“May we speak for a moment?”
Jay startled to full wakefulness, her attention having drifted away for some time. Her two other selves were asleep, her bodies having crashed hard once the adrenaline had left her systems. Dys and Syd were pressed up close against each other, wedged between two of the bakery ovens in the back of the shop. Sabina was lying on top of their laps, still unconscious, but safe. Jay had perched on top of a heavy barrel to stand watch over her sleeping other selves as well as stay informed of what was going on around the restaurant and city. Things seemed to be moving towards being under control, but there was still a lot of activity going on around them, so she wanted to stay vigilant in case she was needed again.
Apparently, though, Jay had drifted off a little bit even with her eyes open. She wasn’t sure how long she had been staring down at the bucket filled with dirty water that she had used to clean off her hands and faces. She wasn’t even entirely sure where all of her companions were at the moment. How long had it been since she’d sat down? Ten minutes? Thirty? Longer?
“Yes,” Jay answered the question reflexively, before she had even fully reoriented herself. Looking over at the person addressing her, she realized that she really was out of it. “Yes, we can talk, Wilhelm.”
The Hero stood a respectful distance away from her, one hand resting on the hilt of his sheathed sword. There was some Demon blood and dirt splattered on a few different spots of his shining armor, but he otherwise still looked every bit the heroic figure. There were still some injured people relatively close by, but it looked like they were trying to give the Hero and Jadis some space. Wilhelm looked around, his helmeted head swiveling around before he motioned with one hand towards the back wall.
“This way, please.”
Jay stood and followed the Hero to a back door that led out into the dark and snowy courtyard behind the pastry shop. There were two guards stationed at the door outside, but with a soft order from Wilhelm, both quickly left the area to give them some privacy.
Inside, Jadis brought her other two bodies to full awareness and used her Syd self to go looking for Aila and Eir and everyone else. Jadis wasn’t sure what the Hero wanted to speak with her alone about, but she wanted her lovers in on the situation.
“What’s up?” Jay asked with a casualness that came more from her overall tiredness than any purposeful intent.
“A moment,” Wilhelm held up a hand. “Ludger and Amarantha should be here shortly.”
The Hero’s voice was soft. Not weak or shy, but gentle, like a man who was used to speaking to animals who would startle easily at too loud a word. Jadis noticed that was how the man moved as well. His steps were light, considering the heavy armor he was wearing, and practically without noise. Now that he wasn’t in combat, his motions were calm and smooth, completely lacking the harsh firmness of his previous sword style.
As they waited, he undid the straps to his helm and pulled it off, revealing his face to her for the first time.
Wilhelm was, unsurprisingly, a handsome man. Jadis had expected he would be, if for no other reason than she was sure someone would have said something if he was known for being particularly ugly. What did surprise Jadis was how young and unassuming he looked. His hair was dark brown, while his eyes were a brighter, honeyed brown color. His skin was the tan of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors but had a naturally pale complexion. He even had a few freckles. His nose was sharp and his lips were thin, but his expression was mild which made him look younger than the age he had to be.
“Sorry about your dress.”
“Huh?” Jay responded, somewhat nonplussed by the unexpected apology.
“Your dress,” Wilhelm said as he motioned with one gauntleted hand. “It looks like it was once very pretty. And expensive. I’m sorry it, ah, was so ruined.”
By the tail end of his words, Jay could see that a blush had creeped up Wilhelm’s cheeks that had nothing to do with the cold. His eyes weren’t looking directly at her, either.
Looking down, Jay took in her appearance. She was, as expected, a mess. There was blood and ichor and gods knew what else all over the tattered remains of her dress. Her legs and arms weren’t much better. Her face and hands were relatively clean, or at least cleaner, thanks to the bucket of water someone had kindly fetched for her earlier, but she still looked like she needed about two hours scrubbing in a bath before she could actually be considered clean again.
The issue, Jadis realized, was that earlier on in the kitchen fight, Syd had accidentally torn the shoulder strap of Jay’s dress. She was still decent, fortunately, but her dress was exposing a lot more of her skin than it had been originally designed to do, and since she wasn’t wearing a bra, she was in danger of letting at least one of her girls fly free.
“If you are cold, I can lend you this,” Wilhelm continued as he removed the blue cloak from his shoulders and offered it to her. “Or I can fetch you something else.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Jay said, taking some pity on the bashful boy. She wasn’t actually all that cold thanks to her resistances, but she didn’t see any need to torture the guy with the threat of her nudity. “That’s kind of you.”
An odd thing to get stressed over, Jadis supposed as she took the cloak from Wilhelm and wrapped it around her shoulders. The man had just sliced through horrifying Demons like it was nothing, but the idea of possibly seeing her boob made him shy away like a spooked horse.
As Jay situated the cloak onto her shoulders so that she was less exposed, the tromping sound of Ludger’s heavy steps echoed from around a corner. The big man came into the courtyard with his shield up and mace still held in hand, but Jay noticed that the stone formation that had crusted around the head of the mace was gone, leaving it a more normal, flanged steel head. Amarantha was sitting on his wide shoulder, and she had a small velvet pouch held in her mouth. As the two came up close, Wilhelm cleared his throat and addressed them.
