Part XI

Two days later, he sat in his room, staring at the figures moving around on his computer screen.  He was trying to play a shooter, but he kept dying; he couldn't concentrate.  Sharp, insistent pains shot through his stomach, demanding that, after two days of eating two salads a day and nothing else, he give in and stuff himself to the brim with real food.  "Shut up," he told himself angrily, smashing the mouse against his desk as he died again.  "This is how it has to be from now on."  His weight seemed to have stabilized at 393, and he wasn't going to take any chances, even though he was starving.  Besides, in a fit of rage, he'd thrown away his entire stash of food that he normally kept in his room, so he didn't have anything there to eat anyway.

But he was so hungry.

A knock sounded from his dorm room door, interrupting his self pity.  "What?" he bellowed.

"Xander?" a voice called uncertainly.  Darshan.

He sighed as he paused his game and got up.  "What?" he repeated as he opened the door.

Darshan blinked, obviously taken aback by his blunt manner.  "I...I came to check on you, to see if you were alright," he said hesitantly.  "We've been looking into reports of a Roene demon in this area.  Are you alright, Xander?  You look..." he trailed off.

"What?" he spat bitterly.

"You don't look well, Xander."

Xander took in his lean, well-muscled figure and practically snarled.  Of course I don't look "well" to someone who looks like you, he thought.  I'm three times your fucking size.  But all he said was, "I'm fine."

"Alright," Darshan said, holding out his hands in a calming gesture.  "I'd like to invite you over to the house.  I thought we could get started on giving you some information."

He paused before he outright refused.  "Will...will Callisto be there?"

"Not currently," Darshan told him.  "She's visiting with her family today for the holiday."

"It's Christmas today...right."  He sighed again, wondering if he was making a mistake getting involved in this whole mad thing.  But what else was he going to do with his time, sit around and starve?  "Alright, I'll come.  Give me a minute."

Five minutes later he was hefting himself into Darshan's Jeep, cringing at the way the large vehicle creaked under his weight.  Darshan, at least, had the decency to not look shocked at the noises his car was making at being subjected to Xander's mass.  "So, how have you been?" Darshan asked politely.

"Fine."

"That's, ah, good.  Your finals went well?"

"Yeah."

"Cee mentioned that your parents came to visit you; that was nice of them."

"Not really."

"You don't get on well with them?"

"No," he responded, staring out the window at the grey sky, beginning to wish that he'd stayed in his dorm.

"Ah, that's too bad.  Well, have you had any other encounters?"

"Encounters?"

"Yes, with any demons...anything strange?"

"Oh.  No, nothing strange.  I haven't really been out much."

"Ah, well, that's good.  This Roene demon was causing quite a ruckus, apparently."

"What's a Roene demon?" Xander asked, curious now, as they turned onto the same street the house was on.

"It's a middle-class demon...one of the stronger ones...one that we don't normally see very often; they're quite rare.  Their natural form is similar to that of the Fuom: dark and somewhat blurry, except they're larger and thinner.  But they're shapeshifters.  They need but a speck of hair or skin or a nail clipping, even just a bit of fuzz from a well-worn sweater, and they can take on the appearance of that human."

"How do you know it's a demon and not just a person?" Xander asked as they pulled into the driveway.

"Well, there are a few ways.  The first and most obvious is that they're terrified of water; won't go near the stuff."

"Water?"

"Yes, it burns them like fire.  Even the scent of it begins to incinerate their nasal passages.  You'll never find a Roene out in weather like this," Darshan gestured out the window as he put the Jeep in park.  "Secondly, they can only hold their shape for about four hours before needing another piece of the person they're impersonating.  Thirdly, their eyes will always be black, no matter what color the original person's are."

They exited the Jeep and made their way up onto the porch of the house as Darshan spoke.  Xander's attention drifted to the last time he'd been here, and his empty stomach clenched.  They all had to know what a huge, pathetic oaf he was after his breakdown from the Fuom's venom.  How would they react to him now, even bigger than he was the last time?

But they didn't seem to react at all.  Ling opened the door at their approach and smiled at them.  "Welcome back, Xander," she said to him in her soft, bell-like voice.  "It's so good to have you.  Would you like some tea?  No fennel, I remember."

