The Demon Girl Part 4

Jono sent a scathing look her way, continued as if she hadn't spoken, "s.h.i.+fters, can change to a single other form and this metamorphosis tends to present itself during-"

"Why we humans always gotta be placing names on things," she added after a few beats.

"Then there are witches," said Jono through his teeth, face twisted sourly, "Who can be male or female, and manipulate matter with the power of-"

"They evil and that's that," Ro told Alex and sent her a slow smile. "What else we call them?"

"I'm speaking," Jono spat, his glare switching between the both of them.

Alex dragged her eyes from Ro's chest and glared at Jono. "Dwells," she muttered. "Think reading and writing good makes you better than us." Tipping her chin up, her voice rose. "I got as much right to talk as you do."

He sneered at her. "Life sucking mambo."

She lurched up, knocked her seat over and waved him forward. "You talk much. Let us see how you do with no teeth."

Mambos were the name of voodoo Sorcerers eradicated by the Sect nearly a decade before. It was well known that Alex's mother had dabbled in black magic, and was whispered that not only had she dabbled, but was a proficient Sorceress of the craft. Her dark past was not something the upper dwells let Alex forget, and though she did not embrace her origins, she didn't deny them either.

The sound of Tu slamming his fist on a desk cut above the shouts of encouragement from the other Disciples. "Show disrespect to the slum dwells and you disrespect me," he said and made eye contact with everyone. "Anybody does it again and we'll have a problem. Alex, cool it. "

Setting her chair right, Alex sat back down and shot daggers at everybody, mumbling obscenities under her breath. I caught her eye and saw the tears there. I wasn't the only one, for Jono flushed, the colour spreading out from his cheeks to kiss his hairline and darken his neck.

Satisfied the peace had been restored, Tu's handsome face returned to its normal cheerful mien. "Carry on," he said.

"Of course, Lord Cleric," Jono replied somberly.

Ro, not one to forgive and forget, mimed a neck slicing action at him. He would have to watch his step in the days to come. Ro had come from the slums too, born into one of the gang families who were rumored to have a Bokor in their ranks; a man with white hair who called malevolent corpses back from the grave. I myself thought it was simply the skewed reputation of an old man who was good with herbs and medicine, as did the Temple Priests. The slums had been searched for pract.i.tioners of witchcraft and black magic, and none had been found.

"The last is goblin," Jono continued in a somewhat humbler voice than before. "The gene presents itself from conception and is visible from birth. Disfigurement of the humanoid form can vary from slight to severe. Goblins show increased strength and animal like senses, but have notably low levels of intelligence."

I rolled my eyes. Demon species cla.s.sification was easy; a panhandler could have told Tu that information. After all, you should know the full extent of how screwed you were if a demon managed to breach the Wall and cross your path, apart from me, of course. I took a long moment to feel special then scolded myself, because my situation was dangerous and creepy, not special.

"Impressive," Tu said dryly. "But I think you'll find you forgot one."

Jono looked confused. "I named all demons known to man." He flicked a page of his textbook. His eyes widened and he pushed the book away. "I named all real demons; I didn't think we needed to reference extinct species. Should I have mentioned the silver backed ape as well?"

A smattering of Disciples laughed, but I found nothing funny about it. So many animals had been lost during the Rupture. During the fighting it seemed everyone forgot that there were other creatures than the ones that could talk, and be heard by fighting back. Nevertheless, intrigued like others around me, I flicked to the relevant chapter in my book. I paused and scanned the summary of demons, and my eyes snagged on the name.

Tu said, "Fairy. There have been eighty-seven recorded sightings of creatures with humanoid appearance in the last year."

I stifled a little bubble of hysteria. A grin stretched my face until I thought my lips would split down the middle. Alex sent me an odd look, and quirked her eyebrow as if to ask 'what's so funny?' I pulled my face together and waved her away.

"Lord Cleric, you're asking us to consider fairies flying around the region sprinkling dust and spouting riddles?" Jono's was incredulous. "They're practically extinct."

Ro snorted a laugh and it smothered out the wild giggle I couldn't seem to contain.

"I think on it, and can't believe it," he said. "No Cleric has confirmed sighting of a fairy." Flicking the side of his nose a few times with his thumb, he snorted again.

He caught Alex watching him from the corner of her eye and winked. She fought a smile. Looked like they were going to make up and play nice again. Ro was a complicated endeavor that Alex could not seem to get a handle on. They were always breaking up, seeing other people then coming back together again. Ro liked Alex, a lot, but he liked guys too, and it seemed to be something she couldn't get her head around.

