Tower of Babel Ch.34

“Do you think he has narcolepsy?” Samael said.

“He's not sleeping, stupid.”

“If there’s anyone who knows how he sleeps in this Tower it would be you.”

Trisha ignored Samael's comment. “Someone has him in their mind; maybe Lilly.”

“I'm not picking up any type of special brainwave activity.”

“That's because their communicating on a deep level of consciousness, below the surface thoughts.”

“Right. So give me the skinny on this guy. What's his angle?”

Trisha crossed her arms. “Sam, not everyone is up to something. Some people just have honest intentions, and Ben is trying to help Lilly, when she doesn't need help in the first place, but he's stubborn and wants to be her knight in shining armor.”

“Jealous?”

“No.”

“I think your lying.”

“Do you think I care what you think?”

“It doesn't matter if you care or not. Your worried about falling into the same predicament from the last relationship you've been in. Granted that was under different circumstances but you've got a habit for guys that pick Lilly over you.”

Trisha slapped Samael across the face hard enough to leave a sting on her palm, unintentionally forcing some of her telekinesis behind the smack.

Samael's right cheek had a perfect red handprint on it. He smiled and said, “Don't go teasing me, you know I like it rough.”

“I hate you.”

“So does everyone else.” Samael rubbed his cheek a little, the stinging turned into a balm of fire on his skin. “What are you going to do when this guy’s memory gets erased? You could go after him once he's forgotten about Lilly. Open season underneath the sheets for you and Benny boy here.”

“It's none of your business what I plan on doing.”

“So you are planning on doing something after his memory wipe?”

Trisha made a low growl in Ishtar's voice inflection.

“I'm just making conversation, women. You two look cute together. I can see it now, a white picket fence and everything.”

“There's not going to be a white picket fence or anything like that. Me and Ben are friends and he doesn't think of me that way. Sam, why are you such an a*****e?”

“You try being locked up with freaks for two years and come out skipping to my Lou, and I'm not being an a*****e I'm just saying what's coming to my mind. Yeah, I'm fine thanks for asking by the way. Prison was fun.”

Trisha scoffed and said, “How was prison Sam? I should have visited more but I was just so busy... actually I wasn't busy at all.”

“The food sucked.” Samael turned his attention to Ben and walked around him in a circle.

“What are you doing?” Trisha asked.

“He hasn't had his powers for a long time you know. Nowhere near as long as any of us.”

“He learns fast,” she said.

“That doesn't exactly add up. If I had the growth rate that this dudes been having then I could probably pick up this Tower by now.”

“He said Nebuchadnezzar gave him his powers before he died.”

Samael looked at Trisha like she spoke another language. “That would have popped his head like a balloon. A very wet and chunky balloon filled with jelly and lame intimidation methods. There's something about his powers that make a strange vibration in the air, you know?”

Trisha nodded her head. “I think he's in over his head. His power is already at our level-” Samael shot a glance at her. “Fine, my level, but he's going to get ripped to shreds if Lilly can't save him first.” Trisha laughed a little and said, “The girl he came to save is going to save him, irony.”

“I still want my rematch with this dude.”

“You’re such a child.”

“Mayhaps.”

“Mayhaps?”

“Maybe and perhaps combined.”

She smiled a little. “I see there's still some of the Sam that I used to know in there.”

Samael's face froze over and his brow dropped a few degrees. “That Sam is dead. He died when Dagon died.” After a few seconds of silence, his smirk came back and he said, “So has your boyfriend here got his hands in the cookie jar yet?”

She could not help seeing past his façade. Trisha thought he turned into a rotten person, but inside she saw that he hurt.

There was a spark of activity in Ben’s brainwaves and he came back to them reaching out to no one. Trisha walked over to Ben, grabbed his hands, and held them gingerly. “Ben, you’re back.”

“Yeah me and him are just friends,” Samael said.

Ben blinked a few times before really taking notice of his surroundings. “How long have I been standing here?”

“Not long. Fifteen minutes tops.” Trisha rubbed Ben’s palms with her thumbs, but then said, “sorry, didn’t mean to hold on.” She took her hands back and placed them on her hips.

“Where did you fly off to space cadet? By the look in your eyes, you were way past mars,” Samael said.

Ben almost forgot Sam was tagging along. “Someone visited me in my head I guess. His name was Baal and he talked to me. He tried to scare me off. Told me to leave the tower and the Demon members alone.” Samael picked up the sudden increase in Ben’s heart rate, but didn’t care if he was lying or not. Trisha missed the sign. “Do you guys know anything about him?”

“Top brass of Demon. Him and Lilly are somewhat equal in power, but both second to me,” Samael said.

“If you’re stronger than this Baal guy then I don’t think I have anything to worry about,” Ben said with a wink.

“You know what they say about glass houses, right?”

“I see you two are getting along famously,” Trisha said. “Baal is kind of creepy. Haven’t ever talked to him much, but the fact that he took time out of his day to try, and scare you away means a lot. Not only that, the Bio-Machina are still out there.”

Ben knew their odds dwindled, “but the chance to pull through still exists. We just need to climb a little higher. Baal took me to some place to talk to him. What type of skill is that?”

“It's a stronger form of telepathic communication. You have to be Demon level in strength in order to use it effectively.”

“So there really is only darkness?”

“What?” Trisha asked.

“It’s nothing…” The fact that some super being could take him into the darkness at any given moment upset him further. Ben cycled the flow of energy inside his body as a form of warming up, like an athlete before an event, and Ben felt a slight ache in his head. It was not by any means a form of pain, more like the feeling of a worked muscle. “If that ever happens again, feel free to try and break me out of it. I don't want anything to do with the Demons.”