In Eden's Shadow

by Amanda Churi

  “Oh, Eero, you’ve been fretting for what seems like eternity over this!” A hand touched my firm shoulder, the wiry fingers winding around my collar bone and digging under. “Take a break, ok? We can get back to selecting my ideal weapon later, but a new batch of damned have just arrived, and I would love to see what blocks they are condemned to! I hear we’ve got a few truly evil ones this time.”

  I grumbled, shaking my head as she retreated. “I can’t. This has me so boggled! My mind is festering, and I need to find a resolution before I can drag myself away, even to something as exciting as Judgment.”

  She sighed, taking a seat beside me and dipping her sharp, bony feet into the lake. An airy breath left her, her wire-thin lips swirling into a satisfied smirk as she gently swung her legs through the thick concoction. Her cat-like ears were twitching, kept erect as she gripped the edge of the pool and leaned forward, swallowing the scorching heat through her pale skin. Her auburn hair sank down to the floor in soft waves, and her lavender eyes were alight with Hell’s fire as the burning lake popped and scattered glorious fireballs across the surface. “This really is the most magnificent sight in all of Hell… I’m surprised He allowed you to settle here.”

  “He told me to go wherever I could think best, and what better place is there than the eternal lake before me and a portal just over the mountain?”

  She snickered. “True, but… Do you ever get worried? Practicing His flame and mingling with humans so closely for your picking of weapons? If ever they fought back—”

  “Azuré, your worries are stupid.” I turned to her, plucking my nail from the lake and grabbing my tail instead, showing off Coruscus. “It is because of my risks that I can forge beauties such as this; if I never took that chance, all of the chances that I do, I would be nowhere near as great of a forger.”

  She scowled, sharply looking away with a snobbish snort. “Well, I think it’s stupid. Doing all of this just to impress Him… We’ve already lost uncountable original demons trying to settle this shithole, and we don’t need to lose any more.” She retracted her legs, standing and brushing away the remnants of crusting magma. “I’m going to Judgment; no use in you coming with me if you are so beside yourself. Oh, and I want a blade, a dagger, something when I get back!”

  I watched her for a moment, silent as her tall, perfectly curved body turned to go. Her tail that separated from her spine lashed to further prove just how fed up she was with me and my compulsive self.

  As she grabbed the edge of the rock that blocked the entrance, prepared to roll it away, a thought left my tongue—one that I myself was surprised by: “Why do humans clothe themselves?”

  Her arms grew stiff. She looked over her shoulder, her pinched eyes gaining height at my question. “What?”

  “Haven’t you ever wondered? Demons do not. Angels do not. Just them. I see no shame in showing off the flesh we were created with, but for them, it’s seemingly sin.”

  “Disturbed” was the only word to describe the expression crossing her acute face. “I don’t know,” she warily replied. “They’re a strange species. No use thinking over something that we will never understand nor be.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  She watched me suspiciously for a moment more before rolling her eyes and proceeding to open the heavy doorway. I twisted away, trying to get my thoughts back on track when Azuré gasped in alarm.

  My ears unfolded, bristling as I shot to my feet and spun around. My lips had already lifted; Coruscus was beside me, prepped for action, but when I realized what I saw, all hostility vanished. It had to.

  He stood not even a pace from my door: tall and solid wrapped in iridescent copper skin that twinkled with rising black gems that radiated from His mountainous muscles. An ocean of golden-white hair as light as a holy flame curled at His shoulders, hiding His curled horns and moving so gently that the air could have been mistaken for water. His eyes were void of all light and color—in fact, they pulled in whatever was around them, creating a black film around His head. His hands were ginormous and ruthless, one around His pitchfork in a crushing clutch and the other holding the hand of a demon that I had never seen.

  “M-my Lord!” Azuré gasped, falling to her knees respectfully. I was just as awestruck, also dropping and bowing in submission.

  Satan chuckled, shaking His head dismissively. “Why thank you, Azuré. I did not expect you on my venture out here.”

