Draevus gasped, eyes going glassine as Esmeray raised a hand to silence us before resting that hand on his belly. “He isn’t gone.”
“What happened?” Draevus fought the urge to stand, leaning forward with potential in his every muscle.
“Ausmius—he wasn’t a demon. Not really. He was a creature hell-borne of fallen. A child’s soul bound to a family line.”
“Demons don’t have souls, Esmeray.” Draevus’s brow furrowed.
“In a way, I have one now, Father. I am linked with Gre. And Ausmius is the product of nefalem. Their original souls had no place to go once they died beside destruction. No gods would claim them.” Esmeray stared at his belly and twisted his lips. “Let’s just hope he’s much better behaved as a child than he was a daeva.”
The soul that had grown so weak in Esmeray’s pregnancy wasn’t growing weak at all; he was slowly inhabiting the growing child within him.
“That’s… It brings up many questions.” Draevus took a soft breath and glanced at me.
As a student of theology and an adequate mage, I’d had my run-ins with spirits of reincarnation. And in almost all cases, there were no memories handed down. Elements of the personality were given, but that was all. “His memories will have to be stripped. He will not be the same Ausmius we knew. In order for him to make the choices in life that lead him to his eventual afterlife, he will start anew. No deity will take him with that jaded mark on him.”
Esmeray nodded. “That’s my take on it, too. I swear if he comes out talking, I’m going to ask if your old orphanage is still in operation.”
“It is, in fact, not still around. They got shut down probably fifty years ago for illegal adoption practices.” I gave Esmeray a flat-lipped smile.
“Call up the goddesses and ask who wants to adopt a little warlock.” Esmeray huffed, and Draevus rolled his eyes.
“This family was doomed from the beginning.” Draevus patted my leg and huffed. “So, what theme were we thinking for the baby’s room? I’m rather partial to dragons, myself.”
“Let’s convene with the hell-borne cleric that Esmeray asked for, and we can decide. They will be a warlock, as you said. It makes sense, contracted by gods and demons, part celestial, part demon, sired by a demigod mage.” I huffed. “We have created something entirely new.”
“Well, I have business to attend to and some bragging to do.” Draevus pulled out his phone and sauntered out, thumbing through his index for a number. He dialed, put the phone to his ear and, just as he rounded the corner, he spoke. “Calamisis!”
And whatever shouting and swearing sparked over his phone, I couldn’t quite make out, but it made Draevus laugh, and a laughing Draevus was usually a good thing.
Chapter Twenty
Esmeray
When we made inquiries into the local hell-borne temple, we thought our request would be met that same day, but we’d piqued interest. With all of the deic plane a titter with rumors of our warlock child, they wanted to send an emissary of Baphomet personally, and the transition between our two planes involved paperwork for those below a certain ranking. Including the lords of hell and Satan himself. Though, I didn’t get all up in the politics of it because I was hell-borne by rites only. I had been birthed on the mortal plane and had never resided in hell for any considerable length of time…save for two weeks when I was in high school where my father sent me there tostraighten me upwhen I went through one of those phases.
So, as I grew bigger and my pregnancy weighed heavily upon me, I got the call one morning to be at my new home immediately after work so Gre could come as well. His work had him busy as could be, but transitioning him to work at home. We still had the interior decorator there working on a forest-themed room, as encouraged by Diana and Bast and Faunus, who had come by a few times to check on things. Despite there not being any real paternal bond there between him and Gre, they had a certain kind of bond I didn’t want to discourage.
I sorted through my paperwork, sighing with utter relief as I got to type up a very gracious email to a client informing them Malarthe could send them letters of intent to sue all day long, but he was considered a vexatious litigant, and they’d forwarded Malarthe’s paperwork to the judge and the case would be dismissed. And his wife? The one he’d been so intent on proving had been deprived of his mediocre and abused penis? She’d lefthim. The Church had excommunicated him. He had one job—don’t get a boner. He failed.
As for The Church, they’d been absolutely pissed at Gre’s manipulation but had quickly discovered that with a demonic contract protecting him, they’d lost more with every attack. So, when I heard that their local church was hit by lightning causing half of it to collapse, I assumed that it was something they had intended to do to us that backfired.
And for a church with no deity behind it, it was more of a cult with political influence. A gang with fancy hats. At least, I thought no deity backed them. They had loose values when it came to old Christianity, but nobody on the deic plane, including avatars of heaven or hell, knew who the fuck was talking to them.
Probably some loony-bin angel trying to become a god.
Ausmius kicked and rolled within me, reminding me to move around a bit. Being sedentary was so very easy, and so was sleeping, for that matter. I couldn’t get enough naps as time grew on.
When I left my office after finishing my paperwork, Dahm, the snake shifter I’d had polite conversations with, the other intern, walked by with a stack of papers in hand, expression twisted.
“What’s that look for?” I raised a brow, and he glanced from the papers to me.
“I had my review.” Dahm flipped one page over and held it up to me to show a shiny new 3.8/5. “I wouldn’t even buy a book with a review that low.”
I glanced over it.
“I only got a 4.2.” I held out my hand and skimmed the paper. His email turnaround times were slower than mine. “What’s your caseload?”
He rattled off a number. About the same, but he dealt mostly with DUI cases and wasn’t clearing things quickly enough. “Youdeal with things less specialized than I do. Would you like me to go over this with you and see where you can speed things along?”
