BLUE VENOM

Eleven - Joon's Underground Manor

"So why does the third brother live in your house?", I asked Joon, the second the tall ink haired one left through the door.

Joon grinned, arms under his head. "He's obsessed with me. Big hero complex. Plus, he manages my stuff. He doesn't look it but the boy is smart. His brothers are more muscle than brain. Don't worry, I've said this to all of their faces." He yawned and rolled around on the rug, dropping onto his stomach. "I consider Zack my best friend. But don't tell him I said that.

Please, sit somewhere. You're making me nervous." He laughed and I walked over to a big couch and sank down into the soft posters.

"Your house is nice."

"I chose this for the great views", he joked. This room didn't have any windows. All light fell in from two massive chandeliers.

"So", said Joon. "I'll show you your room in a second and we rest. First thing in the morning we'll go to the palace and I will agree on the terms to go to the Syrens Site with our king. He'll want to know when someone crosses the boarder into peace treaty. Then we can go save your friends. As of now, any questions?"

"Who was the guy I saw with the Syrens? You know it, right?"

He made a face. "You're an inquisitive one, aren't you? Well, I suspect you met their eldest primce, Jain Effrain Silverkor. But if that's so, if they actually send Mr. Better-than-thou out into the Glimmers, then this really means their world is going down"

"Wouldn't that be a good thing?" They hadn't seemed like the nicest of people to me.

Joon laughed. "Trust me, on a personal level? I say forget all the Syren. They are arrogant know-it-alls. But believe me when I say you do not want them gone from Irine. They keep most of the big baddies here in check."

"Do that means if their race goes down...'

"The rest of us most likely will, as well. They have the strongest warriors, the mist noble knights and so on. Although, if their royal family really is dying, then I suspect they are already coming the planet for a cure. Their kind is sly and ambitious. They find their way out of things. I'm just worried what this might mean for everybody else."

•

Joon showed me up to the guest room that I would be staying in. The halls in this house where massive and white. The room itself was spacious, with a Baldachin bed with lavender colored silky covers and two windows that went out over the canal. Dots of orange and yellow light strayed in from outside, the dark water shimmering in the artificial day.

"How does this work? Nighttime", I asked Joon.

"Once it gets dark outside they'll dim the lights and shut them off at midnight. That would be in two hours.", Joon said.

He pointed at a clock above the winged doors. The white stone face of the clock had multiple numbers on it. "The white one is Syren time. Black pointers shoe our time here in the back lands. The grey one is for the lands of Orion. It's where some of the big baddies live that I've mentioned before. Good to keep an eye on them. They are our other next door neighbors once you stroll down east. There are more timezones, of course, but these are the standard focus for our kind. You can come down for dinner in an hour. It's across the salon. Pretty hard to miss."

He left and I looked around the dimly lit room in it's sandy stone colors. The floor was laid out in mosaics and showed beautiful landscapes and unfamiliar animals.

I walked over to the secretary and pulled open a drawer. Pens and empty papers. I didn't think Joon would mind. So I got out a piece of charcoal like pen and one of the thick, rough edged papers. They had a yellow hue, like old Pergament. They smelled of old book and dust.

So I sat down and began a sketch of every important seeming Syren I had seen. For the remaining one hours before the midnight dinner. Who knew what Joon could tell me about them.