I got up and pushed the mattress away from the wall. Here, close to the floor, all the way along the wall, ran the marks that I had been scratching with a spoon for each day of my incarceration. I sat into a crouch and counted them all now.
10 months and almost 2 weeks! If I added a couple of weeks for the time that I missed to mark – because I was rocking in the corner out of my mind or wallowing in self-pity – that would make it to just under 11 months!
It felt so long and so short all at once. During this time, seasons had changed back in Toronto, and lots must have happened in the lives of my friends back home.
It surprised me at the same time that it was just 11 months. Locked in here with no clock, no calendar, with not even a window to keep the track of time, I felt that years and even centuries could pass in the world over me and I would never notice, because nothing would change for me down here.
I pushed the mattress back to the wall and lay down on it. Something did change today, though: somebody spoke to me. The tiny petal of hope unfurled in my chest again. And then the full meaning of what he really said finally entered my mind. “They’ll kill you.” Not “I will kill you,” not even “you will die.” No, “they’ll kill you.” If I disobeyed, he was not the one to kill me.
He separated himself from them. Was he not one of them? Did they force him to do what he was doing? If so, could he be pulled to my side? Could it be us against them?
I might have been reading into it too much, of course. I knew nothing about them. I knew nothing about him. Still, as I was drifting asleep, curled into a ball on the dirty mattress, with not even a blanket for a cover, I had hope. Could I find a way to make him help me?
Chapter Three. Then.
This wasn’t supposed to happen to me. Things like these didn’t happen to people. Things like these… This was what nightmares were made of.
Still, not so long ago, I was an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. I graduated with a degree in Business Management and was in the middle of my second year of an entry-level job. I was planning my next career step and was, simultaneously, navigating the crazy dating scene in Toronto, like most of my friends.
I hated uncertainties, didn’t like surprises very much, not even the pleasant ones, and had my life planned out with two- five- and ten-year plans for my education and career.
I figured that a personal life was impossible to plan, since you never can predict when you meet your special someone. So as far as my personal life went, I was kind of just floundering aimlessly in my dating pool, wishing that I could still plan and structure the whole process somehow to avoid the nonsense and the inevitable heartache that came with it.
I lived with my parents in their three-bedroom condo even after I graduated and got a job. I was the only child, and they were semi-retired and travelled a lot. I had the place all to myself often and felt no need to move out on my own anytime soon.
A few months after my graduation, they bought a travel trailer and decided to drive it to Florida for a few weeks. They never made it there. A tractor-trailer went across the divider on the highway at night and killed both of my parents instantly.
My carefree life ended. I grieved my parents, planned their funerals, and sorted their estate all on my own. They were first generation immigrants with no family in Canada. I never minded it before. We had lots of friends, and I didn’t miss playing with cousins growing up. Until that day, until my parents were gone and suddenly, the country where I was born and raised felt too big and empty, and I felt too small and lonely.
Eventually, a cousin of mine moved to Canada from the United States. She settled in Calgary, though, a long way from Toronto. She was a little older than me and had a husband and two small children. I went to visit her a few times, but we never got to be close friends.
After the funeral, I stayed in my parents’ condo. I tried to deal with grief by dividing it into portions. Every now and then, I would begin to pack their clothes or go through their things with the intention to sort it all and put into storage or donate. Then I would get sidetracked by a book my father never finished reading, still with his bookmark in it, or by a picture of me and my mother on our last skiing holiday, laughing, rosy cheeks and all… And the grief would hit me anew. I would end the evening rocking in tears on the floor in the corner of their bedroom.
I welcomed the pain at that time. I believed that there should be a limit on the amount of pain a person could feel. The more pain I felt that night meant the less pain there would be left for me to feel for the next few days, and the more time I would have to try and go on with my life.
Then, life as I knew it ended completely when they took me.
I was taken at night, early in January. There were two of them. Well, I only saw two, but there could have been more. I just knew that I woke up with a leather-clad hand covering my mouth. I didn’t even get a chance to have a proper freak-out, my heart just dropped into the abyss and stayed there frozen in horror.
The one covering my mouth scooped me up as if I weighted nothing, and hauled me out of the bedroom. That’s when I saw the second one coming out of the shadows in the corner of my bedroom.
I didn’t notice it then, but I realized later when I had lots of time to go over it in my head that the alarm system that I religiously armed every night before going to sleep did not go off when they showed up in my bedroom. I still had no idea how they got inside; the door was locked and the alarm was armed. The condo unit was on the seventh floor of a 12-story building. It’s not like they could have climbed up the wall and through the window. In any case, all windows were also closed.
They carried me out of the condo unit where I had spent most of my life. They just opened the front door and exited into the brightly lit hallway as if they had no reason to worry about being seen by anyone. They didn’t seem to be concerned about being caught with me struggling against the hand covering my mouth, wearing only my long t-shirt and underwear in the dead of winter.
