Alice in Demonland

7. A Wrath Party

The ride down in the elevator was beyond somber. Wendy cried quietly against Peter. Leif and Steven carried Eric's remains. I stood in the front, near the doors. Between the stench of death and the Envy demon's blood as well as the ash, it was hard to breathe.

When the door pinged open, I stepped out.

"Take Eric's remains down to the infirmary. Heathcliff will know what to do," Peter said as he practically carried Wendy.

"Yes, sir." Steven and Leif headed toward the hospital wing.

"Leif? Let Heathcliff know I'll be down in a few minutes."

"You got it."

Georgia and Pam quietly turned toward the dorms.

"Alice, you coming?" Pam asked.

"In a minute."

"Go on," Peter urged. "I've got Wendy." He gave me a once over. "Get cleaned up."

I nodded dully. "Okay." I entered my room after Pam. As I walked past the bed, a part of me longed to fall on it and sleep for a week. But that would be gross since I was covered in dead demon. So I edged into the bathroom, closing the door.

After I showered and dressed, there was a knock on the door. "Alice, it's Peter."

"Is Wendy okay?" I opened the door.

"Yes, Heathcliff gave her something to help her sleep, but that's not why I'm here." He was changed and cleaned up as well.

"Oh?"

"It's Wrythe. He wants to speak with you."

My heart jumped into my throat. "Why?" I threw my towel into the hamper on top of my dirty clothes before sitting on my bed. There I tugged on my black boots that matched the rest of my outfit.

"I'm guessing he wants to know what happened tonight," Peter said, but I sensed there was more.

"So what do I tell him?" I grabbed my leather jacket and threw it on.

"The truth, of course." Peter smiled and put an arm around my shoulder as we went down the hall together. "He isn't as scary as he seems."

"I'm not sure I believe you." I gave him a sideways glance. Wrythe wasn't a Moth I would ever want to cross in a dark alley. He made me more nervous than the demon I killed tonight.

"Wrythe has been around a long time. He's killed more royal demons than anyone. He knows how to protect regular Moths as well as the rest of our kind. So don't shut him out. Tell him everything."

We came to the door that led to Wrythe's personal chambers. Peter knocked.

"Enter," Wrythe commanded.

"Remember what I said."

"I will," I replied as my knees began to quake.

The door swung open and a man dressed like a butler waved me inside.

The room was filled with expensive and extravagant things, but I couldn't focus on them once my gaze landed on the king.

"Hello, Alice." Wrythe sat on a large leather couch. He wore a pair of board shorts, flip-flops, and a tee shirt. He didn't look like the leader of the most dangerous league of assassins the world had ever not known about.

I bowed, keeping my eyes trained on my boots. "Hello, sir."

"Have a seat."

I scoped the room and took the leather chair that matched the couch across from him.

"Would you like a drink?" He indicated a decanter and glasses on the coffee table between us.

"No, thanks."

"So you want to get right to it?" He sat up and leaned forward. "Very well. Tell me what happened tonight.

For the next ten minutes I explained everything. Well, nearly everything, just as Peter told me to. When I finished, Wrythe picked up one of the glasses and poured himself a drink. "Do you think the Envy demon was your sire?" he asked after taking a long sip.

It was the moment of truth. Did I confess what the demon had said about the seven times seven? It felt like nothing and too big a secret at the same time. I needed to research and mull it over. I respected Wrythe as the leader of our society, but I didn't trust him. I didn't even know him. I shrugged. "I don't know. It seems likely given the fact I was able to kill him, doesn't it?" I wanted answers.

Wrythe leaned back. "Our kind has existed for nearly as long as man has walked the Earth. As soon as demons realized what they could do, they began the awful game of creating and then killing their half-breed offspring. There's no rhyme or reason to it. As with most evil in the world there doesn't have to be." He took another drink of whatever was in his glass before setting it back down. "I was one of the first to be born with the markings." He turned his hands so they faced me and I could see his marks. They were still red, the mark of Wrath, but they'd faded over the years. "I first realized I had powers about a week after I turned eighteen. There was no society back then. I didn't even know other Moths existed. My demon came after me with a vengeance I'd never seen. He was hungry for my murder. When my powers manifested it was a complete surprise to him as much as it was to me, which was how I was able to beat him." He clasped his hands together.

I crossed one leg over the other and waited for him to continue. His story was one I'd heard before I could read or write, but never from his own mouth.

"Over the centuries others like me started to find each other. Instead of being chickens in a coup full of more chickens awaiting the inevitable fox to come and kill us, we finally became our own breed of fox, and we could kill just as easily."

"Why do you think certain Moths began to receive the markings and powers?" That was a question none of my teachers could ever answer definitively. Our histories were full of theories and ideas, but nothing concrete.

"I believe it's because life always finds a way to go on. We'd been nothing more than prey. Playthings to be toyed with and consumed, but our will to survive caused us to evolve."

I liked that philosophy. Life finds a way...

"Perhaps you're our latest evolution, Alice. A Dark Moth that can kill any demon." His eyes glittered in the overbearing lights.

Tell him what you know, my mind shouted. "Maybe you're right," was all I said.

"Alice?" He came over to my chair. "You can tru—"

There was a sharp knock on the door.

Wrythe straightened. "Enter."

Two warriors came in. Between them slumped the guy who jumped into the car I'd been trying to steal.