Page 11 of Demonic Cage
“Why would you be more prone to hallucinations today?” he asks, his gaze piercing, making me gulp.
Why does this crazy person have to look so good? Because he is crazy, talking about angels and other worlds. There’s no question about it. But still, here I am, sitting next to him, instead of getting up a long time ago. Although I’m not sure I’d get far with monsters on my trail.
“I’m just very tired,” I say, dismissing the question as if it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about it.
“Is that why you’re trembling?”
I stare at him in bewilderment, but as I look down, I see my left arm shaking. My eyes widen and my lips part. I didn’t notice this. I still don’t feel it. Yet my whole limb trembles. I try to hold it with my right hand and divert my attention.
“Who are you?”
The man looks at me for a long time, leaning forward. I feel like he’s devouring me with his gaze. “My name is Darya.”
That’s all he says, and I feel a nerve snap.
“Okay, Darya. Either you tell me now everything that happened to me, or I’m going to get myself a phone from someone, call the police, then leave you in this miserable café…”
As if he had been holding it in until now, laughter bursts out of him. His hand slams on the table. “I just love the way you threaten! It’s so entertaining!”
He looks at me with a knowing smile. For some reason, Darya’s presence both confuses and calms me. I’ve never seen such a beautiful man, whose white skin resembles mine so much. A man who, from the first moment, I felt like I knew. Yet I thought I was just imagining him, but now… Now I’m not sure at all.
“But my patience is running out,” he says in a deep voice. “Now it’s my turn with the questions.”
I drop the fork onto the plate.He’s getting impatient? I’m about to speak, but his gaze silences me.
“How old are you?”
I scoff and angrily stab my fork into the muffin. I’ve been kidnapped, he’s talking about herebias, angels, and some non-existent but somehow existing country, and the thing he’s asking me is my age?
“Twenty-two.”
“Twenty-two. How are you even alive?”
“Why did the angels want to kill me?” I blurt out, desperately looking into those attractively misty gray eyes. “Who were those monsters? What the hell is going on here?”
“The herebias kill anyone whose blood is demonic.”
I bite my lip, open my mouth, then bite it again. The figure, who is no longer a mere shadow, follows the movement, and asexciting as it is to see him do it so openly, I won’t let him distract me.
I sigh. “So, I’m supposed to be special?”
“As we see it. Many are born with demon blood.”
“Oh my God…”
I close my eyes, cupping my nose between my two palms. This hallucination has gone too far. I suddenly slap the table and decide to play into this delusion.
“So,” I start, “I have demon blood. Got it. So even though I look like my parents, I’m not really their child, but my actual father is a demon with horns and a forked tail, who is probably the Demon King and for twenty years I’ve lived in peace. Me, the lost daughter of the Demon King and on a completely normal day, when I want to live my mortal life, suddenly the angels – sorry, herebias – attack, then my father sends a demon army after me. I guess these horrible monsters actually want to save me, but meanwhile, some of them realize they’re hungry and want to eat me.” I casually turn a piece of muffin in my mouth with my finger. I’m terribly tired. “So, is that how it’s supposed to be imagined?”
My portrayal seems to amuse Darya, but when he speaks, his voice is so cold it gives me chills. “He can’t be your father. Because the Kraldem, or what you call the Demon King, is me.”
I blink, then begin shivering as this new term enters my vocabulary. I shrug to warm myself.
I know what the word means, but there’s no French expression for it. Ruler over demons. Demon King. I swallow hard.
“You don’t seem very demonic,” I say. Which is true, aside from his gray eyes and white, seemingly dyed, hair. Maybe he doesn’t look like a monster, but, then again, upon closer inspection, he’s not quite human either. Too beautiful for that. His movements are too graceful, too effortless.
“I can’t walk around in my natural form in this world. The spies would notice it.”
