Interlude: What Zoey Saw

I did not like Annie's new boyfriend.

There wasn't any one thing I could point out and say "this right here means he's an asshole and you should leave him." Just a lot of little things that added up.

He was blandly attractive. Tannish skin without any acne or other blemishes. Wavy dark brown hair and brown eyes. Vaguely muscular build under a layer of softness. Like a teen movie side character or the nerdy lead. Nothing special or objectionable. Not that Annie was the type to be super shallow about things like that.

He had a couple close friends, specifically Daniel and that Elizabeth chick, so it wasn't like he was a creepy loner. And he welcomed me and Gabe to his lunch table and seemed to support Annie's interests. Not super jealous or controlling, though it could be an act he'd drop later.

Annie had been talking about him for months. Slowly working her way up from silly crush to full-blown, run-away-to-Vegas style infatuation. I don't know why I hadn't seen it coming. She even got this focused look in her eyes and demanded me to drive her to that stupid party last week.

Part of me had rolled my eyes and assumed she would lose her virginity to a decent guy and snap out of it when they had to separate for college.

"Zoey! You don't understand, I love Mason and he loves me." Annie said sternly as we headed into the cafeteria. "I can take my first two years of classes here and transfer to NWU with you just fine. It'll be cheaper anyway!" She said with a bounce as her eyes caught sight of Him at their table.

I shook my head as she skipped off to tackle her stupid boyfriend. Squeal audible even from across the loud room.

I had not been expecting this…insanity to overtake my normally shy and quiet friend.

A hand brushed at my shoulder and I turned to raise an eyebrow to my brother.

"Are you sure you aren't jealous?" He half whispered.

I reared back in shock. "Jealous!? Why would I be jealous of Annie!" How could Gabe even think that?

"Not Annie. Mason. You feel he has stolen her from you."

"That's—" My mouth moved but no words came out. Was that it? No. No, there had to be something weird going on. Annie would not suddenly go against the years of plans we'd made to finally escape this town over a new boyfriend. She promised. I could finally tell her the truth without the Clan interfering once we were away.

"No. He's just good at hiding whatever's wrong with him." That had to be it.

"I was there when you used the Huntress's Sight on him. There was nothing. He honestly loves her and wants Annie to be happy."

"I didn't do so with full power! Any decent Veil could have hidden things from me."

"What's the alternative? A sorcerer infiltrated a school in the middle of Galani territory to woo a human girl? While ignoring us and our cousins?" He crossed his arms and I realized he'd maneuvered me to a quiet corner of the cafeteria.

"It's possible!" I protested. "Weirder shit has happened. The Seraphim haven't done a purge in almost a century. He could have Awoken recently."

My brother pinched his nose. "So is Mason a nefarious, shape changing warlock or newly Awoken sorcerer with a veil as his first spell?" At my lack of response he sighed. "Just admit you feel betrayed that your best friend has a new important person in her life."

With a growl of frustration, I pushed past him and stalked towards the table where my best friend sat in His stupid lap. Gabe had no idea what he was talking about! Annie and I had been inseparable for a decade!

At my question, He rubbed the back of his head like a clueless idiot. Almost smug while he said, "Sorry! They won't tell me either!"

There. I saw it. A flicker of untruth. Not a lie, barely more than omission, just the intent to keep knowledge hidden from me.

My hand gripped the Eye pendant tighter as I gathered the drops of silvery Ichor deep in my soul to my eyes. Hunting for the Truth. Time froze for an instant, inanimate objects became dull phantoms, only visible due to the colorless wisps of Aether that swirled around all of Material reality. The mundane humans held faint clouds of Anima in grays and whites centered on their heads and chests.

The only colors that existed were Red and Pink.

Annie and Mason became a pair of silhouettes made of deep crimson flames like burning blood and cheerful bubbles of shimmering pink. The hulking masculine figure held in its arms a small and aggressively feminine partner. Two eyes made of a ravenous inferno locked on to my sight, beneath a crown of light-drinking obsidian spikes curving up and out. The blazing eyes flared and shattered the vision of Truth.

Agony speared through my soul, my pendant burned my hand without heat and I collapsed into Gabe's arms.

Shocked and worried voices filled my hearing, mostly Annie's shouts and my brother's whispers. Across from me, the Demon that had taken my friend hunched forward clutching his hornless head.

"Zoey! What did you see!?" Gabe hissed into my ear.

"D-demon…it's a demon." I breathed. His already stiff body might as well be carved stone with how much he stilled. My eyes flicked over the room, widening at the sight of Sam's panels of ivory skin and glowing blue eyes. Let alone her nudity. "We have to get out of here!"

He only nodded, watching with me as the corrupted form of my oldest friend gave a bottle of water to her tormentor. Her body was all wrong, every detail of her was different, twisted into a parody of femininity. My only hope was that whatever was left of my friend wasn't trapped and suffering.

The Demon's gaze was glassy and disoriented as I made excuses and let Gabe drag me to the closest escape. Why was it letting us leave? Was this a joke or some strange limitation it was under?

"Was he unbound?" Gabe asked the moment we reached sunlight. "Zoey, was he unbound?" His head was on a swivel, the hand not supporting me deep in his pocket clutching the xiphos grandfather gave him. "Talk to me. How screwed are we?"

My shaking legs grew stronger as my breathing steadied, the pool of Ichor within me calmed, allowing my Anima to flow correctly once again. "I don't know. I saw nothing that matched any description I've read." No runes on its skin or chains on its limbs, not even a heavy aura beyond its own to signify a foreign plane or patron. Nothing.

