90. A Firefly Demon suspected to be a revolutionary

When Zeeta finally braked, we had come all the way to the island’s Neck. To Kimberley’s lighthouse.

The path that led uphill was crowded with bystanders. Three men wearing the white and golden cloaks of the Nyomin were blocking their way and frowning and shaking their heads at a couple of inquisitive journalists. So it was true that something had happened to Cesarine, despite their “security” and all…

Before we even tried to pass, I heard a voice:

“Shoriaf, it’s you guys!”

I turned and saw Kimberley’s apprentice stop beside us.

“Toya! Is Kim all right?”

The boy nodded, his brow furrowed.

“Yeah. But the Nyomin is still interrogating him. He sent me away, because he says those people are worse than snakes. I’m worried.”

Kimberly was being interrogated?!

“Why would they interrogate him?” I gasped.

“Oh… You don’t know?”

“We just got here,” Zeeta said.

“Well… Some trainees like you from Yuutow took shelter in the lighthouse, because of the storm. It kinda annoyed me to let them in, but Kim says hospitality is natural law, so I even gave them some tea, but then other trainees came uphill, pursuing a thief or something, and when the supervisors were talking… next thing we knew, she was gone. The daughter of the Nyomin director was gone.” Toya pouted, lowering his eyes. “It’s kinda bad for us, ya know. I mean… What if they accuse Kim because they can’t find the real culprit? I hate those white-cloaked guys. They were so rude towards Kim! And they even brought that monster in after it pounced on that girl…”

His hands trembled a bit. Monster? What monster? And what girl? Well, in any case, things were looking bad. How could Cesarine Lovecryce disappear just like that? I couldn’t imagine someone hiding her, let alone carrying her away. She couldn’t have fallen over the cliffs, right? From what Toya said, she had disappeared inside the lighthouse. But… how? And where was she now?

“Please make way!”

Voices rose, and I recognized Aika Zarate, the trans-continental physician. She was wending her way uphill, followed by the trainees she was supervising. I saw Sasha Devkota the Giant towering over his companions. Calm and silent, Gorka Soulberg glanced at us without stopping. Sean Bensaïd the Smug was walking just behind. Lei waved us on with a grin.

“Oh, guys! It seems something interesting happened!”

That twin had zero ability to read the mood. The Nyomin officers looked daggers at him. Well, we’d better follow Aika Zarate if we wanted to pass without problems. I patted Toya’s shoulder.

“Relax. I doubt they will accuse Kim of anything. He’s not even a power-holder. I’ll go take a look.”

“… Me too!”

The kid bravely followed us uphill to the lighthouse. Instead of entering the building, Aika Zarate turned and headed to the right, to an adjacent paved lookout by the cliffs. The trainees stood there, on one side, as if they didn’t dare to approach something or had been told to stay away from something… The old instructor Claire Li stepped aside and said to the physician:

“You got here faster than I expected. We tied her, but please be careful.”

Her? Craning my neck, I went around to try to see who it was… but all I saw was a mass of gray energy with green, purple, and yellow sparks. Was it really a person? I stared at it and made out some contours. It had gray wings of energy spotted with fluorescent green lights. They were shaking, folding and unfolding, sending strong waves of energy around. It couldn’t be Cesarine, could it? Her silhouette was too slim. Then who…?

“Straw Head.” Stopping beside me, Linah looked at me then at the gray mass of energy with a dark expression. “Did you know?”

Her question confused me. I didn’t reply immediately.

“Who… What is that creature?”

Linah, Zeeta, and Ray looked at me, startled.

“It’s obviously Arkifa, your friend!” Linah snorted.

“…!!” I stared at the mass of energy, astonished. Arkifa? No way. I couldn’t even make out her face. Aika Zarate had crouched by her side and opened her first aid kit. Was Arkifa injured? Wait a moment… How were they able to recognize her so easily?

“Did you know?” Linah repeated in a whisper. “Did you know Arkifa was a Firefly Demon?”

I blinked, dumbfounded. A… firefly demon? Leaning against the stone wall of the lighthouse, Lei commented in a casual voice:

“It is said firefly demons are excellent ingredients for making pills.”

My necro-heart shivered. Did he just call Arkifa an ingredient? Linah threatened her brother with her fist, growling:

“Damn your harpy mouth, Lei.”

“Oh, sorry. It was just for information. Anyway, who could have imagined there would be a firefly demon among us. They are so rare nowadays.”

