Epilogue
Dufaii stood next to an oddly blooming rose garden, near the home that had been reduced to rubble and ash. Long gone were the other demons, the surviving human teenagers, and the army of confused loyalists who had exited the cloud to replace the Godkiller alone amongst the corpses. His daughter had been in the grass, facing the sky with her jaw agape and eyes still open. Dry blood coated half of her face and matted her hair in red and black clumps. Her torso was turned at an awkward angle, and she’d been covered in small branches, bits of bark, and brown pine-straw.
Though Dufaii felt an unclear and foreign welling of emotions in his throat, he remained silent. He was familiar with loss … but not like this. Being immortal meant that death came only upon lesser beings and the gods. He had been free of death's power, as neither he nor anyone he knew had ever been threatened by it. Now, having finally been the victim of that loss known only to mortals, he could not move. He remained kneeling on the ground with his head hung low. And he felt an emptiness that made his chest feel hollow. Exousia was gone … her soul where every other uncorrupted soul went … to the Creator. And all he had left of her was the green jacket he’d taken off the washline of a nearby house to keep the human child from getting too cold so many years ago. He would have taken the black knife, but that had vanished along with her soul.
Hours ago, a dozen black and white cars had driven along the dirt road, and then stopped a few feet short of the human bodies that were between the house and the driveway. Vans with recording and broadcasting equipment followed. Humans exited these vehicles and scattered like roaches, looking at every exciting morsel of the macabre that they could replace. For the remaining hour, the police had taped off the crime scene, a forensics team gathered evidence that a demon cleanup crew was likely already destroying, and reporters alternated between snooping and talking to the camera. Each looked like they felt somehow triumphant to be standing over Exousia … the Woodcutter. The police officers looked proud, as if they had hunted and killed her themselves. A camera crew technician, and the coroner radiated emotions of greed. They were planning on looting the body and selling whatever they found.
At that moment, Dufaii had felt like something was twisting in his gut. He clutched his sword and thought about cleaving all of these humans. He was forced to remind himself that these humans were not the ones that had set Exousia on a path toward her demise, against impossible odds. They were little more than primal animals, cavemen dancing around a mammoth and planning how they would use the parts.
No, Dufaii blamed himself. He’d made the choice that he knew he would regret. He had let her die for the sake of demonkind. His only condolence was a rage boiling in his chest and a knowledge of how to punish both himself and the other parties responsible for this … travesty that should have never been allowed to transpire.
Dufaii glared up at the sky and unsheathed his sword.
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