Mercy by Rhiannon Paille Page B

polyester shirt covering his thick chest.
    “Hey, Christian,” Charlie said, his face breaking into a smile, his Jamaican accent shining through.
    Tor nodded as he lumbered towards the back door. Charlie held out his fist and Tor bumped it. “Morning, Charlie,” Tor drawled, his voice resembling an unidentifiable North American accent. Tor used to speak every language ever created, but, trapped in a human form he could only speak about six of them fluently. At least it impressed the servers.
    He grabbed the handle for the walk-in cooler and stepped inside, surveying the perfectly organized shelves for the morning’s prep list. The thing about being inconspicuous and staying off the radar was you had to work really hard to make sure nobody recognized you. A low-key prep cook at a tourist restaurant in Lake of the Woods was the perfect way to watch out for Kaliel and anyone else that might show up. He didn’t mind the work, even though he used to be the High King of Lands of Peace. Being Christian De Luca was much easier than being Tor.
    He pulled out the veggies for the day which included an assortment of peppers, zucchini, carrots, onions, and cucumbers. Big John’s was a big deal in Lake of the Woods. They had a tavern attached called the Mineshaft, and a big patio overlooking the water. Most people coming to the area stopped by Big John’s at some point, whether for the food, the fishing, or the alcohol. Tor would have loved to bartend but that meant serving customers, and it meant someone might recognize him. The only people he wanted knowing him were the people paying him and the people working with him every day. That included John, Charlie, Smokey, Sweetness, and Jen, who refused to let him give her a nickname. Charlie’s real name was something he couldn’t pronounce if he tried and he half wondered what Kemplan was thinking when he created African languages.
    Tor grabbed a red pepper and began julienning it. In the past twelve years he’d seen Kaliel a total of sixteen times. Gordie Jonsson had a habit of taking his family down at the beginning of the fishing season, constantly trying to show his son how to use a rod and tackle. The rest of the summer Gord showed up once a week by himself. He’d order a burger and fries, spend the afternoon fishing, and head home. The past three summers Kaliel came with him and they talked about canoeing. She seemed happy, normal even, over salting her fries, dunking them in ketchup. She drank iced tea, yammered on about singing lessons and applying for the University of Toronto’s music program. Gord was a stoic listener, never interrupting her steady stream of teenage babble. She did her best to include him in the conversation, stopping every once and a while to ask him about the factory before launching into another long story about the dorms she could live in. Tor’s chest squeezed whenever he caught her talking about life after high school. She had twelve years of a normal life, but there wasn’t anything normal about Kaliel. One day she would wake up and know exactly who she was and exactly what she had done.
    His only hope was that he got to her before she did something stupid.
    Again.
    ***

Chapter 7
Heroes
    Maeva lay low for two weeks, doing chores, helping with dinner, cleaning her room. Nobody believed her about the boy. She hadn’t bothered to listen to the rest of the deferral that night, preferring to lie in bed listening to Adele until she fell asleep.
    But the dream came again.
    In it she was wearing something flowy. The forest was alive with fireflies and crickets. A rabbit darted through the brush as she skipped down the weathered trail, looking for something. Her slippers caught on roots and she almost tripped but managed to keep herself upright. Crashing sounds hit her temples and she recoiled. She longed to see it—maybe if she saw it again she’d be able to find it, but another part of her pulled back, forcefully making her turn and run in the