A chill travelled down my back at the change in his demeanour. I had a feeling this would be an ultimatum with only one choice.
I held his darkening eyes for a moment, exhaling softly as I cut another piece of waffle. "What is it?"
"Angels still gather, right?"
"Yeah." I replied dryly. "I just told you."
"Good. I need intel on their next move."
I was silent for a few moments, using the act of pouring syrup as a way to stall. "Didn't I just tell you they sit there in silence and drink? It's downright creepy."
"They're not sitting there in silence." Lou straightened up, eyes reverting back to normal as I kept humouring him. "They communicate in ways different from demons."
"Clearly. Is it telepathy?"
"Of sorts."
I paused, looking up from the puddle of golden liquid in my plate. "Will I get telepathy?"
"Who knows?" Lou shrugged, reminding me of his absolute cluelessness about my situation. "Even if you did learn that, you won't understand what the angels are saying. The frequency it functions on will literally melt your brains."
"Okay." I took a bite, crunching through the chicken and waffles as I leaned back in my seat. "You're telling me... I can't listen to angels without my head absolute getting juiced. And you also told me earlier, that I can't even look at their real form without my eyeballs also getting absolutely juiced. How exactly do you want me to help?"
"I can teach you." He cocked his head, holding out his open palm. "With enough demon essence in you, you'll be able to handle their voices in your head."
I raised an eyebrow at that. "You... want me to absorb more demon essence from you so I can eavesdrop on the angels... for you?"
"Yes." There was not a flicker of doubt in his eye. "Demons have numbers versus the angels. But the angels have strength. On a good day, it takes five demons to down one angel. On a bad day, it can take even twice or thrice as much."
"Those numbers are pretty bad." I nodded sympathetically, but the smile I gave him didn't mirror the nod. "But I refuse. I do-"
I was cut off as my body froze in response to sharp rise in cold. A shiver crossed through me as I met Lou's eyes. We're in public. He won't do anything... right?
"You.... refuse?" His voice vibrated in my chest. I couldn't hear anyone else around me anymore. Everything seemed frozen. The fingers of the hand he was holding out had sharp talons at the end. There were veins starting to crawl down his cheeks. "Do you... want to die?"
I exhaled softly, my breath forming into a mist. The demon essence in me was keeping my lungs working. The vise around them wasn't as intense as it used to be. "I..." I shivered as I trailed off. It was hard to move my jaw. "I... don't want... to take sides. Angels... are strong a-and..." The cold rose exponentially, a stammer entering my voice. "N-no one i-is.... watching ove-r me. I-I'm n-not... safe from... either of y-you."
"You're scared of lil ol' me?" He cocked his head, lips splitting wide open in a very fang-filled, fake innocent smile. "Have I ever done anything to threaten your life?"
"S-several times."
He rolled his eyes, dropping the smile. "Fine. You got me there."
I shivered violently, my breath was now a solid cloud escaping my lips. "L-let me go."
"Agree to help me."
"N-n-ah."
Lou shifted forward, his long fingers wrapped around my wrist, pulling it towards him. The fork clattered loudly as it slipped out of my frozen fingers. He raised his other hand, stretching out one finger and trailing it over my skin. "So, you don't agree to help me?"
"Y... yes."
"This isn't something I need your consent for, you know?" He turned my hand up, palm facing the sky. "But it will certainly make the process bearable. Either way, it has to be preferable over death."
"Heh..." My body shook with laughter but no sound escaped my freezing lips. "Y-you mean... Get killed by the-the angels, or... get killed b-by you? M-my options... are e-endless."
Lou smirked, trailing a nail over my palm. "I'll protect you, Ryleigh. I protected you when the angels wanted to kill you."
"T-thank you... f-for that." My nod was stiff and slow. "But i-is there any point... in protect-protecting..." My tongue was going numb. My lips were cold. "... me from so-something y-you caused?"
His talon stopped right on the top of my finger as I said that. "It's like you don't think I take any responsibility for my helpers."
"I d-don't."
