Then she thought of Deaumanique. “Deaumanique!” she cried, dropping the book and pencil to the floor as she ran toward her daughter’s room.
Deaumanique heard her mother’s voice and turned over in bed, pushing the covers away in preparation of going to her mother, but her door burst open and Aubreigne rushed inside. She dropped to her knees in front of Deaumanique and pushed Deaumanique’s hair from her face. “Are you okay? Did you sleep all night through?” Aubreigne asked, running her hands over Deaumanique.
“I’m fine, Mama. What’s wrong?” Deaumanique asked.
Aubreigne was beginning to question herself. Maybe she did sketch that picture in her book. Maybe she was just so tired she didn’t remember it.
“Nothing. I just… we just overslept and we are usually both such morning people that it never happens.”
“We must have both needed it, then,” Deaumanique said on a still sleepy smile.
“Yes, we must have,” Aubreigne agreed, not wanting to upset Deaumanique.
“What’s for breakfast? I’m starved,” Deaumanique asked.
“I haven’t gotten that far yet. I just woke up myself,” Aubreigne confessed. “Why don’t you get cleaned up and ready for your day. I’ll throw together something to eat, then I’ll walk you to Mrs. Carolena’s house before I go to see Murder.”
“You’re going to see Mr. Murder?” Deaumanique asked.
“I am. I have a few things I need to have tended, and he always says I should ask when I need a male to help.”
“Give him a hug for me. I miss him being around so much,” Deaumanique said.
“I will. Now get ready, baby,” Aubreigne said, getting to her feet.
Aubreigne left Deaumanique to get ready and went back to the kitchen to get breakfast ready for herself and her daughter. She stopped in front of the sketch book she’d dropped to the floor and picked it up. She opened it to the page that had caught her attention again and looked down at it. She ran her fingers over the perfectly proportioned picture of herself. Drawn with the charcoal pencil she had also picked up from the floor. In the picture, she lay on her sofa, asleep, her hair draped around her, one hand hugging the pillow she laid her head on, the other, held by a male she didn’t know who knelt beside her and watched her sleeping. She couldn’t see him. Only his back was in the sketched picture, but he knelt beside her just the same and held her hand in his while she slept.
Aubreigne was shaken. She had no memory of sketching this photo. And what would have prompted her to sketch this photo of herself asleep as a male, an unknown male, knelt beside her, holding her hand while she slumbered? Aubreigne tore it out of the sketch book, and hastily folded it. She put it on the counter top beside the stove as she prepared breakfast and made a mental note to hide it away in the pocket of the skirt she’d wear today. She needed to show it to Murder.
Outside the small cottage that housed the two females that had stolen his attention, the Dark One snarled quietly when he heard the mother mention calling on the gargoyle for assistance. No male should be tending this female but him. But at the same moment his thoughts betrayed him, scaring him into nervousness. “I do not need a female!” he said to no one but the air around himself. He had little to offer her. He didn’t even have a shelter of his own to invite her to. Besides, the thought, challenging his own thoughts, “this female isn’t mine. I do not have nor do I want a female. She’s just the first I’ve found that hasn’t been condemned to Hell.”
He was a little puzzled. When she spoke, he was captivated, unable to tear himself away from her. When she stopped speaking, given enough time, the spell her voice cast around him seemed to wear off, and he began to think for himself again.
He thought about when he let himself into her home last night after she fell asleep in her rocking chair. He’d very carefully lifted her and laid her on the small sofa beside the chair. He just couldn’t allow her to sleep cramped, leaning over in that chair. Then he stood there watching her sleep. He’d knelt down to pick up the book she’d dropped when she’d fallen asleep and placed his hand on the sofa for balance. She’d taken his hand in hers and whispered for him to stay with her.
