The Shadow Minds Journal, #1

by Kia Carrington-Russell

  “Obviously someone didn’t while she was captive,” I retorted. I had taken Gretel’s advisement. I needed to catch this Guardian unguarded so I could figure out what really happened that night and what Haymen was up to. I knew that he was recruiting to build an army because I had a close watch on him since the day the last war ended.

  She waited for me at the bottom of the steps. As I took my first step, she put her foot out in front of mine and before she could trip me, I pinned my hands on either side of her against the wall and blocked her escape with my body.

  “You try that little trick again and it will be you rolling down the stairs,” I growled. This was now the third time she tried tripping me and I wasn’t going to concede to such childish games. A smile twisted on her lips and she pushed her hands through my hair with a smile that was all too cunning. Now knowing that she was contracted to a succubus demon, I wasn’t at all surprised she knew how to create such an enticing smile. Her hands stroked my hair, each touch like a burning sensation. I didn’t like it and her touch wasn’t welcome but that’s why she did it. It was a game. I slowly grabbed her wrists and put them to her side.

  She laughed behind me as I continued walking in front of her. This next thirty days is going to be a handful watching her alone.

  Chapter Seventeen- Vivian

  “Kill me now,” is all I said when I walked into the Guardians home. We had to push through a few cameramen who were trying to get answers and news on the latest scoop. Already, questions and stories started spinning about the infamous Gabe Christain taking interest in my case and presences still within the Demon Lord’s city. Scandalous. Romance. War. Oh, the conspiracies started rolling in. Yet none of them caught wind of the truth, that I had been sentenced and detained in Aztec.

  Tahmeed and Destiny were tense as they sat at the breakfast bar with coffee. I walked over and grabbed one of the banana muffins from the plate that was supplied by our chef. He had already left at this time in the morning. They both scoped Gabe for what he was–a threat.

  “Being tailed by such an adorable puppy doesn’t seem all bad.” Destiny said. The smile not reaching her eyes. It was a sweet and coaxing insult.

  “I can see that manners are of no concern to Haymen’s slaves.” he shot back at her. Destiny blew air out of her nose infuriated and I wondered if a fight was about to erupt. I stepped to the side so I was no longer in her way. Like I was going to stop it.

  “Don’t think you can just waltz on in here. You aren’t welcome,” Tahmeed gritted through teeth and had turned into her silken blue demon which was notorious for taking a ‘beating’. But against the force of an angel, that demon certainly had a chance. Destiny’s tattoos glowed and she shifted into her smaller compacted siren. Although better designed for water, they were light and the siren scream would bleed out anyone’s ears on land. She was swift and ready to fight.

  Gabe took the threat seriously and extended his wings out.

  “Now you can see why I love my girls. They are so lively,” Haymen said teleporting into the room with a black swirl around him. “I told the council that your input was unnecessary, we found your killer.”

  “And I told them it was,” Gabe prompted back. I leaned against the bench and grabbed a second muffin watching the show unfold. Destiny stared at me with an intensity that could burn but I shrugged my shoulders and continued eating. Hey, I had two days now of having to deal with Angel Boy, maybe they might start to feel sorry for me. “I will host my own investigation to make sure that your intel is legitimate.”

  “As much as I want to entertain you, Gabe, I must protest. And I am surprised that under your own circumstances and the state of your own city, you want to spend so much time fawning over my Guardians. As beautiful as they are I will not release any of my harem,” Haymen said walking over to me. I diverted my gaze but didn’t stand upright. I was too exhausted for that. He leaned down and bit a large portion out of my hand. That caught my attention and Haymen smirked, all his dark features ominous as he straightened.

  “My city is of no concern to you. It would appear your little bunny here has a record of those she sleeps with being killed within three days. What was it, the Widow they called you?” He asked me directly in a sneer.

  Haymen stood in front of me, blocking Gabe’s gaze. “Nothing of which has been proven and only gossip. Has your life become so boring since the war that you pick on little girls for entertainment? How depressing.”

