Chapter Text
Mira was no stranger to the underground music scene in Seoul. The press of bodies on the dance floor, the thrum of music blasting through the air, the smell of cheap alcohol that had spilled onto the floor—it had just been too long since she’d found her way to one, what with all the choreo, lyrics, and demon hunting.
She and Zoey were mere months out from their debut. Months, after they’d trained for years. The anticipation between the duo was palpable, but so was the anxiety, twisting like a knot in their stomachs.
The Honmoon always chose three. So far it had only found two, and Celine had done everything she could to delay their debut to find the third.
That’s not to say it was because they stopped looking. Celine was still holding auditions herself, sometimes (more often than not recently) dragging Mira and Zoey along in case the Honmoon was more willing to show them something she was missing. Celine was a consummate professional in the industry, unflappable and stern but she truly cared for her proteges. And she cared a whole lot that the Honmoon wasn’t telling her where her third Hunter was.
And, well, Mira couldn’t stand being cooped up in Celine’s penthouse. Wasn’t anything against Celine specifically. Mira just felt the itch. She needed to do something. Break a rule before she broke a law kind of thing. She was antsy and agitated and just needed an outlet.
That’s how she ended up at a hole-in-the-wall nightclub called Reflex. Zoey had never been to it either and begged to join her for a night out. She didn’t need to beg, but Mira liked it when Zoey got animated and expressed herself so openly, the bubbly foil to Mira’s dry stoicism. She was always welcome along, but Mira warned her she might not like it nonetheless. It was better to be prepared for disappointment. Zoey never was.
And Celine? Well, Mira never asked permission of her. She and Celine had an understanding. But she did request they be back before two in the morning, for Zoey’s sake if anything.
Zoey and Mira stood in the entry line, the music vibrating through the wall, sending shockwaves through their feet, electric anticipation hanging in the air that gave Mira goosebumps. The younger of the duo was bouncing along to every beat, threatening to fling the yellow bucket hat from her head with each enthusiastic dance move. Mira tapped her foot along to the music as an outlet while they waited. She was almost glad they hadn’t debuted yet, or else they’d have to disguise themselves to do anything. Although, then they could at least use their fame to get in faster. A number of musicians had already cut the line to get in, descending the stairs to the bouncer outside the door and then sliding in without a care.
Thankfully there were enough idiots drinking themselves to oblivion getting removed from the establishment that the line was always moving. The girls presented their IDs to the bouncer when they reached the front and were granted entry.
“Finally!” gasped Zoey, rushing through to the club.
Mira slunk inside like a fox, finally feeling the anxiety in her stomach loosen. How many times had she snuck out to a place like this just to get away from her family? It was as much a sanctuary as anything, with the music blaring and patrons cheering. The smell of sweat and cooking grease permeated her nose. At the far end of the room was a stage with a live band shredding guitars and screaming into the mic with reckless abandon. Not a lot of experience on the vocalist, who was shredding his voice and would probably damage it permanently in five years without proper care and training. Multicoloured lights strobed against the ceiling and walls, enough Mira could make out a lot of old band memorabilia on the walls and in display cases.
She caught up to Zoey without much issue, all thanks to the Hunter training Celine had given them that let her glide through the nightclub without disturbing a soul, as Zoey leaned against the bar to the left of the room eyeing the drink menu.
“Ooh! Sunlight Surprise!” Zoey grabbed Mira’s arm. “It’s a drink themed after the Sunlight Sisters!”
“Cute,” said Mira, adjusting her gold-rimmed glasses to better spy the menu.
“I’m getting that, one hundred percent! This place is so cool, Mira! How’d you know it was here?”
“I’d been hearing about it on some forums I creep.” Mira picked the menu apart like a true connoisseur. “... Roo’ra-Rum?”
Screw it. She’d take it.
The bartender, a short and pleasant-looking man with floppy parted hair, whispers of a moustache on his lip, and a patch of hair on his chin hustled to Mira and Zoey at the end of the bar.