Her simple plea was all it took to fall under her spell again, and he stayed there, pressing his lips to her hand as she slumbered. Once she let go of his hand, he moved to the chair to watch over her while she slept. He began to flip through the book — pictures of flowers, her daughter, animals, her cottage. He looked up at her still peacefully sleeping and grinned. He’d leave her a gift. He leaned over and retrieved the pencil from the floor and began to draw. He’d always been gifted at this kind of thing, and it only took moments for it to come back to him. Before he knew it the pencil was flying across the page like it a was a possessed thing, putting to paper what he imagined one would see if they were to witness him putting his female on the sofa to sleep better. “This female! Not mine. I do not have a female,” he whispered emphatically to himself.
The female, Aubreigne he’d heard her friends call her, turned over in her sleep murmuring. He put his finished picture and the pencil he used on the floor beside the chair he sat in. He watched her sleeping for quite a while. This female was good. She was different. “I shall be away before you know, Aubreigne. I will not taint your life.”
The Dark One stood and quietly let himself out of her home.
The Dark One shook himself from the previous night’s memory. The sounds of Aubreigne and her daughter bringing him back to the here and now. He looked down at his body. Leaving Hell hadn’t changed his appearance. He was still muscled, still golden skinned. He smiled and lifted a finger to feel his teeth, and ran his hand over his face, feeling and prodding. “I am still quite handsome,” he mumbled to himself.
“Are you almost ready, Deaumanique? I have to get to Murder’s relatively early this day,” Aubreigne called.
“Yes, Mama! I’m coming,” the daughter called back.
The Dark One snarled again. She had no reason to call on the gargoyle, and he didn’t like it. Not at all. Not one single bit. “I shall seduce her,” he said to the outside of the house. “Then she will not even consider the gargoyle.”
A tiny voice deep inside whispered to him. ‘And then what?’
“Shut up!” the Dark One snarled at the voice in his head. Then he heard the crackle of footsteps on twigs behind him. He spun, crouching, preparing to attack whatever it was that stalked him.
A male approached from the dense woods framing the small plot of land. This male was large and covered in hair. He watched the Dark One curiously, but came no closer.
“Go away!” he said threateningly. He glared at the male until slowly, he backed up to the woods he came from and disappeared into the tree line. He was used to creatures, both great and small, congregating wherever he was. It mattered not that he was evil, what mattered was the power that naturally radiated out from his very core. They felt it, and they were drawn to it.
The Dark One spent a moment looking closely into the trees and surrounding land the little cottage sat on. He sifted through the scents, the emotions, the beings he could sense there. His arrival was no longer a secret. The creatures that were closer to nature had felt the rift he’d thrown himself through, and they’d followed his power to this place to see for themselves who’d come through that rift. His eyes picked up movement in the trees in the distance, the opposite side from that the hairy male had disappeared into. He moved away from the outside of the cottage and moved quickly toward the trees. Now close enough to see better what he’d discovered, he stared directly into the glowing red eyes of the banshee where she stood on the limb of an old, ancient water oak. She was daring enough to open her mouth and shriek at him.
The Dark One was not the least bit perturbed. “Please,” he murmured. “You shall have to do better than that,” he answered. Then he threw his head back and forced out a roar that sounded like the wails of thirty thousand souls screaming their suffering all at once. The trees shook, the bird
s took flight and scattered. The banshee shrank back and disappeared from sight, and the hairy male did not make another appearance. Silence was all that remained. “Humph. I am the Dark One. No one threatens me,” he said to the empty space around him. He raised his chin and turned, walking back toward the house his latest obsession sheltered in with her daughter.
He pressed his ear to the outside wall and tried to hear.
Deaumanique had just finished her oatmeal and toast when a horrendous roar sounded outside their home. She jumped from her stool and ran to Aubreigne. “What is that?” she asked, worry clear in her voice.
Aubreigne held her daughter to her. “I don’t know. But we will stay here a while and make sure there is nothing outside before we go.”
“Can’t you call to Murder as you usually do?”
“I don’t know if he can hear me, he’s found his mate,” Aubreigne said, still looking around the room and trying to glance out of the windows. “Nothing will hurt you, Deaumanique. You know I will never allow it.”
“I know, but that sound… I’m frightened, Mama.”
