Page 62 of One Bad Knight

A thin baby wail came through the baby monitor on the counter.

Travis’s expression went from bewildered to fearful.

“Are you kidding me?” Krystan shouted from upstairs. “Ijustgot him to fall asleep.”

Heavy footfalls came down the stairs, and the volume of a baby crying went up as they approached.

Krystan entered the room. She wore a cut-up black tee and nearly non-existent booty shorts. Her jet-black hair was pulled up into a knot, while she rocked her crying child against her.

“I’m sorry, babe,” Travis said, as she walked in with their kid. “I wasn’t expecting a visitor.” He shot a look in my direction as he untied his apron and pulled it over his head. It had a picture of a food smoker on it and read, “I only smoke the good stuff.” Considering the guy used to be a massive pothead, I supposed it to be a joke. I set the wooden spoon down on a counter and crossed my arms again.

Krystan’s dark brows furrowed at me, even as Travis took the crying babe from her arms.

“Sorry, little dude,” he cooed at their baby. They’d named the baby Trystan. They explained once that it was a combo of both their names, a celebrity mashup name? I didn’t get the joke. Or why they would give a child a joke name, but these two were anything but normal. And I was raised in a temple in the jungle to fight monsters, so that was saying a lot.

Trystan’s wails immediately dropped several octaves, now that he was in his daddy’s arms.

“What are you doing here?” Krystan asked, suspicion lacing her words. She crossed the kitchen to turn off the stove where Travis had been cooking.

“I…” This was going to be harder than I thought. I dropped my arms and stood up straight. “I need your help.”

Krystan crooked her fingers at me to follow her into the dining room.

Travis sat at the head of the long, beat-up wood table that had once been Krystan’s grandmother’s. In fact, the whole house had belonged to Mrs. Rits until she passed away. When her gran had been alive, the entire place had been decorated with roosters. They had been on curtains, pitchers, statuettes, even the pillows. Room after room filled with cocks, until the place was nearly exploding with them. The place looked downright normal now.

The parrot flew off the cage until it was on the table. It waddled over to Trystan and began to whistle a lullaby. The baby calmed even further, reaching out to touch the parrot. The parrot nuzzled the tiny fingers with its beak.

“If only your demon buddies could see you now,” I snorted.

The bird’s head tilted sharply, so it could glare at me from a beady eye. “Youssss are the dumbass. The badsss one. You are the badss broken knight. Snarpsss is good now. Snarpss deserves the twinkiesss.”

At that last bit, Snarp looked up at Travis at that last bit, bobbing his head hopefully.

The demon possessing the parrot was only good because it had a snack cake addiction these two idiots fed into, literally. Though since the baby came around, the demon bird seemed to have an affinity for the little one. The two were nearly inseparable.

“Gatsby, can you pull something out from that box next to you?” Travis asked. Trystan now happily slept in his father’s arms.

I pulled up the heavy lid on the wooden box to find a treasure trove of Twinkies, Ho Hos, and Ding Dongs.

I fished out a Twinkie and opened the wrapper with my teeth before pulling out the yellow sponge cake.

“You are the goodsss knight, the goodestest knight,” Snarp clicked and whistled.

Staring directly into his little black eyes, I shoved the entire Twinkie into my mouth. Then I flipped the demon bird… the bird.

With an angry squawk, Snarp flew at my face. I easily batted him away.

“That’s enough,” Krystan said in a low, yet deeply terrifying tone. She might as well have screamed it, the way her words reverberated through the room.

The bird settled back on the table but paced back and forth in agitation.

“If you guys wake the baby again, I’ll shove you both so full of snack cakes you’ll explode into gory confetti and cream filling.”

Fuck, she could be terrifying when she wanted to be.

“Now toss me one of those snack cakes, stop pissing off my demon bird, and tell me why you are here.”

I gave her a Ding Dong and reminded myself of what I had to do.