Cara dreamed of flying again. It was an overwhelmingly beautiful feeling, this time aided by a melodic voice, urging her to let go and feel. Feel the wind on her face, lifting her body as if it were a feather. The voice caressed her, called to her, made her feel-
Cara shot up, gasping, iciness enveloping her, causing shivers to rake down her spine.
"What in the world?"
She was weighed down by water. Water that had been splashed onto her quite vehemently.
And the culprit?
Standing by her side with a bucket in his hand.
Ivor.
A dream.
A nightmare.
A reality.
Cara groaned, humphing back down onto her bed.
Wait.
Her bed?
In her apartment?
Cara quickly looked around for an angry lizard beast, noticing that her room was no longer trashed. In fact, no sign of any violence, besides her soaking form, existed in the otherwise immaculate room.
"You're awake."
Cara looked over at Ivor at his inflectionless comment, rolling her eyes so hard at him she almost thought he could hear it.
"Yeah, and I have you to thank for that apparently."
"You're welcome."
There was no emotion in his voice. It was extremely monotone, as if he was unable to pick up on Cara's own irritation. That wasn't possible though, for her irritation was quite apparent in every word she spoke.
Cara groaned again, this time in increased frustration.
"How long was I out for?"
As she waited for his response, everything that had happened ran through her mind quickly, catching her up to date. The roof, the lizard, missing sister, possibly dead mother-
Ivor's voice cut through Cara's thinking, answering her previously asked question.
"Just over ten hours."
"Ten hours?!"
Her hand came up to rub at her head, now taking notice of the bandaid that wrapped around it, covering her wound. Looking down, she noticed that other parts of her body were also wrapped up in medical gauze. She was sure that she didn't have any stocked up in her apartment, which meant that Ivor either carried around gauze on his person, or he went to the store to obtain it sometime in the ten hours that she was out. If she was at all surprised that he had cleaned her wounds, she didn't mention it. Instead, she slowly sat up, resting against her headboard.
"How does this place look like nothing happened here?"
"Because nothing did."
Huh?
Maybe Ivor had been injured more than she had thought at first glance. Perhaps he had suffered a brain injury that made him forget he had been in a fight with a giant lizard about twelve hours ago.
"The lizard? Missing sister and mother? Ring any bells?"
That got a reaction out of him. His eyes narrowed in annoyance.
"No, nothing happened here. If they are going to believe, then you have to believe it."
"Who's they?"
Ivor turned and walked to Cara's once again open window. She noticed now that it was light out, the summer sunshine pouring into her room in waves, warming it up.
"Do you enjoy stories Cara?"
Okay, yeah, he definitely had a brain injury.
It seemed he wasn't waiting for an answer, however.
"Let me tell you a story."
***
Michelle was in a great rush, her hands shaking, feverish heat emanating from her sweaty body. Her heart was beating erratically, under a grave load of stress. What she had just heard, hidden in the alcoves outside the living room door, reflected fears unbeknownst to her. The idea that her husband could be other than human was an idea never before delved on by her.
And her daughter Cara...What did that make her?
Michelle was near hyperventilating now, unhearing of the noise she was making as she paced back and forth across her bedroom rug. She needed to get herself under control. It would do her no good if Rob heard her.
As miniscule as the question was in the grand scheme of things, she wondered if that was even his name. Did she know nothing of the man she was married to?
Refusing to dwell on emotional matters, she focused her attention on a plan: A getaway plan.
First things first, she needed to get her daughters out of the house. By the sound of their laughter reverberating throughout the house, she could tell they were both in Bree's room, most likely playing house. She would need to come up with a persuasive excuse as to why she needed to take the girls out at almost ten pm on a school night.
She decided she would need to get the girls in on it if she wanted to stand even a slight chance against him. He was no stranger to raising his hands at her after a couple drinks at night. Pained, Michelle felt that his abusive tendencies made a lot more sense now after what she had just eavesdropped on below.
Steeling herself to follow through with her plan of getting the girls out of the house, she turned to make her way to Bree's room, biting at her nails, a habit she had long forgotten from childhood.
And there he stood:
Her beloved.
Her husband.
Her demon.
Robert Engel, a can of beer held in his hand, one of the many littering his office.
It seemed it was one of those nights.
Michelle Engel braced herself.
***
When Ivor ceased telling his 'story', Cara remained quiet, as she had throughout the telling of it. Her heart was beating incredibly fast. She could feel a deep sadness enveloping her. The true horror of the story had not yet touched her. Just the human sadness of a broken family.
I may be Death; an unrelenting force that takes and takes, refusing to ever give, but I can assure you that I feel for you all, especially those of you who's families fall apart before your eyes. I have been 'alive' forever and ever, so to speak, and one thing that definitely gets to me, is the complexity of Time. She does not give herself away often, and when she does, she chooses to do that which amuses her; splitting up families in split seconds, sometimes even through my employment.
What?
Do not look at me like that.
Even Death has needs, and Time is sure to pay up.
"I don't even remember my father."
It was quiet, sad, self-pitying. Ivor nodded his head.
"Yes, Michelle mentioned that you were too young to remember him accurately when you all left."
"He was...abusive?"
It was hard for Cara to believe. She did not remember her childhood much, but she definitely didn't remember a childhood home of pain and abuse. And her mother never brought it up?
Or had she just not listened? Guilt was working quickly to crawl up over her. She gulped and tried to move on before her throat got too tight to speak. Then again, her mother might have hidden that fact from her, as she had hidden so much more.
"What-what do you mean demon?"
Surely those did not exist outside of novels and movies.
"This 'story' isn't adding up."
Her head was starting to ache again, beating within her like a drum dancing to its own beat. Ivor's eyes flashed in an unconcealed anger, almost a practiced anger, and something else that was gone too quick for her to decipher.
