Part 9

“I am sorry to have scared you so with my exclamation, Lily. I apologize greatly.” Reece repeated again, bowing his head to show his remorse, but it changed no fact that he was still calling me ‘Lily’ when my name was Leah.

“My name is not Lily.” I tried to insist for the hundredth time. “My name is Leah. I am Leah Katherine Cartlier. Not Lily Sparda.”

Like how he had brushed me off for the previous hundred times, he smiled and shook his head gently, looking at me with pitiful eyes as if he deemed me a child who was unknowing of many things.

“No, Lily. You don’t have to be afraid. I understand that you have been brought up thinking that you are a human. But do you not realize that your demonic side is beginning to manifest? She is crying out for control. The fact that she can cause you pain is indication on how strong Sparda’s demonic side is within you.” Reece explained, as if he were talking to a three year old kid.

“I am not Sparda’s daughter! I don’t even belong in this world! I was brought here by an angel called Azazel!” I exclaimed, glad that the diner was closed and there were only the two of us, because shit would get real if someone else heard me.

“Calm down.” Reece advised quickly, in his even voice. Ever since his sudden exclamation as he found out about my ‘identity’ he had been nothing but confident and calm while I had freaked out, trying to understand what he was insisting upon me. It took him pure calm persuasion to bring me to sit down across him, to listen to what he had to say, and what evidence he had to point out that I –whom he had only met less than half an hour ago –was Sparda’s daughter.

“I am not going to calm down until you stop calling me Lily. My name is Leah. I am not Sparda’s daughter, much as I will be honored to be.” I insisted back in reply, and it must have finally gotten through Reece’s thick head that I was adamant about not listening to him until he gave me my identity back.

The demon whom I was still a little wary of sighed heavily and closed his eyes in surrender.

“Alright… Leah. Sit down, and we will talk things out.” For a demon, Reece was surprisingly civil, and not demon-like at all. I wondered if it was some effect Sparda had on him, or simply the fact that Reece probably wasn’t all demonic at all. Or maybe Reece was a demon skilled at illusions, and he was playing an illusion on me. Yeah, he could totally be a liar. He was a demon after all, and he hadn’t been afraid to declare it to me.

But I couldn’t judge him just for being a demon. I mean, Trish was a demon too, and she was still my best friend. So, despite my mind telling me to just chase him out and pretend nothing happened, I sat down and gave him a chance.

“Fine. Talk. If I don’t like what you’re saying, I will kick you out of this shop. And if you think of harassing me anymore, I will run to Devil May Cry and make Dante hunt you down. I have friends, Reece, who will be more than glad to shoot bullets into demons with no questions asked.” I warned, making sure he could hear my threatening growl. I wasn’t really being truthful, but he didn’t have to know that I probably would have to beg or threaten Dante for him to do anything for me at all.

“I wouldn’t think of lying to you. You are Sparda’s daughter, and I regard Sparda with the highest level of respect.” He replied, almost sounding insulted that I would think him that way. I gave him the dead-eye glare, warning him about calling me ‘Sparda’s daughter’ again, and he promptly gave a quick apologetic look –though it wasn’t very apologetic at all.

“Start from how you know Sparda, and go on from there.” I instructed, and he nodded seriously.

“I am a low-levelled demon. A level two, if you must. I specialize in technology and hacking is what I do best in. Hell is no place for someone like me, and I was caught by the wrong people. They threw me into prison down there, and I shared cells with Sparda. I had heard of the infamous traitor Sparda, and tried to kill him, then kill myself when it was clear that he was overpowering me.” Reece started, and I couldn’t help but let my mind wonder.

How in hell could this man be a low-levelled demon? And he specialized in technology? With that cute face? Hell, he could just be an incubi or something! He could just strip of his clothes, flash his junk at a woman or two –and he would still be a perfect nonetheless. A heartbreaker, he could be at his worst days.

I forced my mind back to his narration before I lost him.

