Chapter 5
Matt
I’m slowly getting used to the schedule that Deejay keeps day-to-day. He wakes up at five and is in the kitchen by five-thirty, the twins usually wake up around six, breakfast is on the table by six-forty-five, and we leave the house by seven to get everyone to school on time. It’s hectic and rushed, but I’ve found a way I can help. Instead of taking me to school this morning, we’re at the DMV so I can get a driver’s license. I can take over dropping the kids off at and picking them up from school, which will alleviate the stress of having to get everyone ready to leave by seven am and open up the afternoon for him a bit.
I’ve already passed the written test, now we’re just waiting on the driving test. I’ve got Alex on my knee, playing with him and Cary while Deejay holds Eren. The twins were tired of sitting in their stroller, so we decided to bring them out while we wait.
Cary adores his new baby brothers. He’s completely accepted that this is his new family and he’s a big brother now. It’s kind of funny watching him with the twins because sometimes he does things that I recognize are his version of the things I’ve done for him. Right now, he’s smiling brightly, his aura a bright happy yellow, as he wipes away some kind of grunge on Alex’s hand reciting the words I’ve told him since he was a baby too.
“You’re a grody, nasty, disgusting boy—I’m so proud of you, Awex!”
He hasn’t quite figured out the L sound yet, but we’re working on it.
Deejay laughs beside me, amused by Cary’s antics as Eren tries to reach over to join the fun. Without hesitation, I take Eren from Deejay and sit him on my knee, holding one twin in each hand as they sit on my legs facing Cary. I’ve only ever taken care of Cary, but it hasn’t been a hardship to add a second baby to the habits I formed when Cary was this young. Plus, I adore these little guys. They’re so fucking cute and it’s nice that babies don’t have the kinds of biases that adults have about my looks.
It helps to hold them in public, like now, because it softens the ugly bruiser people see. Baby cuteness off-sets ugly and gives me some social brownie points.
Unfortunately, that only lasts as long as I hold the babies. When my turn comes up for the driving test, I hand off the twins, setting Eren back in Deejay’s arms and returning Alex to the stroller. I give Cary a serious look, bending to get on his level before I go. “Be good for Deejay. I’ll be back soon.”
Cary nods solemnly. “I will.”
I pat his gently head and ruffle his cute curls, then follow the driving test administrator out to Deejay’s van.
The woman checks the van over, making sure it’s legal, then gives me a nervous smile as we get into it. It’s not a small vehicle; it’s a Nissan passenger van that can seat ten, but I’ve practiced with it a couple of times, so I feel comfortable with its dimensions.
“We’re just going to loop around the block, so take a left out of the parking lot,”
the woman instructs me with a tremor of nerves in her voice and a nervous dark green streaking through her sky blue aura.
I grunt my assent and start the vehicle, checking my mirrors before backing out of the parking space.
She continues to give me directions for ten minutes as we literally drive around one city block and return to the DMV parking lot.
She passes me without issue, and then I stand in line to get my driver’s license.
After I finish, Deejay and I get the kids into the van and he hands me the keys. “Congratulations. Let’s go buy you a vehicle.”
I stare at him wide-eyed. “Buy me a vehicle?”
“Of course, I only have this one and a minivan. If you’re going to start taking everyone to school, we need to get you a vehicle.”
I grunt at that. I expected to use the minivan. Instead of arguing, I slide into the driver's seat and go where he tells me to go.
He bought me a brand-new pearl-colored, full sized SUV that I can fit into.
It took nearly all yesterday morning and cost him almost a hundred grand that he paid in cash.
I’m not on the title, but fuck, it’s the nicest vehicle I’ve ever been in.
I’m stupidly giddy about it.
No one who invests a hundred thousand dollars into someone is going to kick them to the curb.
This more than anything cements for me his commitment to his words.
His actions are speaking the same promise he’s given me and now I actually feel like I belong to him.
I will prove that he belongs to me just as much.
I intend to make myself useful and really, truly make sure this family knows Cary and I are just as committed to them as their father is to us.
So, in the spirit of that decision, when we got home, I took up the reins of my new commitment and helped Deejay.
I picked the kids up from school, and helped with homework and snacks, played with Cary and Jasper, then helped them bathe while Deejay bathed the twins, and then I helped Deejay with the babies’ nighttime routine.
It went surprisingly smoothly; we worked well together, and it was fun.
