Dealing with the Devil (The Earthwalker Trilogy Book 1)

by Siddoway, Jennifer

  She was not the elegant creature I'd imagined during my childhood. She was more like one of the sirens you heard about in myth, luring unsuspecting sailors to their death. Webbed fingers pulled a gray, scaly body into the throne, her seaweed-like hair hung down across her naked torso. But the most disturbing were her eyes, abnormally large and completely white, as if they'd been made of enormous pearls.

  Lastly, there was a satyr, whose small furry legs and glossy hooves honestly looked out of place beside such intimidating companions. Tiny horns curved out from his curly brown hair and he had a youthful innocence that made me smile despite the danger I was in.

  Together the groups combined to create a most impressive quorum encompassing all supernatural forms of life Angelic, Demonic, and Fae.

  Of the three of parties, the Fae were unique in they lacked a particular characteristic present in the other two. The angels were surrounded by a pale, blue mist that matched their eyes and the demons had something similar which rolled off their bodies like smoke. Fae, on the other hand, were void of this remarkable feature and had no auras whatsoever.

  My awe was cut short when amidst the growing noise of conversations, one of the angels spoke out and said, “This meeting is an outrage! To think we've been reduced to handling matters such as this! The whole thing is a scandal!”

  I flinched at his hostility, casting my eyes downward in embarrassment.

  “You're more than welcome to recuse yourself,” the djinn replied from the seat of his onyx throne. “Of course that would leave us to decide the child's fate, and I don't think you'd welcome our decision.”

  His head was wrapped in a black, Arabian keffiyeh that hung loose around his neck. A colorful, yellow sash tied around his waist kept his garments lithe against his body when he moved. He was a stark contrast to those who came before him looking so barbaric, the gold trim along his jewel encrusted vest seemed odd next to the ogre’s obvious filth.

  There were a couple snickers from his cohorts, but an angry glare in their direction managed to silence them completely. “Yes, I’m sure the lot of you are delighted with this turn of events,” the angel who had spoken before told them bitterly. “But if we'd dealt with the child long ago, then none of this would have happened. We could have avoided this entire situation!”

  “What's done is done,” the centaur reminded him with murmurs of agreement from the crowd. His long, black hair had been braided back into an elaborate mohawk and he had a smudge of war paint beneath either eye. “There's no use arguing about the past. All that matters now is what happens from this point forward.”

  “I agree,” one of the angelic females agreed. Her matronly face and gentle features were kind, without any malice or derision. She looked more curious about my presence here than anything else, and I took an instant liking to her. “Nothing is gained by dwelling on the past. It’s the future we should be concerned with, nothing else.”

  “You're agreeing with the fae now, Seroquel?” the man beside her asked. “The child’s fate shouldn't even be a topic of discussion! She should be banished to the Demonic Realm immediately where she belongs.”

  The woman sighed, her blue eyes marred with some kind of inner struggle. “She wouldn’t last a day down there. Not until she’s fully embraced her powers.”

  “Which can never be allowed to happen!”

  “What would you have us do, Uriel?” Seroquel asked him flatly. “The girl has not committed any crime that would warrant such a punishment. For thousands of years we've kept our realm separate from the humans until justice mandates we become involved. We do not interfere in the lives of humans unless they become a significant threat — I’m not convinced she’s dangerous.”

  “What more evidence do you need?” the angel asked her coolly, gesturing towards me in a condescending manner. “I will not stand by and wait for innocent lives to be put at risk just so that our actions may be justified!”

  “Mind your attitude!” the dark fae warned as he leaned forward in his seat. “Seroquel is right. It would be imprudent to act before we have just cause. We should watch her carefully, and if the time comes that her life should be reaped, then we'll deal with it accordingly.”

  The mermaid flicked her tail in annoyance. “And what shall we do until then, Ellyllon? Cross our fingers and hope she doesn't cause the next apocalypse? I won't be held responsible for the damage she may cause if allowed to roam our world unchecked.”

