The Dialogue of Demons with Guest Blogger: L.J. Charles

Welcome to Day #11 of
the Dark Days of Demons Blog Event
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Win a copy of Lifethread and meet Young Adult paranormal author L.J. Charles.


Demons Don't Talk


I ran through several possibilities for this blog post and finally decided to break all the rules and allow my heroine, Shea Ang, from the Lifethread Trilogy to have a short chat with a green-eyed demon.


The deal is that Shea is apprenticed to the Fate Clotho and Clotho (who’s responsible for creating all life forms) has given Shea the unfortunate and impossible task of creating a green-eyed demon. These demons are a mutation and not only turn teens into demons, but are starting to turn adults as well. No one is safe.


“So, Shea, what do you think? Are you interested in chatting with one of the “greens?”

She stuffs her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and glares at me. “Demons can’t talk.”

“They can if I say so. I’m the author.”

“Huh. Arrogant, much?” She runs the tip of her tongue along her top lip. “But, yeah, sure if it’ll help get me out of this mess you’ve created. I mean, seriously, having Clotho give me an impossible task. What were you thinking?”

“Never mind about that. Here’s the demon now.”

A large cat-like creature prances into the room, hunkers down sphinx-like on the floor between us, and growls.

Shea takes a step back, squinting at it. “I could just un-create it. That’d be a whole lot more fun than listening to it growl.”

The demon’s ears twitch in Shea’s direction and a freaky, rough purr rumbles from deep in its throat. “No, you can’t. Not unless you travel to the Time Before Time and undo the pattern of our original creation.”

“Geezo freak-ing Pete, it talks.”


I nod and quickly write out some notes on her reaction so I can add them to the manuscript.


She circles the demon, creeping around it, her violet eyes shadowing to gray. “You are an abomination. Even demonkind doesn’t recognize you as one of their own, and—listen up ‘cause this is the biggie—I’m going to un-create you. And ‘cause this is my story, I get to win.”

The demon arches its back, levers up to sitting, and slaps its tail against the tile floor. Hard. “Silly girl. Without me you wouldn’t have a story. I am the villain. A much more important role than—”

“Spiffle. Just tell me the quickest way to un-create you and I’ll get on with it. I have a bunch of kids to protect. It’s simple really, your basic save-the-world deal. And I get to hang with Gabe as soon as I eliminate your kind.”

“Gabriel. Yes, we know of him.” The demon’s tongue does an exact imitation of Shea’s earlier move. “Tasty. I’d like to sink my teeth into that one and finish turning him into who he’s supposed to be.”

“Gabriel.” Shea bunches her fists oh her hips. “Is. Mine.”

The demon growls from the bottom of its chest and the room shakes. “No. He was born to become one of us.”

The small part of Shea that is demon leaps to the surface and her eyes flash red.


I grab my eraser and scrub the words from the tablet I’d been writing on. Never again will I forget the cardinal rule that Demons. Don’t. Talk.


Blurb:


McKenna Fin is armed, dangerous, and in love for the first time. She'll do anything to earn her humanity... except the one thing the Fate's require.


Excerpt:

“McKenna Fin.” I snapped out the syllables of my name and a shimmer of energy coated the walls of the history classroom. The back of my neck prickled with unsettling intensity, and I couldn’t stop my fingers from rifling the pages of my textbook. Four times, the substitute teacher from hell had called me by some other name. Count them. Four. Too many, even for an evil imbecile of a substitute unit. Not only was she unable to cope with a simple seating chart, but…uh-oh, her eyes were taking on the vacant stare that telegraphed “demon” in blossoming shades of red.

Dammit all to Zeus, I’d have to kill her and it was only third period.

No way around it, seeing as I’m the Moirai Priestess, connected to the Fate Atropos. There are three of us roaming the Earth at any given time, each assigned to one of the Fates. My boss just happened to be responsible for cutting lifethreads. Ending human life. Or in my case, ending demon life.

I fingered the glowing blade tucked into a special pocket on my backpack—the kind of blade made of Ouranian magick that didn’t set off metal detectors, or any other detector for that matter. Ripples of energy came alive under my fingertips as I stroked the glassy smooth surface, deftly avoiding the killer edge. I love my blade.

My fingers twitched with urgency. I had to kill it before its eyes turned completely red with demon strength. The thing is, Atropos gets all hinky when I draw attention to myself, and I seriously hate when she calls me in front of the Triad for behavior unbecoming a Moirai Priestess. Not good. It would probably mean another one hundred years being stuck in my senior year of high school. And seriously, the first fifty were more than enough. Immortality sucks. I mean, who can tolerate being seventeen years, eleven months, and twenty-five days old, for like forever? You’d think she could have created me with a birth date that came with voting privileges and didn’t require emancipation papers.

My sigh must have been über loud because Nathan Quinn, the one and only guy at Brighton High worth my time, had his baby greens fixed in my direction. My nerves jumped to attention and a warm glow heated my cheeks, probably noticeable even though I was blessed with naturally dark skin. We’d been eyeing each other all year, but it was way complicated for a priestess to date.

“He’s just fine.” Merritt’s honeyed voice plowed into my head; bless her golden eyes and sun-kissed brown hair. Mer belonged to Lachesis, the Fate who decided human destiny, and who twisted time to accommodate said destinies. My sister priestess was down the hall in biology class, but Moirai Priestesses have telepathic bonds that provide instant communication. Sometimes good, sometimes majorly inconvenient. Right now? A total pain in the butt.

“Not now, Merritt. Seriously bad timing.” I scooted my chair back and jammed the history text in my backpack.

“Do not diss my timing, McK. Not when you need me to adjust time so you can kill that hell spawn pretending to teach history.”

I shot a glance at the demon in question. Shiny orange scales had broken out along evil-pretend-to-be-a-teacher’s arms. Noticeable. But only to me. Thank Zeus and Nyx that the vastly inferior human eye couldn’t see demons. Most everyone was nose-to-desk taking a nap, and the few attempting to pay attention had that glazed asleep-sitting-up look. They weren’t processing a thing—thank the Fates—so, they didn’t notice when the sub morphed into demon form. Looked like it had targeted that smallish kid in the front row. Not that it mattered. It was my job to rescue all human kids. An equal opportunity deal.

Want More L.J.?

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