**** Chapter Seven: MEAN GIG, MEANER DEMON

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Chapter Seven: MEAN GIG, MEANER DEMON

Demon had already started to walk away after disposing off Azure. I followed him on instinct.

“Wait! Where did you send him?” I limped along behind him.

As usual, the high and mighty Demon King refused to talk. He walked straight through a glassy aquatic wall, without a glance back for me. I followed. As we walked, the ocean around us began to melt away to reveal the same nook in Demon’s bedroom where we had entered the aquarium.

“What about me? Demon! Do I get to go home now? I shouted it this time, but he walked right through the reading lounge and into the main bedroom as if he was deaf.

Rage filled me as I swallowed my pride and rushed after him, bumping into a table, almost knocking over a lamp. I held it before it could fall and crash to bits and that’s when I saw Demon’s dagger from the previous night sharing the same tabletop. Demon was almost at the bedroom door when I, without thinking twice, picked up the dagger and threw it at him.

I used to be a junior knife thrower in Daddy’s country club team before he found out and pulled me out of the sport. So, the fact that my throw missed Demon and hit the doorframe instead was no accident. I may not have been an expert thrower but I wasn’t bad. For what it was worth, it made Demon stop and turn. He looked at the dagger and then at me.

“You missed.” He raised an eyebrow.

“I meant to,” I said, not trying to hide my fury. “Do you send me home now?”

“Home as in back to Nancy and Tush?” He tilted his head and mocked me with his eyes. “By the way, this man Tush – couldn’t he pick out a better name for himself?”

“It’s – it’s actually Tosh. Tosh E. Payne.” I avoided his eyes, feeling a little awkward.

“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “That’s even worse. Sounds like tushy pain.”

My mouth fell open slightly. Then, I made my serious face and squared my shoulders.

“Whatever it’s like, its home,” I said. “That’s better than here!”

“I can’t. You’re not one of them.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I was getting a headache.

“You belong to the Realm. Both your parents were born and bred here. Your mother, Evangeline, was a Syhlain like you. Alistair, your father, was human but of the Realm, not Earth.” He studied me for a second then added softly. “So you see pumpkin, you are very much home.”

“Huh! How interesting,” I said as if in a daze. “And the Realm is?”

“I’m sorry I don't do geography lessons. Or history. Please bore someone else with your questions.” He wasn’t even looking at me by the end of his sentence.

Why the snooty jerk!

“Oh okay,” I said. “Then enroll me in a school of sorts if you have any of those here in the Realm because I’d really like to know who the heck I truly am!” “There’s no need to freak out,” he said calmly.

“Who’s freaking out?” I was freaking out. “I mean I’ve only been transported from my house, a house that I’d known and believed to be truly my house my entire life – into a parallel universe that no normal human being has ever heard of! All in one night! All because I attempted to escape a slutty man only to fall prey to an even sluttier man who happens to be a Demon king and just fed his minister to a shark and probably wants to kill me too! So no I’m totally fine!”

I slumped into a chair at the end of my hysterical outburst. It was tiring to shout and be angry at the same time.

“Okay – take it easy.” He stepped toward me.

“I can’t take it easy! You’ve no idea what it’s like to be told who you are when you were just so sure of your life like five minutes ago but now you’re zilch! It’s like sudden amnesia! Total and absolute memory loss!” I had begun to cry now, forcing out words through sobs and sniffs. “I feel so empty and confused and I don’t even know if it’s true!

I don’t know if I’m dreaming or – or –” I choked.

He offered me a box of tissues. “You’re not dreaming.”

“It’s hard to believe that – you have these in the Realm?” I paused to stare at the very ordinary tissues.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, we do.” He walked over to the bedside table and poured out a glass of clear liquid from a crystal decanter.

“Wow, this is useful.” I pulled out a handful of tissues and blew hard into the pile.

“Drink this.” He offered me a glass, still holding the decanter as he came to stand opposite me.

“I don't drink alcohol.” I frowned at the drink.

“It’s not.”

“Great!” I took the decanter from him instead of the glass and began pouring the sweet, lemony beverage down my throat in big, loud gulps. It took me five seconds to hand the emptied decanter back to him. I was not about to be embarrassed by my manners. I’d been on a freak ride on an empty stomach since the previous night and I was dying of thirst.

“Feel better?” He replaced the decanter and glass on the table.

“No. I don't know.” I sniffed. “What was it?”

“Lemonade.”

I stared at him. “Seriously? You need a parallel universe to have your own box of tissues and lemonade? And you put it in a decanter!”

“You were crying?” He reminded me as if I should get back to it promptly.