That’s when the alarm finally blared off. The guy holding me removed his hand from my face, threw me over his shoulder, and they ran towards the stairwell at the end of the hallway.
I couldn’t see much after that, being held upside down and with my face to his back, but my mouth was now free. My heart exploded inside my stomach into a full-blown panic, finally, and I screamed. I screamed at the top of my lungs and thrashed against him with all my might, hitting his back with my fists and kicking my knees against his chest. Somebody should have seen me! There were cameras around there somewhere, for goodness’ sake! I was hoping that somebody had already called the police.
Then I felt it. I was pretty sure there was no needle, just the touch. A hand without a glove touched the back of my thigh lightly. I felt a cooling sensation for a second or two and then nothing… the darkness took over my mind, like a cloud of ink dissolving in water, and I passed out.
I didn’t fully regain consciousness until I was already in this cell, but I retained a few distorted pieces of memories of a long drive in the back seat of a large vehicle. I remembered feeling cold, hungry and thirsty, and then I remembered the chilly touches to the exposed skin of my arm or my leg that would put me back in the darkness again.
He rolled in pain on the narrow cot in one of the rooms in the infirmary and tried desperately not to groan too loud to avoid attracting attention of any randomly passing Janitor or Handler. He was not supposed to be here. The infirmary was for Sources only, even though they were rarely brought here. Sources were usually left to recover in their cells if they caught any light illness. A Source with anything more serious was simply drained and terminated.
He stumbled in here after he left his Source in her cell. He tore the helmet off his head, gasping for air, and collapsed onto the narrow bed. No way he would make it back to his place tonight. It would be impossible to drive along the narrow dark roads in the mountains feeling like this. Unfortunately, even though the poison was created by a human, human medicine would
not work for him. Painkillers were useless against the pain he was feeling. Neither did he have the blissful reprieve of sleep available to humans. Demons didn’t fall asleep the way humans did. Instead, he had to feel every wave, shot and explosion of pain for as long as it was meant to last until it would finally wear off and leave his body.
In the early hours of the morning, the torture reached a new height. The sharp pain shot repeatedly through every inch of his body, as the toxic mix of the darkest human emotions worked its way through the very core of his being. His brain felt like it was enclosed in a tightening grip of a vise, ready to explode at any moments. Surely, even the torture of Inferno couldn’t be any worse than this!
In over 600 hundred years of his existence that he could still remember, he did not recall ever suffering so much. Of course he also did not recall ever consuming as much poison at once as he did now. The most incredible fact was that he did it voluntarily, on his own accord.
On the long list of rules governing interactions with humans, consuming emotions - any emotions - directly from the Source was strictly forbidden. It applied to everyone. Even the Council members followed this rule. Taking from a Source directly could potentially lead to draining her life force, essentially, killing her. It was only done by members of the Council when a Source was deemed to be no longer useful for Feedings.
He remembered how he witnessed it the last time. As part of his training, he assisted another Handler whose Source was no longer cooperating and had been marked for termination. She wasn’t even wild and loud anymore. Instead, she was apathetic and non-responsive, with eyes that were already dead even as she still breathed.
Her Handler wheeled her in on top of a large table. All Council members gathered around her and put their ungloved hands on her exposed skin.
Suddenly, she looked as if the life returned to her in her final moments. Her eyes focused in wonder, as if she saw something beautiful high on the ceiling or beyond. A happy smile played across her lips before they parted with her last breath, and she was gone.
He was to dispose of the dead body afterwards. He carried her out to the infirmary where he placed her into a large duffle bag, drove her deep into the mountains, and buried her there, never to be found. As far as human society was concerned, she died about a year earlier, and no one was looking for her.
Her death did not exactly make him feel sad. All humans died. Death was a part of their life cycle. Generally, he saw death as one of the many gifts that humans received from the Divine along with the ability to create and procreate. Unlike his, their life was finite. They had a multitude of choices to make through their lifetime and, as a reward, had a chance to die with the satisfaction of a life well lived.
The death of the Source still felt regrettable right then. It left him with an unexplainable sense of loss. When he watched the life slip out of her, it felt like a beautiful colourful butterfly flew away, never to be seen again, and he mourned the loss of beauty.
Humans – the source of nourishment for his kind – were all beautiful to him in the multitude of their emotions. He saw their feelings and passions born and bloom inside of them in iridescent swirls of magic. Humans created them – beautiful, delicious, nourishing emotions – then released them freely to dissipate into the air.
It fascinated him. The ability to create was what brought humans closer to the Divine, and what he himself was incapable of doing. He existed with the sole purpose to take, to consume, to destroy…
The opportunity to be closer to humans was what motivated him to accept the position of a Handler when he was summoned to the Council about three months ago. He was on and off with the Army until then since he could remember.
The state of constant hunger created a permanent haze inside his head and affected his long-term memory, to the extent that he only remembered distorted pieces of his existence from the past 600 years. Any earlier years or centuries of his life had descended into a complete darkness. He wasn’t even sure any more how long he had been on Earth.
