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21

Discerning

Ambrosius

H e felt it the moment it happened.

The extinguished life.

A soul winking out of existence, freeing the apartment for whatever evil entity happened upon it.

Ambrosius happened to be such one entity, and he took advantage of it immediately.

Looking back, Ambrosius hadn’t been sure what to expect.

Gwen was rather unusual in her own way—even for a human.

He had anticipated a long, drawn-out conversation, or even her returning to the apartment—cowardly, but not too unlike her avoidant nature.

But the delight he felt upon finding her hunched over her prey had succeeded all of it.

Her hair had deepened, the pale pink blossoming into a more vibrant shade of pink.

He observed the veins beneath her skin, watched as they slowly receded as her skin took on a more mortal hue .

Naturally, Ambrosius complimented her.

It was important to give praise where praise was due.

The poor thing really had been starving, it seemed.

“I…” Gwen trailed.

He couldn’t see her expression, as he had manifested near the door.

Her posture had slumped and her arms had gone limp beside her.

Suddenly, she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder.

The warmth of her amber eyes was now an unnatural cyan, glowing.

Her mouth was stretched in an uncomfortable grin by human standards.

“I was so hungry,” Gwen whimpered before black ichor gathered in the corner of her eyes.

“I was so hungry .”

Ambrosius wasn’t sure why she was bleeding from her eyes like that.

The human was dead, and any displays of horror at this point was a waste of energy.

Unless Gwen didn’t quite have control over her power yet.

Warlocks were rarer than demons, given how demons loathed working with humans.

Not to mention that the transition from human to monster usually failed.

Ambrosius knew she could have died or been driven mad, but his intuition told him she wouldn’t.

And Gwen had proven him right as she peered up at him in the aftermath of her first meal.

Then why the theatrics?

Ambrosius thought, puzzled.

“You’ll always be hungry,” he said.

“That is the nature of evil like us, my bittersweet.”

Gwen didn’t say anything, even as the ichor fell over the curve of her cheek.

Ambrosius wasn’t even sure she was aware of it.

Could it be possible she felt …

guilt? No, that didn’t make sense to him.

Gwen became less and less human the moment she had entertained the thought of making a deal with him.

She may not have known what she had agreed to, but surely Gwen had read the scroll, so why was she acting so…

Human, Ambrosius thought with disdain.

A part of her is still human.

He would have to smother that flame soon.

Until then, Ambrosius knelt beside her and brushed a strand of her vibrant hair behind her ear.

She flinched, wild grin wavering for a moment.

“You’re … going to be fine.”

There was no way she wouldn’t be.

Once she got over her pesky humanity, Gwen would thrive in the dark, Ambrosius was certain of it.

After all, she had managed to kill her first human in less time than it took him to make a sale.

And hunger was always a great motivator.

His words, however, didn’t ring true enough for Gwen.

He could see it in the way her face hadn’t changed, still a mask of poorly concealed instability.

A part of her had greatly enjoyed her meal, but despair had settled into her soul like a worm digging into a decaying animal.

How bothersome.

Ambrosius sighed, lifting a hand to hover above the dead human’s head.

He felt Gwen’s eyes follow, but she didn’t voice the question he sensed at the tip of her tongue.

She would get her answer soon enough, as Ambrosius probed into the fading psyche.

The last thoughts that ran through this human’s head rolled through Ambrosius’ like an old record.

He had been confused, frightened, based on the panicked impressions Ambrosius read.

But one thing he found particularly curious was the slow decline of these thoughts, and more importantly the lack of associated human emotions .

When humans died in the face of monsters, they rarely stopped thinking.

Whether they were aware of it or not, their thoughts still filtered through their minds.

Only they went by so quickly, Ambrosius doubted they even noticed it over the fear.

Even on the edge of death, a human would succumb to wishing they had more time, or wishing they had expressed some unfulfilled desire.

Yet, Ambrosius found none in this man.

There wasn’t a hint of fear in his brain, no confusion, no terror, even though it was evident on his face.

None of the foreign emotions that usually intertwined with a human’s thoughts.

It was as if something had pierced his mind and surgically removed it.

And without access to their emotions, why would a human ever think about their fear or regrets?

How appropriate, Ambrosius thought as he dropped his hand.

Gwen was still watching him.

The ichor had traveled down her neck and was staining her shirt.

Ambrosius steadied his cane before wrapping his arm around her waist. He hoisted her up, tucking her to him as he stood.

The sharp pinch of pain at his hip was manageable as he plopped her onto the kitchen counter.

He leaned his cane against the wall and began to search the cabinets.

Ambrosius found a washcloth in one of the drawers, got the edge wet, and proceeded to clean her face.

“There’s no need to shed tears, my bittersweet. He’s dead, you can’t change that,” Ambrosius chided.

The awkward grin had softened, eventually melting into a closed mouth.

Her hands were limp at her sides, but he could see the glow in her eyes starting to clear.

The manifestation of her warlock form was starting to dissipate, which meant she was calming from whatever state she was in.

“I was just trying to get the doll…” she mumbled, avoiding his eyes.

“I didn’t mean to kill him.”

Ambrosius snorted.

“You sound guilty. Silly really. A snake doesn’t apologize to a mouse before it devours it.”

“He wasn’t a mouse, he was a person,” Gwen insisted.

“He was a human, and you aren’t human anymore,” Ambrosius retorted as he smeared the black liquid away.

Gwen didn’t have anything to say to that, but it still bothered Ambrosius how she was avoiding his gaze.

How she found the energy to fight with him—even under duress, no less—escaped him.

Ambrosius cupped her chin and drew her now amber eyes to him.

“You’re a warlock, my bittersweet. As long as you’re a warlock, you will continue to crave and devour humans until you go back to the earth. You can’t change that,” Ambrosius said.

