Burning You Down

Days passed, things changed. The next week went pretty much normally. I didn’t get to see Vic that much anymore, because he had to spend the afternoons at his, or, well, Walt’s house, and the nights he would usually go out with some girl, bring her to some motel and he wouldn’t return until the morning. Obviously Sarah had told her friends about Vic’s… talent, and now all of them were basically fighting who’s going to get into his pants first. It was a bit annoying, really, because this made him pretty popular at school, and I kept being the loser, who only hung out with him for some unknown reason…

Some days the demon would be really rude, harsh and easily irritated, and he basically treated me as a servant of his – I had to put his room into order, buy him everything he wants, tell him jokes whenever he orders me to and sometimes cook for him. Other times, though, he was almost sweet and really careful not to hurt me. He was so damn changeable! I had started to learn not to get surprised by any of his actions, though. Even if he had started walking around with a pink crown on his head and fake fairy wings on his back, I still wouldn’t be even a little bit impressed. You could expect absolutely everything from him.

During the break after a long and exhausting Maths class I was sitting at our desk and listening to music, both earphones plugged into my ears and sticking the notes like needles straight to my brain. I was feeling particularly shitty this morning, I guess I was just in a bad mood and I was missing Walt more than usual. I just wished Vic would let him go sooner… Not that I didn’t like the demon. I actually did, for some reason. He was… charming, in his own way, and he was fun, and different, and strange. He was a creature I didn’t even suspect existed before, and I was curious about him. But I still wanted my best friend back. I wondered when Victor would finally leave his body. He said he’d just temporarily keep it and if I do everything he tells me to he’d find himself a new one, but he never specified when he’d do that…

I was blissfully sinking in my own misery, when someone roughly pulled one of my earphones out without a warning. Startled, I gasped and looked up to see Vic sitting next to me. When the fuck did he show up?

“What?”, I stopped my music and gave him a questioning look.

“Let’s get out of here.”, he suppressed a yawn. “I’m bored. Let’s go do something interesting.”

“But Vic, you do realize our classes aren’t over, right? We can’t leave now.”, I furrowed eyebrows.

“We can skip. I know you don’t like Physics anyway, and that’s what we have next.”, he shrugged casually.

I had never skipped classes before and I didn’t like the idea at all. I mean, yeah, some classes are boring, but skipping is disrespectful towards the teachers and besides, it can get you in trouble. As Vic sometimes said, I was a good boy. I liked staying out of trouble.

“I don’t wanna skip.”, I frowned.

“Oh, but of course you don’t. Not that I give a shit. You’re not in a position-”

“…to argue, yeah, yeah, I know.”, I rolled my eyes. “Okay. But quick, the teacher’s gonna come soon.”

Vic grinned, glad he got what he wanted. “Awesome. Come with me.” He grabbed my hand and practically forced me to my feet, dragging me towards the door. I stumbled after him, managing to grab my bag in the meantime, and we left, followed by the curious looks of our schoolmates. Yeah, we must’ve looked weird.

I followed Vic to the boys’ bathrooms, where he finally stopped, looked around and rushed inside. Confused, but wanting to know what he’s up to, I came in after him. Besides us, there was no one in there.

The bathrooms at school are hell. They smell horribly, even though they don’t really look dirty. I guess there’s just a problem with the pipes or something, but the school didn’t have enough money and couldn’t afford fixing it. Whatever the reason was, it was making the place fucking stink like shit, figuratively… but literally, too. It definitely wasn’t the best place to spend your time at. I wondered why Victor hurried to come here so much.

“What are you doing?”, I asked impatiently, going round a suspicious puddle on the ground and trying not to step in it.

“We need a place where no one would see us teleport, you moron.”, Vic sighed.

“Where are we going?”, I continued with the questions.

“You’ll see. It will be fun.”, he gave me a small devilish grin. “You ready?”

I closed the door, making sure no one’s around, and then nodded quickly. He turned out to be right – I came to enjoy teleporting; after about the fourth or the fifth time it felt much different than it did at first. It wasn’t even painful anymore. Besides, he had started warning me before doing it, instead of tossing me around all of a sudden. Now he gently set his hand on my shoulder, gripping it lightly so he wouldn’t accidentally let me go and drop me somewhere on the way to wherever we were going. I wasn’t completely sure what would happen in this case, but I guess I didn’t want to find out. Yeah. Definitely.

