It was true. What could I possibly have in common with anyone that old? What could I ever say or do that he hadn’t heard or seen already probably many times over all these years? What could he ever get from interaction with me? All of my own thoughts, ideas and aspirations must sound like baby talk to anyone with this much experience.
“I’m afraid my life experience does not equal the number of years I’ve spent on Earth,” he said in a quiet voice. “I spent decades, possibly centuries, in Deep Sleep and had very limited interactions with human world even when awake. I have a feeling that humans and demons interacted more during the earlier times. However, judging by my memories from then, the interactions were not very… enlightening. My earliest memories are of war battles between demons and humans.”
“So, I shouldn’t quiz you on human history or ask if you met any famous figures?” I smiled.
“No, I couldn’t share many firsthand accounts. My memories are spotty at best, but even if they weren’t… We tend to keep to ourselves, away from humans, away from temptation. Most of what I know about human world is from the books I’ve read and from the movies I’ve seen.”
I remembered the TV that I saw in his cave. “You watch TV?”
“I do. For the past few decades.” He nodded. “I also listen to the news on the radio in the truck when I’m driving, but I often find the news too fast and confusing to follow. I prefer to read and watch movies instead.” He grabbed the cooler off the table. “I’ll need to get the car ready now. Are you alright to walk to the garage?”
I nodded, but he still offered me his hand for support.
Chapter Seventeen. Face to Face.
“You look like you know what you’re doing.” I sat on a bar stool next to the work bench in the garage and watched Sytrius checking oil and adding gas to the tank of the old Ford. “Is there something like a Mechanic School for Demons where you learned how to do it?”
“No,” he answered calmly, ignoring my teasing. “But I’ve had the truck for over a decade now, and there were other mechanical vehicles before that. We’re not allowed any regular contact with humans, so sometimes it was easier to learn to do things on my own rather than to seek permission of the Council to see a human mechanic every time the truck needed an oil change.”
He straightened his back and looked right at me.
“We can’t invent or create anything on our own; creation is a gift that only humans have. But we are quick learners and adapt easily to any new human technology.” He went back to his task, and I heard frustration in his voice when he muttered, “Humans are making it challenging lately, with new inventions coming out daily…”
I smiled at his words. He sounded like a grumpy old man now, maybe not exactly a 600-year-old but still…
I looked at the top of his helmet as he bent over the car.
“Do you like wearing your mask, Sytrius?”
“I don’t have a preference either way. It’s a habit. I have worn some kind of a helmet most of my existence.”
“Yet, you’re not wearing your uniform.”
“I don’t mind the armor suit either, but it does restrict my movements at times.”
“You drove here without the helmet.” I wasn’t sure what I was after or if I was ready to face the possible consequences of my questions, but I kept going. He ignored my statement. “Why did you put it back on?”
“I don’t know.” He remained silent for a minute and then added, “I guess… I thought the mask would be more familiar than my face to you. You don’t always handle changes well… I didn’t want to push too many new things on you at once.” He went quiet again, leaving me to ponder the fact that a stranger, a guard… a demon, in a matter of weeks, got to know me better than any one had ever known me before.
Even when my life was safe and stable, I did prefer predictability to spontaneity. I planned my life ahead as much as I could. I detested last minute changes and did not like surprises, not even the pleasant ones. This caused a number of disappointments for my friends and boyfriends in the past when they didn’t get a reaction they expected from me after planning a surprise birthday party for me or inviting me on a trip last minute. No matter how hard I tried to fake excitement, my initial reaction was always increased anxiety and even irritation that I had to re-organize my plans, even if those plans had included nothing more than a quiet night at home with a movie and popcorn. Unreasonably maybe, but I also felt robbed of weeks of happy anticipation and planning I could have done if only I had been told about the trip or the party in advance.
Planning helped me to relax and enjoy good things happening in my life. It also gave me an illusion of control, an impression that I could prevent bad things from happening.
Not surprisingly, the anxiety and need for control increased after my parents died. No amount of planning on my part could have prevented their death, and I felt lost and helpless after that. I felt the same way all the time while I was in captivity too.
Sytrius was right: I was able to think more clearly and make it through the day easier when I began to recognize him. I saw him day after day in my cell and knew what to expect with the familiarity of his touch and his actions.
“Besides,” he continued, “your feelings about me there at the base were… warm, pleasant… So, I was wondering… if I, possibly, kept the visual connection, then maybe you would still feel the familiarity…”
Until now, his speech had been inconsistent. He was articulate and fairly eloquent at times, but often it felt like he was confused and at a loss of words. He explained that hunger was slowing his thinking process. It must be affecting the fluency of his speech too. Well, hunger or not, he outright stumbled through his words right now and just trailed off without finishing at the end altogether.
It made me worry.
“Sytrius, are you feeling okay?” I asked as he sat down on the garage floor and put his forearms on the bent knees in front of him. He looked frustrated. Or exhausted? Had he been too optimistic when he told me that he could stay without sustenance for a while? What if his level of energy was already dangerously low? How long until he’d run out completely? What would happen to him then? What would happen to me?
