Of Demons And Men Ch. 02-03

'But this... This was different...'



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Theo stood shivering by the window of her room, looking out. The light was off in attempt to avoid outside attention. Her arms were wrapped around her torso for added warmth. Another set of hands ran a towel through her hair, digging down to her sculp. She felt like crap at the moment and really just wanted to remember what a set of clean sheets felt like. Maybe that would help her forget this debacle she'd been the cause of.

The red and blue lights had been flashing for a while now but there was no siren to accompany it. Only men in navy blue uniform trampling all over their front lawn that no-one besides the elderly seemed to tolerate with pleasantry.

The party goers were also crowding their front yard. Some in bathing suits covered in towels, others in regular clothing whereas at least half of them had something amiss with their attire. She even noted a few parents, about two or three, had to forcibly hold their tops together and where in a generally dishevelled condition.

"Who are they?" she asked.

Leslie looked over her shoulder to see who she was referring to before resuming the act of drying her friend's hair. "Police. They're the law here in the same sense beadles and watchmen were back in the day, although they do things a lot differently."

"Okay but-..." she was interrupted by her own sneeze. "But why are they here?"

Leslie walked over to the switch by the door and turned on the aircon. "The little stunt you pulled earlier could be translated into a lot of things." She replied, as she made her way over to her closet.

Theo picked up the mug on the vanity and took a sip of its contents. "Don't people just sum it up to witchcraft anymore?" A black haired boy talking to an officer looked up to her room's window and pointed. The man looked up in her general direction and she took a step further behind the curtain. Could they still see them even with the lights off?

"It's the last... thing to be considered these... days and even then, five-O don't take it seriously. Whew." She sounded like she was having difficulty pulling something out in there. "Nah they're probably thinking narcotics such as ecstasy or maybe even coke. Weed best case scenario," she finished exiting the closet carrying a heap of folded clothes, kicking the door shut behind her.

Theo regarded her with a confused expression and Leslie giggled. "Sorry, I might as well be speaking Japanese at this point. Just know they mess up your sense of perception and redefine what logic is to you."

"Like alcohol?"

"Yeah," she smiled, "Something like that. Put these on." She handed her a set of underwear first, which she took.

She took one final look out the window and froze. "Did you see that?"

"See what? Leslie returned moving around her to see what she was referring to.

It had gone by way too fast. Or had it even been there to begin with? "I'm not sure..." Her eyes narrowed, searching the grounds in attempt to validate her sanity, "Something big just rushed across our front lawn. Like a shadow of some sort. But it was huge."

"Honey it's night time. Everything's a shadow."

'But it was there... Wasn't it?' She thought moving to a more private place to change.

"It's really all my fault," Leslie began, not giving her any time to ponder over it.

Theo was pulling off her robe at this point, something that caught Leslie's attention through her reflection in the glass.

"I don't exactly have a crystal ball over here..."

"I mean your outbreak. I didn't think it would turn out this badly fucked over." Leslie clarified. "Granted I kinda figured it'd be taking it a little too far but this was..."

Theo looked up halfway done with pulling on her panties, "Leslie, what did you do?"

Leslie hesitated, then stepped back from the window and picked up the discarded robe along with the wet towel. "Theo - not you, the last one - she'd never touched alcohol before because she wasn't allowed to defile herself like that." She turned around and walked to the washing basket beside her bed, and tossed in the used items. Theo's eyes never left her the whole time. "It was a new experience entirely and it was going to affect you right down to your abilities. However I'd expected you to actually get drunk first before you lost control to them like that." Leslie looked at her with what looked like a pitying expression. "You're stronger than I remembered."

"You did this to me?" She half whispered, half shouted, "Do you know how fucked up I feel right now? Shit's hazy, I feel like I'm always about to bump into something, I wanna throw up- It's... It's just not a nice feeling Leslie."

She shouldn't have been surprised. She always had been Leslie's Joke whenever they were around each other. It pissed her off on so many levels and she'd communicated it but this girl never changed.

