by Tarisa Marie
He slows down to get onto the highway, then we start gaining speed like we’re a rocket about to launch or something. I squeal and clutch the arm rests. I take back what I said about being scared of his driving. Jesus Christ!
He laughs, fricken laughs. “What’s wrong? No need for speed, Megan?” he snickers.
I watch as the trees blur by, at least think they’re trees. I can’t really tell. I feel like I’m on a roller coaster.
“You’re going to hit a deer or something!” I exclaim, eyes as big as saucers. He laughs again but let’s the car slow down. He passes a tiny red car, then the odometer goes down to 100 km an hour, thankfully.
“I have the reflexes of a demon. Don’t worry about deer. Plus, I could spot one way ahead of time.”
“Police?”
He bites his cheek. “I can hear mortal’s thoughts when I try. I could sense a cop from miles away.”
So it’s true, he can read minds and warp them. “I’m half mortal, does that mean that you can read my thoughts?” I ask truly mortified.
He shakes his head. “Halflings are impossible for me to read. Same with hunters, pure bloods, changelings, and demidemons.”
I heave a sigh of relief and crank up the radio when I hear a good song come on.
Aiden wrinkles his nose in disgust and flips the channel to an old rock station. Okay, it could be worse, he could be into 1920s music or something, right?
I lean my head back and close my eyes. A thought comes to mind. “If you can only be killed by hellfire, then what killed your dad, hellfire?”
He doesn’t seem to be able to answer at first, then he nods slightly. “Yeah, it’s the only thing that could kill him. They found him murdered in his own home. I don’t know who would do such a thing, or who would be able to do such a thing. There are rumors that I’m not the last surviving sibling. You see, the hellfire must penetrate my heart or my brain to kill me or to kill my father and the only two of his children that he shared the gift of being able to wield such fire are me and one other unknown of his children. Only he knew which one. One of his children was killed with hellfire when someone threw him into it. This was just before my time, and everyone assumed that he was the offspring with the ability to wield hellfire, and that’s why my father thereafter his death conceived me with his lover and gave me abilities like his. The spawn he chooses to give such power to is supposed to be the next heir. It’s to be passed down. For example, I will pass on my power to one of my own children one day, and they will become the next heir.”
“So if just falling into this fire could kill him, then why assume he was murdered?” I wonder. Not following.
“Because he didn’t fall in. His whole body was completely fine except his heart. He was murdered, and that means that I’m not the only one who can use the fire. I obviously didn’t murder the guy.”
Oh. Great. “So that means someone could be after you?”
“If they were going to, you’d think that they would’ve tried to find me and kill me, before I got to hell where I was more guarded. If it were someone who wanted the thrown so to speak, then why haven’t they stepped up? I’m the youngest of Lucian’s children, so they would get my father’s position merely because of their age. It just doesn’t make sense. I’d really like to know how whoever it was got passed all of his guards and into his home.”
I clear my throat and am about to say something when I stop myself, not sure if I should say it.
Aiden looks at me encouragingly as he turns the signal light on, slows down, and makes a left.
“Well, if you’re sure that you’re the only one of Lucian’s children that’s alive, then only you and he could use the hellfire. If you didn’t kill him, what if he killed himself?” I offer slowly, not wanting to hit a wrong cord. I add, “Let’s be real. I doubt his job was very fun, and he’s been doing it long enough. I can’t imagine living that long, let alone working the same job for that long, that job to top it off. Damn right depressing if you ask me.”
Aiden stares ahead, not blinking or moving a muscle which creeps me out a bit. It’s complete minutes later when he says, “He was acting strangely the past few times I saw him. I can imagine his life could have caught up with him.”
The rest of the ride is fairly silent besides a bit of arguing between radio stations. I win of course.
