Page 19 of Blade

“He understood words like backpack, so he’s not just operating on pure instinct.” That wouldn’t explain all his behavior. “We just need to use simple ideas.”

The deputy’s sigh said what he thought of my plan or just the situation in general, but Blade didn’t mind the drama, so I ignored it. “Blade, don’t you want to help me?”

He needed to be my focus because breathing was important and so was his future as a person.

“I know this is confusing but you can help me by letting the deputy call his friends.” I wasn’t even going to test Blade’s patience with the word coven. “Being able to talk to me would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

Hmm.

“But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Now I had to ignore the deputy’s groan, but I wasn’t going to force Blade to do anything he didn’t want to. It might not actually be safe. “You’re my partner, remember. That’s what’s important.”

Something must’ve gotten through to my stubborn murder kitty because he shifted so most of his weight was beside me and just the front of his body was resting on mine. He still looked ready to spring at the deputy if he so much as wiggled wrong, but I was hoping it wasn’t going to come down to that.

“That’s not the only important issue here. He’s been lost from us for nearly seventy years and this is the closest we’ve ever cometo finding him.” The deputy’s drama was ridiculous considering the situation.

“Then a bit longer isn’t going to hurt anything.” That seemed obvious and he couldn’t push back against it, so he just huffed. “That’s what I thought.”

“This is probably the most insane thing I’ve delt with at work and you’re not taking it seriously enough.” If it weren’t for the whole murder kitty issue, the deputy would’ve definitely been pacing and throwing up his arms.

“Then you haven’t traveled enough.” The US was filled with a lot crazier things than a murder kitty and a monster hunter. I knew that because I’d hung out with several over coffee. “I’ve met magic people much stranger than either of us.”

And that was just the people I knew about…I had a long list of weird things that I was still trying to figure out like that wolf thing that might not have been a wolf when I was searching for Mothman and that weird magic guy who kept talking about meeting serial killers.

Some people were just strange.

Like Mothman.

Someone claiming to be him was on the Monster Network, but finding him in person hadn’t worked at all.

I was actually starting to wonder if he was human and faking it too, but I didn’t have anything concrete to go on with that theory.

“How?”

Ignoring the ranger’s question, I focused on Blade. “If you’re actually supposed to have a human side too, he might be helpful. From my research, his timeline sounds plausible. You’re a pretty murder kitty, but I bet you’d be a handsome human.”

The deputy needed to get his sound effects under control.

Besides, Blade couldn’t be any uglier as a human.

“You could talk to me and could help me easier if you had hands.” Petting his back, I smiled when he shifted low enough on my legs that I could actually sit up. That was progress. “Good boy, Blade.”

I could breathe, but my back was never going to recover.

Taking off my pack, I set it beside us and kept running my hands over him as I chatted. “We could go to dinner and you could tell me what you wanted to eat. You’d probably like cooked food again. You’d probably like being able to talk to me or at least to be able to tell me to shut up once in a while.”

“I can guarantee he’ll never be that rude to you.” The deputy was confident about random things, so I just ignored him.

“It sounds like you’ve been trapped for a long time.” Was he understanding enough of our conversation? Pushing his head into my hand and rolling his eyes at the deputy wasn’t giving me enough information. “We’re just going to take this one step at a time and we’ll figure it out.”

Somehow.

I might just need to do some research on the paranormal internet servers I’d found. Pretending to be a Bigfoot on the monster one was rude, but they were all nice, and whoever Mothman was, they sold jewelry online that my mother would love.

If they basically had an Etsy store, they couldn’t be all bad.

Oh, I needed to remember to message him back.

“What if we?—”