3. The Demons
THE DEMONS
Seraphina
It’s always warm on this side of Trutina, never humid, just right. But as I hide in plain sight, waiting, the air settles over my body like a thin sheet of ice, seeping into my bones and chilling me to the core.
Is this a stupid idea?
Like the time you sneaked out of your turret because your half-brother looked sad was a stupid idea?
Yes.
Worse.
Is it really though? What if the girl isn’t completely mad? What if the demon men she spoke about work for the Sisters? I suck in a breath. What if they are the Sisters? No one I have ever been able to find has actually seen any of them to confirm they are female.
Oh, well, in that case… Still the stupidest idea you’ve ever had.
Slumping and tipping my head back against the wall, I watch the sky, missing Katana's reassuring weight.
The one and only time I’ve encountered those with demon blood, they carved the wings from my back.
Life had not been easy up to that point. I was familiar with pain, but I’d never felt pain like that.
I still feel the phantom burn of it during the night tremors regularly, like being cut by a scalpel that’s been stored inside a fire pit.
Perhaps I should pull the nephilim girl out of her hiding spot, take my blade back and march her to the academy.
I told her to climb into the next dumpster down, between the one that conceals me, and the one that my mark’s lifeless corpse is bleeding out in, at the furthest end where the shadows are thickest.
Another shiver rolls down my spine. The shirt is so thin, and my legs are bare. I tug the material over my knees and pull them into my chest so tightly the journal digs into my abs.
I told the girl to wait until they take me. Then to wait a few minutes more, to be sure. She looked so scared as she climbed inside the dumpster to hide amongst the pungent odor of rotting food and trash.
So broken.
Her description of the academy was nothing like how I picture it to be. Was her experience a particularly bad one? Did she have more to repent for than what she confessed to me?
It doesn’t matter. If any of what she’d said is remotely accurate, something has gone seriously wrong, and my father needs to hear about it.
Closing my eyes, I listen intently, making sure she isn’t breathing too loudly. I told her not to, but fear like the kind that consumes her can lead to questionable decisions.
I can’t hear her, but that doesn’t say much. I can’t hear anything outside of my heartbeat thumping in my ears.
Angels forgive her, she had begged for a quick death.
I’ve been there. To that darkest of places where her thoughts crawled out of.
I can still hear my father’s words as they’d rubbed salve into my raw wounds. I’d been so desperate for them to make it stop, pleading with him and any of my siblings who might listen.
‘Suicide is a sin, Seraphina.’
‘Vanity is a sin, Seraphina.’
‘Wrath is a sin, Seraphina.’
No matter my reasoning for wanting it all to end, he had a counter argument ready.
Zadkiella have mercy, if the demons find her... I shake my head. They won’t. I picked the dumpster closest to the entrance of the alley for myself for a reason; so the demons have no need to look any deeper once they find me.
But who will find me first, those who bought her, or those who sold her? Though the latter would be less terrifying, I have to hope for the former. The demons won’t have spent years in her company, getting to know her face, her hair, her scent. The way she walks and the way she talks.
If those in charge of Industria's Repentance Academy are truly selling our people to demons, to the Sisters, my father will want to know. He always wants to know about any and all leads where they are concerned.
The sky is dark and full of stars. No demons yet. I reach under the shirt and tug the small journal free. Sliding the blessed fountain pen out from the loop that keeps it attached, I pick the first page it opens on. The page makes no odds. The magic is not fussy, and they are all blank anyway.
What do you tell him?
Resting the end of the pen between my lips and rolling it between my finger and thumb, I keep half an eye on the sky as my mind goes to war with itself.
Do I tell him everything now, or wait to see how things play out? The girl might be a liar, after all. She wouldn’t be the first liar to end up in the academy. What if this is a trap, a set up?
Maybe I’m next…
No.
But… What if father registered me after all? Used a fake name?
No.
The incident in the barn with the farmer’s son happened years ago.
Then perhaps my father lied when he said all the killing will not leave a stain on my soul.
Or worse, had he seen that spark of darkness within me?
I work hard not to even see it in myself, but what if it’s growing, what if it has become too great to conceal.
What if every kill has made it burn brighter?
No.
Scrunching my eyes shut again, I practice deep breathing like I often have to when conversations with myself spiral. When you spend as much time alone as I do, the voices in your head become your friends, foes and family.
