“What the fuck was that, Peyton?” Shay snarled. “Do we have a perimeter breach? Just what I fucking needed.”
Peyton glanced up from his computer, confused. “No, no, no. Any perimeter breaches would also trip an alarm on your phone. It’s a job alert. I added the sound the other day because I was getting bored with the old one.”
Shay rolled her eyes. “So, what…a foghorn to announce someone’s willing to pay me two thousand yen to recover the Yata no Kagami or something?”
“Nope. It’s a good job. Two million. Um…” Peyton’s face twitched, and he looked away. “They specifically asked for you. Well, you know…Aletheia, and they claim that only someone with your abilities can pull it off.”
“Two million sounds good, so what’s the job?”
“Um, that’s the thing…” Peyton let out a nervous chuckle. “It’s unusual, but it’s straightforward.”
“Spit it the fuck out already.”
“Demonic chicken.” He shrugged.
Shay blinked. “Demonic chicken?”
Lily laughed.
Peyton nodded. “Yeah, there’s a hill, Alcock’s Arbour in Warwickshire. It’s got a ton of supernatural legends associated with it, but it also has a legend of a demonic chicken that’s guarding a treasure there. Some people claim a highwayman who was buried in the hill used magic to make sure his greatest treasures would never be taken.”
“And this guy summoned…a chicken from hell?”
“Yeah.” Peyton shrugged. “Or maybe he summoned a demon, and it possessed a local chicken. Can’t be sure.”
Shay stared at Peyton, not believing a single thing she’d heard. “What’s it guarding? A magic egg?”
“Um, yeah, actually. It’s a magical golden egg, though. It’s supposed to have some sort of purification magic.”
“Bet it makes a great omelet,” Lily suggested.
Shay scrubbed her face with a hand before taking a deep breath, then slowly let it out. “And have people gone after this demonic chicken?”
“A tomb raider went into the area a few years back. They only found scraps of his clothes and a few fingers.”
Lily winced. “Gross.”
Peyton shrugged. “Maybe the chicken’s just looking for a little KFC revenge. The thing is, the chicken doesn’t always appear. There’s some sort of pattern or something. I don’t know what it is, and my research says it’s appeared for centuries. What I have been able to confirm is that once someone sees the chicken it’ll remain for a few days, and the small door that leads to its treasure is only visible for those days. It used to be years or decades between appearances, but it’s been showing up much more often in the last twenty years.”
Shay nodded. “Maybe that sweet, sweet Oriceran magical energy flowing back to Earth is empowering it somehow. Assuming we buy the existence of a demonic chicken.”
Lily moved behind Peyton and looked at a blurry picture of a gigantic chicken surrounded by a translucent scarlet nimbus. “I have to say, I never thought the first demon I saw would be a chicken. Do you think demon chickens still taste like chicken?” She snickered. “Probably too spicy.”
“You think demons taste spicy?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Shay just continued to stare at Peyton not bothering to wipe the disbelief from her face.
He held up his hands in front of him. “I swear it’s real. I’ve found multiple images of it from different times. The legend is real, and there definitely seems to be something there. I’ve also found a correlated increase in unexplained deaths associated with appearances of the demonic chicken. So far, no one’s been able to get past the chicken, so no one’s been able to claim the treasure. It’s just waiting for Shay Carson to come and chop its head off.”
Shay shook her head. “I can’t believe we’re sitting around discussing demonic chickens. This is bizarre, even for us.”
Lily laughed. “An English demonic chicken.”
“Is that better or worse?”
“Probably more polite than an American demonic chicken.” The teen shrugged. “Or at least a French demonic chicken.”
Peyton groaned and slumped down in his chair. “It’s real.”
Shay rolled her eyes. “Stop whining, Peyton. I believe you.”
He sat up. “You do?”
“Not like there’s not a lot of weird stuff out there, so big surprise. Makes me think of that elf in Mexico. I mean, say you’re some asshole demon, and you make it to Earth. If you’re lucky, you get an Oriceran or a human, but what if you’re not? What if the only thing you can find to possess is a chicken? Sucks to be you. No wonder the chicken is killing people.”
Peyton nodded. “You can do a lecture later about the threat of dangerous ancient poultry. The risks of chicken going bad and all that. Win-win.”
Shay shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but let the client know I’ll take the job. I’ll get past his demonic chicken and get his golden egg.”
Lily clasped her hand together, her eyes pleading. “Please take me. I have to go on a job where we take on a demonic chicken. I have to see this thing with my own eyes.”
“No.”
“No?” The teen blinked, and even Peyton looked surprised. “You want me to stay here with Captain Fashion?”
Peyton snorted and tugged at the collar of his pastel jacket. “When you’re older you’ll learn to appreciate the subtle genius of my outfits. Each is selected with purpose and great forethought. They are a type of sartorial art.”
“Maybe they are selected with the help of a little color blindness?”
“Quiet, you.”
Lily grinned. The grin vanished, however, when she turned back to Shay. “Why can’t I come?”
“Because after what happened with the 25K Group, you need to lie low, and you also need to learn a few things from Peyton about what goes into a good tomb raid.”
Lily sighed. “Okay, makes sense. I’ll try to not be distracted by the horrible fashion atrocities committed here on a daily basis.”
Peyton rolled his eyes. “The younger generation never appreciates the wisdom of their elders.”
“You’re not that much older than me.”
“I’m old enough.”
Shay chuckled. “Here’s the thing—you need some practice, too, Peyton.”
“Huh? Practice at what?” He frowned. “I refuse to change my fashion sense.”
Shay rolled
