by Sonia Harper
She felt an odd mixture of relief and fear as her suspicions were confirmed. Erik stepped inside the room with his head already turned to face her.
"Hello," Erik smiled pleasantly as if they were just running into each other at a coffee shop. He had a file tucked under one arm, and his other hand rested inside the pocket of his pants. Adelyn's face contorted into confusion as she raked her eyes over her friend's boyfriend over and over again. Short black hair slicked back with a ridiculous amount of hair gel. Pressed white dress shirt, expensive suit pants. Short stature and dark, artificially tanned skin. A sharp inhale of her nose brought in the scent of strong cologne, too much to be considered appropriate.
"Oh god, it is you," Adelyn whispered, eyes searching his for some kind of explanation, but he simply kept smiling at her. "What's going on?" The question shot out of her mouth. "Did they bring you here as well?" She asked, but her mind already shot that question down. The ease with which the guardian allowed Erik to walk around, combined with the interesting-looking file under his arm, made for a strong case that he was definitely not here against his will.
"Ah, well, perhaps you'd better have a seat," he took his hand out of his pocket and gestured to the chair that she had woken up in. He turned around and shut the door before walking around the desk, throwing the file on top of it as he did so. He sighed as he lowered himself into the banker's chair, leaning back into it and smiling once he realized that Adelyn hadn't moved.
"Please, sit," he requested again. "I apologize for the state of the furniture in here," he turned his attention to the file in front of him as he opened it, picking out papers and pulling a pen out of the desk drawer. "It's all we had to work with, I'm afraid."
"Where am I?" She demanded, walking forward and gripping the back of her chair for support. "What are you doing here?"
"One question at a time, please," Erik waved a hand in the air as he wrote something down on a piece of paper in front of him. "And only if you have a seat," he added. "You've been through a lot, and I feel bad for you. I had that chair brought up specifically for you," he glanced up and smiled at her. "It's the only padded chair in the building."
Adelyn shook her head, but she felt her body walk around the chair as she slowly lowered herself into it. "What building?" She pressed once more for answers.
"The old textile mill," he answered as if it was obvious. He circled something on his paper.
"The one that was slated for demolition?" She asked, incredulous. She had written a fluff piece for the newspaper a year ago about the plans to demolish the old textile mill that sat about thirty minutes outside of the city. The mill had once been the lifeline of the town, providing jobs for nearly most of the then-small town's population. Over decades, the manufacturing jobs dried up and the town grew into a bustling city, the mill and its surrounding buildings abandoned after the factory closed its doors. The building had been vacant for nearly twenty years before a developer purchased the land a year ago, intending to demolish the building and build a subdivision on the land.
"The very one," Erik tapped his pen against his chin as he considered another piece of paper in front of him. "I have to thank you, by the way, for writing that article," he glanced up at her as he spoke. "The factory was exactly what I needed, and the developer was more than happy to realize his plans elsewhere once I handed him a sizable amount of cash."
"What?" Adelyn asked again, feeling as though the confused and bewildered look was about to become a permanent expression on her face.
"Well, if you were a bit patient, I could have explained everything all at once instead of answering your questions one at a time," Erik put down the pen and gave her a grin that she could only describe as smug. He crossed his arms across his chest and bobbed back and forth lightly in his tilted chair.
"Erik," she warned, growing annoyed. This was the Erik that she knew: the smug, arrogant, sleazy guy that acted like he was better than everyone else. How he managed to hide this side of himself from Kate for so long was a mystery to Adelyn because she couldn't have a single conversation with him without wanting to slap him in the first five minutes.
"This isn't funny," She bit the words angrily. "I don't know what you're talking about or why you're here, but in case you haven't noticed, I've had a very rough month," she held up a hand to her many injuries. "Something tells me you know all about it," she continued, her voice growing louder as her anger simmered over. "That was you last night delivering food to the Manor, wasn't it?"
Erik's smile faltered. "You saw me, did you?" He sighed and tossed his pen onto the desk as he reached up and rubbed his face. "You didn't tell them you recognized me, did you?" He asked from behind his hands, his voice oddly small, a far cry from the arrogant tone a moment ago.
"No," she lied smoothly, remembering the back story that Donovan had insisted she use. She wasn't sure exactly how, or even if, Erik was involved in the guardians, but she decided to take precaution and use it on him anyway. "Clearly you know who they are and what they're capable of," she continued, watching him closely. "Do you really think that I would volunteer anything to them?"
"So they were keeping you under lock and key," his hands fell away from his face as he leaned forward, all traces of worry in his voice completely gone.
"You were the one who told Kate to tell me about that fake job they were offering," Adelyn's eyes narrowed as she tried to sift through all the information she had already. "You knew about them, and you still sent me there. You," her eyes widened slightly as realization dawned. "You set this whole thing up!"
Erik sighed and held his hands up. "Now listen," he countered quickly. "Just let me explain everything before you start throwing accusations around and get the wrong idea about me."
Oh, I think I have the right idea about you, Adelyn thought furiously as she tried to keep her facial expression as neutral as possible. She had a feeling she was swimming into unknown waters, even if he was offering to explain everything to her. Mentally bracing herself for whatever came out of his mouth, she clenched her jaw.
