Star Eater
Chapter Thirty-Seven

Mason approached the storage locker with caution. He didn’t want to spook Kai. He was feeling marginally guilty about how he’d acted with Link. He hated losing his temper like that. Still, it had to be done. He couldn’t let his dad out of jail.

Once he learned the scope of Joseph’s plan, Mason realized he needed to stop it—not only freeing his father, but Joseph digging his claws into Kai. The kid’s power was too great and in the hands of the organization there was almost nothing Joseph wouldn’t be able to traffic with Kai’s help.

Inhaling deeply, Mason knocked politely on the storage door. No response. He leaned in and listened. No noises. He cursed. Perhaps Link had been wrong. Mason tried the door but it was locked. Damn it, he thought. He stepped back and looked both ways. He was in public but there was no one around. He clocked the buildings, searching for cameras. Nothing. Maybe he could pop onto the Plains and back into the storage unit. He began doing calculations.

Distances were deceiving. Ten feet could equal two hundred feet or an inch in the Plains. None of it was consistent. And if he overestimated, he’d end up in a wall or on the other side the storage completely, possibly blinking into the middle of the street. Mason hissed a filthy word.

“I’m not sure your uncle would appreciate that kind of language,” Kai said.

Mason turned and watched Kai walk out of a storage unit door. He glanced back at the one he’d been banging on.

“It’s unit 203 not 302,” Kai said. “And you’re as loud as a goddamn woodpecker with your banging. What are you doing here?”

Instead of answering, Mason nodded at the storage unit. Kai fished about and then realized Link had his only key.

“Uh, sorry, Link has my key.”

“Can you,” Mason waved at the door, “take me with you?”

He was genuinely curious. Kai hesitated and then said, “I’ve never taken a person before. No one’s ever known until this year, and now like a thousand people know.”

“Try,” Mason insisted, holding out his hand.

They both glanced about but there was no one in the lot with them. Just to be sure, Kai unzipped part of the suit. Then he took Mason’s hand and pressed it against the aluminum door of the storage unit. He extended his power, like he did with inanimate objects—his clothes, wallet, whatever he was carrying—and covered Mason’s hand in that power. Mason shivered. “It’s cold,” he whispered.

They locked eyes, and Kai tried to push his hand through the wall. It didn’t work.

“I guess not,” Kai said, letting go.

He’s a daemon, Akuma said, as if that explained everything.

So? Kai said.

They have their own way of sliding between worlds, Akuma replied.

“It has something to do with your makeup,” Kai said, pointing at him. “Because you’re a daemon.”

“We need to go someplace we can safely talk,” Mason said.

After a moment of consideration, Kai told him to give him five minutes. He went to the storage office, which was still open, to get a copy of the key. He paid the fee in cash. He wasn’t super happy about spending the money Joseph had given him, but he didn’t want to use his credit card either.

Once he had the spare key, Kai unlocked the door and Mason preceded him into the unit.

The older boy appraised the space. There was a faded orange love seat with a rumpled blanket thrown across it. The carpet underneath was threadbare and worn in spots, clearly secondhand. The hamper in the corner was full of dirty clothes. There was a mini-fridge, a bookcase full of manga, an air hockey table that looked like it had been picked from the trash, and a clothesline with black and white pictures hanging on it. This was a territory and yet it felt like a home. Mason realized, with considerable jealousy, he desperately wanted a space like this for himself.

“What’s this about, Mason?” Kai asked, flopping down on the couch.

As he talked, Kai’s shadow inflated. Mason watched fascinated as it rose like some monster out of a lagoon. Mason couldn’t suppress the shudder this time, but he did manage to study the demon without feeling his gorge rise in terror. Akuma was a mirror image of Kai above the knees. Below, his form looked more like stretched out black leggings attached to the bottom of Kai’s feet.

The demon sat on the love seat’s arm. It was so casual and normal that it took Mason a moment to readjust his thinking before he could answer. Kai waited, knowing how unnerving it was to see Akuma just appear. Besides, he was enjoying Mason’s discomfiture.

“You can’t go through with what my uncle wants you to do,” Mason said.

“Why?” Kai asked. “What’s he want me to do?”

Mason inhaled deeply. “He wants you to break into FBI’s headquarters downtown and destroy the evidence against my father.”

Kai’s eyes widened and he threw an arm over his eyes, groaning loudly. “Shit,” he muttered.

“It will be okay,” Akuma assured him.

Mason didn’t think he could get used to the demon speaking with the voice of an old man from a body that bent light in a way that gave him a headache. How did Kai even accept the demon’s presence on a daily basis without going mad?

“I’m telling you, you can’t do this,” Mason insisted. “Even if you don’t care about yourself, believe me when I say this: it puts Ava in danger.”

“How?”

