After the heart went still in my hand, it crumbled to dust in my hand. Marchenko’s corpse followed suit. There was no wind in the room, so the dust stayed where it fell. I turned over dumping the dust to the ground then slapped my hand against my leg a couple of times to get rid of any remaining dust. My head buzzed relentlessly like I had an itch all over just under my scalp. My held no moisture so my lips and tongue were shrunken and cracked.

I lifted my head from the dust pile and look around. All of the others, the five angels and the five demons were there. All of them still bore the injuries that had been inflicted on them by Marchenko. They were covered in blood, some dry and some fresh, all had bruising from black to purple to yellow covering their bodies. The skin on their faces was sunken, their eyes hollow. Gone was the haughty beauty of the angels and the malicious perfection of the demons. What could do that to them? How long had we endured that torment?

Then I saw the demon marks, that tattoo on their arms. Was this all part of some long nightmare that somebody was getting their kicks out of? I groaned as I thought about the chances of Marchenko appearing again to continue his fun with us. rage came back quicker than I ever felt it bubble over before. I stewed as I thought about Marchenko and what I had been through. What those poor women had endured didn’t enter my mind.

“Are we done, or is there more coming? Huh Marchenko?” I yelled into the room around. The women flinched, or at least the ones I could see as my head swiveled did. I was met with nothing but the pained breathing of everybody in the room including myself. One of the others moved, it was nothing more than a shift of a foot. My head snapped around, and I snarled in the direction of the sound. My arms were out to the sides. I was ready to pounce.

The demon that had shifted crumpled under my glare. Her arms came up to protect her face as she fell to the floor and curled into the fetal position. That made me stop and straighten up. The anger that had me seeing me red vanished as quickly as it came on. Her reaction confused me, they had never shown they were afraid of me. None of them had that reaction before. My head turned again slightly, and all the other women took a step back. They took defensive postures. There was no way this was a good sign. What had changed?

I took a step back away from them. The last thing I wanted to do was to hurt them. Hell, I needed their help.

“I’m not going to hurt any of you,” I kept my voice as neutral as possible. “What did he do to you?”

I could only imagine given what I could remember of my torture, but my words prompted no reactions from any of them.

“Not him. You did this to us. You did!” It was one of the demons and she was looking at me, there was tremor of fear in her body, but her voice was all hate and anger. It was little more than a raspy whisper; it surprised me that she was able to get that much force into her voice. It wasn’t loud, but it struck me like a bolt of lightning.

“Me?” I was in disbelief. “How could I have done this to you?”

The same demon thrust her arm out to me. The arm with my mark.

“I hurt you through that?” I asked aloud. Inwardly I was burning with…curiosity? How could I have done that? Was it something I did subconsciously again?

“You drew on us to heal and sustain yourself,” she responded.

“Wait? What?” I was flabbergasted. I had done something similar to the angel in the city shortly after I first met Angel. Doing it wasn’t the issue. My problem was that it happened while I was unaware. I wasn’t in control. If it happened all the time, everyone would be dying around me. That didn’t seem to bother me as much as I thought it should have, but I still wanted to control it. There was something enjoyable about being able to drain the energy from somebody all at once. Even if I knew it was wrong.

“Am I doing it to you now?” I asked. Inside I was wondering if I even cared if I was doing it. Was this Marchenko’s parting gift to me, did he rip the last shreds of my empathy out of me?

“No, not anymore.” That was from Angel. Was I relieved that it had stopped or angry that I had stopped doing it? That was baffling. This shouldn’t be something that unclear to me. Was this the way I had always felt towards other people? No, that wasn’t quite what I wanted to ask. Had I always been like that to women?

That was why I had marked them. I marked them because inside me, somewhere I knew what I could while they wore my mark. One question was answered. Why these women and why an equal number from both angels and demons though? I didn’t think there was a connection between us when we were living. Except for Angel. I was convinced I knew her from before. Now I needed figure out how we knew each other.

“Tell me if I start doing it again.” It didn’t come out as a question. She nodded meekly in response. I had my doubts any of them would speak up if it happened. All ten of them were far more defensive than they had been before. Something else had happened to them during that last round of captivity. Something I was certain I had done.

Angel had hinted that as demons we were the worst part of what we had been in life, except amplified. That made their reaction make sense. All the clues I had garnered about who I had been before made me think I hadn’t treated women well. Was I blocking out memories of me doing things to these women? Did I do things to Angel and the others with Marchenko’s urging? Was I a willing participant in his twisted games?

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Is that all I did to you?” In some respects, I didn’t want to know if I did anything else to them, but I also wasn’t sure if I even cared if I did more to them. Yet, I still needed them around. They had more awareness than I did about what I had become, and what was happening. I needed to try and be nice to them, at least until they had no more answers for me.

“Anything you wanted to,” one of the angels spit the words out. “If you didn’t do it, you laughed as Marchenko did it. You even gave him some ideas.”

That last sentence hurt, it hurt more than I thought it should. After all, why I should I care what they endured? Then again, why shouldn’t I care. I marked them, doesn’t that make me somewhat responsible for their well being? This was a complication I didn’t want to deal with, but I had no choice to accept the way things had played out.

