32. Easton

Chapter 32

Easton

"You pricked your finger."

Easton's eyes flooded with questions. " Quoi? "

"Do you believe in fairy tales?"

He remained quiet for a moment, slack-jawed and debating whether Royal's question was serious or not. Now wasn't the time for jokes. He had neither the mood nor patience for one. However, studying Royal's expression, Easton concluded that Royal was indeed serious and waiting for an answer. But why was this a question? Unless… he thinks ghosts are fairy tales.

"Don't treat me like an imbecile."

"No, that's not what I'm doing. Hear me out. Remember the Grimms' tale involving a spinning wheel?"

"Which one? Rumpelstiltskin or Sleeping Beauty ?"

"Actually, they're the same but over time have been divided into two."

"I don't know why I'm asking; but pourquoi ?"

"To disguise the truth."

Tiring of the back-and-forth cloak-and-dagger conversation, Easton sighed. "What truth?"

"That evil exists."

Easton made a rueful cluck and raked his hands through his hair, leaving it sticking up in tufts. "Roy, those tales were invented to scare children into obeying."

"And are you obeying?"

"I'm not a child."

Royal's broad chest rose and fell with a labored breath. "I know I'm about to sound Joker-in-a-straitjacket, pre-electric-shock, escape-from-Azkaban batshit crazy. I wouldn't even mention it, but we vowed no more secrets."

"I'm listening, and it's Arkham, not Azkaban."

"Same thing."

"Well, no, but continue."

"First, tell me how you remember the stories."

"Royal." Easton huffed in exasperation and felt a bit queasy about the direction of the conversation.

"Just indulge me this."

Easton gathered his thoughts and tried to envision his mother sitting on the side of his bed, reading to him from the thick, worn children's book that had been passed down in his family for generations. He'd preferred action stories with space cowboys, aliens, or superheroes, but every Wednesday night, his mother had insisted on reading him one of the classics.

"Well…." He cleared his throat, feeling a little silly. "Rumpelstiltskin was a fairy who spun straw into gold in exchange for tricking a mother into giving him her newborn, and a witch cursed Sleeping Beauty to fall asleep because Beauty's parents didn't send the witch an invite to a party or some petty shit like that."

"Eh, that's the watered-down talking-mouse version, consumable by most palates. But what if I told you the real version was about rape and cannibalism?"

"Get out!"

"Fo sure. Let's start by clarifying what you said. First, Boothang wasn't some silk-stocking princess. She was a miller's daughter. Second, Rumpelstiltskin was an imp. Know what that is?"

"It's like a mischievous elf or something."

"Or something, if put politely. It's a demon."

"Demon?"

" Oui. The name Rumpelstiltskin means a pole or post that supports a structure—like a supporting wall. As in, if it's removed, entire frameworks collapse. Second, it didn't trick the mother. They had a deal, and she wanted to renege. The demon made its terms clear from the onset—no subprime-balloon-mortgage fine print or invisible ink. Some versions like to tack that on to give the mother a pass for selling her baby on the black market, but that's not how the story goes."

"I'm going to need something stronger than beer," Easton muttered.

"As for Sleeping Beauty, a king—not a prince—came along and found her sleeping. And while she was partaking in her semi-coma snoozefest, he nutted in her without a raincoat, knocked her up, and boogied down the yellow brick warped road riddled with potholes."

" Quoi? No… just no." Easton shook his head. "Who includes that in a children's story?"

" Mais, ce n'est pas pour les enfants, sha . In the original, it reads that the king toted her to a bed—most likely king-size—and ‘gathered the first fruits of love,' which everyone knows is medieval code for getting freaky-deaky."

"Yeah, right," Easton mocked. "Everyone knows that."

"Hey, I didn't write it. Your beef is with Jacob and Wilhelm and possibly Vespucci for his discovery of cocaine. Now, do you want to hear the rest?"

"Not particularly, but go ahead."

"She later gives birth to twins. This king in Sleeping Beauty is the same king with the same spinning wheel in Rumpelstiltskin . And this is where it gets disturbing."

"Oh, I think we crossed the disturbed threshold ten minutes ago when we didn't take the left at Albuquerque."

"There's no mention of two babies in Sleeping Beauty . That's because your ol' boy Rump had already gobbled up one of the little munchkins for brunch with Rosina Leckermaul's leftover gingerbread."

