Page 25 of The Monster of Darkspell Comics
“Oh yes, and I hope it’s everything that I imagined it to be,” I reply as he pulls me away, the psychic’s gaze following us.
Her eyes are not the only ones following us. I see David Sweeney wading toward us through the crowd, but our route is clear, allowing us to quickly escape the crush of people before he can get to us. I don’t think the demon even sees him.
“Uh, Pashar,” as I twist slightly to look back over my shoulder.
“Give me a minute, Fanny,” he growls. “If I stop, I’m not going to be capable of keeping myself from going back there and ripping that self-righteous female’s throat out. You asked for a reading, not her damned interference.”
Eep. Okay. Never mind.
“Damned crazy humans,” Pashar growls as we return to the mall. “Even the ones who possess extra capabilities don’t seem to grasp the concept of just how low on the food chain they are.”
“She probably just thought she was helping,” I say in an attempt to restore his good humor.
He shakes his head. “None of her damned business and not what she was being paid to do. She was supposed to feed you some crock of shit about your future, not try to frighten you.”
I hug his arm. “You know I’m not afraid of you. I’m more afraid of that David Sweeney creep.” I really should at least saysomething about seeing him. “He was back there in the crowd,” I whisper.
He slows for a moment as he considers my question, but then he shakes his head again. “There’s no use in going back. If he saw us first, that gives him the upper hand. At that point, the only thing that we could really learn is whatever I could beat out of him. And that will just piss off the powers that be around here. To get around that, we need to catch him unaware so that we can follow him back to whatever hole he’s hiding in and collect information.”
That makes sense. I pout a little, however, as we slip back into the shop, disappointed that the evening is over already. “So what now? Are we going home then?”
His eyes slide to me, and he nods. “I need a vacation from my vacation. And besides, there is somewhere else I want to take you.”
Ohhh. Okay, a change of plans. Although I wanted to explore the Halloween carnival, this is not a bad compromise. So, I cling to his hand as we step through the mirror, leaving the human world behind. We do not stop there, however. Pashar grins at me as he takes me over to a door that I had never even noticed before and pushes it open. Fog rolls in a thick plume through the door, but he doesn’t give it even a second glance as he steps out into it and takes me with him.
A gray world closes around me, but the fog is strange. It seems to glitter with soft, shifting light. There is an eerie beauty to it as it shifts around us, uncurling from the ground with every step that we take. Shadows of trees rise like tall gray spires, and hauntingly melodic sounds fill the vastness. Anything could hunt us there, but with Pashar beside me, I’m not scared. Instead, I feel as if I’m walking through a swirling magical cloud of glitter as the creatures of the nightmare realm sing and whisper to us.
Pashar doesn’t release my hand even once as we walk. His large hand swallows mine in a comfortable hold. “What do you think?” he rumbles. “Is this better than walking through the carnival?”
I nod in awe as he tucks me closer to his side, his wings and corethi sweeping protectively around me as something gray sails in an elegant dance through the fog over us. It was probably something horrifying and incredibly deadly but, in that moment, walking hand in hand with Pashar, I see nothing but the incredible, haunting beauty of it.
“Oh yes,” I whisper as he leads me deeper, my heart beating in excitement as we stroll romantically through the glittering void of shadows.
It is only a brief stroll before we return, but it makes me hungry for more and even more certain that my current course is the correct one. The psychic might have thought she was saving me, but little did she know that she was far too late.
.
Chapter 20
Pashar
Itap a claw impatiently on the countertop as I watch the human purse his lips as he attempts to decide between the issues that he has brought to the counter. I want to crack his head open because I don’t understand why this is happening here rather than back at the shelves where he could have returned them. He does the same thing every time he comes, that it’s become a routine over the last several days. I don’t get how one human needs so many nightmares.
It’s annoying. He’s annoying. Plus, he is just creating more work for Fanny, and that also irritates me as much as the way he obviously eye-fucks her the entire time he’s in my shop. It makes me wish that he would be drawn to some of the more violent nightmares on the far shelves. Unfortunately for me, the ones he chooses are always mild nightmares that will give a rush of a chill but little else.
I scowl in disappointment at his selection as he finally slides two toward me.
“Just these, dude,” he says with a laid-back smile as his eyes slip once more toward my female.
My fingers itch with the desire to grab my weaver and quickly stab out his eyes later for looking at what’s mine—or better yet, feed him to Chewy—but I manage to restrain myself. Paperwork. I have to remember how much fucking paperwork it would be to murder a human on my vacation. The human standing in front of me is fortunate that demons are not only incrediblyhierarchical in terms of power but have a fondness for complex systems of checks and balances to keep everything running as it should. Without that, not only would demons run willy-nilly everywhere as they pleased, but this idiot would be dead before his body hit the floor.
“There is a limit of one per day,” I remind him as I jab finger at the clearly posted sign.
He rolls his eyes but taps the comic on the right. “Just this one then.”
“Six twenty-five,” I growl as I imagine rolling his head straight off his shoulders and onto the floor.
Of course, the moron doesn’t so much as register that I’ve spoken at all. His attention is still firmly glued to Fanny’s ass while she bounces in time with the music and mists Chewy with the water bottle. She is popping her sickeningly sweet gum as she works and doesn’t even seem to be aware of the attention. I’m going to need to talk to her about bouncing less. I don’t know how Dzik manages to restrain his murderous impulses with how that Kimmy female bounces everywhere, because I’m nearly at the end of my rope.
