Chapter 1 - Owen - Purge With My Demons

PART ONE: THE MEETING

PRESENT DAY

A small fire erupted on my nightside, a folded piece of worn paper was left in its wake. I threw the horror manga I was fully engrossed in across the room. I knew all too well what was going to be on that goddamned paper. Pushing the heels of my palms into my eyes, I tried to ease the almost immediate headache that was building. I didn’t want to deal with this bullshit right now.

My tattooed hands unfold the note reluctantly, knowing a summons will be scrawled on the paper. Inked in red, his scratchy writing made my skin crawl. While I knew this was blood, part of me has never wanted to believe it.

Dungeon. 10am. They got someone for you.

A

Letting the paper fall from my hand and float to the floor, my body slumped back onto the headboard. Groaning, I hyper fixated on the ceiling, paying attention to the imperfections of the paint instead of my unfortunate, imminent duties. “Why today?”

Finn and I had plans to go to a bar later that night to discuss the band doing a show there soon. Dealing with Amon is the last thing I need. But this was my life. This was the deal I made. I desperately hoped it would be coming to an end soon.

Luckily, I had plenty of time to ease some of the anxiety creeping in before I’m needed. Pulling on a pair of gym shorts, I made my way to our basement gym for a run. It was just after 6:30am, and it clicked that I may even have time to drop off a little gift on the way to the Gates too, if I was quick enough.

I was able to get a few miles in before I heard footsteps coming from above. You’ve got to love old Brooklyn brownstones; you could hear absolutely everything creak with the slightest movement somewhere in the house. Sure Finn or Cora would be making their way down here soon, I finished up my workout.

Once I showered and got changed, I made my way upstairs to the main level and got stopped at the door by Cora as I was leaving.

“He called us out late last night to get this guy for you. You were already in bed. Sorry we didn’t give you a heads up.” I was pulling on my hoodie, and she tracked my movements with a sorrowful expression. Her eyes were almost glossy as she tried to explain the situation.

I gave her a tight-lipped smile in response. “Don’t sweat it, Cor.”

She leaned in, kissing my cheek. “Just be safe.”

I walked out the back door to a secluded part of our backyard, knowing that if I flew, it would be much faster to get to the Gates than walking or riding my bike there. Plus, I had a pit stop to make on the way. Closing my eyes, I willed the transition to begin. The tingle started at the base of my neck and traveled down my spine. Like a wave, my skin became feathers. I felt them rustle and settle into place, lying perfectly layered over one another. When I opened my eyes, I saw the familiar thick, black smoke fading away that engulfed me when I shifted. No longer seeing the world from the eyes of a six-foot-three man, but instead the eyes of a less than two-foot-tall crow. With purpose, I launched into the sky and soared to my first destination.

* * *

It was a Friday, so I knew she had probably already left for work for the day, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t leave her a little something to find when she got home. I had yet to lay eyes on her, only a passing glimpse of her walking inside a few times. Frankly, it was driving me fucking crazy. I kept a stash of buttons and small trinkets nearby her place for when I wanted to leave something for her, like today. Picking a little pink button and a safety pin from the pile, I set them down on a small ledge by her front window. The perfect spot so that she will see them, and eventually, I will let her see that they are from me. It was killing me that I hadn’t seen her yet. It had only been a feeling so far. But simply knowing I’d found my soul again put me at ease. I knew part of me had been found again. I didn’t know if this time would be any different from all the times before, but I remained hopeful.

My soul wasn’t technically mine anymore. Every lifetime or so, my soul found a human to call its own. I was drawn to it just like I am to this human. The broken parts of me longed for the thing that would put me back together but I was worthless to them. They wanted nothing to do with me. My pull to the soul is primal, I have to know her. I have no other option.

* * *

The Gates of Hell were my final destination. The Void, a paralysis demon masquerading as a black German Shepherd that guards the Gates, granted me entrance. I step through the Gates, immediately taking on my demon form. Stepping through the Gates was like stepping through a waterfall that removed any type of human mask you have on. There was no parading around in any other form in Hell. You were your true self here, and you had no other choice.

Black smoke seeped from every pore on my body and created a trail behind me. But it was my face that set people off; the smoke was just a precursor. My face became my skull. Bleach white bone and a tattered black robe, that's what people saw and remembered if they walked away from me. That or the stories about me, but truthfully, no one saw this version of me. No one saw what I did and lived to tell the tale. No one saw the demon, Owen Alastor, and went to tell their friends about me. Stories people tell or hear are all made up. Some are true, others are so far from the truth it’s comical.

