DARK SOULS (Dark Souls Series) (13 page)

 He blew out the candle in front of us with a quick
puff
, patted my shoulder awkwardly and turned away from me. I glared at his back as I watched him walk to the restaurant entrance. 

I didn’t care where he went. I didn’t want to ever see him again. This couldn’t be the truth. Even if I believed his little demon stories, I refused to believe that I killed a person. A friend. True, he was in the midst of trying to kill
me
, but that wasn’t Rob—Derek even said so. It was the demon. Rob was suffering, and I didn’t know. He was trapped, and I couldn't even tell. And because I didn’t know how to deal with these creatures or even how to deal with myself, I didn’t know to draw the demon out first in order to save my friend.

Derek’s voice came back to me.
When you attack a demon without first expelling that demon out of the human’s body, you kill the human, but not the demon…

I didn’t know.

My head shot up. “Derek! What do I do if this happens again? How do I save the person?”

My cries hit emptiness. Derek was already long gone.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Once at home, I drew in shaky breaths, surveying my studio apartment as I would a person visiting it for the first time.

The old me was everywhere. In picture frames on my little corner desk, an arm slung over Macy and my Aunt Sandy, in perfume bottles cluttered on my dresser, scents I’d used since high school. Even in the dirty coffee mug thrown in the sink, tipped on its side with dried coffee stains rimming the edges.

I wasn’t this anymore. I wasn’t me anymore.

I dropped my late-night lemongrass chicken on my cracked countertop before shrugging out of my jacket and kicking off my shoes. I leaned against my door, staring at the pebbled ceiling as I tried to get my bearings.

It was almost three in the morning, yet there was no hope of sleep. There were too many bloody images in my head for any hope of that. I grabbed my Thai food and threw it in the microwave for a quick nuke. I hadn’t really eaten all day other than Ettie’s meatloaf, and I knew I had to at least try to eat something. Plus, eating my chicken and sitting cross-legged in bed, watching crap reality shows I loved to DVR seemed like the perfect escape to my mind-blowing hell of a day.

If today even happened. The more time that passed since speaking with Derek, the farther into denial I went. It couldn’t be real. None of this could possibly be in my actual life.

The microwave dinged and I grabbed the container, not even wincing as my fingers clutched the hot plastic. I fell into bed, balancing the food on my thighs as I turned the TV on and prepared to turn my mind into much-needed sludge.

I chose
The Bachelor
and settled in, scooping up my chicken on autopilot as I became engrossed in the show. The food tasted bland and had the texture of gum. I glanced down at the food to make sure nothing was wrong with it. It was my favorite Thai place around the corner, and they rarely screwed up orders.

Sure enough, only tasty-looking chicken, vegetables and rice greeted my vision, still steaming.

“Ladies, this is the final rose of the evening.”

My head jerked up at the host’s declaration, forgetting about the taste of my food as I watched who got the final rose, always my favorite part and the most torturous thing to wait for in the two-hour long show.

The Bachelor made his decision.

I opened my mouth to vomit.

Eyes bulging from my head, I felt my food rise up into my throat, the bile burning my throat as my stomach made clear its hatred of my late-night snack.

I bolted out of bed, chicken and rice scattering everywhere as I ran to the bathroom, one hand covering my mouth in an attempt to prevent any escape. I fell over my toilet bowl retching, my stomach heaving out the contents with such force that I thought for sure I’d burst blood vessels in my eyes.

Baby blue ceramic surrounded me as I clutched both sides of the toilet, my elbows pointed up to the ceiling as I lowered my head even further and waited for my bowl of horrors to stop filling. 

When my stomach finished convulsing, I raised my head, gasping, my face damp with the effort of heaving. I heard the sound of crying behind me, the hollow-television voice of a girl weeping. I let that sound ground me, my hands still hanging onto the toilet as I reminded myself that I was okay.

As my body relaxed, I finally felt strong enough to stand. Legs rising, I kept my hands on the toilet to balance me, but then I looked back down into the toilet.

I heaved again, and not because my stomach needed more emptying. It was from horror.

