Chapter 3 - Owen - Purge With My Demons

Playing live was something we had desperately been wanting to do. Ashton was able to book us a show at a place called Purge in Brooklyn, and Finn and I were headed there to check it out and meet with the manager Giordana. I was also looking forward to a night out with my oldest friend. It had been too long since we just hung out together.

We found an empty high-top table about midway into the bar, a melodic rock song playing through the speakers. The place had a cool vibe. It was decorated but with a dark theme, and I liked the general feel of the place. It felt cozy. I could see us all coming here regularly, even when we weren’t playing. From what Ashton told us, there was a stage, and a whole setup out back where they had their shows. On concert nights, inside was normally just for people to sit and chill, buy merchandise from the bands, or buy drinks.

“What are your initial thoughts of the place?” I asked Finn as he returned to the table with our drinks.

“I love it. I like the vibe here. It doesn’t make me want to pull my hair out like so many other bars around here. I don’t know why so many places immediately feel the need to make their space look like a Pinterest board. Or like it was made for someone's social media background. It’s fucking annoying and ugly.”

He was right. The awkward neon lights, and the fake greenery in some of the venues we had played at were odd to say the least. Ashton knew what we needed better than anyone. “You have very strong opinions about that. I didn’t know you had so many feelings about the aesthetics of where we played.” I raised my eyebrows at him while I took a sip of my scotch. He gave me an annoyed glare in return. “You’re right, though. Ash did good with this one,” I reply with a snicker.

Taking a moment to absorb the crowd here, I realized that there was an eclectic mix of people. I liked Purge more and more every second I was there. How the hell did we not know about this place before now? I kept my steady gaze around the room. That's when I began to feel an all too familiar pull in my chest. One I had become familiar with again recently. A pull that I hadn’t been intimate with in damn near 100 years.

Nudging Finn with my elbow, I whispered, “It’s here. She’s here.”

“What? Who’s here?” Finn looked at me, confused and concerned. Probably because I looked like a crazy person. My eyes bounced back and forth through the crowd, trying and failing to identify where the pull was coming from.

“The soul, my soul, is here. I can feel her.” My eyes darted around the room, trying to pinpoint the source. Finn was the only one who knew I had found my soul. I was too nervous to tell the others because of how the last time had ended. My pull to this one had been strong, but right now it was stronger than I’ve ever felt it. It’d been so long since I’d even felt the pull, it was almost foreign. Hesitation lingered in my gut. I didn’t know if I could withstand the heartbreak and torment again. But I also didn’t have much of a choice in the matter anymore. I needed it.

Scanning the bar, I saw her. Recognizing my soul was easy, but then there was no turning back, as the pull was magnetic. The woman who had my soul was gorgeous. Finally seeing her for the first time was like letting a wave of ice-cold water wash over me. I saw her standing by a table and she was gorgeous. This woman was tall, with beautiful, long, dark brown hair falling to the middle of her back, and her soft curves were perfectly accentuated by the black dress was wearing. This magnetism I felt was more than just my necessary attachment to her soul. This was a primal need and attraction to this woman.

Finn was still looking around the bar when I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and nodded toward the woman. “It’s her, right there in the black dress.”

“Goddamn! Seriously?! You fucking lucked out, dude. Go talk to her.” He started shoving me toward her.

“Not a good idea, Finn.” I pushed away from him and tossed the rest of my scotch back. “You know how it went with the last few. I’m not sure how much more I can deal with.”

“Fair enough, man, but you never know, she could be the one. This could be it. And I mean all of it, man.” His gaze was thoughtful and knowing.

“You said that last time, asshole.” My eyes wandered the room again, doing anything to not stare at this gorgeous human. “I’m going to see if I can find the manager Ash told us to talk to. What’s her name again?” I said to Finn.

Finn pulled his phone out and tapped the screen a few times. “Giordana. Hot fucking name.”

Rolling my eyes, I snatched my now-empty glass from the table and strolled toward the counter at the back of the bar.

A tall, thin woman with long blonde hair stood with her back to me. She was wearing a Purge branded shirt and an apron tied around her incredibly small waist. “Hi, sorry if I’m interrupting you. I’m looking for Giordana.”

The woman turned around. A red aura sparkled around the irises of her eyes. Well, that was unexpected.

