Grimoire

Prelude

Humans.

Demons.

Competing for an absent father's attention.

How little they understand

Merely pawns in a greater war.

We watch them devour each other on the board

Waiting.

Chapter One: Birth of the Cruel

Demon World: 1910

The red sky scorched. The sounds of flames crackling over wood and brush echoed for miles; about as far as the last of the Nisshoku pack fled before the taste of burning flesh that ate away at the back of her throat, finally made way to her overachieving lungs. The new sensation seized her senses and all it took was a poorly (or intentionally) placed root from the black tree to send her tumbling down a hill of thorns from a sea of unnatural red roses.

She tensed her arms around the small body that was seemingly fused to her chest as she fell. The skin of her exposed arms and legs frayed like ribbons, sprinkling her olive skin with small cuts until her body finally ended its descent against a black tree that scraped the bleeding sky. Her entire body felt like shattered glass. Her skull pulsating, but she didn't go black. Bile climbed her throat and burned the already wounded flesh with more fire.

She sputtered a curse toward the sky from two chapped lips. Panting, she looks down at the child cradled in her bruised arms. Her breathing was alarmingly slow and strained. The older woman's black hair cascaded like a still waterfall around her younger companion- as if a barrier meant to shield her tiny form. Had the child's eyes been open, she would be gifted with the force of calmness from two familiar brown iris' that had always-including this moment- been so assured and confident. Everything a lost six-year-old needed to feel safe.

But those eyes were mere buttons about to burst, taking apart the whole woman with them. And in turn…

A sharp snap alerted the wolf-demon to three disgustingly human scents that invaded her heightened nostrils and momentarily overpowered the smell of her fallen pack's flesh.

"I told you I saw one running this way."

"Who grows roses in this shit hole?"

"Shut up," a hoarse voice scolded from entirely too close to the woman's ears.

Did they come from behind? She silently chastised herself for her lack of awareness.

"Why?!" The second voice exclaimed as he navigated the thorny death trap, judging from the expletives that followed.

"We don't want to alert any other survivors to her whereabouts," a pause, "Good work, J, on tracking the bitch- she's the one who took out five of our men."

"Yes, sir. She isn't lookin' too good." The first voice approached her left; she kept her eyes locked on the child.

One on her left.

One on her right.

One in front. Landing on his feet.

Her panting gave her life away. Her demon energy spent on the aforementioned five men adorning blue uniforms. Five men that had taken out ten women and children each, after their friends executed the men in front of their wives and children. She shudders and shuts her eyes. Her leg was contorted in a form unnatural to her being.

And they know it.

Their footsteps danced around her. Their voices lowered. Wondering what to do first, perhaps? Have their way with what was left of her body, like so many before them did to her friends. Before slitting their throats or burning them alive.

She could still hear them screaming. A curse passed down from her species. What big ears you have…

"Please," she managed to stutter past the desert that befallen her mouth. All three sets of footsteps immediately halted. "Please, spare the child." She coughed to a chorus of laughter.

She raised her head despite her neck protesting any and all movements. The three of them lacked the ruggedness in their smooth faces that comes with being soldiers of death. Two had matching jester smiles. The one to the right of her, however, whose eyes had sunk into a narrow smirk that matched his smile. He was the orchestrator of death.

He meets her eyes. "The child?" He mocked as he slowly approaches the pair on the floor, taking a knee directly in front of them.

Her brain kept yelling demands to her legs, which twitched pathetically as the human placed a knee directly between them. Rocks had formed in her lungs in the absence of fresh air. And had there been any water left in her body, maybe she could have cried. Instead she hoped her body would turn to dust and merge with the ash that had once been her family.

Freedom.

She could muster a smile if the captain wasn't so close that she could feel the heat radiate off his skin.

Sick.

She wanted to be sick.

"That child," his voice crackles like wood aflame, "is the reason we bothered with your pack." He points a thick finger at the package nestled against her body. "If it wasn't for her, we probably wouldn't have even bothered."

She knitted her eyebrows; her face flushed.

"Someone," he continued, "wanted her enough they paid over one million yen. One million- that's how much your people were worth."

Her arms faltered ever so slightly. He moves his index finger directly to her forehead. "Sorry to say, you on the other hand, are worth nothing. The warmth of his kai washed over her. A small blue light shun from the tip of his fat, ugly, finger.

She could laugh if she had any will left.

Then she closed her eyes, expecting the darkness to last...forever.