“Now, now, dear,” Carlos said. He pressed his glasses up his nose before setting a bony hand on Genoa’s ripped thigh. His hand gave two light pats and a soft squeeze before he said, “that seems like a wide generalization. And if it was ordered to protect the students, then Juli has nothing to fear.”
Genoa shook her head, clearly unconvinced. The yellow light of the campfire danced across her face. “You don’t know, Carlos. You’ve never met a demon.”
Her mother’s hand ran from her hip up to the opposite shoulder. Her clothes were, as usual, revealing enough to hide only the small bit of the massive scar that rested across her breast.
“I have. A few times, actually. Thankfully, I didn’t have to fight them most of the time. They’re psychopaths. All of them. We’re like flies to them–short lived and mildly annoying.”
“Genoa, darling, I know you don’t like to talk about that scar.” Carlos moved his hand up to rub Genoa’s back. “But the few that you’ve met is not a valid sample size for determining the temperament of a species. Especially not when the term ‘demon’ encompasses so many varieties of creatures.
“Perhaps,” Carlos said with a glint of excitement in his eye, “we can head down to the school and see if we can track the creature down ourselves, we could–”
“We could get ourselves killed? You can’t be serious.”
Juliana leaned back against the stump of a tree as she watched her parents argue.
She hadn’t actually heard any stories about demons from her mother. Despite the scar she touched being one of the largest and most prominent on her body, she never got around to telling the tale. Given that part of the scar–the lower part around her hip–actually ran along her back as well, Juliana imagined whatever caused it to be something out of nightmares.
By the look of the scar, her mother had been nearly bisected at some point before Juliana was born.
A terrifying thought. Juliana could understand where her mother was coming from if that scar came from a demon.
Even with that, Juliana agreed with her father. It was a generalization. Arachne and Ylva were nice enough. The bull demon
It did mean that she would have to be even more careful. Juliana was suddenly glad that she did not bring Eva’s book with her. If her mother saw even a corner of that…
Of course, she’d have to be extra careful with Eva now. The girl absolutely must keep her hands and legs hidden any time mother visited. Her mother might not react well upon finding out that Eva introduced her to a handful of demons.
Her father would probably love the opportunity to look her friend over.
“Zoe will tell us what we want to hear, not what we need to hear.”
“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t speak with her, dear.”
Genoa shook her head. She got to her feet and marched straight to the tent. “I’m going to bed. Let’s put it aside for the rest of our trip. I don’t want to ruin the rest of it with sour feelings. We will talk about it
With a loud zip, the tent flap shut. Juliana bet it would have slammed shut if it were a door.
“Your mother,” Carlos started. He stopped and sighed. “I’m not sure I know the full story behind
He glanced around for a brief moment before he picked up a lantern. “Come, walk with me.”
“At night?” Juliana asked. “Through the forest?”
Carlos let out his signature bird tweet of laughter. “Not scared of the dark are you? There’s nothing in these woods that can hurt us.” He took a few steps before stopping and glancing over his shoulder. “Well, nothing cataloged, in any case. But I’ll try not to get my hopes up.” He gave Juliana a small wink before walking forwards. “Coming?”
Juliana took her own step forward before stopping. “The fire? We can’t just leave it going.”
Carlos, without looking back, took out his bell focus. With a single note, a small sandstorm started up. It swirled around the campfire. After a moment, it collapsed into the fire pit. The flames died out along with every ember.
“Any other excuses, Juli?”
With a frown, Juliana followed after her father. She flicked her own wand to activate her ferrokinesis. No sense in being caught unprepared.
The metal she wore flowed beneath her clothes until it formed her usual armor. She left her head and face clear, but gathered metal around her neck to quickly cover herself just in case.
The only bits of metal that were not affected were her three rings. Two full-finger foci and the thin black band given to her by Ylva. At first, she didn’t want to damage the ring and avoided using her ferrokinesis on it. After accidentally trying to melt it, she found her spell did not affect the ring.
Not that she thought that was a bad thing. It was a pain enough to concentrate on not altering her foci.
“Your mother,” Carlos said, “is usually one to boast about her scars. Each nick on her body is another tale of danger, adventure, and heroism.”