  Gabe’s wings flared only slightly. He had a different sort of movement from Luke. Gabe was more controlled, his wings didn’t seem like an object attached to his back but were actually a part of him, fidgeting with every breath he took.

  “You either humble my request or she goes back to Aztec. That was the agreement that you agreed to and permitted me leniency to stay within your city for thirty days.” Haymen was quiet but the oppression of his power swept through the room. It was dark and even little black tendrils began to whip against the floor. He was pissed. Gabe wrapped his hands around the two handles on his back. The view when I peeked over was rather ravishing as his muscles flexed and chest bared to grab onto the two swords as if he might need to unsheathe them. Swords that he had never even bothered to use on me when we first fought. Rather insulting. What was more interesting was that he considered he had a chance against Haymen’s power. I was curious to do more research on the last war, more specifically about Gabe and how far his history matched with Haymen’s.

  Although silent, Alexa walked through the room. Her skin had paled considerably since last time I had seen her which only emphasize the contrast of her thick black hair. “What did I miss?” I could tell that she had just come from the Shadow Minds room. I couldn’t look away from the black circles under her eyes. Would I one day go through that, too? She looked like just a shell of the Guardian I knew her to be. Doc said that she was with her for the past week. We all knew why. Because something was getting to her in her sleep and she was slowly spiraling. “Doc wants you,” she said, disregarding even Haymen in the room with all his pent up furry.

  A tendril of his strength smashed her against the wall and he stormed up to her. We all diverted our gaze as he turned his back on Gabe and took his frustration out on her. He wrapped his hand around her throat digging in his now sharpened nails which appeared from nowhere.

  “Do you deem it okay to come and interrupt when I am speaking,” he seethed at her.

  “No,” she said diverting her gaze to the floor and making little noise against the trickles of blood on her neck. “I apologize, Haymen, for my behavior. It won’t happen again.”

  He snarled at her and released his grip but not the power that still kept her to the wall. He backhanded her across the face, hard. Her eyes rolled in her head for a moment. She kept her eyes closed not willing to look him in the eyes.

  Gabe stepped forward but I gave him an effective look of warning. I don’t know why. Frankly I wanted to see his ass handed to him. But this was diplomacy and Haymen played to his own tune on everything he did. Especially being in a mood like this, we might all be caught in the crossfire. Alexa’s lip began to bleed and swell from the slap. I wasn’t sympathetic, we had all gone through similar treatment and it was just a reminder to stay in line. I did however want to step out of this tension and it was either going to go one of two ways. I would be bitch slapped as well or I would be allowed to leave the room. I took my third banana muffin, rather slowly, and then pushed off my casual pose against the breakfast bench. I began to walk for the hall and Haymen’s eyes snapped on me, wild and dangerous.

  “I need to report to Doc,” I said simply. It had been two days now since my last dream and report. “When you have the time, I will report my other findings to you. Until then I would like to be permitted to work as usual?” I asked. Although having an angel tracking me wasn’t ideal I wanted to return to the orphanage. After seeing Alice and a real living Shadow person that attacked us during our sleep, I was certain the same kind of acti
vity was somehow involved with the orphanage. That and I wanted to find information on the demon that swelled my belly. I still couldn’t feel it slither like it had once around me, but there was now a disturbing and larger presence within me. Like in the pit of my stomach I had a compressed amount of power I had no access too. I was certain the demon was sleeping within me and I had to find out what it would do to me over time and how to get rid of it.

  Haymen’s gaze pinned me for a moment longer and then Gabe, as he stepped forward as if to follow me. I counted down from three in my head. That’s how long it usually took Haymen to react in a blood thirsty manner. Three. Two. One. Instead, he vanished. His black power misted to where he once was. Alexa dropped to the ground. She simply stood up and kept walking, not even bothering to brush off her clothes.