"Who?"

"The Hansel and Gretel hag. Keep up."

"Is there any reason you're trying to wreck my childhood memories? Eating babies? Really, Roy? And how'd Hansel and Gretel get in this?"

"I'm only explaining. I mean, they end up eating the witch instead of the other way round as planned, but it's still cannibalism."

"They did not eat the witch." Easton struggled not to shudder.

"They shoved her in an oven."

"Doesn't mean they ate her. It makes them people-arsonists, I guess." What the hell did I just say? Easton shook his head at his own words. "I can't believe I'm having this conversation. What does any of this have to do with me riding bulls? None of this is making sense."

"It didn't to me either, at first—not until how blood curses work was explained to me."

"Blood curses? This keeps going from bad to worse."

"Let's rehash what happened."

"Please don't," Easton groaned.

Royal ignored his friend. "A witch cursed Sleeping Beauty for her parents' actions, but a king came along and cheated the witch out of her due by breaking the curse. In the meantime and in between time, the king saturates her with his baby batter?—"

"Oh God!"

"Since we know this is the same king in Rumpelstiltskin , we can use our deductive reasoning to conclude that this woman is Sleeping Beauty. When Rumpelstiltskin consummated his end of the fucked-up antedated dark-web trafficking agreement with Sleeping Beauty, she wanted to renegotiate."

"Can we please use some different word choices here?"

"He said no and devoured one of her twins. Now, all of this started when Sleeping Beauty's parents slighted a witch named Maleficent by not allowing her to hang out with the cool kids and not recognizing that she was a boss bitch. The word maleficent literally means to produce evil. Thus, in actuality, this witch was another demon—or maybe even the same demon in a different form. I'm pretty sure they all hang out together in hell and have their own social network going."

Easton considered pointing out that the underworld probably didn't have Wi-Fi, but why bother?

"The king broke the spell, but after he got his rocks off, he didn't stick around to see what happened next. So, Sleeping Beauty went back to her parents' house because where else was there for her to go? Her parents thought everything was all cool in the hood because she was awake. But she didn't arrive alone. She had double-yoke rug rats in the oven and didn't know the daddy."

"If I ever have kids, remind me never to allow you to tell them a bedtime story."

"I'm only relaying how the story goes."

"Just get on with it."

"Well, somebody had to feed the crumb-snatchers, and Grandpa, Sleeping Beauty's father, couldn't afford it on a miller's salary. Therefore, he concocted a scheme. He bragged to the greedy king that his daughter could spin straw into gold. This was a lie, but the king called the miller's bluff and ordered Sleeping Beauty to be locked up. He demanded that she spin his straw into gold or he would Anne Boleyn-ify her—because he was banking on it being a lie, and this was a proven way of avoiding paying child support—and alimony too. He'd taken lessons from Henny VIII."

"Seriously, Roy?"

"You act like he's some righteous dude. The guy didn't even floss, much less bathe more than once a month. Of course, you couldn't blame him. They didn't have running water back then, and all the moats were leech and E. coli vacation resorts. Still, you can tell a lot about a person by his hygiene."

Easton rolled his eyes—again. "Anyway…."

" Anyway , the point is that Sleeping Beauty made a deal with the devil, who consumed her baby. The sins of the parent will be passed to the child, and demons don't just vanish. They roam the earth, wheeling and dealing and collecting souls."

What the fuck?

At this point, Easton was 98 percent convinced his head would explode at any second.

"You just rattled off a slew of words the length of a holiness church sermon, and I'm still as clueless as peppermint on a hemorrhoid."

"Remember Cody's last ride?" Royal asked more rhetorically than directly.

"Sure. It was as nasty as they come. That bull nearly tore his shoulder off."

"Do you recall the name of the bull?"

" Oui. Rump…." The name died on Easton's lips as his stomach sank to his toes.

"Uh-huh. Rumpy, short for Rumpelstiltskin. And in Sioux Falls, what was the name of the bull you drew?"

"El Diablo."

"Sired by Rumpy, as is Onyx Alpha."

The hairs on Easton's neck stood up.

"Cody has said numerous times that he would sell his soul to ride," Royal continued.

"No, he wouldn't."

" Mais oui , he would, and he did, knowingly or not." Royal paused. "A blood debt must be paid, sha . It won't stop until it is. He's your cousin. That bull has tasted your blood and recognizes it. And since Cody is no longer riding, it must be you."