“Hey girls!” he greeted jovially. “Never seen you here before. You new? Did you get a minute to find a drink you like?”
“We are new!” Zoey beamed. “I’m getting a Sunlight Surprise, and Mira…?”
“Roo’ra-Rum.” Mira couldn’t be sure, but she thought Zoey just wanted to hear her say the name of the drink again.
“Great choices!” The bartender quickly went to work. “I’m Bobby, by the way. Bartender and manager. Glad to see some fresh faces around here!”
“And we’re happy to be here!” Zoey’s eyes went wide at the tall glass pushed toward her with a drink that faded from yellow to orange to red. She slurped the drink through the straw and sighed blissfully.
Mira gestured to the stage with her chin. “Your vocalist over there’s gonna screw his voice up.”
“I know,” said Bobby sadly as he set to mixing Mira’s drink. “I keep telling him to knock it off for a couple nights but he says he knows better since he’s the singer.”
“Then I guess you’ve done what you can.” Mira caught the drink that slid her way from Bobby. She sipped it carefully, almost suspiciously. She was pleasantly surprised at how sweet and citrusy it tasted. Bobby didn’t skimp on the rum either.
“Do you girls sing?”
“We’re gonna.” Zoey had almost finished half her drink, such was the power of the straw. Mira put a hand on her shoulder to indicate she ought to slow down, which Zoey, thankfully, obeyed. “Why? Want us to talk to him?”
“Nah, don’t worry about him. I just asked because tonight’s open mic night. I don’t want him hogging the stage all night, and most people are here just to vibe.”
Zoey looked at Mira. “It could be fun?” she suggested.
“Normally yeah, but I’m not so sure about tonight.”
“But Mira…” Mira froze. The whine in Zoey’s voice could only mean one thing: the dreaded Zoey Choi Trademark Puppy Dog Eyes. Mira could feel them radiate against her skin like being in close proximity to a space heater before she’d even dared to look.
And when she did? Well…
“Fine,” groaned Mira, and Zoey’s lethal weapons were holstered for another day.
Bobby snagged a clipboard from under the bar and passed it to them. A pen was attached to it by a beaded silver cord. “These are the people singing tonight. If you want to join, put your names at the bottom of the list and pick one of the songs the band can play. If we get to the point where you’re singing and you want to skip, no pressure.”
There weren’t a lot on the list, but Mira did see one name taking up way more slots than his voice would allow. Zoey quickly scrawled hers and Mira’s names down and flipped through the pages on the clipboard.
“How about ‘(‘Cause) I’m Your Girl’?”
“Overdone.”
“‘Goodbye’?”
“Nah.”
Zoey bit her lip and flipped through a bit more slowly. “There are some American songs too…” Her eyes lit up suddenly. “Mira! Sunlight Sisters!”
“Celine would never let us live that down.”
“But Celine isn’t here.” Mira smiled when she saw Zoey’s eyebrows wiggle. She always did that when she was up to something. “Come on! It might be fun! Even the Honmoon might like it!”
Mira perused the list of Sunlight Sisters songs with a discerning eye. “What’s your favourite?”
“Pfft, as if it isn’t obvious. ‘Game On!’.”
“I should have known. Ji-an’s most difficult rap.”
“Ooh, if only we’d practiced the choreography for it…”
“Except the chorus is a three-part harmony that’s difficult to execute with only two people and makes it sound weird.”
Zoey sighed. Mira hated when she looked so downcast, but there was nothing really to do. Well, there was, and Mira stopped Zoey before she flipped another page to keep looking for a song.
“I guess we’re just doing this for fun. We don’t have to be professionals about it.” Zoey immediately perked up and beamed gratefully at Mira. “Especially since Celine isn’t around to judge.”
“Ohmygosh Mira! You’re amazing!” Zoey squealed with delight and scribbled down their choice before Mira could take back the gift she’d given her. Bobby swung back around when he saw they were done with the clipboard and examined their choice.
He scratched his neck. “Hey, wait here a sec, will you?”
“Sure,” replied Mira, watching the bartender curiously.
