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Aiden stays true to his word. In the mornings, I go for runs with Jane his dog, and spar with Aiden afterwards. In the afternoons, I read some of his many books and make myself a notebook full of important information that I can’t let myself forget. Crispen doesn’t come, and days pass, weeks, and then impossibly even months pass too.
I grow closer to Aiden every day, though he’s only around in the mornings for training and breakfast. He works in the afternoons, and I’m not sure what it is that he does exactly.
Crispen and his family become more like a dream that I once had and not reality. In fact, I can hardly remember what Crispen looks like after a while. I don’t have a picture of him and my memory is terrible. I mean, I have pictures of him, but they’re on my cell phone, which was left at Crispen’s place or maybe even my place. I don’t remember the last time that I used it. Anyways, I would get a new one, but there is no cell service out here, and Aiden claims that he can hear the signal of cell phones, and it’s unbelievably irritating. Seeing as there are thirty-five demons around here, I’ve decided not to drive them all up the wall with a cell phone. Who would I use it to speak with anyway? It’s not like I have Crispen’s number memorized.
Anyway, after the first couple of weeks with Aiden, I unbelievably find myself not even wanting Crispen to find me.
It takes me a long time to come to terms with my surroundings. I struggle between sides for a while, but soon I come to the conclusion that I might just be on the demon’s side. Why? Because they’re not all terrible creatures. Aiden, for example, is just as good of a person as myself. Yet, the hunters kill the demons mercilessly, without giving any of them a chance. Crispen kills people like Aiden without a second thought. Yes, my first demon run in gave me a bad first impression, but now, here I am, living the life really. I mean besides the fact that eventually I know I’ll have to choose between becoming a demon and committing suicide. I try not to think about that fact, because it’s depressing and downright terrifying.
Eventually, Aiden convinces me somehow to sell my house, and fully take on my new life. I move in with him permanently after much thought. Crispen is obviously not coming for me, I can’t escape and I’m not even sure if I would if I could, and I actually really like Aiden and the company that the household brings. I’ve never been surrounded by so many people that care about me before, and they do genuinely care about me. Trust me, I know what it’s like to have someone around you who doesn’t care about you and is yet forced to be around you. My mother.
When the time for Aiden’s guest to arrive comes, I prepare myself to meet her by brushing up on some things in the book he gave me. The things I need to follow are simple really. Call her Ms. Chandler, dress appropriately, don’t use slang, curtsy when I greet her, etc. I put my hair up into a bun and put on a black summer dress that Aiden bought me a few weeks ago for this specific occasion. When the doorbell rings and one of the servants answers the door, I leave my room to greet the guest. It’s a woman with long blonde hair, a thin form, and of course black irises that blend into her pupils.
“You must be Megan, the girl Mr. Castile is mentoring, I’m Sandra Chandler. Is he around?” the woman says in a business-like tone. She does not smile, but grimaces.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Chandler,” I greet her, curtsying and smiling welcomingly. “He should be here any moment.”
“Ah, Sandra, lovely to see you. I hope your flight was okay,” Aiden says from behind me. The fact that he doesn’t have to follow the same formalities as I do, means that he is a more important person than she is.
She smiles. “It was, sir, here are the papers you requested be delivered.” She hands him some papers, says goodbye, and leaves.
I was expecting her to stay longer.
“She caught a flight to hand you papers?” I ask him confused, after she leaves.
“Yes, important papers.”
“You ever hear of a fax machine?” I ask him jokingly. “Or email?”
“Yes, but I figured I may as well have these hand delivered. I wanted to see if you actually read those books I give you on etiquette,” he says with a smirk. Oh, so this was some sort of test. He called someone all the way here for a five second test. “Plus, I don’t use internet or a phone. It’s too loud and annoying. I can barely stand the sound of the electricity buzzing, the fridge humming, and the furnace kicking in. I don’t need to add to the mix, trust me.”
I scowl at him. “Did I pass your test?”
He nods. “You passed.” He looks down at the papers and scans through them, carefully reading each one.
“You still haven’t told me what exactly it is you do for a living,” I remind him. He keeps telling me that he’ll show me soon, but he has yet to.
He approaches me, hands me a paper, and tells me to read it.
I look it over carefully. It looks like a profile of someone. A police profile.
“I’m a bounty hunter. I track down demonic criminals. Those who disobey the law. The demons that the head office wants to imprison in hell and keep from humans. I bring the criminals to them so they can take care of them.”
Well, that doesn’t sound like a fun job. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
He shrugs. “Yeah I guess, but it’s my job. It was that or take a spot on the council which isn’t exciting enough for me. I like action.” I know he likes action; I can tell by the way he smiles while kicking my ass in sparring practice every morning.
