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“This is it, I’m dead. Beyond dead. Double dead.”
Ignoring how the other boy was doing his best to push his face through the table, Tucker only laughed. “Danny, you’re a demon. If you were dead, you’d be a ghost.”
“Weren't you bragging about being impossible to get rid of literally yesterday?” Sam added, grinning when Danny looked up just enough to glare at her. “Thought so.”
“For humans, sure! Not for my parents to get rid of!”
Tucker’s easygoing demeanor quickly slid away as he scooched closer for a hug. “What about your parents?”
“The ones that just left you trapped with that monster? For years?” Sam asked.
Danny gave a low groan, the tips of his pale fingers digging into his scalp. Literally, thanks to the unexpected claws in his human skin. “Yeah.”
Sam scowled, fingers curling into fists. “I could take ‘em.”
“No you couldn’t.” Tucker cut in. Danny’s parents were demons. They were two idiot teenagers that accidentally gave a demon not only part of their souls, but one of his own. Their best ploy was ‘beg Danny’s big scary sibling to bail them out’ in the grand scheme of things.
“I’d still try, you coward.”
“You shouldn’t. Then you’d just be dead.” Danny’s quiet mumble cut through their squabbling. “I don’t want that.”
Sam and Tucker shared a look. Danny was getting better at expressing their friendship, but he could still be standoffish. Like a ‘proper’ demon would be. Outright worrying for their safety he saved for actual danger. “What’s going on, anyway?”
“I don’t know! They never care about what I’m doing. They must have found out. They’re going to kill me. No, no, they’ll torture me for like five years, and kill you guys, and make me watch, and then they’ll kill me. Or worse.”
“Danny, you gotta breathe when you’re human.”
Spite made him want to refuse Sam's advice, but his lungs overpowered his foolish attempt. “Human bodies are stupid.”
“Smart enough to keep a demon from doing something idiotic to kill it.”
They were trying to make him feel better, obviously. Even though that was impossible. Didn’t they get how totally doomed he was? He groaned, letting his head flop on the table.
“If we’re not allowed to beat them up, how do we help? Since you’re not running off and getting killed on my watch,” Sam said.
“You can’t! There’s nothing, okay? I’m nothing, and they’re everything,” Danny snapped. “You were terrified of my sister, and she’s nothing compared to them! We’re little underlings, not like humans! We’re not all separate like you are!”
“I want to encourage you and stuff, but I guess you know more about demons than we do?” Tucker said, wincing when Sam glowered at him for ‘caving’ to Danny’s fears. “Why can’t we just summon you back? You have to answer, right?”
Danny groaned again, louder. Did he really have to explain everything? “You don’t seriously think two untrained humans can overpower summonings from millennia-old demons that literally created me.”
“Well, no, but—” Tucker’s protests died under Danny’s glare.
“Tucker just cares about you and wants to help. Don’t be catty about it,” Sam said, stepping between them. “Maybe demons let their friends suffer, but humans at least try to help. Even if we aren’t sure it’ll work.”
“I know that. If you do that this time, you'll just get killed!”
“Well, if you think of anything, we’re game to try it?”
Why didn’t they understand that his parents would kill them without even blinking? Denial? Some human need to just blather pointless sympathies? “If you summon me and nothing happens, don’t keep trying. I’ll respond when I can.”
Which would probably be never. That part wasn’t sticking though, so he decided to stop mentioning it.
“Why, does it hurt or something if you can’t come right away?”
Considering the low, constant tugging at the back of his neck? The clear, obvious sign he was being looked for and expected to show up? Which he was ignoring, by cheating with something no demon should ever have? “Something like that, yeah.”
If his parents weren’t so old and what Jazz called ‘temporally challenged’, ignoring their demands could have the human world suddenly enduring a hellish invasion. Which no one wanted. “I need to get going. Don’t do some stupid human thing.”
“You think everything is a ‘stupid human thing’.”
“And I’m right.” He didn’t give them a chance to argue, shifting into his body of shadows and vanishing as the infernal pull became too strong to resist.
–
A fretting, flaming sibling was not what he expected to see when he cracked open his green eyes. The massive feathered beast nearly torched the gold beams that supported the cavernous ceiling, her pacing crossing vast distances in seconds.
“What did you do?!” Jazz zeroed in on the blot of shadows against the tiles, her mane a roiling sea of flame as her many eyes stared at the curling darkness around him.
“Nothing? That’s sort of my thing,” Phantom couldn’t help but snap. The humans being dumb was one thing. His sister knew better! “Duh?”
Her fire dimmed to a flickering candle strength, but it didn’t keep Jazz from nudging his tiny body behind her massive talons in protection, as she often did when they were much, much younger. “I am just worried. They never seek to see both of us anymore.”
“Or me, at all. Ever.”
“Phantom.”
“What? Divine my truth, observer of all knowledge!”
Jazz rolled five eyes at his attempted snark. “When did those humans teach you that blustering is a good way to show you are upset?”
