It’s been a while, really, since he thought about the fact that Obie was the hunters’ very first target. Chester’s heart twists at thethought. “Whydidthe first hunters go after you, anyway? It’s not like a summoner was using you for your powers. And I really doubt you went on a killing spree without just cause.”
Obie’s smile wavers. “Well, they—you know humans, puppy. They’ll attack whatever they don’t understand. And you’ve seen my true form—myrealtrue form. It’s not exactly cute and cuddly.”
“I wouldn’t use those words to describe it, no,” Chester says carefully. Actually, the words he would use are closer to “magnificent” and “awe-inspiring,” not that he’s about to tell Obie that. “So the first humans who saw you banded together to try and kill you? And they became the first hunters?”
Unexpectedly, Obie stiffens. “I didn’t say that,” he says sharply. “No, the first humans I met were good. They weregood,and the hunters—” He cuts himself off, looking away. “It doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago.”
There’s a raw edge to his voice that Chester has never heard there before. Impulsively, he leans forward.“Ithink it matters. Even if it was a long time ago, that doesn’t change that they were good. It doesn’t change that you cared about them, and that they cared about you, and?—”
The last sentence slips out before his brain has a chance to process it, but he doesn’t need the startled look on Obie’s face to know it’s true. It was obvious from how quickly Obie rose to defend them, from how hard his voice got, from how rigid his posture became.
It’s reminiscent of how Obie looked on that night so many weeks ago in Redwater Bowl’s parking lot, when Chester tried to use his ill-fated binding spell to force Obie to compromise his friends.
Suddenly, Chester thinks about the way Obie acts with the people he cares about—his friends, his fellow bowlers, his tenants. Thinks about how he checks on them and takes care of them and protectsthem, thinks about how effortlessly he dotes on Desi and how readily he offered his babysitting services to Keira.
Thinks about where those instincts might have started. “Obie,” Chester says slowly, “did you have a family with those first humans? Like—like a family with children?”
All at once, Obie goes still.
Instantly, Chester realizes he pushed too far. This isn’t Obie marrying a friend at a pancake house in Las Vegas on a whim, isn’t Obie unilaterally proclaiming Chester to be his “himbo boy toy” just to annoy him.
This actually means something to Obie. “Sorry,” Chester blurts out, shaking his head. “It’s your business, not mine. Forget I asked. You—you don’t have to talk about it.”
“I don’t.” Obie’s expression is guarded and his voice is careful. “Talk about it, I mean. I’ve… never really talked about my past with anyone. Partly because it would mean admitting that I’m Nostringvadha, but…” He trails off. “I’ve never really talked about how the first hunters came after me. Me, and—and everyone I cared about.”
The edge to his voice sounds like self-loathing now. Chester’s heart hurts. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Obie scoffs. “You don’t know that, Locke.”
“I might not know what happened,” Chester counters, “but I knowyou.So I know it wasn’t your fault.”
Obie’s jaw works. He looks away.
Chester can sense that he’s treading on dangerous ground right now. He chooses his next words with care. “You don’t have to tell me anything. Like I said, it’s your business, not mine. But—but if youwantto talk about it, I’m listening. I’d… like to know more about you. If you’ll let me.”
Please let me in.The words can’t float from Chester’s head toObie’s, not from all the way across the room, but part of Chester hopes Obie can hear them anyway.Please tell me everything about you.
“I mean…” Obie’s eyes flicker back to Chester. “What do you want to know?”
Chester’s throat feels dry. “Tell me about your family.”
Eventually, Obie nods. “I didn’t have a wife and two kids and a picket fence, if that’s what you mean. Picket fences didn’t exist yet, and demons and humans can’t have biological children. But there was… one particular woman who was important to me. Ada. And her son, Kai.”
“Were you…?” Chester struggles with how to phrase the question. “Did you love her?”
Obie’s lips twitch. “Yes. Not romantically, though. She was my very first friend. My verybestfriend. Every relationship I’ve had since then has been touched by what I learned from her.” His smile curves a little higher. “And from Kai, too. That boy was a firecracker, even as an infant. He taught me what it meant to be a parent. A guardian. A—a protector.”
The depth of the fondness in Obie’s voice—the depth of thelonging—makes Chester feel like an intruder. He breathes past the tightness in his chest. “How did you meet them?”
“Their tribe was the first humans I saw.” Obie’s eyes are fixed on the wall over Chester’s shoulder—not like he’s avoiding Chester’s gaze, but like he’s drawing up the memories out of a well, slow and steady. “I crash-landed in present-day Canada after the other gods banished me, so I’d already been there for a few centuries before humans arrived over the land bridge. And I was… fascinated by them. I changed my true form to look more like them, but I wanted to keep my animal influences, too—the wings and the horns and the tentacles and such.” He smiles. “And then I decided to introduce myself to the unsuspecting humans exactly like that.”
Chester is surprised into laughing. “I’m sure that went well.”
Obie’s grin widens. “It could’ve gone a lot worse, actually. They were obviously frightened and suspicious, but since I’d already picked up their language by watching them, I was able to communicate that I meant no harm. After a while, they let me hang out on the outskirts of their camp.”
“And that’s where you met Ada? And Kai?”
Obie’s eyes are wistful. “Yeah. Ada snuck me some scraps of food that first week. The elders didn’t want her to, but she was young and stupid and—” His voice falters. “And lonely. Kai’s father had died in a hunt the month before, and there weren’t any other young mothers in the tribe. So, like any reasonable sixteen-year-old with a newborn son, she decided to befriend the demon god at the edge of camp.”
