Existence: A Dark Paranormal Fantasy (The Devilgod Series Book 1)

by S. C. Lewis

  She must come willingly. Ramiel’s words rang in my head, mocking me like an illness. Willingly? But she hated me.

  The bond was there, strong as it had ever been.

  I tossed the glass to the floor, where it shattered into a hundred pieces. I could see it splintering slowly in front of me. Suddenly, an image flashed back from the breaking glass. I fell back; something seemed to knock the wind out of me. I tried to regain my balance and focus clearly on my surroundings.

  I felt dazed and confused. The shove came again as the air left my lungs. I gasped as an image once again flashed across my eyes.

  A pain raced across my chest. I glanced down at my bare chest, there was a hole ripped into my flesh. I groaned touching the aching wound in disbelief.

  My fingers came away with blood. I shook, calling for Sophia, crying out her name and weeping over the roar of my voice. A slow beating began rising quickly. I gazed upward, my eyes covered in tears and fingers drenched in blood. I recognized the beat. Dazed, I realized I couldn’t hear my heart, yet the beating increased. In a flash, a figure draped in a black cloak materialized in front of me extending his hand.

  I stared down; in the figure’s hand was a heart. I groaned, trying to balance myself, and helplessly looked at the form, whose face was now visible.

  At first glance, I saw Sophia’s face innocently smiling at me. I stumbled back in disbelief, the face changed, and I saw the image of the intruder that had been in Sophia’s bedroom.

  The figure wickedly grinned at me. His beautiful face bore an uncanny resemblance to my own, enough so that I was overcome with fear.

  “I won’t let you take her away from me again. Not this time!” the figure shrieked angrily, crushing the beating heart in his hand.

  At that moment, I dropped to my knees in horrible pain, clenching at my chest, as the heart he held in his hands was engorged by flames. The echo of the enemy’s laughter roared all around me until it finally faded slowly. I collapsed to the floor, the pain slowly easing.

  I took a breath and opened my eyes. I could still hear his laughter in my head. It made me quiver slightly. I rose, quickly looking around at this room and at myself. There was no blood, no cuts of any sort on me. I felt foolish for believing a vision that was obviously trying to deceive me in so many ways and to take the one thing I wanted to hold close. It was after her just as it was after me, hoping to separate us, no doubt.

  “Mind games.” Just foolish mind games, something I’d played on others before. I was still wary, not sure I was alone. Every corner draped in darkness had me cautious and jumping at shadows. After a moment, I eased and poured myself another glass of champagne, staring down at the pieces of glass on the floor.

  I recalled the window had shattered in the same manner. I remembered the form falling through it, and over the edge.

  Who the hell was this intruder? Why had I forgotten all about him? Would he come back? What did he want with Sophia? And why was he now invading my thoughts? I was afraid for the first time in my life, afraid of losing everything. Afraid of losing Sophia. I feared for my safety. His warning continued to mock me. I won’t let you have her. Not again…

  What did it mean? Ramiel’s words rang through of his life before this. He had lived before with Sophia in another form. Was he the one Ramiel had warned me about? Him, as I had referred to him many times before? I refused to give him a name, but did he have one?

  “He’s more of a demon now. He’s in love with Sophia, and he thinks she belongs to him. He won’t die. He can’t, you see. No, only she can destroy him. Announcing her love to you will stop him.” Was what Ramiel had finally revealed? I knew of my past life that I once lived. I had been someone else. Problem was, I couldn’t remember whom. That I had lived once before in another plain of that I was sure.

  “You expect me to believe that?” I had resisted at first, of course. What sane person wouldn’t?

  “I don’t expect you to do anything,” Ramiel firmly answered. “That is the truth. And if you don’t come to understand it in time, you will lose everything you’ve worked so hard for. Including Sophia.”

