Disclaimer: You know the drill! I don't own Demonata, Darren Shan does. But I do own any OCs or non-cannon creatures that will appear in this fic. And trust me; I have a LOT of non-cannon creatures.

A/N: So, here is Chapter 2 of my fanfic. Wow things are going well, I feel so excited about this fanfic and I think it's going to go somewhere! Still not sure if there will be any romance between Esther and Grubbs yet but I'll see, at the moment I seem to be shipping him with Bo Kooniart, the girl he met on the set of 'Slawter' who was a bitch but she turned nice. Just the way that in Hells Heroes he seems genuinely upset he couldn't rescue her, and felt like he failed her, so I might put them together in this fic! Esther won't mind, I'm sure I can find her someone tall and strapping (*wink wink*), and at the moment she only seems to feel friendship towards Grubbs in my mind, so it's her call. Not mine. This is the first of two fics I'm posting today. I've been ill and have lots of free time to write so there'll be more constant updates. And if you haven't guessed, I don't like Grubbs/Reni too much. Reni's character just pisses me off to an extent I can't explain, so there will be none of that couple in this fic, thank you very much. R&R please! Constructive criticism is always welcome.

I was swimming, which was the first thing that struck me as odd. I never swim, not even in my dreams; but here I was. It's not like I can't swim, I just don't like water too much; I didn't almost drown when I was a child or something dramatic like that, water just…Doesn't fit well with me. But I know that even subconsciously we never have control over our dreams, dreams choose us, not the other way round. It's up to them whether we'll have the sweetest daydream of faraway castles, princes and pegasi dancing in the sky like planes; or nightmares-your worst fears coming into picture, haunting you, driving you about a quarter crazy before letting you return to sanity. And for some reason, the nightmares like me.

My arms outstretched in front of me gracefully, as I swam like a fish, totally at ease in the water. My blonde hair paler than ever in the moonlight, sits carefully on top of the water as I swim along. My eyelids fluttering occasionally as I blink, occasionally staring up at the moon. It looks like a giant, shining marble in the sky. My dream sky is even darker than my sharp, midnight blue, crow eyes; and little stars sparkle at me, like their winking. I smile briefly, but it soon fades, as I realise I'm totally alone. My nightmares seem to love making me stay alone; because I always have been, and I suppose I always will be. They barely let me indulge in being chased by fearsome monsters or stalked by calculating serial killers. I didn't hate any of them. It wasn't their fault. Monsters are made, not born; and killers are simply people who can't be understood. I wish I could know an actual killer, stupid as it sounds. I'd love to see why they kill, what makes them think it's right, see if I could help them. I'd love to be able to help people, but no-one lets me get close enough to try.

Embarrassing as it is, I know I'm naked. I can feel the water slipping around my bare skin, acting like an old, silken blanket, keeping me warm. And I know why I'm swimming, who I am swimming to. A young woman, sitting on the edge of the lake, dipping her toes occasionally, smiling peacefully as she strokes a bizarre creature sitting next to her. It looks like a cat, only its fur is a light blue shade with white stripes, glittering reddy-brown eyes watching its own reflection, only it has a long, barbed scorpions tale and a long, pinkish, giraffe like long darts out of its lips occasionally. But I'm not afraid, I know it's a dream, and the woman is smiling at me kindly. She won't sick her scorpion-cat on me. "Come to me, my dear," she calls, her voice like fur stroking my skin, making me calm. It's accented in extremely thick English, like those you see on TV shows about Britain in the Middle Ages. "Let me look at you; study your features. Let me take all of you in."

