“Stop!” Victor yelled.
Aubrey slowed down, tripped over a tree root and crashed into the dirt. “I’mfine!” she said and got up quickly with a scrape on her elbow. “Why? Tired?” she asked and put her hands on her hips. Victor said nothing and walked past her. Once he wasn’t looking, she put her hands on her knees and quietly caught her breath. Sonofabitch, she thought. “We’re here,” Victor said.
“At the gate?”
“What? No. We passed the gate a while ago. We’re where Damien might be.”
“We passed the gate? I didn’t see a gate.”
Victor handed her a flashlight. The sun was hidden by the mountain now. The sky was a light grey-blue. They could see just fine, but better safe than sorry.
“What? Nobody sees a gate. It’s a wall you pass through.”
Aubrey took the flashlight. “Well I haven’t platform-nine-and-three-quartered through any walls either. How do you know if you’ve passed one?”
“The wall’s invisible. You need to look at your surroundings. Try and notice a sudden change.” He sounded like a teacher on a demonic sciences excursion.
“A sudden change such as?”
Victor pointed behind her. “Do you recognise that mountain?” he asked. Aubrey turned around.
“What the flying fuck.”
“Language.”
“Sorry… How did we not see that?!”
“You didn’t. Some pocket dimensions are made in a way that you don’t know you’re in it until you’re too deep.”
Aubrey stared at Table Mountain. She had been all around it and she knew how it looked from every angle. But now she was in a pocket dimension. She could see where the gate was. Beyond the gate, where they came from, was the mountain she knew. Behind it, where they were, the face of the mountain gradually tapered down to join the level ground. Weird, she thought and looked at Victor. He put on his strapless, face-plate mask. She noticed how he let go of it a few centimetres from his face and it pulled itself onto him like a magnet.
“Should I need one of those?” she asked and politely pointed at it. “For anonymity reasons. I’m guessing that’s why you use it.”
“Probably… Just hang your hair over your face,” he said. Aubrey ruffled her black hair, reached behind her head and threw it over to the front. “This might not work. I pretty much look like this on weekends, wherever I am.”
Victor slid his sword out from its sheath. Aubrey could barely see it through her bush of hair, but she knew that iconic, clean shinging sound. That sound alone put the image of a razor-sharp, silver sword in her imagination. She parted her hair just to be sure. The sword lived up to its sound. She could see her reflection in it. His hand flicked the sword into a slow twist three times. It looked like paper from the side.
“Will you really need to use that?” she asked.
“There are demons here. Of course I will. Keep the torch forward and be alert.” Victor walked deeper into the forest. Aubrey turned the torch on and picked up a fallen branch. It was heavy and it was flammable, but it was better than nothing.
The silence was scary. It was expected of a forest, but discomforting nonetheless. “I know you’re scared but can you keep the light facing forward?” Victor asked.
“I’m not scared! I’m just… being alert.”
Aubrey hunched slightly, ready to swing at anything. She couldn’t think of a logical reason for it to happen, but she anticipated somebody jumping out at her. The flashlight shook a bit and her forearm was getting tired from holding the branch.
She pointed the light straight forward, like he asked. Victor walked the same way he did anywhere - at least anywhere Aubrey had seen him walk. She noticed how even in a henley, on a monster hunt, with a sword at hand, he still acted like he was in formal clothes, at school, with a textbook. It was a completely different setting, a different world, but the same person.
He had the additional flare of a suave swordsman. As he walked, he held his arm straight, tricep flexed, and slightly to the side. It seemed as if his arm and sword moved independently of him, like they floated alongside him. His body bounced and turned with each step, but his arm and sword stayed still and firm.
Joyful voices came from ahead of them. Aubrey slowed down and expected Victor to stop, but he kept walking, no change of pace, and she ran up behind him again. The voices came closer with phone flashlights and the sound of cracking leaves. A group of teenagers walked at the edge of the beam of her flashlight. They went silent as they passed Victor and Aubrey. One of the boys looked at Aubrey and smirked as he passed her. “She holding a fucking stick?” somebody mumbled. “What’s with her hair?” One of the boys wolf-whistled at her and they all laughed. Victor stopped and Aubrey felt the adrenaline hit. He turned around, facing his whole body to them, and watched the group. Aubrey turned around with the flashlight. Victor had a clear look at all of their faces. Aubrey had to peek through a space in her hair.
They kept walking forward, but looked back with their flashlights to see her stupid hair and laugh at her. She recognised none of them, but they all looked like average people she may have been in the same store with at some point. Victor didn’t take his eyes off them. Aubrey heard him counting to eight, wait a moment, then count to eight again. Is he trying to calm down?, she asked herself. Then she realised that he was counting how many were in the group and counted them as well.
