Chapter 12: The shadow

Damon looked at the sleeping Lich, who had positioned himself so that his back was to the wall. As if being able to wake up and see the door would have granted him any security from the person who was clearly after him.

The Lich…

Death liked his sons pretty, and Damon had to agree that this one was a favored child of the bastard. It was not often that a Lich offered himself on a silver platter to a vampire. That did not come without its own set of hurdles.

But to think that a Lich who had managed to gulp down so many souls, and had not even begun to tap into their power existed was… it was simply…

A gift from Hell.

Damon chuckled at his own silly thought. Had the man in the bed been an angel, he would have said that he was a gift from the heavens. But how could he say something like that for a Lich?

A runesmith, most certainly. Death loved those godlike humans. Damon had always had a great respect for mortals who could make it so, that as long as someone was not about as mana poor as a stone, they could wield magic.

Lightning at your fingertips, clarity when you most needed it.

And a rune to make a Lich look like a human, apparently. 

Simply wonderful.

Many thought that he, as the first vampire, had to be about as considerate towards others as a lion to a zebra. Damon had only one answer to these strange presumptions which the people who had only heard his name had about him:

A zebra could break a lion's jaw with a kick. The lions, which did not respect that simple law of nature, ended up dead soon after.

But that was not to imply that the lion did not help the zebra. As twisted as it was, the lion eating a couple kept the herd healthy. Kept the savanna from being grazed into nothingness.

The natural order was something Damon listened to. That, and not any special power in him or secret knowledge, had made it so that he had never been dethroned.

It was a calculated risk, taking the Lich under his wing. The man stank of fear, and the blue ribbon in his braid had the mana of a mighty demon woven into it.

Damon did not think that the man even knew what sort of hornet's nest he had kicked. The black roses were telling, the length of the ribbon even more so.

The vampire had seen more than one package of bonbons wrapped in such ribbons. An expensive brand. Something a demon would buy for appearance's sake, and then might throw at someone, just to feel superior.

This one was strong, if the mana on the ribbon was any indication. With time, Damon reasoned, the demon might grow dissatisfied with the rulership of Hell, and just take the empty throne, which was held in check by an army of pencil-pushers, backed by the Archdemons.

That was the man the Lich expected him to fight. And most likely kill, for Damon could smell it in the Lich's soul, that the demon had killed him.

The putrid stench of betrayal made Damon nauseous. It was more bitter than normal. So, as if before the demon had strangled the poor boy, for Damon could see the marks on the Lich's throat now, that the man had deactivated his rune, he had spun him a pretty tale.

Damon was no fighter. Never had been. Never needed to become one.

He smiled, took one last look at the man in his bed, and then just stood up, turning towards the door.

The demon was approaching, his rage frosting the windows with its intensity.

An ice demon, almost an Archdemon. Almost the ruler of Hell.

Oh, what a pity that good old Orion was so stubborn at times…

0000

Orion looked at the vampire, who was sitting on a bench in front of a cottage in the woods. He could smell Edwin inside, but he was sure that the Lich slept.

Oh, did his lady pull an all-nighter to stitch those ridiculous roses in that candy wrapper Orion had given him? Oh, this time he was really going to strangle the darn wretch!

And this time, there won't be any rebirths in the cards for him.

He ignored the vampire, sure that the man won't stick his neck under the headsman's axe. Oh, he knew the man. Had made a couple of deals with him in the past.

But now he was on a vacation, and he wanted to taste something other than toothpaste.

He wanted to taste the salt of Edwin's tears. The bile which will come out of his throat, as Orion ripped his intestines out. He wanted to sink his teeth in rotting flesh. Oh, how much he wanted to bury himself deep in Edwin, take a hold of his braid, undo it, and then let the gorgeous curtain spill all around them, as he…

He shook his head.

 Wait, did he really think that any part of that annoying twink was gorgeous? What was so gorgeous about some fur?

Souls were gorgeous. They were light, they were shadows. He could gorge himself on souls all day long. Watch them as they faded into nothingness, as their vessel expired.

He wanted to see Edwin's soul once more. To get drunk on the lovely light that came out of Edwin's eyes in ghost form, and then to…

Orion hit himself on the head, but he could not get the picture out of his head. Darn it all, what was wrong with him? If he wanted to fuck someone, he could just go to a bar and scratch his itch.

It was not like he could feel any pleasure. For him, sex was something purely aesthetic. He was a demon, darn it all, not some wannabe monkey, which should have done the world a favor, and stayed on its blasted banana tree!

"Orion, domestic abuse does not suit you, my friend," Damon said, chuckling. Orion whipped his head in his direction, flipped the bird for good measure, and then turned back around.

The possibility that Damon would stab him in the back was small. Almost smaller than the smallest particle in the air.

Oh, Orion knew what the bastard was doing.

Damon, as he knew, for he had been the one to make the deal with the man, could show someone their true emotions. Orion knew what he was feeling. Even knew that Damon had not done it on purpose.

It was an automatic ability. It was the thing which had put all of Damon's enemies out of the game.

After all, Damon was a looker, and most of the people who wanted to make sure that he finally rested in pieces wanted in his pants.

Orion had found that amusing, at the start. Now, not so much.

