Forfeit Souls (The Ennead Book 1) (7 page)

“You’re lucky you found Paul. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the only reason you’re
not
rotting in hellfire.”

He was lucky that he had found me?
Suddenly my being a member of the Asakku didn’t seem as predetermined as they would like me to believe.

“Yes well, we’ve all come to the ranks of the Asakku for one reason or another, lies have been interlaced in all of our existences.” Jack sounded a bit sorry, perhaps it was bitterness that I detected.

“At least we know what we are. I think we should just tell him.” Carlo’s words held a derisive laughter that did not fit with his words.

Jack’s solemn voice cut through Carlo’s derision. “You and I both know that Gallu would never allow that. She has greater plans for him than either of us could ever imagine.”

“Yeah. You’re right. He’ll find out eventually though, and with the rate he’s progressing I don’t think I want to be around for that.” Carlo seemed almost happy, though I knew he should not have.

I could hear the pensiveness in Jack’s thoughts as he spoke again, “none of us do.”

I let Jack’s words trail off as I continued down the hall… what exactly was it they were lying to me about? What was I, if I was not what they had told me I was? I knew that these questions would never be answered, but still, I had to wonder, what was it that Gallu had in store for me?

I lay down on the rock shelf that was my bed and closed my eyes. As they say, there’s no rest for the wicked, and my mind did not cease to run through possibilities of what their conversation meant for me. I knew that it was really of no use for me to try to figure it out on my own, I doubted that I could ever come up with the correct hypothesis for what was going on.

I let my mind wander to Ellie, the girl I would never have, the girl I had never deserved and slipped into a dream-like stupor. Perhaps if I closed my eyes long enough, this nightmare would dissolve into the dream that it was and I would wake up at home in my own bed. It was futile to hope that I’d be able to “wake” from this nightmare in a different place, but I knew I was confined to my new existence, and to these waking dreams. I sunk further into my mind.

Ellie was there with me, but her eyes were sad. I did not know if they were sad for me, but I wished to make her smile again. Something I knew I would never be able to do.  She started to move away from me as though she was on one of those moving sidewalks you see in airports. We were drifting apart, more readily than I had expected. I reached out to her but she did not reach back, she just opened her mouth.

“Rise and shine.” she said in Jack’s voice, and I opened my eyes to two glowing eyes in the darkness of the room.

I sat up and looked to the ceiling, where the six flames had burst to life on the chandelier, filling the room with light that bounced off of the glassy surfaces of the walls and ceiling.

“Come on sleepy head,” Jack said, throwing an oversized sweatshirt at me. “It’s time to return to the world of the living.”

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, feeling a bit cheated from my half-dream. But I got up and went to the sink like basin that was always filled with water; from where I had not been told. It had little effect on me, it felt like it was the same temperature as my skin, but it evaporated as quickly as I splashed it on my face, it had an odd, astringent smell, but I ignored it.

I looked at the glassy surface in front of me, to the black eyes that still sat deeply in the sockets of my pale face. They hadn’t yet changed to the glowing red that I had been assured would come. These eyes were just another part of my cursed existence. Without knowing why, I suddenly punched the wall, sending spindly cracks across the reflection of my face. It almost looked better than the monster I now saw in myself.

It was only then that I remembered that Jack was there. I quickly ran my hand over the splintered wall and watched as the rock melted, filling in the cracks until they returned to the glass smooth texture they had been. The hand that passed in front of my face had a light grey mark across it. The charcoal-like marks had begun to appear the day that I learned to use my fire, they were only light grey now, and it just looked like I needed a shower, but I knew from the others that they would darken and that there would be more of them.

“So you’ve been sent to collect me again?” I asked trying to sound as blasé as possible. “It seems like that’s all we ever do. I wait and you come to get me.”

“Yep.” He said with a smirk. “You get to tag along on a collection today.”

This didn’t sound like quite as much fun as Jack was making it out to be. He actually seemed giddy.

I put the shoes on that he had thrust at me. “What are these for?” I asked, nodding toward the shoe I was lacing and holding up the sweatshirt.

“So that you’ll blend in… most people don’t walk about barefoot and shirtless in the dead of winter.”

I just nodded as I stood, still holding the sweatshirt in my hands.

“Sasha and Carlo are going to be collecting and we’ll be hanging back as observers. I’ll be giving you the commentary and you can ask any questions you want.”

“Joy. It’s just what I always wanted for Christmas!” I said sarcastically

“Demons don’t generally celebrate Christian holidays.” Jack laughed loudly. “Besides, even if we did we’ve still got another week or so.”

