The Demon Dealings

I don't know why but I didn't really expect anyone to be home. I guess it was something I had gotten used to, a rather lonely life. The lights were out when I walked in and I happily sat on the couch in the dark. I took a deep breath; maybe I just needed some water or something.

I slowly got off the couch and walked into the kitchen and turned on the light. It seemed so normal just grabbing a glass and filling it with water. I set it on the counter and opened up the freezer to get some ice. Immediately I gasped and took several steps back. This wasn't real. It had to be someone's sick idea of a joke.

There in the freezer was what appeared to be my mother's head. Her face peering eerily out at me as if pleading for help with her eyes.

I gulped, "Very funny." I muttered noncommittally in attempts to suppress the fear that was creeping up my spine.

I closed the freezer not wanting to look at my mom's face any more. But who would play a prank like this? It worried me.

"Mom?!" I yelled and bound up the stairs not caring that I would be waking her up. She had to be in her bed sleeping. There was no way that she was actually dead. Not like this.

I threw the door to her room open and screamed. There on her bed was a torso with one arm and one leg still attached. There was little to no blood. I kept telling myself over and over "this isn't real. Some is just trying to mess with you. Someone is trying to scare you. This isn't real."

But I couldn't keep it under control. My panic surged through me telling me to do something, anything at all.

I ran to my bed room knocking into the small table in the hall way and caused it to fall over. The glass vase fell to the floor making a large mess of flowers and water. The picture my mother had put on the desk fell with it, shattering into a million pieces but I ignored it.

I opened my door only to find my room destroyed and a severed leg on my bed. It looked like someone decided to rob my room and only mine and left a leg on my bed as an afterthought.

"This isn't real." I told myself over and over. "This can't be real."

I took two steps backwards, the glass from the vase crunched under my shoes. I found it difficult tearing my eyes away from the destruction before me. The papers from my desk strewn about the floor, the sheets from my bed flung across the floor. Fluff from my pillows littered everywhere.

My breathing got quicker as I turned to flee the scene. I ran away from my room, the broken vase and what were presumably my mother's body parts and into the bathroom. I locked the door, backing away. I ripped the shower curtain open, wanting to hide but that was not what I got.

The tub was a shallow puddle of blood, an arm sitting in it. Above on the shower tiles was writing that I could not make out, even if I cared to.

I took a step towards the arm and raised my hand gently to touch it. A flash of my mother screaming in pain shot before my eyes and I stumbled backwards and fell on my butt and backed myself into the corner. I curled up into a ball. This was real after all.

And all I could do was cry.

I'm not sure how long I was there for but eventually someone found me and took me away from there. The home I never wanted to go back to. All I know was that I was lost to the world for some time.

I wasn't sent to fulfill a prophesy, I wasn't sent to be the savior of a world in trouble. I was sent in hopes that I and eleven others would change the tide of the war. The other side had done something similar but had called on demons, making deals that would cost them.

The woman who brought me there told me before I left that I would remember it like it was a dream. It wouldn't seem real to me because the years that I spent fighting a war and the time after that would all be erased. I would go back to the moment I left. I would wake up as if nothing had happened.

I didn't believe her at the time. There was no way that I could forget something as awful as war. There was no way I would forget the magic and the deals that were made and what they could do to a person.

I was wrong.

So when she dealt me the conditions of my return I took them without hesitation not knowing what I would be giving up. I thought the only thing left for me was the disbanded 12 who had either died in the course of the war or decided to stay because it was the land they fought for, so why would they go?

But I didn't want to remember it. I didn't want to remember killing her. Sending her back to hell. But I guess we were wrong. She didn't quite make it there.

For two years I waited to go home. I thought I would finally be done with her that I could live without looking over my shoulder, being reminded of the horrors I'd witness at every turn.

And then the last thing I expected to happen happened to me. I fell in love. I forgot about going home, I was happy. I had waited for two years. I wouldn't be going home, it had been too long.

I was wrong again.

When I woke up from that world, returning to my own and leaving my love behind. I didn't remember him and I still can't hardly make out his face. But that didn't matter anymore. What mattered was that she was back and I would have to defeat her again.

They tell me I slept for a day and a half and the only thing that woke me was the dying need to drink something. It was hazy after that. I vaguely remember Matheas trying to make jokes, to tease me to get some sort of reaction but I wouldn't snap out of it.

I was a ghost for three days.

Carys showed up during that time. I'm not sure how Matheas got a hold of her but she somehow managed to break through.

"Nash, I know you're in there. I know that something bad is about to happen and if you don't snap out of it you will lose more just your parents and Jane. We've all lost people, it's how we come back that can make the difference."

I turned my head to look at her. "You're right." I whispered almost in audibly.

"I know I'm right. Look, Cade told me you guys were going to do something about this. So do something. Do it from your mom. Do it for Jane!" She cried and threw her hands up in the air.

"Ok." I said quietly again. "Where's Matheas?"

"He's on the phone." She said slowly.

I'm sure she believed that I should not have been ready to go so quickly, she certainly was not expecting it. That I still needed to make sure that I was completely me before I could run off and try to defeat the bad guy.

But I didn't care what she thought, I would pretend like this never happened. I would put everything on the back burner to make things right. To try to save the world no matter what. It was something that I had a feeling only I could do. It wasn't a burden I took on lightly.