The cla.s.s kept up this train of topic for a while and I tuned out, lazily scratching pictures into the table surface with my pen cap.

"That's an interesting necklace you have on," said a hushed voice.

My hand slid to cover the leather tie and circular golden pendant that hung from it. Devlin was leaning out of his chair, closer to me.

"Ta," I said and turned back around. He moved closer. I s.h.i.+fted away and tried to focus on what Ro was saying, but he wasn't finished.

"Can I see it?"

"No," I answered frankly without looking at him.

"It's important to you."

"Yes."

"May I ask why?"

He was not getting that arms crossed, face turned away signaled I did not want to talk. Scowling, I faced him. "It's all I have from my past."

He gave me an apologetic look. "It reminds you of your family."

I smiled tightly. "It reminds me every day that people can throw you away like trash, and to trust no one but yourself."

"You sound bitter," he said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, well." I was done with the conversation. I turned away again, slid deeper into my chair but found my hand rising. Tu signaled to me with a nod. "Sorry if this is random, I haven't been following the conversation." I shot a pointed look at Devlin. "Why all of a sudden are we focusing on fairies? I've noticed my cla.s.ses in the last month keep picking it up as the main study topic."

"We have orders to increase your training on lesser known beings, in particular fairies. There has been increased activity and sightings near the Wall."

My heart tripped a little in my chest. "Increased?"

"Forty in the last month."

"Where?"

Tu's gaze bored into mine. "Here, around the Temple."

I swallowed and scrunched my hands into fists on my knees. The silence thickened, and several sharp intakes of breath sounded throughout the room.

"Do we know why?" asked Devlin.

"No," Tu replied. "But we can make an educated guess. This is where the greatest protectors of our race are trained. A demon gaining access to this Temple would be disastrous. They know this, and since we first came here we've suffered the odd attack." He pushed his hands out in an open and calming gesture. "And that is why you should not worry. Every attack made by a demon on this Temple has failed. The Wall keeps us safe, and when it is breached we erase the danger."

He paused and paced back and forth across the cla.s.sroom floor, hands behind his back, and his eyes on the floor. His face had become drawn, dark. Is that what he thought he'd done earlier, erased a danger? My stomach lurched as my eyes wandered over his crimson blazer. It was hard to look at him straight. I wanted to stand and shout and point and tell everyone how sick and twisted he was.

"Tell me, how you would identify a fairy?" he asked as if plucking the question from the air.

"Textbooks say fairies are the most diverse of all demon kind," Jono started. "Some have bright colored hair and funny colored eyes but all are noted to have an in-depth connection with nature, and possess inhuman strength, speed and regenerative ability." Jono's mouth opened, breathing in deeply, no doubt about to spew more statistical nonsense.

My hand shot up.

Dark eyebrows climbing at the forceful thrust of my hand, Tu jerked his chin at me. "Rae, you have something else to add?" There was faint surprise in his tone.

I could admit I was a more sit in silence then ace all my exams type. But just looking at him had all sorts of questions swirling around my mind.

"Lord Cleric," I said thickly then had to grunt a few times to clear my windpipe, for bile had risen at having to address this man with the honorific. "I know despite the reports of sightings that fairies are rare, but have Have you ever seen one? Up close, I mean? "

He stopped pacing, and his mouth opened then closed. He stared at me hard before rubbing a large hand over his face. "No. I have never seen a fairy. They are incredibly rare demons."

I c.o.c.ked my head and my mouth won out over logic. "Have the Clerics ever caught a fairy? They hunt vampires and s.h.i.+fters all the time, but I've never heard of them actually catching that particular type of demon."

From the corner of my eye I saw Devlin s.h.i.+ft in his chair. I was not surprised. People didn't question Clerics like this. The only reason I was managing it is because I'd seen Tu in his most base form. He had lost all my respect so it was nothing to talk to him as an equal.

His eyes went wild, gla.s.sy with repressed panic. Could no one else see it? "Like I said they are so rare-"

The direction of my thought changed abruptly, "If they haven't," I interrupted and tapped Alex's textbook with a finger, "how does the Sect know to put such detail in our books?"

Now I'd looked, they'd even described different variations of fairy coloring. Once you'd seen it, it was so striking it was not something you could ever forget. How could the Sect know that, and why had I not noticed before?

