by Jenny McKane
Sunny couldn’t help the face she made. The creature didn’t deserve a name, let alone one that rolled off Gideon’s tongue like they were old friends.
Chapter 15
She went to class and did her best to stay awake but running off two hours and some change of sleep was making it impossible. Her eyes wanted to cross each time she looked up at the screen as the lecturer wrote in some crazy, gibberish math language that Sunny’s brain refused to process this morning.
The day before, Liam had given her a digital tape recorder and stuck it in her backpack. When she had asked why, he told her it was the secret to his community college success.
“Record your lectures,” he said, pointing to her messy pages of notes. “Listen to them as you rewrite your notes and your brain will absorb more of what you need without even cracking a book to study. I mean, you’ll still need to study, but you’ll know a lot more from the get go.”
She’d always meant to do something like this but had never really gotten the chance. Now that she felt half dead and just about to fall asleep, she could practically kiss Liam for the small wonder he’d given her.
By lunch, she was done with her classes and had caught the bus to The Little Lamb for her first shift. She wasn’t exactly nervous, but even in the few days since being hired, her life had gotten weirdly more complicated and layered, and Sunny hoped beyond reason that she could make it all work. She had to, right? There simply was no other option than making it all work, or it would all fall apart on her in a spectacular fashion.
She pushed the thought from her mind and pasted an overly excited smile on her face as she opened the front door and walked in.
Nobody was in the shop and overhead, some Dean Martin songs were playing.
“Hello?” Sunny called. “Are you here, Mrs. Carlisle?”
She walked toward the back and called a few more times. Finally, just as she reached the back offices, Kitty appeared.
“Oh!” she cried in surprise. “Is it time for your shift already? Where has the day gone?”
Sunny blinked away another round of yawns and tried to focus on what Kitty was saying as she gave her the grand tour of the tiny shop and pointed out more specialty yarns and knitting equipment than Sunny would ever be able to remember. But it was cute. And quiet. And quaint. And when the older woman had left Sunny in charge of processing and shelving a shipment of ten boxes of new yarn, it gave Sunny plenty of time to do nothing but scan labels into the system and think.
Whether he’d turned a corner in their fledgling partnership, or whether it was a weak moment from the venom-antidote combination, Gideon had given her real information for once. While he hadn’t given her the entire drop on Camael, it had been enough to go on. That, and the fact that he was spending his days since Lisette’s condo searching for something.
The box, she found out, was holding an inscribed handle that would hold a dagger made of a rare mineral--the only type in existence that was known to kill an archangel. Archangels, Gideon had explained, were a lot like higher demons in that their physical bodies could be destroyed and they’d most likely just get sent back to where they came from--and be able to cross another portal when they were strong enough. But just like every system, power cannot exist in a vacuum, and there were certain checks and balances included. Namely, that weapons were created that could take down both angels and demons.
For archangels, it was serendibite. It was one of the rarest minerals on the planet and often fetched thousands of dollars in the gem-trading world. For it to work to kill an archangel, Gideon had explained, it needed to be the perfect cut with the perfect angles to sit in the dagger’s handle. It required an expert craftsman (usually a demon) and a pile of money. Apparently, Gideon thought he had plenty of money and few craft-demons in mind.
“Be sure you don’t confuse magenta and maroon, dear,” Kitty called as she walked to the front of the store. “I’ll be back in a few. I need a snack.”
And with that, Kitty was gone. In her place, Plaxo materialized on top of a particularly soft-looking display of chunky grey yarn.
“Half Breed will never kill the archangel that created him,” Plaxo said without much of a hello.
Sunny stopped what she was doing and looked over at him.
“Why do you think that?” she asked.
Plaxo hopped down and took a few steps, dragging a trail of grey yarn with him. He noticed that he now had a bit of a trail stuck to his own tail and stopped to free himself. Instead of pulling the yarn off, though, it seemed to entrance him, and he started batting at it. Like a kitten.
“What are you doing?” Sunny asked. “And why can’t Gideon kill the archangel that created him?”
Plaxo looked up from what he was doing and spoke.
“The archangels are powerful, but that one is the most,” he said. “Plaxo has seen him in the flesh before, and Plaxo still has night terrors.”
He made an exaggerated shivering motion, rubbing his upper arms with his hands.
“You’re not being a bit overdramatic, are you?” Sunny asked.
“Plaxo is telling you,” he said, wandering over to her box as she pulled skeins free and climbing in and burrowing down into the pile. “One little dagger will not stop that one. He and his sword of flames will be too much for Half Breed, no matter how angry he is.”
So Plaxo had picked up on the anger, had he?
“I think Gideon could pull it off if he wanted to,” Sunny said quietly. “I’m just not sure he’s prepared for the war that might follow the slaying of an archangel.”
Plaxo popped his head up from between the skeins and looked at Sunny.
“Plaxo has heard that none of the other archangels like the one that created the Half Breed,” he said. “Plaxo learned that in a dream a few months ago. Nearly got Plaxo killed when the archangel realized Plaxo was there, but that dream said a lot.”
