Unlimited

Victoria felt fear which she had long since forgotten. For a long time Kharon hadn’t changed his intonation towards her, he had been always kind and polite as well as delicate and tolerant. Generally, he was like a gentleman. The girl had had time even to forget that he was a demon. Whatever had come over him during the dialog that the sound of his voice got covered with dryness and darkness, that his look got gloomy and his hands became cold. Vic didn’t understand.

‘Kharon, I…’ Vic took a step back, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t really mean to insult you…’

‘Insult?’ the demon smirked. ‘To insult a demon? Do you know, love, what I like about you most of all? No one can be angry with you for a long time. Even if he or she wants to, you’ll fix it!’

‘I’m sorry,’ the girl glanced down. ‘I do really believe that it wasn’t dream! How can it be explained then?’

‘Impossible!’ Kharon grabbed the girl. ‘I’ll prove that we’re speaking about oblivion!’

‘How?’

‘Confirm these: the spirit, help, language? Is that right?’

‘Yes, that is.’

‘You remember it as you remember yourself all your life?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ok then. Call the spirit now.’ Kharon folded his arms. ‘Come on, love, say the spell and make it come out. Now.’

Victoria was silent. Suddenly she became ashamed and awkward feeling caught her. If Kharon was right then how stupid and awkwardly she would look like after she said the spell, waiting for someone to appear.

The girl shook her head. Kharon started slowly calming down as he understood that he sounded more convincing than her.

‘Why do you refuse? It’s the best way to check if it was a dream. Say the spell.’ The demon’s voice insisted.

‘Spiritus inferior,’ Victoria whispered.

‘Keep on’ the demon said.

‘Loco, protinus.’ Vic looked at his amber eyes. ‘Spiritus inferior, loco, momentaneus. Spiritus inferior fatis huc te poscentibus affers.’

‘Where’s the spirit?’ Kharon asked the girl who wasn’t so confident.

‘I… I don’t know.’ Vic looked asides seeking for the creature.

‘Doesn’t it prove that you were in oblivion?’ the demon finally smiled, holding the girl tighter.

None of them noticed the old dog behind them.

With a heavy heart Victoria came into the ward. It was silent. The smell of medicine. The support with the dropping-bottle. A woman lay with closed eyes, the mouth was half-opened. There was no move.

Vic sat on the edge of the bed. The grandma hardly could move her fingers. One leg was totally paralyzed, the second moved somehow. The granny was silent: she couldn’t speak anymore. A half of her face stopped obeying to the brain orders.

Kharon stayed in the doorframe. He was idly interested in looking at what would happen. Victoria’s confusion of feelings and experiences were transferred to him like through some wires. It was just a flurry, the heavy, surprising one of emotions.

Vic said nothing but kept on siting. She looked at the paralyzed old woman and didn’t understand why it had happened to her. She was thinking over it for a long time but didn’t find any answer. It often happened what happened, no one was insured, no one had delays. It just happened for some reasons and unexpectedly. No one was ready to be ill.

The demon was still in the door looking up at the girl and chewed gum. He had no thoughts. He didn’t know and face such grief. He wasn’t neither a sympathizer nor pitiful. Actually, he didn’t care. Despite his power of passion and lust, love mortification he was thick skin.

Victoria touched her granny’s hand and got pierced like by lightning. The girl felt the same feelings and emotions she had had when something had paralyzed her after she had left the bookshop… Then she realized and drew the parallel between what happened and her own feelings. Of course! She might have known it!

‘Kharon!’ the girl ran up to him and took him by the hand. ‘Let’s go!’

‘Is that all? We’re leaving?’ the demon understood nothing, following the girl with fast steps.

‘I’ve got it!’

‘What?’ he shouted after her. ‘What’ve you got? I wanna get it too! Vic!’

She ran to the coatroom. Vic quickly put on seeing no one around.

‘Hey, hey,’ Kharon had caught the girl before she left. ‘Wait. Stop. I’ve got 2 questions. The first one is where you’re running. The second: what did you get?’

‘I felt the thing happening to my granny! Remember? When we were at the bookshop? Then my mum called. Do you remember? I felt the same what my granny felt! But I didn’t understand then…’

‘What idiotic ideas come into your head, Victoria! Why don’t you believe in coincidence?’

