Chapter 65 Chapter 65
“You need to pay,” Maxwell snarled, causing Uriel to grow nervous. He felt threatened by the intimidating stranger in front of him. Even though he wasn’t aware that demons existed, he could tell that Maxwell was not human, and that realization had his fear surge.
“Why?” he forced out, clenching his jaw. He moved around the car, attempting to get more distance between them, but there was no way he could ever get away from a demon set hard on murder.
“Don’t you remember what you did to Valerie? How much did you hurt her?” Maxwell countered, a ray of light striking the human mercilessly. He screamed, backing further away without letting Maxwell out of his sight.
“I… I didn’t hurt her. Not even once. I have no idea what she told you, but it isn’t true at all.”
“You’re mocking both of us. I don’t like being lied to, human,” he hissed hatefully, cornering Uriel at the wall behind his car. The man looked around frantically for help, but the dimly lit area of the parking garage was deserted. Nobody noticed what was happening. Nobody would help him.
“Want to know what I’m going to do with you?” Maxwell asked, his excited tone fitting to his twisted smirk. A gleam in his eyes made him look like a deranged psychopath, the sight scaring Uriel to the core.
“Look, I don’t even know you, we have no reason to…”
“Shut up. I have every reason to make you suffer, filthy human,” the demon spat, taking hold of Uriel’s arm in a crushing grip. He smirked even wider when he felt warm blood under his hands, watching Uriel’s horrified gaze with morbid fascination. “I’m going to start by breaking your bones. Nice and slow, so we can both enjoy it. Next, I could sever a limb or maybe blast a hole through your stomach. Which do you prefer?”
Uriel was pleading with him to let him go, his words falling on deaf ears. He tried to escape from the demon’s unrelenting grip, but it was futile. No matter how strong he was, he couldn’t do a thing. It was the first time in his life that someone overpowered him instead of the other way around, and it left him terrified.
“If you don’t choose soon, I might just do both,” Maxwell drawled, his fingers coming to rest on the other man’s throat. “Or should I choke you? Ah, so many options. I can’t decide where to start.” He sighed dramatically, while Uriel’s breaths became erratic with horror.
“Please, just let me go. I never… I never did anything to you,” he pleaded desperately, beads of sweat forming on his brow. He was trembling, looking nothing like the confident man he had been just hours before when Maxwell had first seen him. The demon thoroughly enjoyed seeing him suffer and beg for his life. It was the best entertainment he could ask for.
“I don’t like it when someone harms what’s mine. Doesn’t matter if it was in the past; you are going to pay dearly for your mistake,” he said with finality. “I need to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and there is only one way to do that.”
“Let me go, please.”
Maxwell’s only answer was a low chuckle that rang through the air. His grip on Uriel’s arm tightened until the crushing of a bone could be heard. He screamed, but the demon did not show mercy. Uriel stared into his delirious black eyes, the madness within them promising that he would not get a quick death.
—
Valerie was woken up hours later by the meowing of Mochi, which impatiently rubbed its head against her arm, seemingly asking to be petted. She smiled, running her fingers through its fur.
“You’re the cutest little kitty I have ever seen,” she whispered, its ears perking up when it heard her voice. Piercing demonic eyes watched her, and then it yawned, displaying sharp teeth that could easily kill a human. Valerie often wondered why the demon had taken a liking to her when it was obvious that it was dangerous to humans. It was strange, but up to this point, she had gotten used to being surrounded by unexplainable phenomena.
She had stopped questioning everything a long time ago. Maybe Mochi was simply looking for a person that it could cuddle with, although this was unusual for a demon.
Valerie got up and stretched her arms, checking the clock to see that it was past eight pm already. She made the mistake of sleeping for too long, and now she probably won’t be able to sleep through the night. How annoying.
Sighing to herself, she trudged to the kitchen, taking note of the annoying flickering of the lamp above her head. Maxwell must be messing with her again—when would he ever learn to stop doing that? Probably never.
She rolled her eyes. “Hey, Maxwell, do you want dinner too? I’m making spaghetti carbonara,” she yelled into the living room and waited for an answer, but to her surprise, she didn’t receive one. Grumbling under her breath, she marched to the next room, only to be met with a surprise.
The demon wasn’t here. The TV and his precious PS4 were turned off, and the room was dark. Where could he be? Maybe in the bathroom? She looked down at her wrist to check the mark, seeing that it wasn’t shining. The star appeared like a regular tattoo, meaning he was gone.
She exhaled. “Where could he be? He never leaves without telling me beforehand,” she mumbled, a strange unease blooming in her stomach. There was this feeling within her, telling her that something was off. She decided to push it to the back of her mind for now and walked back to the kitchen to ready all the ingredients she needed.
While she waited for the spaghetti to be done, she distracted herself by texting on her smartphone until her thoughts went back to Maxwell. Where could he have gone? Didn’t he threaten Uriel earlier? Did he go after him now without telling her?