Chapter 8

"Adam? Kitten? Baby? Lover?"

The world rocked, see-sawing in and out of focus. I saw purple eyes, then nothing, then a swathe of pretty flowers, and nothing.

"Kitten. Don't die. Wake up." A warm hand patted my face. "Adam, Adam, fuck."

I blinked, and found Zee's face an inch from mine.

"Hey, hey? You good?" he asked.

"Ugh." I raised my hand and tried to rub the blur from my vision.

Zee scrambled off me, but stayed crouched at my side with his wings out, shielding us. "Thank fuck. I'm too pretty to die alone."

Shifting onto my side, I got a look at the smooth, tiled walls around us. Cold air blasted from a vent near the ceiling. A few stacks of boxes were our only company. A low, glittering mist blanketed the floor. My teeth chattered, body shivering.

Zee rushed in, scooped me up, and tucked me under his arm. His right wing came around me, like a warm, leathery blanket.

"W-what is this place?"

"Some kind of meat store, I think. It's warded. I can't poof out."

"Oh." Shivering, I folded my arms tighter across my chest, and heaved my knees closer. My toes and fingers ached. "How long was I out for?"

"Not sure, Kitten. But it's fine. We'll try that door in a second, once you're warm again. I tried it already, but with two of us, we'll be out of here in no time, and then imma hang Kris upside down by his balls. I gave him the best fucking blow job of his life and this is how he repays me? Asshole."

It did seem a bit rude. "Do you think Jim told him we were coming?"

"Maybe. But this is some hardcore kidnapping shit. Something about us poking around about Tom Collins has Kris seriously spooked."

On the positive side, someone did not want us snooping around about Tom Collins, which meant we were on the right track. "Oh! What about your phone? Call Reynard?—"

"Dropped it in the car, remember? When you got all weird about us. It's still there."

Then we wouldn't be getting a quick rescue. "I was only weird about us because you were being weird about us."

"It wasn't the right time to tell you about the magic sperm. I was building up to it. It's a sensitive issue. I'm sensitive about it. I couldn't just blurt it out."

"That's exactly what you did."

"Because of your face."

"My face?"

"It's adorable."

He tucked me closer, brought his other wing around, and wrapped us up like a human and demon burrito.

"Maybe the syndicate always tranquilize their guests? Do you think that's why the restaurant was empty?"

"I think it was empty because Kris is a dickface. And it's a front for cons and scams. Fae suck."

"That's a shame. The lunch was tasty."

We fell into a soft silence, that despite the freezing conditions and dire circumstances was kinda nice. Zee's wings were warm, and his soft breathing lulled my frayed thoughts. It wasn't long before I'd warmed up again.

"You wanna try the door?" Zee asked, his voice rumbling close to my ear.

His wings unfurled and we clambered to our feet. Cold air immediately nipped at my nose and cheeks. I hugged myself, and made my way over.

The door did have an inside handle, and a tiny frosted window, but as Zee gave the handle a tug, it didn't move. It had been locked from the outside.

"Can I try?" I asked.

Zee gave me a dry look. "I fucking know how doors work."

"Yeah, but at Fido's pies?—"

"Okay, fine. We don't need to relive that, thanks, Kitten. I knew that door had a separate bolt, okay?" He stepped back. "It was a test. I was testing you. And you passed."

"Right, because that's a thing you do all the time." I grinned, and he grinned right back. There were definitely worse people to be locked in a freezer with than Zee. Besides, we'd be out soon enough. I just needed to apply a little non-human pressure.

Zee had considerable demon strength, but I had access to more. I grasped the cold handle, and planned to shove a bit of oomph into opening it. Three, two, one?—

An electric zap shot down my arm, shocking me free. "Gah!" I shook out my hand. "There are wards?"

"I did say it was warded. You okay? I?—"

A tiny blur the size of a cat screamed over my shoulder and flew like a tiny wrecking ball with wings at Zee's face. Zee screamed, and ducked. The whirring ball of claws and teeth, hooked up on Zee's left horn and slingshotted itself back at me. I ducked, and it zipped over my head.

"Sweet baby Gareth!" Zee yelled.

"It's Jesus," I corrected, standing and searching for the flying, hissing thing.

"That's not Jesus, it's a fucking pixie!"

A pixie? Wait, the one from the market?! Oh dear...

"How in the fuck did a pixie get in—it's coming back!"

The pixie bounced off the wall and shot like a raging ball of claws and fury toward me again.

"Hit it in the dick!" Zee yelled.

"The dick?!" It had a dick?

The pixie screamed. I ducked again. It snagged my hair, yanked, and in the next blink, I was on my back, staring at the ceiling with torn strands of hair raining down.

Zee swung a fist. The pixie dodged, and shot down the front of his flower-print shirt.

