[ENG.] Azazel - Lucifer's Son

6. Food or Poison.

That evening, to the great relief of my feet and my head, finally came to an end.

I caught no more glimpses of Dimithryus or his companion for the rest of the shift. I made a conscious effort to avoid them the way you avoid something dangerous — not out of fear, but because you know you don't yet have the right tools to deal with it. I tucked myself between tables and shadows, shielded by the glazed stares of drunk customers and the strobe lights that, for once, turned out to be my allies. Sebastian, with that quiet discretion that was one of the reasons why I loved him, didn't ask a single question. He simply covered for me when needed, intercepting tables I should have taken myself, without ever asking why. I was enormously grateful.

I wasn't sure exactly what I was feeling. The confusion that man stirred up in me was disarming — not in the romantic sense as Danielle would have said, but in the literal one: he stripped me of my weapons, left me without the ready answers I usually kept in my back pocket.

There was a tension coiling in my stomach, an inexplicable pull mixed with an instinctive wariness — like catching the smell of something sweet and not being able to tell if it's food or poison.

That strange feeling followed me through the entire weekend, wedged between exhausting shifts and also few hours of sleep. And yet, despite everything — despite myself — I found my eyes searching for him among the customers every time I walked through the doors of the White House.

As if part of me was hoping to catch that gaze again. It disgusted me to admit it even in silence, but the idea of not seeing him again carried with it a hollow feeling I couldn't justify with any rational reasoning. It was madness. A dangerous and entirely irrational detour. But my mind clung to that thought with a blind stubbornness, as if trying to unravel a mystery only he could embody — one that I, foolishly, wanted to solve.

When Monday arrived, it did so almost stealthily. Light filtered through the window and hit me directly in the face, yanking me forcefully from a heavy, dreamless sleep. It was one of those rare mornings when Sheffield decided to be kind: the sky was a soft, almost unbelievable shade of blue — the kind of sky that in this city lasted about as long as a held breath before the clouds came back to reclaim their territory. I wasn't going to waste it.

I jumped out of bed with an energy that didn't feel like mine. I promised myself, for the umpteenth time, to become a more punctual person — a promise I made every week with the same sincerity with which I later ignored my alarm. I grabbed my phone and started texting Sebastian while making my way to the bathroom.

***

To: Sebastian

"Please tell me you're outside with a giant cappuccino and a pack of cookies. I would marry you."

From: Sebastian

"I'm in the car, almost there. Cappuccino: yes. Cookies: no. Still want to marry me? I'd even accept a same-day Vegas kinda craziness."

To: Sebastian

"Not marrying you. Move it — you're already late."

****

I smiled at the screen, texting back absentmindedly while trying to make sense of my hair with my free hand. My phone slipped off the edge of the sink twice before I managed to keep it still. That day felt almost spring-like, even though it was January — and so, honoring that small philosophy my grandfather had passed on to me, one I'd never stopped following, I decided to dress in blue.

"The weather is different every day," he used to say, in that low, precise voice of his that seemed to come from another era. "Every day has its own colors. You have to understand them and make them your own." It was a simple thing — maybe even a trivial one. But it worked. It helped me step into the day instead of just letting it happen to me.

When Sebastian arrived, I bolted out the door and stole the cappuccino straight from his hand before I even said good morning. He laughed — that low, resigned laugh of someone who already knew that was exactly how it was going to go — and steered me toward the car with a light hand on my back. A simple gesture. The kind you don't notice until you go looking for it.

We reached campus in a few minutes and hurried toward the classroom for our first lecture: Mythology with Professor Hardin, followed by Herbal Witchcraft — her again.

"Good morning, little star!" Danielle shouted the moment she saw me walk through the door, shifting over to make room with the broad, generous gesture of someone who always takes up too much space and never apologizes for it. It was her usual greeting — loaded with an energy that seemed completely indifferent to the time of day.

"Hey, Dan. Think we'll survive?" I whispered, pulling out my notebook.

"Hush, you little troublemaker!" she fired back, in a mock-offended tone that fooled no one. "Anyway, today my full attention will be devoted to Professor Stan's three hours." She raised her eyebrows in a theatrical gesture, releasing a sigh that would have made a soap opera actress jealous.

