Forfeit Souls (The Ennead Book 1)

by Lila Huff

  Things were looking bad. I hadn’t really expected this to go easily, but I wasn’t really expecting to die tonight. Ellie seemed different now though. In the alley, she had been ready to kill me, but now she was stopping the others from doing the very same thing. I figured that my best bet was to lay here silent.

  I didn’t want them to think that I was going to do anything that was threatening, but laying here while they restrained me was against my nature. I had to fight the strong impulse I had to throw them off of me.

  “I’ll give you this much,” the bigger of the two holding me said. “We’re demons. None of us have souls.” I couldn’t disagree with his sentiments on that.

  “That’s debatable,” Ellie said, her posture rigid. Was she defending me or herself? “If none of us had souls would we be able to distinguish right from wrong?”

  “You’re arguing about something that’s completely subjective.” The bigger male holding me down said angrily.

  “We do not have souls.” One of the three women standing behind the massive man that served as a barrier between me, said as she stepped around the man. She was a tall brunette with lavender eyes, and she despised Ellie, her face made that clear.

  “Fine,” Ellie said, turning toward her in a feline motion. “You may not have a soul, but I do.” She turned to look at me pensively. “And so does Paul.”

  Ellie was oddly graceful in death, and it pleased me to know that she still had some form of faith in me, but I had to wonder what had changed her mind after our encounter in the alleyway.

  “Let’s talk about something that’s debatable…” The smaller male that was holding me said sarcastically.

  “Look at him,” Ellie spat back at his derisive tone. “Look at his eyes. He hasn’t killed a human yet, he’s not addicted.”

  “Just because he hasn’t yet, doesn’t mean that he isn’t going to.” The sarcastic one said, negating her claims again.

  “And you aren’t willing to give him a chance to prove to you that not all Asakku are destined to become the despicable monsters you are painting them as?” I recognized her tone. She was not so much angry as she was disappointed. It was the same tone I had heard when she had left my parents flat those six months ago. “You should be restraining me also then.”

  “You are not an Asakku.” The un-sarcastic one said.

  “No, I may not be an Asakku, but you don’t understand me.” Her eyes narrowed toward those that held me. “And that really is the issue here isn’t it?”

  “I knew we shouldn’t have allowed her to stay. There’s too much of the Asakku in her. She’ll bring about our ruin.” The words spewed freely from the tall brunette’s lips.

  “Carla, I won’t touch you.” Ellie sighed, shaking her head without looking at her accuser. “The most that will come out of this is that I leave.” She turned to the female so I couldn’t see her face anymore. “I know that wouldn’t upset you too terribly much.”

  Carla just smiled sourly.

  Ellie turned back to me. “Don’t harm him. We will both leave if that is what you wish. But please leave him be.”

  “If you go with him Jo, your leaving will be taken as a defection.” The bigger, un-sarcastic one said this as he increased the pressure on the arm he held. “You can’t come back.”

  I saw Ellie’s mouth open, but someone interjected before she could.

  “Yes, she can.” All eyes turned toward the dark haired man, who had been silently standing in the shadow of a potted tree until now. “Jo will always be welcome here, so long as I am in residence. Regardless of whether she will be able to leave my apartment or not.”

  I had not noticed him before, but his eyes were like Ellie’s, whatever it was that she had become, this strangely sad looking man was also. He was the same man I had seen her with in the alley. All of the faces in the room looked at him incredulously. All, that is, except for Ellie. There was a strange admiration in her expression.

  I felt the jealousy as it threatened to break my calm. I also felt the desire to rip the sad man’s head off. Exhaling, I did all that I could to keep from doing anything drastic. There was something about being here. It made my skin tingle… I was edgy and I felt like I should be trying to kill everything in the room. Everything except Ellie… why was that? She wasn’t significantly different from the others, aside from our relationship prior to our deaths.

  She wasn’t much different now, from when she’d been alive. Her eyes were the only thing that seemed to have changed drastically. I tried to look at her without looking at the man next to her.

