So Hide Your Eyes

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Where Wife Went

Chapter 15

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WE PICKED UP A COCONUT on our way to Wife's house, and when we were arriving, we abruptly stopped arriving. I swallowed. Horror flickered across Demon's face, and that's when I knew we were in big trouble.

Demon gnawed his thumb. It began to bleed.

"Well damn," he said.

"Yellow ringers," I agreed quietly.

From a sand dune some distance away, we stared at the open door for a great long while to appreciate the huge mess we were in.

The sand and wind settled on the ground, looking uncommonly subdued. It was odd.

I'd imagined there would be a sandstorm if we ever discovered that Wife had escaped.

As it were, the only storm out here was the one flashing furiously across Demon's face. But I supposed that storm could count too, because what it lacked in presence it made up in ferocity.

"Let's go pick her up." Demon sighed and shook his head.

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I tentatively reached to cover my ears. Where ever we'd entered, it was loud. A chair rocketed past my head. It missed me by a finger's breadth.

I yelped as it crashed into a barnacled shaped man and splintered spectacularly. My eyes widened.

Barnacle man.

But before I could say anything about it, Demon yanked me down. A mug whistled past. An old man behind some counter caught it. He began polishing the mug with a dirty rag.

"THAT FIREWOOD'S MINE!" someone roared.

I tugged Demon's shirt, and he leaned down.

"W-wh-where are w-we?" I muttered beside his ear.

Everything was vague in this dark place. With my blindfold on, all I could see was gauzy figures. The stinky smell of sweat and alcohol reminded me of the brothel Mama had brought me to during Popheli's mandatory Bring-Your-Child-To-Work-Day.

It was entirely unexpected that pretty and delicately foreign Wife would visit a brothel, but maybe I was wrong.

"A bar," Demon said, looking thoroughly displeased.

"Oh." Relief filled my chest.

"Ye. Wife's probably started a bar fight again. She does that for fun when she's not hanging of the arm of her next tourist boyfriend."

Demon didn't seem to notice my hacking coughs. When I glanced up, he was looking around the room.

All at once, there was silence. A shiver of unease slithered up my spine.

Then a very clear shout: "THE DEMON IS HERE!"

The whipping and clinking and crashing sounds of things being thrown started up again. Suddenly a barrage blurry black blobs began flying towards us. I winced as what felt like a mug hit my head. I rubbed my head.

"Let's go find her." He hooked my other arm in his and dashed to the back. His expression was of blatant disinterest towards the liquid they were now flinging.

I wondered why they didn't just pick up the fallen items and throw them instead. 'Maybe they're just too afraid,' I decided, feeling glad. I didn't think I could survive another flurry of mugs.

I noticed that no one had attempted to directly approach us.

By the time we reached the back of the bar, we were drenched. Demon's hair was no longer windswept and fluffy. It looked like a sea urchin's, all angles and spikes and pure meanness.

Demon glared at Wife. "Well," he said to me dryly. "Looks like she hadn't started that bar fight."

At a corner, Wife was sitting at a table. Sane. Sufficiently sane to smile and laugh and twirl her hair at a seemingly-young man, at least.

"Wife," Demon said shortly, smiling when we stopped at their table.

His smile looked crazed.

Wife appeared to agree. Her eyes widened and she began inching away from the young man and Demon like an escaping worm in a tight white dress.

The young man had stopped laughing his big, tourist laugh.

I wondered if Demon could temporarily freeze people. This sort of thing had happened pretty often since he entered the bar.

"Demon! And the new girl," she added, looking down at me. She glanced away quickly when she saw my face.

"Hello!" the tourist man said. He placed his arm around Wife. "You're her husband?"

"Yes."

"Playing marriage huh? I remember the days my little sister would drag me to play house with her." Tourist Man chuckled.

"No. Want to see the papers?" Demon grinned. He tapped a finger against the table. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. The sound echoed through the quieting bar.

My neck prickled. I glanced around, feeling uneasy at the attention. The villagers had settled down to watch.

"You're serious." Tourist Man's mouth fell open.

"Careful, a fly might wander in," Demon said. He laughed.

"Laphine-" Wife said hesitantly. I stared at her. Something was strange. Or rather, it was strange that there wasn't something strange about her. A second later I realised that she was wearing a veil around her jaw to hide her lack of a mouth.

"Lapine, lapine," he corrected with a benevolent sweep of his arm. "Without an h."

"Right," Wife smiled weakly. "It's my Likaen accent."

I stared at her. It was more likely due to the fact that she lacked any lips to produce 'Puh' and 'Buh' sounds properly, than her accent.

Wife's lips pinched and she glared at me, at my blindfold. I flinch to turn away when I realised that she couldn't see my eyes because I was wearing the blindfold. Suddenly, I was immensely glad for the blindfold. Wife would have died then and there if Demon hadn't reminded me to put it on before we left for the bar.

Looking thoroughly unsettled but angry, she shot me a sour look.

I hid behind Demon.

She flicked her smoky black veil in a smug dismissal once she was certain that she'd won and that I wouldn't tattle.

"So what's it going to be?" Demon said softly. "Are you going to let go of Wife, or do I have kill you?"

Then someone gutsy threw a mug at my head and it all fell to hell.

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A/N:

"Are you going to let go of Wife, or do I have kill you?" : Wow such escalation. xD

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Preview of chapter 16:

Priest croaked, "W-w-wife, not an-n-no-th-ther b-b-boy..."