AN: WELL, turns out I don't know how to create fics on here anymore. Thanks for being intuitive, website!
Anyway, this is a, like...I don't know what to call it. It's not strong enough to be called a crossover. But it takes place in a universe where Coraline and Beyond Belief (yes, the podcast) happened, hundreds of years passed, then BLAM Star Trek. You shouldn't have to know those fandoms for this to make sense (I hope). Anyway, HERE WE GO.
Chapter One: The Ripple
Jim found the key while he was digging a grave. It wasn't a deep grave; she wasn't a big cat. She wasn't even Jim's cat. Most likely, she hadn't anybody's cat except her own.
Frank had killed her, though, in cold, senseless blood. That made her Jim's responsibility.
He didn't have the materials to make her a proper coffin, so her soft, broken body was tucked into a shoebox that used to hold Jim's secrets. The cat needed his box more than he did. If he couldn't save her from Frank, he could at least give her dignity.
Jim dug her grave out in the weed-covered waste that used to be a cornfield. Nobody but him came out here anymore, not since Sam ran away last year. No one would mess with her this far from the house.
A drop of blood splattered onto the lid of her casket when Jim twisted to pick it up. He rubbed at his nose, sore now but probably not broken, then swiped his dirty sleeve over the spot of red to clear it off her box. "Sorry," he murmured, knowing she couldn't hear. The first time he tried to set the box in its new resting place, it didn't quite fit. Jim felt a tickle of annoyance at himself for not even being good enough to estimate the correct size of the hole.
He put her aside, picked up the small trowel he'd filched from the garage, and worked on both deepening and widening her grave. It took ages. Early spring in Iowa wasn't the ideal time to be digging, but she hadn't chosen to be kicked to death by a psychopath, so Jim didn't hold her responsible. She deserved to be buried right, no matter how hard it was.
The hole got so deep he had to lay down to reach the bottom, which was when he hit something with a faint metallic clunk. A pipe? Jim squirmed forward to look more closely. No, it wasn't big enough for a pipe. It wasn't big at all. He chipped at the dirt to loosen it up, then wedged his trowel under the pile. A solid wiggle brought him back far enough from the grave that he could spill the dirt out and look for the item he'd hit.
It was a key, ancient and heavy like the kind that used to open doors hundreds of years ago. The decorative end was round with four holes punched through it and a raised outer ring that made it look like a button. What kind of door would this unlock? Jim looked around, wondering if there'd been another house here, once, long ago. Surely this key wouldn't work in his own home. The only doors that locked at home were the front and back, and those both had keypads. So what...?
Jim shook his head. "Sorry," he said again to the cat's memory. He tucked the key in his pocket and refocused. The hole was deep enough now that she fit with room to spare. Nothing would want her enough to dig this far down, nothing would even be able to smell her. Once she was settled in the ground, Jim sat back, wondering what to say. "Thank you," he finally began. "For being beautiful, I guess. For probably catching a lot of mice. I really liked watching you walk around the barn. I'm sorry you came here, though. I wish I could have warned you." He took a shaky break and looked up. "Please watch over her," he asked his father, "if she ends up where you are. She was good and deserved better."
His nose dripped again, down his chin and onto his jeans, mingling with the other blood and dirt he'd gotten from the beating he'd taken to escape with the cat's body. He hoped the cat and his dad could be happy together. He hoped no other cats came to take her old territory. He hoped someday to get away like Sam had. Maybe he'd even settle for getting away like the cat had. Like Dad had.
The key was cold in his pocket. Maybe he could find a door it fit and leave through it.
Jim wiped his nose and began pushing dirt back into the grave, over the cat in her little casket. He tamped it down as hard as he could, looking around until he found some good stones to uses as a marker. "Sleep well," he told her and began making his slow way back to the house.
He stopped in the garage first, to put the trowel back before anyone looked for it. Once that was done, he took a memorial walk around the barn, thinking of all the places he'd seen the cat, how carefully and gracefully she'd moved.
Something mewed, a teeny, desperate sound.
Jim froze, heart in his throat, and closed his eyes to listen.
It mewed again.
He crept toward a low, unkempt bush growing wild near the back of the barn. The mewing stopped, but something rustled inside. Jim pushed the leaves apart and found—
A kitten.
She'd had a kitten.
It was only a month or so old, fluffy black everywhere except for little white socks on each foot. Its eyes and ears were open, all angled toward Jim's intrusion, but it was too small to survive on its own. Too young. Another casualty of Frank's rage.
Anger curled in Jim's chest, wrapped tight around bitter resolve: The kitten would live. Jim would hide it somehow, keep it safe and cared for until it was big enough to live on its own.
"You're okay," Jim murmured to the kitten, already planning how the next month would have to go. "I'm going to protect you, and you're going to be okay. I'm sorry about your mom. I tried to save her. I won't let Frank hurt you, no matter what."
The kitten continued to watch him, not showing any of the fear he'd been expecting from an animal that had never had direct contact with people before. It stood up and walked toward him, confident if not very graceful, and stood up on his leg to paw at him. No.
To paw at the key in his pocket.
Jim drew it out, letting the kitten examine it. The kitten's little tail puffed as large as it could, a tiny bottle brush of emotion. "Pretty weird, right?" Jim asked with a smile.
The kitten swatted at it and fell over.
Jim grinned, reaching down to stroke a cautious finger over the kitten's head. "Come on," he said, emboldened enough by the kitten's tolerance of him to scoop it up. "Let's find you something to eat."
Jim ran.
He could hear Frank shouting in the living room, incoherent and thick with alcohol, and knew probably Frank wouldn't chase him. Frank almost never bothered. It wasn't worth risking a broken arm on though. Better to hide until his step-father forgot him and passed out than to stand his ground and get murdered.
