Chapter 4
four
. . .
I woke up sprawled on the velvet lounge in Gloria’s aunt’s parlor, feeling like my head was stuffed with sawdust, while the guy with the weird beard from the night before stared at me with swirling rainbow eyes. His skin was pale blue like an egg shell.
I blinked at him. He blinked at me. We blinked at each other for a long time while the events from the night before sorted themselves out in my head.
I scrambled up and then gripped the lounge so I wouldn’t fall over again.
A winged demon had really been at the club.
Was it Wilkie? And Dorian. He was a demon, a real, live, horned and spiked demon.
Unless that had all been an elaborate hallucination.
Drugs. I must have been drugged in the club.
So why were this guy’s eyes swirling rainbows now? My stomach lurched and I gripped the velvet tighter while I tried not to throw up.
“Careful. Humans are so delicate,” the blue creature with a tentacle beard murmured in a gentle voice that had an echo of crashing waves. He was a sea monster. Of course he was. I should do a mermaid theme. Hadn’t done one of those in a while.
I swallowed hard. He wasn’t human. Like Dorian wasn’t human. What was he doing in Gloria’s house? Did he eat her? “Where’s Gloria?”
“Your friend is still sleeping. She drank a lot of champagne last night along with eating all the chocolates. You just stayed unconscious through a great deal of noise and bumping around. Did Drigo put you to sleep?”
I stared at him. Drigo? “Who?”
He gave me a slight lifting of tentacles so I could see a flash of jagged incisors. “The demon who owns the club.”
“Ah. Dorian. I don’t think Drigo…” That sounded like a demon name.
Or something weird. I shook my head. “No, I just fainted. Everything was a little much. I didn’t really know about the demon thing.
” I still wasn’t entirely one hundred percent sure about the demon thing.
And whatever this guy was with his moving beard and rainbow eyes.
“No? Well, that would be a shock. Did you really steal from Drigo? I didn’t think that was possible. He can smell greed, you know.”
I didn’t know, but it sounded made up. “It was a long time ago.”
“Not that long in the overall scheme of things. You’re a very pretty human. Are you dating anyone?”
Was he hitting on me? Weird didn’t begin to cover it. “I don’t date, but thank you for the offer.”
“You don’t date? You dated Drigo, didn’t you?”
“No. I worked for him.” I wouldn’t call it dating, even if we had lived together, once at the beginning of my career when we’d been platonic roommates after he realized I was living in my car, and once at the end of everything when we were whatever we’d been that had ended up with me pregnant and him having lap dances with the other dancers.
“I heard it was a human strip club. That makes sense. Demons feed off the energy of humans and other creatures, lust, greed. Now it’s all the violence, the blood, the rage. Pity there aren’t any wars going on where he can really slake his thirst.”
Such a weird conversation. It sounded like a hallucination, maybe a drug trip. How did you respond to that ‘your ex needs to slake his thirst for blood,’ thing? “There are wars all the time.” Yeah. Totally casual.
He flashed his sharp teeth at me. “Ah, I meant my world, naturally. The one where the Zombie Queen rules. He wouldn’t blend in very well in a human war. Can you imagine? Everyone would unite to try and kill him.”
“He said it wasn’t a problem. He’s got that glamour.
Oh. The Zombie Queen.” It just didn’t feel real.
I mean, a zombie queen? Zombies were the least logical monster.
Why brains? How could they have any sensory input when eyeballs disintegrated so incredibly quickly?
Also, who would agree to be the zombie queen?
That sounded like the worst job in the world.
‘Off with your…Oh. Your head already fell off.’ You know? Ridiculous.
I shrugged and tried to look like I was taking this conversation seriously. “Dorian mentioned something about that. They aren’t really mindless, disintegrating zombies, right?”
“Most of them are, but some are better preserved thanks to the Queen’s benevolence.
The fairies are the last holdout against the Zombie Queen, but who wants to rule fairies?
You know what I mean? You have no idea, but it’s really cute the way you look at me with those big eyes and don’t throw up or piss yourself. ”
I blinked at him. “Thank you. I haven’t been called cute for ages. What are you?” If we were going to be rude, then I didn’t have to pretend that he wasn’t freaking me out.
