Page 27 of Demon Queen
nine
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It took foreverto clean up. The whole time, I tried not to look at Drigo, who straightened things if he could, but mostly watched me with those bedroom eyes. His spikes looked bigger.
The happiest thing about the entire situation was the lack of demon gore. He’d taken care of it before he found me in the kitchen. I didn’t know if he burned the body, ate it, or sprinkled magic pixie dust over it, and I wasn’t going to ask. It was enough that the body of my best employee was gone, so I only had to reorganize half of the floor. They’d kept the fighting in a small area, almost like both were invested in minimizing damage to the display. Roberta had done such a great job in my shop. Was she the actual source of my agoraphobia? I mean, I’d had panic before she’d worked for me, but it had certainly grown steadily worse over the years.
I bit my lip and focused on lining up candy statues of little dukes and duchesses in powdered wigs made out of spun sugar and peppermint. Maybe I’d bite off one of their heads to freshen my breath. I still hadn’t brushed my teeth. I’d get to it after the disaster was cleaned up.
My arm throbbed when I was almost finished.
“Why don’t you go upstairs and rest?” Dorian murmured from close behind.
I shook my head. “This is my shop. And now I don’t have a general manager.” A wave of panic and terror went through me that was probably something she could have fed on. It passed, leaving me tired. “Dorian, just leave me alone for awhile, okay? I need to process.” Or hide under my desk for the rest of my life. No. I wasn’t going to let a demon control me ever again.
“And then you’ll rest? If you need me, I’ll be in your kitchen.”
I was walking around the main room, going over everything one last time to make sure it was in the proper place, and anything ruined went in the box. I’d have to put them on my orders list. Not automated.
As I passed the front door, someone was peering in through the glass. Was it another demon? When she saw me, she started waving like she knew me, and I wasn’t dressed as the Candy Queen.
I went and looked out, and there was Lucy, looking cool in her baseball hat and blue hair. Lucy. Not a demon. I opened the door with a smile.
“What brings you here?”
She cocked her head to study me. “Two things. Are you okay?”
I blinked at her and then sniffed, fighting tears. “I’ve been better.”
She put an arm around my shoulder, the big sister role she’d always been so good at. “You smell good.” She pulled away while I did the same, staring at her. Right. Not demon, but another kind of monster. She looked horribly embarrassed and her eyes had a sheen of red over the top that made my skin prickle. Monster. “I’m sorry to bother you. I didn’t realize the shop would be closed today, but then I saw you, so…Watson’s birthday party is tomorrow. He wasn’t going to have a party, butthen this morning he went off on a whole spiel about how he’s undead and can’t be a normal jock, so he’s going to have a party, and I don’t know. Do you have anything that a surly, irritable thirteen year old would like? No pressure!” She gurgled a laugh and patted my shoulder before she looked around the room. She stopped and stared at the queen for a beat before she continued on to the high shelves of glass cases and rolling ladders and the general over-the-topness. “It smells weird. Like that Drigo guy, only different.”
“Demons apparently think I’m catnip. For Watson, I know just the thing. Have you heard of the impossible piñata? It only has one weak spot, and even if you hit it, it takes serious bashing to get it open,” I said, leading her to the room on the left, where the bulkier candy and objects were kept. “See?” I said, pulling down the rack ten feet up with my pole hook so she could examine the piñatas designed for violent young children. Maybe Mixl would like one. “I know a young demon who would probably love the chance to meet other people his age if you…” I was standing in front of her, leaning over to grab a black dragon when Lucy grabbed my head and buried her fangs in the back of my neck.
It was an awkward position. I was paralyzed as I started sliding down to the ground, except Lucy was holding me up by my head. Would that be more or less likely to put my back and neck into proper alignment? My thoughts became blurry, confused, content, except that I remembered that Dorian would kill her if she killed me. That would make the shop such a mess, and I’d just cleaned it.
“Dorian…” I mumbled as I dangled getting more and more blurry and lightheaded.
He roared loud enough that Lucy jumped, ripping my neck and whirling around to face him, taking me with her like a floppy doll.
“You’re killing your friend,” he said very clear, very sharp, eyes flickering madly above those cutting cheekbones. “She’s a delicate human and will die if you take any more blood, no matter how careful you’re being not to accidentally break her neck. She needs her blood inside her, or she will die.”
“Obviously,” I mumbled, my words all slurred together like mushy mushrooms.
Lucy looked at me, startled, like she’d forgotten that I was there. “Oh!” She dropped me and stepped back. I didn’t fall on the floor because Dorian scooped me up in his arms again. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even realize…” She blinked at me while horror and bloodlust created a really creepy sheen. “I’m sorry, Sandy.” She turned and was gone in a blink. Less than a blink because my blinks were really, really slow.
Dorian pressed his face painfully into my neck where she’d bitten me. He hurt much more than she had.
“Ow.” I flopped my hand around trying to push him away, but for some reason, it didn’t work very well.
“I’ll send for some human blood. We’ll set up the transfusion in your bedroom. You’ll have to nap with me after all.” He smiled, but his eyes were flickering really fast, really bright, and I was sure his kitchen hearth would be roaring. He was upset that Lucy had almost killed me.
I patted his cheek. His cheekbones were still cutting, high, beautifully sculpted. “I’m fine.”
He nodded. “Of course you are. Except that your legs aren’t working. It is a very good thing that you called me to save you. Pity I now have to kill your friend.”
“She won’t mind. She’s already dead.” I patted his face again while he snorted.
“It’s a miracle that you aren’t unconscious.” He put me down on the bed. How did we get there so fast? I hadn’t noticed that we’d been moving.
