The Muse Gang

Chapter

five

He made us teleport to some strange realm which literally had nothing else except a door before us. Marshall swayed an arm towards the door, "Would you do the honours of opening the door... To life."

I raised a brow and nodded sarcastically, "You know I'm in pyjamas right?"

He sighed, shook his head and looked at me,"Now I know you certainly are crazy."

I frowned in confusion and looked down at my body to prove him darn blind.

However.... Hmm I just ended up proving myself wrong.

I was in a suit. A thick, black tux.

Okay magic was phenomenal.

I smiled, looked at him and replied, "Of course."

He returned the smirk as we faced the door. Putting my hand out, I pulled on the handle and opened it.

We immediately saw a large, swanky room. When I say swanky, I mean swanky!

Like expensive and fashionable to the core. They even had a swimming pool in it.

Clearly expensive, curled sofa, classic dining set, fur rug, shiny mirror tiles, enormous space.

#Beauty as breakfast#

I walked in after my muse and found six others seated on the chaise lounge at the side of the room.

They all turned and faced Marshall as we approached them.

Marshall declared, "Hey everyone! Meet Edward Hanson, my host!"

I gawked at them and whispered to my muse, "They can see you."

"Of course they can see me you dwid, "he shouted, "three are muses to the other three humans."

I observed the six carefully. All looked under teen except one, a built middle-aged man.

He was a muse. I laughed inside. In the midst of crazy, naughty youths like us, he may get worked up soon.

The youths were three females and two males. A male and a female were muses. The remaining two females and last male were humans.

I walked closer and slumped down on one of the chaise lounges, smiling awkwardly at them, "Hi everyone."

The middle-aged man replied first, "This introduction is not reciprocal. Edward, I am Ferdinand, call me Fred you like. I'm the non-chalant muse."

That looked pretty clear to me. He was so calm I felt he could comfortably text his wife in the belly of an anaconda.

And then I remembered what Marshall had said. He was the fierce muse. He looked nothing like fierce.

Then the blonde spoke, "I'm Jessica, his host."

I nodded and smiled at their combination. From previous explanations from Marshall, a muse chose his host based on lacked attributes. So Jessica, the blonde should be a hyperactive person; if her muse was calm. A black haired guy beside her folded his arms and raised his brows happily, "I'm Clinton, the cheeky one. Edna's my host."

The prim girl at my side muttered, "Hi. I'm Edna."

I nodded again. She was cute. So this Edna girl was an innocent girl without a taste or knowledge of this world's prurient nature.

I intentionally swayed my gaze to my back and eyed the hot, female muse so she could speak.

And so she did, "I'm Kella, the smart one. Anthony's my host."

I raised an arm in a wave. No offence, just to ask.

Did that mean this last guy, Anthony was dumb or....?

Marshall chuckled at my thoughts. Reading my mind? That was some serious sort of privacy invasion.

Anthony automatically understood and defended, "I'm not foolish. I don't just know anything..... social wise," Kella frowned at him and made him add "And maybe academically too."

I snickered and nodded approvingly, "Nice! Fred, Jessica, Clinton, Edna, Kella and Tony, those will stay up here."

Fred eyed me and sighed cheerfully, "Now that that's over, let's go straight to business. Edward I suppose Marshall here has told you everything."

"Uhmm, no," I shrugged, "Except a mission of finding an idol and the fact that human flesh is needed to hold the idol."

He glared at my muse and folded his arms over his chest, "How irresponsible of you Marshall."

Marshall faked an apologetic face and scratched his neck, "Sorry Fred, we never really had time to talk."

From the way things were going, this Fred guy looked like the leader of our clan. Well, he was the oldest after all.

I raised an arm and asked curiously, "Would this mission involve my leaving home and not having time for school?"

Marshall waved an arm and chuckled, "Yup. A hell lot. But we've got you covered."

He somehow mistook my intentions. I actually wished for that to happen. Like who cares about school?

I smiled at my nerdy nature and was finally proud of it. Would I have met this amazing gang otherwise?

"Is there anything I need to know?" I inquired.

Fred pitched in again, "Well I will leave that to the muse of knowledge."

Kella sighed and walked around to me. Standing by the side of the others, she began,

"We are humans who left life because of unfortunate reasons. The ones with incomplete tasks in their lives become muses to humans and use their bodies as abodes to complete what we left half." She seemed to pause knowingly, seeing I was taking time to process all she had been saying.