I was in shock. Azritz had told me that living beings with a really high concentration of crystal particles were called demons. They could be of any species: demon dogs, demon fishes, demon birds, and also… demon humans. Apparently, their bodies were so unbalanced that they seldom survived childhood. Even if they reached adulthood, they were thought to be cursed and mentally and energetically unstable, but since they were incredibly powerful, they had been historically used in wars and carefully watched, often ostracized, and also sacrificed… Just like the Cursed People, or maybe even worse. But, unlike we Chorns, they had been revered by pagans as demi-gods, and they had almost overthrown the World Government. Was it about a hundred years ago? I couldn’t remember. In any case, it was said that even nowadays there were demons hiding in society and keeping a low profile. Were Linah and Lei saying that the Arkifa I had known for three years was one of those?

“Seems like the Straw Head didn’t know,” Zeeta commented after staring at me for a few seconds. “Anyway, Erma, how did she get injured?”

Linah sighed heavily.

“It’s because of one of those damn manticores the Nyomin uses for criminal tracking. They brought one to Phoenix to reinforce Cesarine’s security, and so they brought it here supposedly for our safety, but that beast began sniffing us, broke free from its owner, and attacked Arkifa. If she hadn’t transformed… the mere impact would have possibly killed her.” She cast a glance at the lighthouse. “Even I got really scared by it.”

Aghast, I looked at her, then at the smoky creature that was supposed to be Arkifa. I couldn’t even see how serious her injury was, but somehow, I could guess her suffering through the chaotic waves of energy she was emitting. I took a step forward without thinking. Claire Li raised a hand.

“Stay away, please. This could be dangerous.”

“What about Cesarine?” I heard Zeeta inquire behind me.

I lost Linah’s reply. All my attention was focused on Arkifa and the storm silently raging around her.

‘Armen,’ Ray said through our necro-bond. ‘Sorry for using your eyes for a sec, but I was wondering why you didn’t recognize Arkifa. Now I clearly understand why. You can literally see energies, even the wasted lifeforce of the trainees… But since when?’

Now that he mentioned it, since when did I start seeing energies as colored smoke instead of just sensing it through my skin? Since I had become a Fury, maybe? Or was it a bit later? The change had been gradual enough that I didn’t pay much attention to it.

‘Want to see what I see?’ Ray asked then.

I looked at him, surprised, and nodded. At once, I received in my mind the image of Arkifa shaking on the ground as Jing and a brown-haired teenager—Azwyne was it?—were trying to keep her down; her skin was pale blue, her purple eyes were glowing, and her fingers were bloody as if she had been clawing the ground before someone tied her hands. Aika was using her healing power on her right arm and leg, where the manticore had sunk its fangs and claws. Considering the size of the marks, it was a miracle that Arkifa was still able to move her limbs. As for the storm of chaotic energies… There wasn’t any. Two wings, way smaller than the ones I had seen, protruded from behind her back. They weren’t gray but almost transparent. In contrast, the bright green lights on them were clearly visible. I gasped inwardly.

‘If I had to guess, now that I’ve seen what you’ve seen,’ Ray added, ‘Arkifa’s not shaking so much because of her injury as because of a serious energetic instability inside her body. Maybe because she was in a rush, she could not perform her transformation correctly.’ The image faded, and my eyes saw the chaotic energy mass again. The young necromancer swallowed. ‘Damn… I don’t know much about demons, but it is obvious that her energy is out of control.’

Holy Gods…

“So it’s bad.”

‘For us, it’s not really dangerous, I think. For her? Obviously, it is. She’s throwing out too much qi. Plus, that energy is preventing her from stabilizing her inner energies, which could lead to her qi veins imploding and injuring her whole body. So yeah… No matter how you look at it, the situation looks pretty bad for her.’

From his tone, I understood he meant that he wouldn’t bet his hand that Arkifa would survive. What the hell…

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Arkifa let out a sudden shriek of pain. Aika Zarate had finished bandaging her with swift, proficient hands, and she stepped back, startled.

“Her injury should be healing just fine,” she said, “but… I’m afraid her mind has completely been taken over by her demonic blood.”

Demonic… Dammit, so she knew there was something wrong with Arkifa, but she wasn’t trying to help her. Maybe because she didn’t know how to? As I watched in dismay Claire Li wave Jing and Azwyne back, I heard the trainees whisper:

“Are they going to be fine after touching the demon? I’ve heard they can pass on diseases.”

