Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
Iwas wrong—the employees were all brethren, too. The woman with the kid drew a security key out from her purse and buzzed into an unmarked door, leading the way. “I’m Hash-lee, by the way.”
I must have misheard her. “Ashley?”
“No, it’s Hashleigh. With an H, and a L-E-I-G-H.”
“Wow. Wow, that’s?—”
“Irritating, I know,” she deadpanned. “I suppose you’re here to kill us all. Well, go on, then.” She faced me. “Do your worst. Just so you know, this is only a small nest. We’ve got a bigger one in the Ikea.”
“I knew it,” Cecil hissed.
She strode ahead down the corridor, dragging her toddler with her. The kid’s hat fell off; tiny brown horns poked out of her forehead.
My heels skidded on the linoleum floor. “Wait,” I said, running her words back in my head. “Did you say… you think I’m here to kill you?”
Hashleigh buzzed through another door and walked into a little staff room, a vision of brown Formica and beige linoleum.
Cecil gave a little moan and visibly shuddered.
From here, we could see a small square of the DMV office through a small viewing window.
The place was still packed with people. I could almost taste the collective irritation through the glass.
A microwave whirred in the corner; someone was heating up their lunch. I gave a quick sniff. Yep, it was fish. The odor was only just starting to seep through the room. Pretty soon, it would leach out to the front of the office so everyone could smell it.
Hashleigh tapped on the window. “Bernice, Wendy… get the others. We’ve got to do battle.”
I mouthed stupidly. “Do… Battle?”
She put her hands around her mouth and leaned closer to the glass.
“Tell Jerry to put the ‘Next Window Please’ sign up. No, Wendy, you have to. I know you’ve only just put your lunch in the microwave, I can smell it.
Honey, if you let it cool down and reheat it again later, it’s going to smell even worse.
Besides, we’ll all be dead by then anyway, so this conversation is really pointless. ”
“Hashleigh…” I put my hands up, palms out. “Back up a few steps.”
The staffroom door opened; the older couple walked in, closing the door carefully behind them. Curiously, they began to limber up. I watched them stretch for a moment. The man started to shadow-box as if he were warming up for a fight.
They really thought we were here to do battle. What on earth were they thinking?
A prickle of alarm shot through me, and I glanced down at Cecil. “Are we in trouble?”
He shook his head. “They’re harmless, Chosen. They’re not fighters. Brethren are as weak as piss after a two-week water cleanse. Honestly, I have no idea what’s going on.”
Hashleigh put her toddler down on the table and began to stretch. “Wendy, hurry up! There’s a massacre about to begin.” She jumped up and down on the balls of her feet lightly as five more people bustled into the room, including Ramen Hair Lady.
“I knew that wasn’t a service animal,” she said when she spotted Cecil. “So, it’s time, is it, Hash?” She stretched her neck from side to side. “I hope I can get a couple of good shots in.”
This was ridiculous.
“Wait.” I clapped my hands, trying to get the group’s attention. “Hashleigh, Wendy…” The old lady started waving her arms around, shadowboxing. “Bernice. Stop that right now. Let’s use our words, shall we? Why would I want to kill you?”
Hashleigh stopped stretching her neck from side to side and frowned. “Isn’t that why you’re here? You’re the Chosen.”
“No!”
She tilted her head, looking at me curiously. “Really? Why are you here, then?”
I huffed out an exasperated breath. “That’s a good question.
” I’d already accepted that the thought process leading me here was prompted by the fact that I’d been feeling really, really weird since lunchtime.
Strange thoughts kept popping into my head; random snippets of dark scenes played out in my mind’s eye.
A restless, free-floating anxiety kept stabbing at me, like a sharp little pebble in my shoe that dug into my toes randomly every few steps.
But right now, there was a whole species of supernatural creatures who clearly had bigger fears than mine. “I came here to help you. I'm not here to kill you.”
“No?” She tilted her head and looked at me curiously.
“Why would you even think that?”
She shrugged. “Word on the street is that you’re going to clean house.”
“Clean house? What does that mean?”
“You’re going to get rid of every supernatural species you think is worthless.”
I shook my head. “Who told you that?”
“Uh… literally everyone.” Hashleigh shrugged again.
“We’re not stupid; we know what the other supes in this realm think of us.
We’re not pretty or sparkly. Our only magic is our dullness, which helps us camouflage.
And we literally drive humans bananas just to feed on their irritation.
