‘My love,’ she whispered after she had seen the demon at the table.

She burst herself into his arms but faced an unexpected obstacle. In a matter of seconds Vic almost ran into Lucifer who appeared on her way.

‘Oh, dear God…’ Victoria stepped back at once.

Of course, she recognized the Lord of Hell and she felt terrible because of unplanned meeting. The girl stepped back, spellbind looking into the romantic eyes where the devil fire of burgundy colour was flaming up.

‘Good evening, Sunshine!’ Lucifer smiled, barring the way.

Victoria had no desire to get through. For the first time ever, the girl remembered the mark on her shoulder blade. She felt it like an unhealed cut,       tightened with new skin. There was no pain. Vic was paralyzed. She saw neither Kharon nor his grin being rather kind, nor Akton who greedily studied her like a hungry dog, dreaming about a bone with meat. A posthumous silence marked Lucifer’s appearance. Everything around stopped existing, moving, breathing. All was still.

‘How do you do….’ She stammered.

The creaking of the chair was heard behind: Kharon rose up and wanted to come up to the girl. He felt her wild fear and heard her tongue whisper a single prayer frantically and silently in her mind, constantly crossing in tumultuous imagination. In reality the girl couldn’t still move.

He hadn’t got far when he met the Lord’s hand with a gesture making him stop. The demon obeyed and stopped. Lucifer didn’t even look at his friend. He held an invisible thread between him and the girl. Lucifer moved closer to Victoria’s face and with self-confident smile said:

‘What, Sunshine? I can’t hear you… Say it aloud!’

Being like hypnotized Victoria opened her mouth and started speaking. The things she was speaking made already surprised Kharon sit up and take notice. Fortunately for him, Akton had been still in artificial deafness created by Lucifer and he saw and heard nothing but the moves of the mouth.

Victoria was speaking in Latin. With each word her voice became more confident and stronger. Her speech didn’t stammer a word like if the girl came out of the Era of Caesar, from the Senate, filled with incomparable eloquence and metaphors. Kharon heard just stunningly beautiful Latin speech, understanding every word like it had been before in the days of Caesar when the demon had lived also, but he wasn’t able to catch the meaning. Lucifer, having frozen smile on his lips, realized that the witch was plotting one of the most powerful, ancient spell-protection against him. He was more fascinated with the way Victoria made the spell: her eyes didn’t blink and move but looked straight into Lucifer’s ones; they knew no fear in contrast to the whole body; her lips were whispering the endless text; her voice like a voice of a nightingale was so feminine and magnetic.

‘Lucifer…’ Kharon called softly.

In reply The Fallen Angel waved his hand, intently watching her whispering lips. Then he lifted up his hand and turned his palm up to Victoria. On his open palm a ball burning with fire was born, having inside lightings fulgurated. With admire and inspiration Lucifer was looking at the lighting ball and the whispering lips. Nobody in the café seemed to be noticing anything unusual. All were busy with their own business. Maybe Lucifer didn’t want them to notice…

Suddenly Victoria stopped speaking, took a deep breath, blinked her eyes, trying to see something through a veil before her eyes.

‘I can’t anymore…’ she said barely above a whisper.

‘Goo try, Sunshine!’ Lucifer blew out the fire-ball on his palm and flicked the ashes. ‘I’d have been to be covered with fire, haven’t I? Next time, dear, next time.’

Victoria breathed hard, still experienced worry and fear of The Lord of Hell. But she had no strength to be consumed fully by panic.

‘I’ve been glad to see you, Kharon.’ Lucifer waved at the frozen demon. ‘And you, Sunshine,’ he came closer to the girl. ‘You’ve seen nothing. We haven’t met today. You’ve just come in and seen Kharon. See you.’

He looked mockingly round the girl, snapped his fingers before her nose and having grabbed Akton, disappeared.

‘Kharon!’ Victoria exclaimed, having seen the man.

The demon was totally frustrated. The thing he had seen made him be speechless. Honestly, he got nervous. While he was looking at Victoria his seriousness didn’t face any limits. The true witch was before him and five minutes ago she had tried to set fire on Lucifer.

The evening was brooding. For a long time the girl tried to find out what was wrong with the man, but he made excuses too skilfully use them in response.

Victoria told him nothing about her work, Gregory and his too frequent appearance in her life. She was still naïve to think that Kharon would be nervous because of another man in the girl’s life. Partially she connected the demon’s decadent mood with it. She was unaware that demons couldn’t love, feel and they didn’t know what jealousy meant. They knew nothing about those emotions in relation to a human. Between them they could plunge themselves into argument whom this victim belonged. But to plunge into people’s emotions was no way for them. Lowest, primitive, knowing and seeing nothing creatures that was most of the demons thought of people. But who could explain it to the girl in love? She wanted to get mutual feelings. But she didn’t get them. She had to compensate for missing with her fantasy about that the demon would be angry if he had found out his rivals in love was coming.

In his turn Kharon tried to get all that human grab bag of feelings. But that night he studied the girl who had been spelling. After it he had a pull of questions. Kharon was patient to wait for Victoria to fall asleep and she didn’t make him wait for a long time. The girl quickly went to Morpheus, as she was unbelievably tired as if she had been working for a month with no weekends, waking up at 4 am every day. Of course, it was stupid for her to vie with Lucifer himself. But that was just desperate desire of the witch’s spirit whom Victoria knew still nothing. She didn’t even guess about it. Thanks to sagacious Lucifer she didn’t still understand anything.

‘What the hell was that?’ Kharon unceremoniously burst into his Lord’s apartment.

The Morning Star was sitting near the window with a mysterious smile looking at the silent valleys behind the horizon. It was night. There was a bloody big moon on the sky. There were no stars but only one too far from the Moon. It was the Sun with its solar system. There was the Earth. It was so far that the dim light could hardly be seen in the black canvas of the sky.

There were the highest grey mountaintops on the horizon. They seemed to be so whitish because of the fallen night. Kharon was sure that in ancient times the scene from Lucifer’s apartments had been always fascinating.

‘I’ve been waiting for you, my friend.’ The Lord was still looking at the window. ‘I felt you thinking and raving about the meeting with me, while for the whole evening your Sun was dreaming not to provoke you to be jealous. Well, you’re here and I’m listening to you.’ Lucifer turned away from the window and looked at Kharon.

‘I wanna know what it was in the café?’

‘This could not be much clearer. Want some coffee?’ he poured coffee for Kharon and him. ‘Look. There’s a girl and a gift that she got from the witch. As the girl and the gift are coexisting separately the thing that has happened today can happen. Victoria as a human feels a great fear for our world. Actually, for me. Certainly, it’s ok! I’d have been surprised if she doesn’t. Her gift activated defence reaction. Instinctively. It has no brain and doesn’t understand that any enchantment on me… is just nothing but funny.’

‘Lucifer, your palm was in fire. What’s funny?’ Kharon took his cup.

‘It was a defence spell. I was supposed to be fully covered with fire. Like in a cupola. For this time the witch would have a chance to run away and fire and smoke smell would hide her tracks. There would be nothing I can do, I wouldn’t be able to retrace her.’