Cosmic Memphis

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

When I tried to dig further into Dez's answers, which had only served to create more questions, she insisted that I get some rest. When I laid down on one of the cots already set up with folded blankets, I feared that sleep would never find me but I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow. That night, I dreamed that Dez was sitting on the roof of the hut we were hiding out in, gazing out at the sunrise over the water. Her guarded expression was gone and in its place was one of worry and deep contemplation. After a moment, she heaved a sigh and lay back against the corrugated steel roof. "What the actual fuck have you gotten yourself into, Dezzie?" she muttered to herself, her brows furrowed in anxiety.

Then I was in an office with wooden bookshelves reaching all the way to the ceiling stacked with old but well-maintained books and a large mahogany desk covered in papers and a computer. Daddy sat in his leather office chair, his gray tufts of hair perfectly symmetrical and the bald patch on the top of his head gleaming in the overhead lights. He reached into his white lab coat and removed a handkerchief to clean his horn-rimmed glasses in deliberate and concise motions. His normally schooled expression was creased with worry and restrained anger. He put his glasses back on, neatly folded the handkerchief, placed it back into an inner pocket of his coat, and began leafing through a stack of immaculately organized papers. His normally perfectly steady hands had a slight quaver to them. There was a polite knock at the massive oak door, and Daddy muttered for them to enter. One of the guards came in, clearly a new hire by the slightly rumpled state of his white button-down and the uncertain way his eyes flicked about the room, never daring to look at Daddy for more than a split second.

"Dr. Moore, sir," he began, "we found no sign of them, sir." 

Daddy only spared the guard a glance over the sheet of paper in his hand and said nothing.

"What are your orders, sir?" The guard was trying to hide his anxiety and was doing a poor job. Daddy's eyes shot up and he straightened, setting the paper down. He clasped his hands together on the desk and leveled a cool gaze at the guard, all traces of emotion gone from his demeanor. The guard was shaking now,  the sheer weight of Daddy's full attention threatening to crush him. Having been on the receiving end of such stares, I knew exactly what the guard was feeling and did not envy him in the slightest. "I already gave you my orders. Have I said or done anything to indicate that they've changed?"  he asked.

"No, sir." Sweat beaded on the guard's forehead.

"Then carry them out." Daddy turned his attention back to his paper.  "And do not bother me with inane questions such as this again. You are new, so fix your shirt and go do what I'm paying you to do." I could tell that Daddy was going easy on him but the guard, obviously unaccustomed to Daddy's ways, about wet his pants before leaving the office as quickly as possible.

The dream faded as I woke up with Dez shaking me by the shoulder. She had bags under her eyes, which were slightly bloodshot. "Get up, we need to get moving. Breakfast is in the crate over there." She stood and began filling two backpacks with supplies from the metal crates.

As I ate the dry biscuit, which was labeled "Eggs and Bacon, exp. 2069" and tasted like glue, Dez told me that we needed some way of covering up my horns and pointed ears. When I asked why, she told me, "Like I said last night, normal humans don't have those and walking around with them anywhere but some kind of Ren Faire would draw unnecessary and dangerous attention to ourselves. Do you have any kind of powers that could hide them or disguise them as something else?"

"Powers?" I asked, "Why would I have powers?"

She replied, "I've never heard of a demon that didn't have some kind of power. Your father is human, but do you know anything about your mother?"