He flitted to the kitchen behind the bar. A few minutes later, he returned with the clipboard in hand.
“So, look, this might be a bit weird and you can definitely say no, but one of my employees knows the song pretty well, and if you wanted she could be your third.” Bobby placed the clipboard down on the bar. “She doesn’t sing much but, well, she’s on the schedule tonight and I think she’s pretty awesome. Thought it might be good to take advantage.”
Mira crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “Please don’t tell me this is some sort of weird matchmaking thing where you force some introvert to be friends with us.”
“No, no! Come on, Mira!” Zoey put her hand on Mira’s arm. “It could be fun!” She leaned in close to whisper (or whisper as best she could with all the noise surrounding them), “We won’t get to do spontaneous stuff like this when we debut. Let’s do it now so we don’t regret it later!”
It felt wrong to think about sharing the stage with someone other than Zoey. Someone, anyway, who wasn’t their third. But she was right, they wouldn’t have many opportunities to be nobodies with good voices before they debuted.
“Tell her to be there,” said Mira flatly, acquiescing to Zoey.
Bobby disappeared again, and when he returned he flipped them an eager thumbs-up that Zoey returned exuberantly. Mira finished her drink at the bar.
“Gonna join me on the dance floor before bonehead’s voice breaks?” Mira asked.
Zoey slurped up the last of her drink and clapped. “Yes, of course!”
Mira was a dancer down to her DNA. That was the simplest way to describe how she felt the music speak to her, felt the Honmoon brim with anticipation when she began moving. When she planned the steps for every beat it was the closest to poetry she knew she’d ever come. Zoey danced, Mira performed. It was sometimes the one thing she felt truly certain about in life, and it carried her through her tumultuous childhood. It was comfort and control but expression that she could achieve the same way Zoey could when she picked up a pen to scribble down some of the sickest lyrics she’d ever imagined.
But she adored dancing with Zoey, who sometimes pulled out choreography from the American bands she listened to when the beat hit just right. Zoey knew the Gangnam Style dance like no one else and was never afraid to show it off. And Mira knew Zoey was chomping at the bit to whip out some breakdancing moves she’d been practicing. It was too bad the dance floor was so crowded, but Mira liked it that way, bodies pressing up against each other, sharing heat and sweat as they lost themselves to the music.
They danced for what felt like hours, sometimes together, sometimes alone. The vocalist finally forced himself to take a break and let someone else have a turn with the mic, which meant the singer sometimes changed the speed at which they danced based on the song they chose to sing. Mira and Zoey didn’t care. They were enjoying themselves too much to worry about suddenly having to slow. Zoey and Mira just clasped hands and had fun swaying side-to-side together when it did. On some of the faster tempos they’d just jump in place and cheer.
Mira figured they’d better get a karaoke room the next time they went out.
Bobby had left the bar to another bartender and found his way through the crowd to Mira and Zoey. “Hey girls!” he greeted. “You’re on deck after this song.”
“We just climb on up after it’s done?” asked Zoey.
“Yeah. I’ll have some extra mics brought out before the end.” Bobby gave them another thumbs-up, which Zoey returned by flipping double thumbs. Bobby mimicked her and they laughed together. Mira couldn’t help but feel a burst of pride that Zoey had found some dude who matched her energy. No way this was their only visit to Reflex. “Rumi’s gonna meet you up there. It’s her turn.”
“Oh, cool!” Zoey bounced on the balls of her feet. “I guess then we get to see how good she is ourselves, huh, Mira?”
“We can see if there’s anything we need to cover for when we sing together.”
“Good luck girls!” Bobby waved and slowly made his way through the thrumming crowd.
“Bye Bobby!” Zoey called after him. “I like Bobby.”
“I noticed.”
“Erase.”
There was a sudden quiet that hit Mira. Not that the crowd had silenced, nor had the music. She felt it build around her, as if strummed directly from the Honmoon. Goosebumps blasted up her arm like she’d been shot. Her eyes followed the flicker of blue and white in the Honmoon to the stage.