‘Kharon!’ Vic frowned. ‘Why are you so sceptical? You’re the brightest representative of what doesn’t exist for people! How can you know anything about scepticism definition?’

‘It’s not scepticism, love, it’s realism. How did you get it and what made you think like this?’

‘When I touched her hand, I understood it. Everything I was getting through after the bookshop, came back to my mind in the shape of recollections.’

Kharon kept cool-headed apparently. But inside he didn’t know what to do. Vic was obviously suspicious of her secret gift and the task for the demon was to remove all her suspicions.

‘Come with me, I’ll show you something that does exist really.’

‘Where?’

‘Give me your hand.’

‘Where’re we going, Kharon?’

‘You told me once that you trust me… Give me your hand!’ Kharon insisted, embracing her tightly. ‘Come closer. You do know why you have to do it, love?’ the man smiled. ‘Close your eyes.’

The girl was overwhelmed with prelibation and looking for. In his mind Kharon was torn between worlds and illusions, being sure that he would be capable of distracting Vic from her thoughts. And he found that certain place.

‘You can open your eyes.’ He said quiet.

Victoria was in no hurry to obey the man’s asking. She listened to the silence. It was terrible and horrible. That was the silence which followed Lucifer’s appearance. Having been afraid of wicked recollections Vic opened her eyes.

There was no one around but Kharon. It was an unusual place: there were big trees with green leaves, curled into a conical shape. The leaves weren’t just green but superdeep and pulsing. Her eyes liked watching it and very quickly got tired of the colour. The foliage stormed full of life and inspiration. But everything around was paralyzed. There was no wind. The air was heavy, massive but you could get a lungful of fresh air. The sky was coloured with bright red with the tinctures and stripes of yellow, transferring into orange and lilac-velvet lines. It was a sunset as silent as everything was around. There was not a single bird in the sky, no one sang beautiful songs. The ears were hurt absorbing that silence.

Grass was under her feet. Her feet were bared. The grass was soft, green and ideally even, not a grass-blade out of place. Nature couldn’t create such perfection. It was impossible. Everything was too perfect. But it was pleasant to walk over the grass. There was just grass around. It was warm. You could say it was good, but you needed some wind blowing.

Kharon was nearby, cast down his head. He was waiting for something. Most likely for reaction. He wanted to understand what Victoria felt at that unusual place. But she kept silence and looked around.

There was a house behind her. It was grey with brick tincture. Three-storeyed. It was a big, log house… with a roof made of like skin. The huge columns on the porch had carved figures of cernuous creatures. Everything was made of wood. It was unusual. Victoria had never seen anything like that before. Log construction was softly sharpened, covered with lacquer or something like that, but there were no circle lines on it instead they were long and expressional. In whole the house was repulsive. Victoria didn’t want to come in.

Vic turned to Kharon again. At least the grasshoppers had to chirp! But no, it was silence. The girl was wheeled round to find any sounds with no comprehension of herself and her own attitude towards surroundings.

She got the feeling that she was in an incubator… or in an aquarium where artificial life bloomed where life seemed to be on the palm but indeed there was no any.

‘Where’re we?’ Vic asked, getting surprised with her own voice sound.

There was no echo, no habitual sound in her head. Even her own voice was unfamiliar. Every uncomprehensive thing made Vic feel more fear.

There was a part of a planet on the horizon. Even with no being educated as an astronomer, Victoria realized that wasn’t the Moon. It was a huge and too close located luminary. It was so unbelievable like in those films about space or in that Photo-shop-made pictures of universe type.

Horrible.

Looking at the big ball on the horizon her heart sank. The planet seemed to be rushing straight to the place which everyone used to call home. One minute or two and then apocalyptic collision was going to happen, the blast wave of which would pull all to quantum particles.

Formidable beauty that was it when Victoria realized not new oxymoron. The eyes want to look, they were interested but the body stopped breathing because of fear.

‘This is my home, Victoria,’ Kharon looked at her.

‘Your home?’ her voice sounded so quiet that you could hardly hear it, but the high notes tried to get out anyway. ‘Am I in hell?’

Vic was scared. The fright fettered her body even worse than when the hellish moon had appeared in the silent sky.

‘It’s just my home…’

Kharon finally started feeling the girl. Being in his territory her own strengths were leaving her. Again, he perfectly heard her thought as he used to, all her panic and anxiety screaming in her head, demanding for returning to the earth. He felt her genuine feelings. He knew that the girl was totally confused. She knew nothing, understood nothing, everything was wild and terrible for her. She had neither strength nor desire to deal with that impossible excessive emotions.

