Lilith The Bat

Lilith The Bat


Yuma, Yuna, Lilian, Nilche Lizhen, and Lilith were in the office building at the cemetery where Yuma’s father and grandmother were buried. Lilian was discussing having her name removed from the father’s tombstone since she was still alive. Yuma decided to take a walk around the cemetery to kill time.

He spotted a hunchbacked man wearing a tattered brown cloak among the tombstones. He decided to investigate but proceeded with caution. He turned his attention to his pocket when he felt his smartphone vibrate. When turned back the man was gone. He thought he was seeing things.

“Yuma, we’re done,” Lilian said.

They all went to the tombstone of Lilian and Yuma’s father. Lilian used her magic to correct the error that was her death on it. Then she exchanged words with Yuma’s dad.

Later, back at their house, Yuma was watching a newscast. The reporter was talking about a man who had died the previous night. He was found with all of his bones missing. Yuma believed this must have been the work of a demon.

Yuna was washing dishes, Lilian was cleaning, Nilche Lizhen was showering, and Lilith was in Nilche Lizhen’s room wondering about what it would be like if she had magic powers. She began snapping her fingers, pretending that fire could sprout from them. Shortly, fire did produce and it lit the drapes.

“Mom!” Lilith shouted.

Nilche Lizhen had finished up in the bathroom, wore some casual attire, and rushed to her room. She found the fire that Lilith made, and used her magic to put it out and fix the drapes.

“I have magic, Mommy,” Lilith said.

“Yuma, Yuna, Mom, get up here!” Nilche Lizhen yelled.

Yuma, Yuna, and Lilian finished what they were doing and headed up to Nilche Lizhen’s room.

“She can use magic,” she told them.

“So is she a skinwalker then?” Yuna asked.

Yuma answered, “Nagual. Skinwalkers are Navajo. She’s Lenca.”

“Right.”

Lilian picked up Lilith. “And how lucky for you that you know four wonderful teachers that can show you how to wield to your fullest potential,” she cooed.

“Uh-huh. You, my mom, Auntie Yuna, and Auntie Lozen whenever I see her,” Lilith stated.

“Yeah, no kidding. Well, I’m going to take a walk.”

Lilian turned to Yuma. “And investigate demon activity while you’re at it?”

Yuma nodded.

“Just be careful. Come home safe.”

“Have fun with these ladies, my little niece,” he exited the house.

Lilian put Lilith down.

“You’re going to love this. So many things you can learn: incineration, spoliation, transformation,” Nilche Lizhen recited.

“Yeah, I bet I could make myself look just like you, Mommy,” Lilith spoke with a twirl. Without knowing it, she had used her magic to do just that. She grew taller and older, and her hair grew longer. She had turned into a 25 year-old woman.

Yuna, Nilche Lizhen, and Lilian were surprised by this. “Whoa, she’s a natural,” Lilian said.

“Hey, I look pretty like you, Mommy,” Lilith hugged Nilche Lizhen.

Nilche Lizhen put her finger on Lilith’s forehead. “Yes, but you still have a lot of growing up to do before you’re ready for adult life.”

Lilith shrank back to her normal age of 8. “Okay.”

Yuma started off by poking around in alleyways. They were places that one could typically find what was left from a demon’s prey. They were small, secluded, and a skilled demon could pass their act off as a mere homicide between humans.

Soon, Yuma’s efforts were fruitful. He found a body that had been stripped of all its bones. The body itself looked like one meaty, bloody, mess. The sight was enough to make Yuma sick to his stomach. He found a nearby trash can and vomited into it.

“In all my years as a Demon Hunter I have never seen anything this disgusting,” he took a picture of the body with his phone, “Better send this over to the Guild. Maybe they’ll have more information on these weird murders and can piece together a pattern.”

He checked to make sure that the demon was not in his presence and proceeded to the Guild. Little did he know that the perpetrator was closer than he thought. In the sewers, just beneath a nearby manhole, sat the same hunchbacked man from the cemetery, but he was hunched over even more, and he looked rather uncomfortable.

“Damn Demon Hunters investigating my kills. No doubt the news is reporting on them. Cause me to retreat into the sewers. No matter, my eyes in the sky will show me who I seek,” the hunchbacked man snarled.

