Existence: A Dark Paranormal Fantasy (The Devilgod Series Book 1)

by S. C. Lewis

  “Thank you, my darling,” Sophia softly said.

  She fell away like dead flowers to look at my face. Her eyes seemed to search for something. I loved it when she looked at me that way. I felt as if she was searching for a part of what I felt inside me that connected us. Instead, she saw this protectively feverish gaze upon my childish face assuring her of my promise. Was she trying to see something else beyond my eyes?

  Perhaps how much I looked like him in a way with my hair brushed sideways, dark and maintained. However, I honestly never saw it. We looked nothing alike, because he wasn’t my father as much as we wanted to believe that lie. We were pawns in this wicked game. This was all an illusion and we had bought into it. It had to be nothing else. She had, he had, and even at one point, I had believed. But now, no more. In a way, it was separating us a little.

  My eyes followed. Sophia moved discretely away, walking over to the door of the office, and immediately turned. I didn’t want her to leave. Our eyes met, and I knew right away she had realized I’d never looked away. My smiled rewarded her in return.

  She seemed to shake an idea away, then faced me to announce what troubled her fragile mind. “I wanted to ask you to do something else for me,” she merely said. Her delicate lips twisted slightly and seemed tense and unsure how to proceed.

  Was I making her uncomfortable? I hoped that I had not. It had never been my intentions to do such a thing.

  The smile on my face spread further.

  Is she remembering…perhaps a part of her past?

  “I will do whatever you ask,” I answered arrogantly, a quick reply she most certainly had not expected or asked for. She wanted my attention for whatever she was about to say, not to be pleased by some love foolish idiot.

  She hesitated, trying to find the right reaction to my words. She took a few steps forward. She seemed uneasy. I hated that I had put her in such discomfort. She eased, and I wondered if she thought of him now, if he had been the one to bring her to a state of peace? I hated the idea that his name was one thing that separated me from ever knowing her.

  Why did I hate him so much? I felt I could kill him and care nothing for doing so. I just wanted him gone; something in me said he was my enemy. Those feelings were growing with time, evolving far more.

  “I want you to be nicer to Eric and the others,” she finally said, without any restraint. Where had this come from? Had I been revealed as a tyrant by the group? I wouldn’t doubt it; I had been known to dislike their attics, their useless existence within our Cathedral.

  “What? Nicer, in what way?” I stammered, moving from her, hoping to hide my frustration at her discouraging request. “They’re…incompetent, I’m sorry to say. No, I’m not sorry. They’re costing us money,” I finally admitted.

  “Seth, please listen to me,” she demanded; her lips tightened. She pushed back the long, brown locks of her hair as she tried to deny the fact that my grin had made her blush.

  I stared back at her limpidly beautiful and serenely deep brown eyes. She lowered her glance.

  She stepped up to me trying to avoid my look. She came close enough that I could smell her perfume again. Her gentle gaze carved my attention; she placed a soft hand over my masculine hands.

  I caught my reflection in her endlessly black eyes. I was frozen, paralyzed in that moment. I felt numb standing before her, strangely enough her eyes had grown darker. Almost instantly, they regained their brown color once more.

  I pulled slowly away from her gentle embrace, and walked around my desk. I scanned the top, frustrated by her request. I found what I was looking for to prove my point and placed the paper across my desk for Sophia to see. She came to stand in front of the cherry-finished office furniture.

  She took a hold of herself, trembling. She was cold. She was a delicate flower and I was a brute at keeping my office chilly. She’d forgotten to wear her shawl.

  I pushed the paper forward for her to see.

  “Their presence seems unnecessary. They cost us more money to have around. Half of the time they don’t know what they’re doing. These are the expenses of last month. Why do you allow them to continue here? What is their purpose? This is precisely why I took this position, to correct such mistakes…”

  Sophia lifted the paper from the desk, but unable to stop from shuddering she soon lost interest in the sheet in her hand. She squeezed her body, losing the document from between her cold fingers. She unknowingly gazed up at me briefly before the paper streamed to the edge of the desk. I caught it from falling to the floor.

