The Witch's Demon (Delsin Chronicles Book 1)

by Bella Benz

Lilith looked at her mother. “You have told me so. But if I’m a demon, how can you love me? Aren’t I supposed to take care of you and do what you say?”

  Bernice shook her head vigorously. “No, Lilith, that was not why I had you. You serve no one and you are not like other demons.” She pulled the child into her arms and hugged her tightly. “I will help you to learn who you are, but it is not like the stories you have heard. What this family does is fight bad demons. You are not a bad demon. You are good.”

  “But I thought all demons were bad.”

  Bernice began to shush her, tears glistening in her eyes. “We will talk about it later. You are still too young for this discussion. I promise we will talk later, in a few years.”

  Lilith did not seem convinced. Delsin tilted his head to the side as he watched the toddler who seemed much older than her years. Then again, demons did not age at the same rate as humans. By the time they were born, they were already much more mature and capable than a human of several years. He had only seen it a few times before this moment, but it had always been under very different situations. And he had always banished them to the demon plane because they had proved too powerful and malignant to the world.

  Looking at Lilith, he began to question himself. Had he been too fast to judge the demons he encountered? Or was he allowing emotions to cloud his assessment of Lilith?

  His mind was so full as he watched the mother and child walk from the room. The web was nudging him forward, but Delsin wasn’t ready to leave. Not yet.

  Even as the world around him began to get hazy, he sat in one place, reflecting. Days passed with only the occasional appearance of a small face looking around the room.

  One time she stepped into it and asked, “Are you here?”

  Delsin watched her trying to figure out who she was trying to talk to. If he had not known how well-protected the home was from breaches, he would have thought Lilith was trying to talk to her father. However, his parents were far too strong for a witch and a demonic child. Lilith’s head looked around, her expression one that was already fairly familiar to him. Her face showed that she did not want, with her cheeks considerably more apples than they would be later.

  Her voice was uncertain as she walked past him. “I think I can feel you, but you are not talking. Why aren’t you talking?”

  Delsin’s eyes moved around the room, shifting through several different visions as he tried to see what might be causing her to question an empty room. Demons couldn’t get in, but that didn’t mean that spirits and others with benign intent couldn’t infiltrate the barriers. Lilith would be hypersensitive to them. And there was a chance that she would also be quite afraid of them. Her poor little hands were trembling as she walked away from him, and her little voice shook slightly, indicating how nervous she was. “We won’t hurt you.” It sounded almost as if she was trying to make a deal – they wouldn’t hurt the spirit who was there if the spirit didn’t hurt them.

  For a few moments, he nearly forgot about his mother. The pull on his essence reminded him that he needed to focus on remaining. Whatever he was there to see was clearly over, yet he had to make sure his mother was all right. Of course his parents would work it out later, but something about what had happened made him uncomfortable. Until he saw it resolved, Delsin wasn’t going to leave. Closing his eyes and sitting on the floor, the warlock ignored the child and any other interruption for as long as his mother remained gone.

  He had no sense of time, so he had no idea how long he waited, but eventually a portal opened behind him. Delsin turned and watched his mother emerge, her eyes tired and sunken looking. He stood up quickly and hurried over to her – humans were not meant to be gone so long. Reaching her hand out, Maria stumbled and fell to the floor, smacking her head on the table as she lost consciousness.

  Without a thought, Delsin stood and shouted for help as his hands passed through her. Blood seeped out of a wound on her head. The sound of footsteps thundered from somewhere above him, but the warlock was yanked out of the memory before he had a chance to see what happened.

  ✽✽✽

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Despite his panic about his mother – or perhaps because of it – Delsin made sure to land on his feet as soon as the next memory started. He wanted to be able to react immediately to better understand what was happening. Instead, he found himself completely enveloped in darkness without any sounds to attract his attention. His eyes immediately scanned the world around him for a sign of what had happened, thinking perhaps there had been some kind of attack on his parents’ home. He had certainly never seen a room like the one he had just left while he lived with them.

  Blinking a few times, he shifted his vision to rely on something other than light infiltration to process the world. It took a few seconds to get it right, but soon he was able to make out two small figures. Sitting close to him were Bernice and a young Lilith. His childhood friend was obviously a bit older, maybe five or six years older than the last memory. There were hints of how she would look when she aged, further emphasizing just how different demons were. Her face would change very little, making it impossible to mistake who she was. Compared to her apparently never-changing face, his had undergone the usual human changes, and there were some people from his hometown who had not recognized him in recent years. Even Lilith’s mother looked a bit different, older than in the second memory.

  Lilith looked frightened as she huddled beside Bernice. “Mommy, why can’t we go home?”

  Her mother swallowed, clearly looking for a way to avoid answering that question. After her daughter repeated the question, she murmured, “We have to leave, honey. It’s best for everyone.”

  “But why? I loved living with the Chamberlins. They were nice.” Her eyes were large and questioning, making it that much harder for her mother to answer.

