Damien Night Ch. 08

"Aaron that war happened before we came into existence. How the hell could they *know* who they were?"

"Because you've been lied to."

"Funny. I don't remember speaking with anyone about this. I've collected information from broken civilizations. As far as I know I'm the only one that does that. Like you once said: simple creatures." Damien rolled his eyes and shook his head. It was odd how he could remind her of a child given how long he'd been around.

"What do you know about that blade you keep behind that little door, Damien?"

"It's mine."

"Did he ever tell you he killed someone a lot like you?"

He directed the question at her even though Aaron didn't bother looking at her.

"No. I'm sure there a lot of things he's never told me. I'm a little more interested in the blade you keep mentioning." She walked in front of him refusing to be secondary. "Or the war, or the soul...or anything. Answer a goddamn question!"

Aaron looked around. "How about we show it to you?"

"You have a real knack for avoiding things, Aaron."

Damien grabbed Annabel by the shoulders and pushed her a few feet before the world went strange. She caught a vision of deep purples and blacks, the shadow of the universe, and in that moment the silence was almost thick enough to touch. She was overcome with the need to scream just to hear something. The world righted itself again a half a second later, and she was standing in Damien's bedroom. The feel of his warm skin against hers came over her; memories playing like someone touched the strings on a guitar in her mind. Hopefully Aaron couldn't read her thoughts.

The fairer demon was already there studying the odd violet door that clashed with the rest of Damien's tastefully decorated bedroom.

"It's funny. All the things I can do and I've never been able to get past this."

Damien's eyes narrowed as he stared at the other's back. His grip on Annabel tightened and she could feel the frustration rolling off of him in a wave.

"I think that blade will be staying where it is until you explain things, Aaron."

"Why? You are the only two that can use it." Aaron was smiling, but he didn't seem intent on changing anyone's mind. "Right, I guess I'll just start. Once upon a time there was a girl named Millei."

He propped his back against the door and she could see him lighting a cigarette cuing up a flashback. Her imagination always liked sprinkling a little extra on reality...even after reality went to hell.

"I need to go back further than that, but it's fuzzy. So we'll start with Mellei...and us. We've always lived among humans in small numbers; shadows of the strongest things they feel. I think of our race as mosquitoes: born for one thing with no greater inclinations except in our case it's to feed and then disappear. Occasionally one of us gets the idea that we are capable of more."

He spoke slowly, careful not to stumble over a single word. Annabel leaned back against Damien in the calm that followed that voice. For a potential enemy he really made you feel at home.

"A few thousand years ago someone did just that...in a big way."

"The war." Damien commented to which Aaron nodded.

"Yes. It turns out once we are connected to this world we can manipulate it quite readily. Suddenly we are complex creatures with an unbalanced amount of power."

"And power corrupts." She said shaking her head.

"At a rapid rate in some cases."

"BEFORE we existed one of us went a little crazy stealing souls so the story goes. Suddenly, up pops a group of humans with an interesting ability: a blade capable of erasing whatever is in their power from existence. We aren't sure what happened. Most of that was erased I'm guessing." There was a determination the in the smooth as silk voice behind her.

"And that's where you were lied to."

Damien moved from behind Annabel. "That's what you keep saying. And again no one told me shit about this. I dug around and found it on my own ergo no lying."

The soft laugh was probably patronizing, but that wasn't the effect it had. These guys must pick up traits from whatever their preferred entre is.

"Not history, Damien, memories. It erases memories. You can't unravel the fabric of the universe, but you can definitely put a little whiteout on it. That war didn't happen before we existed. It happened just a few thousand years ago and we as a group lost the memories. If it was existence than those little tidbits you found wouldn't be there." He turned and looked at Annabel. "People with a connection to this world are immune to that little side effect, but then you don't live long enough for it to matter."

"So how do you know so much, Aaron?" Damien's fascinating green eyes narrowed.

"Anyone connected to this world is immune to the effect."