“It’s to show I’m not afraid.”
“Then I am ‘afraid’ that you are terrible at it, little brother.”
Phantom muttered under his breath, wriggling to get out from under her. That wouldn’t help with their parents. “So you didn’t rat me out?”
Her mane was no longer alight as she lowered her head, her face filling his field of view like a great blue moon. “I would never betray you.”
He could never admit some of his lingering terror was smoothed away with Jazz’s promise and warm feathers. Orange, from his father, was terrifying. From her though, it was safe. Even with her deadly claws, she’d never hurt even one of his bright white hairs when trying to comfort him.
“Have you been waiting long?” he asked.
That earned a musical chuckle as Jazz cuddled him close. “You need to define long. As humans tell time, perhaps?”
“Well I have two humans who get all out of sorts really fast, so yeah.”
“A week and a day. The throne and lounge remain spotless. No notes, either.”
“Wow, love being dragged down here when they aren’t even present. So courteous.” He spoke flippantly, but was already scanning every corner, his ears half lowered in case the rebuke was loud.
Nothing. So they really weren’t being observed at all?
“If we’re lucky, they just want to show off some new conquest. Or new siblings. Or they might bother to talk about that time you went ‘missing’, I suppose.” Jazz spoke more to herself than him, a habit she’d never managed to break.
“Pretty sure they swore off any more spawn after the last disaster.”
“You are not a disaster.”
Phantom bit one of her toes. She didn’t flinch, or really seem to notice. “You are being rude, though.”
“Pretty good proof I wasn’t what anyone wanted, though. Watch out! He might bore you to death with his inability to do anything! Such a good use of royal energy, that thing.”
“Just because they are not present does not mean you need to do their job for them.”
Getting scooped up and dumped on her back didn’t make him feel any less helpless and pathetic, but he just sighed. There wasn’t any reason for Jazz to keep lying to make him ‘feel better’ about being the most worthless creature ever spawned. She always insisted on it though. Like if some creature of knowledge and cunning kept stating it, kept believing it, it would force the universe to make it true. If only.
Part of him wanted to yank a good bit of hair out, a petty little action for a petty little creature. All his energy to do so was sucked right out of the room as one of the massive torches flickered once, twice, and then seemed to twist—visible and not. Then all the light was devoured by an unseen maw.
Phantom could only shrink and tremble as the room went pitch black. Jazz didn’t shake like he did, she wasn’t some cowardly infant, but he could feel her muscles tense under his shaky claws. Phantom flattened his ears and shut his eyes as the horrid crunch of stone against bone bellowed in the darkness from all sides, a flat heavy pounding following.
His parents were never subtle about approaching. They could just make a portal and slide through silently! He’d seen it! But no, they had to rip through realities one at a time, destroying as they went. To make a point. To remind everyone how strong they were. How no being could compare.
Though his eyes were squeezed shut, he could feel the darkness retracting, yanking his curling shadows away with it as he struggled to keep his body together. His tail twisted at the unexpected pain. Not many things could easily drag a darkness he was in away like that. Had it been an accident, or did they just forget he wasn’t made of much more than the absence of light?
“Children! So good to behold the both of you again!” Their father’s roar felt loud enough to crack great columns of marble in its wake. Phantom just tried to be even smaller as his ears burned.
Jazz stooped into a deep bow, grand talons splayed as her wings remained folded tightly, mostly obscuring Phantom from view. “Of course. We are honoured to take even some of your time.” Her voice was strong and confident, lacking even a trace of her prior worry when they’d still been alone. “For what reason did you summon us, and how may we serve?”
Jazz really did know all the right things to say. Sure, he knew he should be contributing too—but it was just easier to let her do it. Keeping his head down should count as being differential enough, probably.
“Stand. You do not need to be so formal with us, sweetheart!”
Phantom slowly cracked his eyes open, his mother’s kind tone settling some fears. Neither of them were starting out angry, so maybe they really didn’t know? The massive, serpent-like demon and his gaudy orange scales practically filled the room—even if the bulk of his father was settled on his mountainous lounge. Danny couldn’t look at him long; everywhere he looked was different. Some scales were caked with barnacles and the wear and tear of deep underseas, before suddenly becoming embossed with gold and jewels without any break in between, before flickering with the gleams of flame and magma. He was such a massive demon that he simply left parts of himself in different environments instead of altering his whole form to fit wherever he wished to be.
There was a reason the humans sometimes called him ‘Leviathan’. A world serpent. The end of days.
There was a reason Phantom was a complete embarrassment when that sort of power resided in just one parent. When his mother was just as fearsome, as subtle as his father was not, and he was still this useless.
“Well, I could not assume it was not a formal matter. You did not say why we were to come,” Jazz insisted, even as she stood back to her full height. A towering, impressive height—when their father didn’t make her look like a chicken in comparison.
“Neither of us is skilled in mind reading, either,” Phantom said, quietly. It was a reckless sort of comment—but surely they’d take it as him downplaying their abilities and not as the ‘sarcasm’ his human friends introduced him to.