He felt his cheeks flush.  "Um, yes, tea would be nice, thank you."  She remembered that, he thought worriedly.

She smiled at him again and pushed her long, silken hair over her shoulder as they entered, Xander nearly having to duck under the doorframe.  He stood awkwardly in the foyer as Darshan hung his coat and Ling glided away to make his tea, peering around at the dark, opulent decor.  He wondered how a couple of college-age kids were able to afford this place.

"Come, sit," Darshan beckoned from a doorway to his left.  He led him into the same dimly lit sitting room they'd occupied the last time he'd been there.  "Sit wherever you'd like," he told him, gesturing to the delicate-looking Victorian furniture and then heading for the kitchen.

Xander swallowed hard as he surveyed the seating, trying to remember which couch he'd been on when they'd dragged him in, figuring that that would be the one most likely to handle his weight.  He chose a large, dark green velvet one, praying as he lowered his mass that he was right.  Thankfully, the joints remained silent as he sat, even though he took up more than half of the thing.  He inhaled amber and sandalwood, the soothing scents calming his nerves.

Just then, Kenryk entered the room.  "Hey," he said, nodding at Xander as he flopped sideways into an armchair.  "What's up?"

"Uh, not much."

The thin guy nodded again and yawned.  He pulled an iPad out of nowhere and began furiously tapping away at it.  Darshan and Ling returned from the kitchen and, after Ling handed Xander a steaming mug of peppermint lavender tea, took places on a couch across from Xander, so that the four of them were sitting in a rough semicircle.

"Should we wait for Cee?" Ken asked, not looking up from his iPad.

"I thought..." Xander trailed off.

"Ah, no, Ken, she won't be back until late.  I thought it best that we do this without her, at least for now," Darshan said.

"Why?"

Xander shifted his bulk uncomfortably.

"You know she doesn't have the best attention span," Ling replied, giving Ken a look.

"So?" he stated, finally looking up from his device.  Seeing Ling's and Darshan's faces, he just said, "oh," and went back to tapping away.

Xander felt his face flame, knowing that they were all tiptoeing around the elephant in the room.  Literally, the fucking elephant, he thought.

But Darshan began to speak.  "Well, Xander, thank you for coming.  We've been talking about adding to our little group for a long time, and we're very glad to have you.  As you know, we hunt demons, and each of us has a particular talent that aids us in our task.  I am what you might call a seer - I can see into the other realms, and sometimes experience visions of possible futures.  Ling is a healer and energy worker, and Kenryk is a knower, for lack of a better term.  He absorbs and stores information in astonishing ways.  And Callisto can hear thoughts, as you've already experienced," he said sheepishly.  "We have all learned to work with energy as Ling naturally does in order to have a weapon against these demons that we pursue.  We fight these denizens of the Dark Realm because, to put it simply, they want our souls - especially ours; individuals with odd talents."

"And you have these talents, too," Ling said, seemingly reading Xander's thoughts.  "You can smell energies, and, to a certain extent, see in the way that Darshan sees.  That is why you saw the demon that attacked you.  If you hadn't been able to see, you just would have felt a sharp pain in your ankle, and felt the effects of the venom afterwards with no incident to connect it to."

"Ling is quite right," Darshan said.  "We've never come across an individual before who was capable of smelling energy.  Your talent is quite rare, and very useful.  You see, some demons are able to cloak themselves from my sight, to put blinders on me, you might say.  Your nose would help us tremendously in locating them."

"So...all these things that I smell...it's energy?  You don't have incense burning right now, that's just the energy in this house?"

"No, no incense.  What does it smell like?" Ling asked, her head tilted to one side in curiosity.

"Sandalwood...and amber," he replied.  "It smells really good."

She smiled with satisfaction.  "Does each person have their own scent?"

"Yeah," he said.  "It can change, though, with a person's mood...like, get stronger or fainter, or change altogether."

"Fascinating," she murmured.

"Quite," Darshan agreed.  "What did the Fuom smell like?"

"Like rotten eggs; sulfur.  It was pretty gross."

