In Eden's Shadow

by Amanda Churi

  “…So, you’re breaking the ancient laws of your people by allowing us to have access to these truths,” Virgil concluded.

  Vasili grunted, looking back ahead. His dulling eyes suddenly exploded with fresh light, causing multiple Returned to sharply recoil. “They’re obsolete. I understand why they were put in place, but we are dying from starvation. Times have changed.”

  Virgil flashed him a thumbs up. “Like the way you think, demon.”

  “Wait.”

  Virgil glanced over his shoulder. Griffin looked so fragile and scared simply saying what was on his mind—a little boy not cut out for war in the slightest. That arm was the only thing that made him even remotely worth something. “Demons can die…?” Griffin asked. “Naturally?”

  Vasili looked back at the cyborg. “Why do you ask?”

  Griffin’s head drooped, his blue eyes almost eaten alive by his pupils as he thought of Eero as he had last seen him. “Because.”

  “How specific…” Vasili lashed out with a claw at a resistant Returned, advancing once it withered in pain and drew back. “Normally, we cannot die—not in Hell, at least, the few exceptions being holy entities, demons, and whatnot. But away from the homeland, we are only immortal to time. Of course, we’re not as weak as you humans—we are far more resistant and resilient, but still, our strength here is nowhere near that of what it is in Hell. If we are not careful, most anything that can kill you can kill us.”

  Griffin’s thoughts shot back to Typo: despite being gaseous in nature, he was afflicted by Kaitlyn’s arrow on their first encounter, but he survived what should have been a mortal wound—because he was a strong, collected demon. When Eero gave in to his Essence, the strikes from the Elites could not even touch him, but Azuré… She died just after she had fully succumbed to her core—an Essence at full power—yet a simple blow to the head took her out. “Are Essences different?”

  Vasili carefully nodded. “From what I can recall, the curse of the Essence creates the strongest demon there is, but, in another sense, the weakest. The core draws its strength from the fledglings within, so it’s hard to physically injure them… That being said, much like all humans have a fatal flaw, so does an Essence.”

  “Fatal… Flaw?” Griffin echoed.

  “Yes. I sense that yours is your insecurity.”

  Griffin’s spine cringed, his bronze fingers frightfully clasping his natural ones. Was Embry right? Was he really that easy to read, even to a complete stranger?

  “You bear no confidence,” the lerial continued. “You doubt. All humans are flawed; it’s just a part of existing. For some, it is size; for others, it can be intellect, and then everything between. For Essences, it is the past. The human soul is destroyed when the core takes over, but the memories of its former host are still there—similar to that of the Returned. The former appearance of the core overrides the human flesh, but the brain… It is a combination of demon and departed human.

  “With the mergence, their memories twist. It is hard to distinguish one life from the other without getting confused, and even though the demon core has no connection to its host emotionally, the memories are still there, and it haunts endlessly. It weakens them, and when they break enough, the fledglings seize the chance. It’s why no Essence ever lasts… Not because they can’t hold the fledglings back, but because they can’t hold themselves together.”

  …So, Eero isn’t safe at all… Griffin realized with horror as Eero’s natural form violently scorched his brain—that last terrible sight of a humongous, threatening soldier with reptile ears and a tail readied with one of the most dangerous weapons to ever exist. But is Eero even there? Vasili said the core overtakes the human soul, so is it even worth worrying about him if he’s already dead in spirit?

  He didn’t want to ask, but he couldn’t help himself; his friends’ absences only worried him more every day. “Do you know Eero, Vasili?”

  “Griffin, cool it with the questions,” Virgil reprimanded. “He’s an escort, not a tour guide.”

  “I do.”

  Griffin looked up in surprise. “Huh?!”

  “Not personally,” he corrected, “but I know of him. Any enlightened demon would; after all, he was problematic enough to have an entire species created in honor of him.”

  Griffin vomited the next question: “Then is there any way that his demon would have spared his human soul?”

  The last of the Returned parted, revealing a cleared portion of the forest. Griffin’s heart thundered as he awaited an answer, but the lerial did not look at him, did not answer him, heading into the clearing instead.

