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Rome's nightmares always started the same way.
The silence came first. Total sensory deprivation, like having his ears plugged from water pressure at the bottom of a pool. The only sound was the thump, thump, thump of his heartbeat.
Then the weight arrived. Something deeper than physical. Existential dread, maybe, if he wanted to sound pretentious about it. Fear so deep it needed a face.
So his fear gave the darkness eyes.
They bloomed in the void like flowers opening in those aesthetic time-lapse videos. Twelve of them arranged in a lotus pattern, glowing with violet light bright enough to hurt.
Recognition hit worse than the fear. Some animal part of his brain screamed that he'd seen these eyes before, that they'd been watching him his entire life through mirrors he didn't know existed.
Then he fell.
He always fell.
Rome woke up gasping for air, bracing for an impact that didn't come. He blinked and noticed he still couldn't see shit.
His head throbbed. A deep, violent ache that told him he'd been hit, and hit hard.
"Okay," he muttered into the darkness. "Okay, think."
The blindfold covering his eyes felt like rough burlap against his skin. His hands were zip-tied behind his back around what felt like a metal chair. The plastic bit into his wrists when he tested the bonds. They had the distinct give of industrial zip ties right before they locked solid.
Great. Someone had come prepared for him specifically. Either flattering or terrifying. Probably terrifying.
He forced his breathing to slow, counting the seconds between inhales. The air tasted of mold and rust with an underlying dampness that suggested basement or warehouse. Somewhere old. Somewhere forgotten.
Water dripped in the distance. Plink. Plink. Plink. Rhythmic enough to be annoying, irregular enough to prevent him from using it as an accurate timer.
The concrete beneath his boots felt gritty when he shifted his feet. He scraped his heel deliberately, listening to the echo. Large space, then. High ceiling based on how the sound dispersed.
Then there was the feeling.
It crawled across his skin like static electricity, raising every hair on his body in waves that moved from his spine outward. He'd felt this before, always right before something weird happened. Right before foster homes descended into chaos. Right before that thing in the alley last month that he'd convinced himself was a bad batch of energy drinks.
This felt stronger. Like standing far too close to power lines.
He strained against the right zip tie first, then the left. Same resistance. Whoever tied him knew what they were doing. He flexed his fingers, trying to create space through blood flow restriction, but the plastic held firm.
"Amateur hour is over," he told himself. "Time to get creative."
He tilted his head back, then to each side, building a mental map from the way sound moved in the space. The dripping water was behind him and to the left. His breathing bounced back faster from that direction.
That same feeling intensified suddenly.
Was someone in here with him?
"Hello?"
"Stupid," he hissed immediately after. "Real smooth, Rome. Why don't you ring the dinner bell while you're at it?"
Then he heard it.
Click. Clack.
The sound of stilettos on concrete.
Click. Clack.
They weren't approaching in a straight line. The sound moved around him in a wide circle, taking its time. Whoever wore those shoes knew he couldn't see them, couldn't track them. They were establishing dominance through patience.
Click. Clack.
The sensation on his skin surged with each step, like one of those radiation detector things.
Click. Clack.
Then came the smell.
Takoyaki.
"Seriously?" Rome asked the darkness. "You couldn't finish your snack before the kidnapping?"
The footsteps stopped.
The sensation didn't. It transformed into something worse. A primal thrum that resonated in his bones and made his pulse quicken in ways that had nothing to do with fear. Danger, yes, but underneath it... want? Need?
What the hell was wrong with him?
The air pressure changed. Someone stood directly in front of him now, close enough that he could feel their body heat through the cold basement air.
Fabric rustled. A hand touched his face.
The sensation exploded into a roar.
The blindfold was ripped away.
Rome's eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light. When they did, he immediately wished they hadn't.
The eyes from his nightmare stared down at him.
The woman who owned them was without a doubt the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Long white hair fell around her face in waves that caught the single hanging bulb's light like fresh snow. She wore a fitted black suit jacket over what looked like expensive casual wear, the kind of put-together look that screamed money and power.
She took another bite of takoyaki, chewing thoughtfully while studying him like he was a specimen in a jar.
That's when Rome saw the aura.
He didn't see it with his eyes exactly, but with whatever system was making his skin tingle. Purple energy rolled off her in waves, concentrated in hot spots around her eyes and hands. It moved like living smoke, beautiful and utterly alien.
He could see it. Actually see supernatural energy.
"Well," she said, her voice carrying a playful lilt that did not match the situation at all, "you're more interesting than your file suggested."
