The Curse and the Camazotz (2.4)

“So you have no credentials, no experience, no security clearance, and your motivation for wanting to help is that you think monsters are… cool.” Fionn says without even looking up from his paperwork. His stupid ceramic sheepdog stares back at me, tongue lolling insanely.

Anyone else would be nervous and insulted and reconsidering what they wanted to be when they grew up. Seriously, nothing makes you hate monster hunters like meeting monster hunters. Me, though? I’m always nervous. And I’m the only person in the world who knows what to say.

“Well, it’s just that I was always good with people. Like in a normal way, not a superhero way. And I’ve lived here my whole life, and it matters to me, you know?” I say. It’s so easy to make it sound like it isn’t calculated, like I’m not chasing down the boredom in his mind and nailing it with a javelin like some Cro-Magnon hunter.

Are you useful, Shay? That’s the question. I’m answering it.

“Your whole life? You must know all the urban legends, then.” he says, still staring. At nothing. He’s stopped writing now. I got him.

“Yeah, well, my best friend was the most recent vampire victim, so…”

“The vampire’s skipped town.” he says.

“Yeah, you said that. So why are you still here? I’m gonna say it, dude, nobody likes you. I mean, obviously I do, or I wouldn’t be here, but… the film club, the anime club, the volleyball team, rainbow alliance, every class I’m in all of them won’t shut up about Finish-Him O’Hagan, the crazy Irish nut who was gonna murder the most popular kid in our grade.” I rant more deliberately than anyone has ever ranted before.

I came up with that finish-him pun. I’m getting good at those. I don’t mention it, of course.

He looks up. Oh, so now you’re interested in having boots on the ground that aren’t attached to an out-of-touch celebrity or the world champion of scowling threateningly? Now you are, because you just heard me name-drop a sports team and three of the most popular clubs at the school. Yeah. That’s right. You don’t rebuild your reputation after kidnapping Cell Milev, not without a lackey who’ll tell all their many, many friends and fellow club members about how you’re really not that bad, and remind them all that you’re a badass monster hunter who’s helping clean up the city. You want a teen to trust you ever again? Better start playing our dumbass social games.

I have him nailed to the wall. Keeping from smiling is harder than my physics midterm was, but he finally sighs and starts listing rules in a droning, disinterested voice.

“I will tell you exactly what you need to know and nothing more. I will not tell you where I’m going unless you can actually help, and instances of this will be very rare. You are not ‘on the team.’ We are not ‘friends.’ Your job is to be a fresh young face whose questions are less likely to get stonewalled out of libertarian or Luddite paranoia than mine are. Do you understand? You are a glorified door-knocker and if I hear you’re bragging about it for clout I’ll put you back in math class before you can say botched internship.”

It makes me a little sick to spew insincere statements of gratitude until he has to physically push me out the door, but I have to sell it somehow, don’t I? Afterwards, it’s time for my real reaction—one very emphatic fist-pump.

Gee, I wonder where he’ll send me? Couldn’t be canvassing the residents of Snowdon in extra-safe broad daylight, could it? Not like he needs a trilingual, trustworthy local who knows how to put on the charm. Not like that’d be super helpful, or anything.

Yeah, the anxiety and the doubt and the sensory overload and the being a goddamn emotional martyr all the time, those all suck, but you know what the real Curse of Shay is? Not doing shit like this all the time. I’m in on the top-secret-est thing in Montreal, nobody suspects a thing, and it took me five minutes.

Scares me sometimes.