We eventually pull up to a field and stop. I expected we would be pulling up to a cemetery or something freaky. When I mention this to Aiden, he laughs and says I watch too many movies. I follow him to a patch of trees with a natural spring through them. It’s beautiful. My heart picks up its already rapid pace, when Aiden informs me that we’re at the gate. It sure doesn’t look hellish to me. I was expecting something terrifying at the gate like a gargoyle or something tacky. Instead, all there is is a rock with what I assume is some sort of demonic symbol. I remember seeing it in one of the books I read, but I don’t remember what it means. He sets all of my bags down beside him, and I suddenly wish that I didn’t pack so much.
“You’re just going to leave the car out here in the middle of nowhere?” I ask him confused.
“No, Terry has offered to take it back to my place,” Aiden informs me. His jaw clenches, and I can tell he’s debating taking me with him again. He really doesn’t want me to go, and I can imagine why. Scenes of fire and screaming and black demonic eyes fill my mind like in the movies. That’s really all I have to go by. Why can’t all demons wear the colour contacts that Blayk sported when I first met them? I asked Aiden that once and he told me that they itch, blur their vision, and don’t last very long, because their bodies absorb them thinking they are a foreign object, which I guess they are.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks me seriously.
I nod and roll my eyes. “Decision has been made.”
“You’re going to see things that you can’t unsee,” he warns. “If at any time you want to leave, tell me. If I tell you to stay somewhere or do something, listen to me or you could lose your life. I’m serious, Megan. This isn’t a joke. This is literal hell.” He rubs the back of his neck with his palm nervously.
I nod promptly and look down at the rock.
“If I start acting like an ass, let me know. I’m going to try and come back here for air so to speak, as often as possible. You brought me out of my daze last time, and I might need you to do it again. You’re my rock, okay?”
Jeesh, no pressure, huh? I’m his rock? What does that even mean? I look down at the rock beside us again and laugh.
He looks to where I’m looking and also laughs, though his is short and not genuine. Then he pulls out a knife and slices his palm open. I watch him, confused. I’m a little grossed out, but let’s be honest, I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies the past few days and this nothing in comparison to that. Nothing. I am possibly desensitized to blood and gore at this point.
He lets the blood leak from his hand, down onto the huge rock, and more specifically onto the strange symbol. Then puts his knife away and hands me one of his brass knives from his belt.
“Stay close to me,” he demands quickly and grabs my forearm. I wait for something to happen. As I do, I glance at his already healed hand. I wish I could heal that fast.
It feels like we stand here for minutes, but I’m sure it’s really only seconds. Then everything goes black. Well, nearly black. Above us are stars and a night sky. I’m not sure if I zoned out for a few hours or if we changed location.
“We’re here,” Aiden whispers beside me. I can barely make him out in the darkness. Well, this is not at all what I was expecting. I look around. It looks like we’re in the exact same place as we were just seconds ago, only it’s night time. “Be quiet and follow me.”
He tugs me forwards by my forearm, and I am careful not to trip on anything. Aiden lifts me over a few branches that he doubts I can see and then lights invade my vision. Instead of the open field, what seems to be a small village or town sits before us. Street lights line the s
treets and a few of the houses have lights on as well.
“This is one of the smaller villages here. This is Halmo. It’s mainly responsible for producing the electricity for hell. All of those houses are filled with slaves who are either humans or Changelings.”
This is hell? Definitely not was I was expecting…at all.
“You look surprised,” Aiden mutters softly.
“I am. Wait, you can see me?” I ask him, confused. “I can barely see you.”
“Yeah. It doesn’t get light here. It’s always dark. We can see in the dark fine.” Interesting.
We’re quiet as we walk towards this small village. As we get closer, I am able to see details more clearly.
I watch the streets for movement and see only the odd person running back and forth between buildings. As we get closer, the lights make it easier to see. “So the lighting is for the humans?”
“And the halflings. This place gets tons of traffic,” Aiden tells me. I look at him and see he’s juggling all of my bags effortlessly. I feel sorry for him and offer to take some of the load, but of course he declines. “All the gates to the human realm are in Halmo.”
