Perfect. All tucked in.
Should Chaos take Cooper’s glasses off? But no. Chaos couldn’t have anyone poking out those delightful eyes while he was away. He straightened them on Cooper’s face instead, then left the room for good.
He took a cursory look around the dwelling, scoping out the rooms he’d missed. There wasn’t much—it was just a typical, boring human home. There was a living area with couches and a television. A gleaming kitchen Chaos had no use for. A bathing room and the aforementioned bedroom. Plus the room with the machines where Cooper lay unconscious.
It was all spacious and clean enough, but only the machine room reallyfeltlike Cooper, with his sweet candy scent and aura of nervousness permeating the air.
Chaos switched over to his preferred human form, one that was similar in build and face to his demon presentation but with brown hair and ordinary brown eyes. It was funny to be so ordinary, wasn’t it? No wings or tail, not even a little stubby one poking out of the back of his pants.
Speaking of clothes…
The modern world had too many to choose from, and Chaos wasn’t interested in human fashions the way Nix was. So he copied what his summoner was wearing, dressing in sweatpants and a matching hoodie. If he wanted, he could scrunch the hoodie strings tight, tight, tight so only the tip of his nose was poking out of the little circle the hood made.
Hilarious.
Chaos headed out the front door to find himself in another hallway, one with doors with little numbers hanging off them. He knew what this was—an apartment building. Those doors were other apartments, with other humans living in them.
Were they all the same? Maybe. Or maybe one of Cooper’s neighbors had a disco ballroom and a creepy clown fun house.
Wouldn’t that be interesting?
Now Chaos was curious, and he was never one to ignore a curiosity.
There were four doors on this floor, including Cooper’s. The first two Chaos knocked on—how polite was he, knocking on the door?—no one answered. Rude.
But at the last door, a woman opened up. She had artificially light hair and lovely wrinkles. On her face, at least. There wasn’t a wrinkle to be found on her clothes, stiff and starched as they were. Did she not move in them? Perhaps she stood there, as still as a doll on the other side of the door all day to keep them pristine.
She looked down her nose at Chaos, keeping the door open only a crack. “Can I help you?”
Chaos tried to peer around her, standing on his toes when he wasn’t able to see much. She had shoes on her feet with pointy bottoms that gave her added height. “I want to see inside,” he finally told her, pushing at her arm so she’d move aside.
“Who the hell—”
Chaos was bored of the doorway now. He ducked under her arm and went inside. The lady started yelling, following after him, so Chaos waved a hand, securing her inside a ring of fire to keep her contained.
That made her yell louder, which was kind of fun.
The apartment, though, was less fun. There was no disco ballroom. No creepy fun house with a murderous clown. The rooms were the same as Cooper’s, just with more…stuff.
There were things on the walls and things on shelves. Why didn’t Cooper have more things? Not that he should emulatethisexactly. These specific things were ugly and boring—why was every item either white or beige?—but surely there were more exciting things to decorate with.
Oops. Now Chaos had thought “things” too many times, and the word had lost all meaning.
Things, things, things, things, things.
He left the apartment and the yelling woman behind, releasing her from the fire at the last minute. She yelled after him some more, something about calling the police.
He hadn’t even singed her, so he wasn’t sure what she was so annoyed about. Maybe she’d wrinkled her clothes trying to escape the fire.
The police could be interesting though. He’d never been attacked with modern weapons before—it sounded exciting. Apparently Nix had been shot, and Chaos was a little jealous.
If the police came…
Well, maybe later. Chaos wanted out of this apartment building first. If he hurried, maybe he would be back from exploring before his puppy woke up.
Then he could be the very first thing those mismatched eyes saw when they roused from slumber.
How lovely.
