Daimonion (The Apocalypse Book 1)

by J. P. Jackson

  “Sit, D’Alae. I will not harm your boy. He is needed. You are correct—this place needs to be abandoned and quickly. To do that, I must—will speed up time around him.” The Kasadya drew his blade from some hidden pocket within his vest, slashed his arm, and with his own blood, he drew symbols in the air—many of them, in fact. His hands moved quickly as he drew ancient glyphs and marks, some of which glowed red with blood that hung in the air embedded into the script. Others rippled and then vanished. Some became superimposed overtop each other, morphing into one. “All of you should hold on to something. The room may feel, no—will feel odd for a few moments.”

  He had not lied. As he wrote the last mark, the room shifted and tilted slightly. A wall formed just in front of the Kasadya, like a thin sheet of rippling water. The barrier quarantined us from Alyx, but in the corner where Alyx hung suspended in cottony fluff, shadows grew. Light from an unseen sun rose and fell. The pod’s threads continued to wind around itself, but they did so violently, as if we were watching everything beyond the water wall in fast forward. The pod grew and shrank, and grew again. One moment, the cocoon was fat and distorted; the next it shrank like plastic wrap, showing Alyx’s body beneath the gossamer threads.

  “One second becomes many moments; a minute is now a day.” The Watcher demon hissed quietly. The faint symbols that floated in front of Alyx’s pod faded, and the movement within the confined area slowed, then became absolutely still.

  The wall dropped and fell to the ground in a splash that left no trace of wetness.

  As the room became whole again, we were jarred by an unseen force, like the moment a foot slams on the brakes of a moving vehicle. Hanging onto something had been an understatement. Lurching in synchronicity, we fell forward towards Alyx’s pod, all of us except the Kasadya who was standing still on the chair.

  A tear cut through the room, a sound of ripping cloth came from above our heads. I lifted my head to see the cocoon split from top to bottom, and as the fibers began to peel away, a wave of desire washed over me.

  I was enthralled by the creature in the pod. I wanted it, had to be near it.

  I was captivated as each layer of thread peeled back, slowly revealing Alyx’s new form. As the last layer splayed outwards, his wings were the first thing we saw, wrapped protectively around his body. They glistened, slick with sweat. The smell in the room became thick with earthy spices, and it was delicious. It made me think of one thing: surrender.

  Alyx slid gracefully from the pod to the floor, his wings expanding as he descended. The light in the room dulled and the shadows darkened until it was night and difficult to see, except for Alyx. He glowed.

  His body had morphed into a tighter, more muscular version of his D’Alae form. Alyx, being a redhead, already had a light complexion, but whatever pink human tone his skin had once had was now gone. His skin was pure alabaster.

  His hair had turned much redder, thicker, with golden highlights. All of his body hair was perfectly tinted the same way, and his wings and tail had a much deeper red cast to them. Small dark-red horns jutted out from the corners that formed the beginning of the widow’s peak. Horns just like Alicia’s.

  He was beautiful.

  He was godly.

  Bright and pale, dark and sinister, and as much as I would have protected him before, now I would lay down my life for him. And then he softly whispered to me.

  Let me feel you, let me touch you. I need you.

  Everyone in the room took a step forward. He hadn’t been talking to just me. He was addressing all of us.

  That made me jealous. He was mine. I was his protector. It was my responsibility to give him everything—and anything he needed.

  I stepped closer to Alyx, reached out a hand, and let him touch me.

  My entire body shivered with yearning as his fingers wrapped themselves around my hand.

  He drew me close. Freshly dug earth with hints of cinnamon and cloves danced through my nose and wet my mouth. It was intoxicating and sensual. I lost myself in his new eyes, they sparkled gold with flecks of emerald. The irises were snake slits.

  “Alyx, let them go, use me, take me, I will give you all you need.” I offered myself up to him.

  Alyx wrapped his strong hand around my face, and his pointed nails dug into the back of my scalp. He leaned in towards me and inhaled deeply. Tendrils of my soul essence floated towards him, like the disappearing trails of a will-o’-the-wisp that evaporates into a haunted forest. As the tendrils rose higher, they caressed Alyx’s face until they were absorbed into his skin and up through his nose.

