Forfeit Souls (The Ennead Book 1) (18 page)

Demetrius had frozen. He stared at me with a curious, yet wary glance. “You knew him?”

I just nodded, silently, unable to look at him. The derision in his voice somehow made me ashamed.

“How did you know him?” his words were cautious, as though he was being very careful about what he was saying.

“Do you remember the memory I shared with you and Lilith?” He nodded. “It was Paul.”

“Paul is an Asakku?” something that resembled recognition flashed across his face. “It’s just like Ryan.”

“Your brother?”

“Yes.” He said decidedly more composed than he had been a moment ago. “She killed your family and took your brother, just like she did mine.”

“But Paul’s not my brother,” I argued, though I knew he was right, I was just nit-picking.

“No, but you said yourself that the two of you were like family.” He was staring at the papers in his hands, but his eyes flitted back and forth as though he was seeing something that was not there. As though he was trying to work through some sort of a puzzle. “We need to go talk to the family.”

When he called it the family it reminded me of the old gangster movies I had seen. It was like he was telling me we were going to see the Godfather. But I allowed him to take my hand and lead me from the room. I hadn’t thought about it before, but I idly wondered now, if Lilith and Adam’s children had rooms of their own. They seemed to always be in this hall.

Carla immediately paled when we entered the room, shifting in her seat so that her back was not to me. None of the others reacted strangely toward me. They seemed perfectly at ease, even with my little episode.

“There’s been a new development!” Mitri said when we stopped next to the table they were all seated at.

I had not realized that they were playing a card game. Lizzie dropped her cards on the table, face up, exposing her three kings – the others all laid theirs face down – before she said, “What now?” her question wasn’t sarcastic, she seemed to have a genuine hope that Demetrius’ news was good.

“You all remember what happened to my family after Father saved me from the Asakku, right?” He asked, glancing to each of them, and they all nodded as he continued. “She’s done the same thing with Jo.”

Lizzie’s face fell and she turned to me with sorrow in her eyes. “Your whole family?” I just nodded. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

“She just ran into an Asakku in London, it was her very close friend Paul. He was the last person to see her alive, but he was taken, just as my brother Ryan was taken.” Demetrius was gripping the back of the chair that Billy sat in so tightly that I was sure the wood would splinter in his hands.

“So she’s up to her old tricks again.” Nathaniel said, his jaw set as he looked to the table, seemingly lost in thought.

“But we still don’t know what those tricks are. She has never sent Ryan after you, not in four hundred years.” Lizzie said optimistically.

“But she didn’t want me as badly as she wants Jo.” Metri said shaking his head. “I think that there is something amiss with Paul. I think she’s going to try to use him to get to Jo.”

“Can I remind you that I’m still in the room?” I said, slightly annoyed. “There’s no reason to talk about me as though I’m not here.”

They didn’t seem to even notice my request. They just continued to talk about what this could mean for us. I finally became so annoyed that I went to one of the high-backed chairs that was strewn about the hall and waited for them to notice my absence.

I wondered if they even cared that Paul had been just as amazed to see me as I had been to see him. He knew about my transformation as much as I had known about him. I couldn’t see how Gallu planned to use him against me if he didn’t even know that what I was. 

I would go find him. I would find out the truth from him. What had happened and what would happen. I couldn’t stand to hear the preposterous things that they were saying, the radical things they thought up. Paul was not really a monster, he was my friend.

Though I had not been much of a friend to him in the alley, I would find him and I would figure out what was really going on. We each deserved to know both sides of our stories.

There was a strange popping noise that broke me from my resolutions, and I turned to my left as a sudden burst of flames lit and put itself out in the hall.  I blinked trying to remove the white spot that now seemed burnt into my line of vision. It was gone in less than a second, but its green shadow stayed with me.

I looked to where the column of flames had been and found myself staring into the glowing black eyes of an Asakku. I didn’t have time to recognize who it was before Earl and Billy materialized next to him, each grabbing an arm and throwing him to the floor. Paul let out a low grunt, but didn’t struggle against them.

“Stop!” I yelled, throwing myself from the chair, “He’s not fighting back.”

“He’s evil.” Earl said in an oddly stormy voice, “he must be destroyed.”

“He’s stupid. Coming here was suicide.” Carla’s icy tone cut through the silence behind me. “They should all be exterminated. Demons don’t deserve to walk this Earth.”

“That’s a bit hypocritical. You may not kill others in the pursuit of chaos, but you are no more human than he is.” I sneered.

“I am not a demon.” Her eyes narrowed at me murderously.

“That’s just semantics.” I turned from her. “Look, he’s not struggling. I’d wager that he just came to talk.”

“He came to die.” Earl placed his hand to Paul’s back, where his heart would be.

“No!” I said with such a force that Earl and Billy were blown backwards, though they still held their grip on Paul.

I was not going to let this happen.

-Paul-

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 she 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.