Chapter Thirty
“Holy shit. You were really ready to beat my ass, huh?”
I don’t say anything. I run across the room and throw myself at Charlie. “What are you doing here? I thought you were dead in a ditch somewhere! Is everyone okay?”
“A ditch? Really? You sound like my mom.”
He’s right, I do sound like his mom.
“Yeah, and now that I'm thinking about it she has a point. Who knows where you go.”
Charlie opens his mouth to argue but then shakes his head and closes it again. “You got me there.”
I hug him as tight as I can. “I was so worried about you, about everyone.” If Charlie is here then everything in Sweet Tooth has to be okay.
Charlie groans and slaps at my arm. “Meadowwwww,” he says in a voice coming out in a breathy gasp. “C-can…can’t..”
I lean in close to try and listen to what Charlie is saying. “What?”
“I can’t breathe,” he gasps.
“Oops.” I let go of Charlie and he hits the ground like a bag of hammers. “My bad.”
Charlie groans from where he’s laying face down. “When did you get superhero strong?”
“Well, um, since I got married?”
Charlie goes still. “You married a demon, didn’t you?” he asks, voice muffled by the floor.
“So she did, Gamemaster. Meadow has become my anchor and soul-bonded partner.” I look over to see Jaak making his way towards us.
I hurry to his side. “You’re still hurt. Don’t move too much.” I sling his arm over my shoulder and turn to help him towards the living room.
Charlie pushes himself up from the ground to look at Jaak and I on our way past. “That’s a demon?”
“Yeah. A hurt demon.”
“And a hot one. I feel like there’s a trend developing here with the underworld,” Charlie says and gets to his feet to follow behind us. “Are all demons hot? I mean, we’re two for two. It’s only logical at this point.”
“When we are on fire, yes. Demons are hot.”
I look worriedly at Jaak. “You’ve been on fire?”
“Who hasn’t, my heart?”
“Um, me,” I tell him.
“Literally no one I know ever,” Charlie says.
“This world is strange.” Jaak gives us both a troubled look. “Perhaps I misjudged its capacity for chaos.”
I shake my head. “No chaos demon-ing. Sit. I’ll go get something to dress your wounds and then we can work on getting all the glass out.
” I point at Charlie. “This is Charlie. As you know, he’s an ally.
” Jaak nods so I point at Jaak and talk to Charlie.
“This is my husband Jaakobah, Jaak for short, sometimes the Lord of Chaos.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mister Chaos.”
“Likewise, Gamemaster.”
I grab Charlie’s arm and head for the kitchen. “Alright, now you come with me.”
Charlie sighs and stomps along. “Why do I never get to stay behind with a hot demon?”
I shrug. “You snooze, you lose.”
We enter the kitchen and I stop short. Everything in the kitchen is spotless and there’s breakfast sitting on the table.
I look up at the ceiling and cross my arms. “If last night wasn’t a dream come true I’d be mad but I’m over it.
Thank you for breakfast. Do you have anything that I can use for Jaak’s back?
” A drawer pops open in answer. “Yes, thank you!”
I run over to the drawer to see a bottle of what looks like antiseptic and gauze for his wounds, along with a jar. I pick up the jar to read it when Charlie speaks.
“Did you just talk to your house like one of those AI movies?”
“Huh?” I open the jar and give it a sniff. An herby medicinal scent hits my nose, the salve inside a light yellow. I hold it out for Charlie to sniff. “This looks like medicine to you, right?”
Charlie tilts his head, looks up at the ceiling and then back at me before he shrugs. “You know what? I’m rolling with it. The house is sentient. Cool.” He comes over and gives the jar a sniff and nods. “Yeah, that’s medicine alright.”
“Great. I’m going to work on Jaak’s back and hopefully his demon healing takes over in time for us to go kick that head mage’s ass. After that little explosion, this beat down is personal.”
Charlie puts a hand on my arm to stop me. “Okay, I missed a few chapters hiking through the woods with a rat demon on a stick to find you. What are you talking about? I thought since you were here that the head mage got his ass kicked already.”
“What do you mean a rat demon on a stick?”
“Exactly what I said. I’ll show you in a minute. Accept my life’s direction like I accepted your house.”
“Fair enough.” I look down at the supplies in my hand and sigh. “It’s a lot to explain but the short of it is that those mages let Jaak out, they summoned him by marrying me to him, but turns out I already knew Jaak from my night terrors.”
