Chapter Seven
The pie was smooth as slow-churned butter, almost liquid, and the taste . . . ah, gods, ’twas unlike anything of Duncan’s experience. Dark and sweet, with a hint of bitterness, the complexity of the dessert set his brain abuzz with delight and heated his blood with delicious languor. With each bite, the rage and grief tying his guts in knots lessened, and by the time he’d worked his way through the first pie, Duncan was in charity with the world.
Carried away on a tide of goodwill, he studied the demonoid sitting across from him. Conall disliked Evan, but then Conall had never given him a chance. This was unfortunate, Duncan decided. Evan had a way of growing on a person, rather like a corn. Rough. Hard. Painful when pinched or confined, and the devil to be rid of.
Pleased at his own cleverness, Duncan waved his spoon at his companion. “I like chocolate. Know what, Evan? Like you, too. Been watching you.”
Evan finished off his shrimp and grits. Picking up a bottle labeled Pepper Sauce, he dumped some of the contents on his greens. “Do me a favor and never say that again. It’s creepy.”
“Been watching you,” Duncan repeated, ignoring this admonition. “Know what?”
“What, Duncan?”
“Not a bad sort.” Duncan smiled and had the oddest sensation that his lips were sliding off his face. “Not like that Earl Skinner.”
“Gee, thanks. Earl was a total skeeze.”
“Insulted you. Not my intent. Like you better than Earl. Thought you ought to know.” Duncan frowned. “Another reason I like you. Cannot remember why.”
Evan took a bite of his greens, and chewed. “Well, I’m alive, for starters—”
“Alive,” Duncan repeated.
“And Earl’s deader ’n hell. Trust me. I know dead people. I’m a whole lot more fun to talk to.”
“That is it. Smart fellow. Like you, Evan. Like you better than Joby Ray. Better than—”
“Got it,” Evan said, bringing this litany to a halt. “You like me better than the Skinners. Heard you the first time.”
As he floated on an ocean of feel-good, it gradually percolated through Duncan’s euphoria that Evan seemed less than pleased by his approbation.
“Like you better than Zeb Randall,” Duncan offered. “You know Zeb?”
“Werewolf?” Evan forked some of the yellow vegetable on his plate into his mouth. “Don’t know much about him. Don’t want to. Don’t get the whole pack mentality.” He shrugged. “Been on my own since I was a little squirt.”
“Know. Raised by demons. Beck told me.”
“Did she, now?” Evan’s satyr mouth hardened. “Baby sister talks too much.”
Evan and Beck were twins. After he was left for dead as a babe by his demon-possessed mother, Evan’s life had been a special kind of hell until Beck and Conall had slain the demons who’d enslaved him. Knowing this, Duncan made allowances for the demonoid.
“Horrible,” Duncan said. “Tortured you. Sorry for you.”
A dull flush crept up Evan’s cheeks. “Don’t be.”
“Like you.” Duncan scowled. “Not like Zeb.” He slammed his hand down on the table, rattling the dishes and utensils. “Not. Like. Zeb.”
“Jesus, take it easy. I heard you. I’m pretty sure people in the next county heard you. What’s eating you, man?”
Duncan picked up the sugar dispenser and crumpled it like paper, spraying white granules across the table. “Zeb had a . . . a thang with Cassandra.”
Evan pried the crushed canister out of Duncan’s hand. “No kidding? You like me better than some douche who’s been playing patty-cakes with your girlfriend? Well, I’m moist.”
Confused by this statement, Duncan consulted the Provider.
Douche, the information source informed him, is a liquid concoction used to cleanse the female nether regions. Also an insult used to denote a person who is boorish and/or foolish or ignorant. The term “girlfriend” commonly refers to a female companion with whom one has a regular romantic or sexual relationship. Similar in meaning to the term “lover.”
The Provider was silent a moment, processing. The term “moist” is an informal expression that means sexually aroused.
Duncan shook his head. “Like you, Evan. No desire to couple with you, though.”
“Wha? Who said anything about—” Evan looked up in mid-chew, his eyes widening in comprehension. “Lord, I didn’t mean—hey, I don’t want to boink you, either.”
“Boink?”
“Sex, dude. It means sex.”
“Boink.” Duncan rolled the word around in his mouth. “Like it. Like to boink Cassandra. Like it very much. Wroth with me.”
“From what I hear, Cassie Ferguson’s a class act.”
“Verily.”
“Then word of advice, my man. Don’t ask her to ‘boink.’ Crude. Classy chicks hate that.”
“See? That is why I like you.” Duncan slapped his knee. “Best of good fellows. Like you better than the douche. Better than Earl. Better than Joby Ray. Better than—”
“Good God, don’t start that again.”
