Chapter Four #2
I nodded. “It’s no. We’re both asking too much of each other, so, let’s stop. You don’t have to protect me, and I won’t bond with you.” The words fell from my lips unbidden. “But maybe we could, you know, be friendly with each other from here on out?”
Ronin scoffed, turning on his heels and leaving in a cloud of mint and cloves. “You and your made-up words.”
He slammed the door shut on my sigh. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“YES!” I SCREAMED INTO the phone, blood swallowing my vision. “Yes! My answer is yes!”
His long, sharp teeth shredded my underwear.
“Stop it! Get off!”
Dora’s screams battered my eardrums.
“Ronin, help me! Oh, gods, please, help me!”
Something hard and wet pressed against my entrance.
“HELP!”
An Hour Before
I KEPT A TIGHT GRIP on Dora’s wrist, keeping her close to me.
That day, Stop Being Pussies was being held in the dungeon library.
Before shoving us inside and locking the doors behind him, he told us that he captured and released a shade in the library, and it was up to us to find and kill the creature.
That was it.
No instruction. No tips. No training. And not a single word on what a shade even is.
The good news was that worrying about my current predicament was taking my mind off the weird message I got from Tristan that morning.
Tristan: All this stuff with Lucifer and your sister sucks, but I can’t help you, Charlie. I can’t even get anywhere near you thanks to these new rules. I’ve got to focus on getting my pack and position back, so whatever you need from now on, just hit up that red-eyed shit, Belphe.
I sent him three messages since then asking what was going on, and why he wanted me to ask Ronin for help when he told me to stay away from him. But I got no reply.
I wouldn’t lie. Being left on read by Tristan hurt more than I expected it to. We were still getting to know each other, but I thought we were friends. I thought we had each other’s backs—
—but that may have just been more of my entitlement and over-reliance. I wanted my tough, strong, powerful werewolf friend to have my back and protect me, even though there wasn’t anything I could do for him.
No wonder he put up a hard boundary between us, I thought, eyes stinging. I kept whining at him about Dora when his own sibling was just murdered, and he was forced to kill his own people to get back into the werewolf wing.
Tristan big-time had his own problems to deal with. I couldn’t be the mortal leech hanging off his backside anymore. Or at least, that’s what I kept telling myself to lighten up the pain of his silence.
It wasn’t working.
Forcing it out of my mind, I grabbed Dora’s hand after Erlik shut the doors, and got as far away from our class—and Kazuya and his buddies—as we could.
Weaving through the stacks, we kept moving until the sounds of bickering demons faded.
Being that it was the basement, there were no windows or hell-light pouring through them to light our way. The only way to tell one haphazardly organized shelf from the other were the bone chandeliers and skeletal-clutched torches sticking out from the walls.
I stopped running when we were sandwiched between books on human sacrifice and recipes for hellhound and firerat stew.
“Dora, listen to me,” I whispered, grasping her shoulders. “Do you know anything about shades? Will we be safe if we stay here?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, Agata. I’ve never met a shade before. Are they nice?”
I released a low breath, flashing back to Erlik’s gleeful smirk as he slammed the door in my face. “No,” I said softly. “I don’t think they’re nice at all.” I looked around. “But... we are in a library. Maybe we can look up information on shades that isn’t a bunch of lies and hateful propaganda?”
“I wouldn’t bet on it.”
I whipped around, instinctively shoving Dora behind me as two round, large ears stuck out from behind the stacks. Big, blinking red eyes; a cute, fuzzy round nose; and quivering whiskers followed.
I moved us both back as the mouse demon came into full view.
“These books aren’t going to say anything true or fair about any being who isn’t a demon, and yes,” he said, “it is because of what you guessed. Demons use hate to amplify their magic. It’s much more useful for demons to mindlessly hate everything and everyone than it is to celebrate equality and diversity. ”
I blinked at him. “Uh... How...?”
“Did I know what you said yesterday?” he finished. A faint smile appeared through the gloom as he pointed to his ears. “I’ve got good hearing.”
I accepted this, because why wouldn’t I?
I also took a step back—the braying of dozens of demons demanding to rape me first echoing in my ears. “Do you need something?”
The smile remained. “I understand why you’re hesitant, but I’m not going to hurt you, and I have nothing against you for being mortal.
