Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

I sent McDongle away—now we had no means of paying him—and met Zee and Reynard at the bar, both sitting in silence with an empty stool between them. The jukebox played an upbeat swing song, but there were few people in the bar to hear it.

"Are you gonna explain what happened, Kitten, because His Lordship has hit maximum brood and refuses to explain why the fuck you both left that building looking like you'd been wrestling koala bears."

Reynard arched an eyebrow. "Koala bears are small, docile creatures."

"They're fucking bears aren't they? Everyone knows bears will eat your face. Whatever, Fancy Pants, stop changing the subject."

" You mentioned bears," Reynard snarled, clearly not in his best mood.

I sat between them and summoned Tom Collins over with a nod. Tom whipped out my whiskey and poured, while Reynard and Zee bickered about which bears were the most dangerous. It was an extensive list, that eventually included gummy bears and teddy bears.

"Is everything alright, Adam?" Tom enquired, in that way he did, strongly hinting that most problems could be fixed with more alcohol.

"I don't know." I sighed. "We think Gideon Cain just tried to kill us. Gremlins are eating the walls and I don't have enough money to get rid of them. Oh, and there's a portal to somewhere slimy in my room. Besides that, I guess everything's good?"

Tom slung his cloth over his shoulder, straightened, and eyed my bickering companions. "Hey." Reynard and Zee stopped arguing about bears. "Get your shit together or you're both barred."

I wasn't sure if Tom could actually enforce banning them from the bar, but it had silenced them.

Victor cleared his throat and nodded. "Of course, Tom. Thank you for the intervention. I suspect bickering with Zodiac is my way of disassociating from far more pressing matters."

Zee stirred his cocktail. "And I thought it was foreplay."

I sipped my whiskey, and took a few moments to center myself in the hotel's atmosphere. The only safe place left for Lost Ones. "The SOS Hotel is important," I told them—and myself. Needing to hear it aloud so I could refocus. "If we fail, it fails." Tom had told me the same several weeks ago, and he was right.

Victor dipped his chin. "I fear my financial situation is now as dire as my personal one. I do not know what value I can offer, but I will do everything in my power to support you."

It had been a particularly bad morning. "We just need to think things through and deal with each problem, one at a time. So, problem number one—gremlins. We'll keep the hotel open and catch the gremlins ourselves." We had a few gremlin traps. It would take longer, but we didn't have much choice.

"And do what with them?" Victor asked.

"There must be a shelter for gremlins or something?"

"No shelters. Nobody wants them," Victor said.

"We could put them in fucking pies?" Zee said, and looked up from his drink. "Did I say that out loud?"

Not pies, but... "We could put them in portals?" I waited for the odd looks, or the arguments to begin, but they both seemed to be considering it.

Victor sipped his tea. "It is a convenient solution."

A gremlin hopped onto the bar, stole one of the little cocktail umbrellas and jumped back off the edge, vanishing again. Even Tom didn't care enough to comment.

"So, what do we do about problem number two—Gideon?" Zee asked.

"He's a sorcerer. A portal won't hold him," I said, and then froze as all three of them stared. "Not that I'd suggest we shove someone into a portal. That would be bad. Obviously."

"Perhaps it would be best if we enlist the help of Agent Leomaris at the SSD?" Victor suggested. "Attempted murder certainly comes under their remit."

"No proof," I said. "And Leomaris was a bounty hunter. I know they helped get us off those murder charges but Leomaris suspects there's more going on between us and Gideon, and I don't need them looking closer at me—at us. I don't trust them." Leomaris was smart, had resources, and a shady past as a bounty hunter. The whole SSD act wasn't fooling me.

Tom pointed out the No Bounty Hunters line on the Bar Rules sign behind him.

"Nobody likes bounty hunters," Zee agreed. "Almost fucking worse than vampires. "

That earned Victor's scathing glare. Zee grinned back at him, then blew a kiss. "Not you , Fancy Daddy. Everyone loves you ," he crooned, in a voice so sarcastic he definitely meant Victor.

