“I am so confused.”
She grinned. “Knows whatcha mean. The Simi stays confuzzled most the times. Face it. The world’s just a confuzzling kind of place.”
Suddenly, Urian felt like an idiot as he realized who and what the demon was. “You’re Acheron’s tattoo? From the club.”
She gave him a look that said he was a complete and utter moron. “Well, yeah. You don’t think the Simi would let some ole other Charonte come and lay down on her akri and not eat its head, do you?”
From what he knew about Charonte, no. They weren’t exactly into sharing.
She made him sit on the floor in front of the TV. Then she opened her purse and pulled out two surprisingly large bags of potato chips. “Red meat? White meat?”
“Pardon?”
She cocked her head. “Red meat?” She wagged the bag of barbecue chips in front of his face. “Or white meat?” She rattled a bag of sour cream and onion chips.
“I’ve never eaten either.”
Simi sucked her breath in as if that were the worst thing she’d ever heard. “That’s right. You eats the blood! Except you don’t no more.” Fanning her face, she danced around excitedly, then handed him both bags. “Open them! Open them!”
He obliged her.
“Now eats!”
Urian wasn’t sure about this. Cringing, he held one up to his nose.
Simi made a rude noise and popped his hand. “Would you stop! You done been eating on the people! Stop being all finicky. Eat the dang chip! Unlike the people, which don’t be getting the Simi wrong, ’cause they’s mighty tasty, them’s chips is good! Eat it!”
He laughed at the demonic tone that somehow managed to be childlike. “Yes, ma’am.” He bit into it and gasped. “Holy shit, that’s good.”
“Told you! Eat more!” She held up the bag for him. Then she made an adorable noise and dropped it so that she could run to another room.
After a few minutes, she came back with several drinks. “Fruitsie juicies! You gots so much catching up, akri-Daimon!”
Simi scooted in beside him and started pulling more snacks out of that tiny purse, then turned the TV on to something called QVC, where she educated him on modern shopping.
“Why are you doing this, Simi?”
She lay beside him on the floor with her feet up on the couch—he didn’t know why, but most Charonte slept and relaxed like that. Cocking her head, she scowled at him. “Don’t you know, akri-Daimon?”
“No idea.”
She reached up and touched his chest where his mark used to be. “You gots the heart sadness. Friends don’t leave friends alone when they heart-sad.”
“I didn’t know we were friends.”
She snorted at him again. “Of course we are. That’s how you make friends. You see somebody when they heart-sad and you walk over and say, it’ll be okies and you hug them and share your chips. Then you’re friends.”
She took his hand into hers and held it. “See. Friends. The Simi don’t bite you. You don’t bite the Simi. We friends.”
“I guess it is that simple, huh?”
Nodding, she tilted her head back to watch more TV.
She was still there a few hours later when Acheron came to see him. Only Simi was asleep, which was easy to tell as the little demon came with a giant snore.
Cocking his head, Acheron actually lifted his sunglasses up to rest on top of his head as he studied his sleeping demon. “I wondered where she’d gone off to. This was the last place I’d have looked for her.”
“She’s quite the chatterbox.”
