Chapter Three
“If you shove me again, I will reach down your throat and rip out your intestines.”
“Joke’s on you. Zombies don’t have intestines.”
“Shut up, everyone, they’re coming.”
A crowd of guests had gathered in the common area this morning in anticipation of Josie LaChiusa’s arrival. There was no way all of them could see out the windows in the double doors leading to the lobby, but that hadn’t stopped anyone.
“I count eighty-five corporeal and sixteen noncorporeal beings in this room,” Maddy announced. “The room capacity limit, according to the handbook, is two hundred corporeal. We should be fine.”
The faeries rolled their eyes, not bothering to smother their giggles.
“Thank you, Maddy,” Pax said loudly, “for your vigilance.”
Maddy nodded, then wandered over to the billiards table to inspect the efficacy of the chalk cubes.
Another negative effect of Number Five’s illness. The guests were becoming too familiar with him and Maddy. Normally, a journey on a Wayside took less than a month, a short enough period to keep him and Maddy both distant and intimidating.
Once the staff of a Wayside lost the respect and fear of the guests, havoc would ensue.
Havoc was Pax’s least favorite ensuence. Right up there with pandemonium.
“They’re here,” whispered a faery.
Pax put a hand on the double doors and gave everyone his best stern gaze. “Remember. They can’t know the truth about Number Five or about who any of you are until we are certain they are the cure. You are tenants, not guests, and I am the building superintendent.”
“This is a mistake.” Prince Raphael Darksson’s smoky voice drifted from behind a set of drapes in a shadowy corner.
The heir to the Vampire Throne pushed aside the material, revealing his face and form, setting the faeries to swooning. He pretended to ignore this though he turned his head so they could better ogle his profile.
Raphe had not been the only guest vehemently against the decision to let in outsiders.
For the past three weeks the entire building had been readying themselves in preparation for the LaChiusa family’s arrival.
Computers and cell phones irritated Number Five and often died, so a handful of residents had ventured out to a nearby oracle, the Public Library, where they found the annals of People magazine and could view the YouTube.
Thanks to the library, the faeries now worshiped a demigoddess known as Taylor Swift, the zombie family had been indoctrinated into a cult known as veganism, and Denis and his fellow gnomes had almost rioted after having watched the Disney Channel.
It took Maddy days to calm them with a promise not to turn them into garden decorations before they would even listen to Pax’s plan.
As for Pax, over the years he’d learned that the less magical a world, the less pleasant the people. Nothing he’d seen in the library had convinced him to change his opinion.
Among the revelations at the Public Library was the seemingly infinite slander of the vampire species.
Raphe, however, insisted his opposition to the plan had nothing to do with the ridiculous rumors about turning into a bat or sparkling skin.
“Once again, I believe you have mistranslated that damn handbook,” Raphe said.
Pax felt for his sword, forgetting he now left it off, and Raphe bared his fangs. Yet another reason they needed Number Five to get better. Two legendary warriors in one confined space would inevitably lead to bloodshed, and those fifty-dollar service fees could add up.
Maddy walked over and set herself carefully between the two soldiers, one hand to her headscarf as a warning to both.
“Pax isn’t the only one who can read,” Maddy said to Raphe. “I looked at the handbook as well. In the universal language, ‘reboot’ is the closest word there is to ‘rz?”i?L.’ ”
“The best translation is ‘reblood.’ ” Raphe’s emphasis left no doubt about how literally he took the meaning. “We don’t need a human from this world coming to live here. That makes no sense. These creatures have no magic. If Number Five’s hypsidoodle is empty, fill it with their blood.”
Denis nodded. “The vampire has a point. A lot less bother to sacrifice the humans than to keep up pretenses around them.”
“No. Number Five is clear. No bloodshed,” Pax said.
“What, then?” Raphe demanded. “If it isn’t blood she needs to refill her hypsidoodle, what does she need?”
As it had during the last meeting, the subject cleaved the guests in two, neither side in the mood to compromise. Understandable, perhaps. Some of them, like Raphe, faced a matter of life or death once Number Five reached his destination.
However, the guests had made no effort to come together to solve the problem. Instead, they split into factions, each regarding the other side with suspicion. This meant a handful of the loudest and angriest made decisions—not the ideal climate in which to defuse a crisis.
Pax lacked the patience to negotiate. This was why he became a soldier instead of a diplomat. Easier to stick someone you don’t like with a sword than spend time arguing.
