I glanced at the door and then to Hugo's wounds. Hugo Sinclair was only part incubus, but I was 100% demonic Pureblood. Despite my low born status, I had been conceived and birthed in Hell by the threads of Sin.
I bit into the meat of my palm. Frankie’s human teeth were a lot blunter than I was used to. I sawed my jaw from side to side until the thin skin split and welled with blood.
Hugo gasped in pain. His eyes shut tight, his body was rigid. Before he had a chance to close his mouth, I jabbed my bloody hand between his lips and allowed my viscous blood to coat his tongue.
I wiped the rest of my blood on the dark comforter and sat down on the floor.
Hugo would be okay. My blood would heal him.
It wasn’t until the morning that I realized that wasn’t all it had done.
Chapter 10
The Jade Lake of the Fourth Circle, aka Envy, was home to the Leviathan King.
Leviathan were poisonous, serpentine Demons, with the ability to shapeshift. The King of the Leviathan was taller than a skyscraper. With a golden jade scales, his body was long with frilly fins, almost like a Chinese dragon.
The Leviathan King had been around longer than any of the other monarchs. The Devil had initially lived in Heaven, as had Ba'el, the once King of the Second Circle.
My Cluster made our home in the damp caves on the edge of the Jade Lake. The tree roots were spindly cages above the water, the waterfall leading from the edge of the Third Circle, Sloth, was florescent. The Jade Lake was named as such for a reason, it looked like a milky green shard of Jade.
Drudes moved around. My kin made their home in many circles.
Demons were created when Hell had seen a need for them. The dimension was sentient in its own way. Demons were also created by those able to manipulate the threads of Sin. Monarchy of Hell, or equally powerful beasts.
I had lived many lives and lived in many places—feeding on the psychological runoff from the troubled and demonic. Sometimes I would catch glimpses of the Human Realities in the mind of a Kitsune or Baphomet-kin.
The Jade Lake was close to the City of Dis, in the center of Hell. I was able to drift through the capital and soak in the knowledge of another place, a different world with love, pain, and violence. The memories of the Human Realities seemed more colorful than Hell.
My home was stagnant. No one aged. No one died. Every day, we would feed on the diluted terror of beings that only knew about inflicting pain, but never experiencing it.
My first dream of Hugo had taken place in the City of Dis, amongst the flapping fabric storefronts. Each stall selling ancient artifacts, and Devil's Silver. Lotions and potions, and even stale Krispy Kreme donuts for the Demons that wanted to try their hand at eating human food.
The city was empty. The shouting shopkeepers were silent. No footsteps in the barren sand.
I wore my smoke. A dark galaxy, as I drifted through the ancient city.
My worst nightmare.
The world shifted; suddenly, I was in the East Village in New York City. Standing outside of the familiar door of my borrowed apartment. The shining brass number read '36’. Hugo's apartment.
Something behind the door crashed, and furniture shifted, screeching against the hardwood floors.
Every single bulb bathed the hallway in a lusty red, making the walls look like they belonged to a BDSM club.
The door was open, just a crack. I pushed against it, able to move the flimsy wood despite the fact I had no body. Stardust and nightmares.
Hugo cowered in the corner of the room, naked from the waist up, he was covered in inflamed, red scratches. Bleeding lightly. They marred his flesh like someone had tried to grab him, and he had struggled to get away. Hugo rocked with his head in his hands.
“Go away.” He muttered. His voice was so quiet and without hope that it was heartbreaking.
The door to Hugo's bedroom was a wide arch with barefaced brick. The space had no door but instead seemed to be held back with a magic barrier of some kind.
Hundreds of men and women gathered in the tiny space of Hugo's room, pressed against the transparent barrier. Spittle flew from screaming mouths, silenced by the blockade, fists pounded the magic until rainbow oil slicks rippled out as if the doorway was blocked by water.
Every person looked manic in their pursuit of Hugo Sinclair. Their eyes were hooded with and their movements were bestial, as if they had lost any semblance of their personalities. Fueled by their need for him.
“That's creepy,” I commented lightly, stepping up to the barrier. Not one of Hugo's feverish admirers looked at me, their attention solely on the incubus.
This was not my nightmare anymore. It was Hugos.
I wasn’t very powerful, but nightmares were my domain.
I stepped towards Hugo's shivering form. He pressed back against the wall as if he hoped he could disappear inside of it. His rocking grew frantic.
I held out my hand. I said his name with confidence to get his attention. It did not work.
“No. No. No. No.” He whispered.
“Hugo,” I repeated, more sternly.
Hugo blinked, waking up from whatever distressed trance had held him captive while the imprisoned lusty army of the damned battered at his barrier to rip his body to pieces.
“It's you.” He said in awe.
It took a second to realize that I wore my own form, the incorporeal smoke. Not my Frankie Gardiner meat-suit.
“Come with me,” I commanded, stopping myself from glancing at the rabid crowd.
Hugo stood, unfolding his leonine body. He looked over his shoulder at the lusty zombies. “What about them?”
“Who are they?” I asked.
He shrugged. “When I get too close... To excited... That’s what happens.”
I nodded to myself. I had suspected as much. Young incubi, especially ones from Pureblooded lines, were hard to control. They did not feed on humans as a general rule, not until they had millennia of experience and control under their belt.
One of Hugo's parents was a Demon. A powerful one. And an old one, if he or she had been able to sleep with a Human and not drive them mad.
Hugo's tentative, delicate manner made sense. If every time he showed the slightest interest, it made someone a lust-filled crazy, I could see why he would be hesitant.
“They don’t matter.” I waved my hand, taking control of his nightmare. With barely any effort, I turned every single person into a traffic cone.
Hugo's eyes widened. “How did you do that?”
“I eat my vegetables,” I replied smugly.
The walls melted away; the empty City of Dis returned.
While I could manipulate dreams, I couldn’t do much about my own.
Hugo’s fingers squeezed mine. I hadn’t realized that we were holding hands.
“Where are we?” He breathed in wonder, staring at the sun, shining a bright beam through the faraway peaks of the Greedy Mountains.
I smiled sadly. “My home.”
Hugo drank in the sights. The harsh, jagged lines of Cyclian, the language of Hell. The fluttering breeze that would never be felt. The twirling sand of the wastes. The path was worn to nothing by hundreds of thousands of Demons over the years.
“This isn’t Earth.” He said.
“You’re right. This is Dis.” I gestured around us with a sweep of my free hand. Hugo's touch felt strange. Intense. My true form existed in the planes between worlds. Somehow, Hugo could touch me when no one else could.
Maybe it was because it was a dream.
He would never see my true form in his waking world to find out.
“Who are you?” He breathed. “I have seen you before. In my dreams.”