Thin Air

She had tried the girl first, but the pathetic meat hadn’t been able to deliver much of a meal; humans barely brushed the aetheric, and so were of little use. But she kept Cherise, aware of the emotions it roused in the boy; the angrier and more afraid he was, the more energy the Demon was able to draw.

It was horrible, and it was cruel, and it interested her for a long time. Too long.

She used Cherise and Kevin to stalk other Wardens. Those she did not bother to control, only to drain and slaughter, but Cherise and Kevin provided her with a self-sustaining well of anguish that she would not easily give up.

And then something happened. Something startling.

There was a shift of energy on the aetheric, titanic in its intensity. It was like some soundless explosion, and everything rippled. The Demon felt it and chased after, not even sure what she was chasing, but there was something floating there in the emptiness, something free and powerful…

She battened on to it and consumed it, mindless in her raging hunger. Back in the forest, Cherise and Kevin fell like abandoned puppets, and the Demon…changed.

She took on form and weight as what she’d eaten took hold of her.

She’d taken my memories, along with a substantial jolt of my power. She’d found the pieces Ashan had ripped away from me in the chapel in Sedona. The Demon didn’t know what had happened to her, didn’t have a sense of self in the same way that a human did. The change was painful for her, startling and-a new emotion-frightening. She no longer wanted only one thing. Memories confused her, made her want more things, made her ache for what she did not understand, had never had, and she couldn’t put it out of her mind because the problem was in her mind.

Never to be corrected, because it had been made part of her, imprinted deep.

My memories had damaged her.

I’d woken up afraid, alone, cold and naked, without any memory of who or what I was; she knew, and she was still afraid, still cold, still naked in her own mind.

Demons could not become human, but now she craved the rest of what I’d once had, and she understood something that, as a Demon, she never could: The Wardens were a force, not individually, but as a group. They could be used. Directed.

Made to do her bidding.

She woke up Cherise and Kevin and sent them in pursuit of the remnants of Joanne Baldwin-the sole threat to her existence. She could sense me, not in an aetheric sense but in some other, primitive way that I didn’t fully understand; now that I felt it, though, I knew I’d never mistake it.

I stood silently by as the Demon piloted Cherise and Kevin through the forest, hunting Lewis, hunting me, finding us, pursuing. She used them ruthlessly, but all the while she was learning.

Learning a terrifying amount about how to bend people, how to find their buttons, how to get what she wanted.

Because she knew what she wanted now, and it wasn’t just being me.

She wanted to open a door between worlds and bring other Demons here to nest, feed, and grow into what she had become.

She wasn’t going home.

She was bringing home here.

It was a memory, and I’d seen some shocking things, but a chill still zipped up my back as I saw the Demon step out from behind a tree to face Cherise and Kevin. She was me, or partly me, anyway. Her eyes were black and empty, and she was a cheap plastic doll made in my image.

She had no further use for her toys. They were a liability now, not a help, and she knew they were on the verge of failure. Their deaths didn’t bother her, but she couldn’t take the risk of a tool breaking at a critical moment.

She ripped her awareness out of them as brutally as she’d put it in, and Kevin had fallen, stunned, as Cherise staggered away crying into the dark, cold world…

And Kevin hadn’t been able to follow.

He’d been afraid. Too afraid.

It’s useless anyway. I always lose. I lose everything.

The Demon stood over him with her cheap doll eyes and cheap doll skin and cheap doll hair, and smiled.

And then she looked up and smiled directly at me.

I took a step back. Easy, I told myself. It’s just a memory. It’s the past. It can’t hurt you.

“Yes it can,” she said. “I knew you’d come. I knew you’d try.”

Oh, shit.

I backed up. It felt as if I were backing into mud, into tar, into sticky spiderwebs.

“This isn’t the past,” she said, and stepped through Kevin to come toward me. “This isn’t safety. There’s no safety for you.”

I stopped. Not because I couldn’t back up, but because I knew she wanted me to be afraid. To run. And I was tired of running.

“You know what?” I said. “Works both ways, bitch. No safety for you, either. So if you want to do it, go on. I’m here.”

She stood there. The doll persona of the Demon didn’t move like a human, didn’t act like one; it was just a shape, not even as lifelike as a Disney animatronic.

“Yo! Fembot! I’m talking to you!” I taunted, and took a step forward.

It took a step back. Around us, Kevin’s memories continued to unspool like a broken movie reel, steeped in hopelessness and fury. Cherise was dying, and he was doing nothing because he knew he couldn’t win.

My doppelganger had helped create that world for him.

And I was going to fix it if it was the last thing I did.

“I’m coming,” I told her. “I know what you’re trying to do. You won’t get the Wardens now. You won’t be able to use them to open the rift. So what are you going to do instead?”

“Do you really think I’ll tell you?”

“I think you already have. See, you think you’re being original, but remember, you’re just my memories pasted onto a phony doll, run by a smart but cold eating machine. You’re predictable.”

It blinked slowly. It probably couldn’t do expressions, or didn’t want to, but the net effect was scary as hell. I tried not to let it get to me.

“What?” I demanded. “No threats? No I’m-gonna-get-you-sucka? Come on, get your big-girl panties on already.”

“You’re trying to trick me,” it said.

“Not really. I don’t have to trick you. You’re going to trick yourself right out of existence; you can count on that.”

“I’m going to destroy you.”

“News flash: You made me. When you consumed my memory you created an imbalance of energy, and we know that energy has to go somewhere. Right? It’s all balance. And what you gave me back was a chance to survive.” I’d figured that out a while ago, but it still hurt to say it; the last thing I wanted to do was owe my existence to this creature. This land shark. “If you want to get rid of me, you’re going to have to work a hell of a lot harder.”

That pushed a button. A big, red, nuclear launch button. “I will!” it screamed, and there was nothing human about that sound, or about the raw will behind it.

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Is that why you keep using people to do your dirty work? Kevin? Cherise? David? And believe me, you’re going to pay for putting your dirty little hands on David. Big-time.” I made a show of checking a watch I didn’t actually have on my wrist. “You know what? Drama period’s over. See you around the schoolyard, E.T.”

It was a risk, but I thought I could do it, and I did… I turned around and zipped along the path of lights, through the dilapidated, sad halls of Kevin’s mind, all the way to the light at the end of the tunnel.

Out.