“Even if something bad were to happen, Kain and Alexi will be there.”
“Yes, but that’s not the point. Physically, you’re going to be safe. A mentor would never let anything happen to his or her apprentice. But you have no idea what a demon can actually do to your mind and spirit if he gets the upper hand even for a moment. Their auras are toxic, Sophie. Pure poison.”
“I’ll be fine.” There was a hint of uncertainty in her voice.
Lamia studied her friend’s face a minute longer, then sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “Okay.”
Even though it was dinner time, Sophie didn’t feel particularly hungry. She did follow Lamia to the cafeteria and got herself a salad, but she ended up picking at it. Kain and Alexi joined them later, and she did her best to keep a smile on her face and laugh at the blond’s dirty jokes. She couldn’t let them know how nervous she was, how afraid she was that she might disappoint them.
CHAPTER THREE
Another week passed until Kain and Alexi finally took Sophie to Oriens, this time to practice her new skills on a prisoner, on a real demon who would not go easy on her. It wasn’t that Kain or Alexi ever went easy on her, but she knew they would stop the moment there was the slightest chance of hurting her. It wouldn’t be the case with Leraje, the Marquis of Hell who used to have thirty legions under his command in the good ol’ days when he was roaming the Earth as he pleased. Sophie had asked what happened to his legions when the Marquis was caught, and Kain had told her that half of the demon soldiers escaped back to Hell.
“That’s the problem,” he had said. “We’re outnumbered. Demons are born every day, while cambions need time to discover their powers, then learn how to use them and train until they are good enough to take on the enemy. When we can, we hit the big ones, the rulers and commanders of Hell. The Kings, the Princes, Counts, Dukes, Earls… Humans can still fight the lesser demons with the little faith they have left, but they stand no chance against the greater demons. That’s where we come in.”
She did her homework on Leraje, of course. She read his file and the report the cambion who caught him and brought him to the Academy filled in. For the purpose of the session, her mentors had moved the Marquis to a special, much bigger cell, away from the Spprigans, so he could regain some of his powers. What Sophie feared most was the demon’s real appearance. In his human form, Leraje was a rather handsome man, tall and well-built, with long black hair and intense black eyes. In his demon form, however… Sophie was trying to forget the pictures she had come across while reading his file.
The corridors under Oriens were strangely quiet. Kain and Alexi were walking ahead of her, and she tried to keep her eyes on them while she made her way between the rows of cells. There were Spprigans everywhere. These small creatures that had the natural ability to absorb demon energy were incredibly distracting. Sophie had to force herself to look away from them, but they were so ugly, their little faces twisted in such weird ways, that she constantly felt the urge to look at them and try to understand why nature had been so unfair to them. They were kind, intelligent creatures. They didn’t deserve the awful features they had, nor did they deserve to be hunted down by all the demons of Hell and forced into hiding simply because they had a gift they couldn’t control.
Kain and Alexi took a right, and Sophie followed them down a dim corridor she had never seen before. She immediately noticed there were no Spprigans here.
“Are you ready?” asked Alexi.
She swallowed heavily and willed her vocal chords to act normally. “Yes.”
They stopped in front of a glass cell, and Sophie spotted the Marquis at the far back, lounging in a comfortable armchair. The demon raised his eyes and smiled at her. Cold sweat gathered in her palms, and she curled her fingers into fists.
“You’re going in alone,” said Kain. His golden hair glowed eerily under the artificial neon lights. “We’ll be here, watching, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
His reassurance didn’t make her feel any better. She had no intention of putting herself in a position in which she would need rescuing. She absolutely needed to nail this one. There was no other way. She remembered how embarrassed and ashamed she had felt after the first private session with her mentors. She wouldn’t go through that again.
“I’ll be fine,” she even managed a smile. Alexi smiled back and nodded in approval. Kain opened the door for her, and she stepped over the threshold not before taking a deep breath. The air was pretty clear and well ventilated on the corridor, but she knew the air in the cell would be heavy with the demon’s aura and she braced herself for it.
Kain closed the door behind her and goosebumps rose on her skin. She was wearing a black tank top, tight blue jeans, and her favorite long, high-heeled boots. The sigil on her stomach pulsed pleasantly, her inner demon giving her the comfort she needed. Back straight, head held high, she took a couple of steps towards the creature. She had no idea why she had expected his aura to be heavy and hot. With every second spent in the cell, the air grew colder and colder, making her muscles tense in a feeble attempt to preserve body heat. She tried to relax.