“You’re leaving something out,” I observe. I’ve come to read his facial expressions well.
“In addition to tracking down demons breaking the law, I also track down and turn hunters into changelings when the head office sends me their profiles,” he confesses slowly. He looks up from his papers to see my expression. It’s blank. “Does that make you upset?” he asks. We haven’t talked much about my time with the hunters or my relationship with them.
To my surprise, this information doesn’t make me upset. The hunters kill any and all demons. The demons only turn the hunters who try to kill them or do kill them. Then again, it doesn’t seem like the demons know how to kill the hunters.
“No, it doesn’t,” I squeak, almost surprised by my answer. A couple months ago, all I wanted was to get out of here, now I’m siding with those who I thought were my enemies? How weird.
“Good. I’m hungry. I’m going to run downstairs and grab a bite to eat,” he informs me, snatching the paper from me and heading for the stairs.
I decide to take a walk outside. Aiden never allows me downstairs to watch him eat. A demon eating involves sucking out the soul of a human. Of course, Aiden chooses only criminals to eat from. He dines on people like pedophiles and serial killers which is one hundred percent fine by me, because I think they deserve it. When he’s done with them, they die, their souls gone forever. Of course he could turn them into demons afterwards, but who wants demonic serial killers and pedophiles running around? Not him and not me either.
I’ve learnt that losing your soul doesn’t exactly make you evil. Losing your soul is like losing your immortal essence. You will not be reincarnated or taken to the afterlife. You’ll just be gone when you die. Gone forever. It’s your ticket to carrying on after death.
You can love without a soul and feel any emotion someone with a soul can feel, but when you die, you’re done. It isn’t losing their souls that makes demons evil and crazy. Changelings can feel every emotion that a human can, pure bloods cannot. In the books I’ve read, it is often relayed that pure bloods cannot feel guilt or grief amongst other important emotions. Spending more time in hell makes demons less stable. It corrupts them, even the changelings, and makes them into the monsters we know demons to be from religion and pop culture. Those who spend more time in hell, become more sadistic, crazy, and dark.
It is mandatory for demons to visit hell every so often, but there are ways around this. Aiden, for example, is over three centuries old, and he’s only been there twenty-some times in his entire life.
I wonder if the hunters are misinformed or if they even care about the truth about demons. Sure, some of them are pretty nasty, either because they spend so much time in hell, or they’re just bad apples, mostly pure bloods. Humans can be evil but most are not, just like demons.
“Megan, do you need someone to accompany you to the city?” One of Aiden’s guards asks, as I leave the house. I’ve finally gotten them to stop calling me Ms. Caplan and use my first name.
I shake my head. “I’m just out for a walk,” I reassure him. I stop and turn to him. “Daniel, were you a human or hunter before you were turned into a demon?”
“I was a hunter,” he says blankly.
“As a demon, do you agree with the hunters’ cause?” I ask curiously, tying up my runners.
He debates this silently before answering. “No, they act without thinking. As a hunter, I was run by my intense instinct to kill. I didn’t give any of the demons I killed the chance to prove their innocence. All I wanted was to kill them, and all I felt was the need to kill them. That being said, there are many demons that deserve death, but we must remember that demons exist for a reason and knocking them out completely would be devastating for humanity.”
Just as I thought. I nod to him in thanks and begin walking towards the garden at the back of the huge house. I walk through the many flowers and the trees, then I take a seat under a maple tree near the border of the property which is marked by a very tall chain link fence.
I lie down onto my back and stare up at the tree’s canopy, taking in the fresh air. It’s a beautiful day, and this is my favorite spot to read and relax.
I think about the last few months and how crazy they’ve been. I think about how my life has changed so dramatically. I wonder what Crispen is up to. Has he been worried about me? Is he still looking for me, or has he given up by now? I hope he’s moved on with his life, and yet I still wonder if he thinks about me. So much has changed, yet so much is the same. I wonder if I should send him a letter. I could drive by his house and get his address, it wouldn’t be hard. Something occurs to me then.
I’m free to do as I please, what’s stopping me from going to visit him and explaining everything? I could ask Aiden if I could borrow a few extra guards. It would be safe, right? I worry about the safety of the guards though. Would Crispen and his siblings attack them? No, they’d give me the chance to explain.
My idea sends me back into the house, where I nearly run smack into Aiden. “Aiden, I have an idea. I want to go see Crispen, and explain everything. I can take a few extra guards, I know where he lives,” I exclaim.
Aiden’s expression drops a moment, but then he smiles softly. “I kind of already expected you to have brought this up, but you’ve been so busy in all of my books. Did you really just think of this? I won’t stop you from doing this, but I will give you my advice...I don’t think you should go. They will try to keep you there. They will try to convince you that I’ve brainwashed you.”
