10. Chapter Nine

Ifeel as though I am floating through a dreamlike fog, drifting endlessly in some sort of subconscious purgatory. It must be an eternity that I am there, trapped on the edges of sleep. Part of me wants to stay here forever, while the other part realizes that life hasn't stopped and I need to wake up.

Drunk on the soothing silence of this place, I stay. It is not just my body that is resting, but my mind too. The peace I feel here is heavenly. My body is so exhausted, I know instinctively that I need this rest.

Although I plan to stay here and heal whatever invisible wounds need healing, something tears me out of my blissful state and thrusts me back into reality.

I jolt awake, shooting upright in my bed. My breath comes out in harsh pants like I just broke through the murky surface after diving deep into some dark body of water.

I glance around my bedroom, but it is still dark, and the orange glow from the street lamp outside casts an eerie light throughout the room. I turn my head to stare at my clock, frowning at the time.

3:33 am.

Seriously? This again?

I sit there, knowing that something woke me up. Fear bubbles in my gut, wondering whether it was Daemon or another errant demon. The silence that surrounds me is heavy, but nothing happens. I sit there for at least five minutes, but I don't feel any presence, good or bad.

Sighing, I lay back down and pull the soft cotton sheets up around me. If something woke me up, it isn't here now. Considering it was 3:33 am when I looked at my clock, I can only assume it was paranormal in nature.

My mind drifts towards thoughts of protection wards for my bedroom, and soon enough I am flirting with the edge of sleep once again.

Just as I feel myself slipping out of consciousness, I am shocked back into reality as my bed sheets are pulled down away from my body. I heave myself upright, using the surge of adrenaline to throw my back towards the baseboard of my bed, trying to clutch at the sheets that are now out of my reach.

My breath comes harshly, my chest tight from panic. I blink rapidly to clear the blurriness of sleep, my eyes shooting back and forth across the foot of the bed where my sheets are clustered together in a mess.

My room no longer feels empty. There is an oppressive darkness, a cold air that has found its way inside, threatening to turn my rapid breaths into hyperventilation.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

From underneath my bed.

I want to scream, but the sound is lodged in my throat. My eyes focus, the darkness shifts, there's something there.

Something at the foot of my bed.

There's a hand snaking up from beyond the baseboard to grip at the cluster of bed sheets beyond my feet, long skeletal fingers black as night, clutching desperately at the soft material. Fear explodes inside of me and my vision pulses from my skyrocketing blood pressure. It's not Daemon. The energy feels so wrong.

"Li-ttllle… wiii-tch…" The sound it makes is sickening, like a hundred inhuman voices layered on top of each other. The sound is so unnatural it makes my head ache to hear it. It's mimicry, a poor imitation of the way Daemon says those words to me.

The hand moves, the fingers flexing in a way that a human hand never could.

Crack, pop, snap.

Backwards, they bend. The horrific sight of it strikes me like a punch in the gut, and the scream finally breaks free from the tight cage of my throat.

"DAEMON!"

A loud roaring erupts in the space around me, like the jaws of Hell split wide open and all I can hear is the suffering, screaming and despair of every soul trapped down there. The sound is deafening, and my hands fly up to shield my ears from the assault.

There's a brutally loud wail as a gigantic shadow erupts from alongside my closet door, spilling into the bedroom like black smoke. I know immediately Daemon is here, because his power rushes over me like the burning tides of hell's unbridled fury.

The shadows shift and contort until they form the vague resemblance of Daemon in all his demonic glory, powerful and broad and towering over whatever is lurking at the foot of my bed. A kingly set of horns curls upwards from the top of his great head like a crown and press up into the ceiling above. Expansive wings, reminiscent of an owl's, spread out behind him in all their dark, spectral magnificence before folding away into his back.

Just like at the church, I can see no details, only shadows. Just his outline, and the sight is terrifying. There are sharp points to his astral body, shapes that remind me of the eldritch horror I originally pictured when he told me his true form drove people to madness.