The closer I get, the more I can view her features, the more I can study who she is. She looks about twenty-one, only seven years older than me, and her hand is outstretched towards me. Her figure is tall, she peaks seven foot she is so tall, with a slender waist and small, plum-like breasts clothed in a long, ornate, cream gown. It has a slit up the left hand side, exposing her snow-white skin. Her face is perfect, soft, features delicate like someone had sculpted her not given birth to her; not a single feature looked misshapen or imperfect on her; her nose was a perfect size, not to big nor too small, it didn't stick out but didn't look squashed; her eyes also, the shape wasn't too slanted in either direction; and her lips were rose-petal like, the nearest to 'rose-petal' I've ever seen. Pure golden eyes that almost shone in the dark atmosphere. Long, curled, blonde hair the colour of lemons that peaks her thighs. Her rose petal lips are fashioned into an easy, beautiful smile as she beckons me forwards with her index finger; as I continue my journey through the warm water.

Warm. The water is naturally warm. And it looks black in the night, flashing blood red when the moonlight hits it. That's because it is blood. I'm swimming it a lake of blood, the red goo coating my skin; I stare at the ends of my hair and my skin as I draw to a hault in the water. They're tinged red, small rivulets of blood dripping off them like little tears. I shiver violently, my eyes going wide with shock and horror; my stomach churns, I feel bile rising upwards from it. I open my mouth so quickly splashes of blood seep inside and I began gurgling. The sweet, coppery taste is foul in my mouth and I desperately spit it out, praying the taste will be gone. I scream, in a pitch I didn't think I could ever reach it's so high. My voice echoes off the empty lake, and the beautiful woman laughs maliciously, cruelly. I look up at her face, her eyes shining in a violent and threatening sheen, like this being was planning on doing something malevolent or that would cause bloodshed. "My dear, this is the first of much blood that is to be spilled." She calls in her soothing voice which drowns out my screams. "So much more is to come, my Esther, so much."

The scorpion-cat spits at me, its little eyes narrowed into almost reptilian slits. My brain fights back all the questions I want to ask. Number One being how she knows my name. How does the strange, beautiful, impish creature know my name? But she's no imp, I can see that now. Large, pulsating, black veins going down her beautiful face from her shining eyes and there were more around her wrists, as she beckons me forwards. More on her legs, starting from her upper thighs, maybe even her waist. Her nails grow in length like that of hawks, and her teeth seem to sharpen as she giggles like an insane child. "Don't be afraid Esther, your powers are growing! Trust me!"

"Who are you?" I finally scream back, after what seems like an eternity of silence. "How do you know who I am? What are you?" My voice comes out desperate, short, pleading. I must have these answers which I seek so desperately. Her laughter is cut short, her facial features creased in wonder, like no-one has ever had the gall to ask her whom she is. But the Oscar winning smile reemerges just as fast, as she cocks her head to the side with a curious shine in her eyes.

"You can call me Lord Daire. I am one of children. The only female Demon Lord of my kind, a rare beauty among the Demonata. And you interest me, Esther, so very much. You have hidden prospects no-one could have foreseen, and I have simply come to unlock your talents because you cannot do it naturally. Now come to me, Esther, come to me."

But my head is spinning as the world begins to spin, the nightmare world as I know it. My eyelids close as I fight to keep them open; Lord Daire is screaming something incoherently as the scorpion-cat hisses and squeals in panic. Neither of the two dare jump into the lake of blood to grab me, as if they cannot swim or the blood will have a chemical reaction of the acidic kind. It's not like I'm drowning though, it's like the lake is turning into a giant toilet, flushing me down. I'm swept around like in the middle of a hurricane, my arms feebly clawing at the air but I'm so worn out even the effort of holding my arms upwards seems to hurt. Blood splashes all over me and I have the sense to close my mouth, avoiding a repeat of earlier. The blood covers me like a blanket, protecting me from the sights of Lord Daire and her scorpion-cat familiar. She's still screaming up above, in a language I've never heard of before. It's the weirdest language I could ever dream up, but more squeals, snarls, snuffles, grunts, groans, roars, wails reply and I realize she's calling upon more of her clan of misshapen monsters to dig me out of the water. But she knows she's too late, I can sense the disappointment, the anguish, the annoyance in her tone. She played her cards far too late, letting me slip away into the bloody sink hole of this lake, this lake of blood.