  Finally, Bernice’s eyes showed her own uncertainty and the sadness she felt from having to move away from the only happiness she had known. It seemed she tried to hug Lilith a little closer, though it was clear why the mother couldn’t do more. They were encased in a rock again.

  With a shaking breath, Bernice said, “Our being there threatens them, honey. If we stay, people will continue to hurt them.”

  “But they said they wanted to help. It’s not like these people can kill them – they are sorcerers now!”

  “Stop, Lilith!” The mother’s voice was sharp, indicating this was not the first time they had talked about it. “Sorcerers are just harder to kill. They are not immortal. Do you really want to endanger them so that you can stay comfortable? Are you really that selfish?”

  Lilith whimpered. “No, Mommy. But we can’t –”

  “Hush!” Bernice’s voice was higher and it was obvious that she did not want to keep talking. But Delsin knew that look on Lilith’s face. She was never able to accept something without understanding the reasons for it. It was only a matter of time before she re-engaged the conversation.

  Torn between finding out why they were fleeing and listening to the conversation, Delsin considered what would be best for his own mental state. His emotions were already running high. The last memory of a serious fight between his parents went against every memory he had of them; the anger and words seemed so out of character for the people he had known. Then again, he had been so young when they died – yet there had never been a time when he had seen them so upset with each other. How had they gone from such a fight to being perfectly fine?

  There was a part of him that wanted to know what had happened after his mother returned, but another part that feared learning how close they had come to splitting up. Then again, he already had an idea about their future, including his birth and their untimely demise. As he looked at Lilith, he couldn’t help but wonder how much longer his parents had to live from this point on – not that it really mattered. He already knew that his parents would not meet Lilith again while he was alive. They had never even mentioned that they had once taken a demon into their h
ome. That was a rather huge omission, as if they were hiding a dark secret from him. But why?

  The one thing that was obvious from their willingness to accept Bernice and Lilith into their homes was that they had not yet been sorcerers when it happened. All sorcerers were subjected to a high level of constant scrutiny to make sure they were not misusing their powers. Few people ever achieved the rank, whether because they weren’t talented enough or because they were too corrupted. The fact that both of his parents had achieved it while still young was why he had been saddled with such high expectations – that and the fact that they had both come from long magical bloodlines.

  According to Lilith’s words now, they had recently become sorcerers, and that meant his birth was still some ways in the future. And apparently, his mother would go from being unable to bear children to having him.

  A part of him wished that he could return to them, leaving these two to run away. His parents were far more important to him in that moment because he had only gotten a few years with them; it seemed that even Lilith had gotten to live with them longer than he had. His heart clenched as he thought about his parents looking for the two people sitting right there in front of him. A sense of resentment began to grow in him as he watched Bernice, her attitude as wild and reckless as it had been the night when Lilith had been conceived. To his eyes, she was the one being selfish. Lilith was young, but she was still a demon. Her ability to stop the attacks was great, yet Bernice was still refusing to help the child learn. This was why Lilith had always been so scared – her mother had tried to shield her, but ultimately had just taught her to fear who she was.

  You should have stayed with them. You should have proved my mother wrong about her suspicions. Why couldn't you trust them to take care of you? He watched her with a flash of anger in his eyes. Bernice’s choice had not caused his parents’ death, but it had definitely messed up Lilith.

  He had so many questions about what he had seen, but he knew that there was no reason to ask. These people couldn’t hear him. After watching them for a moment, he decided that he could not remain. Not only was he feeling claustrophobic, but he didn’t feel that he could share this moment with them as the mother tried to comfort her daughter – a daughter who had clearly just lost the only home she had ever known. Shame flashed through him at his earlier emotions towards Lilith, at least. None of this was her fault, and yet she was clearly afraid that it was.

  As he looked at them for another second, the warlock knew that everything his mother had feared was coming true in this moment – that Bernice had run off with her demon daughter and that it would not turn out well. He had no idea why his mother had finally acquiesced to her husband’s desire not to track the child, but at this point it didn’t seem to really matter.

  If they had been able to track Lilith, he probably would have grown up with her instead of finding her after his parents died. She may have grown up knowing what she could do and believing that she didn’t have to give in to a nature that wasn’t necessarily true to who she was. Delsin looked at her and felt a deep sense of sadness. This must have been where everything had gone wrong for Lilith. It was this decision of her mother and his parents’ own weakness that had caused her to flee when Delsin had been most adamant about helping her. She had learned to run away to protect those she cared about.

  Delsin didn’t know the catalyst that had ultimately resulted in Bernice leaving; he and Lilith had never discussed their parents. She had never mentioned that her early years had been spent with a loving couple who looked after her and her mom, or how her mother had betrayed them by running instead of trusting them.

  Perhaps if Lilith had known who he was, things would have been different. After all, he had changed his name to hide his heritage and never resumed using it after his reputation grew – and if Lilith had heard as a child that his mother couldn’t get pregnant, there was no connection for her to make between him and his parents. He had often been told that he looked like his father, and demons had phenomenal memories, but it was only after he became an adult that people had really started to comment on his appearance. Lilith had not been there to see it. Her first time seeing him as an adult had been for a few fleeting minutes. Delsin had a feeling she still didn’t know about his connection with her first home.

