21: how to be one with nature?

No, I'm still not used to it—having this many people in my apartment at once. Since I moved out of my subway tunnel house, I've been on my own, my only visitor being Rocco, who has that annoying habit of just showing up without warning. Now, all of a sudden, my apartment's some kind of pow-wow place. Rocco's reclined on the couch, Midge is perched on a stool, and Safiya's glaring at me angrily from the kitchen island. I interrupted her midday meal, apparently, but what does she expect when she doesn't close her damn door?

And Jamie's asleep somewhere. Or dead. Probably asleep.

As I'm striding over with a mug of green tea, no less, to sit beside Rocco, Safiya calls out, "Alright, demonboy. I'd prefer to get this over with. Really. The suspense is just killing me."

"Yes, it certainly is. I can see it on your face," I mutter, sarcastically enough to hopefully but probably not match her sarcasm. I settle myself down in the couch cushions, making myself comfortable. "As you've probably noticed if you ever look outside, we've got a bit of a situation."

"I don't like the outside," grumbles Safiya.

Like I should have expected any different from her.

Before I can elaborate, Midge does for me. "Humans are protesting," she says with a heavy sigh, raking her hair back from her face. Her lips twitch into a frown. "It's because of the attacks...I guess they're just scared of us now."

Safiya pauses, then lets out a cackle that sounds a bit too close to evil for my comfort. When she smiles, she showcases two bright white fangs, glimmering keen. "Why, they should be. What else is new?"

"Safi," I grumble. "It's disrupting the peace. Peace is good. We want peace."

Her smile dissipates. She keeps glaring at me. "Fine," she snaps. "What's the big idea, then? I'm sure you geniuses have come up with something."

Midge and I make eye contact. My look says, Are we sure we want to go through with this? Hers says, Stop stalling.

I'm not stalling.

Really, I'm not.

I just really, really don't get along with pixies.

Midge clearly isn't going to help me out here, and I don't know why I expected her to. I wipe sweat off my palms, looking at Rocco and Safiya in turn. Rocco's been oddly silent through all this, now that I think about it. It's kind of unnerving, coming from a guy like him. When we were kids, he never shut up. Always rattling on about Hot Wheels or my teeth or the latest episode of Go, Diego, Go!

I was more of a Dora guy. Don't ask me why.

"It's not much," I begin, "but it's an idea. Just like witches, pixies are good with all that energy stuff. Midge and I are figuring...maybe we can gather some info from them."

"Yeah," Midge agrees. "They ought to be as concerned as we are."

I nod, and then Midge and I both sit there, waiting for a reaction. Yes, I'm expecting a reaction. Yet, Safiya and Rocco don't say anything. Safiya just continues glaring at me and Rocco looks a little like he wants to throw up for some reason. He'd better not throw up. I paid good money for this couch we're sitting on, and it's a decent couch, too. By decent I mean it doesn't swallow people.

Then Safiya murmurs, "That's it?"

I raise an eyebrow at her. "What do you mean that's it?"

"I mean that you're right. It's not much at all. We talk to the pixies, woohoo. Then what? We all go out for root beer floats and a movie?" taunts Safiya, tossing her raven-colored hair over one shoulder. "That's not solving anything, cross-breed."

"By hell, Safi, thanks for all the support."

"You can run off to your little business meeting, but I'm not wasting my time with it," she announces, leaning away from the kitchen counter. Her blood red heels, the same shade she's chosen for her lips today, clack against my wood floors as she makes her exit. The three of us watch her go—Midge with a frown, me with a scowl, Rocco a little dazed.

She pauses at the door. "Call me when you've got something useful."

It slams shut.

I sigh, turning to Rocco. "You in, man?"

He considers it, but shakes his head a moment later, the queasy expression on his face clearing, thankfully. I want to ask what he's on about, but he doesn't give me the chance. "You and Midge go. I'll stay here to keep an eye on Jamie for you."

I start to argue, but then I remember how positively insane Jamie is, and I see that he's got a point. I don't want to leave the kid here alone, but I don't want to bring him with me to the pixies' place. Especially not when he tries to eat people who lay the slightest of hands on me.

It's like I have to train him.

Yet, leaving Rocco here with Jamie means I'm alone with Midge. That might be worse.

Oh, yes. Life is just fine and dandy. I'm off to see a race whose majority of members hate my guts, accompanied by a girl I have no self control around. I wish I could just sit in my bed and binge-watch stuff and eat Lucky Charms. The good ol' days.

I get up from the couch, grabbing my keys off the rack and motioning for Midge to follow me. "Alright, we're gone, then. Don't blow anything up while I'm out."

Pixies have a thing for gardens.

So there's no better place for them to hang out than the Atlanta Botanical one.

If I wasn't on such an unpleasant mission, maybe I'd stop to really admire all the blooming flowers and the bushes shaped like snakes and women and frogs and all that. It's a nice place, really, with the scent of rosewater everywhere, the babble of the fountains never far away. And everyone here—couples, families, even a few people walking alone with journals in their hands—looks so happy that it's almost weird.

