by Lila Huff
I could see that Ellie would rather not have spent more time with John, but she nodded to Lilith and was soon headed through the door with the three Naiadu following cautiously after. When I turned back to where Lilith had been she and Siris were gone. The closing door at the back of the room was the only clue that they had ever been there at all.
Billy and Lizzie sat quietly, looking at each other with a worried expression. I didn’t know if it was the Naiadu, Carla, or me that scared them the most, but their wary glances toward me let me know I was definitely a part of the reason for their unease.
I turned to Nate and Christi, both still sitting at the large round table. They were completely engrossed in their own private world. They were playing a new game; I had seen it before, but I couldn’t remember its name, and that puzzled me. It was a tower of blocks, stacked alternately with their long sides placed in line perpendicular to the layers above and below it. Their tower was stacked ridiculously high, it had to have been made up of more blocks than the normal game called for, and they both floated in the air next to it to reach the top.
The base of their structure was pocked with holes from the pieces they’d already removed. The tower seemed to defy physics.
Part of me was in awe of their skill, but another part really wanted to go over and shake the table. I didn’t have the chance though; Nate pulled out a piece that caused the entire structure to go tumbling down. But the clatter and mess I expected never came. The blocks stopped less than a second after they began to fall and then reformed into the complete rectangular tower on the table.
“I win,” Christi said quietly as she floated back down to her chair.
I just laughed and left the room. What a strange place this is. I walked down the hall, away from where the others were gathered. I had no need of their discussion. They knew everything I knew; I couldn’t help them further.
Demetrius walked across the hall ahead of me and I saw his head turn slightly. He glanced at me for only a brief moment, but I had the strangest feeling, as though he wanted me to follow him. I could feel the impulse to stalk and kill him. The Asakku instinct was a more prevalent feeling now than I had experienced before. I turned down the hallway behind him and followed.
My footsteps fell silently and it truly felt as though I was stalking him. It was a strange and exhilarating feeling, it felt good. No, it felt right. Demetrius opened a door and slipped in. I stopped, listening, there was no movement in the room. He was alone.
I turned the knob; it moved without a sound, and I slipped into the dimly lit space. It was a bedroom, very similar in size to the one that I had been given, but it was filled with old furniture and a large piano, and one entire wall was filled with books.
But Demetrius was not there.
I looked all around the room, but he was gone. “Buggar,” I said through my teeth as I turned to the books behind me. I restrained myself from pulling down a whole shelf-full of books, though I was frustrated enough to set the whole library on fire.
“Looking for something?” Demetrius’ voice asked from behind me.
I turned, but no one was there. “I thought we could talk,” I said to the thin air.
“I don’t think there’s anything we need to talk about,” The disembodied voice said from my left this time.
I instinctively turned to it. Again, nothing. “What’s with the hide and seek?” I asked, annoyed.
“Are you seeking?” Demetrius’ voice said with a laugh, and he materialized in one of the high backed chairs. “What do you need?”
I thought about that for a moment. I really didn’t need anything, in the pit of my stomach I knew what I wanted. I wanted to kill him. I fought back the urge to lunge at him. “I want you to stay away from Ellie.”
“You seem to be under the impression that you own her,” he said to me with an amused smile. “I can assure you that she can, and does, make all of her own choices.”
I felt the heat as it began to course through me. I wanted to rip his head off, to dismember him piece by piece. I already knew that I would enjoy every moment of it, the thought of Demetrius’ murder made my mouth water.
No, I thought and the urge to attack him went away. I knew what attacking him would mean. I had already made myself an outcast from my own kind. I couldn’t betray those who had taken me in, even if it was begrudgingly.
“I know that I don’t own her,” I said cautiously. “But I don’t think that you should be taking advantage of the trust she’s put in you.”
“You don’t know me Paul,” Demetrius said, standing. “I believe that Jo knows how I feel, and I will pursue her no further until I receive some signal from her that she returns those feelings.”
I snorted at that.
“I’m a very patient man Paul,” he said, looking at me with a furrowed brow, and I scoffed again. “When you reach four hundred years, perhaps you’ll understand.”
“She doesn’t like antiques,” I said spitefully. “And I’m able to wait just as long as you are.”
Demetrius just looked to his left and then to the floor. I followed his first glance and saw the dress that Ellie had been wearing before.
Suddenly all of the rage that I had felt building up inside of me –that I had been able to extinguish until now – was pulsing in my mind. It felt as though I needed to be doused with a fire extinguisher; the room felt as though it was a kiln and I was about to burst into flames. And I did.
I was back in what had been designated as my room. I felt better now that I didn’t have to see him anymore, but I was still agitated. I turned all of my focus to calming down. I stepped onto the balcony and let the thin, cold night air help to calm me. Closing my eyes helped and I stood there like a statue, waiting for my anger to ebb.
I didn’t open my eyes again until I felt something soft on top of my hand, which was clenched tightly around the balcony’s rail. Ellie’s black eyes greeted me, her smiling face allowed all of my anger to fade, as though it was washed away by an invisible wave. It returned, but it was not as strong, and was accompanied by guilt and by jealousy, the latter of which I knew I would be helpless to control.
