"Great, just what I needed," Uzi muttered, and this time she wasn't being sarcastic. She meant every word. Being caught in a park after midnight with a tall, white-haired man in a dress shirt was exactly what had been haunting her for weeks. If she didn't come up with a quick excuse, by tomorrow morning the news would have spread to three chat groups, with details she'd never even mentioned.
"So the rumors are true," Lizzy announced. It wasn't a question, it was a definitive statement.
Uzi raised an eyebrow. "We're going to do this again? I told you before the rumors aren't true . Beside that . why are you here so late?"
"A party at one of our classmates house ." Thad shrugged. "You weren't there. You missed a lot of fun ." He paused, his curiosity genuine, not his cruelty. "Didn't anyone invite you?"
No one ever invited Uzi anywhere, and she'd long since given up expecting it. "No. And I don't care."
"Anyway..." Lizzy interrupted, steering the conversation in a direction Uzi never wanted.
Oh, that tone! Lizzy hadn't given Uzi a second thought since the start of the school year, and now suddenly, her eyes sparkling, she was practically trembling with excitement about something she was going to talk about tomorrow. Uzi felt a familiar warmth creep up the back of her neck.
"Listen," Uzi began, "it's not what it seems ... ".
"Then who is it?" Lizzy tilted her head toward N with a wide smile. "Sitting with you in the park at this hour, looking like this? Don't tell me it's your boyfri..."
"NO , he is not ." Uzi voice came out sharper than she meant to. "We know each other. That's all. We've known each other for a while."
Lizzy smile didn't fade. She turned to N instead, like people do when they've already decided they're going to get more from someone. "And you? How did you two meet?"
N froze. He'd never had a single uninterrupted conversation with a human being in his entire life, expect for Uzi , the same woman who was standing beside him now as if she wished she could disappear down the street. All the excuses he'd heard, all the evasiveness, all the casual social platitudes—none of it came to mind. His mind was... blank.
"I ... well, we ... I mean ... " He stopped. Then he tried again. He couldn't get anywhere.
Uzi intervened before things got any worse. "Well, you know what? What does it matter? I told you we're friends. Friends sit in parks. It's normal." She crossed her arms. "What exactly are you looking for, Lizzy?"
Thad held up his hand, his voice calm and unconcerned. "She has a point. We don't need to know the whole story, beside that it's not cool to interrupt in other business." He turned to N with a genuine smile and extended his hand. "Sorry about that. I'm Thad. This is Doll, and this is Lizzie."
N felt a little reassured by Thad's composure. He shook his hand. "N, my name is N, It's a pleasure to meet you." An awkward silence fell between the three of them for a moment.
"...N?" Thad repeated.
"Nicholas," Uzi cut in quickly. "His name is Nicholas. N is just that ... that's what people call him."
Thad nodded slowly, as if accepting it literally. "That's really cool and simple. To rely on just the first letter , you know what ? Maybe if I do the same people will call me T , that's gonna be insane bro ."
"Thanks." N felt more at ease. "Your name is beautiful, too." He meant it, there was something reassuring about Thad's energy; he wasn't the kind of person who made a scene , he is just calm , cool and make people around him comfortable. N turned to offer his hand to Doll.
She shook it. But the way she looked at him make him feel the opposite ... N had faced things in the dark that would paralyze most people ( J when she is angry) . He had stood before creatures that hunted for sport ( probably V ). None of that had ever given him this exact feeling this morbid anxiety stemming from being studied, not threatened. Doll's eyes scanned him like a surgeon's scan of an X-ray. Classifying. Patiently. It was as if she'd reached a conclusion and was simply confirming it.
He withdrew his hand half a second before the deadline.
Lizzy was reloading her weapon. "So, N, where do you study? Do you have any brothers or sisters? How long have you been..."
Uzi grabbed N's wrist and started walking. "Okay! look at the time, we should go . Bye, nice to see everyone..., not really "
"See you at school!" Thad called after them, genuinely pleased.