  Azuré waited a second longer, searching for a trace of sarcasm before she deemed it safe to rise. “Ah, yes. I came to fetch your hard worker away for today’s Judgment, but…” She glanced back at me, who did not stand. “Well, let’s just say that he has taken Your project to heart.”

  “As he should! Good old, Eero!” He patted the shoulder of the unknown demon next to Him, who said nothing; her eyes only fluttered about uncertainly, her face hidden to the world for undisclosed reasons. “You can go on,” Satan prompted Azuré. “I needed to come talk to Eero about that, actually.”

  “Most certainly.” As soon as she had been cleared for dismissal, Azuré stiffly tipped her head and took off in a sprint toward Nortora, not wanting to press her luck. Azuré was a well-renowned demon who was on good terms with Satan, much like myself, but even so, it was never wise to push your luck around Him, especially unless He came to you with intent.

  Satan invited Himself and His follower inside my home as I kept to the floor, the pair making the base of my tail shudder. She… Was touching Him. And what was odder was that He allowed such contact. I had never seen Him do something so strange.

  “Come, come, no formalities right now,” Satan told me.

  A gracious sigh left my mouth; my back instinctively relaxed. As I stood, Satan rolled the rock to my abode back across its track with a brush of His pinkie. He was still holding onto the demon.

  …Or was it a demon? Her appearance baffled me. In my small tunnel, one rampant with an array of red hues and clouds of steam, she gave off her own aura—one that was blue and, dare I say, cold. The skull of a falka covered her face, and her skin was an unnatural tint of powder blue. Her feet were human-like, and with each step, they left blue fragments behind, but she, unlike any other demon in all of Hell, covered her body; it was a dress so chilling that it clashed with the steaming atmosphere of my shop.

  And her eyes. They were blue, not purple.

  “Eero,” Satan began, advancing with the demon at His side. I moved back to gain a smidge more of distance as the strange creation neared. The temperature around me dropped, and the thickness of the air was unfathomable; the demon radiated something immensely dark—an evil so potent that had she not stood before me, I would have thought it came from Satan. “I would like to introduce you to a new alternative plan that I think you will be much appreciative of.”

  He took His hand from her, and she came to stand toe to toe with me, looking up at my face. Waves of frigid mist passed over my shoulders and trickled down my back; an entrancing blue shine from her irises caused my own eyes to release their pent-up purple aura. She smiled, politely grabbing the sides of her gown and curtseying. Her lowered head never came back up. Dumbfounded, I looked to Satan instead. “Lord, if You don’t mind me asking, who is this?”

  His pride beamed out of Him, His hair blowing out and turning into gentle white flames as the woman lifted her chin, a devious speck of black eating away at the center of her eye. “Eero, meet ‘Plan B’—Reeve.”

  ***

  That was the last time I had been home. After that, my house became a road—a never-ending, continuously twisting path that stretched across deserts, through forests, and over mountains in a foreboding cycle… All because I had to be a shepherd and escort an immature, underdeveloped lamb to her archnemesis: someone who she didn’t even know but was supposed to hate with all of her being. Logic.

  As past and present overlapped, I couldn’t help but gaze over my shoulder and down at the puny fire mage behind me. Her small, battered feet shu
ffled through the hills of bleached ash and plagued snow, her hands cupped around her breasts to keep them hidden from view. She walked with a tense yet wobbly gait, sliding one foot in front of the other to protect the genitalia between.

  Her self-consciousness took a toll on me, even if I would never voice that—especially around Korbu, who walked beside me with his exposed bones clicking and katana grinding against rotten cartilage. My confidence had seen better days, but seeing Maeve so skittish reopened wounds that I assumed had healed in hibernation.

  Even thousands of years later, she was still a bothersome pest. That certainly would not make my quest any easier—not that it would be easy in any way, shape, or form. I had a job to do, a new goal to grasp, and neither of them were going to know about it; if they didn’t, then they couldn’t go crying to Him and mess it up.

  “So, what’s your plan?” Korbu’s question came with such terrible timing that I nearly threw out my hand and broke his neck to keep him quiet; thank Satan that I held my severed tail instead.

  “Well, Satan did away with the remaining portals in Hell to protect Nortora,” I told him simply. “That leaves only one way back. We need to stop by my workshop and get prepared.”

