Shazi and the Demons of the First Order (Book 1)

Shazi

Sunday

I was well aware of the way the officer stared intensely at me while he ate his lunch. 

It wasn't appealing. 

He just stared and expected me to somehow entertain him with whatever supposed 'magic' I have. 

I don't have magic. But I have something better. It's something that you would call... temptation. 

I leaned forward, my hands closing over the bars separating me from the officer on guard duty. 

"Psst. Want to help me get out of here?" I asked, and grinned. 

The officer stopped eating, his eyes widening slightly before he glanced around and pointed at himself. 

"Me? Are you talking to me?" he managed to say through the jumble of food in his mouth. 

I nodded and beckoned him closer with a hand. He got up from his seat and placed the box of food where he was sitting before. 

He was young, from what I could see, maybe mid-twenties, early thirties, hard to tell when the light was so dim and the shadows on the walls enclosed around me like a glove. He stopped a couple of feet away from the bars, as if to keep a safe distance between us. 

"You want to know something, little soldier?" I asked, and chuckled. 

He glanced behind him before looking back at me and nodding once. 

I licked my lips. His heart was just out of reach, but if he came a little bit closer, I might be able to rip it out of his chest. 

"You want to hear a secret, then?" I pressed. 

He nodded and edged a bit closer to the bars. My grin widened slightly.

 "Do you want to hear the tale of how I look this way? That's all you men seem to want to know these days." I said, and pouted my bottom lip. 

He nodded eagerly and edged a bit more closer to the bars. 

I licked my lips again. 

Come on, almost there.

"Once there was a demon from Hell, who prided herself on her appearance, her skin the color of coal and hair the color of midnight. It was said that the darker your appearance is, the more evil you are deep inside. One day, the demon arranged a celebration for her birthday, the night of an eclipse when the sky was dark and the sun and the moon were so close together, you could almost see Heaven on the outlines." 

The officer leaned closer, his heart just out of reach. His eyes glued to mine, I grinned, and reached out slowly with my hand towards his chest. 

"But that day was a trick. A hoax, created by the Devil in order to lure out the culprit of overwhelming pride in his underground world. Seeing the demon for what she truly was, he cursed them to bathe in the clear springs delivered straight from Heaven, a hole filled with what one would call 'holy water'. But this was not meant to kill the demon. No. It was meant to change them forever. So, the Devil commanded his only spawn, the princess of Hell, Lilith, to drown the demon in the clear springs so that its appearance may be forever changed." 

Lowering my eyes to the floor, I continued, my voice lowering. 

"You see, this demon, whose hair was as dark as midnight, turned to the purest white from all that Heaven could see. Whose skin was black as coal, was now as pale as the feathers of an angel's wing. A plastered disgrace all over the demon, for everyone to see. That, dear officer, is my secret. And you were the first human to be told the story. But unfortunately, I am starving."

With my hand finally over his chest, I dug into his skin with my extended fingernails. He screamed and clutched his hand over my wrist in an act to pull it away, but I kept my hand firm and my fingers dug into his skin. 

"Ahhh!" he shouted, but his voice was soon cut off by a swish, and then he fell face forward onto the floor. 

A knife was planted in the back of his head, and in my hand, lay his heart. 

"And what a terrible sight it has grown to become. But I enjoyed the show, nonetheless. Well done, old friend." 

I looked up from the organ in my hands to see a woman standing at the end of the hallway, dressed in a knee length blood red dress and her dirty blond hair tied into a bun.

 "I must say, it took you long enough to do something so simple." she said, as she slowly made her way towards me. 

In the darkness that she was currently in, her eyes glowed a tint of red, which made my lips turn upward in a grin. 

"Lilith, I didn't think you'd actually find a way to be here." I said, bowing my head in supplication.

 She stepped up to the bars and examined the metal. 

"Yes. So it would seem." she said, and ran a finger down the length of one of the bars.

 I looked up, and as I did so, pulled my hand back towards me and clutched the heart close to my chest. 

"I didn't expect you to be so belittled by such creatures, Shazi. Otherwise, I would've sent someone to get you straight away." Lilith said, inspecting me from where she was standing on the other side of the bars. 

"Have you come to get me out, then?" I asked, and brought the heart to my lips. 

Lilith gave me a lopsided smile, which seemed to suggest the opposite answer of what I was hoping for. 

"No, unfortunately. I just came to visit an old friend." she told me. 

I bit into the heart and was immediately filled with a sense of rejuvenation. 

Oh, that tasted so good. 

Lilith watched me as I downed the heart in my hands, and when I had finished licking my hands clean of the blood, she smiled. 

"I am rather proud of you, Shazi. You have learned well. And from the best." she said. 

I glared at her despite the fact that I was sitting mostly in the dark and she probably couldn't see my face that much. 

"What are you here for, then? If not to torture me with your awaiting response?"

She grinned and placed her hands on the bars, leaning towards me as much as she could.

 "I am going to get you out of here, Shazi. I just haven't found a way yet. It will be soon, I promise you." 

I raised an eyebrow at the look in her eyes. "Let me guess. You're going to get someone to talk to me so I can get them to get me out of here?" 

She nodded and leaned back from the bars, her hands still on the metal tubes. 

"You can get a soul out of that, too, if you'd like." she told me. 

I grinned widely, the shadows in the cell silently cheering in delight. 

"Well, I do like the sound of that." I said, then laughed, Lilith's own cackle resonating throughout the walls along with mine.