Unlimited

The man shifted his gaze at the girl, at her eyes. She didn’t move, still sitting on the floor with bated breath.

‘You…’ she said under her breath, ‘Are you an incubus?’

The man smiled, shifted his gaze at her quivering lips.

‘No, Sunshine, I am not. Have you been waiting for an incubus, while your lips have been whispering my name? Do you know my name?’ he bended his body closer to her.

Victoria smelled something pleasant and tender like if there had been no threat and nothing of supernatural. It was a smell of blooming nature, a subtle aroma of cedar fir-needles, making heavier the composition: the main one made Vic understand that the man in front of her wasn’t just a man.

The stranger moved to her at maximum distance, looking at her burning cheeks.

Victoria wasn’t breathing. Each move of the guest made her completely forget about her own physiology. She just got frozen and gazed at the man.

‘…Lucifer…’ she whispered gravel-voiced.

The man smirked and raised up. He looked around the room, doubled down on the chair near the table. Having grasped the one he settled in near the bed, where the scared the hell Victoria was sitting near.

‘Why are you so surprised, Sunshine?’ he asked, setting his ring on his left hand.

It was a big signet-ring with some patterns. But they weren’t just patterns. Even Victoria who knew nothing of runes, recognized that there were ancient, maybe unknown sings and symbols on the ring.

‘It’s stuffy here,’ the man looked round again and undid two buttons of his shirt. ‘Like in hell… Kidding. That is you, people, who think it’s an eternal sizzler there.’

‘Is that not so?’ suddenly the girl asked.

‘An eternal sizzler is on the Sun… But I’m not sure about eternal. We have a normal, stable conception of nature and natural science.’

‘You mean that you don’t fry anyone on the frying-pan with pitchforks?’ Vic allowed her to smile.

Lucifer gave her a rapid smile and came down to the girl on the floor, closer to her olive eyes.

‘Deuces have a lot of work,’ he whispered, staring at her neck, ‘there are pitchforks and frying-pans… Putting it in a metaphorical way, of course.’

He was so close to her ear that his lips were almost touching her earlaps. Victoria closed her eyes, for the nth time having forgotten of the oxygen.

‘But I know that deuces are not that thing why you’ve been summoning me for so many days…Tell me, Sunshine, why did you summon me? Why did you make me to push very important business aside to come to you? Why?’

‘You know it better than I do…’ Vic lowered her eyes, reddening in her face.

Lucifer dropped his head and smiled. The situation obviously made him laugh and the only thing he regretted for was why he hadn’t come before to have fun.

‘Correct me, if I’m mistaken,’ he coughed, having sat on the chair again. ‘You, a human child, fell in love with one of my subordinates.’

Victoria cast down her eyes. Lucifer stood up and walked across the room. His moves were so graceful, smoothing, slithering, impossible elastic.

‘Wow! Fell in love with… Do you know whom you are in love with? I mean what his activity is?’

Vic looked at the guest, at his light movements.

‘Kharon… he is…’ hesitantly she started speaking. ‘He’s an incubus.’

‘That’s right, Sunshine! You’re in love with the incubus! But he’s not just an incubus. He is the Sovereign Legionary Demon. He is the King of Incubus in my Kingdom and many legions report to him! It’s very touchable to fall in love with him. And stupid! But it’s not for me to say. What do you want from me?’

Victoria kept silence. She was staring at the floor and kept her tongue between teeth, turning around her thoughts, not knowing how to put it correctly to the guest.

‘Don’t hesitate, my child, you have such a rare possibility to be received in audience by me and I hope you use it sensibly!’

‘I’m sorry…forgive me’ Vic got up from the floor and to be on the safe side, took couple of steps closer to the door. ‘I want to agree a contract.’ She whispered, having mustered up courage.

Having heard “contract” in a blink of an eye, the man became serious and came up to the girl quickly. Being fully afraid of the man, Vic moved back to the door until she bumped into it.

‘A deal?’ Lucifer touched her hair again, set the strand of it behind her ear. ‘The young, blooming Sun, are we speaking about the same deal?’

The girl kept silence, looking at the man’s eyes. Red-burgundy colour in his green-brown eyes became brighter.

‘I’d like to ask your help.’ The girl said in a low voice. ‘What’s the price?’

‘What help do you want?’ he took her by the hands and led her to the bed, seating her on it. The Lord himself sat on the chair near to the bed.

‘I want Kharon… but not only like a lover and obviously not for a night.’

