Page 9 of Light Leech

I don’t like the taste of teeth.

“You’re zegging me Boyband!” I ran to Kuni to check him over, though there was no damage to be seen. I glared at Boyband. “You didn’t actually feed him teeth, did you?”

Boyband shrugged. “He wanted to try it.”

“After you told me to taste them.”

“Shh.” Boyband’s laugh was nervous as he patted Kuni on the shoulder.

“He did something wrong then?” Kuni asked.

“He sure did!” Naoma bit back.

“Since when have you decided to act like a mom?”

“Zeg!” Boyband screeched as Kuni touched him with a webbed hand wrapped in eel’s skin.

Naoma laughed. “Did you shock him?”

Kuni nodded. “Want me to do it again?”

“Piss the zeg off!” Boyband backed away.

“Calm down, calm down.”

We turned to the new voice approaching.

Abbas.

I smiled. It felt good to count him among us again, despite some protests.

He stepped into our circle with arms akimbo. “I heard the end of it. What did you make the kid do?”

“Eat teeth.” Kuni said.

“No, no, no,” Boyband sighed. “Everyone take a second to breathe. You all listening now? Really? Petya? Idol? Pulse. He took a second to look at us, fighting a smile.

“Happy to see us, aren’t you?” I asked.

“Pissed that you called us back before our ‘week of rest’ ended.”

“It was one day. That doesn’t matter. Talk.”

“Okay, okay.” Boyband glared at Kuni and put his finger over his mouth to hush the kid. He turned back to the rest of us with a smile. “You know how a boy gets. Hungry. Tired. So I thought back to the advice Ral always gives me. Work smarter, not harder. Wait, where is–”

“She’ll be here soon, with Akna,” Abbas said. “On with it.”

Boyband held his hands up as if he had done nothing wrong. “So I got hungry. We were in the Blue, and I didn’t want to cause a scene, so I had him shock some du and he passed out for me to feed without problem.”

“Why not just coerce him?” Naoma asked. “Having him turn into an eel is hardly a less noticeable alternative.”

“I’ve… had some problems… with that.”

Naoma looked back at me. “You’ve been struggling to use your mod, right?”

“Really?” Boyband asked.

I nodded. “I’m still faster than I was before all this, but I can’t do much more. There’s a bug with my system. You too, Abbas?”