  “And how exactly do we prepare for a journey spanning worlds?”

  I shrugged. “Dunno. Haven’t had much time to prep between kicking your ass and nearly being executed.”

  Korbu glowered at me, his purple eyes darkening with disappointment. “Different demon my ass. You still fly by the seat of your throne.”

  “Hey, it gives the afterlife a bit of excitement.”

  “You won’t have much afterlife left after this.”

  I clicked my fangs in opposition. “Untrue. You heard Him: with success comes my freedom.”

  A haughty gurgle sloshed within his partially open trachea. “Only Time will tell when he comes to you and Maeve with his children at his heels.”

  “Mabel.”

  Korbu and I instinctively slowed until we stopped altogether, our sight sitting square on the mage. The way she carried herself had not changed, but her brown hair had slightly frizzed, and her eye color almost seemed to be shifting; it was as though the edges were rimmed with a bed of burning coals that slowly crept closer to the center. “Mabel?” I repeated with a bristle. That name was starting to annoy me.

  “Mabel. I am Mabel—not Maeve.”

  Her statement raised my eye. “What are you yabbering about? You are Maeve. Do you think that I could ever forget?”

  Her neck slightly sank as her coals began dying. “…Well, I didn’t think so, but I guess I’m mistaken.”

  I chuckled in disbelief as I approached her. “Wooowww… You actually believe that? Really, how could I forget someone so conniving or annoying?” I leered down on her, but she did not back away. “How could I ever forget the bitch who did this to me?”

  “Eero remembers me,” she replied bitterly. Her hair was crackling with static; the embers were regaining life.

  “No, he doesn’t!”

  “Yes, he does! I heard him call my real name, and even now, I see it in your eyes, Eero! Or should I even call you that? Because the Eero I knew was sweet, brave, and strong. You? You’re rude, arrogant, narcissistic, nasty, evil, spoiled, a straight up ass… Do I need to go on? Because I totally can.”

  My free arm shot forward, but the midget sidestepped it before I could snap her neck.

  She taunted me with a giggle, her crimson eyes abruptly shifting to a piercing blue. She spread her feet and took a wide stance, flexing her arms and protecting her face with bunched fists. Her knuckles burned red, ready for my next blow. “That all you’ve got, wimp?”

  My biceps expanded in fury, the veins in my feet and thighs throbbing as I heavily mirrored her movements, shaking the ground around us. The liquid gold in my irises flashed so strongly that I lost visibility for a mere instant as my eyes forced themselves to adjust. I tightened my grip on my limp tail, exhaling loudly. A band of dangerous energy fled my fingers and wound up the cord, temporarily resuscitating my fragmented core within Coruscus. “Wimp? I hope you know it’s essentially two versus one.”

  “Funny, I thought you knew that as well.”

  “Eero, come on,” Korbu butt in with a sigh, approaching me. “We need to be moving on. Besides, you can’t just kill the girl; she’s valuable.”

  My anger burst into a wildfire. “Bullshit!” I whipped my tail out to the side. The cord furiously snagged Korbu at the ribcage and cut clean through the spine. His purple eyes combusted as he was severed in half, hitting the ground in two pieces.

  He was speechless. His jagged jaw completely detached out of pure disbelief. His lower body disintegrated not even a heartbeat later, taken away by a silent wind and added to the mounds of desolation around us.

  I snorted, allowing my peripheral vision to go black as Maeve captured every essence of my attention. “If he thinks you’re worth something, then he’s worth even less. I don’t need you to come along—either of you! I can succeed myself!”

  “Wow, you sound like Laelia. Wonder if that’s her talking.”

  My teeth flew in her direction again. The layers beneath my hardened skin crawled, heat flushing me out as I began to call on my fledglings. This chick… “Amazing, you actually got more annoying. I didn’t think that was possible.”

  She dipped her head, never taking her eyes off me. “Yeah, the real Eero had to get used to it as well.”

  Done.

  I swung with all my might and aimed right for the center of her skull—but once again, she sidestepped my strike with ample time to spare, and she did it all with a superior smile.

