by Lila Huff
“What do you mean?” I asked. He wasn’t making sense. “I’m a specimen?”
“Don’t worry, there’s no experimentation that goes on here, unless you elect to experiment on yourself.” His eyes darted to the floor and a malevolent smile came to his lips. “Most who come into the fold choose to experiment. It’s one way to stave off the boredom.”
All that he was doing was confusing me. Specimens and experimentation? Converts, the fold? What on earth was this man talking about? He offered no more explanation and so I could only assume that his intention had been to confuse me.
He continued to stare at the carpet with his mischievous smile. I was certain that he would trip over something if he didn’t pay attention to where he was going, and soon. But he never faltered. His steps were fluid along the red shag. He looked as graceful as I felt.
“You know,” he said as he broke free of his staring match with the floor, “most people ask if he’s God.”
I did not laugh at that. I had entertained the thought of him being an angel for a brief moment… and then I had seen his eyes. Those were not the eyes of God, or even of a godly creature. “I would have been more likely to guess the Devil.” I said skeptically.
“That is a common misconception as well.” His smile did not change.
“What is he then?” I asked, annoyed by his dodging of my question.
“Father is a little something different to all of us.” His smile faded. “To me he is the boss-man. For the moment he is your host.” He stopped in front of me and turned to the large double doors to his left.
We had passed many such doors, I hadn’t meant to count – there were fifty three before this – but it had just been so easy to do in the back of my mind as I passed them. They were all the same dark mahogany with the pewter handles that had been in the first room. They were all exactly the same.
That is, they were all the same until we came upon these. The massive wooden portals in front of me were black. They were not painted; the wood they were made from was simply a deep black, it appeared that the wood had been severely burned, but its integrity was still intact. Their handles were much more ornate than the others, though they were the same pewter.
“The rest of your existence awaits.” Demetrius said in a dark tone as he pulled open the doors.
The room on the other side was not the dark and foreboding entrance to Hell as I had begun to expect, but a very bright – my eyes were searing – and very open hall. Demetrius handed me a pair of glasses with small, dark round lenses. They reminded me of a pair of pince-nez. I gladly accepted them, placing them over my eyes before I turned to give him an appreciative smile. My gesture was met with a worried look, and though it didn’t last long, I was certain that Demetrius’ opinion of me had changed. His saddened face turned from me to the hall before us.
I looked in and with barely a glance I knew that there were seven people in the room before me. The three women all seemed to be dressed similarly to me, though I was the only one whose hair was not pulled up, and the four men all seemed to be dressed similarly to Demetrius. I could not tell for certain because they shined with the reverberating light that seemed to come from everything. Only their faces were visible to me.
None were smiling.
They stared at me with appraising eyes. Eyes that were the same as Fathers – so different from the eyes I saw when I looked to Demetrius at my left. It was clear in their vacant black eyes that I was not welcome in this room.
“Joellen!” a voice boomed from the back of the small crowd gathered in front of me. That voice seemed to part the group like Moses had parted the waters of the Red Sea.
Father walked toward me through the scowling gauntlet. His face was the same, but I had not previously noticed his attire, or his stature. He was a small man and looked to be in his late forties. He was dressed entirely in black with a long cord hanging around his neck. At the base of that cord was a light like none I had seen before, it was a brilliant and gleaming red, the glasses did little for it.
“I am so pleased that you were able to join us,” he said with the smile I did not trust. “I hope that Demetrius has been pleasant.”
“He has been a most amiable guide.” I spoke to him in the same tone he spoke to me, “I am honored to be your guest, Father.”
I had taken from the way that Demetrius spoke of him that Father was the one in charge here. I assumed his bad side was somewhere I wanted to stay far away from, and his entourage told me that he thought of himself as some sort of royalty.
His smile showed me that he was pleased with the humility of my tone, and I was more than happy to appease him for now – at least until I knew what was going on.
He held his hand out to me, and I fought back a grimace at his long, pointed yellow nails as I took it. Demetrius was quickly lost as the crowd grew together once more. I turned to look for him, but was only met by vacant eyes in the disapproving faces of those behind me.
“I am, truly, so very pleased that you are our newest guest.” Father said to me in a hushed tone, as though he were speaking only to me. “I am sorry that you had to be delivered to us in such a manner. Usually we would have given you a choice, you see, but there are monsters out there with no respect for the living.” The way that he said the words monsters and living made my skin crawl. “We shant discuss the dark details tonight though.”
He stood up on a slightly raised platform at the head of the room. “Loved ones!” he said to the other six in a loud voice. “This is Joellen, the newest member of our fold. She did not come to us as the rest of you have. I did not find her as I found you. But she is under my protection and no one will harm her. Is that clear?”
There was a faint murmur through the group, but no one dissented.
“Now Joellen.” He said to me. “You should go rest, you are not fully recovered from the ordeals of your… accident.”
