Page 51 of Dark Stars
Satisfied all was well and he would heal,Bobby finally passed out.
Chapter Nineteen
When he woke, it was to sunshine and thesmell of something cooking. Rabbit, maybe. Peeling his eyes open,he looked around and quickly found Alejo sitting by a smallcampfire roasting a pair of rabbits. He was staring off into thedistance, a frown etched deep into the lines of his face.
"Everything all right?" Bobby asked.
Alejo jumped, knocking his improvisedrotisserie and sending the rabbits straight into the fire. Swearinghe fished them out and got them set aside. "You bastard!" he said,rounding on Bobby.
"Sorry! I didn't mean to, I promise." Bobbypushed himself upright, feeling better than he had inages.He could feel Azathoth's power thrumming through his blood, but itwas muted for the moment, sleeping quietly. Hopefully it would staythat way. "Has everything been all right? Areyouallright?"
"Been better," Alejo said with a wobblylaugh. "Honestly, been worse though. Gonna be hard for anything totop being backstabbed by the man I loved and sold to a demon. Also,all those bugs coming to our aid was pretty fucking cool." Henodded across the fire, and Bobby laughed to see the largestfucking praying mantis he'd ever seen just chilling on top of hisbackpack like one of the guys. "That one decided to stick around.She's really chill." One of the girls, then, whoops. Not that theinsect probably cared about such things. "How are you?" He dug outa bottle of water and handed it over. "What in the hell happened? Iget the best blowjob ever, go to sleep peacefully, and wake up tomy boyfriend tentacled out and half of them ripped off and/oreaten."
"They were eating me?" Bobby bristled."Fuckheads. Now I'mdefinitelynot sorry I ate them." Notthat he had been anyway, but still.
Alejo laughed. "It was quite the sight tosee, all of the ripping and shredding and feasting. I thought myfamily get togethers could be a bit much, but now they're gonnaseem positively boring."
"I will gladly take boring." Standing, Bobbystretched out thoroughly with a loud groan. "I will also take ajacuzzi, but I guess that will have to wait."
"Do you even have a jacuzzi? Your houseseemed ninety-five percent books."
"I can change it however I please, so tellme what you desire, my love, and it shall be. We can also buy orbuild a new house."
"We'll figure it out. Right now I'd rathereat and get moving again. We've been here a good nine hours now.Never seen you sleep so much."
"I usually don't, but almost being killed bythose souped-up assholes took it out of me."
"I thought those things were light work foryou. Didn't you fight them in the caves?"
"Those consumed Azathoth's blood. These oneshave consumed the blood of the Unnamed Darkness, another ofAzathoth's offspring, and just as lazy as the rest of theirsiblings, offering their blood to humans and my worthless cousins,so they can do all the work."
"One of my cousins was a pedophile, so youknow, rotten family everywhere. At least your relatives just eateach other."
Bobby barked a laugh. "True. What happenedto your cousin?"
"He went missing, and my aunt and unclefinally boarded up an old well on their property."
"Still better than he deserved, nodoubt."
"Oh, for certain, but better to have donewith little fuss. He's lucky his own parents tended the matter. Ithink the rabbit is done, if you want any?"
"I'm good." Bobby did break down the rabbitsthough, heaping all the meat on a plate before handing it over."Shame we don't have the fixings for rabbit tacos orsomething."
"Man, that would be delicious. Maybe we cando that in the near future. I'll text pictures to all my relatives.They'll be so jealous; we don't get good rabbit very often where welive."
"Pretty sure they're a thing in town, thisarea is fond of that kind of thing. Eat up. I'll see if I canforage up some sort of vegetable or whatever."
"This will be fine for now, sit your assdown," Alejo said. "Seeing you in pain and bleeding out enough forten elephants wasn't pleasant. Just stay there."
Bobby sat. "I'm sorry."
"Nothing to apologize for. Not your faultall your relatives looked at you, saw you were bothering nothingand no one and just wanted to be left alone, and said 'absolutelyfucking not'. Relatives, man. I love mine, mostly, but I'd stillthrow them off a cliff some days. Why do you think I didn't reallycomplain all that much when they ordered me to go hide all the wayacross the country."
"I went to a whole sperate plane ofexistence, for all the good it did me. Anything else happen while Iwas out?"
"No, everything has been quiet. The bugstold me so. Still getting used to that. I don't know what tippedit, them coming out to help me like that. Crazy sight, I'll neverforget it." He wolfed down several bites of rabbit, with no signsof slowing down, rapidly dwindling the heaping plate, pausing onlyfor the occasional sip of water.
"They've always been your familiars, but younever needed them quite like you did last night. Clearly they werehappy to finally be summoned."
