Chapter 8
Mei
Diablos paces in front of the fire, his words coming out in a powerful, confident stream.
Yet, somehow, the demon manages to have this cute and jovial attitude that doesn’t at all mesh with what he is.
He’s waffled and shared a brief version of human history and spent a long time trying to impress upon us what the world is like now.
My mind keeps flashing to all the time I spent alone, struggling to survive. Diablos paints a picture of generosity and kindness.
I would never admit it, but most of what he’s said has gone over my head.
“When we opened the worlds, we had people babysitting those gates until we realised that some creatures don’t need gates; they can cross over at will because they are that powerful.
So, it became a game of hunting them down and stopping the secret of how to come here from spreading.
Please note only the most powerful can cross; everyone else needs a gate. ”
Huh. Well, that makes a hell of a lot of sense. Those gates Becky opened are like giant doors between the worlds, but that’s not how I got here. So, some people have learned to jump between worlds, bypassing the doors altogether. The Grim can do that. I wonder if I can.
“However, there are a lot of creatures in the worlds that prey upon those who are weaker, and unfortunately for us, this world is full of weaker individuals. Now, don’t get me wrong, where humans lack in skills, they more than make up for with technology, and their weapons are fierce.”
I drop silently from the tree and stay in a crouch, listening.
“Are the humans concerned?” Ronit asks in that deep, commanding voice that always has me sitting up a bit straighter, listening harder.
“Of course they are; they are trying to find ways to stop us, weaken us. That is why we are trying to protect everyone and stop things from escalating. Which, dun dun dun, is where you lot come in. You are going to hunt the worst of the worst and stop an interspecies war.”
Lirin snorts. It’s so lazy and elegant. “Sounds so easy.”
“Oh, it’s not, but you are sitting here in this world without a purpose, and she has been flitting around causing all sorts of trouble, so the lot of you together should, in theory, be able to balance each other out.”
“Your optimism is somewhat sickening,” Ronit says deadpan.
“It will be brilliant.”
“It will be a disaster,” Reed snarls.
I shift in the dark, but no one hears me, so I keep moving until I’m sitting beside Hartley.
“Have faith. I don’t make mistakes,” Diablos says confidently. “Well…not many.”
Hartley coughs.
I let out a maniacal giggle.
Hartley screams.
Diablos snatches his mate away. I cock my head to the side and listen to the human hyperventilating.
“I’m too old for jump scares!” he shouts.
“Hush, my love. It’s okay. The nasty monster is just sitting beside you.”
“It’s not. She just appeared. Like, right there,” Hartley sounds perilously close to tears.
“There, there, my poor love.”
“I just wanted to be friends,” I say as sweetly as I can.
“Christ, that is creepy,” Hartley sobs. “No, we are not being friends, and stop smiling like that! Where’s Puppy? I like him. Says what he means, means what he says.”
I wrinkle my nose and pounce into the bush, coming out with a rat-like creature that screams.
“Put that down!” Ronit snaps.
“I’m hungry!” I snarl.
“You are not eating weird Earth creatures,” he growls at me and grabs my hand over the creature, gripping the nerves until my fingers open. It runs off screaming.
“Why not?” I snap.
“Because no one can stomach you ripping into live prey and eating it like a damn monster.”
“We can’t all be born in the courts of Fae,” I sneer, accidentally giving away that I know more than I let on. “It must be such an incredible miracle to be so blessed with such high morals.”
“I don’t need high morals not to want to vomit watching you behave like a creature from Nightmare.”
He says Nightmare as if it's foul, like it’s disgusting.
I lunge forward, and when his hand slams into my face, I lick it.
He tosses me across the clearing and curses up a storm.
“That is disgusting. Never, ever put your filthy tongue on me again, Strega.”
“Or what?” I say from where I’m rolling in the grass.
“Or I will tear it from your head,” Ronit says in a low, dark promise.
I sigh. “You monsters and Fae are all the same. Taking eyes, tongues, limbs. So unimaginative.”
He splutters, and it’s so cute I have to turn away to keep from laughing. I’m outside for the first time in months; I can move, I can find food. This is brilliant.
Even these stick-up-their-ass Sirens aren’t going to bring me down.
I leap up the nearest tree and race around the canopy in a circle, while Leaf whines in distress below.
“Mei, please come here.”
I consider ignoring it, but Diablos did ask so nicely.
I drop into a crouch in front of him, landing so suddenly and unexpectedly that Diablos snorts a plume of black smoke in my direction.
“Stop that!”
Hartley screams again.
Diablos exhales slowly through his nose. “Mei, stop scaring my mate.”
“You asked me to come here. Here I am.”
“Stop. Scaring. My. Mate.”
I let my shoulders drop and dip my chin. “Fine.”
“What do you know about humans, Mei?”
I clamp my lips into a firm line and lean away from him. “Humans are cruel.”
Three words shouldn’t say so much, but they do. They say too much. I can feel the air around me change.
“They can be,” Diablos agrees. “Humans can be very cruel, but they can be kind and giving, stubborn and capable of incredible feats when they are motivated, and they love with a passion that can warm the heart of even the most heartless creature.”
“I have not met such a beast,” I say flippantly and turn away.
“Mei,” he says, and I draw back to him. “Humans are not your enemy.”
There’s a deep tension, a promise, like a hand outstretched.
“Everything is her enemy,” Reed says.
I stiffen, irritated and irrationally hurt. “Of course, because I am a monster.”
