Daegelus | Volume One: Subject 0333

Chapter Twenty | Red Eyes, Black Hair

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Zoe cleaned the dried blood and dirt from Enid's tanned skin. She and Jake tried asking the girl whether there were any other kids who ran from the Nosferatu or if she knew anything about the lab she'd been in, but the girl didn't answer; she was evidently nervous, and Elijah knew that it was better to wait to ask her his questions.

"Are you hungry?" Zoe asked her.

Enid nodded.

"We could pick something up on the road," Jake suggested. "There's probably a Slappy's or something."

"Yeah, we can do that," Zoe agreed as she took some of her clothes out of her bag. She gave them to Enid. "You can change into these."

Enid nodded and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Zoe then looked at Elijah. She was clearly going to ask him something, but she changed her mind and shifted her sights to Jake. "Do we need to get gas for the jeep?"

"Uh..." he drawled. "I think so, yeah."

"We can find a gas station; there's likely gonna be some kinda food place near it."

Elijah zoned out as he took his leather-bound book from his ammo tin and flipped to a blank page. He updated it with everything he'd learned, including what Luell and Zoe had told him about the Ancients and True Speech. He didn't feel like he was any closer to finding out who or what he was, but at least he knew that it was possible that he was related to the sangdevoro Ancient—either that or the other half of him was an asmodi demon—and the only way he'd find out was through his Lyca Corp. file. To get that, though, he needed to access the main system inside a lab.

"Oh, good," came Zoe's voice. "They fit."

The demon looked up from his book and watched Zoe tidy Enid's ratty hair. He then finished writing, put his book and ammo tin away, and zipped up both his duffel bags. It was time to go.

"Let's go," he said, standing up.

Zoe and Jake packed their things up, and once the girl put her rat-dog into her bag again, she took Enid's hand and headed towards the door.

Jake led the way to the jeep. Once they put their bags in the trunk, thought, Elijah went through his bag and took out the licence plate he'd taken off the car they'd left in Little Herring.

"What are you doing?" Zoe questioned.

Elijah used one of his knives to screw the jeep's licence plate off and then screwed on the other one. "Making sure we don't get caught driving a stolen jeep; this'll buy us enough time to get a new car," he said as he put the plate into his bag.

The four of them then climbed into the car.

Elijah had no choice but to sit in the front this time; Enid wanted to sit with Zoe, and as irritated as he was to lose all the extra space, he wouldn't want to take away the child's comfort—he knew far too well what the first few hours back in the outside world after so long did to a person.

"So, Ukinas, yeah?" Jake asked as he pulled out of the parking lot.

"Yeah," Zoe confirmed.

Elijah leaned back in his seat as comfortably as he could. He stared out of the window, watching the desert pass by. The road seemed to go on forever; the only scenery was the mountains in the distance and the occasional decrepit building.

As the morning got later, they passed a sign that said they were entering Ukinas, and the empty, lonely dry wasteland started to brighten up. Instead of huts and shacks, there were brick houses and cottages. The first gas station they passed was filled with truck drivers, and afraid for their safety, they chose to stop at the next, which was empty apart from one rusty car and a motorbike. A small café sat to the right, and a fast-food restaurant—Slappy's—sat to the left.