‘You want to make an idiot in love from one of my best friends, do you?’

‘Not really,’ the girl began to jabber, ‘not really. I want him as a man. I want love, I want him to be with me. But I can’t give you my soul because if I give it to you, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy that I would have…’

Lucifer rubbed his chin, sitting on the chair, looking at nowhere. He was perplexed.

‘A hell lover… Tell me, Sunshine, are there really so few men on the earth who would like to give you love that you’ve decided to go down to hell to get it and give something important for you? Maybe you should take a closer look, shouldn’t you?’

‘No,’ she answered firmly, ‘I need only him.’

‘Oh, Kharon… Seducer of female hearts… What should I do?’

The man stopped speaking and went into his thoughts. Five minutes later Lucifer began to speak.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘What are you ready to give if it’s not your soul?’

Victoria dropped her head silently. She cracked her knuckles nervously, sighed, looked awry at the room interior.

‘I’m ready to give you my voice…’

‘Your voice?’ the guest re-asked in surprise. ‘I’ve heard it somewhere… Well, yes, it was in a perfect childish fairy tale about the Mermaid. It was so romantic!’

The man stood up and looked seriously at the girl. Then he stopped smiling and frowned.

‘Sunshine, you really want to give me your voice in return of I give you my best supreme demon-seducer, plus my friend to live on the earth?’

According to only his tune Victoria guessed that she had said a stupid thing.

‘What can I give except my soul?’ she carefully asked.

‘Bargain?’ the Lord was surprised. ‘That’s interesting. Come on, suggest me something else that you have except you soul.’

All that the girl could give, made Lucifer laugh. He brushed asides her suggestions one by one. Victoria began being nervous when she got that the deal was about to fall through. And who else but Lucifer could help her?

‘Fine. Thank you for making me laugh, but I’ve been here for two hours already. I have to go. Before I leave, I’d like to tell you something: what you suggested is not interesting for me. I’m not a collector and don’t collect people by their parts. I adhere to principles and follow blindly rules that I laid down. I can suggest you next: I’ll take your soul in two years and let your live on, let it be so. Victoria, listen to me very carefully, you will live on, and you will be able to have a company of Kharon within two years. After it I will take your soul.’

‘Why can’t you give me all my life with my soul and take it after my death when I am old? My soul can’t be old, so what’s the difference when to take it? Two years or seventy…’

‘Are you sure that you will face your seventieth? I’m taking a risk now by giving you these two years. If something bad happens to you, I won’t be able to have time to take it. It’ll go there where it should be, not to me. Plus, I can’t allow Kharon to be on the earth for so long period. My last word, Sunshine, it’s two years and after I take your soul and let you live on. So, tell me, yes or no?’

The girl knitted her brows. Two years were so little… 730 days, at the best case 731 if a year was leap…

‘Two years… and there will be no women in his heart, right?’

‘His heart? Incubus’s heart? Sunshine… You’re so funny. I give him a leave for two years. He will be here.’

730 days Kharon will be touching her, looking at her, kissing her… He will belong to her. Damn the soul!

‘I agree.’ Victoria tried to smile.

‘Let’s sum up. I let Kharon go here, make him free from his responsibilities in Hell for two years. In two years, I will take your soul and reserve the right to live on. You will continue living. Right? Is that what you agree with?’

‘Yes.’

Lucifer smiled and came up to the girl so close. Their eyes were staring into each other, the silence stole into the room. The man took off the ring which was getting bigger until it became a size of a standard cup bottom.

Vic was watching the odd attribute, getting nothing what was going on.

‘May I?’ Lucifer, scarcely touching her shoulder, put off the strap of her tank top.

‘What’s going on?’ Vic was nervous, covering her shoulder with her hand.

‘Sunshine, you have concluded the deal. I have to get the confirmation.’ He pulled her to himself, firmly holding her waist.

‘Get lain with me?’ she asked terrifyingly, slightly kicking him off.

‘No, my Me! Does it really look that I’m speaking about sex?’ he pressed her stronger and looked her shoulder blade.

He put his ring to the naked blade and Victoria felt the strongest agony like if red-hot metal was blowing out. It burnt through her skin, making her crazy.

Victoria struggled against him, trying to disarm the pain but Lucifer held her tightly.

‘No, Vic, you must get through it… Stand for it. I know it hurts but the seal has to appear on your body as a mark of guarantee that you owe me and our next meeting not far off…’

‘I can’t take it anymore!’ Vic was screaming, tying herself into knots. ‘It hurts so much! Please, I’m begging you, stop it!’