"Just give it a bit. It'll be out of your system when you finish that cu-"

"You don't get it!" she shook her head left and right, "It's not... It's not just that. Damnit!" She exclaimed. Theo made her way over to the bed and sat down, head in hands. "Every time a succubus uses her powers, she leave a print. The more she exerts them, the bigger the print so right now this premises probably looks like a giant bullseye from a supernatural point of view."

Leslie hesitantly came to sit down next to her and put a hand on her back. "I'm sorry."

'Like hell you are.'

The hand started to rub and Theo heard her sigh. "I didn't know," she continued, "I guess I never was good at telling when I pushed your buttons too hard. It's just, when you've got a wall full of tally marks, counting the minutes to seeing someone again, you tend to lose your senses along the way. I was far too ecstatic when you came along to even be capable of processing any consequences.

"It's not that I don't understand how complicated I made shit n' all. It's just... Theo... I didn't think it'd get this..."

She paused as she heard footsteps outside, increasing in volume and stopping on the other side of the bedroom door. Three bold and authoritative thumps followed, making her jump. "Mrs Summers?" a man's voice called out, "we'd like to ask you a few questions if that's alright."

Her heart rate suddenly shot up and she looked at Leslie for verification who also looked just as unsure. If this was about the incident earlier, they weren't caught doing anything. It's why they got skipped over when the authorities were called in. She first grabbed for the t-shirt she'd brought with her to the bed and hurriedly pulled it on.

"Mrs Summers?" The knock was louder this time.

"She's just getting changed!" Leslie shouted back, bouncing up to her feet and facing the troubled girl kicking off her sandals. "Okay, do what they tell you, don't look guilty," she was told. Leslie spun her around pulling down the hem of her top. "If they wanna test you, you're clean, so don't hesitate. Say nothing of your real identity, they'll think you're nuts all over again. Put those on too." she said referring to the footwear she just took off her own feet. "If they say they've got evid..."

Leslie's words faded to a blur as memories flooded Theo's head, drowning them out completely. She recalled seeing torches in the distance coming through the woods accompanied by the sound of steel armour clanking loudly against itself, the sound of hooves beating against the ground, getting louder by the second and behind them the chanting of the mob, all vying for her blood.

"This isn't you again is it Leslie?"

Leslie stopped what she was doing and violently spun the demon around again to face her, "What?"

The look in Theo's red eyes stunned her. She saw hurt. Not anger, hurt, the watery kind that tends to spill over on your cheeks and she knew she'd already reached a conclusion with what was about to happen.

"It's just funny, you know" Theo began, forcing a smile onto unwilling lips. "That's uh... That's some similar advice to what you gave me a thousand years ago," she shrugged her shoulders in absent minded emphasis.

Her distrust couldn't be faulted and Theo knew that Leslie knew it too. A look of shame rested on Leslie's features as she refused to meet her gaze.

The demon felt her friend's hands clutching her shoulders even tighter. She looked back up again, into her eyes as she answered. "I don't have time to explain, and I'm sorry you have to find out what's been going on from someone else but just do everything I told you and you'll be fine. I promise."

Outside the door, someone clearing their voice could be heard. She took one last look at the brunette and stepped out of her embrace before making her way to the door and pulling it open temporarily lighting up the room before throwing it into darkness again.

The passageway light stung her eyes in a way she wasn't prepared for. She found herself temporarily blinded feeling for the wall but touching uniform instead.

"This way," she heard him say as he gripped her by the upper arm and directed her to walk. "Search the room," he called out behind them. In the distant background an exchange caught her attention between Leslie and one of men regarding what right they had to do so. She never did get along too well with authority... Or so she had thought.

"What's this about?" she enquired whilst rounding the corner leading to the front stairs. She couldn't help but feel like a lamb getting let to its own slaughter.

He let go of her arm after seeing her vision was back to normal. "You know what this is about Theo. Quite frankly I'm starting to run out of ways to cover for your ass when freakishly weird shit like this keeps happening."

