Urian cocked his head as he watched Xirena and Simi arguing. “Um, demons? What exactly are you doing?” ’Cause from his vantage point as he entered the room, it sounded like they were attempting to decide what flavor of barbecue went best on a baby to eat it.

The two of them were in the throne room of Katateros, which Ash had turned into a giant living room, with four boxes of Burberry layettes for an infant girl and were about to come to blows in their argument.

Simi got up from her furry purple bean bag chair. Dressed in a short black ruffled skirt and crop top, she pursed her lips. “Akri-Uri, tell the Simi’s idiot sister that the hickory sweet sauce is better with the pink baby! ’Cause it more tasty and sweet!”

Xirena actually let out a burst of flames. “No, Xiamara! For baby, you must have more spice for the digestion. You need it!”

Yeah, no, that sounded like they planned to eat someone’s baby.

At a loss, Urian glanced back and forth between them, unsure how best to handle this situation, because he didn’t want to be on either of their menus.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Simi cocked her hip and looked at him. “Wells?”

“Uh … what baby are you going to eat?”

Simi froze, then became extremely happy. “Can we?”

“No!” He rushed to correct that, if that wasn’t where they were going with this weirdness. “You aren’t planning to eat a baby?”

Simi shook her head. “But if the Simi can, she will. Cans she?”

“No,” he repeated. “What are you doing?”

“Now the Simi sad she can’t eat a baby ’cause they’s so tender.” She pouted.

Xirena sighed. “I know, sissy. So sad.” She shook her head as she folded up the layette. “The nice pirate man and his wife had their baby. So we were sending this for them.”

“Oh.” Urian had forgotten about that. “Rafael Santiago and Celena.”

Simi nodded enthusiastically. “Baby Ephani!” She held up the bottles. “Which flavor do you think Baby Ephani would like?”

Urian bit back his laughter. “Why not both? Let the baby decide?”

She gasped. “Good idea!” She dropped the bottles into the box, then ran forward to hug him.

Only she hit him so hard, it was more like a tackle. Urian smiled, especially when her wings fluttered and feathers went flying. That was the strangest part of all about the Charonte. When they were happy, they had feathered wings. When you pissed one off, their wings turned fleshy and leatherlike, complete with spiked tips on the ends of them.

Simi pulled back to scowl at him. “Why you so sad, akri-Uri?”

“I’m okay, Simi.”

She put her hand over his head. “No, you’re not. You gots a lot of heart-hurt.” Her lips quivered. “Simi sorry. It’s not fun being one-of-a-kind. Believe me, the Simi knows.”

That she did. The reason she spoke the way that she did was that Apollymi had sent her to live with Ash when she was a toddler. With no other Charonte in the human world, she’d grown up with no one to teach her anything about them. It was only after her sister and brother had managed to escape, thousands of years later, that she’d finally had another Charonte with her.

“I’m not as cute and precious as you are, Simikee.”

She smiled so wide, her fangs showed. “You gots the blue eyes. They’s very beautiful, just like you are.” Taking his hand, she turned back toward her sister. “We should make akri-Uri an honorary Charonte, what do you think, Xixi?”

Screwing her face up, Xirena narrowed her gaze as she stared at him. “He could look cute with horns.”

Urian’s eyes widened at the thought of them putting horns on his head. The image of them drilling them into his skull was horrifying. Charonte were known to do things like that.

Luckily, Xirena got up with a pair of stuffed red ones that attached with clips. Making herself taller, she handed one to Simi and each one clipped a horn to his head.

They stepped back to stare at him, then high-fived each other. “Charonte!” they said in unison.

Simi gave a firm nod. “You’s a perfect, beautiful Charonte now!” She grinned. “Can you look in a mirror or are you still too Daimon for that?”

He laughed. “I can look in mirrors now.” That was one of the things Ash had fixed about him that still freaked him out whenever he happened to see his reflection.

“Goody!” Simi used her powers to conjure a crystal-encrusted, Hello Kitty hand mirror that she held up for him so that he could see the horns.

Urian grinned at the silliness of it. “Perfect.”

“Charonte!” She held her hand up for him to high-five her.

“Charonte!” he said, and gently touched her palm with his.

Alexion picked that moment to come in and burst into laughter. “Should I even ask?”

Urian glared at him. “Not if you want to live.”

Simi snorted. “Akri-Uri is a Charonte now. We’s adoptive him. He our baby now so if you make our baby cry, we make you cry.”

Urian’s grin turned to straight shit-eating. “I like that a lot.” Crossing his arms over his chest, he dared Alexion. “I’ve got Charonte mamas now. Go ahead, insult me.”

Alexion sputtered as he looked back and forth between the two demons, who were now very alert. “The only Danger I flirt with is my wife. Who I’m going to find right now. But word to the wise about your adoption, Uri … they feed their babies habanero sauce straight up from the bottle, and good luck with the burping.” Then he vanished.

“Hey! That a joke?” he shouted after him.

No answer.

A bad, sick feeling went through Urian. He turned toward the demons. Both of whom were now on their feet and coming closer with purpose.

Oh shit …