"We'll consider these other problems later. However, there's one more thing we should discuss, as it could impact all decisions going forward." Victor produced a Wilson's Guide and slid it across the bar until it stopped in front of me.

Uh, oh. I laughed, then squeaked, "What?"

"It's time."

"No, nope, nuh-uh."

"Adam, you know this."

I poked the Wilson's Guide back toward him. "Noooooo."

"I was right about the flowers. I am right about this. The perfect moment you're waiting for does not exist."

No, when I did this, when I told Zee, I'd do it right—with candles, soft music, and a bowl of mac and cheese—so Zee would be calm, and less likely to run away forever like Victor had almost done.

"Adam?" Victor prompted, using his schoolmaster voice, that turned me on more than a little.

But he'd been right about telling Zee I'd buried his friend under the flowers. Why did he have to be so old and right all the time?

"Oh-kay," Zee announced, then slammed his hands down on the bar and swiveled on his stool to face me. "Stop there, Kitten, before you hurt yourself. Fancy Pants likes to get his daddy on because he's a million years old and knows best. Pfft. Don't let him force you into anything you're not ready for."

I sighed. "But he's right." It really was time to tell Zee the truth. "So... Zee, there's this thing about me. It's just a little thing, really." Victor raised an eyebrow. I quickly turned away and faced Zee, so I didn't have to witness Reynard's eyebrow of judgment. "You know we talked about your magic sperm?—"

"His what ?" Came Victor's splutter.

I waved a hand, suggesting we add that to the list of things we'd talk about after this .

Zee cocked his head. "Is this about the giant horse thing and you not being human?" Zee rolled his eyes. "Does all my pretty distract from the fact I have a brain and occasionally know how to use it? Despite what Fancy Fangs believes, I do not think with my dick. I think about my dick. Although..." His trail of thought had clearly wandered. "If I did think with my dick, there would be a lot more sex and a lot less talking."

I fell quiet, and so had Victor.

"So um... just so I'm clear? We're talking about your dick now?" I asked.

"Focus, both of you," Victor said. "Adam, please continue."

"Right, so... yes. This thing. About me. Erm. So. There's this thing, about me," I repeated. "You may have noticed, I'm not exactly a normal human."

"What?" Zee mock-gasped, both hands going to his mouth, pink nails glittering. "Adam Vex isn't human? Say it ain't so! Is my middle name gullible?"

"Would you like me to answer that?" Tom asked, interrupting to make it clear he was listening in too.

Zee narrowed his eyes and flicked him a gesture, telling him to scoot off.

With Tom out of earshot, I continued. "So, here's the thing. I look human, and act human, and know lots of human things, so I am basically a human?—"

Zee rolled his eyes, grabbed the Wilson's Guide , flipped open its pages and ran his finger down toward the single, most dangerous word in the entire guide. "Dagda, Demigod, Demons—oh look! Demons infect humans with magic, zombie-causing sperm, who fucking knew? Everyone who had a guide with all its pages, that's who. Derricks. I met a Derrick once. Had the smallest hands. It was fucking weird?—"

"Zodiac, again, refocus," Victor grumbled.

"Why are you in such a hurry, daddy? You got somewhere else to be? No. So hush up. Djinn..." Zee trailed off and glanced at Tom down the end of the bar, then after clearing his throat, continued. "Doppleg?nger and..." His pretty gaze lifted from the page to land on my face.

I smiled, hoping it looked as sweet and innocent as the rest of me, then winced.

Zee was no longer buying my innocent act.

He closed the guide, slid it back across the bar to Reynard, then sat back and picked up his drink. "Yeah, dragon tracks."

I barked a high-pitched laugh that sounded like a parrot in its death throes. "What? Who? What? What even is a dragon?" I shrugged. "Pfft. That's silly. Do I look like a dragon? No, it's ridiculous. Dragons aren't even a thing. They aren't real." In my panic I clutched at the first fantasy creature to leap into my thoughts. "Like frogs."

"Frogs are real, Adam," Victor said in his no-nonsense voice.

"Yes, we all fucking know frogs are real," Zee said. "And they are more terrifying?—"

"Yes, frogs are very bad," I interrupted. "Awful things. Almost as bad as gremlins, which we have a lot of, and need to deal with. We should go do that, right now."

