An Eternity of Dead Sun (An Eternity of Eclipse Novel Book 2) (4 page)

Extremely parched, I hesitantly advanced towards the bathroom to tell Eclipse that I was going to quickly run outside to get some soda. I stepped in past the steam and looked over to the bathtub. I made sure to keep my gaze solidified on his face and
not
his naked body.

“Eclipse?” I called through the fog of steam.

I received no response.

I walked closer, wondering why he was so quiet. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw him lying there, his arms hanging listlessly over the bathtub—like a dead person.

“Oh my God!”

Panic struck me like a lightning bolt.

I rushed to him, ready to slap him back to consciousness when I heard him murmur something unintelligible before readjusting himself over the tub. My pounding heart slowed when I registered that he was only sleeping.
He’s fine,
I thought in relief.
Thankful that he wasn’t dead—and now amused with what he was doing—I smiled at the image of my Guardian Demon napping in the bathtub. He resembled an Angel sleeping there soundly, his powerfully built body much too big for the puny bathtub.

How far you’ve fallen from grace,
I thought with endearment.

I had no idea what life was like as a Prince of Hell, but I was sure stealing naps in bathtubs wasn’t a pastime he indulged in too often. It would be cruel to wake him up.

After deciding that it was best to let him continue with his nap, I quietly tiptoed out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom. I threw a red bathrobe over my black pajamas and stepped out into the hall to look for the vending machine.  

I walked past a communal living room where two of the three couples I saw earlier were hanging out on the couches in front of the fireplace, laughing and joking with one another. There was a preppy-looking couple wearing glasses and a rebellious-looking couple with tattoos all over their arms. Their hair was wet and they were dressed in their pajamas as well. I deduced that they must’ve been friends from the same college, taking a road trip somewhere to celebrate their break from school.  

“Hi,” I softly greeted them as I stepped into the room and advanced towards the connecting room.

Unlike the living room that was bright and homey, the second room was dimmer and colder. I followed a soft, mechanical humming and eventually found two vending machines standing together in the corner: a snack machine and a drink machine. It was eerily quiet in the room and I was doing my best to quickly make my purchase. I was eagerly waiting for the soda I selected to drop down when—

Click.

The soda can got stuck in the circular metal ring within the machine.

“Are you kidding me?” I muttered, slamming my hand against the glass panel to jolt it down. My efforts were futile; the soda can remained stuck in its position, taunting my patience.

“You need to apply more force to this piece of junk,” came a male voice behind me. A fist then pounded against the vending machine, shaking the can loose from its imprisonment. A clamoring sound elicited as the can hit the bottom of the vending machine, popping out from the slot below me.  

I looked up at my unlikely savior.

The first thing I noticed about him was his height. He was extremely tall, just an inch or so below Eclipse. He was sporting a dark gray hoodie and jeans. His spiky hair, which defied gravity with its one-inch spikes, was stylishly gelled and pointed in various directions. He had a pale, baby-like face and a big goofy smile that made him look like a giant kid. The only disturbance to his innocent persona was the piercing he had on the tip of his left eyebrow. Regardless of the alternative piercing, the innocence he radiated was unbeatable by any other.

He reached beneath the flap of the vending machine and grabbed the soda.

“Here you go, miss,” he said cheerily, handing me the soda can with an even goofier smile that showed off his pearly whites.

“Thank you,” I said, unable to help but flash my own pearly whites.

“No problem,” he voiced, maintaining his upbeat personality. “Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

I curiously bunched my brows. I looked around and then looked back at him. “Do you work here?”

He bounced his head in confirmation. His smile broadened, and I instantly saw the resemblance between him and another cheery character I met earlier in the day. “Yes, my parents are the owners.”

“Oh, you’re the mechanic!” I cried with too much excitement.

He chuckled, concurrently amused and taken aback by my excitement. “Guilty.” He cocked his head. “I take it from your excitement that your car is one of the ones waiting to be fixed?”

I nodded happily, clutching onto my soda. “You must be very popular tonight. From what I heard, there are quite a few cars that need your attention.”