The Dark One stood outside. He flattened his lips as he realized his mistake. He shouldn’t have roared his warning for all the beasts to stay away. Now he’d frightened the girl and her mother. That was not his intent. Then he realized what he was thinking. “What is wrong with me?” he said aloud. He shook his head and with only one glance behind himself, stalked off in the direction he’d last seen the banshee. He needed a good, hard round of raw and dirty sex. Get this Aubreigne creature out of his head and move on to other more interesting options. Decision made, he stalked off toward the far tree line, mumbling to himself the entire time of how he was the Dark One, no woman held his attentions, he held theirs.
<<<<<<<>>>>>>>
Enthrall spun around, almost dropping the skillet he fried pancakes in. Enthrall met Lore’s eyes, both wore identical, ‘oh-fuck-no’ faces as together they rushed for the front porch. They stood stock still, listening for any additional sound, anything to tell them the horrendous roar they’d heard was just one of their usual people letting off a little steam.
When no further sound came, Enthrall spoke to Lore quietly, almost as though he was afraid to let his thoughts out into the world. “If anything had slipped through with us, we’d have been aware, yes?” he asked, still looking out across the expanse of land surrounding his and Destroy’s homes.
Destroy was out on his own porch, wearing only pajama bottoms, and looking high on alert himself. When he noticed Enthrall and Lore on Enthrall’s porch, he started toward them, calling to Rowan to lock the door and stay inside until he got back.
“We’d have surely seen some sign or heard him as he traveled through the realms with us. If there’d been another, I mean. I only had you and Murder in my grasp. Murder held his female in his arms. I touched no other. No other should have been able to accompany us,” Lore answered.
“Are you willing to bet on that?” Enthrall asked, turning to face Lore who still held Ezekiel.
Lore thought about it. Finally he nodded. “I am. I am willing to bet on it. I brought no other with me.”
“What are the odds? Are you one hundred percent sure only we traveled through your mists?” Enthrall pressed.
“Absolutely. Completely sure. Ninety-eight percent sure. No way anything else could have traveled with us. At least ninety-six percent sure. We’re fine, safe. Nothing else followed us as we moved through the realms. Just us. Ninety-four percent sure,” Lore said, nodding his head and speaking of surety quite convincingly while reducing the percent of surety he spoke of as he spoke it.
“You realize you keep reducing the percentage of surety?” Enthrall asked, his impatience clearly evident.
“Yes. Yes, I do. Ninety-three percent sure that only we traveled back here.”
“Lore…” Enthrall started.
“I held only us. Nothing else should be able to trail us. Unless one is of great power, there would be no chance at all. Someone may have tried to follow, but my mists dissipate quickly. Any who attempted to follow would have surely been lost in the mists, or driven insane as they became lost roaming the lost souls without guidance.”
“Unless they were accustomed to overseeing the lost souls as they arrived in his own realm to begin with!” Enthrall said exasperatedly.
Lore regarded Enthrall, his face taking on a deeply thoughtful expression as he considered Enthrall’s words. “Ninety-two percent. Almost positive that only we came through those portals on my mists.”
“What the hell was that?” Destroy asked, stomping across the yard and up the steps of Enthrall’s porch.
“What was what?” Lore asked pleasantly, slapping at Destroy’s hands as Destroy reached for Ezekiel.
“The sound! The one that has everybody in Whispers in an uproar, probably on a trek to this very house as we speak! The one that has you two out on this porch trying to figure it out yourselves!”
“We don’t know, Destroy,” Enthrall answered truthfully.
“But it was certainly not anything that followed us back from Hell. So, there’s that,” Lore answered pleasantly, smiling, still slapping at Destroy’s hand as he tried to get some time with Ezekiel.
“What did you bring back from Hell?” Destroy asked.
“Nothing! I said it was certainly nothing, NOTHING, that we brought back from Hell. Pay attention, Destroy,” Lore said, turning his body to keep Destroy from being able to gain Ezekiel’s attention.
