Chapter 21

21

Disappointment with the situation dampens my mood as I sit on one of my kitchen chairs to pull on the layers of socks I have to wear over my stump to get the socket prosthetic on. The other four are watching me, and while Darcy is curious in a way that makes me think he’s making sure he knows the process just in case for future use, the other three are just curious for the sake of it. Well, Bellamy is attempting to hide his curiosity by holding up his phone and pretending to do whatever on it. He keeps glancing up to see what step I’m on, but he’s trying not to get caught; it’s pretty funny.

Romily, on the other hand, is staring boldly and blatantly. I chuckle at him as I fit the socket to my stump and make sure it’s in there good and tight before I roll down the sock to keep it in place. “It’s not as convenient as the osseointegrated prosthetic I had before, but it will let me walk for a few hours. Will someone grab the cane out of my room? I’m probably going to need it.”

Fox spins on his heels and moves down the hall to my bedroom, and I call out, “It should be leaning up against the wall between the bed and the nightstand.”

Sometimes I can use the cane instead of my crutches before I get my leg on in the morning, but usually I need it if I’ve been on my prosthetic too long and walking has started hurting.

In an effort to distract myself, I ask, “What’s up with the thing in the basement? Why did it suddenly attack? It feels like it’s been there a long time, but it never manifested like that before.”

Darcy releases a subvocal growl. “It was probably caught in the magic when you teleported with the flink. Shit like this happens all the time. The creepier a place feels, the more susceptible to infestation it is when it comes to those things. You teleport, and magically speaking, it’s fairly difficult to teleport a living being, so you weaken the membrane of the universe, and that allows other things to travel into our universe.”

“That’s how you end up with hauntings?” Bellamy questions as Fox returns with my cane.

I finish securing my prosthetic, and I take it from him, muttering, “Thanks.”

“There are other ways, but that’s what happened here,” Darcy confirms as Romily types out a message and sends it.

Darcy reads it aloud, “Since we’re asking questions. What is a feu follet beyond a will o’ wisp? Yes, I could google it, but I don’t think I trust the internet to tell me about paranormal people after the whole thing with succubuses not being strictly women thing.”

I perk up at that. “What are succubuses?”

Darcy answers me first, and it sends another bout of affection pulsing through me. I’m really pushing the limits for his idea of a casual hookup. I wonder if I can convince him to stick around for the friendship we’re developing. I don’t think a one-off would be good for him, and something inside me tells me that we’re not meant to be temporary.

It’s not even weird how attached to him I’m getting. I have terrible taste in men, and he’s clearly my current mistake. I warned myself not to do this, but here I am, fully invested in trying to bag a blood witch.

“ Succubat are the creation of Bona Dea as a gift from Lilith to Bacchus. They were food for Lilith and Bacchus specifically, though any incubaccha can feed from them. They’ll feed demons that require the magical and living energy of others to sustain themselves. As far as we know, there is only one in existence right now, and he’s one of the Foxilys.”

Darcy answers Romily’s question next. “The feu follet are swamp witches that spend the majority of their time as balls of energetic light like you saw Elijah become. They’re notorious for leading the lost into witch groves.”

Romily uses his hands to ask what a witch grove is, but Darcy doesn’t look like he understands, so I ask for him, “What’s a witch grove? And what do they do with the lost?” I add that for my own benefit.

Romily points to me and nods.

Darcy’s eyes dance between me and Romily suspiciously. “You definitely belong in the Foxily family,” he mutters, and Fox nods approvingly. Romily beams, and Bellamy sighs as Darcy continues his explanation. “A witch grove is two things at the same time. It’s a dry place in the swamp where a witch has made their home. Humans sometimes come across them and talk about them as haunted places with ornaments made of the bones of small animals hanging from the trees. It’s also a gateway space between this universe and a pocket realm where a feu follet’s true home is. If they get a human into their pocket realm, ain’t nothin’ can be done to bring them home. Normally, humans that get lost and end up in a witch grove because they followed the feu follet don’t want to leave even if rescue arrives. The feu follet treat their pets extremely well, and when confronted with the possibility of returning to their old lives, the humans usually choose to remain in the grove.”

“I like that.” It’s nice to come from a benevolent ancestry.

Darcy smiles affectionately at me. “You’re barely more than human, but that tiny spark of swamp witch has been awakened inside you, and you’re incredible.”

“Of course he’s incredible—he’s a Foxily,” Darcy adds when Romily sends him a text message.

“Foxily.” I try that out, but it’s a little weird.

Romily continues to type, and we all wait. Any of the other people could explain this to me, but we wait for him because… I suppose it’s because he deserves to be able to have the conversation he wants to have.

“I love this for you,” I tell him aloud while he’s typing.