He laughed again, exhaustion already suffusing his voice. “It can get slow here so I’m grateful for the business during storms like this. Of course, it sucks for you guys.” I gave him a “what-can-you-do?” shrug, and he added, “I’ll do my best to fix it all up before morning comes.”

I was about to nod and thank him when I heard footsteps approaching us.

“Phix,” said a young woman’s voice from behind us. From the entrance came a girl in her early twenties. She was wearing a leather jacket, black jeans, and heavy black eyeliner that made her look scarier than she should’ve looked. Her long, shiny brown hair barely moved as she approached us. Her indifferent eyes studied me for a moment before she looked at Phix. “San needs you.”

“Your name is Phix?” I asked, finding too much humor in the coincidence of his name. I momentarily disregarded how unfriendly her aura was and turned back to the cheery guy. “Like ‘fix’?” His friendly grin confirmed my assumption, and I laughed again. “It’s ironic that you’re a mechanic and your name is ‘Phix.’ I guess you were born to fix things, weren’t you?”

Cheesy, I know, but I was trying to be friendly and likeable.

He gave a halfhearted shrug, stealing a glance at the girl. Unlike Phix, she found no amusement in our conversation. He was still friendly, but I could tell that Phix was starting to feel uncomfortable. “You could say that.”

The girl wheeled her full attention onto me. The glare she cast in my direction nearly knocked me on the ground. I could only surmise that she must have been his girlfriend and that she was thinking that I was hitting on him. I wanted to tell her: “You don’t have to worry! I have the sexiest creature in the world naked and waiting for me in my room. I have no interest in your boyfriend!” but found it too preposterous to say because it wasn’t like I could do anything with Eclipse.

Plus, I knew a “get-the-hell-away-from-my-boyfriend” glare when I saw one. I didn’t want to awkwardly stand there any longer than I had to. If a couple had trust issues, then it was their issue. I didn’t need to be in the middle of it. I already had enough issues of my own—one of them trying to resist a hot and seductive Demon.

“Well, it was nice meeting you.” I raised my soda up to Phix and inclined my head. “Thank you again for helping me and thank you in advance for fixing our car.”

“Have a good night, miss.”

“You too.”

Smiling meekly, I turned away.

As I rushed out of the room to avoid the glare from the girl, I heard her whisper, “What are you doing? San says we have to get working. Stop wasting time and let’s get this over with . . .”

I journeyed back into the main hall as their voices faded into the background. The living room was empty and I deduced that the other couples must’ve gone back to their rooms. Perturbed by the sudden eerie vibe of the upstairs quarter, I hurried down the hall, unlocked the door, and dashed back inside, breathing a sigh of relief now that I was back in the safety of my room.

Upon walking back in with my soda, I took a moment to poke my head into the bathroom to see that Eclipse was still sleeping soundly in the bathtub. I tried not to judge him for napping for so long. I doubted he was used to driving piece of shit cars and walking for miles in the rain. Not to mention, in terms of our sleeping arrangement, no matter how much he desired me, he never once got into bed with me. Eclipse would tease and flirt unabashedly, but he was surprisingly chivalrous when it came to keeping me alive. I knew that he hated sleeping on the small sofa in my room; he tossed and turned every night because it was incredibly uncomfortable, so it was a refreshing sight to see him sleeping so soundly. I decided to leave him there for a couple more minutes. From the looks of it, I doubted he’d drown.

I sat back down on the bed, drank a bit of my soda, and tried to study, but still found it to be useless. I couldn’t concentrate. All that assaulted my mind was the fact that I was in another city, staying in some weird inn while on the way to my hometown—on my way back to the house where I murdered my family. And in the midst of all of this, I was supposed to hope and pray that I’d somehow find the missing part of my soul so that I could be human again. It was an understatement to say that I had lost my appetite for studying after I ran through my entire to-do list. There was so much pressure riding on this trip alone—and so many dreaded things that I had to do here—that I couldn’t stop the migraine that had started to plague me.

“Augh . . .”

