Chapter 607

In America, membership in a respectable Christian denomination could buy someone quite a bit of goodwill among the upper crust. So the Eredar Twins wearing crucifixes wasn’t particularly strange.

What was strange was the thought of two former high-ranking servants of the Burning Legion casually saying things like God bless.

Over the countless ages they’d spent serving the Legion, who knew how many beings worshiped as gods had fallen beneath its advance?

And yet somehow, the truly bizarre part was this:

They had actually taken on a goddaughter.

They were taking this whole upper-class act far too seriously.

Evenson was also intensely curious about the little girl.

The Eredar Twins were usually polite and easygoing when dealing with other people, but that was mostly because they didn’t consider those people worth getting angry with. A man didn’t pick fights with ants.

The Twins thought highly of themselves, and to them, most humans were little more than lesser creatures. Only a tiny handful had earned their recognition.

That meant they wouldn’t simply take some random child as their goddaughter.

Either the girl’s family had an unusual amount of influence and therefore value, or the girl herself was special.

When Evenson asked who she was, however, the Twins didn’t answer.

Oletheis merely glanced at him before returning her attention to the child. She gently ruffled the girl’s hair and asked, "What brings you here, sweetheart?"

The girl squirmed free.

Her once-neat black hair was now sticking out in every direction thanks to Oletheis’s affection.

"I heard you were here, so I asked Aunt Alice to bring me over to say hello."

"What a good girl."

This time, Salorass pulled the child into her arms and enthusiastically messed up her hair.

Evenson rolled his eyes.

You’re treating her like a spaniel.

He watched Salorass rub the girl’s head with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for an especially fluffy dog.

Let her go already.

My turn.

"I’m terribly sorry, ladies. I couldn’t talk her out of it."

A graceful woman in a maid’s uniform appeared in the doorway and gave the Twins a small bow.

"It’s fine, Alice."

Oletheis smiled at her reassuringly.

"I don’t mind."

Alice bowed again.

Evenson studied her.

Everything about the woman was precise. Her posture, the angle of her bow, the way she looked at people, her tone of voice, even the smallest movements of her hands. She had clearly been trained as a professional servant.

And she had.

Alice had once been the lead flight attendant aboard Air Force One, where she’d been named an outstanding employee five years in a row. The Eredar Twins had specifically requested her services.

Unfortunately, that had put her aboard Air Force One during one of the worst incidents of her career.

Aldrich Killian had shown up in an Iron Man-style armored suit and turned the flight into a nightmare. The aircraft had nearly gone down, and Alice had almost died.

The experience had terrified her.

Air Force One was supposed to be one of the safest aircraft in the world. She had never imagined something like that could happen aboard it, and afterward she came close to developing a fear of flying.

Eventually, Alice resigned from a prestigious job that paid extremely well.

The timing worked out perfectly for the Twins.

They had been impressed with her service and hired her as a personal assistant.

Now she served as the little girl’s nanny.

As for whether it was all a little too convenient...

Whether Alice might secretly be an American government plant...

The Twins weren’t worried.

Because whoever they wanted Alice to belong to was who she belonged to.

The little girl finally escaped Salorass’s hands and pointed toward Evenson.

"Who’s that man?"

Evenson immediately put on what he considered his most grandfatherly smile and raised a hand to greet her.

Then he froze.

How exactly was he supposed to introduce himself?

Through his relationship with the Twins, he was technically something like her godfather.

But he wasn’t a Christian, and he had never gone through some proper Christian ceremony with the Eredar Twins.

So...

Godfather?

Wait.

Godfather and little girl.

For some reason, the thought made him inexplicably pleased with himself.

"Anyone there?"

Oletheis didn’t even look at Evenson.

With a warm smile, she told the girl, "Just ignore him."

The little girl looked at Evenson, who had completely frozen in place.

She seemed to consider the instruction.

"Okay."

Then she covered her eyes with both hands and turned her head away.

Evenson’s smile died.

"All right, sweetheart."

Oletheis pinched the girl’s cheek affectionately.

"Go have something to eat with Aunt Alice. I still have some work to finish."