  “Let me…” My lips twisted slightly to one side. I took the document, placing it properly on my desk. I came around, taking my blazer off, and placed it over her.

  Sophia smiled up at me, she seemed uneasy and unlike herself. I felt she didn’t want to continue the argument, simply because she didn’t feel comfortable any longer.

  She looked confused. Was she sensing something, remembering something? Remember, my mind kept repeating, wanting to tell her. If she could recall, she would know I was someone not to fear, someone that loved her.

  “Mother,” I whispered, paralyzed for a moment.

  I felt the warmth of her body, the throbbing of her heart echoing unstoppably as I neared. I was closer in spirit to her then she could possibly know.

  Sophia slightly turned away. I leaned closer.

  “You don’t have to worry. I can take care of everything. They don’t have to know it was your decision to let them go,” I said.

  I felt her breath kiss my lips, the moment a penetrable death was infinitely preferable to this. Her heart rapidly moved inside my head. This, as quickly as the visions of her drawing ever so closely, was gone with the lashing of her quick words.

  “You will do nothing of the sort! May I remind you; you were brought here to assist me and not make such hasty decisions. You will let them be!” She wrestled herself from the seat with her back to me.

  I wept at her cruel painful words, there had not been an awakening, only a wicked illusion of what I wanted. I had longed for it far too soon.

  She faced me. “They’re my friends. I love them. I will never do that. How can you even consider such a thing after all they’ve done for you? They took care of you as a child. You owe them your respect.” She lowered her voice, unable to challenge my eyes.

  She took the coat still clinging to her body and held it away. Her eyes indicated she recognize the familiar fragrance upon the fabric. It reminded her of him, Nathan, it reminded her of how much she missed him. It was his cologne after all.

  She approached, pushing the coat into my hands and headed towards the office doorway. I set the blazer on the chair, never once looking away. I should have apologized, but I couldn’t find the right words. I was a fool to say that to her. Of course, she needed time to consider such a convincing argument. She had to first see their stupidity for herself. I didn’t want her to think I was an insensitive brute like Nathan. If so, I would never get what I really wanted…

  “Please, Seth,” she begged stopping midway, her waist-long, brown hair cascading from her shoulders. She was like the dessert I longed to devour at first glance. My, that image was rewarding. How smooth and rich it was, and beckoning for another taste.

  I caught tears pooling in her brown eyes as she slightly turned to look back. The pain on her gentle face was obvious. For a second, I examined her feeling I could weave her agony into a more delightful expression, one filled with desires and lust. We were bound, but not by blood, by a past.

  “Son?”

  I fell out of the trance nearly collapsing into despair. Was she mocking my longings with such cruel words, poking at the reality of this world I now lay trapped in?

  I took a step forward. Anger fashioned my expression, and I bit hard at my lip pushing back at the agony at the sound of the words spewing from her precious lips.

  “Just be nice to them. Do it for me,” she pleaded once again.

  My expression softened. I wasn’t an
gry with her, but angry at this separation, this existence.

  That’s all I had to hear, though. Do it for me. Her words mocked, provoked, and invited.

  A smile spread over my full lips, feeling the strain of my member pushing against the fabric of my slacks. I grabbed the coat from the chair, to conceal my erection from her.

  “Of course, I will, whatever you ask. I love you…Mother.”

  The words left my lips in a release, blood rushed into my veins and I exhaled in ecstasy.

  “I love you too, darling,” she replied.

  I climaxed as she exited the office to leave me alone. I collapsed upon on the leather chair behind my desk dropping the coat on my lap. I lay there consumed with the reality, the pain, and the anxiety of how to best handle my growing desire.