They turned back around and disappeared behind a slope. Aubrey looked forward to Victor but kept the flashlight behind them. He watched that slope, looked a bit to the left, a bit to the right, checked his sides then looked back at the slope. “Do you know how many passed us?” he asked her.
“I- I don’t know. Eight?”
“Not how many you counted afterwards. How many were there as they passed us.”
“Oh. I don’t know…”
Victor nodded and swung his head in each direction again.
“Stay close,” he said and continued walking with his sword slanted to the side. Excuse me sir but you can’t just SAY that!, she thought. She looked behind her just to ensure herself that nobody was there and then followed closely behind his free hand.
“Do you know them?” she asked.
“No.”
“Why didn’t they attack us?”
“Why would they attack us?”
“Because they’re demons, aren’t they?”
“Aubrey, it’s not like that. Walking through a pocket dimension isn’t any different from walking to the mall or going home.”
“Then why do you need the sword?”
“Because this is South Africa. Could get raped and killed at a post office right next to a police station.”
Victor turned his head to look over his sword-arm for a moment then looked ahead. Aubrey did the same. She felt fear creep up on her back, but she was brave. She told herself that she would be fine and whatever came, she could handle it.
They got closer to the edge of the forest, towards a village. “You can put it off now,” Victor said. Aubrey slid the switch, put the light in her pocket and put both hands on the branch. Lamps of fire on poles were struck in the ground throughout the orange, dusty terrain. Mud buildings with thatched roofs made up a village. Victor stopped as they emerged from the forest, looked around and sighed.
“Bringing you was a mistake,” he said and continued walking. Aubrey looked around as well, thinking that Victor had seen something dangerous nearby. She looked at the ground. There was no gradient between the forest and the mountain plain of the village. The soil and leaf-litter ended, the orange stone ground started. The village was surrounded by more forest.
“I don’t know why, but I was expecting something more modern,” Aubrey said.
“It’s a primal world.” He sheathed his sword. “Things get torn down regularly.”
Aubrey looked at the houses. Some of them had orange glows coming out of their front doors. “Who lives here?” she asked.
“I’m not sure how to answer that. Demons?”
“I mean what kind of people live here. Are people born here and they choose to stay here? Do they own this pocket dimension?”
“Mostly people who want to avoid organised society and laws. Gangsters even.”
“You have gangsters here?” She looked at him curiously through her hair.
“Mhm. Somehow they find out about this place and get in. They get themselves killed not long after, usually.”
“So no gangsters. That’s good.”
“Not necessarily. The gangsters get killed off by… I’m not sure what to call them. Higher classes of scum. Gangsters are petty criminals and demons are above that… usually.”
“Oh. So demons are probably nicer people than gangsters.”
“I suppose. Gangsters are just scared boys with guns wanting to be part of something bigger. Demons didn’t get power from mob mentality. They got it from pain, whether on the receiving or the delivering end.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Aubrey thought about the implications. She thought about what Victor did to become a demon and she had lots of questions for him.
“Are there angels?”
“Mhm.”
“What’s the difference? White feathered wings and black scaly wings?”
“Aubrey… I’ll give you a book. Enough questions.”
“There are books?!”
“Aubrey…”
“Okay fine. Sorry… I assume demons aren’t necessarily bad. You’re a demon, but you don’t seem like a bad person.”
Victor sighed.
“It was not a question.”
Victor ignored her and they stopped at the front of a noisy mud building. By the smell, Aubrey could tell that it was a pub. “Don’t talk to anybody other than me,” he said, “If somebody tries to talk to you, you just look at me and keep quiet… and put that thing down!” He slapped the branch out of her hands.
“Okay! But if I die because I couldn’t stake a demon, it’s on you,” she said.
Victor shook his head and they walked in. Some of the conversations died, some went softer and some were familiar enough with Victor’s mask to not be phased by his presence. There was less red skin, horns and wings than Aubrey was expecting. None at all. Just men, women and some unpleasant-looking teenagers sitting around wooden tables with glasses. “Go sit there,” Victor said and pointed to a table in the corner of the bar. Aubrey would usually refuse when told to stay out of something, but there were demons everywhere. This was not a familiar setting.
The conversations came back as Aubrey went to the corner and Victor walked to sit down at a table of three white-haired demons - a woman and two men. “That’s either your daughter, in which case I’m proud of you, or you’re dating way below your age. And in that case, get the hell out,” the woman said.
“Where’s Leech?”
“No clue. She left the pocket two days ago. Don’t you watch the news?”
“The news isn’t reliable.”
“But when there’s a sighting of something like a pale woman near this pocket dimension, surely you’d believe it.”
“... So you don’t know where she is?”
“No. I don’t. But I have an idea of where she might be.”
“Tell me.”
Aubrey watched Victor speak with the woman and then looked at the other demons. Everybody else looked normal despite strange scars and tattoos. Even the bartender just looked like a friendly old man. She felt silly with her hair over her face and threw it back.
