Nakoma

For the first time during this entire trip, I was one of the first ones up. The room was silent save the light snores from the bed beside me. I roll over to face them, and I can see a mess of white hair against the pillow. I smile gently and look over my shoulder to the blanketed mound beside me, his arm wrapped around me. My bed companion is still and silent, except for the gentle rise and fall of his body as he breathes. The room is dark save a line of light from around the curtain in front of the window. Beside the bed an alarm clock displays 10:05 in blinking red numbers. I yawn and stretch, taking in this eerily peaceful morning.

Dica opens his brilliant purple eyes to stare at me, dark circles around them as if he hadn’t slept. I give him a gentle smile which he slowly returns to me, but he seems out of it.

“Mornin’,” I greet him. My voice sounds foreign in the peaceful setting of this room, like it doesn’t belong here. He nods at me and rolls over onto his back, his arm vanishing from around me. He gazes at the ceiling, lost in thought. Poor Dica… I can only imagine what he’s been through.

“Hey, Dica? Can I ask you something?” A thought has been nagging at me and decided that it was the perfect time to ask since the other two, especially Colt, were sleeping off bottles of alcohol. He raises an eyebrow, but nods anyway.

“What does Colt mean by King’s Whore?” I ask, though I very well know what it means. I was just hoping to hear Dica’s side of it, maybe he could shed some light on the subject.

A dark look looms in his eyes as soon as the question is asked. He bites at his lower lip and draws in a shaky breath before opening his mouth. “What does it sound like?” He asks in his usual annoyed tone, but this time it cracks.

“I was just… hoping it wasn’t true,” I say honestly, hoping that this all was some huge misunderstanding. He scoots away from me, eyes still darkened.

“Sorry I don’t live up to your expectations,” he mumbles, refusing to meet my gaze.

“No that’s not…” I start to say, but I’m interrupted by a yawn. I look over to the other bed to see Colt is sitting up and rubbing his eyes. I decide to let the conversation drop, which seems to relieve Dica a bit as the dark look in his eyes morphs into anger. He glares at Colt coldly, but says nothing to him. Colt seems oblivious to Dica’s glares and instead winces in pain.

“My head…” he groans, rubbing his temple. Suddenly there’s a loud vibrating noise. The culprit appears to be Puella’s phone sliding across the nightstand, trembling with news of a call. At the sound, Puella growls and moves the pillow she was lying on over her head. I look at the caller ID and recognize the number as George and/or Martha.. I lean over to grab it and answer it.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Nakoma,” George’s voice sounds concerned.

“Hey, George, what can I do for you?” I respond.

He draws in a deep breath. “Alcohol, really?”

My face flushes with embarrassment. Looks like he caught me. “Well, um…” I try to piece together the words to explain why I let the demons get drunk on the church’s money.

“And don’t even get me started on the swimsuits,” he scolds.

“They’re just… very persuasive,” I explain.

“Don’t blame us for your shortcomings as a Saint,” Puella rasps from under the pillow.

“I guess I’m just too easily persuaded,” I mumble.

George groans and says, “We can forgive it for now but please, try to limit your spendings on necessities.”

“Yeah… that’s fair…” I sigh into the phone.

“We’re just worried that maybe these demons are having too much of an effect on you,” George says. “We need you to remember your mission.”

“I remember my mission,” I respond, a little too firmly.

I can practically hear George smile at the sternness in my voice. “I believe you,” he reassures me, his voice gentle. “Just try to limit your spendings.”

“So is this the only reason why you called?” I ask.

“No, we have your next location.White Pine, Michigan.”

“Michigan, that’s a long ways away from here. What’s going on there?”

“There’s been an unusual amount of Incubi and Succubi activity reported. We think it might have to do with a sin, more specifically, Lust.”

Lust… the sin I was least looking forward to catching. I didn’t know what they were like, but I could only assume that the two of us would not get along very well. I shudder slightly at the thought of constant sexual innuendos.

“I’ll make sure you get plane tickets this time around,” George promises. “I doubt you want to take a car all the way to Michigan.”

“No, even though Chris is wonderful, I would hate to be in a car for that long.” I imagine how antsy everyone would be getting if they were cooped up for that long.

“Alright, your plane leaves this evening at six o’clock,” he informs me.

“Thank you, George, have a nice day.” I hang up after he returns my farewell, and look to Dica.

“Next up is Michigan, George thinks Lust might be there.”

Dica groans and a shudder visibly ripples through his body. Looks like he wasn’t Lust’s biggest fan.

“I’ve only met Nia few times,” Colt admits as his climbs out of bed. “I’m hungry,” he immediately complains. So Nia was Lust’s name.

“Alright,” I rise from the bed and set Puella’s phone back on the table. “Let’s head down and get some of the complimentary breakfast.” I look over to the pillow Puella was hiding under. “Care to join us, Puella?” I ask.

After a moment of silence, Puella responds. “I’ll join you guys in a minute.”

I nod and head downstairs with the boys where breakfast was luckily still going on. My stomach growls at the scent of pancakes and melted butter as I make my way over to compile a plate for myself. Once I’m satisfied with the small pile of food on my plate, I go to sit down where the boys eventually join me with plates of their own.

As I dig in, Colt rubs his temple and whimpers over a plate of hashbrowns.

“What’s wrong, Colty? Hang over?” I ask with a mouth full of pancakes. He nods pathetically and Dica snorts.

