Shot to the Heart

(August 1-3, 2014)

Chapter 8: "It's Unnatural"

Mabel and Teek jumped out of the Stanleymobile before it had even stopped rolling. Stan yelled, "Good luck, kids!" When an ear-splitting wave of death metal performed by Excessive Cesspool broke over the parking lot, he winced and grunted, "Oy, this again!" Then he threw the car into reverse, yanked it into a tight 180, and sped away, leaving behind a cloud of dust glowing nearly golden in the late-afternoon sunlight.

Mabel texted Robbie, who was sitting up on the hill with Tambry and the others, and told them to come and meet her at the VIP gate. Then she had an inspiration. She ran inside the audience area, leaving Teek to meet the rescue rockers, and searched until she found Manly Dan.

"HI," she yelled over the number being played by E.C ("Shoot First, Ask Questions, Shoot Again," a love ballad). "YOU WANT TO MEET SEV'RAL TIMEZ?" She had to yell it right into his hairy ear twice more before he could hear her.

"HECK, YEAH!" he yelled so loud that the band stopped playing and the lead singer said in a surprised voice, "Cool! Somebody likes us!"

Dan lumbered out with Mabel as Excessive Cesspool tried to find the key again. "OK," she told him, "if you help us find Love God, then I'll introduce you to Sev'ral Timez. In fact, if you want to, you can even take them all out to dinner!"

"Really?" Manly Dan's eyes grew round and soulful, like the one that cat in the boots had in the computer-animated movie. "My dream come true!"

He, Robbie, Tambry, Thompson, Vanilla, Lee, Pam, Nate, and Cindy split up, the couples going in teams as they wandered among the parked vans and RV's. They looked, but there was hardly any use calling out, now that Excessive Cesspool had started up again. Speaking right into Mabel's ear, Teek asked, "Aren't we gonna look, too? You and I?"

Mabel raised an admonishing finger. "The best way to find somebody is to stay in one spot. Sooner or later they'll show up!"

"That," Teek said, "is either brilliant or insane."

"It's both!" Mabel said proudly.

It took less than five minutes, and thankfully in that time E.C. had finished its set and a soulful banjo-playing folk musician was onstage, playing songs the temporarily deafened audience got through lip-reading. Manly Dan had made the discovery, and he frog-marched Love God toward them, with the latter protesting: "Watch the wings, man! They're not just decoration!"

"Here he is!" Dan rumbled, his grin showing through his red beard like the sun through a storm cloud. "Found him eatin' dinner!"

Love God belched, looked at Mabel, blinked, and said, "Oh, it's you!"

Mabel sent out a text. Then she grabbed the front of Love God's tee-shirt, got up in his face, and said, "You got some 'spainin' to do! Whoo! What've you been eating?"

"Onion rings!" he said, the words bringing tears to her eyes. "I love 'em!" He gave her an evil grin, crusted with a little brown breading. "So—want me to fix things up with you and your boyfriend, don't you?"

"No! Hey, Robbie!"

"You got him," Robbie said as he and Tambry came around one of the buses. A minute later Thompson and Vanilla showed up, too.

"Guard this canary," Mabel snarled. "Manly Dan, come with me and meet the guys!"

"Oh, boy!" Manly Dan said. "Uh—do I smell OK?"

Mabel sniffed. "A lot like a bear. Don't worry, they'll like it."

A few minutes later Dan shepherded the excited Sev'ral Timez guys toward his truck. Chubby Z. waved at Mabel's friends and yelled, "Guys! We're gonna have cuisine, yo! I don't know what that is, but I want me some of it!"

Mabel brought up the rear, rubbing her eyes as if in exasperation. As the others followed Manly Dan to the truck, she shouted after them, "Back and in bed by nine-thirty, you guys! And I'm not fooling! You got another show tomorrow!" She stretched. "Oy, my back! I gotta find them a new manager. I can't take this crap much longer. Where was I? You!" she turned back to the Love God. "What did you do?"

By then Lee and Pam had joined them, and a minute after that Nate and Cindy sauntered up, holding hands.

