Theo turned, fry pan in hand. "Did you tell Thomas about his car?"

Adam sat down at one of the place settings at the bar. "Yeeeeah, I think I forgot to mention that."

"Uh, huh." Theo scooped eggs and bacon onto all their plates, set the pan aside and sat down to dig in.

Adam took a sip of his steaming coffee. "Hey, it was a good gamble. It would've solved all our problems if it had worked."

"Yeah, but it didn't work and now Thomas is out his car." Theo put a forkful of eggs into his mouth.

Claire picked up a piece of bacon with a grimace, nibbled a bit, and then set it aside. The eggs she seemed to like, though, and ate those with relish.

"So do I want to know what you ate in Eudae?" Theo asked before he forked more egg into his mouth.

Adam laughed. "I asked her that last night."

"The Ytrayi and other breeds aren't like the Atrika. They eat like you do." She glanced at him and shrugged. "It's all just different meat, vegetables, and fruit. The soil is different there, the water, everything."

"Is it true demons are cannibalistic?" Adam asked.

"Do we have to talk about this right now, Adam?" Theo replied. "Anyway, we already know they are, right? Or is your memory so short?" He swallowed hard. "Mine isn't."

"Well, sure, they eat us, Theo. I'm asking if they eat each other. Anyway, you brought it up."

Claire tried nibbling at a piece of bacon again. "In battle or in times of war all daaeman breeds are cannibalistic, even the Syari, the scholars. They eat their enemies alive as an intimidation tactic, but also to consume their magick and essential life energy. The Atrika were bred to be the ultimate warrior. They are always cannibalistic, no matter if it's in a time of war or not, and will eat their prisoners or any other Atrika that crosses them badly enough."

Theo laid his fork down and pushed his plate away.

"When you say bred, what do you mean?" asked Adam.

Claire's eyes widened. "You don't know the daaeman are genetically engineered?"

"No." Both he and Theo said it at the same time.

"We don't know how or by whom. They suspect some alien race tampered with the indigenous species of Eudae millions of years ago. Either that or another race did it and the daaeman breeds wiped them out, just as they wiped out every other race on the planet."

Adam set his fork down and sat back in his chair. "Wow. So the demons are like… super-enhanced beings."

She nodded. "That's why they're so hard to kill. Whoever bred the Atrika made them nearly indestructible. Even their blood is a weapon."

"Acidic," answered Theo. He was being positively extroverted this morning. "So it's only the Atrika who have acid for blood, not the other breeds?"