When we make it into Halmo, we get a few looks from passing people, many of them don’t look friendly at all. Almost all have black eyes.
“It looks just like…I don’t know normal,” I whisper, looking at the houses and things. One big difference is that there are no vehicles nor are the streets paved, but cobble stone.
“Yes, it’s just another dimension,” Aiden describes. “It exists right over top of your world. You just can’t see both places at once. It’s sort of…on another level I guess. I’m not sure how to explain it exactly. It’s another layer of reality.”
We finally make it to our apparent destination, because he stops and drop my bags to the ground. He knocks on the door of a green-painted shop with no lights on. A young man no older than me opens the door after a moment and steps out.
“Mr. Castile. Nice to see you again, it’s been too long,” the man says politely with a smile and then bows before him. He then looks to me and smiles. “And it’s nice to meet you, Ms. …” He trails off.
“Uh, call me, Megan,” I tell him with a friendly smile. I notice then that the boy’s irises are not black, but blue. He is a human, demidemon, or a halfling like me. I don’t know why this surprises me, but it does.
The man looks to Aiden, as if asking his approval to call me Megan. Aiden nods and smiles slightly.
“Nice to meet you, Megan,” he chimes. His dimples are impossible not to notice and make him look boyish. He wears clothes that are too big, and he looks ungodly pale and thin.
“You too, uh…” I begin, waiting for him to give me a name.
He tells me that his name is Forrest. A strange name I think to myself but don’t ask him about it. Maybe his parents were hippies or something. I’ve honestly heard stranger names. Have you heard what some celebrities name their kids? Crazy.
Aiden motions for the man to go ahead of us, so Forrest scurries ahead of us and leads us down the street and around the corner to the alley way. He then hands Aiden two pieces of paper and points down the street.
“It leaves in twenty minutes,” Forrest informs us, although I don’t know what he’s talking about. “Go down this alley to get there so no one sees you until you’re inside the station. I couldn’t believe it when dad said you were coming through here without guards.”
Aiden pulls me forward, again juggling all of my stuff. I look to Forrest, but he’s suddenly gone.
“Where’d he just go?” I ask, confused.
“Back to work, I assume. Forrest is Terry’s son. Terry arranged for him to get us tickets for the train, so we could just pick them up and jump on. Otherwise, we’d have to wait in line forever across town at the ticket pick-up, and I don’t want anyone to recognize me until I’m around guards in the station,” Aiden explains. Now, thinking about it, I can kind of see Terry in Forrest. In the cheek bones and eyebrows at least.
Aiden leads me down the creepy as hell dark alley to a brick building with a large metal door. He swings it open, and we are now in a busy train station. The place is swarming with people. I didn’t even suspect that the entire village contained as many people as this huge train station.
“A lot of them work all night in the fields around the village or underground mining,” Aiden tells me when he sees how confused and lost I am. “You didn’t see all of the houses, only the streets with a majority of human homes have lights. Many of the Changelings live in darkness, because they do not need lights. They are unnecessary and electricity is extremely annoying. It buzzes. For this reason, you could not see many streets, because they were unlit and submerged in darkness. Halmo is much bigger than what you saw. It is the capital of gates. You must come here to get out of hell, and you must come here if you come to hell through a gate. That’s another reason why this station is so busy.
I keep quiet as we pass too many people who look far from friendly. I get scowled at too many times. It’s like being in high school all over again.
Aiden flashes his ticket to a man in a blue and gold uniform. The man’s eyes widen and he bows. “Good evening, Mr. Castile. You are seated near the back. You’ll find it easily, I’m sure,” the elderly man with salt and pepper hair says in a happy, weathered voice.
I swear the entire train station goes silence at once, and everyone turns to stare at us, well, at Aiden.
Aiden smirks, and his posture remains normal, like this is nothing out of the usual. I gawk around at the people staring. Many of them have stopped walking and everything. Aiden doesn’t thank the man nor does he say anything at all really. He just grabs my forearm and pulls me onto the train quickly. I feel like he’s some sort of celebrity or something, and I guess he sort of is.