Zee whirled, wings flapping up an icy storm, tail whipping out. "Get it off!" He whipped his shirt over his head and tried to shake the pixie free, but it had sunk its teeth and claws into the fabric. "Eat my shirt and I will put you in a blender you rat with wings!"

Zee's tail whacked a stack of boxes, and the entire tower toppled toward me.

I saw it coming in slow motion, and brought my arm up, tensing for the worst. Zee braced over me, and the boxes toppled left and right, tumbling in an avalanche around us, until finally the chaos calmed into thick, icy silence.

Zee—now shirtless—remained arched over me, eyes darting, breathing hard.

"Do you think it's gone?" he whispered.

"Where's it going to go?" I whispered back.

Zee froze, and his eyes got really big. "It's. On. My. Back."

"Don't move, I'll get it." I scooted out from under him. The pixie had fixed itself to Zee's naked back, its tiny claws digging in.

It saw me, and hissed.

"Hey there, little guy." I showed the pixie my empty hands. "I'm not going to hurt you."

It hissed again, its big eyes aglow with murderous intent.

"So, uh, hi. I'm Adam, and the demon you're stuck to is my friend, Zodiac. And we'd really like it if you let him go. We can work this out. You're stuck in here just the same as us, so maybe we can all sit down and discuss how we all get out?"

Zee's tail had snaked up behind the pixie. "Kitten, it doesn't wanna chat."

"Maybe not, but it's not getting any worse."

"Imma whack it with my tail. Stand back."

The pixie's little lips rippled, as though it did maybe understand some of Zee's threat—his tone at least.

"No, nope, don't do that." I inched closer. "Hey there, buddy. We're all friends here."

"The fuck we are, its claws are in me, Adam."

I extended a hand toward the little pixie. It was sort of cute, in an ugly, weird way. Like pugs are cute. With their smooshed faces and big eyes. Those big eyes darted toward my fingers, then to my face, then back to my fingers. It freed the nails of its right hand from Zee's back and reached out to poke my fingertip.

"Adam," Zee growled.

"Okay, okay, I got this." The pixie leaned away from Zee's back, and sniffed at my fingers. "There, see? We're friends." Its snarling faded, leaving a perplexed, even curious expression on its wrinkled, hairless, leathery face. Freeing its other hand, it reached out, clamped onto my fingers and climbed on, then scurried up my arm, perched on my shoulder, stuck a leg in the air, and licked its tiny balls. "Oh, okay."

Zee straightened, rolled his shoulders, rocking his wings, and turned. "Imma get my hands on that little?—"

The pixie hissed at him.

Zee hissed back, and gave himself a shake. "You!" He pointed. "Are a bad pixie."

"C'mon, you're a hundred times the size of this little guy. He's cute, see?" The pixie, still with its leg in the air, glowered harder at Zee.

Zee rolled his eyes. "Where the fuck did it come from?"

"It was in Jim's money box. It must have hitched a ride up my shirt."

Zee fluffed his hair and shook out his wings. "How could you not know you had a pixie up your shirt this whole time?"

"It was scratchy, but I figured it was the tag."

"Kitten, pixies are diseased. It's probably got rabies."

The pixie lowered its leg, got comfortable on my shoulder, and hissed again.

"I think it understands you."

Zee showed the pixie his middle finger. "Understand this?"

The pixie showed Zee its own tiny middle finger.

"The fuck?" Zee blinked.

I snickered. "I told you."

Now everyone was calmer, including my new friend, our attention turned to the toppled boxes. Some of the contents had spilled across the chiller floor. I spotted a few chicken's feet among what looked like petrified pieces of wood.

"What the fuck is this?" Zee crouched and picked up a gnarled stick. Turning it over, he frowned, then recoiled and dropped it. He jerked back to his feet, backing away from the spilled items. "Fuck, those are horns. Demon horns. Bits of demons."

I saw it, now I knew what I was looking at. Spiraled horns, curved horns, stubby horns. And those chicken's feet weren't chicken's feet. They belonged to gremlins, or maybe even pixies, as the little guy's toes digging into my shoulder looked the same.

"The fae are messed up. They grind all this shit into powder and sell it as beautifying potions." Zee paced. "You remember I told you Ram lost his horn to a fae?" Zee gestured at the amputated horns scattered around us. "We need to get out of here, Adam. My wings alone are priceless to those sick fucks."

With a warded door, things did look a lot more dire than they had ten minutes ago.

"Alright, it's warded, so... what do we do?"

"How the fuck should I know? I've never been trapped in a fucking refrigerator before. Although, I was tied up in a sex den once. But this is so much colder. I hate the cold, my shirt is ruined, you know about my magic sperm, and now we have a psycho pixie messing with us? Ugh, this is the worst date ever."

"At least you don't have a secret wife who wants to gift me to your demon queen." I smiled.

Zee's pacing slowed. "That does actually make me feel better. Fuck-Hard is the worst."