  “Haha, this is hilarious!” She leaped over my incoming blade as I swiped it back in her direction, treating my repetitive lashes as nothing more than a game of jump rope. Her high-pitched, obnoxious laughter continued to test my fuse. “Look at you! As a mortal, you could beat Satan, but not as an ‘all-powerful demon’—you can’t even beat me—Mabel! 120 pounds of pure strength and 62 inches of courage!”

  “You bothersome dwarf!” I aimed for her throat, hoping to slice her vocal cords if nothing else, but an elegant backbend bested me.

  Her spine ricocheted up, her taunting smile resting at the top. “I’d rather be a dwarf than a lummox!” She charged with her head down, pulling both of her arms back so that they formed clamps.

  I gathered momentum before slashing the air in front of me. Maeve’s eyes ballooned, and in a snap, her tilted feet made her pathing split off to the side. With her head braced and hair flickering behind her in a thunderstorm of anger, she tackled me from the side right under my ribcage.

  Despite being puny, her force came from another world. The collision launched me back and, to my surprise, Coruscus flew from my clutch. The slick traction between my heels and the ground amplified her strike, and I smacked down onto my back with the twit still holding tight.

  Maeve’s face was that of sheer gloat: I had never seen her more confident nor determined despite her despiritualized form, and here I was, knowing what I wanted but facing confusion at every corner.

  Because she smelled different, looked different. The voices in my head were different. My body was different. Satan was different. Korbu was different. This world was different.

  The only thing that was not different was my mission.

  Their hearty laugh made me lose my shit. Infuriated, I threw my head back to glare at Korbu as he rolled back and forth on the puny pelvis growing out of his lengthening spine.

  “What’s wrong with you?!” I snarled, coming back to my senses. I grabbed Maeve by her hair, pulling her surprised body away from me and giving her a kick to further our distance. “Shut up! Both of you!”

  Korbu was gasping for air. An amused smile morphed on his elongating, fresh black jaw. “Why would I?! I’m only tagging along because I have to; it does not entitle me to meddle in your twisted love life!”

  “LOVE LIFE?! With that imbecile?! What in Sat
an’s name—?!”

  My protests cut off; a sharp pressure dug into my chest. I refocused my attention to the front of my body. No matter how little she was, she certainly did not let it stop her from holding herself high with her middle finger pressing down between my collar bones.

  In a mix of amused bafflement, I did not try to knock her head off. “Last time we fought, I was the one who saved you. You’ve gotten much better.”

  “No, I’ve always been this good. Maeve had the powers, but seems she was a terrible fighter.” She applied more pressure, foolishly thinking that it hurt. “Also, let’s get this straight now, shall we? You, Eero, as in the mentally disturbed one, are not my friend, and certainly not someone I care about!”

  I reeled my neck back in distaste. “Right back at—!”

  Her finger burrowed farther into my stone-like skin. “I didn’t tell you to interrupt me, did I?”

  The urge to kill her was overwhelming, but I chose to play along.

  For now.

  She huffed in satisfaction. “Good demon. Now, pay attention…

  “Eero, the real Eero, that’s the one I’m fighting for. Not you. You can be killed, I really don’t give a damn, but if you think I’m annoying now, know that it’s only gonna get worse. I won’t stop tailing you, pestering you, fighting you until you give him back to me. Capiche? And if you try anything, don’t think I don’t know what can kill you. Anything holy in nature, right? Sucks that you happened to reveal it to Maeve’s Receiver.”

  My eyes embiggened, my muscles instantly petrified by her words. A Receiver… One of powers? Maeve went on to create a Receiver? Impossible. Surely, I had not been asleep that long.

  Satisfied by my reaction, she stepped back and let me sink in my own puddle of disbelief. I was legendary; I was one of the strongest demons to ever walk, and as an Essence, I should have been unstoppable. But Satan beat me down and, petty squabble or not, so had Maeve.

  Why is my endurance so low? Why can I not adhere to my full strength…? I found myself going cross-eyed as I temporarily honed in on the chatter of fledglings deep within. Other Eero… Just what are you doing to me?