‘Doesn’t it hurt when you love someone?’ Lucifer asked, let the perished girl out of his severe embraces. ‘It’s done.’

Vic got on her knees, wiping away her painful tears. The man hunkered down near her and put on his ring on his finger.

‘Victoria… Nice to meet you. I hope it was nice for you, too. It’s the 3rd of September 2013. I am going to take you soul on the 3rd of September 2015, then the seal will be gone.’

‘How will you take it?’ the girl asked shyly, touching her shoulder.

‘You will see! Hope to see you soon, Victoria. It’s pleasure of mine to have a deal with you.’

Lucifer smiled and disappeared. Vic took a sigh and felt so tired as if someone wasted her. She barely had strength to come up to the bed to fall and got asleep.

3

r

d

September 2013 (Tuesday)

Victoria woke up at the afternoon. Despite that several hours ago she seemed never to have strength, she felt she was new. She was fresh.

‘Good morning, Braveheart!’ she heard the voice which she had sold her soul to the Devil for.

‘Kharon…’ she whispered, having sat on the bed.

It was the same man whom she felt unexplainable hankering and desire…Love. He was sitting in her room near her bed.

‘I am surprised. Pleasantly surprised. And, certainly, your trick flattered me. I can’t believe it, you got Lucifer himself and made him pimp. Victoria, I am struck with your recklessness…’ he was blowing up her for some reason like if she was a little girl.

‘I just wanted to be with you…I wanted to extend a night as long as it was possible…’ She said quietly.

‘You did not even have that night how can you know if it’s worth of what you have done?’

‘I’m sure it is… Please, Kharon, let enjoy you within these two years. Besides, what have I done? I just gave my soul, not my life… But if there’d been some more talks with your Lord, I would have agreed to give my life.’

Kharon came up to the mirror on the case. He touched his hair, looking at his face unnoticeably.

‘It was a bad idea to your soul… But I am not the one who should make you change your mind, and it is too late. Right?’ Kharon looked sideway at the girl.

‘What do you mean?’

The man came up to the girl and with a brief movement of the hand he pulled off the strap of her tank top.

‘Yes, it is too late…’ The demon smiled.

‘What’s there?’ Victoria jumped out of the bed and ran to the mirror.

There was a circle on her shoulder blade, some mysterious signs were inside of it. Vic touched the tattoo and shivered with pain instinctively but there was no pain. No discomfort. It was like there had been no any burn, and Lucifer, neither. Besides, tattoo was black that was unusual for tattoos, in general.

‘What’s it?’ Vic asked staying near Kharon.

‘Lucifer’s mark.’ He answered as if he was telling a banal theme at a children's matinee.

‘Lucifer’s mark?’ Vic asked mysteriously, touching her skin with her fingers.

‘Mark of the Devil, if you want.’ Kharon smiled.

‘Oh my God,’ the girl whispered stepping back from the mirror, closed her mouth with her hands not let herself to cry. ‘Oh my God… It couldn’t be… I can’t… I can’t have any tattoo. Mother will kill me…’

‘It is not a tattoo. It is a mark.’

‘Oh, well, that changes everything in a whole… “Mum, I’ve got a mark of the Devil, it’s not a tattoo”’ Vic looked at Kharon. ‘How does it sound?’

‘It sounds like you are going to accuse me of what has happened. Bad idea, Vic.’

‘How does the mark work?’ The girl stared back at the mirror reflection.

‘Easy enough. Every day it will be getting brighter and closer to the contractual performance, stronger you will feel it…. When Lucifer takes your soul, it will be gone.’

‘Why didn’t Lucifer tell me about it? He had to enlighten me all the aspects of the deal.’

Kharon laughed. Victoria surprisingly looked at the man with no understanding what it was funny she said.

‘Lucifer had nothing to anyone. It’s first. Secondly, it’s the covenant and you’re speaking about the truth. I am actually surprised that he didn’t make a fool of you to amuse him and he didn’t stamp you out of existence in the first seconds of his coming to you.’

‘Could he?’

‘He could. This is the least thing that he could have done. However, my Lord is very diplomatic and has a sophisticated sense of justice. Well I think it is enough to speak about him. You have two years. How are you going to spend them? Will we be living together?’