Streaks of red coated the inside of the toilet, clotted blood mixing in with my food as it sank down.

“Oh god, oh shit, oh god.”

I jerked to the right, collapsing onto my sink as I forced my eyes away from the sight and into the mirror.

It’s all real.

Scared, wide eyes stared back at me, rimmed with red. My hair was mussed and damp, my lower lip trembling and my skin so, so pale. Who was this girl staring back at me?

A monster.

A sob escaped my mouth as I buckled back down to the bathroom floor, the cold tiles providing no relief to my heated, slick skin. I killed someone. The evidence was right there, in the toilet. I killed that girl. I—I
ate
some of that girl.

Heaving again, I threw my right hand onto the lever to flush at the same time my face went back over the toilet. There was no relief. This time I felt like I was heaving up my heart as nothing but dry rasps came out of my throat.

I’m a monster, and I’m alone.

That was the last thought that hit me as I curled up on the floor, trembling as the nightmare began to take over.

***

Despite falling asleep on the bathroom tiles, I woke up feeling strong, supple and refreshed. My head was only slightly clouded from that relentless dream; the woman caving in with sorrow, the man shutting down his heart. The dream would never go any further. It was in a constant loop of wet, hot despair from the woman, soaked and sobbing on the shower floor.

For an instant, when I was half awake but still in the dream, I felt her pain as if it were my own. It clawed at me, begging me to stop the torture, the heartache. I would sob in answer, wanting so badly to help alleviate the pain that was consuming her and taking me with it. But then I would open my eyes, flashing awake, and the pain would dissipate, as if it were never there in the first place.

My eyes shot open, my mind slowly catching up with my vision as I lifted myself up from the floor. I smelled stale, the scent of my dried sweat and old breath mixing in my unventilated bathroom. The smell was so strong in my nose that I winced as I leaned up against the sink.

Catching my eyes in the mirror, I saw what greeted me.

No scared, horrified girl with red-rimmed eyes and trembling lips. No ghostly white face. Just a girl with cascading golden waves, bright, shining eyes and sweet, flushed cheeks. I gasped, lifting my hands to my face, as if I could actually feel this transformation.

Through the awe, my rational mind still managed to break through.
This beauty comes with a price
…

My stomach turned to knots, guilt rising to the surface as I began to remember. I saw to my relief that I’d remembered to flush last night. I didn’t want to come face to face with that bloody mess again. If only I could flush my memories down a toilet.

I couldn’t change what I had done. Unless Derek informed me that I possessed time-warping abilities, and how to use them, I couldn’t change Rob or the girl’s fate. But what I could change, what I was determined
to change, were my future actions. I wouldn’t go straight to killing every monster that came at me. If Derek couldn’t tell me how, I would search within myself, I would search my very being and try to figure out how to zap the monster without taking the soul of a human along with it.

I was shocked at my final acceptance of Derek’s story, but it’s not like I could deny what was happening. Monsters, demons, whatever they were, had been targeting me. Those sharp, dripping teeth that came much too close to my face were too real for me to dismiss altogether as a hallucination. And, since I had no other possibilities to consider, and no one else was volunteering to offer me a viable alternative, I was forced to accept Derek’s word, at least for now. And his warnings.

The Trine...

I planned to have that be my first question for him today. Who was it? Or they? Why were demons so afraid of it? Should I be afraid?

My body zinged with invincibility, the cells in my blood snapping and bursting like tiny little cherry bombs. It was a stronger feeling than before; I felt like my body was more accepting of the acquired power this time.

I hopped into the shower, smiling as the familiar smell of my fig-scented body wash entered my nostrils. I let the water cascade over me for a while, reluctant to leave the safe haven of my tiled bathroom walls, enveloped by the steam, comforted by the hot spray. I didn’t want to face another day. I had no idea what I’d have to face, but none of it would be good.

When my skin began to prune, I was forced to step out and towel off. I threw my hair up and stepped through the kitchen and into the main room in my towel, when the sight of cold chicken and rice strewn across my bed and floor caught my eye.

