Page 13 of Midnight in the Garden of Okay and Meh
“But someone else could?” May said, pouncing on its words. “Could a demon lord do it? If so, we can probably bribe Magoth to do it for us. He’ll charge an arm and a leg, because he’s materialistic like that, but still, I bet he’d do it.”
“If there are any charges to be paid, we will do so,” Christian said stiffly.
None of the ladies paid him any mind, although all the wyverns nodded. Adam was talking quietly to Karma, and obviously missed the statement.
“Yes, of course, we’ll pay whatever the cost is,” Allie agreed. “Just let me know and we’ll send the money. Er ... is this demon lord trustworthy, do you think?”
“Not so far as you can spit,” May said cheerfully. “But he’s all we have, so—”
“He’s not going to be able to pull my dad out of the Akasha any more than Aisling could,” Jim said. I was pleased to see it was no longer flipping through its magazine, and instead was following the conversation with interest. I covertly sent a text to Suzanne, our housekeeper, and asked her to run out and buy a dozen birthday balloons and a box of its favorite dog cookies. “You guys don’t seem to get it.”
“Then why don’t you tell us what, exactly, is needed to free your father?” Drake said in a voice that was as smooth as his massive marble bathtub, but underneath, his fire still simmered.
Jim said nothing, just cocked one furry black eyebrow.
I sighed. “Jim, the order to answer questions did not run out just because we left the room and returned.”
“Fine, but if they take away my demon card because I’m giving you information like I’m Google, then you only have yourself to blame,” it said with a faux-injured sniff, but I had the feeling that it was secretly happy to discuss the subject. Poor thing, it probably wanted to have a connection with parents it had never had a chance to meet. “The first problem is going to be finding him. He’s been in there for sixteen hundred years, so no doubt he’s locked away somewhere pretty impenetrable.”
“‘Find him,’” May wrote on her notepad. “Obviously, that may take some doing. What’s the next step, Jim?”
Jim sighed again. “So, my dad, Desi, is a demigod, right? And he’s imprisoned in the underworld.” We all stared at it until it gave an exaggerated eye roll and asked, “How do you get a dead guy to move around?”
“A hearse?” Karma asked. “No, wait ... you mean in the underworld. Adam, didn’t you say that your grandfather left your house to go visit one of the Hours of the underworld?”
“Yes,” Adam said, looking thoughtful. “We had to hire him a reaper. They’re the only ones who can guide the dead.”
“Oh, that is not good,” Allie said, her eyes on her husband. Christian looked stony-faced in response.
“How so?” Ysolde asked. She was leaning into Baltic, one hand draped over his leg in the same way I wanted to be touching Drake.
“The vamps have a history with the reapers,” she answered. “Do you want to tell them, or should I, Christian?”
“No one needs to know about—” He stopped, and heaved a sigh. “No. No! Very well, since you insist, but I want it noted that I object to baring our laundry, dirty or otherwise, in front of non–Dark Ones.”
“Did I just miss something?” Ysolde asked.
Baltic whispered in her ear.
“Really? Mind talking? Why can’t you do that?” she asked.
Baltic donned his inscrutable expression again, but his hand must have gone wandering, because Ysolde gave a squeak as she jumped in her chair.
“I’ll give you the short and dirty rundown, since Christian is the head of the Moravian Council, and he takes their rules very seriously, but nothing says I have to be quite so reticent to share,” Allie said, and we all settled back to listen to this strange (to dragons, anyway) new world. “About fifteen or so years ago, a group that had spent hundreds of years targeting vampires really got going, and were killing vampires in the name of their group. Er ...”
“The Brotherhood of the Blessed Light,” Christian said with a twist of his lips. “Commonly known as reapers.”
“There’s a long story involving two vampires named Kristoff and Alec, especially Kristoff’s wife, Pia, who was a reaper at one time.”
“OK, got it,” May said, covering her page with tidy script.
“With her help, and a bunch of vamps, the Brotherhood was basically broken. It tried to carry on for a bit, but we—the vamps—kept at it until the organization collapsed under incompetent leadership.”
“Wait—are you saying there are no more reapers?” I asked.
Christian hesitated a few seconds before answering. “There remain a few who were not connected with the Brotherhood, but they tend to not seek attention, and live solitary lives.”
“If there are no reapers left, then how do the dead go on to the afterlife of their choice?” Ysolde asked. “What do they do when they need a guide?”