But no, I may not be my father’s favorite, or even a legitimate child he confesses to having sired. But that doesn’t mean he would set me up. Moreover, he certainly wouldn’t lie.
Omit information? Sure.
Lie? I shake my head.
Isn’t a lie by omission still a lie, Seraphina?
I’m his secret weapon. When I’m not stalking Unrepentables, I pass the hours in my turret researching for him. The subject of my scrutiny is always the same:
The Seven Sisters of Scelus.
My quaint tower is stacked with potential leads, though they always come to an abrupt dead end. This could be the best lead yet. Or the stupidest decision I’ll ever make. But I can’t let fear stop me from following it.
Leaning the back of the journal against my knee, I write:
The sinner is silenced.
Softly, I blow on the wet ink. A few breaths and it’s dry. The words are gone, disappeared, sunken into the page as though they were never there.
I close the book and tuck it back into the band of my underwear.
He won’t reply, he never does.
The journey back to my turret from here is long enough, I have a few days before he will wonder where I’ve got to.
I’ll tell him about the lead once I know more.
He will understand. The Sisters are the reason huge chunks of Virtus are crumbling into the ocean, after all.
Entire towns and villages. He told me himself that the tragedies started on the same night the rumors of their existence did.
The balance is more vulnerable now than it has been since the Heavenly Council and Demon Princes made the truce—splitting what was left of Earth into two continents after the war, like a one-way mirror.
The Gods are punishing us all for their crimes. The angels too.
So much death and destruction. So much heartache. So many lives ruined, turned upside down without a second thought or care.
Father’s fascination with the Sisters might only be a curiosity he likes to scratch. One of many situations a man of his stature has to monitor before it gets worse.
For me, it’s personal.
The orblights on the street glow brighter in my peripheral. A sudden surge in magic?
Then shadow engulfs the alley, and the pounding beat of wings echoes like a drum overhead.
My entire body tenses, and I reach for Katana on instinct.
She’s not yours anymore. You gave her away.
I try to swallow, to wet my lips, but my mouth is too dry.
This is it.
A cloaked figure glides down between the rooflines. Broad. Tall. Like a mountain wrapped in storm clouds.
The demon lands, silent and graceful, in the middle of the alleyway, and my heart skips a beat.
The girl.
Heavy footsteps crack against the cobbled ground. He might be the largest man I’ve ever seen.
Intimidation incarnate.
One step.
Two.
Three.
Then he stops, directly beside the second dumpster.
Don’t be a hero, Seraphina.
But it’s too late, the damage was done when I promised the girl she’d be safe. That she will not die tonight.
I am not a liar.
His silence vibrates in my ears. Angels save us, I pray, but they can’t save us all.
That’s when I think about my mother. Of her bravery, big smile and warm hugs. How I miss her. How I miss hugs.
Slowly, I slide up the wall until I’m standing. With a quick whip of his hood covered head, his attention is on me, only me.
I already unraveled my bun earlier, scruffed up the roots with my fingers and let the chestnut hair fall over my face and down my back in waves, like how the girls had been. It might not be mousy like hers, but it’s close enough.
It has to be.
It takes drawing on several more memories of my mother to make my legs move. When I finally step out from behind the dumpster, I brace myself in front of him, ready for his attack.
Not only is his face concealed by the hood of his cloak, but his weapons must also be hidden.
Leather covers his boots and the parts of his legs that I can see.
I didn't catch the color of his wings before he retracted them to squeeze between the buildings, but from the glimpse I caught, they spanned far beyond the gap between the roofs.
This is what the girl had run from.
Darkness personified.
The white shirt swamps me, covering all the places that matter, but I tug at the hem anyway, feeling naked under his gaze. The academy’s pin glints beneath the moon, so he must know I’m the runaway he’s looking for, but he just stands there.
Several long seconds pass as he watches me fight every instinct that’s screaming for me to run as fast and far away from him as possible.
He inhales deeply, and glances over his shoulder. I remain perfectly still, staring up at him, holding my breath.
How good is a demon's sense of smell? Can they really scent fear? Can he distinguish the other girl's fear from my own? Mine is likely palpable enough to flood all of his senses. Or perhaps it’s the blood leaking from the male stuffed inside the third dumpster that’s giving him pause.