“Ah damn it,” I cursed aloud. It was more about the situation rather than any regret over what I had done. “How do we get out of this place?”

Angel lifted her arm and pointed off to one side. In the shadows of that corner, I could see a door. There was something off about the door. I couldn’t tell what was off from here though. I wondered if it was something to do with Marchenko being a demon, or even something to do with me being a demon.

I strode towards the door, becoming more aware of the condition of the women. The nature and severity of their injuries was far more apparent as I passed them. The biggest part of me was angry with myself that I had been part of the cause of those injuries. That I had even allowed it to happen to them. Was I a demon because I was a monster before, or was I monster because I was a demon. The whole chicken and egg conundrum.

I grimaced as I passed the last of the women, I had caused their wounds, I needed to do something about those wounds. I began to reach for energy from around me but was careful to not draw anymore from the angels or demons. As I drew more of the energy into me my senses became more sensitive. I became more attuned to everything. The lack of air movement in the room, the dust covering the floor and furniture. I became more aware of the scents of the room—the tang of blood, the stink of bits of flesh rotting. I felt the presence of the angels and demons, felt where they were in the room in relation to me.

When I felt myself full to bursting by the energy I was pulling in, I split the energy between the women. I poured it into them. I felt their response to the that energy as it coursed through them and heal their wounds. I felt the rest of my wounds being washed away in that flood of power. I still didn’t understand what that power was or where it came from. Could I use that power because I was a demon now? More questions I didn’t have the answers for. There was way too many of those on my mind still.

I walked towards the door and thrust my hand at it. The door exploded outwards in a cloud of wood splinters. Something else I couldn’t do when I thought about it. I was taken aback when I realized that we weren’t in a building. It was something that I had expected without thinking of any other alternatives. The door opened onto a small space that was under a rock outcropping. It was night out there, and dark enough that I knew we weren’t anywhere near a city of any size.

“Well…” I started to say but didn’t have the words to finish. I just didn’t know what to say. It just raised more questions. I was really starting to hate questions. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. After a couple of moments staring through the door waiting for something bad to happen, I took a cautious step through.

Barren hills with no end in sight stretched in all directions. The outcropping that the door was sheltered by was near the top of one flat topped hill. The sky was clear, no clouds anywhere to be seen. It was a blend of pinks and oranges in color. It looked as if I was the only living thing on earth at that moment. A few quick steps took me to the top of the hill. I heard the crunch of footsteps coming out of the door behind me and I took some comfort in the fact that there was a handful of other people with me.

As much as I was glad that I wasn’t the only one here, I didn’t want them around either. I needed to clear my head and try to get a handle on the situation. I wanted to be alone to work through my thoughts, but I needed the angels and demons nearby to be able to answer questions. If not all of them, at least one or two. It occurred to me that I was annoyed by the fact that I needed them around for me to hurl questions at. My previous self must have been a keep to himself and not rely on anyone else kind of person. Not knowing my past or my present selves bothered me.

I could feel the frustration building. Every time I gained a bit of forward momentum and got a little bit closer to reaching some form of understanding about what I was there was something there to knock me backwards. In the grand scheme of things, I knew so very little. I knew I could do things that I couldn’t before I had died. Things that defied belief, those same things that might have been called ’magic’ by some.

“I need one of you from each group to remain with me to answer questions I have. Otherwise, you are free to leave if you are able.” The words came out harsher than I intended. More of an order than a request. I could hear whispering as they worked out who would be the lucky ones that got to stay with me. The realization that none of them may want to stay near me had occurred to me, but it was something that didn’t matter to me. If I knew which of the angels or demons had any of the answers I needed those would be the ones staying. For now, I gave them the freedom to choose the ones who remained.

Seconds later the buzzing in my head dissipated. Not completely but there was a change. It seemed to me that the closer I got to anyone of the demons or angels the ‘louder’ their presence felt in my mind. I guessed that meant that the noise that they gave off that I was picking up on allowed me to find them no matter where it they were like I had put some sort of tracker on them. The tracker being the tattoo on their arms.

“I have too many questions, and I hope you have answers for me. Can either of you two tell me what has happened to me? What have I become?” I still hadn’t turned around to see which of the were the ‘lucky’ ones to stay with me. I was met with a lasting silence that I took to mean that neither of them knew. I lowered my chin to my chest and pondered what this meant.

“You are part angel and part demon is my best guess,” one of the two behind me said. “You seem to be able to do things that only angels or demons can do. I don’t know how it happened though.”

“So, you’re saying I am a freak?” I turned around. Angel was standing their looking downcast. It was the other woman that spoke. An angel of great beauty with long brown hair that flowed over her shoulders and hung nearly to her waist.

“Yes,” her voice held a bit of fear. She was likely thinking I was about to punish her for speaking the truth. Well, the truth as she understood it. That was far from what was on my mind.

“What name would you prefer I call you by?” She was caught off guard by the question.

“I am Vashti,” she replied with a slight incline of her head. Angel gave her a quizzical look that appeared and disappeared so fast I wasn’t sure if it happened.

“Alright, Vashti it is. The first thing we need to figure out is just what kind of freak am I?”