Page 10 of Demon Queen
“No, you really don’t,” he murmured, words that lingered along with the scent of cinnamon bears as I blacked out.
four
. . .
I wokeup sprawled on the velvet lounge in Gloria’s aunt’s parlor, feeling like my head was stuffed with sawdust, while the guy with the weird beard from the night before stared at me with swirling rainbow eyes. His skin was pale blue like an egg shell.
I blinked at him. He blinked at me. We blinked at each other for a long time while the events from the night before sorted themselves out in my head. I scrambled up and then gripped the lounge so I wouldn’t fall over again. A winged demon had really been at the club. Was it Wilkie? And Dorian. He was a demon, a real, live, horned and spiked demon. Unless that had all been an elaborate hallucination. Drugs. I must have been drugged in the club.
So why were this guy’s eyes swirling rainbows now? My stomach lurched and I gripped the velvet tighter while I tried not to throw up.
“Careful. Humans are so delicate,” the blue creature with a tentacle beard murmured in a gentle voice that had an echo of crashing waves. He was a sea monster. Of course he was. I should do a mermaid theme. Hadn’t done one of those in a while.
I swallowed hard. He wasn’t human. Like Dorian wasn’t human. What was he doing in Gloria’s house? Did he eat her? “Where’s Gloria?”
“Your friend is still sleeping. She drank a lot of champagne last night along with eating all the chocolates. You just stayed unconscious through a great deal of noise and bumping around. Did Drigo put you to sleep?”
I stared at him. Drigo? “Who?”
He gave me a slight lifting of tentacles so I could see a flash of jagged incisors. “The demon who owns the club.”
“Ah. Dorian. I don’t think Drigo…” That sounded like a demon name. Or something weird. I shook my head. “No, I just fainted. Everything was a little much. I didn’t really know about the demon thing.” I still wasn’t entirely one hundred percent sure about the demon thing. And whatever this guy was with his moving beard and rainbow eyes.
“No? Well, that would be a shock. Did you really steal from Drigo? I didn’t think that was possible. He can smell greed, you know.”
I didn’t know, but it sounded made up. “It was a long time ago.”
“Not that long in the overall scheme of things. You’re a very pretty human. Are you dating anyone?”
Was he hitting on me? Weird didn’t begin to cover it. “I don’t date, but thank you for the offer.”
“You don’t date? You dated Drigo, didn’t you?”
“No. I worked for him.” I wouldn’t call it dating, even if we had lived together, once at the beginning of my career when we’d been platonic roommates after he realized I was living in my car, and once at the end of everything when we were whatever we’d been that had ended up with me pregnant and him having lap dances with the other dancers.
“I heard it was a human strip club. That makes sense. Demons feed off the energy of humans and other creatures, lust, greed. Now it’s all the violence, the blood, the rage. Pity there aren’t any wars going on where he can really slake his thirst.”
Such a weird conversation. It sounded like a hallucination, maybe a drug trip. How did you respond to that ‘your ex needs to slake his thirst for blood,’ thing? “There are wars all the time.” Yeah. Totally casual.
He flashed his sharp teeth at me. “Ah, I meant my world, naturally. The one where the Zombie Queen rules. He wouldn’t blend in very well in a human war. Can you imagine? Everyone would unite to try and kill him.”
“He said it wasn’t a problem. He’s got that glamour. Oh. The Zombie Queen.” It just didn’t feel real. I mean, a zombie queen? Zombies were the least logical monster. Why brains? How could they have any sensory input when eyeballs disintegrated so incredibly quickly? Also, who would agree to be the zombie queen? That sounded like the worst job in the world. ‘Off with your…Oh. Your head already fell off.’ You know? Ridiculous.
I shrugged and tried to look like I was taking this conversation seriously. “Dorian mentioned something about that. They aren’t really mindless, disintegrating zombies, right?”
“Most of them are, but some are better preserved thanks to the Queen’s benevolence. The fairies are the last holdout against the Zombie Queen, but who wants to rule fairies? You know what I mean? You have no idea, but it’s really cute the way you look at me with those big eyes and don’t throw up or piss yourself.”
I blinked at him. “Thank you. I haven’t been called cute for ages. What are you?” If we were going to be rude, then I didn’t have to pretend that he wasn’t freaking me out.
He smiled widely and his beard started writhing around in a way that made me roll off the lounge and hurry for thebathroom. I threw up a lot of cake, but mostly nerves. I wasn’t home in my bed in my shop, no, I was in Gloria’s aunt’s old massive house with a monster of some kind. Why was he here?
I rinsed my mouth, splashed water on my face and went back out to face him. The parlor was empty, but I heard voices from the kitchen. When I went in, the tentacle bearded wonder was talking to Tom, the old guy from the movie theater that Gloria had married.
“You woke up,” Tom said with a slight smile and an approving nod, like good job not being dead.
“Thank you. I need to get back to work. Do you think you could give me a ride in the cupcake van?”
“I’ll take you,” the tentacle bearded guy said.