Big mistake. Perv alert. One of the teenagers walked to her from his group, swaying his shoulders as he did, with a glass of alcohol in his hand. It hadn’t even been a minute.
“I—”
“I swear to god if you drop a cheesy pickup line I am going to break that glass over your head,” Aubrey interrupted him. His jaw hung and he looked at her with wide eyes. It turned into a smirk and he sat down opposite her.
“Not one of the easy ones, are you?”
“Easy ones? Is picking up a girl like a game to you?”
“More of a dance. An in and out thing. Like something else...”
“Well aren’t you just delightful?” she asked sarcastically and tilted her head with an obviously fake smile.
He laughed and took a gulp from his glass.
“I’m Ragor. And yo—”
“Oh god. What kind of a dumbass name is that? Either your mom hated the shit out of you or you chose it for yourself thinking it was cool.”
“Well I’m sure you have a much cooler name.”
“Yep. It’s Cough.”
“Cough?”
“Fuh-Cough. Nice to meet you, but I have a roof to stare at.”
Aubrey threw her head back and looked up at the ceiling with her arms crossed. The boy lost his smirk and he sipped from his glass. “You’re new here, ne? And I’m assuming you don’t know how it works here,” he said with an intimidating tone. “It’s lawless. Everybody comes here to do what they want when they want to. Whatever I do to you, there isn’t a law to stop it and nobody here cares enough to.”
Aubrey wanted to ignore him, but she felt that something bad was going to happen and her neck was wide open. She looked down from the ceiling at the boy. His smirk was now an evil grin. Aubrey looked to the side at Victor. The boy turned his head to see what she was looking at. “You think I’m scared of your daddy?” he asked, “If you didn’t notice the table I came from, I’m not alone. And none of us are unarmed. We can all moer him.” Aubrey looked back at the boy and tried not to do an uncomfortable shift. She swallowed and it was louder than she’d hoped.
“You might want to think this through. If she got hold of that boy, you might die this time,” the white-haired woman said and looked to the side.
“Getting hold of something strong doesn’t change how strong she is. It just—”
The woman started waving her hand in front of Victor to cut him off and pointed at Aubrey. Victor turned and saw the boy threatening her. “Thanks for the info,” he said, sighed and walked to the door. He looked at Aubrey and she looked at him. He nodded his head to the door, showing that it was time to go, hoping he could avoid a fight. Aubrey got up hesitantly and walked towards him, but the boy grabbed her by the wrist. And here we go, Victor thought with a sigh. He could already see the ways the situation could play out.
Victor walked to the boy, who looked him in the visor as he came. The audacity these little shits have. He already heard the shuffling of the other teenagers getting ready behind him and Aubrey’s eyes grew wide at what she saw. His left hand grasped the boy’s wrist, but the boy held her still. He looked behind him at the teenagers to decide whether his right hand was going for the sword or the boy’s chin.
The bar went silent, excited to see how Victor was going to deal with this one.
None of them held weapons, but their fists were on fire. Chin it is.
Victor clenched his left hand, crushing the boy’s wrist. The boy screamed and let go of Aubrey. Victor twisted and rammed his fist into the boy’s chin, making a clacking sound from his teeth slamming and giving him whiplash. He fell back in his chair like a rag doll. Victor quickly turned around to face the others. All of the adults watched like it was entertainment. They ran at Victor like a pack of wolves. Teenagers with fire are dangerous, but in demon terms their fiery hands were a baby’s teething. All the adults saw it as the slaughtering of sheep, but knew Victor wouldn’t go as far as killing them.
Aubrey waited for Victor to light a fire of his own, but his hands stayed as was. Punches came at him from all directions and one by one, Victor slipped under each and threw one punch or elbow or knee to down whoever tried to attack him. The adults cheered for him. Some of them stayed on the ground and some were too stubborn to stay down and needed an extra hit to teach them. A scorching punch struck Victor in the back. He turned around and faced a girl holding her hands up like a trained fighter. He brought his fists up and waited for the girl to strike first. Behind her a chair raised into the air and slammed into the back of her head, putting her on her knees. Aubrey kicked her back and let her fall forward. The adults laughed at Aubrey’s sly move and clapped for her as well.
Victor put his hands down and walked to the door. Aubrey threw the chair down and ran after him. “Should have let me take the branch,” was her choice of words when they got out. Victor picked up the branch where Aubrey dropped it and pressed it against her. “There. Happy? Now take out the flashlight.” He looked at the tapering mountain to get his bearings. He wanted to send Aubrey home, but he couldn’t let her go alone. Damien was gone for long enough, so he couldn’t take her. He looked at her hitting the butt of the flickering flashlight. “Give,” he said and put out his palm. She gave it to him, he hit his palm on the butt and the light beamed. He gave it back to Aubrey and said, “Let’s go.”
