Chapter 3 A Drink with a Demon
Chapter 3: A Drink with a Demon
T he bar was dim, the air thick with cigarette smoke and low murmurs. The kind of place where the world seemed to blur around you, where you could fade into the shadows and no one would notice. Perfect for someone like me.
I leaned back in the creaky chair, watching the bartender mix a drink with practiced ease. My gaze kept flicking to the thing across from me—Belraxas. He was an odd one, but Halloween was the perfect opportunity for him to be out in front of the world without questioning his monstrous form too deeply.
Clever . And I liked cleverness in a man.
No. A demon, supposedly. Though I’d heard every half-drunk fool claim they were something extraordinary on Halloween night.
“The underworld’s not a place many want to visit,” he said, his voice deep, low, like the phantom echo from a forgotten nightmare. He leaned forward, his presence gleaming with something far darker than any mortal could ever possess—even the ones who boasted about being evil incarnate. “The suffering there... it is deliciously eternal. The constant wail of damned souls, bound by the torment of their own regrets. It’s a never-ending chorus of agony.”
I snorted, rolling the rim of my glass between my fingers. “And yet it is exactly where you want to take me, isn’t it?”
I took a sip of my drink, letting the burn of the alcohol settle in my throat. I had no doubt he was trying to make an impression—he was good at that, I had to admit. He exuded both confidence and arrogance, two things that always led me down the path of bad relationship decisions.
Were you really considering a relationship with a demon, Lena? Oh, how far you’ve fallen…
Pfft. I always knew I would never have a normal life. Not after my first kill and the rush it gave me.
He didn’t seem bothered by my laughter. Instead, he gave me a look, like he was sizing me up—testing my resolve. “I don’t think you understand, Lena. Darkness is as real as the blood running through your fragile veins.”
The things that came out of this thing’s mouth were too cliche. Too practiced. He couldn’t be the demon he claimed to be. Why was he so forthcoming about everything? It was highly suspicious. Maybe he was a weirdo with a strange talent for elaborate halloween costumes. Or perhaps it was the drink making me rethink my decision to come on this date.
I raised an eyebrow, setting my drink down with a soft clink. “You’re really sticking with this demon thing, aren’t you? You do know I’ve met your type before. Someone gets a little creative with their costume, throws in some dark, mysterious stories, and the next thing you know, they’re the talk of the town… in every woman’s panties.”
Belraxas smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “I’ve lived longer than you can fathom, Lena. I’ve seen more death than you could ever inflict. I’m not some mortal playing at being something more.” His voice dropped, becoming a low, rumbling whisper. “I’ve seen what you do. The way you slip through the cracks of this world, your kills precise, controlled. But you’ll never know true power. Not until you see the underworld.”
I chuckled, shaking my head. “I don’t believe in fairy tales, Belraxas. And I certainly don’t believe in demons.” I took another sip, watching him over the rim of my glass, daring him to say something that would make me believe he was anything more than a Halloween lunatic. Mr. Hawkin’s body? Probably a parlor trick. Maybe he was a magician too.
But he only sat back, his eyes studying me like I was the mystery he intended to unravel. “You will,” he said softly. “You will believe me. In time.”
I leaned forward, bringing myself a mere few inches from his face, my smile slow, deliberate and flirtatious. “You’re a fascinating one, I’ll give you that. But I’m afraid I don’t have time for this. I have other plans tonight.”
I pushed my chair back, signaling the end of the conversation.
The next victim was easy to track down, his routine betraying him.
A tall, broad, dark haired man that would make any woman’s panty melt, Mr. Dawson was a high school teacher who not only had a taste for young blood, but their mothers too. He thrived on chaos, using his smooth words and cock to shatter lives and tear families apart.
It didn’t escape my notice that he chose to dress as a high school jock for Halloween. How predictable.
He currently laid on my examination table, strapped down, naked and screaming behind his ball gag. A much better position than a washed up quarterback, if I do say so myself.
“Now, now. It’s rude to yell at your host, you know? I mean, you didn’t even take off your shoes when you came in, I had to do it for you,” I chastised.
His eyes were wild as he took in all the tools around me in the simple, sterile room. The thing about growing up in a tight community is that you get hookups when you need it. As long as you cleaned up after you were done, no one questioned anything.
Dr. Vichet was our local doctor for the community. My family had helped him when he first came over to the states, lending him money to get his credentials and start his practice. We weren’t rich by any means, but we were hard workers. We scrapped all the money we accumulated “under the table” to give him the best chance at starting a new life in the land of the free.
His sense of duty and loyalty to the community made it impossible for him to refuse when I asked for a favor. Though his eyes betrayed suspicion about my extracurricular activities, the only warning he gave me was when the first shift of staff arrived to open the practice.
No one ever really questioned what went on in the hood anyhow.
