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  “I have seen a gleaming fish,” I murmured, watching the lights from the corner of my eye.

  Now that I wasn’t focused on them anymore, I realized there was more to them than I had initially noticed. Between the rays of glistening white were outlines of human shapes.

  Volpert observed me as I kept forcing my eyes back on him.

  “It’s okay, boy,” he nodded and gestured at the center of the room, “go take a closer look.”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. My feet were already taking slow steps toward the dancing stars, and as I got closer, their draw became almost unbearable. Unbearably hard to resist and unbearably exciting.

  “What are they?” I asked into the room.

  “Souls,” Jin’s voice answered from the other side of the lights. He ghosted around the room until he stood next to me, eyes lit up with anticipation. “Go ahead,” he encouraged, “try one.”

  I didn’t understand. I felt the same urge to touch them, as I had with the fish. Was that what Jin meant? Should I touch them?

  As I was still trying to understand, Jin reached out and placed his hand on one of the lights. He looked at me and nodded. “They are asleep, don’t worry.”

  I couldn’t figure out what he meant by ‘asleep’ until I touched my fingertips to one of them and felt a warm, human body. I shrank back. “They are humans.”

  “Right, son,” Volpert agreed from behind me. “And their sole purpose is to provide us with food.”

  Despite the fact that they had a shape similar to our own, there was nothing speaking against his logic. The light, shimmering deliciously underneath their skin, was everything I needed to see. All they were to me was what they were to Volpert and the others—a fruit waiting on a cold stone table, ready to be harvested.

  With rising excitement, I mirrored Jin’s gesture and pressed my palm flat against the chest of the human in front of me. Jin smiled with approval. The same tingling I had felt with the fish ran through my hand, only this time it was a thousand times stronger.

  “Follow your instinct, son,” Volpert steered me to give in to the urge and I let my greed consume me.

  A rush of energy ran through me coming from the bright light which was slowly fading from the human shape. It spread warmth through my entire body as it slowly trickled into my tissues. Every last bit of it. When the experience peaked, and I thought I might burst from energy, the light went out and the slow rising and falling of the chest under my hand ceased. A smile spread on my face.

  “Delicious,” Jin spoke my mind, looking down on the lifeless body in front of us. His own chest was emitting the hollow echo of the bright light he had just devoured.

  Beside him were three more radiating stars, waiting to be consumed. I glanced over my shoulder. Maureen was leaning against a column, her own body shimmering slightly with the residue of the soul she had devoured. Nora peeked up at me from underneath her red curls, hiding something under her smile as she watched me adjust to my new life, while Volpert laughed with delight and clapped his hands.

  “Well done, Adam,” he complimented, “You are a natural.”

  I was glad to have pleased him.

  “Something I cannot say for all my children,” he added and shot a sideways look at Maureen, who flinched.

  Something stirred in me as she shrank against the wall beside her. A protective instinct?

  “Go ahead, son, there is plenty.” Volpert pointed at the table, eager to see me continue feeding.

  I didn’t need an invitation. The short rush of energy had vanished as quickly as it had appeared and the hunger for those crystal clear stars was hard to defy once I directed my eyes at them once more.

  With a quick motion, I pushed my hand onto the next human’s chest and let the energy consume me. My entire body tingled from the heat as it flowed through me. This time the high was even stronger, and it lasted. At least for a little while.

  4

  The Others

  It was dark when I woke up. Not the black darkness from before I had dug out of my grave, but a solid one which took my eyes a second or two to pierce through.

  “Good morning,” Maureen smiled at me from the end of the cot.

  With a swift shaking of my head, I remembered everything I had experienced in my short new life. The forest, Volpert and the other demons, and the feast which had so wonderfully satisfied my hunger.

  “Did you sleep well?” she asked with the same sweet grin she had given me when she had delivered me to this cave to rest last night.

  “Thank you,” I shook my head. The truth was, I hadn’t. After she had left me at the door, I had cuddled into the blanket, still comfortable from my meal, but the effect had worn off too fast. My sleep had been short and full of interruptions. The image of the lifeless human body wasn’t what had haunted me, it had been the lack of memory. Why had I been dead? Not even Volpert had been willing to answer.

  “Hungry?” she asked into my thoughts.

  I nodded slowly, trying to remember something. Anything. But the memories from before my demon life remained darker than even the caves which I now called my home.

  “You’re lucky,” Maureen led the conversation, “They are preparing breakfast.”

  Her eyes lit up as she spoke.

  I rolled out of bed fully dressed and got to my feet in an unexpectedly springy motion. Maureen chuckled.

  “May I ask you something?” I wondered as we walked side by side, back to the banquet hall.

  “Anything, Adam,” she grinned at me and fluttered her eyelashes, brown eyes sparkling in the darkness.

  “Did we know each other before…” I paused briefly, processing the fact again “…before I died?”

  She nodded and a tiny flame of hope flared up inside my chest.

  “What was I like?”

  She bit her lip, probably debating how truthfully she was going to answer my question before she opened her mouth to speak. “You were the same as you are now,” she flashed me a smile. “Just a bit more history.”

