Grey October (East Hollow Chronicles)

by Charlotte Munro

  Not the silly drunken games of humans. Not the silly little love affairs of girls and their boys.

  This is what I keep telling myself, as each minute ticks by. As each song pulses into a new one of insane bass drops and strange computer generated noises. This is what my façade is all about, but inside, inside my hollow body, beats a blackened heart, somewhere, somewhere hidden. I know it’s there, occasionally I can feel it twinge, I feel a tug inside of my chest, a weak pull, but it is there. And it is only there when I see that girl, when I see that sister’s innocent eyes, those tears that roll like a river of sorrow. I want to show her that her sorrow is misplaced, I want to show her just how her sister feels, that she still wants Elli in those cells first, not her.

  ‘Evan, you’ve been lost to us for a while now. What’s up dude?’ Kaiser swings his burly arm around me, through the pulse of the music and the flash of lights above, I see his teeth glimmer from an expansive grin, hear his words mangled with the throb of bass.

  ‘You wanted to come here. You said extra credit for the future. I don’t see you binding any contracts. Not like last time, at least.’ Alpheus rolls his tongue. His voice echoes from within the surrounds of his glass tumbler. The clink of ice against the side draws my eyes from the myriad of lights back down to the table, where I see a droplet of water run down the side of his glass. Slipping along the smooth edge and trickling onto the table.

  ‘The clock’s ticking and I am nowhere near having her in my sight.’

  ‘The sister?’ Kai asks, but his eyes follow a blonde who has just staggered past on sky high heels and a very, very small dress. I shake my head and laugh, looking down at my hands in my lap, staring at the ring with the red pentagram.

  ‘The sister.’ I murmur, watching as Alphie leans over towards me, pushing my full glass of whisky closer to the edge of the table.

  ‘Is she proving difficult?’

  ‘She’s not like the other one.’ I tell, squinting against the red flash of light, lowering my eyes for a moment, trailing over the melting ice in the tumbler. ‘You wouldn’t think they are Twins. Aren’t they meant be similar, to be the same?’

  ‘Is that what is making it hard?’ Alphie asks, there is no disdain in his voice, it is flat and low, a whisper of what it has been.

  ‘If she was anything like Madison, then I would have no trouble. The only thing this girl wants is to see her damn sister again, she has nothing that she wants, nothing I can give.’ My fingers dig into my palms, to stop them I rest each on my dark jeans, looking up at Kaiser who has risen from the booth couch and has started off after that blonde.

  ‘She is too innocent, too naïve.’

  ‘Then use that to your advantage.’ Alphie says, picking up his empty glass and twirling it around his palm, before taking a few ice cubes in his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. ‘She’s not easy like all the others, use her heart as her own downfall.’

  ‘You heard the old witch. That might get Evan here in a bit of a predicament.’ Kai returns, on his arm the blonde he had followed, her black rimmed eyes are swirling with alcohol, her smeared red lips very noticeable along Kaiser’s neck. I shake my head, ridding of that image before sliding over and letting his burly self in, watching as he pulls the girl half onto his lap and trailing a thumb along the top of her arm.

  So easy, so simple. With Ellison, it takes a lot to even get her to break a smile.

  ‘You need her soul soon, Evan. You father’s said it himself. Your time to ascend him is coming, and you need your mission completed.’ Alphie’s smile is sinister, creeping up half the side of his face. I get up, stepping over the table and knocking the full glass of whisky, listening to the girl gasp as it falls into her lap, and Kai chuckling to myself as he throws her in the place I was just sitting, with such force, it causes her to squeal out, Before returning back to the state of allure. Totally engrossed in him, totally oblivious of anything but Kaiser and his silver eyes.

  The dance floor is replete with writhing bodies, and working my way through them proves more than a bit difficult. I feel hands reaching for my shirt, pulling open a few of the buttons, hands groping at my back, my backside. I push my way through, ending up slamming a few girls to the side, just to make a path to the canopy just above the bar, which overlooks the entirety of Avalon. Stepping up the stairs, one by one, I take my time, sidling right up against the banister as a few love drunk couples come sliding down the other side. I raise an eyebrow, but say nothing, merely intrigued just how a human works.

