26. Hunting Demons
Hunting Demons
T he demon hunt was always going to happen eventually.
The demonstration at Central and resulting meetings had delayed it for a few weeks, but Culis wouldn’t wait forever. Regardless of whatever he thought about his father, there was no doubt that Frank’s visit had reinvigorated Culis’s barely restrained appetite to commence the venture. The very day after Frank left, Culis began to assemble his “hunting party”.
Over the next few days, a number of strangers arrived at the manor, responding to summons that had been sent out by Culis’s envoys. Within the week, Mila found herself setting out along the commercial road to the north with two travelling carts, eight horses, ten hand-picked Artor Trading Company members, and a very happy Christopher Culis.
They were heading to the Highlands.
Mila had been highly conflicted about starting their venture in her homeland, but her options had been limited. The ikarei kept their identities notoriously secret, even from one another, and ultimately, it was the only place where she knew for certain at least one demon lived. Her old mentor, Natalee.
In some ways, she was looking forward to seeing her, but mostly, Mila just felt fearful and conflicted about the decision she’d made to bring Culis and the hunting party directly to the doorstep of the woman she owed her life to.
She watched her fellow travellers warily as they trundled down the road, scrutinising each of them with her power, trying to determine whether they were good people or not.
One of them she recognised instantly as Baird, who, the minute they were out of the manor gates, pulled his horse up alongside the cart she sat in and swung himself inside, making himself comfortable amongst the rucksacks. He smiled at her with a familiarity she had not expected.
“Baird,” he said, reintroducing himself with a thick hand extended in greeting.
“I recall,” she replied, taking it in her own. Despite her discomfort with the situation, his steady and inoffensive energy put her immediately at ease, as did the way he spent the next few hours chatting to her about his background.
“I’ve been with the Artor Trading Company for nearly two decades but came under the arm of Master Culis here about ten years into that.”
“How did that come about?”
Baird winced a little at the memory. “We stumbled across some islands unexpectedly.”
“And?” Mila prompted when it became evident Baird wasn’t about to freely offer more of the story.
“I’ll just say this. Before we arrived, Artor had no name for them. After we left, they were forever referred to as ‘The Cannibal Islands’. ”
Mila joined him in the wince. “I see.”
“It was eventful,” Culis contributed as he rode past them toward the front of the procession, his tall grey mare eager to lead.
Baird explained that he worked for Culis primarily as a mediator, negotiator and translator. He spoke over twenty languages and was readily accustomed to meeting people of all different backgrounds and customs. Mila could see why he’d be an effective mediator. He was both immediately likeable and naturally exuded a calming energy. She found herself sharing far more about her life with him during that journey than she’d ever intended to share with anyone from this household. The considered way he listened made her feel as though he was unlikely to report it all immediately back to Culis. Which, of course, was part of his charm. She knew he would.
The other recognisable member of the band was the self-ageing demon from the demonstration at Central, who had chosen to look distinctly middle-aged for this trip. After a few hours, he, too, came over to the cart and introduced himself, riding his roan mare alongside them.
“Arran Scarfone,” he said with a slight nod. “An' I’m sorry for the uuhh…exposure. I 'ad to be revolting. It were the only thing I could think ter convince all o’ Central that I weren’t a plant.”
“Well, it worked,” Mila replied. “But I’m more surprised to find a demon already secretly working for Culis. How did you meet?”
“I weren’t born in Artor,” the broad-shouldered man replied with a thick accent that had not been present during the demonstration at Central. “T’was born in Keras. You’ve probably never 'eard of 'er. She’s a cold 'n icy nation. Lies three seas south from Artor. Wouldn’t recommend. Anyway…well, Midas’s lot ain’t spread to tha' part of the world yet, so those like us – ” he gestured his hand between Mila and himself, “ – y’know, with horns and powers, we’re known as zoi. Down there. An’ there ain’t many of us, so some brigh’ spark a few hundred years ago decided tha' we were children of gods and should automatically reign in positions of nobility.”