"Damon," Orion turned around again, noting that Damon was still sitting on that carved bench of his, on which he had turned more than one enemy into an ally. Oh, Orion felt like being spiteful. He felt like being honest. "How can you stand to sit on the bench where you got stuffed by at least five men?"

Damon chuckled, his tongue licking his lips, showing Orion just how little he cared.

"You are shameless, you know that, right, old friend?" Orion snapped. He knew that Damon would not lift his behind from the bench. He knew just how much space the special ability could cover.

He knew that the closer he got to Edwin, the worse it would get.

"Oh, I don't know what you are talking about. That is just a rumor," Damon crossed his legs, patted the bench, and then winked at him.

Orion could see the allure. Damon was a vampire, and those were about as romanticized as demons these days, if not more so. Looking in his early thirties. Not too old, but with a certain edge to him.

An edge that spoke about experience.

Orion looked at the house, got the feeling that he was going to burn from the inside out if he took even a single step towards it, and then with a bowed head, made his way to the bench.

As he sat, shoving Damon to the side, as the man sighed, he buried his face in his hands.

"It is not fair," Orion said through clenched teeth. "He is a brick. How could I feel like that for some brick?"

The clap on his shoulder could have gotten the owner of the offending hand beheaded, had it been anyone daring to be so familiar with him but Damon.

Orion just narrowed his eyes, laid a hand on his holster with the dagger.

"Well," Orion said, but stopped. How many times had he said well three times before he killed someone? Why couldn't he do so now?

"Well, what? Oh, is that something that is now reserved only for Edwin? Oh, Orion, you are all grown up now!" Damon chuckled, clapped him once more, for which, this time, got a weak punch in the stomach.

It just made him laugh harder, as Orion was considering if he could claim Edwin with Damon around, without letting the blasted spell force him into acknowledging Edwin as his soulmate.

He should have known, back then, as he tasted the blasted cheap toothpaste, that he was screwed.

Whatever it was in a good way or not was something he was going to find out. Fate hated him, that much was clear. Not even his best friend let him have what he wanted…

"Let me train him," Damon said, his voice thick with greed. Oh, Orion knew just what Damon wanted. It had been pure luck, depending on whom you asked, that Damon had stumbled on Edwin.

Now Orion had a choice. He could either go inside the house, kill Edwin, thus giving Death an excuse to finally get what he wanted, and to bag him, for which the man would probably even resurrect Edwin, just out of pure joy.

Or maybe just to rub salt in the injury.

Or he could listen to Damon and walk away. Still, if he was really going to leave his soulmate in the hands of a vampire, whom Orion affectionately called transmitter of sexual diseases, he needed to make sure that said soulmate did not end up roping him into a threesome with Damon.

He valued his health, and he knew full well where Damon had been.

"Did I find him a virgin?" Orion asked. Damon should know. He had sold the souls of an entire village during his phase to drink virgin blood and could tell from just a sip.

"No, my friend. Well-preserved, I might say. But that bird had flown away long before you met him, I think. Or before I met him. Please, when your eyes glow like that you look like an angry ice demon. Gray… you could have had any color, why settle for gray?"

"I am an ice demon, you part," Orion said, as he looked at the sky. So many stars. Just like the sky had been, as the blasted camera had filmed him, as he was probably working out why he did not just ditch the job to buy Edwin's soul after it became obvious that the blasted arrow had the tendency to keep pointing at heaven.

What could have become of them? Edwin had owed him. He could have used bailing the man out of jail as a one-time card, at the very least.

Back then Edwin's heart had still beaten in his chest. He had smelt of sickness, but that had been better than the sickly-sweet rotten stench that clutched to him like a cloud of fruit flies these days.

"Let me train him, Orion. Let me shape him into something that can survive you," Damon said, laying a hand over his heart. "I have done it for others."

"Oh, you Cupid, you," Orion let out a snort, looked back at the heavens.

What could have become of them? Could he have been happy?

"If you commit suicide, you throw your entire life away, Orion. Killing one's soulmate brings only the death of the one who has decided to go against God," Damon must be well aware that he could get a reaction from Orion, and yet, Orion just snorted.

God? God did not create the soulmates. The fact that Orion was about old enough to shine a light on how dinosaurs really looked, and he had never, ever, seen God, aside, there was no way that the idea of God had created something as vile as soulmates.

To give the power to someone to rob your will from you was not romantic, it was a crime against oneself.

He wanted no part in it!

"Tell him to never cross my path," Orion stood up, patted Damon on the head, just because he knew the man hated it, and turned around.

Occasionally glancing at the sky, wondering if he would have been burned, if he had managed to talk a priest into marrying the two of them.

Edwin would have worn white, Orion would have worn black and red, and they would have been a match made in Hell. He sighed, took out the last bonbon from the box, the ribbon of which was probably still wrapped around that long, luscious braid, stared at it for a bit.

He shook his head, when he caught himself thinking these doomed thoughts once more, plopped the bonbon in his mouth, not tasting it, even though the stuff was so full of liquor that a person could have gotten at least a bit tipsy from it.

 As he let his saliva melt the chocolate, he realized something: this vacation thing was not working out for him. It was time he found something else to occupy his time with.