  Lust drives them. Lust and desire. It fuels a human to do well, it pushes them into to someone else. It is one big circle. Lust. Anger. Lust. Of course things often get complicated, you get jealousy, and you get sorrow. In fact, standing up from this vantage point, I can see both happening just below me. A guy has been caught with another girl, his hands encircling her waist, his lips right by her ear. In walks his probable girlfriend, her eyes so wide they look as bright as the flashes of strobe above. She stalks over, her hand going for the other girl’s hair and she pulls, pulls so hard that she rips her from her boyfriend’s grasp. I laugh, resting my elbows on the railing and peer down to watch another scene unfolding.

  I run my fingers through my coiffed hair, momentarily distracting myself from a few erotic adventures happening in the corner. Avalon: club land of emotions. That should be this place’s heading. A good advertisement to emblazon on the door.

  Alpheus and Kaiser have another few girls joining them, an array of blondes and brunettes, a red head and quite a thimble of a white blonde. They’re doing precisely what I had intended upon doing, my job, what I am meant to do when I am in the human world. They’re being Demons, whilst I’m being a poor excuse for one. Standing up in the darkness, quietly observing and moping, moping over some human girl that I cannot understand, that I can read at all and who is entirely different to what I had originally thought.

  Damn this is hard.

  ‘Excuse me?’ a voice cuts through my thoughts, a husky purr, a hand trailing along my arm, fingers dancing by my wrist. Dainty hands, with pointy red nails. My eyes trail from the hand to the face, she is an average sized beauty, twists of multi-toned ash and bleach blonde tumble down her bare shoulders as she leans in closer, her husky voice fluttering by my ear.

  ‘Your friends said I should come see you.’

  ‘What for?’ my eyes do not meet hers; they are dull and grey, not warm coffee brown. Her face is angled and sharp, not the darling sweet heart shape. And her voice is far from honeyed and innocent.

  ‘You’d grant me a wish, you’d give me anything I wanted.’ Her fingernails grip into the back of my hand and she pulls me with her, down the stairs and underneath them, in a little hovel of a dark spot. Her eyes bleary-eyed and her lips twisting into a seductive smile; she is too easy, far too easy.

  ‘What do you want?’ I ask again, keeping my voice low, but instead of backing off, I slide closer. My hands resting by the sides of her head, backing her up into the corner of the wall. Eyes attuned upon her now, alluring and dazzling, binding her so simply, it is far too boring.

  A few days ago, this was an excitement, and now, now I’ve had the taste of having to chase something, someone, the ease of capturing a soul and binding a contract, is too dull.

  ‘I want you.’ Her voice is so breathy, capturing in her chest. I can hear the thunder of her heart, her breath racing, she pulls me closer, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling me lower and lower until I brush my lips to hers.

  ‘You’d give anything?’

  ‘I’d give everything.’ She murmurs, catching my lower lip with hers. This is all I need. I trail one hand down her neck, pushing her closer against the wall, hearing a small yelp, I then engulf her mouth with mine and tug at her lip, teeth grazing, hard and less caring than I had been willing to be before. She weakens against me, her head slumping, almost drugged. I pull away, one hand remaining on the side of her head, the other drawing to me face, but before I catch the drop of bloo
d rolling down my lip, I see her, and she, unfortunately sees me.

  Her eyes have been swept with black, the dark kohl picks out the deep gold flecks in her eyes, the dark sweep of purple on her lips is too dark but I can see where she is going with her outfit. Black and black. Her hair sweeps by her shoulders in ringlets, her tight fitting dress paired with black tights and black heels. A line of studs accentuate her chest, but it is no longer her figure, her clothes I am looking at, it is her eyes, widening, her mouth falling open.

