Daimon - DANIELLE BOLGER (best fiction novels TXT) 📗

“I've got to now, but I'll be back. I promise.”

His thumb caressed my chin gently before giving it a little pinch. “I'll hold you to that, Jane Kirra.”

“Long Island Iced Tea. Little early isn't it?” I enquired of the woman seated next to me at the Sands casino bar.

Alex smiled, despondently. “Not when you're living an inch from the edge of the world. If at any time I could fall off, I want to be feeling good.”

“Good point,” I assented, and motioned for the waitress to give me what Alex was drinking.

“Does it do anything for you anymore? Do you even like the taste?” she pried.

“Last time I drank alcohol it helped me to forget who I was. As to the taste, it could be better.”

She chuckled. “About the same as the rest of us, then.”

The bartender placed a glass in front of me as I handed her the cash.

Alex became serious. “I didn't know, Jane. I didn't know what Freddie had done.”

“You're lying.”

She gasped and shook her head. “I was just following orders.”

“You really did play me for the fool, presenting me with such a kind gift when I was so famished. I liked the touch on the text message; the piece offering.” Alex’s grasp of her glass faltered. The liquid poured across the counter, found the edge, and began to drip down.

“Sorry,” Alex apologized to the bartender, abashed. This was not like her. She was the controlled one, the cool one. She was oddly jumpy.

The bartender sighed and mopped up the mess with a sponge, confiscating the empty glass.

Once the girl had left, Alex stared down at the counter in front of her. “I didn't know. Not then, anyhow. He told me what to write in that message, how to write it and left that rose to accompany your gift. Freddie killed your friend of his own volition, but Rose allowed it. In fact, I think he probably encouraged him. I think Rose would have found the whole thing amusing.”

I nodded. So, that was the truth then. Rose never really wanted me to integrate into his bizarre family. My struggles and despair were no more than entertainment for the undead bastard.

I slid my beverage across the wet counter. “Here, you can have mine. I'm still not very fond of the flavor, it's too bitter.”

“Thanks,” she muttered. I wondered, with the way her hands shook, whether it was due to an addiction to alcohol or something else. It could also be just plain nerves. Her heart rate suggested alarm in my presence.

“You're meant to be dead,” she stated. “Ruby saw you die. How is it that you survived?”

I breathed in and out thoughtfully, wondering just how important air was to me.

“I refused to die.”

She frowned. “No, it's not that easy. She said that you ate the heart of a daimon— Freddie's heart—which, to another daimon, is normally poison.”

I smirked. “I guess I discovered an antidote.”

She stirred her drink with the straw. “I wonder, if it doesn't kill you, what a daimon heart does to another of its kind?”

I touched at my chest, which somehow seemed fuller, more complete. Ruby claimed daimons were empty, soulless creatures; yet, I swore I could feel Freddie's insanity shackled inside me. It fought to consume me, but it lost.

My grin broadened. “I think it's like when a pawn makes its death run to the other edge of the board. Most of the time it is annihilated, but if it makes it, it claims enough power to surpass a king.”

Alex's expression remained firm. “Maybe that is true, but with your analogy, you are still dispensable. Don't ever forget that the king has a legion by his side, and the game will never end unless he does.”

That was a fair point—there was still a full board of pieces blocking my path to the king. “He is playing a game, isn't he? That's what I am, just something to play with. All this time I wondered why and how this happened to me, but now I see it’s all just the whim of a monster.”

“You only see that now?” She paused. “I guess…he did try to play house for a bit there.”

During the discourse my fists clenched tightly, but it was not until I detected Alex's despondent demeanor that I realized I was not the only toy in the basket.

“He is playing a game with you, too.”

She took a long sip. “My game is not so much fun as yours. Mine has a lion barred in a tiny cage. Here, it is constantly prodded and taunted with its walls shrinking around it. Its cries, once a powerful roar of vengeance, are reduced to the pathetic whimpers of a kitten. The bars become tighter and tighter, reducing her to the size of a mouse; weak, and defeated with ease.”

“I would hardly call the Sands Casino a tiny cage.”

She grimaced. “As a child, I never would have either. These halls were so large and mysterious, and yet, I felt completely safe roaming through them with the knowledge that my father owned them. Sure, it is a place of inebriation and uncouth behavior, but I was kept safe by the staff. To me, they were family. They kept a watchful eye on me so that I did not run into any trouble, but I always tried to evade their detection as I explored the out-of-bounds areas. I made up my own games here, and in them I was the victor, the hero. Never did I play the part of the captive princess.” Her eyes were cast into a shadow of despair.

I pulled at the thread she left dangling to the story. “The Sands Casino was once in the possession of the Crimson Coins. The boss, Makoto Himura called this place home. He lived here with his daughter ever since a car accident claimed the life of his wife, Louise Himura. The daughter was named Kiyomi, meaning pure beauty. She was beautiful, too beautiful, and before she had even come of age, she was raped and left for dead. It was thought that these wounds were fatal and she died soon after, but from my own investigations, I could neither confirm nor disprove that theory. I wondered whether she adopted a different name as an escape from everything that happened to her.”