I began my march down a seemingly never-ending hallway of doors that lead to various storage rooms, offices, holding cells, you name it—the Hallways of Hell. There was no rhyme or reason to what the doors led to. My destination was only the interrogation room in the dungeon, thankfully. Slowly, I walked down the hallway that would lead me there, the light stomp of my boots echoing with each step I took. Opening the door, I stood in the nondescript, sterile, concrete room Amon had set up for me many years ago. He knew well what I needed and what I preferred to use when I did these types of jobs. A table of knives was to my left, each perfectly lined up from smallest to largest. At least a handful of the pieces had a dark, glistening, iridescent hue, which told me they had been cleansed and charmed properly. A water hose was hooked to a spigot on the back wall. The floor was slightly slanted toward the middle, where there was a drain in the floor. A male demon sat tied to a rusted metal chair bolted to the floor. He was blindfolded, and by the way his head was slumped to one side, it was safe to say he was still knocked out. I didn’t believe for a second that anyone from my crew did this much damage to him. Amon surely roughed him up a bit before he called me in.

A piece of paper with Amon’s scratchy handwriting sat on the table. The writing in that red ink again. Before I read what was on the page, I glanced over to the man and saw blood dripping from his shoulder. I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to the note in my hand.

This is Michael. He has been bragging to young demons about knowing something about who our new queen is. He likely knows nothing, just trying to get his cock sucked. See what he does know, if anything. Do your worst, Alastor.

As much as I hated Amon, torture was in my veins. I was damn good at it and I really fucking enjoyed it. Causing pain, seeing anguish, it was liberating. I knew I was a fucking madman, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. It was just part of who I was. Madness boiled inside me like a living entity and letting it out was the only way I could feel a sense of calm. I just wish I could find a way to release that madness in another way rather than helping him. I wanted nothing more than to be rid of the ever looming cloud that was Amon.

Michael began to whimper, his head wobbling as he tried and failed to lift it. I took his blindfold off about ten minutes ago and hung the water hose from a hook above him. A steady trickle of water was hitting his head.

Walking to him, I knelt down in front of the chair. “Michael,” I said, dragging out the last syllable.

He let out a groan in response.

“Trust me, Michael. You don’t want to make me wait too long.” Walking over to the spigot, I turned the water on full blast. “Oops!” My apathetic tone was not convincing. Michael screamed, and I turned the water off. He started to lift his head up with more purpose now, but it was still a chore for him. “Ah, there he is. Hello, Michael.” My naturally deep voice helped immensely in these types of situations.

I slowly circled the chair, squatting down in front of him again. His skin was a greige color, and he had four small horns along his forehead. Staring at him from my black, hollow eye sockets, I gave him a moment to acclimate to his surroundings.

Michael began blinking his eyes, trying to adjust to the fluorescent lights in the room. When he finally made contact with the black holes where my eyes should be, he jolted. Of course, he wasn’t able to go very far, considering how well he was tied to the chair. I simply tilted my head to the side and waited for him to calm down.

“Wh-what- the fuck? Alastor? H-how, how did I get here?” he stuttered and began breathing erratically.

“Oh, good. You know who I am. That will make this part easy.” Finn started calling me Alastor in my demon form. I’d grown used to it, and it had become an alter ego of sorts. Even though it was my last name, it became a mask, allowing for an entirely different persona when I was in my demon form. In a way, I think it helped me separate myself from my madness, and I think Finn knew I needed that more so than I did.

“I haven’t done anything wrong. Alastor, I swear! Please,” he begged. He thought I cared, and it was really so amusing.

I chuckled in response. “Oh, you think I actually care if what you’re being accused of is true or not? That’s hilarious. I couldn’t care less. I just get the information and deliver it. Unfortunately for you, I kill you in the process. But that’s the end of the story here, Mike.”

“That’s just it. I don’t have any information about anything! I don’t know why I’m here.” He had started pleading. It was going to get pathetic quickly if I didn’t do something about it.

Standing, I paced over to the table and scanned the gleaming silver instruments, deciding which one was calling to me. Michael was struggling, trying to get out of the chair, the rattling chains and frustrated breaths making that very clear. My gaze quickly landed on the bone-cutting forceps. They seemed to have an extra silver shine to them. Wrapping my hand around the gleaming handles, my smoke engulfed the instrument fully as I lifted them from the table.

Michael was still pleading. His voice became more annoying as time went on and caused the madness within me to seethe. With my back still to him, I closed my eyes and imagined his throat constricting. Rolling my neck, I relished in the cracks and pops that released the built-up tension. Gasping for air now, his nagging finally subsided. I slowly released my phantom grip on his throat.

Between coughs, the demon managed to utter, “What the fuck was that?”

No one knew much about what I could do, what my abilities were. My gifts. They just knew that they didn’t want to be in a situation like Michael is in with me right now. Keeping others ignorant to what all I was capable of proved to be beneficial in the past, so we held that close to our chest. No one in the crew talked about it.