Kharon understood that the girl was sceptical of the place where the demon had lived not the first thousand years.

‘Are we in hell?’ Victoria asked again having turned to the man.

‘If you’re easier then yes, we are.’

‘Why?’ there were tears again. ‘Why are we here?’

‘Why are you crying?’

‘Because I wanna go home! To the earth!’ the girl cried. ‘Are we able to come back home, Kharon? Tell that we can, please! I don’t wanna stay here! I’m scared and I don’t understand why I’m here!’

Kharon had to embrace Victoria as she cried more and more, and she was getting more scared.

‘We’re here for no reason. I just wanted to show my home…’ Kharon felt dejectedly.

‘So, you’re not gonna burn me on a frying-pan?’

‘What?’ no limits were for the demon’s surprised. ‘Burn on a frying-pan?’

‘Stick pitchfork into me and torture my body eternally…?’ Vic added, shacking with only one thought of her being in hell.

‘Come,’ Kharon took her hand and went his home.

He missed so much his home ground, the smell he could never feel on the earth. The thing like home existed not only on the earth. Everyone had habit and love for surroundings.

He ran his hand over the marble walls. The black colour of the stone was as nasty as you could ever imagine, and it delighted the demon eyes.

Coolness and inanimate reflected from the black marble walls, nice essences for Kharon and scared Victoria.

In the hall of the incubus’s house Vic felt like in a tomb. She was scared a bit but the smell she felt was so pleasant and sweet that it and the house couldn’t be identified.

The hall was long. The wall outside of log, inside of stone, seemed to be in size of infinity. There was nothing else in the desolate place. There were no pictures and photos. There were just bare walls. Empty. There was nothing but black, repulsive colour. That design wasn’t for the faint of heart.

Kharon let the girl go first. Fearing everything in the world, Victoria took a step forward. Her hand instinctively touched the cold stone wall. Vic immediately withdrew her hand: she had never felt such scorching cold in her life. It was like the fingertips immersed in liquid nitrogen for unhappy millisecond and that was enough.

‘Cold…’ Vic said turning to the demon.

‘For a human – yes, they are.’

‘How do you feel these walls?’ she asked.

‘Like a warmth of my home.’

‘Warmth of your home?’ the girl shifted the gaze at the walls, but she didn’t want to touch them again. She slowly went ahead suddenly understanding that the entrance door was closing by its own, hiding the particles of artificial light behind.

‘Hey!’ she exclaimed stood in the full darkness. ‘Kharon!’ her voice shook, the heart fluttered. The darkness in that oppressive house seemed to be more unbearable and blacker. ‘Give me your hand… I’m begging you, my love,’ Victoria whispered stretching out her hand into the black vacuum.

There were seconds of terrible and paralyzed silence and then the strong hand, full of habitual warmth squeezed her fingers shacking with fear.

‘How much you’re frightened, child,’ the voice sounded in her ear.

Vic gave a shrug, screwing up her eyes to try to see Kharon.

A small luminary appeared somewhere above them in shape of usual galaxy. That was as unusual light unfamiliar for people. It was alive, moveable like if somewhere tongues of fire were connected, carefully burning something dry away. But the light was dim and there was no its source seen. It seemed that a clot of charged energy, that produced the light, appeared under the ceiling. Victoria had no doubts the luminary was alive absolutely. They were walking through the hall and the light was slowly following them under their heads.

Slight and sudden move of Kharon stopped the girl in the middle of the infinite hall. Then the black marble wall began to move apart.

A huge living room with high ceiling was showed. There was the most complex architecture under its vaults outside of human control. The room was in the form of strict square. It was furnished flawless and in good taste. There were tables with carvings on its legs and chairs and its legs took root in the floor and almost on the floor already swollen buds were about to bloom.

Windows that finally appeared showed a picturesque view of the nearby forest. It was thick and dark with unknown species of trees, the leaves of which were so different in shapes but had nothing in common with the trees on the earth where Vic used to live.

There was a huge mirror on one of the walls, the size of almost a half of the room. It reflected everything expect Victoria. It just ignored her presence there.