After half a minute, I motioned for her to continue.

She went on, "Our qualities now are those of our previously living selves. Normally, the fact of using human hosts for our advantage automatically makes us their helpers and protectors in return," she stopped again and glanced at her fellow

muses.

My instincts immediately concluded she was about to say something unpleasant.

Kella steadied her words, "However, some of us do not wish to serve humans for the rest of their afterlife. They want to go back to life. So they took the muse idol for that purpose. We call it Kuma."

The respect in her tone at the point of the idol's name was inevitably noticeable. He could actually make any wish true.

I watched her move those hot lips, "They need a lot of human blood to satisfy this idol inorder to get their wish granted. So they try as much as possible to steal human blood when you guys bleed so they could fill Kuma. We call them the fallen. The mission is to stop them before they do that. Because if the idol grants any wish, it is destroyed. With the muse idol destroyed, the muses left will go too, including the fallen. Unfortunately they do not believe it. The fallen think the end of the muse realm by Kuma is some kinda myth. Now, we have to find that idol before they find enough blood."

Immediately, I remembered the disappearance of Philip's blood at school. It now all made sense. The fallen must have taken it.

"I think I have had a little rendezvous with the fallen before. A friend is school had his blood mysteriously stolen as quickly as I can say stupid. Or even less. While no one was looking, the blood disappeared." Edna gasped, "Well that's bad because it just lowers the amount of fluid they need."

Her muse added, "Exactly..... And that means we've got no time."

I nodded in acceptance, "So how are we going to find such an idol?"

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I expected Kella, but Marshall answered, "We have a lot and lot of meetings with different people because the fallen would not just stay anywhere when they are aware muses are aiming for their asses." "Why can you guys hold every other thing except this idol? Like it just sinks through you." I gave Fred a confused frown.

Fred swayed his head and looked at me with eyes so tired you would feel it took a lot of stress for him to do that, "That's because it's Kuma, the muse idol. We are not permitted to touch it or take it because we are not allowed to wish for anything. Any wish from the idol renders it destroyed and it's our base. If it goes down, we all do."

Truly, I did not want Marshall to leave. I mean he had been so helpful. I do not need my hands to eat. Food just flies into my mouth. I can get an A+ in lab science while being away from school and I stay away from Victor and his trouble. I'm respected.

I truly needed to help out, "For the fallen to have stolen Kuma, they should own hosts. Can we trace them? Is there any sign we hosts have?"

"Great thinking, "Clinton admitted, "yes. Check your wrist."

I looked down at my right wrist and found a circle with a pattern of lines that filled it up. It seemed to speak a language, "What about you muses? What sign are we looking for in the fallen?"

Just then, the four muses looked at each other and slowly took their hands to cover their faces.

Two seconds later, they lowered them smoothly. It was beautiful!

The right halves of their faces had this tiger-like stripes that made me want to be a muse.

Marshall pouted and snickered, "This.... Is our identity."

"Yup, "Kella interjected, "the fallen have this on their left half. That happens when a muse disobeys and touches Kuma."

Anthony nodded excitedly and gave this attitude as if he had been left out for a long time and wished to say even the smallest bit of nonsense, "That's good so.... This means we should look out for them Orr..."

"No! Hug them you dweed," Marshall snarled, "That was what Edward just said. Of course we'll look out for them!"

Fred, as usual concurred calmly, "That's all you can do for now on your own. The kids and I will have a search tomorrow. We'll tell you what we find."

Hey! We all glared at him. Not because he was all forty-ish and experienced he would swoop it up and toss it to our faces like poop.

He corrected himself, "The four of us."

I smiled inside. I felt... professional. Like a detective or something. A muse gang, last thing I expected to be in. Finding an idol called Kuma. Ptsss!

I still had an itsy bitsy question though, "If I am a host, how come I did not see the fallen when they were at my school?"

Marshall slipped his hands into his pockets like he always did and gave that charming smile of his, "That's cos I just started helping you then. We did not yet have this muse host thing."

"So when did you become my muse?"

"That second you set your eyes on me. That is how it is. Don't worry about the mark, you got that today. You are now officially a member of the muse gang now Edward. Congratulations." I grinned at everybody, "Thanks."