Except, he was no longer the other side.
Eidolon folded his arms across his chest and stretched his long legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. “Basically, demon lore says that after Satan was banished from Heaven, he was allowed to create his own races. But, because humans are born good and can be turned evil, God insisted that the same, but opposite, should apply to creatures born evil. Satan created some species from his own twisted imagination, and others . . . he used animals as foundations for some, humans for the rest.”
“Which is why demons can appear human.”
He nodded. “Some species are a cross between animals and humans. Shapeshifters, for example. And some species are more inherently evil than others. There are species and individuals who strive to be good.”
“Good? So . . . they don’t worship Satan? They aren’t walking hand in hand with the guy?”
“Some of us even doubt his existence. Just as there are humans who don’t believe in God, there are demons who don’t believe in the Lord of Darkness.”
“So you’ve never seen him?”
“Have you seen God?”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Exactly. When humans speak of seeing divine energies, they’re talking about angels. We have dresdiin. And for the record, many of us consider your God to be the supreme ruler. Others worship—or, at least, acknowledge—both. The Two Gods.”
“That doesn’t seem possible.”
“That any of us can be less than evil? Do you not see that sometimes, something goes wrong at conception, and some humans are born evil? Or they turn evil?”
“I suppose.”
“Imagine that the opposite happens in the demon world. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Yin-yang. You can’t have one extreme without the other. So in the demon world, some of the most heinous races sometimes experience an anomaly. I knew a Cruentus once who wanted nothing more than to work in the hospital. He was slaughtered by his own family for his behavior. The world isn’t as black and white as you think, Tayla.”
“Believe me, I’m starting to figure that out.” She rubbed her temples, wondering if her life would ever be normal. Not that she knew what normal was. From the moment she was born on the floor of an abandoned warehouse, premature and addicted to heroin, everything had been out of whack.
“Tayla, let me get Shade over here, and we’ll help you.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Afraid of? Oh, well, maybe I’m afraid of losing myself. Of turning into everything I’ve ever hated. I’d rather die than turn into something I don’t even recognize.” He looked as if he understood, and she remembered what he’d said about his upcoming transition. “I don’t see you embracing your own change.”
“That’s different. I know what I’m going to become. You don’t. You have a chance at becoming something better.”
“Better? How is turning into a demon better?”
“Says the human whose own kind tried to kill her.”
Tayla chomped down hard, her teeth grinding. “Go to hell.”
“You don’t get it, do you? This is hell.”
She snorted. “Yeah, well, you aren’t exactly fun and games yourself.”
“I was talking about earth. There are no fires, no burning pits of torment, no levels or rings or rivers of lava. When we die, we get put right back on earth to live our miserable existences over and over and over for all eternity.”
Her head spun at what he was saying, things that went against everything she’d ever been taught at Bible school the few times she’d been forced to go by foster families, and by The Aegis. “That makes no sense.”
“There is no hell,” he said flatly. “Not like you mean. Our world works like yours. You die, you go to the Other Side. We die, we go to the Nether Side. We’re reborn to earth, though most demon species live far below the earth’s crust, in what we call Sheoul. It’s where I grew up. It’s cavernous, dark, confining. Demons want out, and will do whatever they can to bring about an event that will allow them to live on the surface.”
“An event?”
“Imagine what you call the Rapture. Armageddon. The Apocalypse. According to a variety of human religions, the righteous will go to heaven and leave nothing but evil on earth, which is what we call the Reclamation. Earth will then be hell. There is no need for a fiery pit.”