Daimon, DANIELLE BOLGER [read my book .txt] 📗

eyes and bloodied attire. She would see us fight; see us move. What would you say to her then? What would you do to her then? Can you do what is necessary?”

I turned back to my sleeping friend. “I would protect her, even at the cost of my own life.”

“We have the power of gods, Jane. A god never sacrifices himself for cattle. A martyr or a profit may, all in the service of a god, but never a god himself. It is a shame that the very thing that gives you the will to fight me is the very thing that cripples you so that you may never defeat me.”

“It's true then, if you die, the rest of us die, too?”

“Your power comes from me…so, yes, you will die, Jane. Again I ask, do you still wish to fight me?”

The talk of gods and martyrs brought back the image of Zach crucified to his lounge room wall. “I want you dead, at all costs.”

“I see.” His eyes blazed.

“Just, tell me one thing. Was it just random convenience that you did this to me, because I walked into the Minx that day and stuck my nose where it didn't belong or—”

“Did I choose you before that?” He smiled. “Yes—to the latter. I chose you because of your history, because of what you did.”

Another breeze cut through, causing the flowers around us to sigh. Rose's hair was swept in front of his eyes for a moment as he turned away from me.

“Alex has been quite instrumental in guiding you through your transition, telling you what you are and how you came into creation, but I think little of the why.

“We are not easy creatures to create. This is not because of the process implemented, but because of the offered people themselves. The method used to create a daimon is the same as it is for one to feed. Simply tear out the victim's heart and take it into your body. With this, a connection is made—one where the daimon draws on the power of the deceased's soul and gains strength from it. There is an enormous pool of energy in the soul of a human, but only one of us may access it. From it, we attain great increases of power. So incredible are these that they may bend or even break the laws of physics. Powerful enough that it can even regenerate a heart.”

My hand crept to between my breasts where I felt a comforting thump. An image of that corpse-girl shot into my mind, a great red void was located in the center of her.

“Very rarely, however, the energy flow may reverse, and the victim both maintains their soul and draws on a tiny thread of the daimon's power. It is only the faintest amount, and if that resurrected one cannot claim another's power they will finally perish, never to glimpse life again.”

“For the rebirth to be successful, the person needs to have killed someone first,” I offered.

He smiled sweetly. “Yes, but even so, the chance of ascension is still slim. You see, it's not so much about the taking of a life that allows one to snatch at a daimon's power, but the conviction in it. You, Jane, you took a life and didn't even blink. It was planned and executed in cold blood, all the while you simply played the heroine. It's that murderous desire, the deep seeded darkness, that allowed you to realize your potential as an eternal killing machine.”

I spoke through gritted teeth, “I only did what I had to.”

“That's it!” he cried joyously. “Ever since you murdered him, not once did you feel an inkling of guilt.”

“I didn't murder him!” I shouted. “He...” my voice softened. “He was already dead. I only finished him off.”

Rose grinned. “You know, even amongst our own kind, you are different. All the others, since I created them, have felt a bond to me—one not unlike that between father and child. They may not like what I order of them and like a rebellious child they may act on their own accord at times, but they never stray too far from my wishes. Take Freddie, he despised you tremendously, but I commanded him not to attack you. He did my bidding, mostly, but like a child, he found a loophole to my words and approached you after that photographer was killed. You threatened him. Therefore he was free to engage you in battle, and he hoped to kill you as a result. Of course, that did not pan out so well for him.”

He showed his perfectly white, straight teeth.

“Sage was older, and so possessed the relationship as an adult son to his parent. My children may not have liked me all the time, may have even hated me as you do now, but they always loved me. None of them wished to see harm come to me—they would have all been happy to throw down their lives in defense of me. You, however…you are exempt from this. You can kill your father. That's what makes you special.”

I could not look at him anymore, just down at my boots that were stretched and darkened by the water. I had always been fearful of this revelation, of this moment. In the past, the thought of people finding out about my dark secret caused me to shake involuntarily, and a simple whisper of my parents' deaths had me escalating into a panic. My nightmares were filled of that horizontal hail shattering through the restaurant windows, and the screams of patrons that interlaced into a continuous siren. It was the day my parents died, it was the day I was orphaned and left in the care of my big brother. Then my dreams forwarded six months to when I finished off a man that was halfway in the grave, and I saw that half-filled scotch glass drop limply to the carpeted floor.

“Shut up, shut up!” I rushed up to Rose, cutting through the water like a speedboat, and gripped his neck fiercely with my hand. He did not fight me off; his bright purple eyes just shimmered with greater luster.