“I’ve heard that too.”

“Scary. Who is really that girl anyway?”

“Rather, how come the Nyomin accepted her?”

“The Independent Hero Association did, you mean.”

“Maybe they didn’t check out the info she gave.”

“How careless of them.”

“That manticore is still to blame for attacking her.”

“You said it. But without it, who knows, maybe we wouldn’t have known what that girl is—”

“Actually, maybe the manticore attacked her not because she’s a demon but because she’s a wanted criminal?”

“Pff… Do you think she’s involved in the capture of Lovecryce’s daughter? That’d be one of the biggest blunders made by the Nyomin in years.”

The thoughts of the trainees were beginning to fill me with deep—very deep—annoyance when Lei let out:

“Oh. That’s the manticore… Huge.”

Everyone fell silent and turned with evident wariness to the three Nyomin officers that had just come out from the lighthouse. They were followed by a pale-looking Kim. While two of them headed to where we were standing, the other one was pulling downhill a huge four-legged creature covered with a magnificent, dark red fur with bluish glints around the neck. Sure, it was scary just to look at it but… as I heard another harrowing scream coming from the lookout, I couldn’t help but forget about the beast, stop listening to the others, and stare at the chaotic energy swirling around Arkifa.

There was no way I would accept her death just like that. Arkifa had never told me she was a demon, and I couldn’t really process that new reality in my head, but… Firefly demon or not, she was still Arkifa. I knew her. I liked her level-headedness, her kindness, her honesty. I enjoyed her mere presence because she was my friend. And if there was anything I could do to save her… If there was anything…

Then it dawned on me. If the energy storm around Arkifa was hindering her recovery, then removing it would help her at least a bit, right? Hadn’t I used my telekinesis already to move Helly? If it had worked on the shadow of Yuutow Tower, why wouldn’t it work on other energy masses? As long as it was dense enough… Yeah. I would give it a shot.

I focused my eyes on the storm and activated my power. I applied all my strength to it and pulled. The current was too strong, and only a streak of energy spiraled up and flew to me. I absorbed it. Its taste puzzled me. It felt a bit like an exotic meal about which you couldn’t decide whether it was good or bad.

I could have gone on like this, bit by bit. Probably. But it wasn’t the time to be patient.

‘Armen?’

Before Ray even understood what I was up to, I had taken off my gloves and run to Arkifa, past the instructors. I entered the mass of energy and began absorbing as much as I could. As a stream of energy started to flow into my body, I felt Ray’s deep concern through our necro-bond. I crouched beside Arkifa and said to both:

“It’s okay.”

I didn’t reach out to Arkifa. I knew something bad would happen if a Fury like me touched her right now. But as long as I didn’t, I could keep absorbing the energy storming around her. That one didn’t seem to be affecting my life-lust. I wondered why. Maybe it was because it wasn’t white energy? Because it was gray energy? Just like the energy my newly fused core was made of…

Or maybe because she was a demon.

I recalled what Natasha had told me the day I met her. ‘Just like Heavenly kinds of lifeforce exist, there are some sorts of lifeforce that are not only bad to undead, but also very dangerous. Like… demonic energies, or gray energies.’

So that was why Ray was silently cursing me right now.

I grimaced slightly, but I still absorbed the remaining energy. I could finally see Arkifa’s face with my own eyes. Her breathing was calming down, but she was still struggling with her inner energies. Her eyes wide open, she turned her head to point to a black and red bracelet lying on the ground, some meters away. It was the bracelet Arkifa always wore. Claire Li must have removed it to treat her wound provisionally before Aika Zarate’s arrival. I didn’t really get why Arkifa was worrying about a bracelet in her state, but she must have had a reason for sure. I put on my gloves in a hurry, pulled the bracelet to me with telekinesis, and tried to free Arkifa’s hands.

“Stop that right now, trainee!” Claire Li snorted.

I frowned at the old woman.

“Why should I stop?”

“Are you blind, young man? This girl is a firefly demon. Look at her eyes.”

Arkifa’s eyes were glowing, yes, but what of it? I glared at Claire Li. Did she want to keep Arkifa tied just because she was a demon?

