Chapter 37 Dio’s Journal - Entry 210
Everything is still swirling, but I need to try to get this written down while I remember. This is important.
After Chaosta was taken, we moved up the ritual to summon Malam.
Six hours is a long time to wait (trust me, it feels even longer now that I know more), so I asked Reem if he wanted to go with me to the boxing gym.
He declined. I could tell he was struggling.
Chaosta’s arrest puts all of us at risk.
Reem likes Chaosta well enough, but I think mostly he’s worried about the impact on the band and the four of us if this goes sideways.
I could tell that Lent and Fem were having a tougher time since they’ve been getting close to her.
I decided to go to the boxing gym by myself to kill some time, and I had some good matches. The physical exertion was grounding, and the new bruises were a good distraction.
When I got back to the mansion, there were still multiple hours to wait.
The house employees made us lunch, but some of us couldn’t eat.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Lent not eat what's put in front of him, so that really showed how miserable he felt. The limited discussion we had was tense, and arguments kept springing up about what to do. I wisely kept my mouth shut, even though at the time I was still under the assumption that she’d likely been at the mercy of drugs and made an error.
At the time, I was angry and more worried about the potential threat to the four of us and the cause, which doesn’t even get into the risk to our reputation and livelihood.
Eventually, the time came, and Malam walked through the front door.
I may still not like him, but that demon can read a room.
He took one look at all of us standing in the entry hall and asked in his guttural, angry voice what happened to Chaosta.
We all hesitated. It was Fem who found the words first and explained about her arrest.
That was the first moment I realized there was more coming because Malam was amazingly calm and composed.
He asked a couple of questions about paperwork, which we answered, and asked us to describe the officials, which we did.
Finally, he asked if she had her sword on her, and we told him she didn’t.
I was surprised, of course, to hear about the sword.
When he heard she didn’t have it on her, he asked calmly to be brought to her room.
Fem led us there, and we watched as Malam crouched and pulled a sword from beneath the bed as though he knew it would be there.
Then I got a better look at the sword, saw the blade, and realized that indeed he did know it would be there.
The reality of the truth that Chaosta had been telling us crashed down on me as I saw the fucking Demonforged blade she’d had under her bed.
Not some steel sword she found, this was a sword that was crafted by demon magic.
A sword that belongs to Malam. Still, I had to ask.
He confirmed she had summoned him at the concert, that she’s able to summon him instantly.
He told us that he was collecting the sword so it didn’t fall into the wrong hands in her absence.
In that moment, I was pulled back to memories of comedown and withdrawal symptoms when I first spent time at a recovery center.
The room was spinning, and there was sweat on my forehead.
I escaped outside to get some space and a little fresh air.
Those were not pleasant memories, and certainly not things I wanted to share with the other guys.
I still don’t quite know why I had, or am having, such a strong reaction to this. Once outside, I managed to get everything to stop spinning and settle myself a bit.
When I got back into the entry hall, Reem had Lent pulled off to the side, seemingly comforting him while Malam spoke quietly with Fem in the corner of the room.
I went over to Malam, and when I joined them, their conversation quickly ended.
I finally spoke the words I’ve been wanting to say for a while.
I was angry and didn’t know what else to do.
I’ll admit I raised my voice. I’ll admit it was unfair of me at that moment to direct my anger and other strong emotions at him and the other guys.
I just had to share my frustration about why she has to be living with us, how she’s bringing government attention and therefore danger to our door when our work is so important.
All I wanted to do at that moment was try to convince Malam that she’s not who he thinks she is.
As I explained all the stuff I see that is concerning, I finally saw the side of him I recognize.
He came right back at me. It was somehow worse than the last time we clashed.
He didn’t concede anything. Specifically, he said, “Her creation was mine, but her destiny isn’t mine to own.
You think there is a problem, talk to her about it, not me. ”
At the time, I found it confusing since there is no way he could have literally “created” her. There is no way demons have that power. It felt more like posturing than anything else.
There’s also the small fact that none of us seems to want to talk about. The fact that she may not even return.
Eventually, Lent pulled me away, and somehow in that infuriatingly charming way he has, he got me calmed down. I’m surprised he was able to do that. He must be struggling more than any of us with her absence. He’s so clearly infatuated with her.
Lent and I eventually went back to the conversation, and if I thought I couldn’t be more shocked, I was wrong.
As we returned to the group, Fem, Reem, and Malam were discussing the murder charges and what truth there might be to them.
I waited for Malam to profess her innocence and was already starting to prepare a rebuttal in my head.
Instead, he pulled the rug out from under all of us when he confirmed he not only believed she had, in fact, killed someone, but that it was an angel.
I’ve had a day to process this, or I wouldn’t be able to write this calmly.
This one took a while. At the time, I reacted strongly to that statement.
No one has seen an angel in centuries. Even if they were walking around with us, they’ve got to be incredibly difficult to kill. They are immortals after all.
The room started spinning again, and I argued with him. Told him it couldn’t have been an angel. As I was trying my hardest to focus on the facts, Fem said quietly that Chaosta had tried to tell him this months ago.
I could relate. So many truths I’ve clung to were being ripped apart in front of us.
Fem shared that at the time she’d said it, he’d thought it was the pain meds from her leg injury.
That he thought she was seeing things. She’d been upset by receiving care from what she claimed was an angel healer and said she’d just killed an angel.
I hadn’t heard about that specific incident, but the other guys had told me about how she’d hallucinated when she was on pain meds.
Malam shared that there are angels walking among us and only demons can see them, well, demons and Chaosta.
He said demons are also able to disguise themselves, but he has no need to with us because they knew what he was when he was first summoned by the old lead singer.
Malam shared that the city officials who had taken Chaosta were likely angels, and they’d most likely be holding her at the angel stronghold.
He also confirmed that angels are extremely hard to kill, but they can be killed more easily with a Demonforged blade. He also shared that angels and demons have an uneasy truce and haven’t killed each other outright in centuries, but that wasn’t always the case.
I’m not proud, but I lost it again. I was suddenly screaming at him about how he’d gotten us in this mess with how he spoils her.
I’d finally put everything together and realized that by “create,” he must have meant that he taught her how to wield a sword.
I screamed at him about how I couldn’t believe how irresponsible it was that he allowed this “unstable weapon” to live with us.
I was upset about him allowing her to continue to carry a sword when he knew she had hurt or killed someone previously.
I can still picture all their faces. In the end, I put my fist through a wall before I left the mansion to get some air. When I got back, Fem needed to stitch me up. Not like he didn’t already have enough on his mind.
I need to get control of my shit.
Even now, a day later, my hands are shaking, and I haven’t been able to concentrate. Fem is being surprisingly kind to me, even though I can tell he thinks I’m out of control. The others are treading carefully like I’m a bomb that’s about to go off.
Damn it, I’m going boxing again, stitches and Fem’s advice be damned.