I felt a slight shiver go down my body, like electricity, and the feeling that I was being reduced to atoms appeared again, but this time it didn’t hurt, just the opposite, it was pleasantly… ticklish. I couldn’t even gasp, though, because before I could do a thing to express the indescribable pleasure, everything went black for a part of the second and we found ourselves in the middle of a street. I blinked, still dizzy from the teleporting thing.

“Thank you for flying at us, have a nice stay.”, Vic said evenly with a polite smile, copying the air-hostesses he had seen in a movie.

“Vic, what are we doing at a…”, I looked up at the building in front of us, “…supermarket? What are we looking for, what’s going on?”

“What I think, my friend,” he threw an arm around my shoulders, “is that you need to stop asking questions and just trust me.”

“Trust you? Seriously?”, I raised eyebrow meaningfully.

“…Well, okay, okay, I admit, I’m not exactly the most trustworthy creature around.”, he admitted, letting me go. “But you can trust me on this one, hm? C’mon.”

And he led me inside. I let him, because I didn’t have much of a choice – it was already too late to go back to school, so the only thing left for me was following him and finding out what he had been planning.

“That’s my first time I skip classes. I have the bad feeling that you’re actually aiming to make me a bad guy.”, I murmured darkly.

“Mm, I might or might not be…”, he let out a short giggle. “Well, I’m a demon, what else could you expect from me?”

“True, you can’t be all fluffy and cute.”, I agreed, trying to sound bitter.

The supermarket was small, more like a local store when the retired old people buy their food from, and it was almost empty at this time of the day. I felt really weird just casually walking in with a guy who was dressed like a rocker version of something between James Bond and Van Helsing. Vic didn’t look exactly like the friendliest person around here, in fact, he seemed like someone who’d steal the products, break the stands and beat all the other customers up (and he probably would, if someone gave him a good reason to move his lazy ass and actually make some effort) I suppose Vic would be far not that nice if he wasn’t so slothful. He just couldn’t bother.

We crossed the shop quickly, and judging by the way he was walking, I could tell that we came here for a reason – he was looking for something particular, and he knew where to find it. We walked past the vegetables, the cereals, the bread, the soft drinks, and found ourselves at the alcoholic beverages stand. He stopped in front of it, gave it a critical look and took two beers – as I supposed, one for him and one for me.

“Dude, I told you I don’t drink.”, I reminded him.

“Shut up.”, he cut me off.

“No, but seriously…”, I insisted.

Vic looked me in the eyes. “Yeah, but you drank at that party, right?”

“I did, because you made me!”, I pointed out.

“But you liked it.”, he grinned slightly. I opened my mouth to object, but he raised his hand. “Uh huh, you can’t deny it, kid. Good liars can recognize the lie even before it slips out of your mouth, and you’re talking to the best one here. Lying is my job, duh. So don’t try to lie to me, not because it would piss me off or something, but simply because you can’t deceive me and it’s not worth the effort. I can always see the truth in your eyes… and more importantly, I can see when you’re not telling it.”

I let out a deep sigh. “Oh, please. This is bullshit.”

“Yeah, go ahead, believe yourself.”, he chuckled. “Anyways, you’re gonna drink that beer. I won’t even have to make you do it, you’ll see.”

“We’ll see about that. I don’t have enough money to pay for it anyway.”, I shrugged.

“Who said anything about paying for it?”, Vic raised an eyebrow.

“Well,” I laughed a bit, “it’s not like we’re gonna steal it or something.”

“No, actually, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”, he poked me in the chest.

What?! Was he joking? I examined his face carefully, looking for any sign he isn’t serious, but he was just smiling mischievously, his eyes sparkling as usual.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”, I exclaimed. “I’m not stealing anything!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll take the whole blame then, calm the fuck down.”, he sighed, as if he was doing me a big favor. “Let’s go.”

“Dammit, man, put the fucking bottles back!” I tried to keep my voice down, but I really couldn’t. I was overly excited, and a bit scared, too. I didn’t want to get caught stealing from a supermarket. In fact, I didn’t want to get caught stealing from anywhere. My eyes slipped up the wall, above the shelves, and stopped at the camera in the corner. If Vic took the bottles, it would be on the recording and they’d definitely catch us. Shit. Awesome. I was going to get in trouble, because the goddamn demon I was basically mothering all the time had decided to get me drunk with stolen beer. How did he even get those ideas?! Maybe demons just had criminal minds or something.

