Page 21 of Craving Demons
“Nope, that’s just silly,” I said in a singsong way.
She laughed, then sighed. “I can see this is going to take a lot of work.”
“Work, yup, that’s what I’m here for!” I said, then tried to rise so I could get to work.
Harmonia laughed. “I think it’s time for something showier.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but I was so high I didn’t care.
“Wait here, I’ll be back,” she said and left.
I nodded. I wasn’t going anywhere. In my current state, I doubted I could even stand. I just wanted to lie down and…
I woke suddenly when the door closed.
I was drooling on Harmonia’s carpet, but I was also still feeling wonderful, so I didn’t care too much.
“Ana, meet Krystal, you’ll be working with her.” I rolled over and looked up. A new woman was here. She was younger, perhaps mid-twenties with a model’s figure, straight and thin with long legs and a full bust. Her hair was soft golden brown, and her eyes were a fiery red-yellow. Odd.
“Hi!” I said from the ground. “You look like a model. Do you do modeling? You should.”
“I do,” Krystal said, just a bit haughty. “You really hit her hard, didn’t you,” she said to Harmonia.
“Everything I’ve got. Your turn.” Then to me, “Krystal has power over fire.” She nodded to Krystal who snapped her fingers and fire leaped to life, floating in the air above me.
At the same time, Harmonia withdrew her powers and everything crashed down onto me once again. I was getting just a little sick from this emotional rollercoaster.
So… I threw up all over that nice carpet… and their shoes.
ANAIS
“Go get Maera.”I heard Harmonia say, and a moment later she was kneeling next to me. “Apologies, I know going back and forth with my powers can be disorienting. I was only trying to show you that you’re not alone. There are many daemons here on earth and they’re not evil, despite whatsome peoplewould have everyone think. So, it’s not that big of a deal that you have powers.”
Right now, I was more concerned about the puke on my face and on her shoes. They had been nice shoes. I think I just had to accept that this was the week from hell and I was cursed.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “About your shoes.”
“Maera will get it, don’t worry.” She sounded calm and that helped to ease my weary mind.
I still didn’t know what I thought about demons, or Matt-Damon-demons, or whatever. Though I did have questions. “If you’re a demon, why don’t you have horns or a tail or anything like that? Why do you look like a normal person?”
“That,” Harmonia said with a sigh, sitting back against the wall behind me, “is a bit of a story. Are you up for the history of daemons?”
“Yeah, sure.” I didn’t really care, but maybe it would make some of what was going on around me make sense.
“I’m guessing you never studied Greek, the language?” Harmonia asked but didn’t wait for an answer. Apparently, we both knew I hadn’t. “In Greek, daemon simply means a spirit, a celestial being of lesser power than a god. So, to put it simply: there are gods, and there are daemons. That’s it.”
I opened my mouth but had no idea what to say to that.
“For a long time, all the different gods out there feuded and bickered, even had a few wars,” she continued. “Things got really confusing when the Romans decided to rename all the Greek gods. For the most part, the Greek gods just got more worshipers, but there were also some new gods created by that debacle. That’s getting a little off-topic though. I only mention it because I used to be the only daemon of harmony, but now I have a strange cousin whose name is Concordia. Anyway, things were fine, and people worshiped us, and thenthatgod came along.”
I was fairly certain I knew what she was talking about but couldn’t help asking. “Thatgod?”
But before she could answer, we were interrupted by Krystal returning with another woman. What had Harmonia called her?
“Ah, Maera, can you clean this up please and help our friend here?” Harmonia asked.
The other woman knelt next to me and put out a hand toward where I’d been sick.