I don’t even know how to use dark magic, so mindless hate is of no use to me—” He glanced back the way he came.
“Nor should it be of use to anyone—dark magic user or no.”
I heard what he said, but I still moved myself and Dora back when he stepped closer. “Why wouldn’t you know how to use dark magic? Aren’t you a demon?”
He seemed to catch the hint because he stopped moving. Holding still, he cupped his hands and started scrubbing his ears in that cute way mice do—
—and I had to mentally smack myself upside the head for momentarily thinking he was adorable.
I wasn’t a mega-prejudiced demon-hater like my mother, but women learned at a young age to be wary of strangers cornering you in the dark.
“I am a demon,” he confirmed, “but I wasn’t raised by them. After I crossed, no demon would adopt me because of this.”
He pointed down.
I didn’t know what he meant until he took another step, and I suddenly realized he wasn’t shuffling forward because he was being cautious of my wariness. He was doing it because—
“You have a club foot?”
“Club foot?” He cocked his head. “What’s that? Is that what they call it up there?”
He pointed up, but I knew he wasn’t talking about the first floor of the manor.
“Uh, yeah, that’s the name most people use, but there’s a proper medical term for it.” My frown was deepening. “But are you seriously telling me no one would adopt you because—”
I sliced off, internally smacking sense in my head again. Sweet, innocent children were passed over for adoption for the stupidest reasons in the mortal world too, so my cluelessness didn’t fit here.
Sabrina’s words echoed in my head. “Demons are nothing more than humans cursed in their afterlife.”
I pressed my lips tight together, wondering for the first time if the true punishment of hell is to be faced with the worst facets of humanity with no cover or excuses.
“I’m sorry,” I said instead.
He cocked his head to the other side, his little nose twitching. “Sorry? Wow, you really are human,” he remarked. “But you don’t have to be. After I was cast out to die—”
I choked.
“—my mothers found and rescued me. They raised me as their own among the dryads”—he sighed—“which is another reason why Raven says I have to stick with you now.”
“Excuse me? Stick with me?” I looked around like there was a clue to what he was saying in the dusty tomes. “What does that mean?”
“The Sins are running the school now.” He dropped that casually as though it was just a new fact of the afterlife.
“Raven, Sauda, Ursula, and the rest of them. And they said we’re doing things like they did in Abaddon Women’s Academy.
The strong with the strong. The weak with the weak.
And the freaks”—he pointed at us and then him—“with the freaks.
“I’m a disabled demon who was raised by one of the Others and can’t wield dark magic.
You’re a human,” he explained—stating the lone fact that was apparently enough to make me a freak.
“And she hangs with you,” he said about Dora.
“So it’s the three of us now.” He tipped his head.
“At least until someone else gets on the Sins’ bad side and they banish them to our group too— Oh!
” He held out his hand. “Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Nik Vangelis. ”
Stepping forward, I took his hand and shook. I didn’t trust him per se, but I also didn’t think he was lying. Unfortunately, I had no problem believing the demon gang princesses would cast out one of their own for being disabled and raised by dryads.
“I’m Charlotte,” I said. “This is my sister, Dora. Nice to meet you.”
He nodded to us both, but said no more.
An awkward silence descended over us.
“So,” I blurted. I’d never met an awkward silence that I didn’t need to break. “Would you happen to know anything about shades, by any chance?”
Nik’s round eyes brightened. “Oh, yes, I do! They’re fascinating as it happens.
Shades were created by witches—although it’s not known if they created them on purpose.
A shade is born from a curse upon the dead.
” He laughed, letting out a honking snort.
“I know what you’re thinking, why curse someone who’s dead?
I don’t know, but that witch must’ve really hated the guy, and wasn’t going to let a little thing such as leaving the mortal plane get in the way of her revenge. ”
I tried for a smile. “Indeed.”
“So, basically,” Nik went on, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a notepad.
“Shades are the shadows of the undead. They don’t have a physical form, so they can’t be physically harmed, but if you step into their clutches—they slowly drain the life out of you until you become nothing but a husk with no soul,” he rattled off the notepad.
“Of course that’s what they do,” I muttered. “Because it’s too much to ask for a creature who pats you on the head and gives you a cookie before you go.”
Nik laughed. “Shades like cold and darkness, so light and heat...” Nik pointed at the torch above our heads. “...are the best defense against them.”