The Devil's Masquerade: The Poison

by Jennifer Loren

  I ask her to let me speak with my father alone, and I step outside with him. “What are you doing here Father, and no more of your snide comments about the way I am now living? Tell me why you are really here.”

  “Dante, I took you in as a child when I didn’t have to. I made you my top son despite my wife’s wishes. You are not the oldest. You are not the strongest, but you are the smartest, the most strategic, and therefore, the best of all my children. I need you, Dante, and I am not willing to give up on you because you are taken with some … woman,” he says delicately.

  Something inside me begins to tense, and I feel trouble creeping up from all sides. I back away from him with a watchful eye all around. My mind begins to swarm with questions. Why is he really here? Why is my brother hiding in the car? Why is Barr at the side of the house? Rabbie constantly looking through the windows? My father constantly trying to turn me into another direction by pacing away from me? I block out his words and pay attention to his actions. Dennis Savage is never above deception, even with his own son.

  He must have forgotten that my training was completed. He must have believed that I am my brother and would not comprehend what was happening around me. I am trained to fight, but I was born omniscient of my surroundings. As my father walks away from me in one direction, I step into the other and throw Rabbie into the air before sliding across the front deck to catch my brother sneaking around the side of the house. “Where are you going Saldean?” He stands, looking through me as if I am nothing to him. His response to me catches me off guard, and I nearly miss his quick step to attack me. While I battle my brother, I keep an eye on Barr as he moves from the car. “Sophia!” Throwing Saldean off his legs, I rush through the front door as Barr has Sophia cornered. Barr is my father’s deadliest assassin. He has no fear and no use for bargaining; he only follows orders, the orders of my father. If I have to kill him to save her, I will. I move on him as my father rushes more men in at me. I battle one, then three, then five, and more and more until I hear a high pitched squawking coming my way. I don’t have a chance to turn before I feel the paralyzing pain surging through my body.

  “Dante!” I hear her scream for me as I try to find my way back to protect her. Sophia’s screams echo in my head as I go blind and begin to feel my body being taken over by some kind of poisonous demon. I have to help Sophia. “Dante!” I hear her broken voice slowly fade to the back of my mind as I feel someone take my hand and kiss my cheek. The swirling voices in my head and rushing of energy around me dissipate.

  Ever since I met Sophia, her presence has had a calming effect on me. I had no desire to fight or to kill for my father anymore. I have killed for her and felt the need to beg for forgiveness right after doing so. It has always been the more I killed, the more I craved it until I was no longer killing for my family. I killed for Sophia, proving my heart beat only for her. Now as much as she screams for me, I can do nothing but fight through the darkness around me. My love, my child, and I can’t find either as my energy fades, “I love you Dante.”

  I don’t know how much time passed while I was asleep, but when I awake, the sun is shining on the opposite side of the house. The silence in the room does nothing to help my pounding head. I slowly open my swollen eyes to see her hand still reaching out to me, but her broken neck twists the rest of her body away from me. My father sits in a chair, watching me with a simple expression. He knew what he was doing all along. I try to shake the groggy feeling in my head as my father directs Barr, Saldean, and Rabbie back to the car.

  “Get up, and let’s go home Dante. You have no reason to stay here any longer. You have done your job, now we must get back to our other business,” he says, waving his hand for me to follow him to the car. I manage to sit up, looking over her body sprawled out over my own. I touch her and feel over her, searching for any kind of life within her. My father stands, looking over me with concern. “I assure you that you killed her. We can go now.”

  “I killed her?”

  “She attacked you, and you had to defend yourself. No need to worry. She is no one to worry about, and the child she was carrying died on its own, so you will not be held responsible. Just push her to the side and dust yourself off. I will have our people come and take care of the mess.”

  I look up at him in shock, “She was the love of my life, the mother of my child.”

  My father stands back with wide eyes, “You remember her?” I nod and pull back the hair from her face and hold her against me. “How can that be? You shouldn’t remember anything. You shouldn’t have any feelings at all for her. The poison, the cravings I caused you to have should have taken care of all that for you.”

  “You did this to me? You took everything from me so I would come back to you?”

  “You belong to me. You’re my son. No one else should matter to you other than me,” he says with no sign of sorrow or regret. “You’re my son!” He screams at me.

  I rage at him and knock him back into a wall. “I hate you! I hate everything about you! Why would you do this to me? Why, because you’re jealous?”

  “You are my son, Dante, and no one else will take you from me. You will do as I say, and what I say only.” I slam him backwards and fight him with everything I have until Saldean comes in. The brother I used to share toys with now has vengeance and hate in his eyes for me. I realize I don’t have enough energy to fight them both, so I run. I run, planning to never return, to go to a place he could never find me, but the image of her eats me alive, and I want nothing more than to let my father find me and put me out of my misery.