“This squabbling is redundant. We had a vote, and the majority agreed to let the humans live within our walls for a trial period,” Maddy reminded him. “You aren’t the only one who has a pressing rebellion waiting for them, Prince.”
Raphe’s lips thinned and his exposed fangs elongated, the clean line of his beautiful features thickening, turning his spectacularly handsome face harsh and brutal. One of the faeries did swoon now.
Pax rolled his eyes.
Drama king.
“I want the trial period defined,” Raphe said. “Two weeks. If nothing changes, we sacrifice the humans on the altar in the basement.”
“Tcha.” Princess Naliti, the firstborn of the faery princesses, sucked her tongue against her teeth, signaling disdain. “Sacrifices are so last century,” she drawled. Her sisters murmured their agreement.
“I propose we table the subject until the next meeting. That altar needs to be brought up to code before any of us discuss sacrifices,” Maddy said. “Besides, we don’t have a cleaning staff, remember?”
Pax had never let emotions steer his choices on the battlefield and he wasn’t about to start now, but no one would be touching a hair on the new tenant’s head.
Not that he had any emotions about the new tenant.
Or the hair on her head.
“The matter has been settled. The LaChiusas are under the protection of Number Five. Remember. No magic around them.” He pointed up at the faeries swinging from the fluorescent ceiling lamps. “I mean it. None. Everyone just act normal. I mean, normal for human beings.”
With that, Pax left the room.
He opened the outside entrance door as Josie set her back against it, her arms occupied with a large cardboard box, and caught her before she fell backward.
She smelled like winter and peppermint chewing gum.
“Good morning,” he said. “If you will allow me to help—”
“You like ’Pider-Man?” asked a high voice.
A child had followed Josie into the foyer and was staring up at Pax with round blue eyes. They wore a puffy yellow coat, a hat in the shape of a duck with two long legs hanging over their ears, and padded blue boots.
“Who is Pider-Man?” Pax asked.
“ ’Pider-Man is the best,” the child said, eyes narrowing as if waiting for Pax to admit he’d been joking.
Pax had planned on taking the box from Josie but instead stood frozen, completely flummoxed.
“The best what?” Pax asked.
“Knock knock,” the child said.
What the hell was happening here?
“Sorry. I haven’t introduced you. This is my son, Amos,” Josie said, nodding her chin at the child.
“Knock knock,” Amos repeated.
“He’s got a new knock-knock joke,” said Josie. The wavering smile on her face told Pax she expected him to know what she was talking about.
A joke?
Shit.
His soldiers would tell jokes, especially before battle when their nerves were strung tight. Pax had never understood what they found funny. At first, he’d asked, but explaining a joke turned out to kill the magic of it all and he learned to pretend amusement.
The little boy was bending backward with his whole body in order to gaze up at Pax and it looked uncomfortable.
Pax could barely remember his own childhood and, as a soldier, had no experience with children, but he assumed they had the same feelings as adults, only smaller.
Pax never liked it when larger soldiers used their size to intimidate smaller troops.
He knelt to one knee so the child could stand straight when they spoke.
“You’re ’posed to say, ‘Who’s der?’ ” Amos explained.
“Who is there?” Pax asked.
“Orange!” the child shouted.
“Orange?” Pax repeated. He looked at Josie for guidance but couldn’t understand the words she mouthed to him.
Shit. Shit.
“Orange who?” Amos squealed, his tiny face split with a huge smile, as though his entire body readied itself to laugh.
Utterly lost, Pax echoed the boy, “Orange who?”
“Orange you glad I’m not a banana?”
Josie didn’t laugh, but she did lie to the little fellow, telling him he’d made a funny joke. Pax nodded as though in agreement, stood, then took the box from her arms. She tried to object but he led them up to their apartment.
What did oranges have to do with bananas?
He would have to consult the YouTube.
Although he was only one child, once he removed his boots, Amos made more noise than a herd of goats, running from room to room and shouting to his mother whenever he saw something interesting.
Everything was interesting, thus there was a lot of shouting.
Pax didn’t mind. It had been ages since he heard anyone shout in excitement and there was a sweet, porcelainlike echo to the child’s voice.
“These curtains are perfect. They weren’t here before, were they?” Josie asked when she joined Pax in the kitchen.
A set of plain white curtains with scalloped edges and a spray of forget-me-nots now adorned the kitchen windows.
“Ma. Ma! I have a ’Pider-Man room,” Amos hollered.