I wrap my arms around myself in an effort to soothe myself as I watch in horror, the shadow of Daemon reaching down and grabbing the unknown demon from beneath my bed. The thing twists and screeches in his grip, a dark hand wrapped tightly around its slim throat.

Daemon's body ripples as though his rage is a living beast, shifting and flowing like liquid darkness. His image is like TV static, flickering wildly, as though threatening to lose control and drop the veil that protects my human mind from what he truly looks like. It is unlike the demon he snatched up in his unforgiving grasp, because that lesser entity looks completely real.

The entity's face is unholy, just looking at the thing feels like my very soul is being poisoned by the sight of it. This demon is a poor impersonation of a human, as though it was once a man that was tortured so viciously that its very body became something twisted and rotten to the core.

Its pallid skin is translucent, with gaping holes that leave rotted entrails on exhibition for my petrified gaze. The lidless black eyes in its skull are unnaturally wide, with a long-toothed grimace framed by thin black lips. The thing looks like a shambling corpse, with its bones protruding and every limb dipped in the blackness of decay.

Daemon snarls, the sound making fresh panic surge up from the pit of my stomach, and my jaw falls open in shock as I watch him tear the entity in half with his hands. Black blood and rot spills around him as the body ruptures, the thick ropes of entrails collapsing into the darkness and turning straight to ash.

"Insolent worms!" Daemon's voice booms around the small confines of my bedroom. "Tell your master he will pay for this impiety!" he shouts, and the hellish noises I heard earlier rise once again to a crescendo.

I cover my ears, and watch as Daemon's mouth opens wide, the shadows within his infernal jaws turning into shades of fire as he roars.

The room shudders and trembles like the earth itself is rattled by the sound, and the unholy noise dissipates under the rush of Daemon's wrath.

My shaking hands drop away from my ears, and I hold them up in a placating gesture as I watch Daemon come down from his fury. The sudden silence soothes my aching head, the ringing in my ears warning me that my human body is not built to withstand the sounds of Hell itself.

"Selene," he whispers, his voice gentler now, though I can sense the violent current of rage brewing within him. "Beneath my rule are twenty-six legions, one of which rises now from the greatest depths of Hell to guard you."

My voice is trapped in my throat as Daemon grows larger before me, his shadows shifting and whipping out around his dark body as his power mirrors his fury. "The other twenty-five will follow me down into the Halls of Decay, where I'll tear the Marquis of Worms asunder for his insolence."

I swallow hard against the tides of his rage, his power rushing over me in hot waves, like the tantrum of a tsunami upon the shore of the earth. Thankfully, the way he appears to me is far less damaging to my sanity then it was back at the church. The ghost of my power, awakening slowly, must be helping to shield my mind from the nightmarish reality of a demon in my presence.

If only people knew what existed beneath their feet. What power, what horror, what evil lurked in the depths of the earth.

"Daemon," I finally manage to say, the tension in my body easing enough to allow me to shift towards the end of the bed. His presence is the only one I now feel. "Thank you for coming."

I watch as the colossal horned demon leans forward slightly, his shadowy chest expanding as he breathes deeply. It dawns on me that taking my scent into his body seems to soothe his temper. As though he is reassuring himself that I'm okay.

"Daemon?" I call to him again, because the great Prince of Hell has fallen silent. I reach out towards him with my hand, unsure. I want to touch him, but something tells me he would not allow it. Not yet.

"When the blood moon rises, you will find me at the House of God," his voice is discordant and disembodied. "Sacrilege beneath the dead God's sightless eye. Your soul will be mine until eternity's end."

With that, the shadows dissipate and he sinks down through the floorboards. Gone, as quickly as he came, leaving me alone in the dark with so many questions, and yet I am stunned into absolute silence.

Oh, how my world has changed so completely. I went from knowing very little of the paranormal, to feeling a powerful connection with a Great Prince of Hell and dealing with demons almost daily.

I remind myself once more, that things will never be the same. Once the veil is lifted, it cannot be put back in place.