The Demon Inside (Hell's Creatures Book 1)

by Katerina Degratte

  The ringmaster frowns, then huffs in annoyance at the man. A whip comes out, slicing through the skin... “Show your real face!” he demands, brought down by the boos all around.

  He tries to resist the hits, but a few lashes later bares fangs. The crowd still isn’t too impressed. Vampires weren’t the hip, new thing. No one said a damn thing about him being whipped like he was a slave. I hate humans. Idiots. I wince each time the whip is cracked. “Stop!” I yell. That man couldn’t be human; no one with humanity would do something like that. He keeps at it, trying to get some positive reaction from the crowd. I wasn’t a number one demon fan, but what he was doing was cruel and wrong. “Stop!” I yell again, attention on me this time as I cause the whip to burst into hundreds of shiny insignificant pieces. The crowd applauds at that petty trick, and the ringmaster’s eyes burn holes in me the whole time.

  “Why don’t we have a guest help on stage?” The light shines on me.

  Riley nudges at me. “He wants you to go up there.” She was clearly jealous. The cruel acts did not seem to affect her, but she probably figured it was all for show.

  “No thanks.” I try to deny, but the crowd boos. “Fine, but no more whipping them.” I warn him, walking down to join him on the stage. I feel nervous, as the eyes of the other attendees burn holes in my back.

  “For our second attraction we have a creature of beauty from the ocean. One of the last few of her kind.” The crowd roars. “Aura if you’ll just remove the curtain.” How did he know my name?

  I take the string, and pull revealing a tank full of water, with a girl in it. A mermaid. My breath catches in my throat. The crowd loves it. My hand rests against the glass. She can’t be more than fourteen. I glare at the ringmaster, who the fuck was he?

  “I found her one night while sailing. She tried to steal my heart but ended up on this stage for all to see!” He grins wildly at the screams of affection he’s getting.

  “Who the hell are you?” I whisper at him, being careful not to be overheard.

  He is enjoying the crowd’s attention. “After the show is over you can buy a ticket to get your picture with the beautiful mermaid!” My stomach lurches. She was a kid, mermaid or not. This wasn’t right. To me he whispers, while still waving to the crowd. “Acquaintances with Damien.” Those words confirm my bad feelings from earlier, and I stare at the last curtain, feeling uneasy.

  “The last attraction for the night is a creature old as time itself. Once an angel, until he got rejected and stoned by his people. The rejection turned him dark. Welcome Samuel.” He motions for me to pull the cord, and without knowing I do. From the description I don’t know who else it could be but… Heaven forbid. It’s Gabriel, but there’s no sign of him in his dosed state.

  He drugged him. I should have looked and searched when he ran off instead of just going on. I mentally hit myself. I could have avoided this. His horns are out, skin pale. Wings lazily hanging, the darkness… There wasn’t a light spot left on them. All progress that’s been made just shoved out the fucking door. “Gabriel?” I whisper to him, but he’s out of it.

  The ringmaster takes his staff poking at him. Fucking idiot. He would be lucky to reach Gabriel now; I doubt Samuel will enjoy being locked in a cell.

  He mumbles at being poked. “What do you want?” His teeth protrude in sharp points.

  Finally, you’re awake Samuel. Aren’t you going to say hi to the crowd?” Samuel glares at him, snarling at the people around. “That’s not a nice way to treat your fans.”

  Samuel grabs a hold of the cage bars. “There’s no way you can break through those.” Wrong. Even with the searing burn it causes on his skin, he continues with a grunt, throwing the cage bars aside. The crowd goes wild, not knowing how much trouble they’re actually in.

  “Shit.” Finally, the ringmaster is thrown off his pedestal. I feel time being frozen, humans not being able to move; only demons and angels are able to play. Theresa is probably somewhere in the background, she’s the only one I know with the power of freezing time on this large of a scale. Unless its fucking Santa Claus, and I’m doubtful on that front.

