The Devil's Apprentice by Patrick Stewart (polar express read aloud TXT) 📕

at him. Her entire attention was focused on him, even though Karen was the one speaking. Karen noticed too and her voice faltered, lowering until it faded away completely.

“You’re the troublesome one,” Scarlett pointed a finger at him. “What have you done now?”

Alex glanced at Karen. She shrugged, uncertainty in her eyes. “...nothing,” Alex mumbled. “I haven’t done anything,” he said with more certainty.

“Why are your eyes like that? All big and round?”

Alex didn’t know how to respond to that. He wasn’t aware of his eyes being big and round… except, weren’t all eyes roundish? He was about to say as much when he realised she’d moved on. She was looking at Karen now, boredom in her eyes.

Karen began to talk once more, but this time, her speech was rapid. She told Scarlett of what had happened, how they followed the tip off from Marvin and went to the warehouse expecting to find demons dealing in human body parts. They found no demons. But they did find crates full of the bodies of humans. Their organs missing. It was only when they mentioned the beast did Scarlett interrupt.

“Krumier? Are you sure?” she asked.

Karen nodded and then described the beast.

“You survived a Krumier? How?”

“Alex managed to kill it,” Karen said.

Scarlett turned her attention back onto him. “You killed a Krumier?”

Alex nodded slowly. Scarlett’s eyes, Alex remembered staring at them for the first time. He remembered that strange feeling. It was like a sort of coldness seeping into his skin. His body had begun to move against his will, compelled by Scarlett.

Staring into her eyes now he felt that coldness sweep across his body. Alex felt a tightness in his chest and a sluggishness of the body. He opened his mouth and words began to spill out. He told of how he slashed at the beast, how his sword had no effect on the rough skin of the Krumier. He told of how scared he was, of how he’d worried Karen might be dead. He was babbling, he knew it, but he couldn’t stop.

He was about to tell of the moments just before he defeated the Krumier, of the heat that spread across his body, that spread into his sword when he stopped talking suddenly. There it was, that same heat. It began in the centre of his chest before spreading rapidly. It pushed the cold away and along with it, the tightness in his chest.

Alex stared at Scarlett’s black eyes, suddenly feeling hyper alert. His lips sealed shut.

“Well?” Scarlett frowned. “Speak, you inbred.”

“Inbred?” Alex mumbled. He glanced at Karen in confusion. “Inbred?” he repeated.

She stared back at him, equally confused. But it transpired soon that her confusion was not because of what Scarlett had called him, but because of his sudden silence.

“Speak,” Karen said, urgency in her voice. “Tell her how you killed the Krumier.”

“I stabbed it again,” Alex said. “I guess I found a soft spot in its skin…”

Scarlett stared at him for a long time. Alex held her gaze, unblinking. Those black eyes, they did not strike him with fear this time. There was anger inside Alex, anger that was boiling to the surface. If it spilled, bad things were going to happen.

Scarlett suddenly stood and turned abruptly. As she walked away, she said over her shoulder, “The Fidura will investigate this matter. Stay out of their way.”

Alex watched her go. His chest heaved. He gritted his teeth in anger. Why was he so angry? Was it his anger or did it belong to the voice in his head? As Scarlett disappeared down the darkened corridor, Alex turned to Karen. “Fidura?”

“Physically imposing, incredible strong and equally callous demons. Most are in hell guarding prisons and keeping order.”

They sounded like thugs. The demon version. “How are they going to solve this?”

“By beating the crap out of the poor demon they think might know something,” Karen said.

“I thought that was our job?” Alex asked. “Not beating the demons up,” he muttered quickly. “Solving crimes, bringing justice and all that?”

Karen didn’t reply, but instead stared at Alex curiously.

“What?” he asked, feeling uncomfortable.

“No one ever questions Scarlett’s decrees…” Karen said slowly. “You even seemed to resist her hypnosis.”

Hypnosis? That feeling of coldness sweeping across his body, of losing control, of being possessed but alert to what was happening and unable to counter it, that was a power of Scarlett’s. Fuck, that was a good power to have a terrible one to be subjected to.

“Anything you want to tell me?” Karen asked.

Alex did want to tell her. He desperately wanted to confide in someone about the voice in his head. A voice that gave him strength in times of needs. He didn’t fear the voice. Sure, it was an arrogant annoying piece of shit, but Alex didn’t feel threatened. He didn’t think it was there to take over his body and possess him in a sort of way.

He wanted to understand the voice and know what it was. In a world where demons and angels actually existed, where he was supposed to work for the devil herself, a voice in his head that gave him extraordinary strength, it shouldn’t have been out of place.

But Alex was fairly certain it wasn’t common.

More than that, a part of him feared others knowing. He trusted Karen. Scarlett on the other hand, she knew of the voice’s existence, knew what it was. She wanted it dead. Much like the voice in his head, Scarlett had thought it would die when his soul was ripped out of his body. For whatever reason, that hadn’t happened. Scarlett didn’t know the voice had survived. He feared what she would do if she found out.

Alex did his best to smile innocently. “Nope, nothing to tell.”

Chapter 27

Alex stood on his balcony