“You, you are not demon.”
“No, I'm not.” She paused as she thought about it. “And neither are you.”
The woman didn't respond, but her eyes widened on hers with an edge of madness to them. “No one here is not a demon. No one.” She shook her head several times to prove her point.
She was right, but Lily didn't know what to say, so she shrugged. “That's probably true.”
The woman shook her head like she had bugs crawling in her hair and she was trying to get them out. “No, you don't understand. I am the only one who isn't a demon. Me. Who are you?”
Lily wrapped her arms around herself. There was a definite chill in the air, but the woman's word made her even colder. “My name's Lily.” It probably wouldn't matter but she withheld her last name from the deranged woman.
“Lily...” the woman said softly. She repositioned herself, plastering herself against the bars until her bony knees squeezed through the tight metal bars and her face squished through. “That name is familiar. So familiar.”
The hair on the back of Lily's neck stuck straight up. Finally having enough of the crazy woman, she scooted backwards, away from the partition between them. When she had some distance between them, she felt a little bit safer, no matter how crazy that might be.
“What...what's your name?” Lily asked, mostly out of politeness.
The woman's lips parted and a faraway look came to her glossy eyes as she lifted her head skyward. There was no sky to see here, only a black metal roof. “My name...” Her head slowly drifted side to side, almost as if she were humming a tune in her head or dancing a waltz in a past time. “My name is Mary. No one, no one calls me that. No one.” The faraway look disappeared in an instant, a candle snuffed out. She shook her head again and again as she said the choked words, her hands releasing then squeezing the bars over and again.
This is what I'll become if I stay here. The thought sent dread down her spine.
“If you aren't a demon then what are you?” The rift had been closed for so long; this woman must have been captured before the Great War. A thousand year sentence was an awful long time to be imprisoned. Lily could easily picture herself being worse off than this woman was.
“Succubus.”
Lily sucked in a harsh breath. Her eyes screwed up in amazement, shock. “So am I.”
The woman jerked again and started rocking, using her grip on the bars as leverage. She looked so much like an autistic child seeking comfort. Lily's defenses finally came down, and she crawled across the dirty floor to the woman, wanting to comfort, hug her, something. The woman stopped rocking as she neared, her eyes, half hidden by hair, peered at her shrewdly.
“May I ask you a question?” Lily asked. Well, right now she had several. Btu she felt the woman's fear and hesitance, too, and didn’t want to scare her off.
“I don't know,” the woman said, her body pulling back in a subconscious gesture.
Lily kept her voice quiet and relaxed. “How long have you been here?” The woman had to be well past her 29th-year, which meant she went through her new moon. Thought succubus could live to a really long time, like her father did, if they stayed well fed. How was she still alive? A succubus without sex of some kind to feed her, killed her.
“Can't be sure,” she said quickly. “Days runs together, never end. Long time ago.”
“Was it before the Great War?”
The woman's eye flew open with fear. “Not that long. Not that long.” She shook her head side to side and didn't stop.
“Do you...do you know your last name?” Lily's heart pounded as she asked. Something inside her told her this was important. She didn't know why, but maybe if she got out of here then with the help of Telal, she could get this woman out of here. Get all of these prisoners out of here.
“Forgot long ago. Lucky I know my first name.” She paused, her eyes bulging. “If that is my first name. Is my name Mary?” she whispered.
Lily kept her voice calm and low. “Yes, yes it is.” The woman looked relieved at her answer as if she could somehow give her information into her own life. “Can you try to remember your last name? I might be able to help you.”
The woman scurried back a few feet on her knees, scraping the skin but making no show that she cared. Her hands ran jerkily up and down her arms as she rocked. “I don't...I don't know.”
“Can you try, Mary?”
Maybe it was having someone use her first name, or just being kind to her, but she stopped rocking and stared at the floor, her face hidden by hair. “Beagle. Blue. Bells.” After each guess, she shook her head like she knew it was wrong. “Balls, low, bell, bells.” She was rocking hard now, each guess sending her voice higher, more frantic. Her hands gripped her hair in tight fists and pulled. “Bellum. Bellum. Bellum.”
The last word echoed in Lily's mind. She couldn't say anything. Couldn't even wrap her mind around it. At first, she analyzed the woman's words, tried to figure out if when she'd introduced herself she said her last name. But no, she'd been too hesitant to do that. Her last name didn't come up at all. This woman, this older woman... Lily scrambled across the cell to her. The woman jerked at her frantic response and scrambled away.
“Don't come. Don't come near.”
“Are you Mary Bellum? Are you Mary Bellum!”
The woman started shaking, her hands frantically covering her ears as she rocked and rocked, her head held low. “I don't know,” she whispered fiercely. “That...that could be an old friend, just some name I remember from the past. I don't...I don't know.”
Lily did know. It all lined up, fused together. “When did you get down here? Why? How?” she demanded, her patience waning in the need for answers.
The woman backed further into the shadows of her small cage, further away from her.
“Answer me! I need to know!”
“Years ago...years ago.”
Lily gripped the cold bars and leaned in. “How long? About twenty-nine years?”
The woman shook her head. “I don't know. I don't know. Stop talking. Don't talk to me anymore. I don't like.” She wrapped her arms completely around her head and rocked with her head between her spread knees.
A door opened at the end of the hall and some frantic force inside her made her speak to this woman in fast, rushed tones. “Listen to me. My name is Lily Bellum. My father is Francis Bellum. I have two sisters named Willow and Chloe. Does any of this mean anything to you?”
The woman made a whining sound, her voice blocking out Lily's questioning.
“Answer me, please! I have to know. Are you my mother?” The heavy footsteps, two sets of them came closer. One stopped at her cage. Lily only spared the demon a parting glance. “Answer me! Are you her?” she practically screamed as the key in the lock turned and the cage was pulled open.
The woman keened higher as her own cage door was opened. The guard came forward with a length of rope in his hand. Lily launched at her cage. “Don't touch her! Stay away from her!”
The demon gave her a laughing look. “Time to feed, succubus.”
Lily's face paled and she watched as the woman stopped moaning and stood, watching the guard with wide, terrified eyes. The guard made a lunge for her and she hopped to the side and darted for the open cage door. She didn't make it out. The guard recovered quickly and grabbed her in a brutal grip, then wrapped the rope tightly around her wrists until the skin around it turned pink from the circulation being cut off.
“You-you can't take her,” Lily said slowly. Her mind was in shocked overload. She couldn't be witnessing what she thought she was. The truth was too awful to comprehend.