Everyone thinks life on this plane would be easier without us.
Lots of other creatures have been talking about what it will be like when the Ruler of All The Worlds takes the throne.
They all say that if it’s you, the woman, then you’ll be getting rid of everyone you find irritating. ”
I groaned. Connor’s PR machine strikes again.
I should have seen this coming. My instincts were only half-right—Connor was focusing on building his army, but he wasn’t doing it by wasting his time going after and consuming low-magic spark stones.
He already had everything he needed to manipulate every single magical creature in this realm in the first place.
He knew what their fears were. He’d started poking the misogynists, getting them all riled up at the idea of a woman ruling all the Worlds. Now, he was scaring the low-magic creatures into thinking I was going to destroy them.
He was focusing on stoking those fears in the right direction.
Not that this lot looked scared. They looked resigned, if anything.
Wendy the Ramen-haired lady was stretching out her quads, getting ready to fight.
The older couple were both still shadowboxing; Bernice was already sweating.
The teenager—I hadn’t figured out their gender yet, which, again, I supposed was deliberate, because nothing annoyed old conservatives more than not being able to tell what gender someone was— slumped at the table, looking surly.
“Let me guess.” I looked around at everyone. “You heard on the street that Connor, the Devourer, would protect you from me?”
Hashleigh shot little finger-guns at me. “You got it.”
“And you believed it?”
“There wasn’t any reason not to. Everyone’s accepted the fact that there’s going to be one supreme ruler of all three Worlds, and it’s going to be you or him.
Everyone is choosing their sides. It’s tearing everyone apart,” Hashleigh said cheerfully.
“Everyone is arguing like crazy. His fans seem to think he’s the Messiah.
He’s tough and strong; he tells the hard truths. ”
“He’s literally stealing and devouring spark stones! There are whole races that will be wiped out because of him. The seduire will lose their magic soon, and they won’t be able to feed. The same with every single stone he’s devoured!”
“Yeah, but he says you’re doing it first. He’s only devouring them to keep the power from you. Everyone knows you take magic from the stones.”
“It’s gifted! Not taken!” An intense rage gripped me for a second, and my skirt split. I clenched my teeth, pushing my berserker magic down. “How is anyone swallowing his garbage?”
Hashleigh shrugged. “He’s quite charming. And he makes some good points.”
“He didn't try to take your spark stone?”
“No.” She looked thoughtful for a second. “He did send a messenger to ask if we wanted him to secure it for us. We don’t need him to, though.” She tapped her nose mysteriously. “It’s behind impenetrable wards.”
“No wards are impenetrable,” Cecil said, blowing out a plume of smoke from his cigarette. The teen was looking at him with interest, obviously always on the lookout for new ways to irritate people. Slowly, Cecil slid his pack over towards them.
“This ward is impenetrable,” Hashleigh went on. “To break it, you have to understand the deepest secrets of the brethren, and there’s nobody in any of the Worlds who can do that. Not even us,” she added, under her breath.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “So, Connor has sent his little minions out to tell everyone that I’m coming to kill them, and that only he can protect them.”
“You got it.”
Damn. I hoped I’d managed to change that narrative by disrupting the centaur’s summit, but the rot had already spread by the time I showed up and pointed out that Audrina wasn’t The Chosen One.
Some of the audience was bound to believe his lies.
And now, they were spreading throughout the Middle World.
“That’s it in a nutshell,” Hashleigh said.
“And you can’t blame us for thinking that he’s right.
Everyone knows who Prince Connor is, but you’re a bit of a mystery.
However, they’ve all been talking about you.
You’re some sort of uber-manager, an efficiency whizz.
The brethren go against everything you stand for, so of course you’re going to wipe us out if you become our Queen. ”
This was intensely frustrating. I clenched my fists.
“So, I’m a crazy, mentally unbalanced megalomaniac out to kill everyone, but I’m also an uber-manager and an efficiency whizz?
I’m a power-hungry unstable psychopath, but I’m also closing spark stones, keeping their magic from being devoured, just for shits and giggles? ”
The group of brethren leaned forward and went still. Their eyes glowed a honey color.
“Go on then. Soak it up,” I said bitterly.
“Mmm,” Ramen Hair Wendy sighed. “My last meal. This is nice.”
“It’s not your last meal, Wendy,” I sighed. “You’ll live to annoy another day.”
“Oh.” Hashleigh squinted at me. “You’re really not here to kill us?”