"Mellei. She was supposed to kill you, but she didn't." Annabel chimed in as she leaned back against the bed.

"No, in fact she did not want to leave me. I suppose, somehow, love at first sight exists. Or maybe she was just not capable of killing. She had the spark of a hunter but not the cold colorless stare. She asked me questions and told me stories. She sated curiosities I'd long held in check given the way those of us that stood out were ended. I can't even remember how it started now."

"And it's her soul you have."

Aaron nodded solemnly to Damien's statement. "And I need to get it where it was intended in the first place."

"Just release it."

"It's not as simple as undoing a deal, Damien. If I do she'll just...disappear." The way he looked when he dropped his head Annabel could swear pieces of him were snapping like some old wooden railway failing under its own weight. "I swear I'm losing her now."

"Wait, I thought this whole soul thing was just about connection."

She didn't feel anything different but that overwhelming sense of loss, like what she felt when her gram died. The prospect of what Aaron was talking about made her stomach twist in a way that nearly brought tears to her eyes. He had to be wrong though. She wasn't a part of Damien. She was still right here.

"Sorry. It's more."

Even the calming effect on his voice did little to mitigate what he was trying to tell her. Now Annabel narrowed her eyes at the fair creature before her.

"Whatever. Why the hell are you trying to start a war, Aaron?"

"Did Damien ever tell you there are many planes all existing in the same place in a way? We can move through them in the breaks. We can even use the breaks to get to different places in the same plane without having to travel the distance. We see differently because of it too."

"And what the hell does this have to do with a war?" She kept her tone even though the words were picked to mark her impatience. Apparently the love guru liked to hear himself talk.

"We can move through any plane..."

"But one." Damien finished for him.

"It wasn't always that way. It happened during the war sometime. We were locked out." Aaron put his hand up like he pressed against a barrier Annabel couldn't see. "I've got to get her back there."

"It was locked up because of the war and I'm sure whoever was responsible for that is long gone."

"It wasn't...God?" Annabel ventured, the similarities between the war in heaven and this little unfolding story not being lost on her.

"I told you...we've no idea." Damien chuckled.

"Most likely human. Your kind is far more powerful than you know, but it has less to do with that than Damien thinks. It was locked up because of one being...the one that started it all...the one that remembers everything, and he is not gone."

"Impossible. Where would something like that hide?"

Annabel heard Damien speaking, but her mind was wandering. The devil. Aaron had to be describing the devil...or the creature that inspired him.

"Every time one of us...collects...a human our connection to this world grows stronger...and our ability to manipulate it. You know that, Damien. That one collected many...enough that there would be no need to hide. He could simply trick the world into believing he's gone."

"Then why hide? Why not finish what he started?"

"What did he want?" Annabel broke in.

"I don't know. I don't care. I need to find him though. Since I can't seem get to him the only option is to bring him to me. You two are my last hope."

"I'm sorry. We won't help you." She continued coldly, not that she knew how she could stop that.

"You already did love. I knew the moment your connection to this world passed to Damien. So does my quarry."

Aaron was beautiful. There was no denying that. He was once the light that would shine in the darkest parts of a life it seemed. That beauty was just a shell now. The weight he carried, whatever it was, had taken its toll on him. The shell was cracking. Though he still looked the same as he most likely did untold years ago Annabel could almost see a haggard looking creature with sunken eyes and reedy breaths. Maybe something like the displaced drug addicts she saw on the bus occasionally. He was just as desperate as an addict too.

"What happened to her?"

"The one I'm after killed her just days after she gave herself to me. We should have had centuries, even millennia, but I had days. That's less than a second to someone like me, Annabel."

Even to someone who had never known love that was a painful thought.

"If you don't know what this thing wanted why do you think that this will draw it out?" Annabel asked quietly, some part of her understanding his plight even if she still barely understood what exactly was going on.

"He obviously wanted something. He'll try again."

Aaron was growing very distant as he spoke and it occurred to her he probably didn't care. He was just casting stones in to a pond hoping to cause a tidal wave and she was going to be in the middle of it. How does someone, anyone, get to a place like that?