"My file?" Rome croaked.
She popped the last takoyaki ball into her mouth, made a small satisfied noise, then tossed the empty container over her shoulder without looking. It landed perfectly in what he could now see was a trash can ten feet away.
Show off.
"Rome Angelo. Age seventeen. No living relatives. Currently enrolled as a full-time student at Pacific Community College while working construction part-time." She circled around behind him. Her fingers trailed across his shoulders as she moved, and the contact made the purple energy flare. "Bounced through fourteen foster homes. Consistent reports of 'unexplainable phenomena' wherever you stay. Objects moving on their own. Shadows that don't match their sources. An unusually high number of accidents."
"Who the hell are you?"
"That's one way to ask for my name." She completed her circle, coming to stand in front of him again. Those lotus eyes studied him with an intensity that felt like physical pressure. "Though I suppose given the circumstances, some vulgarity is warranted."
She leaned down, bringing her face level with his. This close, Rome could see the faint blue veins visible around her eyes, could smell something expensive and floral beneath the takoyaki.
"Here's what I need to know, Rome. Are you a Demon, or a Shaman?"
He stared at her. "I'm a construction worker."
Her laugh was genuine and rich. "Oh, I like you already. But that's not really an answer, is it?"
"It's the only answer I've got, lady."
"Amelia," she corrected, straightening up. "And that necklace you're wearing tells a different story."
Rome's blood went cold. The obsidian pendant had been around his neck for as long as he could remember. He'd never taken it off. Never even considered it.
"How do you know about..."
"These eyes see many things." She tapped the corner of her right eye, and the lotus pattern pulsed with violet light.
She leaned in again. This time her eyes weren't just glowing. They were active, the petals rotating faster as she examined him.
"That necklace is a seal. A very old one, very powerful, designed to suppress and contain." Her voice dropped lower, losing some of its playful edge. "And when I look at you with my eyes fully open, do you know what I see?"
Rome didn't want to know. Every fiber of his being screamed that he didn't want to hear what came next.
She told him anyway.
"I see a human body. Normal physiology, normal spiritual pathways. But underneath..." Her finger touched his chest, right over his heart, and the contact sent electricity arcing through his entire nervous system. "Something that's been sleeping behind that seal your entire life."
"You're insane," he managed.
"Am I?" She straightened, pulling a phone from her jacket pocket. A few taps, then she turned the screen toward him.
Crime scene photos. Three bodies sprawled in a warehouse, their skin gray and sunken like month-old fruit. They looked mummified, completely drained.
"Three bodies were found in the warehouse district last night," Amelia said, her voice clinical now. "Drained completely of life force. Hollow shells. The kind of damage only a demon could inflict."
Rome's stomach dropped. "I didn't..."
"And you, Rome Angelo, were the only person with a demonic signature we found at the scene."
"That's impossible!" The laugh that burst from him was edged with hysteria. "I was helping my buddy look for some urban legend ghost. I didn't kill anyone!"
"Your friend Jake Mendoza confirmed your presence there through his social media check-in at 10:47 PM." She swiped to another screen. "The estimated time of death for these three was between 11:00 PM and midnight."
"I didn't... I can't..." The words tangled in his throat.
Amelia pocketed her phone. Her eyes stayed locked on his, and he watched her pupils dilate slightly as she studied his face.
"Your heart rate just spiked to 140 beats per minute. Pupils dilated. Breathing pattern suggests genuine panic. Performance would look different." She tilted her head. "Either you're an excellent liar, or you genuinely don't remember."
"Remember what? I didn't do anything!"
She reached for something on a table he hadn't noticed before. When she turned back, she held another container of takoyaki.
"You must be hungry," she said, her tone shifting back to that casual playfulness. "You've been unconscious for six hours."
She held a takoyaki ball in front of his mouth. The absurdity of the gesture would have been funny if Rome wasn't pretty sure he was about to die.
"Say aah..."
"I'm not hungry."
"Suit yourself." She popped it in her own mouth instead. "Where are my manners? Proper introductions. I'm Amelia Beleth, head of the Beleth Clan, one of the Four Great Families. I'm also the first-year instructor at New Pacifica Shaman College."
She set the container aside and placed both hands on his chair's armrests.
"And I'm the person who's going to decide whether you live or die in the next five minutes."
The lotus patterns in her eyes spun faster.
"So let's try this again, darling. What. Are. You?"
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A/N:
Hi, my name is Katseye, the author of Demon Seer. If you're reading this on WebNovel, thank you for supporting my story!
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