  Samuel walks towards me, temporarily ignoring him. I knew the ringmaster wasn’t human. If he was, he’d be frozen with the rest of them. “We meet again, Aura.” A slow, twisted smile takes over his face. “I bet you weren’t expecting to see me again.”

  “You can’t get rid of evil though.” I refuse to let him scare me off. If he was paying attention to me, it meant less casualties.

  “That you’re right.” He goes to pat my head as if I were a puppy dog, but I back away from his touch. “Smart girl.” He pouts. “Shame, looks like someone got rid of our audience.” I glanced to see all the human’s in the room gone, that couldn’t have been Theresa meaning other angels were in on this now. Shit. I didn’t have time to think of the consequences of that now though.

  I turn away from him for a few seconds and he’s already at the ringmaster’s throat. “You thought you could use me as some stage puppet did ya mate?” He’s holding the pudgy short ringmaster in the air, cutting off circulation. “You really were stupid enough to trust Damien? Did he flash you enough dollar signs that you didn’t consider the possibility of what would happen to you when things went out of hand?” He’s furious.

  “I’m sorry.” The ringmaster chokes, before the air is whipped out of him.

  “Then there were four.” He tsks, looking around. “Who to kill next? Obviously, I’m saving you for last Aura.” He causes a crack in the tank of the young mermaid. The girl’s eyes widened in panic. NO! Human or not she didn’t deserve this ending.

  I send out a light patch to get things cleared up.

  Samuel laughs. “So, you want to tango do you? You can’t outwit me. And you don’t have your little cat around to protect you right now!”

  “I can manage you on my own!” My entry gets a grip of the light beam on the ceiling to bring it crashing down to him.

  “Stupid, stupid.” He tosses’ it off to the side at the last second, to go crashing into the mermaids’ tank.

  “No!” I desperately try to move it out of the way, but I’m too late. Pieces of glass crash around, the mermaid lying in a heap, the ceiling beam going right through her chest. There was no fixing that. A fucking child’s death because I was too fucking stupid! I take an energy beam and throw it at him, but he easily tosses it off. Again, and again and again.

  “I didn’t know you were such a killer Aura. Maybe I could use you on my team.” He taunts me with another one of his damn mind games.

  I run up on him, knocking him down. Full of rage I jump on him, my legs on either side, straddling him. Why did he have to make me this person? Pin the blame on me? I hated it! I was not a killer.

  “Such a compromising position. I do love it when the girls are on top.” He gives me a wicked smirk. I hate how he and Gabriel are nearly identical.

  “You ruin everything!” I say between punches, as he just maniacally laughs, enjoying the pain far too much. “Every step I make with Gabriel is just nothing because you find a way to go backwards a mile or two. Compared to the few steps of progress made!”

  “I love this side of you. So fierce.”

  “Why can’t you just go away?” It’s odd how he’s not doing anything to stop my impoundment on him. Even as blood paints his face.

  “Just cause you win the fight; doesn’t mean you’ll win the war.” Cryptic as ever. His head hits the grass, all signs of demonic appearance fading away. I hear a cat’s cry in the corner. He was Gabriel again. A sleepy, unawakenable Gabriel, but still him. I get up as it’s not worth beating an unconscious man.

  “Mrow.” Maori runs up to me, rubbing against my leg, offering me comfort.

  “What did I miss?” Luke is soon to follow, his face expressionless as he takes in the gruesome scene. The dead child, and Gabriel, once again in a slumber. My body is numb.

  “Luke I can’t do this anymore.” The words sound almost robotic f
rom lack of emotion. He opens his mouth, but I cut him off. “It’s making me into this person I don’t want to be. I need to go. I need to enjoy my last few days or so in peace.” I didn’t want to have to clean up the mess of yet another failure.

  Chapter 28

  “Aura what are you doing back so soon?” My mentor seems unsurprised to see me, despite the question. After all, she had the river of memories to help her out.

  “I just can’t.” She clearly doesn’t like my answer by the lines on her face but accepts it anyway. “So be it. You can get back to work on other matters then.”