I couldn’t stop the grimace from forming on my face. Ugh, food. But I had to clean it, no matter how nauseas it made me, because the alternative was too gross to contemplate. No way was I going to allow cockroaches to make their home here.

Holding my breath, I tied the towel tighter around me as I gathered the mess in my hands and dumped it into the trash, throwing the food away from me as if it were live, writhing snakes.

The ding from my phone caught my attention, and I flipped it open. Unlike the rest of the modern population, I still worked with a flip-phone—at least until I could afford a smartphone.

Dude, breakfast? Where you at?

“Crap.”

Checking the time, I saw it was already ten. Not only was I late for breakfast with Macy, but my shift at Cream
started in two hours. I had to get myself together, act normal, and pretend like yesterday never happened. Actually, that wasn’t too bad of an idea.

I could deal with demons and gore later. Because now, I had to deal with friends and rent. 

I made it to the diner next to my coffee shop in record time, again avoiding stares on the street by looking down at my feet. I found Macy waiting for me at our regular booth, sipping what was probably her third hot chocolate of the morning and staring at her phone.

“Holy crap,” she breathed as soon as I walked up to her. “What have you been using on your face? Give me some. Is it
La Mer
? Did you buy some of that stuff without telling me?”  

I laughed. “No Mace, I didn’t buy five hundred dollar face cream without telling you.”

“Then what? Vitamin C concentrate? I’ve been told that does wonders for your complexion. Did you get the powder or the gel form?”

I shook my head in confusion. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I’ve just been...sleeping.”

“Sleep?” She rolled the word off her tongue as if it tasted like a strange fruit. “Sleep did this to you?”

She gestured to my face, my hair, and my skin as I sat down across from her. “I’ve been sleeping eight hours a night every night that I can remember and I do not wake up looking like that
.
”

I laughed again, this time uncomfortably. “Enough with the flattery! You look gorgeous as usual. New hair mask?”

I knew directing attention away from me and onto her would do the trick. She jabbered on as we gave the waitress our orders, and I only half listened. I tried to tune out the sounds of the other voices surrounding us and the scents of fried food and burned coffee, but it was all just so much
.

“So then after I finished my argon oil treatment, I threw a feather boa around my neck and did naked jumping jacks in a cemetery.”

“What?”

 “Yeah, thought so. What’s with the vacant stare? First you’re late—which I don’t really care about, but I know you do, because you’re never late for anything—and now you’re all…in the clouds. And not the fluffy white ones, by the look on your face.”

“Oh.” I forced myself to focus on her. “Sorry. I’ve just…I’ve been feeling weird lately.”

“No shit. You look great, though. Really great.” She once again looked me up and down.  “It’s hard to reconcile not feeling great with the fact that you’re looking stellar.”

I smiled self-consciously, not used to this attention, even from my best friend.

On cue, our food arrived, or should I say Macy’s. I nursed a cup of black coffee, the one substance that my stomach didn’t seem to want to vomit up.

She smiled at me over her pancakes, a type of smile that I knew all too well. “Are you looking great because of you-know-who?”

I nearly spat out my coffee. “Hang on, you think I’m making some sort of effort
to impress Asher?”

She didn’t respond, just smiled wider.

“Mace! I don’t even know if I’m going to see the guy again. Why would I…why would I even care?”

“Says the girl who looks like she just stepped off a cover shoot.”

I frowned, flicking a sugar packet at her. “Oh, shut up already.”

“What? I need to live vicariously through this. A guy like that doesn’t come around that often. Dark, mysterious, sexified…” 

“Yeah, I get it. He’s in your world, not mine. I gotta go. Gonna be late.”

She glanced at her phone. “No you’re not. You’ve got twenty minutes.”

I blew her a quick kiss before standing up and walking to the door.

“You can’t escape me!”

Laughing, I pushed through the doors, glad that I could at least count Macy in the normal category of my life.

My afternoon shift went by in a blur. I remained alert, taking orders and making gourmet coffee like an expert, but I was more on autopilot than anything else. I had a lot to think about, and a lot to process. My morning energy was fading, and I could already feel faint twinges of hunger.