We take our seats in a small little room with bench seats and enough space for all of my stuff. “The walls are sound proof,” he murmurs, shutting the door and the blind on the window, likely so people don’t stare.
“That was kind of…weird,” I note and run my fingers through my hair.
He laughs, loud and deeply as if I’m hilarious. “You better get used to that, Megan.” His reasoning for having so many guards makes sense now. Sort of…
“Why would you have so many guards if you can’t be killed in the mortal world?” I wonder, seriously confused.
“Even if I can’t be killed, my mind has a lot of information that is confidential and cannot be taken or known by anyone. Although I’ve been trained not to break under torture, it’s still not fun to be tortured. I also don’t really care for having my day interrupted by stupid hunters. Having so many guards deters most people from even trying to attack me. I also mentor halflings often to pass the time, and they need protection. Then again, being my guard is basically giving up your life thanks to my siblings, so I try to keep my guards at a minimum. My father demanded that I have as many guards as I did at all times. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but since he’s been gone, there haven’t been many around.”
A minimum? Twenty-four is minimum? That’s probably more body guards than Justin Bieber times ten!
“I am going to have to recruit some again soon though. For both your and my protection. I think you understand that after that incident in the train station just now,” Aiden goes on. “All of my father’s guards will be passed down to me, but I will need extra protection with you here.”
I don’t reply, and he goes silent.
“Are there going to be lights where we’re going?” I ask once the train begins moving.
He laughs and nods. “Of course. Anywhere where there are humans or halflings regularly there are lights. My home, our home, houses a few of my father’s children’s families. The ones who are most royal and still living. Many have been killed over the years. I believe there are five families in the house, partial families as many folks have died. As you can imagine, these people are for the most part ancient, much, much o
lder than myself. I think the five families make a population of twenty-five. The house, it’s large. The servants, both human and changeling, live in different sections of the basement. They have their own quarters there.”
A few minutes pass, and soon there is a knock on the door to our section of the train. Aiden stands and open the door. “Yes?” he asks wearily, as if this could be an attacker.
“Would you like meal service, Mr. Castile?” a light female voice asks.
Aiden sighs. “Nothing for me, but can I get some juice or something for my guest?”
“Of course, you can, Mr. Castile,” the voice rings, and Aiden returns with an entire package of juice boxes. He sets them on the seat beside me.
“Thirsty?” he asks me with a grin.
I don’t speak for the rest of the train ride, I’m too engaged in my own thoughts. I wonder about all of the servants and can’t imagine having such a life. They’re not even given a choice in the matter. How terrible. Surely it’s not as bad as I would’ve thought, but I can’t help but wonder what the old me would think of all of this, the me that I was only months ago. I would be appalled. I would be shaken. I would torn apart by the very thought of enslaving anyone. I never would’ve jumped on the hell train, no pun intended. I probably wouldn’t have kissed a demon either, no matter how perfect he was. Have I become desensitized to all of this? A gut wrenching feeling is taking me over, have I made the wrong choice in coming here?
Are Crispen, Aria, and Mason right? Is this completely and utterly wrong? Am I nuts? Since when am I okay with having servants tend to my needs and guards protect me with their lives? Since when am I okay with falling in love with a demon and going off to hell? Since when am I okay with any of this?
I don’t know. I just don’t know. I thought about this trip thoroughly. At least I thought I did. But sitting here, on a train bound for some place that I know I’m not going to like, a place where soulless, evil pure bloods roam freely and enslave innocents, a place where death is more common than life and nothing is valued but power, I’m suddenly not so sure. It’s like my mind has just snapped back into reality. Am I really so desperate for someone, for company, for not being alone that I’ll give up myself and my values, my world even? They say you’ll do anything for love, and I’ve always promised myself that I wouldn’t be one of those insane people. Yet, here I am. This isn’t me. This has never been me. It never will be me.