And then there's the fact that I'm here alone, with Midge. Just Midge and I. Shoot.

I nudge her with my shoulder. "So, where would they be?"

"Shut up. I'm looking."

"I'm looking too, but I don't see anything. That's why I'm asking."

Midge scuffs her shoe against the cobblestone walk, lifting her eyes to me. In the sun, they're a warm, chocolate color, like coffee with just a bit of milk in it. "I told you to shut up."

I lift a hand to shield my eyes from the sun. "It's weird when it's quiet."

"Oh, dear Lord. Don't even try it. I already know what you're dying to talk about."

Out of sheer surprise, I stop walking. It takes a moment for Midge to do the same; she glances over her shoulder at me, one eyebrow perked up. "Oh?" I say then. "Then enlighten me, because I've got no idea."

Midge folds her arms, waiting a beat before she says, "Last night."

"Ah."

"Ah?"

"What is there to talk about?" I ask her, settling into step again. What I say next is a huge lie. Possibly the biggest I've ever told. But it'd be death to admit I feel anything else. "I kissed you. Big deal."

"Bull, Grey," she announces, stepping suddenly in front of me, startling me to stillness. She peers up at me through mascara-coated lashes, and this close, I can see that tiny freckle at the corner of her eye, a little dark jewel. "You're lying. If it wasn't a big deal it wouldn't have...felt like a big deal. And you wouldn't be looking at me like you are right now."

She smells like everything pure in life, everything I don't have. Like lavender and cardamom and sage, like magic. Jesus. I'm trying to hate it, but I can't. Why is she so close to me? Is she trying to kill me? "Like what?"

"Like you want to do it again."

It's a very, very dangerous thing to say, and she knows it.

And I could. I could grab her right here and kiss her like I want to, but that would be rash, and we have other things to do. Other less fun things, but other things nonetheless. "Fine," I admit, taking a wary step back. "So it was a bit of a big deal. Now stop tantalizing me."

"Oh. Mr. Prince of Darkness can't show his feelings, is that it?"

I grimace. "I'm not a prince of darkness. Don't call me that. That sounds dumb."

"Actually, I think it sounds pretty cool—"

"It does not sound cool, sounds like something out of an RPG game—"

"Grey!"

She shouts it so suddenly that I jump. I don't understand what the fuss is about until I see where she's pointing. Tending to a group of hydrangea plants is a pixie, his shirt a wild floral design that almost blends in with the surroundings. His pointed ears are nearly hidden by a mass of curly black hair, and Midge is running to him before I can stop her.

"Hey! You! Can we talk?" she shouts.

The poor guy looks terrified as he turns around, his eyes wide. They're the color of the grass around him, a light and playful green that's startling against his hickory-colored skin.

Midge slows her pace, and I catch up with her. "My name's Midge Osborne, a witch, and this is Grey Meesang, a...well, it doesn't matter what he is—"

"I mean, it kinda does—"

"Grey," she warns. The pixie keeps shifting his eyes between the two of us, clearly confused. In a way, I'm thankful Midge didn't tell him that I'm part demon, but in another way, the guy should know what he's getting into. If he's gonna hate on me he should just start now.

Midge returns her attention to the pixie. "I got a message...a prophecy, I mean, about a week or so ago. It said something was wrong with the city, and now all these attacks have been happening, and I feel something."

Something in the pixie's face changes. It goes from confusion to complete understanding, and an unnerving amount of dismay. "The disturbance," he says, a frown at his lips. "Yes, I know what you're talking about. Us pixies feel it too."

Midge glances at me, her brow furrowed. Then she says to the pixie guy, "Could we sit somewhere?"

The pixie guy's name is River and he's as afraid as the rest of us. We find a bench just at the side of the walk, and I sit awkwardly on the edge, saying little to nothing. I don't want to open my mouth much, or he'll see the fangs, and it'll just be downhill from there.

Dammit. I really have to figure out how to retract these things.

"I don't know what it is," Midge says. "But something about the energy is off. Like the city's draining..."

As River shakes his head, his tightly-wound curls bounce. "No, it's not that the city is draining. Someone is draining it."

If I wasn't listening before, I sure as hell am now. It makes both Midge and I go cold; I can tell, because her shoulders go rigid. "Someone..." I cut in, no longer caring about my somewhat hidden identity. "How? How can anyone even do that?"

River shrugs. "I don't know. But there's unnatural surges sometimes, like something sucking from a straw. If the energy was waning naturally, it wouldn't feel like that."

Midge exhales heavily. "I can't imagine they're using it for anything good, whoever they are."

"Certainly not," agrees River.

The three of us sit in silence for a while, until Midge gets to her feet, turning and extending her hand towards River. She's a pink silhouette against the sea of flowers behind her, and God, she's angelic, and I look down at the ground instead.

"We can figure it out, and we can stop it," she assures. "So Grey and I...we'd like your help, you know."

I wonder when I ever agreed to working with a pixie, and I try to protest.

But River just looks at her, and grins. A little hesitantly, he reaches out his hand, shaking hers. "I'll do what I can."

And so I'm officially doomed.