  Alyx’s massive red wings wrapped around my body with surprising strength as he held me hostage, pulling me closer to him. My feet left the ground as he lifted me up. His barbed reddish tail poised behind him ready to strike.

  The others in the room gasped as they were released from Alyx’s enthrallment. Now that all of his attention was directed towards me—his prey—he had no use for the others around him.

  Alyx had become a very potent and dangerous creature. He had the strength of a D’Alae and retained the wings to fly. He clearly had the incubi charms and sexual energy to ensnare any creature.

  I had no idea what talents lay hidden from his father, my Master.

  Hemming’s deep voice boomed from behind the curtain of Alyx’s protective wrap.

  “Alyx, let him go. Look at who you are holding. Feasting on Dati is not what you want to do.” I could hear Hemming shooing the others out of the room, getting them out of the immediate vicinity to hopefully protect them.

  Alyx leered at me, his mouth slightly open. His bright red tongue lashed out, licking his long canines with anticipation of the imminent kill.

  I have wanted to destroy you for doing this to me. My need to hurt you is the only thing that got me through the second change. You will pay.

  Alyx’s majestic voice resonated within my head. The words were terrifying. He was going to kill me.

  His wings contracted, pulling me in closer. Alyx leaned in, nuzzling my neck, and inhaled again.

  I had no desire to resist. I became completely limp in his grasp. I had hurt him so badly. If this was my punishment, so be it. I was his.

  “Alyx!” Hemming said again. “You do not want to do this!” A snarl erupted from behind us, as I recognized the sounds of Hemming pulling the demon wolf to the surface. Bones were cracking and popping.

  Lost in Alyx’s embrace, I didn’t care. I tilted my head to one side, granting more skin surface to Alyx. He inhaled another deep breath as I felt a little more of me let go.

  And then we were tumbling, wings flapping, us rolling, snarling, growling, and spinning out of control. The soft paws of Hemming’s wolf trotted away. He had knocked us forward, trying to get Alyx off of me.

  Alyx’s head smacked the hard surface of the back-office floor. He shook his head, and his eyes mellowed, losing the snakelike slits for pupils, his irises becoming a little less gold and a whole lot more green. The violent I-will-kill-you look quickly melted from his face, replaced by confusion and embarrassment.

  A deep throbbing sensation welled up at the base of my neck, and it stung so badly my eyes blurred and watered.

  I reached up to where my neck hurt and found Alyx’s barbed tail stuck deep into the crook of my collarbone. I yanked it out, but it was too late.

  Alyx pulled his tail back to himself, wrapping it around his leg. He cocked his head to one side, seeming sheepish.

  “What is happening to me?” he asked.

  The whole world spun. I grabbed for the nearest thing to steady me.

  That thing was Alyx. As his poison coursed through my body, the sensation of needles stabbing my veins worked its way down my arm, but it was also disorienting.

  “A mirror,” was all I was capable of putting together.

  Alyx dragged me over to an old mirror that was framed by an ornate wooden carving depicting leaves and twining stems. A snake wrapped itself through the foliage, making a complete
circle around the reflecting glass. At the top, the snake was attempting to swallow its tail.

  A puffy swollen brand was growing on my neck, in the fashion of a spiral. As it completed the last circle inwards, it ended in a barb, a hook just like the tails both Alyx and I had.

  “Oh god, Alyx, you’ve marked me.”

  “How?” Alyx’s eyebrows arched upwards with shock.

  “An Incubus does it with a bite, during sex. Apparently, you’ve done it with your barb. I need to sit down.” I staggered over to the chair that sat below the remnants of Alyx’s Incubus pod. The room was still spinning.

  As I sat down, the door opened and the others came in. Hemming glanced at me, cocking an eyebrow.

  “Well, this is unusually quiet. One-night stand regrets?” he chided, always the joker.

  “Worse.” I showed Hemming the mark.