  “H-hey!” Griffin cried, pushing past Virgil and stumbling after the demon into the hollow. “Tell me! I can take it!”

  The demon’s arms blurred by movement gradually became detectable, slowing down and bringing him to the earth. His eyes remained peeled ahead, eyeing up a ceiling of impermeable branches. Suspended from their reaches was a tightly woven spherical cage formed from dead timbers—one with more than enough space for even the biggest of lerials. The door was closed, and it did not move; braided vines kept it aloft, but the stillness of the dark air around it was frightening.

  With a chilled breath, Vasili replied, and the vagueness of it nearly brought Griffin to his knees: “I don’t think you need me to answer that.”

  The Returned closed off the tunnel as the Encryptors silently filed into Merritt’s protected home. The soil was upturned and frozen, heavily littered with debris; several Returned were tilted sideways and crossing one another, their roots growing above ground and forming a natural barrier toward the back of the enclosure. Moldy tufts of lerial fur were scattered about as well as broken black nails and sharp fragments of bone; some belonged to fingers, and others belonged to skulls.

  Seek’s aura dimmed dramatically when her eyes stumbled across the remnants of lerial corpses. The smell of rotting air brought Flye’s mind back to her current dimension, and it fully recaptured Sybil’s focus as well. Virgil held his shoulders back and kept his chin up, boldly coming to stand in line with Vasili—an assertation of his power. The clan leader shot him a stern side-glance and lightly tugged on the leg of Virgil’s trousers to warn against any hasty action.

  Virgil chuckled, giving the lerial’s notion little thought. “What, you think I can’t take her?”

  “Prelude, show some respect,” Seek sharply whispered.

  “For a demon? Please.”

  “This is Merritt’s territory, Encryption leader,” Vasili reminded him under his breath. “Tread lightly with your words.”

  “It’s Merritt-sama!”

  Eyes snapped to the booming voice. Griffin scuffled back, and Seek sharply stepped forth, pushing out her aura to make sure that the hag took note of her supernatural capabilities.

  The elder lingered in the shadows behind the barricade that her petrified comrades formed with their twisted trunks, peering out at the intruders through the natural gaps in the wall. Her eyes were larger than most lerials’, but the potency of the hue was drastically enhanced. Half of Merritt’s dwelling gave way to a malevolent, violet glow, but the unwelcomed guests were barred with Seek’s protective sheen; the two colors blended at an equidistant between them, neither trying to push farther into the other’s territory, but both staking claim to their own ground.

  “Merritt, why are you not in your cage?!” Vasili demanded. “You old coot, you could have hurt yourself getting out!”

  “AGAIN, HONORIFICS!” A hungry crunch came from behind her shelter, a gluttonous gulp following. “Now go away, you rude thing! You need not see a lady eat!”

  Vasili’s eyes could have popped out of his head. A ravenous snarl broke his professional posture, and he leaped forward, baring his fangs and flapping his arms. “Eat?! Who did you snatch up now, you loon?!”

  A warm burp flooded the cold air. The severed arm of a lerial flew over the top of the barricade, landing before Vasili’s feet. “She was weak anyway,” Merritt justifie
d with another belch. “You can have that piece if you want; it’s just a tad frostbitten at the fingers.”

  The head lerial had to stifle the urge to lunge, but it crept out of his eyes and caused them to twitch. “You… That’s just pathetic. We’re withering away from hunger; our very species may soon cease to exist, and you still have the audacity to feast the moment I turn my head?!”

  “I have a bigger appetite, what can I say?” She squinted her eyes and tilted her head, the smallest smirk evident in her pupils. “You don’t come and bring me my pickings anymore, Vasili. I have to rely on the kiddies who are stupid enough to seek me out. But oh… Today seems a bit different, no?”

  Her threat did nothing to Seek. She flicked away the levitating bangs that dared to cross paths with her eyes, holding her fists at her sides and keeping the knuckles zeroed in on the sheltered demon. “Sorry, but the buffet is closed. Try again some other time.”

  “Sou desu ka… Then why have you come?” Merritt’s eyes stumbled back across Vasili, who could not settle down as he stared at the fresh pickings that Merritt had taken. “Was this nothing more than a taunt? Because if so, you are the cruelest of cruel.”

