Page 70 of Demon
I held my breath, listening, willing the thumping of my heart to slow down so that the sound didn’t swamp my ears. Behind the door was the rumble of voices. Demon’s and a voice I couldn’t place. Not at first. But familiar. It was hoarse, husky, every word laboured. And then I knew the voice. The Kings President. Demon’s father. I shuffled closer, careful not to connect with the dog at my feet as I didn’t trust her not to put a hole in my leg just for fun.
The voices weren’t raised. But I doubted Ste could with the condition he was in. He’d deteriorated before my eyes over the three days of the rally, and at times I’d questioned whether I was the only one that had noticed. The drink and cigarettes still flowed, Ste taking part in it all like he was a young man, not one seriously ill with cancer. Yet, as I pressed closer to the door, concentrated harder on making sense of the voices in the other room, I could feel the tension.
And then it overflowed. Exploding.
“How long have you fucking known?” Demon bellowed, and I jumped backwards, Kinobi jumping to her feet, and we stared at each other, probably asking each other the same question.
Ste’s answer wasn’t audible, only a few seconds of almost silence, and beneath me, on the floor, I was sure Kinobi was holding her breath as well. Feet moved across the other side of that door. Not heavy, or clunky, but determined, angry. Demon. All he had on was a pair of boxers. I doubt he bothered to put anymore clothes on before welcoming his visitor.
“So why fucking tell me now? Why tell me at all? Why not just leave me to think it was you? Is this some last bit of fucking torture before you go?”
Quiet again, a mumble of words.
“Sometimes it’s better not to know the truth, Dad. Fuck. I can’t even call you that, now, can I?”
Another groan of words too quiet to hear.
“No. Just go. Go on, Fuck off!”
Footsteps moved towards us, towards the door. Kinobi whimpered and scooted out from under my feet, and I joined her, retreating from the doorway where I’d been snooping on a conversation I probably shouldn’t have heard.
The door creaked open, the grey, grim face of the Northern King’s President. He looked more tired than I had seen him this morning. In the room behind him I glimpsed Demon, pacing the room, his eyes focussed on his feet.
Ste shuffled away down the corridor, saying nothing to me as he left, the stairs creaking slowly. I looked at the dog again. She stood against my right leg, looking into the lounge where Demon’s movements were growing quicker, fists balled at his sides. She whimpered slightly, a tiny noise, but she didn’t move. Only watched.
“Demon?” I called, tentatively, after he had walked up and down the length of the open plan room another five times. “Demon,” I said louder when he hadn’t even looked at me.
He stopped, his head turning, but not really seeing, a glazed look in his eyes. Then he walked at us. Big long strides, with no intention of stopping and together, me and Kinobi backed away, letting him pass like a surging black cloud.
His pace quickened, throwing open the door at the top of the stairs, thundering down after his father, his feet echoing menacingly despite no shoes. I followed, the door swinging closed into its frame, just before I got there. Edging it open, I stepped onto the first step, my weight shifting downwards just as the first smash of metal crashed through the space. The sound hit me from all four walls, jolting my heart, and instinctively I dropped to my haunches, my hands wedged against my ears. Behind the door to Demon’s flat, Kinobi barked loudly.
And the crashing and smashing of metal kept coming, echoing around the cavernous space of Demon’s garage. Each step I took down the bare, creaky stairs was drowned by the noise of chaos from below.
In the garage he raged, smashing a black metal bar against the bike I’d seen him spend an age polishing and buffing. The pride for the machine now betrayed by wild anger. He was destroying it. Every piece. His bike, his ride.
“Demon!” My voice was barely audible over the sound of crashing metal. “Demon! Stop!”
I was running towards him, my hands grabbing at the arm with the weapon, pulling on it. Yanking. His face was a twisted grimace. A mask of anger. Like something out of the belly of Hell itself. And now, I was frightened of him. Of the rage that consumed him.
“Leave me the fuck alone, Ciara.” Even his voice didn’t sound like his.
“Demon,” I tried to steady mine, force a calmness into it, to control his, to bring him down from this crazy crescendo he’d reached. “It’s ok. Whatever this is, we can sort this out. Together. We can do this together,” I cooed, pulling at his arm.
Demon whipped round to face me, the arm holding the black iron crow-bar over his head, the darkness in his eyes so deep that I could drown just by looking into them.
“There is no we. Remember? You don’t want me. You keep telling everyone you’re not an ol’ lady. Seems no fucker does. I don’t need anyone. So do us both a favour and fuck off!”
The words hit me harder than I could have imagined. Not like a dull, heavy, blunt force trauma to the stomach. More of a sharp, piercing, dragging hook, slicing through my stomach and swirling around in my intestines.
For a moment I stood there waiting, waiting for the apology, or the realisation in his eyes of what he had just said. But there was nothing. Only an oblivion darkness.
Chapter Thirty Four
Demon
He looked so ill now. That’s all I could see every time that I looked at him. And tonight, stood in my lounge looking even more uncomfortable than when he broke the news to us, just a few days before, he looked even more tense. At first, I thought he’d come here to tell me off. How I’d dishonoured the club for taking out men who were bothering my girl, even if it was the VP of our biggest rival and likely to cause us some aggro. To tell me how much of a disappointment I was to him. To the club. To Indie. How I deserved a good thrashing with his belt like when I was a kid.
“I know I shouldn’t have done it,” I started, pre-empting what he was going to say. “But they were moving in on Ciara. They knew who she was, and what doing that would do. I was just delivering to expectations.”
