Age of Demons

Chapter 7 - Emery

Bluewater Haven Safe House

Snow blanketed Emery's vision. It rested on top of the grass like a blank canvas, and the wind picked it up and threw handfuls of white dust in her face.

Emery blinked against the flakes, trying to spot something other than white.

A dark form caught her eye, and she froze. It hovered over the unmarked blanket of white, tendrils of black smoke slithering around its body.

Demon.

Emery roughly shook her head. No, I shouldn't be calling it that. The Reverence forbade it.

Suddenly, something dark streaked to her left, and she whirled around. But her feet wouldn't move with the rest of her body, and she almost fell face-first into the snow before catching herself.

Emery stared down at her feet and tried to budge them. Again, they were stuck, as if they had been encased in ice.

Emery wildly looked around, trying to find help. But it was just the white expanse and her and the demons—spirits. But they didn't chase after her, instead, two of them simply hovered close. They didn't have eyes, or ones she could see, but she felt them staring at her, assessing her.

Suddenly, the spirit inside her hummed, and then she was moving, her right foot lifting out of the six-inch snow, her left foot following.

But Emery wasn't the one commanding her body.

"No! Stop it!" she screamed, swinging her arms around, trying to get her legs to stop moving.

But it was too late, and she was standing in front of one of the spirits, its smoky form so dark, it was like looking into a bottomless well.

We are one, it said.

Emery jolted up in bed, her breaths scissoring in and out of her throat. The room before her was dark, but as she groggily blinked against the dimness, her eyes began to adjust.

She was in the room assigned to her. It had probably been a simple one-bedroom, not a suite or anything. The only thing covering her was a thin sheet; she didn't know where the comforter had gone when she'd first entered. Luckily, it was warming up, the last snow having been in April, just two weeks ago.

Like in her dream.

Emery shuddered thinking about it. The dream had taken place the day the Northern Great Lakes Safe House had fallen. It was the end of April, but it had snowed inches that day. Her dream hadn't shown what had happened.

"It felt like you were trying to talk to me," she said aloud. If Felix were in here, she knew he'd think of her as some crazy person, talking to herself as if she were talking to someone.

But she was. She was talking to the spirit inside her.

Not her spirit, if she even had one. Something that didn't belong in her body, another being sharing the same physical shell as her.

Some people called them demons.

Emery glanced to her nightstand where The Reverence lay prone. It was leather bound but thin, the pages worn. Inside, it said that people who called these spirits demons were already condemned.

Whatever that means.

Emery had grown closer to the religious presence of the book though, and lately she'd found it comforting to rely on.

Emery rubbed at her arms, goose bumps sprouting along her flesh. The spirit inside her remained quiet.

Okay then, don't say anything. Maybe the dream had exhausted it. She knew it was weak within her, which was why it couldn't control her like others of its kind did to humans. She glanced at the window beside her bed. She couldn't see the moon from her vantage point, but she could make out its reflections on the waves just a couple yards away. Even inside the hotel, she could just hear the gentle crashing of the lake hitting the sand.

Well, hotel-converted-safe house.

They had only been here in this abandoned hotel for a couple days. They had fled their last home, the spirits taking it over, and only a small group of them had made it here.

The leaders, a group of men—Markus, Leroy, and Smith—wanted to recreate the community. The Northern Great Lakes Safe House had been dominated by the Deliverance Faction, and they wanted to distance themselves from it.

No, they want to create their own following. Because they still wouldn't allow her to go on hunts or scavenges because she was a woman, exactly what they had been doing back at their former safe house.

She gripped at the sheets as the bitterness turned her stomach. She was trapped inside once again, watching her brother—who was only one year older—go out and hunt. Watch him come back, smiles on the group's faces as they thumped each other on the back and congratulated one another. Watched as they'd look at her, some leering, others curling their lips in disinterest.

She knew she couldn't stay here.

But will Felix follow?

Emery got up out of bed, her toes sinking into the plush carpet, and crept to the window. She rested her forehead against the glass, and the coolness of the surface helped calm the heat crackling inside her.

We've never been that close. I was much closer to... a sharp pain in her stomach. She winced and gritted her teeth, burying the thought that wanted to come next. It'd just make her angrier.

Again, she wondered, Will he follow? He's already really close to the other hunters here. And he's shown that he doesn't care about my feelings.

Maybe it's best if I leave on my own.

She remained by the window, the glass keeping her head cool as she thought out her plan of escape. It wasn't like she was actually caged inside. Leaving wouldn't be hard. What would be was what awaited her outside the doors. Whether she could survive out there on her own or not.

The monsters outside were sometimes worse than the ones inside.

But in her case, she'd rather face off with the spirits that wanted her blood than the humans that sucked away at her soul.