“That's right. Before you were trying to kill us, you were trying to expose us.” She laughed softly. “The human Jane Kirra wanted to write an article in that silly little paper of hers. Yes, that was how you first got our attention, and after a closer look at you, Rose became very intrigued.”

“Kiyomi was sixteen when she was attacked,” I continued, evading her distraction. “It was soon discovered that the perpetrator belonged to their rival gang—The Silver Blades—and that he was, in fact, the leader’s brother. Makoto was enraged and overcome with despair so deep that he made the dangerous declaration of war against all those involved with the Silver Blades. He vowed to see anyone part of the gang murdered, as well any that had dealings with them.”

Alex clenched her glass firmly. “It wasn't just one guy—I know how to fight one man. There was a group of them, and I was all alone when they jumped me. I tried to fight them off using the self-defense my father taught me, but there were too many. They were too strong. I was...overpowered.” She took a deep breath. “Is this it? Is this what you want to hear, the poor little broken girl's sob story?” Her shoulders softly rose up and down.

She finished her drink and made to get up, but I placed a firm hand on hers, pinning her to the counter. “I'm not done yet.” I waved for the bartender to return.

“What? You think if you buy me a drink I'll spill everything to you?” She scoffed. “You're as bad as the horny bastards that come to this bar at night.”

I scowled. “Your dark past is my dark past. I need to know everything that happened. I need to know how everything got so fucked up. Stay, have another drink. Please, just talk with me.” My voice lost its firmness at the end.

She nodded and requested another long island iced tea from the bartender, who quickly started to shake the creative mix behind the counter.

“I reverted to my middle name after that incident, and adopted my mother's maiden name; thereby becoming Alexandra Perrier. It was my father who changed my identity, and all the while I slept in a hospital bed. It was not until I was finally dismissed, a whole two months later, that I finally learned why I was being addressed as a different woman. My father said it was best this way; that our enemies would not be able to harm me if it seemed like I no longer existed. It was not just my name I lost, it was my innocence, it was everything. I transformed into an empty shell, battered and bruised and scared. My whole world was broken; I both feared and hated everything, but there was my father, the beacon through it all, the one force that loved me always. He was by my side, smiling, every time I opened my eyes. He held my hand and whispered his love to me. I knew that, so long as he was there, nothing would hurt me ever again. Later, I discovered that I was not meant to recover, that I should have been killed or suffered irreparable brain damage due to my injuries. That's when I knew that it was my father who healed me; his kindness and his warmth were what brought me back to life.” She smiled bittersweetly. “It hurt us both so much when mother died, but because we had one another, we became a force that much stronger.”

The bartender returned and placed Alex's refreshed glass before her. Alex nodded her thanks.

I wrung my hands fiercely. “The part about the lion's roar of vengeance,” I pressed through gritted teeth, “that got my attention. I'd like you to elaborate.”

She sighed. “My dad; he loved me so much that he started a war on my behalf. He took on the whole of the Blue Coast's gangs pretty much single-handed. He did manage to tie-in the barest of alliances with the Dynasties, but in the end, they double-crossed him, as you already know. Still, even though he was outnumbered and outgunned, the Crimson Coins held their own for six long years, until the battle finally ceased. However, it was not ended by another gang, but by monsters...like you.”

“I see…so, your father made it right to the end; right before the rise of the Foxes.”

Alex gripped her glass so tightly that it cracked, slightly. “Yeah, that's when they appeared. That's when it all ended and a whole new horror began. It was the beginning of my own oath, my own promise of retribution for the death of my father.”

“How did he die?”

Alex was shivering, too frozen to respond.

I gently squeezed her shoulder. “What happened to Makoto Himura, Alex?”

Her tension eased in defeat; she really was a broken animal. “It happened at the collapse of the gang war, during the last few days. For months, people had been vanishing with no trace as to their whereabouts. After a while, some of the bodies began to pop up and all of them had their hearts torn from their chests. It didn't matter who they were: middlemen, bosses, prostitutes, girlfriends; as long as they associated with a gang, any gang, they were a target. No one knew who carried out these attacks.

“Then one day the casino was being hit by a mysterious group. It all happened so fast—people were dying all around me, most of them just patrons. I took the elevator up to our room, where my father was in deep conversation with his top men, Ryota and Seiji. The apartment windows shattered, and he told me run and hide. I ran into a closet in my father's bedroom and tucked myself behind a bunch of jackets, leaving the door open just a crack. Soon, I heard bullets firing from the other rooms, and the painful cries told me that a lot of people were dying. I did not know from which side.

“I saw my father retreat into that very bedroom with two of his top men. He shut and locked the door, and they poised their guns towards it, all the while never realizing that I was hiding right