A lesson in demonhood
It has been almost two months since I came back to the dorms, and was about to eat when Drake appeared out of nowhere and grabbed me, took me up to his room, I ignored the jokes from everyone else and followed, it felt like Drake had discovered something important.
Reaching his room, he blurted out. “I’ve made a breakthrough.”
“Breakthrough? What type of breakthrough?”
“The type that tells me what type of demon you are.”
“What type of demon? The doctors said I’m a brand new type?”
“Yes and no, you’re a new type, that’s made up of old types of demons.” Drake started to pace around the room, he paced when he was excited. “I mean, wow, I don’t know how or why it happened, but the demon blood you received must have been modified, no way just hell hound blood could have done this, but why you? Why a random civilian? Why anyone at all for that matter? This could have been unintentional of course, but if so, was it the blood that let Luna survive? Or was it something about her?” Like all his lectures, he rants about something and eventually forgets I’m even here. I tapped him on the head, and he looked at me.
“Sorry, sorry, I’ll get to the point.”
“That’s good, so, what kind of demon am I?”
“That’s complicated, sit down, this will take a while.” I sat, and Drake started talking, I prepared to be bored and to zone out, but surprisingly, this was actually interesting.
“All right, first, I’ll highlight what I learned from other sources, books about demons and people who study them. Not much is known about them, but what we can do is classify them, classifications based on DNA, appearance, and powers.
“Demons are split into three levels, low, mid, and high. Low-level demons, like the hell hound you saw, are basically beasts, some can teleport and all but a few regenerate, but that’s it. Mid-levels are basically the same, but are larger, and take a lot more to kill. High-level demons are different, in fact, are pretty much a species all on their own. Now, high-levels are further classified into types of demons, most named demons fall under this category, practically everything but hell hounds. High-levels are Cyclops’s, Pegasus’, vampires, you name it. All of them operate on instinct and evolution. I’ll go into examples later, don’t worry. But for now, let’s focus on you.
“In demonic DNA, you can separate the different types of demons, just like animals. Vampires look different to nymphs, understand? Your DNA has multiple types, and that’s what threw the doctors off, but I wasn’t fooled for long.” He looked at me with that smug smile, like I was supposed to understand what he meant.
“What do you mean multiple types?”
“You are at least five different demons.” I stared at him blankly.
“I’ll explain, I said I found multiple types of demon DNA, these aren’t traces of different DNA, but actually different sets of DNA mixed in with everything else. But one set is more prominent than the others, that’s what you are now, but in all the blood tests, the other sets of DNA have become stronger and weaker, so it’s my guess that your DNA is constantly changing, and when another type emerges as the dominant set, you will change too, it hasn’t happened yet, but I’d still keep an eye out, maybe even find a way to do it on your own, to get as strong as possible.
“I don’t know how many you have, but I have identified five of them, meaning I pretty much know what type of demon they are. You may have more, but the other ones are too weak for me to read. The first gene I identified is the most dominant gene at the moment, and your current form. It’s a Valkyrie.”
“Valkyrie? Isn’t that a band?”
“I don’t know, but the Valkyrie I’m talking about is Norse, they were said to be the warrior maidens that collected the dead and took them to the afterlife, in reality, they looked human, but like all demons, had no higher reasoning skills, they saw warriors in battle, and imitated them, even using weapons, but after battles, they were like carrion birds, eating the dead.” I could feel myself going green at the thought, I’m a carrion bird?
“As a Valkyrie, you should learn quickly, you’ve already experienced it first hand with cooking, think of it as instant mimicry. I don’t know if you can do anything else, the Valkyrie stories I’ve found are mostly about them taking the dead away, so I can’t really help you much with anything else.
“You see, Valkyries are extinct now, and have been for over a thousand years. It’s a miracle we have DNA for it, we found one preserved in ice a while back.”
“What does that mean for me?”
“It was riding a Pegasus… actually riding one, with a sword high in the air, I think it was flash frozen in the middle of a fight.”
“Again, what does that mean for me?”
“I don’t know, I really don’t, anything I say would be pure guesswork. But if you want my best opinion, Pegasus’s are vicious things that don’t even let other demons near, if a Valkyrie was riding one there might be a connection between the species.”
“Ok, so what’s a Pegasus? Is it cool?”
“It’s a winged horse.”