"You're mean." He let go of my hand, it stayed in it's frozen position. He exhaled softly, black veins retreating back into his eyes and hand turning back to normal. Time started moving around me again and the chatter returned. I exhaled harshly as I felt the warmth and feeling return to my body. I could move again.
I shuddered once more, waking up the rest of my body before pulling my hand back to me. "You didn't do anything, right?"
"No." Lou replied, voice dry. "You would have felt it."
I rubbed the back of my neck, grabbing my fork again. "That sounds awful." I didn't have an appetite anymore and the waitress was approaching the table with the omelette I'd ordered. I spoke up before she could. "Uh, hey. I have to leave right now, so can you actually put that for takeaway along with two more chocolate berry smoothies?"
"Sure, no problem." She smiled back, turning to look at Lou. "Can I get anything for you, sir?"
"No, thank you. The bill is all."
"Sure, sir. Give me a few minutes." She stacked up the empty plates as we sat in silence for a while. She took another few moments to pick up our empty smoothie glasses and left only my still half-full plate on the table. She made eye contact with Lou again, smiling as she placed a fresh napkin in front of him. Lou smiled back at her absently, not interested in the least at the number she'd written on it.
She turned around and left. Lou picked up the napkin, glancing at the number before crushing it and dunking it in his water glass. The napkin unravelled, I saw a '6' start to bleed. "Well, this was a waste of time." He mumbled to himself.
I rolled my eyes, taking bigger bites to finish up. "Oh, yeah. I'm sorry I didn't want to be turned into a demon spy for you."
His eye twitched. "Do you want me to get mad again?"
"Do whatever you want, Lou." I replied, equally irritated. "You set me up to serve you drinks every night for a few hours and now you don't even bother to get your ass in there."
"Well, I'm fucking sorry I'm trying to prevent the extinction of my species!"
"And I'm trying to prevent the extinction of my existence!" I hissed back, stabbing a waffle way too angrily. "You're not the only one who has to watch out for yourself, Lou."
"Yes, but you can never imagine being in a position where it's up to you to save your entire species!"
"And I'd rather fucking not!" Both our voices were steadily rising in anger. "So, leave me alone! I'm not helping you if it's going to-" I cut myself off, realising I was drawing eyes. "If it's going to..." I leaned in, lowering my voice. "... get me killed. Got it?"
"Crystal clear." His mouth was turned down into a sneer. "You clearly don't know how to repay favours."
I groaned loudly, letting my head fall back to stare up at the sky. "Don't give me this sob story, Lou. I'm not immortal. I can't bounce back from jumping off this cliff you're proposing."
"It's not a cliff. Don't be overdramatic."
"It is for me, Lou." I shrugged, popping in the last bite on my plate and chewing. "I'm less than ten percent demon and angel. I can't do what you guys do."
"Yeah, yeah." He dismissed as the waitress reached our table. He pulled out his wallet, picking out a random number of notes and slapping it against the leather case. "Keep the change."
The chair scraped as he stood up, pausing to stretch his arms above his head as I took my takeout bag out of the hand of the dumbfounded waitress. I waited patiently for him to finish as all the eyes in the vicinity watched his lithe form. I'm not going to lie, it was a good show. It was a very good, very purposeful show.
"You done?" I spoke up dryly as he smoothed his shirt down.
"I'm sorry, did I make you wait?" He turned to glare at me.
I rolled my eyes, ignoring him as I pulled out my phone. "Just poof away already."
"'poof away'- that's so insulting." He fell into step beside me as I headed towards the curb. "I'm not a fucking genie."
"A genie wouldn't make my life miserable."
"Okay, then. What's your three wishes, mistress?"
I didn't even look up from my phone. "Let's start with you leaving."
"Bitch."
"Asshole."
"Ugly."
"Yet you so desperately want to sleep with me."
"A lapse in decision you're going to regret."
"Oh no." I looked up from my phone, glancing up and down the street. "Another regret."