“Dissention among the ranks? That’s wild.”
The demon in the yarn box shook his head.
“Normal, Lady Hunter,” he said. “If nothing else, Plaxo’s new mission is to make Lady Hunter see how wrong she’d been about angels and demons. They behave very similarly most of the time. “
It sure seemed like it.
“Saying Gideon’s search for this mineral and a person who can craft a dagger works out, why wouldn’t he have a shot then?”
Plaxo looked around the yarn shop, seemingly not paying attention anymore. When Sunny snapped her fingers to get his attention, he looked back at her.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “Plaxo likes the string. Plaxo wants to unroll all of it.”
Sunny’s eyes widened.
“Don’t. You. Dare,” she breathed. It would be the end of her if he did, and the end of him, too. Sunny would personally see to it.
“Plaxo will not,” he said, a sad sigh on his voice. “But will Lady Hunter at least consider Plaxo’s warning? This is a dangerous mission, sure to end in disaster, and Half Breed might take Lady Hunter down with him if she tries to help.”
Sunny was stacking yarn and stopped, considering the words a moment.
“Lady Hunter is in perpetual deep shit with the archangels as it is,” she said finally. “And they’ve threatened to kill her more than once now. I think I’ll decide who is worth risking my life for when I can.”
Plaxo didn’t respond; he simply turned and disappeared around the corner, probably rolling in another yarn display. His attraction to the stuff was odd, and she’d have to set some boundaries soon or the entire stock was going to smell like garlic and smoke soon.
“You gotta stay out of the yarn,” she yelled, but no one answered.
“Stay out of what, dear?”
Sunny yelped and spun around, holding a floppy skein of yarn between herself and Kitty like some makeshift, useless weapon.
Her cheeks burned at being caught talking to nothing. Her mind raced for a way to save this.
“Fly,” she said quickly. “There is a fl
y around me, just driving me crazy, and I must have told it to stay out of my face.”
Kitty smiled and nodded, probably not having heard a thing Sunny said. The older woman seemed to be in her own world half the time.
“That’s nice, dear,” she muttered, suddenly moving among the rows and displays, on the search for something.
“Was there a cat in here?” she asked, as her head popped up between displays.
“No cats,” Sunny called back, hoping with all her might that Plaxo was good and gone.
“Are you sure? I can sense them and it feels like there is one nearby,” Kitty said, as she continued her search. “Here kitty, kitty, kitty…”
She continued with her fruitless search for a cat, meanwhile a demon was somewhere in her shop rolling all over her yarn. Sunny did her best to get focused and finished processing the new shipment.
By the close of her shift, as the sun was setting outside, and Kitty turned the sign in the door from “open” to “closed.” There was a bowl of milk and a pile of saltine crackers on the floor near the door.
“In case the poor thing gets hungry,” she told Sunny as she laid out the snacks for the pretend cat. Plaxo, at least, would probably enjoy the snacks.
“Great idea,” Sunny said with a smile and a nod.
“I consider this a successful first day, Sunshine,” Kitty said as the two of them were putting their coats on and heading out the front door. It was dark now, and Sunny had a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. She wasn’t a fan of walking around after dark in new neighborhoods if she could avoid it.
“See you on Wednesday, then?” the woman asked, as she locked the door and yanked it to be sure that it was closed.
“Sounds great,” Sunny said and nodded.
Kitty gave a glance in the direction Sunny was about to head and shook her head.
“I wish I could give you a lift, dear,” she said, regret in her voice. “But I’d never be able to find my way home again. I’m too old and can’t read the street signs. But be careful, will you? This neighborhood isn’t what it used to be.”
“I’ll be careful,” she began to say but was cut short by the arrival of a large SUV in the parking lot. Kitty turned and watched the vehicle drive up to the front of the now-dark shop.
“Someone you know, dear?” Kitty called as she moved toward her car.
Why, yes...yes, it was. It was Gideon.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, the smile spreading across her face.
The look he shot her was withering and a little bit charming at the same time. He wasn’t trying to be nice, but at the same time, he was succeeding at that very thing.
“Stop grinning like a fool and get in,” he said. And she did.
“You’re looking more alive than when I left you this morning,” she quipped as she pulled the seatbelt across her chest.
Gideon shot her a look and rolled his eyes.
“Not surprisingly, you look less alive than you did this morning,” he said as he pulled out of the parking lot under the watchful eye of Kitty.
Chapter 16
Sunny was back in her English Lit class on Tuesday morning, wondering how she was going to stay awake. After Gideon had picked her up from work last night she’d gone to bed early and she’d even fallen asleep relatively easily. It was just that she had one hell of a dream.
Sunny dreamt about her brother Samuel. Which was odd, because Sunny never dreamed about Samuel. She thought about him plenty, nearly constantly that first year after he disappeared. But her dreams? Never. Samuel was never in her dreams. It almost hurt to see his face when he appeared suddenly.