N glanced over his shoulder. "It was a pleasure meeting you..." His eyes met Doll's again. She didn't move. She didn't look away. He watched them walk away with the same unreadable, fixed expression.
After they left , Thad turned to Lizzy with a look that said, "Really? Did you have to do all that?"
"Oh, God." Lizzy waved her hand dismissively. "Like you weren't curious."
Doll was silent for a moment. Then he said quietly in Russian, "That man. He has a strange presence."
"What?" Lizzy looked at her .
"Nothing." Doll said.
They had walked two blocks from the park before Uzi started talking, or rather, before she started venting, which was quite different.
"Unbelievable. Are the rumors true, Doorman ? She didn't know I existed like two days ago , and now she's remember my name because she finally found something to talk about ? I swear to God, if I put my hand on that bitch, I am gonna ... "
"Uzi." N remained calm. "Why don't we take a deep breath to calm ..."
She stopped walking so fast she almost bumped into him. She turned around. "I am breathing. I'm perfectly calm. Why do you say that? Do you think I am overrated or something ?"
"Because" he said cautiously, "you were squeezing my hand hard enough that I'm pretty sure you left marks."
Uzi looked down. She was still holding his hand. She let go immediately, taking a half step back. "Sorry. I just... " She exhaled sharply through her nose. "You don't understand."
"I think I do, actually."
"You don't understand." She kicked a pebble on the pavement. "It's different with them. They're not like your coworkers ( V and J ) at least with those two you know exactly where you stand. This is just... petty. Stupid." "It wasn't like this before." She paused, something flashing across her face that she didn't bother to explain. N didn't press her .
Then her stomach rumbled. Loud enough for both of them to hear. Uzi stared into space. "...Great."
"When was the last time you ate?" N ask.
"Yesterday. Maybe." She pressed a hand to her side, suddenly realizing how empty she felt. Between the swamp and the fighting and the running and everything that followed, food had vanished from her life entirely. Now that she was still, exhaustion came crashing down on her, settling into her legs like wet cement.
N scanned the surrounding area to find any place they can rest in . "There's a place about half a block away. Looks like a restaurant... I think ."
Uzi followed his gaze to the yellow-lit sign, which was like a burger joint for her. "Okay... Yes... That will do ." The restaurant was the kind that stayed open late because nighttime hunger didn't care about the atmosphere, plastic chairs, a laminated menu, and a ceiling fan working harder than necessary. They slipped into a corner table, and a few minutes later, a waitress appeared with their order on her arm.
"Chicken burger, fries, and a large soda." She laid everything down, then looked at N. "Are you sure you don't want anything, darling? That's a lot of food for your little friend to handle alone ."
Uzi eyes froze. "Excuse me?"
"I just meant...".
"No, please finish what you said." Uzi leaned forward slightly. "Tell me exactly how much food you think I should eat, I'd like to hear it. I could also have ten more of those if I wanted, and that would be my own decision , and it's none of your damn business."
"It's all right, thank you very much," N said quickly, in his very polite voice.
The waitress stepped back. Uzi grabbed the first burger with both hands.
She was eating like people do when they forget there's food for a whole day, not for show, just sheer hunger. Large bites, barely chewed, one hand already reaching for the fries while the other still held the burger. The hunger was getting to her. She was about two-thirds of the way through the burger when suddenly she started coughing, pounding her chest, her eyes watering which make N pushed the glass across the table without saying a word.
She drank the soda. She drank for a long time. Then she put it down. She breathed. "Okay." She breathed again. "I'm fine."
She went back to the burger, slowly this time, and finished it. Then she picked up the second one. N watched her with a look... It wasn't entirely fun, and it wasn't entirely worrying, it was a mixture of both.
N "Have you always been this hungry, or is this something new?"
"You have no idea," Uzi told him, and she meant it in more ways than one.
She was right, though he didn't quite grasp why. He never really needed to eat, at least not a human food. His body was working on something else entirely, and human meals meant nothing to his biology. He could sit in front of a lavish table and feel nothing. To Uzi , this was just another ordinary day.
