“Bathin appears human.” I decided to jump in because we really needed to get this moving along. The weather was nice enough, we might have someone show up to play in the park.
If they saw their police force arguing with a talking horse, things might get dicey.
“If you could appear human, you would not need a host,” I said.
The unicorn opened her mouth, closed it. Glared at Bathin like this was all his fault. He crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged.
A snort, a stomp, and finally, it appeared the fire went out of the little horse.
“I don’t have anyone,” she said, dejected. “May I choose a host?”
That was within the rules. It was also within the rules that the host could refuse.
“You can choose,” Delaney said. “But first we need to handle the vortex.”
She perked right up and batted those long horsey eyelashes. “I choose Myra Reed.”
“What?” I said.
“Please? Will you please be my host while I learn the ways of Ordinary?”
“No.” Bathin cut his hand in front of him like he was some kind of medieval royal declaring a beheading. “I forbid it.”
And yeah, we all turned and looked at him. He glowered at the unicorn.
“Why not?” I asked. Before he could answer, I decided I didn’t need to know why he didn’t like the unicorn. It was enough that he didn’t want the unicorn to be with me.
What a demon feared, then forbade me to do, was very interesting to me. Especially since I was the one tasked with finding the way to throw him out of town.
“Yes,” I said. “Xtelle…”
“No,” Bathin said. “Myra, you should not get wrapped up with this conniving little bitch.”
“Whoa,” Delaney said.
“Hoove you in the big, fat face!” the unicorn screamed.
“Enough.” I said it loud enough, everyone shut up.
“Bathin, you have no say over what I do. Xtelle, yes, I’ll be your host. I have a lovely back yard you can frolic in, if that suits your needs. I can make a place in my garage for you to sleep, if you need indoor space.
“Everything else, from what you need to eat, to how you prefer to spend your time, we can work out later. Because right now, we need to deal with those things crawling out of the vortex.”
Chapter 5
The unicorn glancedover her shoulder, let out an undignified “Eep!” and trotted over to stand between me and Bathin.
He pushed her to one side and wedged himself next to me instead. She snarled, which was a weird sound coming from a horse, but shut up as soon as the first tentacle wriggled out of the vortex to test out the playground bark dust.
“Okay, that’s not right,” Ryder said.
The thrall of the vortex didn’t seem to be pulling on him anymore. I couldn’t smell the apple pie, either. I didn’t know if the lack of pie had broken the vortex’s pull, or if it was because small, oozy blobs with eyes were staring up at us from within the swirl of moonlight and shadow.
“What is that?” Delaney asked.
“Demon spawn,” Bathin said very quietly. “They’re explosive. Don’t spook them.”
“They can be spooked?” Delaney asked just as I said, “Explosive?”
