OUCH. Please stop that.
Hurts,my inner animal weeps, in just as much pain as I am. She’s no longer trying to shift.
"I'm Mia Lanshire. I'm a paramedic. Someone's called an ambulance already, so—oh my gods, your head is healing. Are you a shifter? That's good, we can—hey, you!" she shouts suddenly, leaning away from me. "What the fuck's wrong with you? Turn off that camera! Yeah, that's what I thought! Okay, miss, you need to…"
It sounds like she's being slowly submerged underwater. Athanis is saying something, but I can't understand him. Either he's speaking ancient fae again, or I'm finally blacking out.
12
ZAK
I kickthe side stand of my motorcycle in place to prop it up beside the sidewalk. Removing my helmet, I grab the bag of takeout from the handlebars, wipe dried blood off my cheek, and stroll to the front door of the old townhouse.
I don't even knock before my aunt's longtime boyfriend, Melchom, flings it wide open with a dumbass, fang-filled grin. As usual, he prefers speaking in English, since he's been living in this mortal realm longer than my aunt or anyone else I know.
Good thing my English's gotten a fuck of a lot better than it was just a few months ago.
"Hells and bells, look at all that blood!" Melchom crows, reaching up to ruffle my hair.
If my aunt weren't so happy with this fucker, I'd remove his hand and shove it up his ass. No one in the Nether dared touch me outside the arena, but Mel's weirdly touchy-feely for a demon.
Lucky for him, my aunt's clearly got a fetish for smiley idiots.
"Most of it’s not mine," I shrug, lifting the plastic bag of takeout to wiggle it in his face. "Why the hells did you ask for BigAl's fish tacos? This stuff always smells like shit. And what kind of fish taco place is open so fucking early in the morning?"
Melchom ushers me into the dimly lit Compton townhouse, snatching the bag from me to sniff it for himself. "Mm-mm, that's the stuff! I swear, whoever Big Al is, that guy's gotta be really fucking miserable to make food this good. Hey—street fighting looks okay on you. Okay as any mutt can look, anyway, all tailless and hornless and whatnot."
"You're tailless, too," I point out.
He shoves half a fish taco into his mouth, licking some off his clawed fingers. "Ha! Cut off my own tail to fit in with the humans back when we demons were hunted like dogs. You're a lucky little shit that you'll never have to go through that, huh? Must be nice, being a damned mutt."
Most demons call half-demons like me mutts. We're not all that common, since most demons would rather grind their own horns into dust than take in a mortal's essence.
See, demons can only procreate with other demons once every few centuries, but female demons can spawn with mortals anytime…so long as they absorb that mortal's life essence at conception. The mortal ceases to exist, and nine months later, a freak like me pops out.
Fucking brutal, the demoness who birthed me.
She won Lord Amadeus's favor by seducing and absorbing a powerful metal-manipulating elemental monster who dared oppose him long ago in the Nether—spawning me in the process. To reward her, Lord Amadeus granted my mother a place in his court and "pardoned" my existence, letting me grow up competing for my life in his arena.
Eventually, I became one of his favorite prizefighters.
After thetelumleft, of course.
Walking to the kitchen sink, I rinse the worst of my last opponent's blood off my face. As usual, the kitchen's a fuckingwreck. This entire townhouse is constantly trashed, thanks to the wild-ass parties my aunt and her boyfriend throw all the time with other demons passing through Detroit.
I accidentally knock a half-empty beer bottle off the counter when I go to grab a towel. It shatters on the kitchen tiles beside several other broken bottles and a broken chair. Trash overflows several trash cans, and used dishes are piled high in the sink. The attached living room is filled with blankets, more empty beer bottles, empty lube bottles, and plenty of other random shit left behind from what clearly turned into an orgy.
They have those all the damned time.
But as much of a fucking nuisance as my aunt and her boyfriend and demon buddies can be, they've helped me adjust to this wacky human plane of existence. I've spent the last several months picking up and polishing my English from them and from the humans and legacies that show up at the underground legacy street fights I've been getting some dough from.
The TV is on and blaring in the connected living room, with some uptight news anchor droning about politics or some shit. I rub my ears, wondering if I need to poke new holes in Melchom's head for him to hear better. Clearly, his current ears are fucking useless if he needs to turn things up this loud.
"Hey, Mel. Where's Eisha?"
He burps. "That bitchy, loose-assed skanky fucking whore of a?—"
"Yeah, yeah—I get it, you like her," I roll my eyes.