Above the sewers, in the sky, flew a slightly sickly-looking pigeon. The hunchbacked man had extracted its bones and replaced them with his own, turning the pigeon into his drone.

Three days later, Yuma learned nothing new from the Demon Hunter’s Guild on the murders. The pattern was random and the killer had a kill style that had not been seen before. All they could determine was that the victims were all related to each other, whether it was distant or close, and they were all of Lenca descent.

The hunchbacked man began executing his plan. He climbed up to the surface and entered a park, void of anyone else at the time. Feeling he was pressed for time, he jumped in a fountain to wash himself. Afterwards, he waited.

Soon, Nilche Lizhen and Lilith were walking by, so he greeted them. “I knew you were coming, little empress.”

“Excuse me?” Nilche Lizhen spoke.

“Not you, the little one. I’d recognize that kind of aura anywhere,” the hunchbacked man pointed at Lilith, who instinctively clung to Nilche Lizhen. His finger had bones protruding from it a little.

Nilche Lizhen held Lilith close. “Leave us be!” she scolded.

The hunchbacked man rose slowly. “Oh no, I vowed after I lost the right to rule the Kingdom of the Hills that I would end the lives of every member of her family, her lineage, until I am the one who can rule.”

“So you’re attacking us over something that happened to your ancestors ages ago?” Lilith asked.

“Ancestors? No, I cheated Death to become the ruler!” he yelled as he removed his cloak. With it off, one could see that he looked sickly, similar to a corpse. He had all sorts of bones protruding from his body, particularly his back.

“Necromancer.”

Róise happened to be flying overhead when she saw this exchange. She flew as fast as she could back to Yuma’s house. “Nilche Lizhen and Lilith are in the park and in danger! They need our help!” she shouted.

“What kind of enemy are they facing?” Yuma asked.

“A necromancer.”

They all hurried to the park. When they got there, they saw the necromancer with bones coming out of his body and circling above as the sky darkened. Then the bones descended upon the ground, forming Lenca warriors with bone weapons and magic fields around them. Additionally, persons with smartphones started to gather, using their devices to record the event.

The warriors charged forward. Yuma pulled out his tomahawk and began hacking away while Yuna, Róise, and Nilche Lizhen shot them down with their magic. Lilian began powering up.

“You will not harm my family, you cur!” Lilian yelled. Leathery bat-like wings grew out from her shoulder blades. Horns made their way out from her head. A thin, snake-like tail with a spade on the end came out from her lower back. As her clothing turned into a skimpy, latex-like outfit, her figure shifted to a more voluptuous one. She started shooting down the necromancer’s warriors with her magic as well.

As they knocked down the necromancer’s forces they noticed something.

“Dammit, these bastards just keep getting back up after we take them down!” Yuma yelled as he continued slicing the warriors up.

“And their magic shields make it so they just fall apart instead of disintegrate!” Lilian add as she continued shooting her magic.

Then Yuma found and opening to the necromancer and took it. As he lunged, his tomahawk made contact with a magic field, sending him backward to his family. As Yuma rose, the warriors separate into bones and gather around the necromancer creating a dome. Yuma goes into his Great Wolf form and lunges once again, only to be sent backward to his family.

“Together Brother,” Yuna said. Yuma nodded in agreement as he rose.

He lunged once more as Yuna, Nilche Lizhen, Róise, and Lilian use their magic to aid him. His swing began to pierce through the bones and magic field, but it was slow work.

Lilith desired to help, but her she had only just started learning how to properly wield her magic. She searched deep inside herself and found the power the she sought. She turned into a bat-human hybrid-looking being, her True Nagual form. She screeched, sending a shockwave that disrupted the magic field.

Yuma got through the bones and sliced off the necromancer’s head. A shockwave that knocked every ordinary human off of their feet, and acted similar to an EMP, coursed throughout the city.

Yuma and Lilith reverted back to their normal forms, the latter passed out, while Lilian turned back into her human form.

They all took note of the temporarily unconscious humans. Nilche Lizhen picked up Lilith and they went back to their home.

