The Devil's Love

Playing with Fire: Chapter 1: Anton

Time was fleeting, eroding away from us faster than I had anticipated. Everything had been fast tracked to be organized before we left for the wedding. A wedding between my right hand Nicolas and his partner Rowan. Rowan was a newly formed demon, one of my more trusted staff members. It is surprising that even as the devil I cannot find trustworthy demons. They know what fate awaits them for poor behavior yet I still find myself sending many of them to the pit.

The pit, or otherwise known as the true hell. What most people saw was the underworld, a place of black trees, red skies and a leafy undergrowth. But it wasn't hell, it was just the waiting area. True hell was a deep gorge filled with blistering lava, cages for the damned to live in and a never ending life of suffering and pain.

But it was a dull suffering in comparison to the thought of going without seeing Sarah for five months and that was why I was slowly bringing my plans together to avoid it. I will not have anyone tell me when I can see a loved one, my life is not for them to rule. But I had to play along and pretend that I was accepting of this fate, just to ensure that they turned Sarah from human to an immortal human. This suffering was a large price to pay but in the end, it would be worth it.

We barely knew each other yet it felt like a lifetime. I had found Sarah in an odd way, though to be fair there was nothing normal about my life. After all, I am the devil.

Lost in my thoughts about a wedding invitation to Rowan and Nicolas's wedding, I wandered through the bustling streets of New York. Happening upon Sarah who had just dropped an armload of papers onto a crosswalk, I helped her when no one else could be bothered.

It could be said that I loved her back then, though I was not aware of it. With each passing day, it grew, becoming something that was so large it scared me. A crazy thought but it was true, the devil was scared of loving someone. My past was something of a tale of pure debauchery, keeping everyone at a distance and only ever lusting after them. There was never a moment of love until Sarah and yet we still had not gone that far.

That was another fear, not the act of love or sex itself but the results of such an act. If my plan failed and we would be separated for five months, it would mean that she could be pregnant and birth the child alone if it decided to arrive early. Of course, we could and hope that she might not become pregnant or that the choice of protection would not fail as it always does. There was only one method that was effective and we did not have the time to wait for it to start working.

Separated from each other for five months, it would be unbearable but at surface level, there was no choice. The grand council of my kind had ordered that our separation was five months, a time where it was expected that we would grow as people and that our love would remain strong. It was a test of endurance because as immortal beings Sarah and I would have to endure an eternity.

For appearances, I had everything planned with the expectation that we would part company for the five months. I wanted the council to believe that everything was on track and that I wasn't secretly planning on changing things to suit my own needs. I didn't know if we were being watched so I ensured that everything was as the council expected. Rowan had happily agreed to spend her working days between tending to the needs of Nicolas and delivering messages between Sarah and me.

We arrived at the keep, a place where vampires sought refuge and also where Rowan and Nick were having their wedding service. Nick was once a vampire, through a deal made to save his son's life he became a demon and indebted to me for a life of service. And because Nick was once a vampire and still had vampire family members, we were surrounded by them.

To say that Sarah was a little freaked out was accurate. She'd never knowingly come in contact with a vampire prior to knowing me and now she was going to a place where they hung out for leisure. No matter how much reassurance I gave her, I could see the hesitation. They wouldn't dare touch the love of the devil, they knew that I could rip immortality away from them in the blink of an eye. And the suffering they would endure for touching her would be gruesome. Their pain would never be enough, I would see to it myself to ensure they knew what hell really was.

I knew that there was more than one reason for having the service at the keep. It was easy to access for all guests, offered sleeping quarters and human feeders. They were humans that were trusted to be a living food source for the vampires, given a life of pure luxury for the service.

And then there was the other reason for having it here. Me. Yep, it was true. I was being used as a payment of sorts. Nothing had been said of course but I wasn't stupid. I knew how my kind worked. The master of the keep would slowly age, his life essence draining away as he protected the building and those within it. My presence alone was enough to revitalize him ahead of schedule. His life essence fed from mine and within seconds of me walking into the place, he was a younger man. Sarah's eyes widened as she watched the man slowly becoming younger in front of us.

"Master Dremain, welcome." Dimitri smiled as he spoke, his attention turning to Sarah "And to you Miss Walters, welcome. You will find all that you need, as always. Please enter, one of my attendants will take you to your lodgings. I hope you find everything that you need and more."

The attendant took our bags and waited patiently.

"I'm sure it will be, thank you for having us."

Dimitri smiled with a nod. No doubt he was thinking that it should be him thanking me.

"Your lodgings are next to Master Lancaster and his family, is this alright?"

"Of course Dimitri."

He nodded slowly and gestured to the corridor.

"Then may you find an easy rest for your time here."

"Thank you."

Sarah's eyes widened as Dimitri slowly faded as he moved backward, sinking into the darkened wall.

"I don't think I will ever get used to your world."

I chuckled and took her hand, following the attendant down the corridor.

"Don't they know what lights are?"

"Vampires like the dark Sarah, they play in the shadows and love to watch how much it freaks people out when they just appear, seemingly out of nowhere."

She looked at me with shock.

"Just a trick of the eye unless of course if you are an elder vampire then there is an element of the supernatural to them because they are directly related to another type of being. The turned vampires or born from turned vampires are merely humans that have been altered and thus have no real powers."

After several flights of stairs down and a few twists and turns of dark corridors, we arrived at our room. The attendant placed our things in the room and handed the keys, leaving without a word said. Likely to be too scared to. The story of my life really, unless they actually knew me then they were always scared.