  I hardly remembered the rest that had begun the conversation, but before I knew it, I had come to understand and accept my feelings, and realized everything was true. I had gone alone for so long, wrestling with desires I didn’t understand. That’s when Ramiel had come to me. Those were the first times I felt relieved in having someone to tell my feelings to. I surely couldn’t profess them to Sophia, at least not yet, even though I shared everything with her.

  “I’m here to help you,” Ramiel had kindly said to me one evening as I sat in my room alone, filled with wonder at the thought of Sophia. Never knowing why, I longed to have her, and in the same way that my fath—Nathan did.

  Her picture clenched tightly in my hand, I studied her fair face, each single strand of her hair magically entwining around my brain as I recalled her from dreams. I tried to imagine her hair as red, as I had once seen her when she wore a red wig at a Halloween party. Why did I like that so much? Or feel a connection to that image of her?

  I didn’t see Ramiel until the older gentleman had walked a few steps into my bedroom. I was hiding so embarrassed over my feelings. I had to admit I didn’t like Ramiel at first. I was jealous of every man close to Sophia.

  “Don’t you know how to knock? What do you want?” I recalled snapping, quick to hide the picture of Sophia.

  Ramiel greeted me with a warm smile, uncaring of by my rudeness, which fueled me more. He walked back to the door. I thought he would leave, but instead he closed the door and wandered back in to stand before me.

  “Will you allow me a moment of your time, young Abuda? I need to speak with you.”

  I ignored him and rose, pushing my way around him. At once, I felt a cold hand at my side; fingers tightly gripped my arm, and pulled at me.

  I glanced back in bewilderment and disbelief. Our eyes met. I tried to pull my arm away, but my struggles were pointless. Ramiel seemed to be unmoved by my resistance.

  He shoved me, a timid fifteen-year-old me. I dropped onto the small leather sofa I had been sitting on before he had attempted this conversation. His narrow stare now fell right on me. He moved around my room looking at the pictures and collections of a teen boy’s room. I had everything one could want. What could I say? We were wealthy, and Sophia sought to please me. Ramiel stopped before me. I was about to protest as his behavior, but when his eyes stared hard at me, I froze for a mere second before I could regain my courage. “How dare you? When my moth— finds out what…”

  He wrinkled a side lip at my failed words.

  He bent down over me, a condescending wrinkled grimace plastered on his face. I shriveled back, biting down on my lip. I would be the first to admit he frightened me. I tried to regain my bravery, but it was slowly slipping from my fingers.

  Ramiel snatched Sophia’s picture from my grasp. I didn’t try to recover it. My hands trembled slightly. Ramiel examined the picture and began to speak with a smile.

  “Now, young Prince. I know how you hate the nickname the vamps have given you, but what you fail to realize is how well it suits you.”

  “Is that why you’ve barged into my bedroom, to insult me? Get out. My mother will hear of this, and make you pay dearly for it!” I yelled.

  “Your mother is a good friend of mine. I respect her. I would never do anything to harm her, or you.”

  “Friend? Is that what you call it? You’re drooling over her. You’re like all the others. You want her, just like every other fool in this world, but you can’t have her. All your money can’t buy her. Just face it, you’re jealous of me, because she loves me.”

  “Silence!” Ramiel firmly snapped, undisturbed by my insults. The gentle grin reappeared on his face, and it frightened me greatly.

  “What do you want?” I bravely rephrased, a little calmer than before.

  “To help you.”

  “To help me? Help me with what? And why sh
ould I trust you? I hardly know you.”

  “Then, we must change that. Don’t you think?” he said grinning. He made me turn from him to avoid his smile.

  “What the hell are you talking about, old man? What do you think you can help me with?”

  Ramiel sat across from me, on the white leather couch. I never really looked at him as I did now. He was dressed in a black jacket, without a tie, and a collarless gray cotton shirt. He had a white nest of shoulder length hair pulled slightly back away from his face. He seemed well put together.

  I was bashful, feeling somehow that Ramiel was reading me, plucking my thoughts one by one from my head as well as my feelings, like one does the feathers of a chicken.