“I wasn’t crying!” I said, while tissues fell around me like snowflakes. “I was just trying to figure out what’s happened to me? I mean this is so unfair!” I sniffed. “How come Daddy never told me any of this if he belonged to this world too? And how could he marry Nancy? I hate her! She thinks she knows me so well! Did you know she makes me wear white like all the time?”

“Oh, that is despicable!” He nodded enthusiastically.

“I mean excuse me but I look much better in color!”

“Yes, ravishing in black.” “What?” I stifled a sob.

“Nothing. Go on.”

“There’s nothing to go on with,” I said and then broke into another sobbing spree. “I don't even know who I am! And I don't have any more tissues.” I inverted the tissue box with a sad heart.

“Okay.” He took the box from me and tossed it aside. “I think you need to recharge. Or something.”

“How do I do that?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.” He rubbed his forehead thoughtfully as if faced with the biggest dilemma of the century.

“Don’t look so dismal it’s not like it was my idea to bring me here.” I frowned.

“It wasn’t mine either.” He frowned back.

“So send me back then, what’s stopping you?”

He smiled. “Ask me again in a hundred years.”

“But I can’t live here!” I then noticed the tear in my pants. Fresh anger bubbled up in my heart. “Look what you’ve done to me!”

“Oh, please!” His lip curled. “I haven’t done anything that’s worsened the way you looked to begin with.”

“You’re a jerk!”

“Like I care! This isn’t your Daddy’s house nor did I summon you.”

“Summon me? Who the hell do you think you are?” I swear I would’ve torn him to shreds if only my anger had trickled down to my limbs instead of pouring out through my eyes.

“O hell, the damn tears again.” He frowned. “Azure!”

Azure? Wasn’t he imprisoned in a fish’s belly? Five seconds later Azure appeared at the bedroom door, dressed impeccably as a top notch butler in blue.

“You bellowed, Master?” He had the perfect snootiness of a high profile domestic servant. But his tone was mocking.

Demon scrunched his eyes to mere slits, a frown crowning his brow. “Please take her – somewhere!”

“Of course, Master.” Azure grinned widely. “I truly appreciate it when you are indubitably explicit in your instructions.”

“The Drama Queen is crying the fires out of me.” Demon scowled. “Do something!”

“Why – you jerk!” Note to self: next time I feel like being a weepy baby, I’ll go bang my head against a wall!

“O I wouldn’t aggravate her if I were you, Master. She can, as they say, kick your butt!”

“I can?” That was a happy surprise!

“Oh, of course you can,” Azure said kindly. “You’re a Syhlain. A perfect match to any Demon of Volttus in power and strength.”

“You’re hell bent on keeping her aren’t you?” Demon gave Azure a sour look. I couldn’t decide whether that annoyed him, amused him or simply didn’t affect him.

“Oh, come on Dee. You know Arela’s plotting against you. Remember what Cy told us when he came to see you last week? He said the Ducimus had come by a lethal weapon.” Azure turned to me and stretched out his arms. “Voila!”

“So what?” Demon shrugged. “Your little pull-the-demon’s-hair gig has left me with fewer days in a month than the complete set of teeth in your mouth! About twenty nine, right?”

“No, thirty nine! I grew a brand new one last year.” Azure proudly bared his teeth.

“I meant the days to the next full moon, not your teeth!”

“Oh. Yes. And all the more reason to knock them all out!”

“Your teeth?”

“No! Your enemies!”

“Ah!” Demon smiled. “No, I think I’d rather have my peace.” And closed his eyes again.

“Wait. What do you mean?” I looked at Azure and then at Demon. “Are you dying?”

“Why?” Demon looked at me and in a flash his bored eyes were an animated sea of charm. “Would you grant a dying man his last wish?”

“She can’t.” Azure jumped in. “Her crescent won’t let you. Unless you’re interested in an unconscious woman.”

Aha! So that’s what my crescent was doing! It was a way to let me know I was being seduced and in danger. Funny how it never burnt while I was around men back home.

Maybe it only worked around demons.

“Do you mind?” Demon stared at Azure.

“Okay I’m confused – again.” I said. “Are you dying?”

“Would you wear that to the funeral?” Demon pointed at my outfit.

I shook my head and looked the other way. He was just impossible to talk sensibly with for two seconds!

“Don’t toy with her, Dee.” Azure came to my rescue. “He’s fine, tiny Princess. The hair plucking just made you immune to his charm and will cause him to lose his demon powers. He’ll turn back into an ordinary, possibly less vile, human.” He bounced up and down. “So – what’s it gonna be, Dee? Ha! I just made a funny I just rhymed the – okay.

So? Dee?”

Demon considered for a few seconds in silence then sighed loudly.

“Fine,” he said. “Prepare the horses, Phromaz. We’re going to fly to the Lake of Life.”