“Is there even a badger?” Fable asks, perched on one of René’s middle set of horns, a tall lyre-shaped affair not unlike an impala’s, as his cloven hooves pick their way across the roots of trees and rock-strewn undergrowth as they follow their budding young hooligans.

“Probably more than one around here,” Jinx answers, the spiral of her tail and her shift to black blending perfectly into the graceful curve of his third set of horns, the ram-like spirals sweeping back and outwards over his shoulders.

“Is it Badger’s—singular possessive—Combe? Or just a combe full of badgers?” Fable asks.

“Singular possessive. The Combe belonging to the badger, I assume,” René replies.

Fable guesses, “A wildling?”

Stopping himself before he shakes his head and unsettles his passengers, René answers, “Nah, the wildlings here are the yew tree, Iwa, and the young elk that arrived when the Obvious divided the forest. There’s even a second river wilding now, too. We can ask Iwa if we see them. They’ve been here a long time. But you’ve been here longer, probably?”

“Children don’t typically sleep in the woods anymore,” Jinx points out.

“The one I had before Eleanor was a scout, so I got to go camping,” Fable says, “but it was a long drive away from Melitown. I always wondered why when a forest surrounded three-quarters of the place.”

“Shh, you’ll give the shadows a business idea. Badger’s Combe Campground & Fear Buffet,” René laughs.

“I can understand the koboloi doing well, but how are the glooms thriving here so far from town? It’s not like they move quickly,” Jinx asks, looking up at the multitude of glowing eyes watching them from the darkness, some in pairs, some alone, all deceptively sized to make it difficult to judge their distance.

“They’ve probably traveled in for Samhain the last few days. It’s what makes this show so intriguing. They chose the Veil’s thinnest night and used charmed fliers to lure in young Obscure, ostensibly with a rebellious streak, who would be apt to sneak into the most dangerous place around. They’re either setting up a trap—“

“Or it’s all very metal,” Fable says, ruffling his feathers.

“What?” Jinx asks, shooting him a look with one of her eyes.

René laughs, “Up with the lingo, eh, old man?”

“Be impressed. Go ahead. I pay attention to my charges interests. Eleanor knows all about this type of music,” he says. “And so I do as well.” If a beak could sniff, he would’ve let out a disdainful one.

“Impeccable work ethic,” Jinx rolls her eye back and lets it gaze around the crosshatched canopy over the moonlit sky.

“You’re jealous because your charges always like the same things these days,” he chides.

René hrmmms. “What are you learning about, Ma’am?”

“I am Melitown’s foremost expert on dinosaurs. If a dino fact is within reach of an obsessive child, I have no doubt already committed it to memory. Purely coincidentally, of course.”

“It’s weird how it’s been so many of them in a row now,” the crow says, shaking his head.

“Is your form part of your connection with your charges?”

“You think I get the dinosaur nerds because I prefer to walk this world as a reptile?” she asks the young devil.

“Or maybe they like dinosaurs because they grow up with a reptile?” René offers as an alternative.

“I… I don’t think so,” she says. It comes out more like a question than she’d intended.

Before they can dig deeper into the effects of dream guides on the youth population, the two members they’d been trailing have finished one moment of panic—hugging it out—and moved on to the second, peering from the tree line at their destination.

The trees have opened into a clearing filled with mostly Obscure youth standing around a pile of amps, speakers, cables twisting around parts of a drum kit still being assembled, a few mic stands, and some other things hard to make out in the low lighting with the pitiful vision of day dwelling humans.

The crowd is loud, even over the sounds of the generator. Two hundred or so teenagers (or their species equivalent of a teen) laugh and call across the space to their friends as they arrive, slipping through the surrounding trees. None seem to be having any difficulties with the darkness. Even the spindly newt-shaped guy in shredded jeans and a black tank plugging things in isn’t struggling or holding the ends up to catch the soft glow of the moonlight. None pulling anything undesirable from the coolers of cheap beer, bottles clinking to shouts of “to darkness!” and “safe returns to yours!” — None of this had been heard on their way in.

René scans the crowd from a distance. “They were smart enough to wall in the noise. And no one looks particularly menacing.”

Jinx and Fable shiver. “Even so, I don’t like it, and I’d feel better fully obscured. Yeah?” He asks her, and she agrees. “We’re here. You just won’t be able to tell. And I suggest you change your form too, or Michelle will recognize you.” The two disappear, and he can no longer feel their weight on his horns.

“Ah, that’s an idea,” he beams and morphs, making himself a little less angular but not exceptionally curvy. His hair is much longer, still black and run through with patches of white, but straightened and in a high ponytail reaching the small of his back. He’s hidden all but the slightly curved spikes reminiscent of a mountain goat of the front pair. Replacing his black suit with leather pants, thankful he did not have to squeeze himself into them physically, and a torn black midriff-baring tee, he wiggles his toes inside a pair of thigh-high combat boots. Checking his conjured makeup skills in a mirror he pulls from the ether, he bats his lashes in the direction of the closest branch, assuming his companions were somewhere nearby. “Oh, I’m very pretty, you say? That’s so sweet of you both!” He puckers his perfectly done indigo lips and blows them a kiss. Claws and tail? Only if I need them, he thinks before walking up next to the girls and pretending he’d just noticed them.

“Are you coming too, girls? Good crowd, huh?” he says to their surprised faces.

