Devil's Book- Chapter Two

Chapter Three

"You can call me Afina," the girl offered, sliding off the sill. Her clothes consisted of mostly hard, shiny, cloth as blue as her hair. That was about when Alex noticed, something about Afina wasn't right. He could smell it on her and at the same time as it attracted him, it repelled.

Alex felt fury and fear fill his body. "Vampire!" he snarled with sudden ferocity. He didn't have time to say much more. The air in his lungs was suddenly gone, and he was on the floor with Afina on top of him.

She was pinning him down, one hand firmly pressed over his mouth. Alex tried to shove her away, but found that she was as heavy as a pile of bricks. The girl's mouth was twisted into a wry smile that dimpled in the corners.

"Silly boy!" she laughed. "You're one as well!" Alex tried to feel the rage he had a moment ago, but couldn't seem to grasp it. He struggled anyway and managed to rock her about an inch before becoming exhausted. "It's odd, you're unusually strong for such a young one."

Alex was beginning to shiver under that icy gaze; everything about her was so cold and invasive. He felt flooded with her, waterlogged and drowsy. The sensation was not entirely unpleasant and he had trouble deciding on a reaction.

"What is your name?" Afina asked after a moment of considering. She uncovered Alex's mouth and used the free hand to push herself onto an elbow. Alex glared at her; his pupils so thin they were barely there.

"Kill me already," Alex said. He didn't actually know if he wanted to die, but killing was essentially what vampires did. It seemed a shame that he would fall so short of his dream of redemption, though.

"You're much too interesting to kill out of hand," Afina remarked stroking his cheek. He responded by spitting on hers. His face slammed sideways against the soiled carpet. Alex's head was spinning so badly he could no longer think.

"You'll take awhile to adjust to pain in this form," she informed him nonchalantly, as though she hadn't just hit him. "Now what's your name?" she questioned again.

"Alex" he said softly, and she rewarded him with a smile. Suddenly she was standing, and Alex was free. He stood slowly and warily. At that point, he wouldn't have been surprised if she knocked him down for fun.

"Alexander," Afina said as if tasting the sound of it. Alex winced.

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"Alexander," She savored. "You'll like it here."

"I want to go home," he was standing in the center of a room draped in silk and velvet. Beds lined the walls; on each one was a different beautiful person. They varied in age and in gender, but the were all surreal looking. Some were awake, lounging and watching him. He wrapped his arms around his ribs, shaking through his thin black t-shirt. Their eyes were cold and black, the way he imagined a shark's might look.

"This is your home now," a long, gray haired man laughed. He was old, but his wrinkles were sharply in focus, like he'd been carved out of stone. "Welcome to the wax museum, where you'll be preserved for eternity for her viewing pleasure."

Alex recoiled from the bitter truth in the man's words. They were all like him, somehow. Had she picked them all up out of their bedroom? What had changed them so? Why were their eyes so empty and predatory?

"You'll find out," a little girl said. She had long black curls and crystalline blue eyes with belladonna pupils. She had a slightly sharp face, more a shrunken adult than a child. She danced a doll across her bed, humming. Alex turned to run but the woman was there, strong hands grabbing both his arms and stopping his struggles. He would never escape her if she did not wish it, he knew, and where would he go? Back to Duncan where every night was a lesson in pain, or the streets where a boy like him would disappear into the back of someone’s van before anyone could blink?

"Look!" she commanded, holding him quite still by applying pressure to a spot on his neck. She grabbed the hand that only hours ago had been horribly burned by the door. She bit her own finger and dark blood welled from it. It was too dark, alien and evil. She pressed it to his broken skin and a vibration of pleasure knit his skin back together. "Look at that." She forced his own hands before his eyes. It was as smooth and unharmed as it had been before. He gasped in fera and shook his head. This was some sort of hallucination. Had Duncan put bleach in his food again?

"I can keep you perfect. I can take away your pain. I can make you better, Alexander. "She smiled and for a moment he saw a desperate longing for him to love her. She wanted something from him but it was not truly him she wanted. How he knew this he wasn’t sure, but it had happened before. His mother had called him empathetic and his father, Demon spawn.

“Stay with me, Alexander,” she begged.

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"Just Alex." he said flatly. She looked surprised by his conviction. Surprised that he wasn't frightened into submission, more likely. Vampires seemed to think they were something special, when really there were hundreds of thousands of them and they were all like carbon copies of each other.

"Alexander means savior of mankind," she stated and looked at the corpse on the carpet, with traces of amusement.

Alex shuddered, wrapping his arms around himself. She had hit his nerve yet again, though she could not have been doing it on purpose. He wasn’t a killer. Thatw as precisely opposite his intention. "You have no idea what you're talking about," he whispered. "That was not... he was my father."

"Save it, Alexander," she interrupted. Alex ground his teeth at the name. "We've got to get this taken care of," and with that Afina began to pick up the corpse.

"We?" Alex asked. "What we? Why don't you go back to wherever you came from and let me take care of myself?" Afina looked as though she might burst into laughter. Those delicate innocent features were so at odds with her sharp personality.

"Take care of yourself?" she choked. Alex felt rage burn inside of him.

"You call this taking care of yourself? I mean, maybe if you have plans for an early death, but otherwise..." While Afina was enjoying herself Alex took the opportunity to leave the room.

His head still hurt a little so he used the wall for support. "Where do you think you're going?" Afina asked, suddenly before him. Her wide crystalline blue eyes were very serious. "The person who finds this man may not know what killed him, but the police certainly will. If you leave him here he's going to rot and someone is going to come and see what the smell is."

Alex barely concealed his amazement at her speed. Could he move like that? Could he push people down as though they were made of feathers? Questions he might have asked if he hadn’t been so confused and wary of her. But she was right about one thing. He couldn’t leave Duncan lying there. Even his bastard father deserved to be buried. Swallowing his pride and his fear, Alex picked up a garbage bag and went back to his old room.

"Will you help me?" he asked Afina stonily. She smiled, this time without any of her usual arrogance.

"What do you think I've been trying to do?"

"You have an odd way of helping," he told her as they piled pieces of his father into the garbage sack. He might have gagged at the nearly severed head if he’d been human. Now he felt detached. It was no more disgusting than chicken bones.

"You have an odd way of treating your family," she replied. Alex felt his jaw twitch in anger. But there was little accusation in her voice. Just a statement. Why should she judge him, she was a monster herself.

“If you had family like mine you might treat them the same,” he growled. She paused, wiping her bloody hands on a paper towel.

“I do have a rather difficult sibling, a sister, actually. Sometimes it is better to let them live than live your own life completely alone.” She looked completely serious and Alex almost asked her more but he remembered whom he was talking to.

“I’ve lived alone my whole life. Company is far more frightening.”

When they were done, Duncan was sandwiched between bloody carpet and the frozen ground under his floorboards. Alex was fairly pleased with himself. Now he could get on with his life, or after-life. He wasn't quite sure what it was called anymore.

"Dammit!" Afina snarled and Alex felt the satisfaction melt away. She was looking towards the window that they had both entered through. They had closed it and pulled down the shutter; but still a good foot of space lay open at the top where a piece had broken away. Looking through it was a pair of eyes that seemed as large as saucers.