The kitten, strong and slim at five months old, found him curled up under the stairs in the basement, arms around knees pulled tight against his chest. For a little while, she sat just out of reach, watching him. Jim didn't know how she got around the house without Frank noticing. He wished she would teach him.
Right now, though, he touched the bruise growing hot on his cheek to the wall beside him and wished she would find someplace to hide. Just in case.
The kitten didn't seem to share his concern. She flicked an ear back before turning away with a haughty lift of her nose. Jim watched her poke around the basement, a small shadow in the darkness, wondering what she was looking for. She snuffled and scratched and wedged herself into impossible spaces and he let her.
Then she started growling, low with menace, and he rushed toward the sound. She was behind an old wardrobe, big enough to be heavy but brittle enough that Jim could push it over without too much effort. The sound it made collapsing to the ground might as well have shaken the house. Frank had to have heard it, which meant Jim was now working against time to find the kitten and hide her before his step-father appeared.
She was spitting at a bit of pealing wallpaper. Jim grabbed her, intending to pull her back and away, but…
There was something behind the wallpaper. Something like a little door. With a small, old-fashioned keyhole.
He heard Frank, already yelling, stomp over his head across the kitchen. He'd be at the door soon, blocking their exit.
Maybe this little door led somewhere. Maybe it didn't, but maybe even if it didn't, they could hide there.
Jim tore at the wallpaper, heart beating a hard counterpoint to Frank's feet above him. The paper fell apart like thousand-year-old parchment, scattering when Jim blew hard into the keyhole to clear it. He dug the button key out of his pocket, ignoring the kitten when she tried to scramble away.
The key fit.
Frank threw the basement door open, screaming, beating the wall with his beer bottle. Jim shoved the key into the lock and twisted it hard.
It unlocked as smoothly as though someone had oiled it just yesterday.
Jim yanked the door open, throwing the child-sized escape open to reveal—
A tunnel, colorful like a dream, made of soft cloth and warm stars, stretch back into safety, away from Frank and the farmhouse, too small for the adults who had so efficiently made his life a nightmare.
On the other end, a matching door opened. Someone called for him, worried and welcoming. "Jim?" she called. "Are you coming through?"
Nobody called him by name anymore, not even at school.
"Where are you, boy?" Frank growled from the bottom of the steps.
"We're here," the tunnel called fondly. "We're all here to love you, Jim. Come on!
"And don't forget the key."
Jim jerked the key from its slot, shoved it back in his pocket, and tumbled through the doorway, yanking it closed just after the kitten shot through after him.
He crawled through, knowing he was on his way somewhere beautiful, somewhere perfect, somewhere he could live without fear.
On the other side, he was met with light.
And his Mother.
"Hello, Jim," she said, smile warming every aspect of her face except the buttons that stood in place of her eyes. "We've been waiting for you."
"You should go," Jim panted, leaning back against the door that would never open for him again. He watched the tunnel to the Beldam's world collapse, flaking off like embers from a fire. "You can get through. You don't have to stay here."
The kitten huffed dismissively. She stepped up onto his stomach, sitting with a sense of poise that he would have believed if not for the anxious lashing of her tail. "We came in together," she said. "We'll leave that way, or not at all."
Jim shook his head. "Don't be stupid. One of us should live, and you didn't even want to come here in the first—"
She whipped around to bite his chin. "Who's being stupid? You only wanted this place to save you from that place, and you think I'll do any better there? Your step-father will kill me, just like he killed my mom. Our only option is to stay here. We don't know what'll happen," she pointed out, curling up on him so her warmth could seep into the endless cold left in the wake of the Other Mother. "Maybe we'll end up somewhere better."
A sob broke its way out of Jim's throat. "We've already tried that." He lifted a shaking hand to touch the button sewn into his right eye. "Look how it turned out."
"But we killed her," the kitten growled. "We killed her and escaped. Nobody expected that. Maybe nobody will expect where we go after this."
"Her world is gone, and I'm a part of it now." Jim dug his fingers into the edge of the button that curved under his eyebrow, wishing he could pull it out, pull out his own eye and the link she'd made of it. "I can't get back to the world we came from, not with this. All that leaves is the tunnel, and that'll be gone in…less than a minute."
The kitten began to purr, a rumble of comfort as the very ground underneath them disintegrated. "If we go," she said softly, "we go together."
Jim pet a shaking hand down her back, closing the eye that was left to him. "Together," he murmured.
Everything faded. Their lives went dark.
Endless time stretched out around them.
A knock sounded.
High above Park Avenue, in her cozy New York penthouse apartment, Sadie Doyle felt the tunnel between worlds collapse. She didn't know what it was, at first—her gifts for the paranormal tended more toward the spiritual than the interdimensional. But she knew for sure that something had happened.
She took a fortifying gulp to drain her martini and straightened from her lounge against the counter in the kitchen. "Another, Frank," she said, sliding the glass toward where her husband of ever so many steadfast, countless years stood debating between two brands of vodka. "I'm afraid we might have company soon."
"Company? At this hour? Pah!" Frank said, pouring most of both bottles into a pint glass. He filled another glass about the same and handed one to Sadie, lifting his to clink against hers before beginning his customary chug.
"I do not believe the guest cares much for the hour," Sadie admitted against the lip of her glass while she began a curious meander toward the far wall of the living room (no, not the one sporting their brilliantly converted floor-to-ceiling bar—the other one). "In fact, I think they're already here."
"Where?" Frank called from the kitchen.
Sadie touched the fingers of one hand to the wall, feeling it tingle with life inappropriate to its existence. "Well, darling, here. In the wall. There's something just on the other side."
