'What?' Lisa nearly choked on air.
'I know it's shocking to hear but the reason why so many people are in this room is because we all worked on the task force of bringing him in here. As you may have noticed on your way in, this place isn't exactly small. That's because it's also a holding area for dangerous supernaturals, and he is on the list Lisa.'
Grace sat down and next Alma spoke from beside Lisa.
'It's true. There's obviously a lot of things he did not tell you. As Grace mentioned, there was a task force a couple of years ago to bring him in after the ordeal with Hire an Incubus, and I was head of that task force.'
'What happened?' Lisa asked, she had a feeling that she was about to be shocked. Achilles had never once mentioned anything about Hercules, why would he feel that it was unimportant enough to leave out? With the brevity that these people were speaking with, something big had obviously gone down, one of those things being murder.
'Well, years ago as you know, Achilles got a human woman pregnant. This was against his contract as human and incubi offspring are yet to be completely researched, we don't know if it's safe.'
'Well...that sounds a little speciest don't you think?'
Alma raised her eyebrows. 'Lisa, we're not against the idea because we think there's something immoral about it, we're against it because we simply don't know the chemistry of something like that. We know that Achilles is a result of human incubi reproduction and look how he turned out. We think it's something in their DNA that hard wires them like that. There's a line that gets crossed when a human and an incubus have a child, you're mixing our regular humanness with something that is fundamentally a demon.'
Grace shot her a look and Lisa refrained from speaking further. Alma took a deep breath and continued;
'Anyway, as I was saying, when that happened, Hire an Incubus obviously had to reprimand him, and he attacked him, then they called us and we brought him in. It was not an easy task, he was insane with rage, truly everything you would expect a demon to be at its core I suppose.'
'Well obviously he was mad, Damian probably tried to kill him!'
Alma sighed. 'I don't think you understand Lisa. We had to have a task force of armed men just to bring him in. When we finally did get him in, we had to isolate him for two weeks before we could even speak to him, and in that time we learned some very interesting and troubling information through surveillance.'
Alma opened up her laptop and switched on an overhead projector where a thumbnail for a video was now displayed. In the thumbnail was a man, presumably Achilles, standing in what looked like a cell.
Alma pressed a button and the footage began to play. What Lisa saw next unsettled her. It was Achilles and he was pacing furiously around the cell. She could hear choppy audio of what sounded like another language, or something inhuman being spoken. Halfway through the video, he stopped and without a moment's notice launched himself at the camera, snarling. The most troubling part of it was how red his eyes were.
Alma paused the video. 'Let me draw your attention to this Lisa, his eyes, I'm sure you've seen them before in this state, no?'
Lisa nodded slowly.
'Well, take a long hard look at this Lisa, because this is the real Achilles.'
'I don't understand what you mean.'
'Two weeks he stayed like that Lisa, for two weeks his eyes were red, no changes, no composure in his behaviour, just pure unfiltered chaos, but then, after two weeks, something changed. It was like some calm had settled over him and his eyes changed back to grey.'
'Your point?'
'We realised something. That there are two sides to him. The manipulative, raging evil creature that he is and the cover up human side that he uses to hide it. Whenever his emotions get too hard to remain calm, he changes back to what he is and the red eyes come out. However when he gains some composure, the facade comes back and his eyes go grey.'
'A lot of people have different aspects of their personality!' Lisa was trying to reason, she really was. The person that was on the screen was not the person that she had met. Achilles wasn't evil or manipulative, he was the opposite.
'Lisa, I know you may think the person you met is not him but trust me, everything he is is just one side of him pretending to be better, he tries to act human but he is not human Lisa, he's an incubus. It's the more dominant side of him, and everything you experience is just his inner creature trying to fool you.'
The chair screeched as Lisa pushed it out to stand up. 'That's it, I've had enough, I'm leaving, I don't believe you. The person I met, is not evil or any of those nasty things you said, I'm sick of hearing it!'
'Before you go, there's one more thing I think you need to see.' Alma said sternly. Lisa stood there with her chin stuck out indignantly and her arms folded across her chest. 'Fine, go on then. However, I doubt it will change anything.'
'I don't think so.' Alma said.
