Page 27 of Demons Treasure Warlocks

“Someone requested a town meeting. Maybe we should go to see what exactly is going on,” Isaac suggested, and he seemed ill at ease as he spoke.

“Someone being a member of the chamber of commerce?” Darius suggested, almost jokingly. Having Adam or Isaac there would be nice, but neither man was comfortable with confrontation.

“I can be an escort,” Bale offered. Darius froze briefly and almost shouted no. He did not want Bale anywhere near Hastur or Elijah. Bale was his now. He counted to ten before smiling benignly.

“I’d go if Bale was. Having him beside me would be like protection.” Adam relaxed immediately as he spoke. “I ‘m pretty sure Hakko from the museum would attend since he’s the curator for it.”

“Why are we all going off track? Who cares about the town meeting? That’s not relevant. Go back to Darius’s story,” Trey ordered.

Darius rubbed his eyes and tried to accept that Trey possibly had a point. This story was a long time coming, and he honestly never wanted to share how Hastur had suckered him into opening a portal here.

“Darius? I’m just trying to understand your situation,” Trey stated almost calmly.

“Back off, Trey. Let the man think. Things aren’t always so black and white, right?” Bale snapped. Trey sighed as he crossed his arms.

Darius cast his mind back to the past and shivered. Remembering his parents hurt and then his actions afterward embarrassed him. “So…after high school when Mom and Dad died, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind. I was desperate for something, something to combat the loneliness and the grief. And I started messing around with magic.”

“This has been going on for that fucking long?” Trey interrupted again. Adam clapped a hand over his mouth and grunted.

Darius gamely moved on, ignoring Trey’s outburst and the turmoil rolling in his stomach. He never thought he’d have to vocalize the dark pain and grief he suffered and what he'd done to get past it. “So anyway, magic’s not real, right? Never thought anything would come of it. I just pretended all along, until one day it was real.”

ChapterTwelve

Darius opened a hurt that been hiding for too many years. He’d kept this a secret for so long that it had become a part of who he was. His mysterious past, his dark history. People assumed correctly it had something to do with when his parents died. And it did. When they'd passed in that terrible accident, he had opened his eyes to the possibility of magic. It wasn’t that he'd wanted to bring them back to life. He’d watched too many movies and read too many books to even contemplate that. He was just so lost in the banality of life that he ached to have a reason once more for living.

Answers came to him in the form of Aleister Crowley, an occultist from the early twentieth century. Crowley’s belief system opened his mind’s eye, and Darius agreed a tiny bit. Not in Crowley. His magic was dark and insidious. He believed in Lovecraft’s monsters and swore he’d seen them on the East Coast. That was a bit wacky even for Darius. But it put Darius in the right direction, and he began researching more about magic. And finding solace in what he discovered.

Darius spread his fingers wide as he spoke, remembering the magic he found, just by accident. “Magic was so pure, and it helped me understand the balance between life and death. That maybe life wasn’t so cut and dry like I figured. I followed this thread, and God, what it showed me. I could have spoken to my mom, but I just wasn’t strong enough.”

That was when Hastur struck. When Darius was at his lowest point. He manipulated Darius’s vulnerability and grief into opening a door to his dimension. “I assumed he was taking me to see my mom, in the underworld. But fuck, that was no Elysian Fields. I fucked up.”

“But you could have talked to me. I would have helped. You’re my family, Dare. My parents consider you their son.” Isaac struggled to articulate his pain, and Darius’s heart clenched as Isaac teared up.

“I didn’t want to burden you. You were struggling then too with high school and the dumbasses there. You didn’t need my shit on top of it,” Darius said, feeling the same guilt all over again. He remembered how sad Isaac was then and how he constantly looked up into the night sky. “I gave you magic though. Once my head was clear, right?”

“Well, yeah, but you weren’t the same.”

“A lifetime had happened,” Bale jumped in. His grip on Darius’s shoulder helped ground Darius as he drowned in memories. “Yellow Dick was… well, you all know him. Because our Darius is so willing to be helpful…” Bale trailed off before clearing his throat. “Anyway, let’s just say Yellow Dick’s modes of persuasion weren’t kind. He—he tortured Darius in such a terrible fashion that it amazes me to this day that Darius is still sane. Any kind of pain was inflicted on Darius, just to get him to say yes. Darius is a fucking champ.”

“And Dare managed to hold him off just by saying no, that he didn’t want this? Holy balls, Batman.” Trey gazed at Darius with what looked like hero worship, and Darius hated it. His pain in exchange for Trey’s sympathy was not the reason for sharing this hell.

“It wasn’t all fun and games. I do not recommend it,” Darius mumbled. Some memories from then muscled through his self-imposed blockade, and he nearly vomited at the remembered agony.

“So how did you and Bale hook up? I don’t understand.” Adam darted looks between Darius and Bale, curiosity warred with sympathy.

“He was the slave assigned to me. Gave me water and food. Bandaged the wounds. He was the quiet in a world of noise and chaos.”

“So what you’re saying is—you opened a small crack for him to step through, but he hauled you back to his land. Tortured you to make you say yes then let you go? Why?” Adam cocked his head in mild confusion.

“I had to agree to something he wanted. Like what he offered Elijah, but unlike Elijah, I said no. He had to release me. It’s the rules down there.”

“Okay, then how did he get through on the night of the Red Storm?” Adam continued to ask.

“Three different types of magic happened then. Isaac was trying to do something out of the ordinary, Trey discovered MushMush, which I still haven’t figured out, and I was at the original cairn where I was pulled through. I can assure you; I didn’t do anything. But it must have triggered something for Yellow Dick. Three magics in one field where it was the absolute strongest in Granite.” Darius sipped his cool tea and wished he had something with more bite.

Bale squeezed his shoulder once and moved toward the kitchen. The others took that as a sign for a break. Caspian and Trey followed Bale. Adam wandered elsewhere, and Isaac stared so sadly at Darius. His gaze shredded Darius’s stoicism. He was trying so hard to be strong, but Isaac’s honesty broke down his walls.

His oldest friend had been kept in the dark for so long about Darius’s past. Darius had to fix it, but he wasn’t sure how. “I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me.”

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