Seeker: Demon Killers [Fantasy/Action | Complete]

Chapter 54: Piricca and Ross

The little girl wouldn't stop crying.

Ross punched the marble wall and hissed under her breath when the pain shot up her arm. She immediately regretted the decision; it was such a Tora-like impulse. The sound bounced off the marble walls. The incessant weeping in the back of her head continued. She flinched as the crack of a slap echoed through her mind from a long-ago memory. Cold sweat dripped off her back.

Humans needed saving. Saving them was right. Demons' survival was wrong – at least, in the human world, it was wrong. Her life goals had never been clearer. She could survive to avenge Damien, but what would that do? Damien remained dead. Carlos was motivated by that – but she wasn't. The initial relief of seeing Tora alive washed away. Just how many lay dead because of her and her kind?

She pressed her back against the wall and slid down, gulping in air. There was no way she could help either side. Markl killed Damien. Markl was a traitor. Yet Tora was also a traitor in her own right. Her very essence was a contradiction. A demon couldn't be a Seeker. A demon couldn't be killing her own kind to save another species. The truth would come to light, and now it had. Tora's loyalties couldn't be trusted, and both Ross and Carlos were in danger being in the midst of her brood. Whatever the outcome was in this war between the Sentinels and the Shifters, Ross had no place in it.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and was startled to find tears. Her chest tightened. A ferocious headache drummed against her skull.

As the whirl of emotions and sensations settled to a steady ache, she was aware she was not alone.

"Relax," came the hollow voice, as if sensing Ross's impulse to jump and brace for an attack. "Cimerus gave orders for you not to come to harm whilst in the Shifter realm."

Ross pressed her back against the wall. A small body came into view from behind one of the pillars, her outline barely visible with the candles' illumination.

"Who's there?"

"It is Piricca." She looked older, taller, this time: a ten-year-old with black hair and a fringe. Sky-blue eyes blinked at her through the semi-darkness. She had streaks of black tears running down her cheeks. "Oh, I forget. I take on this form occasionally, when I have places to go."

"Another human girl you killed," Ross said in a hoarse voice. Piricca giggled and shook her head.

"No, not human." Piricca patted the front of her frilly, layered dress and gave a twirl, revealing a petticoat underneath. "This came from a young Traveller girl. One of your kin."

"One of my...?"

Piricca tilted her head and giggled again. She kept her distance but seemed to enjoy making Ross squirm.

"You mentioned this term before." Ross narrowed her eyes at the general. "You think I'm some sort of inter-dimensional Traveller."

"Not think. I know." Piricca's glee reminded Ross of a schoolgirl who had gotten full marks on a test. "You are a classic Traveller: so dead-set on being impartial that the slightest hint of conflict between parties makes you ill and scared. I'm surprised you stayed in the human world for so long without being driven into insanity. Your loyalty to that Sentinel must have been great."

Ross flinched.

"It's so interesting, don't you think? An entire team of misfits and none of you know what you truly are or are capable of. Except your lovely traitor Sentinel friend, of course."

Ross averted those curious eyes and didn't say anything. Although in this form Piricca harboured none of the bloodlust she could sense in the other Shifters, this young girl took down several Frostites. Her appearance was extremely misleading.