“Conall does not like you,” Duncan felt compelled to point out. “Conall says . . . you a rogue. Not to be trusted.”
Evan’s lip curled. “Boo-hoo.”
“Not a good thing.” Duncan was determined to make him understand. “Captain . . . makes a bad enemy.”
“Yeah. I cry myself to sleep about it every night.”
“Conall wrong about you.” Picking up his spoon, Duncan dug into the remaining pie. “Tell him so.”
“Don’t bother. I don’t care what Conall thinks.”
“Wrong about you,” Duncan insisted. “Should know.” He finished the second pie and pushed the empty plate away. “Speak to Grim, too. Grim angry about Dell.”
“Grim can bite me.” Evan tore into a piece of chicken. “Dell was his bestie until he went googly shit over Sassy, and then Grim ignored him. And I’m a villain for showing the poor sap a good time?”
“Mish—” Duncan hiccupped. “Mishuse of i-infor-m-mation. Dalvahni resource.”
“Dell is not a resource. Not anymore. He’s a person, and Grim damn well should know it. He brought him to life.”
“Grim lonely.” Loyalty compelled Duncan to defend his brother. “Alone . . . long time. Blamed himself... Gryff’s death.”
Evan finished off the piece of chicken and started on another. “Gryff and Grim are twinsies, right?”
Duncan nodded, swaying. “Gryff . . . dead. Djegrali.” He made a slashing motion with his hand and nearly fell out of the booth. “Beheaded.”
“Huh.” There was a speculative gleam in Evan’s eyes. “So Gryff loses his head, and Grim slinks off, feeling sorry for himself. He mopes around for a while, gets bored, and makes the Provider—er—Dell . . .” He paused. “What’s the word I’m looking for? Sentient—that’s it. Grim made the Provider sentient to keep him company.”
“Sentient.”
“Aren’t there rules about that kind of thing? I mean, what’s next, a talking toaster?”
Duncan labored over this. “No,” he said at last. “Grim did nothing for-for”—he hiccupped—“bidden by the Directive.”
“Well, it ought to be. That shit is wrong.”
“Not your affair.” Duncan’s tongue felt thick and sluggish, making conversation a chore. “Between Grim and Kehvahn. Dalvahni god, you know.”
“Whatevs.”
“Grim is mad because you used Dell to win a fortune. Cheated.”
“I did not cheat.” Evan took a breath and blew it out. “Not technically. Dell could read the machines. I put money in, and ka-ching. Jackpot. Like shooting fish in a barrel.”
“Cheated,” Duncan insisted.
“Have it your way. I cheated. So what? Dell had fun, and I walked away with a cool three mil.” Evan’s sulky mouth twisted. “Vegas was next. Dell and I were gonna own that town. Then Dell had to go and make himself a real boy, the numb nuts.”
This was true. Dell, not content with being sentient, had taken on fleshly form, the body of a stripling, to be exact, and now resided with Grim and his wife, Sassy. Quite unprecedented.
“Got money.” Duncan closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back of the booth. “Not . . . need Dell.”
“You can never have too much money. Got to think of the future. Take me, for instance. I’ve started a landscape business. Going like gangbusters.” Evan clapped his hands. “Yo, Duncan? How many fingers am I holding up?”
Duncan peeled his eyelids back and peered at Evan. “Eight fingers. Two Evans.”
“I knew it. You’re sloshed.”
“Sloshed.” Duncan chuckled. “Funny.” He went to prop his elbow on the table and missed. “Play now.”
“Play what?”
Duncan’s gittern appeared in his lap. He plucked the strings, then launched into song.
“Lord help us,” said Evan. “Here we go.”
* * *
Duncan was tossed upon a stormy sea, the contents of his belly sloshing with each pitch and swell of the waves. A merciless fiend hammered at his head with a mallet and tongs, his mouth and throat were parched, as though he’d gargled with sand, and something extremely foul had crawled into his mouth and died.
The heated pillow beneath his head rose and fell in rhythm with the steady beat of a galley drum, and an errant breeze teased his locks. The wind’s gentle play was torment. Gods, his hair hurt. How was such a thing possible? Had pixies woven his tresses in some goodwife’s loom whilst he slept?
He cracked his swollen lids and beheld, to his surprise, not the briny deep, but a lacy canopy of green. Patches of blue shone through the leafy netting. The light was blinding, and he squeezed his eyes shut, his temples thudding. For a moment, he feared his stomach would revolt. If this was what humans called bottle ache, or a close approximation thereof, then he found the human fondness for intoxicants incomprehensible.