  3

  Downtown

  Something evil is upon us…something wicked has been unearthed…

  The rain poured down the dark, quiet streets of downtown Houston. In one of the lonelier parts of town, a poor homeless man wandered into one of the dark alleys. Hungry, he searched the wasted trash cans for scraps of food, and then took shelter against a corner in the back of an alley. Though the rain had not stopped, he embraced it, lifting his face up into the sky. He hoped he would die soon, and trembled at the thought giddily.

  It had been raining for a week, and the hunger could not be silenced. He hugged himself, watching as the rain fell while nibbling on a piece of half-eaten sandwich he had found at the bottom of one of the trashcans.

  Above the thunder erupted, and the lightning flashed across the sky.

  He foolishly fell against the wall, frightened for a minute—only then did he smirk. The night was quiet, but the sounds of the traffic a distance away competed with the sounds from above. Only the rain and the thunder in the sky were clear to him; nothing else in this place made sense.

  He carefully gazed about, examining his new home. The smell of trash surrounded him. It was a smell he had always found comforting, as decisive and real as the shadows and the damp corners where insects crawled alongside his fingers and the dirt became his bed. This was home, home sweet home. The rain falling from the sky was his shower, and the trash bins filled with half-eaten desserts were plentiful all along the city corners. You would think so, too, if you were him.

  In the distance he heard steps, and was alarmed. He looked out from where he hid from behind one of the trash bins, but saw nothing. A cat meowed somewhere and he grinned, leaning back against the wall, feeling slightly foolish for ever fearing the darkness. The night was his friend; why should he fear it? Evening time was there to hide him, to protect him from those who did not welcome his kind. He could sleep peacefully in its shadows, and shield himself from those out to harm him.

  He was tired, wet, and hungry, but all he could hope for was finding something to eat tomorrow. He tried to close his eyes, but the sounds of raindrops wouldn’t let him sleep. He opened his eyes once again, gazed in front of him, and then he noticed it. Had it been there before? He backed up against the wall as close as he could, too afraid to run. What was it?

  A strange black cloud of smoke drifted closely to him. Was it a rain cloud that had drifted closer to the ground? But clouds didn’t do that. Did they? It was then that he noticed something strange coming from out of the mystical, smoky air, and it frightened him some more.

  Tiny arms, like tentacles that appeared like stringing veins, surrounded it.

  What the hell was it? He tried to move around it, but was too afraid. It drifted closely from above him. Again, he tried to crawl away, but he couldn’t scream.

  The thing kept coming closer; he was too frightened, too freaked to escape. What could this awful and curious thing be?

  Bravely, he managed to scatter away from the thing, but it moved over him!

  A crisp sound hummed from out of it, almost like rushing water! At once, he crawled to his feet and began to race away, but tripped, feeling his leg had been caught on something. He tried to cut himself loose, but when he did, he realized the thing was on top of him hovering, and one of its tentacles had his leg.

  Blood!

  He screamed and struggled as it dragged him back; its slimy body engulfed his head, quickly swallowing him whole.

  4

  Stranger in the Dark

  Indulgence—is living.

  Lucas Williams rushed home through the rain. He was upset his car had not started, yet happy that he had finally gotten a job he would surely enjoy. In two days, he would start and perhaps make enough to get the piece-of-shit car fixed. But for now, he had to keep taking the Metro and making the long walk home. The rain hadn’t helped, but at least the day wasn’t entirely a bad one.

  He hated walking at night, hated the homeless people on the street bugging him for change. And also, he hated the whistles from the hookers and the transvestites posing as real women at the corner of Montrose as he passed by.

  Who were they fooling with their made-up faces and those bulges, so like bugles, in their crotches? He hated people that stereotyped others, yet he found he was doing that now.

  Two men holding hands came from out of the tattoo place; as they passed by, he tried to ignore them, quickly heading in the opposite direction as they stopped to examine the condom shop nearby. Why had he moved here in the first place? Because it was always easy to identify with other people, others that were different like him. He loved the neighborhood. This place had always been his home, a home for the rebellious and the free-minded thinkers. Libertines were not something altogether tolerable.

