Page 4 of Calling Chaos (Demon Bound #3)

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Cooper

C ooper woke up on the hard ground. Or, not ground, but hardwood floor? Either way, it was unusual for him. Not that this would be the first time he’d fallen asleep out of his bed, but he usually at least managed to pass out in his computer chair.

He needed to take better care of himself, didn’t he? This was definitely a sign.

He blinked up at the ceiling for another few moments, eyeing a water mark he’d never noticed before, then turned his head to the left.

There was a fox looking back at him.

Except that wasn’t right. It was a man with fox eyes—yellow-gold irises and vertical black pupils—both of them rimmed by sooty lashes. So strange. But pretty, if Cooper ignored the uncanny aspect of them.

“You’re awake.”

With a bit of effort, Cooper managed to respond with a garbled “Guh.”

The little man who’d appeared in Cooper’s living room cocked his head. (Technically, Cooper wasn’t sure he should be calling him little—he wasn’t much smaller than Cooper himself. But Cooper’s perspective on size had probably been skewed by spending so much time with mobsters.) “Not awake for long, though, I don’t think.”

Was that supposed to be some kind of threat? Cooper should be afraid, maybe, but he already knew what was going on here, so it was hard to be too alarmed.

The little man wasn’t real. Neither were his freaky fox eyes.

Cooper was clearly having a psychotic break.

The sleeping at all hours, staring at screens for days on end, overdoing the caffeine and sugar—all the things his father had once warned him about—were catching up to him. He wasn’t sure why they were catching up to him like this , exactly—an imaginary man (or maybe monster? What with the wings and the tail and all) whose face looked like a little elf but whose aura held an unmistakable air of “Beware! Danger here!”

But Cooper supposed one didn’t get to choose one’s hallucinations, did they? And maybe he should be more concerned that he was losing his mind, but it was an actionable thing. He didn’t have any family history of mental illness he was aware of. He probably just needed to take himself to the hospital and let the doctors fix him. Maybe all it would take was some IV hydration and a short run on antipsychotics to tide him over until his brain rewired.

This was all fine. Totally fine.

“Your eyes are different colors,” the little man-monster told him.

Oh, come on. Even his hallucinations had to comment on his heterochromia? Was his brain really that unoriginal?

“A very auspicious sign.”

Cooper blinked. Well, okay, that was new. He’d never been called auspicious before.

He rose slowly onto his elbows, groaning at the stiffness in his muscles. The man-monster—or demon, if Cooper wanted to stick to the lore his mind had created before he’d passed out—was crouched on his haunches next to him. Like a gargoyle, or maybe one of the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz . He was staring at Cooper, unblinking, like Cooper was the strange sight in this room. His clothes were a loose brown matching set of pants and long-sleeved shirt that reminded Cooper of something a cult member would be given.

“You don’t speak much, do you?” the demon asked, his tone making it unclear whether he felt any which way about that. He wasn’t wearing shoes, Cooper noted.

Cooper shook his head, looking around the room to see if there were any other imaginary surprises. “How long was I out?”

Instead of answering, the demon shuffled closer, and Cooper held his breath, frozen there on his elbows, his legs sprawled out in front of him. He knew this demon wasn’t real, but he couldn’t help the feeling—the little raised hairs on the back of his neck—that said a predator was in his apartment and that he could pounce at any moment.

“Yes, lovely eyes,” the demon murmured, peering closely at Cooper’s face. “And so clever to cover them,” he said, indicating Cooper’s glasses. He held up two taloned fingers, bending them into claws. “So no one can poke them out?”

“Actually…” Cooper cleared his throat. The demon had never answered his question, but judging by the light coming through his window, Cooper hadn’t been out for too long. He just felt kind of…wrecked for some reason. A side effect of breaking with reality, perhaps? “I need my glasses to see.”

The demon lowered his clawed fingers. “To see what?”

“Um, everything?”

“Can you see under my skin?” the demon asked, leaning back on his haunches and sounding completely delighted by the idea. “To my very bones?”

What in the actual fuck was Cooper’s brain coming up with right now?

He gave a nervous laugh. “No, not to your bones. Just…what everyone else sees.”

“That’s silly. No two people see exactly the same thing.” The little demon sighed. “You’re not very wise. And not very strong,” he added, indicating Cooper’s position on the floor. “What need do you even have for a demon?”

“Um…none? I didn’t mean to summon one.”

And as soon as I get the right medication, you’ll be right back where you came from , Cooper didn’t add. He didn’t think the imaginary demon would appreciate it.

“Mm.” The demon’s lips pulled into a mischievous smirk. “I tricked you a bit, didn’t I?” He tilted his chin at Cooper’s desk and the computers there. “Being summoned into the machine was very strange. So many ones and zeros.”

