My Demon

By

By Lisa C Hinsley

Copyright © Lisa C Hinsley All rights reserved.

The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Novels:

Plague

Ultimate Choice

Coombe’s Wood

Short story collection:

A Peculiar Collection

A
lex let out a long-held breath, air and smoke whistling between her teeth. “Windows to the soul.”

“What?” Jeremy asked. He took the joint from her, nodding along to the beat playing out of the stereo.

“The eyes,” she said a little louder. Then Alex closed hers, not wanting trouble from the teens across the way. Watching them might be enough to attract their attention. “Minibus doors locked?”

“Uh-huh.” Jeremy raised the roll-up to his lips. He inhaled for a long time, the tip glowing bright red in the darkness.

“Gimme that.” Alex grabbed the joint from him.

Next to her, Jeremy flopped back against the seat. Alex giggled, her attention still on him as his fingers tap-tapped to Razorlight.

An express train shrieked past, drowning out the end of the song. With a gush, Alex exhaled a cloud of pale blue-grey smoke and collapsed into her seat. She concentrated on the view beyond the window, where a shadowy clump of trees grew on the other side of the tracks. They stood out against a deep electric-blue colored sky. She smiled, imagining a giant child sat behind the horizon, busy creating a life-sized collage. A toy train shot past, the lights inside the carriages flickering. Blank mannequin faces stared out unseeing into the night. The flames from the oil barrel by the tracks morphed into warm tones of crinkling crepe paper, the teenagers into translucent ghosts. They merged with the shadows, only the pale shade of their hands placing them in the dark.

“Hello, Alex.” A voice spoke up from a few seats behind her.

Her eyes flickered away from the window and onto Jeremy—had he spoken? He’d slouched down even further and was plucking the base rhythm to a Zeppelin song on a torn hole in his jeans. Must have been him, no one else was in the minivan. Squealing guitars, lyrics sung in a scream filled her ears. So much noise and something wrong she couldn’t quite remember…

Drums thumped deep enough to rattle her chest. Jeremy moved with the pulse of the song and bumped rhythmically against her. The seats were too small. Alex slid down and propped her knees up, her bare skin sticking to the grey leather of the chair in front. Outside, the sky transformed back to boring navy blue. A few stars flickered between wafts of yellow clouds, the lights of Reading town bouncing off their undersides.

The minibus emptied of music for a second as the tracks changed. Then the sounds of a guitar pierced the silence, and Alex mouthed
Babe
as Robert Plant started to sing. Strings picked, drums sliding up to a crescendo, diving down to the vocals … divine. Alex snuggled into the seat. It was then she remembered the unfamiliar voice. She must have been hearing things.

Nevertheless, she elbowed Jeremy and said, “Did you say something?”

She slid onto Jeremy’s lap and peered up at him. His eyes were closed, his mouth curled into a content smile. Only his rhythmic nodding in time to the music proved consciousness.

“Jeremy.” She poked his nose. “I’m talking to you.”

Alex pulled at his bottom lip, letting it snap back with a plopping sound. A smile grew across her face, and she reached up for a second time.

“Cut it out,” Jeremy said, his eyes opening into slits.

“Did you say something?” Alex wrapped a lock of her hair around two fingers.

“I said: Cut it out.”

“No, silly. Before that.”

“Uh, I don’t think I did.” Jeremy returned to nodding in time to the drums as they crashed and banged.

Alex sat back up and curled her head around the side of the seat. She peered towards the rear of the minibus, Robert Plant shouting out of the speakers about leaving. On the last row, at the very back, a man sat watching her. Her mouth dropped open as she stared at his red devil suit.

“Who the bloody hell are you?” Alex yelled.

“I’m Jeremy, you wally.”

Alex gave Jeremy a punch in the arm. “Turn around, look!”

Smoke collected under the roof. Tendrils curled down and obscured the face of the stranger as he stood up and made his way slowly down the aisle, trailing his fingertips on the seatbacks as he passed them.

Jeremy peered over his shoulder. “What’s your problem?” he said, and sat back around.

“You brought some strange guy?”

Jeremy ignored her.

“Without asking me first?” Alex kept her eyes on the strange man. “Jeremy invited you? But I don’t remember seeing you earlier…”

“I wasn’t here then,” the stranger said.

“But surely…” She tugged on Jeremy’s arm. “You paying attention?”

“To what, the music?”

“No, stupid, the man over there.” She thumped him. “The one you apparently let on the bus, but didn’t think to tell me.”

“What
are
you going on about?” Jeremy opened his eyes and peered out the window. “I don’t see anyone.” He rubbed his arm where she’d hit him.

“Back there, here, inside!” Alex shook her head, frustrated. “You just looked at him—when he was at the back of the bus. What the hell is going on?”

“What do
you
think?” The man stopped beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder. A feeling of calm replaced her growing anxiety and an idea came to her—almost as if planted there. The stranger was a hallucination. Brought on by smoking too much weed. The man withdrew his hand and gave a slight nod.

Alex frowned, still not entirely sure of anything. Then the smoke cleared, and she got her first good look at the stranger. He had Hollywood good looks, with sharp cheekbones and a cleft in his chin. The fullness of his mouth drew her—Latin lips, made for snogging. His eyes, startling in their shade of blue, stood out next to the olive tones of his skin. What
had
they smoked? She would rename Jeremy in honor of this vision. Ronaldo. Or maybe Marcello.

“Looked at who?” Jeremy asked.

“Catch up.” She patted him on the leg.

“I’m Clive,” the stranger said, and offered her a smile. He folded his arms and leaned against the edge of the seat opposite.

“You’re not real, are you?” Was she being rude? Did her imaginary Italian mind? “No one real would wear that.” Alex suppressed a giggle. “Why are you dressed in that?”

“Oh, this?” He indicated at his clothes. “Seemed appropriate.”

“Oh.” Alex frowned then turned to Jeremy. His pale English complexion stood out in stark contrast to the tanned skin of her apparition.

Jim Morrison belted out warnings of murder amid a cacophony of crashing symbols and drums. Alex looked back over as Clive sat down across the aisle from her. He crossed his legs daintily and linked his fingers around the knee. She stared for a long while, her mouth twitching as she tried to work out what to say.

“I really don’t understand why you’re dressed in a devil costume,” Alex finally said.

“What’re you prattling on about?” Jeremy said. “Have you gone right over the flipping edge?”

“Shut it, Jeremy. I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to Clive.”

“I’m not a devil, I’m a demon. And besides, I find the costume comfortable,” Clive replied, his eyes fixed unyieldingly on hers. “Anyway, it’s part of the uniform. All demons are required to wear this.”

He reached up and stroked one of his horns. They were bright red and seemed to be made from velvet, matching the tight cat suit he wore. Alex squinted at the hair band. She had one at home, left over from a costume party, with similar stuffed horns.