There were no modern gadgets in the living room. No books, no glass figures on dusty shelves. There was nothing that could be familiar to human eyes. The table was there indeed. It was huge, massive and empty. No tablecloths, no napkins, no saltcellar, no flowers. There was nothing.

The décor was very poor by human standards. The intricate carvings were wherever possible to be. It was beautiful and diverse and seemingly appropriate.

‘The living room…as you call it.’ Kharon told, having taken her by the hand.

He tried to understand what Victoria felt, if she liked it or not. Most of all he didn’t understand why he was so important to know her opinion. As Victoria still couldn’t identify her own feeling and emotions, she couldn’t say anything clever to Kharon. The girl silently looked at the man.

‘Your audacious invitation…that’s why we’re here. I feel you still not understanding your presence in my home.’

‘Invitation?’

‘Yes. That you said so bravely to the demon of lust. Let’s go.’

Victoria followed Kharon with no certain understanding what he was speaking about. She still was afraid for her life, but her blind, feeble and stupid trust was with her. The trust the demon. Victoria trusted Kharon so deep and strong that she had not a single thought asking herself if I was so stupid to trust the demon.

They went up the spiral staircase. The coldness of the marble stairs annealed her bare feet. She literally flew up the stairs holding the man’s hand. He walked first trying not to rush. His movements were slowly and detached like if he was on his way on the scaffold.

Under the ceiling the clot of illuminative energy was blithely floating. Victoria almost got used to that phenomenon. At least from all that was happening the strange glow confused her the least.

Another wall opened before them and Vic turned to be in a bedroom.

‘This is the place I wanted to show you… not frying-pans…’ Kharon whispered behind her.

His hands clasped her paralyzed body. She was studying the huge bed that was in size of a half of the room, covered with the same black colour. Victoria almost accepted the gloomy colour deprived of life. Actually, she had reasons for the black colour in the demon’s house. Her confusion was understandable also: Victoria had never seen so much black at once.

‘Take a step forward, love,’ Kharon picked her up and slowly moved ahead. ‘Don’t be afraid, nothing threatens you here… Nothing.’

His lips went down on her shoulder barely touched her skin. Vic said nothing. Probably it was the first time when she couldn’t be relaxed in the demon-seducer’s hands.

‘You’re so defenceless here,’ Kharon smiled, baring his teeth, took her up in his arms.

A second then another and Victoria felt unbelievably soft bed under her body. It was so soft that at the first second the girl thought that she was still falling down. The demon hanged over her, and his miraculous kisses distracted her from thinking of falling.

‘It’s so unusual to embrace the woman who manages to think of something else expect me…’

‘My love,’ Victoria said quietly, ‘I’m in the bed, made of the black feather bed, the softest one I have ever felt in my entire life. There’s a man above me, the most handsome and exquisite whom I have ever met. The man, whom I felt the most beautiful and even painful feeling called love. This man is a demon. Now I’m in the place which I have never believed to exist, I refused it and mocked those who tried just to give a hint about it. And I think it’s ok that I’m not really ready to be relaxed and think of only you.’

With light smile on his lips, silently with no interrupting Kharon was listening to another confession of the girl and at first, he realized that he needed to answer something. His answer had to be something that Victoria had never heard and would never hear in her life.

‘I’ll tell you the truth, love, I don’t feel hesitation when I’m in unfamiliar places…’

‘I don’t dou…’

‘Wait,’ he gave the girl a short kiss to interrupt her speech. ‘I have something to tell you.’

He ran his finger over his shirt, and it unbuttoned itself. Vic tried not to look at what Kharon was doing not to convince herself again that she had a common sense. Her chest heaved and all the same her nervous stretched too thin. In addition, the demon’s touches made her yield to the temptation.

‘Once I heard a thought in our mind, more precisely it was a desire to be the only one…’ the demon undid the button of her jeans.

She numbly looked at what Kharon was doing. She could close her eyes and switch off her mind as she did before as she was scared a bit. The man pulled off the shirt burning the girl with the flames of his eyes.

‘I’m not a virgin, no.’ He tore the jeans off her. ‘But thanks to you I realized that not only virgins can have the only one.’

‘Kharon…’

‘You’re so absolutely irredeemable listener. Stop interrupting, will you?’

Victoria silently looked at the demonic creature’s eyes and a pleasant shiver ran over her body, taking out the excitement of her depth of the subconsciousness.