“Sparda stopped me from killing both him and myself. He only wished that I live, that I might have hope to enjoy life. When I told him my life was useless anyway, that I had nothing to look forward to, he began to tell me his stories, of why he decided to betray his kind, and how he did it. At first I was disgusted. But I listened to him as he talked about what he saw in this world. He talked about how he met his wife, and how they fell in love. Time is negligible in Hell, and we had tons of it anyway. Neither Sparda nor I were in a hurry, and he took his time telling me everything he loved about this world, about his wife and family. He told me stories about his adventures. I learnt different emotions from him. I learnt that he was proud whenever he talked about his family, his sons. I learnt that he was regretful every time he mentioned on how he had to leave them when he was caught. I learnt that he was elated the day his sons were born.”

“Wait.” I couldn’t help but interrupt. “You learnt emotions?”

Reece shrugged, as if he couldn’t see anything more normal than that. “I am a programmer demon. I was created without emotions, but only a purpose of causing chaos on technology. You can say Sparda ‘programmed’ a life in me while we shared cells.”

“But how does he ‘program’ emotions?”

“It happens naturally. We pick up facial expression, then sense inner feelings. We take note of the minor changes in the body when a certain emotion is on displayed, and understand the circumstances which they are caused.”

“You sound like robots now.” I commented with a wrinkle of my nose, but Reece only smiled his charming smile and shook his head.

“We have hearts that were empty when we were created. We learn. Robots do not. But that is beside the point.” Reece shook his head seriously. “I was explaining what I learnt from Sparda.”

I gestured quickly for him to go on when he gave me an accusing look.

“I picked up a strange emotion from him one day as he was talking about the life he lived with his sons and wife. It was a sourness of his heart, the bitterness and brittleness of his smile that perked my attention. I asked him what it was about, and he shrugged. He said it was better off that he told someone, for he had kept it secret for too long.”

“Let me guess, his daughter?” I cut in without helping it, and winced at the accusing look shot at me. “I’m sorry.”

Reece nodded at my sheepish apology. “Yes, he confessed about his daughter. When his sons were approximately 2 years of age, his wife was pregnant again. While he was worried about her health –considering she was nursing another half-demon in her belly while she had to take care of the two boys –he was still elated at another child, birthed by their love. However, this time, Mundus found out about the child before she was born, and cursed the unborn child.”

I gasped, and Reece’s face was pained as he narrated Sparda’s horror story.

“The unborn child, instead of having half a human side from her mother, became fully demon. She fought hard in the belly of Eva’s, and obviously a human body cannot be made to withstand the strength of a demon, much less a struggling infantile demon. Eva grew steadily weaker, and Sparda grew steadily worried. It was what Mundus wanted –to kill Eva before birth. He wanted Sparda to suffer, to have Eva die by the ‘creation of their love’.”

“Oh my!” I gasped again, pressing my fingertips on my lips. How could this have happened? It made me soooo want to punch Mundus’s face in, though I knew I couldn’t. Oh, how I wished I was powerful like Dante, then I could show Mundus exactly what I thought about him terrorizing Sparda and Eva. Poor Eva!

“Sparda was desperate to save his wife, but Eva had other thoughts. No matter how much the baby took a toll on her health, she was desperate to save her child. She refused to abort the baby, refused to let Sparda do something about her ailing health. All she wanted was to see her child born on the surface of the Earth.” Reece continued while the tears crowded in my eyes. Oh, that crazily loving mother! How could someone so loving have suffered so?

“Sparda almost lost hope, and Eva almost lost her life. But at the last moment, an angel appeared before them. The angel claimed to be guardian to the unborn child within Eva, and upon realizing that his ward –the unborn child –was cursed, he had begged with his Maker to do something about the fate of life of his ward. His Maker allowed him make a deal with Eva, and she accepted the deal. In return for her soul after her death, the angel would take the soul of her unborn child, and give it to another pair of deserving parents and ensure that the child would grow up safe and sound.”

I distantly remembered Azazel telling me that Eva was now made an angel within their ranks. Did that stem from their deal? Was giving up her daughter the reason why she was made an angel?

