Lost in Demon's Eyes

4 - Dantalion

“Uncle Dantalion didn’t do anything wrong!” I countered. Why is she yelling all of a sudden? Uncle Dantalion is a good person! He was the only one talking to me all of the time, while others were playing! He was the one, who was having tea parties with me, or helping me build a house for the dolls!

“U-uncle?” My mum’s face turned pale green. She gasped and looked like she was about to pass out.

“I’ll get going, sweetie. I don’t think that anyone here is going to be happy if I stay longer.” Uncle came closer to my ear to whisper, so others wouldn’t hear.

“But I will be happy if you stay here! You’re my only friend!” I pulled the sleeve of his long shirt. He smiled and gently took my hand off of his clothes.

“Maybe next time, Zia. Happy birthday!” And with that, he vanished into thin air. Just like he usually did.

“Are you okay? Did he do anything to you?!” My dad was holding my shoulders, kneeling down, and looking up into my eyes.

“Why would he do anything to me? I’m fine. I can even walk now!” I lifted my leg, stretched it, and put it back to the ground. I thought that it was the best gift I could have ever gotten from anyone.

…

“Zia! Where did you send the bodyguards?!” My annoying overprotective brother shouted at me. I turned around to make sure he saw my awfully annoyed face, that just wanted to kill him at this point. We were both turning twenty-one tonight. Yet he was nagging me as if I was a complete kid! I can take care of myself! I don’t need you around here! I just want to have fun with my friends! I signaled him to get lost with my eyes. Whenever he tagged along, which was basically always, my friends wouldn’t stop talking about how hot he was. While to me he was an overly annoying i***t, who got beefed up in the recent months.

“I don’t think we need them anymore! I’m 21! I’m still here!” I spread my arms, showing him I was here, healthy and there was nothing wrong with me. I was standing on both of my feet, I could walk, dance, run…

“Yes, and you think that you will be able to do something yourself if anything happens?” He came closer to me, grabbing my arm. He wanted to pull me away. But I was going to enjoy this party! Cérise had even gotten us a VIP lounge reservation for celebrating today! There was no way I was going to miss this! I was the guest of honor today, it was my day, my birthday!

“I’m going there with the girls, you think that I’m going to get kidnapped with so many of us being there?! And anyway, you’re tagging along, as always!” I retorted. There was no time I was out with my girlfriends he seriously wouldn’t come! And when I thought he wasn’t going to come, he had always showed up at the last minute!

“Yeah, and you think that it’s not easy to pick up a few feather-heavy girls and stuff them in a van? If the bodyguards aren’t here, I have to tag along!” He kept squeezing my arm. I rolled my eyes. He was so persistent! No matter what I would tell him, he would always stick close to me. Like a superglue.

“Fine.” I groaned, hoping he would at least let go of me. Even though we were twins, we didn’t look like each other at all. While he had this dark-chocolate curly hair, mine was more like a hazelnut color, which was turning nearly blond in summer.

“Good. Now let’s go inside before anyone notices us.” He hurried me into the club while staring from right to left, even checking things behind us. 

“Why are you always so paranoid? I’m 21. I haven't made any deals with that demon ever since I saw him last at my birthday party! And he hasn’t come back for such a long time! I think he had to lose interest. There’s no need for you to be overly worried about me! I’m here, I’m alive, I’m breathing, nothing wrong with me. And I can still walk as well! He didn’t take anything from me!” I was hissing at Ansel while we were walking through the dimly lit corridor, which was leading to the inside of the club.

“Well, you never know.” He hissed back at me, finally putting his hands into his pockets. At least this time his friends aren’t tagging along. It would be a male-pheromone honeycomb for those girls. Just seeing them once in our summer residence, when they got to meet Ansel’s friends, was enough. Those girls wouldn’t shut up about how hot the guys were! If only they knew who my brother and his friends were… I sighed. The music was getting louder and Ansel was at my heels like a dog sniffing a deer in the forest.

We were shown directly into the VIP place, where the girls were already sitting around a round table.

“Hey! There’s the birthday girl!” Cérise welcomed me with a big shout-out, a drink high in her hand, and a huge smile on her face. No matter what was going on, this girl’s big mouth and eyes were always the center of a discussion. She was speaking a lot. And most importantly, she LOVED parties.

“And she even brought her sexy brother! Where are your friends, Ansel? Hope you’re not hiding them from us! That would be such a shame!” The music was killing my ears, but I clearly identified Caroline’s voice coming from behind Cérise. What is SHE doing here? I thought she wasn’t going to come after our last fight… She has some guts to show up. Or did Cérise invite her, so we can talk it out? Pfff… Who the heck knows. I hugged Cérise tight.