  Ramiel had a glow about him. His skin was pale like thin paper, and his eyes were a somewhat gray, almost white. I had never noticed before, but two canines sharply stuck out from amongst the rest of his teeth. I wondered why even he had gotten into the fad of wearing fangs like everyone else in the Cathedral.

  “I’m talking about your feelings. Your dreams.”

  I tried hiding my astonishment, but I couldn’t stop thinking that perhaps Ramiel had read my thoughts, and the idea scared me. I didn’t know what he was capable of, but I suspected a lot more than I was aware of.

  “I know what you desire more than anything, Seth. I can help you achieve it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You know nothing about me.” But my voice was very uncertain and shaky.

  “I know more than you think. I know why you bite your lips when you say the word “mother,” why you cringe at the sound of the word itself.”

  I flashed him a glance, stirring in my seat. How did he? He couldn’t possibly know what I felt or why I resisted this illusion- for that’s what it was, a wicked illusion of some evil to keep me away from Sophia, my love. Ramiel placed Sophia’s picture on the coffee table in front of us. He seemed to dare me to reach for it the way his eyes darted towards it then back to me.

  “You know nothing!” I snarled, rushing to my feet and grabbing the picture from the table. I clenched it tightly against my chest. In embarrassment, I exhaled, turning away from Ramiel, who rose slowly and took a single step towards me. I sobbed silently, laughing in between sobs as I did so, still clenching the picture tightly in my grasp.

  “You know nothing.”

  “Perhaps I don’t. Tell me.” His expression softened and he seemed more caring. It set me off slightly that his features had now seemed fatherly, drawing me to feel comfort. How was that?

  At that moment, I wanted to spill my heart out to him. What if I could share my darkest secret with someone that would understand my pain? I took a breath, feeling my grip on the picture lessen as I looked up at him. He pushed a strand of my hair away. I felt no judgement from those large grey eyes of his, only reassurance and understanding.

  “It’s hard…so hard to love someone you can’t have. To desire her and not have her. Because God Himself said it can’t be. Damn them. Damn me…” I bit my lips.

  He reached a hand to my cheek. I recoiled, but froze as his fingers wiped at the single tear that had rolled down my face.

  “I know.”

  I glared at him suddenly. Did he honestly? I pulled myself away from him, swallowing the pain as well as further tears that wanted to escape from my eyes.

  “No, you don’t! No one knows the pain I must face each time I see her. I’m sick. I must be. What else can it be? But it feels right. I must be sick…” There could be no other answer of why I felt such affection for her, that she and I were two people that had been connected by an eternal love. But how could it be when in this life we were far from that?

  Ramiel walked over. I felt him near, and slowly turned and hopelessly glanced up at him, clenching the picture against my chest.

  “Will you tell my mother? Will you take her away from me? She can’t be around me.” I was a mess. I saw no other reason. I shouldn’t be near her.

  “Never. Seth, listen to me; you’re not mad or sick. Your feelings are right,” he said to me.

  I was immediately surprised, far more astonished.

  “But how can they be? She will leave me if she knows. She’ll stop loving me.” I was sure of this. There was something wrong with me.

  My grip on the picture tightened as I fought with my emotions. I tried to be brave and strong around Ramiel, but I couldn’t. I had lost more than my nerve and weakened before him. Part of me wanted to hear what he had to say. I felt there might be hope, but the other part of me couldn’t even face him. I was filled with a dread and embarrassment.

  Suddenly, Ramiel embraced me. I surprised myself by not recoiling or flinching away. Instead, I dropped into his arms with a whimper.

  “I won’t let that happen. I’m here to help you. I will try to explain the dreams and a portion of these things that are happening to you. Your feelings and your strange desires for Sophia, who happens to be your mother in this reality…” I lifted my head and blinked quizzically over at him. Reality? “Oh yes.” he said, “all this is an illusion; one created to keep you imprisoned in here.” He pointed to his head then his heart. "Your feelings are nothing to be alarmed about.”

