Demon in Love (Book 3)

Chapter 1

“The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.”- Stephen King

Chapter 1

-Karen-

Brushing his hair backward and flexing his biceps, Jon kept checking his reflection in the dark window glass of the house. There was no point in asking him to stop being stupid. Nate kept staring at the closed door, while I nervously tapped my feet on the ground, before bringing my hand to the doorbell. Somebody had to do it, so why not me.

I pressed it and waited for the person to open the door.

“Get ready with your fangs if he attacks us, vampire,” Jon nudged Nate’s elbow. Nate took a step away from him silently. “He has a nice house. I mean, I have walked by this house a thousand times and never really paid attention to it. I had my eyes on this blue VW Bug though.”

I immediately turned my head in the direction where he was pointing. The garage door was open and a shiny dark blue Beetle was parked in there. If the garage door was open and the car was there, Zayasu Ukyo had to be home too.

Jon was right; we had passed by this house a lot of times. It was at the end of our street. Because it wasn’t really important to keep track of strangers, I never cared much. If I’d only known that a wizard lived here, the situation would have been different.

A muffled voice called from inside the house as footsteps approached the door.

I held my breath, backing away from the door.

The door opened, revealing a very handsome guy. There was a sudden burst of energy. I could feel his strong aura around him; all enthusiastic and benevolent. “Sorry, I was getting ready for my… ah hello?” His dark eyes landed on us.

“Are you Zayasu Ukyo?” Jon asked, using his best fake British accent.

“Yeah,” He tilted his head, analyzing us.

He was actually younger than I had imagined him to be. He had straight black hair, intentionally messed up in all directions. I could have said he looked like he had come straight out of some Manga but his eyes were smaller. The black stud earring in his left ear made him look more attractive only. He was wearing a gray button-down shirt over black jeans, and he looked ready to go somewhere.

Why did Victor’s friend have to be this good-looking?

“You are Karen,” He said in his deep voice. It wasn’t a question. Then he looked behind me. “You two must be Nathan and Jon.”

I felt completely stupid for staring at him so shamelessly. I cleared my throat. “How do you know us?”

“I know a lot of things. C’mon in,” He opened the door wider for us to walk in. “Don’t stand there gawking at me. You all look like you’re doing the mannequin challenge.”

Jon walked through the door first, observing his surroundings. I followed behind him. Nate was the last one to enter the house. He kept glancing at Zayasu with the mere expression of suspicion written on his face. Whereas Zayasu looked comfortable having strangers in his house, we were acting as if he was going to kill us anytime.

His house was neat. I was expecting a messy house because Crane had told me Zayasu lived alone. The blue wallpaper seemed new, and everything was kept in the right place. Paintings were hanging on the walls, a goldfish was swimming in the fishbowl placed on the tiny table and a backpack was lying on one of the sofas.

Nothing seemed out of place.

Even I wasn’t this good at keeping my room clean. And here this guy had a whole house to himself. How the hell did he manage to do it?

“Please sit down, Karen” I heard him say to me.

Nate and Jon were already sitting on the sofa. Jon had even started making faces at the fish in the bowl. This made me question my decision to bring him along with us.

“Your house is great,” I said, sitting down. “You’ve kept it tidy.”

His dark eyes stayed on me for a while before answering. “Hey, that’s really nice of you. I try.”

“You live here alone?” Jon asked in an investigating tone.

“Yeah, since college started I’ve been living alone,” Zayasu replied.

“Are you actually a wizard?”

“Yep,” Zayasu grinned. “Were you expecting someone with a long white beard and a pointy hat?”

This seemed to offend Jon.

“You know, for a Korean, you speak awesome English,” Jon commented.

I sighed. This conversation was going off-topic. We were here to know about Victor’s whereabouts, not Zayasu’s ethnicity. I was going to speak when Zayasu’s deep voice interrupted.  

“First of all; I’m not Korean, I’m Japanese. And secondly; my entire life, I’ve lived in the States, so I guess I can speak pretty nice English.” He twitched his perfect eyebrows up as he talked. “Can I take that as your last question?”

“Honestly, I’m kind of disappointed to see you.” Jon shrugged.

I shot him the best glare I could. This was the downright rude side of Jon.

“But I’m not disappointed to meet you, Jon. Victor mentioned you being a pain, and I’m happy that he was right at describing you.” Zayasu replied simply. Wow! He was a person who could kill people with kindness. “He always looked for new offensive words to describe your personality to me.”

“Yeah, that certainly sounds like what Victor would do,” Jon rolled his eyes. “He is such a narcissist pig.”

“Where is the lie, but you’re a tough competition.”

Jon opened his mouth then closed it. As his face fell and I started laughing.

It felt good to laugh after nearly a month of grievance over things I had lost. Even though the final exams had gone fine, I was still unable to sleep. After meeting Crane and getting that note, my life had become miserable. I mostly kept thinking about how I would react if Victor appeared at my house or anywhere.

There was still no news about Victor. I didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing.

What Zayasu had said wasn’t a riot, and I had no idea why I was laughing. I realized that I couldn’t stop laughing. Tears formed in my eyes and my stomach started to ache. Jon ran over to sit next to me. The room was silent except for my voice. I wasn’t laughing anymore.

