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

by S. C. Lewis

  No, he had his own style. He mostly resembled a nymphomaniac angel.

  Slowly, Lucas extended his hand and shook the bartender’s.

  “Name’s Angelo. Welcome to the Cathedral De Los Vampiros. This is my lair,” Angelo smirked, referring to the bar.

  Lucas glanced about him, seeing a variety of liquor bottles sitting neatly across the back counter. Wine glasses and beer mugs hung upside down from holding hooks on the frames above the bar.

  “So, why not?” Lucas suddenly asked. “I mean, why wouldn’t I want to meet the owner? I heard she’s very pretty and nice. Wait a minute, did you say ‘he?’” he stammered, almost instantly forgetting everything else.

  Angelo grinned, and the smile on my face spread as well.

  “Oh, you mean Sophia. Oh, yes, she’s hot!” Angelo blurted, and then bit his tongue, catching the frown of disapproval on my face.

  “I mean, she’s great, and very beautiful.”

  “Yeah, who did you think I was talking about?” Lucas asked, trying not to laugh as Angelo corrected himself under my instruction. “Who is ‘he?’”

  Angelo didn’t smile; instead, he frowned slightly as a sigh left his lips. Lucas felt uncomfortable, fearing he had misjudged the nice-looking vampire.

  But at once, Angelo gazed past him, the frown still spread over his face as he signaled for us to look over at the top of the staircase. Coming down the steps was Seth, right on cue. He was looking wildly around, as if in search of someone.

  “Heads up, Eric. I think he’s coming this way,” Angelo warned me.

  “Yeah, I think he’s looking for me,” I said nervously, trying to hide behind the heads of the patrons.

  “Who’s he?” Lucas asked, gazing with whetted interest at the tall, pale figure coming down the steps, dressed in a navy suit and red tie.

  The man was handsome, he noted, with black short hair, which fell over his eyebrows. Lucas watched him carefully stepping onto the dance floor and be greeted by a security guard at the bottom of the staircase.

  Angelo hurried to his work, mixing the drink he already had in his hand, and handed it to a patron across the bar.

  “Our mean boss is here. Just sit by, and don’t say a word, okay? Take notes, look busy, but don’t get his attention. Believe me, you don’t want it.”

  Lucas nervously shook his head, and took the notebook and pen from Angelo’s hand to take down anything important.

  I made my way around the bar. My eyes still focused on Seth. I followed him through the crowd. He seemed to glance over at the bar, but either he didn’t notice us, or didn’t care. He kept on walking, moving through the crowd with the security guard and the bouncer escorting him through the dancers.

  I looked around for the others; they were all on the dance floor; the Elders were by the door, picking those they felt should enter. Everyone was where he or she was supposed to be.

  I looked back at Angelo. He was flipping a liquor bottle in the air, and then catching it, pouring it into a shaker. I called him over. He took the money from a girl customer, blowing her a kiss as she skipped away to the dance floor with her drink.

  “Angelo, have you seen Sophie?”

  “Nope. Hey, did you see that? He didn’t even come over here.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m worried about Sophie, though. I don’t want to leave her alone with him.”

  “Why?” Angelo asked, clearly perplexed.

  I knew I didn’t have time to explain what I felt and feared. Perhaps it was foolish, or perhaps I thought he wouldn’t believe me. I knew Angelo wasn’t that type of person. He had been a good friend for a long time, and was the most generous of souls.

  “Just a feeling,” I muttered.

  He didn’t ask again; perhaps it made sense when considering Seth was an asshole, and he might say something cruel to his mother to hurt her feelings.

  “I haven’t seen her since the meeting, and she didn’t come down to dinner. She usually joins us.”

  “I know, that’s why I’m worried.”

  “Don’t sweat it. She’s probably spending some time with the Prince.”

  Poor Angelo; even he hadn’t realized how scary that sounded.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I muttered.