Frank stepped up beside her with a disgruntled expression, a drink in either hand and one tucked into his elbow for either when Sadie finished hers or when he finished both of his, whichever came first. "That's terribly rude of them, to come in through the wall and not even use the door. Why I have half a mind not to try to get them out of there at all! If they want to go around barging into people's structural foundations, they should have to live with the consequences."
"Normally I'd agree," Sadie said, switching her empty glass for the one at Frank's elbow, "but it would be terribly inconvenient to have an unknown something lurking in our walls. We must also not forget that Sadie is an impeccable hostess," she reminded her husband, "but even she cannot serve drinks to a wall."
"You make an excellent point, Sadistic." Frank clinked his glass to hers when she giggled in agreement and then turned firmly to the wall. "Now see here," he began in his most serious voice. "We simply cannot have things living in our walls. Shoo! Shoo or we'll shoo you! Don't make me come in there, young….thing," he concluded with a frown.
The wall did not respond.
"Darling, I think…" Sadie tilted her head, trying to parse what she was feeling from the wall. "I think they can't come out on their own. They're—stuck. Part of them can't be here where we are. Why, they're not in the wall at all!" she realized. "They're in between! I really wish you'd mentioned," she added to the wall. "Frank, be a dear and fetch my chalk. We'll get this sorted out in no time."
Once she had the chalk and a fresh drink, Sadie stood back for a second to consider her options. The point of wrongness that wouldn't let it through to their world was small, but strong. She couldn't remove it. A normal binding for a ghost or demon wouldn't work either; not specific enough. Maybe she could banish the entire creature, whatever it was. It just…didn't seem to deserve it. The overwhelming emotion coming from the wall was sadness, followed by despair, chased by a heavy dose of worry. But there was no guilt, no anger, malice, thirst for revenge.
So she wanted to save it, poor thing, to bind the point and pull it through, figure out what it needed and send it on its way, as she and Frank had done in some form or another for any number of creatures throughout their years together. It was already here, anyway. They would have to do something.
"I have it!" she decided finally, finishing her drink before approaching the wall. "Just the right binding." It was the word of seconds to get the sigil placed properly on the wall, drawn in her flowing script.
The sigil burned brightly for a moment, charring the wall and the space behind it. Whatever it was they were freeing groaned loudly. A little door appeared at eye level, swinging open to dump a boy onto their carpet before shutting with a snap and vanishing.
"Another point to the Doyles!" Sadie cheered, accepting a victory martini from Frank when he handed it to her.
The boy made a small, wounded noise and rolled over onto his back. A kitten stood on his chest, puffed up mightily in outrage. "I won't let you hurt him," the kitten hissed.
"Oh no, talking animals again?" Frank groaned. "After the last time, we passed a strict No Singing rule around here, so you keep that to yourself."
"The only one who'll be singing around here is you," the kitten spat, "if you so much as touch him. I'll bite you so hard you'll be a soprano!"
"Sounds fair," Frank said. "Sadie love, you heard her. Our work here is done! Let's have a drink and put this whole day behind us."
"Now Frank, you know we can't just leave him there," Sadie said.
"…Can't we though?"
"No, we most certainly cannot. We've helped the boy this far, we have to see it through."
Frank sighed.
"We don't need your help," the kitten growled. "People helping is what got us here in the first place!"
"We're not that kind of help, darling," Sadie murmured, kneeling so the kitten didn't have to tilt her head back quite so far. "We've been helping people set things to right for simply ages. Why, we've saved people from Pans and Cthulhus and vampires and skeletons and ever so many other creatures. It's what we do."
"Even when we don't want to," Frank agreed from his place at the nearest bar, pouring them more drinks. "Which is always."
"Even then," Sadie laughed. "I'm not sure how you and the boy ended up trapped in an in between, but you're out now, aren't you? We helped you get back, and now we'll help you get home. Let us make a little call for you, and this will all be over."
"It'll never be over," the kitten said, filled with despair Sadie hadn't thought animals capable of.
The boy stirred, eyes opening in a slow, reluctant blink. He stared at the ceiling. Fat, helpless tears began gathering in his right eye to roll down his cheek and onto the carpet. The left eye remained dry and blank. "I killed her," he whispered, voice broken and dry.
"Who, darling?" Sadie asked, leaning over him to hear better.
His left eye was darker than the right, with four spots of the pale blue showing through in a horrible, recognizable pattern. A button.
He'd let her sew a button.
"The Beldam," he croaked.
"You killed a Beldam?" Frank demanded. "You killed it?"
The boy didn't answer. Even the kitten refused to make a sound in confirmation.
"We can't keep him," Frank warned Sadie.
"Of course not," Sadie agreed, standing to accept the fresh martini Frank had made for her. "But we can't send him back wherever he came from, either. Beldams don't prey on happiness, after all. Especially now that he's half… Well. We can't send him back."
"And we can't keep him," Frank added.
"No," Sadie agreed again. She crossed to the kitchen where their barely-used telephone sat under a pile of discarded gin bottles. "We might not be a place for a child, but we know a family who would be simply perfect: The Hendersons, those darling people, have already raised a perfectly healthy harbinger of the apocalypse. Surely a small boy won't be any more difficult than that."
"Say," Frank mused while Sadie placed her call, "do we know any Hendersons?"
"Of course, Frankenstein. You remember, Donna Henderson is a vampire and my oldest friend. And her husband, Dave, has been a detective for simply ages. Oh, and he's a werewolf. They were at our wedding. We helped Donna against some persistent Nosferatu several times. Dave had us assist him in locating a vicious werewolf that ended up being a poor horse. They have a lamp?"