Only then do I realize I'm going to drown. I'm no fish girl, I have no gills, and I cannot swim. But I don't drown; I don't get the chance to. An ethereal, green light that sticks out like a sore thumb in the darkness flashes in front of me and a being swims up to me, tail kicking out behind her. A mermaid. Short, tightly curled, chestnut brown hair swinging in the blood; tanned skin, her chest covered with green silk, matching her emerald tale. It glitters in the pearly moonlight and she grabs my shoulders, as I stare into her burning green eyes. She shakes me, her eyes wide with desperation. "WAKE UP!" She screams, her accent Irish and thick. "WAKE UP ESTHER! YOU MUST WAKE UP!" And I do…

I'm soaked in sweat when I fly forwards; bolt upright in my bed, and shivering violently. My Mickey Mouse night shirt drenched in sweat, cold sweat. I feel frozen like a penguin in the Antarctic's winter, and my hands fly up to my face as I lean all my weight on my knees, burying myself forwards into my shaking knees. To my own surprise I didn't scream, like I originally thought I would have. Dad's a light sleeper and would have come running if I had.

Still shaking like a leaf in the January wind, I tell myself to stop being so stupid. I stare at my bedside clock, 4:12 AM glows back at me in neon red light. In about four hours I'll be starting school, and I blame that on my violent nightmare. Usually when I'm going to a new place my nightmare's get worse and worse, even if it's a simple holiday to somewhere I've never been before, my nightmares are brutal, showing no mercy. I take an extremely deep breath and make an attempt at pulling myself together, and then it hits me, right in the middle of the forehead. Making friends will be twice as hard now when I start. Who would want to be friends with a crow-eyed girl who has violent nightmares? It doesn't help that mum has arranged for me to go with her to see her friend Dervish Grady tonight, but I'll block that out for now, and if today is too unbearable, I'll pull a sickie.

I can make myself ill if I try. If I get worried or nervous enough I can be physically sick or make myself get a fever somehow. I sigh pitifully and lean back against the pillows of my bed, my pale blond waves tied into two plats like I do each night. It saves me the agony of brushing in the mornings, my hair tangles easily, and I have to be careful. But even thinking of my hair, the only feature I am truly confident in, can't calm me. This nightmare was different; it was far too…Real for my own liking. I could feel the blood around me, here Lord Daire's voice, feel the beautiful mermaid's grasp on my shoulders. Like it was real.

'Maybe it was!', a niggle at the back of my mind teases cruelly. Shut it, I snap back at it, trying to ease my fears away, but they are refusing to be pushed under the carpet this easily. Everything is echoing around me, like crazy radar of terror. I sigh and massage my scalp, deciding to untie my hair and get dressed. Keeping myself is a good way to get my mind off the nightmares, it's a little technique Violet taught me. Violet was my only friend back in Britain. I met her whilst at Grandmother Tolnay's one day whilst I was on the beach. Grandmother Tolnay lived on the coast, in Scarborough, right next to a small beach in a grand, beautiful house painted blue. Violet Whittle lived down the road, in a house painted white that was a little bigger, with a beautiful garden full of roses and a large, Golden Retriever named Honey.

Violet was the youngest of four children. She had three older brothers; Edward, Christopher, and Henry. I never met any of them; they were all away at university. With a mother named Carietta, and a father named Mitchell. She was a frog among swans. Her mother was beautiful, American and she reminded me of Sissy Spacek; whose famous character in the 1976 film 'Carrie' she ironically shared a name with, only her hair was the colour of strawberries, naturally, not dyed. Her father was a big and bear-like, cuddly looking with a bushy beard the colour of wheat like his hair. And based on the photo's I saw, her brothers were attractive as well. Violet couldn't have been more different to her attractive family. She looked like the novel Carrie White, the overweight, acne ridden, and awkward girl. She'd dressed plainly, even more than I did. Knee-length, pleated skirts; drab cardigans, and jumpers. Never patterned, never brightly colored, always dark. She made me look beautiful.

