“Don’t be. We’ll learn about this parenting thing together. You’ll be wonderful. Your heart is so big.”
He hooked his arm around her neck and brought her in close, so they were all sharing one big embrace. This was the moment she’d lived her entire life for. The one she wanted to hold onto and never forget.
“I love you, lirsha,” he murmured. “All I ever had before you was nightmares. But now I dream. Because of you.”
“I’ve always dreamed,” she whispered. “But I never thought they’d come true.” She pressed a tender kiss to the infant’s forehead, and then brushed her lips over Wraith’s. “I have everything I’ve dreamed of and more.”
And when Wraith smiled down at her, she knew he felt the same way. For all eternity.
Demonica: a Demon Compendium
by Larissa Ione
Contents
The Introduction
The Demons
The Hospital
The Key Players in the Demonica World
The Reckoning (short story)
The Introduction
People often ask me how I came up with the concept of a demon hospital. Basically, I’ve always been a fan of both the paranormal and emergency medicine, and one day, while watching an episode of Angel, the idea popped into my head. See, Angel (a vampire, for those who have never watched the super-awesome show) got hurt, and he needed medical attention right away. But really, where could he go? Where could any supernatural creature go?
Clearly, there was a need for an underworld hospital, and Underworld General was born.
When I started to write the first book in the Demonica series, Pleasure Unbound, I knew right away that the Demonica world was going to be extensive. Keeping track of it meant lots of notebooks, computer space, and brain space. I’m not the most organized person on the planet, but I somehow managed to put together not only a glossary, but an inventory of demons.
As the list of demons grew, so did an idea…
See, I’ve always been a big fan of Dungeons and Dragons (when not writing, I’m glued to the computer and playing the fantasy role-playing game!) and some of the best D&D guides are the monster compendiums, which provide backgrounds, vital statistics, and descriptions of the monsters you might encounter in the world.
So I started on the Demonica compendium, and with each book I wrote, the compendium grew larger. Then I decided to include information about the hospital. And the key players.
And as readers wrote to me, asking questions about the characters, their pasts, and their futures, I found that I wanted to explore the world even more and give readers some extras. So I wrote a short story to show how Eidolon, Shade, Wraith, and Roag met… an event that shaped all of their lives forever.
“The Reckoning” takes place before Underworld General was even a spark in Eidolon’s thoughts, and before Roag went completely mad.
And here we have it. More of the good, the bad, and the really, really ugly.
Hope you enjoy!
The Demons
Note: Most demons are invisible to humans unless they want to be seen, the humans are trained to see them, or the humans possess either magic or some inherent ability to see them. The notable exceptions to the invisibility rule are ter’taceo—demons who, by nature, look like humans, or who can take on human appearance. Seminus demons, for example, are ter’taceo.
When any non-ter’taceo demon dies in the human realm, it disintegrates within moments unless it dies in an area specially designed to prevent disintegration, an area built by demons, or some underground locales.
Most demons spend the majority of their lives in Sheoul, the demon realm deep inside the earth. When demons die, their souls are sent to Sheoul-gra, which is, in essence, a holding tank where souls wait to be reborn. Sheoul-gra is also where evil human souls are sent to either serve demon souls waiting to be reborn, or to be reborn themselves… as demons.
All demon species and breeds can be classified by their Ufelskala score—a number ranging from one to five on the scale of evil, with a score of five being the evilest of the wicked. It is important to note that the Ufelskala Scale judges “evil” by a species’ or breed’s love of pain, suffering, and death, but also on its awareness of its own behavior. So a demon animal that eats its prey alive, causing great suffering, may only score a two on the Ufelskala Scale, while a demon that doesn’t kill, but instead merely torments for fun, might score a four.
Humans, for the most part, are unaware that demons walk among them, and that is the way most demons—and most humans—like it.