003-Demon Hunt - Chapter III - Brother VS Brother

Chapter III
Brother VS Brother

Very unpleasant creatures. Not from aesthetics point of view, since they can change into anyone you would love insanely. At least those powerful enough can. They are unpleasant, because…

Wonderhood, Alice
«Animals. Monsters. Creatures»

Dacort

Never trust a demon…
I think this is what the humans who know them say.
Well, I know, that you should follow this rule even if you are a demon yourself.
Of course, my brother did not do any of this because he actually wanted everything to come out this way: he felt it was his duty. Fuck him and his fucked up duty! Fuck his cursed hypocritical honor!
Even when he was inside the womb of our whore of a mother, who was ready to fuck with any more-or-less cute facedancer, I hated him. Well, not exactly. I hated my slut-mother. But later on that hate spread to him as well. You see, in our “society” everything earned by the elders is passed down to the eldest son, but younger brothers could, literally, fight off at least part of the “legacy”.
If my father was alive he would have killed my brother and then my mother for spreading legs not only before filthy facedancers, but before even filthier humans. I did almost what he would have done. Almost being the imperative word here, which turned out to be my mistake. We consider the act of giving birth sacred, so I had to kill her after the birth. Which I did, obviously. But when I saw my brother stuck between his human and demon forms…
I could not do it.
I felt pity: it’s not his fault after all, that his mother was a self-satisfying slut.
I took him under my wing, as humans would say. The castle was big, with mainly imps and a few facedancers and to have someone like you, even if partially… Even for the most cold-hearted demon that would not be an easy thing to deny himself. I doubt even Devil would have denied himself such a thing. Not like he denies himself anything, I presume. Perhaps I would not even change a thing if I could… But, fuck, cursed he be if he is still alive when I get the hell outta here!
But, he was a smart one. Tenaciously so. And he wanted to prove that his blood does not mean a thing, that even a half-breed like him can become powerful and strong. A noble goal, I give him that, but not when he swims through blood to it. And not when he underhandedly betrays his own kin just to steal everything that kin owns.
The spells covering the cave I had been in for over half century now were not really powerful. Well, maybe except for the ones weaved in the chains keeping me to the ground: those did suck out my strength, slowly, but steadily… But enough to make me real weak over half a century. And those fucking waterfalls! I am a creature of frigging fire! I hate water! It burns me and its vapor can even blind me. And these waterfalls fell into channels, that formed a pentagram drew into a circle used to concentrate the magic. When I woke up here my skin was smoking and I thought I will die from this pain
But my brother ran out of luck: I got used to the pain. It even tempered me…
Curses! What the hell did he want from me? Castle? He could have gotten his own as reward for his outstanding service! Besides, I did know, that his ambitions were not that low. Maybe his connection with humans clouded his mind a bit, though. I was seeking for the answer in my head, until fate remembered about me. I heard something falling down the path leading to my prison.
It’s a fucking human.
Dressed in light sneakers or whatever they call those boots, dark blue jeans and gray t-shirt with red dragon on the chest. I wondered if he ever saw a real one ands mile to myself, watching as he looked around. I noticed his curiosity, his wonder, I saw them intensify, as he saw me. And I saw fear beneath them. This little human…
…how old is he? 13? Less?..
…was fighting his fear burying it under curiosity, under strife to “know”. He was still filthy, but if my brother conversed with such humans… I would not mind such occasional hobby.
He stepped forward and I felt my chains shake slightly for no apparent reason. He said something, but I was not able to understand him due to fear being more apparent in his voice. He seemed trying to kill that fear in the voice too, gathering strength for a moment, before repeating himself:
- Who are you?
Slight pause, gathering of breath:
- Or what are you?
I opened my mouth, moved my tongue, breathed in and out, strained my throat, but fiery ring encircled it and I choked on my own voice, as if with water, able only to murmur something incomprehensible even by me. The human looked puzzled. He came closer to the chain, stretching to my neck, getting into the water knee-deep. He laid his arm on one of the rings making the chain and I felt another fiery ring encircling my throat. Through the pain I saw how the rings got smaller, felt the choker break and its inner spikes coming out of my neck, forcing blood to pour down. The choker shrunk, too, and it seemed like it got a mind of its own as it flew to the human and enclosed human’s throat this time. His face mudded in pain, human fell to his knees getting wet all over while the neck of his shirt got soaked with his blood.
But he stood up. He stood up and, even if he moved as if through jelly, he walked up to each chain, one by one. And every time he touched them, they shrunk and attached to him. It looked like he was mind-controlled when, with all five chains attached to him, bleeding out, he was crawling to the center of the pentagram.
His blood on the pentagram, my blood mixing with water, making it almost black… I saw it all, but I did not care at all. I was free! Weak, yes, but slowly regaining strength, inspired by desire for vengeance. My desire to fix an old mistake.
Slowly, shaking, I stood up. I stepped over the water and walked out of the cave and into a hundred of armed goons, who spread out as soon as they saw me. I do not really remember where I was going at the time, concentrated only on the feeling of newly re-acquired freedom, but, in the end, I turned up on sandy beach, a few miles away from a castle, that used to be mine long ago. High on the feeling, I switched to my human-like form and fell on the sand, laughing from the grains scratching my skin. Strangely enough the salty water felt kind to my feet and did not burn me at all. It was calming and because of it I was falling into sleep.
I stayed there. I stayed there for about 2 years, I guess. There was a very old shack on this beach. Neither my father, nor I wanted to tear it down, as we planned to dig an escape tunnel between it and the castle. The tunnel was only half-way completed, but the shack still turned out to be useful. It was shaky and wet all over, but I made it my home during these 2 years. Soon the smell of wet wood was replaced by smell of cooked fish and crabs.
The same crabs were sometimes used to spy on my brother. Most of them died outside my stomach, but I was still able to get some useful information. Turns out that human was part of an experiment, but something went horribly wrong and set my brother’s plans back several years. I was not able to decipher that sciency mumbo-jumbo to fully understand the details, though. Was his plan to create a living dispeller or something?
Two long years. Switching to demon form only at night to hunt and gather some more strength from the Gray. There were a few imps and low-level demons occasionally, but I guess, they saw my aura and wisely stayed away. And did not seem like they reported anything to my brother. And I did not bother them: I had to restore my strength, I need to investigate, to analyze, to find weaknesses…
And from my information it became clear, that human became part of something big and my brother was not willing to let him go that easy.