Daimonion (The Apocalypse Book 1)

by J. P. Jackson

  Soulless

  ALYX

  “You’re my sister?” My entire life, it had always been just me and my mom, and I had watched as she was ripped from me. But standing right beside me was my sister. I have a sister. I wasn’t alone in this world. I still had family, and I was a big brother.

  So much had happened within a short period of time. I had gone from human to demon to ultra-demon. I had lost my mother, gained a slave, and apparently, a sibling.

  “I have a sister!” I grabbed Jenae and gave her a huge hug.

  “Half-sister,” Jenae retorted, then pushed herself out of the embrace. But she gave me a quirky little smile.

  “Alyx, I’m sorry—I forgot. Your mother gave me this.” Dati pulled a crumpled photo from his pocket and handed it to me.

  I examined the blurry picture, and although it had been taken many years ago, it was pretty obvious. Me with red hair, Jenae with her blonde locks, and between us, a dark-haired man crouched with an arm around each of us, a man I immediately recognized.

  Silenus.

  But the Silenus I had met was the Satyr from the forest glen where I had gone during my meditations. I felt sick. In the picture, he didn’t have the horns or the goat legs, but the face…the face was the same. There was no mistaking it.

  This demon, this sick bastard, was my father?

  “Are you absolutely sure?” I asked hesitantly, crumpling the photo into a ball. Cold sweat beaded my forehead. Dati came closer to me, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  “Marta said she wanted to protect you from him,” Dati explained. “There are a few more pieces to this, Alyx. That man, he’s also our Master. He’s the same one who infected us with the parasites that altered you.” Dati grimaced. I think he was having a hard time spitting out words.

  “Silenus did all this?” I asked, feeling deflated. It was hard to believe that my father was responsible for so much violence and cruelty.

  Aradia’s eyes widened. “Silenus, you say?” She cocked an eyebrow while examining us closely, her gaze passed slowly between Dati and I. “Do you know who this creature is? Do you know what the beast is?”

  “He’s a sadist. Even for a demon, he’s particularly violent and ruthless,” Dati stated.

  Aradia snapped her head around to glower at Dati. “Beast, you are so blind. He’s no demon.”

  “I’ve been enslaved to him for over two hundred years. I think I can safely say he’s a demon,” Dati said, but Aradia shook her head.

  “He is a demigod! He is the Goat Lord; he is Pan—the physical manifestation of sexuality and of all things wild. He is a trickster and has no use for the likes of humans. He has for years wanted only one thing…” Aradia’s train of thought ended as she glanced around her one-room cabin. “Let’s see, where is that—”

  She spun around and, with quick movements, flew through the room, searching in large bottles and behind books. At last, she opened a large barrel that sat near her bed. “Ah, there you are.”

  Aradia reached in and pulled out a long black snake, which showed its discomfort at being manhandled by attempting to slither back into its hiding spot. She grabbed the serpent by the back of its head and stared directly into its reptilian eyes.

  “You will do what I want,” she hissed at the snake.

  With the snake’s head still clutched between her fingers, she approached me. Snakes are cool and all, but they’re cooler behind a glass enclosure, not this close. Dati leaned forward, tense and on edge, and I took a step back.

  She released the snake’s head. Its forked tongue flicked in and out, tasting the air between us. Without warning, it lashed out, mouth open, long fangs exposed, and plunged itself into the side of my neck.

  The pain was quick and sharp. I could feel my wings splay straight out behind me, knocking Riken over.

  Dati jumped up a second time and took two steps towards me, but the Elementalist raised her hand. A gust of wind blew through the cottage, picking up Dati and throwing him against the wall again with a dull thud while a flutter of loose papers floated gracefully to the floor.

  “Demon, I warned you,” Aradia said.

  I could feel the snake pulsating, sucking blood out of me. My hands flailed, trying to rip the serpent off of me.

  “Get it off, get it off!” I clawed at the thing’s head. Searing pain shot down the side of my neck and into my shoulder. I hit the thing’s head several times, but it did no good. All I could feel was the smooth scales of the snake’s head and an odd pulsating sensation.

