Chapter 44
forty-four
A Delightful Surprise
My gaze darts between the hulking red demon, the agile looking blue one, and the two women flanking them. They notice me just a second later and one with curly brown hair jumps and waves with excitement.
“Hey you!” she shouts like she knows me. “Come here!”
I glance over my shoulder just to be certain she’s calling out to me and when it’s obvious there could be no one else, I take a few tentative steps. The closer I get, the more I recognize the demons. Despite being different colors, they have similar features to Bastian.
It can’t possibly be a coincidence.
They’re both winged, clawed, tailed, fanged monsters.
Over six feet. Muscled or outright beef slabs.
The differing features beyond color are that the red one has golden fissures snaking across his arms and shoulders like a cracked lava flow, and the blue has swirling, icy, tribal designs that pulse softly.
I stop next to the girl who can’t be much older than twenty, sporting short black hair with two red dyed strips framing her face.
She nods to me. “Big brother got your deets, huh?”
“Brother?”
The curly-haired woman rolls her eyes. “Jade is very cynical about the IBMA—even though she’s well on her way to being one of them!”
The punk girl, Jade, blows a raspberry. “I’m very content running the coffee shop and have nooo grand ideas of joining these uptight losers.”
Amyrah clears her throat loudly.
“Offense intended,” Jade says with a feral smile.
The red demon grunts and pulls Jade against his side, then leans down and mumbles something in her ear. Her cheeks turn bright red and she mashes her lips together.
“I’m Sylvia, and this is Apollo,” the curly-haired woman says, reaching out for a handshake.
“Cait,” I say, accepting the gesture.
Apollo reaches for me next, and when I clasp his hand, I sense moisture and heat. He smells vaguely sulfuric, but not in a rotten egg way.
“I’m Rhazan,” the red demon says, not offering his hand.
I dip my head to him, then look at Amyrah. “What’s this about?”
“These two were the first of their kind to be categorized into the IBMA system, and they’re fairly certain Bastian is one of their brothers.”
I wait for her to go on, but she doesn’t. “And if he is?”
“I can pass off the case to another division.”
“But what would it mean if he’s one of their brothers? Would there be any consequences, or requirements from him?”
Amyrah shrugs. “It wouldn’t be my responsibility, so I couldn’t tell you.”
Jade scoffs from the back of her throat and rolls her eyes.
Amyrah glares daggers at her.
“More IBB,” Jade murmurs to me.
I scowl. “What?”
“Interdimensional Bureau Bullshit,” Sylvia says.
“The I stands for Incompetent, actually,” Jade says with a saccharine smile for Amyrah.
“We’d like to see him now, please,” Apollo says with a placating gesture to disrupt the tension.
Amyrah grimaces, sighs, and then turns for the wall. Her magic opens the way and we step out into the street. She reaches out and everyone else grabs onto her arm.
“Well, coming?” Sylvia asks as she extends her hand to me.
I hold her hand and, once again, we’re surrounded by light. The floor mumbles off our trajectory, and then my body is sucked apart. The transportation is less violent this time, and when I open my eyes, we’re back at the hospital district.
My stomach is tight and full of fire as we make our way up to Bastian’s level. Is he going to be angry? Happy? Scared?
I’m not even sure what I am. There’s so much happening, I’m numb. It’s massive overload and I can’t process anything anymore.
Amyrah turns for his room and pushes me ahead. “Best that you go first.”
I walk to the wall and my orange magic lights up the way through. Not even a microsecond before my hand passes the threshold am I being tugged forward. Bastian’s arms wrap around me and I sigh contentedly against his warm chest.
“Did they harm you?” he asks.
I breathe in his heat and sigh in relief. “No, I’m fine.”
Bastian’s arms tighten and his wings come around us as he backs away, growling. I look over my shoulder to see Amyrah striding through the open portal. When Apollo enters, Bastian’s body goes still. Even his heart seems to stop beating.
“Brother?” he whispers.
Apollo grins. “Indeed.”
Rhazan comes next, followed by the two women.
The fiery red demon fluffs out his wings to create a barrier between us and Jade.
The protective energy flows off him in droves and I realize, those aren’t just random Earth witches to ease my transition.
They’re important to the demons they’re with. Like I am to Bastian.
“How did you find me?” Bastian asks.
“You’ve been in the system for ages, but it was the hunter after your blood that led the IBMA to you,” Amyrah answers. “And since we’re in contact with your two brothers, and your physical description closely matched theirs, we reached out.”
“You never told me you had brothers,” I say, looking up at him. “Just siblings.”
He runs his claws through my hair and down my back. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see them again, so there was no point in telling you more.”
The moment drags on in quiet intensity. Bastian guarding me like the room is on fire while Rhazan guards the other women as if Bastian might attack them. Apollo seems to be the only one without any apprehensions. He smiles gently as he reaches out.
“Don’t you have a hug for us?”
Bastian’s lip curls back. “You know how I feel about physical contact…”
Apollo laughs. “It’s true then that we never change.”
“You change some,” Sylvia says.
“Yeah, Rhazan used to be a huge asshole, and look at him now,” Jade says with a cheeky grin. “He’s just a little asshole.”
“You are treading on thin ice, Firecracker,” Rhazan growls at her.
