I’M GOING TO KILL him.
I’m going to dive in there and rip off his fucking head!
I can feel my sides heaving, shuddering with every shallow breath I take. This made angel is taunting me. He doesn’t know just how quickly I can kill him. He’s nothing. Absolutely nothing.
My beast tells me to go out there and fulfill my rage, but my logician tugs against my desires once again. I know there’s at least one other angel hovering nearby. They arrived not too long after this made angel did. They must have known he was going to do something stupid, and now they’re here to either back him up or to put an end to it. I don’t know which. I don’t know why I’m not moving closer. My beast assures me they’re just a couple of angels, nothing special, nothing different from what I’ve taken out before. I could kill them. I could do it in a heartbeat.
So why can’t I move?
I touch the back of my hand to my forehead. Sweat is pouring down my skin. My body, my mind, everything’s fighting against each other. This made angel is the same one that’s been watching over Tasia. He’s part of the angels’ plan to finally put an end to me. They know how to do it and that’s why he’s baiting me. My logician insists this is the case. The other angelic presence is his backup. They’ll kill me if I move forward.
I’m shaking so badly. I’m starting to think my beast and logician will tear me apart before an angel even gets the chance to.
The angel presence is growing stronger, and that’s when I retreat. I rush back, far away, past the abandoned warehouses and into the narrow and mostly unused back roads of Philadelphia. It’s here I feel the comforting mix of light and dark, human actions and souls that exist as a neutral force, constantly being swayed one way or the other.
I ran away from a couple of angels.
My beast taunts me, rejects me. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I ran away. In all the years I’ve been trapped in the mortal world, I’ve never once run away from an angel of any kind.
It’s not that simple. The angels have a plan to kill you. We can’t rush in blindly anymore. My logician insists I made the right choice.
How did they do it? How did they trap me inside of myself like this? If I take just one step out of line and let my darkness roam free, if I turn to my beast, whatever I do that doesn’t include all my efforts to stay hidden, will result in my death. My beast’s form is easier to find than my logician’s. They’re ready for me. I can’t make the first move. I can’t succeed in any more surprise attacks because they’re expecting me.
Unless I leave. If I leave the girl behind, everything will go back to how it was. I’ll be able to prey on unsuspecting angels, and I’ll be able to think clearly again.
I’m coming unhinged.
I don’t want to leave. I can’t leave. Something ties me to that girl. Being any farther away from her than I’m already forced to be might kill me.
Go. Go. Go. My beast urges me toward her, begging me to just give in.
I fall to my knees and scream as I hold my head with my hands. I feel like my skull is about to split open.
But it seems I haven’t completely lost my senses.
I bring myself low to the ground and roll to the side just as an incoming blow comes from behind. The darkness from this individual means I’m not dealing with an angel.
“What’s the big idea, man?” the snarling demon behind me demands. “You just scared off my prey before I even got a chance to make my move.”
Slowly, I rise to my feet. Then I proceed to brush off the filth that gathered onto my clothes.
“I’m talking to you!”
I dodge the hand that shoots out toward me. The creature before me is nothing but a cursed human. The hunger in his animalistic eyes and the glistening fangs peeking through his half-open jaw shows just how desperate this half-breed is for food.
The mortal takes another step toward me. Then he stops. The flicker of understanding in his eyes tells me he’s figured out what I am. Then he does something unexpected. Instead of fleeing, like any sensible made demon would do, his eyes turn dark and he begins to circle me.
“You,” he says, his voice accusing. “You’re the same as the monster who did this to me! Your kind ruined my life! I’ve become nothing but a monster myself. I can’t think straight without feeding on human flesh, and I feel ravenous all the time. I can never return home to my family because me being around them puts them in danger.” Tears stream down his face as his wrath continues to grow. “Do you have any idea what that’s like? Do you creatures even know how to feel?”
“Oh, we feel,” I tell him, and I watch as he circles me again.
“No, you don’t. You’re liars, monsters, demons. Your only purpose is to spread misery, to share your own cursed and painful existence.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” I smirk. “We are miserable creatures, and misery loves company.”
He leaps for me. His glistening white fangs catch the light of the crescent moon as he dives for me. I step out of his way, causing him to crash into the asphalt below. Then I turn back around before he has time to recover, and I effortlessly snap his neck.
His body lands limply in front of me. His wound starts to heal, and I decide to put him out of his misery. I tightly grip his shoulders and bury my teeth into his neck. His hot blood streams into my mouth and down my throat, burning the whole way down into my stomach. I drain all of the life essence being carried inside his blood within a second. Then I discard his body to the ground.
This time, he remains still. His wound bleeds out into a pool of blood, bathing the asphalt in red.
I wipe at my mouth with the back of my hand. Blood smears on my skin and I stare at the glistening red liquid, liquid that once carried the essence of life. How many years did this sorry creature provide me? No more than 20, I’d wager.
“Are you going to kill me?”
I look behind me to see the apparition that haunts nothing but my own mind. A girl dressed in a dirty and ragged dress. Blond ratted hair. Blue eyes that are too transparent. A body so slight it’s a wonder she can even walk.
“Emma,” I breathe the name as it burns across my lips.
Those words: “Are you going to kill me?” Those were the first words she ever spoke to me. They’re natural words, words anyone would speak when confronted by a demon like me, but it’s the way she said them that forever sticks out in my mind. She wasn’t afraid. She asked that question with a tone of resignation like she was ready to accept that fate from me, like she hoped I would kill her and take her away from the pains of this world.
Tasia said those exact same words to me the first time we met as well. She said them much the same way.
I shake my head at the apparition made from my memories. “All of this time I’ve been fighting for you. I’ve been living only to avenge you, but now my resolve has been shaken. I’m not sure I can kill them anymore,” I confess. “I think the angels have finally found a way to stop me. They’ve already gotten to my beast. Can you believe it? They’ve found a way to bring back the part of me that sank with you when I gave your body to the Salem River. They’ve found a way to defile my memory of you. They’ve got my beast infatuated with a girl who feels like she’s trying to be you. But no one could ever be you. No one could ever replace you.”
I reach out for the apparition, wanting nothing more than for her to be real, wanting nothing more than to hold the girl before me in my arms, so I’ll never have to let go of her again. But she vanishes right before my eyes.