  No one would offer any assistance. They’d all seen what just happened to Dati.

  As fast as the serpent bit me, it relaxed its jaws and pulled away. I could feel trickles of blood running down my neck. I lost my balance and fell backwards.

  Dati bridged the gap between where he had been pushed to the wall and caught my arm just before I landed sideways.

  As the serpent retreated, it wound itself around the Elementalist’s arm as if to constrict her, but then it struck for a second time sinking its long fangs into the witch’s wrist.

  Aradia hissed. The skin near the puncture wound tightened, making her hand appear skeletal. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she stood, nodding as if she was listening to a conversation none of us could hear. She said nothing but repeated the creepy “Ahhhh.”

  Cold shivers ran down my spine, and my tail twitched. That sound coming from her mouth was enough to creep anyone out.

  The snake released her and slithered up her sleeve, diving deep into her robe. The skin on Aradia’s hand returned to its normal plumpness and her eyes rolled forward. She fixed her gaze on me.

  She seemed afraid.

  “I did not think such thing was possible. You, boy, you are made for him. You are his makeup; Satyr, D’Alae, and Incubi. Goat legs and hooved feet, tail and horns, a body constructed to appeal to the darkest one.”

  “You mean…the dark lord? Satan? Why would he want or need Alyx?” Dati asked.

  “But I don’t have goat legs…” I started, somewhat dumbly.

  “You’re a human imbued with all the talents and abilities he needs.”

  Everyone looked at her, somewhat stunned, and a little unsure.

  “I’m sorry, what? I’m made for Satan? Like what…an offering? I’m not being an offering…to anyone, let alone the devil,” I retorted angrily.

  Aradia said nothing but stared at me intensely, thinking, and then mumbled to herself.

  “There is something I know of, something I have, but it’s only a partial copy, not the original. I thought that ceremony was lost, gone from this world and the other.” As she said other, she pointed down.

  Scurrying to a corner of the shack where several shelves held an assortment of books, Aradia ran her finger over the old tattered spines, searching, tossing books out of it, leaving the discarded ones in a slowly growing pile on the floor, until she found one leatherbound tome, tan coloured with glyphs on the front that appeared as if they had been etched in blood.

  As she opened the tome, a breeze wafted through the room. The fire in the elemental pillar burned a bright yellow as a wave of heat flashed through the room. The flames on the candles became small torches, rapidly melting the wax.

  She flipped through several pages until she came to what she had been hunting for.

  “This. This is what your Master, Silenus, has been planning. That is why the boy has been created.” She gestured towards me. She lay the book down on the bed, and all of us gathered around to see the page.

  As we studied the book, a drawing of Satan moved in choppy distorted motions. Despite the animation, I could have been looking at a picture of myself. Only one thing was different: the goatlike legs. Everything else was a perfect match.

  The rest of the page contained text, which shifted and rolled across the page, disappearing and merging with other symbols. It would have made it hard to read, except for the fact that it was written in a language I had never seen before.

  “T
his is how to bring him here. Very difficult, but it was said that the one who managed to free him from Hell would be counted as part of his ranks.

  “That would mean unending power and immortality. He cannot physically move from one plane to another. The seals were put in place to prevent that. If the seals were damaged, his soul might manage to slip past those broken bindings. But a free soul would need a body of the same to inhabit once he was here.”

  “Maybe I wasn’t clear the first time. That’s not happening. No one is going to inhabit me,” I said in defiance. Aradia ignored me.

  “The only way to do that would be through a Soul Door.” The minute Aradia stopped, she mumbled again to herself and glanced at Jenae.

  “Girl. You know what this means for you?” Aradia beamed with excitement. She scurried over to a chest she had near the head of her bed, flipped open the lid, and dug around inside. Aradia lifted her hand, holding a large rock. It appeared to be a piece of coal, except it pulsated, glowing white from inside. She walked over and held her rock directly in front of me. “Hold this. Do it. Give me your hand.” She grabbed my hand and shoved the rock into my palm.

