“I love the smell of victory in the—human, enlighten me on that expression again.”

I shot Markus an icy stare. “I’d love to. As we all know, a human’s memory of hundred year old films is better than a demon’s.”

Markus fired another thin jet of flame at an obstructing branch and it sizzled to the floor. He strolled past it, squelching the flames with his haures power as he drew close, and we all trudged behind him. “You know, I’d love it if you all could be a little happier. It’s time to celebrate my success!”

Volce had been grinding his teeth since we’d left the Junction Tower, about half an hour ago. It was at this point that he finally snapped. He grabbed his pale hair, let out a feral howl. “Markus, you’re the iciest, smallest-horned, dimmest piece of used brimstone I’ve ever met! I hope you get kicked in the face so I can laugh at your stupid, squashed in mug.”

I cocked an eyebrow at Volce. “Projecting?” I said, recalling the time he got his head caved in by Berlin the day I’d met him.

The deuce threw his hands up. “Why the fuck are you defending him?”

“I’m not, I just think you’re all idiots.”

“Well, I’m certainly not,” said Enzi, folding her arms. “I was the only one that correctly guessed about our best course of action approaching the Junction Tower.”

“It worked out,” I said. And it had.

Each of the demons had chosen a rabdos that perfectly suited their abilities. I know that because I was the one that recommended them. Without a contract, Markus couldn’t stop me from advising them. Then again, I don’t think he really cared if I did. He was riding a high and he didn’t look like he’d come down any time soon—a fact which only made me suspicious, given that demons didn’t exactly feel emotions the same way a human did.

What rabdoses my party members had lost weren’t all that fantastic. However, even a seemingly useless rabdos had situational advantages, and they were worth points. They could have been traded to a demon who could use it more effectively, or sold back to the administrators at any shops, which would become available in the next Ring.

Enzi turned away and pouted. “It could have worked out better.”

“That, I agree with,” Markus said over his shoulder.

“Enough!” hissed Toll. “We’ll be coming up on the city soon. It will likely be teeming with demons, so let us stay quiet.”

“Which means we should stop burning shit for poops and laughs,” Volce growled, pointing a glare at Markus.

Like a beast turned feral, Toll whirled on Volce and thrust their javelin at him. The deuce shifted sideways to avoid the blow, but the thrust came up short. Toll did not advance, but instead held Briary in front of them, chasing the tip after Volce.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Volce shouted.

“I am done with your idiotic games,” Toll growled. Their golden eyes were fixed firmly on the deuce and their sharp beak was aimed towards him.

I froze on the spot and lowered my weight, preparing to fend off Toll if they decided to press the fight. Markus, on the other hand, crossed his arms and watched with a smile on his face.

The balaam continued, “You—all of you—do not take this seriously. We are locked in a battle for our very existence and all you can do is hurl insults at each other and prance around like fools. You all act without thought, you take unnecessary risks, and you all spend so much time trying to outwit one another that you never focus on what lays ahead.”

“The balaam is right,” Markus said. I should have said something because I knew he was going to make this matter worse. “You’re all idiots.”

Toll glared at Markus sideways before drawing back Briary. “You disappoint me, Markus. My impression of one names is that they are beacons of strength, but for someone with as much hubris as you…” The balaam lowered their beak and stared upwards at Markus. “Sometimes I question if you’re truly a demon, because at times you behave with complete human irrationality.”

“Ouch. Scathing.”

Toll fixed the haures with both eyes. “I think it’s better that the Marquises rule Earth. I could not divine the disaster that would be wrought should such a chaotic band of one names decide to place their worthless hands upon it.”

The smile on Markus’ face faded in an instant. His right sleeve where Penny rested began to burn, a thin stream of grey smoke rising into the air. Now was the time to intervene.

“Okay! Lunch time.”

I plonked myself on the ground right between Toll and Markus, then pulled a bottle of water from my inventory. After a few extra slurpy chugs, Markus’ attention was pulled from Toll and placed onto me. His upper lip twitched with barely concealed disgust.

“We need to figure out how to get to the exit,” I said. “There’s a large group that’s guarding it and we don’t know what sort of power they have.”

Toll glared at me. “This is a problem that we can resolve by asking a balaam questions. Something which you all pointedly refuse to do for no good reason.”

“Tell that to him,” Markus whined, pointing at me.