I looked around. There was no one around us, the shop assistants were suddenly all gone. The cashiers were standing at one of the cash-desks and chattering quietly. There were no other clients at all.

Yeah, this was the perfect time to steal some beers. Totally. I didn’t want to, though.

“I’m not putting anything back.”, he replied calmly, taking a pack of chips from the nearest stand.

“But…”, I threw a meaningful look at the camera, hoping he’d get the hint. He looked at it and furrowed eyebrows, a bit confused, and for a moment I thought he doesn’t realize what this device is. I mean, he hadn’t seen many cameras in his life, had he. After all the last time he had been on Earth was seven hundred years ago. I had tried hard to educate him and he was a damn quick learner – now he could work with the TV by himself and he often took my phone (without my permission, might I add) to text the girl or guy he’s currently planning to get laid with tonight. Shortly said, he was okay with modern technology, at least for someone who hasn’t seen anything like it before, but I was pretty sure he didn’t know much about video surveillance. Well, except if he watched a movie about it; he watched a lot of films ever since I showed him how the TV works.

“Oh! This, yeah, right. I should’ve figured it would bother you.”, he nodded understandingly and stared at the camera, going silent.

“What are you doing?”, I looked at him curiously.

“Shh!”, he stopped me without even moving his look. “Hang on.”

Want it or not, I obeyed. I wanted to let him finish doing whatever he was trying to do. After maybe a minute he finally looked at me and smiled slightly.

“…Here we go. I turned the thing off.”, he announced.

I raised eyebrows, impressed. “Wow, how did you do it?”

“Demon magic.”, he nudged me.

I looked at him suspiciously, trying to tell if he’s lying to me. Maybe he didn’t stop the camera and he just said that so I wouldn’t keep opposing him. I didn’t know. However, I preferred to believe him and slowly nodded.

“How about the recording?”, I remembered to ask.

“Umm, well, I kinda destroyed the whole thing, so I guess it didn’t save? Don’t worry ‘bout it.”, the demon patted my back. “Come on now, we have everything we need, we’re ready to go.”

“Ready to go where?”, I tried again, but he obviously didn’t intend to answer this question.

“At a place.”, he said mysteriously and took me by the wrist. “Ready?”

Oh, teleporting again! Right. That was a good idea, this way we wouldn’t have to walk near security and we wouldn’t risk to get caught. I felt horrible, like an accomplice of a criminal or something and I felt the urge to stop him and ask him to return the bottles for one last time. Before I could do anything, though, I sensed that the teleporting had just started and in the next moment, after a few blissful seconds, we were standing… in the middle of no where.

We weren’t in the city, that was for sure. We were standing in the middle of a dusty road, which looked barely used. Green fields surrounded us and the wind gently blew through them, making the plants whisper quiet, barely audible songs. About ten feet ahead of us, there was an old, a bit broken barrier, which must’ve been painted red and white once, but now it was in a sad, rusty-metallic color. At first I didn’t see what it separated us from, but after a few moments I noticed the railway line behind it, half-hidden by the tall, bushy grass. Even though it wasn’t really warm, at all, the sun was shining bright and was making me narrow my eyes as I looked around. Where were we?

“Follow me.”, Vic ordered, but somehow softly, and headed straight towards the barrier. I hesitated, still a bit confused by the spot, but then I hurried to catch up with him.

“What is this place?”, I asked as I stood next to him.

He didn’t reply right away. A smile stretched on his face and he carefully hopped over the barrier, finding himself at the exact place where the railway line crossed the road. I stopped and estimated the barrier’s height, and after calculating (figuratively – I’m not quite good at maths) the possibility for accidentally tearing my skinny jeans, I decided not to risk it, instead, I leaned down and slipped under it, and walked to Vic, waiting for him to reply.

“…We’re going to have a picnic.”, he finally spoke up.

I raised eyebrows, surprised and a bit amused. “You serious?”

“Yeah, I am. I saw it in a film and it seemed fun so I wanted to try it. Of course, for a real picnic we’d need blankets and more food, but I decided that two beers would do.” He looked at me and smiled. “I thought humans like picnicking?”

“We do, we just… don’t do it that often, you know. I haven’t had a picnic since I was, like, eight or something?”, I shrugged. “I guess we’re just too busy for this.”

“Well that’s a pity.”, he frowned a bit, looked around and picked a spot for him to sit on the ground. I stayed up, still observing the place.

“Why here, though?”, I glanced at him, interested. “What is this place?”

