notes: i only updated this chapter because it was for Laryna's birthday present, as promised. Sorry it's late.
Happy belated birthday, Laryna.
Asmodei
When a human being makes a choice, it is forever stamped in a collective memory. Somewhere, an invisible god-like hand jots it down in a mystical large black book of secrets. There is no time to turn back the decision, no time to take back what was said, or what was done. Humans created their beds and pulled fake covers over their entire bodies; they had basked lazily in their decision making beds. It's easier to manipulate a human whose mind was filled with chaos and strife. It's easier to turn a person to hate others, all too easy, because they could never see their own mistakes made. In the meantime, their guilt weighs heavily until their frail bodies filled up with dark blood.
The world was made in invisible threads of magnetic fields, imperceptible particles of bubbly wrapped oxygen, blowing out carbon dioxide only to be recycled and shared. When the world was blackened out by the absence of light, it still thrived and wanted to breathe, reaching out with empty arms to any living organism. It never caressed or loved, it only wanted to live.
Asmodei sat leisurely atop a mountain side, not obscured by any brush or cover of rocks. The devil's soldier basked in the glow of the warm dying fires and ate up the god-given atmosphere with a greedy inhalation. His arm dangled over his knee, sitting with a languorous kind of air. The black thoughts that swirled in his head were as chaotic as any bloodied war, but he bore an appearance that defied that. Strictly businesslike from another point of view; a man with a slick clean cut look, graced with sleek hair that flicked back, and attractive touches of demon created gel. Perhaps too slickened and prettily made up on purpose. At the moment, he wore a suit of a man's silk expensive thread, expensively cut and stylish. From the looks of him, there was a masculine beauty that defied everything he was made of.
Long almost feminine fingers lifted; an index and thumb touched, producing a cigarette out of thin air. With graceful movements, Asmodei placed the white stick between sensual lips; a fire flickered at the end of the thin tobacco and lighted. He puffed in an unhurried manner, enjoying the delicious taste of home grown dead leaves, inhaling it into his black spirit. Smoke hovered around his perfect head, and with a flick of his finger, the smoke disappeared. Leaning back against the hard wall of the mountain side, the scenery before him presented him with an open window of what went on.
He knew that Sparda would take the bait; inevitable as it was, a devil's pride was too important. The demon didn't even hope that all things would come to fruitation, it just wasn't in the dark bloodline or thought pattern.
A small black creature slithered its way past him; he picked it up, looked it in the eye as the creature's flickering tongue tried to reach out. A slow smirk formed on the human visage, showing perfect white teeth. "A bit late for you to be meandering around here, don't you agree?"
No reply.
"Just as I thought. Your kind was too stupid to be sold out by a woman." With that last comment, Asmodei placed the creature into his mouth; a sickening crunch could be heard as teeth clamped down to tear the skin apart. Blood and flesh parted - a loud deliberate chewing and a swallow followed.
Closing sultry eyes surrounded by thick lashes, Asmodei blocked out the world as he purred silently. And as if he could see without eyes, a vision of Sparda popped up. One thing was for sure: a future for the world would change drastically with Eva's death and his departure.
The Human Cover
Sparda paused before the half fallen building, his long claws extended, only to detract within the large hand. A pair of steely blue eyes formed around his face, staring out with a snarling expression of anger. The anger soon dissipated, replaced with a calm exterior of reason. It was something that higher devil's possessed, unlike lower classes that ran on chaos and destruction. He didn't trust Asmodei, and if he was any Knight of the Underworld, Sparda knew a betrayal between their kind was what fueled them on. But the devil's soldier was right. He needed the presentation wrap of a human. In the decision that she would pose another mild threat, he didn't want to be sent back home without his permission like a whipped puppy.
There was no time to act like a mad demon with a human like that; a human who possessed a secret only someone more powerful than her conjured up. The frail female may have the power of the 'seal' that kept him reigned like a tamed wild horse. Dark smoke pushed out of his nostrils like a raged bull, the shadows around his large besital form lifted away; an acidic smell rose up into the air and hissed around the large thick horns.
He would find how she acquired that seal and snuff her life out, simple as that. But first, a deception was the first thing that a human was vulnerable to. If he showed up looking clean and unharmed like Asmodei's revolting visage, she wouldn't buy it. There was intelligence in those blue eyes she had, but it wasn't intelligence that saved her, or kept her different than other run-amuck humans. Intelligence was nothing compared to a 'fire' she harboured. And that was the strange part he would find out. Fire like that only came from a devil's spawn. Or…..the thought occurred to him and as easily as it came, it was shoved back into the deep recesses of his mind for future use.
A transformation didn't take long as the Knight stood there, willing himself to adjust to a human. The opposite of ugly is beauty to a mortal's mind, and in the mirror of his beastly visage, a renovation was taking place.
A beautiful man stood in place of beast; white ribbonous hair, carefully slicked back just like Asmodei's, crowning a perfect cranium; forehead indicated a strong intelligence and lines of white perfect brows above startling light blue eyes filled the face. Sensual lips parted below a strong almost pointed thin nose breathed in, sucking in air from the mouth. The eyes were cold as the frozen arctic, and warmed immediately as he willed their glacial stones into melting sky blues. His clothing was too clean on a masculine human body, too much like Asmodei's for the moment, but it wouldn't be long………
A lower demon passed him, pausing only to glance at Sparda's new form, mewled with a fear as the Knight grabbed him with a powerful grip.