  “A portion?” I snapped, pulling away from him, wiping at the tears that had rolled down my cheeks. “Why only a portion? You don’t understand, I want her! I want to be with her! Everything about her arouses me! Her smile, her scent! It’s like we’re meant to be together! And my father…I find myself despising him every day. Growing restless like an encased animal. I feel he’s my enemy, that I should be wary of him. And you say you can only tell me a portion! If there’s a reason for my insane behavior I need to know.”

  “Seth.”

  I remembered being frustrated and embarrassed at first with the older gentleman for revealing my desires. The frustration and feelings were overwhelming, but the fact that Ramiel had disclosed my bitter secret first had eased my concerns.

  “She is not your mother, Seth. She’s you wife, your lover. And I will make you see that. I will destroy the illusion that has imprisoned the both of you.” His hand reached out, pressing his fingers to my temple and a flash of a dream emerged. It was more clear than any dream. I believed it, felt all my senses came alive. I could smell and feel the air against my skin and saw all that he wanted me to know. It was real, everything that I felt. Our life, our true life, a life where me and Sophia were together in love. She was different then. She had a mane as red as blood and was youthful as she was now. An immortal, Ramiel’s words echoed in my head. I was dressed in the robes of a prince, with hair as dark as the night and skin as pale as the snow that fell from all around us. There was a palace with large golden peaks and ships that descended into the heavens and beyond.

  I gasped as his fingers pulled away, blinking at the visions of beauty he had shown me. “Not visions,” he corrected, “but your life. Your true past life. This, what you see now is merely the illusion imprisoning the both of you.”

  He convinced me, not by mere words, but by showing me everything I’d known and somehow forgotten.

  I tried not to think about it. I grabbed the shirt from the chair and my coat, pulled up my pants and straightened my tie, then I walked out of the room, closing the door behind me.

  17

  The Reluctant Vampire

  Eric

  What good are friends if they can’t do you any good?

  I met with the new bartender earlier in the day. He was on time, and elegantly dressed. I was glad he had a fashion sense of his own. He was quite young, with shoulder length, dyed bright red hair and large round eyes. He was extremely pale and thin, but then most of us did. He was wearing a long cloak, and beneath it was a vest and a pair of black slacks. His lips were slightly discolored; he seemed hungry, as if he was wasting away. There was something else strange about him, too. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and he seemed slightly paranoid. His neatness in appearance and his quick answers to my questions soon o
verruled any doubts I had in hiring him.

  I walked him through the Cathedral, avoiding Seth any way I could. The Cathedral was crowded, and Angelo was by the bar, busy as always. I brought him over there. The club patrons crowded the stools, greeting us as we passed them by. I smiled back, yet Lucas seemed to be eagerly searching the dance floor. I beckoned him, tapping him on the shoulder. He jumped up as a sigh escaped him, and then walked over to me.

  “When will I meet the owner? Don’t I have to?” he suddenly asked, with so much expectation growing in his soft voice that it made me wonder why.

  “You don’t want to meet him,” Angelo answered as he came from behind us.

  He’d been standing at the other end of the bar, wiping the counter. His boyish face was hidden beneath the glittering sparkles of his makeup. He was beautiful, his long hair white with highlights of blue, and his makeup matched the color of his hair. Sparkles of light glimmered from his pale cheeks, and crystals shimmered pasted on the ghostly eyebrows. His eyelids were a frosty blue, with just a hint of black liner, and his lips were a light blue. He wore white and light blue colors. He was the exact opposite of the rest of us.

  Lucas spun around just as I did. Angelo introduced himself, dropping the cloth on the bar counter, greeting us with a smile, flashing us a custom pair of double fangs from those bluish sparkling lips.

  “So…you must be our new bartender?”

  There was a slight hesitation in Lucas; perhaps he was dazzled by Angelo’s appearance, as most were. Angelo was the only one of us who wasn’t gothic.