Mason stopped and looked away. He seemed at war with himself and then, simply and quietly, said that his father was evil. Kai removed the arm from over his eyes and studied Mason. The other boy was staring at the concrete floor, eyes trained hard on whatever was in his mind’s eye, like if he concentrated hard enough he could pluck it from the very air. Kai noted that Mason wasn’t worried about himself, and it made his esteem of Mason rise a notch.

“Okay, evil dad,” Kai allowed. “So what do you expect me to do? We made a deal with Joseph.”

“Can you take Ava through walls?”

“Ava’s your sister,” Kai argued. “Why would it work on her and not you?”

“Don’t you know anything about daemons?” Mason asked, exasperated.

“I never talked to one before you or your uncle. Well, except for Ava, but she never set off Akuma’s alarm or whatever.”

“That’s because there are no female daemons,” Mason said. Kai stared at him. Mason sighed. “We breed with humans, but it’s all carried on the male side.”

“Well, that’s weird,” Kai stated.

Mason nodded. “So there’s a chance,” he mused, his brow knitted together as he thought.

“Why would you need to walk Ava through a wall?”

Mason looked like he wanted to bang Kai’s head through something, but instead he took a deep breath and then muttered about ignorance.

“Okay, daemonology in a nutshell,” Mason said. “Ready?” Kai nodded. “We grow up differently than humans. We have the potential to evolve twice, becoming more powerful at each level.”

“Wait, like evolve as in that cartoon show with the pet monsters?”

“Who do you think came up with that whole thing?” Mason asked. “Do you think it’s a coincidence they use the same terminology we do?”

“So all those monsters have wings and can breathe fire and stuff,” Kai said. “And Joseph had wings. Can he breathe fire? Can you breathe fire?” Kai asked, with excitement.

“No, but there are some daemon families who can,” Mason said. “Now the first level is called minorling, like me. We don’t have any real powers outside of being stronger and having keener senses than humans.”

“And you can slide between worlds to another dimension and back,” Kai pointed out. “Which is awesome.”

“Not really,” Mason said. “It’s desolate, there’s no oxygen, and daemons only go there to fight.”

“Why hasn’t your father slid between realities to get out of the authorities’ hands?” Akuma asked curiously.

“Strict law,” Mason said, eyes sliding to the demon, but not staying for long. “If my father were to escape that way, he would be hunted down by his own kind. Not even Joseph would go against the Treaty.”

The answer seemed to baffle Akuma, as if some made up rule could really change a daemon’s behavior. He supposed the daemons had become more human the longer they’d been here and interbred. When the demon didn’t pursue the subject further, Mason continued.

“A daemon reaches the second stage and gains their family power when they replace a mate.” He paused here, his jaw working. “Daemons are very sensitive to smell. There is one mate for every male daemon and they know by smell. It’s not instantaneous,” Mason said. “The circumstances need to be right. A daemon may live next door to a woman for thirty years, and for whatever reason the circumstances align and then he smells her as a mate.”

“Why?”

“We don’t know,” Mason said. “Many daemon scientists are working on trying to figure out why.”

“Daemon scientists?” Kai asked, chuckling. He imagined dragon men in lab coats bent over microscopes. Akuma, who could see the picture in Kai’s mind, smiled too.

“Don’t you want to know about what you are?” Mason asked defensively. “Aren’t you curious?” The comment sobered Kai up. When Mason saw the mirth gone, he continued. “With the advent of science, daemons began investigating our limitations, our origins, etc.”

Mason took a deep breath, steeling himself. “We are a brutal race. When a minorling smells his mate he goes mad. He goes after her, there’s no thought, no self control, no consent,” Mason said, locking eyes with Kai.

Kai’s face blanched in horror as he realized what Mason was getting at.

“And women in a daemon family are ten times more likely to be mated than women who aren’t.”

A cloud of noxious dread filled Kai as he realized what Mason was saying. Ava really was in danger, big danger. He swore under his breath. Akuma shifted on the couch, his protective instincts rising up. He really did like Ava.

“What does this have to do with your dad?” Kai asked.

“The third level of daemon is the archdaemon, the leaders of the clans,” Mason said. “Silas is one, so is Joseph. To become an archdaemon, you need to consume your own flesh and blood.”

Kai gulped. No wonder Mason didn’t like his father.

“But it drives the archdaemon a little crazy. They develop blood lust that needs to be quenched from time to time. My father has been sitting in a jail for over two weeks.” Mason let that sink in. “He has already killed one of his children. If he gets out of jail, he will go after whoever is convenient. You can’t help free him.”

Kai let out a long breath. “Why haven’t you taken her out of that place yet?” he asked.

“Because I don’t have the insurance I need to get away.”

“What does it matter? Get out,” Kai said.

“I told her to leave tomorrow when everyone is distracted.” Mason began pacing. “I’ve been searching for leverage though. A cure.”

“There’s a cure to being a daemon?” Kai asked.