"You're coming with me." Sparda growled with a threat. "Time to play with humans."
Eva
She wore the clean clothes that was given to her: a red velvet blouse that fitted magnificently against her figure, something for her feet and more to cover her long legs. She knew she was losing weight but didn't care. There were other clothes that were left behind and the black spawn of the underworld decided to give her options from her own wardrobe. The fuck!
Eva found it ironic that he should care that she wore a clean appearance; a pair of black boots, tan pants and the velvet blouse with sleeves that covered up to the elbows. Her golden amulet hung around her neck; she turned as a noise stumbled in, and with crossbow piece in her hand readied, she aimed it at the intruder.
Her eyes took in the intruder: A man, he was panting with a ragged breath, blood soaked through his shirt, almost drying he held a companion in his arms. Stumbling forward with tired blue eyes, black smudges of smoke and dirt smeared his cheek and bore several days of beard growth. What she could see so far was a human male in desperate need of help and the female in his arms looked dead and cold.
"Help, please, I need assistance." His voice was hoarse, as if he had been yelling for days, and it was convincing. Many humans screamed until they died; they ran amuck along the chaotic streets, falling from high buildings only to stop screaming. Yet more screams kept coming, day in and day out, and the nightmare kept going on in her mind.
He fell forward a little on his knees from the weight in his arms; the woman in he held was a small thing: A cold corpse, pale and grey with matted blood around the skull and her eyes stared out with a haunted look.
Eva was wary; she had to keep her guard and this man….this strange man among the hordes of dying humans in the street found his way into this building.
"If you would not help, then please keep my wife here. I don't want her body to be eaten up by them…" The man's gravelly whisper was sincere and the startling blue eyes diverted away, as if he were ashamed to look her in the eye. He had noted the pathetic contraption in her hands and almost scoffed. It would have done no good if she had fired an arrow at him, but she didn't know that.
The blonde woman looked down at him. A man on his knees grieving for a departed wife and he looked much damaged himself with blood splotches on his head; a matted dried patch of white hair stuck the side of his head, day's growth of ……white beard. She was shocked a little at this. From the looks of him, he didn't look any older than thirty, but his hair was so pure and white.
"No." She simply said. "I'm sorry. I can't take that chance." Eva kept her weapon aimed at him. "Your wife is dead now and is better off dead." Her stark words would have found an arrow to his heart, but she didn't care as she kept on with the cruelty of her words. It was necessary. "If you're for real." Pausing a bit, her eyes scanned the dead woman. "Then I'm sorry for your loss, but this entire place is filled with losses; she's at a better place now so you don't have to worry anymore. Now, get out of my building. I found it first. Get. Your. Own."
Eva deliberately highlighted each word, stressing it out with a deadly threat. The look of her over him made her look more powerful than him.
Sparda sneered inwardly at her distrustful nature; she's too wary and that's good for her survival, but this posed a more difficult situation for him. He almost wanted to lash out at her, take her down, seeing as she didn't have any spells or seals but paused. His eyes riveted on the amulet that hung around her neck gave him moment.
Instead of what his dangerous side wanted to do, he bowed obediently, so unlike his nature to anyone but his Devil King. He kept his teeth clamped as a nerve ticked at the side of his cheek. The anger swirled in his mind, yet the voice that came out of his sensual lips was as obedient as the action.
"As you wish. I'm very sorry." He willed a tear to form as he had seen the screaming humans, dying in each other's arms with rivers of it. But it wouldn't come. The expression on his face, however, was easy to produce; it was a genuine appearance of sorrow; a longing look of expression full of sadness and grief, almost a yearning for his own death to come.
He grunted as he tried to struggle the dead woman in his arms, and he could feel the human female's gaze on him as he pretended with every effort to bring himself out of her sight. So far so good, but it was taking all his will power to keep this damnable pretense. The amulet took him by surprise and he'd have a personal talk with Asmodei about it; maybe later or maybe he'd take care of shit himself. He hated to be in the dark about anything, especially about this woman's knowledge of seals and magical artifacts that were only kept secret among his kind and long dormant blood relations.
One thing he had over Asmodei was the will to cover his scent. If he kept this pretense up, he'd get her to give him her amulet with her own free will. Patience was another thing Sparda had if he tried and one notch up over Asmodei and legions up over others of his kind; it was usually unheard of, but then again, upper classes of his kind and the Emperor of the Underworld possessed them.
As he struggled out with a limpness and head bowed, she had watched until he disappeared outside. Eva only managed to relax when she could no longer hear his faltering footsteps. A sigh of relief crossed her delicate features. She could feel sorrow and sadness for the man's loss and perhaps she should help him, but there was no way she was taking chances. Right now, she had to find a way to get the boy back. And she wondered if the foul breathed demon had been lying about the Devil's knight coming to meet her.
She'll be prepared if that disgusting beast comes back in her presence and this time, the seal would hold him permanently. But she had to find a way to bind him to her, and that was when she knew her life would end if she did that. It sounded so cliché, with the sacrificial thing going on; a life for a life, saving the world by forfeiting oneself, however, there's always a clause for everything.
to be continued...
due to the nature of the story, i didnt realize that there's at least 2 more chapters to finish this. Sorry about that.
I'm going to finish it and that's that.