He pauses to look up, then smirks and nods and goes back to typing. He gets it.

Darcy lends him his voice again, “In about ten years we’re all changing our names and identities to keep up with the human government, yada, yada, yada, and we’re all taking on the surname Foxily, so everyone knows we’re family. I’m still trying to come up with a good name for me and Fox so that the next surname after Foxily will be just as wonderful as Foxily is. It’s a struggle. We need two names that meld together like Brangelina and Swelce.”

“Nice. Like Dylaney. Dylan and Melody. I bet we can come up with some great names.” I like how they’re centering their family like that. Romily seems like the kind of guy who’s good at building his life the way he wants it to be.

“Dylaney. That’s a good one,” Fox mutters, and Romily shakes his head at him. Fox speaks aloud while Romily is pointing at his face and wagging his finger. “You don’t get to choose our future names. You are the worst at choosing names.” Romily turns toward me and Fox talks for him again. “He named himself Arlington Fox this time around. Do you know what his fathers call themselves? Patervulpis because they wanted to declare that they are Fox’s fathers, but they didn’t want to be super obvious about it, so they picked a language that no one speaks. It’s funny they do that, but that means we have to pick names so that when they change their name, it’s not completely ridiculous and unutterable.”

“Makes sense. I heard about the Patervulpises. I think Darcy said something about getting me in an orgy with them.” I turn to Darcy, who takes my hand and leads me onto the array he reactivated while we were talking about names.

“After I’m done with you,” he announces and shoots Fox a little grin.

Fox rolls his eyes, and I think that’s the first time I’ve seen more than a stoic expression on his face. “Don’t.”

He’s a man of few words except when he’s talking for his partner, and I’ve clearly landed in the right crowd—anyone willing to do a difficult thing to give aid to someone with a disability is my kind of person. He’s voiced his objections, and it’s only fair to take them into consideration when he’s adopting me into his little found family.

“Don’t worry. Orgies really aren’t my thing,” I reassure him. Besides, I’m not going to want to hop back in the sack with anyone when Darcy’s done with me. I can feel that in my bones already.

“You know, I don’t think I’m going to need a new name. My family lives for the standard seventy plus human years, so I’m not going to outlive my identity. I’ll just be an honorary Foxily.” It’s cool they’re all long-lived enough to need new names and all, but I’m pretty sure Elijah Penn will be mine until I die. Hmmm. “Is it weird picking a new name? I’m pretty attached to Elijah. It would be strange for people to start calling me Bob or Will or something. I don’t even look like a Bob.”

Darcy’s hand tightens on mine as everyone joins us on the array. “Before Darcy I was Gilju. Before that I was Manu. We get used to the new name after a while. It’s the same thing as celebrities with screen names; sometimes the name everyone calls you is who you become.”

I look at the beautiful, tiny man, and bend over, offering him a kiss that he accepts with a wicked look in his eyes. He’s so damn hot. I exchange some tongue twists with him before pulling back. “I can’t imagine you as a Manu, but only because I’ve seen the famous one’s dick in Spartacus, and you’re packing way too much heat to be a Manu in my opinion.”

Darcy chuckles and pulls me down for another kiss. I let him have everything he wants, and when he releases me, I’m hard and desperate for something to bend over so he can fuck me into oblivion again.

Until Bellamy’s dry tone says, “You two are hotter than the Fourth of July. I’ve seen Darcy’s dick, and now I have questions about how you’re getting that thing inside you.”

I laugh, reaching over to squeeze Bellamy’s hand. “It’s so mean of him to make you say that.” Then I turn to Romily. “With plenty of lube and stretching, and maybe a little blood magic?” I ask Darcy, who smirks.

“Just a drop,” he agrees.

Bellamy huffs beside me. “You never told me you were using magic.”

Darcy winks at him. “I ain’t never told anyone I was using blood magic to fuck ‘em. Ain’t no one ever noticed before.”

Bellamy raises his perfectly manicured brows, shaking his head. “I think you should have considered getting your partners’ consent for blood magic.”

“Darcy had my consent before he magicked me up, and it’s ok for him to use everything at his disposal to make sex better and more comfortable for his partners.” I rest a hand over his shoulders and step in close like a side hug. “I don’t think anyone was endangered by the use of some magic, and it feels a little discriminatory to be upset because he accesses his magic through blood.” I pause, because Darcy uses more than blood when making his magic, and his body was made from people with different kinds of magic than he had before he was incarnated. “And fire too, right? Dancing? Maybe a little wish fulfillment?” I’m just guessing, but all of those feel right to me.

Darcy threads his fingers through my hand on his shoulder, keeping me close. “A little of all of that. I don’t dance very often because that magic is usually more than any situation needs.”

