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“Who is the damn girl?” I yell, slamming my hands on the table. She has haunted my days and nights for weeks. I can’t get her out of my head or out of my blood, but I can find nothing on her. It is as if she is a ghost.
“High Lord?” Azazarel’s high-pitched voice grates on my nerves. “Have you thought . . .?”
“Thought what? Spit it out!” I yell, glaring at him.
“Well, if you cannot find her through the book or blood, could there be a blood binding?”
I spin around to look at him in shock. “Who would know to do such a thing? Those records have been sealed for years.”
It makes sense, though. Her blood fighting me, hiding from me. My inability to track her. All would be caused by a blood binding.
“Some of the old demons still live. Who they have taught . . . well, it could be anyone.”
“It would have to be in the states. She didn’t have an accent or anything to make me think she was foreign raised.” I sit down, stroking my chin as I think on this new lead. “Fetch the books from the library that deal with the occult in the states. I have a feeling that the answers might be there.”
Waiting for Azazarel to do as I asked, I walk out into the gardens. Could it be that someone has found a way to hide one of my own from me? Who would want to do that? Why? To be blessed to be born into a demon family, to be given the world as our playground. . . .
The humans don’t see the world as we do, don’t even know we exist, really. Oh they have their odd beliefs about demons taking over people’s consciousness or ridiculous portrayals in movies. Honestly we are the same as humans, yes we have some abilities that they don’t. Those of us old enough and strong enough can mask our true images and appear human, and we have various talents that humans don’t have. Or maybe humans just aren’t advanced enough to access them.
Shaking myself from my thoughts I realize I have walked the length of the garden. It isn’t a large space, but the fact that it is underground, and large enough for dwarf trees to grow, while containing a small creek and little rolling hills is a miracle. Walking back towards my suite, I stop at the caretaker’s quarters. He is the only one besides me allowed into the garden, and he never speaks to anyone besides me, never leaving his quarters or the garden.
“Shaol!” I rap my fist on the door of his rooms. “Shaol! The gardens need tending.” Through my walk, I had noticed flower petals covering the grass and a few weeds in the beds. My gardens must be visual perfection.
“Shaol!” I pound my fist on his door again, starting to get irritated. With a roar, I shift, tearing my clothes so that I stand eight feet tall, skin red and heated, horns protruding from my head, and a tail swishing in anger. Talons clenching the asian style sliding door, I rip it from the track, throwing it behind me. “Shaol! Answer your High Lord!”
I stomp into the space, crushing papers under my feet and knocking items from shelves. The first room is empty, my anger building as I enter the second room. There on the bed lies the lifeless body of my long-time gardner. He had served since I was a young man; head bowed I give him a moment of silence before returning to my suite.
“Azazarel! Tell the guards to take care of Shaol’s body and find me a new gardner immediately. Someone well-versed in indoor gardens.” I sit down at the table where the books I had requested are waiting for me, not even bothering to see if Azazarel does as ordered.