His eyes darted to and from mine. He placed his palms up, pushed them out. "Such beings are commonly-"

My mind flashed to the fairy in the clearing, all that blood and sizzling skin. The ruthless way he had behaved made my gut churn and my expression darken. "The Sect is lying." Someone to my left made a choking sound of disbelief. "They must have studied these demons, and for some reason you don't want us to-"

Tu slammed his beefy hand on the desk. "Enough," he barked.

I jumped, snapped my mouth shut.

Stunned at his own outburst, he bl.u.s.tered around with some papers on his desk and cleared his throat. "That is enough on this subject for today." His voice was quiet, distracted. "Team up and turn to page sixteen of your textbooks to discuss and summarize the proposed vampire reproduction. Start. I'll be back shortly to check your progress." He spun on his heel, avoided looking at me and left the cla.s.s.

Snapped from my single-minded quest for truth, I flushed at the number of people staring at me. I shot a look at Alex who was wide eyed, pouty mouth hanging with a chocolate bar resting on her bottom lip. It was foolish for me to call such attention to myself, and plain stupid to insult the Sect. Pulling my hood up, I breathed out, and tried think of a reasonable explanation for my behavior. Skipping out of cla.s.s wouldn't help; it would confirm any suspicions. Tu was one of the Clerics who had hunted me this morning. No doubt he was on his way to inform the others of my weird behavior and the direction of my questions. Great, talk about staying under the radar.

A sharp pain on my arm made me yelp. Alex's face popped into view. "d.a.m.n, Rae. You zoned hard."

"What cla.s.s is next?" I asked. I wondered if I should consider ditching. If the Clerics thought I was a danger maybe I needed to leave now. If they found out I was a demon Wait. How would they ever know that? G.o.ds, I was becoming melodramatic.

"We got Subterfuge," Alex replied, "but I might ditch."

I eyed her like she'd lost it. Why would she do that on a whim? Disciples who were caught ditching had to do bereavement duty. It meant helping the morgue deal with the remains of any poor misfortunate's that got taken out by demons who'd breached the Wall. You helped cremate dead bodies and notified any next of kin. Most times it was kids who'd stayed out too late, or had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was the Clerics duty to protect, and when they failed they made sure they grieved with the families, and showed them respect. I only considered it because my life might be on the line.

The cla.s.s divided up into little clicks and Ro came over. He made a silly face at me then grinned. I built myself up mentally, knowing what was about to come next. Hauling me up, he wrapped his arms around mine and kissed my cheek. "I missed you, Rae." He was several heads taller than me, and my feet lifted from the floor as he squeezed. Roland, Alex's on off steady, was nice. He'd always talk to me if he saw me around the compound even when he and Alex were on outs. I wouldn't call him a friend since I only knew him and maintained a relations.h.i.+p because he was important to Alex.

And that's why I let him hug me, didn't punch him in the face and said, "You too." I s.h.i.+fted, a subtle signal for him to let go, but he remained uncomfortably close. I extracted myself. "How was it? The a.s.signment, I mean."

I was genuinely curious. I hadn't lived in the slums before I came to the Academy. I had been tied to the Sect since birth, and held in orphanages in the upper dwells. I was one of the lucky ones. Those without parents generally became panhandlers, beggars prey for any hungry demons that hid behind the Wall. Plus, I loved the creative atmosphere of the place.

"A goblin kid hid in a shack close to the Sect church, a simple catch and release." He shrugged, s.h.i.+fted on the spot. "Same old thing. Dirty and cold, but it be my home, y'know?" He paused and made a clicking noise with his tongue, a sound one made unconsciously before bringing up a touchy or dangerous subject. It was a slum dwell habit I knew he'd been trying to get rid of for a while. "Something happened to you this morning?"

I pressed my lips together. Ro was perceptive, more than was usual for a boy his age. That or I looked worse than I thought. I worked hard to keep most of the kooky c.r.a.p I did away from Alex. It would only worry her. The stuff from this morning would probably give her grey hairs. Ro looked like he was ready to buckle down and figure what was wrong with me. Maybe his well timed words and snorts earlier were trying to accomplish more than just derision. Maybe he was trying to cover up the fact I was giggling like a banshee during what was supposed to be a serious discussion. Whatever issues I had about how cooped up we were behind the Wall or how purist the teachings of Sect had become, the Temple was my home. Suggestions bound to get me into serious trouble stayed locked firmly inside my mind, most of the time. Disciples who'd voiced radical ideas like my own ended up failing the final exam or kicked out of the Sect. Then there were the ones who disappeared entirely. That was not going to happen to me. Ro and I had had a few very brief discussions about this. Touched on the subject more than once, how some things the Sect did and said didn't quite add up. How Disciples going missing, after they had spoken up about the treatment of demons we captured, was just plain wrong. Ro had always been keen to talk more, but I'd always pulled back.

