40. Vex
40
VEX
“Absolutely not.” I stand my ground, arms crossed, staring down at the tiny terror currently backed into the corner of our bathroom. “You’re covered in that disgusting ichor, and you’re getting a bath whether you like it or not.”
Chaos hisses at me with all the menace his miniature lion’s jaws can muster. His tiny pixie-like body is coated in Gray’s black, viscous blood, making his usually golden mane stick up in crusty spikes. The smell is unholy—literally—a putrid mix of sulphur, rot, and something I can’t identify but makes my eyes water.
“Maybe we should wait until he calms down,” Luc suggests from a safe distance by the doorway. Smart man.
“He’s been ‘calming down’ for three hours,” I reply, not taking my eyes off the Araxi. “The ichor is hardening. If we wait any longer, we’ll have to chisel it off him. ”
Draven snorts from somewhere behind Luc. “I’ve faced armies of Heaven with less trepidation than I feel about this bath.”
“You’re all being ridiculous,” Matilda says, squeezing past them into the bathroom. She looks vibrant despite the battle in the clearing. Her hair has mostly returned to normal, though streaks of black remain interwoven with her usual blonde. “He’s the size of a squirrel. How hard can it be?”
Chaos responds by showing every one of his needle-sharp teeth in a snarl that would be terrifying on a creature a hundred times his size. On his tiny frame, it’s both comical and somehow more disturbing because I’ve seen what he can do. “He may be small, but he’s basically a piranha with legs and a bad attitude.”
“Fine.” Matilda rolls up her sleeves. “I’ll do it myself. He’s my familiar.”
I exchange glances with Luc and Draven. We all know how this is going to go.
“Together,” I decide. “We’ve faced down Gray, Anu, Vazna, and the collapse of the magickal classification system, amongst other things. We can handle one tiny bath.”
Draven sighs deeply. “I’ll be on standby to heal us.”
“I’ll fill the tub,” Luc offers, moving cautiously toward the tap, giving Chaos a wide berth.
Matilda kneels down, meeting the Araxi’s gaze. “Chaos, you stink. You’re getting a bath. The sooner you accept this, the easier it will be for everyone.”
Chaos’s response is to flatten himself against the wall, his tiny ears pinned back. He makes a chittering sound that I swear is the Araxi equivalent of profanity.
“I’ve got the towels,” I say, grabbing a stack. These will definitely be sacrificed for the cause.
“And I’ve got these,” Draven returns, holding up a pair of thick leather gloves normally used for handling caustic potions. “Thought they might help.”
“Good thinking,” I nod, reaching for them.
“Oh no,” Draven pulls them back. “These are for me. You’re on your own.”
I roll my eyes. “Coward.”
“Pragmatist,” he corrects with a smirk.
Luc fills the tub with a few inches of warm water. He adds some of Matilda’s raspberry shampoo straight into the water. It does nothing to mask the reek coming from Chaos.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” I say, moving closer to the Araxi. “Matilda, you try to calm him down. Luc, you’re on standby with Hellfire, which is probably the only thing that will subdue him. Draven, with those gloves, you’re going to help me grab him.”
“Great,” he mutters. “Foresight bit me on the arse.”
“Focus, please,” Matilda interjects. “My familiar is stinky and filthy, and we need to get this over with so we can move on.”
Chaos, seeming to understand that his bath is imminent, makes a break for it. He darts between my legs with astonishing speed.
“Get him!” I shout, spinning around.
What follows can only be described as complete chaos—appropriately enough. The tiny Araxi ricochets around the bathroom like a furious, stinking pinball. He scales the shower curtain, sending it crashing down on Luc, who curses in three languages, none that I’ve ever heard before, but the meaning is quite clear. Draven lunges for Chaos, slips on the now-wet floor, and crashes into the toilet.
I make a grab for the Araxi as he springs from the sink to the towel rack, but he twists mid-air, his tiny claws leaving burning scratches across my palm.
“Motherfucker! Luc, a little help here?”
“Busy,” Luc grunts from beneath the shower curtain.
Matilda, meanwhile, is trying to reason with her familiar. “Chaos, please! This is for your own good. That stuff could be toxic!”
Chaos responds by leaping onto her head, digging his claws into her scalp, and using it as a launching pad to reach the top of the cabinet.
“Ow! Fuck’s sake, Chaos!” She reaches up, blood trickling from her scalp.
Something in me snaps. No one hurts Matilda, not even her familiar. I summon a containment spell—nothing harmful, just a gentle magickal bubble—and cast it at Chaos.
The Araxi, somehow sensing my intent, dodges at the last second. My spell hits the mirror instead, shattering it. Seven years of bad luck. Perfect.
“No magick!” Matilda yelps. “You’ll scare him more!”
“He’s already terrified,” Draven points out, picking himself up from his undignified sprawl. “And now so am I.”