"Okay."

The girl nodded and walked over to Alice.

At the doorway, she turned around and gave the Twins a polite little wave.

"Goodbye, First Godmother. Second Godmother."

Then she left with Alice.

The room fell quiet.

Evenson turned back to the Twins.

"Who is that girl?"

He frowned.

"Don’t tell me she’s the Vice President’s daughter. She’s about the right age, but..."

He carefully examined the girl’s legs as she’d walked away. He wasn’t being inappropriate. He was checking a theory.

Her legs were perfectly healthy.

She wasn’t wearing a prosthetic.

Evenson remembered that the Vice President’s younger daughter had a disability in one leg.

"Of course she isn’t," Salorass said with a shrug.

"Someone that high up in politics probably has their children’s godparents arranged before the kids are even born. There’s no way we’d get that position."

Evenson nodded.

Political families had their alliances, marriages, and connections carefully arranged long before anyone else even got a seat at the table.

"Then who is she?"

"We found her."

Oletheis said it so casually that Evenson stared at her.

"You... found her?"

He looked from Oletheis to Salorass.

"You two actually picked up a little girl and decided to raise her?"

He rubbed his chin, half teasing.

"Come on. Even if you suddenly developed maternal instincts and wanted a kid, you didn’t need to adopt one. I could always try harder..."

"Forget it."

Salorass’s cold snort carried such absolute disdain that Evenson’s face immediately reddened.

What do you mean, forget it?

Why am I being dismissed like that?

Oletheis waved a hand.

"It’s our biology."

Everyone else in the room immediately disappeared at a speed that suggested they had suddenly remembered several urgent appointments elsewhere.

Nobody wanted to overhear their employers discussing something this private.

Especially not this kind of private.

Once they were alone, the Twins explained.

"You need to understand," Oletheis said, "Eredar already have extremely long reproductive cycles, even by the standards of long-lived races. After becoming demons, we’ve effectively become immortal."

"Which means that for short-lived species like humans..." She gave Evenson a knowing smile. "By the time our biological cycle reaches the appropriate point, the human’s life is already over."

"Oh."

Evenson nodded slowly.

"What a depressing story."

He quietly thanked every cosmic power he could think of that he was a Warlock and had several ways of keeping his own lifespan absurdly long.

Still, the prospect of having a child with the Eredar Twins suddenly seemed even more remote.

It might take longer than waiting for the Cleveland Browns to win the Super Bowl.

Evenson looked toward the door.

"Then what happened to the girl’s original family?"

He hesitated.

Was she lost?

Kidnapped?

Abandoned?

Or...

"They’re all dead."

Salorass smiled faintly.

"I watched them die."

Evenson stared at her.

Salorass immediately noticed his expression.

"Don’t look at me like that. I know what you’re thinking."

It was certainly not an unreasonable conclusion.

Kill someone’s entire family, then take the surviving child home and raise her?

That was precisely the sort of thing demons might do.

But Oletheis waved away the suspicion.

"We didn’t kill them. We had nothing to do with it."

"Then what happened?"

"It started a few days ago."

Oletheis paused.

"The weather was beautiful, so we decided to go for a walk in Central Park."

She hesitated just slightly on the last few words.

Evenson narrowed his eyes.

"Tell me what you actually went there to do."

"A walk?"

He stared at her.

"You two?"

He could believe they’d spend an entire night in a bar. He could even believe they’d go looking for trouble.

But a peaceful stroll through Central Park?

That simply did not fit.

"Fine."

Oletheis sighed.

"The truth is, I’d heard that several gangs were gathering in the park for a little... trade show."

Evenson blinked.

"A trade show."

"You know exactly what kind."

He thought about it for a moment.

Then he understood.

"Not that we organized it or participated in it," Oletheis continued. "We’d merely heard that some interesting new merchandise was going to be available, and we wanted to take a look."

"The little girl happened to be in the park with her family as well. They were sitting not far from the flower bed where we were waiting."

Oletheis smiled faintly.

"I have to admit, she was an exceptionally polite child."