But I didn't befriend her for those reasons, I never did. Violet and I knew what it were like to be outsiders, so we naturally connected. I only saw her in the holidays, and now I strongly doubted I'd see her more than once a year and it annoyed me. I can't help but glare at the mirror, at myself, as I undo my plats, untying the black bobbles and letting my hair fall down over my face again. I pick up my hairbrush and began stroking it through my long hair, although it still bounces back in usual waves. No makeup, I'm allergic, like I said before, it could kill me if a certain type was used on me. The chemicals react with my skin in an extremely bad way, I come out with a rash and spots begin forming on my face, so I look more like Violet, who seems to have constant acne no-matter how much cream she uses to try and kill it. I will thank my parents for both being extremely clear skinned, because my face is smooth, but Violet wasn't so lucky. We must have looked so awkward wandering around the beach together; her like a ballooned whale, me like a wispy ghost.

Violet did have a few friends who lived in Scarborough, but they didn't know me too well. They were all male, the grand three of them, and two brothers and their friend who came to visit most weekends. I was probably too plain for them, they probably hoped Violet's 'friend from Newcastle' could have been beautiful and vivacious, but I was too awkward, plain and shy. Maybe if they'd looked at my face long enough they would have seen its so-called 'hidden beauty'; but like everyone else they never did. One of them had offered me the opportunity to have sex, I'm guessing he had problems, but I'd refused politely. Maybe he'd looked long enough at my face to see it's hidden attractiveness, but I still had a feeling he was just a horny teenage boy, only a year older than me.

Part of me, the part I've deemed insane or especially needy, still wonders if I should call him back. Violet had given me it on his request, and I still have it locked on my phone. Maybe I should tell him I'm ready now, I always view losing my virginity as something I want over and done with quick as possible. When the hymen breaks it'll hurt like a bitch, obviously; but I know I'll want to get it over and done with quickly. But maybe I need to find someone 'special' to lose it with. Not just some boy who Violet's friends with in Scarborough, even a loner like me won't stoop that low, I hope. After briefly massaging my scalp for what seemed like the umpteenth time, I exit the bathroom, softly padding down the hallway, careful not to wake any of my other family members from their peaceful slumber.

Gently easing open my bedroom door, I slip back inside my room, shutting the door as quietly as I'd opened it and stare around my room. My new room. It was painted purple, a sort of Egyptian purple, and although mum didn't like it I'd stood my ground for once. Dream catchers littered the walls, but they clearly were a lying bunch of sons of bitches because they never worked, they never caught my cruel, twisted dreams. My bedspread was patterned with cats, the sort you see alongside witches. My chest of drawers sat in the corner like a large bare hibernating, and the carpet here too was comfortingly soft underneath my feet. I look back at the clock and read the time 4:58 AM, almost five. Small gaps of light are shining through the curtains like long, golden-white fingers stroking the atmosphere of my room. I yawn a little but tiredness hasn't set in yet, I still feel awake and maybe having a mug of coffee with my breakfast can get me through the day in one piece. I've fallen asleep in class before, but no-one did anything to me when I did. It'd take too much effort, and effort directed at Esther Blake is one bit of effort too much. That's why I've never been bullied.

I'm not one of those angsty, neurotic, bizarre, narcissistic people who say they wish they could be bullied rather than be ignored. Being ignored was better than the cruel sniggers, the cryptic smirks, or the snide giggles once they think your back is turned. I'd sit in the back seat of every class, keep my head down and do my work, be a good student. Teachers liked me, because I got good grades, but I had no friends. So I was a lonely child.

