by Cryptic Fawn
~~~
Tenuxhal didn't feel like fighting today. He was too goddamn annoyed.
He'd been regularly sparring with Elsi for five weeks, attacking her, pushing her. And maybe two weeks ago, the human had just suddenly stopped improving. He couldn't make heads or tails of it. If he had to hold himself back much longer, he was going to lose it. How was he supposed to prove his worth against a worthless opponent? Maybe Rhoads had reached her limit. It didn't make sense to Tenuxhal, but if that was the case then, there was no more point to this contest. No meaning in his victory. He might as well just kill her.
He stared out in disgust at the strangely bright desert without actually seeing it as he perched on the edge of the balcony and shifted, clear liquid sloshing back and forth inside the half empty bottle of vodka that rested between his knees.
Tenuxhal had been king amongst his group of demons, and he never could quite adjust to living under Beelzebubs's rule. That was the fundamental problem with stepping up to play in the big leagues of the knights. He had been made infinitely stronger, only to be, in a sense, demoted. He had been the biggest fish in his small pond until he was dropped into a much larger body of water. In his mind though, he was still rightfully a king.
Tenuxhal never had any particular sense of loyalty to Beelzebub or his group of knights or anyone. And it took a firm hand to keep him in line. That was part of his nature, his vicious persona that he'd worn for so long as a newborn monster. He had stayed with Beelzebub because that was part of the deal he had made. If he joined Beelzebub he would get the best of both worlds, all of the strengths and none of the weaknesses. And if he ever tried to leave, there would be dire consequences.
So, he had become a knight, a hurricane, a godly force of nature. Anyone caught in his path would be crushed.
He had been drunk on his new power and couldn’t seem to get enough of it.
He always thirsted for more.
He threw the bottle back until it was empty, gulping the fiery liquid down without taking a breath. The dreary landscape soon faded and shifted out of sight, and worn out reels of old battles and wounded pride began to play across the backs of closed lids.
~~~
Tenuxha's silver eyes were glazed as he opened them and stared blankly ahead from his place on the ledge. He clung to it, the past, the memories, painful or not, because his old way of life was all that he knew, because without it what was he? And what was his legacy? He wouldn't even be remembered as the knight who beat Elsi Rhoads, the famed witch known for locking up Beelzebub, the original King of Hell and ruler of the demons.
He was nothing. Remembered by no one.
The human woman had always taken the brunt of his rage. He snorted. So what? He didn't give two shits about anything. He was the great Tenuxhal, a feared demon knight.
No. He wasn't really a knight anymore. Fuck. Those 'glory' days were over, a memory and nothing more. He missed that feeling, a sense of belonging to something, of fighting for a cause bigger than himself. Whether he really believed in it or not was irrelevant, and not that he particularly fought for anyone but himself in the first place, but he'd had purpose. That time was over.
He was just plain old Tenuxhal now. Demon. A monster of Hell. And he felt it right down to the core of his heart.
Tenuxhal leaned forward and put his head in his hands. They were trembling. Pathetic.
He scrubbed viciously at the dampness that had begun to form in his eyes, a humiliating by-product born of intense frustration and sudden self-loathing.
And now he was just a shell of his former self with nothing left to exist for, just a dark, barren land and an endless loop of time, and the damn Witch. He snorted. The hell it with all of it. Nobody ever said the afterlife was fair. He'd been fighting with Rhoads for week after week, holding back, and beating her easily every time, but it didn't cleanse away that pervasive feeling inside of him, that crushing sense of emptiness.
Nothing ever would.
He let the bottle drop from his hands and watched as it smashed into a million pieces on the rocks below.
Time. He had plenty of it now.
Perhaps he would give Rhoads just a little more time.
And maybe she would win the war that Tenuxhal couldn't.
~~~
What fresh hell was this?
When had it become that isolation was worse than seeking out your enemy for companionship? After almost five long weeks, Elsi was actually starting to empathize, not, she reassured herself, sympathize with Tenuxhal’s solitary situation.
If she wasn't fighting or sleeping or arguing, she was bored to shit.
The Black Citadel was a vast place and Tenuxhal tended to wander around the outskirts of it when he wasn't pestering Elsi. Perhaps it was out of instinct to guard his territory. Or maybe he was just killing time. Elsi had the feeling that it was a little more of one than the other. When she finally found him, he was sitting on the ledge of the lower level balcony on the outer wall of the citadel, legs hanging over the edge, eyes staring unfocused across the endless desert sands. There were some petrified tree’s here and there, spread out among the sand and rocks. Hell was not the fire and brimstone that many religious humans believed. It was mostly empty. And lonely.