The Twins had simply been sitting beside the flower bed, waiting for the so-called exhibition to begin.

But these kinds of criminal gatherings were notoriously unreliable.

They waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Nothing happened.

Perhaps the girl thought the two strange women looked bored. Whatever her reason, she eventually wandered over and started chatting with them.

She even spent her own allowance to buy them two drinks.

Evenson scratched his head.

"And then you decided she was adorable and took her home?"

"Then..."

Salorass’s expression hardened.

"Then you should know what happened next. Haven’t you heard about the park massacre?"

"The park massacre?"

Evenson’s expression sobered immediately.

"Yeah. I heard about it."

It had happened only a few days earlier. Evenson had been overseas at the time, but he’d seen the reports while aboard the plane.

Several gangs had gathered in a park.

Nobody knew whether a deal had fallen apart or old grudges had finally boiled over, but the groups had suddenly opened fire on one another.

Several civilians had been caught in the crossfire.

"The girl’s entire family was killed," Salorass said.

"Her mother was shot first. Her father wasn’t an ordinary man, and he tried desperately to protect his family, but he was eventually shot in the head."

Her voice remained calm.

"Her brother, who was around the same age as her, was practically torn apart by the heavy-caliber rounds."

Salorass gave a faint smile.

"Perhaps that was fate."

The girl had been close to the Twins when the shooting started.

"She was lucky enough to survive."

"I see."

Evenson nodded slowly.

"With those bullets flying, protecting yourselves wouldn’t have been difficult. So you simply decided to protect the kid too?"

"No."

Oletheis shook her head.

"We protected ourselves."

The little girl had been hit as well.

She had fallen to the ground, blood spraying across the Twins’ clothes.

"And we felt nothing."

Evenson frowned.

"Then why save her?"

"Because when we were leaving, she was still clutching my clothes."

Oletheis’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"If someone lies there waiting for someone else to save them, I have no reason to care. We can ignore innocent blood."

"But someone who is struggling desperately to survive?"

A faint smile touched her lips.

"That’s interesting."

There was something almost playful in her voice.

Taking the life of someone fighting desperately to keep it, or choosing to save them instead, could both be entertaining.

The Eredar Twins had always enjoyed that kind of choice.

Although they usually preferred the first option.

"So we let her live."

Evenson thought back to the little girl he’d just seen.

"But she doesn’t act like someone who survived something like that."

Even an emotionally resilient adult might have broken under those circumstances.

Watching your entire family get slaughtered.

Watching your own sibling die.

Nearly dying yourself.

Yet the little girl had looked bright-eyed and cheerful.

There had been no obvious sign of trauma.

"Acute stress-related memory loss."

Oletheis smiled.

"The human nervous system is fascinating. Sometimes it simply chooses to bury memories that the mind cannot bear."

"So that’s what happened."

Evenson nodded.

"I thought you erased her memories."

"Memory-erasing magic might be difficult for you, but for us it’s trivial."

Salorass’s expression suddenly changed.

"But we didn’t."

She looked directly at Evenson.

"We want that memory to remain."

"We want her to remember it someday."

"Hatred. Pain. Confusion. Anger."

Her voice grew colder.

"Those are the foundation."

"The pillars."

Evenson rolled his eyes.

"Nice to hear your old duet again. Though you’re missing a couple of words."

Then his expression became more serious.

"So what exactly are you planning to do with her?"

"We haven’t decided yet."

Oletheis’s smile turned almost sinister.

"But those foundations and pillars can create something powerful."

"They can also destroy someone."

Evenson folded his arms.

"Suppose she remembers everything one day and can’t handle it. What then? What if she breaks?"

"Destroyed?"

The Eredar Twins looked at him without the slightest trace of emotion.

"Then she can be destroyed."

Their voices were calm.

Cold.

Final.

"As our goddaughter, she cannot be weak."

"We have no use for someone who cannot be forged into something stronger."

Salorass’s eyes narrowed.

"That applies to her."

Oletheis finished the thought.

"And it applies to you."

Evenson stared at them.

Then he slowly lifted both hands.

"Well, that’s reassuring."