"Damn right." He was now standing beside me. "One day, when you're old and dying on your deathbed-"
"'dying on my deathbed'- doing great today, Lou."
"Fucking hell, just shut up. You're so mean."
"Said the literal king of demons." I spotted the cab. My hand moved in a shooing motion as I turned to look at Lou. "Now, go away. My cab is here."
"I hope you don't get into a crash." He smiled at me. "Safe journeys."
"Go fuck off and teleport yourself into a volcano." I retorted as I waved at the cab. It stopped in front of me.
"See you later, Ryleigh."
"Yeah, yeah." I replied absently, pulling the door open and getting in. "See you, Lou."
I exhaled softly as I sat down in the car. The driver asked my name before pulling away from the curb to my present destination. Resting my head back, I turned to look out the window. Lou was gone. Nothing new about it.
My right hand tingled. I clenched it into a fist as I remembered him grasping it. Raising it to my face, I opened it, looking over my palm. Nothing wrong with it. Or nothing that I could see wrong with it. His skin had been unbearably cold as usual. His talon had dug into my skin a bit. I felt slightly paranoid about something being wrong, but I don't think Lou had actually done anything. And what's weird enough, I actually the trusted the guy.
I rubbed my hands togetherness, clasping them tightly till my knuckles were white and my hands were shaking. Nothing was wrong. Nothing at all.
But this feeling of awful foreboding after Lou confirmed that the war had started regardless of talks was giving me a bad taste.
Angels were dying. Demons were dying. Neither had done me any favours... most of them had been pretty nice to me. Mike had been a stickler for the rules since the beginning, but he'd been pretty helpful, after the initial seduction thing he tried on me. Lou had been an asshole pretty much since the beginning, but we'd both relaxed around each other. I couldn't speak for the rest of the demons because I didn't talk to them everyday. Neither for the rest of the angels because they mainly didn't talk, but they weren't all bad. There are always a few bad eggs in a basket or something. Right?
This war was something incomprehensible to me. It was something incomprehensible to a lot of other humans as well. Mike had said that I was a tiny speck in the existence of both these beings. My flame would only burn bright for a hot minute or maybe not even that. I didn't matter to them. I'd be gone in the blink of a eye for them. But they were also gone in the blink of an eye for me. That's how war is. Unknown names and unknown faces lost to the void.
The cab ride was short. I didn't even realised I'd reached my apartment building till the driver turned around to glare at me because I hadn't left the car yet. I paid him, left my bags with the receptionist and headed out once again to buy some groceries. I was highly distracted the entire time, going in circles in my head trying to figure out what I could only to get deflated by the fact that I don't matter and neither does my opinion.
I hated the fact that my mind kept going back to Lou. To his request for help. Maybe I should have taken it- it would have saved demon lives. But then again, demons are more in number, and that's obvious even with just a glance at my bar. There were new demon faces in my bar more often than there were new angel faces. Does that mean the angels deserve my help?
I hadn't felt the need to sleep in a few weeks now, but as I walked back to my apartments building, all I could think about was how nice my bed would feel. Closing my eyes and letting my thoughts vanish for a few hours, I'd never missed it as much as I was today.
I hesitated a bit as I was typing out my passcode. I could feel something. An uncomfortable aura. Great. This one now.
I went right to my kitchen counter to offload the groceries in my hands and drop my bags to the kitchen floor. My apartment seemed empty at first glance.
"Mike!" I called out, almost yelling as my eyes flickered around the kitchen and living room. "I know you're here! Come out!"
There were a few moments of silence before I felt a gentle, warm gust. And there he was. Standing in my living room.
"I hate to admit this..." No greeting? "But the demon was right." Mike started walking towards me, eyes running over me. "You really do have impressive instincts."
"I'm pretty sure the angel and demon essence keeping me together has a hand in me being able to sense you two." I looked him over. I was more surprised at the fact that he was dressed casual in a white t-shirt and jeans than the fact that he was here.
"Might be. We have no way of ascertaining that." He came to a stop at across the kitchen island from me. "How have you been doing, Ryleigh? Any new changes I need to be made aware of?"