‘No.’ Victoria couldn’t help smiling. ‘You’re gonna live separately. At least, the first time. I could stay at your place…’

Kharon was listening to the girl, unnoticeably touching her hand, followed her lips with his eyes, greedy for kisses…

‘…We will go for a walk…’

The demon imperturbably touched her lips and kissed the girl, clasping her in his gentle arms.

‘… Go to the cinema…’ she whispered while the man was kissing her neck down, making the girl already crazy with love mad.

Kharon carefully laid milting in his hands Victoria on the bed, voluptuously smothering her with kisses.

‘No, Kharon, no,’ the girl said, having stopped the demon. ‘It’s early. Too early.’

‘What does early mean?’ the man didn’t understand, lifted up his eyes at the girl.

He was surprised with her another refusal. What now prevented her from putting herself in the hands of what she was created for generally, especially when she had such a partner.

‘It means,’ having recovered her breath, Vic said, ‘it’s bad to be in bed just like this. I mean, what about romanticism?’

Kharon looked at the girl, trying to get the fewest thing what she wanted from him.

‘Romanticism?’

‘You don’t know what it is, do you, Kharon?’ she said sadly, getting up from the bed.

‘I have never needed any romanticism. Women never refused me and were always thankful.’

‘That was when you lived in their subconsciousness. Now you’re in reality and it seriously differs from what is going on in dreams… I want such relation, which can be only between a woman and a man, like a fairy tale but in reality. I want love, which will make us both crazy. I want passion, which we will splutter in with only one swallow. I want to get your feelings, your true feelings… I have only two years to help you to feel what to be a human means.’

The demon was glancing at the girl and didn’t feel anything but an animal lust. What feelings was she speaking about? Not all people were able to feel, and that naïve twenty-years-old girl was going to get them out of the demon, in face of which she fell head over heels in love with.

‘Then I am going to leave you, my light. I shall get in touch with you later. I have to think over your words and my role in your life. I have to find a flat. Now I am something like a human, aren’t I?’

Kharon smiled, lustfully glanced over the girl once again and disappeared.

Vitoria was alone in the middle of the room, believing in nothing. It seemed for her to be a dream. What Lucifer? What an incubus? What an agreement? You could think that it wasn’t real, but the permanent tattoo on her blade indicated the opposite.

Vitoria was staring at the streaming water over her palms, sitting at the edge of the bath. Was her act right? How terrible was that what she had decided to do? But the crazy love to the demonic creature didn’t allow to think for a long time…

‘How passed several hours which you spent with the awaken human?’ Lucifer asked, having seen a male figure in front of.

The Lord was in simple people café, thinking of a modern existence, drinking his coffee. He wasn’t surprised when he saw his friend, Kharon, who sat to his table.

‘I did not understand yet. Honestly, I understood nothing. Why did you not tell me that she wanted “romanticism” and “true” feelings? What am I supposed to do?’

Lucifer smiled, set his tie and make a big swallow of coffee to be awakened.

‘You won’t believe me, but she didn’t tell me that she wanted “trued” feelings and “romanticism”. I was sure that what she asked, you will give her like smoke. You’ll have to play to ma’am.’

‘How? I can’t love!’

‘Kharon.’ Lucifer became serious for a second. ‘We’ve concluded the deal. We are honest guys. The girl sacrificed her soul for your embraces. Be more affectionate with her, can you?’

Kharon looked at his friend, at his Lord and tried so much to understand what he was wanted.

‘I am not informed very well of human relationship and romanticism. I do not understand what she wants… How did she manage to get you? What did she do? Milliards of people try to give you their souls, but you are deaf to their asks.’

Lucifer smirked. He stirred his coffee, looked into the appeared vortex and said quietly:

‘I got into the game some time ago… In the café… It was the first time when I saw incubus be slapped in a serious way… I was interested in that girl. I started watching her, how she was falling in love with you. You couldn’t imagine but every evening she was sat, holding a razor blade near her veins and text, getting ready to call you. Then she gave the idea, crying for god’s penalty. They she tried to tie you to her. It didn’t work. She found the hole: to call me. The poor girl couldn’t understand that all spells, made-up by people, could not make me come. I was silently observing how the rituals and spells were being changed, books and attributes were bought, which guaranteed my coming. It was useless. Later my heart had mercy on her. I moved a witch up to her who was dying and ready to give her gift to someone. Thank to it, Victoria managed to conclude the deal. Be careful Kharon, she is a real witch. She’s not able to do serious harm, I hope, but she can make you be nervous. Victoria doesn’t know that she has the strongest power and I’m absolutely sure, she doesn’t know what to do with it.’