"I'm getting from you that this...guy...is pretty powerful. He could destroy the whole world? I mean...what if he does? How can you doom the whole world for one person?"

He smiled then, a visible crack in his shell and it made her stomach turn. "It's only one world."

Aaron disappeared.

"Fuck."

Annabel slid down the foot of the bed while Damien muttered about something with the only audible word being his favorite. It was time to consider the possibility she was really damned. This wasn't some fiction story with a fantastical way out but her ultimate fuck up.

***

It was a lot to take in. He never really considered the fact that he couldn't remember when he was created when others could and now it bothered him. There were so many more questions with every passing minute. For the first time in his life he was concerned with more than tracking down his next lay. He was worried about dying, and this world, the one he'd only been passing through for centuries, was so much bigger than he could have ever imagined.

That stupid war, which he thought of more as a fable, started playing over. Backtracking through the paths his life had taken led to a rather large wall full of holes. He remembered traveling to places like the library at Alexandria, but not what it was that led him there. The more he thought the more blanks he found. All those things behind that door, all having to do with lost arts, and he suddenly could not figure out why the hell he had them. What if it had to do with the war? What if he was part of it? How much was he missing?

After a few minutes of rapid introspection he remembered Annabel was still there. Oddly, all the connections he had with this world now, she was his anchor. She appeared pale sitting on the floor at the foot of his bed, and her hair looked like spilled ink on the soft white carpet beneath her. They'd hit a wall of unknown he didn't think was possible after being around for...how long. Ok that was going to keep bugging him.

Damien moved towards her and silently slid to the ground beside her. There were two ways this could go down: he could kill her and have complete control over the connection she gave to him or they were in this together. Together was definitely the better option.

"What do you think I am?" He asked quietly.

"A demon."

"Really? You think I generally roam around some freakishly hot place red-skinned with horns and hooves and stick people with a pitch fork because they were naughty?"

Annabel laughed in spite of herself.

"Need a visual?"

"No." She whispered shaking her head. "But no one here knows what hell or heaven is."

"And maybe now you'll never know. You can't miss something you never had."

"But that's just it...I think I did." Annabel answered with a slight hitch in her voice.

Damien took a deep breath, a habit he'd picked up from hanging with humans for the past few millennia, and pried his carefully guarded psyche open. If they were in this together he was going to have to prove that to her.

"I don't even know what I am, Annabel. Apparently part of that is because I'm missing a large part of me. I wouldn't know that if I hadn't met you." He smiled at her then, an unsure smile. "I don't think even Aaron knows what we are and we know he doesn't know what is going to happen. I can promise it's not going to happen tomorrow. It may not even happen in the next hundred years. I have things to show you now though."

She focused on him them, black eyes sparking with the curiosity he'd grown so fond of. "Like what."

"Lost civilizations, sea monsters, magic, another world...five thousand years' worth of things. I have one thing to show you right now though."

He felt her eyes as he rose and moved toward his door, her thoughts focusing on the things he refused to tell her over the past week. He was a creature of his word. Even without the deal he meant to fulfill his end of the bargain. A gentle request and the door opened silently revealing all of his secrets. Not even Jonathan had seen this. Not even the ever inquisitive Aaron had seen this or so he'd lamented a little earlier.

He went to the table in the center and picked up the blade that rested in wicked silence there. It might be inanimate but that didn't mean it didn't have a strange life of its own and he could feel it. It held secrets he couldn't pry from the material, but it wasn't made for him.

He picked it up cautiously. There was no fear of breaking, but this was his death which would make anyone who enjoyed not be dead a little nervous. The blade came to a very sharp tip on the death dealing end and thickened to the width of his palm near the hand. There was no guard. The handle was wrapped in black leather that had been treated with some spell and was too slender of a grip for a large man. He always wondered if the blades had been made for their owners or if Hunters were just always dainty. It was perfect for Annabel.

