Page 40 of Were-Geeks Save a Kitten

“It’s simple,” Coffee growled, clearly annoyed with playing Vanna. “He says something, and the arrow goes to Truth. You then say something, and it slides to False.”

“Now, now,” interrupted Gamfay. “That’s not exactly correct, is it? This is a lie detector, gentlemen. If what you say is the true, then it’ll point to true.”

Yordan rolled his eyes. “According to you. It’s a fairy game. It’ll point to whatever you want it to.”

Gamfay held up his hand. “Upon my life, it will answer honestly.”

“How can it?” Kit challenged. “Truth is too complicated for any machine to effectively judge it. Especially if it’s about feelings.”

The fairy stroked his tie. “True, true. But the machine measures if you think you’re lying or not. Not the actual truth of the matter. If you actually believe Coffee is my sweet baby boo, then it’ll read true. If you don’t but say he is, then it’ll know you’re lying.” He grinned as he pointed to the big red button. “Go ahead. You can test it, if you want. You don’t even need to say the words out loud. It’ll know.”

Yordan stepped up immediately, putting his hand on the big red button. He thought for a moment, then pressed the button down. The arrow swung straight to TRUE. Next press went to FALSE. And then a couple more landed somewhere in the middle to indicate sort of true or sort of false.

He stepped back and looked at Kit.

“It works well enough now. Don’t know if we can trust it in the moment.”

Coffee shook his head. “Not his style. He’s a prick, to be sure, but he’ll play by the rules. He figures we’re weak enough to keep playing. Eventually, we’ll overextend and lose. It’s the nature of gamblers.”

Kit frowned. “Is that what happened with you?”

Coffee grimaced. “Get me out of this, and I’ll join Gambler’s Anonymous. I swear.”

He was going to do more than that, but first things first. Kit tested out the true/false machine. He thought about simple stuff like whether he’d eaten breakfast this morning or not, then more complicated things like how he desperately wanted to retire (mostly false) and how he was going to get blamed for losing the helo (mostly true) but that he wasn’t going to get penalized for it (straight up in the middle because he really didn’t know). And then, just to be sure, he tried out this silently.

I love Yordan. It’s still early, but I’m sure we can make it work.

The arrow pointed right at TRUE.

Okay, then. Given that he wouldn’t trust a single thing Gamfay said—and he was sure Yordan wouldn’t either—they should be fine. He looked back at Yordan.

“I’m ready to risk it. You?”

“Yup,” Yordan said. Then they stepped together, shoulder to shoulder, and faced the creepy elf.

Kit summarized. “You get to say one thing, and then we’ll say that our love hasn’t died. Once that’s done, Coffee is free.”

“Assuming,” Gamfay corrected, “that your love hasn’t died. If what I say ends it...” He held up the two empty leashes. “Then you’re mine forever.”

“Nope,” Yordan said. “You get us as slaves for a day.”

“Forever,” Gamfay countered.

“Bullshit,” Kit said. “A week.”

“Are you telling me your love is worth a week? Come on.” Then he waggled his bushy eyebrows. “A fairy week.”

“Never,” Yordan snapped.

“Very well,” Gamfay said with a dramatic sigh. “A human year.”

Coffee spoke up. “He can make that feel like an eternity.”

“Whine, whine,” Gamfay mocked as he tugged on Coffee’s leash. “It’ll feel like a human year, all right? Can we get on with this now? I’m growing bored.”

“No, you’re not,” Coffee shot back. As if for proof, he pointed at the arrow which, weirdly, had been moving back and forth without their hands on the button. And right now, it pointed straight to FALSE.

Gamfay chuckled. “Clever wolf. Now, are the parameters set? We have a deal?”