"The Hendersons!" Frank cried. "That was a very interesting lamp indeed."
"Yes exactly," Sadie giggled. Donna picked up and Sadie quickly explained their whole situation. Since the sun was out, Donna couldn't pick up the boy herself, so she sent her husband instead. The werewolf detective was able to soothe the kitten's rage, pick up his new ward, and leave with a friendly farewell. Within the hour, the entire incident was properly managed and promptly forgotten.
Until the Church came for the boy.
Donna Henderson wanted nothing more in the world than to meet the humans who had set Jim up to be a Beldam's victim and have them for dinner. Not in a neighborly way.
In a vampire way.
Jim didn't smell like his blood was particularly B-, but Donna didn't care if his family didn't taste good. They'd traumatized their child enough to send him to a Beldam on a silver platter. A meal made of them would be delicious.
"There now, Jim," she said, tucking him in that first night. "This used to be my daughter's room, when she was very little, oh, this would have been a few hundred years ago now!" She sighed in happy memory. "They grow up so fast."
A little furrow appeared on Jim's brow: the first emotion Donna had seen. "A few hundred years?" he echoed.
The kitten jumped up to curl on his chest. "Humans don't live that long," she protested.
Donna ticked an eyebrow at her. "And cats don't talk."
"How do you know?" the kitten grumped.
"Well, you're right about one thing," Donna relented. "Humans don't live that long. I guess you didn't hear Sadie earlier, because I'm not a human." She curled her lip up to show one fang. "Vampire," she explained unnecessarily. "My husband, Dave, who brought you here, he's a werewolf."
Jim's eyes were huge and round, one as blue as the sky, the other dark with the shadow of what he'd been tricked to give. "Werewolves are real?" he whispered. "And vampires? And…? What else? Is everything real?"
"Everything worth mentioning," Donna agreed with a chuckle. "But don't you worry: I have a lot of experience protecting kids from things that want them. You wouldn't believe the number of creatures who thought my baby girl was a harbinger of the apocalypse and said they simply had to have her for their various rituals. She grew up though," the vampire said, smiling warmly down at her little ward. "She grew up strong and safe. And you will too, as long as I'm around."
"But why?" Jim asked, good eye filled with tears again.
"I'm a mother, Jim." She stroked her hand over his hair. "It's what mothers do."
Jim shut his eyes.
"Not in our experience," the kitten said softly.
"Not so far, maybe," Donna said, giving the kitten a little scratch behind one ear. "From now on it'll be different. Before all that, though." She rubbed a hand down the kitten's back. "You need to think about picking a name. We can't just go around calling you the kitten all the time."
"Kitten is my name," she protested. "It's what Jim called me when he first found me, and when we were hiding from his step-father, and when we were killing the Beldam."
"It's not a very good name though," Jim said with a weak smile. "Mostly I didn't want to call you anything because I thought…I thought you could be free, once you were old enough. I thought you'd be able to leave and be your own cat, like your mom, and pick your own name."
"Well I do pick it," she insisted. "It's Kitten. Like it's always been."
"Maybe we could compromise," Donna suggested. "How do you like Kit?"
Jim and the kitten looked at each other. "It's perfect," Kit said.
"It is," Jim agreed, resting a hand over back.
"Tomorrow Dave can take you to get Kit some supplies," Donna said. "I'm not so great with the sun, but it doesn't bother him. Then you can come back and we can figure out where to go from here."
"Are you going to send me back?" Jim asked without looking at her.
Donna touched his shoulder so he would lift his eyes to hers, so he could see her conviction and the blood rage burning in her stomach. "If they come for you," she said in low tones with a warm smile, "thinking they can take you back after feeding you to a Beldam? You'll get to see what a vampire mother does to protect her child. You're my ward now, Jim. Mine. I do not surrender anything that's mine."
"I'll make it up to you," Jim said, tears sliding down his cheek. "I'll find a way to make it up to you. You won't regret it."
"You might, someday," Donna admitted. "But it'll be too late to change anything by then."
Jim laughed, just a little brokenly, a shadow of what he must have been before. "It can't possibly be any worse."
"I cannot believe," Kit said, tail lashing, "that you would jinx us this way."
Dave Henderson did take them to get supplies for Kit. After that, though, he took them to the family doctor, Ezekiel Wentworth, for a thorough exam. The doctor didn't specialize in cats, but he'd been around for years uncounted and figured out enough to get by. Then he turned his attention to Jim, who felt a little...apprehensive.
Dr. Wentworth was a skeleton. He wore a newsboy cap and a gold watch that rattled against his wrist, but he was a skeleton.
"How're you doing this?" Jim wondered. The skeleton lifted his stethoscope from where it draped around his stark white vertebrae. He spread the headset to wedge earpieces against the curve of bone where ears would be if he had anything resembling flesh, then pressed the diaphragm to Jim's shirt. "Are you… Is someone controlling it?" Jim asked Mr. Henderson. Kit sat as tall as she could beside Jim, tail lashing in response to her curiosity. She hadn't spoken yet today; Jim wanted to know why, but not enough to corner her into answering in public.
Dave Henderson glanced sidelong at Dr. Wentworth, who carried on with the exam as though Jim hadn't spoken. "Dr. Wentworth is a medical professional," Mr. Henderson said, New York accent think around the calming words, "respected in his community and often requested by families of…less conventional makeup. He also happens to be a magically animated skeleton. Nothing says he can't be both, and very successfully at that."
"What made you give her the eye?" Dr. Wentworth asked, something faintly British under layers of crotchety old man.
"I thought—" Jim looked down and swallowed hard, petting Kit when she bumped her head into his elbow. "I thought she loved me."
