Perched on the edge of his desk, he took a crunching bite of apple. My mouth watered. An apple? Fruit. Where the hell had he gotten that? He definitely had friends in high places, because there weren't many fruit bearing trees inside the Wall, and getting any fresh produce was rare. Our dietary staples were caffeine, sugar and bread. There were few people wandering around who were not emancipated looking, and it was usually a sure sign the person was a Priest or related to one. Only they could afford to eat enough to be anything other than thin. Maybe it was like a bonus scheme. Kill a demon-child and get an apple. Chucking his crimson blazer and satchel behind him, he smiled, stretched, and a few girls and guys sighed as the muscles on his torso rippled under his thin tunic.
"Who can tell me the standard attributes of identifying a demon?" he asked. Dead silence was broken by a giggle, and the squeak of a shifting chair. His eyebrows rose high at the lack of enthusiasm, mouth pulling down. "Don't make me pick you one by one."
A few hands climbed lazily.
I was too busy doodling a picture of silver eyes on my notepad to lift mine. Hs eyes had calmed me down that morning when I was half out of my mind. Maybe on paper they could help too.
"Yes, Jono," Tu said.
"Vampires," Jono, a decent looking boy from the upper dwells, began and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his crooked nose, "have a body temperature below fifteen, descendible canine teeth, fixed cellular activity and the appetite for plasma most easily found in-"
"Aint it cruel to call them demons?" Alex cut in thoughtfully. "It be like the vampires calling us bloodsacks."
Jono sent a scathing look her way, continued as if she hadn't spoken, "Shifters, can change to a single other form and this metamorphosis tends to present itself during-"
"Why we humans always gotta be placing names on things," she added after a few beats.
"Then there are witches," said Jono through his teeth, face twisted sourly, "Who can be male or female, and manipulate matter with the power of-"
"They evil and that's that," Ro told Alex and sent her a slow smile. "What else we call them?"
"I'm speaking," Jono spat, his glare switching between the both of them.
Alex dragged her eyes from Ro's chest and glared at Jono. "Dwells," she muttered. "Think reading and writing good makes you better than us." Tipping her chin up, her voice rose. "I got as much right to talk as you do."
He sneered at her. "Life sucking mambo."
She lurched up, knocked her seat over and waved him forward. "You talk much. Let us see how you do with no teeth."
Mambos were the name of voodoo Sorcerers eradicated by the Sect nearly a decade before. It was well known that Alex's mother had dabbled in black magic, and was whispered that not only had she dabbled, but was a proficient Sorceress of the craft. Her dark past was not something the upper dwells let Alex forget, and though she did not embrace her origins, she didn't deny them either.
The sound of Tu slamming his fist on a desk cut above the shouts of encouragement from the other Disciples. "Show disrespect to the slum dwells and you disrespect me," he said and made eye contact with everyone. "Anybody does it again and we'll have a problem. Alex, cool it. "
Setting her chair right, Alex sat back down and shot daggers at everybody, mumbling obscenities under her breath. I caught her eye and saw the tears there. I wasn't the only one, for Jono flushed, the colour spreading out from his cheeks to kiss his hairline and darken his neck.
Satisfied the peace had been restored, Tu's handsome face returned to its normal cheerful mien. "Carry on," he said.
"Of course, Lord Cleric," Jono replied somberly.
Ro, not one to forgive and forget, mimed a neck slicing action at him. He would have to watch his step in the days to come. Ro had come from the slums too, born into one of the gang families who were rumored to have a Bokor in their ranks; a man with white hair who called malevolent corpses back from the grave. I myself thought it was simply the skewed reputation of an old man who was good with herbs and medicine, as did the Temple Priests. The slums had been searched for practitioners of witchcraft and black magic, and none had been found.
