CODEX Part 3: Between Heaven and Hell

When Ezekiel came home, he didn’t expect to find the door to her room wide open. He only took a peek but closed the door quickly when he realized Mehrdir was watching Zoe like a stalker. Of course, that wasn’t out of place. They were naked. That was traumatizing; only imagining it would make Ezekiel shudder.

Now, it’s been a week since then and the relationship between Zoe and Mehrdir didn’t change at all. Ezekiel, though, became more careful around them. He wouldn’t stay in one room if it was only the two of them inside.

There wasn’t anything weird going on but he would like to be safe not sorry.

One morning especially, Zoe seemed a little concerned about something that didn't seem to be related to Hell. The rest of the guys were lounging in the room, Jasper included; he started to spend time around Zoe again after he realized she wasn’t going to get crazy and try to kill him- at least, not yet.

“Why are you pacing around?”

The boys were scattered on the floor; well, except Gakhas and Eneizar who were spread on the couch, not giving a shit about anything.

“I got an invitation through the mail,” She started.

“And?”

She started to fidget anxiously, not sure if it was out of anticipation or just because she wanted to hit Eneizar.

“I got invited to the reunion of my high school; the one I graduated from,” The boys were still not getting the point so she continued, “Those guys believed that I was an innocent rich girl who couldn’t do anything. Nothing happened in that high school but that’s not the point,”

“Then what is the point?” Eneizar asked sarcastically. He had a lot of things to get him occupied yet he had to show up when she wanted.

She threw him a glare but the demon brushed it off.

“Wouldn’t that be good for you? They think you’re normal. You can make friends,” Ezekiel's statement made Zoe sway from side to side nervously, “Or not?” He wasn’t sure what was going on through her head.

“There was a ghost story going around,” That got their attention, “It happened before I transferred. From what I heard, it was a girl who threw herself off the building because she was being bullied,” Zoe explained.

“Why was she bullied?”

She could see Ezekiel and Chen react like humans –which meant compassion for the dead and worry- but the demons couldn’t care less.

“It wasn’t clear. She either had a secret relationship with one of the teachers or she got pregnant with a guy from a different school. The idea is, she was a normal girl who got bullied because of rumors. She was already dead when I transferred and they said she didn’t leave; that she was still there, haunting the school,”

Ezekiel raised an eyebrow and glanced at Chen, “Was she?”

Zoe shrugged, “I don’t know. I didn’t see her but back then I was trying to ignore the ghosts. I’m not sure,”

Chen tilted his head and stared blankly at her, “Then why don’t you go look for her and give her closure?”

She clicked her tongue and rubbed her neck, already disregarding that option but Chen was already growing excited.

“That would be cool, wouldn’t it? You could go and act like the ghost whisperer,” He chuckled and high fived Iaosur.

“What’s a ghost whisperer?” The angst demon asked Eneizar after Chen turned to Zoe.

“I can’t do that. It’s hard to interfere. The family gets involved and if she is indeed there, she’s going to ask me for something,”

Gakhas sighed and threw the TV remote at Jasper, hitting him in the stomach. The inheritor glared at the short demon and kicked him in the ribs but it didn’t seem like Gakhas felt it.

Instead, the sloth demon turned to her with a poker face, “Just go. Who cares?”

“I do.” She responded, glaring at the demon.

Eneizar got up and walked toward her, “It’s only a small gathering of your former classmates,”

Ezekiel narrowed his eyes at Zoe warily, "I wouldn’t be so sure.” The human mumbled, “She’s the 27 years old woman who got drunk and had to be taken home by a demon," He continued.

She blinked innocently.

Mehrdir shrugged, "Take someone with you. Take Gakhas."

Zoe raised an eyebrow and turned slowly to the short demon, "Why him?"

Ezekiel glanced at Mehrdir, who wasn't doing anything but judging everyone; the human was genuinely curious what was going through Mehrdir's head.

"He can fit in. He's lazy enough to go along with your meeting,"

Mehrdir’s idea wasn’t bad but Gakhas was a reckless demon.

“I disagree.” Interfered the sloth demon, “You can ask anyone else but me,”

Ezekiel rubbed his chin and scanned the room, "Let's ask the leader then."

Everyone turned to Charlie who was watching TV beside Gakhas.

He noticed the intense gazes and frowned, "What?"

Zoe rolled her eyes and pushed Ezekiel aside before she went in her room.