  Gabe’s jaw tightened, deplored by her wounds. “Don’t get upset sweetheart,” I started as I walked down the hallway. “We’re just demon summoners, remember? Evil, disgusting creatures in your eyes... you couldn’t possibly be seeing us as women, could you?” That snapped his attention away from his hero like behavior. I allowed him to walk the length of the hallway with me so I could see that one frustrated expression on his face.

  The door opened for me to the Shadow Minds room. From the outside it looked like an honest enough ‘medical check-up’. I took a step inside the room and watched him as he tried to step in. Doc was behind me unamused by my behavior. As soon as he tried to step inside to follow me the ward around the room pushed him back and bounced him against the wall expectantly. I laughed and hit my knee.

  “The funny thing about having a witch for a Doc is that no one else is allowed to come into this room but her patients,” I said still laughing and wiping away exaggerated tears. The truth was this was only heavily warded and guarded by her because no one else besides Haymen, Doc, and the Guardians were to know what was happening behind these walls. The recordings were only exclusive to us, well as far as I knew.

  “Our agreement was-” he said stepping forward. Click–the door was shut. Once it did, I wiped the smug expression off my face. I used humor and laughter only to piss him off but his following me everywhere was definitely going to be a problem.

  “You should be more careful. That isn’t just any angel,” Doc said as she began to set everything up. I wondered how she knew that I had data to record despite not yet having the chance to page her. “Before your time he was acknowledged as the War Angel. Some even thought of him as some kind of warrior god depending on how serious his followers were.”

  I rested on the white chair. A war angel huh? “I suppose Haymen and he weren’t batting for the same team before the treaty.” That much I could put together myself without doing research.

  “Leaders on both sides. Those from the old days are curious of what the outcome would’ve been if the treaty hadn’t been agreed upon first.” She said taking my blood. I watched the black syrup like substance leach out of my veins.

  “No one can match Haymen,” I said absolute. She arched an eyebrow at me in a questioning manner. Could Gabe?

  “Haymen is powerful. I also believe that he would’ve won. But that angel out there is one of the only forces I’ve seen that might be able to counter Haymen for days at a time. Like I said, he’s no normal angel and rather infuriating that he was permitted to be within this city and keep an eye on someone so close such as you. You Guardians are Haymen’s pride and joy. It’s an insult.”

  Well, pride and joy got backhanded across the face three minutes ago. I watched the capsule of blood and her witch scribblings that I couldn’t make sense of.

  “You found one of my demons through the sampling?” I asked her. I haven’t had time to discuss with her the Hellhound that she insisted was one of my contracted demons. She looked at me and it was only for a moment but I saw it there. Fear. The first I have ever seen on Doc. Hellhound’s were revered for their ruthless nature and loyalty to Haymen. But they were known as extinct since the last war. Surely those results couldn’t be correct. As if reading my mind, she said.

  “The results don’t lie. You will believe it too, when it first approaches you. What I might suggest is seeing if you can find a book or so and do your research before it comes forth. All I personally know is they had one certain weakness. Sunlight.”

  I considered that. My current demons had certain weaknesses. My water demon couldn’t last long outside of water. My cat demon was sensitive towards gases and poisons. My succubus was quick to heal but my strength at my weakest.

  “So, they can’t walk in the day,” I thought to myself keeping note. Luckily, I wouldn’t be permanently stuck in any one of my demon’s bodies and could change when it suited me.

  “Not only during the day,” Doc added. “But also, those who can manifest light against darkness.” She said nudging her head into the direction of the door where I imagine Angel Boy was probably probing open with a pair of tongs.

  “He can create sunlight? Well my goodness, the sun really does shine out of his ass,” And I hoped that he heard it because I thought that was a really good one. Even though I already knew the walls were soundproof.

  “You might want to be careful as to how much you antagonize him, Vi,” was the sound advice she gave before the small device latched its four spikes into the back of my neck. I scowled at her from the lack of warning.

