Saved by a Demon (Kiss Me at Midnight) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Book Details

  Dedication

  Saved by a Demon

  About the Author

  Saved by a Demon

  Alessandra Ebulu

  Kiss Me at Midnight

  Parker's New Year's resolution is to end his own life. What he didn't expect upon reaching the bridge where he planned to jump was to encounter a demon whose New Year's resolution is to save a human.

  Book Details

  Saved by a Demon

  Kiss Me at Midnight Collection

  By Alessandra Ebulu

  Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by Ania Love

  Cover Illustration by V. Rios

  This book is a work of fiction and as such all characters and situations are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  First Edition January 2013

  Copyright © 2013 by Alessandra Ebulu

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN 9781620041550

  To Daniel who has always been willing to put up with me and all my idiosyncrasies, you will always have a special place in my heart.

  Saved by a Demon

  Whoever said committing suicide was nothing at all should be shot to death. To stand at that point and make the decision to end one's life was excruciating. Was the afterlife better than hell on earth or was it wishful thinking that came up with alternatives for comfort on the days that everything became too much? As Parker stared hard at the water, the only thought that he had in his head was, Is this really how I want to end my life?

  He could hear the blood roaring in his head as he stared with wide eyes at the water below. It looked as black as the night that surrounded him and was probably as frigid as the cold air that held his tired and aching body in its firm grip.

  The night was cold and quiet and the full moon and stars provided the only illumination. For once, the serenity of the night was not disturbed by the sounds of people laughing or cars honking as impatient drivers drove from one corner of the city to another.

  It was New Year's Eve and people were either in their homes with their family, friends, and lovers, awaiting the new year, or at any one of the various parties that were held all over the city. Those who were at neither were huddled in their offices, slaving away in a bid to accomplish something worthwhile before welcoming the New Year. Everyone was busy doing something they loved in order to welcome the New Year—everyone except Parker.

  He was currently at the top of the city's main bridge contemplating his life and the shitty year he had had. The year had started well enough and had filled him with false hope, and he had assumed that his luck had changed for the better.

  Parker had gotten a job working as the personal assistant of Jonathan, who was the Vice President of Interswitch Marketing Communications. It had been a good job with good pay and the most amazing boss anyone could ever dream of.

  Jonathan had acknowledged Parker's work and had always been willing to listen when Parker had things to say and had given him advice on how to survive in the company. Jonathan had also been good looking and that combined with his kind and considerate nature had made Parker fall completely in love with him.

  He had been thrilled when he had discovered that his love was returned and he had spent six months blissfully happy with his lover. Things had gone smoothly for them and Jonathan had helped him come out of his introspective shell. He had introduced him to other people who worked in the office. They had befriended him and had taken him to all the fun spots in the city.

  Jonathan and Parker had spent a lot of nights lazing around and seeing the sights and the love had made everything seem even more magnificent in his eyes.

  Parker smiled sardonically, shook his head at his stupidity, and held on tighter to the railings of the bridge. It had all been a fool's dream and reality had intruded on his peaceful world.

  Reality revealed its ugly head when Parker visited Jonathan at his house and met another man whom Jonathan had introduced as his fiancé. He had been wounded, but the pain had not been nearly as bad as the hurt when Jonathan had told Parker that their relationship was never meant to last as long as it had, that he had always had his fiancé waiting for him. This other man was someone who was more suitable to be the partner of the VP of Interswitch Marketing Company, a role that Parker was clearly unsuited for. A lowly assistant and a VP were not meant to be, and Jonathan had informed him bluntly and impersonally that he had only been living a dream.

  Parker had been numb; he was unable to recognize the man he had been in love with and whom he had assumed had loved him back.

  After that, things had gotten worse. His work that once had made him happy and content now made him ill. He was constantly distracted by the presence of his ex-lover, who made a point of bringing his new and socially-acceptable lover to the office. The new lover had found it amusing to taunt Parker and emphasize that Jonathan would never be his.

  Distantly, he heard the howl of the wind and was temporarily returned to the present. Even the weather echoed the feelings of isolation that he had become accustomed to. Parker shivered, closed his eyes, and continued his trip down memory lane.

  Finally, he reached his limit with the near-constant torture and quit his job a month later. Staying at home had not made the memories easier to deal with. All he could see when he was awake and asleep were images of the happier times he had had with Jonathan. He could see them laughing over the cookies Parker had attempted to bake for breakfast that had turned out to be as hard as stone; he could see them lounging on his sofa, lying on the bed, and reading the paper on Sunday mornings; he could see Jonathan singing while taking a shower on the mornings when he'd stayed over.

  Jonathan's presence had permeated his apartment and there was nothing he could do to get rid of it. There was no one he could talk to to help him deal with the sensation within him, the feeling that squeezed his innards and his heart, which left him gasping and in tears. The only friends he had he had met through Jonathan. When Jonathan had left, his friends had gone with him.

