“It’s simply a statement of fact,” Rollick goes on in the same steady tone. “We’re living in unprecedented times at the moment. You can’t know what it would look like without us pitching in, because nothing like this has ever happened before. In any case, I don’t believe any ofyourpeople were harmed in the incident.”
Hueber’s eyes narrow. “All the people around here are my people. The human ones, not whatever exactly you are. We came to protect them, and apparently you’re here to tear them to shreds if the mood strikes you.”
His gaze flicks to Raze, whose shoulders slump even more as if he’s trying to fold his tall, sinewy frame in on itself into monstrous origami.
The salty-sour shame flowing out of my lover sparks my temper. I match Rollick’s calm, but I’m not going to keep quiet. “He was protecting us. None of us want to hurt humans, but those humans ran at us with weapons. They were out to kill us! Don’t you have laws about self-defense and standing ground and all that?” I feel like at least one of those terms was thrown around by a police officer in some movie I watched.
Hueber purses his lips. “We only have your word on that.”
Major Yin clears his throat and motions for the colonel to lower his head so he can convey something quietly. At whatever he whispers, Hueber’s face tenses.
The colonel jerks straight again with a prickle of irritation as if it’s his colleague’s fault he needed to be corrected. “Fine. A fewhumanwitnesses confirm your story, so it seems you had some provocation. All the same, I can’t imagine a human ripping any of you apart the way this monster did.” He waves his hand toward Raze. “I don’t want him anywhere near my troops.”
Rollick ticks one eyebrow upward. “Not even if it’s either Raze charges in to protect them or some new warped monster from the city joins the tearing-apart game? He’s saved a lot more of you humans than he’s harmed, you know.”
Hueber glowers at the demon, seething even more bitterly on the inside. I’m a little worried he’s going to hurl his tank-like body right at the table in an attempt to take us all down with it.
“I don’t want to set eyes on him,” he growls. “You have all those shadowy powers. If I can’t see him, then I don’t have to think about him. But if there are any more deaths on my watch?—”
Rollick holds up his hands. “Message received, loud and clear. I don’t suppose your investigations around the city have turned up anything useful?”
Yin speaks up at a hurried clip. “We’ve been busy making arrangements for as many of the refugees as possible to be moved to proper shelter in the nearby towns. I’m sure once we’ve had more of a chance to examine the situation?—”
“It’s fucking mad, that’s what it is,” Hueber breaks in. “I thought you all were the experts. Haveyoucome up with any answers to why the sky is literally falling on our heads?”
I’d point out that the rift is not part of the sky, and it’d be pretty depressing if a piece of skywasalways that dark, but I don’t think either of those observations would be helpful.
Rollick offers a tense smile. “We’ve had time to conduct our own experiments. I believe we’ve made progress in making the city more livable, but it’ll be a long process.”
To my relief, he doesn’t glance at me, even though it’s my powers he’s talking about. I need the colonel breathing down my neck about scrubbing the city clean of darkness like I need gravel in my pie.
If I had a pie.
Note to self: see if we can get some pies around here. Pie makes almost everyone happier.
Hueber could definitely use some blueberry or maybe a comforting apple right now. His thick eyebrows draw together. “I don’t want it justbetter. We need the city back to the way it was. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced out of their homes. Maybe you’re happy lounging around in that murky crap, but we’ve got higher standards here on Earth.”
Has he forgotten that we’re not actually aliens from another planet? I take a breath to correct the misinformation I was a major force in spreading, but Jonah touches my arm at my other side.
“We’re doing our best to get everyone back in their homes the way they were before,” he says. “But this is an environmental disaster on the level of a tidal wave or a tornado. It wouldn’t make sense for everything to be able to snap back to normal without any repairs.”
Hueber snorts. “Show me how to repair a bunch of darkness and we’re talking. And beef up your patrols! If you don’t want us shooting at the crazy creatures that keep launching themselves out of that mess, you need to be there to catch them before they bring out the claws.”
He spins on his heel with a forceful air as if he thinks he’s made some impressive point. I’d like to tell him to put his own claws away.
Hueber, Yin, and the several soldiers they brought with them so they could feel like they weren’t outnumbered—even though they totally were by all the shadowkind who’ve stuck tothe shadows—stalk out of the trailer. As they pass through the doorway, a small form darts past Hueber’s ankles. He lets out a grunt of disgust and kicks his foot toward the furry serpent, but thankfully Falkor is pretty quick even with only two paws.
My strange pet wriggles across the floor and winds up my leg. As the door thumps shut behind the soldiers, I detach the puppyish snake just long enough to tuck him around my waist rather than my knee. He coils the end of his tail behind his head to hold himself in place like a living belt, resting on my ample hips.
Rollick eyes the shadowkind creature. “You do attract some strange company, my glowing friend.”
“At least he isn’t one of those weird warping shadowkind,” I point out. A pet like that would be about as good an addition to someone’s happy home as an oven with a leaky gas line.
Raze swipes his hand across his face. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter what the humans were doing—I know I shouldn’t have lost control like that.”
Hail shrugs. “You slaughter totally innocent animals all the time. Why not switch to humans who deserve it?”
His gaze darts toward Rollick with a flicker of wariness. “Er. But preferably somewhere Colonel Stuffed Shirt won’t find out about it.”
