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“Like the itty bitty butterfly wings little girls wear? Is he jacked on something and dressed up, or?”
“More like oversized moth wings.”
“Detective…” He pauses and breathes. “Alright. Moth wings, no shirt. I’ll let the boys know.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry I lost him.”
“Hey,” he says. “It happens. Don’t worry about it. Maybe time to clock off, once you’ve written your incident report. You look… pale.”
I know what he really means. I look fucked up. Like a tweaker junkie. Like the poor bastards I’ve been judging this whole time.
* * *
The paperwork might very well be the most punishing part of this job. I suppose I deserve some kind of penalty for smugly forgetting Rage had fucking wings. I’m not used to thinking of vertical escape potential, and the adrenaline of having caught the monster overrode my sense. I shouldn’t be out here alone. I should have a partner, but of course being in the freak unit, it’s practically mandatory to demand to work alone. I compromised by taking on Tessie as a partner.
I go back to the station. It’s so good to see Tessie and her ancient dog Obigor there. Obigor is chewing on something soft for his aging teeth, and Tessie is chewing on something that looks remarkably similar.
I shut the door very quietly, close all the blinds, go sit at my desk, and park my forehead between stacks of paperwork.
“That good, huh?”
“I caught him. It. Whatever. I caught him and he got the fuck away.”
“That happens,” Tessie says, sympathetic. “You caught him once, you’ll catch him again.”
“Technically, I caught him twice and lost him twice. He’s got two pairs of handcuffs on, for fuck’s sake.”
“Then you’ve got precedent for finding him again.”
She’s so encouraging. I appreciate that.
I lift my head to look at her. “I need to tell you something, Tessie.”
“What’s that?”
“He does have wings. He is a mothman. With wings and burning red eyes.”
There’s a long pause in which she is probably trying to work out if I have had a break from reality. “At least the eyewitness reports were accurate?”
“They were,” I say. “They really were. He’s going around killing people for food. He feeds on us like… like cattle feed on grass. He hates us, and he wants to consume us.”
“The more I hear about this guy, the more he sounds like a real jerk,” Tessie says. “You want some candy?”
“I’m not hungry. Not after… and I can't talk to my informant until the sun goes down.”
“Alright,” Tessie says. She gets up from her desk and walks over to mine. She has a limp that’s worse some days than others. If she has to go further than the office, she uses a suitably dramatic walking stick with a sapphire tip.
“Listen,” she says. “I need to know. Are you losing your mind? It’s okay if you are. I lost my mind once, and it wasn’t as bad as you'd think it is, though it was also not great.”
“I wish. But this is real. There are at least two mothmen, and a spiderman.”
“Uh huh.” She frowns. “I’m really not sure what to do with this information.”
“Me neither. One of them flew away with two sets of cuffs on him.”
“Those things are not cheap,” she says, cheerfully missing the point in the way people do when they don’t want to pay attention to what you’re actually saying because then they’ll either have to join your madness or refute it, and neither option appeals. I’ve been where she is before. I wish I was still there.
“I have to show you,” I tell her. “You’re my partner, and you should know. You should see this.”