Charlie nods. “Your dreams, okay. I’m with you. Keep going.”
“Right, my dreams weren't dreams. They were memories from dead beings from other worlds.” Charlie’s mouth falls open and his eyes go wide, but he doesn’t say anything so I nod and continue.
“I learned about the dreams after Jaak and I were married. He told me about them after he handled the mages. I wanted to go back for you and everyone else but he told me if we didn’t move fast the real head mage behind all of this could strike at any moment.
We’ve been in town looking for them.” I conveniently leave out the part of Jaak exploding the mages or the fact that I thought it was snow and got mage in my mouth.
“That’s a lot to take in. I’m going to not give you shit for not answering your phone because you have a demon husband and apparently a magical quest you’re on.” Charlie leans against the counter and gives me a frown. “I tried calling you, though. We were worried sick.”
I pick up the supplies and rock back on my heels. “Yeah, about that…I tried to charge it with my magic and ended up blowing it up. I wouldn’t have just not answered your calls if my phone was in one piece.”
Charlie nods. “I thought so. When you didn’t answer, I knew something wasn’t right. I went back to the clearing after you left. It was really weird, there was ash everywhere.”
I clear my throat. How am I the only one that thought it was snow? “Those were the mages,” I tell him. “Jaak did that.”
“Dammnnn, he’s powerful then, yeah?”
“Very. He’s old, like thousands of years old. He thinks Wrath is young. He called Lethos a bottom feeder, too.”
“An older man with power. Nice. I see you, Meadow. I get it.”
“Zip it. Tell me what happened with Buffy? Is everyone okay?”
“You want the good news or the bad news first?”
I bite my lip and squeeze the jar of ointment in my hand. I hear a slight crack in the glass and have to force myself to let go. Super strength is not a great combo with anxiety.
“The good.”
“The good news is that everyone is alive.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank the gods. I can finally stop freaking out.”
“You haven’t heard the bad news yet.”
“It can’t be that bad if everyone is alive. Hit me with it.”
“The bad news is that Wrath is severely injured, that shit with Roy being a traitor went deeper than him. There’s a good number of families that wanted to bring back the old ways. They were in on it.”
I almost drop the jar of salve. I have to put everything down just to stay upright. “What? How could they? E-everytihng is better with Buffy and Wrath in charge. Why would they do this?”
“Better the devil you know and all that fucking shit, I guess. They got it in their heads to summon some demons to take Buffy and Wrath out with people like Roy on the inside to help. That’s how Wrath got hurt.
I guess them seeing the demons attacking us from whatever mage mafia you’re going after gave them some ideas. ”
“So then how are you here? What’s going on?”
“I figured if Wrath’s god-like status wore off then the book was probably not doing so hot.
It wasn’t in the clearing which made me think you were with the book.
I mean, the state of that boulder was all the evidence I needed to know that you were alive.
Whatever was in that thing got out and I knew you’d be with it and seeing as I didn’t know how to track the book or you, I used a demon to point me in the right direction. ”
“A demon?”
“Yeah, those mini-demons. There were a few still alive after the ambush so I tied it to a stick and have been using it as a compass to find the book and you. After the ambush, the demons left were basically like Roombas trying to go home. I started tracking one but then said fuck it and thus the Demon on a Stick was born. That’s patent pending, so don’t even try and say you came up with it. ”
I laugh. “That’s actually kind of genius. You’re a genius.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Come on, Jaak is hurt and I want to get him healed. I’m hoping as soon as I get his wounds tended to his demon healing will do its thing and we’ll be okay again.”
We leave the kitchen and walk back to Jaak. The whole time Charlie is looking around the hallways and up at the ceiling. “Is it watching us?”
“Yeah, probably. I mean, it’s kind of everywhere,” I say, gesturing around us.
“Interesting. So it can understand me.”
A door we’re passing opens and shuts twice. Charlie screams and tucks and rolls away from the door with surprising speed.
“Your reflexes are getting better,” I tell him, walking past.
“Holy shit, the house can understand me.” He gets to his feet and staggers after me. “I gotta work out a communication system with it.”
I don’t say a word while he starts tapping on the walls and telling the house to tap twice for yes and once for no. Even though Charlie just got here, I feel better. Like a part of me that was missing is back.
Everyone is okay, I tell myself. Everyone is safe. You can still fix this, Meadow. All you have to do is save the world.