A cheerful smile was present on her face. “I’m Giordana.” She thrust out her hand in invitation for me to shake it. “Did Ashton send you? It was so great meeting them the other day.”

“Yeah. I’m Owen.”

“Oh, shit, Owen Alastor, right?” She stumbled on my last name. When people put two and two together, they tended to get a little nervous. “Great to meet you. Looks like you’ve figured out we’ve got a little something in common.” She gestured between our eyes. Her swift return to a cheerful attitude was not the reaction I normally got from other demons. While they may not all meet me as Alastor, they all knew who I was. I had a reputation. Stories about me got around, and while they weren’t always true, there was no use in trying to spread the real story. Let the scarier ones live out there. It was fun to hear the crazy stories about Alastor, the Mad Demon.

Skeptically, I responded, “Yeah, I guess so.”

Her smile falls, but she doesn’t seem afraid, just confused by my reaction. But I always had my guard up. “Okay.” She checks her watch. “Give me just a couple of minutes to get things settled behind the bar, and we can chat.”

“No rush. My bandmate and I are over at that table there.” I gestured to the high-top table Finn is sitting at.

“Perfect! I’ll be over soon.”

My soul was no longer alone when I got back to the table with Finn, another round of drinks in hand. The guy she was with had his back to us.

“Who the fuck is that?” I asked Finn with a scowl.

He shook his head, chuckling lightly. “You aren’t going to fucking believe it when I tell you.”

“Who the fuck is with her Finn?” My molars were on the verge of cracking from how tightly my jaw was clenched.

Finn took a sip of his scotch, swallowing slowly before answering. “It’s Brad.”

Every bit of fury inside of me began to simmer. “You’re fucking kidding. I find possibly the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen, and she happens to be attached to the soul made for me, and here comes Brad.” Lowering my voice a bit and leaning closer to him, “But why her? He must need to get his rocks off or something. She’s not a demon; she is very much human. Look at her eyes, they’re so dark they’re almost black.”

With a similar muted tone, Finn said, “Brad is the demon equivalent of a fuck boy, Owen. He’s probably just weak and needs to recharge or whatever he calls it.”

“You’re right. But why her? Why my soul? He’s always around, and it’s fucking irritating. Amon needs to get his lackeys under control because I’m sick of dealing with their bullshit.” Looking behind Finn, Giordana was making her way over to us. She stopped and gave a thumbs up and a questioning glance to my soul. Their interaction made it clear that they were close friends, able to communicate through vague glances and gestures like Finn and I often did.

“Oh, that’s Giordana.” Tilting my head in her direction, I continued to keep my voice low. “Just a heads up, she’s a demon. Looks like she’s friends with her too.” I nodded to the beauty that was harboring my soul.

“Oh, shit,” Finn says with his eyebrows raised. “That’s unexpected. Why didn’t Ashton tell us?”

“That’s a great point. I didn’t think about that. I don’t know why they didn’t tell us.”

There’s something about scotch that just sits right in your stomach. It’s warm all the way down. Sipping and luxuriating in the beverage, I tried my best to wipe my thoughts clean of Brad and the fact that he was with my soul, but it was nearly impossible. I caught myself stealing glances at their table every chance I got through the night. She didn’t look comfortable with him, and their conversation was lost to me. Where was Ashton when we needed them? Their superior hearing would have been incredibly helpful right now. I did, however, watch him reach over and touch her arm. As if some primal force had taken over, my fists clenched at my side. All I could think about in that moment was breaking his fucking hand.

The fierce protection instincts were coming in full force already for this soul, this human I was now magnetically attached to. It didn’t help that she truly was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.

My spying was cut short when Giordana approached our table. “Hey, I’m Giordana. It’s great to meet you guys.”

I did my best to brush my skepticism aside. Trusting others was never easy, but she was clearly friends with my soul, and that meant she was a good person, right? I had to consider that it boasted well that my soul already knew other demons too. I wasn’t sure how friendly my smile looked, but I tried my best. “This is Finn. He is the lead guitarist in our band.”

“Is this your first time here at Purge?”

Finn beat me to answering her. “It is. I can’t believe we didn’t know about this place sooner.” He ends the statement with his award winning, baby boy Finn smile, every one fawns over.

