Ciara's words weren't a question.
Her hand clamped on my arm and, before I knew it, I was stumbling into her apartment, the door closing behind me.
Immediately, I turned around, looking at the woman warily, quickly understanding that some things had gone wrong and having an idea of what they were.
Born from my imagination, I expected a scary expression or threatening words from Ciara, but she simply walked past me.
My eyes followed her figure as Ciara sat on a white couch, stretching her body on its soft texture. I finally got a look at where I was.
Unlike me, my landlady had a living room, and it was a big one: a wide TV to the side, a table at the center, and two long couches around the table.
On the table were several sticks of cigarettes, a bottle of wine with a glass, and going past this was a big table at the back, straps hanging from its four sides. On the wall behind it was an assortment of equipment—worrying ones.
Ciara didn't speak a word. She let me survey her living room, sipping on her wine until my eyes got back to her.
The pressure she had leaked earlier at the door had disappeared, but looking at her still made my eyes ache.
"Did you tell anyone about last night?"
Ciara's tone was just like last night: soothing and calm. The sharp, annoying tone she had used when she answered the door was gone.
"No."
"Don't lie to me."
Ciara didn't speak with a threat; she simply made a statement, and a shiver went through my spine. I stared at her for some seconds, then, saying nothing, walked over and collapsed on the couch opposite her, stretching my arms across the backrest.
"I got fired today."
Ciara didn't immediately reply. She sloshed around the drink in her glass, had a sip, then focused on me.
"I didn't ask you that."
"Yes, you didn't, but you need to know because it's your fault. I was confused about this earlier, but now I understand. I remember you touching me last night and sending me unconscious. Because of you, I failed to complete the assignment I was given at work, I showed up late, and eventually, I got fired."
"Hmm. People have done worse and still kept their job, Your employer must not value you."
I was angry and frustrated, pissed at my landlady, but with a few words she had doused my anger, a feeling of shame trying to creep up my lungs.
"Would you please answer the question I asked you?"
Swallowing, I looked up at the woman across from me. Since when was she so polite?
"I didn't tell anyone about last night."
"Good. Now tell me, how is it that you still remember what happened last night?"
"I have a brain that collects information on the things I see and feeds them back to me at later dates as memories."
"I see," the woman nodded.
My sarcasm didn't provoke Ciara, she took it in stride and, honestly, I had no idea what I hoped to accomplish with that statement. I was still just frustrated about being fired.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, you can see evil spirits but cannot sense essence, is that right?"
"Only half. I can see evil spirits but have no essence."
Ciara's eyes turned curious.
"That's not possible. You can't see ghouls without essence. Even if one fail to create a core, there are residues of essence that still linger in the body."
"No. I was never able to get on the path of creating a core. There is no essence in me."
Ciara blinked and with surprise on her face, sat up straight, putting down her glass.
"If you've never attempted to create a core, then how can you see ghouls?"
I didn't answer immediately, instead looking around the room.
"If I answer, will that stop you from killing me?"
"What makes you think I'll kill you?"
"Well considering our interactions since last night, I believe you're a rogue hunter in hiding."
Ciara's expression didn't give away any of her thoughts; she instead looked at me from head to toe. "You're awfully calm for the words you just said."
"I've been able to see evil spirits since I was born. I can be quite fearless."
I wasn't some brave knight who knew no fear; I was a man very much aware of his limits.
The gap in strength between a hunter and a norm was miles apart and besides, Ciara didn't seem like an ordinary hunter.
Silently dealing with a ghoul in your apartment required a serious level of strength. I was completely at the woman's mercy.
"If you could see ghouls since you were born, how come the government hasn't picked you up?"
"I was born in the village."
Understanding quickly settled within Ciara.
"Maria, lock down the house."
I looked around, confused as to who Ciara had spoken to, noticing no change in the apartment. But my eyes shot back to her, my body getting to its feet as a red, terrifying energy bubbled out of her. While my body felt like it was in the presence of everything wrong, my eyes saw a red energy beginning to bubble from over Ciara's skin.
The woman's face made no change to what she was doing, she simply observed me, a red horn made of energy growing on the right side of her head.
"You can see it?" she asked.
With the shock on my face and the terror in my eyes, there was no way to hide it.
"Yes. You're a demon."
"How acute. Seems I'm not the first demon you've come across. I understand you have no essence, but with such a gift, how did you end up so mediocre?"
Ciara's words stabbed a place deep in my heart, making me flinch, and she noticed with a smile. "No matter. First, let's see what makes you tick."
The second the woman finished talking, there was a spike in her energy and her right eye turned crimson red, a terrifying force resting in them.
For the first few seconds, I felt nothing but the suffocating pressure of the demonic energy around Ciara, then my body froze up.
"Are you looking through me?"
That was how I suddenly felt, like my body had become transparent and Ciara was staring down to the very core of my being.
Ciara gave no reply, silently watching me. Then her shoulders relaxed, the red in her eyes shutting off.
Within seconds, the demonic energy around her flickered out, her form returning to normal.
It became silent in the room, my heavy breath the only sound, and I quickly ran out of patience. "What did you see?"
I had long accepted my fate, acclimating to life as an ordinary human, but what if… Hope could be a horrible thing.
"There is something interesting in you."
Ciara didn't elaborate further. She stood up and, without haste, walked away from em to the other side of the room.
You know that wall I said had worrying items hanging from it? Ciara went there. Bending her body to the side, her right hand on her waist, she scanned the wall, picked out an item, and began walking back.
"What are you doing with that?"
I took several steps back as my landlady approached, my eyes alternating between her, the door, and even the window.
In the woman's hand was a dildo—a black one—and it was eerie the way Ciara rubbed its length while looking at me.
"Why are you scared? It's just harmless plastic."
As if to prove her words, she brought the object to her face, her tongue snaking out and slowly going over its surface.
When her tongue reached the top, she twirled it around the tip, her lips parting and wrapping around it seductively.
She released the tip with a pop, its bulbous head covered in saliva, and then she smiled.
"Now I'm feeling horny."
Dumbstruck by what was happening, my brain overheated as it tried to navigate the current situation.
Without warning, Ciara moved, her figure blurring and in the next second she appeared in front of me, her right hand extended.
Slowly, I looked down to see Ciara's palm laying on the left of my chest, pressed against the back of the dildo she had been handling.
I had been stabbed in the heart with a fucking dildo.