Demon Seer 2

by Kurtis Eckstein

  I didn’t think it would be necessary though, because I could sense it better now – the waves of invisible energy coming off her whenever she was defying gravity. And I could sense that same energy within me, feeling so full to the brim that I might explode uncontrollably when trying to let it out, as I realized I had done only moments ago.

  Really, my body felt like a soda bottle that had been shaken with the cap screwed on, just waiting to bubble out the moment the pressure was released. But I needed to control it.

  I had to control it, or else…

  Unexpectedly, my wings exploded with an invisible force that caused me to stop so abruptly that Jericho slammed into my back, before we were suddenly shooting up into the sky again, straight for the sea of red clouds. I realized our bodies must sincerely be durable, because she didn’t seem injured or even overly bothered by me hitting her like a truck. Instead, her hands just held onto my shoulders as we continued to soar upward at lightning speeds.

  As hard as I tried, I struggled to slow our ascent, prompting me to eventually just turn it off completely, with us still rising for a bit due to the rapid pace.

  Finally, just as we began falling, Jericho wrapped her arms around my chest to hold me in place, all while Seth reappeared in front of us.

  “Well, that was different,” he said nonchalantly. “You really are full of surprises.”

  “Is there something wrong with me?” I asked seriously, only to have Jericho respond next to my ear as she rested her chin on my shoulder from behind.

  “I don’t think so,” she reassured me. “You are a little different, but not in a bad way.”

  “It’s probably from you losing your memory,” Seth quickly interjected. “It’s not easy for us to get hurt, so if you did to the point of amnesia, then your body may remember the incident even if you don’t consciously recall.”

  “You think he’s escalated?” Jericho wondered.

  Her brother nodded. “Like a human who has been traumatized, becoming triggered and experiencing the same extreme reactions even in a safe environment. I’ve never heard of it happening for our kind, but maybe it’s possible after all.”

  “What?” I said breathlessly, not entirely following.

  “He means that deep in your subconscious you might recall whatever happened to you, and it’s making your body go all or nothing, like it wants to fight back to defend itself,” she elaborated.

  “So, do you think someone really tried to kill me?” I asked seriously, causing Seth’s icy eyes to narrow.

  “I’m not sure that we’ve suggested that,” he replied cautiously, making me realize my mistake.

  They hadn’t suggested that – not out loud.

  “Yes,” I agreed, trying to cover my tracks. “But I was thinking, if it’s so difficult for us to get hurt, then maybe it was intentional? But I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt me,” I quickly added. “I mean, I don’t think I was a bad person before.”

  Jericho tightened her embrace around my chest. “Of course not,” she agreed. “Losing your memory wouldn’t make your personality change.” She then laughed, her chest vibrating against my back. “Although, it does make you seem like a Chrysalis. You’re almost like a little kid right now, so innocent and inexperienced.” She lowered her voice, her tone playful. “I really like it,” she conceded. “It makes you a lot of fun.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I just didn’t, instead focusing on Seth.

  “Umm, so should I be worried about someone coming after me?” I wondered. “And does that put all of you in danger? I don’t want anyone else to get hurt if someone is trying to kill me.”

  Seth shook his head. “No, if anything, the one responsible should be afraid that you’ve survived, especially so if you remember who it is. We have laws of course, and if you report the attempted murder to one of the Generals, then your assailant will be interrogated and dealt with.”

  “But that’s assuming you don’t go anywhere alone again,” Jericho added meaningfully. “You’re safe with others, but if this person was able to hurt you the first time without anyone knowing, then they might be able to do it again if they get you alone.”

  “And there’s really no reason to be alone anyway,” Seth added. “Especially if you have a partner, considering you’ll always be linked.”

  Suddenly, it dawned on me that they weren’t just speaking about physical proximity when they mentioned being alone. They were implying that, so long as I was connected to someone else at least mentally, then I’d be safe. Because there would either be a witness to report any harm befalling me, or else there would be an ally to physically assist me in defending myself.

  Which meant, Jericho was likely correct in her previous assumption that either I never had a partner, or that my partner might have been the one to hurt me. At least, assuming that almost dying was the reason for my amnesia. Otherwise, such an attack wouldn’t have gone unnoticed or unpunished.

  “Well,” Jericho finally humphed when I didn’t respond right away, almost as if she was disappointed by my lack of reaction to her earlier comment. “Why don’t we visit the city? I want to show you around a little while the festival is still going on – there will be plenty of time to learn how to fly later.”

  “Festival?” I repeated. “For what?”

  Seth chimed in. “It’s in celebration of visiting the human world,” he explained. “A small group of ten to twenty of us make a trip there every two-and-a-half Cycles, so the majority of everyone who doesn’t go spends twenty-one Gradus having their own celebration.”

  “Because everyone wants to go,” Jericho clarified. “But most of us only get to go once every six-hundred Cycles.”

  “Six-hundred Cycles?!” I repeated in disbelief, realizing that was still hundreds of what I perceived to be years, even if a Cycle was less than a year.

  “Oh dear,” Jericho whispered with a chuckle. “He really is like a Chrysalis.”