With an exhausted groan, I turned on the TV to take my mind off everything. Almost as soon as I rested my head on the pillow, I could hear the muffled moans coming from the couple next door. My skin crawled. I felt like I was in some bad porn movie. I turned up the volume of my TV show to drown out the extra sounds. While I was falling asleep, the screams coming from the TV were so loud that I could’ve sworn the screams were occurring right next door. However, because I was so tired, I kept my eyes closed and rested . . .

It wasn’t until I sensed someone standing above me and staring down at me that I woke up. I opened my eyes, expecting to see Eclipse’s face. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the elderly man and woman staring down at me instead.

The woman was sitting on my bed, her long gray hair spilling over my shoulders. Her knees were on either side of me, caging me in while the man stood above me, his eyes as dark as the night.

Holy sh—!

“Ahhh! Mmm! Mmm!”

I tried to scream, but the woman placed her hands over my mouth and blocked any sounds I could emit. With hands firmly wrenched on my shoulders, they pulled me up, lifted me from the bed like I was a rag doll, and forcefully dragged me out of the room before I was able to scream for Eclipse.

They were so fast that within the blink of an eye, I was already outside in the main hall, being dragged mercilessly over the carpet and into a dark corner of the inn.

I couldn’t believe it.

Kidnapped.

I was being kidnaped.

“Let it burn with the fire of a thousand dead suns . . .”
03
: Kidnapped

“Augh!”

My pained groans poured throughout the hall as they ruthlessly dragged me over the carpet. In the midst of this abduction, I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that an old grandma and grandpa were kidnapping me from my own room. If I weren’t in so much physical pain from the carpet burns, I would seriously believe that this was a screwed up dream.

“Let go of me, you wrinkly old freaks!” I managed to screech out once I was able to shift my mouth from under the woman’s hold.

Like a bird caught in a net, I became uncontrollable. I squirmed my body every which way to extract myself from their hold.

“Ugh!” the woman cried, struggling to control me while they continued to drag me across the floor. “Stop moving so much, you short girl!”

The old couple groaned in indignation and fought to steady me. Once I felt them loosen their holds, I extracted my arm out from their grasp and did the first thing I could think of: I elbowed the person closest to me, which happened to be the woman.

Thwack!

The sharp tip of my elbow slammed into her jaw, causing her teeth to violently clack together. As an added measure to get her off of me, I punched her in the eye.

“Ahhhhhh!” the old woman shrieked, reeling back against the wall while clutching her face with her hands.

With adrenaline pumping within me, I swiveled around and forcefully head-butted the man with my forehead.

Thump!

The moment our skulls collided, a massive assault of pain detonated inside my skull.

“Fuck!” I screamed, nearly blacking out from the onslaught of pain. “Oww! Motherfucker! How do other people make this attack look so damn painless?!”

My shaking knees sank to the ground. I couldn’t stop trembling as I sucked in a sharp breath. It felt like someone had split my forehead open with a baseball bat. As black spots blinded my field of vision, I could hear the agonized groans coming from the old couple. Something struck me as odd when their voices seared into my senses. Instead of hearing senile, old voices, I heard young voices that sounded peculiarly familiar. With much effort, I fought through the pain to gaze in their direction. My eyes nearly jolted out of my sockets when I saw the “old” man and woman.

“What the fuck?”

While cradling their heads and cursing out loud, their faces began to morph under the dim lighting. The wrinkles that once canvassed their skin were now smoother than marble. The woman’s long gray hair changed into a silky brown hue while dark, spiky hair sprouted out of the man’s once bald head.

I recognized them immediately.

The couple I saw earlier . . .

“You two,” I voiced, gaping at them with incredulous eyes.

Phix’s troubled eyes locked with mine. I could see the confliction within his gaze, the apology in his eyes for what he was going to do.

“I’m sorry it had to be you tonight,” he whispered before straightening himself up.

Unlike Phix, the girl did not possess the same apologetic gaze. If anything, when I saw her once brown eyes transform into black orbs, all I saw was a murderous gaze.

I knew instantly what she was—what
both
of them were.

Demons.

They were Demons.

“You’re going to pay for that!” she growled, lunging at me with the ferocity of a lion.