There’s an awkward silence.
“Can you stop?” Hartley snaps. “Why did you have to say that?”
There’s a brittle silence in the clearing.
“I don’t think you understand the situation here, Human,” Canto says with perfect coldness.
“Watch it, Canto,” Diablos says in a deep growl.
“No, you have forced us together. You want to play hero? But we’re the kind of warriors who rip worlds apart, and there is no one we hate more than that Strega.”
The staggering silence has my hackles rising.
“I’m gutted, Canto.”
“Not yet, but I can make it happen for you.”
“Oh, Lirin, you make such sweet promises; too bad you always fail to keep them,” I hiss, irrationally enraged that he’s joining their hate party.
“Shut up, Strega!” Lirin snarls
I pop a hip and toss my hair. “Make me, squidy.”
“How do you know which one is talking?” Diablos asks curiously.
I stand up straight, confused. “Because they all sound different.”
“Yes, but even when they make just sounds, you know. How?”
I shrug. “I just know.”
“And you,” Diablos says. “How do you keep finding her in the trees?”
“I don’t,” Brio protests.
“That is why you make the perfect team. Because you might hate each other with the fire of all that burns in hell, but you are more aware of each other than of anything else. It’s unconscious, and it’s as natural to you as breathing.
You can hate each other all you want. You can fight and war with each other, but there’s no one else that is better suited to you all than she is to you and you to them. ”
We stand there in that silence, and I understand how powerful what he’s saying is, because as my mates, they would have been the most perfect match for me.
I will never admit it. No one will ever know.
I will do this job, and I will leave. There has to be somewhere out there that I can belong. I can learn from these creatures and hide.
I crouch down and turn my head to where the sulfuric scent of the demon is coming from.
“We will never be able to get along,” Brio says softly. “We are a song; she is a scream. We are fish, and she is…a bird.”
I cock my head to the side. What does that mean? What is a bird?
“Well, let’s simplify this a bit, then. Catch me five rogue creatures preying on humans or omegas, and if at the end of five you still don’t think you can work together, then I will release you from your bonds,” Diablos pauses. “All of them.”
There’s a long silence.
“Five? Just five?”
Diablos seems pleased with the response from the Sirens, but I know creatures like Diablos, and there is a trick in here somewhere.
“Yes, just five. I will choose them, though.”
I can sense the silent conversation they are having.
“I want to add a term to the deal,” Ronit says. He walks off with Diablos, and they talk in mutters that I ignore. When they come back, Ronit goes to stand with his shiver.
“We agree to the terms,” he says.
“I need to hear it from everyone.”
The sirens agree one by one.
“Mei, do you agree to five?”
I consider the tricky demon for a long moment. “Fine. I can do five.”
Diablos turns to Leaf, who is standing right behind me, grumbling under his breath.
“Do you agree, Leviathan?”
“You don’t need to ask him, he’s with us-”
“Everyone needs to agree,” Diablos says succinctly.
There’s the softest brush of his fingers across my hair. Just enough that tingles run up and down my spine, and I break out in goosebumps.
“I will be with Mei?”
“Until you capture five.”
“I agree,” he says so fast I almost think I imagined it.
Diablos starts pacing, but I’m distracted by the sounds of Hartley doing something with metal and material. What is that? I wander over and reach out, touching whatever he is building.
“It’s a tent. It’s like a portable den.”
I hum, and Hartley reaches out and takes my wrist. I tense, but he just slowly shows me the outline of the tent and then brings my hand down to the zipper and guides me through pulling it up and down.
“This is the entrance to the den.”
I drag the zipper down and step inside, feeling the strange scent and weird air.
I reach up and explore until I catch the scent of the dragon.
His scent has been bothering me. I can’t place it exactly, something not human, not of this world but pleasant, intoxicatingly pleasant. Distinctly his, though.
I shove him out of the way, brushing my entire body along his. He’s hard everywhere. I don’t know why that makes my body tingle and the damn heat in my body warm.
He stays on my heels as I dart around the clearing, inhaling the scents and confusing smells.
“Mei, come sit and eat.”
I ignore him until Leaf picks me up and drags me towards the heat of the fire. He puts something soft and large into my hands.
“Eat.”
I sniff. It’s got smells I don’t know. Meaty and strange. I bite into it and fall in love. Is this human food? I have been missing out.
“This is a cheeseburger,” Hartley says nonchalantly.
“Cheeseburger,” I murmur. “This is good.”
“If you have money, you can go into a shop and buy food.”
I think about that for a long moment. “How do I get money for food?”
Lirin curses under his breath.
“I’m going to teach you that, too,” Diablos says. “And you are going to teach me.”
“Me?” I ask after I swallow.
“Yes, I want to know how to be invisible and how to hunt and evade creatures like us. You are very, very good.”
I hear Reed scoff, but we ignore him.
“And they are going to teach us how to fight with weapons, how to ambush and attack,” Diablos says cheerfully. He scratches himself and hums.
“Why would we do that?” Reed asks. I stiffen because he’s moving closer.
“Because it’s in your best interests that we all stay alive, and you are a team player.”
“The sirens aren’t team players. They are a shiver,” I say easily before I recollect myself.
“That’s right. We have each other and no one else. That’s how it will always be. You are our enemy, Strega.”
I roll my eyes. “Your song is getting old, Ronit.”
I ignore everything else but my burger, but I can feel the animosity pouring into the air around us.