He was young and happy. His smile was wide and beamed from his face. It was as if Sunny was watching a photograph. There was light. There was a little bit of movement, and a lot of emotion. But there wasn’t much to the story of her dream. She simply got to watch her brother laughing in the sunshine, before the nightmare set in. Just like the edges of a photograph, her nightmare caught on fire. Samuel’s face began to bubble and melt away and Sunny could only look on in horror. It didn’t look as if he was in pain, though, which was odd. The image faded to flames engulfing Samuel, and him laughing like a madman.
She had sat up in a panic, trying to catch her racing breath. Nothing about the dream was soothing or settling. Nothing had made her feel better about where her brother might be, or what he might be doing. If anything, it had Sunny feeling less hopeful than ever. And that wasn’t saying much, because Sunny hadn’t felt hope about ever seeing her brother again for some time. She also didn’t have anybody to talk to about her brother, so in effect, Samuel had fallen to the back recesses of her subconscious as she moved throughout her day and did her best to stay alive and one step ahead of the demons, and now it seemed like, the angels.
At the end of class, Liam was there walking her out of the auditorium. They walked down the steps to the small student union at the bottom of the building and stood in line to grab something to drink from the small beverage cart. She hadn’t really talked to him since leaving their study session the past week abruptly. She had managed to send him a lame excuse of a text message to try to explain that something had come up quickly, and Liam hadn’t really pressed her on it. She was grateful for that. She wasn’t exactly sure how she would explain that her half-demon roommate had been sliced up by some rogue succubus.
After Liam paid for their drinks, followed by a hearty thank you from Sunny, he led them to a small couch by a warm window facing the sun.
“I really was sorry to see you leave so quickly,” Liam said.
Sunny took a sip of her coffee and thought of what to say.
“I’m sorry as well,” she said. “I would be lying if I said my life wasn’t a bit chaotic right now. I have a crazy living situation, and a new job that I’m just trying to get the handle on. I’m not doing a very good job, as Sunday seems to prove.”
“Please don’t apologize,” Liam said. “It was a bit of a strange day all around. I had a strange feeling of deja vu or something similar, when I had to excuse myself for a moment. I rarely, if ever have gotten something like that so strong. I could have sworn that someone that I knew very well was close by, but when I looked, nobody was there. It was the strangest thing.”
The only creature that had been close enough by for Liam to have sensed was Plaxo, and Liam didn’t seem the type to keep company with demons. Sunny brushed it off and focused on the conversation they were having.
Her phone chirped in her backpack and Sunny pulled it out to check the message that had come in. It was Gideon.
Hitting a club tonight. Don’t dress like a school marm.
She rolled her eyes at it, but also had to laugh. She did have a tendency to dress a little school-marmish. She couldn’t help it if everything she owned was baggy and had holes in it. Most of her things were hand-me-downs and ill fitting. And the things she actually cared about, like a few of her cardigans and baggy boyfriend jeans that constantly slid off her ass, she wore until they were threadbare.
See what I can do.
Something had shifted a little in the working relationship between herself and Gideon, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It was good, though, whatever it was. They still hadn’t really talked about the fact that there was a dream demon living in the loft with them. She wondered if Gideon had actually forgotten about Plaxo in his venom haze. She could hope, anyway.
Be careful coming home. Demons are on the move across the board.
Well, crap. That was terrible news. Plaxo had mentioned something similar, though. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, and she should take the advice and brace herself.
“Did you notice we had a midterm in math coming up?” Liam’s voice broke the spell and she put the phone away.
“Two weeks, right?”
He nodded.
“We need to study again the next two weekends,” he said. “What do you say? Same time, same place? I can even pick you up.”
“I don’t need that,” she said. “But the studying would be fantastic. I’m finally feeling like I have my feet under me in English. I’m not even close in math.”
Liam laughed and brushed the long, blond sweep of bangs from his face.
“You? I never would have guessed.”
He was teasing her, and she just shook her head.
“I’ll get there, eventually,” she said. “But like I said, this semester seems harder than most, and it was never easy to begin with.”
Liam gave Sunny a friendly smile before leaning forward toward her.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing a fantastic job,” he said.
For whatever reason, the heat rose to her cheeks, and Sunny blushed at the compliment.
“Thanks,” she muttered and pretended to suddenly need to rearrange her backpack. It wasn’t that Liam was necessarily being creepy, it was just that it seemed a bit strange from him. The warmth seemed genuine, but not in the way he was presenting it. Like he was trying to flirt because he assumed that was what she wanted? Well, Sunny didn’t want to be flirted with. She wanted help studying, and maybe a friend she could talk to about normal things that would take her mind off working for the archangels.
“Do I make you nervous?”
The question wasn’t exactly threatening or anything, but it did seem a little pointed, making her look up in surprise.
“Nervous?” she repeated. It was something she did when she was, in fact, nervous.
“Yes, Sunshine Bonnard,” Liam said, an odd glint in his eyes. “Do I make you nervous?”
“Sometimes,” she blurted out before she could think it through. “You’re more direct than I’m used to, I guess. And sometimes it seems like you read me like I’m some ridiculously open book.”