He turned back toward her and her dark eyes widened suddenly as she started scrambling backwards. A flurry of fear and hurt slammed into him before he had a chance to assuage her fear. Ice sped through his core, a painful freeze stopping him in his tracks. The strength that held him now made his first experience with her seem like child's play.

He reached out in his own words. The blade was hers. It was the key to everything she was...maybe. The uncertainty was what made her withdraw, and he was prepared to thank even God that the ice that flooded him retreated. Her power had a painful note he wasn't used to in it.

"I see you don't trust me."

"Can you blame me?" She still eyed him warily, her little trick not far from her mental fingertips.

"Yes, actually, I can. I've done nothing to incur this. I've always been straight forward with you." He watched her eyes narrow, "Regardless, you're stuck with me. I die, you die. Now can I show you this?" Damien ended a little bitterly. He finally opens up completely to someone and she tosses him about like a punch doll.

Bitch.

The look on her face a second later made him realize he'd said that last word...technically.

"I'm new at this. You're going to have to give me some time."

"You're 5,000 years old and I'm going to have to give you some time?" She snapped. "And new at what?"

"Connecting to someone." Damien held the pommel of the blade in one hand leaving enough room for her to grab it from the bottom.

"That's not how you hand a blade to someone."

"That's how I hand this blade to you. There is only one thing that can kill me and you're about to be holding it."

***

Annabel started to speak and stopped; her mouth still open. The strange simple blade he held away from him as much as out to her was familiar somehow. She moved to take it before she noticed the way the world was distorted around it and halted. Most people would have missed it as the warped space barely crested the surface of the blade, but she somehow knew where to look. This was migration to the butterfly, but she wasn't a butterfly. The fact she suddenly knew, in a sense, the blade and that it was part of who she was clashed with reality. Damien might have clashed with her reality too, but at least she could see him. This was...more.

"Take it."

She shook her head and backed away.

"I thought you wanted to know everything." He said as he lowered his hand slightly.

"It makes me feel like I'm not me."

Purpose had always been a thing for him. He was convinced humans were always so lost because they lacked purpose, but the way she backed away made him question such simple thoughts. It was strange to see how small he was even with all the years he had accumulated.

"It's not you. I know that especially the way I know you now. It is a part of you though and...we made a deal."

Annabel took a deep breath and slid her fingers around the pommel. When he released it the lightness surprised her. She'd never held a sword before, but it felt right. Jeeze it was weird.

"Feel anything?"

"It's lighter than I thought."

"That's it?" he frowned.

"Dude, it's just a blade." She moved it closer to her, studying the way it reflected nothing. That must have something to do with the distortion.

"I always had this theory there was more to it, but I guess I was wrong."

Something flickered in the dark surface and Annabel thought for a moment she'd been wrong about the lack of reflection. It moved though, a flash of images revealing a story to her. A man, dark of skin and eye with a cold, cold heart died. A flash of green and a taste of hate then the image was gone.

"You...killed him."

"What?"

Annabel held the blade in front of her protectively though it was purely out of instinct. She had no intention of using it.

"The man like me...you killed him."

Damien nodded. "Yeah that happened. He was pretty intent on ending me and this was after the war. I was no threat."

Annabel looked sadly. "There's always a threat." She let the blade fall to her side. "I can see why you didn't want to tell me anything."

"It's not an issue now." He laughed to himself. "Now."

"What about now?" She asked walking to his little shrine to place the peculiar weapon in its place.

"Between the bullshit Aaron just pulled and you, now has a whole new meaning. We have now. What do you want to do with now, Annabel?"

"I need to go my apartment."

"Shit, girl. We can go anywhere. We can do anything. What do you want to do with right now?"

She walked over to the bed and sat down. Life as she knew it was gone. In the wake of the last few hours a new life had invaded hers. It was an invasion she accepted but an invasion no less. She could say she lost everything, but the truth was that she only lost something. But still she did have an unbelievable control of now. Anywhere. Anything. What did she want to do?