Her eyes shot open. "What?"

The manner he addressed her implied that they knew each other well enough for informal talk. If he was an officer of the law, wouldn't that suggest she'd been involved in illegal activities of sorts to warrant their involvement in her life?

"Oh so now you wanna play dumb," he replied. "Fine by me really. Probably what you should've done when these fiascos started up right from the start."

Things started to fall into place. The looks she was getting from everybody, why this particular body was chosen, why she may not have a handle of her abilities... Something may have been amiss from before she even arrived.

"Can I ask? What was the last anomaly I was implicated in?" she questioned.

He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Is that a serious question?"

"Yes. It is." she stated adamantly.

A thoughtful look briefly covered his face. "You forgetting the deck of cards that went up in flames during the Christmas holidays? Everyone at that sleepover could attest all you were doing was shuffling them."

That's what they hated her for? "A parlour trick any magician could have pulled off without a hitch no doubt," she said with disappointment sprinkled with a touch of disgust. She'd expected, even hoped for an act with more sustenance. Not that she was actually hoping someone would have gotten maimed or something of great importance lost. It was more in hope that people were capable of disliking someone else with justifiable, valid reason rather than something as small as losing a deck of cards.

"Maybe," he replied, "but I'm positive even a magician's flame can be taken care of with a single bucket of water. What you started burnt down half a homestead before the flames themselves instantaneously vanished on their own. Never mind the three fire trucks flooding it with sodium."

'Impossible... Hellfire isn't something that can just be simply summoned. You'd need to directly open a channel and-...'

"Look Theo, it's none of my business who your friends are, or who you like to hang around in your spare time," he continued, cutting through her chain of thoughts in the process, "but a word of advice; That friend you've got back there, she's as much a common denominator in these events as you are yet she manages to stay completely under the radar. Ask yourself why."

She had. More times than she cared to count. She'd been wary of her from the start and this new information just put things in a whole new context. Leslie owed her answers now more than ever and she cursed that she couldn't just turn around and ask her.

Then a bizarre thought crossed her mind. What about the last Theo? Was there a chance she knew exactly what she was doing when she set the house on fire? What if these previous incidents weren't a mistake but rather acts performed by a seasoned professional?

'It would only make sense,' an inner voice piped up. 'The similarities can't just be limited to our appearances but our abilities too. It had to work both ways.'

On the way down the stairs to the foyer area, pictures were hung up, decorating the wall; Family shots it seemed. She recognised herself as well as her new parents, but there was one more person in a particular one she hadn't seen in person yet. A boy, couldn't have been more than ten with hair such a light shade of blonde it may have appeared white to the inattentive eye.

He stood in front of her, arms straight against his side like a soldier in formal attire, also wearing a ghostly expression. He stared blankly ahead with lifeless eyes. A much younger version of herself had both her hands rested on his shoulders like a responsible older sister, but the way she did it was in a loving fashion. She was looking down at him rather than at the camera. She could tell there was a story that lay nested deep in that one picture.

Turning her head down to the floor below, she noticed many of the people, other parents she guessed, staring back up at her as she made her descent. Those were unwelcoming glares if she'd ever seen any. She searched the group for what she'd now come to know as her parents. They were spotted standing separately with one other woman by the wooden double doors leading to the dining room.

The officer led her through the crowd that by now had gone deathly quiet. Tension was thick in the air and it just needed a catalyst of any sort to turn it into full blown outrage. They were all looking for that trigger... Oh what she'd give to know what they were thinking. What she didn't need telepathy for though, was to know that they hated her in the most vindictive way. It's an emotion any demon was able to pick up instinctively. Most spent their entire lifetimes spreading it after all. But that of this particular group's was obsessive on a pathological level.

She wondered if her parents shared it too, if they had the same murderous intent for their own child. This would make it their first meeting and she had no idea how to act around them. What was their relationship like to begin with? How did they address each other? What was expected of her? What should she expect of them?