"What about Upton? I mean, I'm not willing anything on him, but he's been nicked a time or two."

"You and Upton are related on your mama's side but you and Cody on your papi's. The demon doesn't recognize Upton because Cody and Upton aren't blood kin to each other."

"But why now?"

"We've been places—in arenas—vortexes that spirits are drawn to. They sense your energy, your chakras. They're pulling at your ka ."

Stunned and too rattled to make eye contact, Easton stared at the floor and massaged his throbbing temples. "How do you know all of this?"

"That's hard to explain too. Ma grand-taunty has always been able to… sense things. It's something that runs in my family. It can lay dormant or submerged until something triggers it, something threatening."

" Arrêté . I need a minute."

Easton sucked in a large gulp of air while he processed the tornado of thoughts whipping around his cerebral cortex. How could he believe this? How could he not? While it all sounded A-Clockwork-Orange- meets-Alfred-Hitchcock bonkers, it made perfect sense.

"So, you've been… sensing things … since Topeka?"

"Actually, it began before then."

"How much before?"

"When Maddox showed up."

"Maddox?"

"He made me realize how much… how much I love you and want to protect you. I was scared he'd steal you away from me."

"Roy—"

"It was the witch—the fortune teller—who put all the pieces together for me." His eyes darkened seconds before his face followed suit. "Just as the demon recognized you, she recognized me as one of her own. Apparently, I have… abilities. I can not only sense spirits but have a visceral aptitude to repel them."

"Ah. That explains why I could hear you above the crowd and everything else. Why once you came near, the… demon disappeared. But why wouldn't you tell me this before now?"

"It's a bit hard to digest and more than a little insane."

"Oh, I'd say it's about as sane as having cursed bulls trying to off you to resolve a blood debt. I mean, that's not your normal, everyday matinee."

"Touché."

"So, what do I do, Royal? Stop riding? Give up my dream?"

"The witch gave me something—a spell."

"Spell? You mean like magic?"

"K-Kinda. It's more like having a deep connection with nature and the universe and being able to tap into them in a way most can't. It's using sacred words taught to man but now forgotten."

"How do you mean sacred?"

"Ever wonder how long Adam and ol' girl lived in the garden before being evicted?"

Oh, please, please, please don't go where I think you're going.

"Seven days?" Easton's response was more question than statement.

"Nope. That was the length of time it took for Creation. I meant how long they took up residency before mucking everything up. They had a direct line to the Big Man during those days. Imagine those conversations."

Yep, he went there.

Easton gasped. "You're saying…?"

"All I'm saying is, Adam and Evie knew things and passed it down. As with most generations, they didn't realize the importance of oral history and only half paid attention. If you don't use it, you lose it. But some people were paying attention. What you call magic is the original language of man needed to rule Earth."

"And the—" Easton hesitated saying the word. "— witch taught you this language—a spell?"

" Oui , although, more accurately, she used the word incantation . She thinks I'm powerful enough to cast it."

"But?"

"I don't know, East. It means I'll need to…. Fuck! We're talking occult shit—like full-out Brother Blood. Through the centuries, people have defiled it. Remember, Adam and Eve weren't only chitchatting it up with the Almighty. Don't forget that other squatter freeloading in the treehouse. If I get it wrong, who knows what will happen…. What could happen to you."

"I trust you."

"Well, I don't trust me."

"You said you loved me like a brother."

"No. Ah, couyon, you're so dense sometimes." Royal gently kissed the tip of Easton's nose. "I'm in love with you, sha ."

Warmth spread through Easton's cheeks, and his heart galloped in his chest. He took it all in, considered, and questioned if his hearing had deceived him.

He's in love with me.

Out of all the outrageous things he'd heard tonight, this was the most mind-blowing of them all—yet it was the one he wanted to believe the most. It filled him. Completed him. He didn't need anything else.

After a moment of thought, he replied, "That means you'd never do anything to harm me. So, I have faith in you. Cast the spell. End this madness."

Reluctantly, Royal nodded.

Easton repositioned and snuggled closer to his bed companion. "Oh, and Roy…."

"Huh?"

" Et, je t'aime, aussi ."

Smiling, Royal leaned forward and rested his forehead against Easton's.