  “He is,” Seth agreed with a grin. “Best to take it easy on him, dear sister, especially when you’re in the city.”

  She possessively tightened her embrace around my chest. “I will,” she said sincerely, before laughing. “Can’t let such inexperience go to waste! Way too much fun to be had!”

  I tried not to grimace, feeling like she was intentionally making me walk on thin ice with her partner. Supposedly I might already have one person out to kill me, so I didn’t need another.

  Seth continued. “I’ll take my leave then. You two have fun.”

  “Wait!” I exclaimed. “You’re not coming too?”

  “Aww,” Jericho teased in my ear tauntingly. “Afraid of me getting you all alone?”

  Mortified, I tried to reply. “N-No. I mean, won’t your partner be upset?”

  She laughed. “Oh, he’ll be fine. All we’re going to do is walk around the city. Nothing too special about that.”

  Seth frowned, and without even really meaning to, I started picking up his thoughts as he spoke silently to his sister.

  ‘Are you sure that’s the best approach?’ he asked her seriously.

  Her mental tone was more somber than her verbal one. ‘I don’t want to scare him off by being too intense,’ she explained in her thoughts. ‘He’s really cute, and seems like a decent guy. If he found out he was the only option left for at least a dozen people, myself included, then he’d probably freak out, based on what I’ve seen so far.’

  ‘He might have a partner though,’ Seth considered. ‘I can’t imagine he’s been around for so long without one, based on the current situation.’

  ‘Had a partner,’ Jericho corrected him. ‘If he did even have one. He’s not linked to anyone right now, and the others haven’t experienced the connection before, unlike me. Most of them don’t even care to be without! And I’m not interested in having a female as my partner like some, nor do I wish to share a male.’

  Seth did the mental equivalent to a sigh. ‘Very well. I understand. But he doesn�
��t seem interested in messing around with someone already paired, unlike others, so don’t deceive him for long, or else you might just push him away.’

  ‘I won’t,’ she agreed, only to again speak out loud to me – barely a full second having passed, with their thoughts being exchanged much faster than spoken words. “So let’s go have some fun!” she said cheerfully. “Nothing to worry about!”

  I wasn’t listening anymore though, because a different voice was whispering to me – one that only I could hear.

  ‘Very few demons are lacking a partner. I’ve waited a long time for you.’

  As much as I desperately wanted to ask the mysterious person who they were, I didn’t bother, knowing I wouldn’t receive a response. It was a hallucination – an extremely realistic one, but one nonetheless.

  Thankfully, Jericho didn’t appear to be expecting me to reply as she dropped from the sky with me still in her arms, only to soar toward the volcano. Just as before, it was gushing out lava in a never-ending stream that flowed four different ways on the same side, before pooling into the massive sea of fire. I assumed this must have been where Reuben headed off to, but I didn’t see anyone on or around the lava.

  I didn’t focus on it long though, with the somewhat short trip around the mountain – thanks to Jericho’s rapid acceleration – giving me a few moments to process what I had just learned, trying to consider what I should do with that information.

  Obviously, I now realized that Jericho didn’t have a partner after all. And, she was interested in me, most likely because I was the first option to pop up in a long time. Especially so, since they had already mentioned that those of our kind weren’t created anymore. I recalled Seth commenting that it was even forbidden for some unknown reason.

  So then, that must mean an inequality resulted between males and females, leaving some without partners. If it was only a dozen or so demons, then I wasn’t sure what the harm would have been in letting them find partners first, prior to making it illegal, but I supposed there must have been a good reason.

  The siblings’ conversation also indicated that her claim to have a partner was just an attempt to counterbalance how strongly she was coming onto me, especially considering we just met. It was like she was starving to have that bond with another person, and I was a juicy steak being waved in her face.

  But I wasn’t sure how to handle that information.

  I mean, sure she was hot, but I just woke up in a midnight bubble full of foreign vegetation – at least, foreign to this world – with no recollection of how I had gotten there. And I couldn’t fully reconcile the fact that I knew what trees were and yet was in a place where they didn’t exist. It was frustrating, to say the least.

  Not to mention, I was hallucinating voices that felt just as real as Jericho’s and Seth’s – voices that belonged to people I couldn’t remember.

  So worrying about having a lover was the furthest thing from my mind right now. Like, out of all the priorities I could possibly have, it was dead last. That was a luxury I couldn’t afford, when I might have someone after me who could be attempting to end my life. And worse, I had no idea who I should look out for if that was the case.

  Was going to their city really the smartest idea?

  Then again, wouldn’t I just blend in with the crowd? As long as I didn’t act surprised by everything, like a tourist would, then I should go relatively unnoticed, assuming there were a decent number of people around.

  And sure enough, as we dropped lower and lower, their city came into sight, appearing like something from a fantasy world. It was full of black towers and buildings, stretching out from the side of the volcano for miles and miles.

  I had no idea how many people were there, but the place was massive enough to make me feel more comfortable about blending in.

  “What do you think?” Jericho asked. “Do you remember living here?”