  “The same? Really?” What did that mean? Had I been a demon before? Had I fed off of souls and slept in the tunnels like I had last night? Had I lived with Volpert and his clan?

  “Really,” she reassured me. “The same hair, the same eyes, the same cute smile.”

  I stopped for a second and she looked back over her shoulder. How well had she known me?

  “Come on,” she called as she was almost at the other end of the tunnel. “The others are waiting.”

  With a tiny bit of confusion settling in my stomach, I hurried after her and stepped into the banquet hall just in time to see Nora and Blackbird bring in two humans. It was a woman and a young man, both carrying their bright souls inside of them.

  “What do you want from us?” the man demanded, challenging Blackbird with his look.

  “Patience,” Blackbird whispered into his ear.

  The woman stood quietly in place where the tall, intimidating demon put her.

  “Good morning, Adam,” he said with a considerably friendly face. “You look positively dead.” He laughed at the irony. I actually had come back from the dead.

  “He didn’t sleep well,” Maureen bit at him. “Leave him alone.”

  She took my hand and led me toward the center of the room where Blackbird was standing between the petrified woman and the struggling man.

  “Choose,” he tilted his head left and right, raven hair dancing before his black eyes. “They are tastier when they have strong emotions. I didn’t even bother showing up last night, knowing they’d be asleep for feeding.”

  As I watched the humans, their little souls started pulsating, almost like their hearts were. The man was a cloud of white light with its intensity growing with every second I stared at him.

  “Tell me what you want!” he demanded, and as he yelled, his soul quivered deliciously.

  I didn’t even notice the quiet woman next to him, so drawn by his light, that I simply reached out my hand and drain
ed it right out of him, ignoring the woman’s shriek of horror.

  “Well done, son,” Volpert’s voice sounded into my energy high. “You are a quick learner.”

  He appeared beside Blackbird, Nora at his side, wearing a wide smile. As he reached out his hands toward me, I was perplexed at first. He wrapped them around me in an embrace. The emotion it caused in me was unfamiliar. A warm feeling, gratitude, maybe…

  His blond ponytail dangled beside my cheek as he pulled me to his shoulder. “I am proud of you.”

  As he let go of me again, I was caught between two emotions. My own and one which seemed to not spring from my own chest. It was connected to Volpert somehow. A happy feeling. It was almost as soothing to my ache of not knowing who I was as the bright lights were satisfying to my hunger.

  Maureen smiled at me, noticing the confusion on my face. “How is everything going out there?” she asked, addressing Nora.

  The redhead smiled and winked at her, a silent exchange I didn’t understand. “They are attacking again.”

  “Who?” I burst out before I could control myself.

  “The others.” It was Jin who answered. He had snuck up to my side and silently joined the little gathering.

  “Others?” Again my mouth was faster than intended.

  “Let’s finish breakfast first,” Volpert suggested. “We have all day for explanations.” He flashed his teeth and played with his silver necklace. “This beauty, on the other hand, won’t last forever.”

  With a swift motion, he grabbed the woman’s arm and pulled her into our midst. “Adam, will you do me the honor?” He gestured at her chest which was expanding rhythmically, panic making her breath come in gasps.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” I asked. Pure courtesy toward my savior, not the real intent of giving up the offer of another soul.

  “She’s all yours, son,” he encouraged.

  After the hurried experience of the young man, this turn I took my time. I didn’t push my hand to her chest, but simply placed my fingertips under her collarbone, where the light was quivering, and let it come to me. Warmth spread in my tissues and the energy consumed me until the woman dropped to the ground.

  “What happens to them after we feed?” I asked. Not a concern, pure curiosity.

  “Nothing for you to worry about,” Blackbird reassured me with his gentle voice.

  “Are you satisfied?” Maureen asked, taking my thoughts off the topic with a blink of her eyes. Naturally, she was speaking about the food, but something else stirred inside of me when she looked up at me from under her lashes.

  Nora laughed and patted my shoulder. “Come on, Adam, time to tell you a little bit more about yourself.”

  Her words promised something I had been yearning for since the moment I’d woken up in that grave.

  “Follow me.” She turned and started walking.

  Blackbird and Jin joined us on our way through the tunnels. I recognized some of them. We passed by the room with the steaming pool and the room with the fireplace, but then I was lost again, dependent on the other demons’ sense of orientation. The darkness seemed thicker in some areas of the network of caves than in others, and I wondered why that was.

  “In here,” Nora waved me into a room that had brick walls on one side, and natural stone walls on the other.

  “Where are we?” I asked her as I stepped in, Blackbird and Jin at my side like two shadows.

  “A couple of levels below the city.”

  “Which city?”

  Blackbird chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?” I looked over my shoulder and found a pair of pitch-black, amused eyes towering over me.

  “You really don’t remember a thing,” he said, holding back a laugh.

  I shook my head, a bit hurt by the way my misery seemed to bring him joy.

  “Leave him alone, Blackbird,” Nora taunted.

  He turned the chuckle into a cough. “I’m sorry, Adam,” he put his arm around my shoulder like a brother. “It’s just…of all the things, this is the least likely to happen…” he explained something only he seemed to understand.

