My Demon Angel Chapter 1

Italy. Home to some of the greatest minds and artists to ever live. That was my home. That was where I was born. To a small family that wasn't very well-to-do. We made our living at our stall in one of the markets of Rome, selling fruits that our cousins sent in to be sold.

I was Samuel De Luca. I am still Samuel De Luca. But I am different now.

I was named by my mother, who liked the Samuel from the Old Testament. I will always be Samuel, no matter that I am now called Samael. A minute difference, and yet so big a change.

Moving on.

I was with my father nearly every moment from the day I was born. My mother kept track of my five sisters, and never talked to me much. I hardly remember her. Her name was Annetta. She was from Florence. I don't know why she married my father and moved to Rome. I remember her saying once that Florence was more beautiful than the filth of Rome. She argued with my father that they ought to move to Florence. She wanted to see her family.

We went once. I've rarely been to Florence as a human being. I've been too many times as a demon. I walk the streets sometimes as a demon. I look at the beautiful stonework. I'd sit for hours in front of Michelangelo's David before the original was moved. It's alive. It is not a piece of stone. He is real.

I am losing myself. Where was I? My family. I had five sisters. Haven't I said this? Yes, I think so. I had three older and two younger. The eldest had already left with a husband and was with child when I was born. Her name was Annalisa. I never saw her. Then there was Adriana, and Alberta, and Celia, and Genevra. They were all pretty, and we all loved them.

My favorite was Celia. She was my tagalong. I followed Father, and she followed me. She had pretty blonde curls and bright blue eyes. She was a Botticelli wonder. People liked to look at her. My friends liked to look at her. I never let them touch her. We were a team. She helped me when I was pressured by Father, and I helped her when men tried to take her away. Even though we were young, it was always like that. Men liked young girls. I don't know why. I see some of those men in Hell now, burning and suffering.

Celia may have been the prettiest, but she was also the most boyish. I would dress her up in my clothes and we would go out together. People thought she was a Venetian, come to visit. All Venetian boys looked young and like pretty girls. That's how they dressed, that's how they were. Father disapproved of these activities, stopping them when I was fourteen and she was eight.

I get ahead of myself still. I am jumping everywhere. I need to find a place to start and continue on in an orderly fashion. How scatter-brained I must seem to you. Let's restart with my father. He was a tall man, far taller than normal men were, and I inherited that height. Big blue eyes stared out at you, and a short black beard with grey streaks fell from his chin. His shoulders were broad, and his waist was thin. He never ate much, and his ribs would often protrude from his clothing. I liked him. I loved him. He was kind and he was good, and he loved us all dearly.

He educated me himself, so as to save money. He didn't want to send me to some school that would cost more money than we could send out. He educated my sisters, too, thinking that perhaps a husband might appreciate an educated wife. My sister Genevra had a husband who hit her for being able to read. I remember I hit him back once. He never hit her again. Not that I knew of, in any case.

Alberta became a nun in Rome when she reached eighteen. We never saw or heard from her again, but we prayed for her like we prayed for everyone else each night. I don't know what praying does. I've never seen one answered by divine power, only by our own wits. What does praying do? I think it only strengthens who we pray to, but it does nothing for ourselves. I think it's useless.

My mother liked to pray. I think she would have become a nun if it hadn't been for my father. Her mother, my grandmother, had given her a beautiful rosary. It was the most expensive thing in the house. We could have lived like kings if she'd sold it. But she kept it dear to her heart.

We managed to get Adriana to marry a person of great wealth. I was seven at the time, and she was nineteen. She sent us money each month, and we came to depend on that often. We never saw her again, only the money she continued to send.

"Too good for us, is she?" said Father once.

"Mm-hmm," Mother replied, her gaze distant.

Mother never talked much. She talked the most when she prayed at night. Her voice was silvery and soft, and I loved to hear it. But she never talked. Only a whispered, "Dear child." Sometimes there was a, "God bless you." She never said much else.

Father talked enough to fill up her silence. He liked laughter and he liked to tell stories. He told us all sorts of things about ancient legends and gossip he heard while he was in the market at our fruit stall. He made us all laugh and gasp and cry. But never Mother. No, never her. She kept silent.

When I was nearly sixteen, Celia came down with horrible fever. She could barely get out of the bed she shared with Genevra. She died two days later. I don't think I've ever gotten over her death. She was my favorite sister. She was my best friend. We went everywhere together. She was nine. I haven't seen her in Hell, and for that I am grateful. I hope she is happy in Heaven. I hope that she does not hate me for becoming the demon that I am.

I was devastated. The week after I turned sixteen, I went out into the city on my own. I wandered the street until the moon was high above Rome. I could barely see as I walked through the putrid streets. Rome was not what it had been. Father said it was the Borgias. They were ruining the city. Everything was dirty, everything was falling into disrepair. Dead bodies were frequent. Rats were everywhere. Disgusting.

I was on the dirtiest of streets when I saw her. Whore, harlot, prostitute. Silly, pretty girl with the green eyes and the black hair. Silly, pretty girl with the soft breasts and the pale skin. Pretty, pretty girl who stole my innocence.

