Demon Seer 2

by Kurtis Eckstein

  Miriam smiled at my thoughts. “You don’t have to bite anyone,” she mused. “And I’m still not even certain if it’s okay now. I know my father was able to get an exception made for me, but I don’t know if that applies to other demons. I was far too worried about you the whole time to care.”

  In response to her words, my thoughts immediately drifted back to Jericho, before I quickly shifted my attention when Miriam frowned, instead focusing on the implications of what she had said.

  “Wait. Your father got an exception from who?” I asked seriously.

  Miriam nodded, finally being able to explain such things without holding back. “My father calls them the Animarum, or Souls. They can’t be seen with our physical eyes, but they are there, nonetheless. Long ago, the demons used to prey on them without thinking, since they are made up of some strange type of radiation, and we absorb radiation. However, my father and the rest weren’t initially aware they had consciousness and cognition.”

  She sighed. “They eventually decided to fight back, swarming the human world in the millions, possibly billions, causing a massive epidemic, threatening to kill off all of humanity. There was no choice but to make a treaty with them, since they had nothing to lose, and we had everything to lose. And, as part of that forced peace treaty, no more of our kind were allowed to be created, for the Souls feared we might build up an army in an attempt to retaliate.”

  My eyes were wide as I listened, having a difficult time believing this was all real. There was some kind of invisible existence in the world? A form of consciousness created from energy itself? A nonphysical living being?

  Were these Souls an existence from which rumors of ghosts came from? And where did they originate, if not from the human world? Had they always existed?

  Unfortunately, Miriam didn’t have the answers to my numerous questions, having already told me what she knew of them.

  “Come, love. You need to feed. Focus on the challenges before you. Don’t worry, I’ll help you pick out someone who is going to die soon anyway.”

  I hung my head, not wanting to do it. I mean, why couldn’t I just…

  My head snapped back up. “Miriam, it just has to be blood, right? Does it matter where it comes from?”

  “Animal blood won’t work,” she replied sympathetically, anticipating my thoughts, before seeing what I was actually thinking. Her eyes widened. “Oh…humans do that?”

  I nodded, a little surprised she hadn’t figured it out, especially considering I had an encounter with her brother in a hospital. Granted, just being in a hospital didn’t mean you’d know it was a thing.

  “Yeah, blood bags. Humans have been donating blood for a long time now – well, it’s been common for maybe fifty years or something. Not really long for you. But then, couldn’t I just drink a few of those?”

  Her crimson eyes were still wide as she processed that. “My brother mentioned the tools they had developed to pull blood out of people, but it wouldn’t matter given that we often need to drink a lot. But if there are places full of bags of human blood…”

  “Then we don’t have to kill at all,” I said with a smile.

  Unexpectedly, Miriam’s expression became pained as she thought of all the lives she had taken. She knew there had been no other option, especially since starving for too long could cause that ravenous state, which might result in a much worse death for her prey, but she still felt horribly guilty about it. However, then she became tearful at the idea that she might not have to take any more lives to survive.

  As fast as lightning, she wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me down into another kiss, tears slipping out of her eyes. “I love you so much,” she whispered.

  “I’m glad you’re happy,” I replied from barely an inch away. “But I didn’t really do anything.”

  She shook her head. “I would have still loved you if you became hardened to killing like most others, but I love you even more knowing you share the same sentiments as me.”

  My brow furrowed. “I don’t think I’d feel guilty killing someone who was being violent – just random innocent bystanders. And even then, I’m not sure. Like I said, I wouldn’t want to butcher the cow myself.”

  She nodded. “That’s alright. You’re already more than I could have hoped for.”

  I kissed her again, before pulling away more. “Alright. I guess let’s go get some blood then, so my arms stop hurting.”

  She nodded with a grin, intertwining her fingers in mine. “Agreed, love.”

  Without another word, we both soared into the sky, our wings spread out but intertwined much like our fingers, having no need to flap like a bird. Granted, since we were flying by propelling radiation out of our bodies, I realized that we might be harming the forest we had come from, as well as polluting the air with our very existence.

  I wasn’t about to worry about that kind of stuff though, instead focusing on how we might affect the blood we didn’t consume. If we wanted to avoid contaminating every blood bag in storage, then we’d have to be mindful of how fast we traveled, since speed was obviously a big factor in the amount of radiation we released.

  Not wanting to worry about breaking into an occupied building, Miriam mentally led the way, leading us high above the Earth in order to travel to the dark side of the planet where it was nighttime. In fact, we were so high that it felt like we were in space, though I could still detect thin air around us.

  However, it got me wondering about something I had never had the opportunity to really consider.

  Where exactly was Miriam’s home?

  The answer was at least somewhat obvious at this point, though it was difficult to grasp the reality of it – Miriam, and the other demons, came from outer space.

  ‘Sekajin,’ she replied in her thoughts, since there wasn’t enough air to speak out loud. ‘Or, in your language, Venus.’

  ‘Venus?!’ I exclaimed. ‘You’re really from a different planet?’ I shook my head in disbelief. ‘Not only that, but I was really on another planet. I was on Venus.’