  Jin poked his elbow into his side and Blackbird smoothed his face.

  “Just…glad to have you back, Adam,” he said. This time it sounded truthful.

  I wasn’t exactly sure how to react, so I remained quiet and directed my eyes at Nora for help. The demon I’d had the least interaction with until now, but who seemed to be protective of me somehow. Her water-blue eyes were scrutinizing my face. “It must be hard, not remembering anything,” she empathized with me. “I am so glad we found you out there in the woods before the others did.” Her lips twitched into a smile while her eyes remained serious. “We all are. I can’t imagine what might have happened to you if they had found you.”

  Jin gasped in horror and stepped to her side, his eyes, framed in dark lines, full of concern. “I can’t even think of it.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Angels, Adam.” Volpert and Maureen had popped up beside Jin and Nora, who fell silent immediately.

  “Angels?” I wondered aloud.

  “Beings of light, winged, biblical creatures,” he explained. “Our one true enemy.”

  As he spoke, his eyes filled with fear, the way Jin’s had.

  “They took everything from us.” It was Blackbird’s bitter tone that gave the whole conversation a profoundness which settled deep into my conscience. Not that I had much of a map of morals. I was a blank piece of paper, and Volpert and his clan were rewriting my understanding of right and wrong. They had taken me in, protected me from creatures who obviously wanted to harm us. They were all I had, and I wouldn’t let anyone hurt my family.

  For the first time since I had woken up, I felt okay. Like there was hope for me.

  Volpert’s face changed to an understanding, fatherly expression as he watched me take in the meaning of their words.

  “We will explain everything in time,” he promised. “But for now, let’s start with the basics.”

  “Sounds alright,” I agreed, eager to learn whatever I could to help my family.

  We settled down on the stone benches in the center of the room, while Volpert took the only chair in the circular formation. Maureen sat across from me, eyeing me silently.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” Volpert said and nodded at Nora. “Continue, dear.”

  “We are beneath the city of Aurora, Illinois,” she finished the answer Blackbird had interrupted with his chuckle earlier.

  “Aurora,” I repeated. “Illinois.”

  “That’s right. Does it ring a bell?” Blackbird asked, dark, thin eyebrows raised.

  I shook my head. I hadn’t even heard the name before.

  “When you died, you were fighting the enemy. You were in custody of the enemy.”

  “What happened?” I wondered again. I was strong and fast, wasn’t I?

  “You are a demon, Adam. You exist to protect our cause,” Jin continued. “You were protecting us when you got captured. And they killed you.”

  “Thankfully the evil was strong enough in you so you returned to life,” Maureen said with a bitter taste I didn’t understand. “The evil in you saved you.”

  “The evil in me?” A couple more lines were added to my new map of right and wrong. Evil could save people. Family was something worth dying for. Angels were our enemy.

  “The strong demonic core you have, son,” Volpert added with a smile.

  “What does that core include?” a rational, analytic side of me broke through, trying to understand the deeper meaning of his words.

  “Your ability to survive on the life energy of others. Humans, angels…”

  “Fish,” I interrupted with a chuckle, thinking back of the gleaming light in the water.

  “I suppose so,” he joined my laughter. Blackbird smirked beside me.

  “Your strength, your speed, your ability to teleport.”

  “I can teleport?” Again I had to
stop him.

  “Yes, son, you can teleport.”

  “How does that work?”

  I didn’t fail to notice Maureen’s look of awe as I kept asking questions. Something about the way she was observing me let me guess she’d like me to remember at least a little bit of my past. Maybe a past we’d had together… It occurred to me that whenever she was in the room, new abilities seemed to come to life inside of me. She was always there, observing silently.

  “You think of a location, you go there. That’s how easy it is.”

  “Doesn’t sound easy,” I deferred. “What if I accidentally end up in the wrong place? Can I lose a limb if I think of two places at once?”

  Blackbird laughed at my curiosity. “The thing you should be most scared of is being discovered by either humans or the enemy.”

  “Humans aren’t a match for your strength. You could take them down easily, with the twitch of a finger, you can snuff their light out,” Nora said, enthusiastic, “but you can’t be caught teleporting,” she warned, “ever. Humans can’t know we exist. It’s enough that they speak of us in their legends and their fairy tales, but they can’t know for a fact.”

  “We need to stay hidden so we can keep our food source,” Jin explained.

  Piece by piece, they were putting the puzzle together and I tried to keep up.

  “So what else do I need to know?” The more I learned, the more likely I would remember things.

  “You need to feed regularly,” Nora said. “Usually two of us hunt and provide while the rest stays here in the caves. We take turns.”

  “Am I going to the surface ever again?”

  “You will,” Volpert answered. “A little bit of patience, son. In time you’ll get to see the light of day again. But first, you need to master all your abilities. We can’t risk being discovered by anyone’s mistake.”

  Maureen flinched at his words and I wondered for a moment if something had happened. Had she been the reason I had gotten into the angel’s hands?

  “And you need to learn how to defend yourself.” Blackbird shot me a curious look as he spoke. “And I don’t mean just physical strength.”

  Nora chuckled as the five demons exchanged knowing looks.