"Hm."  Darshan tapped his fingers together thoughtfully.  "We'll have to figure out some exercises to further explore the limits of your talent, Xander, before we take you out into the field.  And, of course, you'll have to learn some energy work."

"Energy work?" he said doubtfully.  "What exactly do you mean by 'energy work?'"

"Yes," Darshan said.  "It's not difficult, for someone with our abilities.  And with your having the sight as well as your sensitive nose, I'd say you should pick it up quite fast.  It's a way of manipulating life force to do your will.  The scientific name would be telekinesis, moving things with one's mind, but it's more complex than that: you can do more than just move objects."

"And you think that I can learn this?"  Xander was highly skeptical.

"If Cee could learn, so can you," Ken piped up.  "She's all over the place.  And now she's probably the best at it, other than Ling."

"It's true," Ling admitted.  "It was difficult for her to learn to focus, but once she did, she really excelled."

Xander's stomach decided then that it would be a good time to let out a vicious, earsplitting growl.  He felt his face begin to burn with shame.

"Oh, goodness, I'm sorry, Xander, would you care for something to eat?" Ling asked, concerned.

"No thanks," he muttered, catching Ken raising his eyebrows in disbelief. 

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."  He sipped his tea to distract himself from the looks on their faces.

"Alright..." she responded, looking doubtful.

"Anyway," Darshan continued, "once you learn to work with energy, you, too, will be able to fight these demons."

"Where do they come from?"

"Well, they come from Hell.  But Hell is not under the ground, as most of us have been taught our whole lives.  No, Hell is another reality.  There are an infinite number of realities out there, each with its own rules.  Some are as far-fetched as Hell, with demons and fire and whatnot, while others are no different from ours save the fact that the sky may be red, or some other small detail.  There are an infinite number of possibilities out there, therefore there is a reality in which each possibility is real."

"So you're talking quantum mechanics, here."  He shifted uncomfortably as his stomach groaned again.

"Precisely," Darshan said, looking awkwardly away from him.  "Unfortunately, it is also possible to travel between these realities, which the demons have figured out how to do.  In some of their worlds, their supply of sustenance - soul energy - is scarce, so they've come to our reality looking for it."

"And they found the mother lode," Ken interjected, still tapping away at his iPad.

"Yes.  There are several different types of demon that we've identified, and each has its own method for feeding on a soul.  The Fuom, for example, is a lesser demon, meaning that it only has the capacity to consume a partial amount of an average person's soul energy.  You know how this works now - they harvest your energy using the power of fear.  Most of the demons we've identified use fear as a tactic for harvesting soul energy, but some use arrogance, or despair, or shame.  These are all things that we as humans experience naturally, therefore the demons are attracted to those who are experiencing these emotions.  They use their abilities to enhance these emotions in order to feed on the resulting energy.  That is why it is very important for us to learn to control our emotions and not descend into the darker sorts."

So does that mean that they're more attracted to me since I'm such a miserable s.o.b.? Xander wondered.

"We think," Ling said delicately, answering his thoughts, "that the Fuom was attracted to you since you're not in a very good place right now, Xander.  Cee told us about your situation..."

"My situation?"

"With your roommate and his girlfriend fucking all the time, and you having a gigantic crush on her," Ken said absently, as if it should have been obvious.  "And, y'know, your weight."

Xander felt his face turn hot.

"Ken!" Ling said sharply.

"What?"

"Please, Xander, forgive Ken's, ah, bluntness.  We simply know that you haven't had a very easy past few months, and this probably resulted in the Fuom's interest in you.  We want you to know that you are always welcome here, to stay as long as you need.  We will also do our best to teach you how to deal with your emotions and fight the demons.  You are a part of our group now."

"Um, thanks," he mumbled.  "But I should probably be going."

"Oh, um, alright.  Before you go, let me teach you the technique for awakening your energy; you can practice for a few days and then we'll see how you're progressing."

But the whole time Darshan was speaking, Xander's stomach was making hideously demanding noises so loud he could barely concentrate.  He was so ashamed that by the time Darshan was finished, he practically ran out the door, refusing his offer of a ride back to his dorm.

"But you don't even have a coat!" he called after him.

"I'm fine," he replied, then said to himself, "I'm pretty well-insulated already."

"I'll be in touch!"