eloquent one, scoffed. “Thought you wanted to fuck some cultists up?”

“You looked outside lately?”

“No?” The Stalker went silent, broken only by a bit of rustling and the clatter of blinds being pulled up. A slow whistle grated on the ear before she continued with a little laugh. “What, scared of a bit of rain?”

“Switch to video call so I can give you a flat look.”

“Fine, fine, fine. So you want some indoors-y thing?” The Stalker hummed in thought. “Movies just seem so flat, and they don’t really get my heart racing.”

“Can’t tackle world-ending threats every night.”

“Not with that attitude,” The Stalker scoffed. “Alright, so something indoors, but still an adventure? Didn’t your little emo bitch have some place she wanted looked into?”

“Delilah? I don’t think she’s emo—”

“Not the point.”

“She did have some cult hovel where they kept her for most of her life. Nya thinks it’ll have been abandoned after she escaped, so it has been pretty low on the priority list.”

“But it is indoors. Maybe they left some incriminating evidence behind?” The Stalker paused, then added, “Unless you’ve really got your heart set on a movie.”

“Hardly. I’ll send you the address.”

“I’ll be there after picking up some food. Sound good?”

“Something spicy sounds great,” Erika said, wincing as the engine ground to life. She held her breath until the sputters and pops steadied out. “See you there.”

Digging through her notes, Erika found the address and sent it off to The Stalker before pulling it up on her maps. It wasn’t far off, surprisingly enough. She would end up arriving well in advance of The Stalker, which would give her a chance to scope the place out.

As she neared the place, Erika started to notice something odd. Ever since that night, the metallic birds were something of an ever-present feature of Chicago. In a way, she had gotten used to them, but she still kept tabs of where a bird was every time she passed one.

There, perched atop the roof of a grocers, two birds stared down at the streets. She felt positive that one stared at her specifically, but it didn’t squawk or dive-bomb her, so she kept driving.

A Mexican restaurant served as the roost for another pair of birds, just half a block away. If the rain bothered them, they didn’t show it as they kept watch on the streets. Another bird clung to a stoplight pole, bending the entire structure ever so slightly under its weight. Three more, spaced across the fire escape of a short office building, alternated between looking at the street and the apartment building opposite from their squat.

Aside from the little incident with the bowling alley, Erika wasn’t sure she had ever seen so many in such a small area. They normally spread out, almost territorial in how they gave each other space. Turning the block, four more perched around a vintage movie theater, all staring at the apartment building more than the street.

“You have arrived at your destination,” Erika’s phone chimed as she stopped across the street from the theater.

Erika glared out her grimy window at the old brickwork apartment building with boarded up windows. There were many such cases around Chicago, but this apartment lacked the bright yellow CONDEMNED notices plastered to most other boarded up buildings. Given what she knew of The Mummy’s cult and how they could almost seamlessly infiltrate anywhere, Erika had to wonder if some government plant was responsible for the oversight, or if the building genuinely wasn’t in as poor a shape as it looked.

The Daughter suspected that the cult had only been involved with the building for a few months, but nobody could rule out long-term plots and plans.

With how many birds were in the area, something had to be up with the building. From the outside, Erika couldn’t see anything amiss. Thick chains sealed the main doors, preventing entry without someone causing a big ruckus on a fairly traveled road, and no light leaked from any of the windows. If anyone was home, they weren’t making it obvious.

Erika stayed in her car, parked along the side of the road along with several others, just watching on a miniature stakeout until her phone rang.

A deep, dramatic, raspy voice whispered, “I see you.”

Erika rolled her eyes. “You can see me from anywhere in Chicago.”

The Stalker cleared her throat. “Yes, but I see you with my eyes right now, not my power.”

Turning away from the building, Erika looked up and down the street, eventually spotting a familiar black SUV with heavily tinted windows. It parked a full quarter of the block down the road, on the opposite side of the street. “You want to come a little closer so I don’t get soaked running over to you?”

“Getting you soaked is the goal.”

“I already made that joke.”

“Joke?”

“You’ve got two options right now: a miserable and wet girlfriend or a dry and happy girlfriend. Choose wisely.”

A beat passed where Erika thought The Stalker was going to be stupid, but she instead sighed. “Are the birds going to attack us if they see us?”

“They’ll regret it if they do.”

“Oh. You know just what to say… Except, last time, The Eclipse had to—”

“Get your ass over here right now or so help me, I will go eat a roast.”

“I have no idea what that is supposed to mean,” The Stalker said, but her headlights gleamed as she pulled out into the street, heading toward Erika.

The quick jaunt from one car to the next got Erika a bit wet, but the functional heater and smell of Chinese takeout whisked her irritation away. The Stalker continued around the block, revealing another half dozen birds all staring at the apartment building, before she pulled back into her original parking spot directly across from a small alley.

“Got some Dim Sum, steamed buns, Lo Mein, and some egg rolls,” The Stalker said, producing a whole array of takeout boxes, one by one, as she ticked off her order. “And since you said spicy, Laziji.”

“Excellent.” Erika cracked her chopsticks and popped open the Laziji box. “Birds. What do you make of them?”

“Something is going on here. Probably should have made this place a higher priority to investigate,” The Stalker answered as she bit into an egg roll like some kind of savage. “Bet The Eclipse has been tracking the birds. No way they don’t know a bunch are centered around the building.”

Erika dug around in the mass of chilies and plucked out a large chunk of marinated chicken. “They are making it a bit obvious. Think it’s a trap?”

“Another portal, maybe?”

“We’d be lucky. Too lucky, honestly.” Erika stared down the alley as she ate, frowning to herself.

According to Delilah’s story of her escape, one of the doors down there should open directly into the apartment’s kitchen. From there, the most interesting things sounded like they were on the top floor, with the lower floors being used for living and communal quarters.

“We’ll eat first. Maybe the rain will die down.” Narrowing her eyes, she glanced up at one of the birds. “If they look like they’re getting riled up, let’s back out carefully. Don’t want to piss off The Eclipse before our big operation by causing another commotion.”

“Sounds good to me. You want the Dim Sum?”

“Help yourself.”