  “Try not to stay away too long.” The sad man said to Ellie with a taciturn smile and then, looking toward me, he ordered the two restricting me. “Let him go.”

  In an instant I was unrestrained and the two men who had been holding me down now stood next to the one who had positioned himself between me and the three female wind demons. It was very obvious to me now which pairs belonged together. I stood slowly, still not wanting to cause any alarm that might bring about my untimely death.

  “Are you showing your true colors now, Demetrius?” the brown haired viper spat. “Should we seek to turn you out now too?”

  “You have known me for centuries Carla.” His eyes moved slowly toward her. “You know I do not change on such a whim as a wayward Asakku.”

  “Then why do you take his side?” She all but screeched.

  “I am not taking his side,” Demetrius said with a sigh. “I am taking hers.” He cast an oddly familiar look toward Ellie before continuing, and I suddenly found myself hating him for whatever relationship he had with her. He cast a sad glance toward me before continuing, “if she trusts him, I have no reason not to do so as well.”

  “Your reason lies in what he is.” The petite woman at the table said quietly. “But he is not showing the prejudices that we are now showing him, and I’m sure that his master and fellow Asakku have told him horrible tales about us. Perhaps we should not fulfill his stereotypes of us as we hope that he will not fulfill ours of him.”

  Suddenly my desire to kill was focused entirely on the one they called Carla. She seemed so smug, and I wanted to rid the earth of her smugness. The way that she looked at Ellie, like she was better than her, like Ellie was less to her because of how she had come to this afterlife; the thought of someone feeling that way about Ellie made me want to kill her, two bites was all it would take. Two bites worth of the poison we inject and Carla would no longer exist… the idea of it made my mouth water and I could feel the left corner of my mouth as it lifted up in a malevolent half smile as I looked at her with an evil leer.

  There was an eerie silence that settled over the room then – the dead are the most adept at creating eerie silences, I suppose – and it was several moments before the sad Demetrius nodded to Ellie. The smile that she cast at him ripped through my stomach. How often had I wanted her to smile that way at me? The smile did not fade as she turned to me, but it definitely changed.

  Ellie had begun to walk toward me when an airy voice swept through the room. “There’s no need for you to leave Joellen.” As her name was spoken a woman appeared in the midst of the wind demons. She resembled Gallu almost identically, but her eyes contained the wind and the hair that swayed gently down her back was as white as a cloud. Lilith. I would know her in any guise.

  The small man next to her I had to assume was Adam. I recognized him from the ruby like pendant around his neck; it reflected the light with even the slightest of movements. He seemed oddly feeble next to her, but I knew that he was not one to trifle with.

  Adam eyed me strangely, as though my presence was not only expected, but wanted. I couldn’t help but think the old man was licking his chops as he looked at me. It gave me the creeps. And I couldn’t allow myself to look away from him until someone else spoke.

  “We will let the Asakku prove himself here,” Lilith said in an airy voice. “Joellen,” she held her hand out to Ellie and I watched as she crossed to Lilith. As s
he took the outstretched hand, her eyes closed and I saw white wisps crawling up her arm, transferring from Lilith into her. It was unsettling to watch, as they pulsed under her skin. They looked like parasitic organisms writhing under the pallor of her skin.

  She opened her eyes, after what seemed like an eon – though I knew it couldn’t have been more than a few moments – and smiled at Lilith, before coming to join me.

  “Come,” she held out her hand, taking mine and leading me from the hall.

  I looked back at Lilith and saw her motherly smile… it was strange, because she looked almost identical to Gallu, her hair, eyes and demeanor were the only thing that I could see were different.

  The varying numbers of emotions that room held were confusing to me. Adam seemed hungry for me… he probably wanted to kill me as much as the rest did, but I didn’t scare him, so he didn’t hate me like the Lilitu did. They were scared of me and that fear translated into hate. But Lilith, she didn’t want me dead like the others did, and that confused me more than anything else.