  But Angelo didn’t hear me; taking another order, he left me by the side of the bar with Lucas seated closely nearby, rapidly taking his notes.

  18

  The Dream Comes to Reality

  Sophia

  You have been cursed. Every day you are the recipient of very real and magically formidable curses.

  I gazed across into the empty streets, taking a tiny sip from the wine glass in my grasp. I could feel my head spinning from the alcohol in my veins, but still I drank hoping that any minute Nathan would call. He hadn’t, and I began to cry.

  Westheimer was beautiful. The streets and the lights sparkled, and people walked along the sidewalk without a care in the world. I could hear the traffic, see people waving as they spotted me under the arched window of the arcade passageway, connecting and leading into the south dome away from the foyer.

  The Cathedral was divided with its south and north domes to each side of the building. The passageway guided the visitor into the other connecting buildings, where areas like the library and the theater were located.

  The Cathedral was enormous, containing an amazing amount of craftsman detail and elegantly austere beauty. The descent into these huge domes was breathtaking. A gallery encircled the main dome from the second floor, and to look down revealed the center, where a single chandelier barely touched the marble floor below. Though both domes were made in the same manner, the north dome housed the theater and was the only dome without a chandelier in the center. In its place, a large audience area occupied the dome. In fact, most of the dome was the theater, and not the sitting area. The domes were large, but not as huge as the main dome, where you entered the Cathedral vestibule.

  It was under the encased arched window that I sat this evening, on the first floor in the arcade passageway, a step away from the south dome.

  I stared out of the large arched window, unframed and opened to the elements of this place. Again, the wind was blowing with that horrifying howling, suffocating the air with a kind of hollow emptiness. My hair was flapping in the fingers of the wind. It felt like the touch of ice on my skin, like frost nibbling at my nose and cheeks, and I began my usual pronounced trembling.

  I climbed upon the large window and sat, folding my legs; across from me was a bucket of ice with a bottle of champagne. A small platter of finger foods sat beside it, untouched and sealed with a plastic container.

  I took the bottle from the bucket, and poured myself another glass of champagne. Holding it tightly in my hands, I began thinking of Nathan once again. Remembrances of him became perverted with thoughts of Seth forcing me down to the ground. I felt sick, as flashes of the incident devoured my innocent moment. I could feel his breath, his hands on my body. I fell against the wall silently, letting the glass drop from my hand, and then began to cry uncontrollably. What had come over him? Why did I doubt this reality after what he had revealed? The dreams he claimed we shared were, in fact, dreams I had seen myself. Doubts were starting to fill my mind.

  Was I weakening? Did I believe it? I feared that the moment would come that I would give in. Even when I knew it was wrong, even when I knew I had doubts stirring in me from some deep dark part. There would come a time when I wouldn’t be able to stop him, or to fight any longer.

  “Oh, my Prince…I pray you really exist. I wish you were here. If only to make sense of this world, which I have so foolishly fallen prey to. Hear me…” I said aloud, in reference to the storybook character.

  I bit my lip, only regretting that I had named my son after the character I had grown to love. What a mistake. Was I being punished for that?

  I lay against the dry, brick window, tears still pouring from my eyes. I continued crying even after I closed them, as the sounds o
f the street slowly faded into my listless, completely unreachable dreams.

  19

  Sweet Dreams are Made of These…

  Sophia

  From between the trees it towered over the forest, and the branches barely touched the walls. The round towers resembled Parisian buildings of circa 1360. The peaks reached into the sky, lost somewhere in the darkness and no longer visible. The eerie but beautiful Palace, not dissimilar in type to Italian fortresses, palaces or town houses, was like the Palazzo Medici, except that it was executed in the late Gothic mode.

  Thick vines crawled over the side of the white building; vines filled with thorns which ripped into the marble. The scent of roses filled the air; red living roses blossomed from every direction imaginable.