  “Okay.” I answer, glad she’s not putting up a fight about me refusing to continue the help of her demon spawn. Shitty paperwork sounded much more rewarding, though I’d miss that cat.

  Chapter 29

  Aura

  Last day(morning)

  When I wake up, I find myself surrounded by white walls, feeling entrapped. A blond and a redhead, look like they're ready to tell me my misdeeds, and give ‘proper’ punishments. The room of judgment… Maybe it was just a nightmare.

  “Are you two aware as to why you were called here today?” I look toward the voice calling out to me and gasp as I see who it is. The head angels that hold even more power than Theresa does. The rule makers and enforcers.

  “We are aware.” I hear Theresa’s voice speak out next to me.

  I feel panic, as what I feared would happen becomes a reality. Looking down at my own clothes I realize I’m back in my simple white dress that was normal for here. This wasn’t a dream.

  “And you Aura, you haven’t answered yet?” The male looks toward me questioning, his blue eyes giving me an ice-cold stare.

  “I am aware,” I answer, voice barely above a whisper.

  “You two have broken many rules and have failed to bring some serious issues to our attention.” The man clears his throat, his blond hair, and blue eyes somewhat menacing. The brown eyes of the red-headed girl sitting next to him look just as serious about the situation.

  I silently sit waiting for the long line of stuff to be listed out.

  “Since you two clearly haven’t read the angel manual, I’ll go over them.” The blond angel clears his throat, acting as if he were about to lecture some toddlers. Though, that’s probably at least how he sees me; I am practically a baby compared to everyone else here.

  And for the life of me I cannot remember his name. It was better that way, since remembering their names clearly would be the result of being sent here many times.

  “Theresa, the mother to the children,” he addresses her, making the words sound vile. “I’m especially disappointed in you for starting all of these escapades of rule breaking.”

  She looks down ashamed as he starts to list them off.

  “You had an affair with a demon and had a son with him.” He says as if disgusted but manages to keep his serious tone. “Care to explain why you did that?” His eyes penetrate her like judging daggers.

  It wouldn’t make any difference what she said either way sadly.

  She holds her head high. “Damien was just starting his mass destruction then, and I had to get rid of his power,” she states. “The child was unplanned,” she tries to explain.

  “Liar.” The red-haired girl rolls her eyes, and seems to be the more outspoken of the two. “You are in charge of the river of memories, so you had ample time to plan it out.”

  “Quiet Audrey,” he hisses at her, to which she just shrugs off. “We did see a major decrease in the troubles in the area after his power was stolen from him.” He gives Theresa a grateful nod before going to what was wrong. “You should have not kept the child a secret from the community. He should have been brought here to properly be disposed of.”

  I have to bite my tongue to avoid a string of spews escaping my lips. Cruel motherfucker; killing a child?

  If the child wasn’t a secret, they would have either killed him, or locked him up in a cell where he wouldn’t be able to cause destruction. Gabriel’s life may not have been the best, but it wasn’t as bad as dying at his first breath.

  Theresa bows her head down. “I know sir. I was originally planning on bringing the issue to attention, but he was my son, I didn’t want--” she’s cut off.

  “That’s enough Theresa.” Asshole won’t even listen.

  She nods, tears creeping in the corners of her eyes.

  “The son, mainly going by Gabriel. Why would you give him such an angelic name?” He shakes his head, acting as if saddened at what he would consider a great disgrace. “To make things worse you went to aid the problem later on when we could have taken care of it in a cleaner way.”

  As if.

  “Because of your planning many issues are now on Aura’s record that will end rather badly for her.” He pretends to have sympathy. “Such a shame considering I trusted your judgment when you brought the poor broken girl in.”

  Theresa lets out an audible gasp.

  “You sent her off to the terrible human world without our permission which is strictly forbidden. You know it’s always voted on whether the issue is important enough to help, or pitiful enough.” His jaw clenches.

  Yeah, what they would have said would have immediately overruled anyone else because this isn’t a democracy. It isn’t, no matter how many times they insist it is.

  “She almost died out there Theresa, do you feel no apathy for sending her out there like that?” he scoffs.