He was almost motionless, as if lost in some intensely personal thought. Elsi froze and held herself still, as quietly as she could, trying to keep her spiritual energy calm and even. She didn't thinks he should be here, feeling very much like a voyeur intruding on a very complex and private moment. She didn't want to startle Tenuxhal. Just being here at this moment could be enough to start a fight. And Elsi didn't feel like fighting today.
Tenuxhal suddenly slumped forward, face cradled in his hands. Even from this distance Elsi could see that he was visibly shaking.
She winced in discomfort, disturbed by the emotional display that looked so incredibly out of place on the fierce and powerful demon, and surprised at how much it physically bothered her to see it. And so she slowly began to step back around the corner, hoping against hope to go unnoticed by the obviously distressed knight. She eventually made her way back to their room, just one of many that was tucked away in the large, seemingly endless, building.
Elsi decided it would be best to steer clear of the demon until he came to her. She didn’t know just what he would do if she said the wrong thing or looked at him in a manner that would automatically offend him. Not while he was in the state he’s in now. It wasn’t worth losing her head over.
In the meantime, she’d work on her plan of escape. She knows that she can’t keep up this charade forever, and eventually Tenuxhal would grow tired of her current progress and just cut her down. For Elsi, time is of the essences, even in a place where time does not exist.
Book Two Excerpt
"So leave."
"Uh?" Tenuxhal glanced sideways, his brow furrowed into an irritated question.
"You can leave here whenever you want right?" She hiccupped and covered her mouth with the back of her hand in a delayed attempt to cover the embarrassing sound. "Nobody's making you stay." It was true. Tenuxhal could come and go as he pleased. He was free after all.
"You have a location in mind, Rhoads?" The question was part mocking, as Tenuxhal thought he already saw the only possible answer coming. But he wanted to hear Elsi say it anyway.
"Well.. uh... you could try the human world." Her suggestion was met with silence and a bored expression. "No, really. We could probably come up with a spell that would give you a fake human form like Olivia’s, it’s what she does to stay in the mortal plane. It'll control your power and hide you from Heaven, witches and even other demons." Elsi ramped up as she began to get caught up in the logistics of such a venture. "We'd have to find you a place to live. And I could help you fit in... you know... show you how humans live."
"I hate humans."
It was a bucket of cold water on Elsi's idea. There was a thoughtful pause before Tenuxhal continued.
"I kill people
."
True. Or was it, Elsi wondered? Sure he'd certainly tried to kill people, but things had never actually worked out in the knight's favour.
“I’m a Cannibal.”
Oh right, there was that. Were demons even considered people? It was necessary that they consumed each other for survival...
Tenuxhal hadn't been in the real world more than a few times under Beelzebub's rule, and he'd only encountered Elsi, Mason, and to his own downfall, Olivia. And they had all survived. And then there was the matter of him being a people eater. Tenuxhal literally was hundreds of souls, an amalgamation of all the demons he'd consumed over the course of a few centuries.
If Tenuxhal had ever devoured a pure human soul, it must have been eons before now, when he first started out as a demon after his initial death. And that didn't really count to Elsi. Only the Tenuxhal of today really mattered.
"You do realize that you never actually killed anybody, right?" Did eating fellow demons count? She wasn’t sure.
It was an innocent question, but if looks could kill, Elsi would have gone up in smoke. Tenuxhal snatched the bottle back and took a long pull of sake before thrusting the bottle at Elsi and fixing her with a withering look.
"I killed another person," he said flatly.
Elsi cleared her throat. Oh. "Another knight?" Still didn't count.
"I ate him."
Elsi blanched and her mouth opened and closed several times before she decided to blatantly ignore that disgusting piece of information. She turned and studied the demon thoughtfully for a moment as it quickly dawned on her what that meant.
"Is... is that how you survived?"
"It helped.”
"So you killed a few... people." She waved a hand above her head as the sword was withdrawn and released. "You can change. You know, reform. You can kick the habit if you try."
"I'm a demon, Rhoads, not an alcoholic." There was a brief pause as Elsi smiled internally at the deadpan retort. It was nothing new to Elsi, though. If anyone paid attention, they would realize that Tenuxhal had a surprisingly intelligent sense of humour.
"Heh. Could have fooled me." The human looked pointedly at the nearly empty bottle in her own hand, most of it having been consumed by the thirsty demon.
The knight shrugged noncommittally, a slight upturn of the corner of his mouth belaying his bored expression.
"Ya well, it takes the edge off. And I blame you anyway. You're fucking irritating."
About the Author
Cryptic is a paranormal and fantasy romance writer and has spent most of her life in Colorado.
Her current publications are: Claimed by the Demon Knight Trilogy.
Currently working on another series that will be released sometime in the Fall of 2014.
For monthly updates on releases, please consider joining the mailing list.
Or come chat over on Twitter.
There are no future plans to create a website or blog at this time.