"Where's my plastic, Lexie?"
He gave her a patient but strict stare. Simi had been nothing more than a very small child nine thousand years ago when Acheron had brought him here to live. One of the duties Acheron had assigned to him was to help watch over her and to keep her out of trouble.
Yeah. That was next to impossible.
Not to mention, he was every bit as guilty of spoiling her as Acheron was. Like his boss, he couldn't seem to help himself. There was something innately compelling, endearing, and ultimately sweet about the demon. Something that made him love her like a daughter. In all the worlds, she and Acheron were the only two things that still made him feel any human emotion. He loved them both and he would die to protect them.
But as her "other" father, he knew he owed it to Simi and to the world to try and teach her some restraint.
"You don't need to buy anything else, Simi."
Her singsongy response was quick and automatic. "Yes I do."
"No," he insisted. "You don't. You already have more than enough baubles to keep you occupied."
She pouted at him while her eyes flamed red and her tail flicked around. "Gimme my plastic, Lexie. Now!"
"No."
She wailed, then spun around toward Acheron and flew to his throne. Suddenly QVC appeared on his monitors.
"Simi..." Acheron said. "I was watching something."
"Oh, pooh, it's a stupid cartoon. The Simi wants her Diamonique, akri, and she wants it now!"
Acheron passed an exasperated look toward Alexion. "Give her the credit cards."
Alexion glared at him. "She's so spoiled, she's rotten. She must learn to control her impulses."
Acheron cocked a brow at him. "And how long have you been trying to teach her restraint, Alexion?"
That didn't bear commenting on. There were some things in life that were indeed futile. But immortality was boring enough. Trying to control Simi often added a lot of spark to it. "I finally got her to sit in front of the television quietly... Sort of."
Acheron rolled his eyes. "Yeah, after five thousand years of trying. She's a demon, Lex. Restraint isn't in her makeup."
Before Alexion could argue, the box where he kept Simi's credit cards appeared in the air before her.
"Ha!" Simi said to him in a delighted tone before she seized the box and rocked with it in her arms. Her happiness died as she realized it was locked. She pinned Alexion with a menacing glare. "Open it."
Before he could refuse, it popped open.
"Thank you, akri!" Simi shouted as she grabbed her cards, then fluttered away and headed for her cell phone.
Alexion made a sound of disgust at Acheron as the box vanished. "I can't believe you just did that."
The monitors returned to the cartoon. Acheron didn't say anything as he reached down to feed his black guitar pick to the tiny pterygsauras that was perched on the arm of his throne. The small, orange dragonlike creature chirped before it swallowed the plastic whole. Alexion wasn't sure where the pterygsauri came from. For the last nine thousand years, there had always been six of them here in the throne room.
Alexion still wasn't sure if they were the same six or not. All he knew for certain was that Acheron loved and pampered his pets and as the Alexion, he did too.
Acheron patted the creature's scaly head as it preened and sang happily, then looked back down at his guitar.
"I know why you're here, Alexion," he said, as another pick appeared in his hand. He strummed a melodious chord. "The answer is no."
Alexion feigned a frown he didn't feel. "Why?"
"Because you can't help them. Kyros made his choices long ago and now he has to-"
"Bullshit!"