  She doesn’t answer, as she was not asked to.

  “While you made her go down there, the two of you held many secret meetings which you are both at fault for,” he seethes. “Those were all horrible defenses, but sadly we still need you here as the mother of angels until we can find a suitable replacement. I’m afraid my sister doesn’t exactly fit the status quo,” He murmurs thoughtfully, as my heartbeat quickens with worry. What were they going to do to her?

  “For now, you’ll remain imprisoned until further notice. Sister take her away.” He gives a wave of a hand.

  The sister has a smirk on her face. “With pleasure.” She soon drags a numbly quiet Theresa out of the room, making me feel regret for doing this with the consequences we’ll be facing.

  “Now I can go to your offenses Aura.” He gives me an eerie smile. “Your list is rather long,” he says with a bored tone, “But it must be gone through, so might as well get started.”

  “As we both know you conspired with Theresa with this whole plan. We knew the entire time, but figured we’d see how well it would go before we interrupted. Conspiring against us, not letting us on to your whereabouts are your first two offenses. It doesn’t feel good to have those secret meetings now that Theresa is going to suffer in the prison does it?” he questions, a wicked smile on his lips. He was the devil of angels. He had an overwhelming desire for power and control. That didn’t fit the angel status quo. I shake my head no, it certainly did not.

  “Along with that after your light rendezvous on earth with the blond vampire, you decided to move in with another vampire. Strange?” he comments. “Wouldn’t you think it would be wise to be wary after your first encounter with such a creature of the night?” He tilts his head to the side, studying me.

  I shake my head. “While it was not wise, he’s proven to be kind.”

  “Kind?” he scoffs. “I’m surprised he didn’t kill you when you least expected.” He is unable to see that not all demons are monsters. I obviously said what he viewed as the wrong thing.

  “He’s my friend.” I look him square in the face. I was probably going to be killed anyway so might as well skip the pleasantries, to be honest. Nothing could get me out of the mess I’m in now.

  “That’s a laugh dear, but another offense you have on your list. Befriended a vampire, stupid girl.” He laughs, a sickening sound.

  I don’t say anything in response. Compared to his standards I most likely am.

  “Your life should have ended like it was supposed to when you were a human twenty years ago
,” he snipes, as I try to hold in a sob. “You were the one stupid enough to put yourself in the middle of that. You deserved to die.” Cruel, his words come out as cold as a winter storm.

  And this was the harshness of some angels that were in existence. Not as nice and caring as one would expect them to be.

  “Not to mention you were aiding the demon Gabriel the whole time you were down there; do you know how laughable that sounds? Your efforts were, as expected, fruitless and full of failures. You spent more time kissing him than actually helping him, you little whore!” he belittles me. “You were stupid enough to fall in love with Gabriel!” The angel laughs, seeming amused at the whole situation all while being pissed.

  “He’s only half demon, not full-blooded,” I yell out, defending my case.

  “And you think that makes it better?” he asks, having an air of arrogance about him. “It doesn’t. He could never love you. He just wants you for your body,” he says as if it’s the simplest thing in the world to see. “Demons can’t love.”

  Obviously neither can you, cold hearted bitch.

  “You think your life is so nice? You work for a vampire. Never work for those beneath us, or at least beneath me. You seem more their status.” He whistles. It’s a low blow, in angel terms.

  “Anything else other than that?” I bite out, desperately wanting to be away from here. This room, this guy, this place. My insecurities about Gabriel gnaw at me, everything chewing through as he planned. He was just doing what he was best at which was tearing others down. He would give punishment, then everyone would see him as a hero later on.

  “About halfway through. There are still many problems to address.” He glares at me. He hated being told how to do his job.

  I shake my head no.

  “While you were aiding the demon without telling us, I hear you got help from the witch?” he piques.

  “She’s also a shape shifter,” I correct him, to get yet another glare. “And I didn’t ask for her help, she intervened herself. That wasn’t on me.” I wasn’t about to willingly get blamed for Minx’s shit.