Victor grinned, looking genuinely happy. “It’s a crossroad.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”, I chuckled a bit and sat next to him, at some distance. “But what’s so special about this crossroad?”

“There’s nothing special about this particular one. It’s just crossroads in general… they’re powerful places, Kellin.” He seemed serious, like never.

“How so?”

“Well…”, he sighed the way people sigh when they’re about to tell a really long complicated story. “Many years ago, before your kind wrote those satanic books of yours you usually use to summon us now, they had a very simple way to do it without any candles and mirrors. They used to make their deals at crossroads, because this is the place, where the boundaries between your reality and ours are really thin, they basically touch and intertwine, making it really easy to jump from ours to yours and the opposite. It’s where demons have much more power than anywhere else. Anyway, this doesn’t really matter. The reason I like standing at crossroads is because they feel… close to home. Not to the place where I torture human souls, no, this is not a home, at all. Home’s more like… the place I remember I’ve been at long, long time ago, where I was created, before being sent to the torture rooms. The memories, they’re really… obscure and fading, but it’s more, like, a feeling. I just feel myself welcomed here. It’s… it’s a nice feeling.”

“I thought the crossroads thing is just a myth, I never thought it was real.”, I blinked. “How about the deals? How do those work?”

“Oh, this, yeah. It’s not very simple to explain…”, his face darkened. “When humans like you really want something and they’re really desperate to get it, sometimes they turn to a darker methods to accomplish their goals. They summon us and after some short negotiations we both make compromises – demons agree to fulfill their wishes, and in exchange we’re allowed to collect their souls after some certain amount of time. The more souls you collect, the bigger your chance to get out of the torture rooms and get promoted is. And if we get promoted we might have the chance to work in the castle, hell, some even get to meet the King and he’d choose them to be his own personal servants. It’s the dream of every demon, to get there… Unfortunately, these days humans rarely ask for our services and only every once in awhile some lucky bastard would get to come back to Earth and see some sunlight, and after awhile return with a new soul. It’s a bit rare, especially for an… unimportant demon like me. I guess this would help you understand, at least a little bit, why I want so desperately to stay…”

“Yeah, I get it…”, I stared down at the line. “And, hang on, the King? Do you mean Lucifer?”

Victor nodded. “Yup, exactly.”

“How could you possibly have never met him? I mean, isn’t he your father?” I was a bit confused.

He laughed, all of a sudden. “My father?! No, of course not! We’re not all his sons, silly.”, an amused smile appeared on his face. I couldn’t help but smile back at the sweet nickname ‘silly’. He’d usually call me an idiot, or a moron, but this time he was almost nice. “He just couldn’t create so many children, even though he’s one hell of a horny son of a bitch. It usually works like this: he creates a few demons, who are really powerful; they, then, create some more, weaker then them; the weaker ones create more demons, who are even weaker than them… and yeah. You got what I mean. I… can’t say I’m one of the strong ones, really… that’s why I’ve never seen Lucifer, or any other important figure in hell, either.”

“Wow, I didn’t know that, that’s… interesting.”, I said honestly. “It’s a bit sad, too…”

He just growled something bitterly and didn’t respond. I watched him as he took one of the beers and opened it.

“…Here. This one’s for you.”, he handed it to me. “Don’t worry, your mom will never know.”

“Yeah, because I wouldn’t tell her, like, ever.”, I took the beer with a half-smile, deciding that after all, I got a free beer, why shouldn’t I drink it?

Vic chuckled softly and opened another one, taking a sip as well. For awhile we fell into silence, broken only by the wind in the grass. I contemplated the landscape, my thoughts drifting away, my hands absent-mindedly playing with the bottle. Now, when I had managed to adjust my eyes to the sunlight, I noticed some buildings in the distance and after a moment I could tell that this was our city, about a mile or two away. The blocks and houses seemed pale and unreal, kind of distant, as if I was watching them from the other side of a dirty window, an image of another world I usually was a part of, but here, here I was a part of something else. Here I was a part of Vic’s other reality, and, honestly, I liked it. I hated the whole idea of skipping classes, stealing and drinking alcohol, but right now it didn’t matter. Right now there was just us and this moment, and the consequences didn’t seem important. I just enjoyed it.

Noticed my absent-minded look, he spoke up:

“I stumbled upon this place about two days ago or something. I had nothing left to do and you were sleeping, so I decided to take a walk out of town, and after awhile I found myself here. The railway line is abandoned, years ago trains used to pass from here, but not anymore. The road is barely used too, because they’ve built another, better, newer one. It’s beautiful, how now abandoned, this place is being slowly taken over by nature.”