  The depression, anguish, and loneliness were what led him to the bridge. While others eagerly anticipated the beginning of a new year, Parker stood at the bridge and considered the ending of his last one. At least if he jumped the heartache and the feeling of emptiness would end, too.

  A sudden gust of wind made him shiver and he wrapped his arms around himself in a bid to protect his body from the chill. He rubbed his arms briskly to warm himself up a bit and was not prepared for the masculine voice that spoke in a dry tone.

  "You know, given that you were just contemplating jumping into the ocean, you rubbing your arms to warm yourself strikes me as a little odd."

  Parker jumped as his eyes rapidly darted around, searching for the person who had spoken. After he looked around without seeing anyone, he shook his head slightly and concluded that he had started to hear voices.

  Oh great. First Jonathan messed with my head, now I'm hearing voices?

  "No, you are not hearing voices in your head," the voice said with an amused chuckle.

  "Who's there? What do you want? And why are you here on the bridge with me? I will have you know that I got here first and so I have dibs. If you're also interested in using this bridge, you are going to have to wait till I'm done," Parker grumbled.

  "I am actually here to save you," the voice responded.

  "By doing what? Scarin
g me into accidentally jumping into the ocean? Don't you know that when a person is on the edge of a bridge there can be no sudden movements or sounds, otherwise that person might accidentally leap into his watery grave? Are you trying to get me killed?" Parker demanded angrily. Suicide was a serious matter and his heart, mind, and body had to be in sync before he could make the attempt. It would not do for him to go without concentrating fully, and the idiotic voice had disrupted his focus.

  The tone of the voice was again dry when it replied, "No, I'm not attempting to get you killed. Why should I? You're already trying to accomplish that on your own."

  Parker huffed and with annoyance colouring his voice, said, "You know what? I refuse to stand here and talk to the air. I demand that you show yourself at once!" Parker glanced around again, hoping to catch a glimpse of the owner of the voice. "Stop being a coward and show yourself."

  "Okay, fine. Hold your horses. You don't need to be all insulting," the voice grumbled.

  With another gust of wind, leaves began to appear seemingly from nowhere, spinning wildly around as they gathered beside Parker. Slowly the leaves took on a shape, forming into legs, a torso, and finally the head of a figure that was vaguely human in shape.

  After the wind settled a bit, the leaves left to reveal a dark-skinned man. If not for his freakish manifestation, Parker would have believed that the man was human. He was tall, with a wiry build and hair as black as night that fell softly around his face in locks. He had a face that appeared to have been carved from sharp angles and edges and a nose that looked as if it had been broken in a fight.

  The only things that set him apart from the rest of humanity were the fact that he had suddenly appeared from a bunch of leaves and that his eyes kept changing colour: one moment they were a deep brown, next a bright green, followed by a deep orange, and then a light shade of yellow. It was as if his eyes reflected the changing colour of the leaves that had brought him to the bridge.

  Altogether the man looked somewhat exotic and carried with him an otherworldly feel.

  "So what are you?" Parker asked, puzzled as he tried to figure out if there were any creatures he had read about that might fit the man's description. It did not occur to him to panic at the sudden appearance of someone who was clearly not human. After all, he had planned to die that night. He didn't think there was anything worse that could be in store for him—unless the strange being planned on torturing him for all eternity.

  "I am what you would call an Iwin," the man replied.

  "And what exactly is an Iwin? I have never heard that word before," Parker said as the lines on his forehead scrunched together in deep thought.

  "Well, an Iwin is a demon that lives in the forest. You mortals sometimes liken us to the dryads, but we are more powerful than those minor goddesses. We own the entire forest. We control everything within it: man, woman, child, animal, rock, and tree—everything is ours to command and to control. In the past, people made sacrifices to us and worshipped us as gods, and hunters knew to ask our permission and blessing before they hunted in our forests and captured any of the animals that lived within the borders of our domain."

  "You're a demon? Why would a demon of the forest save me from killing myself? Aren't demons supposed to be the ones who are always thirsty for death and misery? I would think that it would bring you great joy for me to commit suicide. Why would a demon save a human from death without any ulterior motive?" Parker asked, confused at the strange turn his attempted suicide was taking.

  The Iwin shrugged indifferently. "I made a resolution last year to save a soul before the New Year and you are it." His tone was matter of fact.

  Parker stared at the Iwin in disbelief. "I'm sorry, did I just hear you say that you made a New Year's resolution to save a soul before the New Year? Do demons actually make New Year's resolutions?"

  The Iwin glared at him balefully as he replied, "Of course we do. When you've spent hundreds of years living the same life the same way, things start to become very predictable and boring. From time to time you decide to shake things up and do something different to make things interesting again. Hence a New Year's resolution."

  Parker did not know whether he should laugh at the crazy demon that was saving him for strange reasons or ignore him and just jump into the water. He settled for asking, "Are other Iwins like you?"