Cooper huffed out a laugh. Now that he wasn’t holding his breath, he realized the demon smelled good, like a mellower, sweeter version of campfire smoke. His hallucination had an olfactory component too, apparently.

His brain had really gone all out.

“Do you have a name?” he asked. He supposed he could just make one up, but that seemed kind of rude, even if the demon was imaginary.

“All creatures have a name.”

Cooper laughed again. “Yeah, but what’s yours?”

“Most call me Chaos.”

It wasn’t a straightforward answer. “Because it’s your name?” Cooper prodded.

“My name is…” The demon bit at his lip, in a way that made it seem like he was trying not to smile. “Beelzebub.” At whatever he saw on Cooper’s face, he stopped hiding the smile and cackled delightedly. “No, silly,” he said between chortles. “Did you really think I’m the devil? That was a joke. It’s Bracchus. That’s my name.”

“Which do you prefer? Chaos or Bracchus?”

The demon shrugged, his cackles dying down. “Try either. Or both. Or neither.”

“How helpful.”

The demon’s eyes gleamed, and he shuffled even closer. His clawed foot was touching Cooper’s hip now, and his smoky scent was making Cooper a little dizzy. Cooper didn’t close his eyes though. He didn’t even dare blink.

He’d stick with calling him Chaos for now. It seemed…fitting, somehow.

“What do they call you , computer human?” Chaos asked in a low murmur.

“Cooper. Or Coop,” Cooper told him, giving him the nickname most of his family used.

Chaos made a face. “Like a chicken coop?”

“Um…”

Chaos shook his head, clucking his tongue. “I can’t go around calling you Chicken Coop.”

“I didn’t ask you to?”

“I’ll have to think on it.” Chaos leaned forward, and then he was…sniffing Cooper? “Are you frightened of me?” he asked. And then said immediately, “Don’t lie. I can smell it on you.”

Then why did you even ask? Cooper wanted to say, but he held his tongue. He didn’t think this little menace his mind had created would take kindly to sass. “A little,” he admitted instead.

“Then maybe you are a little wise,” Chaos said, holding his thumb and forefinger slightly apart to show just how little he thought Cooper’s wisdom was. He started swiveling his head, finally looking around the room instead of focusing all that intense attention on Cooper.

Well, that was enough of that, wasn’t it? Cooper dug his phone out of his pants pocket. He needed to call the hospital now. An ambulance might be overkill, but he wasn’t sure he could make it there on his own at the moment, given how vivid this hallucination was.

But before he could dial, his phone rang in his hand.

Chaos’s eyes darted to it immediately. “Your cellular telephone is yelling at you.”

“It’s ringing, yes.”

And it was Jace calling. Cooper’s stomach twisted. Jace was one of the more tolerable of Ivan’s lieutenants, but he didn’t usually just call Cooper up out of the blue. This wasn’t a good sign.

Or was this part of the hallucination?

Losing his mind was confusing.

Cooper picked up anyway. “Hello?”

“Cooper?” Jace sounded harried. “You at home?”

“Yeah.”

Jace let out what sounded like a sigh of relief. “Okay. Stay there. Boss has been shot at.”

Ivan had been shot? Cooper couldn’t imagine it. The guy was paranoid as all hell, never letting an enemy weapon within a hundred feet of him. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah, it hit his new, um…assistant.”

The pretty man with the purple eyes.

“ Nix was shot?”

Chaos let out a strange little growl. When Cooper looked at him, his eyes were… Well, they had, like, flames dancing in them.

Holy fuck, that was unsettling.

Jace made a sound, and Cooper turned his attention back to his phone. He should focus on reality, not imaginary demons and their imaginary fire eyes. “Is Nix okay, then?”

“Yeah, just a graze. Stay put. If you see Sergei, shoot him in the head.” At the strangled noise Cooper made, Jace let out a laugh. “Kidding. No one expects you to shoot anyone. Don’t let him in though. If he shows up, he’s probably there to kill you.”

There was nothing to say to that except “Okay.”

“Good. Bye, Coop.”

Cooper lowered the phone to find he had Chaos’s full attention again. “Nix was injured with a human weapon?” the demon asked.

If he wasn’t a figment of Cooper’s imagination, Cooper would be questioning why Chaos even knew who Nix was. “Not seriously, it doesn’t sound like.”

Chaos plucked the phone out of Cooper’s fingers. “I’ll take this.”

Cooper blinked at him. “Um. I need that, actually. To call the hospital.”