“Everything in my mind.
“Show me just how to find inspiration;
“In all this devastation.
“Remind me how to see the light.
“Colours that seem to hide in the face of;
“All this broken chaos.”
The voice was rich, leathery, and smooth, a controlled belt from the chest of the woman on stage. Mira imagined she could see the concentration in the woman’s closed eyes and furrowed brow, if the stage lights weren’t hitting her from behind, shrouding her in a golden silhouette.
Every bar was effortless. Every note an odyssey.
Mira looked at Zoey. The girl was just as transfixed. More so than Mira, even. But then, Zoey’s attunement to the Honmoon was much stronger than Mira’s. Zoey often said the Honmoon kind of felt like the Ocean from Moana. Mira had never seen it so she had to take Zoey’s word for it.
The Honmoon rippled.
“I can’t see the light.
“Lost inside my mind.
“Sick of the pain;
“Erase my identity.”
The lights changed. The woman on the stage had a messy lilac braid that only stopped flowing just at her calves. Her black dress pants were obviously part of her uniform, and she’d opened the black button-up shirt to show the white crop underneath. Her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, held in place with plain hair ties.
And all over her body, her face, her arms—tattoos.
No, not tattoos.
Patterns.
“The blood is on my hands, my reflection;
“Lost inside the sea of my transgressions.
“No map, no guidance;
“On how to release.
“The hate I hold;
“Drags me down to the deep.”
Mira grabbed Zoey’s shoulder the moment the woman’s—the demon’s—patterns pulsed magenta. The crowd ate it up like some kind of trick of the light, swaying and dancing and joining in as the demon sang.
Her voice was enchanting like Mira had never felt before, and that was dangerous. This had to be some kind of demon trick. Was Bobby a demon too? Could demons even bartend as well as him?
Mira moved forward. Already her hand was reaching to the Honmoon for her gok-do, strumming the threads like instrument strings, but Zoey quickly latched onto her arm and tugged her back.
“What are you doing?!” she hissed.
“There’s a demon on stage! We have to kill it!”
“In front of all these people?”
Mira’s lip twitched. It wasn’t ideal, but the way the Honmoon reacted… What kind of demon could make the Honmoon churn like this?
“A demon’s a demon. We kill it.”
“But maybe she’s a nice demon?”
A nice demon? Zoey was lucky she was pleading with Mira and not Celine. Celine would never stand for such an idea.
“Demons are never nice!”
“Mira, I’m just saying…” Zoey gestured to the Honmoon, the ripples that only they could see, swaying happily around them and the demon as she continued singing.
“Lost inside my mind.
“Let the waters wash away.
“Sick of the pain.
“Erase my identity;
“In all this broken chaos.”
The guy who’d screamed his throat raw for hours had gotten a respectable applause. This glowing demon, warm brown eyes surveying the crowd, conjured thunder.
Mira’s hand twitched toward her gok-do again. Could this demon ensnare souls through music instead of directly feeding off of them? She couldn’t remember Celine telling them anything about a demon like that. Hundreds of years of knowledge passed down through generations of Hunters, and not one mention of a demon like this.
Was this a new kind of demon? Some trick put in the path of the incomplete group of Hunters by Gwi-ma?
The glow on the demon’s patterns faded. Mira saw Zoey dive into the crowd, and Mira’s hand shot out to catch her but missed, fingertips brushing the soft fabric of her hoodie. She had no choice but to follow through the throng of bodies.
“Zoey!” Mira hissed.
Mira could spot Zoey’s yellow bucket hat through the crowd thanks to her own superior height. She was headed toward the stage, drawn toward it like a moth to flame.
The demon sipped from a bottle of water that had been set on the stool on stage when she spotted Zoey rushing up. She pulled out a piece of paper from her work pants, eyes squinting in the changing lights to examine it. Her eyes seemed to flick between the paper and the two women encroaching closer to the stage, then she wiped her forehead with her arm, shoved the paper fragment back into her pocket and placed her mic on the stool with the water bottle.
