LILITH (DEMONOLOGY I)

VI

The Council spent the next few days observing and testing me.

The only skills I had mastered - according to them - were camouflage and pyro. At first, they just wanted to see me put those skills to use in training, but they later pressed me to develop new ones. They first tried to see if a had superhuman strength, but it didn't work out, and I ended up with a sprained ankle and a hyper-extended elbow. But thanks to my angel blood, they healed quickly.

"Don't let these minuscule mundane injuries get in your way," Cerviel, the fat man who congratulated me after I killed the demon, said. He was the highest of the twelve Council members. "As a Nephilim, only objects of angelic or demonic caliber can really harm you." The other Council members stood behind him, observing me - including my mother. We hadn't been allowed to speak to each other in private since the incident.

"But be sure to pace yourself," Dina, another Council member said. "If you let your abilities get the best of you, you'll implode." I nodded at them and exchanged a glance with Wynne. She wasn't as torn up as she was a few days prior, but I could still see how upset she was. Cerviel had wanted to send me out to battle as soon as possible, but the other Council members had decided to wait and observe me first. My promotion to Officer was even momentarily suspended, for they weren't sure what exactly I was capable of. I had tried to tell them that the only reason I was able to kill the demon was Thalia and her sigils, but they refused to acknowledge her.

I stepped back into the white room that was used for training. The Council and members of the Fourth Array - the group that I was being groomed to lead - watched from a glass window high up on the wall.

"Alright," Cerviel said. "Today, we're going to test you on your biokinesis. This ability will allow you to read into the souls of mundane beings and modify their bodily functions. Your first test will be a small woodland ferret." Before me, a ferret appeared. It was just like the ones I would see in the woods at home. The observers watched me expectantly, and I took a deep breath.

I had been practicing this before, but couldn't get the hang of it. The most I had been able to do was force a cuttlefish to change color. The Council had told me that I could do much more to mammals, but I hadn't dared to try. They may have seen me as a Nephilim, but on the inside, I was a human. Hurting other living creatures wasn't in my nature, especially if those creatures were just harmless rodents.

I approached it and outstretched a hand. It got up on two legs and began to sniff me, and then brushed its head on my hand. I gingerly pet it, trying to read into its soul. Weaker creatures like rodents were easier to read, because their mindsets were simple, making their souls simple. I closed my eyes and tried to picture the life of a ferret. I saw a forest much larger than me, berries and nuts almost as big as my head. I soon realized that these visions weren't my imagination, I was reading the ferret's soul.

I saw all of its desires. Collect food, store food, eat, hibernate, repeat. It was so simple and repetitive, it was almost trance-like. It felt like I had been watching that cycle for hours. I was broken out of my rapture by loud squeaks. When I opened my eyes, the ferret was cold and twitching in my hands. It's eyes were rolled back and its fur was gray. I dropped it and backed away. I had just killed an innocent little rodent.

"Well done, Finn," Cerviel said. "You took complete control of it in under a minute." I could barely hear him over my own thoughts. Yet again, I couldn't mind my own business, and it had a negative effect. Had I just listened to Thalia and waited for someone more apt handle the situation, I wouldn't have been forced into this situation. My father, this ferret, and my morality were all casualties of my own impatience.

"Finn. Finn?" I hadn't even heard Cerviel calling me. "Now you need to get rid of it. Use your holy fire to reduce it to ashes." Reluctantly, I picked up the now still ferret. I squeezed it in both hands and felt it crumble. But I didn't dare watch.

"Let's step this up a bit." Cerviel said, his voice dripping with barbaric intent.

Apparently, his idea of stepping it up "a bit" was going from a ferret to a sun bear - the world's smallest yet most quick-tempered bear. It circled me, waiting for me to move. I had never seen one before, but I had always heard stories from my dad's friends. One wrong move, and they would rip you limb from limb. Sweat ran down my face and my heart was beating a mile a minute. I didn't move as the bear circled me. I tried to think back to the stories, so I would know exactly what to do. I remembered hearing one of my dad's friends say that he waited until the bear approached him before he took it down. But that wouldn't work in this situation, since I wasn't any more than 180 pounds. But I knew something that would work.

When the bear got bored with me and decided to study the walls, I took a deep breath, bit my tongue, and slowly approached it. I was supposedly undetectable, but I couldn't be sure. Bears can smell blood from a mile away.

The bear had spotted the observers, and began to scale the wall. I followed suit, making sure not to get too close. When the bear was just below the glass window, I jumped at it, causing it to fall all the way back down - a fall of at least fifteen feet. It landed badly on its back and was barely moving. I grabbed it around the jaw as if it were a large gator and squeezed down. Like the ferret, its eyes rolled back and its fur grew white. I could feel its skin turn rough, almost as rough as sandpaper.

I heard a chorus of cheers come from above me. Everyone but Wynne was celebrating. Instead, she gave me a disconcerted look and walked away.

"Can I take a break?" I asked. "I just have something I need to do really quickly."

"Take all the time you need." Dina said. I ran out of the white room and met Wynne in the hallway. This would be our first private conversation in days, and I was going to make the most out of it.

"Look," I said, grabbing her hand. "I'm sorry if I disappointed you. I just saw all twelve of you struggling to hold off that one demon, so I did what I'm best at - I thought on my feet."

"I'm not upset with you," she said. "I'm actually proud of what you did. I'm just upset with the Council for doing this to you. They won't let me have any says in your training or anything else. It's like they don't even view you as my son. You're just another weapon in the arsenal to them. If anything were to happen to you, they wouldn't grieve. Instead, they would just look for a replacement."

"I don't care about that." I said, trying to keep my voice from rising. "Screw them. They forced me into this situation, I couldn't care any less about what they think. I just care about what you think about this. If you want me to stop, I'm sure I can do something. I'll just cause an accident so that they lose faith in me."

"It's too late for that, Finn."

"Says who? I can always just-"

"Finn!" She grabbed my shoulders. "They're sending you into battle tomorrow."