"No." I raised my hand, squinting at it in hopes of something changing. "Still can't sleep, still can't see my aura, still can't feel a lot, still can see other's auras. Nothing new in this department, Mike."
"Are you hiding something?" He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the marble. "You seem rather agitated."
I raised en eyebrow, pressing my hand against my cheek. "Can you read my aura?"
"No. I cannot." His blue eyes flickered around me. "It is not visible anymore."
"Yeah, Lou said the same thing." I sighed softly, letting my hand drop as I started to unbag the groceries. "So, how's it going? Where have you two been?"
"When did you last meet the demon?"
I glanced up at the clock. "Less than an hour ago. Why?"
"Your demon essence is still rather active. Did he do something to you?"
Confusion crossed through me. I looked up with my hand wrapped around a packet of bread. "What do you mean 'active'?"
He shifted, taking a seat as he started to answer. "The demon and angel essence in your body, however little, reacts with you. But the demon essence reacts more to a strong wave of demonic energy, while the angel essence goes into defensive mode. It's one of the reasons why Lou's hold on you isn't as strong anymore." He paused. "It should technically be stronger, but the angel essence automatically reacts to cancel it out."
"Huh." I replied dumbly, my jaw slightly open at the sudden influx of actually useful information. Lou had spent a solid half an hour running me around in circles. "I just figured my body was now more acclimated to it because of Lou's essence."
"No, it's the opposite." Mike was sitting ramrod straight, eyes barely wavering from my face as he continued. "His hold on you should have gotten more powerful. He is the strongest demon in existence."
My body tensed up almost involuntarily remembering the airtight hold he had on me in the cafe. "Stronger..." Stronger than... that?
"However, that's not important." My eyes flickered back to Mike. "I have not come here to discuss your odd mutations. There is something much more important on the line here."
I nodded. "Yeah. I know. The war, right?"
Displeasure crossed Mike's face, blue eyes starting to glow with a little intensity. "How much did the demon give away?"
"Enough." I replied, turning my attention back to the groceries. "The war council failed in its negotiations, the weird weapon is nowhere to be found, and a lot of demons and angels are dying everyday."
"That is true." Mike sighed loudly, closing his eyes. There was a furrow on his brow. "The demons have massive numbers when compared to us. We are stronger, and while a few extra demons mean nothing to even a newborn angel, we do have a significant amount of casualties."
Mike seemed more concerned about his comrades than Lou had. I hesitated in reaching out, but I gave his shoulder an awkward pat. "My condolences."
"Accepted." Was his curt reply. "However, condolences will not return their lives."
"Okay..." I pulled my hand back, already regretting my words as I turned away from Mike to wash the veggies.
"They're a chaotic, wild army. With no regard for themselves or their fellow beings. Their existence itself is an abomination."
"Mm-hmm."
"Beliefs, right? That's what made them? Humanity's worse beliefs and thoughts coming together to form these vile beings. Yet, humanity itself lives in absolute ignorance of what they'd done." He paused. "Of what they've created."
I stopped in the middle of washing the apples as I felt the heat rise exponentially at my back. Another situation, but Mike was more straightforward than Lou in some aspects. It should be fairly easier to get him to relax.
I turned to the side, meeting Mike's... face. He still had his eyes closed. "Hey, Mike." No reply. "Hey, Mike. Open your eyes and come here. I need someone to wash the vegetables."
Mike opened his eyes, looking over at the sink and frowning some more. "Why would I do such a human errand?"
"To distract yourself." I jerked my head at the sink. "Come on. You're not losing anything by letting some water run over your hands."
Mike was still for a few moments before slowly pushing away from the counter. Walking around it, he approached the sink with the look of someone who had no idea what they're doing here. "What do I do?" He asked slowly.
I turned to the side, picking up a grocery bag and handing it to him. "The vegetables are in this one. Be careful. Don't bruise anything with your brutish strength."
