YOU AGAIN?

Chapter 3

Daemon

I fixed my gaze on the building entrance, gradually becoming oblivious to the surrounding sounds. The noise of passing cars, the conversations of strangers, the rustle of leaves — all of it blurred into one monotonous background that I barely noticed anymore.

Being here was hard enough. I wondered what it must have been like for Diana if she still lived here.

Memories came one after another, as though someone were deliberately leafing through the pages of a long-forgotten book.

Once, after getting spectacularly drunk, I called her. An unfamiliar female voice answered and coolly informed me that I had the wrong number. I was so furious with myself for allowing a moment of weakness to get the better of me that I smashed my phone against the wall.

On my way out of the bar, I accidentally bumped into a tall guy. I was drunk enough that, instead of apologising, I actually mouthed off at him. Naturally, that was not the end of our little encounter: a fight broke out. I knew perfectly well that he was stronger than me, but I had no intention of backing down. I needed to let out all the anger I had been carrying around, and if that meant allowing someone to beat the living daylights out of me, I was more than willing to oblige.

The guy worked himself into a fury surprisingly quickly. His movements grew sharper and more aggressive, and then something strange happened. He growled. Not an irritated noise. Not a snarl of frustration. He actually growled like an animal.

I decided I must have imagined it. I managed to knock him onto the pavement and pressed my forearm against his throat. The movement was clumsy, and at that exact moment a sharp pain shot through my arm, just below the elbow.

The guy shoved me aside and sprang to his feet. For several seconds, he stared at me with such naked horror that you would have thought I was the one who posed a mortal threat to him. It took me a moment to understand what had happened, too.

I looked down at my arm. Blood was slowly trickling down my skin, and two deep tooth marks stood out against it.

Seriously? He bit me?!

I actually laughed. Deciding I had no interest in carrying on with this circus, I turned around and walked away. I hailed the first taxi I saw and went back to the bachelor pad I had been living in. Only once I got there did I properly examine the wound. Even through the haze of alcohol, I noticed something odd about the bite. The marks were far too deep, and the distance between them was unusually wide.

Well, look at the chompers on that guy.

I cleaned the wound with hydrogen peroxide, wrapped a bandage around my arm as best I could, and decided that by morning it would look considerably better.

I woke up burning with fever and such a splitting headache that it felt as though someone had spent the entire night methodically hammering my skull. My stomach was turning inside out, and I barely managed to make it to the bathroom.

Neither the cold shower nor the l****s of water I forced down helped. Until noon, I shuffled back and forth between the kitchen and the bathroom, gradually concluding that alcohol really could make a person pay dearly for overindulgence.

The next time I surfaced from a restless sleep, I found myself lying on the cold bathroom tiles beside the toilet. That was exactly how I was when I heard someone knocking at the door.

I decided that I wasn't expecting anyone and, quite frankly, had no desire to see anyone either. So, I mentally told the uninvited visitor exactly where he could go and somehow dragged myself back to bed.

The knocking came again. This time it was louder, more insistent, and considerably longer.

“For f**k’s sake…” I muttered, pulling the pillow over my head.

The door shook again under another demanding knock. With considerable effort, I hauled myself upright and staggered towards it, mentally composing a speech about what I thought of this nocturnal woodpecker and his highly questionable choice of visiting hours. But the moment I flung the door open and opened my mouth to unleash everything that had been building up inside me, the words caught in my throat.

A man whose age was difficult to determine stood on the doorstep. His coat fit him impeccably. His posture was calm, almost relaxed, and his grey-blue eyes watched me with quiet attention. He studied me in silence for several seconds, then made a brief gesture, beckoning someone forward. Yesterday’s guy appeared from behind his shoulder. The very same guy with the biting problem.

I sobered up instantly. Well, as much as that was possible in my condition.

“Is this him?” the man asked.

The biter nodded. I frowned.

Okay, so we had a bit of a scrap. That hardly calls for bringing a third person along to settle the score!

While I struggled to piece together some kind of logical explanation for what was happening, the man held out his hand and smiled.

“Ragne Lennart,” he introduced himself in a deep, measured voice. “Ragnar to friends.”

I was taken aback, but I shook his hand anyway.

“And this is Daniel,” the man said, gesturing towards his companion. “May we come in?”

There was something about his voice that made refusing feel almost impossible. It wasn't a threat. It wasn't an order. It was simply the strange certainty of a man who, for some reason, already knew I wouldn't object.