As I think about my lonely child hood, I venture towards the sleeping bear which is my dresser, and opened up my drawers, staring through my clothes. Picking through all of my clothing pieces, none of them particularly feminine or beautiful. I own four dresses in total. Two are simple, black and indigo, coming above the knee; one is black and a long, sort of like a vampire dress; the other is short and white, made out of linen, that sort of steampunk style. I own a couple of skirts, but I only use them when I feel in the mood for a skirt or it's a special occasion, the same with dresses. Most of my wardrobe consists of trousers, jeans and t-shirts. I have a few silken shirts which dad bought me for my birthday, and a lovely black leather jacket that doesn't make my arms look incredibly fat. My shoes mainly consist of converses, trainers and boots. I own a couple of wedge-heels but I have no actual heels, because my balance is shit.

After poking through my clothing for a while, I choose todays outfit for my first day of school. There's no uniform, which mum and dad were pleased about because it saves money, but I'm not pleased at all. My clothes aren't like the style most girls of my age wear. I'm not exactly a tomboy, but I'm not girly either, not by a long shot. I'm the in between, and with other girls of my age, the in between is hell. I don't fit in with the girly-girl in crowd with their vast amounts of make-up and hairspray over kill; or do I fit in with the short haircut, bovver booted tomboys. I've got long hair (like a girly-girl) but I don't style it like they do. I wear jeans and t-shirts mostly (like tomboys) but I still have feminine accessories and wear false-nails. I can try with boys but I don't play enough video games, or read enough comics, and I still act typically feminine in some situations. It'd take an extremely diverse boy or girl to want to be my friend. And they'd have to have even more diverse friends who'd also accept me. I did make a friend once or twice, but their friends couldn't accept me, and I'd get cut loose after a month or two. Usually less.

I sigh as I pull my night shirt over my head and drop it the floor, standing in my room in my underwear. I feel extremely sick, my stomach cramping and I take a deep gulp of air, trying to flush the sickness away. Pulling my clothes on, I stare at myself in the mirror and for once I feel a little less self-conscious. I'm wearing one of my skirts, which are few in number; the indigo, denim one that matches my eyes and makes them less piercing, plus it shows off my legs. Kidding! I hate my legs. Dark red t-shirt, with a penguin holding a gun on the front, cartoon style; the words 'Zombie Killa!' in white writing above the armed forces bird, printed across my chest area. I'm one for odd humor, me. My beloved, expensive, leather jacket on because I get cold easily and I've picked out my knee-high, black converses. Simple silver hoop earrings are I need. And my hair's down as usual, although I've scraped it back with a hairband so it's not in front of my eyes. No makeup, of course, but I still scrub my face with cleanser. It's 5:18 AM, and in exactly twelve minutes I can go downstairs for breakfast. Mum has to get up extra earlier so she's on time for the law firm, so she'll be up in about two-three minutes and won't be suspicious if I'm up after her. But if I was up before her, she'd ask questions, and she's very clever, so she'd ease the truth out of me.

My mother finds nightmares childish, so it's dad who I usually turn to if I have a particularly bad one. Mum never read me stories as a child, finding them useless, so it was dad who taught me all the fairytales and fables of mankind. My mother is all about fact; my father is all about fiction. Odd, but for some reason they work together, it's like their differences make them work. And especially regarding their views on religion; my mother is a strict catholic, and although I'm an agnostic, I don't mind when she goes to church or invites some of her religious friends, because she doesn't try and pressure me into believing in God and Jesus and the rest of that lot. My father on the other hand is an atheist, and definitely doesn't believe in gods of any kind, but he doesn't mind about my mother's choices either, and brushes off the subject of religion with a simple expression of his own views. So my parents are just fine together.

Another part of me hopes I can get married, although I have strong suspicions I'll never achieve that. Boys don't find me attractive or even interesting, so I doubt one would ever wish to marry me. But then again, I haven't expanded past secondary school yet. I'm sure there's much more diverse people out there somewhere, I just have to find them.