Fox points to Romily. “Wait, wait. You have more powerful magic than your one-punch man killing fist?”

Darcy chuckles, answering with a wicked note in his tone. “I save my most powerful magic for emergencies only. The murder fist is just a bit of hedge witch magic combined with wish fulfillment. It’s a simple spell that gives me a denser fist and a stronger arm with which to wield it.”

Romily puts his hands on his hips as Fox continues to talk for him. “Are you immortal too?”

Darcy’s laugh is beautiful and a tiny bit evil. “I sure as fuck am, and the council done gave me their ward on top of that.”

I don’t know what that means, but Romily widens his eyes then drops his jaw. He waits a beat and closes his mouth, then smacks himself in the forehead. I’m pretty sure he’s telling us that this ward thing is a redundancy that an immortal like Darcy doesn’t need.

“Does ‘ward’ mean something to your immortality?” I ask.

“It means that I don’t need a ward because I’m not killable,” he explains.

“What does a ward do?” My only exposure to the word is from old books where someone is someone else’s ward.

I’m assuming that it’s the same spelling for the word. I could be way off. Is it W-A-R-D or W-O-R-D or W-A-W-R-D? No, that can’t be right. That’s a ridiculous way to spell anything.

“A ward is a protective barrier that keeps out everything with the intention or ability to harm me. If you tried to hit me, you would be stopped by the ward.”

I immediately try to smack him, and my hand just stops mid air about an inch away from his body.

“Cool.”

“We all have wards except Fox,” Bellamy explains, eyeing Darcy. “They only work for Avatars and Harbingers if they’re not fighting, and they work for Acolytes when they’re fighting in defense of Reapers and Harbingers. I’m not really sure which ward I have now since I’ve become an Avatar.”

I reach out and try to smack Bellamy, and my hand bounces off the ward. If it wasn’t attached to me, it would have gone flying off the array. “That’s incredible. How do you get one of those ward things?”

“You become a Harbinger or have a Harbinger adopt you,” Bellamy replies dryly. “Or become an Avatar, obviously.”

I lean down and kiss the top of Darcy’s head. “He’s going to be the best Avatar of Neutrality there is. How long have you been the Avatar of Good?”

Bellamy frowns. “Since the day before yesterday.”

“Oh, did the changeover for Avatars all happen at the same time?”

Bellamy shakes his head. “No, we still have Santanos, and he’s been the Avatar of Evil for about a hundred years. A little less than, but we round up.”

“Absolutely. It’s good y’all have someone with experience in the trio to help you figure out how to do your work. After we get my shit back, you guys should go meet up with the Santanos guy, right?”

Bellamy makes a despairing noise, and Darcy huffs. “That motherfucking sandwich.”

It’s my turn to drop my jaw. “Darcy,” I gasp, releasing his hand and taking a step back. “Don’t say that shit about people. You could hurt someone.”

Darcy snorts. “That whole family is a bunch of sex demons, and I have seen with these very eyes things that have made me question if there isn’t a little I-am-my-own-grandpa in that family.”

“A sandwich—inbred,” Bellamy says aloud. “Darcy, you cannot go around spreading rumors like that.”

Darcy scowls at us. “I hate that motherfucker.”

Romily huffs, and as we come to a stop in Hell, Fox says, “You need to get over it. He’s a Foxily now, and we aren’t hurting our beloved Pupper because you don’t like his choice in mates.”

Darcy scrunches his nose up. “I’m the one you call the cousin no one likes. I ain’t gotta do shit.”

Bellamy laughs, stepping off the array. “You love Pupper, and you’re going to treat Santanos with some respect because you do.”

Darcy scoffs, but he doesn’t say anything, which means he probably does love their dog. “You know, dogs usually have a really good sense of people’s characters, and if theirs likes Santanos, he’s probably not a terrible person, even if he is the Avatar of Evil.”

Romily voicelessly laughs, and Fox explains as he helps Romily off the array. “Pupper is Edovard, our son.”

“That makes more sense than using Australian English. I thought it was a little weird you were calling friends ‘mates.’” Since none of us are Aussies.

Some of us can’t even be considered nationals of any of the current established governments; Darcy was incarnated before humans had governments, I think.

“Come along, Peach. Let’s go kill some demons,” he urges, holding out his hand to help me off the platform.

I take it because it’s been a minute since I wore my socket prosthetic, and I need to be careful. “I thought we were getting my stuff back?”

Darcy’s wide grin reminds me of a horror story villain right now, but fuck if he isn’t even hotter when he smiles like that. “We are.”

I’ve never condoned anyone’s murder, but in this case, I’d let him do it to get my leg back. Some things really are worth the value of a person’s life.

Probably shouldn’t say that out loud, though.