“I am telling it to all of you,” Toll shot back. “It is absolutely imbecilic that none of you are taking advantage of such a helpful ally.”

Enzi sat down beside me with her back stiff. She frowned at Toll. “It is equally as imbecilic that you would think us foolish enough to ask a balaam so many questions.”

“Foolish?” Toll bellowed. “You reveal yourself to the human without a shred of shame, yet you are afraid to have your secrets revealed?”

“There are secrets I would never reveal to Algier, and I would appreciate it if you all stopped calling him ‘the human’.”

Volce rolled sideways in the air and let out a groan. “Oh, come on, Tits. You’re not fooling anyone with that white bunè act.”

The enepsi shot Volce a frosty scowl, and the deuce grinned in reply.

“Hey, Enzi,” I said, trying to draw her attention away. “I think black looks good on you. It really brings out your eyes and—”

“The point is,” Enzi pushed on, “that you are condescending and unbearable, Toll. None of us trust you and therefore none of us are willing to offer you questions.”

“Trust!” the balaam spat. “Leave these humanisations out of my horns. We need to be efficient, not friends. We all do our part for the team because that ensures the greatest chance of success. We expect no thanks, we expect no compensation. We act on behalf of others only because it is the best course of action for ourselves.”

“Fine. Whatever,” I muttered under my breath. I stuck a hand in my inventory, pulled out a ration, peeled it, and chomped down on it. With my mouth full of that tasteless, dry muck, I added. “I guess the human’s too stupid for you all to talk to him. Idiots.”

“And if your goals no longer align with mine,” Enzi said, “then helping you will not help me.”

Toll’s crest rose and their grip on Briary tightened. “My goal is to win. Is that not your goal too?”

“What are you going to wish for, balaam?” Markus asked.

Toll’s crest peaked and they glared sideways at Markus. For a good while they stood perfectly still, the only movement coming from a warm breeze which swayed their patchwork cloak around and rustled through their feathers. They were considering what to say next.

And though I knew I should have intervened, I wanted to know. With any luck, Toll may have revealed a clue concerning the nature of their Hound. Besides, a small part of me wanted to see the demons fight.

“I want two things,” the balaam said lowly. “One of those I will achieve during the events of this Culling, and the other cannot be granted by the Marquises.”

Markus considered the balaam with his head titled to the side. He adjusted his tie, and his eyes flashed amber. “Can it be granted by the Council of Ones?”

“In a sense, yes.”

Okay, whatever that wish was, it wouldn’t have been good. I theorised a couple of things that Toll might have wanted: either a seat on the Council or its destruction. However, I didn’t want to deal with it. I didn’t even want to think about it. I just wanted to get to the exit. The thought of being in a party with Markus any longer was putting a cloud over my mind. An overwhelming need to get away from him had been brewing for a while now, and I was close to the point where it could no longer be ignored.

I stood and called out to the demons, “Enough, idiots! We need a strategy.”

“That’s literally what we were talking about,” Volce said.

Markus snapped his fingers. “Oh, I know. Why don’t you call your demon hunter friend? Maybe you can sit down and eat food with her, even tell her about how your day has been.”

“You know what? Fuck you all!”

Möbius was hovering beside me. I snatched it out of the air and hurled it at a nearby tree. It stopped half way. Frustrated, I stomped over to it, grabbed it, then stormed off. Seriously, even something as simple as throwing a knife was made difficult because of some demonic bullshit.

Enzi called, “Algier, where are you going?”

“For a walk,” Toll answered.

“Yes, that!” I shouted.

I didn’t go far. As much as it was pissing me off being around some of the worst demons I’d ever met, there was arguably worse out there. No, that wasn’t true. Markus was the worst. Toll was a close second, on account of their persistence they jumped down my throat every time I spoke. Volce was an easy third, though the only reason he was so low on the list was because he was stupid enough to manipulate. Then there was Enzi.

You know what? It might have all been an act, but at least she actually defended me. And when she’d saved me, she hadn’t even docked it as a favour. She expected nothing in return. I knew it was because her own life was at stake, but still, the thought that someone out there actually cared about me was… comforting? Unfamiliar, definitely.