"I went Outside," I said and lifted my chin. "I ran in the forest."

Alex groaned and plucked at the skin of her throat as if it irritated her. She'd already known this and her reaction was purely knee jerk.

Ro didn't look surprised, if anything mildly impressed. "Did something happen?"

I tilted my head, hearing something unspoken in the words. "Why'd you think that?"

"You on edge, and earlier you went pale like you seen you a ghost. You got so shook up you forgot yourself and walked right into Devlin. Rae, you always so careful and cautious about touching, and you got so distracted you forgot?" He shook his head. "I don't think so, something big happened."

I swallowed before I answered, "I saw-" Was I really going to tell him?

"I'll tell you something else," Ro began, speaking slowly and looking down at his hands looped in his jean pockets. "Maybe on my way to cla.s.s, I hear a Lord and Lady Cleric talking about a problem with a demon Outside this morning. Maybe I hear them talking about a Disciple who broke Doctrine and went beyond the Wall. They say a Disciple disobeyed and even struck out, gave the Lady Cleric a black eye." He looked up at me and lowered his voice an octave. "You need to be careful now, you feel me? Think about the questions you ask in cla.s.s and the way you react to some words. Likefairy, eh?"

"What are you getting at?" I tried to pretend the shrillness of my voice was natural.

I couldn't tell them what had happened, if the Clerics were looking for me there was only a matter of time before they found me. I was bound to slip up again. I had a b.l.o.o.d.y vampire snoozing in my wardrobe for G.o.ds sake. I had decided the best was to play this was to not confirm or deny anything else. Ro would try to help me and his heart would be in the right place, but I couldn't risk it.

As for Alex "You do remember the Rupture? What happened to people like you who wouldn't get in line and act right," she said angrily.

She was not happy and I could sense a long, rambling speech coming on. With all the information I'd told her and Ro's speculations, she would have been able to piece together quite a bit by now.

Opening my mouth to tell her to shut the h.e.l.l up, I saw Tu enter the room talking to a thin woman. She was dressed in a crimson blazer with a swollen eye and bandaged arm. A Lady Cleric, the Lady Cleric from that morning.

Chapter Four.

I straightened and ordered my feet to freeze mid step back. My heart pounded double time as every instinct I had screeched at me to run and hide. They really were looking for me, and knew the one they sought was a Disciple. The Lady Cleric's gaze slowly pa.s.sed over every female face in the group as she replied to Cleric Tu. My stomach clenched and sweat beaded my brow. Did her gaze linger on me? Did she hesitate to move on, or was it my imagination?

I wanted to scream at her that it was an accident. That I had no idea what all the crazy stuff happening around me meant, nor did I want to. I wanted to rewind a day, back to when things were simple. Where my life made sense and where boys spoke and acted normally. Where Clerics were the good guys who protected us from demons and my teachers were not heartless murderers.

The Lady Cleric scanned our faces once more than shook her head once. She left with Tu close behind her, whispering something to him.

What did I do? Surely if they had identified the Disciple in the forest was me, they would have hauled me out the cla.s.s.

Alex glanced over her shoulder at the retreating Cleric, but was otherwise uninterested. Ro was more on ball, and his eyes narrowed as he watched me. Too messed in the head to try and be subtle, I glared at him, daring him to comment. Well, there was nothing I could do. I'd had enough of being stressed out. Slouching back into my chair, I kicked up a leg on the empty seat opposite and mud fell off my soles.

"Are you even listening to me?" Alex asked.

"I'm sorry, what? Oh, yes," I said. "Yes, I do remember."

The Rupture was a global slaughter that had nearly wiped the entire human race of the face of the planet. It had changed everything. Vampires had emerged from the shadows one winter dragging all manner of wicked with them, and in one clean sweep had consumed the earth. Shapes.h.i.+fters had prowled the streets in daylight. Hunting were-bears, were-lions and were-whatever-the-h.e.l.l-you-can-think-of had feasted on human flesh. Goblins tore people limb from limb and roasted them in dumpster-sized stew pots. Raped the screaming women, and produced more deformed offspring. Powerful witches cast spells that stopped the hearts of entire cities, made all things in a thousand-mile radius just stop.