  “The consequences could indeed be severe,” the golem nodded, resting her hand on the wooden armrest of her chair, “so why hasn’t this been handled properly?”

  One of the robed figures, who had remained silent until this point, quietly rose to his feet and lowered the hood of his robe to address the quorum formally. As he stepped forward from his marble throne, I was able to see him properly and notice half his face was covered in runes that had been carved into his skin. It was on his hand as well when he raised it up to silence them, leading me to believe that his entire body had been covered with ancient writing. Whatever the reasons were for it being there, it clearly gave him a level of authority above his kinsmen that none of them dared to argue.

  “The reason we're here,” he said, “Is because Caleb chose to vouch for her. While it’s true we aren't usually involved with matters such as this, I for one, am interested to hear what he observed.”

  I breathed an involuntary sigh of relief, not realizing I’d been holding my breath until then.

  “Caleb is a Guardian,” the angel next to him, called Uriel, replied. “It's not up to him to decide these kind of matters.”

  The man nodded in agreement, clasping his hands behind his back, while mulling that over quietly. “But it is his responsibility to use discretion on whether or not the use of force is necessary. He made his decision and so here we are. Who would like to begin?”

  The Council squirmed uncomfortably and there was some chattering in the trees. I was not used to having so many pairs of eyes on me and wished that I could melt into the ground below rather than listen to their conversation without being given permission to speak. Caleb said it would come across as arrogance, so I didn’t dare interrupt them, but it was unbelievably frustrating. I had to physically bite my tongue so that I wouldn't speak out of turn, reminding myself over again that his advice had in fact been prudent.

  Instead, I listened in agony as the Celestial Court went about deciding my fate and processed what the creatures had to say.

  The angel whose face was covered in runes addressed them once again, while giving me a sideways glance, “Before us we have the Earthwalker, Wynnona Hendricks, whose latent powers have now been activated due to an altercation with a Demon Lord. What shall we do with her now that she presents a danger to the inhabitants of Earth?”

  “What about Lucifer?” an ogre demanded, waving to the empty seat. “He has a vested interest in this matter.”

  The large and smelly ogre who’d just spoken stood about ten feet tall, with two different heads, one on either shoulder. They each had a blank stare and smiled from one ear to the other — so wide in fact, that it looked like his entire jaw could unhinge. It was a visceral, gruesome sight that gave me the feeling he could swallow an opponent whole. His large, distended belly rolled over the top of his pant legs and shook when he walked.

  Wait, Lucifer? Did he just say what I think he did?

  Another demon nodded from the chair beside him, its long, black hair spilling out from beneath its hood. I couldn't see its face, but the way the fabric fell seemed to vaguely suggest a woman. “Belphegor is right,” she told the council softly. “We cannot proceed until all of us are present.”

  Her voice had been no louder than a whisper, yet everyone present had been able to hear her perfectly. It was a hypnotic, ethereal echo that sent a shiver down my spine.

  “Well, where is the slimy devil?” the centaur demanded with a stomp of his hoof. “Go and fetch him.”

  There was another round of murmuring before a v
oice rang out from somewhere in the darkness. “There's no need. I'm already here.”

  He stepped out from behind a tree, his wings, horns, and serpent’s tail all hidden once again. He smirked while walking past me and took his seat in the empty chair as one of the demonic seven. “Please continue.”

  It was Aidan.

  I stared at him in shock, not only because he looked unharmed from his recent fight, but because they had just referred to him as Lucifer — as in the Son of Morning. He was not just a demon, he was the demon who corrupted Eden.

  What had Mom gotten herself into? I wondered furiously. How did she get caught up in this? My heart began to race and my head went round in circles from the torrent of new information, but none of it made any sense.

  “Very well,” the tattooed man sighed, the skin around his blue eyes crinkling as he squinted even more. “Now that we're all here, the question we must ask ourselves is whether we allow her to remain in the Mortal Realm, with her demonic nature intact, or if she should be terminated.”