I dropped down onto another fallen log and nibbled on my half-finished ration. Now that I was alone, memories flooded back to me. My whole life had been surrounded by demons. They’d been the ones who fed me, clothed me, nurtured me, and also the ones who’d made my life so damned difficult. Being around the demonic nuns during my childhood was like breathing with a chain around my neck. They’d keep tugging on the thing, not realising that it was choking me, so whenever the tension slackened, I kicked and lashed out, trying to be free of it. Was it the right decision? Was I just being a brat? Did any of these questions even matter? The result was the same.

Then there was Alastair. If not for him, all of this wouldn’t have happened. I’d be working in a cramped office, stuck for nine hours a day, six days a week, in a chair that was slowly ruining my back. Hell, it sounded like paradise compared to this. If I knew I was going to meet the worst fucking demons that Hell had to offer, I’d have let the bastard suck me off.

I absentmindedly ran my thumb along the blade; it never registered that the blade was dull. The repetitive action took my mind off everything, and in a few moments of staring at a burnt tree, I forgot that I was in the Culling. I was alone, with no demons to haunt me, just existing on the spot with nothing to bother me. Just feeling the blade.

Unfortunately, that was ruined by the crunching of leaves. I didn’t need to turn to know it was Enzi. That scent of fresh cut grass always lingered about her and was as intoxicating as the first time I’d met her. She placed herself beside me. I refused to look at first, but when I snuck a glance in, I realised she was wearing Bitterthorn over her long, blonde hair. Fantastic. Now my thoughts weren’t even my own. I might as well have paired with Volce and just let the bastard read me like a book.

“Why did you leave?” Enzi said gently.

There was a hint of compassion in her voice, something too reminiscent to the quiet moments after sex when you forget it was all just a temporary release. That was probably what convinced me to answer.

“Because I need to be alone,” I said, speaking honestly at first, then pivoted. “I need to figure out what’s going to happen next. Since you’ve all decided to argue, I guess the human has to be the rational one.”

Her hazel eyes met mine—they were blue earlier, but they’d been slowly getting darker. Flecks of brown spotted them in a way that made them seem too brilliant. Alien, almost. She placed a hand on my knee. “Is it because humans and demons are so different? Do you need to be with your own kind in order to feel comfortable?”

“I—yeah, sure.”

That was a… weird question. I couldn’t make heads of tails of what her goal was. I guess it was true, in a roundabout way. The strangeness of her queries was unsettling so I did want to be away from her at the time. Then again, I’d never really had a relationship with a human that hadn’t ended in a fight, both verbal and physical, so I suppose it didn’t make a difference who or what I was with. It all turned to shit eventually.

Enzi stared off into the tangle of sparse trees, some standing and some fallen. If I didn’t know better, I would have said she looked depressed.

“Maybe it would be best for you to party up with the human girl,” she said. “That way, you can confide in someone who will understand you.”

I scoffed. “Oh, trust me, Enzi. That won’t fly. She’d beat down the whole lot of you the moment she got close—”

“I meant, without us.”

I stared at this demon in complete disbelief. How would that help her? I thought for sure she was trying to keep me close to gain strength. Bringing Berlin along for the ride would have assisted her in that goal because—no, why would that help her? None of it made sense anymore.

All that thinking completely fried up my brain. I gave up and blurted out, “That’s a terrible idea. She’ll probably kill me before she befriends me.”

“Oh. That’s… sad.”

“Hardly. It’s not like we’re related.”

Enzi cocked an eyebrow at me. “Did she say something?”

Right. Of course, Enzi knew we’d met. I’d been keeping that first fateful encounter between myself, Volce, and Berlin a secret. I suppose she didn’t need Bitterthorn to figure it out, though. A meeting would have had to take place for my plans to deal with the estray to have worked out. Or maybe she’d just asked Toll. Honestly, I don’t even know why I was so annoyed by the fact that she knew this.

“Yeah,” I said. “Berlin said that my mother is her mother.”

“I believe that makes you siblings?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Enzi blinked. “I’m confused.”

“Look,” I said, shaking my head. I took a breath, pushed aside a number of frustrations and doubtful voices that had been gnawing at the back of my mind for the last few days, and proceeded carefully. “Ash isn’t just dangerous for demons. It’s dangerous for humans, too. On top of being able to outright kill a human if they overdose—and without first building up a tolerance, overdosing is very easy—ash also eats away at your humanity.”