"Did you really," the skeleton mused, cold bone fingers touching Jim's chin to make him look up at the light hanging from the ceiling of Dr. Wentworth's examination room.
Tears welled in Jim's right eye. "No," he admitted. "But she said she loved me. She seemed to mean it, even if it wasn't really true. She gave me everything she thought I wanted, and going back to…" He scrubbed the moisture from his cheek once it fell. "Going away seemed like it'd be worse than giving her what she wanted and getting to stay. So I let her. Kit stopped her before she could do the other."
Dr. Wentworth reached towards Jim's button-shadowed eye with one long, thin finger, like he would prod the cornea without thought for any pain it might cause Jim. Darkness ate its way out of the eye toward Dr. Wentworth's extended finger, crackling before the two could touch. "Hmm." Dr. Wentworth stepped away, hands clasped behind his back. Jim blinked, and the black vanished. "How old are you, Jim?"
"Eleven," he whispered.
Dr. Wentworth made another thoughtful sound. His exam continued for half an hour, interspersed with questions and pauses while he took what seemed like a hundred pages of notes. "Dave isn't your guardian," the skeleton said when he was finally finished, "even though you're staying with him, so if you'd like, we can have him wait outside while we talk about how you're doing."
Jim shook his head, holding Kit tight when she stepped up onto his lap. "He can stay. If anything's…wrong now." He rubbed the knuckle of one hand under his left eye. "Well. The Hendersons should know."
"There can't be anything wrong with you," Mr. Henderson said with easy conviction, "that a werewolf and vampire who raised a harbinger of the End Times can't handle. I'll say it as often as you need me to, but you are safe with us, Jimmy."
Kit meowed her support while kneading Jim's knee.
Dr. Wentworth shuffled through his stack of papers. "You're too skinny," he began. "Dave and Donna need to get you up at least ten percent above where you are. That goes for you too," he added to Kit, who flicked an ear at him. "The bad nutrition hasn't hurt your growth yet, but it will if it goes on much longer. Don't wanna be short? Eat something."
"Donna gave me a grocery list," Mr. Henderson assured the doctor. "We're going to set up a subscription with the local farmer's market, get everything fresh and healthy that a growing boy needs."
"Good." The doctor flipped a few pages further. "Signs of multiple old injuries, but most of your recent Beldam-related problems seem to be bruises, cuts, and that thing." He jabbed a forefinger at Jim's darkened eye. "I won't sugarcoat it. A Beldam's buttons are a link to her. Generally she uses them to drain the life out of her victims, but you killed her before that happened. There's no way of knowing if she'll regenerate, or when, or what that might mean for your souvenir. Monitor any changes and report them."
"Yes sir," Jim said when the skeleton seemed to be waiting for a reply.
"We'll keep an eye on it too, so to speak," Mr. Henderson promised. "We might be able to notice something Jim doesn't, being what we are."
"That's another thing." Dr. Wentworth snapped Jim's file shut. "Your human left eye, as you probably noticed, is blind. But you're still seeing things, aren't you?"
"Shadows," Jim agreed in a murmur. "Sometimes colors, around people, or…flashes of things. I don't know what it is."
"You're masking it well," Dr. Wentworth said suspiciously. "I'll chalk that up to your…previous upbringing. Don't continue the habit." He shook a finger bone in Jim's face. "This is serious, young man. If your guardians don't know what your new baseline normal is, they won't know to report changes. As for the new things you're seeing, my best guess is the button eye is tied to the Beldam, whose nasty little web is an Other place. I suppose we can move forward with the hypothesis that your left eye is now Other as well, seeing things from that perspective. Sometimes that might layer neatly with the here world your right eye sees. It won't always. You might think about getting a dog or something that can alert you if—"
Kit spit and hissed until the doctor rattled his hands at her, spooking her behind Jim's back. "I think she can tell what Other things are too," Jim said, twisting his arm around to pet her. "She knew what the key was, I think, the first time I met her. She knew I had something in my pocket, anyway. She knew where the door was too, and tried to stop me going through. I don't need a dog; Kit will help me."
Dr. Wentworth made another note. "That's all I have, for now," he said to Mr. Henderson. "Feed him; keep an eye on the eye; I'd recommend strongly that you keep as much about Jim's…unique history as possible on a strict need-to-know basis. You know very well what certain elements think about creatures like Jim."
"Creatures?" Jim echoed uncertainly.
"You're not human anymore," the doctor told him plainly. "Not fully. You're something else, something in between. Something—"
"Other," Jim whispered, eyes lowered.
Mr. Henderson ran a large, comforting hand over his head. "What's a werewolf, other than Other?" he asked. "Or a vampire? Or a magical skeleton? Don't worry too much about it, Jimmy. It's just a word."
Jim nodded, not in belief or agreement, but because he couldn't think of a polite way to reply without melting into the hysterics he could feel bubbling just under his skin. Kit headbutted his elbow again. Mr. Henderson wrapped an arm around his shoulders to help him down from the exam table.
"I want twice-yearly appointments until we figure this out a little better," Dr. Wentworth insisted. "Pick a date with my receptionist, Gertrude, on your way out. If she's not there, just shake the tattered book on her desk. Then you can tell her what day works best for you. Okay? Okay. Get out. It's lunchtime, go feed that boy a steak or two."
All the books on Gertrude's desk were tattered. While Mr. Henderson resignedly began shaking each of the multitude one by one, Jim thought about how he could help. None of the books seemed to stand out in any way that said "able to call secretaries, somehow". Or, at least…
Not to his right eye, anyway. But his left—
Maybe it could actually serve a purpose.
Jim looked down at Kit where she stood twined around his ankles. He squinted at her, trying to see if he could make the weird Other-flickers appear. When that didn't work, he shut his right eye, wondering if cutting of his real world vision would force the button eye to focus.