  “Merritt—”

  “MERRITT-SAMA!”

  “…Merritt-sama,” he corrected resentfully. “They seek answers. Just tell them what they want, and we’ll be gone.”

  “That’s not the demon I am anymore, Vasili. You should know that.” The branches creaked; a thirsty, deprived snarl arose from the loneliest of pits, and with a stuttering crack, she clenched down on the uppermost trunk with curled claws, hurling herself up to get a clear view of the uninvited.

  Seek slid a single foot back and thrust her hands forth, allowing energy to congregate in her palms. Snarling, Merritt rose higher and higher above her wooden fort. The more of her body that was revealed, the more intense her purple aura became. Her powers kept her in the form of a silhouette, but every inch disclosed sank helping after helping of terror into Griffin’s crushed stomach. She was the largest lerial to ever exist… Her size put Vasili to complete and utter shame. She did not stand at a mere foot but close to six. The shoulders were broad, the arms were muscled, and the drool seeped from her lip, splattering on the crusty earth. Her arms rose when she placed her foot atop their tombstones, her torn wings unfolding beside her as a bird of prey, preparing to dive down and feast. “You never listened to me then, so why would my word be sought after now?! GIVE ME YOUR HEARTS, YOUR SOULS, AND FEAR MY—!”

  Her unnatural weight brought the timbers down under her feet, offsetting her balance in the middle of her boast. A sharp, almost pathetic squeal finished her sentence as she tumbled down the wall face-first, landing right in front of her intruders.

  A surprised stutter fled Seek’s mouth—almost a laugh. Merritt groaned, trying to blink her failure out of existence, but with her face in the dirt and her rear in the air, all opportunity of redemption was lost. “Well… You’re certainly not the terrifying being that you make yourself out to be!” Seek sneered with a snort.

  Merritt frowned, but there was no point in rectifying her little show. The Merritt that fell before them was so different than what Griffin had been expecting—not a vicious, bloodthirsty demon, but a joke.

  She was of eastern heritage—human heritage. She had a head full of long, slick black hair that was bound in a double ponytail, but at the crown, her hair was poofy and white like a cock’s plumage. She wore essentially no clothing besides a heavily tattered purple-black cloak; it started as a single strap over her right shoulder, gaining width the farther it traveled until her left side was completely concealed. The forearms were protected by ebony gauntlets made from lerial hides, and her nails had been filed into deadly, black-painted blades. A set of sliced-off lerial ears hung from her tied locks, and an extra-long, limp tail was attached to the back of a thick, black velvet belt clicked tight at her slim waist. Loops of loose black ribbon decorated with tiny silver bells adorned her exposed left thigh, the skimpiest pallet of dark fabric hiding her lower genitalia. And the breasts? They were only concealed if that was the direction that her cloak desired to flow.

  “Nice entrance,” Vasili mocked. “Serves you right.”

  Merritt rolled her purple eyes, but she didn’t pick herself up; the wash of blush under her saturated eyes showed that she was too embarrassed to.

  “She’s not even a lerial,” Virgil noted, giving her a taunting poke in the face with his heavy boot. She snarled, trying to slice him open with the quick strike of a claw. “She’s more like… Ah, what’s the word?” Virgil shot Flye a glance, who had done nothing but stare this entire time. “Bookworm! In the original past, what were those people called who dressed up as characters of those drawing book things?”

  Flye’s ashen face blew up with color. “COSPLAYERS!”

  Griffin had no clue firsthand what such a term stood for, but the phrase “original past” continued to shock him. That was not the first time Flye had referenced something beyond her reach of knowledge. “Flye…? How do you know about things that never happened in the first place?”

  A grin cracked her lips. “I told you that I like to read, no? Let’s just say that I have unique resources.”

  Griffin’s hand found his forehead in utter disbelief. “No one in this future makes any freaking sense! How would any book written in this future be able to tell you about the destroyed one?!”

  Merritt huffed, propping her chin up on her knuckles. “Ōi! I thought my sought-after wisdom was supposed to be the center of attention here. What gives? I didn’t ask for a front row squabble-seat.”