Just hearing that name made my heart skip a beat. A wave of thoughts crashed over me, pulling me back to the night at the White House — those sage-green eyes settling on me with an intensity I still couldn't categorize. I felt the urge to tell Danielle everything — to say out loud that strange cocktail of danger and curiosity that man had left stuck to my skin. But I held back. I didn't want to make it real. Words have the power to turn feelings into facts, and I wasn't ready for that yet.

The door opened. Professor Hardin made her entrance at a brisk pace, pushing her orange glasses up her aquiline nose with a sharp, precise flick — the gesture of someone who has more important things to think about than the impression she makes.

"Alright, everyone. After these past few weeks, today we're tackling Lilith." She paused, letting the name settle in the air like dust. "A complex and controversial figure: in Mesopotamian tradition, a female demon associated with storms, bringer of misfortune and death."

A murmur spread through the room. Hardin ignored it with the same attention she would have given to the sound of wind.

"She is a figure who embodies rebellion and the pursuit of knowledge," she continued, her gaze cutting across the room.

"What is she — some kind of sea creature?" shot a voice from the back row — one of those students who, in my opinion, attended the course exclusively to occupy a seat someone else could have used better.

I rolled my eyes. From his small circle of friends — a term I used generously — a self-satisfied little laugh floated up. I rested my face in my palm and waited for it to pass.

"Mr. Simons. Always right on time with the jokes," said Hardin, her voice as flat as a marble surface. "No, she is not a sea creature. Lilith was the first woman to set foot on the earth as we know it today. Her figure changes across cultures, but all accounts converge on one point: she is a negative figure, through and through."

She took a step toward the lectern, as if gathering her thoughts before diving into something deeper.

"In Mesopotamian tradition she is the female demon of the storm, linked to misfortune, illness, and death as far back as 3000 BC. In Jewish Kabbalah, she is Adam's first wife — predating Eve — cast out and banished because she refused to submit to her husband. Condemned to wander, transformed into a night demon. More specifically, into an owl." She paused, letting the image take shape in the students' minds. "Some scholars have noted how Lilith appears to be the pagan counterpart of purity: while the latter will dominate the serpent and subdue it, Lilith will be drawn to it — almost unknowingly — wrapped in its spiral, complicit in the search for the darkest secrets of human nature."

Danielle leaned toward me, her eyes dreamy. "Women like her make me feel so… fleeting. I'm jealous."

"I don't think you'd enjoy being turned into an owl," I whispered back, nudging her.

"Knowing my luck, I'd end up as a centipede," she replied, wiggling her fingers like tiny frantic legs.

We smothered a laugh, pressing our hands over our mouths as the professor went on, pretending not to hear. For a moment, between one laugh and the next, I completely forgot the icy stare that had unsettled me just days before. Just for a moment.

"But if Lilith is drawn to secrets and to the unconscious depths of human nature," Sebastian spoke up from across the room, in that curious, precise tone he pulled out when a subject truly caught him, "how can she also be a demon? Demons reject human beings — unless it's to use them."

Hardin turned toward him with something that resembled approval — a rare expression on her face.

"Good question, Mr. Tiriąc." She moved toward the board, as if the answer required space. "In Babylonian mythology, three classes of evil spirits are distinguished. Devils, who share the nature of the gods and produce storms and disease. Ghosts, souls of the dead who wander the earth, unable to leave it. And finally demons — beings that are half human and half divine, condemned to wander endlessly, searching for something or someone they never find."

She paused briefly. The silence in the room had shifted — the kind of silence that comes from genuine attention, not obligation.

"Lilith was human, once. And she was condemned to wander among men for eternity, never finding peace. It is that condemnation that transforms her into a demon. But her human nature doesn't disappear — it stays inside her, constantly pushing her to search for a way out of that limbo, to understand humanity, to find the key that will end her suffering. She is caught between two natures, and neither one belongs to her completely." She concluded, letting the final words hang in the air like smoke.

The bell broke the silence. The room stirred — students stretching, capping their pens.

"Well," I said to Danielle, "not bad."

"Now, mythology aside," Hardin resumed, turning to the board without missing a beat. "Get out your materials for Herbal Witchcraft. Today we're making the regenerative hair potion. You'll find the measurements on the board — I'm writing them myself, don't trust your neighbor's notes."

Someone laughed. Someone else was already digging through their bag. I stayed still for just a second, pen in hand, as the professor's last words about Lilith's nature echoed somewhere deep inside me — caught between two natures, and neither one belongs to her completely — and I tried to figure out why they felt so familiar.