Chapter Fourteen

I’d lived in the Sandy Village Correctional Facility in Nevada for a decade. Set in the arid desert, on a single-track road, as far from civilization as you could get.

As such, I knew what a vulture was. I’d seen them before and felt a kinship with their kind—and their association with death.

The bird stood in the window, it’s impressive wingspan struggling to fit through the frame as it smeared blood on the painted wood. I clenched my fists, holding back the desire to help the creature lest I lose a finger.

The vulture was the largest I’d ever seen, it’s pale neck bent oddly. It tipped back its head and let out a strange cry, it’s beady eye staring into mine.

It was up there among the top ten weirdest moments of my life.

Caim and Malphas stirred under the blanket, awakened by the vulture's call. Caim sat up, his red eyes bleary. As the world came into focus, he grinned, reaching out to touch my face. To move a tendril of knotted hair behind my ear.

The vulture let out another pained wheeze, and Malphas shot straight up. He jumped out of bed, naked and unashamed, whirling to face the giant bird.

“ Murmur .” Malphas’s voice cracked. “Fuck, what happened to you? Transform, dammit. You can’t fit in here with that damn wingspan.”

The vulture sagged, his large talons losing grip on the window frame. Malphas cursed again, rushing forward and grabbing the bird in a tight hug. He pinned its wings to its body as carefully as possible and maneuvered the bird into the room.

The vulture sprawled on the carpet, its chest rising and falling so quickly I worried it would pass out.

“ Murmur ?” I signed, my thoughts catching up with me. When neither demon responded, I realized their attention wasn’t on me to see my sign language.

I was on a slippery slope. Caim and Malphas had already heard my voice. They knew what my scream could do but didn’t know much more. It would be so easy to just... Speak.

“That’s Murmur?” My voice was raspy from disused.

Caim was startled as if he hadn’t expected to hear my voice. “Yes. That is his other form.”

“You can all transform into birds?” I guessed, eying Malphas and feeling a bit stupid that I hadn’t put it together before now.

The Flock.

“What’s your other form?” I squinted.

“Thrush.” He mumbled.

“Thrush? Like the yeast infection?”

“I preferred it when you didn’t speak.” Caim’s nose wrinkled. “It’s a small spotted bird, thank you.”

“Is Murmur okay?” I chewed my bottom lip.

Malphas looked up, his fingers tracing the features on the vulture’s right side. “He’s exhausted. I don’t—”

The vulture disappeared before my eyes. His long arms twisted, and his feathers pulled into his body like retractable claws. It was painful to watch, and from the look of Murmur’s face as his beak turned into a nose, it was also painful to experience.

“Stolas.” Murmur panted. “Behem has Stolas. He won’t... He...”

The demon’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he passed out.

Malphas dragged Murmur into the bed, and we let him sleep briefly before we would wake him up for answers later.

Caim tried to cook.

Malphas slapped Caim on the hand with a spatula.

I couldn’t bear it anymore. “We have to go get Stolas.” I declared as I waited at the kitchen island for breakfast. “We can’t just leave him there. Behem is a Gluttony demon.”

“There are rules.” Malphas reminded me, his back turned as he faced the stove. “Eating other demons is against our laws.”

“Like the Purgers ate the Tumbi’kas ?” I retorted, hoping I didn’t butcher the demonic word. The syllables felt sluggish and brusque on my tongue, designed to be spoken with a thick tongue and tusks.

“Behem wants something.” Caim rubbed his arms as if he were cold. “Unfortunately, we don’t have much to give him.”

“Knowledge?” I countered.

Caim shrugged. “I doubt Behem wants to speak any new languages or learn the lost art of basket weaving. Malphas is not powerful enough to command an army to turn around, not anymore. Besides, if Behem planned on raising an army of Gluttons to take the Red City, it wouldn’t end well. It never does. Gluttony demons get distracted easily, and they don’t follow anyone but their stomachs or genitals.”

“What can Stolas do?” I was almost pleading. “There has to be a reason why he was taken?”

“He sees the future in the stars,” Malphas replied cryptically.

“Astrology?” I was skeptical.

“Put simply? Yes.” Malphas nodded, distracted by his cooking. “Time once was that Stolas would weave the future, as God dictated it. He would paint with the stars and map out their journeys. He could look across the night sky and see if for what it was—he could see the stars as they are. Or as they were.”

I frowned. “As they were? Like millions of years ago?”

Malphas shrugged. “It isn’t a useful skill on a battle field. Lucifer wanted Stolas because he was convinced that Nova had hidden some divine messages in the stars for him to find—and if he did, then the devil could go home. To heaven.”

“Nova?” I echoed.

“God.” Caim clarified.

“While this is very interesting,” I admitted reluctantly. “You don’t seem to care that your friend is missing. You’re having breakfast.”

“I’m not.” Caim winked. “Though if you want to open your legs—”

“Fuel.” Malphas interrupted. “Generally, storming a castle on a full stomach is easier.”

Murmur woke up shortly after we finished our breakfast, and despite his short sleep, his eyes were ringed with purple bags, and the cuts on his face had yet to heal.

He eyed Caim, Malphas, and me at the kitchen island, clinging to the doorframe as if he needed it to stand. Finally, his gaze settled on me, and he stared for an unfathomable amount of time. “You can speak,” Murmur said simply, without judgment.

“I can.” My chin jutted as I met his gaze.

Murmur’s brow pinched in concentration, and he pushed his tongue against the point of his canine tooth. “You really didn’t kill anyone.” He said after a long moment of silence, words coated with disbelief.

“You didn’t believe me?” I raised a brow.

“Most people would say they were innocent.” Murmur stepped away from the doorframe. “Most lie.”

“I didn’t.”

“I know.” He shrugged. “Now that I have heard your voice, I see the truth. The truth of you.”

That wasn’t disconcerting at all .

Murmur eyed the others, and I sensed that my presence was the reason for his silence.

I pushed away from the kitchen island. “I’m going to shower.” I declared. My words were met with silent stares as I scurried away like I hadn’t been pressed between Caim and Malphas only hours before.