Dark Dreams Ch. 04

Zara awoke to unfamiliar surroundings. She felt tired and limp and there was a fog like thick cotton wool in her mind. She struggled to place where she was. She was in a very large, luxurious bedroom, lying on a comfortable bed. She tried getting up slowly, noticing her head throbbed if she moved it too fast. She realized she was naked and felt thoroughly confused.

She tried to remember what had happened, but it hurt. Then in a painful rush, it all came back. She remembered her date with Alexander, and then going to Dean's place and then Ashleigh? Then it got hazy. Ashleigh knew Alexander. He called her something else... Then the memories of how Ashleigh had tried to seduce her returned and she grew warm and ashamed. Alexander had come then? From where?

Her head really ached now and she got to her feet unsteadily and saw a robe draped on a nearby armchair which she tied securely around herself. She walked into a hallway leading to a sitting area and a kitchen. From the huge windows she could see that it was late afternoon.

She heard a noise and walked towards it. She opened the door and entered a study. It was more like a library with bookcases covering almost every wall. There was a dark oak desk in the middle at which a man sat, his head bowed as he studied a book. A laptop stood open next to the book and papers lay scattered all over.

He looked up just then and she caught her breath. It was Alexander. She knew it would be him, but it was the memory his face brought back. Of flaming blue eyes and the power to hold down Ashleigh without even touching her. She stood rooted to the ground. Alexander saw the tumult of emotions play on her face. He knew what she was thinking. He was basically a monster. He knew this would happen, but he couldn't just leave her. She would be dead or worse within hours if he left her. He sighed and closed the book in front of him.

"How are you feeling?" He asked concerned.

"Fine," she managed to choke out before the questions tumbled out . "What happened last night? What exactly is Ashleigh? What are you? Is Dean okay? What did she want from me? W..what do you want from me?" And at that she took a few steps back from him.

"Zara, I am sorry for all that happened last night. I'm sure it must be confusing and scary. I will explain everything to you in due course, but know I am not going to hurt you. If I wanted to I would have done it before." He sighed.

"It is a sordid and rather strange story. Maybe you should eat first before we begin. I am sure you must be starving." He led them to the granite topped kitchen.

Zara was about to protest but when she smelled the coffee her stomach rumbled.

"You have been retching all night. Am sure Mercedes, well Ashleigh to you, drugged you." He poured the coffee and gave her a fresh slice of toast. She looked at him warily, but ate it slowly.

He watched her, his dark sapphire eyes glinting. She remembered the intensity at which they literally burned and shivered unconsciously. Now that she knew for sure he was something unearthly, she felt disbelief at how she could ever think him a normal human. His chiseled features seemed too perfect. She dwelled on his sensual lips remembering how it felt pressed on hers. She wondered what to do. How to get away from this man. No scratch that. Thing? As she met his concerned gaze as he poured some water for her, she wondered whether she really wanted to run away. Just that thought made her question her sanity.

"We need to leave soon if you feel strong enough. I fooled them, I think, but not for long." She could contain her curiosity no more.

"When you say they, who exactly do you mean?" She asked.

"I mean the counsel."

"Counsel of?"

"My kind." It was those two words that led to the most important question. She was afraid to learn the answer to that and even though she knew the answer was not going to relieve her, she asked anyway.

"What are you exactly?" He sighed again.

"This isn't the time. We need to leave now!"

"I am not leaving with you and going anywhere until you answer my questions." Her voice rose and she stood up, facing him.

He looked at this little creature facing him, delivering a threat. If only she knew how dangerous he was. She didn't look at all afraid. She faced him determinedly not fazed by his height or size. Her cheeks were red as her frustration showed. Fine. If she wanted to know he would tell her.

"Please sit down and you will have your answers." He said resigned. "Firstly Dean is fine. I am checked on him myself. Mercedes just drugged him and tied him up." He said. "Now the other questions." She took the chair he offered and he began his story.

"I am a demon Zara. I have been one... a while." At that, his sensual mouth gave a slight twitch of a bitter smile.

"I was born human, but lost my soul away and was transformed into this. That's how we are formed. We are basically creatures who should be in hell." His voice was monotonous and matter of fact. He seemed to be keeping all emotion out of his explanation.

"Ohkay." She looked at him, forcing herself to stay calm and try and believe it.