I had to snicker at that. I wouldn’t believe it was winter until I saw snow, and there was no snow in this underground fortress that was my tomb.

“Ok. To get out of the basement, all you have to do is focus on being somewhere else.” Jack said, his smirk growing. “Think about being in the street in front of your house again. Focus on actually being there, but make sure you focus on keeping your clothes… if you forget to keep them on your mind, they’ll burn up.”

I looked at him sideways, “It would be inconvenient to arrive somewhere without your trousers.” Then I laughed, “Mike?”

“On a few occasions.” He said with a smile. “But you need to focus.”

I did as he said and the room burst into flames as the street formed in front of me.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Jack said from beside me.

The street was dark, but the lamps that illuminated the snow-covered ground weren’t necessary. They were almost a hindrance to me now. I pulled the sweatshirt over my head, it wasn’t necessary either, I was not any colder or warmer with it.

“What now?” I asked as I looked to the house I had grown up in.

I wondered how much of a heart attack my mother would have if she looked out of her lace-curtained windows and saw me standing here. The house hadn’t changed; it was still its red brick, with the faded green paint that was beginning to peel off of the two narrow steps that led up to the black front door, which now held a simple, green wreath. It was covered in snow, just as it had been almost every December, back as far as I could remember.

“Now we meet up with Giancarlo and Aleksandr.” Jack and Gallu were the only ones I had ever heard refer to Carlo, Sasha and Mike by their full names.

We walked several blocks before we saw them. They were visible, leaning against an alley wall, in the yellow light of a lamp that barely hung by a wire from the building above them. Sasha was reading a newspaper and Carlo had his eyes closed, his head tilted toward the ground. As we approached, Carlo’s eyes opened slightly, they did not illuminate the surrounding area as Gallu’s had. But perhaps that was just an effect of her gilded throne room. It was the only place I had ever seen her.

“Hail, Hail.” Carlo said apathetically as he stood up from the wall.

“The gang’s all here.” Sasha finished his statement with a bit more fervor as he closed his paper and threw it to the ground behind him.

Jack just jerked his head slightly to the side and the two took off down the road ahead of us. They seemed to be intent on their destination, wherever it was, as Jack and I trailed along behind them.

“How do they know who they’re looking for?”  I asked quietly. There was no noise around us anymore and I was sure that my whispers rang out as clear as a bell. At this point I wasn’t sure they weren’t just looking for two schmucks that were in the wrong place at the wrong time, as I was beginning to think that my own demise was less than fated.

“Gallu showed them.” And then with a knowing smile that seemed a bit evil in the lamplight, he added, “it will be easier to wait until she shows you.”

We followed the hunters into the night as the streetlamps behind us flickered and died, sending the lane they lit into darkness.

-Joellen-

The room was much smaller than the hall, but it was lavishly furnished, like a sitting room in a Victorian hotel. Standing on a raised platform at the center of the room was a gilded throne and seated on that throne was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

I was amazed when I saw her. She was the picture of perfection. I doubt that even Leonardo Da Vinci could have painted a more beautiful creature. She reminded me of a summer’s breeze; gentle and warm.

Her long white hair fell down her back in a cascade of soft curls. Each strand shone brightly, like threads of silver, and they moved as if they were being gently blown by the wind.  Her face was as angelic as Father’s, but her beauty was so enrapturing that had she had the same eyes as Father they would not have dissuaded me from the trust I suddenly felt for her.

Her eyes though, were nothing like Fathers, and nothing like my own. They appeared to be glass orbs filled with a never ceasing wind, and I could not look away from her.

She rose from her throne-like seat and I was able to fully grasp her height. Father had seemed oddly small to me, but this woman was no doubt where the legends of the Amazon’s stature and beauty came from.

The dress she wore coiled around her like a silver serpent. As she walked toward me, the shimmering fabric seemed to slither along the length of her slender form, like liquid mercury flowing about her.

“Joellen, I am so pleased that you are well again.” Her voice was like a soft melody that wafted through the air about me. There was no severity in her tone, only soft musical notes.

“Thank you.” I could barely say the words. I was not sure who – or what – I was looking at, but thoughts of angels returned to the forefront of my mind.

“Most here will call me Mother.” She said, leaning down to me and taking my hands. “But you may call me Lilith, as Demetrius does.” She gave Demetrius a smile that reminded me of my mother’s smiles for my brother. This woman truly was mother as the man next to her was father.

“Thank you, Lilith.” I repeated.