"It's going to be alright. If we're not back at the hotel soon, Reynard will come looking."

"Yeah, yeah . . ."

He really was worried if he didn't have a snide remark to follow with, about Reynard saving us. I focused on the door again and ran my fingers over the hinges. The wards were inside the door, but did they cover the hinges?

"I'm always saving his ass," Zee explained, distracted now he had Reynard to rant about. "Imagine being a thousand years old and needing a sex demon to save you? That is low. He's such a vampire doormat."

Reynard would come looking, but it would take time. He wouldn't know we were missing until well into the evening. He'd try Zee's phone first, and find it in the car. From there, he'd trace our steps to the market, and if he got lucky, he'd find Jim and extract our next step from him—but all of that would take hours. Maybe days. Reynard wasn't going to save us anytime soon. But at least Zee was distracted by imagining all the ways he definitely did not have a thing for Victor Reynard.

Poking at the hinges yielded a few zaps from the wards. It was tamper-proof. Kind of like my glamor. If we pushed too hard, the wards might knock us out, and considering the frozen bits of people all over the floor, this was not a good place to be unconscious.

"Can you get it open?" Zee asked.

"I don't think so."

"Fuck." He dropped, and slumped against the wall. "If I die, hang my carcass in the hotel reception so my fans can come and mourn. Make it look good. Don't let my dick shrivel up."

I was definitely not going to do that. "We're not going to die here." There had to be a way. We were resourceful. I toed through the horrible severed horns and feet on the floor, but didn't find anything of use.

The vent just below the ceiling caught my eye. It was too small for either Zee or me to crawl through, but not for our new friend.

"Hey, Zee, can you boost me up there?"

"You won't fit."

"I won't, but Little Jimmy will."

Zee glowered at Little Jimmy, licking its own armpit while still perched on my shoulder. "The pixie?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

"It's just going to escape and leave us, but sure... at least that gets rid of it." He climbed to his feet, and beckoned me over by the vent. The pixie fluttered off, and perched on a nearby box.

"We're going to open this vent," I told Little Jimmy, and pointed at the vent cover. "Then you can crawl right out and open the door from the outside, for us?"

It blinked.

"So, you go through the vent." I tried again. "Find a way out, and then open the lock on the other side. Do you understand?"

Another blink.

"He's just going to fly off," Zee grumbled. "Get over here, and let's do this before my frozen nipples fall off." He beckoned me over. "Get on my back, then I'll scoot you up."

Zee knelt, and I piggybacked on, trying not to scrape my shoes down his wings. His tail shoved against my ass, scooting me higher, and I managed to get my knees on his shoulders while grabbing his horns. Zee stood, lifting me into the air. "Oh my stars, this is high." I wobbled.

"This is not the bareback I had in mind."

I reached out, and walked my hands up the wall, to the vent, then popped off the cover. Little Jimmy shot over my head and was gone.

"And we never fucking saw it again," Zee said. He dropped his head forward, tipping me over. I dropped forward, yelped, and landed in Zee's arms.

"Hey, Kitten."

"Hey."

He lowered me to my feet, then folded his wings around and cuddled me close. "At least if I do fucking die, I'm with my favorite human."

"And I'm with the best demon ever."

"The most handsome, and amazing, and excellent demon?"

"Of course."

"With the biggest cock."

"I haven't seen any other demon dicks, so..."

Zee tipped my chin up. "Lover, there's only mine."

"I'd kiss you, but I think our lips might freeze together."

We settled on the floor, against the wall, with Zee's wings trying to keep out the cold, and waited for the lock to snick over. The minutes ticked on, and it seemed more and more likely that Little Jimmy had saved himself. Or maybe he'd been sucked into the air-conditioning system and turned to pixie confetti.

I half dozed, tucked in Zee's warmth.

"As these might be our final moments alive, I have a confession. Now, I know this is going to come as a shock. Some things should probably stay private, but... I think I have a thing for Daddy Vampire."

I deliberately didn't react, even as my heart skipped. "What? Really? You don't say?"

"At first, I thought it was you, because you want to dry hump his leg, but then I started wondering about what it would be like to be the focus of all that, and I wanted him to watch me dance—which he never fucking does, because he prefers furniture to sex. Whatever. It's like he's fucking immune or something. I swear I could walk through the bar naked and he wouldn't even look up from that fucking cabinet."

Victor would see Zee, but he'd never admit it.

"Just so you know, it's pretty fucking messed up for a demon to want a vampire," Zee went on. "It never happens. It's like... like... wanting to fuck a frog. It's fucking weird. And gross. I'm weird. I hate it. I hate him for making me want him, but I also really, really want to deep throat his dick. Am I fucked up?"

"I'm not the best person to ask."

"His weird-ass family said they'd carve out his heart if he ever had relations with a demon. He'd have to be out of his ancient mind to wanna fuck me, right?"