I scrambled away before she could pummel me against the wall. Survival instincts engulfed me, and I felt my wobbly feet take off. I stumbled down the stairs, doing my best to maintain my equilibrium while hastening my pace. I made it to the other end of the building when it occurred to me that I should run back to our room to find Eclipse. However, as soon as that thought crossed my mind, I vetoed it when my rationale screamed,
“He can protect himself! You’re the one who needs protection, you idiot!”
So with that cheery assurance, I kept running, hoping that Eclipse had woken up from that goddamn coma bath of his and made it out of the inn.

Clank!

Thump!

Clank!

I clamored through the kitchen, tripping several times as I torpedoed through the room. It was when I stumbled against some plates that it occurred to me that I should find some weapons. I recalled all the things I learned from the internet in my attempt to “vanquish” Eclipse several weeks back. I remembered Eclipse telling me that salt and holy water did not work on a Demon of his caliber. With that in mind, logic would dictate that it should work on other Demons, right? At this rate, I was willing to try anything.

My heart raced a mile a minute as I grabbed two big packages of salt from beneath the counter. With my weapons in hand, I dashed out of the kitchen, looking behind me every now and then to make sure I wasn’t being followed. My vigilance became my undoing. I stumbled over my feet during my state of paranoia and tripped in front of a big gathering room where I could hear people’s cries.

Thankful that no one seemed to notice my fall—or my existence—I crawled to the side of the two doors to hide myself. Once I regained some normalcy in my breathing, I hesitantly peeked my head into the room.

My eyes expanded as soon as I saw the two couples I met earlier—the ones who checked into the inn a few minutes before Eclipse and I did. They were huddling in the center of the massive room while about fifty Demons surrounded them. While two female Demons circled their shaking bodies, the rest of the Demons sat in every other part of the room, watching them in amusement. I briefly wondered where the third couple was when I noticed two naked bodies laying lifelessly on the floor. Slash marks marred their bodies while some parts of their flesh had been ripped out. Two big pools of blood formed beneath them and were becoming bigger with every passing second. I stifled a gasp when it hit me that they were dead.

Holy shit.

Those Demons had killed them.

“Where is your God now?” one of the two female Demons jeered. The female Demons taunting the two remaining couples were both dressed in black suits. They wore identical, diabolical smiles on their faces that were too horrible to be human before poising their knives over the couples’ faces. It was obvious they were getting ready to torture them. “Why isn’t he protecting you now?”

I had no idea why I did it, why I became possessed with this “hero-syndrome” when in truth, I didn’t give a damn about these people. Perhaps it was because I kept thinking back to the missing piece of my soul and recalling the prospect of being human. I feared the repercussions of what would happen if I got my soul back and had these people’s deaths hanging over me. It would suck to become human again, only to become miserable right away. So with my selfishness intact, I saw my cue to be a better person when the blades of the knives began to press onto their cheeks.

Here goes nothing . . .

Clutching onto my bags of salt, I charged into the room like a bulldozer and tackled the two Demon women.

Thump!  

The three of us fell onto the cold tiles, crashing onto one another as the nerves in my body screamed in agony. I was not accustomed to physically exerting my body in this manner and I was paying the price for it. Still writhing from the pain, I gathered all the strength I had when I heard those two Demons growl in anger. I staggered to my feet, kept the salt bags close to my chest, and stood there like a deer caught in headlights.

I could scarcely make out the rest of the Demons in the room—there were so many of them. Their eyes were obsidian black, completely free of any trace of humanity. When they smiled at me, I could see their razor sharp teeth. Judging from the silence and anticipation that blanketed the room, no matter how surprised they were by my entrance, they were going to have some fun with me regardless.

“The little one wants to play,” one of the Demon women mocked, her diabolical eyes locking on my shaking figure. She blew her fiery red hair out of her face and stood up. Although her demeanor was calm, I knew that she was pissed off. If she wanted to “play” with me, then she was going to take her sweet time to kill me.

Her friend, a Demon woman with a blonde pixie haircut, grinned barbarically. I choked back a scream when I saw that there was flesh still stuck in her teeth—flesh from the fallen couple, both of whom were dead and rotting away nearby.

