Page 7 of Midnight in the Garden of Okay and Meh
“We just need someone really powerful,” May said. “Anyone have other suggestions?”
“I’m afraid we’re less than helpful,” Karma said with a glance toward Adam. “Polters are kind of on the low end of the scale, power-wise. Also, does anyone have to go to the restroom? If so, would you take a quick look at what Pixie and Brom are up to?”
I held up my phone. “I had Bastian give me access to the camera facing the stage. You can just see the two of them. They’re eating what is apparently enough food for five people.”
“That would be Brom’s doing,” Ysolde said with a little shrug. “Evidently being a new dragon makes you incredibly hungry. Someone powerful ... hmm. Maybe Rowan could help? He’s an alchemist.”
“He’s not going to be able to help,” Jim said, licking the last of the birthday vanilla ice cream.
“Who would you suggest?” I asked.
Jim nosed its bowl toward me. “Seconds and I’ll tell you.”
“How about you tell me and I don’t send you to the Akasha for a day,” I answered, giving it a look that said a whole lot.
Jim wasn’t the least bit cowed. “Yeah, yeah, once a demon lord, always a demon lord.”
“Do you know of someone who could help?” May asked.
It rolled onto its back. “Belly scritches? I think better with belly scritches. But use the dragon claws. They get all the itches.”
“Avert your eyes, everyone,” I said as May, with a little smile at Gabriel, flexed her fingers until they elongated, covered in silver scales, with crimson claws. She scratched Jim’s belly and armpits until his back legs were kicking.
“Spill,” I told it when she stopped and it flopped on its side with a happy sigh. “Who do you think would help?”
It stood up, shook, and sat back down. “You’re just not thinking right, any of you. Ask yourselves who you’re trying to capture. This thane is a demigod, right? One who almost brought down Abaddon. You’re gonna need a demigod to catch a demigod.”
“We know that,” Ysolde said. “We just don’t know of one who would work with Christian and his fellow vampires.”
“Dark Ones,” came a murmur from Christian.
Jim scratched at an ear. “Only the creators of Abaddon were strong enough to stand up to the thanes the first time, so that’s what you gotta do now.”
I blinked. It was a bad habit when I was befuddled, and I thought I’d gotten the better of it, but here I was, befuddled as hell, and blinking. “You want us to find the founders of Abaddon? One or all of the demon lords?"
“Naw, they weren’t around. You need one of the three princes who created Abaddon.” It sucked its lip for a moment. “I guess you could ask my dad. Maybe he’d help if he knew it was to stuff the thane back into the underworld.”
“Your father? What does your father have to do with anything?” Ysolde asked at the same time May said, “I thought your father was dead?”
“He is. Well ...” Jim stood up and shook again. I averted my gaze from the blizzard of black hair that drifted off it onto Bastian’s nice parquet floor. “Demigods don’t really die—they just kind of fade away. Plus my dad wasn’t killed. He was banished to the Lake of Upside-Down Sinners. But that’s kind of like being dead, right? It’s in the Akasha, after all. The supersecret high-security part of the Akasha. The Thirteenth Hour, the one where they put the bad demigods, and you don’t get much badder than one of the three founders of Abaddon. Gotta go walkies. You want to take me, or should I ask the blue dragons if there’s a park nearby?”
TWO
Aisling
“I’m not going to say that an actual bomb dropping on the restaurant would have been worse, but agathos daimon!” May, who had joined Karma, Ysolde, Allie, and me on another journey to the bathroom, stood next to the sinks and looked as stunned as I felt. “I mean ... I can’t ... Jim’s dad is a demigod?”
“You know what Baltic muttered under his breath just as we got up from the table?” Ysolde asked, not even bothering to glance at her appearance. She just hoisted herself onto the counter while Karma, with a murmured excuse about too much wine, went to use one of the toilets. “He said, and I quote, ‘That explains a lot.’ What does it explain, do you think? How Jim found you?”
I paused in the act of washing my hands, startled yet again. “How it found me? I summoned it, not the other way around.”
“Mmm, but demigods,” May said, running a hand over her glossy black bob. She still retained the appearance of a 1920s flapper, but since the look suited her, no one ever suggested a makeover. “Those are tricky. They can do things that you might not think they could do. What if Jim’s dad wanted it to be with you, and made it happen?”
I thought about that for half a minute, shifting to the side so Karma could use the sink that wasn’t occupied by Ysolde’s hip. “I don’t see how anyone could do that. I mean, I didn’t know I was going to summon a demon until that fateful morning, and it was really just the luck of the draw that the summoning caught Jim. It must have been close enough by that when the summon went out, it caught Jim. I can ask it, though. I really want to know more about its dad, because—”
The door was flung open with enough force that it made Ysolde and me jump. Pixie stood in the doorway, her hair twisted into two giant space buns on the top of her head. She was clad in a miniskirt and black lace top, and, since we were in public, wore a glamour to hide her two extra arms. The two that were visible were crossed tightly as she glared at each of us in turn.
“Deus!” she all but yelled as she marched into the bathroom, her wrath directed at Karma. “Why can’t you trust me? You said you trusted me! I’m seventeen, not a child!”
