This Life of Sin

The Squad Returns

Chapter 8: The Squad Returns

I was the smell that woke me up the next morning. And I mean it woke me up from a dead sleep. I may have even risen from the bed like a damn possessed thing from the Exorcist. It wasn't a bad smell. Actually, it was an amazing one, and I found myself following it like a zombie.

Somewhere behind me there was a cranky squawk followed by a thump and a scuttling. I was still half asleep as I opened the strange door and entered a hallway that was unfamiliar, stumbling after the smell. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that I was at the base of the royal squad known as the Red Ravens, but for now the smell held all my conscious thoughts.

I took a right turn with the scuttling following at my heels. Bare heels as it turned out, given I left my boots on the floor of the room. I stumbled out into a wide room, took a left, and saw that the smell was coming from the bar. With a groan, I stumbled that way and sniffed. I knew that smell. I needed it.

"Er, 'ello?" Said a confused voice that I ignored.

"Oh, good morning, Sin." Chirped another. "No worries, Dural, this is Sin. The stray demon I told you Zach brought home."

"Coffee." I grumped, hunting for that delicious brew that I could smell. When was the last time I had coffee?

"What?" laughed the strange man. Now that the beverage I could smell was being denied me, my brain decided that he was worth inspecting. I was too not awake to realise that I was seeing a dwarf for the first time.

Dural was around four and a half feet tall with thick brown hair and a long-braided beard draped over a cotton shirt and hang past his knees. His eyes were aggravatingly bright and awake, a deep green color that popped next to his rosy cheeks.

"Coffee," I repeated. "Now, please." I added because I was half asleep and the smell was torture.

"Sorry Luv, but I haven't the foggiest what it is you are saying Lass." He turned to look at someone behind me.

"Good morning, everyone!" groaned a loud voice I realized was Zach's, but I was still focused on locating the liquid gold. "Good morning, Sin." He hopped onto the stool nest to where I was standing. A little growl of irritation and Drogin appeared next to me where he promptly took his place on my shoulders. "He didn't look very happy on the floor. What's going on?"

"Seems ur' demon lady is look'n fer something."

"For what?"

"Coffee." Said Sandra.

"And what is coffee?"

"Haven't a clue?" She said with a sigh.

"The smell." I huffed, my head hitting the bar. I so was not good with sudden wakefulness.

"Yeh mean the Fiervir?" Asked the dwarf, showing me his metal mug which did indeed seem to have the lovely black fluid in it.

"Coffee." I stated.

"Sorry Luv, but this be Fiervir. Made from dried then roasted Fiervir root, then steeped in hot water."

"Maybe demons call it coffee?" Zach asked the room.

"Either way, yer more than welcome to it." Laughed Dural the dwarf. He placed the cup he held on to the bar in front of me. "You take this one. I haven't touched it yet." And with that he went a little farther down the bar and began pour himself another mug full, from a pot he had set on a bar rag. "Never met none but the dwarves who like Fiervir." He chuckled.

I took a sip of the strong brew and sighed happily. I wasn't a fan of black coffee but damn, any coffee was good right now.

"How can you drink that?" asked Sandra, sitting on the stool on my other side. "It is bitter and vile." She was dressed in another lavender dress this morning, this one had gold filigree though and the cleavage wasn't quite as dangerous.