"Tell me," she demanded.
Erik dug through a few papers and pulled out a blank sheet of lined paper. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small digital voice recorder and laid it on the table, pressing the button to start the recording. He picked up his pen once more. "Before I can explain, I need you to tell me about your experiences at the Manor for the past month. What was going on out there? What did you see?" He asked, pen poised to write down notes.
"Why are you recording this?" She asked, frowning at the device. Never mind why he was using it; she wanted to know why he was using a voice recorder and paper. For a guy that was constantly bragging about his latest technological gadget, this seemed out of place for him.
"I'll explain everything later. Just tell me," he pressed. His voice had turned firm, demanding. Clearly, he wasn't going to offer her any more explanations without first getting information out of her.
Adelyn sighed and leaned back into her chair, lifting her elbow onto the chair's arm and resting her hand on her fist. She made sure her wrist was angled to capture Erik behind his desk.
"I went for the interview and one of them-," she was cut off immediately.
"Name?" His pen poised over the paper. "What did he look like?"
"I don't know," she lied. "He had short blonde hair," she gave a vague, generic description of someone who looked nothing Gregory. "He took my car keys away and told me that I wasn't allowed to leave the house. I thought it was a joke and tried to leave," she gave a short, humourless laugh and brought her hand up to her nose. "Well, it's healing now, but he made his point."
"So they kept you there? Why?" His eyes narrowed as he searched her face. "When the redhead approached me about needing an executive assistant for their company, he didn't say why."
Erik must be Pytho's only connection outside of the manor if he was also approaching him for employees as well.
"I don't know," she quickly tried to thin
k of something to say that made sense. "They forced me to clean." She shook her head and lowered her eyes to the floor, hoping that her performance was convincing. Cleaning was the only activity she could think of that wouldn't make Erik believe that she knew anything about the daemons or what they did all day.
"I really can't tell you much about them," she continued. "Most of the time, I was just locked up in one of the bedrooms that they let me use. I can't tell you how many times I tried to get away," she swallowed and tried to force some tears into her eyes. They sprang easily due to the stress and lack of sleep over the past few days.
"They killed Sinatra," she continued in a whisper, the thought of anything like that actually happening forced more tears. They started to roll down her cheeks. "I tried to fight back and escape last night, but," again she gestured to her injuries, sniffling lightly.
"I was told that you were in possession of a gun two nights ago," she saw Erik's eyes narrow as she glanced up. "Explain. Why didn't you try to escape then?"
"I did!" she insisted, reaching up and wiping away the tears as she sniffed once more. "They were busy fighting these scary monsters," she threw her arm back to indicate the guardian in the hallway. "The redhead left his room open, so I ran in and grabbed a gun that I knew he kept. I was trying to leave when two grey creatures burst into the hallway. One of them offered to help me escape, but the other attacked me. I shot him," she sniffed and looked down at the ground. "I thought he was going to kill me."
"You also shot the one that offered to help you escape," he stated, no question in his tone. Clearly, the guardian had already told him exactly what had happened that night. She was thankful that she had already anticipated this question with Donovan earlier.
"I was aiming for the redhead," she snapped angrily, eyebrows furrowing. "Do you really think I would try to hurt something - anything - that would get me out of that hell hole?" Her voice grew louder with each word until she practically ended in a shout. "I was so desperate to get away from there that I was about to trust my life with monsters I knew nothing about!"
Erik paused, then leaned back in his chair, seeming to mull over her words. She watched and waited as he slowly processed all the information she had given him. She realized she was holding her breath and slowly released it, forcing herself to breathe normally. Forget being stuck in a room with Cain, she thought. This act was by far the scariest thing she had ever done. She desperately needed him to believe her story. If he didn't, she was sure that she had just backed herself into a corner. She told him she didn't have any information to offer him. He might decide to let the guardians kill her.
Erik's head slowly nodded after what felt like an eternity, and Adelyn felt relief bubble up in her chest. That just bought her some more time.
"So you really don't know anything, do you?" He asked again in a disappointed tone after a long pause.
"Know anything about what?" She threw back. "I have no clue what's going on here. What are those things?" She threw a glance over her shoulder to make sure the door was still shut. "Why did you refer me to that job in the first place?" She leaned forward and pleaded with her eyes, begging for answers.
Erik let out a long sigh, then finally reached forward and turned off the voice recorder.
"They're our guardians," he rested his arms on the desk, his voice low as he explained.
"Whose guardians?"
"Ours," he repeated. "You and me. Everyone. Mankind," he threw his arms out. "They protect us from monsters-from demons," he stressed both words heavily. "Those men who kept you at the Manor? They aren't human," he shook his head slowly. "They're demons."
"Demons?" She repeated, frowning. "Demons don't exist, Erik."