“Ohh, what are you going to do?” she asks, waving her hands in the air. “Punish me?”
Rhazan somehow turns a deeper shade of red, and the orange lava-like cracks on his skin glow like a furnace. There’s a tiny sliver of pink in his chest that pulses even brighter as Jade gives him a salacious wink.
She takes a few steps forward. “Cait, who’s this feral, brooding mess?”
I chuckle. “Bastian.”
His wings close around me further until I can barely see through them.
“Not another step,” he snarls.
“Bast, I’ve already been with them this whole time,” I say.
He scowls down at me. “No one is to be trusted.”
“Not even me?” I ask.
His fangs spear his lower lip as he grimaces. “You're twisting my words and spinning falsehoods.”
“The vagueness of your verbosity hasn’t gone unnoticed, and you didn’t answer my question,” I say. “Do you trust me?”
“It was the other way around,” he says, his expression softening. “And of course I trust you. With my life, which you’ve now saved thrice over.”
“Then trust me when I say these aren’t your enemies, and they’re not a trick or a trap.”
I can feel it in the core of my being that these monsters are excited to see their brother, and they want to be reunited. Amyrah is a bored chaperon, and hardly a threat.
Bastian tenses one last time before relaxing his stance, and retracting his wings. He steps forward, then hides me behind him as he takes one step closer to Apollo.
He raises his closed hand. “I will give you a fist bump.”
Apollo laughs, then disappears in a puff of blue mist. When he reappears, his arms are wrapped around Bastian’s shoulders. Bastian staggers back, bumping me, and I giggle.
“Get off me, fool!” Bastian roars as he shoves Apollo away.
The blue demon only grins brighter. “It’s so good to see you, I couldn’t help myself!”
Rhazan takes a step forward and offers his closed fist. Bastian glares at him, expecting foul-play, but Rhazan waits patiently, his face placid and unreadable. Finally, Bastian raises his hand again and they knock knuckles. Rhazan’s lip twitches in what might be a smile for the stoic demon.
“It is good to see you, brother. Too many centuries have passed.”
“Yes, well, you were always the hero in the arena, and I the custodian in the stacks,” Bastian says. “Not much time for us to interact then, either.”
“Shénme?” Jade barks.
Rhazan shrinks a measure. “There was a brief period—”
“Thirteen years,” Bastian interjects.
“A thirteen-year period where we both lived in Egypt. He for the Library of Alexandria, and I for the tournaments that tutored young militants in the ways of unarmed combat.”
“Why didn’t this ever come up?” I ask, marching around in front of him.
Bastian looks like Oscar when I’ve caught him kicking litter all over the bathroom.
“Well?” I prompt again.
“We both have many stories yet untold to one another…”
I purse my lips. “I think a, heads-up I have two brothers, would’ve been something you should’ve mentioned before.”
“There’s far more than two of us,” Apollo says.
I raise an eyebrow, my glare growing sterner. “How many siblings do you have?”
Bastian shrugs a shoulder. “At least twelve…”
“Fifteen,” Rhazan corrects.
“After you departed, our creator made three more,” Apollo says.
My jaw drops. “Fifteen.”
“And perhaps more,” Apollo offers. “While Rhazan and I were the last to leave the embrace of the creator, it does not mean we were the last of their children.”
Amyrah clears her throat and I start. “This is all very interesting, but I have received Bastian’s threat assessment.”
I grab his hand. “What is it?”
Amyrah projects her magic in front of her. The report lights up the room and she scrolls through it quickly, then bats the air to flip it toward us.
“Mid-level threat with high chaos and low obedience,” Amyrah says.
“High chaos, low obedience! Me too!” Jade cheers, offering Bastian a high-five.
He ignores the prompt.
“What does this mean?” I ask.
She seesaws her head. “Monitoring. Restrictions. Quarterly check-ins for reassessment. But ultimately, not my problem since he is, in fact, one of the Nephilim.”
My heart squeezes painfully. “Nephilim?”
She shakes her head. “Not the biblical kind. It’s just our designation for the long-lived, magical shape shifters who cause way more trouble than they should.”
“I haven’t caused any trouble,” Apollo says with a pout.
Sylvia laughs. “What about the town that needed a memory wipe?”
“That was your idea, too, my witch,” he says, pulling her against his side.
She taps his nose. “Yes well, my threat assessment reflected that.”
Amyrah clears her throat again, louder. “The department states you can create two binds to each of your siblings, but that you’re restricted to their domiciles and your own for the next six months for monitoring.”
“House arrest? Seriously?” I demand.
She looks at me flatly. “He tore a protobot in half, and you fried one with conjured electricity.”
I mash my lips together. “Yeah, but, self-defense…”
“Hence six months of observation instead of three years detention,” Amyrah says as she scrolls to the sentencing information.
They did take the situation into account. Bastian and I are considered powerful creatures on Earth, and so of course they want to watch us to see what we’re doing.
“Fine. Makes sense, I guess. But can we go out for lunch at the Chubby Radish?” I ask.
Amyrah gives me a withering stare. “Not. My. Problem.”
Some help she is.
“Binding time!” Sylvia interrupts with a cheery smile. “Café first, or hot springs?”
My eyebrows shoot up my forehead. “Hot springs?”