  It felt warm and rough, but it began to glow.

  “Pass it,” Aradia instructed. I turned and gave it to Dati. The rock went coal black as it passed between us, and then slowly started to pulse again in his hand. But for Dati, the rock only glowed from one side. Dati passed it around so that everyone held it in turn. It responded as it had when I held it, for each person, a bright white glow.

  Only Jenae had not held it.

  “Give it to her! Now.” Aradia could barely contain her enthusiasm.

  Jenae placed it into her palm.

  Nothing.

  No glow. No light. It remained black and dead.

  “Your father has done this,” Aradia whispered with a cocked eyebrow and a sneer.

  “What? Why won’t it glow?” Jenae said frantically, shaking the rock.

  “Girl, you are dead inside. That is a soul stone; it resonates with the extra spark of life that’s in all of us, except you. You have no soul of your own, and that is why you carry the souls of your feasts with you. The souls are attracted to you because they are trying to fill the hole.”

  “What do you mean I have no soul? How can I be alive if I have no soul? That’s stupid,” Jenae said with a tinge of fear on the edge of her words.

  “Oh, the body runs itself just fine. The soul is what connects you to the other realms and how you pass on to the next life and how you learn life lessons. You will do none of these. There’s only one way to achieve such a state in a human. A vile task and malevolent, and yet, very clever, it would never be done easily.” Aradia’s chest puffed out like she was even more proud to have Jenae in her home.

  Jenae, on the other hand, was ashen with terror and clinging to Caleb’s arm. She shook her head. It looked like she didn’t want to know more.

  “Girl, do you know what he has done to create you? Your father, the demigod, had to capture a being of the Light and keep it captive until it bore him a child, a female child. And then that female child would have to bear him another child, and again, and so on, until you.

  “He sullied a creature of enlightenment and love through six generations, killing any potential for a soul. A witch with no soul born from the rape of a light creature creates a Soul Door. You are meant to bring him here, and you, boy, are his host.”

  “I’m not doing any such thing.” A tear ran down Jenae’s cheek. Her nails dug quite deeply into Caleb’s arm as if she were afraid someone would tear her away from him.

  “There is more. In order to bring him here, Silenus will require many servants for the ceremony to use the Soul Door. Look, it says: ‘Two the same guard back from night, afore and behind mark the way’. Two the same. What are two and yet are the same? Twins, like you two!” Aradia pointed to Riken and Caleb. “But you are not right, you are not identical twins. It says in the book, you must be ‘the same’. So there must be others.”

  “See, Hemming, I told you, we weren’t very high on Master’s approval list,” Dati said. “Yes, Silenus has others that he commands. And Silenus is also making more demons.”

  “What do you mean? Making more? There is no making of demons outside of Hell.”

  “Well, he found a way to create Alyx, Caleb, and Riken. They aren’t human anymore,” Dati argued.

  Aradia hissed at him, “But they are not all demon either.”

  “You mean there’s a chance that I might go back to being human?” I leaned forward, thinking there might be a way out of this yet.

  “Now why, child, would you want that? And besides, no. You are Daimonion! A mix. Human, yes, a little. Demon mostly, I suspect.” Aradia’s gaze wandered over each of us.

  “But in Hell, the process was the same…” Hemming started but was quickly shut down.

  “In Hell, demon flesh is infused with a human soul. Vastly different. These boys are humans, with human souls. The demon flesh is all mixed in,” she said, waving her hand in a little circle. “There’s no way now to separate, but no, they are not demons. Daimonion, though, yes, and very powerful ones. But how is he doing this?”

  Hemming stepped forward and lifted his shirt. A nasty red scar ran just under his ribcage where three of his parasites had ripped their way out of him.

  “Silenus infected us with…bugs—let’s call them bugs. Bugs that are living off of us, and when they find someone else they like, they rip themselves out of us and bore their way into the other. From there, the lucky candidate gets to change into one of us,” Hemming explained. “I have three left in me.”