My mind instantly pictured me flying on a winged horse, maybe being a Valkyrie was a good thing after all.
“So… what else, you said there was more demons in me?”
“Yeah, second I found is Djinn, you’d call it a genie, almost nothing is known apart from myths, myths are they are born from sand and fire, myths are they can be bound to objects, myths are that they grant wishes, I doubt the last one, but still, if you find yourself a Djinn, stay away from lamps, just in case the second is true.”
“No lamps… got it.”
Demonhood was looking better by the second, these are all seriously cool.
“What about the next demon? Is it as awesome as flying a winged horse? Or being a genie?”
My excitement showed, and Drake smiled, then stopped.
“No… about the next type, you probably won’t like it.”
“Is it bad?”
“Very much so… I hate spiders.”
“Spiders?”
“Arachne.” Drake looked down.
I blinked in surprise.
“Arachne? Are you absolutely certain?”
Arachne was a spider demon, the Arachne are highly poisonous demon’s that came close to infesting the world thirty years ago… first time every last country in the world stood together… and it was still a narrow victory.
“Yeah, I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault… I guess it isn’t too bad, Arachne silk is worth a fortune.”
That’s right, look on the bright side. Maybe if I ever turn into one, I can sell my silk and make a fortune…
“Luna, you’re not just an Arachne, you’re an Arachne queen.”
Queen of spiders, not too bad I guess.
“At least I’m queen, let’s move on.”
“You don’t get it, a normal Arachne, I doubt too many people would care about it more than your other forms, but add the right male and a queen can lay millions of eggs in a week. If people find out, they might get scared that you’d restart the wars.”
“But I wouldn’t”
Especially the male thing… ew.
“Doesn’t matter; keep the queen thing a secret no matter what happens. In fact, since a lot of people died in the Arachne wars, it might be best to keep the whole Arachne thing a secret altogether.”
I sighed; I was doing a lot of that lately.
“Fine, what’s next.”
“All right, fourth I found… you know what, I’ll say the other one first.”
“What about the fourth?”
“You will appreciate me saying it last.” Drake blushed, I wondered what it was. “Ok, fifth is a Dragon, these were creatures so strong, they couldn’t even be cut with a normal blade. They are extinct now, but some of their scales are still floating around, and are worth a fortune, purely because they’re so strong. Dragons can also breathe a particular element, fire dragons breath fire, frost breathe ice, which is awesome. If you find yourself a Dragon, come to me, I’d love to see one up close.”
Drake smiled as he talked about dragons.
“Word of warning though, as I said before, Dragon scales are very valuable. If you do turn into one, don’t show it off, you might attract dragon hunters.”
“I thought you said Dragons are extinct, why are there Dragon hunters?”
“People live long lives’ here, and Dragon’s only became extinct around six hundred years ago, there are still a few around who keep their old weapons in storage, waiting for another dragon.”
“Right, so far I got tame a Pegasus, don’t touch lamps, make spider webs but keep them a secret, and don’t show off my shiny scales. What’s next?”
Drake smirked again, but his smile faltered when he talked about the next type.
“The fourth type I identified, is… um… it’s a demon that lived in a cave, it developed a rather… unique way of hunting… it put out pheromones that attracted men, and when they came, sucked the life force out of them. We have seen their victims, but not them actually killing anyone, mostly because they catch and kill witnesses too.”
“Wait. Pheromones and sucking life… Drake… Am I a Succubus?” he looked down, and nodded.
“But I doubt a Succubus actually sleeps with men, it seems redundant, no, I doubt more than a touch is necessary… but you never know.”
“Drake, relax, I won’t turn into one, if I do, I’ll find a way to change back. OK?”
“Ok.”
So I had Valkyrie, Djinn, Arachne, Succubus and Dragon. It was quite a diverse selection, too diverse.
“Drake, how did so many different demons end up in me?”
“I don’t know… if you’d asked me before I saw your blood, I would have said it was impossible… whatever is going on here, it’s new, and I am completely in the dark here.
“I will say this though, I doubt it was an accident, I don’t know the cause, but it isn’t normal. Whether you were the intended target or not does not matter, it was no accident that that demon was in the café, and I doubt you turning demon was coincidental.”
“What are you saying?”
“I don’t know, I hate not knowing, but it’s the truth. Sorry.”