“Was that a demon power thing?” she asked and followed.
“Mhm.” He sounded uninterested.
“Cool… Victor Halliday the battery charging demon,” she jokingly said.
“Don’t say my name out loud.”
“Sorry… Where are we going?”
“More questions?”
“At least it’s not demon related.”
“Congratulations on not being as bad as you could have been. The lady said the demon who took Damien has a prison near her home. Dungeon. Whatever.”
“And you know where she lives?”
“She’s popular.”
“Oh… Popular as in normal popular or popular as in she’s the local hoe?”
Victor sighed. “Both,” he said, “And she’s not a hoe she just… whatever.”
“Got it… Wait, so do you know where she lives because she’s normal popular or because you’ve slept with her?”
“Aubreyanna… “
“Too far? Okay.”
______
Faces. Bloody faces, scarred faces and bodiless faces. Some of them were unharmed, but eventually I mauled those ones too. No discrimination. All ages, all races, all kingdoms and all powers. They must all die. I can taste their blood. I can’t tell if it was intentional to get the taste or just a minor consequence of slaughter. They’re all so unique.
I can smell death, but it is not a foul rotting smell. It is a refreshing breath of revenge. It was either them or me. But why? What did they ever do to me?
______
I open my eyes to the darkness of the dungeon. I cannot think. All I can do is remember and that is all I am doing. Memories stream into my mind and I watch multiple at a time. It feels like somebody sawed off the top of my skull and started to pour bottles of horror movies and gore fests into my psych.
I know more about who I used to be with each memory and with each memory, I know that I was a killer. I see innocent faces with no names, no story, burn before me. The world was a field of untrustworthy swine and I had to kill them all.
My windpipe closes and all my muscles clench. My back arcs and the top of my head slams the wall I’m chained to. I writhe and gag under the new overwhelming feeling, the shock giving me a momentary headache. It’s physically painful, but it’s mentally blissful. I am becoming the person I used to be: A killer. A powerful and unstoppable killer. There’s knowledge of the demonic world that I know like the instincts of a demon. My capabilities are beyond human. I feel my new abilities come into my possession like new muscles growing. My muscles relax. I fall forward and gasp for air, my breaths making echoes that screech at me. My mind goes silent, but it isn’t a calm silence it’s an anxious one.
Like a beast’s claws piercing my sternum and tearing me apart, I feel two parts of myself go to war. I scream and the sound pierces my ears. The minds of two demons fight for the control of me. I pull on the chains and I kick aggressively, my feet slipping on damp ground. The pain is like pins and needles; seething hot, giant pins and needles and instead of trying to sow me together they are trying to tear me apart.
I feel a surge pulse out of me like a heartbeat, if my heart were a bomb. I let the world know once again where I am and how strong I am and that the world belongs to me now.
It always did.
It always will.
The light footsteps return. The woman rushes towards me. I recognise the way she is breathing. She is scared, but brave, just like all the knights. My two sides stop fighting, but hold each other’s necks, and redirect their rage. I press forward with my heels against the wall. The chains start to creak. I open my mouth and let a heat rise up from my chest. A black tentacle whips across my face. My head snaps to the side and my feet slip out from under me. While on my knees, the woman stabs the same tentacle into my side. I yell and turn my head to her, ignoring the piercing pain. The glowing energy in her tentacle, much brighter than before, reveals her face. Long black hair blends with the shadows and the white of her eyes blends with her skin. The grimace on her face shows the fear mixed with anger. Such a familiar expression.
I jump at her, thinking that I now have a chance. More whispers come and multiple tentacles tear into me from my collar bone down to my navel. I feel as if my insides are meant to be falling out of me, but my body is unharmed by this leeching of my energy; of my power.
The tentacles force me back down to the ground. The heat in my chest settles and my lungs go cold. I scream at her and she yells back at me, “Stop whining!”
My head hangs and the tentacles leave my body. I hear the woman’s panicked breaths. Her precision wasn’t as good this time. She walks away, and because of the look that I saw on her face, I know that the situation is different. I am not a source of energy anymore. I am a pissed off, hellish dog that she keeps chained in her basement and she knows that I am not going to stay this way for long.
I tug on the chains. I feel like I can break them effortlessly, but first I just… I need sleep. I let my eyes close with some fear of treading deeper into my past. I do not know who is in control. There was no blackout this time. Is it the demon that possessed me? Is it the man that I used to be replacing me? Or is it just me finally realising what I can do? Only time will tell.
The two parts of me fight again and the pins and needles return. This… this does not feel new. This feels like the battle has been raging on for lifetimes. The pain I feel is just the man and demon picking up where they left off. Eventually, I will become one or the other and no longer be the host for their fight.