We kept silent until we were safely driving home. The strain behind my eyes and deep in my soul easing with time and distance.

As I relaxed I realized I'd been crushing Gabe's hand. "Sorry."

"I've already called the Elders. Grandmother is preparing the scrying mirror and Uncle Alex has our cousins." He reported, back stiff and eyes focused on the road.

"Good, that's good." The adrenaline crash and soulstrain worked together to knock me out.

Deep beneath the Galani Manor there was a stone ritual chamber. Shaped like an amphitheater with circular stone benches and a pool of quicksilver in the center. I sat next to Grandmother while the other dozen Elders murmured as we watched the demon claim another thrall.

It burned at me to watch, my stomach churned and my fingers dug lines into the granite as my Ichor responded to my emotions. The newest thrall willingly drank the Demon's Ichor with an awed expression.

The Demon was masterful in its manipulation. From what little we could hear I was half convinced it honestly cared about its thralls in its own twisted way. Annie, Sam and Ms.Tanaka didn't act like they were being puppeted, was it that thorough in its corruption? A demon's thralls were usually either mindless or slavish in their devotion. Why was this one different?

After the flash of red and gold from the Demon's Ichor corrupting the woman's Anima faded. The Demon turned to face us and blurred forward.

"Zoey? Is this you?"

I gasped and fell back from the Demon's image, its mask of curiosity melting away as the scrying pool disconnected. The Elders also shouted and recoiled from the rippling quicksilver.

"He saw us!?"

"How is that possible?"

"Can he head this way? Do we need to gather the Clan in defense?"

"Enough."

Grandmother's ancient voice filled the chamber like a cold gale, silencing all the frantic discussion that had erupted when the Demon discovered our Sentry Wolf.

"It appears we have a young Cambion in our lands. Freshly Awakened. By how quickly he moved, I'd say he must be less than a decade old." She spoke in the careless manner of someone commenting on a cloudy day. "He can't have more than a dozen or so thralls and has no backing or contracts…" She closed her seemingly blind eyes in thought for a long moment. No one dared to interrupt her musings, even as it stretched to a full minute.

I steeled myself for what she would decide. Grim smile forcing itself onto my face at the thought of freeing Annie and killing the—

Finally she spoke once again. "So long as this Mason King remains non hostile…I believe we have an opportunity here, children." Grandmother smiled with a mouth full of perfect teeth.

My various Aunts and Uncles immediately switched from panic to relieved preparation at her words. I heard things like 'contracts' and 'Ichor exchanges', even a proposed meeting.

What!? We're going to do nothing? "What about Annie!?" I demanded. "What about my friend the Demon's taken?"

A raised eyebrow was my answer. "What of her? The girl was Mortal before the Cambion claimed her. You should be happy that a part of your friend will live on for centuries. More if he's smart."

My jaw hung open. "We're going to let it get away with this?"

"So long as the Cambion doesn't claim any Mortals under our protection, he has done nothing worth complaining about." She hummed and tapped her chin. "We might even offer one of your older Mortal cousins to him in exchange for some—"

The stone bench crumbled to dust and the floor cracked from how fast I stood over the ancient woman. "Or we can kill it before it grows too powerful! We have a dozen sorcerers in the Clan who can fight!" The room went silent at my display. Other than me, few people in this room could enhance themselves physically, fewer could do so without side effects. "I'll even do it myself."

She snorted. "And accomplish what my dear? Kill half the town in the clash before the Seraphim burn us all to ash? Have whatever remains of our Clan executed by the bloodline this Cambion belongs to?"

"We have to try—"

"We don't have to do anything." Her eyes glowed and I froze in place, gagged and wrapped up by invisible chains on my soul. "The first Immortal being to Awake in two centuries drops in our lap and you want us to kill him?" She shook her head, slightly pointed ears uncovered by the movement of her silver hair. "Maybe I was wrong to allow you into this meeting."

My own silver Ichor sawed at the chains uselessly as Grandmother stood on youthful legs and took the center of the room. The quicksilver flowed over her traditional linen robe and returned to her soul.

"The official stance of the Galani Clan is to open negotiations with the Cambion by the name of Mason King. Next week, we can send a message through someone other than my apprentice." She scolded me as if I was refusing to eat my vegetables. "Stefano, your granddaughter should be young and pretty enough, we'll see how he takes to her." I didn't see my uncle's response to the order, I had closed my eyes to focus on the chains binding me. I only knew it wasn't a negative.

The centuries old woman we all called Grandmother waved an arm at where Gabe was leaning against the stone wall. "Boy! Do something useful for once and get her out of here. Maybe the Cambion will let her go on playdates with his thrall once she's calmed down."

Gabe picked me up and carried me out of the room like a plank of wood. "I'm sorry." He whispered. The heavy doors closed with a finality I usually reserved for a jail cell or a guillotine.

No.

No. Nonono. I am not going to let this happen! I am not going to leave Annie a sex **** to a Demon!

The chains in my soul weakened with distance or inattention, allowing me to snap the threads one by one. Tears were finally allowed to fall down my frozen face when we made it outside. It should be a cold and rainy day. Not a warm, sunny evening.

My Mortal twin brother held me as I cried. We watched the sky change color as the Sun set. That night, to distract myself from the itching pain of torn muscles and bruised flesh healing after my short burst of super strength, I began to plan.

There had to be a way to free her.