“Well you shouldn’t have drank so much then,” he scolds.

Colt shoots him a dark look. “I don’t need to be lectured by the King of Whores.”

“Colt,” I snap. “Shut up.” I was sick and tired of Colt constantly insulting Dica at every opportunity. It was annoying. He looks down to his plate. I sigh and go back to shoveling food in my mouth, enjoying myself to the fullest. Within ten minutes, Puella makes her way down to the area, her white locks in tangles and her face set in a “don’t talk to me” manner. She grabs herself a plate of food and heads over to us. She sits across from me and glares down into her food. Yet, for some reason she didn’t seem as openly hostile as before. Something about her was gentler. Maybe I was just imagining it…

“How are you feeling?” I ask her.

“Like hell,” she responds, her voice strained. “Everything is so loud…”

“I would have thought that after a few thousand years you would have built up a tolerance,” Dica jokes to which he’s met by a glare from Puella.

The rest of our meal is eaten in silence then we head back up to the room to start packing before we have to head out.

The air between Colt and Dica is cold, and I can tell that last night’s banter had really gotten to Dica, and I really couldn’t blame him. There was something dark about Colt that I couldn’t quite understand, something sinister like a rattlesnake. I wondered if it had anything to do with his demon half or not. Around me, Colt usually would act like an angel, but drag Dica into the picture and suddenly it was like he was a completely different person. He must really hate Dica.

Due to Dica’s moodiness and Colt and Puella’s hangovers, packing was done in almost complete silence save my occasional speaking. I will admit the silence was rather nice every now and then. Once we packed, we head down to the lobby to check out. I apologize for any noise disturbances that might have been reported with a sheepish grin on my face. Once everything is settled at the front desk, we step out into the sunlit parking lot where Chris was waiting to take us to the airport.

“How was the party last night?” Chris greets us with a wide smile. Puella and Colt groan and Dica shoots Chris a smile.

“Would have been better if you were there,” he says. Chris laughs and waits for us to load all of our stuff into the car.

“I’m gonna miss you guys,” Chris admits once we’re all buckled up. “It’s not every day a man gets to meet a Saint or some of the Seven Deadly Sins.”

“It’s not everyday a Sin gets to meet a cool soccer dad,” Dica says, the grin never leaving his face.

“If only my kids thought I was that cool,” Chris complains.

“Are you kidding?” Dica’s voice suddenly grows serious. “I wish my dad were as cool as you.”

“Hey, Puella, what was Lucifer like?” I whisper to the woman beside me. She glares at me and thinks for a moment.

“He is… was… a king.” She forces out the words slowly. “It was honestly hard to see him as anything else, especially a father.”

“Was he a good king at least?” I ask, my heart clenching at her words.

“Is any leader ever that good?” She questions, her voice growing aggravated at my questioning. “He was the only king I knew, and Hell ran as right as it needed to.” I suppose she had a point. Most people would have problems with a ruler no matter what they did. Perhaps Lucifer didn’t do every right thing, but he must have done enough to keep most of his followers happy.

So Puella didn’t have the relationship Colt had with her father. It was starting to seem Colt was the only one who Lucifer doted on. I wonder why that’s so. It also made me wonder if the lack of fatherly love was one of the reasons Puella lived out on her own.

“Speaking of Hell, why don’t you live there like anyone else?” I ask.

She seems hesitant her response, dropping her voice lower. “Humans have a hard time in Hell.” So Puella was part human? I don’t know what I was expecting but it sure wasn’t a human.

“I had no idea you were part human,” I breath.

Puella shrugs as Dica begins fiddling with Chris’s radio, turning a rock station on, much to Chris’s dismay.

“I’d rather never have it come up.” There’s a dark look to her eye that kind of terrifies me, yet I’m intrigued by it.

“Why not?” I ask.

“Because I don’t.” She says defensively and aggressively. I decide to drop the conversation there. We pull up to the airport and Chris unlocks the doors and waves us off.

“It was wonderful getting to meet you guys.” He says earnestly.

“It’s been fun,” Dica says. “Hope I get to see you again.”

“It was wonderful driving with you,” I smile. “Thank you so much.”

We all climb out of the car and grab our luggage before heading into the airport. We sit down once we get inside and wait for our flight. Eventually, the time comes and we board our plane and take off, on our way to find Lust.

“What’s Lust like?” I ask.

“A bitch,” Dica responds bluntly. Puella merely looks disgusted.

“I’ve only met them a few times,” Colt admits. “But they seemed to like me… a lot.”

“They?”

“Lust shapeshifts,” Dica explains. “So we’re not really sure what they really look like.”

“Oh…” I sigh. A shapeshifter would be difficult to track down. I doubted this case would be as easy as the past three.

Two planes full of bickering later, we find ourselves sitting in a fastfood joint a little outside of White Pine Michigan due to Colt complaining about being hungry. We sit with our food and begin eating when Colt begins staring off in the distance.

“It’s rude to stare, Colt,” I say.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes. “That just looks like Sati over there.” He points to a person with six kid’s meals and shaggy white hair. My heart drums loudly in my chest at the sight of the hair.

Dica abruptly gets to his feet and storms over to the table where the white haired person sat. I couldn’t exactly tell what gender they were so I made a note to ask. I too rise to my feet and head over where Dica has slammed his hands onto the table causing the demon to jump.

Leaning in close to them, Dica breathes one word.

“Run.”