He couldn't see Kit through the blind eye. A faint, dim silver mist hung where she should be, fit so tight to her that he was able to make out nearly her entire shape. Everything outside her glow was black, filled with pale wisps of…light, or color, or…
He didn't know.
Keeping his right eye shut tight, Jim lifted his head, trying to see more of the Other. Some of the mist traced forward and up, fanning out to form a huge cloak of darkness even more profound than the nothing around it, highlighted in stark white like the light of a full moon. It spread out and down, like a blanket thrown over broad shoulders, with a hood float high above where a head would be.
It noticed him.
The hood twisted in a silent snap, a predator sense prey, and grinned at him with a wolf's toothy mouth. Red eyes glowed above the muzzle, so brightly they cast crimson highlights along the jaw and ears, pricked forward in attention. Somewhere, faintly, a wolf howled.
"Are you alright, Jim?"
Jim gasped air into his lungs, right eye popping open to show Dave Henderson standing beneath and inside the hungry, waiting cloak. Werewolf, the boy remembered, heart racing like it could escape the watching red eyes.
Mr. Henderson's expression filled with concern. The shadowed wolf above him seemed to laugh. "Jim?" the man said again, soft and calm. "Would you like to go back in and see Dr. Wentworth?"
"No," Jim managed between numb lips. "I'm okay. Just…got a little lost in thought. Bad memories."
The werewolf nodded, warm with compassion, and turned back to his search for Gertrude's book.
Jim looked down at Kit, at her worried face and faint, gleaming aura. When he shut his right eye, he maintained a slight after-image of her, standing tense within the glow. He blinked several times to clear his eyes, then looked at the stack of books, trying to ignore the barely visible cloak settled heavy on Dave Henderson's shoulders.
When he thought he had a good memory of which book was where, Jim shut his right eye. Kit's and Mr. Henderson's Other light tried to distracted him, but he focused hard. Sure enough, one of the books was glowing. Jim stepped forward and slightly around the desk to get a better look.
Sickly yellow light shone out in the shape of pages, as though the cover wasn't Other but the words themselves were. Jim touched just one cautious finger to the outside, feeling the tattered physical form. He opened the book so its light could shine out.
To his button eye, the light screamed out of the book, breaking as it did to form endless gaping mouths turned down in pain or sorrow or despair. His good eye flashed open, adding a layer of reality to the scene. A woman shimmered into view within the spewing yellow light—a ghost, haunting this book. She looked, to his right eye, like a pleasant, unassuming old woman. She spoke to Dave cheerfully, getting details for their next appointment.
His button eye saw her as a wailing, melting creature, the light of her haunting pulling through itself to cut open more gaping, screaming mouths. Her Other voice echoed faintly just at the threshold of what Jim could hear, wordless pleas and moans. Jim's heart thundered until he thought it would stop, aching in his chest. He groped at the book, wanting to stop her, wanting to help her, wanting the chill of her screaming to silence.
Dave Henderson touched his back.
Jim's entire body coiled in a flinch. The hand he had resting on the book pushed down and away, knocking surrounding volume onto the ground. His physical touch on the book didn't slide.
His Other touch, some extension of the Beldam's power reaching out through their tether, slipped across the pages, tearing something just outside his understanding.
Gertrude blinked, looking startled. Her gaze dropped to the book, to the gap between her ghostly form and the object she existed for, cut through her connection to whatever feeling or deed she'd stayed so long for. The ghost's eyes shut. Golden light spread through her like a fire.
She was gone.
In the silence that followed, Dr. Wentworth clattered out into the waiting room trailing a litany of curses. "What did you do?" he demanded, wrapping a skeletal hand over one of Jim's shoulders.
The black fire that had reached for him earlier crackled over his hand now, eating up toward his elbow.
Dr. Wentworth drew his hand back with a hiss. "How did you learn magic in the space of ten minutes?" he asked Jim with a scowl.
"I didn't," Jim stammered. "I just wanted to find the right book, but then it screamed at me, and I didn't—"
"You exorcised the best secretary I've had in centuries!"
"It was an accident—"
"It seems to me," Mr. Henderson cut in, polite but firm, "that you were, not just minutes ago, warning Jim that his eye could be a connection to the Beldam's power. If you didn't know enough at the time to warn him about accidentally exorcising secretaries, I do not see how he, a mere boy of eleven, could be expected to guess this outcome. But then, I am only a detective, and not a supernatural doctor, and could be mistaken. Perhaps you did know, and kept it to yourself. For unspecified reasons. Let us call this a new symptom and make note of it for future visits."
Dr. Wentworth grumbled, threw Gertrude's book away, made a follow-up appointment on his own, and rattled back to his office.
Jim looked up to find Mr. Henderson looking down at him with a thoughtful expression. "I think, Jim," he began, "that you might be more than just not human. You might be downright magical, which might require some…specialized education. I'll tell Donna, and we'll find a good teacher for you."
"You aren't mad?" Jim whispered. Mr. Henderson held out his hand. Jim latched onto it immediately, letting himself be led from the office with Kit trotting at his side.
"There isn't anything to be mad about," Mr. Henderson said. "If you think you're the first supernatural child to do something unexpected, well, I have a few stories that might surprise you."
Jim offered Mr. Henderson a shaky smile. "Like what?"
Mr. Henderson shook his arm in a gentle, friendly tease. "How about I tell you over lunch? I believe the doctor prescribed some steak, and I know a good spot around here to fit that bill."
After a quiet minute of walking, Jim gathered all his courage to ask, "Is Gertrude okay? Wherever I sent her? Or, I mean…she's not hurt, is she?"