"What?" Charlie asked again, still confused.

"Is that the reason why you feel so anxious?"

Mehrdir entered while she was working, questioning her behavior. She was in need of something to do and her job was going to start in March; it was still February.

"I prefer you better when you're yourself: ignorant," She mumbled.

Mehrdir rolled his eyes and plopped on her bed, "Should I harass you again?"

She turned her back to him and continued to draw.

"Fine. But you won't like it." Mehrdir threatened.

She couldn't care less and that only irked the demon to act mischievously.

He got up and moved behind her, "Should I tell everyone what happened a few nights ago?" Her actions slowed down a little but not enough, "I can tell them every detail," He whispered in her neck.

She placed the pen down and rolled around, "Take care to include the part where I get slightly possessed by a greed demon,"

They stared at each other intensely before he sighed and flopped on her bed.

"That spoils the story," He whined.

She rolled her eyes and turned back to her work.

“Tell me,”

The greed demon wasn’t going to give up; his persistence was really annoying mostly because it was usually for petty stuff instead of important matters.

“In my senior year, there was this teacher who was fairly young compared to others. He had the students at his mercy. There wasn’t a girl who didn’t have a crush on him. I was new and came in the middle of the semester. He found it vital to harass me in one way or another because he didn’t like the atmosphere around me. He didn’t bully me because there was always someone waiting for me after school,” She finally gave up and gave him the entire explanation.

Mehrdir’s eyes hardened, “I didn’t see him,”

She bit her lip and continued to sharpen her sketch, “You didn’t. Hiset was my guardian back then,” She sighed, “He wasn’t a hero but he was a good guardian. He let me live unlike others,”

The greed demon got the hint quickly and cringed, “Fine then. Let’s see what will happen if I won’t be there; actually, if your demons are not there,”

She raised an eyebrow and glanced at him; Mehrdir was being childish over something that happened a very long time ago.

“Let’s see how you handle it on your own,” He sneered before he disappeared.

Zoe bit her lip and continued to contour her sketch. The demon didn’t see who she was drawing there, unfortunately; he didn’t notice her using him as a model.

Two days later, Zoe found herself putting her luggage in a cab and saying goodbye to her friends.

“Take care of my apartment. Take care of Jasper,” Zoe continued,“Don’t let anyone inside the apartment and don’t-“

Ezekiel shoved her inside the cab and closed the door.

She narrowed her eyes at him and rolled the window down, “I’m very serious, Zek. Take care and be paranoid,”

The puppy human stared at her blankly. She was overreacting for no reason at all; she’s been gone before and nothing happened.

Ezekiel was ready to say something when Eneizar grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him away.

“Let’s go, puppy! We’ll have so much fun this weekend!” His voice was innocent but the glint in his eyes was malefic.

Maybe Ezekiel should be paranoid, after all.

Zoe watched her best friend get dragged away by a demon who was only talk and no act. She realized that vanity demons were more about threats than anything else. On the other side, Iaosur didn’t seem very excited.

He leaned over and made a sign for her to lean closer as well, “There’s something you need to know. They don’t want to tell you so you won’t get scared and mess their businesses but you have to know,”

“What is it?” She whispered. If it was such a secret, she wasn’t going to make it loud.

“Miss, we have to go!” The cab driver glanced at her through the review mirror.

Zoe glanced at him before she turned to Iaosur but he wasn’t there anymore.

The whole ride to Essex was exhausting. Gakhas appeared next to her a few minutes after the cab left and started to talk about his newest missions in Hell, whining and cursing his master. He was a bastard and he knew it; he also knew how precious he was to Belphegor.

Zoe fell asleep, though. Gakhas stopped talking and stared at her face, her head slipping towards him. He didn’t know why but he leaned her head against his shoulder.

“What are you doing?!”

Gakhas’s eyes widened and he jumped in surprise. He saw his master’s face on the window and he didn’t look content.

When he jumped, he automatically pushed her head up. She woke up quickly and looked around. Nothing seemed wrong, except the short demon that moved far from her.

The rest of the ride was silent. Zoe’s mind was swirling with ideas since she had to come up with responses for every possible question.

Once she entered Essex, the anxiety grew. She was older and more open minded towards everything supernatural. If there was a spirit in her old high school, she was going to see it; if that will happen the ghost will know and will come to her. That was the worst case scenario and it was getting even worse.