“I’m going to wake Felicity. We have to investigate this, make sure all are safe,” Enthrall said, stepping past his friends to go back in the house. “Stop fighting over my son,” he added.
“Tell him I had Ezekiel first,” Lore responded.
“Exactly! So now it’s my turn!” Destroy insisted.
Chapter 10
Murder sat across from Phrygia at the dining table, with soft music from his treasured gramophone playing in the background. Breakfast long ago having been eaten, they were talking, becoming acquainted as Murder asked all the questions he had set aside until they were a little more settled.
“So, you’re not really a demon, or even part demon, then?” he asked.
Phrygia smiled and looked down at her plate shaking her head. “No. I’m not. I was there as punishment for my actions. But it wasn’t enough to just sentence me to eternity in Hell, Acaelo made sure to influence the Dark One to force me into service alongside his soldiers. At first I thought it was the most horrible fate, being forced to standby and at times assist with the torture and suffering of others. Eventually, I came to see that as a soldier, one of his guard, I could use my position to help those that I could. Any little kindness I could offer was more than they’d have received otherwise.”
Murder nodded. “That’s very brave of you.”
“Not really,” Phrygia shrugged. “What else could they do to me? I was already in Hell for eternity,” she said matter-of-factly.
Murder paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to ask the next question. Finally he decided to just ask it. “Lore. You were there as punishment for consorting with Lore.”
Phrygia nodded, her fingers pulling at her short hair. She’d kept it as short as she could while in Hell. If it was long and pretty, she may have garnered more attention than she wanted from anyone, so she’d kept it short and easily hidden beneath her helmet. She took a deep breath, letting it out on a sigh. “I belonged to Acaelo for as long as I could remember. I’ve never been more than human. I come from a very poor, very simple background. When Acaelo noticed me and made me one of his attendants, I was thrilled and flattered. Sometime later, he sent away all his other attendants and announced that I was his mate. He would have no other but me, and neither would I.”
“And that was a problem?” Murder asked, trying to understand.
“Not in and of itself, but eventually, I came to realize that I was little more than a pet to him. I suppose I should have been grateful for him lifting m
e out of the poverty I’d been born into, but I was lonely. I was alone most of the time. And when he was with me, he didn’t want to talk, or interact in any way. Just quiet silence with me fetching whatever he needed or wanted.”
Phrygia looked up at Murder. “One day his brother came to visit. He was happy, and wild, and vibrant, with his promises of adventure and flashing purple eyes — I fell right into his arms. At first everything was fine. He’d come to me when Acaelo was away, and we’d force as much into our stolen moments as we could. Those moments made the loneliness when Acaelo was with me bearable.
Then one day I heard Acaelo and his brother arguing. Acaelo accused him of seducing me to just hurt him, just because he could. Lore laughed and taunted him, telling him he was right. And that he’d seduce any female he cared to, and if Acaelo was any kind of male at all, his females wouldn’t run to him instead if given half a chance.
They fought, Lore left. I sobbed, foolish girl that I was, I’d actually believed that I mattered. Then Acaelo came to me, snatching me up, sneering at my tears and soundly cursing me for the fool I’d been to ungratefully throw all he’d given me back in his face with my betrayal.
I angered him even more when I told him he’d given me nothing but regular meals and loneliness punctuated with occasional bouts of servitude. He snarled at me, his mists began to swirl and I found myself in Hell. You pretty much know the rest.”
Murder had listened to her story without interrupting. He was angry for her. He was angry with Lore. He was breathing heavy, his lips pressed into a grim line. “I need to speak to Lore,” was all he said.
“No!” Phrygia said forcefully. “No. There is no need. The male he is now, is not the male he was then. And he was not alone in his manipulation of me. I knew it was wrong. I knew when he was not with me, he was with others — and I didn’t care. It was my choice. I was not meant for a life of luxury as the consort of an ancient or any male with powers the likes of which humans just can’t understand. I was tempted and my values jaded as a result of being out of my element. It is as much my fault as it was his.”
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