When I finally left the palace to start my shift patrolling the court, I was so full of energy that I had trouble forcing myself to walk on the ground rather than thin air. Nat and I had fed each other insane amounts of energy as we made love again and again and again.
After the tenth interview with someone who'd heard a lot of rumors, but hadn't themselves actually seen anything, the smile my sister had put on my face began to fade. Refugees had been disappearing, at a rate of one or two a night. But no one knew what was happening. Well, they all
knew
that they were being preyed upon by someone looking to jump up in power by Devouring immortals whose families didn't care enough about them to retaliate. But none of them knew what this mysterious serial Devourer looked like.
After the twentieth such interview, I decided I was wasting my time.
I was about to turn invisible and start walking through the crowded streets of Safe Haven haphazardly in the wild hope of seeing
something
when Mel showed up.
"Hey Uncle Frank!" she said, bouncing up and down on her heels.
"Mel," I said, looking her up and down. That pink t-shirt was insanely tight. If her nipples got hard, it might rip. Her jeans weren't any better. I had no idea how she even got them on. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, I swung by your cottage, but Brie said you were out on patrol."
"You...went by...how'd that go?"
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say she doesn't like me." She shrugged. "You know, usually, when I'm talking to someone and they won't look me in the eyes because they're too busy staring at my girls," she gave her big breasts a gentle squeeze with both hands, in case I didn't know what she meant by that, "it's because I'm talking to a guy. But your cousin is seriously obsessed with them."
"Not in the way you think," I said.
"Actually, I kinda picked up on that when she did her best to tenderize them like a bad cut of meat, thank you very much," she said. "Anyways, how goes the patrolling?"
If it were me, would I be able to take Brianna's behavior in stride like that?
"Not well," I said. "Everyone is convinced that there's a serial Devourer. But no one's seen anything. Really isn't very helpful. Not like there are any bodies or crime scenes or anything either. I don't know that I'd know what to do with one if there was, but still. I wish I had
something
to work with."
"Can't you summon a floating eyes? The way you sometimes do hands and mouths?"
For a moment, I was too dumbfounded to respond. Eventually, I said, "Huh. Yeah. I totally can." Why hadn't I thought of that? "Good idea."
Melanie twirled a ringlet of red hair around one of her fingers. "Sooooo, as payment, I'd like to pick your brain for a few minutes. Think you can shirk your duties for a bit?"
I laughed. "I'm not sure what I'm accomplishing as it is."
So we went to a coffee shop around the corner.
"Amazing, isn't it?" Mel asked as we made our way there. "Safe Haven looks like a city from the mortal world. Except that it doesn't."
"That's about right," I said.
In many ways, it did indeed. But every single person who lived there was gorgeous. Every one. You didn't get that in the mortal world. And while some, including Mel and I, were dressed more or less the way people you'd cross on the streets of a typical mortal city would dress, others looked like they just came from a photo shoot for a lingerie catalogue. Or a fetish magazine. Still others were dressed like they'd stepped out of a bad fantasy novel. Some looked like faeries of various kinds, indicating they were from the lands of Spring. And, surprisingly enough, I even saw a couple of people with the telltale blue skin of the Shadowed Glade or the gold skin of the Eternal Garden.
"And it's growing so fast," she added. "Do you think Nat made the right move by-"
"Stop right there," I said. "I don't know what my sister's doing, and I think both she and I would prefer to keep it that way."
"Right," Mel said. "Sorry." She fretted at her lower lip while her fingers drummed against the plastic lid of her coffee cup. "Maybe I shouldn't ask you this after all."
"Ask me what?"
She looked out the window at the cars driving by. That was another thing that made it seem less like we were in the Homelands than the mortal world. Though mortal cars didn't look quite like these. The streets were filled with vehicles that made the concept cars auto makers unveiled at auto shows seem unimaginative. And you couldn't find a gas station anywhere in the Fourth Autumnal Court. Like just about everything here, the cars worked because the people using them wanted them to, and that was that.
I took a sip of my coffee while I waited for her to reply.
"Well," she said, at last, "it's about Troy."
"Okay," I said, in a tone that invited her to elaborate.
"Actually, it's not about Troy, so much as his father."
"Is he hurting you?"
"No," she said. "He doesn't really hurt anyone, actually. But they're all terrified of him."
"They?"
"His children."
"Really? Didn't seem that way."
"I shouldn't say
all
of them. Sebastian and Tulip aren't. In fact, they couldn't be more loyal. Course, he's good to those two, unlike everyone else, so it's no wonder they don't feel the same way as the rest of the kids."
"And Rose?" I asked.
"She fakes it well enough," Mel said. "And that earns her better treatment than most of the rest. But if Sean doesn't get accepted to the Brotherhood, the way she's promised her father that he will, she's going to fall out of favor again."
"I see," I said. "Have you told your father this?"
"Of course not," she said. "He'd try to stop us from going back."
"Well, yeah."
"Then none of us would be safe," Mel said.
She had a point. Shit.
"But I've got a plan," she added.
"And that is?"
She tasted her coffee. "You're not going to like it."
"Try me," I said.
"I'm going to Devour Lord Furcas."
"You're right. I don't like it."
"Hear me out," she said.
I gestured for her to continue.
She dropped her voice, though it seemed to me like it was the last statement that had really called for a hushed tone. "I know how strong he is. I'm not stupid. The plan is to turn invisible, hide out in his room, and do it while he's asleep."
It suddenly struck me as completely absurd that we were sitting at a squat little table in a crowded coffee shop, discussing how to assassinate a demon lord. It was all just too surreal. That was the first time in a long time that I thought, even for a moment, that maybe none of this was real. Maybe I was just an ordinary mortal, living an ordinary life, daydreaming about a world where all my fantasies, sexual and otherwise, could come true. Maybe not daydreaming. More like tripping balls.