Chaos has retreated to the highest point in the room—the light fixture—where he clings, hissing down at us like a tiny gargoyle. The black ichor is starting to flake off him, drifting down like disgusting snow.
“This isn’t working,” I state the obvious, examining the scratches on my hand. They’re burning like they’ve been doused in acid.
Luc finally extracts himself from the shower curtain and glares up at the tiny creature. “See? This is why we hate them.”
Chaos snarls at Luc.
“No!” Matilda says, panicking slightly. “No one hates you, Chaos. We love you and want to take care of you. Right, guys?”
Silence.
“Right?” she growls.
“Err, yeah, that is correct,” I state.
“Sure,” Luc drawls. “That ichor definitely has properties we should be concerned about. The sooner we get it off him, the better.”
I look around the demolished bathroom. Water everywhere. Broken mirror. Fallen shower curtain. Blood mixing with the puddles on the floor. And we haven’t even got Chaos wet yet.
“This is a disaster,” I mutter, looking up at the light fixture where Chaos continues to hiss down at us like some miniature demon overlord. “We need a new strategy. ”
“I have an idea,” Draven says, his eyes narrowing. Before any of us can ask what it is, he summons a small contingent of skeletal hands that emerge from the shadows. They surge toward the light fixture, reaching for Chaos.
The Araxi’s eyes widen in what I can only describe as unholy outrage. He leaps from the fixture, bouncing off Draven’s head, leaving three distinct claw marks across his forehead, ricocheting off the wall, and landing on the edge of the bathtub.
“Now!” I shout, lunging for him.
Chaos makes a break for it, but Matilda manages to get a hand on him. He twists, a blur of golden fur and ichor, slashing at her wrist. She winces, but holds firm.
“I’ve got him!” she cries triumphantly. “Quick, the bath?—”
That’s when Chaos does something I’ve never seen before. He expands, his tiny body seeming to double in size as his fur stands on end. Then he emits a sound that should not be possible from something so small—a screech that makes the bathroom tiles vibrate.
Matilda, startled, loosens her grip for just a split second.
It’s enough.
Chaos breaks free, launching himself directly at my face. I throw up my hands, but I’m too slow. Tiny claws dig into my cheeks, my forehead, my scalp—anywhere he can reach. The pain is immediate and intense, like being attacked by a miniature lawn mower.
“Get him off!” I yell, stumbling backward .
My heel hits the edge of the bath mat, which slides on the wet floor. My balance fails me, and I topple backward, directly into the tub.
I hit the water with a splash that drenches everything within a six-foot radius, bruising myself from head to toe, and Chaos, still attached to my face, comes with me and actually shoves my head under the water.
The bathroom erupts into havoc.
“Vex!” Matilda shouts, her voice muffled by the water.
“Dammit, you fucking asshole!” Luc rages.
Chaos, now thoroughly wet and ten times more enraged, becomes a whirling dervish of claws and teeth. He bounces between Luc and me, letting me up for air and leaving bloody tracks wherever he touches. The ichor on his fur dissolves in the water, creating a disgusting black sludge that clings to everything.
“Hold him!” Matilda commands, grabbing the sponge. “I’ll wash him while you’ve got him cornered!”
“Cornered?” I sputter. “Does this look like we have him cornered?”
Chaos scales my soaked shirt, perches on my shoulder for a terrifying moment, then leaps to the shower rod, which promptly breaks under his insignificant weight—clearly, the universe itself is conspiring against us. The rod crashes down, narrowly missing Draven, who has wisely maintained his distance.
“This is ridiculous,” Draven mutters, finally stepping forward. “Enough games.”
He makes an elaborate gesture with his gloved hands, and suddenly the skeletal hands return—dozens of them, emerging from every shadow in the bathroom. They coordinate with disturbing accuracy, herding Chaos back toward the tub.
The Araxi, sensing he’s outmatched, makes a desperate dive under the freestanding cabinet filled with towels.
“Block the exit!” Matilda shouts, dropping to her knees.
I haul myself out of the tub, dripping and bleeding from at least a dozen gashes. My clothes cling to me, sodden and now stained with that black ichor.
“I’ll flush him out,” Luc says, equally drenched. He summons a small flame to his palm—not enough to damage anything, just enough to make hiding uncomfortable.
Chaos, seeing the flame, makes his choice. He bolts from under the cabinet—directly back toward the tub.
“Now!” I yell.
Matilda dives for him, managing to scoop him up with a towel. He fights like a wild thing, but the towel constrains his movements just enough.
“Quick, back in the tub!” she says, hurrying forward.
I climb back into the water, extending my arms. “Give him to me.”
Matilda transfers the towel-wrapped Araxi to my hands. The moment he’s in my grasp, I submerge him—towel and all—in the black water.
What follows is a test of endurance unlike anything I’ve experienced before. Chaos fights with the strength of a creature a hundred times his size, his claws somehow finding flesh despite the towel. I grit my teeth against the pain, keeping him submerged while Matilda frantically sponges him off as best she can.
