Page 19 of Monster Whisperer
I already knew what that was all about. Pavlinalovedpretty women. We all did, but Pavlina especially. Pavlina was sucking up to River by admitting the truth. She would have sat there taunting me for all of eternity if a certain raven-haired beauty hadn’t set foot in our prison.
Still, I was bored, so I followed her to the apartment Hades gave her. Kimon set off for the showers and handed his dirty clothes to her through the door so she could wash them for him. I settled myself into an armchair and decided to just watch this curious thing.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“I could eat.”
“What are you hungry for?”
“Caviar and a big, juicy steak.”
She walked over to the refrigerator and started rustling around. She closed the door and sighed.
“I’m afraid I don’t have any of that, but Hades gave me a phone to contact him or the kitchen. Let me go see what Kimon and the others want.”
I watched her gracefully disappear and just chuckled to myself. She would not like Tryphon and Pavlina’s answer. They would want the flesh of the wicked to eat. Pavlina’s definition of wicked was way looser than Tryphon’s was. Tryphon wanted murderers and evil people. Pavlina just wanted mean men who mistreated women, and she didn’t give anyone the benefit of the doubt before she ate them.
She came back in and floated down to the couch like some sort of nymph.
“The kitchen is bringing food for everyone. Hades has already started bringing in what I asked. The cell by Tryphon’s pool is being turned into a recreational area.”
“You know when Demeter sees that, she will know something is up and take you.”
“Yes. Hades has someone in there putting some sort of spell on it so she can’t see it if she comes in. She says her name is Charley.”
Smart thinking. But still, there was no point in getting attached to River. Demeter would take her. She wanted all of us dead, and she wouldn’t want River making us more comfortable. Wait, someone was putting a spell on the jail, and they weren’t in the pit with a collar on or on Demeter’s side? I must investigate.
“I’ll be right back.”
I beat my wings and flew back into the jail. There was the tiniest girl I’d ever seen waving her hands and chanting at the cells. She had white-blonde hair and the bluest eyes. She was adorable, but what the fuck was she? She had a gargantuan man with her, and I didn’t know what he was either. Neither of them smelled human.
Fuck, and I couldn’t even talk to ask. The girl looked at me and grinned before she went back to chanting.
“A phoenix. Badass.”
“We could use phoenix parts in a spell if he’ll spare a feather,” the man said.
I flew right the fuck out of there before I started pecking their eyes out. No one would pluck a feather from my magnificent tail. That was just obscene. I settled back in the chair.
“What kind of monsters were those people, and why aren’t they collared?”
“That’s Charley and Finn. Hades said they come from Earth, like me, but now they live in Hell. He’s working on getting help from Hell, but apparently, it’s tricky because they rarely work together. Hades said he has an ace up his sleeve.”
Sparks flew off my feathers as I preened them.
“He usually does.”
“I really am trying to make things better here. I will find a way to beat Demeter.”
Forget Demeter for a second. I didn’t think I would ever hear myself saying that. She’d been on my mind ever since I took up the job guarding Persephone and especially since she slipped this collar around my neck.
“You aren’t like them. I don’t know what you are, but you don’t feel like them. What are they?”
“Oh, Charley is a witch, and Finn is a warlock. They are engaged. I had no idea witches were real, but Charley and Finn are perfectly lovely.”
River needed to be a lot more scared of monsters and things that went bump in the night. Especially since none of us knew what she was and what she was capable of. I ruffled my feathers, and a spark flew across the tiny living room and landed on her hand. Oh, shit, I just burned her.
She didn’t react. Why didn’t she react? She just brushed the ash off her hand and pretended like nothing happened.
