The Devil in Me remastered

Chapter 8 - unveiled mask

"Remember when you told us about that burning man? Mazoku was it?" Melena asked. I was taken back as Melena stood up and walked into the room. I followed her to the kid's body.

"Yeah, that's what everyone called him since his rage burned hell eternally." I responded. Melena held her hand over his forehead, David filled her in on how the kid wasn't dead but his body isn't moving anytime soon. Melena calmly traced her hand across the kid's body. I started getting eager and asked what she was doing. She smiled and asked permission to remove his hoodie. I widened my eyes a bit and questioned why she would want to do that. There was a burning sensation in my face as Melena whispered something in David's ear. She looked at me and asked one last question

"Casper be serious with us, do you love this kid?" I was stunned for words, the burning in my face started to hurt and I twirled my fingers around.

"I - I didn't want to say it but he is kinda cute." I nervously said. David walked up to me, he grabbed my hand and pulled me close while placing his other hand on my shoulder.

"It's best to just share your feelings instead of hiding them, trust me." David pulled away his glove to reveal the ring he had on his finger. Melena also held up her hand to show her ring. I was frozen, how come I had never even seen the ring on her finger. David put his glove back on and patted my back "I would love to see you guys together." He left the room and Melena instructed me to remove his hoodie and place my hand on his heart. I felt embarrassed yet I lifted up his hoodie.

"Just as expected, you'll need to cut the hoodie open; it's made entirely out of ethier." I placed my finger on his neck and traced my finger down, splitting his hoodie and spreading the halves away. I felt very embarrassed as I might've blushed while gasping for air. The gaping wound in his lower left gut bled harshly, his broken arm looking all smashed up. Melena informed me that he can heal all these wounds as fast as Calmer if I just tied my spirit to his. In a sense he and I would be bound together for all eternity. I don't know the right call, but this kid already feels like my whole world. Without hesitation I told Melena I wanted to be bound to him. She instructed me to place my hand on his wound and spill some of my ethier along with the essence of my soul into him.

I stuck my fingers into his body, the ethier pouring ever so carefully into his nervous system. I used the lullaby taught to me by Molech called protector's lullaby to secure ties between my soul and his. Shortly after the ritual ended Melena escorted all of us out of the room and recommended we start turning this place into a permanent base of operations.

Project 0409

I saw nobody, yet something felt different. My body had been fully healed suspiciously. "How long have I been here?" I questioned myself. I got off the bed and exited the room. There was an empty hallway, so I decided to go right. I could hear what sounded like cleaning straight ahead. I took one step forward before I was suddenly tackled to the ground "you're awake!" Casper exclaimed from behind as she toppled over me. I chuckled a bit, caught my breath and told her it was great to see her again. She flipped me over to face her. I felt her graze my face with her palm, she unexpectedly pulled me extremely close and I felt her lips under the ethier connect with mine behind the mask. I held the back of her head and continued the blissful moment. She pulled away and helped me to my feet. I felt dizzy and at peace. She carried me on her back and walked all the way to David and Melena who were planning our next attack on the enemy. She let me down, David and Melena smiled as they saw us. We engaged in a group hug and planned together. David filled us in on the recent attacks on the east end of Confort. Melena added they were not subtle either. I called back to when I killed the trickster, when I was out cold I remember seeing flashes of memories. David asked if I could pinpoint anything specific.

The first flash was in a place filled with gold and treasures. The second flash was in the endless waters. The final was here in Confort, a group of faceless men in ragged clothes that boarded the seadogs in the harbor. Melena gazed over the articles she had placed on the table. Casper danced her eyes back and forth from Melena to the table. David broke from the table to look at a map full of pins and mix matched colored regions.

I followed David and questioned what all of this meant. He explained how we aren't the only ones on this planet. There are other landmasses yet nobody has ever seen them. I traced my eyes across the map and tried to understand how nobody has made it to the lands. David said that nobody crosses the water because of the leviathans that roam the sea. He also mentioned that he doesn't know about the other lands, they're all just theories. I turned back to the table and placed my hands on the top. Casper and Melena seemed stumped on why the Vector is just now causing havoc in Confort. I came up with an idea. I directed Melena and Casper away from the table and closed my eyes, concentrating on those light drips of water into the calm serenity of the sea. In a completely blissful state I used devil vision to check for things outside of the box. Surely enough these were all fake newspapers. Fabricated to look like a Confortian paper and written to be a believable demon attack. The Vector learned from the Trickster and Ghost, he tried throwing us off from overseas so we couldn't find the last two targets. I swiped away all the papers and exited devil vision. Everyone gathered around the table in shock, question after question on where the Vector is. I explained how the Trickster gave me visions of the vector but backwards. The three generals came to Confort on a seadog to cause havoc and misdirect us from Clamer. However, the second question is why all the papers said the east was attacked. I then remembered both fights between the Ghost and Trickster. I drew a straight line on the table and marked circles on both ends of the line. I told everyone that east of confort is right in the middle of the line, to a simple mind it would only make sense to have a string of attacks but the Vector was smart, he had to have placed an ambush or a trap here so we could be finished off in a weakened state. That's why Judy chose a devil to be the Trickster, she wanted to weaken us, weaken me. She was going to kill all of my friends and take me alive. Everyone started making sense out of the situation.

I looked at the map David drew and placed the same line from the harbor at Confort and the line landed on one of the suspected locations of a landmass. Everyone stood behind me and listened as I told them everything made sense now. The vision makes sense backward and the line makes sense of catching traps. Tracing back to memories it was the far right circle that was the first vision, the far left circle as the final vision. The vision of water was at this point in the middle of the water. I dropped the line and told everyone to get ready for another fight. We have a Vector to slay.