“Yeah…”, I picked some sort of white flower. I didn’t know what it was, but it was pretty, even though I couldn’t sense its smell. “I should go out here more often…”

“Mhm. Your world is beautiful… If it was up to me, I would stay here forever. But I can’t.” He looked at me, kind of sadly.

“Why not?”, I drank from my beer a little.

“Because wherever we go, we always feel this particular… need to go back to hell. It’s where we’re from. We belong there. We’re only here to do our job.”, he shrugged.

“But you’re here, and you’re having fun.”, I pointed out.

“That’s because I’m a rebel.”, he giggled. “Really, though. I doubt that down there they’ve even noticed my absence. No one knows or cares about me. I think I’m safe, for now.”

“Isn’t it a bit upsetting?”, I took another drink.

“What?”

“Well, you know… no one caring about you.”

“Y’know, I’ve never thought of it this way. I mean, it’s always been this way. I don’t know what it’s like to have someone who gives a shit, so I don’t really want or miss it. I admit, sometimes it gets a bit lonely… but down there I can always take my depression out on the ones I need to torture, so I’m good.”, he tried to smile, but I could tell that this smile was a little forced.

I just shrugged, deciding not to point that out. I guessed he didn’t want to discuss it right now. I wondered what it’s like not to have parents, only an unknown creator who doesn’t care about you. It must be horrible, no matter what Vic said. It was no wonder that demons were evil. Their life was hell, both literally and figuratively. Evil was all they knew.

We sat there and drank in silence for awhile, both thinking about something. I felt the alcohol enter my system, but it wasn’t strong enough to make me hyper or something. I mean, that was just a beer. I didn’t even understand why I didn’t want it at first. It almost seemed impossible to me that right now my schoolmates were sitting at class and working, and that we’d be with them if it wasn’t for Vic’s idea. How vast the fields seemed now, compared to the four walls of our classroom that were surrounding us not so long ago, how good the air smelled, how clean and fresh it was. The wind was sort of unpleasant, though, and it made me shudder slightly. I wasn’t prepared for staying outside for so long, so I wasn’t dressed with warm clothes.

Unconsciously or not, Victor shifted closer to me until our shoulders were touching. I felt the heat coming from him. He was always so warm, no matter where he was or what he was doing. It was like the blood was boiling in his veins, like he was burning from the inside. It was just his demon nature, I suppose, but whatever it was, it was enough to make me feel better and stop noticing the sharp wind.

“…Sing for me.”, he suddenly said, breaking the silence.

“Huh? What, now?”, I raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, now. You said you could sing. So… sing.”

This surprised me a bit, but I decided this was the best place to do it, since there was no one around to hear me. I didn’t like singing in front of people. It was a bit embarrassing, because my voice was really high, and some guys mocked me for that, so I avoided singing in public.

“Okay. Umm… What should I sing?”, I smiled awkwardly.

“Doesn’t matter. Just sing something.”, Victor shrugged.

I sighed. “Alright… Hm…” I thought about it for a moment and then started softly: “ And I'd give up forever to touch you, 'cause I know that you feel me somehow… You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be, and I don't want to go home right now…”, I stopped, unsure, but Vic nodded encouragingly.

“Go on.”, he urged me, then stood up with a theatrical movement. “Sing, and I’m gonna dance like the total idiot I can be sometimes.”, he winked. “Even though most of the time I’m absolutely brilliant.”

I chuckled. “Indeed, you are.”

“Indeed, I am, yes. But now! Enough with the talking, sing!”

I giggled again and continued, now more confident, even though my amusement kind of ruined the song:

“And all I can taste is this moment… And all I can breathe is your life… 'Cause sooner or later it's over, I just don't want to miss you tonight…”

Vic jumped on one of the rails and balanced on it, making funny, but quite graceful movements. I managed to keep singing without bursting into laughter, watching him dance on the narrow metal line. My beer was almost empty, and the alcohol gave me the courage to raise my voice and relax, playing with the gentle melody, the soft sounds of the wind accompanying my performance.

Free. That’s how Victor made me feel. Confused, unsure and even a bit afraid sometimes, but free.

Soon the moment would be over, and I’d have to go back to my life. But now nothing mattered.

Right now I was free and that was all I needed.

END OF CHAPTER 9.