A Daemon and His Work

Samael nods, suddenly solemn. "Another example of my previous theory then. Humans are all different."He sighed, leaning his back against the alley's wall. He revealed his ignorance in many things supernatural by asking, "So, are you one? A witch, I mean." It was an innocent question, but could be taken in a variety of ways. He still believed in such things, even though he'd only known two types of supernatural beings: vampires and Daemons.

"I want to feel sorry for what I did to you." He began, rambling once more. "But sympathy isn't something I've ever known, so I don't know how to give it. What does empathy feel like, I wonder, to put oneself into the shoes of others. Can it be taught, like a skill, or must it be inherent, something you know from birth? Because I know most Daemons won't have it. That's how we are, we are beings designed to signal incoming doom. A large amount of Daemons is said to cause great natural disasters unlike any others. We are creatures of Hell, crawling by our fingernails to drag ourselves out and satiate that hunger that throbs just beneath the skin, the hunger that wants destruction and death..." He trails off, going into his thoughts.
 
Yuuki blinked as Samael asked whether or not she was a witch. For some reason she had expected him to have some sort of sense to tell him if she was human or not - she didn't know why, maybe she just read too many books. All of the books that she read in the library were about vampires and kingdoms and Elves and all sorts of things like that, but she had never believed in it. Still, for some reason, she thought he'd be more knowledgable. Once she had processed that he was serious about his question, she shook her head a little and was about to answer when he started speaking again about sympathy. When he finally did trail off to silence, she spoke up.


"I don't know if empathy can be fully taught once one is no longer a child, but the general feeling might catch on. It would probably be more difficult though, and you'd probably have to really care about the person that you're empathising with. Sympathy is instinct, I think. I doubt anybody can be taught how to feel sorry for anything, even though you should," she said thoughtfully, giving the first slight inclination that she was upset about being nearly killed since it had happened. "As for being a witch, no. I'm not a witch at all. He just saw me do this," she said, pausing and holding up a hand that gave off a golden glow for a moment before fading. "And thought that I was one. It's just something I've always been able to do, nothing supernatural," she finished, shrugging a little and wincing in pain at the movement.
 
"It's beautiful, that light." He said, looking at her hand that glowed. He brushed his stark white hair back, to keep it out of his eyes. "We might have to start moving soon, if your home is far. Once night falls, that's when the creatures of the night will start searching for me. If they find me, and realize I'm stuck with you, they might try and kill you."

"Not that you should worry...at least, not while I'm with you...at least, not while I'm prepared..." He said, doubling back on himself for about another ten seconds before realizing he wasn't doing much good.

"Heheh..." He laughed nervously, "Nevermind..."
 
"Thank you," she replied, surprised that he would say something like that. She supposed the golden light was pretty, but she just saw it as a curse - one that had nearly gotten her killed more than once. In the back of her mind she had always suspected that it was supposed to be more than a nightlight, that it had some sort of ability, but she had no idea what it was. Giving up on the thought, she nodded a little as he said they'd have to start moving. She started to shift to get up, but then he started stuttering about how not to worry and kept backtracking so much that she actually got a lot more worried than she would have been if he hadn't said anything at all.


"Moving sounds good," she finally said as he trailed off, attempting to sit up and ending up collapsing back down. It just hurt to badly to twist that way and put weight on it, even though it was clean and bandaged now. She bit her lip hard enough to form a small drop of blood just to hold back the urge to whimper in pain, only relaxing after a few moments. "Okay, it doesn't sound as good anymore. I don't think I can," she admitted quietly, shaking her head.
 
Kneeling next to her, Samael placed his hands under her shoulders and knees. He picks her up as if she weighed nothing, and said, "Which way to your basement?" He was being quite literal, as he had never known that other people didn't grow up in basements, like he had. He smiled innocently, for the first time exposing Daemon fangs.

He strides out into the city's sidewalk, ignoring people's stares. Choosing a direction, he walks, waiting for her to answer. It was still midday, but Samael had no sense of how long a day/night cycle was. The sun was high in the sky, and Samael gazed at it for as long as he could, looking away with giant black spots in his eyes that gradually fell away.
 