“Yeah, yeah. It didn’t say anything about admission, so can we just … go anywhere?” Eleanor asks after a short pause to collect herself.

“Seems so!” René says. “First time, huh?”

The girls nod. Michelle eyes the older girl, relieved someone is friendly but wary. She’s got horns. She looks down at her feet and peeks for a tail on the way. I wonder if Mr. Akerregi has any relatives. Or maybe that’s gross to assume every devil is related? She frowns to herself. I don’t even know if she is a devil. There could be lots of people with horns.

René continues Mission Keep The Girls Close with some conversation. “Mine too. I don’t know this band, but it seemed cool. I wonder how long before they start?”

“It’s only the one band, from what the flyer said, so hopefully, it’ll be soon, and we can get back before we’re in trouble,” Eleanor says, mostly talking about Michelle.

The second part of René’s plan is underway as he splits his focus between their conversation and the scents of wishes around him. The usual cloying punch of unripened horniness overpowers the rest of what one might expect to be a banquet of desire with a crowd so large. ‘Quality over quantity,’ René would correct that assumption.

A strong note of curiosity, one of his favorite tastes as of late, is wafting from the girls. Michelle is alert and taking in every sight like a human camcorder—to grill him on at his earliest convenience, he is sure. Eleanor is thrilled to be there and laser-focused on a group of teens closer to their age—a Laelaps boy, a pair of forest folk, Silvan? Maybe Hedgekin and a girl who appeared to be Orestiad. René watches her watch them laughing with each other. On his next inhale, he picks up the tang of wanting to fit in, slightly jealous but rounded out nicely by awe. She is very cute, but they are a bit too old to be interested in hanging out with his baby companions or for him to stoke that desire as innocent as it is. These two have plenty of time to find their circle.

As the band completes their soundcheck, the guitarist growls a welcome into the microphone,“We’re Nyctophobia, but there ain’t none of that here, is there? Thanks for coming out!” and the crowd cheers. 

Eleanor cranes her neck and shifts in her spot to get a better look at the band. She looks to Michelle, who shakes her head, very much in the same boat. Looking up at the older girl—she can’t tell how old she is, and looking around, no one seems to be a real grown-up—she scrunches her nose when her look is returned and motions to the band and then walks her fingers in the air a few steps ending with a point in a forward direction and a shrug.

René, being the nice elder sister type he is, holds a finger up and then motions them both closer. He leans down and says, “There’s a spot if we go this way,” pointing out the path, “and then around, and we can squeeze by the big guy who looks like a bull. He will move.”

Michelle’s eyes widen, “We’re going through the people?”

“It’ll be fine,” Eleanor says, taking her hand. Michelle forgets what she was worried about. René, behind them, puts a hand on each of their shoulders and steers them through the shifting maze of bodies until they hit a block of tall and broad-shouldered boys the little ones could barely reach to tap if such had been their desire. (It was not.) René leans forward over the girls’ heads, popping between two of the largest sturdy young men, releasing a wave of previously veiled power. “Pardon us, boys.”

They part like a well-timed stage curtain, and he pushes the girls through and settles them into a clear spot. Eleanor reaches back and gives him a one-armed hug. “Thank you so much!” Michelle nods, smiling in relief. 

The girls had barely turned their attention to the band when René tsks, bombarded with desires directed at his ass—not a single one appealing. René feels Jinx’s grip return to his shoulder on the side opposite Michelle, and she says lowly into his ear, “I don’t think anyone in this crowd is at a level where they could see me, but I’m also camouflaged. Listen calmly. A bunch of shadows are mingling with the crowd, and I can’t tell who is using them.”

“Best case scenario, it’s the Colony investigating the flyers,” he whispers.

“Worst case, it’s koboloi. The cats wouldn’t send so many.”

Michelle is stepping closer to Eleanor and René, and he is surprised when she reaches for his hand along with her friend’s. Her eyes are directed at a shadow edging closer. Fear is beginning to pour off of her, as a lot of tiny red eyes open from the darkest part ground in front of her. The drummer fumbles a kick and glances into the crowd as he recovers, but most of the crowd is looking at the girl who has pressed herself into René’s side.

René wraps his arm around her and increases his presence like a bubble of Fuck Off energy around him. With her holding onto him, it’s easier for him to read her desires, and he’s searching for something he can use. She wants to go home. A jumble of wanting various things at home instead—to be in her pajamas, safe in bed, her mom close, not having agreed to come when she knew it would be scary. Ah, here she goes… she wants it all to be a bad dream, and that she hadn’t really seen anything weird, and that she could be brave. There it is, good girl!

He gives a little tap, pushes a suggestion to start, and then a few more. She didn’t see anything weird. What’s weird? Lots of new things have happened lately, and none of it was bad. Can’t judge a book by its cover. No one else is panicking. Surely, if there was a problem, some of the older kids who know a thing or two about the Obscure would be doing something.

She listens to her little voice of reason, and her heart rate slows to a relatively average speed. The hungry factions of teenagers around them lose interest, confused by the fast-coming and mysterious going of a really tempting meal. She takes a small step away from René but keeps her hand wrapped around his wrist. I want to stop getting so scared of the things I see and be cool. I want Eleanor to like me.

The devil at her side smiles fondly down at her, unseen. I can work with that, little diviner.