I stepped aside and opened the door wider, only realising afterwards that I had apparently done it on autopilot.

“First of all,” the man continued, glancing cautiously around the apartment as he began undoing the buttons of his coat, “I would like to apologise for Daniel.”

“Listen, Mr Lennart…” I began, gesturing for them to sit down.

“Please. Call me Ragnar,” he interrupted politely.

The man settled onto the sofa while Daniel remained standing behind it, as though he had been ordered not to move. I nodded absently and lowered myself into the armchair opposite them. My survival instinct, which had apparently been on holiday until now, had finally decided to report back for duty.

Fight or flight.

The problem was that neither option particularly appealed to me.

“Daniel made a foolish mistake,” Ragnar continued. “An unforgivable one.”

At the mention of his name, Daniel lowered his head, looking every inch the picture of remorse.

An awkward silence followed.

Who the hell are these two? What do they want from me? How did they even find me? And, most importantly, was this toothy bastard following me?

“Actually, this was my fault,” I said at last, reluctantly tearing my gaze away from Ragnar’s strange, almost hypnotic eyes. “I provoked the fight myself.”

He gave the faintest hint of a smile, while Daniel continued staring at the back of the sofa as though it contained something of extraordinary interest.

“Tell me…” Ragnar hesitated, clearly unsure how to address me.

“Daemon,” I supplied belatedly.

“Tell me, Daemon, how are you feeling?”

What is this, twenty questions?

“Fine,” I lied, even as my stomach twisted unpleasantly again.

Ragnar leant forward slightly and tilted his head, studying my face with unsettling concentration. The situation was getting stranger by the second. I frowned and leant forward as well, trying to figure out exactly what he was looking for. I had no intention of running anymore. After all, this was my apartment, and if push came to shove, I should at least try to defend myself.

Daniel, who had been standing motionless behind the sofa, suddenly jerked his head up and bared his teeth. I tensed instantly. My fingers tightened around the armrests, my body instinctively preparing to move, but Ragnar merely laughed and raised a hand, stopping his companion. Daniel exhaled loudly and froze again.

The whole situation was beginning to feel like something out of a mob movie: the boss had shown up at my apartment with his bodyguard to discuss something I didn't even know I was involved in.

Ragnar leant back against the sofa again, perfectly at ease.

“Do you feel nauseous?” he asked, the smile still lingering in his eyes. “Any desire to drink?”

“Everyone feels like s**t after a night of drinking,” I said with a shrug.

“Quite true,” he smirked again. “But not everyone hears growling in their head.”

I stared at him in astonishment. I had, in fact, been hearing growling ever since I woke up. In the morning, it had been faint enough that I could blame it on stray dogs outside my window, but now the sound had become so distinct that I could no longer deny it was real. It seemed to surround me from every direction, creating the unnerving impression that some enormous, vicious beast — a dog from the deepest pits of hell — was standing right behind me.

I swallowed slowly.

That's it. I've finally drunk myself into insanity.

“Daemon, I'm very sorry things have turned out this way,” Ragnar said, genuine sympathy in his voice. “But you need to come with us.”

What I heard next was so absurd that, had I been feeling even slightly better, I would have burst out laughing.

Ragnar claimed that Daniel wasn't exactly an ordinary human being and that his bite had somehow changed me. He insisted that I needed to go with them to a private residence, where I would receive the necessary treatment and be told exactly what was happening to me.

This sounds an awful lot like recruitment into a cult.

Ragnar and Daniel waited patiently for my decision.

“I'm not going anywhere with you,” I said at last, feeling that this little performance was beginning to wear me out even more than my actual condition.

“I'm afraid you don't have a choice,” Ragnar replied.

He rose from the sofa and calmly straightened the collar of his immaculate shirt.

“Daniel?”

I turned towards his companion and, for the first time in my life, saw something that even the most fevered imagination couldn't explain away.

Daniel's body was changing right before my eyes. His bones cracked, shoulders broadened, muscles swelled, face elongated, and long claws sprouted from his fingers. The man who had stood before me only moments ago was gone. In his place stood a creature.

Guided by an instinct that, for once, was absolutely right, I lunged for the door. Only a few steps remained between me and freedom. I might have made it, but Daniel was faster.

A powerful blow caught me squarely in the jaw. The world lurched. The walls blurred before my eyes, and my legs instantly gave out beneath me.

“Strong one. I think he's going to surprise us yet." Ragnar's calm voice reached me just before Daniel hoisted my limp body over his shoulder.