She finished her second burger. She sipped her soda. Then she moved on to the fries with the focused determination of someone completing a task on their to-do list.
"Okay." She dragged a fries through the small mound of ketchup she'd formed on the wrapper. "We're done with clothes... and food, Now let's talk about the real problem."
N straightened up slightly. He'd been thinking about it too, turning it over and over all the way here. "He still hasn't moved."
"Right." "And that's the problem." Uzi chewed thoughtfully. "Everything we have raises more questions than answers. We don't know his full strength, we don't know his methods, and we have no idea how many followers he has or what they're capable of. The only thing we know for sure is that every creature in the underworld is terrified of him. So in nutshell, we have nothing."
"Gorg was terrified of him too," N said. "And we barely handle Gorg , after he almost killed both of us, just iagine what will happen if we faced two opponents like him , even my power and your weapon will not be enough to survive."
"And that brings me to the weapon." Uzi put down her fries. "Take it out of the equation."
N frowned. "Why?"
"Because it's broken," she said coolly, as if she'd completely gotten over her frustration. "I checked it out yesterday while I was in the shower. The tube melted, the beam caused it. And there's swamp debris stuck in the parts I really need. So I can't use it . Not right now."
"Is there no way to fix it? N asked
"Not without spare parts.Which it's not cheap by the way." She picked up another piece of fries and held it out to him for a moment. "Spare parts are expensive. Really expensive. So no, if anything bad happens to us tonight, I can't help you."
N took it in. It wasn't a comfortable take. After what Gorge had done to him, and Gorge wasn't the Shadow himself, just a servant for him, the thought of being the only line of defense made something close in his chest.
He thought for a moment before saying, "Doesn't it seem strange? I mean what happened after we killed Gorge ?"
Ozzy's chewing slowed. "What do you mean?"
"The body disappeared. The laughter." N kept his tone steady, but his eyes were elsewhere,in that swamp, that darkness, that sound. "The Shadow was there, Uzi. Right behind us. We didn't even notice him. And he could have killed both of us without batting an eye." He was silent for a moment. And as Miss Julia said, he slaughtered two hundred werewolves for defying him once , and killing one of his servants. Two hundred! We killed Gorge and he simply... laughed. And left." N looked at her. "Why?"
The question hung between them.
Uzi stopped eating. She put her hand on the table, staring at the potato chip wrapper as if it held answers, dissecting things. The shadow was close enough to kill them. But it chose not to. It took Gorge's body and left. And laughed as it did, which was worse than any threat.
"I think I know why," she said slowly.
N waited.
"When I was running from Gorge, before I found Julia's house, I was completely lost. But the necklace drew me in a certain direction, so I followed it, and I ended up at her door." She gathered her thoughts as she walked on. "Julia told me something while I was there. Gorge wasn't just after me randomly. He'd been searching for the key, the fake key, for years. On orders from the Shadow."
"So ? we know that the Shadow was always after the book."
"Yes. But here's the crucial part, Julia said the book can't be opened just like that. It needs something specific. Something called the Absolute Slover, or something like that ." She let the name linger in her mind for a moment. "He didn't kill us because he thought we were his way in. We're not targets. We're tools, Why would he destroy something he still needed to open the book?
N said "Okay. That makes sense. But what is the Absolute Solver, then?" Because if that's really what he's after..."
"Bite me , I don't know." Uzi's jaw tightened slightly. "I've searched through everything my mother left behind. The book, the piece of blood-stained paper, the necklace. There's no such thing as an 'Absolute Solver' nothing that explains it. I don't even know if it's a physical object, a person, or something else entirely." She rubbed her temples. "The only connection I can make is that it might be related to my mother. But I don't have enough evidence."
"The names are on the cover," N said quietly.
Uzi's head lifted.
"Your mother's name was on the book. But there were two blank spaces next to it." He said it cautiously, as if he knew he was venturing into uncharted territory. "That means she wasn't alone in this. There were two other people involved."