"We need to talk to Matheas… and Spiros. I…" I stopped taking in a deep breath, "I know who she is. I know who is behind all of this."

Her eyes widened, confused and concerned, "You… know?"

"Yes." I answered shortly. I slowly turned to get out of bed. My ribs were sore and my legs felt like they'd been stomped on (which they probably had) but I got up anyways.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to get Matheas and hopefully I can get Spiros to." I told her and began walking as normally as I could to the door. I opened it slowly and walked out into the hallway not noticing the plain décor or photos on the wall. Only focusing on what was a head of me.

I could hear his voice floating down the hall. I stopped to listen.

"I don't know." He said to the person on the other line, "It looked like some sort of curse but it wasn't complete. I'm not sure why." He paused, "On the wall. In the bathroom."

He was talking about the writing; it had to be what was on the wall in my bathroom. Some sort of curse potentially meant for me, to kill me once and for all. But for some reason I wasn't worried. I was already cursed enough as it was. There wouldn't be anything more to curse me with.

"Who's that?" I asked leaning on the door frame to what appeared to be the living room.

Matheas turned around, smiling at me, "Nice to see you up princess."

"Who's on the phone, Matheas?" I said a little slower this time. I wasn't going to play his game, it wasn't the time for games or teasing.

"Spiros." He replied bluntly.

"Good, tell him we need to talk. Get him over here." I turned around walking back to the room I was in before not allowing him to respond but he did anyways.

"As you wish princess!" He called after me.

I didn't say anything to Carys when I walked back in the room. I simply sat in the chair next to the bed. I didn't want to be there anymore. Three days was long enough confined to a bed.

"You should probably eat something before he gets here…" Carys said cautiously.

"I'm fine." I muttered.

"No you're not. Its been three days. You need food. Just… let me help." She replied pathetically. But before I could respond there was a knock at the door.

"Brought this for the princess." Matheas placed a plate of toast on the night stand next to me along with a glass of water. I stared at it for a second.

"What? Toast too good for princesses?" Matheas teased.

So I ate it. To shut him up and then I drank the water quickly. No one said a word. So we sat in silence as we waited for Spiros to show.

I didn't want to beat around the bush or make small talk so I simply went straight to the point, "I think we know by now that there is a threat. But what we had yet to figure out was who was behind it. But now I know. I brought you here so we could come up with a plan."

"And who is this enemy?" Spiros asked me.

"Her name is Lorna." Spiros tensed at the name. "I think you know who she is." I nodded at him, feeling any other gesture would be over kill.

"I do. And I think we both know what she's capable of." He replied stiffly.

"This is why we need to figure out what she is up to, to figure out her weaknesses so we can stop her." I told them with determination.

"They've seen me. My face should be evidence of that." I gestured to the bruises.

Carys winced. My eye was a lovely purple hue and the only thing that was keeping me standing was the pain killers and whatever magic Matheas did to heal my insides… My outsides were a different matter.

"Anyways, as far as I know they don't know Matheas and Carys really hasn't played a part in anything so far. So we need you to go on surveillance, to figure out how we can get in."

"So what exactly is it that you're asking to look for?" Carys asked me.

"I'm asking you to… look into things. I need you to figure out how we can get to a woman named Lorna. She's the key to all of this and the only way I know you can find anything out is by following the vampire called Dimitri."

"Who the hell is Dimitri?" Matheas asked.

"A council member for the vampires… " I winced, "He's on the inner circle. He knows where she is, if we figure out where she is than we can figure out how to proceed from there. We need to know what her plans are so we can stop them."

"How are we supposed to know who this guy is if we've never seen him before?" She seemed rather reluctant to go in blind.

"Give me your hand." I told her, "you to Matheas."

"This is just an excuse to touch me." He teased and grabbed my hand playfully, swinging it back and forth. Spiros rolled his eyes.

"I'll transfer it to you."

Carys took my hand without a word, still reluctant. I took a deep breath and pulled a small snippet of the night before from my mind, careful to leave out the gory details. It wasn't something that anyone needed to see.

"Woha." Carys whispered when the memory had run completely through her own head.

"Any questions? Nope? Good." I stood from the couch I was sitting on and grabbed Spiros, "I have things I need to discuss with this guy."

I walked him out into the hall way, not wanting to go far and closed the door behind me.

"I heard what Matheas said about the curse. Who is trying to curse me… who is trying to curse my family?"

He shook his head and sighed. "That curse wasn't for you. None of it was for you. They thought you were dead and that I would come looking for you. All of it was for me. They're demons, that's what they do. Mess with people, mess with people and send messages."

"Then why didn't they do that to me? Why did they just leave me to die?" I could feel tears starting to form in my eyes but I pushed them back.

"Those demons didn't know who you were. But it got around later… I'm sorry Nash. I'm sorry that this had to happen." He put a hand on my shoulder to console me.

"I know… but something had to. I have been so stuck in my own world to realize that there are people who need me. That if I don't at least try to fix this that everything I've ever known and loved will be gone forever." I let out a long sigh.

"You look like you have the world on your shoulders." He looked at me concerned.

"I do. And I don't know if I can hold it up."