It sounded like he had wanted to use a different word. As though he did not feel what had happened to me had been an accident.
“Demetrius.” He said it barely louder than a whisper and the young man was there. “Take our lovely guest back to her room. She needs her rest.”
Demetrius bowed to Father and began to lead me away.
“I want you to stay with her Demetrius. I trust that you will not harm her, but there are others here who are not as disciplined.” He glanced to his left and right before quickly returning his gaze to us.
“It will be done.” Demetrius took my hand and whisked me from the large room.
When we were in the hallway again, he loosened his grip on my hand, but did not let go until I looked down at it.
“Why does Father think I need protection?” I asked. Demetrius seemed to be the only one that was willing to speak to me about anything important. Moreover, he was the only one, it seemed, that I would spend any time with.
“I thought that he had spoken to you. I’m sorry that I was rude earlier.” He did not look at me during his apology, he kept face forward, his jaw set, looking down the hallway, but I could see the pained expression that covered it. “The people in that room are his… children, for lack of a better word.” His voice was very quiet, as though the walls had ears. Perhaps they did. This place was extremely loud. “They are unerringly loyal to him, but the way that he treats you is different. You are not one of his children so he should not express the same care for you as he does for them.”
“He thinks one of them would want to harm me?” I asked, searching through the faces that I remembered vividly now. None had been happy about my presence, but I had not sensed any outright hostility.
“At least one of them wants to be rid of you this second. The rest are simply untrusting. You scare them.” His answer was flat, emotionless. He stated fact, not opinion.
“They are scared? Of me?” I laughed at the thought, it was once again that beautifully menacing laugh that was completely foreign to me.
“You’re not one of them.” His tone wa
s apologetic again. “Carla, at least, will never truly accept you – as she has never accepted me – but in time the others might.”
“If you are not one of Father’s children, why are you here?”
A small smile came to his lips then as though a fond memory had returned to him. “Father and I have simply been… friends, for lack of a better term… for a very long time.”
“Why do you call him Father then?” I realized that my inquisitiveness was probably verging on rude, but, at the moment, I was more concerned with answers than I was with propriety.
“It is the name he had given himself when I met him. Only Lilith calls him by his Christian name.” He said the word Christian with a derisive laugh.
I didn’t say anything for a long moment. It was too easy to come up with questions, but I didn’t want to ask the wrong ones, and before I knew it, Demetrius was holding a door open in front of me.
I stepped in assuming that it was the same room I had been in, and stopped when I saw the rows of books that were stacked on shelves that disappeared above my head into the darkness.
“Are we in a library?” I asked without thinking. The enormous bed on the far wall told me that it was not.
“No. This is my room.” Demetrius said curtly. “It will be safer for you here – easier for me to protect you.”
“Oh.” I said as I looked at the massive space around me.
It was easily three times the size of the room I had first been in, and was divided into four distinct sections. The area to my left appeared to be a study; the massive bookshelves were a backdrop to a large desk that was piled high with papers and notebooks. The bed was directly in front of me, designating the sleeping area, and the area to my right held a large seating area, a grouping of comfortable looking chairs and a sofa were arranged around a hearth that was ablaze. In the far corner, next to the fireplace was a massive black grand piano.
“Father had anticipated that you would need somewhere safe to remain until you recover your full strength. That is why he decided that you should stay here with me.” He seemed apologetic. “I am sorry if it is an inconvenience to you, but it is for your protection.”
I appraised him a little more closely now. He was much taller than I was, he looked away from me before I could look too closely at his face again, but it was the same angelic beauty that I had seen in Father’s face, a beauty that was not marred by the emptiness of Father’s eyes.
“You said Father was your boss?” I asked the question as a statement, hoping to learn more.
“I guess that wasn’t the correct term. You could say he is a business partner.” There was no smile on his lips now.
“And what business are you in?” I asked hesitantly
“A business that will still be here when you’re strong enough to take care of yourself.” He said looking suddenly worried. “Please. Lay down.”
“I don’t understand. I feel like I’m back to normal.” I said, feeling a bit petulant.
“Joellen, there is something you need to understand.” The apologetic look had come to Demetrius’ face again. “You are no longer what you used to be. Normal does not apply to you anymore.”
I looked at him as though he was trying to play a joke on me. “I don’t get it.”
His words came slowly, deliberately now, “You did die, Jo.” He looked at the floor. “I don’t know any other way to get around it.”
“What are you talking about?” I laughed. “Father said I wasn’t dead and that this wasn’t Hell, and it’s a little too macabre to be Heaven.”
“I know.” He seemed to shrink away from me and I began to get worried. He truly believed what he was saying. “Sometimes people that die don’t remain dead. This is sort of an in-between.” The way he said it was odd.
“Am I a zombie then?” I laughed at the term. I thought back to The Night of the Living Dead and to every other zombie movie I’d seen. I wasn’t walking about lusting for flesh – or brains if you follow the Russo line of thought – in the stereotypical zombie manner.
