“Really? Have you tried going out since—” Raum broke off and his eyes widened, and Meph immediately regretted mentioning anything because he knew Raum was going to put it together in three, two—
“You’re fucking Iris.”
Silence.
“That’swhere you’ve been the last two weeks. That’s why you’ve been acting shady. ’Cause you’ve been at Iris’s place, and you didn’t want us to find out.”
“No, he hasn’t,” Bel said in a too-calm voice. “Because there’s no way he’s that stupid. Right, Meph?”
There was another pause. Meph waited for the explosion, since at this point, he’d accepted it was inevitable. But Raum was in for a serious ass kicking later.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Belial snapped. “Why would you do that?”
“Why would I do anything?” Meph threw his hands up. “’Cause I wanted to? ’Cause she’s hot? What’s the big deal?”
“She’s Lily’s sister. And she’s got an entire coven backing her. The last thing we need is a bunch of angry witches coming after us when you inevitably do something stupid and piss her off.”
“First of all, fuck you. Second of all, they’re not even powerful. They can’t do shit.”
“You don’t know that for sure. If they joined forces, they could be a pain in our ass, and you know it.”
“I didn’t see you giving Mist shit for hanging out with Lily.”
“Mist knew what he was doing.”
“And I don’t?”
“No!” Bel’s voice boomed around like thunderclaps.Drama queen.“You never know what the fuck you’re doing. You go through life like a tornado, fucking shit up left and right and leaving the rest of us to clean up after you. You’re a loose cannon, and it’s goddamn exhausting!”
“Bel, shut up,” Raum muttered.
“No, it’s fine,” Meph said. “I get it. In this fucked-up family, at least we can be honest with each other, right? I’m glad you told me what a burden I am. Now I’ll know to stay out of your way in the future.”
Bel closed his eyes. “Meph—”
But Meph had heard enough. He pushed past Bel and Raum and headed down the hall to the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
“Nice one, dickface,” he heard Raum say.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Meph turned on the shower to drown out their voices and pushed away thoughts of anything except his new sculpture. He focused on what he was going to work on today, getting a clear goal in mind for his vision of the piece.
He may or may not have replayed a memory of eating Iris’s pussy on the rug last night too. That really took him to his happy place.
As he stood under the hot spray, it occurred to him that he hadn’t been to the gym once all week. Normally, he went once or even twice a day, and if he didn’t, he swore he could feel his demon form crawling under his skin, trying to claw its way out. It felt like if he stopped fighting for even a minute, it would burst out of him, leaving the old Meph behind in a shredded pile.
But lately, that part of him had been mysteriously quiet. Calm. At first he’d thought maybe the art was helping transmute it.
Now he wondered if it was just biding its time. Waiting for something.
Waiting to be free.
Half an hour later, Meph stepped out of the hellgate into Dan’s office. Or at least, what used to be Dan’s office. It was kind of Meph’s office now, since his hellgate took up half the floor and he always left shit everywhere.
There were several hoodies draped over the chair. More clothes were piled on the desk, because he would take them off when he was painting and then forget to change back later. A collection of sneakers was lined up against the wall for the same reason.
Meph loved clothes. When he wasn’t making art or at the gym, he was buying clothes. He had so many pairs of shoes, the floor of his closet and the bottom two shelves had been filled, and he’d forgotten how many pairs he’d left behind here.