  ‘Evan?’ her voice breaks through the sudden drop of a bass bomb and the quiver of human cries behind. Through the sea of drunken people, I can see her very clearly. And the shock is very evident upon her face, the awkwardness that tenses her shoulders, her hands.

  ‘Elli.’ I say, there is nothing much else to say, when I have been caught in what would normally appear as quite a compromising situation. You cannot say anything that would make it look any less. But what I do, when the blonde leans into me, hollow eyed and weak, makes it pretty obvious.

  I push her to one side, taking her shoulder, gripping it tightly, my fingernails biting into her skin as I remove her from the underside of the stairs and send her on her way. I hear her calling back as she drunkenly staggers into the crowd that she didn’t get everything she asked for, that she didn’t get me.

  ‘Was I interrupting anything?’ she asks, her innocence amazes me, even now. But she refuses to meet my eye, she cannot stare at me without flinching, without looking uncomfortable.

  ‘Not at all.’ I smirk, it is all a Demon can do, and it is all I can do. Just smirk.

  ‘You have a…’ she taps the side of her mouth and I realise that I still have the trace of the blood contract on my face. I bring my thumb up and wipe it away, her face then is a picture I will keep for ever in my mind. Such a sight of mighty confusion.

  ‘You look nice.’ I say, eyes once more going up and down and then back up to her face, however dawdling by her neck, she wears my necklace still, but has added another pendant, a silver one. I take a step forward, lowering my head slightly, eyes pinning upon her.

  ‘She looked nicer.’ Elli says, her breath taken away in the moment I step right into her space, lifting my hand and taking my necklace and the new silver addition into my palm.

  ‘That’s new.’ I remark, scrutinising the circlet of silver. A ring. A ring much like the others that adorn my fingers, but this one, I’ve seen it before. I pull it slightly and as I do, she teeters and follows suit, coming closer to me as I back right into the dark hole. Under the flashes of the light I see a bright sapphire glint. I know this ring. I know this ring.

  ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘You said if I had any more demonic— darker things, to tell you.’ She takes the necklace from my hand and undoes the chain behind her neck, as she does, a few chocolate ringlets fall over her face, framing her dark lips in a way that makes me take back what I said. She is beautiful even with a darker taste. I just want to extend my hand and capture those luscious locks in my fingers. She pulls the chain from her delicate neck and takes the silver ring from the gold.

  ‘I didn’t think I’d see you, but I wore it just in case I saw you in passing.’ She still doesn’t meet my eyes but outstretches her hand and offers it to me, the silver pulses in her pale skin, the sapphire gem glowing ominously.

  ‘I can’t just take it.’

  ‘You can. I’m giving it to you.’ She affirms, glimpsing quickly up at me and then down to the floor, moving her foot once and then back again. Still her hand is offered to me, still flinching with the ring in her palm.

  ‘What do you want for it?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You must want something.’

  ‘I... got what I wanted.’ She smiles, such a light, smooth movement of her lips, but it dies out so quickly, like a candle light being blown in the wind.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I got to see you again, to give it to you.’ Elli’s palm quivers, a little jolt that makes the ring roll, the sapphire glowing and making her pale skin bloom a bluish colour. I take her hand, my fingers wrapping around hers, grasping the ring in between forefinger and thumb, I do not look at the jewellery but I meet her gaze, and finally she manages to keeps hold of mine.

  ‘You’re too good, Elli. Too good.’

  ‘I’m just trying to do what my sister would do.’

  ‘No—‘ I say, wanting to say so much more: instead of giving me the ring her sister would take it and steal all the other rings on my fingers, and quite possibly try and steal something else as well. There is not a golden heart in Madison, I think that there isn’t even a heart there at all, but in Elli, in this innocent sister, there is a big, pulsing, golden heart.

  How can I take her down to the torture pits? How can I show her Hell?

  She is too good for Hell, she is too pure, and she is too… good for me.

  Ellison –

  Jade’s persuasion can be very, very convincing. Her doll like eyes only have to widen, her lashes flutter and those lips pout and I think that she could get just about anything she wanted. And having me accompany the pair of them to Avalon was just an easy coaxing. Because even though I said I didn’t want to, said I couldn’t, I did and I could.

