Chapter Four
Demon
“You… you can hear me?”
My angel crosses the velvet ropes, taking slow, wary steps toward me. Her eyes remain locked on mine as she closes the distance between us, watching, waiting.
She is looking for an answer, of course—hoping for an answer—unless I have mistaken the eagerness in her gaze. It is an answer that I long to give her, and yet…
I hesitate.
Not because I no longer desire to continue this communication and make myself known to her, to give myself over to this foolish fantasy that has somehow become reality.
No.
It is because the longer I linger in this prison, powered only by whatever dark magic contains me within it, the more I remember of who I am, who I was to him, who he is.
The Devil.
And because I remember, there is a part of me that distrusts everything about this strange new development.
An old, jaded part that remembers the nature of the one who imprisoned me, who wonders if this could all be yet another trick, a freshly unearthed layer to the torturous punishment my dear father has crafted on my behalf.
Old Sam Hill.
The Morning Star.
Lucifer.
I was—I am—his son, though my own name is still unknown to me.
I remember my privileged youth within his citadel, though.
Remember the years I still had my mother.
Remember the heat and the warmth of Infernus, remember the day that I was chosen to protect my father’s labyrinth, remember that he favored me.
For a time.
A time before I questioned the life I led within that infernal labyrinth, guarding the myriad of arcane mysteries he hoarded.
Before I began to view my endless subservience as an ignoble burden instead of the honor he insisted it was.
Before I wielded one of his arcane mysteries for myself and abandoned Infernus altogether, shifting planes and disguising my true form, changing myself to build a life here amongst the humans, away from him.
These runes… they made me forget my true connection to him, the way I escaped that labyrinth, the human form I chose.
But the memories are flooding back now, one after another, and their weight is almost too much to bear.
“Demon?”
Andie’s soft voice pulls me from my spiraling thoughts; my angel is real, is here, and I know that she is naught but an innocent caught in one of my father’s many tangled webs.
And even if my distrust is sound, even if she is being used to distract and mislead me, to tempt and trap me… she is a trap I cannot resist.
I move myself up and down, just as I did before, just enough to bob my head and simulate a nod of agreement.
“You can hear me,” she marvels, reaching a hand hesitantly toward me—cautious, so cautious; her fingers barely graze my muzzle. “Oh lord, this is real. This… this is real—you’re real—and I…”
Andie’s breath catches in her throat. She yanks her fingers away from my face, taking two hurried steps backward.
The distance is nothing, really.
One foot, maybe two.
So why does it feel so vast?
Why does it feel as though the ground has been ripped out from beneath me, a great rift torn open across the cushioned floor between us?
The desire to run to her surges within me, and though in my mind I feel as though I am taking strides toward her, my fixed body only bucks and rolls, jerking awkwardly forward and back again.
Her eyes go wide wide as she clutches her hand to her chest, gripping so tightly that her knuckles pale under the crimson lights. Those plush red lips of hers begin to tremble, and I force myself to go still, completely still, because it is clear that my angel is frightened—frightened of me.
Something inside me shatters at the realization, and I feel those foolish hopes of mine crumble, drifting further and further away. My angel is sliding just out of reach once more, that trap I feared closing in around me.
A low, mournful bellow echoes through the depths of my strange mechanical body, vibrating through metal and fiberglass and wires alike.
Andie retreats even further at my despondent call, stumbling backward and knocking into one of the golden poles that rope off my area.
A hollow metal sound clangs through the empty bar around us as the pole circles and circles, eventually settling back into place with a loud thud.
The weighty silence between us returns, resting heavy on my heart.
I snuff in barely contained frustration in the wake of that silence, forcing myself to remain still, to stay quiet.
But how can I attempt to calm her nerves if I cannot speak, if the only noises I am able make appear to unsettle her further, to widen this chasm stretching between us?
“Are you… are you The Devil?” Andie whispers at last, a sharp, hushed sound that cuts through the silence as she wrings her small hands together.
Ah, so that is the truth of it after all.
She fears that I am my father.
A great weight is lifted from me as her words sink in, for this angel is not repelled by the absurdity of our situation or my sudden sentience or even by me at all—no, she is worried that the rumors Old Sam Hill started are true, worried that the hysterical humans who fled this bar tonight had the right of it all along and she’s spent all these years sharing her innermost thoughts with The Devil himself.
I offer her a clear and resounding no, twisting my body back and forth.
“Oh thank God.” Andie sags with the force of her exhaled breath, pressing a hand against her breast. She takes a step forward once she has composed herself—a small step but a step nonetheless—and crosses her arms. “Though if I were The Devil, or someone like him… that’s what I’d say, too.
So be honest with me, now. Are you… are you evil, Demon? ”
Her query brings me pause.
Am I evil?
It is a question I have asked myself many times over, seeing as I have had naught but time to mull over my own morality since my punishment began. And now that my absent memories are regained, I realize that I have been asking myself that same question for most of my life.
I take a moment to ponder it now that I know both who I was and who I am, now that I know what it is I longed for in the past and what it is that I long for now.
Am I evil?
No.
No, I do not believe that I am, nor do I believe that I have ever been—though I am certainly no angel, especially when compared to the palpable goodness of the sweet mortal before me.
Two sharp movements back and forth to shake my head no, giving her my answer.