“Sparda told me his daughter’s name is Lily, Leah. He told me he believed that no matter what, Lily would come back to try to find her true family. And since Sparda was stuck in Hell, he was worried that Lily wouldn’t be able to find her family. So when I escaped Hell a few days back, he told me to find his sons if I could, and tell them about their sister just in case Lily walked in on them.”

After hearing such a touching story of how Sparda and his wife fought to preserve the life of their daughter, I could not bear to be sarcastic. Instead, I tried my best to be a little more polite as I crossed my arms across my chest.

“I don’t see how that links to me ‘being Lily’, Reece.”

“I wouldn’t have come into this diner if it weren’t for your scent. I was desperate, and your scent was the closest thing to Sparda’s scent. I was drawn to you.”

“I said it could be because I was hanging around Dante and Vergil.”

“The demon inside you, she must be Lily. She screams for revenge. I could hear her, you know. She wants to kill. She wants revenge on those who made her that way.” Reece pointed out, but it only served to freak me out even more. I had experienced the echoing voice only once before –when I first met Trish –and it had said the exact same things as it had today when I met Reece.

“I don’t know what that was, but I don’t think it’s a demon trapped inside me. I would feel something different if it really was.” I reasoned. I hadn’t felt much different from normal, save the occasional echoing voice in my head, causing me migraines.

“She is only going to get stronger. Sooner or later, her thirst for revenge will overthrow your control, and she will break free. You must be careful when she does, because it will be lethal for you. If you are not strong enough, she will destroy your body.” He warned, and I tried not to feel too threatened by that.

“That would be, only if I have a demon in me. But I don’t.”

“If you are not a demon, or at least part of it, then I wouldn’t have been able to talk to you in the mind.” Reece reasoned, but I shook my head.

“You haven’t tried it on a human yet, so you can’t be sure about that.”

Reece was quiet for a long moment. “Why are you so afraid of admitting it? There must be a reason why you refuse to accept that you are Lily.”

I hardened my jaw. “Because I don’t belong here in this world. I am most definitely not Dante and Vergil’s sister, because Vergil hates me, and if he could even sense a single inkling of me being related to him, he wouldn’t be all growl at me. He’s even trying his best to chase me away. Besides, I only came to this world a month ago. Back in my world, there were no demons, and I have lived 21 years without being a demon.”

It took a little while for me to explain to Reece about how I’d gotten into this world, and even he didn’t seem believing of my story.

“Impossible.” He said after I ended my story, shaking his head. “I am sure you are Lily!”

I shrugged. “If you can’t believe my story, then why should I believe yours? I don’t even know if I can trust you when you say you were sent by Sparda.”

I almost couldn’t hear him mutter beneath his breath. “And in that stubbornness, I do see Sparda in you.”

“Excuse me.” I stood up, leaned over the table and poked him in the chest. “I am not stubborn, and I am not like Sparda. I am honored that you will think me that way, but until you have solid evidence of Sparda being my father, and that I’m harboring a demon called Lily inside of me, I suggest you go. Because until anything is proven, my father’s name remains as Kyle Cartlier, and I remain human.”

With that, I walked away from the stall and left Reece at that, walking around to the back of the diner to grab my things off the shelf. I made sure everything was in its place and turned off the back lights. When I came back out, the stall was empty, and so was the diner.

I had kind of expected at least a goodbye, but the man (or demon) hadn’t even bothered. Perhaps the only goodbye given to me was the tinkle of the doorbell as he walked out of the door. I sighed, shrugged at my dumb luck, and turned off the lights, locking up.

In my 21 years in life, I have been called many things. When I was young, I used to be called Shorty, because I was shorter than normal –which was kind of weird because my family members were all kind of taller than average. When I first went to school, I was called Nerdy, because I loved reading storybooks. When I grew older, I was called many more things. Chick, Slut, Bitch, Hot Stuff… Anything.

But never once have I been called something.

Demon.