** First day of school**
(Clarice)
My curses arrived just before my eighteenth birthday.
That probably doesn't mean anything to you so let me back up a little bit.
I am a cambion.
That's right, I'm the earthborn child of a demon.
Now don't freak out. What you've learned about demons from movies and literature isn't exactly accurate. You do read, right? Good. That will make it much easier to tell you my story.
So demons...the term itself is a bit of a contraction. It is short for "dimension traveler." Six syllables. Apparently the English-speaking world has difficulty with that, so "demon" is the common short term. No, I really don't have any idea why six syllables is a problem. Germans will string fifteen to thirty syllables into a word. Maybe we're lazy.
Back to demons. They exist. There are a variety of races that travel to our world, or dimension. The number that can travel here might be larger than we know, but travelers tend to be a little tight-lipped about their home worlds and hunting grounds. Earth is considered a relatively pristine hunting ground and travelers guard the secret of its existence jealously. Suffice it to say that sorcerers here on earth only know about a small number dimensions.
There are some traveler races that approximate your expectations--devourers, imps, greater imps, and succubae, for example. I personally think the elves are the most evil beings in existence, but I freely admit my opinion is driven by my experiences with House Valeran. There are several other known traveler races, and my Daddy is making a study to know more about them. Check with him or one of his sorcerer wives for more detail.
So...dimension travelers. Something about the dimensions where these traveler races live makes it so they can't travel here without help. Distances, phases, universes--I still don't quite understand why, but most can't do it on their own. That's where sorcerers come in.
Whereas you can probably readily accept demons this may be a harder pill to swallow. Magic exists. There are a variety of different magical crafts. Sorcery is one of them. It's largely procedural, so anyone can do it if they are disciplined and meticulous enough; however, the ones that don't die in the process generally have magical powers. The magical powers give crafters a razor focus needed properly memorize and execute the rituals of summoning without error. Their power also enhances the willpower they need to hold a traveler until they contract or dismiss them. If a sorcerer summons a demon, they can stuff them into a zombie.
Now wait a minute. Pop culture isn't doing you or zombies any favors. A zombie is simply a person without a soul. I've known some that are lovely people. Vanessa, Lara, Koree, Raul, and Darius for example. Not having a soul allows them to be possessed, or host, dimension travelers. Daddy, Josie, Audrey, or Carla can tell you more if you are curious.
Now here's where we get to cambions. When a demon in a human host has a child the result is a cambion. We look human. We have the same white aura as humans. The tricky part is that sometimes a traveler may influence the DNA passed to the cambion child, which can cause the child to manifest characteristics of the parent. The stronger the demon, the higher the probability the child will manifest demonic features.
My mother is a succubus that was hosted in a French prostitute. Mother dear got her host off hashish, restored her health, gained many wealthy patrons, and generally had a blast from 1791 until I was born in 2002.
Shortly after my birth two things happened. The first is that the queen of Ravissement died--one of the seven planets of the succubae. The second is that my mother discovered that the random guy that fathered me was hosting a greater imp named Xranalazny. That's right. Father dear is the greater imp lord Xranalazny--arguably the most powerful greater imp to ever exist.
So my mother chased down her younger sister, my Aunt Aloïse, who was surreptitiously running a "salon" in Phoenix. Mother assigned guardianship of me to my aunt. The story I was told is that she kissed me, hopped on a plane to Paris, and committed suicide by swallowing a bottle of pills in a restroom of the Musée d'Orsai and walking around the museum until she collapsed--she supposedly dated many of the painters displayed there.
Now mother did not die. Killing her host let her return to her home dimension without any help. No necromancer or sorcerer required. That's how it works for travelers--any death that doesn't destroy the brain allows them to return home. That made killing my natural father rather difficult, but Daddy, Aunt Aloïse, and a host of supporters finally managed it. Anyway, Mother said goodbye to her beloved Paris and her inconvenient daughter before returning home to become queen of the succubae people on Ravissement. Yes, that's right. Not only is my father a GREATER IMP LORD, but my mother is a FUCKING SUCCUBUS QUEEN.
I never stood a chance at a normal life.
So in late January, about two weeks before my eighteenth birthday, I began growing a tail. At first my ass, specifically my tailbone, began to ache. I had been doing martial arts training with Daddy and his hareem since I moved to Prescott with my Aunt just before Christmas.