  ‘It is a hellish world, isn’t it?’ she said with a smile. ‘At least, for humans. Very comfortable for us.’

  I nodded in agreement. ‘It really is both hellish, and comfortable – pretty much everything I imagined hell would be like.’

  ‘Except that there is life there,’ she pointed out. ‘Real living demons, like you and me, so it’s not what I would consider to be a real hell. Not like the sun, where even we can’t survive.’

  I looked at her in surprise as I thought about that, before looking at the star in question, contemplating the implications of my lacking need to breathe and my method of flight. ‘You really travel through space to get between here and Venus?’ I asked, though I already knew the answer. ‘I can’t imagine what that’d be like. Because, even with how high we are, I still feel grounded by the Earth below. Like, if I stopped trying to fly, I’d fall. I can still feel gravity.’

  She grinned. ‘I can’t wait to show you what it’s like! I’ve heard it’s so much fun teaching everything to a new demon.’ She pouted then. ‘I’m a little upset that woman stole some of my fun, but I can’t be too angry. If anything, I’m glad she gave you the foundation you needed to survive, such as teaching you our language and how to fly.’

  I made the motion to sigh, only for nothing really to happen since I didn’t have any air in my lungs, my thoughts finally settling on Jericho, now that we were descending into the dark world below, having already reached the side facing away from the sun.

  ‘She’s fine,’ Miriam retorted, an edge to her mental tone. ‘Don’t be concerned with her.’

  ‘I just feel bad,’ I admitted. ‘The man she bit ended up hating her, and now she wants a partner so bad that it seems like she’d take just about anyone.’

  ‘Then I’ll talk to my father about it,’ Miriam decided. ‘And see if an exception can be made for her to try again. But I don’t want you worrying about it. You’ve got enough to worry abo
ut right now. You need to feed and then try to teach me how to warp.’

  ‘And I need to try to learn how to shoot a laser from my horns,’ I added.

  ‘Exactly,’ she agreed. ‘We still don’t know what lies in wait for us. I doubt this is over with Ragnarok, especially since you defeated him in front of everyone. He’s a prideful man, and is unlikely to let that go anytime soon, if ever.’

  ‘His own fault,’ I sneered.

  ‘I know, love,’ she agreed. ‘But that’s not how men like him see it. In his perspective, everything is your fault. So, the best we can do is be prepared for anything.’

  We were now flying low enough that we would have been visible in the sky if it were daytime. Miriam was already reaching out with her mind to invade the heads of unsuspecting humans below, looking for knowledge about the location of a blood bank.

  People knew where a hospital was, but that wasn’t ideal, since humans would be there at all hours of the day. However, she finally decided to attempt to see if someone at the hospital knew were an isolated blood bank was.

  That ended up being our ticket to finding one, and before long, we were breaking a security camera and prying open a door without effort. It was surreal being so strong, even more so than stepping on lava in Miriam’s home world, because here on Earth my memories of being human were clashing with my new memories of being a Ryujin.

  And my strength, among other things, were night and day.

  I wouldn’t have been surprised if we set off a silent alarm, but we didn’t stay long enough for the police to arrive. We both gulped down a combined fifteen blood bags, with me drinking eleven by myself, before departing back into the sky.

  The blood tasted good, even cold, but I was a little surprised it wasn’t overly enticing like I’d expect for a vampire. I recalled in my human memories asking Miriam if it was difficult for her to be around me – specifically, if she craved my blood. She had found it hilarious, and now I realized that it really was a stupid question to ask, though I had no way of knowing at the time that Miriam’s version of blood-drinkers wasn’t at all what I imagined a vampire would be like.

  ‘Now,’ Miriam began, her fingers intertwining with mine as we flew as one unit upwards. ‘Time for me to learn how to warp, and then we can go see your sister. I’m sure she’s worried about your disappearance, since I told her what happened.’

  I nodded in agreement. ‘Think we should check on her now? Won’t Ragnarok need blood to heal too? Would he come back to the human world?’

  ‘Doubtful. You’re a new Ryujin who has never fed until now, but he’s fed in the last hundred years, which means all he should need to heal is minerals that are plentiful on our home world. Also, it’s the middle of the day where your sister is at, so she’s probably in school right now. If I haven’t learned how to warp in the next few hours, then we’ll check on her.’

  It was crazy to be reminded that demons weren’t required to feed but once every few hundred years, though I knew there were frequently a handful of them on Earth, hunting.

  But would Amelia really be in school after my disappearance? I recalled that my mother had stayed over at my dad’s place the night when I vanished at the police station. Which, if I remembered correctly, had been Thursday night, with me having been bitten by Miriam shortly later. And now, two and a half days had passed since my disappearance, with us getting attacked by Ragnarok about a day after Miriam kidnapped me, followed by the full day we had just spent ignoring the outside world around us.

  So then, maybe two days was enough time to return to school? Or was it the weekend? The whole ‘me vanishing from time’ kind of messed with my perception of the events that had taken place, but if my assumptions were correct, then it was only Sunday.

  However, I didn’t stress about the exact date for long, as another disturbing idea occurred to me, knowing my enemy was cunning.

