Void Domain, Book 03
Chapter 001
Camping with her family was one of Juliana’s favorite activities.
All of it was such a drastic change from the asphalt streets, concrete buildings, and people. The fresh smell of the woods. The crisp, mid-May air. The crinkle of her tent in the cold air of wilderness mornings. The warmth of a blazing fire dancing in front of her.
And, of course, her parents.
She loved it all.
Not that she hated being in a city. It was just the idea that she liked. The idea of wandering for miles without coming across another person. Juliana felt that it gave perspective.
A trait inherited from her father, undoubtedly.
Her mother, on the other hand, thought it made a great training center. Darting between trees, jumping over creeks and ditches, and the uneven ground all enhanced Genoa’s usual rhetoric.
For three hours, Juliana fought her own mother. Earth flew between them. Trees were coated in dust and, in some cases, were completely knocked down by the force of her mother’s onslaught.
Juliana tried to avoid mass damage to the woods.
She couldn’t discount the effectiveness of the attacks as she found herself knocked to the ground beneath the full weight of a whole tree.
One wand was completely knocked from her hand. She managed to use one of her ring foci to create a depression in the ground just before she hit. The tree lay on top of the ground, just barely not crushing her.
Juliana scrambled out from underneath the tree. She shifted the earth to speed her out of the hole.
Just in time. Three honed spikes of earth pierced the tree and the surrounding ground. Exactly where she had fallen.
Her mother was getting dangerous. Not all out, Juliana doubted she’d survive for more than a few seconds, but her mother was definitely ramping up the force. Juliana blamed it on the ferrokinetic suit of armor wrapped around her. Her mother saw it and figured hitting harder was fine.
Genoa wasn’t limited to earth magics. She had the good sense to avoid burning down the forest, but she didn’t shy away from water magic.
As their engagement continued, Juliana found her foot frozen into a creek. She launched herself out by pushing up the earth beneath just before pointed icicles jutted out of the water and into her armor. A small ring of ice stuck to her ankle.
All in all, the spar was one of the more grueling sessions she’d ever had. Juliana hadn’t managed to take out her mother, but she survived. That was a win in her book.
Part of her wondered how Zoe would fare against Juliana in a forest rather than on a stage.
She had already resolved herself to not lose against her even once in the summer seminar.
After the battle finished–Genoa simply got hungry–Juliana settled in for some food with her parents. Hot dogs slowly cooked over open flames. One of her favorite camping meals, aside from tin-foil dinners.
Of course, dessert followed dinner.
She could still taste the marshmallow chocolatey goodness of the s’mores. The taste was, unfortunately, turning bitter as the conversation dragged on.
“A demon, Juliana?”
“What did it look like? Did you see it use any magic? How big was it? What color? What did it smell like? Do you have any–”
“Carlos,” Genoa snapped, “this isn’t some magical creature you can study and catalog.” She tossed another log onto the already roaring campfire. “This is a demon. A demon that stalked the city our daughter lives in. A demon that single-handedly ran a full chapter of the Elysium Order out of town.”
“Well,” Juliana said, “the riot consisting of half the city’s residents might have helped.”
“This is no laughing matter.”
Juliana was quite sure she was not laughing. She shook her head with a sigh.
They would have found out eventually. Juliana wanted the news to come from her mouth. Her mouth could dampen some of the more problematic events. Deaths of the nuns, Nel’s tale, and the destruction of their dorm room, to name a few.
Her timing in bringing up the subject was, in retrospect, far from ideal. The conversation had drifted towards events at school and flowed naturally into the eviction of the nuns. Mentioning that Juliana had witnessed the fight between the nuns’ leader and the demon was another thing she should have skipped over.
Now they were out in the middle of the Montana wilderness having an argument.
“What kind of school is Zoe running?” Genoa cracked her knuckles into her other hand. Muscles in her arms rippled as they flexed with the action. “I have half a mind to go down there–”
“She’s not running the school, mom. She’s just a professor.”
“The dean then. What did you say her name was? Martini?” Genoa let out an actual, audible growl. “Letting demons run around the school…”
“It wasn’t even a bad demon. It protected students from a nun’s attack.”
“Then it was ordered to protect the students. There’s no such thing as a demon that protects random children out of the goodness of their black hearts.”
“Now, now, dear,” Carlos said. He pressed his glasses up his nose before setting a bony hand on Genoa’s ripped thigh. His hand gave two light pats and a soft squeeze before he said, “that seems like a wide generalization. And if it was ordered to protect the students, then Juli has nothing to fear.”
Genoa shook her head, clearly unconvinced. The yellow light of the campfire danced across her face. “You don’t know, Carlos. You’ve never met a demon.”
Her mother’s hand ran from her hip up to the opposite shoulder. Her clothes were, as usual, revealing enough to hide only the small bit of the massive scar that rested across her breast.
“I have. A few times, actually. Thankfully, I didn’t have to fight them most of the time. They’re psychopaths. All of them. We’re like flies to them–short lived and mildly annoying.”
“Genoa, darling, I know you don’t like to talk about that scar.” Carlos moved his hand up to rub Genoa’s back. “But the few that you’ve met is not a valid sample size for determining the temperament of a species. Especially not when the term ‘demon’ encompasses so many varieties of creatures.
“Perhaps,” Carlos said with a glint of excitement in his eye, “we can head down to the school and see if we can track the creature down ourselves, we could–”
“We could get ourselves killed? You can’t be serious.”
Juliana leaned back against the stump of a tree as she watched her parents argue.
She hadn’t actually heard any stories about demons from her mother. Despite the scar she touched being one of the largest and most prominent on her body, she never got around to telling the tale. Given that part of the scar–the lower part around her hip–actually ran along her back as well, Juliana imagined whatever caused it to be something out of nightmares.
By the look of the scar, her mother had been nearly bisected at some point before Juliana was born.
A terrifying thought. Juliana could understand where her mother was coming from if that scar came from a demon.
Even with that, Juliana agreed with her father. It was a generalization. Arachne and Ylva were nice enough. The bull demon had protected students. And she was fairly confident that a little twerp like Agiel would be nothing but chunky salsa beneath her mother’s boot.
It did mean that she would have to be even more careful. Juliana was suddenly glad that she did not bring Eva’s book with her. If her mother saw even a corner of that…
Of course, she’d have to be extra careful with Eva now. The girl absolutely must keep her hands and legs hidden any time mother visited. Her mother might not react well upon finding out that Eva introduced her to a handful of demons.
Her father would probably love the opportunity to look her friend over.
“Zoe will tell us what we want to hear, not what we need to hear.”