22. Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
Ashort ride later, Micah halts the Harley in an IHOP parking lot.
The weather has calmed—no more than flurries in the air—and the roads are mostly clear. With no signs of any yellow-eyed demons, I’m certain there must be a problem with the bike—why else would we be stopping here of all places? I dismount, anxiously awaiting Micah to join me and explain.
He dismounts, yanks off his helmet, and latches it to the bike, his dark hair a mussed-up mess that somehow works for him. “Let’s eat,” he says and starts walking toward the door.
I’m shellshocked one second, trying to get my helmet off the next. By the time I’ve disposed of the awkward thing and tried to right my hair that feels as if it’s standing on end, he’s at the door waiting on me. “Is this even safe for us right now?”
His eyes dance with mischief. “I’ve never been attacked by an egg or a pancake in my fairly long life, so I’d say we’re good.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re such a smartass. You know what I meant.”
He simply stares at me with a deadpan look that says he’s eating at IHOP. It’s up to me if I want to starve outside in the cold. I walk inside the restaurant, and the hostess greets me, barely looking at me as she says, “Booth or table?”
“Does anyone say table?” I joke.
She grunts and, with menus in hand, starts walking with the expectation that she will be followed. At this point, Micah has joined me and offers his two cents. “For what it’s worth, I agree. Tables are fucked up and uncomfortable, but not nearly as much as my living room floor.”
“I didn’t want you to do that.”
“No, of course you didn’t,” he says dryly, stretching in an exaggerated movement, as if his back hurts, which we both know it does not.
“Here’s to hoping she’s leading us to a big ol’ comfy booth, but there’s only one way to find out.
” He motions me forward, and we’re in pursuit of the hostess, if she can be called that at this point, considering she doesn’t even know we’re missing.
At least she does wait on us at the rear of the restaurant when we finally catch up, and, thankfully, right next to a corner circular booth.
She sets the menus down on the table and is already gone. “I guess this is us,” I say, sliding into the booth with Micah right behind me.
I stop at the ninety-degree mark one direction, and he does the same the other, but it’s still fairly intimate, though the privacy serves me well, considering I have a lot of questions right now, none of which are meant for other ears.
He shrugs out of his jacket, and I do the same, impatient to settle in and start directly with the conversation.
I lean in closer to him, readying for hard-hitting questions. “Seriously,” I say, my voice low and conspiratorial. “Can’t we be tracked down? I thought underground was the safest.”
“We won’t kill any demons hiding underground. And you need to learn how to fight.”
Is he for real? No. He can’t be. “And you think IHOP is the place for me to break out the gold stars, of which I have none, by the way?”
“I think IHOP is a good place for you to fuel up.” He grabs a menu. “I personally like the steak omelet with protein pancakes.”
I grit my teeth at his dismissal. “Micah, Jeremy—”
“Demons can’t track a Crystal Seer who has her guard up. While we wait on our order, it would be smart for you to ensure you’re protected.”
“I don’t know how to put my guard up,” I bite out tightly.
“Good thing I used mine to shield you, but I can’t do that if you are too distant.” He hands me a menu. “You need to pull your own guard up.”
A waitress appears in front of us, a short little thing, chewing gum and pulling a pencil from her gray hair. “What can I getcha?”
“Big steak omelet,” Micah says. “Bacon. Side of protein pancakes. And coffee.” He glances at me. “What can she getcha?”
The waitress laughs. “You’re funny, but he’s right. What can I getcha?”
“He’s not that funny,” I say. “And I’ll take the same as him.”
“I’m pretty funny,” Micah says, “and as you can tell, this one here is a little thing with a big appetite. You should see the chocolate she can put down.”
I ignore him and attend to important matters with my attention on the waitress. “Lots of cream for the coffee, please.”
“You got it, honey.” She shoves her pencil back in her hair and walks away.
My brows dip as I watch her departure and then turn back to Micah. “Why didn’t she notice our eyes? I know why the hostess didn’t—she barely looked at us—but the waitress…The two of us together must be attention-grabbing.”
“Magic is always the answer,” he says, setting his menu back on the rack by the condiments and snagging mine from in front of me to do the same. “I tone down my eyes for humans by about fifty percent. I did the same for you.”
I blanch. “You can do that?”
“You can, too,” he says, draping an arm over the back of the seat. “You just have to learn.”
“You’re becoming a broken record. We both know I have to learn, but at this point, I’m not even convinced that I’m any of the things you claim I am.” I don’t allow him the chance to counter. “I don’t understand how we need to be underground, and yet, we don’t need to be underground.”
He’s unreactive to my punches, only a small twist to his lips.
“There are basic reasons to shelter underground. For starters, a mother in labor cannot guard herself. A newborn, or a young child, cannot guard themselves. Sometimes an injury prevents you from guarding yourself. And we do not want prying demon eyes as we train.”
“And yet, I lived twenty-seven years without being found. How is that possible?”
“You know the answer.”
“Magic.”
“Yes. Magic. Jeremy is not the average demon. I’m curious if your own magic was suppressed intentionally, and why any of my kind would do such a thing. A Crystal Seer is a treasure, born once a century, if we’re lucky. It would be expected that you would be trained and developed from a young age.”
“You said an Eagle crossed my path at the courthouse.”
“Yes, but I was surprised a Bedrock didn’t see you long before he did. They’re our working class who live amongst the humans.”
The waitress appears with a pot of coffee, fills our cups, and walks away.
I slide the condiment bowl closer and start opening paper creamers to top off my cup. “Do they live a human life? Or—well, you know what I mean.”
“They emulate a human life as best as they can in order to shelter and protect humans, the biggest obstacle being the way we age. We come of age at twenty-seven, and then our aging process slows. We age ten years to their one year.”
I can’t quite get my head around him talking about humans as someone other than me, let alone process what he’s just said to me. “I’m going to be twenty-seven for ten years?”
“You’ll look twenty-seven for ten years, but you won’t be twenty-seven.
” He adds cream to his coffee and sips. “And you only get there if you don’t end up dead.
You need your guard.” He doesn’t give me time to tell him to stop with the nagging already before he adds, “Bedrocks who live among humans have to cycle to new locations every five to ten years.”
“Why me?”
“There aren’t a lot of choices. We’re rare.
But I’ve been thinking about this over the past few days.
What if there’s something about you that we don’t know?
You were hidden away until your coming of age, but the Bedrocks I would assume would protect you were killed and replaced?
I just can’t come up with any other way you ended up with the Corrupted.
And Jeremy knows why. He knows what we do not. ”