“I am capable of making my own decisions and using my own discretion. I won’t listen to him. Simple as that. He won’t make me stay if I don’t want to. He cares too much about me to force me to do anything I don’t want to. I will be fine. I just feel wrong that he doesn’t even know that I’m still alive. I want to reassure him that I’m happy.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say. Alright, but you know that you cannot be friends with him, right? You cannot see him again afterwards. You are part of the demon world now, he has just as much reason to kill you as he does to kill me. It’ll be dangerous. They’re unpredictable, he might attack you,” Aiden warns, obviously hoping I’ll change my mind but also knowing that I won’t.
“I understand, and I am still going to go,” I decide quickly. I motion for Vandike and Hermus my guards to go get the vehicle. Crispen wouldn’t ever attack me, of course not. Aiden is being over dramatic.
“Yeah, I thought you’d say that too. Daniel, Markus, and Denaya, will go as well,” he says loud enough that they should be able to hear. Sure enough, they come running around the corner. “You have nowhere near enough training to take down any hunter, let alone one of the original hunters, but you will take this just in case.” He hands me a small knife inside a holster. I fasten it around me, knowing that it is made of ruby, a hunter’s weakness. I cover the weapon up with my long shirt just as the car pulls up to the front of the house.
“Thanks, Aiden,” I mumble, hugging him while making sure that the blade doesn’t show. When I turn to leave, he grabs my shoulder. “I’m coming with you. I don’t trust those hunters one bit.”
“You don’t have to,” I assure him, although I appreciate his motive.
“Yes, I do. I’m your mentor, and you’re my friend. I’m coming,” he says sternly, grabbing some weapons from the porch closet and shoving them into his many pockets, which I didn’t even realize he had hidden all over his clothing.
“You’re not going to do something dumb like attack them, are you? You’re just coming with me in case, right?” I ask, after seeing all of his weapons.
“Yes, I promise. I won’t attack anyone unless they attack first. I just don’t trust them. At all.”
I nod in thanks, then we head over to Crispen’s place. When I get out of the car down the street from the familiar apartment building, I take in a breath of the city air and a sense of déjà vu hits me. The last time I was here, I was kidnapped by my father’s monkey Darius.
Aiden follows me to the apartment building door. An array of call buttons are arranged on the wall. I don’t remember the exact room number we went in last time I was here, but most of the rooms are attached, so I wonder if all the buttons ring the same place. I push the first one and the voice on the other end is clearly Crispen. My heart leaps. “We don’t want any,” he says, assuming that I’m some sort of salesman. I ring the button again.
When he picks up, I say, “It’s Megan, Crispen, get down here.”
The other end is silent, but only a moment passes before the apartment building door is unlocked and Crispen stands on the other side of the glass door, eyes wide. He eyes Aiden like he’s some sort of bug or snake. Aiden stays close behind me. Seeing Crispen stirs things in me that I forgot existed, and I immediately pull him into a hug, when he eventually unlocks and opens the glass door.
“Megan, what’s going on? What happened? I thought you were dead, I thought they killed you,” he glowers at Aiden who remains silent and still as if not phased. “They took you and Blayk in the middle of the night. It was like you both just disappeared.”
“My father came for me. This is Aiden, my uh...well, he’s my mentor. I’ve been living with him,” I explain quickly.
“Megan, he’s a demon, you do realize he’s a fricken demon, right?” Crispen scolds me, his hand moving to his pocket, where I’m sure there’s a knife. He cusses.
“Yes, I know what he is. I am half demon, Crispen, do you not remember that?”
He ignores me, still looking at Aiden. “I don’t suppose you’ve brought her here to return her to us, have you?”
Aiden shakes his head. “Not unless she chooses to stay. If she wishes to stay then she is free to do so by me, not by the law, but by me,” Aiden replies casually.
Crispen looks at him as if trying to read his mind or something. The men are quiet for a long second, before Crispen’s gaze turns to mine. “You mean she’s registered in the database already? It’s too late for me to do anything?”
Aiden must nod, because suddenly Crispen is fuming.
“You’re the ones who told her about this world, Crispen. You know our rules,” Aiden says as calmly as I think is possible. I know he’s ready to snap, but he keeps his cool.
Crispen must not have a comeback, because he looks to me with apology in his eyes and frowns. He’s blaming himself. Blaming himself for nothing. Yes, it sucks that I found out about this world, but it was my fault that I somehow accidently stumbled into my half-brothers, not his. Well, actually it’s my father’s fault for compelling me as a baby, which apparently is another word for brainwashing. Crispen just told me about this world and explained it to me. I would’ve fallen into it anyways eventually.
“Megan, I will fix this,” Crispen promises, looking hurt.
