Mona Lisa Darkening

CHAPTER SIX

when Gryphon had died, life — and his heart — had literally been torn from him. His living, beating heart. The organ with which you supposedly loved. If only that ability had been torn from him the same way his organ had been ripped from his chest, then perhaps death would have been easier. It certainly would have been more welcome. He might have drifted into his new existence with glad acceptance, maybe even peace. But his death had not come easily. He'd fought his departure from the earthly realm with every fiber of his being.

He'd been torn from life, his last breath taken in Mona Lisa's arms, and thrust into smoldering darkness. Tumbling for a countless time in an empty void of nothingness. Encased in blackness like a womb or a shroud. Then vision had slowly returned. His senses functioned once more, and he found himself in a dark realm where a giant orange moon dominated a twilight sky. He'd heard sound — his quickened breaths going in and out — and he'd breathed by habit, still imitating the signs of life. But there'd been no beating of his heart. With a fumbling hand, Gryphon had felt his chest, whole, untorn, but no pulse. No throb of life thumped against his palm or sounded within his body. He knew then that he was dead. If only his emotions were also.

In his mind's eye, he saw Mona Lisa's face again in that last moment of grief as she held him while he slowly slipped unwillingly from life. Pain such as he'd never felt before ripped through his chest, far greater even than the gruesome act that had brought about his rending death. An ache so powerful, so unrelenting, so throbbing in the empty space where his heart had once been.

"No!" he'd screamed.

Voices had shouted. Faces had peered at him, the brown faces of the demon dead. Then he'd seen a familiar face that he'd both hated and welcomed — Halcyon's golden skin, his dark eyes filled with compassion.

Weak as a kitten, or a newborn demon, Gryphon had rasped, "Send me back."

Pity had filled Halcyon's eyes. "You know that is not possible."

Rage had filled Gryphon then. Poured through him like a burning, cleansing fire, killing the last, lingering essence of his old life, the old him. His new self, his demon self, was forged into being then, washing away the weakness of love and filling him with the strength of hatred. Of such blinding rage that the world changed from orange to red in the blink of an eye, and he knew that his eyes had turned bloodred. Knew that he was true demon then.

"Send me back!" he railed, the words slurring as fangs erupted painfully, filling his mouth.

Halcyon touched him, the last part of his demon birth that Gryphon remembered. "Sleep now," the High Prince of Hell had said. And Gryphon had slept.

When he next awakened, it had been in a clean chamber — soft linen, a comfortable bed, a sturdy end table, and nothing else. The room had been stripped down to bare essentials and locked. The latter, Gryphon discovered only later when he had grown strong enough to roam beyond the bed, to seek a way out of his prison. Although the real prison was the new world he now inhabited.

The first person he saw again was Halcyon, entering the room with a chalice of blood. One heady whiff and his eyes had fired red, his hunger growing monstrous within him. All else was wiped away — grief, rage, fear — and Gryphon became nothing more than overwhelming desire… overwhelming need for that blood.

It seemed that Halcyon was always there in those first hazy days following Gryphon's rebirth. Once the jealous contender for affections from his beloved Queen. Now his ruler. Only he didn't act like a ruler; more like a brother. Someone who cared for Gryphon, bringing him the blood his new demon body craved. First lamb's blood, then over the next several days cow's blood diluted with wine, thinner, less sweet. Challo, they called the mixture. Blood wine. The normal drink of demons.

Halcyon held him when he grieved, calmed Gryphon when he raged. And he was glad then, when that unthinking madness gripped him, that he was locked up, safely contained. He destroyed the room, ripped everything into pieces. A new bed, new furniture, and new sheets were brought in.

Let me out! he raged.

When you can control yourself had been Halcyon's answer.

Emotions, though, controlled Gryphon. His rage, his grief. Railing against what had been and what was now.

Mona Lisa! He cried out her name in anguish, in love, in grief and fury. Mona Lisa! And knew each time he howled her name that he had lost her.

"You have not lost her," Halcyon told him, over and over again. "You will see her again when you regain control of yourself. When you can control your rage, your grief, your hunger." But he had lied.

As the days passed, and they did so slowly, relentlessly, the truth had impressed itself on Gryphon. He had lost her. Lost her to life. Was kept from her by death, by what he was now — an angry new demon whose rage was always there, constant, ever hovering.

Such a thin, fragile line separating fury from control.

When his room was finally unlocked, when Gryphon was finally allowed to venture outside its doors, a new emotion had filled him — fear of the unknown. But the unknown had only proved to be the calm order and simple luxurious surroundings of the High Prince's home.

Hell was not so bad, if one thought in terms of food, clothing, and shelter — the basic necessities of life… and death, it seemed, too. All was provided for Gryphon by the ruler of the realm himself. By Halcyon. Were Gryphon to hazard a guess, not many other newly transitioned demons were granted the High Prince's hospitality. Probably no other demons. A very private and reserved man was his host. Yet he'd opened the doors of his home to Gryphon, taken him in, offered his calming presence, and even more important, the tranquility and order of a well-run household overseen by a small dour female demon named Jory.

Gryphon wondered how other new demons fared — where they lived, how they ate. That was one of the surprises, that demons ate food down in this realm, along with drinking the blood for which all demons thirsted. In Halcyon's house, Gryphon dined in civilized splendor as food was slowly reintroduced back into his diet — bread, fruit, meat. And ever present, always within easy reach, the blood wine of the afterlife. Challo.