  Why hadn’t I considered it before?!

  ‘Miriam,’ I said urgently in my thoughts. ‘Ragnarok wouldn’t try to harm her, would he?’

  In the moment my anxiety peaked, I was just as quickly relieved to see that she had already considered that possibility in the back of her mind.

  ‘Very doubtful, my love. He can’t take her back to our world as a hostage, and he absolutely can’t afford to have a battle with you in the human world. There should be no reason for him to come here. Plus, remember that your sister gave him a good beating when he last encountered her.’

  I nodded as I considered that.

  As worried as I suddenly was, I could see that Ragnarok wouldn’t be stupid enough to mess with her. For one, he had already seen her telekinesis in person, as Miriam alluded to. Not to mention, if he did harm her, then there was no way in hell I wasn’t going to kill him. I also took comfort in the fact that there was a future Amelia, although I had to admit that a lot of things might change due to her saving my life.

  I mean, I wouldn’t have beaten Ragnarok up in the first place if I was already dead. That certainly would have changed things.

  But I could wait a few hours – at most. No longer.

  And in that time, I would also try to learn how to do that laser attack. I could already project lightning from my body, so surely it wouldn’t be too hard to do that too, right?

  Unfortunately, I was wrong.

  Miriam had a better perception of time than I did, and once a few hours had disappeared, she had been just as unsuccessful at warping as I had been at using my horns to fire off a laser beam. I could send lightning out of my horns, just like my hands and the rest of my body, but it wasn’t nearly as lethal as whatever he did.

  His attack would have been an instant death, unlike what I was capable of.

  Also in that time, Miriam began sensing that her brother, Gabriel, had begun making the trip from the demon world to Earth, but she wouldn’t be able to communicate with him until he was a lot closer. Thus, for now, while we waited to find out why he was visiting, we’d go ahead and see my sister.

  ‘We’ll try again later,’ Miriam finally said, feeling a little defeated herself. ‘Let’s go, love.’

  ‘Together,’ I offered, holding out my arms.

  Her crimson eyes widened when she realized what I was wanting. She then smiled, looking a little nervous. After all, having been alive for almost fifteen-hundred years, it wasn’t often she got to experience something new.

  ‘Okay,’ she agreed, turning directly in front of me, so I could wrap my arms around her, with her folded wings pressing against my chest.

  I then took a moment to give her butt a tight squeeze without any warning, prompting her to have the same ‘weak knees’ reaction she’d had when I casually pulled her against my chest earlier. After a second, she looked up at me endearingly, only to roll her crimson eyes at my grin. She then rested her bare feet on the top of mine as I began focusing on contracting the space directly in front of us, while expanding what was behind.

  Instantly, in the blink of an eye, nighttime shifted to daytime, as we zipped in an arc around the planet, arriving over the appropriate landmass far below.

  Needless to say, even though she had seen the warping in my thoughts, she was still stunned.

  ‘You make it look so easy,’ she commented. ‘I wonder if it’s something only you can do, possibly because you have the same innate abilities your sister has.’

  ‘You should still try to learn how to do it,’ I encouraged, allowing gravity to take over, us rapidly dropping from the sky. Her midnight hair was whipping wildly upward. ‘Otherwise, you’ll never know if you can.’

  “I will,” she agreed out loud, twisting in my arms as we slowed down, and looking up at me affectionately. “Still, you’re pretty amazing, love.”

  I grinned. “And you’re both pretty and amazing.”

  She rolled her crimson eyes again, letting a smile slip out, before scanning the landscape still far below, trying to get an idea of where we were. There was nothing I recognized, but thankfully she seemed to
have a general idea of which direction to go.

  Within a few seconds, she was already leading the way.

  Chapter 8: Sister

  “Well, that’s a problem,” I said out loud, in response to Miriam having reached out with her mind, only to discover that my dad’s place was being watched. Apparently, there hadn’t been anyone keeping surveillance when Miriam visited the previous day in the early morning.

  But that wasn’t the case now, it being late afternoon.

  The two men were pretty well hidden, with one guy in a tree across the road, concealed in the woods there, while the other was similarly hidden deep in the trees on the neighbor’s property in the back – one of them to watch the front of the house, while the other watched the rear. It appeared they were primarily there for reconnaissance though. They had guns of course, but neither was using them, instead keeping watch with fancy binoculars.

  We were still too high up to be concerned about being noticed, though I wondered if this situation was serious enough for the military to have a satellite or drone trained on this location. I also wondered if radiation spikes from Miriam’s visit yesterday was the reason for the additional eyes on the house.

  Of course, there was no way of knowing for sure, but I wasn’t going to stay away forever. Granted, I also didn’t want to bring my sister any trouble either.

  Thankfully, Miriam had a solution.

  ‘I’ll knock out the one watching the back of the house, which will give us enough time to slip in. After he wakes up, we can then just wait for him to relieve himself to make our escape. And, if needed, we can make ourselves entirely invisible to avoid your parents seeing us. We can hide in the house in plain sight.’

  ‘Won’t the guy notice being knocked unconscious? And should I do anything about the one in front?’