“So, stop fretting over a mortal man, who would so easily have harmed you if you hadn’t been a monster.”

That spark in her eye was back.

The one that she had whenever she was angry with him.

It made her breath go heavy, made her skin look warm.

Gwen looked like she wanted to murder him.

Good.

Ambrosius much preferred her angry and vengeful than whatever this had been.

He welcomed it as her hand smacked his away from her chin.

It was anger and her need to devour that would keep her alive, not her humanity .

“Even if I accepted that—which I don’t —it doesn’t change the fact that I’m in the apartment of a man who is dead,” Gwen snapped.

“I don’t remember it clearly, but he was screaming. The walls aren’t super thin, but there’s no way someone didn’t fucking hear him!”

It appeared she was moving on from her little morality issue, and that suited Ambrosius just fine.

“Yes, he along with every other fucking human out tonight are screaming at the fireworks in the sky,” Ambrosius reminded her.

“No one heard him.”

As if to prove his point, a particularly loud firework boomed somewhere nearby.

Ambrosius sighed, rinsing the washcloth before reapplying it to her mostly clean face.

Gwen jerked her face away, a hand circling his wrist as she glared at him, “That still doesn’t fix the problem that my neighbor is dead and my DNA is all over this place!”

Ambrosius laughed and allowed her to shove his arm away.

Care for the dead, but none for those who were alive.

How fitting.

“Your ‘DNA’ won’t even be there, you silly girl,” Ambrosius tossed the soiled washcloth into the sink.

“What are you talking about? I scratched the hell out of him—” Gwen raised her hand, displaying her partially blood-stained fingers to him.

“I have him under my nails, there’s no way I’m not on him!”

“Gwen, do you really think I would let you leave this apartment without covering your tracks?” Ambrosius asked.

“I’m almost insulted.”

Before she could argue, Ambrosius waved his hand in the direction of the body.

Traces of Gwen’s essence slowly sifted from the corpse and dissipated, melting into nothingness.

Ambrosius even took the extra care to clean all the blood and ichor, going so far as to iron out the man’s wrinkled shirt.

Aside from the look of horror on his face, there wasn’t any sign of a struggle on the man’s body.

“That should take care of your concerns for now. At the very least, you won’t automatically be put on a list of potential suspects—not that they could stop me. Regardless, you’ll have to be careful moving forward. I won’t always be here to help you clean up,” Ambrosius explained as he adjusted his jacket.

Gwen hopped off the counter.

“You’re saying this is going to happen again?”

“My bittersweet, I do enjoy our conversations, but you have a tendency of cycling through the same things over and over—”

“I don’t even know what I did to him!” Gwen exclaimed as she stood before him.

“At least tell me what I did, so I know how to handle this!”

Ambrosius felt his patience wearing thin.

The evening had been vastly interesting, but he was only willing to strain himself for so long.

The ache in his hip was pulsating, a sharp hook that anchored him to the pain.

Ambrosius weighed the option of concealing the information from her, but relented when he realized it didn’t really matter how she fed, as long as she did so.

“You devoured his emotions, my bittersweet,” Ambrosius said.

“All of them.”

“W-what do you mean—I—I ate his emotions?” Gwen glanced at the corpse.

“How the fuck do you eat emotions?”

“The way you just did, of course.” At her tired glare, Ambrosius shifted, pressing onto his cane.

“My powers are based on the nature of the unseen. I believe humans call it psychic phenomena. Every demon has their own particular talent and their own unique palettes. I’m particularly partial to the corruption and subsequent fear of the human spirit.”

“You eat spirits?” Gwen blinked.

“No,” Ambrosius denied.

“Well, not in a while. When there were less of you around, we would devour human souls whole. Nowadays, you outpace us quite a bit, and demons have grown gluttonous. Why eat an entire soul when you can sample them all?”

The answer didn’t seem to please her either.

Oh, bittersweet, you’re going to make eternity very difficult for us, aren’t you?

“But if you eat spirits, why did I…”

“Your appetite is based on your preferences, Gwen. You may have my power in your veins, but how they choose to appear is entirely your essence. I wasn’t lying when I said all I did was give you a push. You don’t…” he trailed.

Ambrosius knew he could never take back his next words, but he was too tired to continue the chase.

And Gwen looked … well, it didn’t matter what she looked like.

“You don’t have to prey on a single human in order to feed,” Ambrosius said.

“You can eat like me, in public and subtly. No one will notice, as long as you control yourself. And if you can’t, well, you better be prepared to handle the clean up, because I won’t always be there to fix it. I won’t fight your battles for you. Do you understand?”

Satisfied or not, Gwen appeared to accept his words with a subtle movement of her chin.

She shifted on her heels, glancing around the room for a moment.

The corpse a mere afterthought now .

“I should find the doll and get out of here,” she murmured.

“Probably wise,” he smiled.

“We can only use the fireworks to our advantage for so long.”

“Right,” she said, turning to search for the item.

Ambrosius waited a moment.

“It’s under the bed … along with the scroll case you failed to mention.”

Gwen flinched, tensing before her posture melted in defeat.

“I told you, I was trying to get rid of it,” she grumbled as she walked to the bed.

Ambrosius trailed behind her, watching as she got onto her knees.

He was tempted to frighten her, to appear beneath the bed, but Ambrosius paused the moment she bent forward.

A curious sensation went through him as she reached beneath the bed.

He was so caught off by the funny feeling, he hadn’t noticed when she stood triumphantly with the doll and scroll case in each hand.

“It was dusty under there,” Gwen said with a twitch to her nose.

“Also, this guy has a shit ton of porn magazines.”

“Lovely,” he said dryly.

Ambrosius shook off the unknown sensation.

“Let’s leave. This place stinks of death.”