“Ah, yes, it’s a source of corruption.”

“Right. So all demon hunters eventually become demonic, in a sense. They lose sight of their emotions, they stop concerning themselves with others outside of what benefits them, and, more importantly, they can’t reproduce.”

“Then how were you born?”

I cupped my jaw in my hand and turned away from Enzi. “Before the ash completely consumes their humanity, there’s a ritual that all demon hunters undergo. It’s called, Petrification. It’s pretty fucked up. What they do is… they have a child. Once they child is born, they take it, hold it, embrace it, remember its face, its scent, then…”

Enzi leaned forward to try meet my eyes. “Then what?”

“It’s fucked up.”

“Algier…”

“They give the child to a demon.”

I tried not to say anything. Every shitty thing that had ever happened in my life came clawing its way to the surface. I wasn’t exactly overcome with emotion. Rather, I realised that it had all began there. It was hard not to link it back and wonder, how different would my life have been if my mother had decided not to follow through, if she’d just run away with me.

Thankfully, Enzi remained silent. I wondered how much Bitterthorn was reading into those thoughts and feelings. There was still so little I knew about it.

“The intensity of that act,” I said eventually. “Giving up your flesh and blood to the very thing you dedicated your life to exterminating. That pain is so excruciating that no amount of corruption can make them forget it. The emotion gets petrified into their minds, in a sense, and they turn into giant balls of hatred.”

I didn’t get it, personally. How does someone form an emotional attachment to something they’ve already detached from? If you’re going to do that, can you really be a demon hunter? Imagine trying to deal with a strong demon when you are so blinded by hatred that it clouds your judgement. Imagine what happens when the demon methodically assesses your behaviour and figures out how to beat you down. One wrong rabdos and they’d crush you. It was no wonder the demon hunters are practically non-existent these days: hatred made you stupid, and demons were anything but stupid.

No, I think my mother, Terra, would have felt just as detached as me. The news always reported on how methodical she was in her methods. She’d pick a high profile target, determine their patterns and habits, eliminate them with a single shot (from what rabdos, the news had never been kind enough to reveal), then vanish like a ghost. Someone like that doesn’t get attached to anything. I bet if I’d met her, she would have put a bullet in me without a moment’s hesitation. Someone that methodical was definitely driven by rationality rather than emotions.

I turned to Enzi and offered a wry smile. “In other words, I was that child. So unless my mother decided to go for round two, there’s no way Berlin can be my sister. And given how strong my mother was—nah, there’s no way. That crazy bitch is lying to me.”

Enzi nodded slowly then stared down at the earth. A shrub had been trampled when the tree we presently sat on had fallen. I thought the plant must have been struggling, its roots squeezed by the weight of something so much larger than it. Well, what could be done about it? The thing was practically dead now. That’s just how the world goes.

“Is there any chance of you two getting along?” Enzi asked, referring to Berlin.

The question was so absurd that I couldn’t help but snort. “Fuck no! You should have seen her at Meet the Participants. She tried to erase the damned Sisters. They’re pleiades! They can’t be erased.” I shook my head. “No, she’s too far gone. Honestly, I don’t even know how human she is. Nobody gets that strong without becoming insanely corrupt—no, scrap that. Nobody gets that strong period. She’s either something that was produced in a lab or some kind of prodigy.”

“That’s interesting. I never had the misfortune to meet a demon hunter. So Berlin is an exception and not the rule, huh? Still, that’s somewhat scary.”

“What? You, a demon, are scared of her? Not like I blame you. I’m a little scared of her too.” Kind of. If she was Petrified, I’d only have to work out her motivation. Then it was a matter of appeal.

Enzi clasped her hands in her lap and twiddled her thumbs. Whatever I’d been feeling a moment ago evaporated as I became transfixed upon her hands. They were unnaturally smooth, lacking all the callouses that a human ought to possess granted her talent with a blade. And yet, that fumbling… it was so simple, so mundane, so meaningless. So human.

“You know, there is something I’m afraid of,” she began. She hesitated a moment and I practically held my breath. She was a demon. She didn’t lie. Enzi Lash had a real fear and I needed to find out.

Enzi took a deep, rattling breath. “This form, it feels like a—”

She cut off as voices carries through the trees. Unfamiliar voices. Nothing like a potential threat to spoil the mood.