That night in bed, I tried to get comfortable spooned against Alexis. Feeling his arms wrapped around me usually sent me straight off into a peaceful sleep, especially when he pressed his face against the back of my neck so that he could breathe in the scent of my hair and skin. Alexis often fell asleep that way, and tonight he was half-asleep before my backside had settled against him.He and Ran were working hard to finish the small farm, and Ran wanted to do everything by hand—and not have Alexis create crops already planted in the ground. They would need rain, the correct climate, and more things than a city girl like me would ever understand.Their farming ideas were all very interesting, but I had been distracted when he explained all of this to me earlier at dinner. I couldn't get the conversation with Oni out of my head.I turned to face Alexis. "What are wraiths?"His arm moved to rest on my hip. "Wraiths. Where did you hear of them?" He yawned."Oni and I were talking ab
"Let's do this in the house." I stood, and Oni followed me inside.I needed to leave a note, but we didn't have paper and pen. And if I asked Alexis to produce them, it might make him suspicious.I looked around for something to write with. Ugh! Why were Oni and Ran so neat?I opened the refrigerator and saw mustard. Like me, Ran liked hotdogs so they had plenty of mustard in the refrigerator. Perfect!I picked up the squirt container of mustard. "I'm about to mess up your breakfast bar. Sorry."Oni smiled. "It is okay."I squirted a simple message:I WILL BE BACKI could say more, but it wasn't exactly easy to write with a container of mustard.I looked at the pretty Succubus. "Let's do this."Oni nodded, her eyes never leaving my face.A moment later, she turned into billowy plumes of black smoke and vanished…~*~When Oni disappeared, I instantly felt lighter, emptied of some previously undetected weight. I never realized how much the demons inside of me meant t
A devil dog…Wait! Could I be bitten by a damned devil dog?Luckily, Oni increased our pace."Oni," I whispered while practically jogging behind her. "There's a devil dog over there."The Wraiths. They cannot hurt you as long as you stay on the path. Did we talk about this? I don't remember us talking about this.No worries. Just follow me."Yes." No worries. Nope none.I wasn't letting go of Oni. I wished I could have ridden on her back.We hurried along the questionable path for several long minutes. I stopped looking behind me because shadowy figures were trailing us.Oni said that nothing could touch me as long as I stayed on the path, but the shadowy figures were only a few steps behind us. What if one of them jumped up at me, scared me, and tried to get me to run?It was like when I first learned to drive a car. My mother told me that if a car moved into my lane that I couldn't kill the people in the lane next to me. I had to break, speed up, or whatever else I could
The Seer was like no other child in the village. Since birth, she seemed different, barely crying and content to spend quiet hours alone. Her parents did not confide to the villagers that their child could communicate without using words, and it appeared that she communicated with other unseen beings as well.As the child grew, she was able to show her family frightening things: the recent dead and spirits from worlds vastly different from their own. Strangely, the child was never afraid and considered these entities to be her friends.The family swore never to speak of these things, but their child revealed her talents as she felt compelled to heal the sick—even the sick that were, by all accounts, already dead. Soon the King learned of the child, but instead of decreeing that she be put to death for consorting with evil spirits, she became the King's Seer. And once the little girl was a Seer, she successfully predicted the outcomes of battles and aided the people of the land throug
But it wasn't only the humans that had forgotten. The Neratomay forgot their history. They did not remember who controlled their memories and prevented them from speaking of those memories that they were able to recollect. They did not remember the Chosen, and the idea of day-walkers became the stuff of myth and legend.They were taught to believe that their creator was She-Who-Is-First. Even the original Neratomay that knew all did not know the truth behind what had created them.Shrouded in mystery, the Committee taught the Neratomay not to question authority out of fear of pain and death.And without the ability for the Mother to intervene on behalf of her Children, over time the Chosen were made nearly extinct. Left in their place were their human children whose abilities lay dormant, awaiting death so that a spark of life could re-animate their un-living corpses.With their memories suppressed, the Neratomay did not understand their attraction for these golden mortals, but it
"You called me a Queen. But your Chosen were animated by the demons that you handpicked. I was created by the bite of a Neratomay. How can I be one of your Chosen?""Hold up," she said, "This is just another layer of the world, remember? Not heaven or hell. Let's think in terms of spirits and not demons. True demons exist, but they are not what animate the un-living. All kinds of spirits live here. Some are like the one you call Oni, a strong Succubus, and some have speed, strength, or cunning. Others are bad—ones that you don't want walking around in the world—the way you don't want Hitler or Charles Manson walking around."I looked over at Oni, who was still kneeling. I wondered if she could understand what we were talking about. I was happy that my friend wasn't considered a demon. It had been hard to think of her in those terms, anyway."When my Chosen procreated, they created living children, and when those children procreated with humans, they created Golden humans—like you."
Some of the righteousness drained out of me. She was right. Who was I to be judgmental? Hadn't I done horrible things to survive? I had helped kill people who might have been just like me because of my position as a Master Council woman. I enforced laws that I didn't understand, laws that I knew were wrong.And I was meant to continue doing what the other Elders had done before me. Surviving Epic Cu and joining the Elder Council simply meant that I had to agree to support the weaker Neratomay—while in actuality supporting demons that wanted to control the world.Well, fuck that!"No, I can't do that," I said bitterly."That's easy to say when you're safe in my hut," she said. "Millions of others have said the same and have met their final death. You can just be dead like the others who said no or who tried to fight back. Or you can share a seat at the top with the other Neratomay Kings and Queens."It took me a moment not to try to deny my need to survive by any means necessary. I
I started to get tired and hungry, and the Mother seemed annoyed at all of my questions. "Can you send us back to the mortal world?""No," she said.Damn."After the Underlings attempted to evict me from the Underworld, I was brought to this realm and encased by my protectors. It also encased my abilities. I can't do anything to help my Children." I wanted to cry. Here was a powerful being on our side, but she was just as much of a prisoner as we were.Wait, maybe the question wasn't what she could do for me but what I could do for her."This isn't the realm that you created?""No. This is just a small sanctuary…one that is no bigger than this hut. When I first arrived, my friends created an entire world for me. They tried to make it resemble my home, but they didn't understand what my world was really like. How could they when this dark place has been their only existence? So, they showed me how to build it from my memories.""The way the Elders build their world from their m