Yuuki squeaked in surprise as Samael scooped her up so easily, instinctively turning toward him a little and resting a hand on his shoulder before she realized he wasn't going to drop her. She was still tense and unsure, but he seemed okay with it and didn't appear to be straining. Looking up at him as he asked about her basement, her expression was blank until she realized that he must mean house. She pointed once they were out of the alley, not even glancing at people as they walked down the street. Each time they had to turn, she pointed the way, usually silently.


"So what happens when I die? Do you go find somebody else to stab and make a contract with?" she asked, no bitterness in her voice. She was simply curious as to how this whole thing worked.
 
"By then, hopefully those that plague me will have moved on." Samael's eyes grow soft, gaining a sadness that lurked behind the innocence. "Or if that hasn't happened yet, maybe I'll have grown enough inside to face my own enemies. Perhaps, more people will want to use their souls as compensation for a business venture, or to get back at a cheating husband. Maybe the world will have de-evolved enough for that to happen. Maybe not," He added at her look.

He was silent for the rest of the way to her house, turning when she said so, and taking long looks at people and animals, because he didn't know how long he'd be able to see such sights. "Is this it?" He asked when she stopped him.
 
Looking up at him as he responded to her, Yuuki observed in silence the sadness reflected in the strange boy's eyes. Samael seemed so odd to her, simply because she couldn't understand the way he viewed the world. It was just so foreign to her. However, when he mentioned that perhaps by the time she died people would be volunteering for this sort of thing, she had to cock an eyebrow. There were people who would - she had no doubt about that. She just thought that they would be few and far between, and likely the sort to do so only for power over their enemies. Who would want to be bonded to a person like that? Was that how she was supposed to act now that she had Samael at her disposal?


As they stopped in front of the house that she indicated, she simply gazed at the building for a moment. It was small and in obvious disrepair, with faded white paint that was chipping and cracked. The front steps were sagging and one was missing, and one of the windows was broken in the corner. It looked abandoned, but it was home.


"Yes, this is it. I can walk from here," she said quietly, wiggling down from his arms and getting her balance before releasing him entirely. It hurt like crazy but she held it in, moving up the steps and automatically stepping over the missing one. "Don't say anything until I tell you to. Mother would be heartbroken if she knew that I had company over without cleaning first. She hates people finding out that she's ill," she said, looking up at him sadly. She sighed and opened the front door, stepping into a dimly lit living room that was sparsely furnished at best. The kitchen was a little dirty, but it was more a lived-in look than filthy.


Yuuki moved to a tiny hallway and held up a hand to signal Samael to wait. She peeked in the bedroom and saw her mother was sleeping, pale as ever. Creeping back out to the living room, she opened a door and gestured Samael to follow her before going down the dark basement stairs with a small flashlight. Once at the bottom, she lit a couple candles and sat on a small bed.


"Well, this is my room," she said simply, looking up at him.
 
Samael did as he was told, keeping silent, and stopped following her when she gestured to. He moved silently, secretly scared. His father had demanded absolute silence most of the time, and he wondered if Yuuki's mother was that way, too. In the dark basement stairs, a memory took hold of him.

It was just months ago. He was in the dark cold of the basement in his father's house, and Armenius, his father, was having a heated discussion with one of the Damned, one of the vampires. The vampire wanted Samael, to use as a weapon for their use. His father refused, stating simply that he wasn't going to let anyone have the boy. The Damned offered compensation, yet still Armenius refused. Then, Bang!Bang!Bang! Gunshots rang out, no chance for Armenius to scream. The big iron door separating the wooden basement steps and the main part of the house flew open, and more light than Samael had ever seen streamed in, nearly blinding him. He had lived in near-darkness his whole life, seeing small fingers of light only when his father went down the stairs to beat him. The vampire dragged the child away by the arm, his claws digging into his skin. The last thing Samael had seen before being taken into the night was his father's body, eyes open in fear.

He came back to the present, a gasp escaping his mouth. His pupils had dilated, his hands began shaking. He shook his head, clearing his thoughts, then followed Yuuki all the way down into the basement. When she spoke to him, he said nothing, honoring her previous instructions, and waiting for anything else.
 