  “Oh. Well, that pretty much seals that up then, doesn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?” Alyx cringed in the corner of the room and covered his rather naked self with his wings.

  “You’ve marked Dati!” Hemming chuckled.

  “I didn’t mean to do it!” Alyx appeared panicked. Poor boy, his head must be swimming.

  “You’ve tattooed him with your mark. That means you’re connected to him, and he to you. Dati is basically your slave, but the twist is you’ll find it rather difficult to not be around him.” Hemming couldn’t keep a straight face, and he bent over with laughter. “You’ve just traded one master for another, Dati!”

  “Not funny,” I said. I wanted to throw up, partly because of Alyx’s poison, partly because Master would kill me when he saw the mark.

  “Well then, we’ll reverse it, or something,” Alyx offered.

  “Not unless one of you dies,” Hemming said, still giggling. “And if I remember correctly, the redder the mark grows, the deeper the connection between each other.” Hemming stepped over to study my swollen skin. “And that is about as ruby red as it gets.”

  Creatures

  DATI

  “No way! No goddamn way,” Jenae said, scowling at the Watcher. “I’m not ripping through space and time ever again.”

  “But, Jenae, it’s way quicker,” Caleb pleaded.

  The Kasadya demon stood silent, but from the look on his face, he was less than patient.

  “I cannot—will not be able to get us exactly where we need to go. The Elementalist’s wards will prevent any unexpected arrivals. But we will travel—should travel close to where we need to be.”

  “You hear that? Another puke fest and he doesn’t even know where he’s taking us. Absolutely not.” Jenae crossed her arms.

  “I’m with her.” Riken’s gaunt long features were horrified at the prospect of another dimensional walkabout with the Kasadya.

  “My dear, you may be a witch, but you are one letter away from being something else entirely,” Hemming said with a deadpan expression. “Then again, the two actually go together rather well.”

  “Insulting her probably isn’t the most persuasive tactic,” I said quietly to Hemming with an uneasy smirk, then mouthed the word magic to him, while circling my finger around my temple.

  “Fine, fine. I’ll pull some strings and get us a vehicle. But this is going to take some time.” Hemming strode out of Marta’s back office and disappeared, his long trench coat billowing out behind him.

  ONCE WE ACQUIRED a vehicle, the drive took hours. The painted lines of the highway shot out behind us like bullets, but the never-ending road across the vast prairies rarely changed.

  Alyx sat beside me. His head bobbed sideways as he fell asleep, resting against my shoulder for a brief second. He woke quickly, then glanced at me awkwardly.

  I so wanted him to need me.

  I had developed new, deeper feelings for him since being stabbed in the neck by his barb. There was a twinge of yearning, an unsettled sense of anxiousness that made me feel lost when Alyx wasn’t within my sights. I’d seen that anxiety in small children. It’s that first sense of panic when they can’t find their parents. That sensation quickly develops into full-blown terror, and I imagined I’d feel the same without Alyx.

  Master, on the other hand, would not be pleased at all. There was no hiding the red tattoo. The retribution from Silenus would be epic—mind you, the path we travelled was so defiant, so mutinous, that being marked by another hardly felt like an unloyal act.

  We would have to find a way to rest ourselves from Master’s grip once and for all.

  Alyx rested his head on my shoulder again. I wondered how he felt about us. Was I just a slave to him, or could there be a deeper connection?

  I hoped his heart was as bonded to me as I felt to him.

  Very gingerly, I inched closer, providing more support, but also allowing our thighs to touch. His heat was calming, and I soon forgot about Master and unrequited emotions from Alyx. For now, this was enough.

  From the windows of the minivan, desolate branches of farmyard trees reached towards the sun. The base of each old gnarly trunk lay covered with blazes of gold, tawny yellow, and orange. Those yards slowly disappeared as dark green spikes of coniferous trees became more prevalent, making the fall colours seem brighter, perhaps even happier.

  The van progressed through the first mountain pass. Cold shadows wrapped around our vehicle as the sun disappeared behind the massive rock formations.

