Page 36 of The Music Demon

“I’m not meddlesome.” Shivaun rolled her eyes. “Comparatively.” He amended.

“What does ‘comparatively’ mean? Exactly?”

“It means that demons are a little meddlesome by nature. I mean, it’s kind of the job definition.”

“Job definition? Are you a species or a job?”

“Well… Both?”

“I call demon double speak.”

“It’s not.” He protested. “Okay. Look at it this way. What if, instead of calling me a demon, you called me a guardian angel?”

“Then I would be speakin’ in error.”

“Not the point. The point is that it’s all about perspective.”

Shivaun burst into laughter. “’Tis exactly what a demon would say.”

“Sooner or later you’re going to have to confront the fact that you’re demon. You keep talking about me like I’m something drastically different from you.”

“You are!”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well… Partly because you’ve never been anything else besides demon.” Her eyes slanted his direction. “Have you?”

“No.” He shook his head.

“So. You were born as you are now.”

Lyric was more interested in establishing common ground between them than in delineating their differences, so he didn’t bother to point out that, yes, indeed, he was born looking exactly as he appeared at that moment. Fully formed. He’d never been younger. He’d never been older. He didn’t go through the process of learning to walk or talk. He didn’t learn to speak languages. He was born knowing all languages in all cultures of all dimensions.

He had no family and no history of development. He had a demonic code of behavior, albeit not ethics per se, built in as a guide.

His history began the moment music brought his consciousness, and body, forth in full bloom of creation.

No. He didn’t tell her all that. Instead, he simply said, “Yes,” softly with sincerity.

“So you agree we’re different, you and I.”

He took her hand in his again and grinned. “In the most perfect ways. I’d like to show you the differences that are most important,” he said suggestively.

“Demon. I take your meanin’, but there’ll be no conquestin’ this night.”

“No?” She shook her head. “Tomorrow?”

Shivaun’s responding laugh drew the attention of a couple of demons who’d been negotiating a deal in a shadowy back corner of the club.

The demon, Quicksilver, turned his head in her direction, squinting to try to see through the ‘smoky’ atmosphere. Quicksilver knew that sound. He’d heard it only twice before in his long life, but the sound was unmistakable. Sweet tinkling like windchimes that only demons can hear underneath the laughter of the rarest of all precious things. A female. Like a siren call. He knew she must either be mated or an avowed singular, but if there was the slightest chance…

Quicksilver’s companion kept talking. Apparently, he was so intent on the transaction that he hadn’t heard what Quicksilver heard. Thank helrings for small concessions. “Hold that thought. Be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

The demon prowled around the edge of the room until he was close enough to spy on the couple of interest. He didn’t know Lyric, but recognized him. He didn’t know the female, but was close enough to sense that she was unmated.

Shivaun turned in Quicksilver’s direction, but didn’t see his smile stretched across sharp cheekbones or the gleam in his eye that screamed predator. She didn’t see anything. Because Quicksilver was a shapeshifting demon, almost as rare a creature as was she. In all the dimensions of all the worlds anchored to the Earth plane, there was no species so feared by other elementals. Since true shapeshifters couldn’t be seen, unless they wanted to be, they could know anything, be anywhere, and wreak every sort of mayhem imaginable.

Even though Shivaun couldn’t sense her stalker visually, she was suddenly uneasy and felt the crawl of chills run up her body. She was new to being demon, but she and her sister had been forced to hone their intuitive senses growing up wild in the New Forest. Their lives sometimes depended on trusted that elusive inner voice. But there was nothing to report other than goosebumps, which felt larger and uglier as a demon.