•••
Asmodeus paced back and forth in my head. For the whole night.
"Can you stop?," I groaned, holding a pillow to my face as I shuffled under the thin blanket.
It, in fact, did not stop. I huffed out a blare of smoke and squeezed my eyes shut again.
After a beat or two of silence, Asmodeus' agitation grew, therefore increasing the disaster of a migraine my head was already experiencing.
That's it, no more sleep for me. Pushing the blankets away before I trapped myself in their inviting warmth, I folded the fabric neatly and replaced all of the pillows I threw off in the night.
I opened all the cupboards in the kitchen before I eventually found some cereal. Pouring the contents into a large bowl and adding milk, I went to find my laptop to research my next victims.
Looking under the sofa for where it would normally be, yesterday's events blew over me and I dropped my cereal. "Fuck."
Quickly, I cleaned up the cereal and a short, panicked laugh escaped my mouth. No, no, no.
I scowled at Asmodeus' presence flitting around inside me with an air of anticipation - It knows someone is going to die tonight. I yanked all of the cushions off of the brown sofa, double-checking I did not leave it in a stupidly obvious place.
I froze, my throat sharpening with rocks.
The motel is a two hour journey by foot and no way am I heeding the possibility of It to get me there. I do not trust It enough despite knowing at every waking second what It is thinking and feeling.
A moment caught me. A sliver of a memory. A yellow banged-up car resting in the scrapyard, new to the fellow home, ready to be destroyed.
———
Asmodeus seemed to give me a pointed look inside my head.
We both examined the scrap of metal that vaguely resembled a car, the paint job washed off with the incessant amount of bird-shits the owner had to scrape off. Yet, they failed miserably as the white stains relented and plopped themselves around the exterior.
"We have no other choice." I scratched my nose, looking around to see if anyone else is present in the yard. A horrible stench of mould invaded my nose and I avoided on inhaling too much of it before it clogged my throat.
Asmodeus whizzed around behind my eyes, hoping to cause me discomfort. "No. For the last time, I am not using you."
"First of all, I'm still injured. Second of all, I'm not risking you killing an innocent bystander because you're 'in the mood'," I said.
Asmodeus held Its ground for a second before considering my words and retreated wordlessly to the secluded part of my brain that I can't access.
The driver's door creaked open, as if inviting me with its broken, scrawny finger and to drive it for all its worth — whatever worth that is but I know I have to make do.
No living beings dared to enter this part of the city, which is exactly why I love it. Void of any living creatures. No prancing little Faes or high-all-mighty Vampyres would ever think of stepping a mile within the vicinity, so at least I can commit this crime in peace. Is it really a crime if someone steals from a scrapyard? Everyone else seems to have self-respect except me.
Ignoring Asmodeus' boiling frustration from my refusal, I settled down on the tattered, leather chair and ignited the engine to life with the wires located beneath the steering wheel. It took a solid five minutes with the engine sputtering out smoke and failing on me, but after a good final attempt, we got there.
Now, stupid motel, here I come.
———
Regret simmered below my breast.
Gripping the steering wheel tight I breathed in deeply. All of my concentration was set on not dying on the road.
I ignored the honks that blared behind me, my attention unwavering. I may have been driving ten miles under the speed limit but I was still driving.
Soon, cars started to overtake me, despite the law saying otherwise on the cracked cement and all I could feel is Asmodeus shivering with laughter.
After hearing It continuously whine under my skin, It had enough of my stubbornness and took control. My vision blurred but shapes and colours were discernible. Wind smacked at my face from the tremendous speed forced through the open window.
Soon, the journey that was supposed to take an hour evolved into thirty minutes. I parked the car into an isolated road, knowing the motel is deep into the borders. Going in unnoticed is top priority; my slow-healing wounds also in agreement.
I need a good disguise. I usually go for victims that aren't in the same Kingdom I live in as it keeps the local forces busy with border legislations if they ever did catch a clue of my whereabouts. By the time they arrived in the current Kingdom, I would've moved across the nation.
I have seen my victims printed in every newspaper, in every town and in every city. The headlines ranging from pure lies to encouraging my actions, a response I did, unsurprisingly, expect. Not a lot of people know why I do the things I do unless they listen to the right news anchors with the right sources, nor do I care to explain it to the ones who don't.
