How to Love a Blue Demon (37 page)

“Yes, certainly. To offer a shoddy product is to curry great disfavor and to risk your reputation. And your reputation as a demon of worth could literally be life and death as well as livelihood for you.”

Based on the extreme success of the groceries Eyoen had brought back from Chicago, one of his brothers was hatching plans to ship American goods in and sell them to the citizens. Of course, only the wealthy could afford strange off planet luxuries like 7Up and turkey bacon and lemonade and pretzels. His family stood to make a mint.

It was three days
before Eyoen realized he hadn’t seen his father, which was strange. The King hadn’t been at meals. Beyond the one visit to the old demon’s home, he hadn’t poked his nose into Cass rehearsals – and everybody else had – hadn’t popped in to check on his grandchildren. He hadn’t even seen him with his mother, which was even more strange. His parents were not absentee souls. Any time any one of their children went anywhere – even if it was only to the far reaches of the star – for any length of time, once they returned it was all eyes on them.

His mother had to pet the n
ewly returned child excessively – had it not been for the restorative powers of the bath in his suite Eyoen’s cheeks might have been chapped so often did his mother kiss and pat his face – and his father usually asked a billion and one questions and scanned the individual thoroughly for any signs of misuse. All this despite the fact that Eyoen knew for a fact his father often sent emissaries – spies like Rierdane – with his children whenever they ventured farther than the boundaries of the royal compound for more than a sun rise.

“I’m going to have a word with my father,” he told Cass. “Can you amuse yourself for a bit?”

She smirked at him and went back to playing her guitar. She was working on her set list for the next concert they were planning.

“I’ll see you later.”

His father wasn’t in the throne room, his office, the kitchen, the armory or the square where they held public meetings. It was only after Eyoen opened up his senses and employed a little magic that he was able to locate his sire, in the kitchen gardens of all places.

“My King.”

“Son.”

His father’s voice seemed weak and thread
y, and he sat a low seat, slumped as though he hadn’t the energy to lift his head.

Eyoen moved quickly closer, alarmed, and scowled when he found his father with both feet planted in the ground between two rows of Cyani potatoes. Literally, he was buried up to the ankle in dirt.

“What on Earth? Are you ill?”

King Carlow laughed
, and the tight feeling in Eyoen’s chest eased at the mirth in his sire’s voice. “What on Earth? It would seem you’ve been too long away from home.”

“What’s going on, father?”

The King merely smiled.

Eyoen scowled. This was the first time he’d seen his father up close since before he left Cyanus for Earth, and it seemed as though the King had aged years in his absence. There were lines on his face
, and his golden eyes seemed duller, narrowed with fatigue. Fatigue that should not be.

“Tell me,” he begged. “Are you ill?”

“No, my son. Merely tired. More tired than I’ve ever been in my existence.”

Eyoen’s eyes widened to almost double their size.
He had never heard such a thing. Fatigue was a symptom of weakness. His father was not weak. “What do you mean? Why would you be tired?”

The King stared into his eyes so long, Eyoen grew scared. His heart actually skipped a beat when his sire looked away.
“Because I’m fighting, Eyoen.”

Eyoen looked around, knowing he would see nothing, and then asked, “Fighting who?”

King Carlow laughed softly. “I’m fighting for your life, and for your brothers and sisters. I’m fighting for your mother. For all our people. And I’m fighting alone.”

“Against what?” Eyoen demanded. “Who is this enemy? Tell me so that I might fight beside you.”

“No, my son. I will not involve you or your brothers yet. The situation is too delicate. I dare not expose you. I may still triumph over this evil.”

Eyoen stared into his father’s eyes and for the first time in his entire life knew that he lied.

“I don’t believe you,” he said quietly. So quietly, no one but the King could have heard him. To suggest, to even think such a thing was treason, but Carlow merely shrugged.

“You are my son. You know my heart.”

“Then tell me! Tell me how I can help you, my King.”

Eyoen’s frantic heart
beat slowed as a spark of life shone in the King’s eye in response to his passion.

“I worship you,” the King whispered.

Eyoen thought he might fall dead from shock. The King worshiped no one! It was he who was worshiped by all.

“Please, father. I beg you. Tell
me what is wrong? Are we under attack? Is it the Sithians?”

The Sithians were a neighboring demon tribe that occasionally tried to cause trouble for Cyanus over resources. They lacked the discipline of the blue demons
, and when their people grew hungry they thought nothing of raiding and stealing to feed their poor.

Carlow tolerated it because for the most part the Sithians
were non violent demons. Their idea of battle was the Earth equivalent of a slap to the cheek. And now the King laughed, dismissing this threat out of hand. Eyoen didn’t calm at hearing that it wasn’t their rowdy neighbors causing the problems. If it wasn’t them it must be someone worse.

“
No. The Sithians make more trouble for themselves than they ever will for Cyanus. But we are under attack. I should have known that you would figure it out eventually. Your brothers often can’t see things placed right in front of them, but you were always observant.

“
I’ve always known you were special.” The King laughed. “When you were two you turned every stick of furniture in your room pink. The walls, the floors, every blanket, even all of your clothes, all pink. The exact shade of your mother’s lips because you liked the way she looked when she smiled.”

Eyoen stared.

“At five, you levitated three of your brothers in the air and wouldn’t let them down after they teased one of your sisters and made her cry. Then, when Rierdane finally caught you, because of course you ran to avoid being punished, you let them fall on their hard heads rather than set them down easily.