  I manage to contact my sister, and she brings me enough clothes and money to get by. She begs me to return and not make father any angrier, but I refuse. Galena finally tells me that my brother, Saldean, was influenced by the same poison that father inflicted on me. He remembers nothing of our childhood and has become an unstoppable killer. She says, if I don’t return, she fears Father will demand that he hunt me down and kill me. With the pain I feel from losing my Sophia and our child, I would almost prefer it. That plan would have surely come true if not for my father being distracted by an attack by Rein Lorid, the Lord of the 8th. I still wait, and I wait, but he never comes for me. Galena is the only one I stay in contact with, though she is limited in the time she can give me and even more limited on what she can tell me about our father. He doesn’t trust her to know much about his business.

  The more time that goes by, the more I drink, and the more women I take to bed until I realize that fucking, for me, is a calming relief from my pain and anger. I would have self-destructed if not for Galena. She contacts me in a panic one day after not seeing or hearing from her for some time. I wanted nothing to do with her by then, but she was relentless in her pursuit and tracked me down on her own accord. I thought, for sure, she was setting me up for her brother or for Father, himself, to kill me. I was ready to kill her for betraying me until she handed me a secret to protect for her. My sister needed me, and as if that wasn’t enough, her secret meant betraying my father’s wishes, giving me new reason to recover my strength and help her the best way I can. Only, the daunting secret becomes too much for me to handle on my own, and I worry I won’t be able to keep the secret from my father if he ever comes after me. So, I search for some place and someone I can fully trust to hold our secret while I develop a plan to take a stand against my father. The process doesn’t hinder my desires though. The women I encounter become nothing more than stress relievers, but some end up becoming more important than expected.

  I wasn’t thinking with my first child, Connor. His mother was nothing more than a conquest to prove a point to a rich brat that swore I could never have what he had, so I took his fiancé to bed. The child was beautiful, and his mother desperately wanted me to take ownership of him, but my father would have never allowed him to live. He would be a drain on his power or so he would say. You have children to increase your power, so they must be strong or else you must have them killed. I would have
many more siblings if not for this rule of his. I never saw him do it, but I heard. I finally asked him one day.

  “Why would you kill your own child?”

  “Because Dante, if they are not strong enough, they will die anyway from the poison that will eventually spread through their veins. I kill them now to prevent inevitable suffering. You understand, don’t you?

  I believed him, until I realized the poison was not one we were born with but one inflicted by our own father. My father killed his children for his own gain. Only the strongest survive because only the strongest can help him gain more power. All the others drain him, leaving no opportunity for him to gain anything. I decided to leave my children alone and let them live, but without me being involved in their lives in hope that my father will never know about them. That idea changed when Nicholas was born.

  His mother caught my attention, and I felt bad for her life. No one wanted her because of her condition, but she was too beautiful to be left alone forever. She was never capable of much emotion until me. I found it odd, but giving her pleasure and happiness made me feel good about myself, so I stayed with her and watched over her. I loved her like a friend, and she gave birth to the son that opened my eyes to love again. Nicholas had a power over me, something I hadn’t felt since Sophia. I love my children, but Nicholas is special. I knew from the moment he looked me dead in the eyes and I saw his swirling displeasure with me for not paying enough attention to him that there was something different about him. Ignoring him was not going to be possible. No, I had to stay with him and protect him from my father. I stayed within the city and raised him, while keeping an eye on my other children.

  Ryan’s mother was the only woman since Sophia that has gotten to me. Although I never quivered in her presence, I was always excited to see her. I still care for her, and even love her as much as I allowed myself to love anyone after my Sophia. She was a great mother, and because of her, Ryan was the first of my children I rocked to sleep. Ryan had the sweetest hold on me, and it was hard to let go of him. The last time I held him, I said, “I love you,” and handed him over to his mother. I cried all night from the pain of having to let him go. I was not overly supportive of Nicholas taking care of him for me. I was afraid of the attention it might bring to Ryan, but at the same time, it made it easier for me to keep an eye on them. I spent a lot of time following those two around. The things they got into still make me cringe, but somehow, they survived. I wanted to make sure their lives would be great ones, and the only way I could do that was to find a way to kill my father, to kill Dennis Savage. Once and for all. My failure to do so will eliminate my chance of ever having a life of my own, and my children will be haunted by his looming shadow, especially Nicholas.

  Chapter 6

  Dante

  My death was unexpected. I should have prepared my son better. I shouldn’t have protected him for so long. I wanted him to live as normal of a life as possible. It is unfortunate though, that he had to endure the pain of who he is without his father. I would have done anything to change that, and now, I have only one opportunity to help him. I go before the High Council and beg them to let me live again; to let me have another chance to save my children from the evil that haunts them. My father still holds the highest of positions amongst the Lords of the Realms, encouraging the council to make the difficult decision. Not only do they decide to let me live again, but they allow me to spy for them. If my father is doing acts that are not acceptable, that are against the rules of the High Council, then they must know so they can remove him and replace him with another. The High Council were once highly regarded leaders of the world before their deaths, and now, they sit in the in-between, in between right and wrong, heaven and hell, or however you to choose to see it. They are not privileged to the all-knowing, only to the ways that any human could possibly learn information, through talk and what they see first-hand. They deal with a lot in their position, and my father takes advantage of them every chance he gets. The Council is continuously made to look like fools by him, and they know it. However, they have neither the proof nor power to do anything about it.