“I’m going to go,” I said quietly, as I stepped away from the balcony.
“Where are you going?” she asked in a bored tone. She didn’t understand my meaning.
I spoke quickly so that she wouldn’t be able to interrupt me. “I’m leaving. My being here causes too many problems, too much chaos.”
She laughed, as though it was a joke, until she turned to me. Perhaps it was the set of my jaw that told her of my resolve. My teeth should have been powder by now, I was clenching down so hard.
“I would send Carla to live in Atlantis with the Naiadu before I let you leave.” She seemed mad. “We’ve just won you sanctuary, and you want to give it up?”
“This is a choice that isn’t up to you, Ellie,” I said softly, seeing the anger welling inside her. “I’m going.”
Her eyes narrowed as she opened her mouth to speak and I almost expected fangs. “What you’re talking about is frying pan and fire. There’s a very fine line between what you’re proposing and insanity,” she said to me, contempt dripping from her words.
“And so what if it is?” I was well beyond the point of fearing death anymore.
She was livid. “You can’t just go on the run. You’ll be fair game to anyone. I mean hell, if you want to die, there’s a few demons waiting just outside that would be more than happy to oblige you.” The anger in her voice was frightening, but she had made it quite clear earlier that she had no intention of letting me take the easy way out.
“Come with me, Ellie.” I said quietly, reaching my hand out to her.
She didn’t move. “And do what? They may not be able to kill me, but I can’t protect you from them at all times.”
Talking to Ellie was like being on an emotional roller coaster and it was my turn to be mad. She was acting all high and mighty about her new demonic abilities. “I don’t
need you to protect me,” I all but growled.
“You’re more fragile than you think,” she said, with worry replacing the anger in her voice.
I smiled now, “but I’m smarter than you think.”
19. Reckoning
-Joellen-
I shook my head at him. Paul was being as stubborn as I remembered him in life.
“What you’re proposing is suicide.” I no longer considered him to be sane. His brain had been fried by the fire that coursed through his veins.
“I’m proposing living… in death.” He rolled his eyes at my stern expression. “We shouldn’t be forced to spend our existence chained to creatures like Gallu and Lilith. They only seek to use us to their own gain.”
“Gallu is an evil being, of that I am quite sure,” I said as I began to shake my head again. “But Lilith is not the same. She does not keep anyone here against their will.”
“That you know of,” he spit back. “I can’t stay here. Lavender won’t abide by it and I’m not going to put her out. She was here first.”
“We’re going to be talking in circles about this forever,” I said with a heavy sigh, and closed my eyes as I buried my face in my hands.
It was then that I heard the soft popping noise, akin to the sound of a crackling fire. I thought at first that Paul had left. But I opened my eyes as two massive creatures, one with the head of a jaguar and one with the head of a dragon grasped Paul by the arms and burst into flames with him.
The room was completely silent and still. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak, I just stared at the chair where he had sat not willing to believe that he had been taken so easily.
Lilith appeared in the room with a worried look on her face. “They took Paul?” she asked, though it was more of a statement.
I just continued to stare at the now empty chair, fighting against the black sand that was fighting its way into my mind.
“I have to save him,” I managed to whisper, and as the resolve strengthened in my mind, I managed to keep the sand from engulfing me. “I have to keep them from killing him.”
I looked to Lilith, hoping for a confirmation of my thoughts, for the approval that I wanted but knew I did not need. Her face was pensive.
“If I know my sister, she had taken Paul back to the place he called the basement.” She looked toward the window and spoke as though she no longer knew she was in the same room. “If you enter a gilded room, you must know that you won’t be able to depart from it other than by use of the door.”
“I cannot travel as we normally do?” It was strange to think there would be restrictions.
“Not directly from that room; none of us can.” She spoke quietly, “the walls are plated with a substance that somehow prevents it. It keeps people in and out.”
“I understand.” I turned from her and immediately dissolved into the air, reforming in Demetrius’ room.
“I have to go,” I said to Demetrius before he could lift his head from where it had been bent over his desk.
The book in front of him remained open as he stood, the binding broken from many years of reading and re-reading. “Where do you have to go?” the concern in his voice was evident.
“The Asakku have kidnapped Paul. I have to save him.” I was trying to decide the best way to go about my rescue mission. It was difficult to plan when I didn’t know what to expect. But Demetrius’ next words took me aback.
“Don’t you think he might be better off with his own kind?” I could hear the contempt that coated his words.
“I don’t care what he is,” I said as a gust of wind blew up about me in my fury. “He is my friend.”
“He’s an Asakku.” The words flew from Demetrius’ tongue dripping with disgust. “Do you think he’d do the same for you?”
“Don’t you see?” I turned the full force of my scowl on him. “That’s what separates us from the Asakku: compassion.” I could tell that he knew it was the right thing to do, he just didn’t want to let me do it because he was afraid I wouldn’t come back. “It doesn’t matter if he would do the same for me. I will do what’s right.” And then I added, “no one deserves to be abandoned.”