I braced against the bar to push away, but paused, the weight of their gazes settling on me. Not in a judgmental way, more of a... slightly sympathetic way. Of course, they'd suspected I wasn't human for weeks.

But acknowledging it made it real, and opened the door to talking about what I really was, and that came with its own enormous problems.

I stayed on the stool and absorbed the realization that my secret was out. Some of it.

"So, that's how you killed three demons and fucked them up so bad the SSD had to scrape bits off the sidewalk with a shovel," Zee said. "Impressive."

I winced. That had not been my finest moment. "I was having a bad night."

Zee snorted. "Not as bad as theirs." He took a sip of his drink. "What, did you want some kind of dramatic reaction? I can swoon if you like? I'm a fuckin' pro at swooning."

Oh.

Well.

"Erm, no, that's fine." So, that was it? No screaming, no running, he wasn't going to leave?

I glanced at Reynard, expecting a loftily arched eyebrow, but what I got instead was a tiny, corner-of-his-mouth smile. It could almost be classified as a smirk? Zee knew what I was, but he didn't know who .

Victor did.

He'd said the words, "It's you." Putting two and two together, and coming up with the end of the world.

I looked at Tom, who'd been busying himself nearby. He turned his head and issued a small nod, as though he approved.

"The only thing I don't get is why you gotta hide it," Zee went on. "Do I hide my magnificence? No."

"Perhaps you should work on that," Victor said with a dose of dry sarcasm.

Zee glowered. "People hate. That's their problem. You're a dragon. So what?" He stopped as a thought occurred to him. Zee's wings spread and his grin grew. "I fucked a dragon? Best birthday ever." Another thought occurred to him, and his grin turned sly. "There ain't no way my jizz parasites are infecting a dragon."

"Your what parasites?" Victor asked, blinking.

"Don't ask," I groaned. "Please, really, don't ask."

Zee waved him off. "Far as I see it, this is all win-fucking-win. There aren't many of you left, right? We should be fucking celebrating."

As far as I knew, there weren't any dragons left. I was the last. The prophecy had made sure of that, and I'd maybe helped hurry things along a bit since most everyone I'd ever known had turned on me because of it. So I'd maybe had to, very reluctantly, murder them all.

"But it's okay if you're not ready to come out, I got your back."

"As have I, Adam," Victor agreed.

"Thank you," I croaked. "Both of you. It's been a long time since I've had friends." Never. It had been never .

"Friends with benefits, amiright?" Zee winked.

They were a whole lot more than friends, but one revelation was enough for now. The two most important people in my world knew what I was, and that was... okay?

"Right, so let's go catch hundreds of gremlins without scaring the fuck out of the few remaining guests we have." Zee shoved away from the bar. "Could be worse, right? You could be the fucking Prophesied One."

I froze. Victor gave a small throat-clearing cough. He knew. I knew. We both knew he knew that I knew he knew. He opened his mouth to say something like, "Do the right thing and tell him, now . " I kicked his shin under the bar, and laughed. "Right!?"

"That loser has a lot to fucking answer for." Zee hopped off the stool and sauntered toward the exit. "I'll get the traps."

The door swung shut behind him, the music played, people chatted, and the weight of the prophecy pushed in. I couldn't look at Victor and see the disappointment on his face. Zee was right. I had so much to answer for. "Okay, anyway, I'll uh... I'm just gonna..." I slid off my stool. "I'll find some nets or something."

"Adam—"

No, I couldn't get into it with him, and Zee had made it clear what he thought of the Prophesied One. A loser.

"Yup, I'll go do that." My heart thumped. The door was right there. I just had to walk on through and not look back. If I did, I'd see the question in his eyes. Why hadn't I saved the world yet? That was what heroes did, right? They stepped up. They were selfless and brave and everything turned out fine when the hero did what they were supposed to do. But I wasn't a hero. I was just one lost dragon trapped in a curse of my own making, trying not to die while hoping destiny didn't find me.

Because I really, really liked being alive.