  This place was macabre in many ways, but the lamps in the hall were possibly the most unsettling thing I had seen yet. “Somebody has a thing for pewter,” I said as Ellie led me through the halls.

  “You noticed that too?” Ellie said with a laugh. “Imagine waking up here…” her thoughts trailed off.

  “I think this is a bit better of a place to wake up in than in the middle of the street.” I said with a laugh that wasn’t even half hearted. “There are quite a few things that have been bothering me for the past six months, but your death was the one thing that was the hardest to accept.”

  Ellie didn’t say anything; I just saw her brow wrinkle as she turned from me and continued to lead the way down the hall.

  “I feel so under dressed,” I said, trying to clear the silence around me. I had noted that everyone in the room had been wearing fairly formal clothes. “Is there a gala I wasn’t aware of?”

  Ellie looked down at the gown she was wearing with a frown. “I would almost kill for a pair of jeans right now.” The smirk on her face told me that she was the same old Ellie. “It’s just what they wear…. the youngest among them was born in eighteen twenty.”

  “I should imagine that you love it. Wasn’t Jane Austen one of your favorite authors… Doesn’t this attire fit with that period?”

  “Sure, a modernized version of that period,” she scoffed. “It was fun at first, I’ll admit. But day after day… it gets to the point where I just want to wear something normal again.”

  I had to laugh at that. I wondered how many girls had read those types of novels and wished that they could be a part of that time, a part of that culture. Ellie would surely not be the only one that lusted for pants after a brief time.

  “I have a two pairs,” she said quietly, as though we were in fear of being heard. “I smuggled them in from home.” Her face sank slightly as the memory of home.

  “I was sorry to learn about your mother and brother,” I said quietly. I didn’t know how I was going to say what I needed to say. “I’m sorry that I… in the alley… the Asakku lied… I never meant…” It was all wrong. I couldn’t make the words coming from my mouth sound like anything other than gibberish. Why couldn’t I just be me when I was around her?

  “Don’t worry,” she said as she placed her hand on my shoulder. “I understand.”

  As she said it she quickly removed her hand, seemingly more from surprise than from pain. I should have know that I would feel oddly warm to her. “Sorry, that’s the problem with having fire under your skin.” I tried to laugh, but it just came out sounding like a strange choking noise.

  She just smiled lopsidedly and opened a door that led out of the hallway. We were in a rather well lit sitting room – I assumed, only because of the couches and chairs. Ellie led me to a small nook where she sat in one of the plush chairs that were positioned on either side of a small mahogany table. As I sat I had to smile at the marble chess board that was inlaid into the table and the black and white marble pieces already set to play.

  Ellie sat there for a moment, staring at the chess board and absent-mindedly braiding, brushing out and then re-braiding a small section of her hair. It was something I had seen her do many times before, it usually meant that she was lost in thought.

  She absent mindedly moved the pawn in front of her King to E4 and I moved my King Pawn out to meet her in the center of the board at E5. Ellie had never been much good at chess, and she wasn’t paying attention to her moves now, she was still braiding and unbraiding that one section of hair. She moved her Kingside Bishop diagonally to C4 and I moved mine to block her from my Pawn at B7, symmetry was so common in our games, though it was usually her that was aping me.

  She moved her Queen to H5, the far edge of the board. It was a bold move for her, but I wasn’t going to complain, I was too distracted by her absent minded braiding. I wanted desperately take her by the shoulders and shake her until she returned to reality. I moved my Kingside Knight to F6, so that I was set to take her Queen, and watched her face as she moved her next piece without even glancing at the board.

  It wasn’t until she looked at me with a curious glance and said “Checkmate,” that I looked down at the board. She had used the Scholars Mate on me and I hadn’t been paying enough attention to stop her.

  “You’re not as good as you used to be…” She said absently as she brushed her fingers through another braid.

