It sucks. I keep asking Jet to stop booking this tour, but she insists on us doing it because we keep getting booked up every time we offer it.
To be honest, I’m kind of exhausted with it all. Tired of hopping from place to place, never spending extended amounts of time anywhere. Always looking over my shoulder, waiting for our past choices to catch up with us.
But that’s the price we pay for freedom. When you’re a weaver, everything is decided for you, including where you’ll be placed after attending the academy. A lifetime placement that you have zero choice over. You could do anything from influencing love matches, to weaving the threads of fate, destiny or karma to decide which kids get their cancer cured, and which don’t.
Free will? Yeah, that’s not a luxury we’re normally granted.
So when my sister, great believer in free will and hater of the invisible puppets pulling our strings, was due to undergo her ceremony, we decided that, nah, we would not stand there and let them take our choices from us. I had the power to get us out of there, and so I used it.
Back on the tour and the human woman who complained about Jet’s speakers has started praying to someone called ‘Zoddar’, right in my ear. I throw a glare in my sister’s direction since she’s the one in charge of the pre-tour surveys all our customers are supposed to complete. We designed one question to weed out all the religious fanatics, but clearly we haven’t done a very good job this time.
Holy meatballs. My head’s already pounding thanks to the whole heavy atmosphere of this place and what with the music and the praying, it’s all very distracting and my headache kicks up a notch.
“Er, Echo. Echo?” a voice to my left says. “Could you ask her to stop doing that, please? It’s making me and the guys a little uncomfortable.”
I suck in a wince. Demons really do not enjoy it when people pray around them or sing hymns, any of that stuff really. That’s one problem with having mixed group tours. It’s a challenge not to upset anyone.
“I’m so sorry,” I say to the incredibly polite demon beside me. “Can you stop that, please?” I direct my words to the woman beside me with my well-practiced customer service smile.
But instead of listening, she shows no signs of stopping. In fact, she’s getting louder. The rest of the group is shifting like they don’t much like it either, so I hiss out a breath and glance up at Jet, who nods to show she knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“We’re going to have to gag her,” Jet mutters in my ear, just loud enough for the group of demons, who are all handsome as hell, to hear. “Any of you guys got one on you? I’d prefer something not too drooly if possible.”
They do not disappoint. Three of them pluck various strips of material from their pockets and offer them over. My eyebrows shoot up into my hairline as she picks one at random.
One of the other humans looks intrigued. “What else have you got in those pockets?”
“You probably don’t want to know,” Jet mutters, just as one demon replies, “A fuckload of lube.”
I can’t hold in my giggle and the—now chanting—fanatical human takes a step away from me, raising her voice even louder. The other human, the one who asked the question, looks even more intrigued and moves into the demon’s space. She’s a pretty little thing with straight black hair down to her waist, which I’m jealous as all hell over. I can’t imagine not having a whole dang mane that doesn’t snap combs in its snarls. Getting apocalypse dust out of it is going to be a total nightmare later.
Another glance at my sister and I continue with the tour while she deals with our little songstress. It’s chaotic in a way that I used to find fun, but these days, I’m pasting on a smile and having to dig deep for enthusiasm I don’t feel.
It never used to be this hard. But I guess that two tours per week for the past few years are taking their toll.
“Okay guys.” I clap my hands to distract from the fact my sister is currently gagging one of our clients and that two demons are waving a bottle of lube around while the human girl is practically panting at them. “It’s ten minutes to midnight, so things are about to crank up a notch.”
Ten minutes to midnight, but the sun is still burning high in the sky, blasting through the atmosphere with zero care. It’s about now that the earthquakes start, and then the air fills with the smell of burning rubber… and the sound of screaming.
That’s the part I hate the most.
I keep my smile just wide enough to be friendly, but not too wide that it’s creepy since this is, y’know, the apocalypse. The demons breathe deep at the despair and wild emotions floating around the place. The humans’ eyes grow wider and wider as the wind picks up, and the sky splits in two. Even the mysterious hooded one among our group is quivering with something like excitement.
And then I gather everyone together, hand in hand, and hop us out of there, right before things get too hairy. We leave before the acid rain starts. It’s not like we have insurance to cover these trips, but the last thing we need is someone suing us because all their skin melted off.
The entire gang is buzzing with excitement and adrenaline as we arrive back to our drop-off zone on the outskirts of a city in the human world, not too far from where I grew up. If I hopped in a car east for a couple of hours, I could wander my old neighborhood. Not that anybody there would know who I am these days. It’s not home anymore, that’s for sure.
I’m fighting a yawn as I do my last bit of spiel, telling the group that they were all great—although one of our members has only just been ungagged—and that they should tell their friends about us and we’d love to see them again soon. With a last grin and wave, they disperse off into the night and I grab Jet’s hand to take us back to our crappy little apartment, home for the next couple of weeks until we move onto someplace else.
I remember that right before we escaped the academy, Jet kept saying how we were caged birds that needed to fly. And it’s not like I want to go back into a cage or anything, but I never considered how exhausting it would be to have to flap your wings the whole dang time.
I’m tired. Maybe I just need a nice branch to roost on for a while.
That’s what I’m thinking as we get home and I finally have a chance to check my phone for messages and I listen to the voicemail that’s been left for me.
You’d think that as a weaver, I might be a little leery of tempting fate. But dang it, I never seem to learn.
A familiar stern, female voice speaks through my crappy phone speaker.