"Well?" Love God asked with a smirk, raising an irritating eyebrow at Mabel. "How do you feel with all these girls around? Hmm?"

"Empowered!" Mabel said. "What are you even talking about?"

Love God blinked uncertainly. "Uh—which one's your boyfriend?"

"Teek! T.K. O'Grady! Right, Teek?"

Teek stepped forward. "Right!" to Love God, he said sympathetically, "You might as well tell her what she wants to know. There's no clean way out of this."

Love God scratched his head. "Uh. Girl, don't, uh, you feel threatened? I mean, look at all these ladies ogling your boyfriend."

"Ew!" Vanilla said. "No, thank you!"

"Hey," Teek said. "Words can hurt."

"Sorry, man."

"They're not ogling him!" Mabel said. "What did you do?"

"You figure it out!" Love God said, crossing his tattooed arms. "You're so smart, best matchmaker in the world and all!"

Mabel shook her forefinger right in his face. "Nuh-uh! You can't put this on me! Just tell me what you did, OK? Don't you make me pull out the heavy artillery! You won't like it!"

Love God rolled his eyes. "Pfft! Right! Girl, I am, like, a god! What could you possibly do to me?"

"This won't end well," Teek muttered to Robbie as they both took a step back.

Mabel's face had brightened to a beet red. "OK, so you don't wanna play nice. You brought this on yourself!" She filled her lungs with air and then yelled, "I invoke Psyche!"

The deity of passion's eyes nearly popped out of his head in evident alarm. "What? No, man!" Love God shouted, looking around as though searching for an escape route.

Too late. The air nearby shimmered blue, became a glowing, swirling whirlpool of light, and then coalesced into the figure of a woman who was so—her looks were absolutely—she was stunning—I mean she—a thousand ships—walked in beauty like the night—oh, fine.

OK, Truth in Story requirements demand that I stick to the facts: She was nice-looking, OK? Not catwalk-drop-dead-heart-stopping gorgeous or anything. Pretty enough, dark-haired, big deep-blue eyes—her best feature—a fair figure, really striking butterfly wings (iridescent, pink and yellow and pale blue), and she wore a flowing white dress, not billowy but clingy, revealing her charms as much as concealing them. I mean, men would always look at her twice, but, heck, I mean they'd look at a dog with butterfly wings twice, too. I know I would. But they might glance a third time at Psyche because, let's face it, she looked so nice.

Unless seen with the eyes of love. Then it was a different matter. You could tell that Love God was afraid of her—but his eyes showed that he deeply, truly, utterly, eternally adored her. He had to see her as beyond beautiful. In the Encyclopedia Galactica of his heart, her picture was right beside the entry for "Dazzling, scintillating, utmost beauty." Sure, it has an entry for that. It's the freaking Encylcopedia Galactica. Don't bother me.

"Hi, hon," Love God said in a small voice.

She stepped forward, inclined her head a little on her long, graceful neck—she was a foot taller than he was—and kissed him lightly. Then she straightened up and put her hands on her hips. "What did you do this time, Pudge?"

"Aw, Psych," he groaned, squirming. "Nothin'! I mean, she deserved it! And it wasn't anything permanent! And I don't think it worked at all! It shouldn't even count!"

Psyche glanced around. "Hi," she said to Mabel. "Love your sweater! I'm Psyche."

"Thanks! Glad to meet you," Mabel said, with a wide grin. "Mabel Pines, big, big love fan, heard about your story, fabulous, you go, girl!"

Teek said uncomfortably, "Uh, you're not from around here, are you, Miss, uh Butterfly?"

"I'm from another dimension," Psyche explained.

"I'll bet you're a star!" Mabel told her. "Anyway, my brother and his girlfriend—she's a little older than he is—"

"Pudge is eons older than I am," Psyche said with a careless shrug that left at least Robbie and Lee, who had the best view, wondering if that thin dress might slip and reveal her bosom (it didn't).

Love God blushed. "Oh, Psych! Please!"