  I couldn’t refute that; she never would have put that simple ruse past me before. “You’re very distracting when you’re distracted,” I said matter-of-factly.

  She just looked back at the wall without a word.

  How did I manage to do that… how was it that I so easily caused her to slip into a state of ignoring me? When we were both younger it had been so easy for her to talk to me, perhaps when we were both still alive was a better distinction.

  She seemed strange in death, though I was fairly certain I wasn’t any easier for her to come to terms with. She was more poised than she had been, but her beauty was somehow marred by the introspective stupor that seemed to pour from her changed eyes. She was still beautiful, but there was something missing. Something that had been there in life that eluded her in death.

  I watched her brush out another braid.

  My curiosity had snuffed the deep-seeded desire I had to go and kill. But it was getting worse again. It had been building ever since Gallu had sent me the call for the strawberry blonde who had gotten away with her life. I wondered if it would ever lessen… it was beginning to manifest itself as physical pain now.

  I put my head in my hands, resting both of my elbows on the table in front of me. It was like having the worst indigestion ever, and no antacid would help.

  “Ellie,” I said with a sigh. “What are you thinking?” I searched her eyes for some sort of clue to her thoughts, but they were as empty of answers as the starry night sky.

  “I need to know what you know,” she said apologetically, “I can trust the human Paul… but I don’t know the Asakku Paul.”

  “I don’t know how to tell you.” I said, agitated with the truth in the words. The Asakku were monsters. How did I deserve to be trusted when my new kin provided such glowing examples of why she should not?

  “You don’t have to say a word,” she smiled as she said it. “Just give me your hand and close your eyes.”

  15. Convictions

  -Joellen-

  I didn’t know what to expect as I took his hand. “Think about what you want me to know,” I said quietly and closed my eyes.

  At first the memories were jumbled: I saw images of his childhood, a red bike with a shiny silver bell, canoeing in the middle of a lake, Edie and Bob smiling at his Oxford graduation, the disappointment and anger in my human eyes as I left their house, and the pain that rippled through his chest.

  Then Paul was inside his parent’s house, nervously shifting from one foot to the next. The two couples seated mere feet
from him were not people he normally associated with, they were his parent’s friends and he was nervous. Nervous about seeing me again, he hoped that my being there would make the evening easier for him.

  He heard the knock on the door, and his spirits lifted when he heard his mother squeal my name. “Jo!” she said and he closed his eyes shaking his head at his mother. He knew what she was up to… what she was always up to.

  “Glad to see you made it across the pond!” His father said. At least he knew that Bob’s happiness at seeing me wasn’t heightened by devious schemes. “Edie, introduce her to the rest of the gang.”

  Paul listened as his mother opened and closed the coat closet, and as two sets of feet climbed the stairs to him. His nerves intensified and I could feel the knotting of his stomach, and he mentally reminded himself to not seem creepy.

  I had to smile at that.

  He watched as his mother introduced me to the two couples, and then I could feel his hand fall asleep as Edie steered me toward him.

  “And you remember Paul,” I saw Edie mouth the word “grandchildren” over my shoulder. And I felt Paul’s immediate annoyance with his mother.

  “Of course, how are you Paul?”

  And then the evening fast forwarded in his mind. I watched myself go through the motions of a dinner party without interacting in it at all, I noticed Paul’s expressions of embarrassment and shame throughout the night, but no one else saw them, Edie kept all of their attention.

  “Well, I’m sorry to say that I have to be going.” I heard myself say in a strained voice. I had tried to be as polite as possible, but it hadn’t come out right.

  “Dear, you can stay here tonight if you’d like.” Edie said with a smile and I felt Paul’s urge to tell his mother to just leave well enough alone. “I can make up the spare bedroom for you.”

  “No, that’s quite alright. Mrs. Peppery will be upset if I don’t make it back tonight. It was nice meeting you all.” I watched myself flee as Edie called after me

  “Alright, if you must. Paul, dear, walk her out and make sure she gets a cab.”