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“Yes, sir,” Nat started hopefully. “Does fighting a dark mage and his mutants count as fighting a demon?”
“Man, you need to tell us more about how you fought the summoner mage and his beasts and rescued Mari,” Jasper, my former coven member, said.
“Frame by frame,” Clayton added and winked at me when he saw that Héctor wasn’t looking.
Nat flushed as he darted a quick apologetic gaze at me. I smirked at him. I understood that he wanted to impress Jasper, so he’d thrown me under the bus by giving me the role of a damsel-in-distress that needed his rescue.
But Yelena wasn’t having it. She whacked him on the arm.
“Mari needed no rescue,” she hissed. “She was trying to get us away.”
“Yeah, but we helped. We’d never leave a friend behind,” Nat said.
“I’d have been eaten if you two hadn’t charged into the ranks of those monsters so bravely,” I said with a warm smile.
“We have a student here who truly has fought demons,” Cameron said. “Could you share your experience with the class, Marigold, so the class can benefit and learn a thing or two fromyou?”
He always loved to put me in the spotlight and see me squirm.
“Uh, I—” I said, fretting.
The last thing I wanted to do was talk about demons.
Cameron grinned. “I didn’t expect you to be the bashful type, Marigold.”
“Flirt with my lamb again, Cameron, and you’ll be sorry,” Héctor said.
Cameron dropped his grin right away. “I mean no disrespect, sir. I used to banter with Marigold because she—” He paused to find the right words so he wouldn’t set off the death demigod.
Héctor, darling, let me take care of it, I said in his head.You know I can handle a social situation like this.
Héctor gave me a look.Of course, you’re mine.
The Demigod of Death didn’t come from this era, and he’d spent most of his time on the battlefield. Accompanying me on a bus was probably a first for him. His whole life had been about battling enemies, giving orders to soldiers, and living a life of utter solitude.
It made him all the more dear to me, yet at the same time, I felt tremendously sad for his loneliness. But he had me now.
A gloomy thought churned up to mock me.For how long?
As long as I can have him, I said.
And then he’d lose me forever, or, more like, I’d lose him for good.
I shook off the shadowy thought and leaned my head against his shoulder.
“Sir,” Marie called from the front. “This neighborhood is too quiet. It’s not normal. Where are all the Dominion patrols?”
The border between Queens and Brooklyn wound along Newtown Creek, Cypress Avenue, and into Jamaica Bay.
We’d come off the highway and driven through Bushwick, according to the signs. We’d passed by a few waterways, some factories and supply shops, mixed residential and commercial areas, and cemeteries.
It was indeed unnaturally quiet, now that Marie had mentioned it. But then I wouldn’t know what Brooklyn was usually like since it was my first time to visit the borough.
Cameron strode to the front of the bus to take a peek.
“We’ll soon reach the compound and investigate,” said the lieutenant.
“Is the compound on the border?” I asked.