"They do," he insisted, leaning forward. "I know how you must have felt when you saw our guardians for the first time, Adelyn. I know how I felt when I first saw them. They look like monsters, they really do. But they're nothing compared to those demons. Don't judge the demons by their appearances. They may seem human, but you haven't seen how they behave, how they fight, how they kill humans for sport," he spat angrily. "They're demons, Adelyn, and you have to believe me, because we're fighting them for you, for everybody," his face turned soft, and he stared at her with a look of pity on his face.
He actually believed everything he was saying, Adelyn realized. He believed that the daemons were out to destroy mankind and that it was his job to protect everyone by killing them. He wasn't trying to feed her a lie; he was actually telling her the truth.
His truth, she caught herself.
"Where do those things - guardians," she corrected herself. "Where do they come from? Why are they helping you?"
"They're not just helping me," he explained, leaning back into his chair once more. "They've been helping us for centuries. You know about the witch hunts that were in Europe a few hundred years ago, yes?"
"Around the sixteenth century?" She fought the urge to roll her eyes at his use of the phrase 'a few'. "Yes, what does that have to do with anything?"
"It started then," he picked up his pen and started tapping it against his hand. "A small group of men decided to try and fight back against the supernatural - against all of those creatures, not just the witches, mind you. They were hopelessly outgunned against their opponents until one of them decided to make a deal with the devil," he raised his eyes up to hers.
"The devil?" She repeated, eyebrow furrowing.
"Metaphorically speaking," he quickly corrected himself. "These demons that kept you at the Manor, apparently some of them are able to use something similar to magic," he rubbed the pen between his fingers distractedly. "Not surprisingly, several of them delight in wreaking havoc, not just for humans, but for their own kind. The man was able to approach one of the demons and convinced it that helping humans would cause a lot of problems for their own people. The demon was thrilled. Of course, the man asked for the ability to fight against supernatural beings, but the result was, well," Erik paused and tilted his chin toward the door. "You've seen his offspring."
"He was turned into one of those?" She asked, horrified. She had never seen any of the daemons use any kind of magic, other than Pytho's fire and Cain's telepathic ability. She wasn't quite sure whether to believe that part of Erik's story.
"Yes," Erik threw the pen on the desk with a disgusted look. "Luckily, our
Guardians do have abilities far beyond our own. They're more powerful than we could ever hope to be. They can certainly hold their own against other monsters out there."
"So you work with them to try and kill the demons?" She asked, making sure her wrist was still tilted to face him even though she wasn't resting on her fist anymore.
"I don't really work with them," Erik laughed condescendingly. "They work for me," he gave her another one of his arrogant grins. "I tell them what to do, and they do it."
"You're in charge of all our guardians?" Her eyes widened in mock awe. She knew Erik's soft spot. If she stroked his ego a bit, he'd give her a little more information.
"The ones here at this location," he boasted, pleased at her expression. He gave her a smile. "The group I told you about, the men who wanted to fight back against the supernatural? Their mission is still being carried out. I'm a member of the Council; it's the name the group gave themselves over the years. It started with eight original members. Over the years, as each council member dies, another person replaces them. I was approached by the Council after my father died ten years ago in a car accident."
His eyes drifted down to the desk, and his voice had taken on a different tone. "I was informed that it wasn't a car accident; my father had been killed by a demon. They explained everything to me. My father was working with them as a member of the Council. His work was still unfinished, they explained. I had the opportunity to avenge him and carry out his vision," his eyes turned dark as he remembered his father's death.
"I gladly accepted," Erik raised his eyes to look at Adelyn once more, and she could see the determination th
at burned in his gaze. "I was given control over this area," he explained. "This cell of guardians is under my authority."
Adelyn slowly nodded along with his story. A sudden thought occurred to her, and she felt her stomach drop to the floor. "Is Kate involved in all of this?"
"No," Erik said firmly. "And it's going to stay that way," he pointed at finger at her. "I don't want to involve her in any of this. It could put her in harm's way."
Relieved that her best friend wasn't involved, she nodded in response and tried to hide the relief from her face. She was also slightly relieved that Erik really did have feelings for Kate and that he wasn't just using her for some selfish purpose. She watched as he stood from his chair and stepped over to the filing cabinet. His back was to her, but she heard the jingle of the keys as he unlocked one of the drawers and reached in.
When he finally turned around and shut the drawer, he was holding a very old book in his hands. She peered at it curiously, wondering what he was going to do with it. The bookbinding was frayed, to the point where it looked as though it was about to split in half. There were a few symbols that appeared to be written by hand on the cover of the book. She couldn't place the origin of the symbols; to be perfectly honest, she wasn't even sure they were intentional symbols. They looked like little black squiggly lines that stretched from the middle of the cover to the bottom.
"You said that they had you clean the Manor. Have you seen anything in the Manor with these symbols on it?" Erik asked, turning the face of the book so that it was facing her.
"No," she answered honestly. "Why?"
A frustrated noise escaped Erik's lips. "Never mind," he exhaled forcefully, reaching for the drawer once more and locking the book back inside the filing cabinet.
She frowned while his back was turned. It must have something to do with the daemons, she thought to herself. She was glad that her arm was still turned when he showed her the book; one of the daemons should be able to tell her what it was once they watched the footage.