  He turned on Westheimer and continued down, passing the Taco Cabana restaurant; the bars were still open, even though it wasn’t the weekend yet. He could stop and get a drink, but then he knew he would just waste the rest of his money, and he needed to save it, at least until he got paid from his new job. He had filled out so many applications in the local bars, yet he had no experience as a bartender. So, he was surprised when the Cathedral de Los Vampiros, a local club on Westheimer, had called back requesting an interview, promising to train him. Was it his lucky day, or what?

  He had been up late the night before. The beginning of the day had been filling out applications, and the rest slacking off just a tiny bit, knowing that somehow, he would have a job the next day. Luckily for him, it had been so. If not, he would have been fucked.

  The phone rang about six pm; it was not surprising he was still in bed. He grabbed the phone at the fifth ring, falling while reaching for it. His bedroom was dark; he had covered the windows so well it was hard to see inside the room even in the daytime.

  With the phone in his hand and still asleep, he answered with his best speaking voice. That frog wouldn’t get out of his throat, though. It leapt around, making phlegm, and felt like another kind of bulge, indeed.

  A soft voice came from the other end of the phone. A male’s voice, polite but clear, penetrated the end of the phone line.

  “Hello. Can I speak to Mr. Lucas Williams?”

  He almost fell over the side of the bed, fighting his way out of the sheets, and stood in the room with the phone pressed against his ear, listening closely.

  He hadn’t realized how the sound of his name, the manner in which he was referred to by another human being as a “mister,” made him feel important. “Speaking,” he said, roughly clearing his throat.

  “This is Eric, of the Cathedral De Los Vampiros. You filed an application with us the other day. I was just getting back with you. I wanted to say, you have some interesting skills, but not exactly bartender skills.”

  This statement was enough to bring about its desired effect. He had been a fool to even consider that the job would be his with no experience. It would have been nice to work there; he’d heard so much about the place. It seemed just as hard to get a job there as it was to get in. The place was always busy; he could imagine the tips he would make.

  There were probably millions of other bartenders trying to get a job in the Cathedral. What
made him think he had any sort of chance in getting the job, especially there?

  Disappointed, he felt like ending the conversation, saying, “I understand,” and whatnot. There was no way of denying his lack of skills, but he sensed the assurance in Eric’s tone. That brightened him considerably.

  “But I think we can work something out. If you’re…interested?”

  “Yes, of course!” he blurted, only to lower his voice. He didn’t want to sound too desperate, either. Unfortunately, he sounded like the proverbial Hades victim, too ready to die to get the job, unready to actually perform it, but he sorted of knew better about that.

  “Great,” Eric said from the other end of the phone line.

  There was little to no emotion in this voice Lucas heard. Were all goths this dislocated with the world? The fact that they were self-proclaimed blood suckers had to be one reason.

  Though it sounded sincere enough to him, the awkwardness was there and obviously, it was the awkwardness another feels when talking to a stranger for the first time. At least, he told himself this little, sweet lie.

  “I would like you to come in for an interview. What’s the best time for you?”

  Lucas stumbled, and almost lost his balance, clearing his throat again, and then regained his posture. He pulled himself from out of the sheets. The last end of the thing was strangling him somewhat. At the last second, he pulled away, just in time.

  “Anytime! May I come in today?”

  The fellow at the other end became silent; he heard one or two muffled voices in the background, then Eric answered.

  “How about this weekend? I have an opening, is that fine with you?” again, his voice sounded dry of emotion and slightly insensitive.

  “That’s great! What time?”

  “Let’s say around two-thirty am. We don’t usually get up until six pm. We are vampires, you know.” Eric slightly chuckled, as the words left his lips. It was the first indication of any emotion in his voice. Lucas thought,