Having not fully recovered myself, without an ID and with no money, I still depended on him for the next little while. I had a very vague idea of where we were.
Then I thought about it for a second. Actually, he mentioned Yukon Territory before, and we had been driving south for about 12-14 hours. There should be a road here somewhere that we took to get here, with more or less regular traffic passing by. I had warm clothes. I could walk out to the road in the morning and get help.
So, come to think of it, I really should be okay without him now. I didn’t need him, and since I wasn’t entirely sure what his plans for me were, maybe it would have been wiser for me to take off at this point anyway. There may be some populated areas around here. I should be able to find help outside and make it to the closest police or RCMP station.
Well, it was a relief to know that I was okay for the first time in a long time.
I was okay, but how about him? The thought of running away didn’t take hold after all. It might have been the smartest thing to do, but I just couldn’t do it. He mentioned that Deep Sleep was painful. I thought about the one time I saw him unwell… I couldn’t leave him alone like that. Whether I wanted it or not, I still cared enough about him to wish him well.
“Sytrius, are you okay?” I asked again. He just sighed and said nothing. I got off the chair and lowered myself to my knees on the floor in front of him. I couldn’t tell for sure if he was okay with that mask covering his face.
I inhaled deeply, gathering the courage. He knew me so well, in part better than I knew myself; it was time to get to know him better too. At the very least, it was time to see his face.
“Sytrius,” I said with calmness in my voice that I didn’t feel. “I need to make sure that you are okay. Could you, please, take off your mask?”
/>
“I’m okay.” He raised his eyes to mine. I exhaled with relief when I saw that his eyes looked normal. The whites were white and the irises… well, the irises were that clear crisp grey-blue colour of the winter sky. I blinked, trying not to get lost in them all over again. “I’m well, Alyssa. No need to worry. The car is ready now; we can go.” He made a move to get up, but I stopped him by grasping on to his forearm. Now or never, I decided. I may as well go through with it now.
“Please take the mask off,” I asked again and added since he hesitated, “You can’t drive with it on, and I don’t think I’ll sleep again for the next 13 hours straight. So it’s only logical that you take it off.”
“If I take it off now, you will be driving in the car with a stranger for the next 13 hours straight,” he said stubbornly, not removing it.
“No.” I shook my head. “Either way, I will be driving with you, Sytrius. Only this way you will have a face instead of the mask that reminds me of my prison.”
He lowered his head, and I thought for a moment that he would continue to argue. Instead, he took a hold of the helmet with both hands and pulled it off his head in one motion. He shook his hair out and raised his eyes to mine again. The helmet stayed in his hands, and I saw his face for the first time. My breath caught and my heart all but stopped!
“Holy cow!” I thought I said it out loud.
He was stunning! Even in the poor light of the candle in the dark garage! It was a good thing that he had that mask on after all, otherwise I would have never gathered enough courage to talk to him at all, no matter how lonely or desperate I got in that cell!
His dirty blond hair was slightly overgrown and had just the right amount of wave to it that made it look carelessly tousled. There was a certain strength in his features, especially, in the powerful chin and jawline. His upper eyelids dipped down just a bit at the outer corners of his eyes, giving a thoughtful, more mature expression to his youthful face. At the same time, the corners of his mouth bent slightly upwards, making him look like he was hiding a smile that could break out at any moment. The same fresh golden tan I had seen on his hand before covered his face, as if he had just come back from the beach.
He was not just breathtakingly handsome, but his features were alive and full of personality, making him look remarkable and intriguing before he even opened his mouth. If I ever met him in a crowd before, I would have never approached him myself. “Handsome guys mean trouble,” my mother used to say, and I agreed with her on that one. He looked like he could have any girl in the world with no effort on his part. Why add myself to the list? However, if he had ever approached me himself, I would have never had the willpower to turn him down. Never.
“What?” he asked and his eyebrows moved closer together in a worried frown.
Okay, even his frown was incredibly attractive!
“My goodness, you’re beautiful!” I blurted out before I could stop myself, and I made a huge effort to tear my eyes away from him. “Sorry for staring…”
“It makes you feel uncomfortable.” It wasn’t a question.
“What? Why?” I fidgeted with the end of my half-undone braid. This is exactly why I would never approach such an incredibly good-looking guy in public! Who would like to turn into a mumbling mess, talking in monosyllables like this?
“Is it because my face is new to you? Or you don’t like how it looks?” He was looking closely at me know. I recognized that look and, after his earlier explanations, I also guessed what it meant.
“You are looking at my emotions, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he admitted simply.
“And what do you see?” I asked, curious.
“You’re feeling extremely uncomfortable… flustered, a little worried… These are not exactly pleasant emotions, Alyssa. Why? You haven’t felt uncomfortable around me for weeks.”
