Kristie Cook - Genesis

“We’ll stay here for the night,” Eris finally said when they appeared outside a cave on the side of a mountain. She had to shout over the sound of a raging waterfall across the valley. The air here was much colder and crisper than where they had been just that morning—according to Eris, they’d already traveled much farther in one day than they had in all the weeks past.

Inside the cave, a mound of furry pelts sat near the wall. Eris sorted them into two piles and Jordan quickly realized they weren’t just flat furs. Some were stitched into the form of heavy cloaks and coverings for their legs.

“You’ve been here before,” he said, stating the obvious.

“Another of my homes.” She flicked her fingers and flames burst from the stone floor. She handed Jordan a cloak and leg coverings. “It gets very cold here, especially at night.”

Although the air itself seemed to freeze after the sun set and Jordan had never felt so cold in all his years and all his travels, Eris still kept him at a distance. They lay on opposite sides of the fire under the heavy furs and she continued her on-going explanation about the creatures that made up the Daemoni. Besides vampyres and mages, the Ancients had created shifters or, as Eris sometimes called them, Weres. A number of Ancients had taken the bodies of every kind of predatory animal that lived on Earth and, using their unearthly powers, created beasts that could transform into human shape and back again.

“You have encountered one,” she said. “A werewolf. Your sister’s friend almost killed him.”

“That was a werewolf?” Jordan asked. I was right! It wasn’t a normal wolf.

“The Daemoni have been living among humans since nearly the beginning of time. People who disappear, seemingly lost in the woods or wilderness...they become food. Or sometimes one of us. A vampyre or shapeshifter, that is. No human can become a mage. We are born.”

“Vampyres and shifters are not?”

“Weres can be born, but they can also be created through infection of a human. Vampyres can only reproduce by draining a human’s blood and then replacing it with some of their own. The human nearly dies and nearly comes back to life. But not all the way.”

“Like those soldiers Cassandra saw,” Jordan muttered, recalling his sister’s story.

“Hmph. Another problem with vampyres. The Ancients want them to keep creating more and battlefields provide perfect opportunities, but they are usually sloppy at it. They shouldn’t let their children rise all alone like that. It’s too dangerous.”

“Are you saying you care about the humans they’ll attack?”

“Of course not. I care for our secrecy. Abandoned newborns can ruin us.”

The following day, Eris led him again on flashes through the mountains until they appeared on a snow-covered expanse of land bordering a lake so large, Jordan couldn’t see the other side. Perhaps it was a sea. He found the whites and blues of the landscape beautiful in a completely opposite way of how he thought of home as beautiful, but he saw no indication of any kind of life—not human or animal or inhuman. At least, not until Eris waved her hands and an entire village suddenly appeared around them.

The village was small, made of several tents encircling an open area where people dressed in furs gathered around a large fire pit in the center.

“Shaman,” Eris said, nodding at them. “That’s what they call themselves, though they are essentially witches and wizards. Follow me.”

She led him into one of the tents made of animal skins stretched over long logs. The tent was barren inside, showing no signs of being used. Jordan wondered if this was another of Eris’s homes, but before he could ask, she waved her hands over the center of the floor and a hole opened up before them. Crude stairs carved into the earth descended into darkness. She led him downward.

The stairs became a tunnel that continued down, far below the Earth’s surface. Just when Jordan began to tire of this unending descent, the tunnel flattened and opened wider, into a network of caves. The deeper they went, the more Jordan realized it was like an underground city, lit by fires in sconces on the walls and in pits dotting the caverns. People who weren’t really human—he could feel the magick crackling in the air—milled about, conversing in languages unfamiliar to him.

In one cave they passed, a pale-skinned vampyre bent over a naked human, his mouth at her throat and his hand between her legs. She didn’t struggle, even seemed to be enjoying it, as the vampyre drained her blood. In another cavern, three men sat around a wooden table and gnawed on bones, their teeth scraping and pulling off the raw meat, reminding Jordan of wild dogs consuming their kill. Yet, in others, men and women traded furs and pelts, jewels and other goods, just as they did in the agora back home.

Eris tugged at his hand. He’d slowed, distracted by all the activity, but she told him they still had a ways to go. They left what must have been the city’s center, passing more caves, these dark and cold. Moaning, growls and even cries of pain filled the air. Finally, they came to the end of the passage. A heavy wooden door with two beastly men blocked their way. Eris murmured something to them in a language Jordan didn’t know and tossed her head toward him. They nodded and one stepped back while the other opened the door.

They passed into a large, circular room with hearths carved into the walls every ten or so strides, fires burning within them. Jordan had never seen flames with such vivid colors of green, purple, pink and blue. In a semi-circle of chairs that looked like king’s thrones sat figures covered in black cloaks, hiding their forms and faces. Naked women fed them grapes, wine and even their own blood, holding their wrists to where the figures’ mouths were hidden in shadows. The evil power thrummed in the room, almost tangible, giving Jordan a thrill.

“Welcome, Jordan,” one of them said, rising from his chair and dismissing the attractive blond who’d been sitting on his lap. “We have been waiting for you.”

Eris dipped into a sort of curtsey. “Father.”

“Thank you, Eris.” The figure removed his hood, revealing a young-looking face with Eris’s dark eyes and the white hair of someone very elderly. He eyed Jordan and smiled. A proud smile. “Do you know where you are, Jordan?”

“Hell?”

Someone laughed—one of the cloaked figures standing by a fire. He turned toward Jordan, but kept his hood in place, showing nothing of his face. “Very close, indeed. As close as you can get on this side of the veil between here and the Otherworld. How does that make you feel?”

Jordan lifted his chest, bowing up. “At home, to be honest.”

He felt more at home here than he’d ever had with his family. They feared their darkness, tried to hide it, pretended they were something they were not. Made him feel like an outcast of his own kin because he let that darkness show, sometimes even embraced it. Here, he could be himself. Here, he belonged, like he had nowhere before. He felt it in his bones.

“Very good, then. That’s what we hoped to hear. But still … you must prove yourself worthy.”

“Worthy of what?” Jordan asked.

“Worthy of joining us,” another figure answered. “This is not a place for weak humans.”

“I am not weak and prefer not to be compared to the humans.”

“We shall see,” Eris’s father said. “Do you believe in God? The one God?”

The way he said “one God” sounded as though he mocked the idea.

Jordan cocked his head. “I did before. Then I wasn’t sure, until my father shared his truth with me. Proved to me that angels and demons exist, so God and Satan must exist, too. With all I have seen in the world, however, I find it difficult to believe that God truly cares for us.”