“No, Crispen, I’ve come here to say goodbye and thank you for everything that you’ve done for me. Being what I am, obviously we cannot be friends any longer. I just wanted to let you know that I’m okay, and I’m happy.”
“Happy? You’re happy?” Crispen scoffs loudly and kicks a pane of glass out of anger. It shatters into a million pieces, sending some of the shards into my leg. I wince and look down to see blood.
Aiden is then in Crispen’s face in an instant. “Look, hunter, you can be pissed off all you want, but was it really necessary to injure a lady out of your mere anger and disapproval?”
Crispen’s anger fades and turns to regret and sympathy. “Megan, I’m sorry, let me get that out for you. Aiden, get out of my face, before I decide to give it plastic surgery.”
It takes a minute for me to realize that Crispen has called Aiden by his name. They know each other? Aiden never mentioned this before. “You know Aiden?” I demand, looking to Aiden and Crispen both for answers.
Crispen nods. “Yes, actually. I killed his disgusting half demonic daughter.” Crispen nearly spits on Aiden as he speaks, and I see Aiden’s chest rise and fall violently like he’s about to explode. What the hell, why did Aiden never mention this?
The fact that Crispen speaks of another halfling like this, the fact that he killed one and no regret shines in his eyes, makes me furious. It revolts me. Why am I any different than Aiden’s daughter? What’s stopping him from killing me?
“What? Is that true?” I ask, looking to Aiden.
Aiden nods. “Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“I didn’t know how to tell you that the guy who killed my precious daughter was the same guy you befriended, Megan. How do you tell someone that?” Aiden asks, vibrating with anger towards Crispen.
He kept it from me so I wasn’t hurt? He came here, knowing he’d come face-to-face with his daughter’s murderer, just to make sure I’d be safe?
A whole other side of Crispen is set out before me, and I suddenly want to hit him square in the jaw. Any care for Crispen that blossomed in correlation with our friendship, disappears in this moment as fury overwhelms me.
“Let’s go, Aiden. I’m done here,” I shout angrily, glaring at Crispen. “This was obviously a mistake.”
Crispen looks at me as if I should feel pride or something that he killed Aiden’s daughter. Instead, I’m hurt, blatantly pissed off, and appalled. Plus, my legs stings like a bitch. Holy gum drop manta ray puff balls I’m ticked off. I’m surprised that’s smoke doesn’t come out my ears like on cartoons.
Aiden takes a step back from Crispen, turns, and motions for me to take the lead out the door. Just as I’m about to turn, I see Crispen pull something shiny from his pocket faster than my mind can process. I’m about to warn Aiden, knowing that my warning will be too late, when Aiden moves impossibly faster than Crispen, grabbing a knife of his own and ducking from Crispen’s murder attempt. My eyes widen in shock. Did Crispen really just try to kill Aiden? If I wasn’t sure about what side I was on three seconds ago, I am now.
I pull my knife from my pocket and while Crispen’s back is to me, wrestling down Aiden, I throw the sharp blade through the air as hard as I can. I know this knife won’t kill him, but it will paralyze him so we can get out of here.
I just hope that Mason and Aria aren’t home to hear this brawl, they must not be, because I assume they’d be down here by now if they were. My blade slices into Crispen’s back and Aiden lets him go, backing away from him. Crispen turns to look at me, confusion, hurt, and then hate spreading across his face, before he falls to the ground. Aiden sends me a forced smile of approval and then grabs my arm and rushes me out the door, down the street, and to the car and the guards which Aiden told to stay back.
As we pull away, he sighs deeply. “Well, that went well.”
I don’t say anything, forcing myself to stare out the window. I don’t know what I was expecting from Crispen, but that wasn’t it. Aiden was right in assuming that Crispen would attack us. I mean, he didn’t attack me, but the fact that he killed Aiden’s daughter is enough for me.
“I’m sorry for putting you in that situation. That was dumb of me,” I apologize. What if I would have gotten Aiden hurt or even killed?
I glance at Aiden, he licks his lips and shakes his head, looking deep in thought. “No, Megan, I’m sorry that you had to go through what you just did. I know how much you care for Crispen, and his non acceptance is a harsh reality.”
“Yeah, well I don’t care about his acceptance or his approval. Especially not now after that. I can’t believe that he killed your daughter, Aiden, you should’ve told me that,” I say in a quick frustrated rant.
“Yeah, I know,” he answers in a whisper as our vehicle speeds back to the house. “Good work with the knife. That was quick thinking. I had it under control, but that was pretty awesome for a halfling to take down an original hunter like that. You don’t see that every day.”
“He was distracted. Anyone could have done it,” I argue.
“It doesn’t matter. Good job.”
I nod and close my eyes. Is life ever going to give me a break?
“Now let me fix up your leg.”