Yuuki looked up as Samael came down, hearing the gasp and seeing how he was sort of shaken looking. She would have gotten up and asked if he was alright, but she really doubted she could stand again without shaking herself. Her side was starting to hurt worse, but that was probably just because she had walked. No big deal, the pain would fade soon. She waited for him to say something, but he kept silent and just looked at her. For a long moment she didn't understand, but then she remembered that she had asked him not to say anything until she told him to. She was amazed that he had listened - she had said it as more of a request and not a literal order. How strange this was to get used to..


"You can speak now, you know. I just didn't want my mom to know you're here. Sit anywhere. I only have that one chair or the bed, but the floor isn't too cold as long as you stay away from the walls if you don't want to sit anywhere else," she offered, giving him a faint smile. "It's good that you got to see this place in the middle of the day. At night it's pretty cold and dreary since there are no lights down here, but the living room is comfy too. We'll probably sleep up there tonight," she went on, then stopped herself, realizing that she was rambling a bit.


"Anyway.. Earlier you asked what I wanted. All I want is for my mother to get better. After that you can be free to do whatever you want," she added softly after a few moments.
 
Samael, not knowing what else to do, sat in the chair, trying not to be conspicuous about it. "What ails her, your mother I mean?" He asks, looking sideways at her, not sure how she'd react. "Even though, after I help you, I'm still under your control. That's how the Contract works." He smiles wanly at the situation.

His eyes glow slightly in the semidarkness, the shadows of the candlelight adding to their supernaturality. Although his heart is still beating faster than normal from the memory, it has gone down a bit, and Samael's hands aren't shaking. It was still a bad thought thought, and a slight bout of claustrophobia hit him, and he had to take several deep breaths to calm himself.
 
"Nobody knows. We were talking at the kitchen table one day a few years ago and I asked about my father. I've never met him and she doesn't like talking about him. Well, she started telling me something and then just stopped. I thought she was just not going to tell me anything, but then she collapsed. She was unconscious.. I called the ambulance and she was hospitalized for a few days. After that she came home because all the tests said she was fine. But.. She's not fine. She's too weak to get out of bed, has no appetite, and talks in her sleep as if somebody else is there with her. Every time I go in there she cries just looking at me, and she never used to be that emotional.." Yuuki explained, her eyes slowly filling with tears as her heart ached for the only person she had left.


"I just want to see her smile again.." she added in a near-whisper, looking down at her lap for a few long seconds. When she looked up, she noticed that he seemed tense. "Are you alright?" she asked, uncertain how Samael even acted normally.
 
"I'm-I'm fine. I think. I hope." Samael says, forcing himself to act natural. "It's terrible what happened to your mother. But, I think, it may be curable, even if doctors say it isn't anything. It could be, and I'm just putting this out there, I don't really know, only what I've read in the Cross, but, it could be, that talking about your father could've opened your mother's soul to malevolent spirits, and one entered her through her weakness."

He runs a hand through his hair, hoping he was right, but not sure. Absentmindedly, he scratches at his arms, at the scars beneath the sleeves of his clothes.
 
Yuuki listened closely as Samael described what he thought was wrong with her mother. At first, she rejected the thought out of hand as insane. There was no way that malevolent spirits even existed, let alone that one had entered her mother. Before she could speak, however, she was reminded who she was speaking to and what had happened just a few hours ago. These things weren't as impossible as they seemed.. But why would talking about her father be a bad thing? Why had it caused something like this? She frowned slightly and shook her head.


"I hope that you're wrong only because it sounds so awful," she said honestly, watching as he seemed to be full of anxiety and fidgeting. She really didn't believe that he was fine, and the 'I hope' that he had added earlier wasn't reassuring. "Well, since it's not even nightfall yet, we should go enjoy the daylight while we still can I guess. We have nothing to eat here so we can go to the store and find something for dinner," she suggested, wondering if it was being inside that bothered him so much since he had seemed fine before.


She reached over to the small table next to her bed and pulled open the drawer, withdrawing a small box. Flipping open the latch, she opened it and took out a couple crumpled up bills. Not much, but enough to get them through the night. Tomorrow she'd have to go work at the cafe again to get some more cash, she noted mentally. She replaced the box and put the money in the pocket of her sweater, then stood carefully. It was getting easier to handle the pain, she realized with a feeling of relief.


"You coming?"
 