Deejay exhibits all the behaviors and attitudes that I imagine the perfect parent would.
He takes care of the needs, addresses the wants, plays hard, smiles often, and never loses his temper.
I love watching him with the little ones.
Now, I’m sitting at the desk in my room, taking care of my self-assigned homework.
The encyclopedia of non-human species Deejay gave me is incredibly illuminating.
The text scrolls on the page, a bit like a digital book, but this one has intuitive magic controlling the scroll instead of my thumb.
It took me some time to get used to the continuous scrolling of the page, but now I can read it without skipping lines or getting confused.
I’m barely into the Cs, learning now about Centaurs, and realizing how much myth has obfuscated the truth.
Centaurs aren’t half-man, half-horse.
They’re shifters that can appear as a man or any animal in the Equidae family and run the gamut of equine species from Earth and a number of other dimensional realms.
The realm of the Elves, Morgaine, has equines that are not horses, but rather sea dwellers and a Centaur can be a shifter that shifts into that species.
It’s amazing how big my world has gotten since coming here—there are other dimensions.
It’s exciting and opens up literally worlds of possibilities.
It’s also frightening because it’s become clear from my reading that a non-human’s life is not safe.
The encyclopedia lists species and their subspecies and notes the particular strengths and weaknesses of each.
I’ve noticed that often there’s commentary on specific habits that make a non-human dangerous.
For example, the Morgaine version of a Centaur is a carnivore that doesn’t discriminate against eating sentient species or even their own kind.
For a hungry Gallen, everything is fair game.
And that’s just one of hundreds of non-human species.
Although people look at me and expect an idiot, I’m not one.
Far from it.
It hasn’t been a hardship to memorize the important facts about each species and their subspecies I’ve studied, which I determined I needed to do when the first entry under A was Aabab, a monster-under-the-bed creature that exists in the shadows, and propagates by abducting sleeping people and turning them into Aababs through a single bite that transfers transformative magic from the Aabab to the living person.
They can only be defeated with mage light, which almost anyone with actual magic can create, but the encyclopedia doesn’t explain how.
I plan to find out as much as I can about magic when I’m done memorizing the encyclopedia, even though I don’t actually have any magic myself.
I can help the rest of the family with theirs simply by having the right knowledge, which I know the old adage is true: knowledge is power.
I intend to help this family be as powerful as possible.
I glance at the time when my internal timer urges me to check it.
It’s just ten now, which means Deejay is about to knock on my door.
I set the encyclopedia to the side, and run my fingers through my curly hair, because no matter how many times I tell myself to knock it off, I still like the man.
Way more than is appropriate considering our circumstances.
He’s literally the ruler of his own realm, and I’m just a human he got stuck with because his sister had a moment of compassion on the kids of her dead boyfriend.
The expected knock comes, and I open the door up, tipping my lips up in a smile I hope comes off welcoming, but I don’t have a lot of practice smiling with anyone who isn’t Cary, and that boy gives me so much joy I don’t have to practice my smiles, they come naturally.
Deejay’s warm smile greets me as I watch the yellow of his shiny aura turn a bit orange when magenta flushes over it.
I don’t know the meaning of all the nuances of people’s auras mainly because I just haven’t bothered to learn more than the basics, which my old man taught me, and I am teaching Cary.
I do know that Deejay only turns magenta with me, which makes me feel a little special, but I’m a little afraid to investigate it further in case it’s a reflection of a less complimentary mood than I hope it is.
Pinks and reds can be anything from love to dishonesty depending on where they originate in the psyche, and I make an effort to let people keep their privacy.
I know that not many people can see beyond the outer shell of a person’s aura, so I try not to look beyond that myself.
“Hey, Matt. Ready for bed?”
he asks, checking in on me like he always does.
“I was just reading. Thinking about getting a snack before bed,”
I reply, joining him in the hall as my stomach informs me it hasn’t gotten fed in four hours and I need to rectify that. I’ve been on the tail end of a growth spurt the last few weeks, having added another two inches to my already ridiculous height since I started living with Deejay.
“Want some company? I was thinking of having a glass of wine before I head upstairs,”
he offers, making my heart start up with those damn palpitations again.
Before I can answer, we both hear the shattering of glass from downstairs. Deejay hesitates, turning toward the noise, but I know the sound of stone through a window, and know that most intruders can be dissuaded just by a show of force, so I start running downstairs before he moves. I’m surprised someone would take the risk considering the mansion has clear signs posted indicating the security system.
