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But everything in here was already dirtier than I was.
“No, we’re grass,” Pritkin said. “The demons are the cows.” He saw my expression. “Think of it this way, Cassie. Humans can eat grass, correct?”
“Yeah, I guess. Technically.”
“But nobody does. Why is that?”
“I don’t know . . . because it’s grass.”
“It’s lacking in nutrition, in calories, in all the things we need for life, yes?”
I nodded.
“A human would starve on a diet of grass. But a cow . . . a cow does quite well on it. Gets fat, even. And then, if a human eats the cow—”
“Okay, wait,” I said, my head spinning. “You’re telling me . . . that the gods came to earth, found a bunch of fat demons chewing up all the human grass, and decided to have a barbecue?”
He nodded. “Something like that. Remember, demons live much longer lives than humans, and have the capacity to store up a great deal more energy. In some cases, from thousands of feedings over hundreds of years. And not merely from earth. But from all their home worlds, as well.”
“But their home worlds don’t yield as much,” I said, recalling something Rian had said.
“No. Which is why earth was so prized when my father’s people, and others, stumbled across it long before the gods ever did. And then started coming in droves, to feed off the humans who couldn’t detect them and had virtually no defenses against them.”
“But someone’s always higher on the food chain,” Caleb said, with a certain grim satisfaction.
Pritkin nodded. “And when the gods discovered the demons, they felt toward them the way the demons had felt toward the human population. Here was a huge source of energy, ripe for the plucking, who had almost no defenses against them. Yes, they could buck and kick a little, but does that stop a lion from taking down a gazelle? And only the greatest of them could even manage that much of a response.”
“Then why didn’t the demons just stop coming?” I demanded. “Once they knew the gods were here—”
“Do gazelles stop coming to the watering hole?” he shot back. “Even though they know the lions come there, too?”
“Yeah, but that’s water. That’s a necessity.”
“As is energy in a world where power rules. Why do you think Rian betrayed Casanova? She’s known him for centuries. They have a bond—”
Casanova huffed out a bitter laugh.
“It’s true,” Pritkin insisted. “You gave her a great gift. The greatest you can give a demon. You gave her power, more than any other host she could possibly have found. And power can give her . . . everything else.”
“So she sold me out for power,” Casanova said bitterly. “I suppose she thought a vampire would understand that.”
“She sold you out for life,” Pritkin said sharply. “Which she might otherwise have lost in one of the power struggles that are epidemic at court—at every court. Rian was young and weak when she came to earth. Now, after gorging for centuries on as much energy as she could absorb, she goes home, not as a pawn to be used and possibly sacrificed to someone else’s ambition, but as a power broker in her own right.”
Casanova blinked at him, looking as thoughtful as a guy with that much hell juice in him could. But I just stared at the tabletop, where the flickering light turned the dust that had gathered in the sticky bits into a topographical map. A map of a universe that was suddenly far larger than I’d ever imagined.
“And at the time we’re discussing, power was even more important than it is now,” Pritkin added. “The ancient wars were ongoing, with the few demon races who stumbled across earth losing badly before its discovery. The power they gained from it helped renew their resources, gave them a fighting chance in battles on a scale humans can’t imagine, battles that lasted hundreds of years and spread across countless worlds, battles that, if they had been lost, might have resulted in the destruction of their entire species. So yes, they came, no matter the risk. And the gods knew that they would.”
There was silence at the table for a moment, as everyone struggled to grasp that. I didn’t know how the rest of them felt, but I wasn’t doing so hot. Pritkin was right; I couldn’t imagine war on that scale. I couldn’t imagine something else, either.
“I still don’t see what this has to do with my mother, or with you,” I said, after a moment.
“Artemis the Huntress,” Caleb murmured, his eyes suddenly widening. As if maybe he did.
“Yes,” Pritkin confirmed. “She was the most feared of the gods by demonkind. The most respected, and the most hated.”
“Why? You said all the gods hunted demons!” I said hotly.
“Yes, but she didn’t merely wait at the watering hole for them to come to her,” Pritkin said quietly. “She could open the gates between worlds, a talent that allowed her to take the offensive far more easily than the rest of her kind.”