  Demonic nature? Terminated? A buzz of electricity sent a course of energy through my body at the threat of being executed. How could they talk about ending my life so casually? Didn’t they realize I was standing right in front of them, listening to their debate?

  “While demons have indeed passed through the Mortal Realm, until now it has always been on a temporary basis. It takes too much energy for them to remain in corporeal form for long and strips them of their powers while they do so, thus limiting their ability to cause chaos and destruction. Furthermore, any demon with the ability to enter the Mortal Realm has been fully vetted and proven they have the ability to control themselves — there are checks and balances in place to ensure this. The Earthwalker’s conundrum is that she has no such limitations and resides on the Mortal Realm permanently, making her more dangerous than anything we’ve dealt with here before.”

  Why do they keep calling me a demon? They think I’m dangerous? And what is this “Earthwalker” nonsense? I fumed to myself quietly, glancing from one Council member to the next.

  The angelic female, Seroquel, that had spoken before raised her voice again and asked, “Is there a way to bind her powers?”

  “Unfortunately not,” the Elder told her calmly. “Once the transformation has begun the process is irreversible.”

  “Well, if we cannot bind her powers than the child must be terminated. It’s unfortunate, but such is life. Allowing a creature such as this to remain in the Mortal Realm goes against everything we stand for.”

  No, please don’t do this, I begged them quietly.

  “I agree,” the golem added. “She's a danger to every inhabitant of Earth and needs to be destroyed. Her powers are unlike anything we've ever seen, allowing them to exist in the world of men would be an affront to nature.”

  “An affront to nature?” Aidan mocked. “The girl’s parents are both mortal and she was brought into the world by natural means — that makes her part of your world, not ours. You want to label everything so you can file it away, nice and tidy out of mind, but unfortunately things are rarely that simple. In this increasingly gray world around us, things are messy, lines are blurred, crossed, and broken. She is out of place; she obviously doesn’t fit here, but cannot survive anywhere else. Banishing her to the Demonic Realm would be an even greater crime. Her birthright entitles her to a place on Earth — I'm afraid you'll have to yield to the logic of biology.”

  “Let’s not pretend that you don't have ulterior motives for keeping her alive,” the angel, Uriel, stated. “We all know of your involvement, your affair with the mortal witch. You hope to groom the girl into an acceptable replacement.”

  “I hold the contract to her mother’s soul, that's true,” Aidan agreed. “I didn't make the girl a demon. That… was nothing short of serendipitous.”

  Uriel smiled, drumming his fingers across the fabric of his robe. “Yes, how convenient for you indeed, but you spoke of the Earthwalker's parentage. You were… involved with the Romani witch, and now she has a demon child. The circumstances are most suspicious.”

  Oh God, no! I thought to myself in horror as their insinuation slowly crept up on me. Please, I cannot be his child! It’s just not possible.

  “If you’re implying that I fathered the red-haired brat, then I'm afraid you are mistaken. Our affair ended long before the child was ever conceived.”

  “Lie,” Seroquel stated simply from her marble throne. Her eyes had glazed over so they were completely white as she stared off into the void, creating a murmur amongst the crowd. Aidan shifted in his seat uncomfortably and it was satisfying to see him squirm under the scrutiny of others.

  “I’m a demon,” he offered flippantly. “Lying is what we do. I’ll concede that might be somewhat of a grey area, however, the facts remain the same, I did not sire her.”

  “So you say,” a robed man sitting among the angels mused. It was the first time I’d heard him speak. Until now he’d just glared at me in silence. “I'm not entirely convinced. Are you able to prove it?”

  Aidan grinned at his challenge and stood up from his chair, rolling up part of his sleeve. “Come here, you precious thing.”

  I scowled at him from across the Grove, shaking my head in refusal. Nope, not happening! Keep away from me, you reptile.

  His grin widened as he gestured me forward with one finger and I was pulled over to where he stood, still suspended in the air.