He knew he fought in Demon Army during all wars between humans and demons. The wars became less and less frequent, and then – when the truce was achieved between the two parties, eventually – the wars with humans stopped altogether. He remained in the Army for occasional battles with groups of other demons since his employment in the Army meant more or less regular feedings allowed by the Council.
Most of the other demons had been chased out to different dimensions, eventually. In the past century and a half since he left the eastern hemisphere and came here to work for Western Council, he fought little and was fed even less. He knew the pain of hunger way too well and was forced into Deep Sleep by it more times than he cared to remember. Some of the periods of his Deep Sleep lasted for years, decades or even longer.
Being so close to a Source now was a torture of another kind. Only Council members were allowed the rich nourishment of sexual energy that was the main source of sustenance for incubi. As her Handler, he was allowed to take any other positive emotions experienced by the Source in his charge. No incubus was allowed to feed from a Source directly, as he had done, by touching the Source skin-to-skin and taking the emotions from inside her. Handlers were to sustain themselves by skimming feelings and emotions only after they had left the Source’s body. Skimming was not felt by Sources and could never harm them.
Skimming also did not affect the feelings experienced by the Source. That was why skimming his Source’s negative emotions last night would not have made her suffering any less. The only way he could help her then was to touch her skin and take the pain directly away from her, and it was exactly what he did.
Her pain was now his to suffer. Any positive human emotions would have eased the torture he was going through. If only he could skim any of her positive emotions to make himself feel better now. If only she had any positive emotions to give….
As it was, he would have to stay here for a while until the worst of the torment wore off. At least he could always count on Janitors to bring her meals when he didn’t show up to do it himself. It was their task anyway, but he had requested to be the one to bring all her daily meals before he even took the assignment.
Many Handlers did so to have more time with the Source. There were two reasons for it. First of all, more time spent with a Source meant a prolonged exposure to her nourishing emotions. And second, even the shortest interaction with the Source helped a Handler learn more about her, enabling him to detect more ways to ensure an effective performance during the Feedings.
Chapter Four. Hope.
I woke up the next morning thinking I might have overslept. There was no way to tell for sure. I had no watch or clock to tell the actual time. I only knew that the lights in the cell were already at their full daytime brightness while they were usually dimmed at night.
A nervous anticipation settled inside of me. Unlike the three guards apparently required to take me to the arena, usually only one brought me food at meal times. Breakfast should be soon now, and as little as I could get myself exited about the green goo for breakfast yet again, I couldn’t help but hope that the same guard who spoke to me last night would bring it for me this morning. An even bigger hope was that he would talk to me again, now that we would be alone.
Finally, I heard footsteps outside and the cell door opened. I jumped to my feet from the mattress as if I was going to rush towards him to greet him, and immediately felt stupid. It wasn’t like we were going to have a long conversation or even a friendly chat in here! Still, I felt exited about the possibility of finally hearing another voice besides my own.
He entered and silently carried the breakfast tray towards the mattress without even sparing me a glance. Talk about disappointment! I wasn’t sure what I had expected exactly, but it was certainly not this complete indifference again. I didn’t think I could handle it now, especially after I had allowed myself to feel a little hope.
He put the tray down by the mattress and turned around to le
ave. Impulsively, I stepped forward and blocked his way. I couldn’t let him leave just like that. What did I have to lose at this point anyway? He stopped in surprise, fortunately for me, just in time or he would have easily mowed me over. Reluctant to say anything myself, I looked up trying to catch his eye. A pair of steel-grey eyes met mine, and I released a breath I didn’t know I held as relief flooded over me.
It wasn’t him! I didn’t even know how I could be so sure, the colour of these eyes was almost identical; however, I was certain it was not the same guard. There was no way he would have looked at me with these dull, bored eyes. I stepped aside and let the guard walk past me, out of the cell.
Lunch, I decided. I had to wait until lunchtime now and hoped that it would be he who would bring it to me.
The lunch came, and it was yet another guard who brought it. The same guard then came later to pick up the empty dishes and to bring a bucket of hot water with a washcloth for me.
I didn’t remember the last time I used the water, but they brought it in for me unfailingly, every day. They never insisted that I wash, though; they would simply pick up the untouched bucket a little while later and bring one with fresh hot water the next day again. I looked at the bucket now, remembered feeling filthy and disgusted with myself last night, and picked up the washcloth.
Slowly, I dipped it into the bucket and just as slowly traced my arms with the wet cloth. The water was almost too hot to the touch, but the heat felt so good against my naked arms!
I washed my hands slowly and meticulously, wishing I had a nail file to properly take care of my nails. A moment later, I unbuttoned the top button of my dress and pulled it off, over my head. Tossing the dress onto the mattress, I grabbed the washcloth and scrubbed all my pale, scrawny body thoroughly, getting rid of days, weeks or maybe months of grime. The warm water was cooling off on my naked body, leaving me feeling refreshed.
Demon Mine Page 3