I was crying bitterly.

“Hey, it’s gonna be fine,” Jon hugged me.

I gasped for breath.

“I’ll get her some water,” Zayasu spoke. I heard him leave the room quickly.

“Karen, stop putting so much pressure on your mind and heart. It’s okay to be sad and it’s okay to cry sometimes. You don’t have to act strong all the time,” Jon whispered. “I know you haven’t cried since he...Look at you, I’m sure you’ve lost ten pounds.”

“I can’t,” I gulped, finding no words to say. My breath was caught in my throat.

“You just need a hug, princess.” Jon held me tighter, rubbing my back.

“We’ll find him, Karen,” Nate assured me. “Stop thinking that you’re alone in this. We’re with you and we’ll always be standing with you for support.”

His words sent a wave of anger and frustration in me. I softly pushed Jon away and turned to look at him.

“I don’t need your support, Nate.” I blurted out. I was tired of playing nice to the being he was now. “You’re the last person I would ask for any support.”

“Why would say that?” He looked confused.

“Stop pretending as if you care for anyone other than Kaitlin,” I spat. “This is not about any of us, right?”

“I’m just—” He started but stopped as Zayasu hurried back from the kitchen.

“Water,” Zayasu handed me a glass of water. “Are you gonna be alright?”

“I’m fine,” I spoke immediately. I wiped my tears and looked at him. “Let’s talk about real matter.”

Zayasu nodded and took the seat across us.

“How did you find me?” He asked.

“Crane gave us your address,” Nate frowned. “Victor never mentioned you to me though.”

“So, Crane sent you here. What did he tell you exactly?” He asked. “He had called me two days ago, to tell me about Victor’s disappearance but can you explain what actually happened?”

Jon began the story, stating Victor and Nate were fighting over Kaitlin. He told him how Victor had betrayed us and how he had promised Nate about bringing Kaitlin back from the other dimension. Jon explained the whole scenario in the woods where Victor had acted crazily with blood on his face.

I couldn’t help, but feel sad again. It was similar to those times when you get tired of being angry all the time and eventually grow sad because you realize there is no point in being angry anymore.

Zayasu silently stared at the floor for a long time after Jon stopped talking.

My patience was wearing thin.

“He said Victor wanted me to meet you,” I replied. “Look, we aren’t here to ask you for help or anything. I don’t need you to teach me or train me. I’m just here to ask you if you know where he is.”

“I’m glad you came straight to the point,” He chuckled and then shook his head. “No. I don’t know where he is.”

Jon and I grumbled at the same time. Our last hope was gone too. He didn’t know where Victor was or he wasn’t keen on telling us. The last thing I wanted to do was attack him and ask him for answers. He was a trained wizard and it would be a very stupid move if we tried anything like that.

“Are you sure you don’t know?” Nate asked in a voice that wasn’t polite.

“He didn’t give me details. The only details he gave me, were on Karen,” Zayasu smiled. “He wanted me to teach you how to use your powers properly, without losing control over your head. Sometimes, supernatural creatures have an inner battle between listening to their nature of powers and their human morals. I was going to come to meet you with him this month, after your graduation party.”

“You know about our graduation party?” Jon asked.

“Who doesn’t? There are like two schools in our town,” He held up two fingers. “I don’t know where he is but I can help you find him.”

I was about to consider his option when I stopped to process everything in my mind. How could we trust him so easily? I mean, he looked normal with us and all but we couldn’t be sure whose side he was on. And Victor had already warned us not to trust anybody.

Trusting Victor on bringing Kaitlin back had proven to be the worst decision this year.

This was a trust paradox.

“No, we should go now,” I responded, getting up quickly. “You’ve helped us enough.”

I didn’t want to sound this mean but it came out as mean as it could. Jon nudged me with his elbow which I chose to ignore. He was probably trying to make me stay and listen to Zayasu.

“Victor wanted us to meet, so I think there must be a solid reason for that. But if you aren’t interested in taking my help, I can’t do anything. It’s your choice whom you want to be with you,” Zayasu gave me a friendly smile. “But if you ever want my help, I’ll be here.”

“Sure,” I murmured. Even though I knew there was nearly one percentage chance I was ever coming back for any kind of help. “Thank you for—”

“Nothing,” Jon interrupted.

I was too worn out to glare at him.

“My pleasure,” Zayasu’s eyes became smaller when he smiled. “You can always use a little help, you know.”

I nodded biting my lip. This couldn’t get any more awkward than it already was. When we got out of his house, I sensed that Nate was avoiding looking in my direction. Fine. If he was going to remain a coward, I couldn’t care less.

“I don’t trust that guy,” Jon said. “I’m not getting any good vibes from him. He didn’t even look like a wizard.”

“Jon, I don’t know what your definition of a wizard is, but to me, I got a lot of positive vibes from him.” I said truly, “We just can’t trust someone who we just met, so we’ll pass. We can handle this together and I can train myself.”

“Of course,” Jon nodded quickly. “I’m always with you.”

“What’s the next step?” Nate asked.

Before I could answer, loud police car sirens rang our ears.