“Precisely what the Church warns us that demons want to achieve in Artor,” Baird observed, but he said it without judgement…more like confirmation.
“Well, I reckon is all a load of crock,” Arran objected. “I can change the appearance of my age at will. So what? Does tha’ make me a wiser leader or a skilled commander? Nah. But plenty of the zoi reckon it does, and tha’ 'as led to corruption and incompetence in every facet of society of Keras. I was a terrible general. I’m no leader, an’ I’m certainly no fighter.”
“No, you’re a skulker, through and through,” Baird interrupted again with a laugh. “If there’s a shadow in a room, Scarfone will find it and lurk in it.”
Arran tried to ignore him, but couldn’t quite contain the wry, proud smile that spilled over at Baird’s words. “When Culis’s expedition arrived, ’e offered me a new job, doin’ a different type of work for 'im. I accepted.”
“Did you know you were coming to a country where you would be persecuted rather than worshipped?” Mila challenged, unable to quite believe it.
“Threat o’ death is far more real in Artor, for sure. But I felt more persecuted in Keras, where I couldn’ live the life I wanted. Persecution of a different kind, y’know? In this life, here, I can now do as I please.”
“It would help me a lot if you could share that story with the ikarei we meet during this trip,” Mila stated. “It would be compelling, I think, to see how satisfied you are working for a master you respect. It would help me convince them to relinquish their freedom.”
Arran shook his head slowly at her words. “Nah. No can do. No one but these few souls in this group can know what I am. If word spreads, I’d lose every advantage I give Master Culis’s work.”
Mila was disappointed, but she understood. She was also fascinated that Arran Scarfone and the nation of Keras even existed. It had been just a few short weeks in Culis’s house, and already her idea of the world had widened dramatically. She’d never known there were places one could go outside of Artor where it might be safe for ikarei. No one ever spoke of such lands, and the Church had certainly never encouraged it.
Her mind was opening…and a tiny whisper of hope had been planted inside her.
Before there had been no point trying to get this necklace off and escape. Where would she have gone? But now…now that she knew that she could flee to somewhere like Keras, away from Artor and the Church, there was actually a legitimate reason to try.
A tap on the side of the cart pulled Mila from her thoughts. She turned her head to find a muscular woman with a broad face and a thick blonde braid now riding alongside.
“Any chance the rest of us are going to get a chance to rest our horses, Bairdy? Or you just gonna hog the demon lady all day?”
Baird laughed and abandoned his place in the cart, riding off alongside Arran while the blonde woman made herself comfortable and began to accost Mila with a barrage of questions.
It was along this vein that the rest of the day unfolded. The hunting party took turns getting to know her, as though it were equally as important for them to understand their new travelling companion as it was for her.
The three women – Nemecca, Lyria and Philomena – were all very different to her, and quite different from one another. Nemecca was a tall blonde who moved with an unapologetic, forthright energy. Mila instantly liked her because her energy matched her presentation to the world almost exactly – a rare phenomenon in her experience.
Lyria, on the other hand, was short and dark-haired with the physique of a gymnast and emitted a very calm and controlled energy. Her questions to Mila had been about her family and upbringing more so than her adult life. When she left, Mila had the distinct feeling she’d just been interrogated and figured that Lyria and Arran probably worked closely with one another. She was also now certain that, for all his complaints about spies in his household, Culis definitely had his own spy network.
Philomena was the wife of Baird and had grown up in the Highlands before her devout father had moved them to Jeralusah to be closer to the God-King. She was the most religious of the three women, and while she managed to be friendly and make polite conversation, her visit to Mila’s cart was decidedly shorter than the others’ had been.
The remaining men – Bruce, Odin, Corbyn, Black Berran and Dabriel – each had their turn too. In their own ways they were all kind to her, although varied in their degrees of comfort and self-consciousness.