Michael stared at me now, dumbfounded. Really, he was just dumb. I couldn’t believe he thought walking around talking about our new queen wouldn’t go unnoticed. At that point, I was probably more interested in the information than Amon was. “Michael, unless you’re going to start talking and sharing the information we need from you, I suggest you shut the fuck up.” I watched his throat as he swallowed his own saliva. Without a doubt, he was trying to think of something to say or a way to get out of the situation he was in.

Slowly, I walked around to stand behind him, dragging the forceps along his hairline at the nape of his neck. Sweat dripped off his skin despite the chill in the dungeon. Whether or not he saw the instrument I grabbed, I wasn’t sure.

When I leaned down, the hood of my cloak brushed the side of his head, which made him jerk away from me. My breath was directly on his ear when I whispered, “Now, Michael, word on the street is that you know a thing or two about who the queen may be.”

He tensed and took a deep breath. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I slid the forceps around the shell of his ear, causing him to tremble. The tool must have been cold against his skin. “Oh, I think you do, Michael.” Opening the forceps, I put them on the thick cartilage at the top of his left ear. “Just tell me what you know.”

“Nothing. I-I-I don’t know anything. I was just fucking around.”

“Those are some pretty heavy things to be throwing around to not actually know anything.” I squeezed the forceps closed just enough to break his greige skin. Blood began to drip, and he started breathing a little heavier.

“Let’s try this again. What do you think you know, Michael?” My tone was casual, non-accusatory.

He remained silent, staring defiantly at the wall. So, I simply said, “Okay.” I shrugged my shoulders and closed the forceps on the cartilage of his ear. The cut was clean all the way through the flat portion of his ear.

“Fuck!” he yelled, the red rim around the iris of his eye flaring from the pain.

“Just talk, Michael,” I said matter-of-factly.

“I don’t fucking know anything, Alastor,” he swore with conviction. “It’s fucking embarrassing, but I was just trying to show off to this hot chick at a bar.”

“Why on earth would talking about the new Queen of Hell impress her? And how do you even know anything?”

He shrugged like it was nothing. “I don’t know. She’s new in town. I had heard from someone that the new queen moved here.”

I maneuvered to stand in front of him and opened the forceps onto the bridge of his nose. “And you just thought you’d feed into that story a bit, for what? To get your dick sucked?” I did want to know if what he was saying was true, but there was also no way for me to fact check anything he was telling me. At the end of the day, I knew I needed to find out who she was before Amon did.

“Yes. Yes! Fuck, Alastor! I told you what I know. I don’t actually know anything else, or if it’s even true!”

“Mmmm, yeah, see, whether that’s true or not, I don’t care. But you do know you aren’t leaving here alive, right?”

He started screaming and scrambling, trying to get out of the chair to no avail.

“Want to try and share anything else, Michael?”

“Fuck you, Alastor.”

To that, I squeezed the forceps shut on the bridge of his nose, cutting through the thick cartilage. His screams echoed through the dungeon. Blood began gushing down his face. I let him sit there, bleeding and screaming, while I ambled over to the table and set the forceps back in their place. I took in the scene in front of me. Every blade was cleaned with surgical precision, perfectly laid out before me. All except for the bone-cutting forceps. They were covered in blood and had a bit of Michael’s odd, greige skin caught in the hinge. As I scanned the table again, a simple hunting knife charmed with Noxen, shining iridescent black, caught my eye.

I sat on the floor in front of Michael with my legs crossed, observing his struggle while I tossed the knife between my hands. If I thought he truly knew more, I would have dragged this out longer, but he didn’t know anything.

Michael finally opened his eyes and saw me sitting there. The hood of my cloak was pulled down a bit farther than it was earlier, shielding my hollow eye sockets from Michael’s line of sight. My thoughts were circling as the madness in me surged. I was doing my best to hone them before unleashing that madness onto Michael. Taking the hunting knife, I slowly shoved it into his already injured shoulder. Dark veins immediately began to sprout from around the wound, infecting him from the inside out, thanks to the Noxen charm.

The maddening, racing thoughts were perfectly sealed away, boiling deep within me, waiting to be unleashed. I was waiting for the opportune moment to let them go. He had finished screaming but was still breathing heavily. That’s when I finally let the thoughts go. Michael immediately started convulsing, screaming, bleeding from every orifice on his body. My madness continued to feed off his insecurities and weaknesses. I saw the blood begin to pool in the corners of his eyes and fall like tears down his face. I knew we were close to the end. Summoning the phantom grip I used earlier, his neck snapped. The last breath passed Michael's lips only seconds later.

Standing, I slowly made my way over to a now lifeless Michael. “I wish I could say that I was sorry, but you were just really fucking stupid pulling that shit.” I yanked the knife out of his shoulder before standing upright to walk back over to the table.

Amon left a pen and paper for me on the table, as he usually does. Scribbling on the page—It’s done. He knew nothing—before leaving, I tossed the charmed knife back on the table, blood splattered on the clean instruments.

Pulling my hood farther over my face, I left the dungeon.