  In a single moment, the entrance of the huge palace slowly opened. The large gates were designed and decorated in holy images, as though they themselves told the tale of the great battle in Heaven between God and the devil. A large image of the virgin holding the child Christ as the ultimate object of all learning was astutely framed by the signs of the zodiac, and the occupations of each demarcated month.

  Below the Christ, a large rose separated the next chapter in the web of deception and confusion that followed yet another mark upon the devil, the tale of the Sarlovakk Dynasty.

  Inside and beyond the metal gates, a huge garden of roses bloomed, surrounding the path, side-by-side. The garden was designed with large columns, with white lily-shaped formations that left off where they met the curve of each conoid’s arch and the ceiling. Half of these lilies were used in series on two sides of a hall space. Transverse arches provided shade for the rose garden, like a fishnet filled with souls and imprisoned in smooth rose petal red walls. The pendant vaults formed a series of conoids all around.

  A single narrow path led to a variety of doors. Inside, the doors were all designed in early thirteenth-century detailed stained glass, all showing the signature of the Sarlovakk, the rose.

  The doors opened to reveal the great corridors of the Palace inside. In the distance, the large rose design was visible. It was both the sun and the rose, a two-pronged symbol of Christ as the new sun and Mary as the “rose without thorns,” in the words of the litany of Loreto, taken from the great Chartres Cathedral. The fabulous rose window, from an early thirteenth-century design, Transept arms clasped magnificent roses! With careful observation, the symbols had not changed, but the meaning had. The new sun still represented God, or some form of God, but the rose had sharp, deadly thorns.

  And the words read, “rose with thorns,” the poison.

  In the center of this magnificent chamber, a central pier fanned open into an umbrella-like vault, where ribs were gathered at the corners of an octagon. Except for a low blind arcade just above the benches of the chapter, the walls were glazed with pointed windows of a moderate height, comfortable and well-lit.

  This great chamber was decorated with nave piers widespread; vault ribs took off from brackets shaped into human heads halfway down the triforium band. The slender shafts of the nave and the triforium piers were of dark Purbeck marble. The wall area was decorated with black scrollwork on a red ground, the capitals and moldings were gilded and painted, and only the vault was left white.

  A ridge rib should have run all along the center of the vault, with additional ribs for the standard four-part bay. The result should have been a virtual parade of star-shaped designs. But without a ceiling, only an opening, an endless, dark sky (far darker than the one in Hell) was viewed. It was like a whole different world, with aisles and naves, webbed in a life of independent interior arrangement, that of French standards, and English traits.

  It stretched into a labyrinth. Beyond the aisle of the cathedral’s sculptural marble, another well-detailed, large metal gate guarded its secrets from prying eyes.

  The chapel was lightly-lit, and there were other doors around, revealing several different directions. An enormous light grew at the end of one corridor.

  The light sparkled blindingly, and then simply withered. Far in the distance sat a throne, built out of thorns and rose vines, with rose heads decorating the sides. These had all withered and dried up with time.

  In the center of the chapel stood a figure. I found myself in this place, walking like a drifting zombie. I stepped onward, hearing my own steps beating against the marble floor beneath my bare feet. I felt drawn to the shadowy figure. He was turned away, so I couldn’t see his face.

  I hurried with urgency to his side, stopping a step away from the form. At once, the figure whirled around, and then suddenly grabbed hold of my arm.

  I panicked, pulling away. I gazed up at the stranger’s face. As his eyes slowly met my, it sent chills up my spine though they sparkled in a warm smile. His gorgeous face was glowing, with dangling blonde hair falling about his shoulders, glimmering around his face. He was beautiful, glimmering like a great burning light.

  I froze, but I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t know why.

  I fell into his arms. He bent forward and pressed his lips against mine in a long-awaited kiss.

  “I’ve found you at last!” The figure whispered, squeezing me tightly in his arms. “I won’t let anything separate us again.”

  I held him tightly, weeping joylessly as I did.

  “Sabelle…” he hissed as he kissed my neck, ardently yet softly.