“Almost there,” she encourages, her hands moving with speed.
Chaos breaks free of the towel, surging up from the water like a vengeance Demon. He latches onto my ear with his teeth.
“Bastard!”
Luc grabs Chaos from behind, prying him off my ear with surprising gentleness. “Got him!”
Draven steps forward with fresh towels. “Let’s dry him off.”
“Are you insane?” I ask, pressing a hand to my bleeding ear.
Matilda wraps him in a fresh towel, this time managing to create a secure little bundle that constrains everything except his tiny lion face. He glares at us balefully from his cloth prison, but he is finally clean. His golden fur shines once more, his mane restored to its majestic (if somewhat diminished) glory.
“There,” she says, satisfied. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
The three of us stare at her in disbelief.
“Not so bad?” I repeat, gesturing to the battlefield that was once our bathroom. Water covers every surface. Broken glass from the mirror crunches underfoot. The shower curtain lies in a crumpled heap. Blood— mostly mine—mingles with dissolved ichor in pink-black puddles. “This place looks like we summoned a pissed-off water Demon.”
“Well, you got the pissed-off part right,” Luc snorts.
“Well, now we don’t have to worry about whatever that ichor might have done,” I mutter, pleased, despite the disastrous event.
Matilda smiles, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “My hero.”
We make our way to the bedroom, leaving wet footprints in our wake. Chaos, still bundled in his towel, has gone suspiciously quiet.
“Is he okay?” I ask, nodding toward the bundle in Matilda’s arms.
She peeks inside the towel. “He’s asleep. I think the fight took it out of him.”
“Took it out of him?” I shake my head in amazement. “What about us?”
As we enter the bedroom, the absurdity of the situation finally hits me. I laugh, unable to contain it. Luc joins in, followed by Draven and finally Matilda. We collapse onto the bed in a heap of damp clothes, towels, and exhaustion.
“Anyone in the mood for a clean-up?”
“MistHallow will sort it?” Draven asks hopefully.
“Maybe,” I venture. “I mean, let’s give it a chance to work its magick.”
“So,” Matilda says, settling Chaos on the pillow next to her head, “graduation is a few months away.”
The abrupt change of subject catches me off guard, but I understand why she’s bringing it up. After everything that’s happened today—confronting her past, embracing her power, securing the future of the classification stones—it makes sense that she’s thinking about what comes next.
“It is,” I agree, wincing as I shift position and disturb about fifteen different cuts. “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
Draven sits up, his expression turning serious. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you all about that. About what happens after.”
“What do you mean?” Matilda asks.
“Well,” he says, exchanging a glance with Luc, “whatever Mum has in store for us, will probably mean moving to Hell, at least some of the time.”
“We aren’t going to leave you,” Luc says quickly, taking her hand. “That’s never been an option.”
“But Vex can’t exactly move to Hell full-time,” she points out. “He is starting as a full-time professor here.”
“What about splitting our time?” I suggest, the idea forming as I speak. “Half on Earth, half in Hell.”
Matilda’s eyes widen. “Would that work?”
“It might,” Draven says thoughtfully. “I mean, the academy has term time and holidays.”
“So, holidaying in Hell?” I ask with a snort. “Gives a whole new meaning to going south for the winter.”
“And Chaos?” Matilda asks, glancing at her sleeping familiar. “You said he was from the Wastelands, was it? Is he allowed in Hell? Will he be okay? ”
“Maybe he will want to go back to the Wastelands and see his little Araxi friends?” I say.
“Aww,” she says, looking at me with sorrow. “Do you think he has friends and family that he was torn away from?”
“Maybe,” I say slowly, not wanting to upset her.
She considers it for a moment and then sighs. “Okay, so we have a plan. After graduation, we split our time between the two realms. Best of both worlds.”
“Best of all worlds,” Luc corrects, pulling her close. “Because we’ll be together.”
From his towel bundle, Chaos emits a tiny snore, apparently unconcerned with our future plans as long as they include regular meals and absolutely no baths.
I lean back against the pillows, surveying my unusual family. A demi-goddess with the power to reshape reality. Two Princes of Hell with their own unique abilities with a still mysterious future and a tiny familiar with the attitude of a much larger predator. And me, a dark warlock who somehow ended up in the middle of it all.
After everything we’ve faced, we’re still here. Still together. Still finding moments of absurdity and joy amid the remnants of anarchy.
“Next time,” I murmur, “we’re setting him on fire. It would be easier than giving him a bath.”
Matilda laughs, curling against my side. “No, we’re not.”
“Speak for yourself,” Luc mutters, but he’s smiling.
As we settle down to contemplate our future with each other, still wet and bleeding but too exhausted to move after the bath time calamity, I feel a strange contentment despite my many injuries. We’ve made it this far. Whatever comes next—whether in this realm or Hell—we’ll face it as a group that has come together under extraordinary circumstances.
And that’s worth all the Araxi baths in the world.