  The Iwin looked baffled for a moment before he asked, "What do you mean by that?"

  "I mean, are they outrageous, talkative, given to silly ideas—are they like you?"

  "Of course they are. All Iwins act the same. We are going extinct, you know. When we meet humans we overcompensate so that they will always remember us."

  "Are you serious?" Parker asked incredulously.

  The Iwin was smug when he replied, "No, I am not. I was just messing with you. We are not going extinct and I am the most annoying of my brothers. It makes me happy to frustrate others—especially suicidal ones like you. But I am also not as bloodthirsty, chaos-making, or pain-loving as the rest of my brothers. I prefer the wonder of an engaging soap opera to torturing innocent humans, and I would rather spend the afternoon reading a good book than bemoaning the loss of the days when the Iwin were feared, respected, and widely known."

  Parker shook his head at the strange being he was talking to. Why had the Iwin chosen this day, of all days, to come to bridge? It was as if life had something against him; things rarely went the way he planned.

  "So, what is your name?" Because if they were going to continue discussing whether or not Parker should live or die, he could not continue to call him "the Iwin."

  "I am called Fola," he responded.

  "Well, Fola, why did you really decide to save me?" Parker asked, still not convinced by the ridiculous reason Fola had already given him.

  ''I did it because I wanted to," Fola answered simply. "And I did not lie about it being my New Year's resolution to save a soul before the New Year. That's two reasons why."

  "People don't just do things because they want to," Parker said.

  "This Iwin does. I do what I want and nobody can stop me, not even my brothers. Although I will confess that I am kind of an anomaly within my family. It frustrates them to no end that I do not approve of mindless slaughter or the waste of life. Why, only last week the leader of the Iwins came to lecture me on the way demons are to behave. Apparently, we are not meant to laugh as it would discredit our terrifying image; neither are we allowed to play hide–and-seek with the deer in our forests as it makes us seem childish. I thanked him for the advice and told him that I would handle things my own way. He left in a snit after that. To limit yourself by saying that you can't do what you want is to live a life that is unfulfilled and completely lacking in zest."

  Parker kept the last part of Fola's words at the back of his mind to think about later, but immediately jumped on the first part of his statement. "So, are you a young demon, new to the ways of your kind? No wonder you do not behave the way regular Iwins are meant to," he said as he mentally congratulated himself on devising the real reason behind Fola's odd behaviour.

  "Of course I am not. I am as old as time. I am even older than Ini who gave me the advice," Fola said, sounding slightly affronted that Parker could have assumed that he was a babe.

  "Really? If that is the case, then shouldn't you have been made the leader instead of this Ini fellow?"

  "The answer for that is also very simple: I did not want it. The responsibility that comes with being a leader is huge and restrictive, and I am not ready to give up my freedom to rule a bunch of stubborn and unruly demons. If I were the leader, I wouldn't be able to leave the forests for a long period of time, and I wouldn't be able to save you. And before you start harping on about the real reason I saved you—I saved you because I wanted to." Fola replied with a mild glare at Parker, running jerky fingers through his hair, his face a picture of consternation.

  "Shit happens and most of the time, humans spiral down towards despair. You cannot let
everything that happens to you get you down. You have not survived the last twenty-seven years to throw it all away because a man you loved did not love you back. That is ridiculous. You are a good-looking man, quite intelligent from what I can observe, witty, an adequate conversationalist, and I am sure you have a working brain beneath all that blond hair. Getting a new lover who would appreciate your good qualities would be easy for you to do if only you could be patient and actually apply yourself. Use your skills to acquire new friends who would be yours and not your lover's so that when he leaves, they will be there to help you pick up the pieces. Go and look for a new job to replace the one you left and keep yourself busy."

  Parker's mouth fell slack as he gaped at the ranting demon. He would have taken a step backwards, but then he felt the chill of the iron railing behind him. He was about to interject when Fola continued with his rant.

  "If the city is filled with so many unpleasant memories and you think that you cannot continue to live here, sell your apartment, take the money you get, and leave for a new city. Start anew and live every day of the New Year to the fullest. Throwing your life away at this stage is wasteful, and it is something you will regret when you are dead and can only observe the living. Tonight is New Year's Eve and it is symbolic all over the world because it is the night that ushers in a new beginning for those who are willing to grab it with both hands and change the direction their lives have taken so far.

  "If you want things to change for you, lose the defeatist attitude. Let Jonathan go with this year and enter the New Year ready and confident to start a new beginning."

  Parker stared, stunned, at the demon that was almost shouting at him not to die, but to live to enjoy the new year and to make changes in his life. It felt as if he were in the Twilight Zone. Since when were demons shrinks?

  He accepted that the demon might have a point—probably because he had lived for so long and had seen many things—but there was still something that bothered him. "I'm sure that I'm not the only one who has decided to commit suicide today. Why me and not anyone else?"