Mira saw the demon approach the edge of the stage to intercept Zoey. Damn it! thought Mira. There were still too many people between her and Zoey! Zoey, slow down. She might know we’re on to her! Let me get to—
“Zoey, right?” the demon asked, crouching at the edge of the stage. Her voice was… warm? Kind? Kind but as though she had to make the effort for it. Mira shouldered her way through a large group rather than shimmy around. She couldn’t afford to lose time. Not when the demon was extending her hand. She could rip Zoey’s throat out!
But Zoey grabbed her hand and let the demon heft her onto the stage in an almost effortless motion. Zoey squeaked before her feet hit the stage. The demon smiled slightly, guardedly, and patted Zoey’s shoulder.
“Mic’s over there for you. I’m Rumi, by the way.”
“I’m Zoey! But, I guess, well—you already knew that and I’m just—”
“It’s okay. It’s nice to meet you Zoey.” Rumi’s polite bow was immediately followed by Zoey’s, much straighter and deeper than Rumi’s.
Mira finally arrived at the stage. The demon’s hand was awaiting her.
“Then you must be Mira,” she said coyly.
Mira looked at her hand, at all the jagged purple patterns laced into the demon’s pink flesh like brands. Everything, all the training she endured, made her want to swat it away or cut it off. A quick glance at Zoey, whose eyes pleaded with her not to, and Mira reluctantly grabbed hold.
Mira let Zoey get away with too much. She didn’t know what Zoey was up to, what she’d seen or wanted to see. But Mira did know that Zoey never insisted so much if she didn’t have a strong theory. The youngest wasn’t a fool.
She felt her legs tremble when she was pulled onto the stage. She’d never been lifted like that, so smooth and without so much as a grunt of exertion from the demon. The flex in the demon’s arm betrayed more muscle than Mira had first realized.
Stop admiring! This could be a trick by the demon!
“How do you know our names?” asked Mira suspiciously, hoping the ever-changing lights near the stage and the dancefloor kept the involuntary heat in her face concealed.
Rumi handed her a mic then fished out that same scrap of paper she’d been studying earlier. It depicted Mira and Zoey—or what Mira assumed to be herself and her partner—hastily drawn. Zoey had a bright smile and bucket hat, Mira had glasses and a scowl.
“The tall angry one is Mira, small happy one is Zoey,” said Rumi. “Bobby gave it to me. I’m Rumi.”
She bowed politely again. Mira bowed as well, hesitantly, and nowhere near as deep.
“So, ‘Game On!’, right?”
“Yeah,” said Mira, her mouth twitching into a scheming grin. “Game on.”
“I’ll be Ji-an!” volunteered Zoey, hopping up and down. “Mira, I think Celine’s parts might fit you best. Then that leaves Mi-yeong for you, Rumi!”
Mira saw the barest flicker of a glow rush across Rumi’s patterns, despite the agreeable smile she directed at Zoey. “Alright, Zoey.”
When the pink-haired woman tried to get Zoey’s attention and direct her to the patterns again, Zoey simply mouthed, “Trust me.”
The drummer counted them in.
Maybe this was what Mira needed. A confidence boost supplied by the generation of Hunters prior to herself and Zoey.
Maybe they’d get lucky and the demon would start singing the song and disintegrate back to Gwi-ma in that familiar poof of magenta smoke.
No such luck.
The moment they harmonized their first note, Mira was spellbound. She felt her chest swell like she was riding the very Honmoon itself. She didn’t even bother to check with Zoey. If Mira’s connection to the Honmoon made her feel like that, she could only imagine the high it took Zoey on. Every verse Ji-an had rapped was spit as though Zoey had written them herself. Mira felt the immediate connection to Celine, their mentor, when her verse came up. Every note, every move, Mira could picture Celine executing flawlessly and felt somewhere in the Honmoon that she was embodying her like she never had before. It was simultaneously exciting and frightening, and the crowd was electric, like everyone in Reflex had come alive in a way they had never dreamed.
