Zane nodded. “The souls of the dead fuel the magic that demons access and use. Once the soul is essentially used up, they can be reborn. No soul is created or destroyed in the process, however, the more powerful the soul, the more power they provide us in the Underworld and the longer their soul spends fueling demons.”
“Basically, what I already told you yesterday,” Chupey huffed.
I patted his head.
My demon familiar arched into the contact and his tongue rolled out the side of his mouth.
Zane looked torn between disgust and amusement.
“Chupey did tell me something similar. So, souls are fuel?”
“Good and evil have no bearing on any of it. Souls are souls. Magic is magic. Power is power.”
I blinked at him.
Zane cleared his throat. “But yeah. Souls are fuel.”
“I’m not sure what to think about that,” I said. I hadn’t had a chance to really digest the information the first time I’d heard it, but a second time around the information made the wheels in my mind clank around a little bit.
“Then don’t think of it at all,” Zane replied. “Demons are just supernatural beings who live in another realm and wield magic. Simple.”
“Simple?” Yeah, somehow I doubted that any of this was simple.
“Or…” Chupey perked up from the rug near my feet. “Think of the magic as a flow of energy, much like a flow of water. You need to find a way to access that stream. The ability resides within you. It’s your own mortal soul that is most likely interfering.”
“I’ve got mortal blockage?” I frowned and eyed the bottle in Zane’s hand. He wordlessly handed it over.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Zane said.
And, unfortunately, that wasn’t an exaggeration.