"You're old enough to know better, anyway!" Psyche turned back to Mabel. "I think he's having a mid-eternity crisis. All of a sudden Olympus isn't good enough, so he decides to come to Earth and make it in the music business. He's just a big baby, really."

"Hey, lady, believe it or not, he ain't doing too bad," Robbie said. "I mean, he's real popular."

Love God beamed and tossed him a red USB stick. "Have some .mp3's!"

"But right now," Mabel said, holding up her hand for attention, "right now, I want to know what he did this afternoon! 'Cause he sure did something!"

"What was it, Pudge?" Psyche asked. She reached out and twirled a strand of Love God's hair around her slim finger. "Come on, tell me," she coaxed with a winning smile. "You know you want to."

With a sigh, Love God mumbled, "I hit Mabel with a jealousy curse. Or thought I did."

"Jealousy?" Mabel asked incredulously. "I don't have a jealous bone in my heart!"

"This," Teek said, "is one hundred per cent true."

"Which spell was it?" Psyche asked.

"I call this one 'Yandere She Blows,'" Love God said with a touch of pride. "Makes a girl insanely jealous. I mean, we're talking way beyond the boundaries, man! She gets all crazy possessive, and she scares the guy she's in love with so bad that odds are good he breaks up with her! But the spell itself only lasts for twelve hours, so when it wears off, they get back together if they're emteebee—"

"They're what? That doesn't even make sense!" Mabel said.

"It's an acronym!" Love God said.

Mabel stared at him. "Like a weight lifter?"

"That's not nym, it's bat!"

"Like a vampire?" Mabel asked a little more hopefully.

Love God opened his palms to the sky in a why me? gesture. "No, I mean it's a word made up of the initial letters of Meant To Be. You know, some couples are just destined to fall truly, deeply, madly, eternally, et cetera et cetera et cetera, like—" he looked around, then pointed with two fingers—"Um, OK, like him and her!"

"Robbie and Tambry?" Teek asked.

"Cool!" Robbie said, putting his arm around Tambry.

Tambry had her phone out, texting: "Status update: Robbie and I are Meant to Be, and it's official."

"But they were the ones I cast the spell on a couple years back!" Mabel said. "I got them together!"

"Yeah, and that pissed me off big time!" Love God said. "But hey, dumb beginner's luck and all! If they hadn't been MTB, it would've worn off in three hours!"

"Time out!" Teek said, giving the coach's signal, a T made with his hands. "Mabel and I are fine, and she's not jealous. She doesn't show any sign of your cursing her or whatever. So, if you didn't hit her with the spell, who did you hit?"

"Well—she was movin' around a lot," Love God confessed. "I dunno. I was backstage, pointing my finger out through the gap in the curtains. All's I could see was the stage and the people on it."

"He's blind," Psyche confided. "Well-known fact."

Love God got huffy: "A little nearsighted is not blind!"

"Hush, Pudge! Wear your glasses, why don't you? Mabel? What do you think happened, dear?"

"I think," she said, "that your husband tried to zap me, missed, and the shot must've hit either my brother or Wendy Corduroy!"

Psyche nodded and asked, "She's his girlfriend?"

"Ew," Robbie said. Tambry elbowed him.

"They like each other," Mabel said. "A lot. Smooches galore. OK, sure, he's fourteen, she's seventeen, but he's catching up! End of the month, he'll be fifteen! Only another couple of years to go and they're even!"

Love God whispered to Teek, "Does that even make sense?"

"To her, it does," Teek said.

Looking mildly annoyed with her husband, Psyche said to Mabel, "Picture them in your mind. May I touch you?"

Mabel stood up straight. "Lady, it will be my honor!"

Psyche put her hand on Mabel's head, a touch as light as a real butterfly alighting, Mabel closed her eyes, and Psyche said, "I see! Thank you, Mabel." Then she turned to her husband. "Those two kids have something real, Pudge. You shouldn't have fired a spell where you might miss and hit an innocent couple. You have to make this right."

"Aw! It'll wear off by tomorrow morning!"

"Now," Psyche insisted. "You know what might happen!"

"What might happen?" Mabel asked.