A partial answer came in the form of her mother bridging the gap between them and protectively pulling her closer, temporarily displacing her balance in the process. "Honey, Officer Morris just wants to ask you a few questions. Why don't you step into the dining room for a moment with him and Cathy over there." she said with an audible unsteadiness to her voice, observing the crowd diligently rather than looking at the person she addressed.

Theo nodded and was about to obey when someone interrupted loudly from behind. "Why? We're all right here, why doesn't the girl answer them now?"

She turned her head to observe a balding dark haired, slightly overweight man making his way to the front line. He'd clearly had his nose broken a few times and she couldn't tell if that scowl was a constant feature of his or if it was just a reflection of his current state. Either way it made her feel uncomfortable in a way only a few creatures could and without meaning to, she took a step back.

Her father coolly stepped in blocking his view of her, and thus, hers of him. "Marty, we've gone over this Already," He stated calmly, hands in pockets - An act that may have been received as disrespectful or even that of looking down at the other party. She however guessed that if that's how this 'Marty' saw it, it was irrelevant. The act was meant to appeal to the subconscious, clarifying her father's stance on violence. How could he expect to fight with hands in his pockets after all?

"Not good enough, John! I want her subjected to the same measures our children were. We all do." she saw a hand dart out, pointing just past her. "Test her. This is her party after all!"

"They're already searching her room and dogs are sniffing out the compound. She'll have her pat down too." She heard him respond.

"That's not a test!" the man exclaimed. "Stop covering for the spoilt kid and let her account for herself! She's twenty-one for chris' sakes!"

A hand on her back was forcibly guiding her to the doors as voices jumped a few decibels. It seemed everyone had their two cents to throw in and were just waiting to be heard. Theo cooperated with the directions, reluctantly looking back at the escalating scene then at her mom. "It's okay," she mouthed, not really doing much to reassure her seeing as she didn't believe her own words herself.

The officer, Morris, was holding the door open. He looked uneasy judging by his pose. For instance; the hand on the batton stick or the hand tightly wound around the door knob with eyes sharply trained on the people, as if expecting trouble to break out.

Another lady jumped into the argument. One she remembered getting a dirty look from earlier in the night, even as she politely shook hands with her in greeting. She never requested a name as she was clearly expected to already know her. "What good will a pat down on different clothes do anyways? I don't believe even she would be stupid enough to carry them with her. Whatever she had would have been long dissolved in that pool of yours John."

More and more started to vocalise their opinions and a portion of them were directing their frustrations directly at her rather than her parents. At that point it was just a mash of words coming in simultaneously and she was unable to discern one question or comment from the other.

In the end she thought it best to keep her silence. Facing forward and ignoring them. Something that didn't sit well with many.

Thanks to Leslie, she had a small understanding of what they were looking for. She just didn't believe it was meant to be this blown out of proportion. So what if some may have been caught with the drug. What good would it do to wish the same misfortune on someone else as well?

The doors were abruptly shut the moment she was through, muffling all sound coming from outside. The voices could still be heard but words could no longer be made out. Theo sighed looking up at the pattern covered ceiling through partially shut eyes, and strolled forward lazily forward.

"Take a seat please."

The words, clear as a whistle, startled her and she spun to where they came from. A woman, seemingly in her late fifties was seated in the first chair on the right side of the table. Cathy was it? She was the one she spotted beside her parents earlier. She looked over at Morris where he stood against the door with arms crossed. He alone made thirty three percent of the room's population.

"Shouldn't you be out there?" Theo asked him, worrying for her would be parents.

"They're adults," he simply said and he nudged his head over to the table where Cathy was flipping pages of a notepad over. His tone wasn't fooling her. His body language told her he was still agitated. Much of his attention was directed at the door and his hand was gripping his bicep tightly. Nah he didn't believe they were adults at all.

'You'd much rather prefer to be on the other side of the door wouldn't you...?'

She hesitantly walked over to the chair opposite the woman, pulled it out and plopped down on it. Her arms folded behind her head and she leaned it on them.