The Vampire's Requiem II [malexmale]

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Seven (Newell)

As if watching the reunion with Daimonas and Starling wasn't bad enough, seeing the others react to Xed's resurrection was even more taxing. I was even surprised to see Orion and Ollie happily greeting Xed with handshakes and pats on the back. Peter outright hugged him and Walter gave him a nod that said he was too cool for huggy feely things, but he was still grateful to have him back.

We also went to see Dominik and D'Nath. Dominik reminded me of a happy little mouse from Disney's Cinderella the way he hurried to please D'Nath, who looked embarrassed at the attention. He was still in pain, but Daimonas's healing abilities had done the job and he wasn't in any life-threatening danger.

"Damn," Orion said after we had managed to get Dominik and D'Nath to come to dinner with us at the hotel's restaurant, "That kid eats more than Ollie does on his period." He was referring to Daimonas, who had finished his third plate of spagetti. Daimonas smiled sheepishly and Starling ruffled his hair playfully. Ollie grimaced at Orion in annoyance.

"Can't you pick on someone else?" He grunted. Orion shook his head, pausing to take a deep swig of beer before he leaned over and put his arm over Ollie's shoulder, jerking him close and giving him a shake that made Ollie roll his eyes.

"You're my brother; it's my job to be the ultimate pain in the ass." He announced, then held his bottle up and bumping it with Peter's as Peter laughed. He seemed to be taking the news of Hunter's disappearance quite well. We'd done as Ghede Nibo asked and kept the truth from him, only telling him that Hunter decided to take off back to the United States. I shifted my eyes to Walter, who seemed to be pretty quiet this evening, but he didn't seem too down on the argument he had with Peter. In fact, they seemed to have made up, judging from the way Walter would lean in to whisper and kiss on his ear.

I averted my eyes, then spotted Xed brushing bread and some slices of steak into a set of napkins. He hid it on his lap, then caught me watching him out the corner of his eye. He just gave me a dazzling smile that put me at ease. I had a feeling he was taking it for Alister's dogs, which he had come to be attached to, much to my chagrin, but I didn't have the heart to tell him we couldn't keep them. Daimonas and Starling had even named them. We now had two hairy beasts named Keeko and Ana.

"So," Starling said, swirling his pop around before taking a swig and looking at me, "What are we supposed to do now? The Stratius is defeated, no more Zephyra, can't return to America because you cheated the government out of a half a million dollars in medical expenses..." His voice trailed as the others chuckled. I snorted, picking up my thermos, relieved that it was filled with blood and hidden from the human eyes that kept wandering over to us as our table was the loudest.

"I have a flat waiting for me in London. There's no place like home." I said, holding the thermos up.

"Here, here!" Starling shouted in agreement, bumping his glass against my thermos, then drinking from it heavily. Daimonas beamed, clapping his hands excitedly.

"That means we can go to school, but we need to go to a new school," He added, furrowing his brow in a frown as Dominik glanced at him curiously, "I don't wanna go to a school where the people are buttheads. Well, not like they were at that St. Whatever school. I wanna go to a public school. Public people are better than private people." Dominik smiled at that. I paused, letting the idea sink in. I still wasn't accustomed to public schooling, but if Daimonas wanted it, we really didn't have a choice. So I nodded and Daimonas did a fist pump that made Starling and Xed laugh at him.

"Well," Dominik said quietly after a while, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably, "I don't know what I'd do. My parents are still going to be looking for me. I'm gonna be in a lot of trouble, especially since you kinda took me from the hospital."