Love God looked embarrassed. "Aw, if I hit him, nothing much, 'cause girls are more understanding about junk like this and most kinda even enjoy it when their guys are jealous."

Tambry glared at him. "That is so sexist!"

Love God either didn't hear her or pretended not to: "But if I zapped her for real and she goes all nuts on him, which she very likely would, it might cause him to have second thoughts about the relationship. He could sort of fall out of love with her, at least temporarily. Now, that will heal over too, but it could hurt her feelings majorly, and her getting over it might take months of them getting together Platonically, her constantly apologizing and him slowly coming around—"

"They don't have months!" Mabel said. "Dipper and I have to go back home to California at the end of the month! That's hundreds of miles away! They might not see each other until next June!"

"That could be a real problem," Psyche said. "It might cause lots of psychological damage for both of them. Even if it didn't, they'd be miserable for most of the year, and it's all your fault. Can't have that, Pudge."

"OK, OK," Love God grumbled. "Jeeze, you shoot one little jealousy beam—where are they? Bring 'em to me, and I'll fix them up."

"We don't know where they are!" Mabel said. "They ran away from the concert and disappeared and nobody's seen them and they're not answering their phones! They could be anywhere!" Even to herself, her voice seemed nearly hysterical with worry.

"Calm down," Psyche said softly. "As I said, I'm from another dimension, and I have powers and perceptions that you lack. I think I can locate your brother. How close are you?"

"We're twins!" Mabel said.

"The Mystery Twins!" Teek said loyally.

"And we stick together! We even give each other sibling hugs! With pats!"

"Excellent," Psyche said. "Being twins and liking each other makes it much easier. Think of your brother again, really concentrate on him, and let me hold your hand."

Mabel extended her hand, and Psyche grasped it. Psyche's hand was so cool it felt like the caress of silk. "There he is," Psyche said. "And I sense he's deeply troubled. The girl is the victim, Pudge, not the boy. They are . . . not very far from here—not half a world away, but only fifty stadia or a little more."

Mabel frowned. "What in the which now?"

"Stadia," Teek said. "Roman measure of distance. Eight of them made one Roman mile."

Psyche looked impressed and told Mabel, "This boy's a keeper. All right, we need to disenchant this poor girl. We'll teleport. Pudge and I can take one person with us—you, Mabel. The rest of you will have to stay here."

"Teek!" Mabel said. "Meet me in the Shack later!"

"I am not teleporting!" Love God insisted, stamping one sandaled foot. "Psych, please! I just ate a humongous dinner of fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, biscuits, onion rings, coleslaw, and a dicey churro! You know how when I've been eating, I get telesick from teleporting!"

"It's high time you watched your diet, my love," Psyche said coolly. "Desperate times, desperate measures, and all that."

He made a face. "Do I have to?"

Psyche traced the shape of his ear with a forefinger and smiled. "What do you think?"

"Aw."

Psyche took his hand and then reached for Mabel's. She said to the others, "You may want to step back a little. Don't be alarmed at what you will see. This is perfectly safe, probably. Tomorrow you may not even be able to remember any of this clearly."

"Lady," Tambry said, "this is, like, no big deal to any of us. We live in Gravity Falls."

"Oh. I stand corrected," Psyche said with a smile. "Give us a little room. That's good. All right, Mabel, Pudge, close your eyes. Keep your arms and legs within the teleportation bubble at all times. Don't attempt to walk or even move in any way until the bubble has come to a full and complete stop. In the event of a malfunction, you're toast. Thank you for letting us fill your teleportation needs. Here we go!"

The three of them vanished in a puff of pale blue light that became a spinning whirlpool and then vanished with a soft beeyoop!

A beat after they disappeared, Robbie cleared his throat. "So, uh, for real, you're Mabel's boyfriend, huh?" he asked Teek.

Teek shrugged. "I guess I kind of am."

Robbie shook his head, though he was smiling."No offense, kid—but you got guts!"

Teek smiled back happily. "She makes it easy," he said, wondering where Mabel—and the Love God and Psyche, too, but mainly Mabel—had gone.