Page 12 of Eat, Slay, Love

I start doing math against my will.

The smirk widens, infuriating dimple reemerging. “Seventeen years, Nightmare. Not a catastrophic gap.”

Horrified, I reach for my dagger. “Are you going to explain demon feeding,” I demand, “or should I just go ahead and stab you in the heart?”

Jonah’s fully smiling now, that predatory, beautiful curve of his mouth that makes my magic jostle under my skin like it can’t decide whether to lunge or listen. It makes his face look younger (well, obviously younger than eighty-four—but he looks like he’s in his thirties).

“All right,” he says, lifting both hands in mock surrender. “Let’s start with something your slayer family apparently skipped.”

“My family didn’t skip anything.” Except, perhaps, positive reinforcement. Praise. Professions of love.

He arches a brow before walking over to a counter. “Souls are layered,” he says calmly. “Not one single, glowing marble sitting in the chest waiting to be ‘sucked’ out.”

I glare at him.

He continues anyway, picking up a knife and slicing through an onion. “There’s a core to a soul.” He holds up an onion-half, sliced lengthwise, and points at the middle. “It holds things like identity, memory, will. The part that makes someone who they are.”

“Well, obviously⁠—”

“But then,” he barrels over my interjection, “there are the layers just outside of the core.” He gestures just above the center of the onion-half. “Those largely hold personality traits, say, temperament, preferences, fears, habits. The traits that color the soul, rather than define it.”

“So human souls are like onions,” I say flatly.

“An allium analogy is basic, but it suffices for this explanation.” Jonah’s voice lowers slightly. “But let me explain the outermost layers.” He points to the crinkly, flaky skin of the onion.

“What do those contain?” I ask impatiently.

“Accumulation,” he says. “Guilt. Obsession. Violence. Cruelty. The parts that build up when someone feeds the worst impulses they have. ‘Rot,’ if you want a simpler word.”

My fingers tighten around my dagger.

“Demons don’t need the core to survive,” he adds.

“But you can take the core.”

“Yes.”

The word lands heavily between us.

“There are two ways we feed,” he goes on. “The first is a ‘partial’ feeding. It’s controlled and intentional.”

“Convenient,” I mutter.

He ignores that. “A demon can siphon the excess rot,” he says, peeling the outer layer off the onion. “The violent intent someone’s nurturing. The cruelty they’re rehearsing. The possessiveness that’s about to become harm. A demon can take all of that from them.”

“And the human?”

“Lives,” he finishes simply. “Often feels… lighter afterward. Confused, maybe. Exhausted, definitely. But that doesn’t last very long, maybe a day at most.”

My brain trips over that. “That’s what you were doing in the alley?” I ask.

He meets my eyes. “Yes.”

“That man was looking for that woman and her son, but he wanted to hurt them.”

“Yes.”

“And he’s alive.”