The Demon She Made

A woolen snarl catches on the tip of Meeri’s horn as she readjusts the ruby guise. She stomps towards the irritatingly charming diner, muddied ground a mere casualty along her warpath. Emrys watches her approach through smudged glass, the croon of a time long past echoing in the emptiness. The wooden door is shouldered open, its familiar creak making it hard to distinguish past from present.

Emrys waits, vinyl cushion squeaking with the slightest shift of his weight. Purple slitted eyes meet his. A cascading reel of emotions flit across her striking features, a trait unchanged despite her physical appearance. Emrys had forgotten how their… transformation smoothed away all their imperfections. Meeri no longer bore the bisecting scar from temple to jaw. A gift, she had told him, and a reminder of the monsters to be slain.

Emrys coerces a breath from his constricted lungs, glancing down at his entwined fingers and fighting the urge to flick away pieces of his hair. He himself had only looked in a mirror twice in the past six months.

Meeri’s heels snap against the cold tile. Throwing herself in the booth across from her estranged partner, she sizes him up. “You summoned?”

“You came,” Emrys replies, voice unexpectedly sour.

“Got tired of the stink of desperation and overseas charges.” Meeri wiggles her phone tauntingly and tosses it onto the sunshine yellow linoleum table.

The clatter clashes with the taps of her fingernails, sharp enough to slit a throat.

Emrys clears his throat. “I ordered your usual,” he says.

Meeri eyes the black coffee he nudges towards her. “I use cream and sugar now. Can’t hurt me anymore.”

“So we’ve decided to take advantage of this new life then.” Emrys smiles, incisors flashing in the fluorescents as he slides over the sugar and plunks down tiny creamers.

“It isn’t a life,” Meeri hisses, her black forked tongue slipping out.

Emrys’ fragile hope dissipates like a dying breath, along with his farce of a personality long gone. “Mer–”

“What exactly is the point of this?” Meeri asks, gesturing to the empty diner, “What discussion is so dire when faced with an eternity to have it?”

Her hollow eyes scream and Emrys can’t help the urge to fix what’s been broken. “They’re changing the peach cobbler to cranberry. A true travesty, but I figured you’d want a farewell piece.”

Meeri’s breath catches as a waitress skips over, headset around her neck blasting a new pop hit. “Here ya go, darlings.” She places two peach cobblers on the table and dances away.

“It doesn’t taste the same,” Meeri says, nose tipping towards the sky.

“You haven’t tried it,” Emrys replies with a raised brow.

Meeri scoffs, teeters with indignation, before folding and digging a fork into the treat. The taste is the same and she finds herself savoring it, ignoring the rush of frustrated heat in her belly. Meeri inspects the way Emrys’ tongue chases escaping crumbs; the pink-hued, forkless appendage. His indigo hair has darkened, hooded yellow eyes a beacon. Yet, no hint of claws or horns in sight. The jukebox switches its tune, a haunting lament that caresses her skin in an attempt to soothe.

“You’re looking,” she pauses as she swallows the last of her dessert, along with that burning feeling, “quite human. A glamour?”

The skin around his eyes pinch and his shoulders slump. “No.”

Meeri has to fight a growl.

“So, your mother has been asking about you,” Emrys tells her. It’s a clumsy attempt at redirection and backfires almost immediately.

Meeri’s sharpened nails dig gauges into the vinyl cushion. “I love how she only cares in front of others.”

Emrys gifts her with a painted-on, wicked smile. “I invited a horde of poltergeists to her house.”

Meeri can’t help but gape at him.

“You’d be surprised at how much the power we wield can do. It’s more than I ever imagined,” Emrys says, voice fading to a whisper.

“At what cost?”

“What are a few souls compared to your mother’s eternal suffering?”

With a melancholy sigh, a whispered endearment falls from her lips without thought, “Ry, I-”

“You haven’t changed,” Emrys interrupts, noting a scale-like texture to her temples.

A harsh laugh rips from Meeri’s throat. “You’re hilarious.”

“Thought you’d be proud or happy or even vindicated. Instead, I get your judgement. You haven’t changed. Not on the inside.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“Is it?”

Meeri clenches her fists. “Have you forgotten the code we lived by?” she asks, “How are you so quickly able to throw all morals aside, huh? What happened to saving innocents? What happened to being the heroes?”

Disregarding Meeri’s heaving chest and curled lip, Emrys replies, “All that righteous fury, Mer. Does it burn the hands you grip it with? There is nothing wrong with moving on. Nothing wrong with surviving and wanting to live. You’re the one stuck in the past, fighting for ideals that no longer exist.”

She shakes her head. “Last time we were here, we were discussing ways to kill a wendigo. It ate seventeen hikers. How many souls have you taken today to sustain those new, glorious powers?”

“Four.” Emrys replies, glancing at the setting sun.

“Four people, four lives. They’re not yours to take,” Meeri says, jaw clenching, “just like the Aelith sword.”

Emrys nods slowly. “I knew it would come to this. That you’d blame me.”

Yellow eyes meet purple.

“You are to blame. We’re living our worst nightmare because of your recklessness,” Meeri says, eyes glistening.

“Do you think I knew it was cursed?” Emrys demands, his pounding heart a drum of an oncoming collision.

Meeri presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth, staring at the window and counting smudges on glass.

“You think I knew that portal would open? That those creatures would be waiting? That there would never be a choice, not even for death?”

“You knew something,” Meeri accuses.