“You’re going to be fine. It’s just one night, Zoe,” Gakhas wasn’t helpful, “If anyone dies, you can just blame it on natural causes,” He chuckled at his lame joke but she didn’t find it funny at all.

Zoe arrived in front of her old school around 6 in the afternoon and the event was starting at 7:30 pm. She was one of the few people who arrived early; of course, they weren’t going to arrive at that exact hour but still, she was there suspiciously early.

After she paid the cab, she faced the building, breathing in and out as she was squeezing her purse. With every step taken, a flash of the past was surfacing before her. It was the school she frequented without anything evil interfering; it was the school where she made acquaintances that she might have or might have not liked romantically.

“So, that’s how a high school looks like,” Gakhas sounded surprised but his expression was blank. It was like two different people in the same body.

“Are you impressed?” She mumbled.

Gaskhas glanced at her over his shoulder before shrugging, “Should I be? I have no idea,”

She rolled her eyes and decided to ignore him for the rest of the time. That proved to be hard; harder than avoiding Mehrdir.

“Oh, what is that?”

Zoe sighed and followed the short demon into a classroom. She walked and sat in the front row while Gakhas jumped on the teacher’s desk.

“Was this your classroom?”

She shook her head, “No. But they all look the same anyway,”

Gakhas pouted and started to sway his legs back and forth. He looked around and tried to find something interesting but there was nothing.

She noticed his disappointed pout and chuckled, “It’s not as entertaining as you thought it might be, huh?”

“I wasn’t expecting anything. I didn’t come with you because I wanted to,” He clarified in that cold tone.

She leaned her head on her hand and stared at him with her new found intimidation technique. Zoe only had to look like she was being possessed and everyone would panic. She didn’t know if that was beneficial just yet but she could try it with someone like Gakhas.

The short demon leaned towards her and stared at her; she wasn’t blinking and wasn’t acting like herself. Maybe her technique might have worked if the door to the classroom didn’t open suddenly. She lost focus and turned to see who was invading her space.

“Oh, I didn’t know someone was here,”

The demon noticed the way she tensed and how quickly she leaned back and crossed her arms on her lap.

His eyes widened when he saw who was standing in the front row, “Zoe Lestrade, is that you?” The stranger seemed surprised, for some reason.

“I didn’t know you still worked as a teacher,”

He chuckled and walked in between her and Gakhas.

“I didn’t expect you to show up at the reunion. You were always the shy and introvert type. From what I see, you still prefer to be alone,"

Her eyes hardened and focused on looking anywhere but him.

“I prefer to be far away from you,”

The teacher chuckled and sat on the desk next to her. He turned so he could face her and crossed a leg over the other. He was still the fashionable, handsome teacher that no student could say no to.

She hated that. She hated that people could still close an eye on what he was doing.

“You should leave me alone. I changed, I’m not the same innocent girl,” She muttered, scratching her hand nervously.

“I doubt that. You’re still afraid to show yourself to the world,”

She suddenly got up but her stare didn’t waver.

“You don’t know anything about me. You tried to get me swoon all over you but it didn’t work. You took advantage of me and used your clean reputation to blame me,”

The teacher got up as well and walked in front of her, grabbing her chin and leaning in, “Who would believe you? Besides, I didn’t do anything to you,” The older man whispered.

She was trying to hold back and keep herself under control but it was really hard when he was looking at her exactly the way he used to.

“I didn’t touch you, Zoe. If anything, you hit me,” He added, leaning a bit too close.

Gakhas was watching everything in silence. He could see her hands trembling in anger and he was content he wasn't signed or else he would make a sudden appearance in the room.

“I hit you because you deserved it. Now, please excuse me. I don’t want to waste any more time around you,”

She left without a second word.

The teacher was left in the room and didn’t seem happy with the outcome. He stared at the door before he started to laugh loudly.

Gakhas raised an eyebrow as the teacher started to act really weird.

“You have no idea what’s in store for you, Zoe,” He mumbled, grabbing a hand through his hair before moving in front of the window, lighting up a cigarette.

Gakhas appeared behind him and breathed on his neck. The human shuddered but didn’t find it suspicious, not until he felt someone poking his cheek. He frowned and looked over his shoulder but no one was in the classroom.

The sloth demon glared at the human before he smirked, his orbs rolling in the back of his head, showing his true white demon eyes.

“You have no idea what’s in store for you either, human.” He stated coldly before he disappeared.