  Virgil crossed his bulky arms, flexing his muscles in an intimidating fashion. “And I asked for a lerial, but instead, I got a half-dressed whore.”

  Her eyes ignited in rage. “HEY! Who are you—?!”

  “Wait, what?” Vasili interrupted. “What do you mean? She is clearly a lerial.”

  The brewing tension condensed into a heavy steam. A flabbergasted “What?” was all that Seek could muster, the hanging jaws of her allies silently releasing the same, dumbfounded response.

  “What’s wrong with you all?” Merritt asked bluntly. “Never seen a birth defect? Well, I’ll have you know that it’s rude to stare!”

  Seek shook her head once, her compressed pupils squeezing harder to keep the bullshit out. “Nice try, but I know that’s not true. You can try to fool them, but you can’t pull that over on me—your soul won’t let you.”

  Merritt stuck out her slit tongue in disgust, the two slimy arms pulling away from one another with an infuriated tremor. “My kind disgusts me…”

  Seek chuckled, taking a bold step forward. “I’m not of your kind, sorceress.”

  Doubt filled Merritt’s folded body, her purple eyes shining with disbelief. Her spine uncurled itself, propping her torso straight up so that she was perched on her knees, but she could not move further; the perplexed, skeptical gazes of Sybil and Vasili had petrified her. She tried to speak, inaudible slurs and puffs of air twisting on her tongue, but not a single word could be formed.

  “Sorceress…” Griffin breathed. “I thought they ceased to exist like all other supernaturals?”

  “T-they did, and I-I’m not!” Merritt managed to spit out. “Stop placing labels on me just because you think you’re better!”

  “I’m not,” Seek casually reasoned. “What you are is just dead obvious.”

  Merritt grabbed her strung ears, pulling them down with a shriek. “Baka! You know not of what you speak! I-I will make you regret ever opening your mouth!” Through her pity party, she found her footing, but only for a mere second before Seek threw her fist straight into Merritt’s gut. An ocean of white light shot out of her bony fist and set fire to Merritt’s veins, illuminating every blood road present. A spark flashed in Merritt’s dark eyes, and once Seek’s power had traveled its course, the sorceress collapsed onto her behind, tugging harder on her ears and wailing as she curled into a fetal position. “
OW!”

  “Enough games.” Seek dropped into a crouch, looking at the cowardly sorceress head-on. “We’re on a mission to defeat the Proxez, and you’re gonna talk.”

  “Ah, screw you! I don’t have to help anyone!”

  Seek roughly grabbed her by the cheeks, pinching them with all of the strength that could be channeled into her fingers. “If you want to live, yes, you will. Now, first things first: what powers do you have?”

  “None!” she frightfully answered with stretched lips. “I’m a lerial! Just leave me OW OW STOP SQUEEZING!”

  “I’m not playing around! What can you—?!”

  “NOTHING! I CAN’T DO—STOPPP!” Innovative mascara formed from a mix of blood and ink rolled down her precious cheeks; her eyes looked like they were bleeding out their color. “Please! I don’t have anything! Can you HOLY CRAP YOUR NAILS OW OW OW—!!!”

  The gawking spectators of the interrogation had no words. They kept their distance, but the sight itself brought Griffin and Flye’s jaw down to that of a nutcracker. “So that’s what little miss goddess looks like when she’s pissed off,” Flye whispered in awe. A little snicker curled her lips, and she exploded with an excited screech. “All aboard the yup train to fuckyes-ville! How frickin’ cool is that?! I wish we had gone on missions together! She could’ve blasted them away with her goodness, and I’d just get some guns, tip ‘em sideways, and go all gangsta mode!”

  Griffin hardly had the words to describe what was running through his head after hearing that. Was that what Laelia would have been like if she lived? Damn… Maybe it was better that she was taken out…

  “ŌI, MATTE, MATTE! Would you just hold on for one damn second?!” Merritt managed to squirm out of Seek’s hold. She wildly scuttled back on all fours, churning up the soil and pressing her back against the barricade that she had chosen to hide behind earlier. “Look, bitch, I’m sorry, but I’m not talking! You’ll never overthrow the Proxez, and I’m sure as hell not throwing my life away for your useless cause! Now GET LOST.”