"This does not make sense because there are many things you do not know of, Cara, parts of the world foreign to you, unseen by your eyes."
To Cara, it sounded like the 'you-don't-know-anything' conversation kids had with their parents as they got older, but she could not find it in herself to be annoyed at Ivor. Truth rang in every word he spoke, trying to make her understand. She kept quiet because that is truly what she wanted; to understand and make sense of everything that was occurring around her. It seemed that Ivor realized this, for he continued without any more prompting from her end. He walked over to Cara's closet, looking at the tall mirror beside it.
"Look in this mirror Cara."
"What?"
He looked back at her seated form over his shoulder, beckoning her forward.
"Come here and stand next to me."
She obliged, not because it made any sense whatsoever, but because she figured she couldn't possibly be any more confused than she already was. She might as well humor him.
Standing next to him, she could see their forms in the mirror, her head just barely reaching his shoulder. She could now tell that they looked the extreme opposite of each other: Her light brown hair was tinged with golden streaks, courtesy of the summer sunshine, while his hair was the color of spilling black ink, like the ruffled feathers of a crow. Her eyes were a watery blue, sensitive to light, while his were just a shade lighter than his hair. His seemed to hold an intense depth to them, as if they carried all the burden of the world. She could not seem to pinpoint exactly what existed behind those eyes that sent a shiver down her spine, but she clenched her fists slightly against the feeling. And their skin? While hers was glowing with a healthy summer tan, his was icy pale and paper thin looking, the color of his veins peeking through.
They were complete opposites in every sense, and why she felt such a pull towards him, she could not explain.
"You see us, don't you?"
His voice made her jump slightly, trying to hold back an embarrassed blush, reminding herself that he could not read her mind and would not know of her interest in him. Instead, she shifted her embarrassment into irritation, hoping to distract him until her reddened cheeks lightened.
"Have you not seen a mirror before? Usually they reflect back the image of the item or person in front of it," she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm, rolling her eyes, although she did not feel true irritation.
"You see, that is the difference between you and me. You see what is right before you, whereas I see what is within. This mirror only shows you what you think you should be seeing. But here, turn your face to look at me."
His hand came up to lightly push the side of her head to face him, as if she was immobile and could not do it herself.
"Now while you face me, turn your eyes to the side, back towards the mirror."
She did exactly that, still seeing their reflection.
"Conjure up an image in your mind of trying to catch someone out doing something wrong, an image of you looking at someone through the sides of your eyes in order to catch them red-handed."
It took a couple seconds, for his hand on the back of her head distracted her slightly, but when she succeeded, she saw the glass of the mirror ripple a little, as if a finger had just been dipped in still water, causing slight waves of disturbance. The image of their standing forms slipped away. She gasped, shocked, and the image fell away, crashing to the floor at her feet, and the mirror once again stilled, back to its glassy surface. She turned her head back to look at it.
"What was that?"
She sounded breathless, as if she had just run a mile.
"Tires you out, doesn't it?"
She looked at him, mouth slightly agape.
"What is 'it'?
"'It' is the Below. Hell would be a word more common to you. It is where all the demons exist."
"Hell is where those who sin go. You mean to tell me that-that all those who sin become demons?"
"No, that is not what I mean at all. You see, there are three levels to Hell, like three floors of an apartment, if you must.
In this instance, Ivor was wrong. There are not three levels to Hell, but four.
The first floor is where the mild sinners go, like thieves and liars. The second floor is a little more painful. It is where those that commit more serious crimes go, like rape and murder. And then there is the Below; the third floor. The worst floor.
No, I assure you, the third floor is not the worst floor. The fourth is. I would know, for that is where I reside.
No one can become a demon, but they do exist. They have existed for as long as eternity.
God banished them to the Below when they threatened harm to any living being, and so they have been locked away in the most painful of Hells, for it is in their nature to cause harm. They do not know, or wish, to do better."
Cara believed in God, and maybe some unknown part of her believed in demons as well, but it was an idea hard to wrap her head around.
"What do demons look like?"
She could not rid her mind of images consisting of giant beasts, all coming after her. Was the lizard a demon? She did not think so.
Ivor walked back to gaze out the window before answering her.
"I do not know. In this world, on Earth, they do not have solid forms. That is why they cannot exist here. And no human can enter the Below, so I do not know what their forms look like there."
The emphasis on 'humans' was lost to Cara, who was more immersed in her next question.
"But what about the lizard? Was he not some kind of demonic beast?"
Ivor laughed bitterly.
"No, that was no demon. If it had been, there is no way either of us would have survived that altercation, not with my bow and especially not with your lacrosse stick."
Cara ignored his amusement at her choice of weaponry.
"Then what was that thing? Don't tell me it truly was a zoo animal with an enormous growth spurt."
"No, I assure you, that was no zoo animal. You are correct in saying that it was a lizard beast, although its true name is in Latin: ab Inferno lacerta, translating quite literally to 'lizard from Hell'".
That was ironically accurate, Cara thought.
"They are guardians from the first and second floors of Hell. They exist to ensure that no soul escapes from one level to another. And before you ask, no, that does not happen often. It is quite literally impossible. However, once in a while, there will come an immensely powerful soul that succeeds, but they never get far before ab Inferno lacerta tracks them down and drags them back.
"Are they able to enter Earth, the lizards from Hell, I mean."
"No, they are not allowed to, for they cause much disarray and damage, as you already know."
Yeah, except her apartment no longer looked damaged and in disarray. And why did no one else in her apartment building hear all the noise emanating from her room?
"How did it get here then?"
Ivor smiled, a cold, non-amused smile that sent a chill down her spine.
"That is what we must figure out."
"We? As in together?"
"We, as in together."
She could not find it in herself to return his cold smile.