When I get to the bottom of the stairs, I see that the broken glass comes from one of the static panes that buffet the front door on either side, and the hole is big enough for a person to walk through.
A person I don’t see until I alight onto the ground floor, and then I see a shadow dart from the living room toward me.
I spin in place, meeting the attack head-on.
I see a huge nebulous shadow just before I’m hit with the significant force of an attempted tackle.
The thing gets what feels like arms around me before my hand-to-hand combat training kicks in.
Blinded by the shadow, encased in the darkness that hides the form of the person attacking, I can’t see but I don’t need to as long as I can feel.
I punch down on the person, landing a solid hit into the sharp protrusion of bone in the person’s back.
The force I used, the normal force I would use in a street fight, doesn’t faze the person.
Pain sears down my back as the person or thing claws gashes into me.
Fortunately, I know how to deal with pain without breaking my stride, so I try again, hitting the person with the full force of my hammer-fists.
I hear the crack of bone fracturing, then I hear Deejay’s voice.
“Shadows that hide, retreat. Turn on your master. Reveal the person you protect.”
The blinding darkness suddenly disappears, revealing a green-skinned—person-ish thing. It’s shaped like a human, sort of, but its muscles aren’t quite right, and it has large vertebrae instead of small vertebrae like a human, which is what I hit. It has its arms wrapped around my torso, and the shadows have retreated just in time for me to see it dive to take a bite out of my ribs. I hit the thing in the head, knocking it off course before it can get its teeth in me, then I hit it again, causing its grip on me to waver. One more hit in the head and the thing falls away from me, landing on its back.
Attached to its chest via leather straps are three envelopes.
“Shit,”
Deejay cusses, coming to stand over the creature. “He sent a Persian Djinn,”
he growls, ripping the envelopes off the Djinn.
“Who is ‘he’, and why are we getting attacked by Djinn?”
I question, trying to keep my tone even through the excitement of downing a non-human opponent. Honestly, I’m a bit fired up and ready for round two.
“The Triton King. I told you about the diarrhea curse. This is his response. These envelopes ensure that the curse is broken, but he did not take the capitulation of power well. The Persian Djinns are hired assassins, and they literally only take on jobs that will increase their infamy. And you can tell them apart from other Djinn because of the green skin.”
He frowns down at the Djinn on the floor. “But they rarely work alone.”
The scrape of glass makes us turn toward the broken window where another Djinn is staring at us with a feral grin.
“You invoked Murphy’s Law,”
I chastise him, a teasing grin on my lips.
Deejay grins back as a black tar covers his aura. “I curse the person who orchestrated this attack to become the focus of this attack rather than me, the Demesne D’Aquino, or any of the residents and citizens under my rule. May confusion cause the assassins sent here to turn on the one who paid them to come here. Let this be a reminder to the whole non-human community that The Maledict has no mercy on the enemies of the Demesne D’Aquino.”
As he speaks that curse, the black tar covering his aura pours into a basketball-sized sphere, taking on the form and intention of the curse. As soon as he speaks the last word, the tether that has fed the sphere of the curse breaks away and the curse splinters into more than a dozen smaller spheres which zoom through the air in several directions, but mostly toward the front of the house. One ball drops onto the Djinn I knocked unconscious and dives through the guy’s head into his mind.
The Djinn wakes up immediately, jumps to his feet and runs out of the house through the window he broke to get in. I follow him, but open the front door, carefully sidestepping the broken glass. Outside I see the backs of at least fifteen Djinn running away.
I look back at Deejay whose aura has recovered from the tar of the curse and has returned to its usual shine. He stares past me at the retreating Djinn, a grim look on his face before it clears off and he meets my eyes. “You’re bleeding. I have a salve to fix you up in my bathroom upstairs. Let’s get you healed and then we can clean this mess up.”
I nod my assent and follow him up to the third floor, through his bedroom, and into the bathroom. He pulls an unmarked tin from the top left drawer of his jack and jill sink and uncaps it. I give him my back, and feel him apply the salve to my wounds, the sharp sting of antiseptic, and then the odd sensation of my skin mending. I look over my shoulder into the mirror and see that the gashes where the Djinn clawed me have completely healed with no evidence that I was even hurt, not even a scar.
Magic is awesome.