I shovelled through my jogger pockets and found my scent blockers. I placed the skin-coloured patches that meshed into the surface of my neck glands and soothed it out, sorting out my hair so it hid the patches better.
I jumped from a multitude of trashed alleyways to the next. After twenty minutes of sneaking and hiding and pretending to smoke when witnesses passed by, I reached my destination.
Black, muscled vehicles bombarded the small, shabby motel off the side of the road. Various species clad in police uniform roamed the square of cars blocking the view from the public.
Uncertainty built within my lungs like air was a rare jewel and everyone was fighting for it.
On each car stood a sticker, an emblem with a serpent hugging a dark-blue shield.
"What the hell is the Akraton Kingdom doing here?!" I murmured. Fat, mouldy food permeated from the green dumpster in front me, my body threatening to convulse from the stench and blow my cover. Asmodeus grumbled an unintelligible response - as he always does.
Akraton Kingdom. A nation worth my time and efforts to avoid. Rumours pass and go at the same rate a train enters and leaves a station.
I nodded absentmindedly, preparing myself, and pulled up the hood from my sweatshirt and walked to the entrance to peer inside the reception. Snatching a sticker from one of the car windows and placing it on my chest, I stalked nearer so my disguise consisted more of a trainee than a hobo.
"Yeah, two women— Vampyres, both this height? Then three Satyr men came in, a lads night." The manager listed.
"Then?" An impatient, deep voice asked.
"Then— Then this person came in..." The Goblin manager stuttered, my attention glued to him in deep thought.
"Person? You don't know their gender or species?" A feminine voice slid through the glass doors, a tapping of a pen clicking from inside the reception.
The manager's voice trembled as the questioning persisted, gallons of sweat dripping down his dark green forehead. The interrogators, whose faces were obstructed by their backs, urged him to continue.
"They had a mask on and a hoodie. They had a briefcase and a duffel bag," The green man recalled.
He states that he would've installed security cameras a long time ago after a robbery but the voltage of electricity running to the outskirts were next to nothing. He needed what he had to offer for the lights.
"You called us because of a suspicious figure - a possible bomb threat. Is this the one you're talking about?" The male interjected, the pens clicking coming to a halt as he spoke.
A bomb threat? They think so highly of me.
"Yes," the manager said. Refusing to let him touch my briefcase must've aroused his suspicions.
"Room?" The female asked, running red claws through her raven hair.
"Room 15, just outside there." I saw the manager's pointed finger before I heard incoming footsteps. I rounded the corner before they found me eavesdropping.
Shit, this is all going wrong. My bones shivered at Asmodeus' fit of laughter so I ignored It for the first time since It emerged as a baby shadow of pure greed when I turned ten.
The interrogators exited the reception block and rocked up to my previous room, jingling the keys like a rattle toy.
I hid behind a car as they emerged, but when they unlocked the door I neared the inquisitive duo sniffing their upturned noses into my business.
A domino of bangs and crashes spilled out of the room that they left vulnerable to outsiders, their shadowed figures scurrying around.
Until one of them halted, silence ensuing. Adrenaline was living in my veins, anticipating the next words that would barrel out of their slimy, griping, nauseating mouths.
"What do we have here?" I heard the male say. Loud ruffles of fabric simmered through the exit until all noise stopped again.
"Looks like a laptop. What's with all the kiddy stickers, huh." The duo snickered at my childish looking device, an urge to rip their heads off emerging from both Asmodeus' soul and mine. Goodebumps riddled my skin as a dark film glimmered beneath it.
"Stop it—" I quietened myself as soon as I heard the chuckling stop. Asmodeus slid back into the inaccessible parts of my mind and escaped the situation.
I leaned in closer to hear their hushed voices but the door swung open, crashing me backwards into the pavement, hands skidding across the cement, a flaming sensation erupting on my palms.
A scowl painted the female's lips at the man and at me. I scooted backwards hurriedly and my hood dropped off my head, revealing who I was tracking for the last thirty minutes.
I finally saw them.
They were not of this Earth - they were hand-made by angels that envied their own products. Different, frightening, beautiful. In all the ways one could imagine.
Narrow, blood-red eyes that adapted the essence of lava itself; boiled and brewed by a fire God to view upon in awe of its destructive passion.
He isn't of a regular species I'm familiar with. There are: Daemons, Werewolves, Fairies, Sirens, Vampyres; you name it and this flying piece of rock has it.