“At six you
and Linai – his then two year old youngest sister – went exploring. You dug a hole in the garden. We followed you through the three feet high tunnel you’d created and found you 25 miles away in the next parish, eating berries off a nine foot tall
eue
tree you’d climbed, with her clinging to your back.

“Your mother and I had the
shade’s
own time keeping you out of trouble, though you were always pleasant about everything. You knew you were doing wrong, but you managed to have a reasonable explanation for why it was perfectly okay for you to break the rules, and bring anyone in the vicinity along with you.

“
Your mother barely let me spank you.” Carlow smiled sadly. “She always claimed she couldn’t bear the sadness in your eyes, so like mine, when she tried to discipline you. She was the only one who could keep you from playing tricks.”

He
didn’t know why his father spoke this way, but Eyoen could not help being affected. First he had never heard his sire speak of him nostalgically. Second, he could feel the pressure surrounding the King ease off with every reminiscence. In turn, he breathed easier as a result.

Suddenly a memory came, of him being carried by his mother in the garden. He’d touched a
buhle
bug and turned it into a bird which had landed on his tiny finger, and he presented it to his mother as a gift. She’d been delighted with his gift, but he remembered her telling him to keep the secret between them.

“Yes,” his father said, shocking him yet again.
“Your mother knew that it would be dangerous if people knew how powerful you were at such a young age, and that you possessed powers other demons do not. Not even other royal members in your own family.”

“You can read minds?” he breathed.
It was a secret skill he’d kept from everyone. He’d cautioned Cass not to reveal their shared ability as well.

His fathe
r gave him a look like, really?

“Why did you never tell me?”

“For the same reason you never told me,” said the King. “Some things are best kept secret. If you reveal your hand too early you lose a strategic advantage.”

“Reveal your hand?”

“It’s an Earth phrase. I’m surprised you don’t know it.”

Eyoen shook his head no. He’d never heard it before.
“What else can you do, father?”

Carlow shrugged, as if to say, what do you want?
Then he returned to his tale. “When you were small, you weren’t always willing to heed your mother’s cautions. I had to bind your powers, but even that didn’t last long. When you hurt Tegyr, I knew the binding had faded. That’s why I sent you away.” His father eyed him sadly, and Eyoen felt again the sharp sting of shame. “You are far more powerful than I am, my son. And I am not the only one who knows it.

“Our enemy
Unjel would bind your power as well, but he means to trap you in order to harness your strength to help him enslave other worlds, including ours. The Cyani demons are not warriors by nature, despite the strength of our army. For centuries I have worked basically alone to rout our enemies, and my peers who have helped me in this battle are weary or have fallen.”

Suddenly Eyoen recalled his father’s distress at the death of long time friend Ovbec.
Rierdane had passed along the news while he was still on Earth in Lee’s body. He’d loved the old man as a young demon and had respected him mightily as an adult. Now, delving into the King’s mind, he learned it was after Ovbec’s death that his father had begun to show his age, often looking drawn and tired at the end of a day’s council meetings.

“Is the council –”

Carlow nodded. “They are the most powerful Cyani demons in the realm, and we are greatly diminished in numbers. This battle has taken more demon life than any during my reign.”

“What would you have me do?”

“Nothing. Take your Cass and show her our star. Sire a grandchild for me. Be safe forever, forget all that I’ve said.”

Eyoen realized that
his father was wishing aloud.

“What would you have me do?” he repeated.

Carlow looked at him with his eyes. They were the exact same shape and shade, held the same straight ink black lashes, even the same expressions. For the first time in his life Eyoen glimpsed a hint, the barest hint, of fear. It shocked him to his core.

“Fight,” his father said quietly.

Eyoen bowed. That went without saying.

“This fight will be like nothing you’ve ever known, Eyoen. You have never killed a man.”

Eyoen smiled. Why would he do that? There was no need. Ever since he discovered his strange, unwieldy powers, he’d done everything in his power to avoid that.

“I need not take life to incapacitate our enemies.”

“These enemies are different, my son. They will not play by the rules of war. They don’t care for honor or good conduct or any of the laws that govern our home. They seek only to subjugate us, to rout us from our lands and destroy us. It’s as simple as that. You will have to kill or be killed.”

Eyoen shook his head in confusion. He wasn’t so innocent that he didn’t
know such behavior existed, but he had no personal experience with the kind of evil his father spoke of. Nor did he fully understand how it could exist. As a prince of the realm he was protected. He had always been protected, not just by his father but by his older brothers.

Life had never been hard for him. He’d never known the desperation of hunger, never seen anyone abused, not a family member, not even a peasant. In his presence, everyone was alwa
ys on his or her best behavior.

Even when he broke the rules, nothing happened. The first taste he’d ever had of consequences had come fairly recently
with his sequesterment, and even then he hadn’t known a moment’s discomfort, unless one counted the loneliness of not being able to share time with his loved ones.

Now his father was opening his eyes to a completely different reality. One in which he had a central, and by all accounts horrible
, role to play.

“Why?”

His father looked at him stoically and said nothing.

Eyoen frowned. It was unlike his sire to be silent this way. He was a forthright demon, always ready with an answer, most often the right one, yet still he said nothing.

“Why do you not answer me, father? Can I not know why this threat of evil has befallen us? Is it untoward that I should need a reason before I am forced to kill to protect my home and my people?”

Still the King said nothing.

But Eyoen didn’t look away. He knew how to play this waiting game. He’d seen his father break countless demons with the same trick. The silence itself ultimately unnerved them so badly, they’d confess just to fill it. So, he continued to stare into his father’s eyes until the strangest thing happened: his father dropped his gaze first!