The silence is suffocating, and I start to sweat.
He tilts his head and steps forward, closing the gap between us by a few inches. Unfolding one arm, his hand comes down, resting on the lid of the middle dumpster.
My heart twists with each slow drum of his fingers against the surface.
I can’t be sure if the squeak comes from me, or the girl inside. If he hears it, he doesn’t say anything.
The sound of hooves against stone signals the approach of a carriage, but still, the demon doesn’t even flinch. His hand curls around the groove where the lid opens, and that’s when I notice the faint vein-like markings there, snaking over his skin.
Each movement is deliberate; he has to know someone’s hiding inside.
He’s going to find her.
Any. Moment.
“Oh good, you found her,” a voice calls from the mouth of the alley, and the demon in front of me lets his hand drop, cracking his knuckles as I whirl around.
“So, are we going to do this the easy way or the hard way?” he says to me.
“Either way, that angelic ass of yours will be in this carriage very soon.”
I eye the new demon, fighting the terror that threatens to overwhelm me, and somehow manage to clear my throat.
“I’ll come with you,” I fight to keep the fear from my voice. Anything to get the silent demon away from the dumpster. I glance back at him, but like a statue, he hasn’t moved. “I won’t run. I swear it to the angels.”
“Oh, well, in that case,” he gestures toward the dark carriage and even darker horses, “Climb on in.” His tone drips with sarcasm, then he laughs.
“Oh wait, swearing to the angels means fuck all where we come from, love. How about you tell us where your chains are, and my friend down there will wrap you back up like a pretty little parcel?”
Ready to be delivered to your new owner.
I try to swallow around the lump in my throat, but it’s suddenly suffocating, cutting off any air from reaching my lungs.
“O-Over there,” I tilt my head toward the girl’s discarded chains in the depths of the alley behind the silent demon, despising myself for stuttering.
“But it’s not necessary, I swear it to the—” I cut myself off. “Please. I won’t use my wings.”
Not a lie, I can’t even if I want to.
My gaze flits back and forth between the silent demon at my back, and the laughing one at the mouth of the alley, waiting for their verdict. What if they insist I unglamour wings that aren’t even there? What then?
You got yourself into this mess, you’ll figure it out.
As if being trapped between two of the most evil beings to walk the earth isn’t terrifying enough, a third demon joins the laughing one near the carriage. “You’re welcome to try,” he taunts.
They’re all wrapped in leather and thick cloaks. I take it as a blessing. I hadn’t seen the faces of the demons who took my wings either. I’ll never know if the images I conjure in my nightmares are better or worse, and I prefer it that way.
“We’ll even give you a head start if you like?” the laughing demon offers. “Let you warm your pretty little feathers up.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Wide shoulders lift in a shrug. “Pity. I enjoy a good hunt.”
“He’s not as patient as we are though,” the other demon says, nodding toward the silent predator behind me.
My nostrils flare.
The demons’ first lie.
Patience is a virtue, and demons are not capable of virtue.
They are the enemy of it.
I glance toward the threat at my back. Has he moved? I didn’t hear him move, but he’s no longer in line with the dumpster. He’s closer. Larger.
Quickly deciding he’s the bigger threat right now, I turn to him fully. But his proximity fades to a non-issue as the silvery branching veins I saw on his hands begin to glow. Not a faint glow. Brighter than an orblight in a seraphim filled citadel.
My jaw drops as I watch blue flames seep out from his fingertips. Then comes the heat. Warm at first, before rapidly increasing in intensity. Then I smell it. Burnt cedar, scorched metal, and smoke that doesn’t cling but lingers, they all fill my senses at once.
I shake my head, ready to deny what my eyes are seeing. Virtus has magic. I’ve seen it. Even attempted to use it. But this. This is impossible.
“H-How?”
Demons do not leak fire.
Fire is not blue.
It’s orange and red and…
The flames turn white as they close in. The monster is going to melt me on the spot. Flesh and muscle and bone, leaving nothing but a puddle where my feet had been.
Blue fire turns to molten silver, and the heat somehow rises further still, like I’ve climbed inside a forge.
I can’t breathe.
The flames flow from him to me, down my throat, filling my lungs until they burn and all I can taste is ash.
My vision goes black, and there are no demons, no alleyways with dumpsters hiding dead bodies or terrified girls.
There is nothing.