“You’ve brought the privacy powder?”
Amarantha nodded her head, then let the small pouch fall from her mouth as she caught it on one outstretched claw.
“Of course. Here, you put it down.”
“What, don’t want to get your paws cold?” Ludger asked in his thick accent as he worked to remove his dented helmet with one hand after setting down his mace.
“Your shoulder is no warmer,” Amarantha sniffed at the Bulwark. “But there’s over a foot of snow on the ground. You won’t even see my ears poking over the top if I jump into that.”
Wilhelm took the pouch without complaint. Opening the drawstring on it, he carefully poured a small amount of the sparkling green powder onto five points on the ground around them in the courtyard. As soon as the last point was set, Amarantha uttered a word and a faint green light rose up out of the ground, forming a prism around the four of them. The light faded away after a few seconds, though Jay could still sense a faint muffled presence of magic surrounding them.
“We should be free to talk now without anyone overhearing us,” the Lares explained, then let out a sudden curse. “Stop shaking you lug, I’m going to slip off!”
“My helmet’s stuck,” Ludger complained as he tried twist the deformed metal off his head. “Scheisse.”
“Here, let me help,” Jay said as she reached over and yanked hard on the helm.
The helmet came off with a grunt of pain and a whispered curse from Ludger, but he was freed from the dented steel. The face that greeted Jay underneath was…
Holy shit Ludger was hot.
Jadis didn’t have any attraction towards men, but that didn’t mean she didn’t recognize a handsome face when she saw one. And Ludger was a very handsome face. Blond and blue eyed, Ludger had a strong, chiseled jaw that was coated in a dashing layer of stubble that elevated his supermodel good looks to fucking sexy. His lips were full and his teeth so white that they practically shone in the moonlight. The only thing that marred his features was the bleeding wound on his left temple that had come from when his helm had been damaged. He managed to even make that look sexy, though, as the injury just made him look formidable, rather than damaged.
Ludger gave Jay a nod of thanks as he took his helmet back from her, but she noticed that his expression was pensive, maybe even annoyed, as he looked at her with furrowed brows.
“Just so you know,” Amarantha said as she settled her perch on Ludger’s shoulder. “Jadis here knows what all of her bodies are doing at all times, from what I have observed. Anything we tell this one, the other two will know.”
“That’s fine,” Wilhelm said as he turned his gaze back onto Jay. “I needed a private moment to talk with you. Who you share our talk with is your business, but I would ask that you be discreet for the time being.”
“I can be discreet when I need to be,” Jay answered after a short pause. “What’s this all about? Also, call me Jay.”
“Jay,” Wilhelm nodded in acknowledgement. “I first wanted to ask you, before talking with anyone else, do you think there is any remote chance that your demon, Alex, was involved in this attack?”
Jadis’ first instinct was to punch the Hero in his face for even suggesting that Alex could be involved in something so heinous. She immediately squashed that impulse. Wilhelm’s question was reasonable. He didn’t know Alex. All he knew was that there was an attack on the city and a “tame” Demon was present. It wasn’t an illogical conclusion to draw that she might have some involvement. He was being fair about it, though. He wasn’t even accusing Alex of wrongdoing, just asking if Jadis thought there was a possibility.
“None at all,” Jay answered firmly. “If anything, I would say she was one of the primary targets of the attack.”
“What makes you say that?” the Hero asked, his expression unchanged.
“She’s chosen to actively ignore Samleos’ wishes. She ignores every message he sends to her, from the moment she hatched. She hates him and the Demons who follow him just as much as we do. Maybe more.
“Also, I was attacked by a cultist and some possessed people in the bathroom on the third floor of the restaurant. Before the cultist killed himself with some kind of suicide spell, he claimed that he was there to punish ‘the betrayer’. I’m all but certain that he was talking about Alex.”
“Betrayer?” Ludger asked with his brows raised high. “What does that mean?”
“That she betrayed the death god’s will,” Amarantha said, her expression intrigued. “That would be my guess, at least. Ooh, this is getting interesting, isn’t it?”
“She didn’t seem all that cooperative when I saw her with you,” Wilhelm continued as he addressed Jay. “In fact, she looked like she was trying to struggle out of your hands. Are you certain in your judgment?”
“What?” Jay asked, confused by the man’s description of events. Then she realized what he was referring to and shook her head. “That wasn’t Alex I was carrying when we met. That was a Demon I caught for interrogation.”
Wilhelm looked surprised, but when he glanced at the other two, both of them nodded.
“It’s true,” Amarantha said. “Alex is in there. I think she went upstairs to help Elodie with organizing things again. Quite the helpful soul, really. She looks a fright, but her demeanor is as far from demonic as you can get.”
Wilhelm looked down, his expression thoughtful for a moment, before he looked back up into Jay’s eyes and nodded his head once.
“I believe you.”