“Adam, will you and Demetrius leave us for a few moments?” Almost before she had said this, Father was moving toward the door, and Demetrius was now following. I could tell from her tone and their unquestioning obedience that a request from Lilith was met as a command. I did not turn from where I stood and Lilith did not release my hands until the small click behind me signaled that we were alone.

“I am not sure what you have been told about us Joellen.” Lilith seemed sadden by whatever she was about to tell me. “Please come, sit with me so that I can help you better understand what has happened.”

“Please, just call me Jo.” I made the request as I followed her to the front of the room.

“I won’t bother you with the lore that surrounds us. The truth is all you need to know right now.”

I sat in the chair opposite her and waited. I knew nothing about what I was going to be told.

“The first thing you need to know is that, though you won’t die, you can be killed – though not easily - and there are forces out there who want you dead.” I could see in her expression that the people who wanted me dead were a serious threat. The light of her face had dimmed as she spoke. “The monster that attacked you was sent by one of those who can still kill you.”

I nodded, “Demetrius said that he was called Hephaestus.”

“Yes, Hephaestus is one of the Asakku, but he goes by Jack more often than not.” She paused, her face darkening with sadness. “My sister, Gallu, is the Asakku’s master. She seeks to bring chaos to the human world and, unfortunately, I and my following are the only ones who stand a chance of stopping her.”

“Asakku?” The word sounded so strange to me and I spoke it in an attempt to grasp the full meaning of the word.

“They are a menacing force; Hephaestus is the oldest of Gallu’s warriors. He is the oldest, and strongest of her small army. He is also the most clever. That is perhaps why he is still alive.” She saw my lack of comprehension and clarified. “The Asakku’s greatest weakness is their penchant for violence. Most do not last for very long. They are formidable against their opponents, but they are not meant to survive in a pack environment. Hephaestus’s ability to have survived for ten and a half centuries is something that makes him the most feared of all of his kind.”

“He’s over a thousand years old?” the man who had attacked me in the alleyway had not seemed more than nineteen or twenty.

“Yes, he was born in the human year, 966 A.D.”  She said it so calmly, would I see one thousand?

I wrapped my head around the idea for a moment before I spoke again. “Why did he come after me?”

“I don’t know, it may have simply been because you were there,” she said, shaking her head apologetically. “It may be because Gallu saw something in the future that made her find your death necessary.”

“She sees the future?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.

“Well, no. But one of my kind can, though she does not like Gallu, and it is possible that she saw something that Gallu didn’t want to come to fruition, I can only guess that Mam’s brother told Gallu.” And then as though she felt the need to allay my fears, she added, “you could have needed to remain human to be a threat to her.”

I wondered:
How could a human be a threat to her?
I was about to ask when she continued.

“Gallu has done some very strange things in response to her paranoia. I and my following are, unfortunately, unable to prevent all of her evil deeds from coming to fruition.”

“Demetrius said that he came to you in much the same way.”

“Yes, Hephaestus tried to take him as well. In his case it was because Gallu wanted him to join the Asakku, it was something Mam had foreseen, but Gallu managed to botch things for us and he has been with us ever since.” He face brightened marginally. “You make him happy you know.”

Her words caught me by surprise and I couldn’t fight back the blush that I felt heat my cheeks.  “I made him very sad,” I said quietly, remembering the face that I had seen for so many months in the back of my mind, the pain that I had inflicted on him.

“Regardless. He is happy now.” She patted my knee in a very motherly way and I had to smile. “I am sorry that Adam didn’t arrive in time to save your life. But you must understand that once you are bitten by the Asakku you have only three choices. You die and are sent to the fiery pit of Tartarus, or Hell, whichever you prefer to call it. You become an Asakku and all of the goodness in you is taken from you, you are more or less a husk of who you used to be,” she sighed. I was causing so much sadness and I wanted desperately to stop it. “The only other option was to turn you again. You are one of the few Lilakku. Like Demetrius you were changed by both Asakku and Lilitu. I am sorry that that was the only choice that was available to us.”

“Don’t be sorry. Now that I understand the choices I am very glad that you made the decision you did. I would prefer this existence to an eternity in Hell, or to being a demon’s minion.”

She smiled when I said the word demon. “I would not be so hard on those that are called demons by the human race. They have often called me the same thing.”

I looked at her slightly disbelieving, but the absent smile that crossed her face was proof enough that what she said was true.

“What is a demon anyway?” She asked. “The human dictionary says that a demon is ‘a supposed ghost or sprit regarded as evil.’ But I would beg to speculate that there are some things that are claimed to be evil that are simply misunderstood, like spiders.” She smiled at me knowingly.