The next thumbnail played. The audio was pretty bad but from the visual, Lisa could see Achilles in a cell again only this time he was sitting at a table, there was a man sitting across from him and the room was very heavily guarded. Lisa watched in silence. The seemed to be exchanging conversation. It continued like that for the next thirty seconds or so until something changed. Achilles' demeanor had changed almost instantly and Lisa could hear low growls that was definitely his voice, although there was something darker, more sinister in it.
'You're a fucking dead man. A fucking dead man!' Lisa heard the roar of his voice and suddenly the incubus was on his feet. He had grabbed the man across from him by the throat and threw him across the room. The man was clearly crying out in pain but before anything else could be seen, the Achilles in the video had jumped on to the table and just before the footage cut off, Lisa saw him smile into the camera. It was chilling and unsettling and made Lisa feel ill. She actually didn't recognise the person she thought she loved. But then again maybe Alma was right, he fundamentally wasn't actually human.
'The footage cut off after then Lisa. But when he had escaped and we went down to try and help the guards, all we came across were dead bodies. Achilles killed six of them and then left. The thing is Lisa, only four of those men were actually armed. Two of them were just observing. The would have posed no threat to them yet he killed them anyway.'
Lisa actually did feel ill. She didn't know if she felt safe with him after all, and she did have no where else to turn.
'I.....I don't know what to do now.'
'We can look after you Lisa, we can help you. We want to help you. We just need to know you're on our side.'
Lisa looked at the ground, her voice barely a whisper now. She suddenly felt small, naive. 'I am.' she whispered.
Lisa looked up at their sympathetic smiles, suddenly feeling like a child. Alma's phone suddenly rang and she answered and then her face became concerned.
'Of course, right away, send him right in.'
The door buzzed and a man walked in, average height and build, he looked frantic.
'I need to speak with Lisa Farrow, it's about a friend, she's in trouble, I need you to come with me.'
Lisa sprung up from the chair like a bat out of hell. 'Of course.' her stomach plummeted, this was not a good day for her.
'This way!' The man yelled and the were almost running through the corridors until they stopped, the man looked around and then turned to face Lisa.
'What is going on?Why have we stopped?' She was beginning to feel panicked.
The man smiled softly, his voice calming. 'Relax Lisa, everything is fine, Alison is fine, it's me.'
'What?'
'It's me, Achilles.' He whispered.
Lisa took a step back. 'What? How are you doing that?'
'It's just an illusion, it's something I can do.'
'You never told me that.' Lisa suddenly felt vulnerable. He hadn't told her this. He'd conveniently glossed over that when they were having their little chat about incubus powers, why wouldn't he tell her something as important as that? Was there other things he was hiding from her? Come to mention it, he had never mentioned Hercules to her either. It was in that moment she realised something;
She didn't actually know anything about this creature.
'It doesn't really matter does it?Now come on, we haven't got long.'
'I'm not going with you.' She took a step back, then another.
'What?' His brow furrowed. 'What do you mean?'
'I heard about what you did, you killed those people!'
He straightened up. 'Lisa, I have a feeling we've had this fight before and look how it ended last time, with you nearly being killed and calling me for help.'
She wanted to hear sense from him, she really did, but that irrational part of her brain that kept telling he wasn't safe was still there - and in charge.
'Oh, because that's just how you like me, isn't it? Needing you? Relying on you to come get me?'
'Lisa, come on. Don't be ridiculous.'
'Oh, so now I'm being ridiculous?' Lisa took another step back.
He looked like he was at his wit's end and suddenly he grabbed Lisa's wrist and she lost control for a moment. It was the blackness she had felt in the forest and in the bar, like she was a spectator to herself. She swiftly pulled away and look at him both terrified and enraged.
'You just tried to control my mind!' She screamed at him, shocked. 'Against my will?'
'Lisa, stop screaming, someone is going to hear you!' Achilles whispered frantically, the illusion starting to crackle. Lisa could see, just from looking as his eyes flickered between the green of the illusion's eyes to red.
Lisa screamed.
The noise attracted attention and people started rushing out of the surrounding rooms.
Achilles straightened up and gritted his teeth. 'Lisa, what have you done?' he said, very clearly angry as people flooded the area.
Alma was now standing behind Achilles, and a gun clicked.
'Get down on the ground Achilles.'