  The only thing stopping me is this feeling inside, like a quiver of butterflies dying to escape the pits of my stomach, the feverish heartbeats that thud, thud, thud in my chest. And those were just at the thought of seeing him again. I have no way of describing it, but the invisible thread, with its chokehold around my neck, pulling me closer and closer towards him. I’m sure it is perhaps my own imagination. Evan is different, but the same. He is just like any other guy, cocky, arrogant, a bit of a womaniser, but underneath that there is something hiding, something far from normal. He seems to be like me, wandering the crossroads, knowing where I should go, but refusing to take those steps, instead just sitting in the middle, debating and deliberating. Lost.

  It was simple to get me to go to Avalon, but I made it sound like they had dragged me; I wore something different, something darker. I raided Liv’s makeup and decided to look like someone that Evan could relate with someone that was a little more like him. Rummaging through my bag at the last minute, having Olivia and Jade tapping at the doorframe, I grabbed at the silver ring I had found before leaving work. It was too big for me, so I strung it on the necklace, just in case I saw him, just in case I bumped in to him – it seemed to be that way recently anyway.

  So when we get in the club, dazed by the music and blinded by the lights, I am not surprised to see his friends, sitting in the same booth, this time with a multitude of different girls. My eyes stalk the dance floor, they roam and hunt, trying to find their friend but under the flashes of red and the pulse of blue, all I see is writhing bodies and drunken staggering.

  ‘They seem to be on the prowl.’ Liv gestures with a discreet finger, pointing towards the booth where the pale blonde and the dark haired guys are. I feel a slight flutter in my chest; those butterflies are trying to escape. I stare over, through the throng of dancing bodies and spilling drinks, I cannot see Evan, not at all.

  Half of me is pleased, grateful that he too is not pulling at the necks of those girls. Silly really, I don’t know him all that well, but I feel relieved that maybe he had gone to Devil’s Delight with just me, and not a long list of others. The other half feels a sinking in the pits of my stomach; dejection. He isn’t here. He is probably out somewhere with another, a beautiful blonde hooked within his grasp. The thought freezes me, but I manage to take steps forward with my rigid legs, strangely I feel that slight pull, that invisible thread returning, drawing me through the crowd. Even with the feeling of foreboding, I search the upper tier, search the bar, the darkest corners, trying to find him lounging casually, but I cannot find those sapphire eyes anywhere.

  ‘Is he here?’ Jade asks, red lips whispering by my ear, her hand against my back, to steady herself and to keep us close together
– Avalon seems far busier tonight that it was last time.

  ‘Well, if his friends are here, then he’s got to be.’ Liv’s wine starts talking, a light slur to her voice as she stalks past us and through the dance floor, looking back with a wink and a grin, she calls over the music.

  ‘I’m going to go and see what all the fuss is about over there.’

  Her towering black hair is all I can see bobbing and weaving through the twisting bodies, the lingering scent of her peach and cream perfume is subtle, being drowned out by the spillage of whisky, by a short guy with a lot of red hair, and he laughs, bustling past us and back to the bar for a refill.

  ‘I’ll see if he’s over there, I’ll be subtle in waving you over, don’t worry.’ Jade giggles, her reassuring hand resting against my back soon disappears, along with her; her steps are elegant, but every few strides she gets distracted by the pulse of the music and she sways and bobs, her red dress sashaying by her hips.

  I make my way to the bar; a girl in a club without a drink only seems to lure unwanted attention. Can I buy you a drink? Is a question I would rather not be answering. My mind is set on other things, on trying to find Evan – Olivia is right, if his friends are here then he should be.

  Oh, and he is here alright...

  In the alcove by the bar, shrouded in darkness, only lit by the occasional pulse of blue and red, I see him. It’s his eyes that I catch first; the brightest blue that seems to glow within the dark. Then it’s his ringed hands, and the light sparkle of the red stone from the ring he picked up from Beaumont’s.