"When a ghost is cut off from its tether to this world," Mr. Henderson said, looking both ways before leading them across the street, "generally that ghost goes to either one of the heavens, or one of the hells, in the area. Sometimes a powerful psychic can send them farther. Mrs. Doyle once sent a ghost all the way from hereabouts to the Hawaii heaven. When Gertrude left this mortal coil for the final time, she did so in a wash of gold. I'm very certain that means she is comfortably in one of the heavens, enjoying herself more than she ever could as a spectral secretary."
Jim thought about that for a long time. "One of the heavens?" he asked at last, while their food was being delivered.
Mr. Henderson chuckled. "Don't worry, my boy." He reached over to pat one of Jim's hands. "We'll get you a teacher who knows all about it. Now, let us begin our storytelling with one of my favorites: The time Michelle, my daughter and a foretold vessel of the Old Ones, broke a lamp and nearly ended the world."
Jim settled in with his meal, content to listen while Mr. Henderson talked and the shadow wolf above his head watched with a toothy grin.
Everything fell apart.
Donna and Dave spent weeks looking for just the right magical tutor, someone with enough knowledge to lay groundwork but the adaptability and courage to be willing to explore how Jim's button impacted his abilities. They also had to be discreet, to draw attention from…outside forces that might have unwholesome uses for Jim.
Nobody lived up to their expectations.
Once, Jim overheard them talking about the Doyles, Donna whispering how perfect they would be, Dave replying with a matter-of-fact assessment of their interest in a small boy's education.
"They likely do not remember so much as the event of his appearing here," Dave pointed out, "much less why they should care."
"Sadie cares!"
"That she does, my dear, but usually for singular, solvable, issues. Jim is not an issue, nor is he solvable, nor even could one call his continuing education 'singular'. He will require consistent, consecutive attention, perhaps for all of his life. That, I think you will agree, is not in keeping with the Doyles' charms, many and varied though they may be."
Donna sighed. "When you're right, you're right," she agreed wryly. "Say, though, thinking of the Doyles: Maybe that old Egyptian cat goddess friend of theirs might be interested in a little apprentice! Or didn't they know the manager of one of the nearby hells? He could know a thing or two about Beldam buttons."
"Two marvelous and worthwhile suggestions, my sweet. Let us give the Doyles a ring and see what they remember about those acquaintances."
The cat goddess, Bast, somewhat predictably, couldn't be tempted into even so much as a curiosity visit. Once she knew they wanted her to come, her nature made her incapable of complying. Dave confessed later that he didn't mind her not showing up: He wasn't much looking forward to having another cat in the house to outnumber him anyway.
At some point during the time between Bast falling through and trying to find a good time for the Archduke of the Staten Island Hell to swing by, word of Jim's exorcism of Gertrude got out. News like that spread quickly, especially to those whose ears were always open.
The Church came for him.
When Dave first opened the door to find a priest and two nuns waiting on his front porch, he froze, horror welling hot in stomach. Then slammed the door directly in their faces and pretended not to be at home.
"It's no use resisting," one of the nuns said while leaning on the doorbell. "We already know who he is and where he's from. You're listed as a runaway, James Tiberius Kirk, did you know that? And a famous one too. How dreadful. I'm sure your delightful stepfather will be only too glad to get you back."
Jim instinctively stepped back. Warm hands covered his shoulders. When he looked up, Donna stood over him, expression hard. "You listen here," she called, voice cold and black and endless, like the frozen chasm space between stars. "Jim is under my protection. He is mine. You will take him back to those abusive monsters over my ashy—"
"We don't want to send him back," the priest said with simpering compassion. "Why, to be a Beldam's prey! The poor soul. But, you know, we also heard about Gertrude. I'm sure you understand, we can't have someone with that kind of power running around untrained. We'd be more than happy to…fill the need. As it were."
"And use him as another boy solider in your war against the supernatural," Dave growled.
"Such hyperbole," the second nun tutted. "Although, now that you mention it, that would be a pretty neat solution to the issue of practice…"
"Get out of here!" Donna shouted. "You leave us alone, do you hear? We'll find him a tutor on our own, without you coming in to ruin everything!"
"Suit yourself," the first nun sing-songed. "But he will agree to learning from the Church by the end of the week, or next time we bring the missing person's unit. I'm sure kidnapping will look excellent on your yearly review, Dave. Tootaloo!"
Kit leapt off the top of the couch where she'd been prowling with her tail puffed up to run up to Dave and paw at his calf. "You won't let them send him back, will you? You both promised!"
Dave scooped her off the floor, dwarfing her in his hands. "We will not," he said flatly. "This is your home. We will find you a tutor and remove you permanently from your legal guardians. …Somehow."
Donna knelt in front of Jim, her hands solid on his shoulders. "Don't you worry," she told him with a smile. "We'll work this out."
"Why is a church so bad?" he asked, eyes darting between the wolf over Dave's head and the hollow-cheeked phantom twisted under Donna's skin. "Maybe…maybe I could learn from them but stay here with you? Maybe that wouldn't be so bad, if they know what they're doing."
Dave's mouth thinned, but it was Donna who said, aching with kindness, "Oh, sweetheart, no. That's not how the Church works. They don't want to train you, they want to use you. They want you to become an expendable cog in their machine. They don't even much pretend to be a religious organization these days. Honestly, they dropped that centuries ago. What they want is to eradicate anything they think of as being monstrous, at as little cost to their own people as possible. So they find children like you, so special and talented, and throw them at their enemies. Nobody's survived them since— Gosh. For just ages. We can't let them have you, Jim. No matter what."
Jim reached up to grab her wrists. "But how do we stop them?" he asked desperately.