‘You’re the only one woman for my entire existence who dared to give her soul to Lucifer to be with me, having known that your chances are critically small to have what you want.’

Here Victoria started forgetting where she was. Her own location wasn’t an interesting issue especially when Kharon was doing magic over her body with his lips, hands and words.

‘You’re the only one human woman whom I shared my sexual skills with in reality and having experienced it I feel more power in thousand times. You’re the only one who is so close to me and still alive. You’re the only one who became the only one…’

For a second the demon stopped speaking and with a mystery on his face studied the girl, the surprise and joy ripping out of her heart.

‘You’re the only one woman…a human who’s lying in this bed…’

Kharon kissed her neck…

For several seconds before falling into the mutual feelings giving Victoria thought that she saw a lower part of the wing… as black as ink, shone and trying to embrace her.

Having realized her energies and getting back a mad enjoyment Vic was sleeping with no moves in bed. The demon in unbuttoned shirt was staying and thinking nearby the window. He had a serious reason to think.

‘Good morning, Kharon!’ A low black creature appeared behind him with legs of some hoofed animal, with human head and body but with lion tail and cow horns.

The demon didn’t even turn. He’d been waiting for that person.

‘The Lord’s waiting for you… At his apartment!’ the creature told, stamped with its hoof and disappeared.

Kharon took a sigh and went away from the window. Very quietly he came into the room where Victoria was sleeping. He sat on the edge of the bed, combed the ginger tips of her hair behind her ears that chaotically ran down her face. Vic was lying on her stomach, hands were under the pillow, and the blanket covered her legs.

‘I hope you’re worth of it…’ Kharon whispered, snapped his fingers and disappeared.

Lucifer was sitting in his arm-chair at his unusual table. His hand held a feather writing something with impudent move, filling paper with mind-blowing burgundy colour. His countenance seemed to be neutral. He saw nothing but wrote something intently.

‘Lucifer!’ Kharon let his Lord know about his presence.

The Falling Angel stopped his fast writing and looked up at the guest. Then he jumped up, threw the feather on the table and then, looking at his Lord’s face Kharon assured himself again that when deuces came on behalf of Lucifer meant really bad news.

‘Did you take leave of senses?!’ Lucifer asked in an ominous low voice having come up to Kharon.

The demon was silent head bowed, looked down. So, what could he say?

‘You’d better not!’ Strong waning came. ‘Don’t even think you can pretend to be a fool with no understanding what I’m speaking about!’

‘Lucifer…’ the demon glanced at his friend.

He was angry and it was to put it mildly. Having known his Lord and friend for so many years Kharon guessed the reason of his indignation.

‘I’m waiting for the answer!’ Lucifer turned away from the demon, fixed his eyes upon the landscape behind the window.

‘I wanted to show my home and the place where we live.’

‘Kharon. My friend.’ Lucifer beseeched flew up to the demon again. ‘How did you ever get the absurd idea to bring the witch in hell? I’d not have told anything if she were a human! But the witch, Kharon… You’ve almost made a fatal mistake!’

‘Why?’ Kharon worried. ‘You told she’s not a threat.’

‘On the earth.’ The Lord’s voice sank almost to an ominous whisper. ‘On the earth no witch is threat for us. On the earth.’ Lucifer rolled his eyes, deeply inhaled and exhaled, having stared at Kharon’s scared face.

‘What’s the threat from her being here?’ Kharon asked almost in his mind.

‘First, your blindness with her in bed.’ Lucifer intently looked at the demon’s eyes. ‘Come on, turn on your logic, my friend. What usually happens? You take all energies from a woman. Totally. Do you? Do I recall right?’

‘Yes, you do.’

‘How are you feeling now?’ Lucifer frowned and glanced at Kharon being in puzzle.

‘At least strange.’ Kharon told the truth more than ever.

‘What strange?’

‘I am not feeling that strength which I usually get from Vic in bed…’

‘So,’ for a moment The Lord’s face was distorted with a slight smile.

‘I think I’m tired.’

‘You know why?’

‘No.’

‘Victoria can’t give away her energy at our home.’ Lucifer sat to the table, nervously touching the glass. ‘She’s alive. Do you understand? She’s not a demon neither a spirit not a deuce! She’s a human! Her energy stays with her. This alone wouldn’t have been a problem, if only she weren’t a witch. Witches have a great ability to accumulate. Do you know what it means?’