Damaged Gods

The cathedral kitchen was massive. And when Tomas showed me Grant’s magic recipe book and how to make the food prepare itself—well, that might’ve been the best part of my day.

I really did feel like I was doing magic, even if none of those spells were mine.

But Pell said no more. Now I have to prepare food here.

Then I remember Sheriff Russ Roth and sink a little further down into the tub. Now he was nice. He was the absolute best part of my day. And I am going on that date tomorrow night. Pell is mistaken if he thinks he can control my social life. If I have to be stuck here in this curse with him, the least he can do is let me have a little fun.

And I’m going to insist on that job.

There was a ‘help wanted’ sign in the Honey Bean window. I bet the sheriff could even put in a good word for me and then I’d be a shoo-in.

I could make it work. That’s the point of all this thinking.

If I have a plan, I can make it work.

Eventually I have to get out and face my new world again. I do this reluctantly, not even sure if I should go downstairs. I can hear Tomas in the kitchen and if it wasn’t for the smell of grilling steaks, I might skip dinner. But it’s been a long day, and I was too consumed with the hot sheriff and my sudden influx of fake money to eat much at lunch, so I’m actually starving.

I put on a pair of soft sweatpants I got from the lingerie store, and a t-shirt, and I suddenly feel a thousand times better than I did an hour ago.

That schoolgirl costume needs to be burned. Three days I was wearing that stuff.

Crazy. Because I had actually forgotten I was wearing a costume.

Anyway, when I go downstairs Tomas is just buttering some of the fresh rolls I bought from the bakery today.

“This all smells delicious,” I say, walking over to the table and taking in the spread. There’s salad, and wine—I hit that liquor store pretty hard—and the steaks. “You’re a great cook, Tomas. Maybe you should be in charge of feeding the beast? Speaking of him, where is Pell?”

“Sit,” Tomas says, placing a roll on my plate. “He’s in his tomb, I think. I went looking for him, but…” Tomas shrugs. “He’s not around, so I’m assuming he has retired.”

“Can’t you go knock on the door?”

“The tombs don’t have doors.”

“Of course they do. They are creepy black holes that have a menacing vibe to them, but they all have doors.”

Tomas just stares at me for a moment. “You can see the tomb doors?”

“Of course, can’t you?”

“Hmm.” He shakes his head. “No. I’ve never been in one. But the way Pell talks about his, it’s like another world in there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like… you know when you’re outside the cathedral and it’s just a simple old building? But when you go inside and see all those staircases and high ceilings, it’s huge, right?”

“Yeah. I’ve noticed that.”

“I think that’s how the tombs are. Really small on the outside, but inside they are like a whole other world.”

“Literally another world?”

“You’d have to ask Pell. Before you came, he and I weren’t exactly friends.”

“No? He seems to like you.”

“I guess. But really, losing Grant was a shock to us. I mean, we’ve always known it could happen. It just almost never does. So when you showed up, it was unexpected. We’re still adjusting.”

“Am I going to get punished with some kind of debt because he’s not eating tonight? I don’t understand how his wellbeing is my concern.”

“You don’t get punished. He’s allowed to make his own decisions.”

“Must be nice,” I mumble.

“I will talk to him about the job, though. I promise. I bet he gives in. He doesn’t like being here either. But he’s been stuck in this curse for so long now, he has no clue what it would even be like to walk the earth as a free man anymore.”

“He was human once?”

“Human? Who said anything about human?”

“You said ‘a free man.’ So I just assumed…”

Tomas shakes his head. “No. Well, yes. He’s a man, for sure. We can all see his package dangling all over the place.” I chuckle. Can’t help it. “But no. He was made this way.”

“How long have you been here, Tomas? And why are you cursed?”

“I don’t even remember a life before here.”

“What?”

Tomas lets out a long, tired sigh. “Yeah. I don’t remember. I’ve just… always been here, I think. Well, not here specifically. We were in the Old World for thousands of years before they relocated the sanctuary to Pennsylvania in the late sixteen hundreds.”

“Were you a priest? Or some kind of monk?”

He considers this for a moment, wearing a look of ‘doubtful,’ but says, “Maybe.”