  I felt intoxicated by his touch; weakened. I lay in his embrace, feeling his lips kiss me sweetly. His gentle touch moved me tenderly. His rich lips were sweet and alluring, hungrily kissing my own, yet his desire was pure and innocent.

  In a trance, I opened my eyes, realizing that instead of an angelic face, a withering older face with bitter and fragile lips and eyes so gray and rage-filled looked upon me. From the wrinkled, sunken, pale cheeks a wicked grimace unfolded from twin earthen lips as he held me tightly to him. The long blonde golden strands were gone, and in their place were long black strands of hair flowing down his shoulders and over his head, like cobwebs made alive by the tiniest blowing warm currents of the air…

  I screamed.

  “This time you won’t escape me! You’re mine forever!”

  At once, I felt pulled back; the frightening figure was racing after me as I moved away from him. I was gliding, floating from him, faster and faster until he was a tiny speck on the ground. Another’s arm held me tightly, and I saw we were floating in the sky over the decaying grounds beyond them.

  I looked up and saw but a glimpse of a pale face and white cotton hair. He had carried me off, white wings spread over his back as he moved across the sky with me in his arms. The stranger briefly glanced down at me, but for a second I caught the sight of his familiar face. And nestled on my lips like feathers was his holy, sacred name…

  20

  He Comes…

  Seth

  “Ramiel?” I called out, entering the passageway. I would have sworn I heard voices, or a voice. The bouncers had left me alone to go to the north dome, and now I wished they had followed.

  I walked slowly down the long passageway, glancing out the arched windows as I passed every single one and came closer to the south dome’s entrance. From a distance, I saw a shadow—perhaps I hadn’t been mistaken about seeing someone in the passageway. But this time, instead of calling out, I hurried silently, hoping to catch whoever had entered the passage.

  As I approached, I saw a man dressed in a long black cloak bent over a woman’s body. I didn’t think much of it. In fact, I thought a couple had come into the passage to get romantically acquainted. I would soon get rid of them, and scold Ralph for letting them get past security. As I got closer, I noticed something odd: the figure was licking the woman’s neck, sucking at her throat. As I came closer, I realized the woman was Sophia.

  I gasped, almost losing my breath in horror, and rushed over, leaping onto the vampirical figure. I threw the intruder aside, screaming for security at the same time. I pushed the being against the brick walls of the passage, and stru
ggled with him. The monster’s vengeful smile stained with Sophia’s blood glared back at me. I angrily swung a fist across the stranger’s pale face.

  “What have you done to her, you fucking bastard? I’ll kill you if you’ve hurt her! I’ll kill you!”

  The figure regained his strength quickly. He threw himself against me, pinning me against the wall of the passage, and suddenly stomped a hand against my chest. I froze as I felt a twisting pain crawl all over my body. The stranger’s hand clawed at my chest, drawing blood. My shirt became soaked as the stranger’s long nails ripped into my flesh.

  “Not this time. Not again.”

  I screamed, trying to fight him off, but the stranger’s strength was incredible.

  Suddenly, a hand whipped the air across the being’s face with the same powerful strength. The monster was flung back to the opposite side of the passage.

  But he immediately rose, dusting off the webs from his black cloak. Ramiel was already breathing down his face.

  “You!”

  “What? Can’t you say my name?” the intruder shrieked; then, he mumbled a phrase, the walls rumbled, and Ramiel stepped back, covering his ears.

  I crawled to my feet and lifted myself from the ground beside Sophia’s unconscious figure. I clenched my chest, looking down at the blood on my fingers. Sophia stirred; barely awake, she opened her eyes and glanced in my direction. I bent forward over her and pressed my lips over hers. Her warm mouth opened, and I pressed closer against her, caressing her breast. I could smell and taste the wine on her sweet lips.

  “Amael…” she moaned softly as I pulled away from her. The stranger’s laughter erupted from behind me.

  I lifted Sophia in my arms, and she wrapped her arms around my shoulder, resting her face against my neck.