Uzi was silent for a long moment. "Julia didn't mention either of them."
"Did your mother have anyone? Close friends, people she trusted?"
Uzi flipped the potato chip wrapper through her hands. "My dad, but he's useless here, I'm almost certain he doesn't know anything about this part of her life. And…" She trailed off. "Yeva."
The name came out with an oddly cold tone.
"Yeva," N. repeated, as if stuck in a rut.
"Doll's mother." Uzi set the wrapper aside. "She knew my mom. I don't know how well they knew, or for how long. But there was some connection between them."
N. paused, thinking about a pair of unwavering dark eyes, that piercing gaze. "Do you think she'd help us ?"
"She's gone." Uzi's voice wasn't overly emotional, but there was a hint of caution. "She left her family, Doll, her husband, everything. Because of some problems happened at home with her husband, I think. And when my mom died,as some say, she didn't come to the funeral. Didn't even send anything." She paused. "So no." "I don't think she'll help us."
"What about Doll?" N asked.
Uzi made a short, sullen noise. "I doubt it."
"I'm serious." N leaned forward slightly. "When I shook her hand tonight, she looked at me like..."
"That's Doll. She's always been eccentric."
"No." He shook his head. "It was different this time. It wasn't just social awkwardness. It was like..." He searched for the right word, then settled on the honest one. "Like a predator watching something it's already decided is worth watching. My instincts don't usually react that way to humans."
This caught Uzi's attention completely. She didn't say a word for a second, just looked at him as if she were thinking about something. N. hadn't exaggerated or used dramatic metaphors to impress. If his instincts had been triggered by Doll, then something had certainly aroused her.
She thought about Doll after her mother left, how she'd withdrawn, become silent, and started orbiting Lizzy as if she needed noise to fill some void. It might be grief. It might be something else entirely.
"I'll look into it," Uzi said finally, "but I'm not promising anything."
She stepped away from the table and stood up, taking the envelope. N. followed her out into the night air, which was getting colder now, and the street was almost deserted at this hour.
"Practically speaking, we stay close together," Uzi said as they walked. "We don't know when he'll make a move, so we don't give him a chance to trap either of us alone."
N nodded. " Don't worry Uzi , If anything happens, I'll protect you."
Uzi's face showed what always happened when someone hinted she needed help , a slow, ominous flush crept up her neck. "Bite me , I can protect myself by myself, I am not that weak."
"Hahaha, I know you can." He said it without the cautious reassurance people use when they don't mean it." That's why you are so cool."
She glared at him. Then she turned away. The flush hadn't completely disappeared.
"But the arrangements will be a hassle," N admitted. "If I need to be nearby, I'll have to stay at your house, and your father..."
"My father works all the time. He's hardly ever home." Uzi pulled her jacket tighter against the cold. "Don't worry about him."
"Okay."
They walked another half block in silence, the kind of comfortable silence that had begun to settle naturally between them, without either of them trying to force it.
"If only we could find just one source of information, something to tell us what or who the Absolute Solver is, or who those other two names are..." Uzi said, almost to herself. She stopped walking.
N stopped too, following her gaze.
On the lamppost in front of her, weathered and warped, someone had stuck a poster. Old. The ink had faded to a pale tea color. But the text was still legible:
( Come to St. Louis Cemetery.
Find what you're looking for.
Mary Laveau , the Voodoo Queen—, is waiting for you to fullfil all your wishes. )
Uzi stared at it for a long moment. Then something about her expression changed,not excitement in the literal sense, but that look she gets when things become clear.
"That's what we'll do next," she said quietly.
N read over her shoulder: "Voodoo Queen ?"
"Voodoo Queen." She turned to him, and for the first time in hours, a little weight lifted from her eyes. "If anyone knows things that shouldn't be happening in this city, it's upposed to be her." She carefully peeled the poster from the lamppost, folded it once, and slipped it into her pocket. "We need answers. Maybe she will have what we looking for."
N glanced down at the empty lamppost where the poster had been, then back at Uzi.
"Okay, here we go again," he said.