“Purge has been around for a while but only started to get popular again recently. Just within the last few years, and we only started doing shows when I became a manager here.”

Genuine curiosity had me wanting to ask her more questions. We knew the music scene here pretty well, but how had we not heard of this place? “How long have you hosted shows here? I can’t imagine a place like this going unnoticed for long. I haven’t seen out back yet, but just from what Ashton told us, it seems like the perfect spot.”

“The place was old and rundown when I started working here. Myself and a couple others decided to fix it up, and it just took off. We’ve had luck booking DJs for some rave nights, some local bands too, with a mix of genres. But I just want to get more local bands in. Give more people an opportunity to play and be heard. Plus, I moved here with my best friend” —she gestured over to the woman, and I couldn’t stop my gaze from drifting to her—“about 5 years ago from New Orleans. We were really involved in the local music scene there.”

Knowing now for a fact that Giordana was friends with my soul, I felt better. It put my mind at ease that a demon was such close friends with my human. Maybe Finn was actually right about this one. I’d never admit that to him, though. The other humans who had my soul were less than okay with anything that had to do with demons. As soon as I told them about it, shit always hit the fan.

Myself, Finn, and Giordana sat at the high-top table and discussed some of the details of Death’s Nevermind playing. Our genre of music was not for everyone and Giordana recognized that, but she thought we could still draw a crowd of regulars, and we knew we had some people who would come as well.

“Alright, so I’ll have you guys booked in to play a month from today.” She handed me a business card with her phone number and an email address. “Give me a call or shoot me a text if you need anything. I’ll get ticket sales going tomorrow.”

“Sounds good. We appreciate the opportunity,” I responded. Glancing over to Finn, I expected him to provide some sort of acknowledgment that he was paying attention during the conversation. He wasn’t, of course. He zoned out about halfway through. I kicked his shin under the table.

“Ouch, fucker!” Finn exclaimed.

“Giordana was just telling us how she has us booked in to play next month,” I said through clenched teeth with a scowl. I looked back at Giordana, who had an amused look on her face. “He’s into it, I swear. We will let the rest of the crew know and maybe bring some of them in for a coffee one day next week.”

Smiling, Giordana replied, “Sounds great. If I’m not here, just let any of the other staff know who you are, they’ll throw you a discount.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary, but we appreciate it. The whole band, we are all demons, by the way, I’m not sure how much Ashton told you.” The last part of my statement I said a bit quieter, hoping others around us didn’t hear.

Shocked, Giordana exclaimed, “Oh! Hell yeah. It’ll be great to have you guys by more often, then. It’s just me, Felix there, and Ty.” She pointed over to a short blonde guy at the bar, and a tall, stocky guy by the door who must have been Ty. Ty was facing us when Giordana waved, and he gave us a nod back, his red-rimmed eyes shining. Meeting demons in the city wasn’t common, and I was always hesitant when it came to opening my circle.

She smiled and continued what she was saying. “I can’t wait to meet everyone else. It was great meeting you two. I’ll be sure to listen to what you have on SoundWave, I’m sure it’s going to be right up my alley. Please feel free to hang out as long as you want tonight. We are going to get busier as the night goes on, and we have a DJ that starts at about 10.”

“We appreciate it,” Finn finally chimed in, with his oh-so-charming smile showing off his dimples.

I side eyed Finn with a raised brow but then turned my focus to Giordana. “Thanks for meeting with us. Maybe we will catch you next week.”

“Wave me down if you need anything,” she offered as she walked away.

I noticed she walked toward where my soul was now standing. The girls gestured something to one another, and whatever was communicated between the two of them via head nods satisfied Giordana enough to continue walking.

My focus faltered when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. The lock screen lit up with a new notification.

Tristan:

You need to come home. It's Cora.

Fuck. My phone lit up Finn’s face slightly as I showed him the notification. He tossed back the last of his drink, and I did the same. We left our empty glasses on the table, and I typed out my reply to Tristan.

Owen:

Be there in 20.

As we made our way toward the door, I wanted one last look at my soul, my beautiful creature. But when I turned to where she was sitting, both she and Brad were gone.

My phone buzzed again.

Tristan:

Also, we’ve been summoned.

Oh wonderful.