But never have I seen something so bewitching that my eyes did not blink in his presence. I only knew so much from constant research of my victims and their personal records so I've acquired a few facts about the world we live on and the hidden societies amongst the shadows. He's a hybrid. A mix of Daemon and Werewolf.
A Hellhound.
They're known to inhabit the hotter areas of the world, like deserts. In the archaic era before humanity began to internationalise, they guarded sand temples from grave stealers and curious human archaeologists.
Then her, eyes as green as a dewy field in the countryside with flecks of ocean-blue wading in her grass-coloured beams of sight.
A siren. Pale-blue flesh as vibrant as the shallow sea. Voice as velvet as a Royal Blood's bed sheets. Creatures born from the wrong doings of men.
Their ocean-coloured skin is rumoured to reflect the water that women inhale just moments after men chuck them overboard from ships to drown. A God's way of acting against this injustice was through rebirthing the victims as an animal worth fearing over many lifetimes - ones that are read about in mythology books, ones that cower away at the mention of their names by a campfire, ones that are seen permeating nightmares while smiling sweetly.
My own eyes couldn't comprehend the beings in their entirety. I broke out of my daze when they started to blame one another for whose fault it was that I fell.
"Interesting..." I mulled over, silently.
After making a move to escape, the duo's heads snapped towards me, looking down at me with bewilderment and disgust. Their eyes trailed me up and down, examining my dirt-ridden clothes and unkempt hair. Until their eyes dropped to the sticker on my hoodie, they relaxed slightly.
The Hellhound wiped a hand on his work clothes, holster belt filled to the brim of daggers and guns. A pair of striped suspenders held his black trousers up and slick, leather Oxfords hugged his feet.
A battle seemed to wage in his face before lifting his hand out to help me from the floor. I held his hand and lightning zapped through every muscle, joint, and tendon. I could not breathe, as if my organs refused to cooperate. An electrical impulse surged through my blood, the shocking intensity painting black dots in my vision.
"Are you alright?" The Hellhound tried to reel in his disgust and tug his hand away.
After the shockwave subsided, I stepped back. A putrid scent wafted from his body in sickening pulses, one that riled Asmodeus to drop Its laugh. I tried to calm Its growing anger but I got no response.
A growl emanated from the bottom of my throat subconsciously. Asmodeus wants a war that I'm not sure I can win in my current state. My wounds have never failed to remind me of their agonising presence every time.
The Hellhound seems dumb but the muscles protruding from his shirt says he's still a threat; the Siren is tall and most likely has a couple of tricks up her sleeve like brainwashing, as most of her species usually do.
These two hybrids are not one to mess with, speaking from personal experience. I left that fight thinking I won a war against a thousand men.
Akraton are the second biggest Nation in the country, finding an experienced code decipherer to log in and find my address is nothing short of brushing dust off their shoulder.
With the humongous amount of resources in their possession, the time it'll take to narrow their suspect list down will be short as Akraton's advanced technology will help them massively. So, in theory, I have less than a day to get out of Omari Kingdom
Shit.
I robotically wave my hand in goodbye and hurry out. The duo stood there, dumbfounded. I looked back and found their glowing eyes picking into me, leaning in to each other to whisper. They nodded and the female pressed some buttons on her watch whilst the male dispersed from the motel and retrieved my footsteps.
I feigned normalcy but his footsteps increased in volume every other step I took. Looking around, I dishearteningly inspected my damaged nails and some products in passing shop windows.
Yet, the Hellhound kept following.
An alleyway opened up to the left and as I turned the corner away from his sight, I dashed for the ladder crawling up the side of the building.
I heard faint shouting before I made it to the roof, my legs running on the adrenaline fed into my body.
"Stop!" The Hellhound yelled. Heavy boots clinked behind me.
I hid behind a brick wall that led to another rooftop. From this roof, I could see the Hellhound's head pop out from where the ladder sat. A pair of flaming red irises inspected the roof.
His body became rigid from the sudden gust of wind that flowed past him, his head whipping to the direction where I hid. I ducked down and held my breath. His eyes burned through the brick that I was hiding behind.
I picked up on his breathing, which turned from ragged to even within seconds. Hearing a sigh of defeat paired along with a rattling of metal, I peered around the wall to see his head and hands slip behind the walls of the roof.
Relief flowed in my veins and I could breathe again.
"Boo." The Siren's face appeared, a sinister smile cracking her face. "Found you."