“You don't deplore what you've done.” He beamed. “Though, you're ashamed of something. Perhaps, what others would think of your treacherous actions?”

“I said—shut your face!” With my other arm, I threw out a punch but he grasped this easily with one hand.

Unfazed by my attacks, he continued, “If that was the case, then why even kill him? I learned about you some months ago; a reporter snooping into Devil's Eden, trying to find dirt on the Foxes to print, but it was not until I learned of your violent history that I really became interested. A restaurant shooting that killed your mother, and a father that later took his own life. You yourself have had much psychological counseling. So then I wondered, whether such a colored past had more to it?”

I released his throat and went for a quick uppercut to the chin, but in that thin opening, he brought his other hand inside and waved me away as if I was merely a nuisance.

“Your father,” he went on, “was terribly depressed after your mother's death, so it came as no surprise when it was discovered that he committed suicide. No one ever considered that someone else had crushed up those pills and put them into his glass.”

“Stop it!” I screamed as I tried to swing an elbow to his temple. This too was quelled as he gripped my forearm and spun it around behind me painfully. I screeched as my shoulder gave a high-pitched snap and dislocated.

“I could not understand how you could take the life of one who never physically abused you, and provided you with such ample means. It even appeared as though he loved you.”

My back was facing him, so I used my head as a weapon and snapped it back firmly, but one of his hands crept onto my forehead and increased my acceleration down. In another moment, I found myself spluttering and reaching up for air as my body was shoved into the shallow lagoon.

Water flooded my lungs, my insides burned, but just then his delicate hands pulled me out. He sat on my lap; his twinkling violet eyes were just inches from my own.

“Then I realized that he disappointed you so greatly that it severed your bond between father and child. Something broke inside you, a certain capacity for love. Family loyalty disintegrated, and you acted as your pride dictated. There was a depressed man in your house, drunk and weak and related to you. That embarrassment had to be ended, that life had to be ended. That was your rationale for murdering your own father.”

“No, I didn't!” I cried through fits of strangled coughing. “It wasn't him anymore. My father died back in that restaurant. That man, he was a disgrace!”

Rose smiled broadly, pretty eyes dancing with the divulged dark truth.

Chapter Thirty

He was already dead. He had been dead for six months before his heart finally stopped beating. The pills that were dissolved in his scotch just finished him off.

He laid there on the sofa, eyes closed, and slumped over silently as the movie credits rolled on the television in front of him. He looked to be just sleeping, indulging in a peaceful doze. For the first time since the incident, his face no longer wore that mask of deep sorrow. He was finally released from the world that he could no longer bear. He was free to return to her in his everlasting sleep, but of course, he was never really away from her. Spiritually, he had already left this world; the strong, tough man had gone to her. What remained was no more than a shell of what he was, a physical apparition of nil likeness to the once great father.

There, on the family lounge, he had made his home. Alone; weeping, drinking, and stinking for six months; he had not moved an inch from this wretched couch bar to use the bathroom or to make himself a drink. He refused to leave the house or to part with the photo frame clutched tightly against his chest. He refused to attend my brother's graduation ceremony from the police academy. He refused to see a shrink. He refused to give up the scotch. He did go to my mother's funeral, however, and that was when I first realized that he was just as dead as she was.

Jack told me to just give him time. He has been through a terribly traumatic experience and just needs to be able to process through it. It can't be easy watching the woman you love die in your arms. Jack skipped over the fact that I was there too, holding my mother's hand, pleading her to come back to life for her little girl. She didn't, and so I moved on. My father, however, he failed to regain any sense of life. Six months elapsed, but nothing changed with him. That was when I decided that it was time to finally put my father to rest.

This vessel of a great man I once respected continued to live in that dire moment, the one where my mother disappeared from us forever. Every so often he would murmur, “don't give up, the ambulance is coming,” as he once had to the corpse in his arms. He would mutter other unintelligible things, something to do with his pain and his loneliness, how wonderful she was, but never would he mention the events that led to the tragedy itself. Nothing about the gangsters he despised so much. Not even a single thought for revenge. It was so unlike him: no anger, just despair.

I could not believe the intruder wearing the face of my father. That strange man did not even attend the court hearing where one of the gangsters responsible was sentenced to life in prison. Two months later, it was alerted on the news that he was beaten to death in jail. We both watched it as we sat on that same couch. I started laughing, and jumping up and down in gratification, but he did not join me in my pleasure. He did not even smile. In fact, he may have seemed even more grieved, as if regretting that the gangster would never be able to finish him off as well. I told myself, six months.