  With one fluid movement, he drew his sharpened fingernail across his forearm, leaving a bloody gash that dripped openly onto the forest floor. My nose crinkled at the sight of it and the drops of black blood pooled together beneath him in a dark and viscous ooze.

  All eyes were on me when he reached for my arm as well, staring me down with his cold, brown eyes. My instinct was to resist, but with everyone staring at me to see what I would do, I instantly thought better of it and offered my arm to him willingly instead. As he drew his nail across my skin, bright red drops of blood fell to the ground beneath me and mixed with his. To my great relief, however, the red drops that came from me rejected the blood that came before, like oil from water, and ran off to form a crimson ring around it. The two were completely incompatible. The rest of them seemed satisfied so I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing there was no way we could be related.

  The man who questioned him now wore a vicious scowl. “Where's the bloody fool responsible for this meeting anyways? Bring the Guardian forward!”

  There was some shuffling within the crowd and Caleb suddenly appeared, stepping out from the shadow of the trees and passing through the circle of chairs to stand next to me. His tussled brown hair and severe jaw line made him look truly formidable at the moment, it was fitting of the warrior’s outfit that he wore and the cloak thrown across his shoulders.

  Aidan sneered at his arrival and returned to his seat, giving a stiff nod in his direction. “Caleb,” he acknowledged tersely.

  “Lucifer,” he responded. “You summoned me, my Lords?”

  Maya appeared on the edge of the crowd with her lips pursed into a scowl. Caleb must have seen her there as well, but didn’t acknowledge her out of stubbornness.

  “What is the meaning of this?” the domineering figure demanded. “Your orders were quite specific. How do you justify your actions? Once you saw the girl’s latent powers had been activated you should have disposed of her immediately, not taken it upon yourself to convene the Celestial Court. Are you incapable of fulfilling your duties impartially, or was it a momentary lapse in judgment?”

  “Not so fast, Ezekiel,” the angelic man beside him stated. “It wasn’t he that activated the Earthwalker’s powers — that was Lucifer’s doing. We should be questioning him instead.”

  “A worthy point,” the robed figure, Ezekiel agreed. “What gives you the right to go behind the Council’s back and take matters into your own hands?”

  “I’m not the one on trial here,” Aidan stated simply. “Nor am I required to answer
to you, or anyone else for that matter — my business is my own. Her powers would have manifested themselves eventually, I just made the calculated decision about when and where that happened.”

  “Still, it’s a reckless decision that should have been put before us formally.”

  Aidan clicked his tongue and bowed before them mockingly. “My apologies. I’ll take that into consideration in the future.”

  Ezekiel stiffened in his chair turned his attention back to Caleb, who still stood quietly in the midst of them. “And what about you, boy? Anything to say on your behalf?”

  Caleb's jaw was tense when he responded. “I stand by my decision, Great One. Your fear of her is irrational and based on the assumption that her demonic nature will make her an object of destruction, but in the midst of her transition, Wynn’s primal instincts were to protect her family, Maya, and myself. Even though she was in an immeasurable amount of pain, she never lost her focus. Not one of the demons I’ve faced before ever displayed the courage and bravery that Wynn showed this evening — they were always focused on self-preservation. It goes against everything we know about demons and I believe that deserves further reflection.”

  It was the first time any of them referred to me by name and I appreciated the humanizing gesture. His eyes flickered in my direction nervously, and I knew that he didn’t see me as the monster they were describing. He saw a person.

  “Well, I simply don’t know why we’re still discussing this,” the last of the robed figures stated. “If Lucifer has the right to activate her powers without discussing it with the Celestial Court, then we are equally deserving to do with her as we please. I think terminating her permanently from existence is the simplest solution to all our problems.”

  Aidan became dangerously quiet and then spoke clearly so that everyone present could hear him, “If you dispose of the creature with whom I hold a contract, the eternal laws we are bound by will be broken, resulting in utter chaos. It will spark a rebellion from which you will never recover, are we all quite clear on that?”