And Rumi? Her voice rang with so much raw emotion Mira saw Zoey’s jaw hit the floor. Demons didn’t feel, that was the first thing Celine had taught them about those creatures. Was it some kind of elaborate lie on the demon’s part to make her question everything? Then they joined their voices back into the chorus, singing and dancing on stage like they had rehearsed together for years, with a demon whose voice sounded like she was trying to express something deep in her heart, like they were made to do it together.
Like Rumi was their missing piece.
When the thought crossed Mira’s mind her first instinct was to quash it, grind it into the dirt and set it on fire. But when she saw the crowd, saw the glow in their chests as they sang a song nearly thirty years old, saw the rippling Honmoon strengthen with the hope and unity their voices beckoned from them, she realized there could be no doubt.
A demon girl was the final piece of their puzzle.
No wonder Celine could never find her at auditions.
When the song ended the crowd erupted into chaos, hollering and whistling and screaming like they’d just seen the Sunlight Sisters reunite and perform. Mira imagined Reflex had never seen anything like this, and, well, neither had Mira. She and Zoey hadn’t performed in front of the public yet. As Mira focused on catching her breath it seemed the demon already had. She waved to the crowd, bowed, then directed the applause to go to the duo of Mira and Zoey with polite applause of her own.
Then she stepped off the stage and went right back to work in the kitchen.
Mira had to grab Zoey by the waist and wrestle with her to stop the younger girl from sprinting into the kitchen after the demon, though she did manage to wrangle her back to the bar from the stage. Their act was quickly replaced by the guy whose voice was definitely not ready to be back on stage.
Bobby whipped up a Sunlight Surprise and Roo’ra-Rum for them the moment they arrived at the counter.
“On the house,” he said, his already jovial smile beaming wide. “You girls weren’t kidding. You got some pipes.”
“We’ve been training!” exclaimed Zoey, drawn in once more by the straw on her drink as she plopped onto a barstool.
“Well, feel free to keep stopping by Reflex when you’re famous. Maybe I’ll get to name some drinks after you.” Bobby laughed, hopeful and keen.
Mira drank deeply of her cocktail (a balm after all the yelling and singing) and glanced at the door labelled “Employees Only”. “Speaking of pipes…”
“Rumi told me she trained a bit when she was little, but that’s all I know about it.” Bobby shrugged nonchalantly. “You guys though, together? Hoo boy!”
“When does she get off work?” asked Mira.
Bobby seemed a bit taken aback by her direct inquiry. He stammered, “U-Uh…”
“We just want to talk to her a bit, thank her for singing with us!” put in Zoey the moment she saw Bobby’s discomfort. “She ran off stage so quickly we couldn’t say anything.”
Bobby looked at them strangely, like he was measuring if they were worthy of holding a prized item in his collection. If anything, he was protective of Rumi. Mira’s thoughts went back to the demon. Did she ensorcel this man into doing her bidding, hiding her from the Hunters?
“She’s a private girl,” said Bobby straightforwardly, “and it’s not polite to give out someone’s schedule like that.”
Mira felt the need to push, to try to get Bobby on their side and help them. She saw it in Zoey’s eyes too, the way she perched on the barstool and leaned forward like she was considering jumping on him.
Mira didn’t do subtle, but they needed another way.
“That’s cool,” she said smoothly as she finished her drink. “Maybe we’ll catch her around here again sometime. But I think Zoey and I need to hit the road.”
“We do?!” Zoey’d head whipped around at Mira. If Mira had been a few more drinks deep she might have insisted Zoey’s bucket hat spun in place.
“Curfew. I made a promise to get you back by two, remember? We’ll be late as is.”
Zoey sighed. She slurped her drink up again, sadly but with speed. “Thanks Bobby.”
“I’ll see you around girls!” called Bobby as they left the nightclub.
The cool night air was a balm on Mira’s sweat-soaked skin. The heat and proximity in the nightclub was amazing, but the relief she felt after stepping out was greater still.