“A long overdue occasion. Though a happy one, we admit.”
Phandom ducked at his mother’s voice, his eyes searching but unable to see her. It was easier to find her in the crevices in the world—a being watching and waiting. Slim, insectoid, and almost impossible to even stitch together in a real ‘form.’ Even trying to perceive his mother made his head pound and eyes itch.
“My dear sibling’s regained freedom, perhaps?” Jazz’s question was short and sharp, and made Phantom dig his claws in her fur. What was she doing?
“What do you mean?”
He stopped digging his claws in. Seriously?!
Jazz took that as permission to continue. “The unjust imprisonment he was suffering? At the hands of wicked Fae, that schemed to make him into one of their mindless fawning familiars?” She paused, just for a moment as her flames flickered a bit too brightly before dulling again. “The imprisonment I personally had to discover and thwart?”
There was no anger. No, instead the great orange beast laughed. “Oh! That! No, no. Nothing to do with that.”
“Why?” He shouldn’t have asked. In that little human heart of his, he knew exactly why.
“You are being unclear again, dear.” So gentle, so kind as he felt countless eyes peering between every gap in his shadowy form. He wanted to twist and squirm.
“I believe he means ‘why’ did you not deign to rescue him from Fae hands, or at least delegate the task to me.”
Phantom nodded, haltingly. He sure felt a lot like ‘Danny’ right now—but he couldn’t be that. Not right now, not here. They had every right to abandon him for his failure at existing.
“Why would we? He knows he should not have been where he was caught, and caused more tension with another family.”
He curled in tighter from the accusation, feeling the vague disdain the voice did not betray—but he could sense it from how his mother was looking at him. Jazz’s mane flared up again, and he couldn't let her do something stupid over him, of all things. “I am thankful you allowed my sibling to rescue me.”
“See! Even he understands! Really, the proper thing would have been to forbid you from going to the Fae’s land, but we can hardly be responsible for your silly, undirected actions.” The rumbling laugh of their father made the watching leer lessen, even if Jazz’s mane still simmered a little too high for her to be ‘calm.’
Jazz closed her eyes as her talons slowly stopped digging into shattered tile. “Well, not much has happened since that incident. What is the occasion?”
Right. What good thing could possibly have happened since then? He hadn’t done anything. Jazz probably did something impressive, but he didn’t get called for those things anymore. Sort of took away from the aura of achievement when a speck of a demon who hadn’t done anything worth recognizing in centuries was there.
“Did you not tell your sibling, little one?”
So it was him? They didn’t know about the human thing, right? They couldn’t. Surely. He tried to stop being so folded over himself, but loosening his curls betrayed how he was shaking. “Or, she forgot. She’s much busier than me!” Stalling for time, he could manage. Praising Jazz was pretty much all he was good for, even if it didn’t mean anything.
“True. This is overdue, after all.” Their father shifted into a more upright, regal position. Though, the more formal atmosphere just made Phantom more uneasy. “Our little embodiment of the void.”
“Of the vast nothing that awaits all things. The unknown emptiness that is everywhere, but nowhere.”
Oh. They never used that title anymore. He never ‘earned’ the right to be called what he’d been made of. He was nothing, alright. Just a very unimpressive, unthreatening nothing. They barely even bothered to call him Phantom, lately.
“We’re so proud you finally managed to trick a human out of their soul.”
He blinked. He didn’t actually do that. He stole two halves and sort of accidentally made one new one? That was his? Instead of correcting them, he nodded, forcing himself to relax. Of course he was worried over nothing! “Thank you. For remembering when I took so long to do so.”
“Of course we would, small one! Just as your sibling did—hm. How long ago was that now?”
“Too long ago to remember, I think.” Phantom didn’t need to hear exactly how defective he was.
“Congratulations, little brother.” Jazz’s voice was genuine, even though she already knew the truth of it.
“Now we would usually spend more time, but you are both old enough to not need the extra attention. We still wished to acknowledge it, and encourage further progress.”
“Of course. Thank you.”
The pressure in the room lessened in seconds as their parents exited with much less fanfare than their entrance.
It left behind fury in his little shadowy body. That he barely mattered, that the source of his terror was just a formality. He should be happy! In some ways he was, with the stress finally out of him. It just left too much space for this stupid, undeserved anger to move in. He said it himself: demon parents were not like human ones.
“At least my soul didn’t register as mine to them?”
“Thankfully. I had no idea what we would do if they actually noticed.”
He couldn’t help letting out a little laugh. Jazz was nuts to even think about trying to protect him if that happened. “I’d run.”
“Probably the wisest plan. I assume you’ll be headed back to those humans of yours?”
“Yeah.” He’d have to make sure not to be too obvious to Sam and Tucker how much more comfortable their world was becoming for him. They’d never let him live it down.
“Be safe.”
Though at least he did have someone on his side, down here.