Mustering up the last vestige of my courage, I pathetically clutched onto my salt bag and staggered back, tripping over the two corpses while screaming, “Just leave us alone!”

Demonic laughter rolled around me. The two Demon women looked at me with smiling faces while others crept out from the shadows to get a better view of me. No one got up to kill me right away, and I knew it was because I was their new entertainment for the night. They were going to keep me alive for as long as possible before they deigned it was time to kill me.

I gulped uneasily.

What had I gotten myself into?

“What a feisty one,” the blonde Demon woman remarked, staring at me like I was a newfound toy she was excited to torture. “I want to be the one to take her soul.”

“No, I want it,” the red-haired Demon argued. She wheeled around and flashed me a hideously sadistic grin. “With all that heroic blood flowing through your veins, your soul will be delicious to own.” She glanced down at the two bags of salt in my possession. “Look at this little human carrying those bags of salt like they will help her.” Her cold eyes laughed at me. “You would need to spread all that salt in a big line. Since I could snap your head before even a grain of that salt could hit the ground, I think you’re shit out of luck.” She cackled, mockingly holding the tip of the knife against her head. Her face became more animalistic as she motioned me forward. “Come here, little puppy. Let me show you the consequences of being a bad pet and interrupting your masters.”

My teeth chattered against one another as I continued to move closer to my fellow humans. I could feel the other four shake behind me. All they could do was stare wide-eyed and wonder how someone like me could save them. In my state of immense fear, I did the only thing I could do: follow my instincts.

Without warning, I dropped the package of salts, withdrew a small bottle of holy water from my pocket, and wasted no time in splashing it over the two Demon women. As an added defense, I also threw excess water into the crowd for good measure—just to scare them and distract them.

After Lyna, the mysterious Demon woman who had been asked to help “watch over” Eclipse, gave us the green light to head to Serenity, I found myself scared shitless. In an effort to ease my paranoia, I brought two emergency bottles of holy water to protect myself from Demons who were looking to make a meal out of me. I kept the small bottle in my pocket at all times and kept the bigger bottle safely stashed in my backpack. I had never been more grateful that my paranoia had paid off in this instance.

Splash!

“Ahhhhhhh!”

The holy water boiled on the Demon women’s skin like acid, causing them to violently thrust backwards onto the tiles. At the exact same time, the Demons who got splashed by the excess water screamed at the top of their lungs, retreating further back into the shadows. Heart still pounding relentlessly, I opened one package of salt and began to pour it onto the ground, forming a circle with it and allowing it to be a protective barrier. The Demons were staring at me, stunned at what had transpired. They couldn’t believe that I not only knew
what
they were, but that I also had protection against them.

“Let’s go!” I shouted, seizing the black collar of the rocker-dressed girl. I pulled her up with a single jolt and motioned my head at the other three humans to follow my lead.

I could hear restless Demons clamor in the background, furious that they were stuck behind the salt barrier. A handful moved deeper into the shadows to determine a way out of the room. My salt circle may have worked against them, but it would only be a matter of time before those Demons found their way around it.

“How did you do that?!” the guy with the preppy-looking glasses screamed, rising up from behind me. While he was staring at the Demons around us in horror, the rest of his friends blinked numbly, traumatized and dazed from everything. Since all of his friends looked like they were ready to break apart at any moment, he was the only person left to help me with my next course of action.

“They’re Demons,” I explained, thrusting a bag of salt against his chest. Across from us, some of the Demons started to punch a hole through the walls. They were all fighting to get out of there, to get to us in some other way. “They want our souls,” I went on urgently. “Salt will keep them away from us. Pour the salt down as we run. They can’t touch us as long as we’re in this salt barrier. Now let’s go!”

I said everything to him in one breath, but he caught all of it. No matter how confused Preppy Glasses appeared, he, along with his three friends, did everything I instructed.

While pouring salt from our respective bags, we began to run for our lives. We ran through the hallways of the building, moving from one wing to the other and further trapping Demons in various parts of the inn. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of running, we made it into the foyer. Panting relentlessly, we busted out of the big oak doors and sprinted onto the lawn where rain poured over us, drenching us immediately.