Page 87 of Demons of Eden

Eden was right. He really does seem to enjoy the sound of his own voice.

“I walked right in behind the witches when they so generously opened the way for me with her family’s blood. It didn’t take long to decipher their true plans and prepare my own in turn. Your presence caused an unexpected change in those plans.”

“Why?”

“Is it not evident why I would prioritise coming for you first?”

“How did you know? NotwhatI am, but…who,” I reply, unable to actually say it, not even to stall him. To call myself anything he would consider as his…it makes me feel physically sick. It’s not as if the blood connecting us means anything more than confirming he’s the fucking cunt who killed my mother.

“The enchantment targets demon biology, so when you reacted to it, it was clear you were what you are, even if I cannot sense your true power.” His eyes seem to narrow in displeasure at not being able to sense it. “As forwho, you are the right age,and you look quite likeher.Taller and broader, of course, but she always was rather?—”

“Don’t,” I snap, my hands clenching into fists I barely manage to keep to myself. “Do not fucking talk about her.”

“You’re making demands? I’m afraid that isn’t how this is going to work.” He chuckles. Fucking chuckles.

What little control I’ve managed to keep is gone in seconds. Using my magic, which is still slightly stunted from the enchantment, to boost my speed, I throw myself at him. While one fist moves to punch at his throat, I use a silent summoning spell to call a demon-killing blade into my other, fully intending to stab it right into the back of his fucking neck.

He doesn’t move from where he’s standing, doesn’t even flinch.

The demon catches my fist in one hand, twisting my arm back as he deflects the punch. I grit my teeth through the pain, pushing a wave of energy at him as I spin on my feet, bringing up the black-bladed dagger in my other hand. He blocks the energy and catches my other wrist just as easily, giving me an unimpressed look.

“You should be more powerful than this,” he hisses, sounding almost insulted. The demon then tosses me to the ground with enough force to send me rolling. I use the motion to get back on my feet, staying crouched low as I restrain myself from stupidly lashing out again. I have to be smart about this, but he needs to die.

It’s hard to reason with the anger raging like a bull in my chest.

“Where is your power?” he demands, and it’s my turn to laugh now. Whatever fucked-up plans he had for me, they’re all for nothing. My magic is sealed. I’m useless to him so far as demonic abilities and ridiculous levels of power go.

“Gone, and I'm glad. I don’t want anything of yours.”

“That isn’t possible,” he disagrees, taking a step towards me but stopping his approach when he sees me tensing to move, expression becoming considering. “Then again…you shouldn’t be, either. I felt your energy signature cease. It was bled into the walls of that place, the moment of your supposed death.”

At his mention of it, I can’t help but recall what happened. Sealing my magic had hurt. A lot.

I was too young to fully understand what she and the mysterious person she’d found to help her with it were doing. I’m not surprised that the pain of that moment, along with the cutting off of my power’s presence, was enough to convince him it was my death. She’d still cried more than I had that day. Apologising over and over again for the pain of the ritual. I’d felt hurt and confused by it at the time, but that, like many of my complex memories of her, was done out of her love for me. Her desire to protect me from this monster and from those who would hate me for what I am. She hated seeing me in pain, but I know she made the right call. If she hadn’t done it, he would have found me while I was still young enough for him to manipulate.

“She found a way to seal it, didn’t she?” he questions suddenly.

I force my face to remain blank, not confirming anything. Could he find a way to unseal it if he discovered how it was done? Or will he find it too much effort to even try, kill me here right now and go after Eden again? I reach for my power once more, feeling it out. Almost back to normal, but even at my normal, a demon as powerful as he is…it’s not an ideal fight to take on by myself.

“Althea was always rather clever, for a witch.”

“I said don’t—” Pain suddenly erupts through my entire body, too much to finish my sentence as I collapse and curl in onmyself. It’s like a burning poison travelling through my veins. I think I cry out from the intensity of it, but I can’t be sure.

It stops as suddenly as it started.

“And I told you that isn’t how this is going to work,” the demon says chidingly. He sighs, then crouches down and rolls me onto my back. He sets a hand on my chest, and I feel a wave of his sickly energy pass through me, forcing a shudder through my frame. “We will have to fix this error, and I know just where to go in order to do it.”

I never wantedto see this place ever again. If it were anyone else, I’d be surprised at the sadistic choice to bring me here, but it makes a twisted sort of sense that he would find it fitting.

Until now, I’ve only been back to the town once. Ava and James had brought me at my request, but I hadn’t wanted to go anywhere near the house itself. I was thirteen years old at the time, filled with too many questions and overwhelming frustration. None of the locals had recognised me as we’d wandered around, but it isn’t as if we’d lived here long. A few months, if that. I had hoped something somewhere would spark memories, good ones. All I had found was a place that felt familiar but not. I also heard this building being loudly referred to ascursedwhen Ava had attempted to subtly ask someone about it.

The building looks almost nothing like how I remember it, having deteriorated over the years since it was abandoned, but it’s unmistakably the same place. It’s almost as if I see two different rooms when I look around. The mental images layer across each other in my mind, creating an uncomfortable distortion between past and present.

Mould has consumed the once cream walls of the living area we’ve teleported into, having worked its way across almost all of its surface from the darkest parts near the large southern window. Most of the furniture has been removed, but the sofa remains, now tossed onto its side and out of its intended place. The blue of the fabric has faded. Either that, or it’s too covered in dust to see what’s underneath. I ignore the ominous dark stain in the carpet beside it, quickly looking away.

This was the last house I lived in with my mother. It’s where she sealed my magic, and worse, it’s wherehekilled her.

“Disgusting,” the demon mutters, drawing my attention back into the present as he gives a repulsed look towards the mouldy rug we appeared on, stepping off from it. Not that the carpet is in a much better state.

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