Mimi's Demons

Chapter 106: When You See

Mimi woke up cold. It was a kind of cold that reached down to your core and numbed your toes and hands. The last time she had felt it she'd lived in a stone box and dumpster dived for batteries to keep her heater going for just a few more minutes. She'd piled stinky sleeping bags and blankets in a cocoon and would make believe she was a caterpillar waiting to pop out a butterfly.

Her old home would have been more of a comfort than what she saw, though.

Demons. Demons of all shapes and sizes and colors huddled about her. They overlapped each other, various grins and shifty eyes making a kaleidoscope of shuffling dull limbs which hurt her eyes.

She squeezed her eyes shut hard.

She could hear road noise beneath the crackly whispers of the demons. Whatever she laid on had made her shoulder sore. It wasn't hard, but it was no cushion either. Her stomach hurt badly. Not in the way that said she would puke, but as though she'd been punched.

Peeking out beneath her lashes, she could see two windows on each side. Van windows. A gray navy sky speckled with stars told her it was either late evening or early morning.

A stealy demon popped across her vision, mouth full of black, shiny teeth.

She snapped her eyes back shut.

And trembled.

Because she couldn't move her arms. They'd been tied behind her. Her ankles had been tied again. Behind stuck in that stuffed animal nightmare had been better than this, though the terror had been the same. Perhaps her Papa had made her a little braver to be able to handle a van full of demons like they were toys, but she still had to struggle not to cry.

"Juli," she called. "Papa. Omen...Honrye?"

The demons giggled like a sound bite to a horror movie. Jittery like a clacking clay wind chime. Rustles of wrappers and trash. The pitter of children's toy instruments.

The van hit a bump and Mimi bounced. An involuntary squeak of pain escaped her.

There were two seats in the front she could just make the backs of above the demons. Whoever sat in them didn't respond to her noise. They just kept driving.

When she tried wiggling into a more comfortable position, though, one of the demons gave a shriek and the one in the passenger seat twisted around. It was a man, barely backlit by the headlights on the road ahead and shadowed. A stranger. Someone she didn't know.

"Sucks to be you," he said. "We still have an hour of driving."

"She awake already?" asked a lower voice from the driver's seat. A man's voice. A familiar voice.

"Yeah. The crowd's make'n noise."

"Still so strange that you can hear it. Fortunate. Or cursed." He flicked on the radio, which started playing scratchy, corny country music.

"Seriously?" asked his partner.

"The road noise is giving me a headache." Mimi could swear she'd heard that voice before. But it hadn't been so flat. So...dead sounding.

"Oh wah, well this radio will make me give you a worse headache. Seriously, there's never anything good on."

The passenger messed with it for a minute though anyway before snapping it off and letting the van fall back into the rumble of road noise.

Mimi stopped looking and scrunched into herself. She told herself her all might dad, ruler of the Seven Rings Syndicate, man who could kill with his pinky, would find her in no time. This was only temporary. Then she'd back home with Jaxon and her bloody teddy bear and her minions and her hands on her Papa's while he played the piano...