  “I have some too,” Jenae, still teary-eyed, whimpered out.

  “As do I and the Watcher,” finished Dati.

  “That’s how I got to be D’Alae and Incubi?” I asked.

  Dati nodded, but there was a hint of guilt and sadness in his face.

  “Well now.” Aradia’s eyebrow was cocked once again, but her mouth was a tight scowl. “Clever little goat-man, aren’t we?”

  “Aradia, great Mistress, I am told you have the ability to remove these parasites from us?” the Watcher demon asked, but it seemed more like a compliment than a question.

  “Aradia, how do we stop this from happening?” I asked.

  “I cannot be involved in this or anything to do with you. Silenus is more powerful than you know,” she said, spinning away from us. She mumbled again and stiffened. She stood as still as concrete with her back to us as she peered out her dirty window. “Unless…Unless you are all willing to pay a very high price for the use of my magic.”

  “We’ll do anything,” I said.

  Dati and Hemming’s heads whipped around and glared at me with anger plastered on their faces.

  “The boy speaks a little too quickly,” Hemming said. “What’s your price, witch?”

  “You must give me all the parasites you have within you,” Aradia said. “And then you must let me use the Soul Door.” She glanced at Jenae and waited.

  “If it stops that bastard and gets rid of the bugs inside of me, then I’ll do it,” she said. “But I don’t know how to be a Soul Door. You’ll have to show me what to do. How do I open the door and bring a soul through me?”

  “I can teach you what you’ll need to know,” Aradia said coldly and flatly, her eyes dead and emotionless. “Of course, I’ll also need blood and flesh for the soul that comes through the door. And for that, someone must die.”

  Dissolution

  DATI

  “You crazy-ass bitch,” Hemming said before turning his glare towards the Kasadya. “No way. This is insane. You brought us here for this?”

  “I have—was going to tell you there was to be a price,” the Watcher demon said.

  “Doesn’t matter because we’re leaving.”

  “But what about the bugs, Hemming?” I asked, not that I was going to volunteer to sacrifice my life, nor would I even think of letting Alyx give himself up. “Where else are
we supposed to go? Think about your son or being free from that malicious bastard?”

  Alyx stepped forward, his brows stitched together in thought. Very quietly, he whispered, “Does it matter whose life?”

  “I care not. I simply need the blood and the flesh,” Aradia said as plainly as “pass the salt” at the dinner table.

  Alyx turned towards me with a sly look. His irises were snake slits, shinning gold and emerald.

  “What if we were to get Silenus here? He could be the sacrifice.” Alyx dropped the idea like a bomb right into the middle of us and watched the explosions of incredulity circle around him from everyone in the room. It was completely absurd. “Seriously, think about it. None of us want him to live after what he’s done to us.”

  “And how do you propose we get him here?” I asked.

  “I think, given the opportunity, the temptation to come and collect his Soul Door and his Host would be a bit of a draw. I’m kinda new to all this, but I would bet Silenus has gone to great efforts to create us, right? He doesn’t want to lose us.” Alyx had an impish smirk plastered on his face. “In fact, if anything, he would want more of us. No? Isn’t that why he put parasites into Jenae? It’s insurance. Create exactly more of her in case she couldn’t get the job done. I’m sure he would have stuffed me full of bugs too if he had half a chance.”

  “Okay, that explains why he would come, but how are you going to get him halfway up a mountain?” Caleb said, growling.

  “Slipping,” Aradia interjected. “You, boy, you’re Satyr, you can slip and bring him here.”

  “Sorry, what?” Alyx seemed completely confused.

  “Slipping, boy. Teleportation… You, beast, you taught him nothing?” Aradia cocked an eyebrow.

  “I don’t know anything about slipping.”

  “Yes, you do, Alyx. In fact, you’ve done it,” I said, remembering.

  “What? When?”

  “Yes, you have. At least once. Do you remember when you emerged from your first pod? You had a giant fern leaf in your hand. Where did that come from? It shouldn’t have been there.”