At that instant, one of the Nyomin officers hung up the phone, and with his companion, walked forward until he loomed over me. With broad shoulders, a large and muscled face, and a brown, bushy beard… he was huge and intimidating. However, I didn’t budge and held his piercing gaze.

“Boy. Get out of my way.”

His voice was calm but cold; somehow, I could guess that guy was dangerous. I still didn’t move.

“Shouldn’t you guys be looking for Cesarine?”

Why waste time on a firefly demon when they should be turning over every stone on the island to look for the daughter of their director?

“Commander Taiel,” a conciliatory voice intervened. Yamazaki’s? Since when did he get here? “Fortunately, for some reason, the demon girl seems to be doing better now. How about you let us instructors deal with her? So you can focus on saving Miss Lovecryce.”

Yamazaki fell silent as the huge officer leaned over me, grabbed Arkifa’s left arm, and pulled her to her feet. I jumped up. That bastard…! He immediately let her go, though, replying:

“It seems clear now that Miss Lovecryce has been teleported not by a runic formation but by a power-holder. Arkifa Cythraul, was it? Or should I call you otherwise? What is your power?”

The hell was with that question? Were they now suspecting Arkifa of kidnapping Cesarine? Besides, what was that about calling her otherwise? Wasn’t Arkifa Cythraul her real name? More and more confused, I looked at Arkifa. She was clenching her bracelet with her tied hands, frowning. Her wings had disappeared, and her eyes were gradually turning back to a normal purple. She looked pretty much recovered, which was good, but she also looked… scared? Not only. There was anger gleaming in her eyes.

“If you don’t answer I will,” Commander Taiel said. “In the application form, you wrote that your power was enhanced agility and strength, but it doesn’t match with the information I just received. Certainly, demons are stronger than humans, but that’s not what we call a power. A power is what you used about six years ago to send a social worker four kilometers away from your home, is it not?” Arkifa widened her eyes, and he added: “Nyomin informants are rarely mistaken.”

Arkifa remained mute. Well, given the circumstances, I could understand her shock. She had been hiding her true nature from everyone, me included, maybe from Ashooka too, but that manticore had forced her to transform so she could survive. Wasn’t her situation… a lot like mine, in a way?

I glowered at the commander.

“So what if she can teleport someone? That doesn’t mean she teleported Cesarine. So why are you all looking at her as if she was a dangerous criminal? Use your brain, you—”

“Th-Thanks, Armen!” Arkifa said in a hurry, barely muffling my insult. “It’s okay. I understand why they would suspect me. The power of teleporting people is not so common. I am innocent, though.”

I shut my mouth. Arkifa breathed out slowly, looking calmer than before. I glanced around. The expressions I saw were mixed. The dryad, Arkifa’s captain, was stony-faced; Gorka Soulberg looked pensive; Jing, sad; Nina, distressed; Oliver, confused; Sasha the merfolk was picking her ear; Ray was staring at me, probably still worried about the gray, demonic energy I had absorbed; and sitting on a stone edge against the lighthouse, Lei was relaxing and enjoying the view. Most of the others seemed to have already pronounced the verdict: for whatever reason, Arkifa had attacked the Nyomin director’s daughter and had abducted her and sent her who knows where, potentially provoking one of the biggest commotions since Lovecryce had been appointed director of the Nyomin Union. Tch. How ridiculous.

I saw the officer behind whisper something to the commander’s ear. They both turned to see the Lightning Veil approach with a brisk gait, followed by Charles-Ping, Katya, and Mackenzie. The three bodyguards of Cesarine looked very affected, and as they stopped beside the commander, Lizzie Dvorak said in a low voice:

“I’ve received your message, commander. It does sound plausible to assume that the firefly demon did it, but I wouldn’t jump to conclusions so soon. Do you think the Revolutionaries could be involv—?”

A sudden roar drowned her words and tore the air across the hill. We all froze. Holy Gods, it couldn’t be the manticore, right? I was sure I had seen it go down the slope, but…

Then we all saw Charles-Ping rush toward Arkifa in a rage, tears running down his cheeks as he activated his power and stretched his four powerful arms. He caught her before the Nyomin officers could even react, shook her, and threw her really high in the sky, screaming:

“WHERE IS THE YOUNG MISTRESS?! SPEAK, YOU DEMON! IF YOU DON’T SPEAK, CHARLES-PING WILL THROW YOU OVER THE CLIFFS!”

For a second, there was a deadly silence. Then we all heard Lei gasp:

“You’ve already thrown her, you idiot.”