"So assuming that is true, Ashleigh is one too?"

"Yes. I think she, well Mercedes, placed herself so as to gain your trust."

"What do you people want with me? I'm just a normal human. And why the attempts at getting close to me." At the thought of what happened with Mercedes, she shuddered. "Why didn't you just kill or kidnap me?"

"Zara, you are part of an ancient prophecy. You see demons; in addition to having their normal powers each have a talent, if you wish to call it that, very much like humans. There was a great demon prophesier who lived during that time. He predicted something that has become the holy grail of the demon world. A being who would be born and who would alter the very nature of the demonic world. To explain the prophecy, you have to learn about us.

We live in the shadows of the human world. We partake in your culture, social world and blend in as humans, but we have our own world and law. There is a hierarchy of demons that reign around the world. There are common demons that are low in power and as your power levels increase, so does your rank. There is only one single authority regulating the demons, and that is the counsel.

The counsel is made up of the most powerful demons. Judging by your powers, you get asked to join. The counsel regulates what we do and the effect of your actions on the world. They are neither good nor bad in your sense of the word, but they are fair. In the last few decades there has been massive movement against the Counsel. There is a new faction of demons headed by Kayden. Kayden and his followers believe that we should be allowed to use our powers as we wish and humans should not be protected. We are superior."

"This might be inappropriate coming from me, but why do you protect humans anyway? From what I know demons are supposed to be evil."

"I suppose you mean present company excluded," he quipped darkly. "In all honesty we don't protect humans. Since we were once human, most demons like fitting into society as such. So because the need of the majority to live a life among humans, the Counsel has ruled that the laws are not to harm humans in a noticeable way. That doesn't stop demons from using their powers as they please. Just within discretion. And it's basically a win-win situation for both sides."

"Except that humans can be demon play things if it's done discreetly." Zara felt sick.

"Yes, but we don't really do that. Except for the odd demon, and then there are inquiries. Also you must understand that we cannot make humans do anything against their will. A human has to submit to a demon and let the demon in. You have to trust the demon and go over a threshold. That's what Ashleigh was doing to you."

"What would she gain from controlling me?"

"When a demon gains control of a human, the demon not only controls the human, but can take the human's soul through a process where a human commits a soulless act and through a spell done by the demon whose submission you are under, you become a demon. It makes the demon more powerful to take souls, whether the human is then made into a demon or not. There are two ways demons gain their power: By taking other souls or by strengthening their own. If the prophecy is true, imagine the power to be gained by taking your soul? It was what Mercedes was trying to get to."

"But you said demons have no souls."

"We don't, but we have a ghost soul. It's sort of a hole of where the soul should be. And although you can't make your soul grow, you can sort of make the hole where your soul is bigger."

"What makes a soul powerful?"

"It is all theoretical of course. I have been working on finding this out with the counsel, but seemingly it is based on a soul's propensity to feel emotion. To love, or hate. Understand that once you are a demon, your ability to feel is hard to maintain. Besides the event of committing a soulless act, which if you had to feel, the remembrance of it would drive you insane, there is also the fact that we live hundreds of years. After 800 years of monotony, you stop feeling." "Now Zara, I think I have answered enough of your questions. I tricked Kayden by coming to the most obvious place and the place he would therefore expect me in least. It won't be long before someone checks here, so we need to go right now." With that he got up and fetched the bag which he had just shut, and walked to a safe. He picked up two guns and loaded them, handing one to her. "These contain bullets engraved in the incantation than can exorcise them. They don't die. They go to hell, but can inevitably return."

"Have you been to hell?" She asked as she hesitantly took the gun.

Alexander shuddered slightly. "I have." He said nothing more and she let it go.

"I have ordered you clothes. Please take which ones you like and leave the rest. Get dressed now."

Zara hastened to the bedroom and where there was nothing, saw clothing spread out. She picked out comfortable things that were quite subdued as was her normal dress. She was not going to even ask how he knew her size. It's like she had stepped into the twilight zone. Or even the Twilight series of books. But instead of relatively safe, vegetarian vampires, she got soul eating hellish demons. Just great Zara, she told herself. She wondered if she should run away. The balcony was too high, and she actually believed his story after seeing what had happened with Ashleigh. She had no option. Deep down though, she knew she was not really going to try.

"Alexander," she sighed to herself. "What have you done to me?"