Mila noted with interest that, despite their differences, there were two common energies that existed between each member of the band. The first was a distinct sense of openness. It was obviously an asset as a professional adventurer to be curious and open about one’s surroundings and, in this, Culis had recruited these people well. The other commonality she sensed was a hardness, a near-to-surface capacity for ruthlessness. The Artor Trading Company was an infamous brand, and it was not because they were all friendly faces and unending kindness. Mila knew that every person in this group was a lurking threat, deadly if required to be, and yet, despite identifying this, she found herself feeling far more at ease amongst them than she had amongst the rest of the manor staff. The entire hunting party bickered together with the good-natured ease of a group who worked together often and trusted one another implicitly. No spies in this group, she realised. That was the difference for Culis. None but his own.
Culis himself was the only one who spoke very little to her that day. He watched on with approval as his little band of demon hunters each took their turn sizing up Mila. He bantered with her occasionally from afar, but did not come and sit with her in the cart.
She didn’t dwell on why and focused instead on how different her circumstances were now, compared to the last time she had been on this road. Just four months ago, she’d been chained in a windowless jail, being transported from her home to Jeralusah for sacrifice. Now, she sat freely in billowing traveller’s robes, and from the bouncing cart, she was able to take in her surroundings. She noted with pleasure the way the grass in the fields changed shade and the flat land became hillier as they approached her homeland. By nightfall on the second day, it was apparent that they had truly entered the north. The last Jeralusan-style farmstead hadn’t been seen since early that morning, and since then, they’d passed nothing that looked remotely occupied. The most notable change to their scenery, however, was the mountainous plateau of the Highlands. It had started off as a shadow in the distance, but as they drew closer, it loomed steeply above them, like an enormous fortification.
It was an enchanting and alien sight for most. The hot misty haze of the rainforest spilled from the top and over the edge of the rocky cliff face. It dribbled down towards the plains below like an eerie waterfall that never quite touched the bottom. As night fell, the cries of monkeys and other creatures could be heard echoing down unnervingly into their campsite .
The uncomfortable sensation of being watched by a million pairs of eyes from above was palpable.
Outwardly, the hunting party appeared to be unaffected by this, but Mila could sense their unease, and each of them, in their own way, solidified themselves against the new environment. To her surprise, they seemed particularly protective of her, although she was ostensibly the last member of the group who would be fearful of the Highland wilderness that lay ahead.
When they sat around the campfire on that second night, Black Berran ensured that Mila received the first cut of meat from the deer that Philomena had hunted, and when Nemecca pulled out her guitar to sing, she taught Mila the words to the chorus so that she could join in with the group.
She wasn’t sure if the small kindnesses came from a recognition that she would be their guide through the imposing landscape ahead in the next few days, or perhaps a belief that she might truly be frightened by the sight of it. Either way, it lifted her spirits, and that night, when she readied her bedroll, she realised just how accustomed she’d become to loneliness in her life. These people weren’t doing more for her than the bare minimum of kindness and decency, but it still made her feel lighter and happier than she’d felt in years.
The added joy came from the fact that they knew she was a demon and were still prepared to embrace her anyway. With every kindness and gesture of acceptance from the hunting party, the invisible yoke of fear of exposure that she’d carried since age fourteen had slowly begun to lift. She hadn’t even noticed the departure of that weight until this moment.
She lay still in the wet, dewy grass and gazed up at the clear stars, enjoying them in a way she’d never been able to in the Highlands, due to the ever-present cover of the canopy .
It was peaceful. She felt at peace.
It was a new feeling for her, so she explored it a little, realising that something in what she was experiencing now might be the key to convincing other ikarei to submit to servitude.
What an interesting thought.
She dissected it further.
By being exposed like this, by openly serving Culis as his demon, there was no need to hide who she was anymore. She could be herself.
The Church already knew where she was and what she was. Everyone in Jeralusah knew. There was nothing left to hide. In Culis’s employ, everyone she ever came across would know who and what she was, and they could accept or reject her according to their beliefs. She would never have to be anything other than herself ever again.
It was a life-changing realisation.
As she lay there in the grass, silent tears brimming in her eyes, for the first time since she’d agreed to help Culis, she felt truly as though she’d made the right decision.