  We stopped in a small town and filled the van with gas as the sun set, casting an ominous red glow across the stone cliffs that surrounded us. I had seen the mountains before, but not often, and it was hard not to be impressed by their magnificence. Their peaks were impossibly high and craggy, heavily iced with gleaming snow caps on the very highest crests.

  Jenae returned, clutching snacks from the convenience section of the gas station. The ensuing aroma of sour meat wafted through the van as she and Caleb shared a Pepperoni stick. Alyx and I both turned up our noses at the smell of dead meat.

  No one really talked much. Caleb and Jenae snuggled together. Riken brooded in the seat next to the lovebirds. A visage of constant anger had settled on his face, and the shifting gaze indicated that he was thinking to himself, sharing nothing, and trusting no one. He reminded me of most of the demons I’ve had contact with. Most of us were exactly like that.

  The Kasadya raised his hand and pointed past Hemming.

  “Here. We will stop here and walk the rest of the way.” The van came to a stop on the side of the highway, and Hemming rolled down the window, peering into the night. The beams from the headlights were swallowed up by the forest ahead of us.

  “We can’t leave the van on the side of the highway. It will attract attention,” Hemming said thoughtfully. “We should try and hide it.”

  “There’s an opening in the trees over there. Let’s see how deep we can drive it into the forest,” Caleb suggested.

  Hemming directed the van carefully over the bumpy terrain and into the opening. Branches hit the roof, and one in particular made a horrible screeching noise as a tree scraped against metal.

  “Well, that’s going to leave a mark,” Hemming sneered as if the van had been his. He killed the ignition, and the motor slowly died. With a sigh, he asked the Kasadya, “Okay, now what?”

  “We walk.” For the first time, the Kasadya smiled. It was a toothy smile, reminding me of a carved pumpkin at Halloween.

  The mountain air was much colder than it had been in the city. It smelled clean and fresh, lacking the stench of exhaust fumes, machinery, and garbage that filled the city. There were no city sounds either. In fact, it was deafeningly quiet.

  Following the Watcher, we plodded through the dark. The trees were a mob of spires that blocked our every step, yet the Watcher was searching.

  It didn’t take him long to discover what he was after. A small footpath led away from us, up the mountain and deeper into the dense wood. It was really nothing more than a slight opening in the trees and undergrowth, a trail that the local deer would have used.
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  “We have—will follow this.” He pointed towards the ground. “Be wary. She has protected this. She does not welcome visitors. I am not certain—no, she does not know yet that we are coming.”

  “Great,” Caleb grumbled. His expression of disgust was deep and loud, disturbing the eerie silence of the forest.

  Twigs snapped underfoot, announcing our presence to the denizens of the forest as we made our way through the darkness. Lumbering forward, we followed directly behind the Kasadya. Riken, who was caught in the middle, stumbled frequently as we traversed over tree roots and dense underbrush.

  “Ouch! Dammit, Caleb,” Jenae screeched as she smacked his back.

  “What?”

  “You didn’t hold that branch. God, now I’m bleeding. Shit, this hurts.” Jenae sucked in air.

  “Let me see,” I said. Inspecting the cut on her forehead, I discovered she was indeed bleeding, but it wasn’t very deep. “Let’s keep going, shall we?”

  That’s when two red orbs—or what I thought were two red orbs—peered at us from within the woods. But it was fleeting, if anything at all.

  Our path forced us to scale up a steep rock face, having to hoist each other up at one point, except for the Kasadya who was impossibly quick and nimble and able to traverse the landscape without any assistance from us, almost like he had walked these woods before.

  Even with demon blood, the higher we climbed up the mountain, the more our exposed skin grew cooler. Jenae hugged herself, trying to stay warm. Despite travelling with a brood of demons, she was still human. She had to be feeling the cold night air. We hadn’t really dressed well for a backwoods excursion.

  The path leveled out considerably after scaling the cliff face. Trees opened up and became a little less dense, and our journey eased slightly. Far off in the distance, I could see smoke rising above the tops of the trees as the land sloped downwards into a large depression in the mountain’s side.