It immediately occurred to Briony that Danny-boy had picked away at a certain something in Bubbles when she said that, but she agreed with her, so she didn’t bother jolting her back to the demon’s here-and-now by grabbing her hand. Not yet, anyway. But she still gave her a side-long glance. The little Fear thought that maybe she had maybe she had been going to the church for too long to have that reaction to their pastor, but then she did listen to what he was saying even when he was deliberately talking rubbish and thought his opinion was pretty important. He knew stuff. So did Bubbles, but then Bubbles had never told her about hammers and chisels and pliers… Tugging the ears on her bunny, Briony craned her neck to see, frowned in thought, then nodded. “A few. That one over there once brought a gutted cat to mass and no one said anything,” she grinned with a covert point at the demon who wasn’t even bothering to hide his horns. “I think he’s kinda ‘special’.” There was a demonic yellow bus somewhere and he fell out of it on the church doorstep.
Oh, oh; that reminded her. “Airla did a silent one. It was weird. I was kinda waiting for bats to fly out of her mouth or something.” She laughed at the idea of a squirrel ripping someone’s throat out, then quickly sucked in her cheeks and clamped a hand over her mouth before either of her parents noticed. “I wanna tear someone’ throat out with my own teeth,” she chirped through her fingers, then quickly blinked around her to see if they’d heard. Nope. Hah. “After.” Briony’s hand dropped and she pouted slightly. “Got to miss my nap.” Which meant an earlier bedtime. That wasn’t funny, and she had said so, but it was an argument she’d had to lose if she wanted to break the head-doctor. “Airla’s room’s full of electric toys,” she started, eyes shining. There was nothing better to torment Rachel with than a truckload of her dead daughter’s toys animating themselves and running riot around the house. “I want it. Don’t think they’ll give it me, though.” She pressed her lips together in annoyance. Stupid mortals. Didn’t understand anything important. Not what was really, really important, anyway. “Daniel?” Briony gave a snort of amusement. “He always does. Look—”
“Careful, honey.” She just blinked at Rachel Fells’ automatic move to stop her from falling off the pew-bench-thing and pointed at the nearest Bible. Then kept pointing until she had both the Bible and a hymn book. Rachel wasn’t paying any kind of real attention; maternal instincts just seemed to beat Daniel’s influence every time. Which was funny, given what she was feeling protective over.
“Look, it’s all done wrong.” She flicked through the pages, tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth until she found what she was looking for. Deuteronomy 31:6. “Be not strong, courageous, or firm; fear and be in terror before them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you; He will fail you and forsake you. – Sound right?” She gave an amused hum and then prodded at a funny typo on one page and a weird smudge of ink on another. “Funniest part is when you say it somewhere else and the holies still don’t notice. I don’t sing the hymns. The tune, maybe… I pick the words from different songs. Bugs the holies.” It was bugging her that her tail wouldn’t stay where she’d put it, and her face fell into a hard glare while she tried to push it back up the leg of her shorts.