  What really bothered him was that the whole time they had been meeting up, they’d had a common thread that might have helped them better trust each other.

  Or it might have made her flee that much earlier.

  How differently would things have turned out between us if I had been more open about my own heritage? A stab of guilt went through him as he considered his own role in her running away. Just like her mother had done.

  Shutting off his hearing, he slid away from the pair to give them privacy and to contend with his own internal struggle.

  Keeping his eyes closed, Delsin imagined the feel of the wind on his face. He took several deep breaths to clear his head from all of the thoughts that were stirring his emotions. Now that he had a better understanding of what he was seeing, Delsin knew that Lilith had done this as a way of telling him something – not as a way of tormenting him.

  Back in the present, she did not know that her memories were of his parents. If anything, she was showing him why she had wanted to be something other than just another demon. Why she had been so adamant about being something that was thought to be against her nature.

  He desperately wanted to believe that this was her way of asking for help, but until he reached that last memory, Delsin knew it was best to reserve judgement. Even if she was asking for help, that didn’t absolve her from everything she had done in the decades since they had last seen each other. People in Brexley had died because of her – some of them had been killed by her. And that was just the one place that he knew about her presence; how many others had there been? That didn’t mean she couldn’t be saved, but it meant it would be far more difficult to help her now.

  Trying to get his emotions better under control, Delsin took two more deep breaths, then opened his eyes. A brilliant flash of light and blast of air nearly knocked him over. Fortunately for him, he was fully aware at that moment that this was a memory, so the explosion had no effect on him.

  However, the rock where the mother and daughter were hiding was nearly destroyed. The expression on Bernice’s face was one of abject terror as she realized that she couldn’t protect her daughter. Delsin looked at what had caught her eye, and he saw the shadows of mages coming through the smoke of the explosion. These were people who hunted down demons, and they were very good at it. For a fraction of a second, he understood why Bernice had thought it was best to flee to save his parents. These people travelled in packs, and even though his parents were sorcerers, they were new to it, and would be no match for a group of mages.

  He looked back at the two people cowering on the ground. “But you have Lilith. She could have helped. You didn’t have to leave.”

  Lilith’s eyes went wide. “Mommy!”

  Delsin didn’t stop to think as he looked at the fear on the mother’s face. There was nothing she could do. A part of Delsin knew that she would be all right; in the future Bernice would still be alive when Delsin and Lilith met. Still, this would be scarring to both of them, and he felt a strong desire to do something.

  Pulling from his center, he tried to will himself into the moment. As the people behind him began to speak in a clear effort to cow the witch, Delsin began chanting a spell that he rarely used. Crouching, he put his hand on the ground and continued to murmur the chant. The ground beneath him began to rise. There was a lot going on around him, but he kept his focus on his efforts. The warlock even battled with his own disbelief that he could affect anything in a memory.

  When he finally opened his eyes, Delsin saw that a hill had formed around the witch and the demon. Shouting came from behind him as the mages suddenly couldn’t find any trace of their prey.

  “Well, that shouldn’t have worked
,” he murmured just as the web yanked him out of the memory.

  ✽✽✽

  CHAPTER SIX

  Delsin slid into the next memory much more smoothly, giving him a sense that this one wasn’t going to be anything like the previous ones.

  A familiar voice caught his attention. “Mom, I’m going out.” His eyes moved over the figure in front of him. Years had passed since the last memory, and it was clear that Lilith was a teenager. At an estimate, he thought perhaps a decade or so had lapsed. During the gap between memories, it appeared that they had established a safe place where they could get comfortable. He also got a feeling that he knew what this memory would show him. A quick look at her body showed that she was almost identical to how Delsin remembered her looking from his own past. A sneaking suspicion went up his spine, and for a moment he dreaded finding out where this memory was going.

  And here I was so eager to see this when I was first pulled into the web. The thought nearly made him laugh, but Delsin held his breath. There was something bothering him, but he wasn’t about to let the thought move forward into his consciousness. With the freshness of the last memory still at the forefront of his mind, Delsin was concerned that his presence in the memory wasn’t quite what he had expected. He was nearly certain that it had been his magic that had saved Lilith and Bernice in the last memory – it was hard to argue that it hadn’t been. Exactly what that meant about his presence in the memory was unclear; based on everything he knew, the time web should have made him a voyeur, not a player in the events. Until he better understood what was happening, he needed to remain inactive and silent.

  Moving away from Lilith, he was startled as Bernice stepped through him from the hallway behind him. A severe frown graced her older-looking face. “Lilith, you know that is not a good idea.” He looked at her and could tell that the years had not been kind to her. She looked a lot older than she should, which meant that Bernice was still refusing to use her daughter. This was both good and bad – good because she clearly loved Lilith, yet the best intentions don’t mean much if they end up backfiring. By not teaching her daughter anything about her powers, Bernice was endangering the young woman.