“I didn’t think you were, you know,” she says softly, biting her lip and taking two more small steps toward me, nearly as close as she was before. “I always imagined you were someone when I was talking to you. You are someone, right? Not just… not just something?”
Someone.
Someone and not something.
Yes.
Yes.
The lights surge overhead as I buck enthusiastically in the affirmative, overjoyed by her clear understanding and easy acceptance of my predicament—as clear as that understanding and acceptance can be within the limitations posed by our haphazard communications.
Being seen after so long being misused and overlooked…
A profound sense of joy fills me and the long cord of my tail begins to move of its own accord, swishing back and forth.
I… I am wagging my tail.
“Oh, now that is precious,” Andie teases, smiling warmly as she rocks up onto her tiptoes and peers over my back, observing the motions of my happy-go-lucky tail. “Definitely someone, then. But how in the world did you get stuck in this old bull, anyhow? What even are you?”
I shift back and forth, careful not to knock into her, searching for something within this bar to assist in answering her question, something nuanced enough to relay that this bull is but a mockery of my true form, that I lie somewhere between beast and man.
But there are no coded ciphers hidden upon the old license plates on the walls, no secret messages in the posters of scantily clad women with smiling faces or neon beverage signs, nothing to aid me in the message I wish to relay.
I turn toward her once more, grunting and snorting, hoping the lack of ability to provide a clear answer is explanation enough.
“Oh, right,” Andie laughs, biting her lip again. “Can’t really answer that one with a yes or a no, can you? Let’s see…” She tilts her head to the side thoughtfully, shifting her weight as she places her hand on her full hip. “Are you human?”
Another nuanced question, but one I must answer as no, shaking my head from side to side to do so.
My form on this plane presents as a human man—one whose appearance I believe my angel would be very much pleased with—but I am still Minotaur beneath, will always be Minotaur.
Father sought to remind me of that with the cursed ring he placed in my nose, removing my magical disguise and forcing me to show my true self; he soothed his wounded pride with the enchanted chains that bind me to this grotesquerie of a prison, a spiteful layer of impotency and humiliation.
“Not human…” Her eyebrows raise as she forces out a sharp breath, both hands on her hips now.
“But… well, beg your pardon, but if there are non-humans roaming about, they sure do a good job of hiding it. Is that something you could do? Like… like say this place were bustling on a Friday night, could you make yourself look like just another man at the bar in need of a drink?”
I buck an affirmative.
“Well that’s good to hear!” Andie beams, twisting her hands together.
“Only… only you ain’t human, and I don’t even know if you’re…
well now, how do I ask this? You’ll have to forgive me if it’s more complicated for you, but are you male—” she holds up her right hand, “female—” she holds up her left hand and then nods to the space between her outstretched palms, “or… not quite either?”
I turn toward her right hand, noting the way her eyes light up as I do.
An excited little noise escapes her lips as she closes the distance between us, cradling my face. “Great! That’s great. I mean… because you’re a bull, not because I…” Her mouth opens and closes several times, cheeks darkening.
My angel is pleased that I am male.
And my angel is flustered.
“I guess,” Andie clears her throat, continuing.
“Well, what I mean to say is that it’d be far worse if you’d have been better suited as a cow.
Not that it really matters, seeing as this machine ain’t exactly anatomically correct because, believe me, I’d have noticed that and…
and… you know what? Forget I said anything.
I’m gonna… gonna… ask another question.”
I huff in amusement and she flushes more, licking her lips while her hands wander, running along my neck and beneath my chains, fingers absently stroking the binding runes branded there.
“These marks look different, you know. Feel different, too. I’m quite familiar with them, as you well know, seeing as you hear everything I say while I’m oiling them up every week.
Honestly, I’m a bit embarrassed by just how much you’ve heard over the years, me blabbing on about myself, but…
could you… can you… feel me too? Feel this? ”
I shift to the side in response—a small, measured movement, one that presses my neck more firmly against her hand, rubbing against it.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Andie breathes, eyes alight with newfound wonder as she drinks me in, reverent hands leaving my neck as she moves to inspect the entirety of my frame, exploring my fixed, mechanical body.
Losing sight of her only heightens my other senses, amplifies them.
I can feel the heat radiating off of her lush body as she palms my crest, waves of warmth that fill something deep within me.
I can hear the soft, whispery sound of her thick thighs gliding against one another as she continues to walk around the cushioned floor, dragging her hand down my withers and along my barrel.
I shiver at how intensely I can sense her, my steel frame reverberating with the force of my vibrations, causing my chains to move and clank.
Because I can also scent her.
Scent the salt of her skin, the faint jasmine perfume of her hair, and there, beneath it all… the sharp, musky sweetness of her sex.
My angel is… aroused.
The scent of that arousal awakens something in me, something primal and punishing, like a thirst that cannot be quenched.
A low bellow rumbles through me when she finishes her exploration of my rough red hide, sinking to her knees before me with a dazed sort of look on her angelic face.
Desire pulses within me again, sharp and demanding at the play of disbelief and delight dancing in her deep brown eyes, at the impossible softness of her skin and the sight of her kneeling before me.
If I had a body, this would be precisely where I would want her.
But I do not have a body.
I want her—I need her—on my back.
A wave of heat washes over me, strange and arcane, bringing me a palpable sense of clarity.
Somehow I know that if I am to break free of this prison, to join my angel on the mortal plane, to reclaim my own life…
I need her to ride me.
I need her to want to ride me.