He smiled widely and his beard started writhing around in a way that made me roll off the lounge and hurry for the bathroom. I threw up a lot of cake, but mostly nerves. I wasn’t home in my bed in my shop, no, I was in Gloria’s aunt’s old massive house with a monster of some kind. Why was he here?
I rinsed my mouth, splashed water on my face and went back out to face him. The parlor was empty, but I heard voices from the kitchen. When I went in, the tentacle bearded wonder was talking to Tom, the old guy from the movie theater that Gloria had married.
“You woke up,” Tom said with a slight smile and an approving nod, like good job not being dead.
“Thank you. I need to get back to work. Do you think you could give me a ride in the cupcake van?”
“I’ll take you,” the tentacle bearded guy said.
“That’s not necessary. I wouldn’t want to bother you anymore.” Ever. Forever and ever the end.
He flashed me a smile that showed his sharp teeth, like they’d all been filed into points.
Those teeth were way too much. “Drigo requested that I escort you until you return to the club this evening for your first shift. It’s probably because he’s worried that you’ll skip town before paying off your debt. ”
Tom snorted. “That’s hardly likely. He has her scent. He could just track her down.”
“He has my scent?” I whispered and then shuddered and wrapped my arms around myself. “I need to go home.” And never leave again. I could board the whole shop up from the inside. Spikes embedded in the exterior. That would also work for my Halloween theme.
“Have a boiled egg,” Tom said, handing me the cool thing.
“I’ll take you home, and Straldi can follow unobtrusively.
She’s had enough monsters for at least a few hours, particularly if she’s going to get up the nerve to go back to the den tonight.
She doesn’t ever leave her home, not for anything, so to throw in monsters, and a bodyguard, is a bit much.
Sandy was always one of the most delicate of the fosters. ”
“A bodyguard?” I asked, staring at Straldi.
What kind of name was Straldi? A monster name.
I still didn’t know what he was. And I wasn’t sure I could handle knowing about it.
I would have denied being delicate, but compared to Honey and Lucy, I was positively helpless.
Also, I’d just thrown up. At least I hadn’t lost control of my bladder.
Tom nodded. “Yes. Straldi is here as your bodyguard, or I wouldn’t allow him in. Drigo has claimed you as an employee under his protection, so he sent Straldi to protect you while you are vulnerable.”
“When did he claim me as his employee?”
“When he carried you here last night.”
I gaped at Tom while a new horror welled up. “He carried me here?”
Tom nodded shortly. “He stayed until Honey and Lucy left. I don’t believe he trusted me to protect you from the danger.”
I gestured at the tentacled guy. “He trusts this guy but not my own foster sisters?”
“It was the full moon. Ordinarily, Honey would be perfectly stable, but her dark wolf… Let’s get going. I can answer your questions on the way.”
He headed out while I followed, clinging to my egg.
That’s right. He’d said she was a real werewolf.
My brain came up with a wolf in a karate gi, karate chopping right and left.
Sure. Honey had turned into a furry. My brain could probably handle that.
Dorian had carried me in his arms all the way from his club to Gloria’s house.
Why would he do that? Because he wasn’t going to let me go until I gave him his money.
He wouldn’t let me die until I gave him his money.
It was either that, or he wanted everyone to think he was as crazy as Gloria.
I climbed in the passenger’s side while Tom held the door open for me, but he was looking back where Straldi was standing next to a pale blue sports car. Straldi wiggled his beard at me, and I hurriedly climbed into the cupcake van, buckling up while Tom closed the door firmly on me.
“So,” Tom said once he got settled and started the van with a groaning whine. “I don’t know a lot about demons, but I will try to answer any questions you have.”
I took a shaky breath then exhaled. “Is he really four hundred years old?”
“With those spikes? At least. From what I’ve read, it usually takes thousands of years to develop into that kind of war beast. Then again, with the Zombie Queen wiping out his kind, it’s probably triggered the change even with the younger ones.”
“Wiping out his kind?”
“Mm. They can’t turn into zombies.”
“Nice.”
“Except that they can still be killed.”
I rubbed my forehead. “What’s Straldi?”
“No idea. Some kind of sea creature. Not sure he knows what he is, either. I do know that the Zombie Queen personally hates him, possibly because he helped Drigo go into Wonderland to rescue the baby demon.”
Wonderland? Of course. We’re all mad here. Dorian had rescued Wilkie? If it was him. Why did that make my heart ache? “Oh. Straldi told you all that?”