  “Shadow Mind’s activated,” the system sounded. All humor had washed from my expression as I was left to watch the remains of my sleep. It had been another memory before I became a Guardian. That was two now in a row and I knew as Doc looked between the video surveillance and the pad in her arm that she was trying to decipher why it appeared as a memory. I didn’t want a new one but if I continued conjuring my memories and the attacks I had from when I was younger it would only raise more questions. Ones that I wasn’t willing to answer. A few minutes passed as my last dream was projected on the screen until the moment I had woken up.

  “I’ll ask you again Miss Vivian, is this or not a memory because your brain waves are-”

  “It’s not Doc,” I said jumping off my seat and ripping the prongs out myself. “Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve been locked in a prison for the past two days and feel filthy. I put my hand on the door and tried to open it but it was still closed. I looked back at Doc who hasn’t yet lifted the ward to let me out. She looked at me for a long time and I effectively looked around the room for weapons that I could use if she wanted to go down this way. I still didn’t have complete access to my demons but I could feel them slowly unfurl. That damn fairy dust shit that Angel Boy blew at me really knocked them out.

  Taking the safer option, I could feel the protection of the room lift and the door clicked open.

  “Have a good day, Miss Vivian.” she said not turning her back to me. She eyed me as I walked out. Smart woman.

  I raised my finger to Gabe as soon as I walked out. He was infuriated. “Don’t. I need a shower and can’t be bothered putting up with your rules and regulation spiel right now.”

  The brush of his warm thumb reached out to the four small holes in the back of my neck.

  “What is this?” he asked. I slapped his hand away and covered it with my hair. I gave him a broody look which might’ve worked if it wasn’t against the master of brooding. “I asked you a question.” He said, following me into my room. I had to answer him with nothing. I stopped and arched an eyebrow at him.

  “This is my room,” I said pointedly. “Get out. Go hitchhike to a campervan or something.”

  “I told you I will be following you everywhere,” he simply said. I cocked my head to the side hauntingly and expressing my hatred for the man in front of me; some might have even considered my expression demonic.

  I smirked and began to push down my pants slowly and teasing. His eyes shot straight to the creamy skin tone of my legs. It was an initial reaction before he turned his head to the side and swallowed. Well look at that, he is a man after all. His face showed the expressio
n of utter disgust but his initial expression glowed like most men when I appeared in front of them. His eyes had turned feral and with wonder. It was only a split second but it was there. My succubus had trained me well in the art of seduction and knowing when a man wanted me. She surfaced, my beautiful succubus no longer dormant and enjoying the smell of arousal in the room. He noticed my changed form but didn’t comment.

  “Do you really think that I’ve never seen a woman before?”

  “I just assumed with that pole up your ass you were still a virgin,” I huskily said. He shot me a look of irritation and looked my slim legs up and down. My tail flicked back and forth. I could tell he was disgusted by my demonic form but the enchanting part about the succubus was there. There was always an air about her that made her awfully seductive. She still had my figure which was lean and that of a warrior’s. I walked over to him, not letting him take his eyes off me. I haven’t even started taking off my shirt and I had no intention to, either. He asked too many questions and I didn’t want him further questioning the extent and size of my tattoos. But it was all part of the fun. I would try to drive him mad.

  “Do you think I’m not immune to your charm?” He asked towering over me with his arms crossed over his chest. I looked down with a smile able to see his bulge through his jeans that said otherwise.

  “Your virgin brain might be but I think your body might have a very different reaction,” I said, sweeping closer towards him. I’ll give him credit. He didn’t move from his positioning but neither did he press himself against me like most would have already done.

  I smiled and put the succubus demon away. My crimson hair splayed around my shoulders and he continued to look at me with the same intensity.

  “Shower,” he gritted out. I smiled at him before turning and feeling his eyes burn into the back of me, watching as my toned ass walked away. Oh yes, I might have some fun with this. How long would it take for an Angel Boy, no, the revered War Angel to break either by lust or pure frustration? Well, I was aiming for a record.