Looking into the man’s eyes, Jadis could tell that he wasn’t lying. There was a clear sincerity in Wilhelm that seemed to prohibit even the idea of him being duplicitous with his words or actions. He had asked his question and was satisfied with the answer. Jadis could respect a person who was so forthright in their ways.
“Good,” Jay nodded, letting out a small breath of relief. “I… I’m glad you do. I wouldn’t want to have to fight you over it.”
“I wouldn’t either,” Wilhelm said with a widening of his eyes. “I saw the way you tossed those demons around in the kitchen.”
“You didn’t even see her fight the Greater Wight,” Ludger grunted. “This giant’s arms aren’t just for show.”
“What’s the plan now, though?” Jay asked after a moment of silence. “What happened in the tunnel? Are there still Demons loose in the city?”
“The tunnel led to the under city,” Wilhelm explained. “There are water reservoirs carved into the stone. It looks like one of them was at least partially drained and the Demons have been hiding in there for some time. The emperor has already been alerted and that area of the undercity has been cordoned off. I met with soldiers at the other end of the tunnel who were already coordinating to clear the reservoirs.”
So the Demons had been hiding under the city. For how long? How did they get there? Who had helped them? There were a lot of unanswered questions. Not the least of which was, why now? Why launch an attack at that very moment? Jadis guessed that Alex was the primary target, but that couldn’t be the whole reason. Nor did she think it was pure coincidence that Wilhelm and his party had managed to arrive in the capital just in time to fend off the sneak attack.
“How is it that you intend to interrogate that other demon that you captured?” Wilhelm asked after a moment of silence.
“I was going to ask Alex to talk to it for me,” Jay replied. “She can translate.”
“I would like to be present for that,” Wilhelm stated with determination. “I have my own questions to ask.”
“So do I, actually,” Jay said as she put one hand on her hip and cocked her head to the side. “How did you and your companions get here right when the attack was going off? The timing is wildly convenient.”
“Not convenient enough,” Wilhelm frowned. “Otherwise we would have stopped this from ever happening.”
“Jocelyn communed with Valtar,” Amarantha spoke up. “We were given the warning that an attack was imminent on the city and rushed here as soon as we could. Now, the real question is, did Valtar tell us at the right time for us to arrive on the night of the attack? Or did Samleos order his Demons to attack as soon as he realized that we were coming to disrupt the plans of his followers?”
“Enough with those kinds of questions,” Ludger complained, his voice strained with exhaustion. “I have no energy for such philosophy tonight.”
“Just a question,” the Lares said in a sing-song way while smiling like a cat who had gotten the cream.
Jadis suddenly wondered if Jack had some relation to the fiery little cat witch.
“Well, if you want to try and get some answers, I can ask Alex to come out here right now and we can see what we can get out of the slimy fucker I’ve got locked in a box. Or we can go somewhere a little more secure?”
“Let’s find a room,” Wilhelm said as he glanced towards the others for confirmation. “This warding spell is secure enough, but I’d prefer somewhere less open, just in case. I’ve sent for the others as well, so we may need a place that can fit all of us. I was told of your suspicions that there is a cultist hiding in our midst, here.”
Jay nodded and turned to reenter the bakery. She had, of course, already relayed most of what was being said to her companions and they were already working on a secure location to have the interrogation. Before she could turn completely, Ludger held up a hand as he called out to her.
“A moment!” he said as his worried expression deepened into serious frown. “Before we move on, I have one question of my own that I must have an answer to.”
“Sure,” Jay said as she turned back around to face the blond man. “What’s your question?”
“What exactly is your relationship with my Elodie?”
“What?”
“You said earlier that she was—that she was your lover,” Ludger said as his voice grew a bit hoarse. “I cannot believe that my love would be unfaithful to me… Are you and she truly in love? If she doesn’t want me and wants you instead, I… I can’t…”
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Jay let out an exhausted laugh. “Look, there is no relationship, physical or otherwise, between me and Elodie. I barely know her. I was talking about Alex before, not your fiancé. I can promise you, Ludger, Elodie and I are not lovers.”
The look of relief that washed over the big man’s face was palpable. He sagged slightly, like all the wind had been taken out of his sails, before he let out a small chuckle.
“Oh, thank the gods! I am sorry for the confusion! The heat of battle and all, I just assumed—well, it matters not! I must buy my lovely Elodie a thousand roses for letting the thought enter my mind for even a moment!”
Ludger laughed then, slapping Wilhelm on the shoulder who gave him a bemused look.
“Of course you would not be speaking of my Elodie. You were only protecting your own lo—”
Ludger froze in mid step, his expression completely still as the realization of who exactly Jadis had called her lover seemed to finally solidify in his mind.
“The demon is your lover?”
“Yes.”
“Truly?”
“Yes, she is,” Jay confirmed with her own bemused smile.
“Oh.”
Ludger deflated as he took the unexpected information in, while Wilhelm blushed and squirmed like a kid who had just heard adults talk about an embarrassing fact of life for the first time. Amarantha had a whole different reaction.
“This just keeps getting more and more interesting!” Amarantha grinned with delight.
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