"Oh, I don't know?" I did know. "Maybe he's open to new things." He was definitely open. "He's difficult to read sometimes." All the time. "But I have a hunch he might be into you too." It was more than a hunch.

"What if we both fucked Vampire Daddy? Or, what if he fucked us? Together? Fuck, that's hot."

"Is that even possible?"

"Adam, my sweet, innocent, sexually na?ve kitten. Have you met me? With enough holes anything is possible."

"I guess we'll have to get out of here first." I eyed the door. There was a way... I hadn't used anything like my maximum available strength. The wards would probably knock me unconscious, and Zee would absolutely see a side of me neither of us was ready for... But if the fae didn't kill us for body parts, the cold would finish us off.

"Okay." I eased Zee's wing open and shivered at the blast of cold. "Maybe I can try the door again? If the wards knock me out, catch me?"

"Always, Kitten." He positioned himself behind me, wings spread, ready to take the hit.

If this worked, Zee would know I wasn't anything near human. But we didn't have a lot of options left. I approached the door, feeling the pressure. There was more at stake here than escaping—my whole life, my trust, and my friendship with a demon I cared for who didn't really know me at all.

"Here goes..." I reached out, ready to pull all my available strength up from its hiding place.

The door lock clunked, and then cracked open without my having touched it.

"What the fuck?" Zee gasped.

"I didn't do that."

I shoved the door, and it swung open. The cold air from behind us misted and rolled around our legs in a bank of fog that washed across a warehouse floor. We definitely weren't in the restaurant anymore. A dank, hot, wet-metal smell assaulted my nose and clogged my throat.

"What the fucking fuck?" Zee stopped at my side, looking down through the mist, and as it dissipated... I saw a leg... then another... an arm... a face. And a whole lot of blood. The more the mist cleared, the more it became clear, several fae had had a really bad day.

Little Jimmy fluttered on top of a nearby stack of boxes, holding a gleaming stiletto dagger.

"They are so dead." Zee poked one of the dead fae with his shoe.

They really were extremely dead—from multiple stab wounds. I glanced back at Little Jimmy's grinning face, and the bloody stiletto in his small hands. "I think I've figured out why Jimmy was in a tin."

"Wait, you think the pixie..." Zee trailed off. "Wow. Fuck. Okay. Little Jimmy is fucking nuts. Hey there... little guy," Zee crooned. "About what I said back there—it was real stressful. I don't do well in small places. I didn't mean it, about being a rat with wings? That was totally uncalled for. I'm ashamed. As a fellow winged being, I apologize. I was out of order. You are clearly a very great example of pixie folk. Like the fucking best pixie ever."

Jimmy narrowed his eyes at Zee. The stiletto shone.

Zee stilled, apart from his tail, that rattled. "Maybe take the dagger off him?" he mumbled from the corner of his mouth.

"Hey there, little guy," I said, diverting his attention from Zee. Jimmy's demeanor softened as he saw me. He definitely was not a Zodiac fan. "Do you think I can have the dagger now?"

He looked down at the dagger, then up at me, considering it. Then eyed Zee again.

"If I'm murdered by a pixie," Zee whispered. "Tell everyone it was a troll. Or something big, mean, and badass."

Jimmy had slain ten fae. That was pretty badass. "Zee won't hurt you, I promise. Zee?"

"Fuck, no. We're besties now. Right, Jimmy?"

Jimmy showed Zee his middle finger.

"I taught him that. I'm so proud."

I'd gotten close enough now, that when I held out a hand, Jimmy hopped on. "Maybe, I can just take a little lookie at the shiny stabby-stabby thing?"

Jimmy handed it over, and Zee sighed, wings sagging. "My whole life just flashed in front of my eyes," Zee said. "It was fucking awesome."

I tucked the dagger into my pocket and scanned the bloodbath. "What do we do about these dead people?"

"Pfft, they shouldn't have been assholes."

I didn't see any cameras, which made sense. What criminal syndicate wanted video footage of their criminality? We could probably just walk out and hope nobody had seen us being brought in. But if we left, what about the black market operation to sell demon parts? What about the batch of AIs, one of which I'd deliberately been sold.

"We should take a look around," I suggested.

"What?"

"You know, just to be sure."

"Sure of what? That everyone is dead?" Zee sidestepped some gory remains.

"Sure we're not missing something that's important, or relevant to our missing Tom Collins?"

"Or, and hear me out." He backed up, and almost tripped over a severed foot. How could a pixie do that? "We could get the fuck away from a murder scene before the feds arrive? Just a suggestion."

"We didn't do this."

"We know that. But?—"

The warehouse's double doors banged open and a wave of armed officers poured in. "SSD! Put your hands up immediately or lethal force will be used!

I thrust my hands in the air.

Oh dear.