Page 106 of Spit

“This all happened thousands of years ago.” I reminded him.

“Thousands of years barred in a cell and trapped inside a madman’s mind.” Camio shook his head and tsked. “Legion did as the devil did. He tried to take Lucifer’s throne when he saw what the devil had become. Such a fool.”

“None of this explains why you started all this? Legion bargained for you to be free. You’re out here, with your own body in the Red City—what more could you want?” I gestured to his office.

Camio sat up; his stare grew glacial. “Legion promised a hundred years of servitude in exchange for each of us having a body of our own.” His words were careful. Measured and delicate. “Did he ask us if we were willing to serve? To reign in demons that now walk the human realities and wish to answer to no one but their sin? I have no desire to rule. I just wish to eat.”

“So you’re creating a drug to fatten up as many cows as possible using your Gluttony magic.” I scoffed. “It’s pathetic.”

Camio licked his lips. “Do you think the magic disappears when the cattle perish? Don’t you wonder what would happen to the humans that eat the tainted meat?”

Bile rose in my throat.

Camio stood up and reached for something. I stepped back, the action a defensive reflex that the demon ignored.

He produced a remote of some kind. “Come with me.” He said, nodding to the door.

I followed his gaze. “No handcuffs. Aren’t you worried that I will escape?”

Camio gave me a look. His eyes were the same endless black as Legion's, but Legion’s gaze was a vast universe filled with stars that were just out of reach. Camio’s eyes were just empty.

An elevator opened on the wall to the right of his desk. It wasn’t as big as the one I had ridden up in—a private elevator without buttons.

“I need to show you something.” Camio gestured for me to get into the elevator.

I followed his instructions and waited.

We rode down in silence, down down down into the boughs of the building. Even further than my previous cell. My stomach twisted, and my fingers tingled. It took all my effort to keep my breathing steady, and I wanted nothing more than to run away.

My only comfort was my shadow.

The elevator finally stopped, but the doors didn’t open. I had been making every effort to avoid looking at the demon. His smell had been harder to ignore—stale fast food and body odor.

A flash of silver caught my eye. He was holding a needle.

The only thing that moved was my eyes as I waited for the demon to attack.

Camio held up the needle to his face and studied it. “I’m certain that Legion told you I have two of his facets in my possession, though you have only seen one so far.”

“I haven’t seen Mars,” I told him.

Camio nodded, eying the syringe. “He is beyond this door. Though I suppose that you won’t be around to have the answer to the question I posed earlier.”

“What’s that?” I asked, and even I wasn’t sure if I meant the question or the contents of the needle.

“What happens when a human consumes tainted meat?” His smirk reminded me of a shark.

He made my skin crawl.

“You want me to eat Mars?” I laughed, the sound hollow.

“Inside this syringe is a quart of my blood, the Feeder as its known,” Camio continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “I saw what happened in the cell. You must have noticed that you haven’t received food for over twenty-four hours. Whatever my blood does to you, I’d like to watch. It might solve one of my problems or both.”

“Your problems being me and the Envy demon in that cell?”

Camio hummed. “Just so.”

“You can stick that needle up your ass,” I growled.

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