The demon studied her from head to toe. He was dressed in black, but Sophie couldn’t tell exactly what he was wearing. Was his entire appearance an illusion? Every time she tried to identify the pieces of clothing he was wearing, it was like her mind slipped on the name of the item. Shirt? Tunic? Jacket? No… were those buttons? Was it a zipper? No. Sophie closed her eyes for a second, then opened them again. Black. He was wearing black, and that was all that mattered. “Shit,” she thought, “I didn’t expect this. Confusion. Why didn’t I expect it? I’m so stupid.” She decided to fix her gaze on the demon’s face and stop obsessing over the details. That was exactly what he wanted.
The Marquis didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. He could feel the young cambion was enveloped in a protective aura, something fresh and flowery his own freezing aura could not penetrate, but he also noticed how weak her power was. How inexperienced. Was this her first training session? He was growing quite tired of being used as a guinea pig. He could have crushed her in seconds, but he didn’t want to. The only advantage these ridiculous training sessions had was that the Spprigans weren’t allowed near the glass cell, which meant he could breathe freely for half an hour. If he played his cards well, maybe he could stretch it to an hour. No, he had no hopes of regaining his whole strength. That would take around two hours away from those nasty little Spprigans, and he knew the two mentors outside would never allow that much time to pass. The girl cambion took another step towards him, then another, until she was standing right in front of him. He moved his eyes away from her round, pretty face and ignored her.
Sophie was confused. What was the demon doing? What was his plan? Did he have a plan? Maybe she shouldn’t have come this close to him. Was she falling into a trap? Now he wasn’t even looking at her anymore. She studied his handsome face, sharp jaw, long, thin nose, and unmoving eyes. That was when she noticed he wasn’t breathing. His chest didn’t rise and fall, and his breath wasn’t visible in the freezing air as hers was. Because it wasn’t there. A chill ran up her spine and she suppressed a shudder. “I’ve never been this cold in my life,” she thought. “Should I attack? Is this his plan? To fucking freeze me?” She felt the urge to turn around to make sure Kain and Alexi were still on the other side of the glass door, but she couldn’t afford to make such an amateurish mistake. No matter what, she had to keep her eyes trained on the prisoner.
Five minutes passed like this, and nothing happened. Sophie kept using her aura as a shield, but couldn’t decide to launch an attack. “He’s not doing anything.” Although, she could feel his powers growing stronger with each passing minute. It was only natural, given that there were no Spprigans around to keep the Marquis weak and dizzy. “I can’t attack someone who’s not even trying to threaten me, can I? It wouldn’t be fair.” The moment the thought took shape in her mind, she realized how stupid it was. This was a demon. This was a Marquis of Hell who had commanded thirty legions of lesser demons that had wreaked havoc in the world until Lure Academy caught him. She couldn’t feel… compassion.
Leraje kept ignoring her. He had no idea what was going through her head, and he couldn’t care less. He was enjoying the way his power coursed through his body and lowered the temperature in the room to a comfortable degree. The girl cambion was probably freezing, but he was finally starting to feel better. He almost startled when she did the most unexpected thing a cambion had ever done during such training sessions: she plopped down on the floor, right at his feet, her plump arms hugging her knees to her chest.
“This is odd, isn’t it?” she asked. Her voice was low and well-measured. Leraje didn’t move and didn’t look her way. She was silent for a long minute. Then… “I’m sorry.”
The Marquis turned his head towards her, his eyes deeper and blacker than Hell itsel
f. Sophie’s muscles tensed even more, and her heart started beating wildly in her chest.
“What did you say?” His voice was thick, but it lacked any sort of personality. It sounded hollow. The temperature in the cell dropped a couple more degrees.
Sophie gulped. “Shit. This is it,” she thought. “I said,” she said out loud, emphasizing each word, “I am sorry.”
The demon’s features changed slightly, the skin on his cheekbones retreating. Sophie could see the structure of his skull, which meant what she had been afraid of was starting to happen. The Marquis had regained enough of his power to turn into his real form. She focused on the sigil burning on her stomach and reinforced her shield, still reluctant about attacking the creature. Then, the change she had seen on his face was gone.
“You’re pathetic,” Leraje said. “You’re all pathetic. Locking up demons in your fancy Academy so you can use them as training material… It almost makes you just as bad as the greatest Kings of Hell.”