  “I don’t,” I admitted as we dropped even lower.

  “There are a few who live on their own. Maybe you were one of them – that might explain why we’ve never seen you before.” She paused. “Oh, and I don’t want anyone to see me carrying you around, so we’ll land here in a moment.”

  “How many of us are there?” I wondered.

  “Hmm, a little over three-thousand, I think. Maybe close to three-thousand five-hundred? Never really cared to count the exact number, though I’m sure someone knows. A little over half look like me and my brother, because we originate from Lilith, whereas the other half look like you and Reuben.”

  I knew she must be talking about the color of our draconic features. “Who is Lilith?” I wondered seriously.

  “Oh,” Jericho replied, slowing down and dropping us on the ground. The moment we landed, she finally let go, only to reach out for my hand before stopping herself, instead waving for me to follow her as she began walking. “Of course. I should have realized you wouldn’t know about that either. Lilith is one of the Rulers – there are six in total. They pretty much make all the big decisions.” She lowered her voice. “And ensure compliance with force if required, though it is rarely needed.”

  Unexpectedly, that second voice spoke up again, haunting me like a ghost.

  ‘There are six demon kings who rule because they are the strongest.’

  “She’s a demon ruler?” I said without thinking, realizing that the word for king and queen in their language was genderless.

  “Demon?” Jericho repeated in confusion. “Who told you that?”

  I tried to recover. “Umm, no one. I think I just came up with that idea based on how we look.”

  “Hmm, I guess that’s one way to view us,” she considered.

  Instantly, that voice again.

  ‘Hmm, I guess that’s one way to perceive what I am.’

  “You know what?” Jericho continued. “I kind of like it.”

  Again, that voice.

  ‘But I like it that you referred to me as a demon – that’s probably the most accurate description.’

  “That’s certainly more fun than Ryujin,” Jericho added, using a word that didn’t seem to have an exact equivalent in my first language.

  Carefully reaching out to her thoughts, I saw a glimpse of why she found Ryujin boring. In her perception, it was like calling this mysterious ‘human’ creature just that – a human. But calling her kind something different was new and exciting.

  Suddenly, she surprised me by spinning around in a whirl, with another grin on her face. “You know what? That’s what I’m going to call myself from now on! A demon!”

  I smiled uncertainly at her, not fully confident that her angelic appearance matched what I’d consider to be a demon. But then, who did?

  Myself, I supposed. And that Reuben guy too.

  And…

  And whoever that voice belonged to…

  A flash of bright red caused me to stop dead in my tracks, my heart beginning to race as I realized that the second voice I was hearing must belong to one of our kind. But then again, shouldn’t I have assumed that to begin with? What other options were there?

  My head began hurting as I tried to think it through, feeling like there was something stopping me from figuring out the obvious, so I just focused on what I could.

  Whoever that person was, she must be here somewhere, possibly even in this city. And maybe if I came across this person, I might recognize her – remember her. At the very least, if I previously had any reservations about checking this place out, they were gone now. I needed to find this person.

  I needed to remember her.

  No. It was more than that.

  I had to find her.

  Whoever she was, I had to find her.

  “Michael! What’s wrong?” Jericho repeated, having asked twice now.

  I shook my head. “Sorry. Nothing. Let’s go.”

  I passed her up in a hurry to get to the city now, causing her to quickly catch up and grab my arm. I stopped and looked back at her, seeing her uncertain exp
ression.

  “Are you sure you’re alright?” she asked.

  I nodded – my hesitation, my uncertainty, everything, now gone. “Yes. Let’s hurry. I don’t want to miss anything exciting,” I lied.

  She nodded slowly, obviously not fooled, but not commenting on it any further.

  Chapter 4: Confusion

  When we reached the city, I found that there wasn’t exactly a spot where it began and ended. There were several wide roads leading to it that were made of black stone, but the first castle-like building we passed was quite a distance from the rest. However, as we drew closer and closer, there were more streets with additional buildings of various sizes, all of them significantly larger than what I felt like I was used to, as if this was an entire city full of midnight behemoth castles created from gray metals and black square stones.

  Eventually, the dark red ground couldn’t be seen at all, with every single inch covered in flat black rock, paving everything in sight – a midnight city underneath a crimson sky.

  I could hear music now, though I didn’t recognize all the instruments being played. There was the reverberations of metal on metal, sounding like massive drums, as well as the whistling of various instruments that reminded me of flutes, recorders, and ocarinas. I could also hear the strumming of metal strings, as well as a variety of other sounds that sang together in harmony, like a great orchestra.

  The song being played was like nothing I had ever heard before, so full of noise that worked so well together, a deep reverberating beat filling the thick air, vibrating against my body.

  “Do you like it?” Jericho wondered as we drew closer to the source, making several turns in the wide streets.

  “I think I do,” I admitted, wondering why it made me a little nostalgic.

  She seemed to notice too, abruptly grabbing my arm and tugging me along with a playful grin. “Well, come on then! Let’s go join everyone and dance!”

  “D-Dance?” I repeated, letting her tug me along. “I don’t think I know how to dance.”