He lifted his lids again and saw that he was in a forest, though he had no notion of how he’d gotten here. The bolster beneath his cheek was decidedly hairy. Gradually, it dawned upon Duncan that the steady thumping in his ear emanated from an enormous heart, not a drum. The owner of the booming heartbeat was asleep. The huge chest, pale as a snowbank, rose and fell, the beast’s black lips fluttering with each exhalation.
Briefly, Duncan struggled to free himself, but the slightest movement set bells a-ringing in his head and made the snakes in his belly writhe.
“Sugar,” he said, collapsing back with a groan. “Unhand me, you big ape.”
At the sound of his voice, the shaggy mattress beneath him started violently, and Duncan went rolling. A furry white hand shot out, retrieving him.
“Sweet blessed Kehv,” Duncan swore, clutching his clanging head in both hands.
Sugar grunted in sympathy and gave him an awkward pat. Tucking Duncan in the crook of one large, hairy arm, he settled against the bole of a tree.
Gradually, Duncan’s stomach stopped heaving, and the throbbing in his head subsided to a dull roar. Dropping his hands, he found the pale brute gazing at him, his vivid blue eyes startling in his white, furry face.
“Dunk.” Sugar grinned, displaying large, square teeth.
Duncan stared at him. “How did you—”
He paused, straining to remember the details of the evening. It was no use. His mind was an empty well, and everything after the pie was a blank. He concentrated, though the exercise made his head throb terribly, and from the depths of the swampy morass of his brain, a fragment of memory floated to the surface.
You’ll get crunk. Demon hunters and chocolate don’t mix.
Evan had tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen.
Duncan met Sugar’s guileless gaze. “Did Evan teach you to call me that?”
Sugar chortled in delight. “Ebb.” He poked Duncan painfully in the chest with one large, padded finger. “Dunk.”
“Ow. Yes. Good boy. Now put Dunk down.”
A mellifluous feminine voice interrupted them. “’Tis passing curious, is it not, sister? What is the Dal about, do you think?”
“One can never be certain with a Dal,” a second female answered, “but ’twould appear the warrior needs burping.”
“By the vessel, methinks you have the right of it. The creature is his mother, then?”
“It seems likely. Regard the tender care she gives her offspring.”
With a whistle of alarm, Sugar sprang to his feet. The violent movement catapulted Duncan high into an elm tree. Clinging to a bough, he watched the sasquatch melt into the forest.
“Traitor,” he muttered.
After a short, fierce battle with his protesting stomach, Duncan looked down. Two Kirvahni huntresses surveyed him with disdain, a tall, haughty female with flawless brown skin and elegant features, and a petite, curvaceous brunette with eyes the color of cornflowers.
He groaned. The Dalvahni and the Kirvahni had been created by the same god and to the same purpose—to hunt the djegrali—but there, any familial ties ended. The Dal were ferocious warriors, single-minded and unflagging in their zeal to find and extinguish the enemy. The Kir were deadly assassins: pitiless and swift, skilled with the knife and short sword. They were also exacting and cold. Carping. Arrogant. Infuriating. Ill-tempered vipers disguised in comely feminine form.
The tall Kir tapped her chin in thought. “Not his mother, I think. She is too great a beauty to have whelped such a cub.”
“He is prodigious ugly,” her companion agreed. “If not his mother, then mayhap his bride?”
“Perhaps. Rumor has it, the captain of the Dalvahni has taken a demon to wife.” The Kir’s lip curled. “In truth, the Dal will breed with anything.”
Duncan was sorely tempted to belly-spew on the hateful wenches. “Plague take you both,” he said, goaded beyond endurance. “Sugar is not my mother or my wife, and you know it. He is a boggy boon.”
“Hark, the lummox speaks.” The dark-eyed Kir shook her head. “Alas, ’tis but nonsense.”
“Boggy boon, sasquatch, bigfoot,” Duncan ground out. “These are myriad terms for Sugar’s kind, as you would know had you stopped tormenting me long enough to consult the Provider.”
The petite brunette drew herself up. “Have a care, sirrah. My sister and I have spent the better part of the night setting things a-right whilst you snored in the woods with your pet ape.”
Duncan opened his mouth to retort and shut it again, unease slithering down his spine. The Kirvahni were deft facilitators, dispatched throughout the various dimensions to unravel the worst of magical mishaps associated with the djegrali. By the gods, what had he done?
A third Kirvahni materialized at the bottom of the tree, and this one Duncan recognized. Tall and lean and fiercely lovely, the huntress was clad in soft brown doeskin. Her ruby red hair swung about her slim hips in a long plait. A bow and quiver were slung over one shoulder, and she held a short sword. Her leggings, boots, and vest fairly bristled with knives and other weaponry.
“Greetings, sisters.” Taryn’s voice was cool as frost. “What is toward?”