“We got you some tequila sunrise. Ansel, you want anything? We can get you what you want!” Cérise kept yelling. The music was quite loud at this place, but that was only because the door to the lower floor, where regular people were dancing and clubbing, was still open.

“Whiskey for me. Thanks.” Ansel already ordered with the waiter, who was already giving out the second round of drinks. The door finally closed and the music became a bit more bearable.

“So, how was your journey here? You said you weren’t staying in Paris this week! Wasn’t it tiring?” Cérise sat down and took out pineapple on a pick from her drink. She put it on a small plate next to her drink and took a sip of the alcohol.

“Well, we survived, somehow. When did you all get here? Looks like you’ve already started the party without me.” I smiled, taking a sip of the tequila sunrise in front of me.

“Ah, yeah… We got some drinks for free, so we already had them before ordering something new…” She said, gulping down half of the drink, which was in front of her on the coffee table.

“Was this one included as well?” I pointed to my already half-empty glass.

“Yeah! He looked very nice, though! He said he could give us some more things in case we wanted, right, ladies?!” She turned around to talk to the girls. All of them screamed in excitement. I turned to Ansel. He was already gulping the other half of my drink.

“What are you doing?!” I tried taking the glass from his hands.

“If someone wants to drug you, I’ll know first. And if they want something from you, it would be a loss if they didn’t take me as well. You know, they can bargain better with two siblings than just one.” He hiccuped.

“Oh damn.” I heard myself saying when the whole world was spinning like crazy and then just knocked everything black.

Dantalion

“Hey, Dantalion! Long time no see!” One of the earl demons waved at me. He was playing cards with someone else. All three of us knew each other, but we weren’t the best of friends, really. We just occasionally drank together and enjoyed the ladies of the night. I waved at them. Even though I was in one of the best brothels Hell had to offer, I wasn’t interested in the drinks, games nor s*x.

“Still obsessed with your little human?” He kept insisting on talking to me. He licked one of his ashy fingers and took out a card on the table. The other demon facepalmed himself.

“You got me.” He muttered and laid out all his cards open.

“How’s she been doing recently? How old is she now? She was thirteen only a while ago! Why are you even so fascinated by humans! She will die sooner than you grow one year older. On top of that, you have been waiting for her instead of taking her! Isn’t that quite an insult to the great Duke Dantalion, who leads a good thirty-six legions of demons?!” He turned to me, while the loser went to get some drinks. I took his place on the bench. It didn’t look like he was going to stop nagging nor being curious soon.

“I have been waiting thousands of years for Solomon’s soul to appear again. Those few human years are like days to us... And on top of that, have you ever tried waiting for something, Malthus? Taking things right away is easy, it satisfies you but then you feel empty. Whereas when you wait, the feeling of impatience itself eats you up. But then the feeling of having the thing itself will fill your desires for eternity.” I put the nail of my forefinger on my lower lip and smiled.

Zia

I opened my eyes. My head was hurting as if someone hit it at least ten times with a hammer from all sides.

“You finally up?” I heard Ansel’s voice.

“Yeah,” I groaned, hoping he wouldn’t talk to me anymore. This was the worst hangover I’ve ever had! I wanted to get up, but I couldn’t. Somehow, my arms weren’t moving and my legs either.

“Look properly, you i***t! We’re tied!” Even though Ansel kept whispering, it felt like he was shouting right into my ear.

“What?” I groaned again, trying to move my arms apart. Something was keeping them together. My legs as well. I tried seeing things better, but it was quite dark.

“What happened?” I whispered, still not getting what was going on.

“We’ve been kidnapped, you i***t!” Ansel raised his voice.

“Okay, okay. No need to shout. We’ll get out of here… I just need to wake up. Then we talk.” I kept whispering. I could even feel Ansel rolling up his eyes.

“Are you f*****g crazy?! Look at the situation we are in, you stupid ass! We got kidnapped! You think we’ll be fine?!”

“Mum and dad will pay the money and they’ll let us go,” I answered, still fighting the awful headache.

“Yeah, right…” I heard his sarcasm even though I thought I was about to die at the spot.

“Then change into a wolf, you smartass!” I tried freeing my hands from the cable tie, which kept digging into my hands more and more.

“I can’t.” Ansel’s voice sounded too low.

“What do you mean?!” I panicked. He was sitting on the other side of the room, also tied up.

“I can’t! Exactly that!” He yelled at me.

“You were supposed to be able to since you turned eighteen!” I yelled back at him, my blood pulsing in my ears and head.

“Well, news news, sister! I’m 21 and still nothing!” He growled at me.

“So we’re seriously kidnapped.” I gulped. This was getting bad! We were stuck in some dimly lit cold place. No signs of windows or people. And we had no idea what they might want from us. If their goal was money, our lives, black market, or worse - The Key of Solomon.