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My fists slammed into the dirt.
I wasn’t sure what bothered me more. Being trapped in this godforsaken place or being banished from the only home in this rotten creation I wanted to inhabit. The home of the wife I didn’t want but there was still a chance to be free from.
Another slam of my fist against the ground was all I allowed myself before I got to my feet and rubbed my hands along the sides of my neck. I let them roam up my horns, basking in the heat before my fires billowed around me and I wrapped myself in the flesh these humans would deem normal — as unremarkable as I found it.
I needn’t worry. I wouldn’t have to spend long trapped in this world. Eventually, Arzen would come for me. She would want someone to share in her endless responsibilities and search me out, wanting to share her misery with me.
Discomfort moved through my chest as I made my way out of the area the sign boasted as a Parkette and back onto the main street. Night darkened the sky and that darkness brought a slowing of the number of people walking but an increase in the traffic on the road.
Cars, buses, bikes, electric scooters, and streetcars never ceased and it annoyed me I knew what each contraption was called.
As with most demons, with each person with lust in their hearts that passed me, I was conferred with some of their knowledge. This city — Toronto — was very quickly becoming a place I knew down to its very bones.
The pain fluttered through my chest again.
I tilted my face up to the night sky, inhaling all the lust that floated through the air. Even in my absence, my wife was battling demons.
Bound to her, I may not be able to return home, but I could pull myself closer to her and see just what things haunted her that made her so full of fear.
11
EDEN
To say being back in the city was unnerving after my weekend from hell would be putting it lightly. The drive into the city did nothing to put me at ease. I wasn’t built for rush hour traffic, and in downtown Toronto, that was pretty much 24/7.
The urge to run people off the road with my Jeep Wrangler, fitted with a custom bull bar that convinced me it would be an easy task was something I barely tapered down. Breaking something would be therapeutic. To hear the groan of metal and the shattering of glass would itch at the place in my brain filled with nothing but static since our seance.
Better not.
A defeated sigh vibrated my lips as I pulled into the underground parking under my office building and swiped my card. The door lifted and I drove through, navigating to my spot as though it were second nature even though I had barely been in since the pandemic. My day running lights highlighted the painted RESERVED briefly before I shut the car off and sat in the newfound silence.
Without the sound of the engine and the A/C running, it was almost too quiet. Inside my car was dim. Not dark but not quite bright either. The overhead fluorescent lights were too spaced out to be considered bright as I folded my arms over the top of my steering wheel and propped my chin on them.
My phone vibrated on the passenger seat and I reached for it without a thought.
Vi:
You in the city today?
Me:
Yup
Vi:
Coffee?
Fuck, if I couldn’t use a cup right this second. I felt completely unravelled. My night had been spent chasing ghosts. Every bump or creak had me jumping out of my skin, sure the demon who had haunted my dreams when sleep finally came would come calling. He had disappeared all too soon, without a single word. It didn’t sit right with me.
If he had yelled, damned my soul, or broken something I would feel better. I was used to people leaving my life with a tantrum. Raised voices and harsh threats were things that told me it was done. I could sit in the chaos they thought they left behind and sigh in relief. Asmodeus was just… gone. In the blink of an eye. He had stood there with a determined look on his face, and then I was staring at the wall.
A shudder moved through me at the thought.
I don’t think it sat right with any of us. As much as I thought of my girls as my ride or dies, they were all too happy to leave Sunday afternoon — after my high from hell wore off. Not that I blamed them.
Edibles were not my thing.
I stared at the message and sighed again. There was a lot of my day to be tackled, and I should at least start it before I made plans for coffee. Reaching behind me, I grabbed my briefcase — an adorable, artsy leather-looking book bag Sarika had gotten me three birthdays ago — and got out of the car.