Mike reached into the bag, pulling out a yellow bell pepper. "Brutish?" He mumbled to himself.
I felt a small chuckle escape my lips as I his brows lowered over seeing this bright yellow vegetable in his hand. He clearly had no idea what to do.
"Like this." I took the bell pepper from his hand, turning on the tap and running it under water. I kept my movements slow as I ran my hands over it and gently rubbed it clean. I could see Mike watching me with the intensity of a hawk. Less than a minute later, I held up the shiny bell pepper. "Be. Careful." I emphasized, before handing it to him.
"Careful." He repeated again, taking the bell pepper from me and looking it over. Reaching into the bag again, he pulled out an orange-red one. His eyes flickered over it uncertainly. "I have to wash this the same way, yes?"
I raised an eyebrow at that, stifling a laugh. "Yes."
He reached for the tap, turning it on and holding the vegetable under the water. With uncertain motions, he raised his other hand to start rubbing them down. I watched him work slowly like this for a while before getting back to washing the apples as well.
We worked side by side in silence for a while. Mike paused once when some water splashed onto his shirt, but by the time I turned to look at it, it was gone. He'd probably cleaned it up.
"This is very tedious." Mike finally spoke up after five minutes of silence. "How do humans live like this?"
"Comfortably enough." I replied easily. "Now, tell me what you're really here for. Don't ask about the bar, don't ask about me. Lou's already done all of that. Get to the point."
"Do demons still come to your bar?"
"Everyday." Eerily enough, this was heading down the same path as Lou.
"Have you ever picked up what they talk about?"
"No."
"Does it not interest you?"
"Not at all. Unless it is spoken to me, or willingly volunteered, I'd rather have no part of it."
I saw a wry smile form on Mike's face out if the corner of my eye. "You and the demon enjoy poking fun when I follow rules. Seems like you have some rules of your own."
"I don't follow rules because they're there." I turned away from the sink, wiping down my hands before placing the apples in the fruit bowl on the island. "I follow them because I formed them out of personal experience. Eavesdropping is fun, but you learn a lot you shouldn't."
"You offered me your condolences earlier about my fallen brethren." Mike's voice went low. "Was it just a show or do you really care?"
"It's etiquette, Mike." I replied almost blankly. "Death in any form is horrible. And I know you're going to ask if I can help you in the war against the demons, but I have to refuse." I felt the heat build up at my back. "I know you want to reduce casualties, but I'm sorry, Mike, I do not wish to get involved." I added hurriedly.
I heard the water stop. It made me stiffen. The heat wasn't dying down at my back.
It fell quiet. Uncomfortably quiet. I stopped stacking the apples, starting to feel a sweat form on my brow. My words were running back and forth in my mind. Did I say something wrong? Was something off? Was I not diplomatic enough?
"Ryleigh..." He finally spoke up, voice low, grim. My gut twisted. His voice sounded closer. "You wouldn't happen to have taken the demon's side in this war, right?"
I closed my eyes, hand tightening on an apple. "No, Mike. I didn't."
"Then why did the demon meet up with you in the morning?" The heat was rising. "To propose the same deal?"
"No." I can't tell him Lou already asked me about this. "We just ate breakfast."
"Is that so?" He was behind me. He was right behind me. "It is from him you found about the war." Not a question. A statement. "Therefore, it makes perfect sense that he asked for your help. Maybe even offered something in return. In the end, he's a demon and you're a human. Human greed is unfathomable, and demons can manipulate it. What did he offer you?"
"Nothing." I replied, keeping my voice calm and low. "Lou didn't offer me anything. He flirted with me, we ate, and we both left." I'm pretty sure telling Mike that Lou paid would not end well for me.
"Tell me what you discussed then."
"The bar. The angels. The demons. The deaths. Me. My aura. The changes in my body." I exhaled softly as a bead of sweat rolled down my brow. "Mike, even if Lou had proposed the same thing as you, I will not take the demon's side."
"If he didn't propose anything, then how did you know what I was going to ask?"
Fuck.