“I knew nothing.” Emrys sneers, shadows deepening around him. “I knew what you did, that the sword was rumoured to kill any creature. We went for it together. We both chose the mission.”

“It was your choice, not mine,” Meeri says.

Emrys abruptly stands, throwing cash on the table and escaping the tomb of memories. Outside, he heads for his truck, misty droplets sticking to curled indigo strands.

“RY!”

The shout draws him to a stop, clawless hand pressed to the hood of his truck. He spins, facing her. “You could use your powers. You could accept what you are and you wouldn’t look like–”

“Like a demon? That’s what we are, Emrys!” Meeri yells.

“I know that! Do you?”

Soft rain lands on cheeks and heads and hats.

“I’m reminded of it everyday,” Meeri says, “in the mirror. In the eyes of everyone I pass, glamour or not. In every message I had to delete from the woman who birthed me. I’m yet another disappointment. Something else she can claim needs fixing. Another flaw she can exploit and manipulate. Another reason why I shouldn’t have ran away. Proof that I will always be wrong and she will always be right.”

Emrys bites his lip, a metallic bloom of blood filling his mouth. “Mer, that’s not true. You know that. That’s what she believes–”

“That’s the only thing that matters! Her truth! Not mine and not me. Never me! What am I but a reflection of her? I’m simply a conjured idea that must conform to her expectations. Her love is conditional and it is earned. A shame I keep failing.”

Emrys steps towards her, chest aching. “This has nothing to do with who you are now. You cut her off for a reason, years ago. I only mentioned her as a joke before. I didn’t– It wasn’t supposed to hurt you,” he says, guilt sharpening his cheekbones as he reaches out to brush a tear from her face.

Meeri swats the hand away. “It’s the rain. And this has everything to do with her. This whole time I’ve fought to be me, an individual. For the person I was before she scraped away all the parts that didn’t fit her mold. And now, now I’ve become everything she threatened.”

“What? Powerful and independent?”

“No. Evil and unworthy. A true black sheep.”

“We’re not evil, Mer. We’re playing with the cards we’ve been dealt.”

Disgust curls Meeri’s lip, unbidden. “How you choose to justify your vile actions are no longer a concern of mine. I may be a demon, but I don’t have to act like one.”

Something buried deep in Emrys snaps. The internal ringing ricocheting off broken dreams and shattered expectations.

“Why not just end it then?” he taunts, “Truly, end your suffering, if you hate what you’ve become so much. You know how.”

Silence. Rain the only accompaniment to Meeri’s wounded outrage.

“The thought didn’t even cross your mind, did it?”

More and more silence.

Emrys ducks his head, climbing into his truck. Door hinged open and dinging a muted tone, he glances back at his floundering friend. “How small we must seem from that view on your pedestal. One of these days, when you face the reflection in the mirror, you’ll see you’re already living up to your namesake.”

Fury, bright and heady and boiling, forces Meeri to reach out and slam his door. She pants, breath fogging the window. Emrys rolls it down, locking eyes with her as she rips her beanie off, a wool strand stuck between the large white horns. They’ve grown.

“You’re wrong. And you say such hurtful things. You’re the one who no longer cares for truth, or justice, or right versus wrong,” Meeri rambles.

With a resigned huff, Emrys replies, “How hypocritical. How many souls did I tell you I took today?”

Meeri throws her hands in the air, annoyed at the absurd question. “Five.”

Emrys shakes his head. “Four. Four souls. A murderer, a pedophile, a serial killer, and a rapist. Those are the kind of souls I take.”

Meeri stands in the rain, hair dripping and eyes bright.

“You didn’t even ask. You assumed the worst. You never even asked how I was, how I’ve been handling the change. Did you know my family was murdered? The Redfinch hunters. I had stopped by for a weekend visit and they saw. They claimed anyone who could harbor such an evil creature deserved to die like one. They set the house on fire with my family inside. Elyria, she’s twelve now– was, she jumped from the second floor window. They hung her from her broken legs on the front door after slitting her throat.”

“Ry–”

“They got what they deserved. And I will not be punished or judged for taking the souls of those who are so openly prejudiced. I found a way to accept and settle into what I’ve become. Not that you cared. You have, and still continue, to only care about yourself.”

“I am allowed to grieve for what I’ve lost!” Meeri attempts to defend, “Something I must do because of your greed and ambition!”

She can feel shame dripping like honey from her fingers. It’s always there. No matter how many times she scrubs and washes and rinses that sticky, suffocating residue remains.

“There are no more heroes or villains or victims, Meeri. There is no blame to be placed. I called you here so we could reconnect, face this world together. But you’re still hiding in the shadows, shrouded in your own self-loathing.”

“Everyone’s truth is different,” Meeri repeats the mantra given to her in the years following her escape by the despondent man in front of her. It’s a plea, a bargain.

Emrys blinks away droplets, not willing to accept the inverted excuse as he starts the truck. “Yours is that you’re living your nightmare. You’ve become what you feared most.”

Meeri tugs the irritating strand off her horns.

"Narcissistic, manipulative, and inflexible. You’ve become your mother, Meeri.”

She stills, the sound of tires on gravel a muted drone. And then the anger comes, hot and heavy and bright and burning. Always burning. Releasing an aggravated scream, she storms back to her car.

Dripping and fumbling for her keys, she whispers to herself, “I am not her. I’ll never be her.”

Meeri starts her car, wiping her face in the rearview mirror. She catches sight of her horns, larger than they were this morning. With a growl, she thrusts the mirror away and drives off.