I could see that my words had stung him as his jaw went rigid. “What if this is all just an elaborate trap.”
“I know Paul,” I said, my tone hung in the air viscously.
“You knew Paul the human, you don’t know Paul the Asakku.” He leaned across his desk trying to impart his seriousness on me. “He is evil.”
“I have not changed who I was simply because I was bitten by an Asakku – and you can’t tell me that anyone would be the same if they were saved by a Lilitu. Our essential being is not lost. And Paul was a good person. I cannot believe that he has given in to his inner demons.”
I could see the pain that was etched in the lines of Metri’s forehead. He sunk to the chair behind him, placing his face in his hands as he leaned on the desk. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“How do you suppose I’ll be lost?” I asked quietly. I could see now that I was going to win this argument. “Gallu cannot kill me by herself and her warriors will not be able to lay a hand on me.”
“She has formed an alliance with Lamashtu before.” He looked up, his brow smoother, “I wouldn’t put it past her again.”
“I can always run if necessary. And as you said, Gallu doesn’t know what I am.”
“Precisely, and as soon as she finds out what you are she will want to enslave you.” His words came out like a hiss. “She will covet our strength and try to control it to her will.”
“You and I both know that won’t happen.” I felt myself calming as I heard the resolve falter in his voice.
“She’ll use your feelings for Paul against you,” he warned.
“I don’t think it will come to that,” I said with a smile. “I plan on using her desire for power to my advantage.”
“You do realize that the second she figures out that she’s wrong about what you are, she’ll come after both of us.”
That made me pause. I hadn’t thought of the danger that the revelation of my power would pose to Demetrius. Gallu would most certainly go after the one other demon her Asakku had lost… if she were able to put two and two together.
“I can’t abandon him.” I said in a voice that was lower than a whisper. “I would want him to do the same for me if I had been taken. I know he might not if the tables were turned, but I have to try.”
“I know,” Demetrius said from directly behind me as he placed a hand on either of my shoulders. “You have much too good of a soul for a demon, you know that, right?”
I just lowered my head, shaking it slightly. “Demon… it’s such a human description.” I hated the word now. Paul was not a demon; we may have been changed by two different types of demons, but that didn’t make us inherently good or bad.
“Go,” Demetrius said quietly. “I cannot join you. But I will not keep you from going.”
I turned to him, trying not to let the fear that coursed through me show. “I will come back.” I hoped my smile was convincing.
I knew there was a possibility that I wouldn’t return. I had no delusions that this would be a fair fight. But fair, or not, this was my fight. I wouldn’t need Metri’s help.
I kissed him lightly on the forehead and dissolved without removing my lips.
I found myself in a large cavern-like tunnel. The rock walls – glassy smooth – reflected my image in a tall distortion. In front of me stood two horrendously tall doors made of the same glassy rock. I could hear voices behind the doors, laughter and jeering filtered through the minuscule crevasse under the door.
Looking down at the full length gown I still wore I silently cursed the jeans that sat in the bottom drawer of the dresser back in Zephyr. I guess this would make the battle that was about to ensue all that more dramatic.
I flicked my hand forward, blowing the doors open ahead of me and walked in, not completely sure of what I should expect.<
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The large round room was brightly lit and almost completely gilt, the black doors behind me were the only things that stood apart from the gold interior. The entire room seemed to be gold plated. Gallu was seated in a throne that was perched high above the ground, her Asakku minions were stationed about the room, all in their beast-like states. I looked around the room: Dragon, Bear, Falcon, Jaguar and a new one, his body glowed bright red and his cobra head was almost transparent in its glowing. All were accounted for except for Hephaestus. It was a pity, I would have liked to call him out, but I wasn’t going to waste time wishing for a different outcome.
Then I saw Paul. He was held to the base of Gallu’s throne platform by smokey black chains. He seemed unconscious, but he was alive.
I walked to the center of the room stopping in the middle of the medallion that was etched into the floor. I saw Gallu smile menacingly as she leaned forward on her perch. She was as strikingly beautiful as Lilith, they could have been mistaken for the same woman were it not for the shocking red hair that graced Gallu’s head, or the pure evil she seemed to exude.
“The lamb has come to play with the lions, boys,” she said in a strangely sweet voice. “Or has she come to try to convince more lions that they are in fact lambs?” She made a clicking noise with her tongue. “Tsk, tsk. Silly little delusional lamb.”
“I have come for Paul,” I said without batting an eyelash.
“Oh, have you? And do you expect us to simply hand him over to you?” She asked with a hyena like laugh. The five beasts that stood at their posts around the room snickered with her.
“I will fight your best warrior and if I win, you will release Paul and molest him no further,” I said, standing as still as possible. The five that stood around me were poised and I knew that the wrong move would bring down their wrath. I knew that I could destroy them all, but I did not want to give away my advantage before it was absolutely necessary.
Gallu raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “And if you lose?”
