Page 27 of Eat, Slay, Love

So wrong that I let the woman and child run. So wrong that I didn’t kill another demon for ten years.

“It was unfortunate,” my mother says evenly, “that the demon you slew had an entanglement.”

Entanglement.

That’s what she calls the child.

“I’m not talking about that,” I lie.

My brothers’ magic stirs with the tension, their energy brushing against mine in familiar currents.

“Demonic energy is demonic energy,” my mother says. “The signature does not change.”

“Agreed,” my father says. “Once I sense it, I know what I’m dealing with.”

I turn to Rafael. “But your forte reads more than that.”

He nods. “The underlying signature is the same. My forte pulls additional information from it. I sense the demon first. Then, if I focus, I can read how long that energy has existed.”

There.

My pulse kicks.

Energy.

His forte doesn’t sense age floating around independently. It reads age from the demon’s existing energy. Information embedded in the signature that the rest of us simply can’t perceive.

“So there can be more information in a demonic signature than just demon,” I say slowly.

Rafael considers that. “Apparently. My forte is proof of that.”

I look down at my hands, thinking about Jonah. About the strange buzzing beneath my skin. The skipping, insistent alarm that appeared around him and disappeared around others.

Because of what he was doing, what he wanted to do, and the energy created because of that.

“What if intent changes the energy?” I hear myself ask.

Raf’s brow furrows. “What?”

“Not that intent is energy.” The idea is forming even as I say it. “But when you decide to strike, your energy changes, right? You gather it. Direct it. Your whole magical field prepares for what you’re about to do.”

“If I’m using magic.”

“But maybe demons do it even when they aren't consciously using theirs,” I mutter. My heart beats faster. Maybe what they intend to do leaves a pattern in the energy they already give off. A shift. A charge. Something most of us can’t perceive.

Rafael’s expression changes.

I press a hand to my sternum at the realization. “Andres? What’s yours like?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing like that. Demon registers as demon. My forte only kicks in when I’m looking for fractures.”

“Leo?”

“Same. I can tell one’s there. Stronger signatures are harder to miss, obviously, but I don’t get anything else from them.”

I look at Gabriel.

He shifts his weight from foot to foot. “Sometimes it changes.”