  I am, in the end, granted an opportunity, and if I succeed, I could win favor with the Council. I am grateful for the opportunity and for the offer of a favor from them, but more importantly, I am concerned about my children and protecting them. They are vulnerable where they are, and my father will have them all killed, all except Nicholas because he will turn him into the monster that he wanted me to be. I don’t know if I can prevent that, but I have to try. I am granted a second chance at life, a life with a different view, a different body, and, perhaps, a way to spoil my father’s plans without detection. It’s not quite the second chance I was hoping for, but if all goes well, I will not only save my children, but I will have a chance to be with Sophia again. I have so much to gain and everything to lose.

  My life is now at a lower level, but this opportunity gives me a chance to be with my children like I never could before. Tonight, they are all gathered together.

  Lena, the daughter I would have raised on my own if I thought I could have, was raised by Andrea, a much better choice for her and the best mother a girl could have. Andrea was tough, but loving; she never let Lena get out of line. She was the perfect mother for a girl, especially one that could have easily been swayed down a bad path. Andrea was well established, intelligent, and able to give Lena the life I couldn’t. Lena is an example of one of my few good decisions.

  Lena and her new husband, Brady, sit cuddling together in one chair, reminding everyone they came back from their honeymoon too soon. I sniff him repeatedly, checking him out. He seems to love her deeply and doesn’t seem to be bothered by me sitting in between them while I give him a closer look.

  “Hey, Jayzon, what is wrong with your dog? Did you train him not to like cops or something?” Brady says, laughing as he tries to kiss Lena around me.

  “Do you think Nick would bother to train that dog?! Are you kidding? Unless that dog can spy for him or handle a gun, then he has no time for him. Not liking cops must be a natural instinct, Brady. They do say dogs have good instincts about people.” Ryan laughs nodding in Nicholas’s direction.

  Ryan, my youngest, is growing into such a fine man, and so happily teasing Sam as they talk of their own wedding plans. I have heard them discussing running away in the middle of the night and skipping the large wedding now that they have built their dream home. I imagine it is only a matter of time before they do just that. The way he talks to her, I’m surprised that she isn’t pregnant already.

  “Come here, Eey. I have to tell you something,” Nicky says, grabbing my collar and pulling me onto the floor to show me his new toy. My grandson, Nicky, already showing signs of being just like his father. Even his responsibility of being the older brother mirror Nicholas’s relationship with Ryan. Nicky rarely lets Brayden out of his sight. Kayla had to move Nicky’s room next to Brayden’s just so they could share a door in between, a door that is never closed. Nicky looks after his little brother’s every step and never lets him fall. Not that I can blame him, Brayden, looks just like his mother. His angelic face makes you drunk with love. No one denies him much; I even let him chew on my ears whenever he wants. As much as he looks like his mother, he still has the blood of his father. His strength is low from being ill most of the time, but you can see the swirling anger in his eyes if you deny him something he wants. Brayden, however, tends to use his mother’s angelic gift to get what he wants, a gift his mother uses quite well, too.

  Kayla, I had no idea how strong she was when I pushed Nicholas in her direction. The more she denied him, the happier I became. I watched their relationship grow to something so strong that I am sure no one can break them, not even my father. Kayla is beautiful, intelligent, and a wonderful mother. Most of all, she loves my son like he has never been loved before and like he deserves. She also has moves that hypnotize you. Yes, Nicholas is a lucky man, and it is no wonder he rarely misses an opport
unity to get her naked and close to him.

  “Eey, go on, move,” Nicholas says, pushing me out of Kayla’s lap and away from her affections. “That dog is constantly on you.” Kayla laughs, calming him with sweet whispers and tender kisses. Nicholas, my son, the strongest of them all. His shoulders carry them, but if not for Kayla, Nicholas wouldn’t be the man he is. The two of them need each other more than they even know. My first goal is to make sure he, Savage, Asmodeus, my father, does not take Nicholas away, but I’m not sure I can manage that much longer. My father has been constantly sending out spies to draw him in. I find them hovering around the estate and provoking Nicholas to come out to meet them, but he is too smart for their baiting games, something that only increases my father’s hunger. I would like to say that no spies have attempted to come into their home, but there is one woman that has already entered the house more than once, and I suspect she works for my father. I’m not sure why I distrust her, but I get a faint scent of desperation and dishonesty every time she steps into the room. Nicholas does not block this spy from what she wants; Kayla does. Nicholas is strong, intelligent, intuitive, and powerful, and Kayla is the same. Together, they are unbreakable. The goal of my father will be to separate them somehow, and once that happens, the resilient pair will become frail and weak. I just wish I knew how he plans to do it. I assume he will go after Kayla and lure her into fear, and to her death.

  My second goal for being here is to make sure my father does not kill Kayla as I know he wants to. She stands between him and my son, and she alone keeps him from becoming filled with anger and destructive beyond control. Nicholas needs her, and she needs him.