Impish

CHAPTER 7: ON THE ROAD AGAIN

My hands are tense on the steering wheel, firmly grasping it at ten and two. It has been twenty minutes since we left the hotel and I still haven't calmed down. I haven't calmed down at all.

The rush of anger and adrenaline have been flooding my senses for a lot longer than twenty minutes. Before we left, I dragged Roux upstairs, where they got dried off and changed, shaking all the while. We left so quickly that I didn't have a chance to get dressed. I didn't even zip up my bag, and I would have forgotten my bathing suit drying over the side of the bathtub if it weren't for Doug. I'm still in my pajamas; my entire front is wet from when I was hugging Roux, but I'm too angry to stop and change.

My anger shows in my driving, just like it did yesterday. I'm tense. I'm upset. There's a tumbleweed on the road and I hit it. I don't know why it's there or why I don't swerve out of the way.

Doug, in the back seat, puts on the most concerned voice he can as he leans forward between the front seats. "Mikes. Mikey. Maybe you should pull over."

"Maybe you shouldn't take us to places where somebody's going to try to kill Roux. Maybe you shouldn't take us to places where clowns watch me swim and perv on me in the bathroom! Maybe you should get better friends!"

"You have to understand--"

"Do I?"

"You have to understand," he repeats, with patience and some other hidden emotion in his voice, "that you and I exist in a world of crime and depraved shit. There are always going to be other demons who want to kill people, who are into terrible things, who get off on pain and mystery. They're always going to be there. You have to remember that not all demons are good people."

"Well, yeah, I understand that," I say, voice dry and eyes on the road. "I just don't like it. It's not safe. I don't want it."

"There are demons who are good people," he caveats, "but they're sometimes fewer, harder to find-- and, sometimes, they do horrible things but they're still good people, right? Morality is complicated. It'smade even more complicated when you add demonic power over mortal flesh to the equation."

I don't want to object to what he's saying. I'm not sure that I know how. I sigh as the rage begins to flow out of me. His voice is soothing and fatherly enough that it pulls all of it out of me, tamps it down like purple kinetic sand. "I know."

Then I say it again, trying to convince myself of my own sincerity.

"Good. Because you're my kid and you're a part of all this now, so you need to know that. With people, it's innocent until proven guilty. With demons, you have to assume that everyone has tortured or killed at least one person. Whether or not they feel remorse-- that's the thing. That's what lets you know whether or not you can trust them. I thought Gaz was one of those demons but apparently not. Apparently he's changed. Apparently, he's fallen off the wagon again."

"When was the last time you talked to him? Before this, I mean?"

"We were in a very unpopular clown-themed punk rap band back in the seventies."

"You know... you know clowns rapping is a thing now, right? Like there's an entire subculture based around it?"

"Well, now I do. And now I'm bitter as heaven." His tongue doesn't burn when he says that. I'm starting to understand what will and won't make me burst into flames. "We quit before we got big. I can't believe someone would take that from me, though. It seems like such a breach of creative control or whatever the term is."

I can't help but think that his crisis over whether or not a bunch of juggalos ripped him off isn't exactly something that matters right now. He's a grown-ass demon man and he's torn up about this? There are other things that are more important than his little crisis.