“Well…” I braided and re-braided the ends of my hair, looking for an appropriate answer, one that wouldn’t make me look like a complete idiot and hopefully wouldn’t make him in turn uncomfortable. I didn’t come up with anything smooth to say at the end and decided to go with the truth. After all, he seemed to be brutally honest with me whenever he spoke, so… “You are just strikingly handsome, you know…”
“Why does it make you uncomfortable?” He didn’t disagree with my opinion on his looks; neither did he accept the compliment. His brows were still pulled into the worried frown wrinkling his forehead.
“I don’t know, okay!” How was I supposed to explain it? “It just does. There is like… nothing wrong with you. Not one single thing! Like, you know, a chipped tooth, or a scar, or a pimple… You are perfect in every way, and I am normal, far from perfect. Way too far… I don’t know why it even matters, but it does.”
“It’s just looks, Alyssa.” He kept his eyes on mine and spoke with the intensity I had only ever heard from him. “I was created with this face. I can neither be faulted nor praised for it. I did not choose it.” He lowered his gaze to the floor, as if unable to face my reaction to what he was about to say but too honest to hold it back at the same time. “I am an incubus. My looks were meant to help me… feed…”
He was right of course, it would have been ridiculous to hold his looks against him, and I wasn’t doing that. I just couldn’t help the way I felt. I forced a small smile on my face, anxious to make the things easier between us again.
“Just like spots on a leopard?” I joked. “Or the glowing light of an anglerfish?”
The comparison to vicious cunning predators could have offended him. Had I had a chance to think about it carefully before making the joke, I probably wouldn’t have made it.
He didn’t appear offended, though. On the contrary, my lighter mood actually seemed to ease the frown off his face.
“Just like that.” He nodded and looked back up at me, visibly relieved.
Now that my initial reaction to his looks settled, I was beginning to notice the signs of what compelled me to ask him to remove the helmet in the first place. When I looked closely, I could see a slight grey undertone to his otherwise perfectly tanned skin. The rugged harshness of his expression made him look much older than his perceived age, and the ancient weariness of his face clashed with the features of a young man.
More alarmingly, I noticed the dark shadows that were hiding around his eyes and in the playfully upturned corners of his mouth. I saw that his high cheekbones were made sharper by sunken hallows of his cheeks. I had seen similar shadows and sharp angles, maybe just a little more prominent, on another beautiful face just minutes ago and could not have been mistaken now. Sytrius suffered from the same condition that put Ivarr into Deep Sleep. He called it hunger. I was beginning to think that “hunger” might not be an entirely accurate word for it. This looked more like a disease with a list of symptoms and possibly with a set timeline of progression.
“Time to go.” He got up to his feet with ease as if to disprove my concerns about his condition and offered his hand to help me up too. I took his hand and got up but didn’t get into the car.
“How are you feeling, Sytrius?”
“I’m feeling fine. Why are you asking?” He paused for a second looking at me carefully and added. “Alyssa, you’re worried again. What bothers you?” We stood beside the passenger’s side of the car, facing each other, with the light of the candle behind him.
“What bothers me,” I started, “is that you make sure to have food available for me before I even realize that I’m hungry when you are, literally, starving next to me. It bothers me that you stopped taking my emotions because the idea made me uncomfortable. You chose to starve instead, and I let you. The emotions you need so much aren’t even of any use to me. They had already left my body when you take them. No, it doesn’t just bother me, actually, it just makes me feel like a real jerk of a person.”
“What are you saying, Alyssa?” he asked softly.
“What I’m saying is...” I exhaled heavily and looked at my hands clasped
in front of me, “I’m saying that it’s fine. You can continue ‘skimming’ whichever of my emotions you find useful or… tasty.” Then I added quickly, “Just not anything sexual, please. That would still be weird…”
I looked up at him.
He tilted his head to the side and considered me for a moment.
“Thank you,” he said simply, and the tiny little lights began to flicker in his eyes immediately.
“What was that?” I asked with curiosity.
“What?”
“What was it that you took just now?”
“Sympathy. You allowed me to feed on your emotions out of sympathy, and it was the first one that I took.”
Chapter Eighteen. Family.
“Can we stop at the next rest stop please?” I asked when we had passed Edmonton. “I’d like to call my cousin.”
I had told Sytrius about my cousin, who lived in Calgary, since I had been thinking about what to do next. I thought I could stay with her for a little while now since Sytrius was planning to drive through Calgary anyway. It just made sense for me to stay with the only family I had in the country. I could borrow some money from her, go to the police and start the process of getting my life back. It would probably be a mess. I hadn’t even begun to think about how I’d do it exactly. A missing person shows up after being away for over a year and tells a crazy story about demons? I would have to come up with a plan on how to protect my privacy, my sanity and even my freedom! The last thing I needed was to be locked up again. This time in a mental institution somewhere!
Well, at least I figured I’d have the support of my family to help me get on with my life.
Staying there meant I had to part with Sytrius soon. I hadn’t discussed my plans with him and hadn’t asked him about his. It did occur to me that by taking me away from the incubi base, he must have broken their laws and was most likely a wanted man himself. I was going to offer him help when the time to part our ways came; however, I had no idea what I could possibly help him with, considering my own circumstances.
Demon Mine Page 13