Mr. Dawson’s muffled cries took me away from the memories of my childhood and I gave him a sharp glare before snapping my gloves on.
“You thought you were slick, messing with the minority girls because they were gullible. Promising them a life beyond what they knew only to weasel your way into their homes and fuck their mothers behind their backs.”
At the end of the day, they were all the same—on a highway to the pits of hell where they belonged. I was just the person who helped them transition there sooner.
Adjusting my ponytail, I pushed a few of my wayward dark strands behind my ear as I hummed, looking over my various tools.
With wicked satisfaction, I grabbed the scalpel and lightly ran it across his broad chest, watching the way his skin pebbled.
“It’s not so fun when you’re the one tied down, is it?” I taunted, pressing the sharp end of the blade a little deeper into his skin until a bead of blood ran down his side. “You enjoy dominance too much to ever think you’d find yourself in such a position.”
I climbed onto the table and straddled him, watching the way his pupils dilated with both fear and lust. He was disgusting. Did he really think any woman would waste their time kidnapping him just to fuck him? The arrogance made my lip curl with revulsion.
Leaning down, I trailed the blade down the slope of his neck, all the way to his collarbone, relishing in the way he wetly hissed behind his gag.
“Poor baby, did that hurt you?”
He let out a muffled cry and I stabbed his right chest with the scalpel until it buried itself three inches inward. His muffled yell morphed into a feminine screech and I laughed, hopping off the table to find another tool to play with.
I had to be careful before I killed him too quickly. With Mr. Hawkin’s out of my hands, I pouted at the fact that I could have had fun twice tonight but had now been reduced to one playtime—all because of Belraxas.
The next few minutes were filled with delicious cries of agony as I filleted his face open to rid him of his arrogance. I popped one of his eyes, watching the way the liquid dribbled down his exposed muscles and tendons. The ribs were always the hardest ones to crack open, but good ‘ol Dr. Vichet had the best play things lying around.
Straddling him again, I put all my weight against the sternal saw, cutting between his ribs. Every time he tried to lose consciousness, I jabbed my finger into his cheek muscles and made him scream.
Wiping my brow, I hopped off the table and tossed the saw aside, splattering his blood on the tray. The sternal retractor was my favorite part. Attaching the bottom post with its clamp onto the table, I adjusted the height of the retractor. He was passing out again and I slapped his exposed face a little more sternly, my gloved hand coming away with bloodstains.
“It’s rude to fall asleep on a date, hasn’t anyone ever told you that? Geez. I have to teach you everything around here. For a white man, you really lack manners,” I snickered. “I thought you liked Asian women, Mr. Dawson. I can’t be beyond your preferred age range since you fuck their mothers too with blackmail, when no one is looking.”
He moaned, his head slowly falling to the side.
“I bet you were a two pump chump, anyway,” I mumbled, annoyed at how soon he was giving up on this little game of ours. What was the point of these muscles if you couldn’t hang with the big dogs?
I attached the rakes to the sternum then elevated it, allowing the organs within to come into view.
In another life, I might have been a surgeon. But as the firstborn, it was my fate to either follow in my parents’ footsteps or work my ass off to help the family stand on its own, paving the way for future generations.
My thoughts grew darker. Mr. Hawkins had shattered our family’s potential with his twisted obsession for young Asian blood. Men like him were the reason I was on this path, the reason I had to do whatever it took to end the madness... and reclaim my own.
“You thought you were real hot stuff around the school grounds, didn’t you? A high school at that,” I scoffed. “With your blond hair and politician charisma,” I snarled, my anger building uncontrollably.
I made my way down the table and observed the pathetic, piece of flaccid meat between his legs, slapping it.
“This? This is what gets you into trouble? This limp thing has the power to take over your simple mind?” I snapped, slapping it again, watching it with detestation as it began to grow. Despite his lethargy, the thing had a mind of its own.
Dawson’s heart beat steadily in the open, its glistening surface mocking me. Grabbing the saw again, I shoved the ridged handle into his ass without any form of lubrication… unless, of course, if you count the blood that was currently trickling around it.
His cock waned for a second before it engorged again.
Of course. I shouldn’t be surprised.
“I wonder if I could shock you back to life if you decide to pass out on me.” The thought irked me more than it should, and I realized with a twinge of unease that I was losing the thrill I once found in these kills. Was the monotony starting to bore me? That was a depressing realization.
Or was it because my mind was elsewhere... fixated on a particular demon whose offer promised something new and exhilarating?
A chilling presence loomed behind me, claws grazing across my skin with a twisted seduction as my heart began to race in my chest. I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.
I threw my doubts at his face during our time at the bar as if we were two normal people having a night out, but it was my fear of the truth that made me dismiss him as a mere man in a costume. Because if I accepted who he truly was—and why he took an interest in me—I feared my life would never be the same again.
And worse, I feared I might actually want it.