“For Nix?” Chaos asked absently, stowing the phone somewhere in his loose brown pants with the deft fingers of a pickpocket. Cooper supposed he was a pickpocket. He’d just stolen Cooper’s phone. “That would be useless.”

“For me ,” Cooper told him. “The hospital’s for me. Because you’re not real?” He wasn’t sure why it came out like a question.

“I’m not?” Chaos looked down at his hands. “Well, that would be a surprise.” He reached up, placing one of his hands on Cooper’s cheek. Heat. So much heat. The warmth of his touch was almost shocking. His wings fluttered, filling Cooper’s head even more with the sweet smell of campfire smoke. “Do I not feel real?”

“I don’t know,” Cooper murmured, his eyelids suddenly feeling heavy. “I haven’t been touched in a while.”

“Yes, your soul piece tastes of it.”

Right. Cooper had given a piece of his soul in exchange for…friendship? “Tastes of what?” he asked, his head full of cotton.

“Loneliness.”

Cooper couldn’t exactly argue with that. He found himself leaning into the touch on his cheek. It was…intimate, this hand on his face. He could even feel Chaos’s breath puffing gently against his lips. Was this hallucination about to turn into some kind of sex dream? Cooper wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

It would be embarrassing to admit to the doctors later.

But apparently that wasn’t something he needed to worry about. Chaos withdrew his hand after a moment. “Would this help convince you?” he asked.

And then Cooper’s computer monitor was on fire.

Even with his certainty that none of this was real, and the ample backups he kept of his work, Cooper couldn’t help jumping to his feet in alarm. He wasn’t sure where he got the strength, but maybe it was one of those weird adrenaline things, like how mothers lifted cars off their babies. “No! Fuck! That’s my whole life!”

“That thing?” Chaos frowned at the flaming computer. “That can’t be right.”

But the flames disappeared in the next moment, as quickly as they’d appeared in the first place, and there was no sign of damage. Cooper ran his hands all along his monitor, checking anyway. It didn’t even feel warm.

It kind of had the opposite effect of convincing him this was all real, actually.

“Puppy.”

Cooper turned to look back at Chaos with a frown. “What?”

“That’s the animal humans get,” Chaos said, his eerie fox eyes latched onto Cooper’s face. “To keep and to care for?”

Cooper ran a hand through his hair before pressing it hard against his forehead. “Sometimes, sure. Some do. What—”

“Okay. Puppy.” Chaos grinned, the picture of delight as his tail swished behind him. “That’s what I’ll call you.”

“You think I’m a pet? Didn’t I— If I summoned you and made a contract for my soul and everything…aren’t I supposed to be the one in charge of you ?”

Chaos’s tail stopped its rhythmic movement. His whole body went still, and that air of danger Cooper had almost forgotten about—even with the flames—returned in an instant. “You think to order me about?” Chaos asked softly. “Command me? Contain me?”

“Um… No.” Cooper shook his head vehemently, resisting the urge to back away. There wasn’t anywhere to go anyway. He was already pressed up against the desk. It was tempting to crawl under the desk, his hindbrain recognizing there was danger in the air. “No, no. No commanding. Puppy’s fine. Call me whatever the fuck you want.”

Chaos brightened, that eerie stillness dissipating in an instant. “Perfect! Because you’re about to pass out again, and I’ll be going exploring. So you be a good puppy and stay here when you wake. No running off without me to protect you. It sounds like you have enemies. I approve. Enemies are very exciting.”

Cooper could only focus on the part that made any sort of sense. “I’m about to pass out again?”

“Yes.” Chaos nodded eagerly. “A contract takes it out of a human, and like I said, I don’t believe you were in peak physical condition to start with.”

Well, ouch. It wasn’t like Cooper thought he was the finest specimen of man out there, but…

He swayed on his feet. Maybe the passing-out part was right. Still…

“You don’t have to be rude about it.”

“Was that rude?” Chaos cocked his head, considering. “I don’t think it was. I didn’t say you were displeasing. I like your features. They are in fact quite pleasing to the eyes. And your scent pleases the nose.” He shuffled forward on his haunches. “I think I’d like to nibble your fingers, even, but I might accidentally take one off, so I’ll refrain.”

Come to think of it, Chaos did have awfully sharp teeth.

Standing straight was suddenly an extreme challenge. “I’m going to pass out now,” Cooper confirmed.

“I’ll catch you.”

Cooper’s brow furrowed as his vision once again went dim around the edges. “You’re kind of…dainty though.”

Chaos kept up his strange, shuffling approach. “I’m stronger than I look. Go to sleep, puppy. I’ll do my best to be back before you wake.”

Cooper wanted to tell him that when he woke up, this whole imagined scenario would probably be over, but his eyes were already falling shut, the world falling dark. Again.