Once there, Nilche Lizhen put Lilith in her bed. Yuma, Yuna, and Lilian were in the living room listening to the news and Nilche Lizhen joined them. The reporters were interviewing eyewitnesses to the battle that had ensued. However, without any of the video evidence from the smartphones, they could not confirm it happened.

“Oh boy, the secrecy of our kind has been jeopardized, it seems,” Yuma stated.

“What do you think will happen?” Nilche Lizhen asked.

After the question came up, a knock on the front door was heard. They went to it and Lilian opened it to see two representatives from the Demon Hunter’s Guild. She asked them, “What can I help you gentlemen with?”

“We represent the Demon Hunter’s Guild. It is deciding on what the next course of action should be: reveal the secret world of demons and Divines, or wipe the minds of so many humans and keep the secrecy,” the first representative explained.

“In the meantime, we believe it’s best if your family temporarily relocates. Demon activity seems to attract to your son in particular. Another duo will come by another time to make sure your family has relocated. Good day,” the second representative added. He and his co-worker left. Lilian close the door and her family went back to the living room.

“So what are we going to do?” Yuna questioned.

“I don’t know. I don’t have the money it would take to relocate and hire housesitters for who knows how long. Sure, the Reservation helps out financially, but they can only help out so much,” Yuma explained.

“Hmm, can the Demon Hunter’s Guild tell the difference between an ordinary human and a succubus in human form?” Nilche Lizhen inquired. Yuna raised an eyebrow.

“No, they’re still working on that. Why?”

Yuna used her magic to transform Yuma into his female form, Lozen. “Now we can just change into different humans and pass ourselves off as housesitters for as long as we need to. What do you think?” she spoke.

"But let's be sure to only use cash for now," Nilche Lizhen replied.

Lozen sighed, “Okay.”

Lilian giggled, “I love this plan of yours.”

Lilith came into the living room, unintentionally announcing her arrival with a yawn. She grew joyous as she Lozen. She exclaimed as she ran up and hugged her, “Auntie Lozen!”

Lozen explained the situation and the plan to her. Nilche Lizhen told her to think of it as being like a game of make-believe. Lozen, Yuna, Nilche Lizhen, and Lilian turned into their succubus forms. Lozen’s noticeably had a circlet with a jewel on it in place of her headband.

“Hey, what happened to my headband?”

“Well, we do come from an aristocratic demon family. Your headband just changed to match that,” Lilian stated as Lozen saddened.

She transformed into a Polynesian woman with a more motherly figure than she normally had in human horm, and wearing a blue dress, with brown, curly hair that reached her stomach. “You can call me ‘Pele’,” Lilian spoke.

Nilche Lizhen was next. She turned into a Chinese woman with black hair tied in a braided bun, and wearing a qipao. “I will be Xiaorong,” she said. She touched Lilith on the nose, transforming her into a Japanese girl with auburn hair tied into pigtails, and wearing a Japanese school uniform. “And you can be, Miyako, my darling daughter,” she added.

Lilith giggled.

Yuna turned herself into an Irish woman wearing a green dress, with curly, orange hair tied in a ponytail. “Then call me ‘Siobhán’,” Yuna stated.

Lozen sighed and turned herself into an African woman wearing a navy blue headband, purple tube top, denim pants, and with black hair tied in a braided ponytail. “Last but not least, Nzinga,” she examined herself, noticing that her figure was more athletic than her previous form, “Whoa, this feels weird.”

“Eh, you’ll get used to it,” Lilian told her.

"No, it's not just the subtle differences between this body and my last one. There's sort of a tired feeling too," she replied.

Nilche Lizhen and Yuna agreed with that sentiment.

Lilian explained to them, "Oh right, you three aren't used to using your succubus powers so despite natural shapeshifting abilities, this may feel odd to you. I shall just have to teach you about transforming then."

They successfully passed off as a different family, a Polynesian mother and her adoptive daughters, one of whom adopted a daughter herself, to the inspectors from the Demon Hunter’s Guild.

Two months later, they all turned back into their normal forms, and Lozen, after taking her leave, turned herself back into Yuma.

Yuma looked at his hand and noticed no convulsions, no spasms, no uncontrollable movements of any kind. He had truly overcame his fear of being permanently transformed into a girl. He spoke, "I am no longer afraid," before rejoining his family inside the house.