My hallucination of the spiders came to me again and I thought about trying to say that I understood spiders, but I knew it would make little difference. I did not understand Lilith, but I didn’t see how anyone could mistake the woman before me for an evil being?

As if she were answering my question she said, “Some earlier cultures thought of me and my kind as wind demons. I prefer the term wind spirit.” The smile on her face was small, but the emotion behind it seemed to flood out toward me.

“You said there are others of your kind?” I asked, curious now, “like you and Gallu?”

“Yes,” she smiled wider now. “The Ennead.”

She said it as though the word should explain everything to me. The only thing that I received from it was that there were nine of them.

“Gallu, my sister, is a fire spirit. Siris and Lamashtu, sisters also, are water and earth spirits respectively, Anu and his mate Nyx are the spirits of the Sun and Moon. And Mamitu, Sulak and Namtar are the spirits of the Future, Past and Present.” She finished with the names of the other eight spirits and added, “We each have our counterpart, the one that keeps the other in check. Mam, Sul and Nam keep each other in line. If we did not, the world would be thrown into chaos in an instant.”

“What about Adam? Is he not also a part of the Ennead?” I asked, I had thought that he would have been one of the Ennead, but as usual I was wrong again.

“No, Adam is my mate, he was at one time human, but I changed him.”  Her voice was almost sad again.

“Why does the change make you sad?” I looked at her lowered head and her sunken shoulders, even in this grotesque posture she seemed every bit as angelic as she had from the first moment that I had seen her.

“I take no pleasure from altering a mortal’s life.” She sighed. “Unlike my sister I understand that your kind was meant for something more, a different kind of existence; in many ways a better kind of existence. She sees your kind as little more than a pool of prospective pets.”

I thought for a moment, my head easily processed the information she had given me, but there were so many more questions that sprouted in my mind and I couldn’t decide which to ask first. I decided to start with as basic of a question as I could think of. “What does being a Lilakku mean?”

“Besides that you are an immortal who is tied to no one?” she asked, and I gathered that there was more of a reason for the Lilitu’s desire to stay than simple enjoyment of Mother and Father’s company. “The Lilitu can use the forces of the wind. The Asakku, the forces of fire. Siris’s followers, the Naiadu, control water and Lamashtu’s Utukku can summon the forces of the earth. As a Lilakku, Demetrius can use all four of these elements simply by willing them to do so. You should be able to do the same. I’m not sure why you are able to use all four, logically you should only be able to use the two, but by some strange happenstance, it would seem that the cosmos has gifted your kind with exceptional amounts of luck.”

My face must have held a look befitting all of the skepticism that I felt. Because she smiled at me and the entire room was filled with a swirling vortex of wind around us.

As it died down she smiled at me and said, “you try.”

I looked at her slightly skeptical but I willed the wind to do exactly as she had done and the wind moved about the room in exactly the same way.

“Very good. Try one of the other elements.” Her smile was intrigued, as though she hadn’t been completely sure that I would be able to perform the first task.

I thought about what she said I could work with and I held out my hand with my palm up.
Fire…

As soon as the thought left my mind a flickering flame rose up from an inch above my palm.
Water…

The flame was replaced by a perfect sphere of water. It undulated as it was suspended in the air above my hand.

“Very good.” She said approvingly and I looked away from the water to her. It remained floating in the air, even as I took my hand away. “I don’t think Demetrius was able to do that on his first try. You have a remarkable amount of concentration.”

“Thank you.” I said and I looked toward the table and the ball of water glided to it and upon reaching it the sphere broke into four smaller spheres and each fell into one of the four goblets that were set at the table.

“Amazing.” She was still gazing at the goblets. “And to think that they were worried about you.”

“They were worried about me?” I asked, confused by who
they
were and
why
they would be worried.

“Yes, but it’s nothing to be concerned about.” I couldn’t help but feel concerned as she spoke. “You can do anything you want with the four lesser elements.”

It was a remarkable gift. I would not deny that. But I was oddly aware of just how much I could do, so I was more concerned with whomever it was that was worried about me.

Lilith spoke in a strange, airy voice and I could not hear the words, though she spoke in a normal volume and was mere feet from me. Before she finished speaking Adam and Demetrius found their way back into the room.

“How is our guest?” Adam asked in a jovial tone.

“Remarkable,” she said with a quiet authority. “And inquisitive as ever. It may take a decade or two to get the questions that she has formed in the past six months answered.”

“That sounds about right,” Demetrius said with a laugh, and I couldn’t fault any of them, for their laughs were not derisive, but joyous.

I smiled at the three people with me. It had been a very long time since I had felt this safe. Since I had felt as though I was part of a real family.