As Charles-Ping realized, there was a huge commotion. People stepped back, not understanding what was going on; others, like Katya and Mackenzie, stood dumbstruck as I did, maybe just not as horrified as I was. The commander let out a short curse. Of all of us, only Linah reacted at once, dashed to the railing of the lookout, and leaped. As Arkifa started to fall screaming “I CURSE YOU ALL!”, Linah caught her in the air, activated her warping power, and threw a hand towards the railing. She grabbed it and was probably intending to draw the rest of her body towards the parapet, but her hand slipped on the wet stone… No! I dashed at the same time as Katya, Zeeta, Lei, the commander, the instructors, and probably other people, but it was too late. Her fingers slipped, and she fell. The Lil Witch shrieked:

“NO FREAKING Hell, my hand!”

Her scream faded as she continued to fall with Arkifa. I looked down, petrified. I saw her throw her other hand upward at great speed, but… not enough to reach the top of the cliff.

“ERMA!”

Even though I knew her hand was too far from the railing, I still stretched and tried to catch it. As Zeeta passed an arm to keep me from tumbling into the void, I unconsciously activated my power to try to lift Linah’s hand, thinking that, if we all grabbed it and pulled, maybe that would at least slow down the fall enough for them to… for them to…

But it didn’t work.

My necro-heart frozen with dread, I watched the two girls, my two friends, falling to their doom about one hundred meters below. Oh. That’s right. That was what Ray had surely felt when he had seen my killer cut my throat in front of him. Overwhelming powerlessness. Paralyzing disbelief. Suffocating horror…

I saw Linah’s hand go down too, hopelessly clenched into a fist… It suddenly disappeared under my eyes. I blinked, and despite my blurred vision, I could confirm: the hand was indeed gone. As if it had never existed.

“She disappeared!” Zeeta gasped. He shook me frantically by the shoulder. “Straw Head! I’m sure of it. Arkifa used her power to teleport Erma.”

“…!!” I turned to him slowly, dead to the world. Arkifa had saved Linah? So that was why Linah’s hand had also disappeared. So that meant Linah was alive somewhere. So… I tried to overcome the panic that was ravaging my core and my mind. “Th-That’s great but… what about Arkifa?”

Zeeta did not answer. So, in the end…

In a daze, I saw Lizzie Dvorak appear just to my right. I met her eyes for a second. They were showing a mix of stress and relief. I remembered that, unlike Arkifa, the Lightning Veil couldn’t teleport other people but could teleport herself. Then maybe she already knew… The officers and the instructors waited, inquisitive. She took a deep breath and said:

“Arkifa Cythraul transformed during the fall. One of her legs is broken, and she’s unconscious, but I don’t think it’s life-threatening. As for Linah Sunclaw, she must have been teleported somewhere near.”

Holy Crystals, was she for real? Arkifa had survived a one-hundred-meter fall?! Anyway, I didn’t care how that was possible: I only rejoiced and stepped back on the lookout with an arm on my eyes, trying not to cry of joy, repeating to myself: bloody hell, they are alive, they are alive…

I felt my movement stop as I bumped into someone, who reacted by laying a big, friendly hand on my shoulder. It was Kimberley.

He looked at the groups of trainees talking noisily around—Charles-Ping was being severely scolded—then he glanced at the blue sky, then at me, and he said:

“Armen. You’ve got some crazy friends.”

“Crazy as hell, shoriaf!” Toya laughed. “You normally die if you fall from those cliffs. We call them Deadly Neck Cliffs, you know. Firefly demons are so awesome! They’re like those uncrushable bugs we’ve got at home. And your girlfriend was… wow. I’ve never seen anyone jump so high over a cliff, hahaha! Are all the people in Yuutow as crazy as her?”

I looked at them, speechless for a moment, then a smile full of tenderness stretched my lips.

“No… She is a special case.”

Not anyone would have done something so reckless to save the friend of a friend. Okay, she hadn’t really saved Arkifa in the end and had been saved by her instead, but…

I shook my head.

“Kim. You said love was about learning life through someone else. I think I kind of get it now, but… it’s insanely unnerving.”

The lighthouse keeper stared at me, at a loss.

“No, kid. I think you don’t get it at all. I just think we’ve all lost at least one year of our lifespan today.”

I laughed nervously.

“Hell, yeah. At the bare minimum.”