Zoey followed Mira sadly, head hanging and arms swaying dejectedly, until she noticed Mira taking a new path instead of the one back to the penthouse at the tower. Her head whipped up.
“Mira?”
“We’re not going home,” said Mira flatly.
Zoey blinked. “Uh… But what about Celine?”
“I’ll text her something important came up. Not like she knows where we are. She’s just gonna have to deal.” Mira pulled out her phone and began typing rapidly.
“So…” Zoey scurried closer to Mira, big brown eyes gazing into hers hopefully. “We’re waiting for Rumi?”
“... Yes.”
Zoey squealed and jumped. “I can’t believe we found her, Mira! We found her! At a nightclub! Did you see the way the Honmoon moved? Like the waves off Venice Beach—and her voice was like silk and melted chocolate! Like a Malteser!”
She didn’t know what a Malteser was, but Mira loved it when Zoey gushed to her. She hated that she had to bring her back to reality. “She’s got patterns, Zoey.”
“But she was so nice—!”
“And how do you think Celine will take it if we pull up with a demon?”
It did take the air out of Zoey’s sails, but only for a moment. Her eyes steeled. “Celine listens to the Honmoon. If the Honmoon says so, then who cares what Celine thinks when it’s going to help the Honmoon turn gold?”
Mira stared at the little spitfire that was Zoey. It wasn’t often she didn’t side with or at least try to mediate with Celine. Unexpected, but… Mira understood. They’d waited in vain for years for their third. Mira still wasn’t totally convinced the demon wasn’t a plant from Gwi-ma, but why would a demon be so overt about their patterns if they were supposed to go undercover? Demons could hide them using illusions. Hell, Mira and Zoey were ambushed by a pack of demons that poorly ran a food truck because their disguises were solid enough.
That demon wore her patterns like she didn’t care if they were seen.
“Rumi completes us,” said Zoey confidently. “It felt the same way when you and I started singing together, Mira. And the souls that ignited in those people?! There’s no denying what happened. Rumi might be a demon and she might have patterns that glow, but we connected.”
A plant from Gwi-ma couldn’t do that. Maybe. The more Mira thought about it, the questions tumbling around her mind like the drying cycle of a laundry machine, ricocheting off the inner walls of her mind, the less sense everything made.
She could be a new kind of demon (or an old kind that was rarely seen).
She could be a plant from Gwi-ma to shake the Hunters (or she was their missing piece).
She could be a Hunter with patterns.
And what did that mean?
How could Mira and Zoey even begin to broach the subject with Celine?
Mira led the way up a fire escape from across the street. They settled on a rooftop overlooking the building Reflex operated in. They had a few hours to kill before it shut down for the night, but because they didn’t know the demon’s schedule they’d have to keep a keen eye out for her at all times.
Mira felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and pulled it out.
Celine
The agreement was 2am Mira.
Mira scowled at her phone screen. Ordinarily she would just turn her phone off and deal with the consequences when they returned, but this was too important. She couldn’t risk Celine trying to hunt them down before they got to the bottom of the demon girl’s intentions.
Me
Ya, but it’s complicated.
We need to check it out
Celine
You have choreo rehearsals at 10am.
Me
I cant promise anything
Just trust us
Please
Mira’s lip twitched. She spent a long while looking at the dots that disappeared and reappeared from Celine’s side of the conversation with a grimace.
Celine
Be safe. Don’t take unnecessary risks.
She sighed, relief surging through her limbs. “We’re cleared for the stakeout,” she said.
Zoey beamed, eyes laser-focused on the building like a cat to a mouse. “Operation: Best Friends With Rumi is a go!”
“We are not calling it that.”
“Well Operation: A Little Light Stalking didn’t sound right.”
“Okay, the other one’s better than that, I admit.” Mira peered over the ledge. “Let’s just try not to spook her. The last thing we need is for her to disappear on us.”
“No weapons then,” said Zoey affirmatively. She looked over at Mira’s scowl and repeated, “No weapons.”
Mira sighed, but nodded her head in solemn agreement.
We’re gonna fucking die.