“I figured out a long time ago that if a daemon goes mate-mad for Ava, there’s nowhere she can run, but daemon scientists have found something that will stop the madness. They discovered it while trying to come up with a way to force an evolution,” Mason said. “It’s an injection that renders the daemon sterile. It kills his sense of smell. I have been searching for it for over a year.”

Mason’s eyes turned orange as he spoke, black dots erupting around his pupils. “Here’s the thing: every archdaemon keeps two doses on hand in a black case,” Mason said, measuring it out with his hands. “It’s used as the most stringent punishment because no daemon wants the possibility of evolving to be taken from him.”

“Except you,” Kai said shrewdly.

Mason stopped pacing and met Kai’s eyes, a look of profound bone-weariness coming over his features. It made Kai’s breath catch. He had the irrational urge to run over and hug Mason.

“You have no idea what it’s like fighting what you are every day,” he said. “If I could replace it, then we could go anywhere without fear. I don’t want to become a monster,” he said. His eyes were bright orange although Kai wasn’t frightened by them.

A lot of things clicked into place. Mason’s drive, his intense self-discipline, the way he held himself away from others, even the karate. He wasn’t arrogant or a jerk. Well, he was a jerk, but Mason was preparing for a solo battle with his entire being. Kai felt a deep well of sympathy for him. Kai knew what it was like to be constantly fighting your situation. But he knew he didn’t have it even half as bad as Mason. No wonder the other boy was always so grim.

“What super power are you going to be missing out on?” Kai asked quietly.

Again, Mason hesitated.

“We need to know,” Akuma said.

“My family wasn’t always named ‘Wright,’” he said. “We used to be named ‘Defodau’ which means ‘rite’ like rite of passage. They changed it when they came to America because they were kicked out of court. They blame this other daemon family, the Sharpes.”

“Okay,” Kai said. “I assume this has something to do with your power.”

“We were the keepers of the rites,” Mason said. “Blood rites. A daemon from my family can literally pull the blood from your body, especially if you’re bleeding already.”

Kai wrinkled his nose in disgust while Akuma sighed. The demon had had a feeling there was something like this. Kai’s eyes snapped to Akuma.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kai demanded.

“Because you would have freaked out,” Akuma said. “Besides, I’m never entirely sure how to put what I smell into words you understand. And daemons all smell like blood, these just smell of more blood.”

“Well,” Kai said, “that’s utterly terrifying.”

“You can see now why I need that case,” Mason said. Kai nodded. “Can I ask a question now?”

Kai and Akuma exchanged a look and the demon shrugged.

“I know I smell of blood, but you always smell of burning,” Mason said.

“Burning what?” Kai asked.

“I don’t know, air, everything,” Mason explained, frowning. “Why is that?”

Once more, Kai looked at Akuma and the demon said telepathically.

He wants to protect Ava. I think we can trust him.

Kai turned back to Mason. “I don’t just have a demon inside me,” he said. “I also have a star.”

“Huh,” Mason said, tilting his head at Kai. Then he snapped his fingers. “Hydrogen,” he said, pointing at Kai, who nodded.

“Yeah, haven’t gotten to astronomy in science yet,” he said dryly. “It would have been useful to know.”

“Didn’t we see a case in the shop?” Akuma asked suddenly. That caught both boys’ attention. The demon was measuring an invisible case with his hands. “In the wall,” he said helpfully.

“That’s right,” Kai said. Mason gave him a confused look. “We saw a black case in a safe in the shop we met at last night.”

Mason gaped and then shook his head. “I’m so stupid. I’ve been searching the compound and the weapons caches,” he said. “I looked everywhere. But it never occurred to me they’d keep it in a dingy place like that.” He smacked his forehead. “And the police had it taped off the night they questioned the captains, which is why Joseph didn’t tote it out. Of course! Where in the shop was it?”

“Uh, to the left of the bathroom. I sort of fell through the back bathroom wall into it,” Kai said.

Hope sprung up into Mason’s eyes. “They’re having a meeting there tonight, but the shop should be abandoned tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Kai hit his fist into one palm, getting excited. “We got a plan then. You go to the shop tomorrow and get the case while I meet with your uncle. I told him to go to the yogurt shop.”

“You can’t meet with him,” Mason said. “Kai, you can’t go through with this.”

“If I don’t then he’ll know something is wrong. I’ll play along until I get a text that you guys are away.”

“And what will you do then?” Mason asked.

“Set off the alarm,” Kai said, shrugging. “If we fail, he won’t want us in his organization anymore. Besides, if the alarms start going off, he’ll have bigger problems than us.”

Mason stopped and then slowly nodded. “Okay,” he said. “This might work. We can do this.”

“We have to,” Kai said.

“And I will kill any daemon that gets in our way,” Akuma promised.

Although Kai’s stomach dropped at that, he didn’t argue. The truth was, Akuma might have to.