Samael answered an immediate, "Yes." and began to follow her out. "You sure you are okay to be walking? It's no problem for me to carry you." He smiles politely. "But it is your decision. I am simply glad to take in the sights of the outside world for as long as I can." He paused. "I don't have to eat or sleep very much, so you needn't worry." He continued, muttering something profound about the wind and the trees, but was really just a childish musing.

"It was really a beautiful day, wasn't it?" He asked, remembering the sun, who he had only seen for the past week, and a glorious one at that, one of freedom.
 
"I'll be fine. I have to get used to it anyway. If I can't even walk, how am I supposed to work tomorrow? I have to go to the cafe and work to get more cash for Mom's groceries," Yuuki explained, going up the stairs and walking quietly out the front door. It was getting closer to sunset, but it was still pretty nice out. She held her sweater around herself against the chill in the breeze and started walking down the sidewalk, glancing over at Samael as he walked with her.


"It still is," she replied with a slight smile. She wondered why he seemed so fascinated with being outside, but decided it probably wasn't a very pretty story to hear so decided against asking him about it. "So, do you ever sleep, or do you just sit and rest for a little while? Do you eat human food or something else?" she asked instead, curious. If she was going to be stuck with him for the rest of her life, she figured she might as well learn more about him and try to be friends.
 
He thought about it. "I only need about thirty minutes of sleep a day, but that may just be what I have grown used to." With his father, Samael never knew when or when not he was going to go down those stairs and beat him, so he caught snatches of sleep only a few minutes long each. "As for eating, that is more trickier. I know I have the capability for drinking human blood, but I've never done it, at least not from the, ah, source. However, save for the time I was with the vampires, I didn't eat anything except for," He blushes in embarrassment, then coughs, "...rats." After a long pause, he says, "Which means I have the ability to eat human food." This subject had never been an easy one for him to talk about, but it was a direct question, so he had to answer. Finally, they were outside again, and Samael was able to breath normally again.

He loved the lights and sounds of the world outside, felt he could just stand in the middle of a busy park for the rest of his life. It was all so surreal and new to him, and he wanted to see as much of it as possible before he couldn't. He let out a light sigh of contentment as he followed her to the shops.
 
Yuuki listened, trying to imagine what it might be like to only need to sleep for a half hour a day. All of those extra hours might be fun, giving him a chance to do things that normal people couldn't. There would be so much more time to learn something, or explore the empty city streets and have free reign over everything. She nodded a little, still listening as he spoke of his diet. It was actually a relief to hear that even though he could be sustained on human blood, he didn't hang out in dark alleys and bite random people. She was a little surprised to hear that he usually ate rats, but that was meat and so answered her question. As she took in his blush, she decided to cook something for him that night - other than a rat!


"I can't imagine being able to be awake for so long. It seems like it could be a lot of fun roaming around outside, but I bet it gets lonely sometimes. I like sleeping - you can be anything you want to be in a dream," she replied, giving him a little smile as they got close to the store. She walked in through the door and waited for him to follow her, then picked up a basket and started browsing the aisles, looking for something tasty and cheap. Frozen foods were usually the best bet, so she got some small bags of frozen veggies and a little package of frozen chicken. Budget gone, she turned to Samael. "Come on, let's go check out."
 
"Yeah. Fun." He replied, "The loneliness was definitely there, though." Inside the store, several people gazed at his stark white hair, showing no signs of being dyed, in awe. He shot one man a look, growling lowly, not liking being stared at, even if he was free. The man quickly strides off, clearly put off by the boy's teeth, eyes, and hair.

Turning back to Yuuki, Samael said, "I'm sorry, what?" Then realized what she had said, and followed her, trying to ignore the people's stares, but finding it hard, their looks sending itchy feelings up his spine.
 
Moving toward the cash registers, Yuuki noticed how people were looking at Samael. She chanced a glance back at him and took in his expression. Thinking about that, she went through an empty register and paid for her items. Counting out change carefully, she avoided the gaze of the annoyed girl and took her bag silently. Once they were out of the store, she turned and gave Samael a small smile.


"Don't worry, I don't like going in there either. Let's take this stuff back to the house, then we can take a walk around the park. It's nice to look at, plus it's late enough that there won't be a lot of people around," she suggested, moving back down the sidewalk toward her house as she waited for him to respond with his opinion, or anything really.
 
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