His face was sullen and I saw that he had no desire to do what he was about to do. He picked something up from the desk that he stood next to, and held it up toward me. A mirror. I looked at the face in it without a thought.
It was my face, the heart shaped, pale white it had always been, framed by the dark black curls, my nose was still the same, small and straight, and my lips still their full pink.
Everything was the same – except for my eyes. They were the same glittering black as Demetrius’.
I opened my mouth to ask what I was when I saw them; the two cuspids on my upper row of teeth were longer than they had been. I ran my tongue along the upper row of my teeth, wincing as I got to the newly elongated pair.
I saw what little color had been in my face drain from it as I stared through my new eyes at what I had become.
“It’s not so bad.” Demetrius said quietly, trying to soothe me. It wasn’t difficult to tell that I was on the verge of a meltdown.
I sunk to the floor, staring blankly at the carpet in front of me. I couldn’t move for a moment other than to blink.
“The monster that attacked you would have killed you Jo. Father and I got there too late to keep him from biting you.” He lifted my head up. “I’m sorry that your life was not one that we could save.”
“Am I… am I…” I couldn’t say the word. It was wrong, I was not – I could not be – that!
“You were turned by an Asakku.” he confirmed for me. “But Father and I got to you before the change was complete.”
He looked as though this should make me happy. It didn’t. “What am I then?”
“You are something else: a person who is half changed by the Asakku and half by a Lilitu.”
I struggled with my new fate for a moment – what did it mean – and tried to get up. Demetrius helped, me placing one hand under my elbow. He probably could have held me in the air with one hand if I had been in the mood for feats of strength. I had no clue what he – or I – was capable of. I could see in his face that he only wished to comfort me.
I, however, was looking for something else.
And I found it – or at least something similar to it – on his desk. I grabbed the small dagger like letter opener and thrust it into my chest.
I expected pain. But I experienced none. I opened my eyes and moved my hand. Silver dust fell away from my chest where the knife should have plunged into my heart and I saw the shards of shattered metal on the floor. There was not a scratch on the exposed skin of my chest.
“This thing that’s been done, it can’t be undone.” Demetrius placed his hand on my shoulder as I felt sorrow rip through me. “We are no longer living, and so we cannot die.”
I fell limp into his arms and couldn’t will myself to move. I wanted to die.
I barely noticed as he easily lifted me into his arms and carried me to the bed. I couldn’t have told you if the bed was soft, or lumpy, or hard. I just lay there, motionless for – I don’t know how long. Times passage was no longer measurable to me anymore. How long had it been since Demetrius had given me the terrible news: Hours? Days? Months? Years?
Did I care?
The answer to that was simple enough: No, I did not.
Eventually, time wormed its way back into my senses. I had been dimly aware that Demetrius had never left the room. I now wondered, for his sake – my vigilant protector, how long it had been. At some point I was able to differentiate between the light of day and the darkness of night as they filtered beneath the heavy curtains.
I noticed. I did not care.
2. Demon
-Paul-
I felt too weak to open my eyes, and so I just laid there in the street. It felt as though I’d been run over by a truck, or all of the energy in my body was slowly siphoning out onto the wet ground beneath me. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the unit on osmosis in my secondary school days. But that was a silly thought now.
T
here was nothing I could do anyway. The man that had grabbed me from behind and driven his knife into my neck was more than likely half way across London with my wallet by now. I would simply wait here in this puddle to die.
It seemed like the easiest solution, but I desperately hoped it wouldn’t rain. Perhaps I could make that my dying wish. It seemed the most reasonable of all of the things that were coming to mind. No, I decided, if I were to receive a dying wish it wouldn’t be for me, it would be for Ellie.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps.
“You failed me, Jack.” A woman’s voice said. The high soprano pitch of her voice rang into the darkness of my dying consciousness.
“Forgive me,” a man, Jack I assumed, replied, “Adam intervened and there was nothing I could do.”
Neither of those standing above me spoke with a British accent, but their voices held no other accent as far as I could tell. Their voices were completely foreign though, they were strangely fierce and crackled like the embers of a fire.
Why weren’t they calling the police? Maybe they were the police, the homicide division, and I was already dead… perhaps when you died your consciousness was trapped in your body. What a horrible thought, trapped in my own mind. It would be like getting halfway through a novel and never learning how it ends.
No, I decided, they could not be police. Perhaps they were angels, sent to collect me from my dying body. That was a laughable thought. I would guess that angels’ voices might be sweeter.
Tourists, that must be it, and they’re so desensitized to violence because of their cinema…. But no, I doubted that I would be able to guess what they were. I discarded these notions. They were silly. Besides, if I were dead I doubt that the knife wound would still be inflicting this much pain on me.
“Don’t fret. There may still be hope.” The female voice said. Her words were slightly tenser than they had been before. “What is that laying at your feet?” Had they only just now noticed me?