Kharon lowered his eyes, looked at his friend and didn’t know if he had to be glad or to be horrified.

‘So, you did really shake up the dull days,’ the demon said in a low voice. ‘You moved a witch up to me, Lucifer!’

‘I did,’ he laughed. ‘I’m sure you will be having two funny years. Now you’re not going to be bored, my friend. As to romanticism and other feelings, I advise you to go for a walk across the city. Watch people. I’m sure that you will find another way to see them. You’ll see men be in reality and how it’s difficult to charm a girl who is liked.’

‘Do you mean you have organized a two-year excursion in people’s word and gave a witch as a guide?’ Kharon smirked. ‘Well, now I got why people sometimes give not a very good feedback about us.’

‘My dear friend, I have to go, business isn’t going to wait. I’ll be waiting for you to drop me a line about your life among people. Rent a flat, work, if you want, go in for Victoria as a woman, have a rest from variety of faces in dreams… And yes, I know that Sunshine refused you again, burning with the desire. Win the ma’am’s favour without penetrating her subconsciousness.’

‘Sunshine?’ Kharon surprised.

‘You saw her red hair with gold particles. Freckles. Gold eyelashes. She’s like the Sun. See you, my friend. Pay for my coffee, you’re now something like… a human.’

Lucifer clasped his shoulder slightly and disappeared. Kharon was left alone, looking at the bill, the waiter had brought to him.

He still didn’t understand if Lucifer exiled him or he really wanted him to be destructed from his many-thousand-years routine. One could go mad because of it. Kharon appreciated his Lord worrying about his friend.

As he was ordered, the demon paid for the coffee and went to study Moscow and everything that it could give him, being supported with only one thought – to try to be a human…

‘Vic, go to shop, please, coffee is done.’ Olga Vladimirovna hardly opened her eyes after hard night work. ‘I’m going to work for 24 hours again. I’m at home tomorrow and the whole weekends. Now I can think of coffee only. Will you?’

‘Sure’ Vic nodded, putting on the gym shoes. ‘Shall we go somewhere at the weekends? To have dinner?’

‘No problem, I’ll try to survive till the weekends.’

Vic smiled and closed the door behind her.

The girl ran into the street and dead air rushed to her nose. The sun and heat were not ashamed of September. Despite that it was 3 pm, there weren’t a lot of people. It was the middle of the week.

Victoria came into the shop, greeted the acquaintance seller, glanced over a woman staying near him and asked for a tin of coffee.

‘How’s your mum?’ the seller asked while he was waiting for the bill.

‘She’s fine. She’s come from work in the morning, now she’s going to work again. As usual there’s much work to do.’ She smiled.

‘Give my best greets to her. Your bill. Your coffee.’ The seller gave the goods to the girl.

‘Thank you. Is this a new seller?’ Vic nodded at the woman staying near the man. ‘Good luck in future.’

The girl left the shop and bumped into Kharon at once. She fell with a plop on the road and blinked in surprise.

‘I am sorry,’ the demon was confused, giving her his hand.

Victoria stood up, picked the tin and stared at the unexpected guest with eyes full of love.

‘What’re you doing here?’ she asked, feeling her cheeks getting burnt with red fire.

‘I have bought a computer…ok, laptop, cell. What else? SIM-cards and I need your help. How shall I use these all?’

‘What? You’ve bought?’ she couldn’t help smiling. ‘Wait a second. I’ll give coffee to my mum and come down to you. Will you be waiting for me here?’

‘You don’t want to acquaint me with your mum, do you?’

‘Kharon!’ Victoria exclaimed in confusion. ‘Before it we have to make up a weepy story about your appearance in my life. That’s why I’d like to have a walk across the city…to communicate with you.’

‘I am waiting.’ The man answered humbly.

He followed the girl with his eyes when she came into the entrance hall, he watched the wind disarranged her hair, the dark entrance side hid her out of his sight.

In an hour they were sitting in a café, Victoria was looking into the demon’s cell.

‘So, this is your phone number. That’s mine. You can find them in your contacts. You can text. Here. You have to open your messages. Then find a necessary phone number, text here and send…’

The demon was listening, examining the device and rarely smirked. What a strange device! Demons communicated with each other by means of thoughts! And if you put it like that then they weren’t very talkative guys. They absolutely didn’t need cells for connection.