Donna and Dave traded a worried glance but didn't try to answer.
In all probability, they didn't have one.
He would have to go with them, Jim realized over dinner. To stop the Church from ruining Dave and Donna's lives, he would have to go to them. On his own.
So he did.
"There you go, Jim," Father John said with a wide, empty smile, holding out their Enrollment Book. "Just sign right here, and you're all set!"
Kit meowed at him from her spot between his ankles, protesting in the only way she could while surrounded by people who might kill her for speaking.
Jim ignored her, hoping the priest and his associates would do the same. They were all gathered toward the front of a large, decrepit church, right up against the slightly raised platform where the broken altar stood. They were in shadow, although the nuns had placed a podium for their sign-in initiation book directly in a beam of sunlight shining in through the roof, which…okay, so apparently they were big on pageantry.
They didn't glow when Jim looked at them through the button. They didn't so much as shimmer. To his blind left eye, they didn't exist, making them strangely flat in his regular vision. Interesting, that they wanted so badly to fight in the Other world without being part of it. Was that normal, or an exception?
"No dawdling," Sister Mary ordered.
Jim held out his open palm so Sister Theresa could set their ornate feather-tipped ballpoint pen in it. For just a moment, as he spun the pen around so he could hold it properly, Jim entertained the briefest daydream that Donna and Dave would find him, break in and save him from whatever hell he was submitting to. But he had to be reasonable. He wouldn't go back to Frank; he wouldn't ruin the Hendersons' lives; he had to join the Church.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
Jim took a deep breath, squared his shoulders.
Set the pen to paper.
"I object!"
The doors at the far end of the church burst open, blown entirely off their hinges. Dave Henderson stood in the rubble, lowering the leg he'd kicked the doors in with, Donna at his side with a wide, sturdy parasol between her and the day's light. They stepped aside to let Frank and Sadie Doyle walk by.
"One does hate to drop in at the last moment," Sadie said, swirling her martini while she followed her husband down the aisle. "It's just ever so much easier than trying to annul a contract sealed in a blood book. Badly done, darling," she added to Father John. "The boy is a minor, he shouldn't be asked to sign anything so binding until he's at least had his first drink."
"You must think you're pretty clever," Frank said with a dangerous, threatening smile. "Taking a boy from his monster guardians, right under watchful eye of a couple of seasoned professionals."
"…Perhaps not watchful, though, Frank. In fairness, we did forget about any of this until Donna and Dave dropped by earlier."
"Fair," Frank agreed without looking away from Father John. "But now we remember, and I remember what it is you do to impressionable young boys given over to your tender mercies. And if you think I'm doing this to save a child who fell out of my wall and went to live with close personal friends, let me tell you right now: Not in the least."
"Then why not let us settle this ourselves?" Sister Mary asked. "You clearly don't want the boy, and we do. We can train him. We'll help him survive."
"For a year or two, sure," Sadie said with a shrug. "But my dear friend Donna Henderson and her lovely husband want him longer than that, and what Sadie's friends want, Sadie provides for them."
"And what Sadie wants," Frank added, "Frank provides for her. That's not even mentioning the genuine delight I take in foiling any plan that has the Church's fingerprints on it. Your crummy organization got away with what it did to me. I won't let you do it to someone else."
"…We've been doing this for years," Father John pointed out. "Generations. All the way back to the beginning. You haven't really made a name for yourself, as far as stopping us goes."
Frank's smile went hard. "Would you like me to?"
Sister Theresa took the pen back from Jim. "You'll train him?" she asked.
"Better than you would, darling," Sadie said.
"What will you do about his real family?"
"We are his real family," Donna said, pushing forward to scoop Jim up in one arm so she could cuddle him under the shelter of her parasol. "As for those monsters who had him before, don't worry: We've taken care of them. No one is looking for him anymore."
"It would behoove you to join that movement," Dave said, "and stop looking for Jim yourselves. We were polite today; suffice to say, we would not extend the same courtesy twice."
"Fine," Father John snapped, face twisted in a scowl. "You get this brat. But there are more, and you can't step in for all of them."
"Why would we want to?" Frank said with a laugh, taking a swig from the flask he kept in his pocket. "This is the only one you tried to swindle from Sadie's friends. Your mistake was getting close enough for me to remember you exist. Don't make it a habit."
The Church members left. Jim continued to cling to Donna even when they all went out to lunch to celebrate. Once she finally got him to relax enough to sit in his own seat with Kit curled up in his lap, he finally took the opportunity to look at the Doyles. Or, well.
To Look at them.
They glowed in his Other vision, so much a part of the light that they seemed to be prisms for it. Their lights intermingled in a way Jim hadn't seen before, catching and intensifying each other's power until they were like diamonds in the heart of a star. After a while, it made his head hurt, and he blinked hard to try and clear the after-image.
A hand touched his. He looked up to find Sadie smiling at him. "Don't worry, darling," she said warmly. "I'll teach you everything you need to know about magic. And Frank can teach you how to fight monsters. He's simply the best at it. Why, he could even start, perhaps, with how to disable a mummy. Oh, no, a demon! No, a Grinch! Oh no, a calaca! No no, a clown! No a ghost! A chupacabra!"
"Sadie love," Frank said, leaning over to press his shoulder to hers, "take a breath." She did. "Take a drink." She did, this time with visibly more relish. "Now, let's not overwhelm the poor fellow. What's say we start at the beginning: With whatever ridiculous nightmare creature makes its way to our door tomorrow."
"Oh, Frank! What a simply excellent idea." They clinked their glasses in a bell-tone chime before finishing both drinking in synchronized, single swallows. "Bar tender!" they cried. "Another!"