I had a few coins in my pockets, and I gave them to her. She took me to a corner that was deserted and not so dirty as the rest of the corners. "You're a handsome man," she said. Her voice was like a bell. Her hair was like silk all the way from the east. "Your eyes are like the sapphires I love," she said as I took off her skirts, "Your hair is like the brown furs of a magnificent beast."

She pulled off my clothing. Every little piece. "I'm Alessia," she said before she pulled me down upon her and kissed me the way only whores do. I kissed her back. I liked the feelings it triggered in me, the hardness that she stirred in my body, the heat that pulsed through my skin. I liked the way her naked breasts pressed against me, the way she teased me. Give and take, give and take, give and take.

I had her at a peak. She had me at mine. She wanted me in her then, but I was too scared. I was a virgin, wasn't I? Could I hurt her if I did it wrong?

"Don't worry," she whispered in my ear, her breath hot, her lips soft as they brushed against me, "It won't hurt me."

I penetrated. She gasped. I think it was pleasure. I hope it was pleasure. I came right then, and then she fell limp. I withdrew myself, and shook her. She didn't move, her teeth clacking together lifelessly. I smashed a kiss on her; there was no breath coming out of her flower-tasting mouth.

I dropped her and stood. My hands were shaking. I'd killed her. This was my first sin. Thou shalt not kill. What had I done? I'd killed a woman, whore though she was. I'd killed her. She'd died.

I leaned against the wall, my breathing shallow, my body sweat ridden from both nervous shock and the experience I'd just had. How had I killed her? There was no explanation. In I went, out I went, in I went, and then an explosion. She was dead.

I tried to breathe as I pulled on my clothing and redressed her as best I could. "Alessia?" I whispered in her tiny ear. So tiny, so frail. What were you, silly, pretty girl? Who were you? Were you from Rome? Or did you come from Genoa or Venice or Milan or Verona? Why did you agree to make love to me tonight?

I walked away from that small corner, tottering through the streets like some drunk man. I vomited when I was halfway home, the contents of the meager dinner I'd had spilling over the street. Would it be cleaned up? No, not with the Borgias around. Caesar, Lucrezia, the Pope. Ruin our city. Ruin our city. Send it to the ground. Down down down.

I collapsed into bed, the two girls still home with us, Genevra and Alberta, barely stirring. I think I got a fever that night. Mother didn't shed a tear. Genevra squeezed my hand when Father wasn't looking. "Don't leave me like Cellie. Don't leave me like Cellie. It was only you and Cellie. Alberta's always away, praying like Mother. Don't leave me like Cellie."

I recovered fully three days later from the fever. I wasn't ever the same again, though. My eyes grew haunted. Those sapphire eyes the harlot loved were haunted. Are haunted. I'd killed someone without so much as thinking of death.

I went to confessional. I tried to speak, and when at last the story came out, the priest was silent. Never said a word. I sat there for what seemed like hours. He never answered. At last I was forced to leave, and came to the fruit stall with my father and worked with customers until my mind was numb.

I blocked out the memory of the dead whore. Of Alessia. I let my grief over Celia take over me. I let it wash over me in waves until I was sick from it all. My father slapped me out of it and had me working the stall almost everyday.

I was eighteen when Adriana sent the largest packet of money that we'd ever seen. It was enough to get us through a lifetime without ever wanting for anything. My father handed me a good portion of it and said, "Take it. Make a life with it. We make enough at our stall. Go. Find a wife and have a child."

Alessia's face flashed before my eyes. "Not yet," I said, "I will use this to educate myself."

My father shook his head. "You have an education. You do not need to educate yourself higher."

"It is a basic education. I can read and I can write, and I know some history. But I do not know much else."

He shook his head. "No. You are going to buy a house for yourself and make a solid living. Until you are married, Samuel, you are under my jurisdiction. Find a wife. Have a child. Give our name heirs."

I took the money, and looked at my father. "You are certain?"

"You are my only son. I want to see you happy."

I took that as the only blessing I needed, and bought myself a farm by our cousins'. I made sure that the land was fertile and that it would grow food nicely. I hired men to work the farm and I rented out the small house on the land to a family who needed it. But I stayed with my family in Rome. Every few months, I went to check on the farm. It's doing well. No need to worry, Samuel. Look at how the crops grow!

By the time I was twenty, I'd forgotten about Alessia's death entirely, though I had an unusual fear of having sex or marrying anyone, much to my father's dismay. I think he was terribly disappointed that I never had a child. I'll tell you that now. I never took a woman as a wife, and I never had a child. I would have liked a child, I think. A pretty little girl with bright blue eyes. Or a mischievous young boy, hiding in corners to scare you. No. Never.

Mother never said a word after Genevra moved out. Not even to pray. She just held her rosary, sitting in the chair for most of the day, getting up only to cook or to clean. Poor Mother. Poor Mother. Sweet, silent Mother. Always so quiet.

She died two months after Genevra left. Gone. And then there were two.