Deal with the Devil

1. Once upon a bad deal.

Once upon a bad deal...

“Hey, do you think those guys are following us?” Penny asked in Amelia’s ear, the scent of sunblock thick in her nose. Amelia and Penny spent a good four hours by the lake along the edge of the haunted forest. Unfortunately, it meant taking the scenic path through the trees back toward the house. Penny’s house, to be specific. Amelia lived on Penny’s couch. And Penny paid for them to have an all-day lakeside party that included two beach towels, two new bathing suits, food in a plastic cooler, and a rainbow umbrella. Amelia was carting the umbrella, using it as cover to subtly glance over her shoulder.

In about twenty feet, they’d break through the trees into the belly of King’s Fall. In about twenty feet, there would be too many people weaving through the sidewalks and streets to kidnap a person. In about twenty feet, their window of opportunity would expire.

Murder mystery writer brain, can’t turn it off.

If they were gonna strike, now was the time. Fuck. Amelia glanced left then right. Not a whole lot of options. If they ran for the city, the goons clearly tailing them could follow. Double fuck. Amelia weighed their options and decided she was going to pay Penny back the thirty-six silver. Chucking the umbrella up and over her head, she broke into a run the second she heard them curse loudly. Penny was on the same brain wave, shot put tossing the cooler at them and booking it to the street. Arms pumping at her side, Amelia forsook her towel. Flipflops cracking against her feet, she debated leaving them behind.

They didn’t even have the time to take off their flip flops . The goons were already breathing down their necks.

Penny Armstrong and her twin sister Amelia weren’t what one would consider a ‘typical victim’ of petty crime. Not that there’s ever really one way to be a victim of a mugging or pick pockets. But Penny was tall and built like an ox; her muscles made weightlifters jealous. Ballet from the time she was four would do that to a person. She ran like a cannonball fired on thirty pounds of gun powder. While Amelia was short, she was not without her defenses. Her sister took ballet; Amelia took up street fighting. That way mom got her dancer protegee and dad got his boxing champ. Another defense of hers was being a feral, uncontrolled menace—she grabbed ahold of a massive branch cartoon-style, spun, and let it fly. It was the first time she caught sight of the goons tailing them.

Two men in black sweatpants and hoodies, their faces obscured by a magic rune glowing against their chests. Fucking wizards.

Amelia jogged after Penny, breaking onto the city streets. Their bodies were sticky from lake water, bathing suits half-dried, the pair came to a skittering stop midway through an alley as another person stepped out in front of them. A singular man. His face wasn’t obscured. That’s a bad sign. Amelia and Penny backed up, fists raised. He was maybe five foot seven, max, leaning over a silver cane with a fox head on the top. A head full of slicked back, black hair, two skinny horns protruding his forehead, and cheekbones that could cut steel. He gave a cruel smile, “Ladies.”

“Nope!” Amelia and Penny yelped at the same time, barreling back toward the trees.

“Get them.”

Now, Amelia knew a few things in life—never try to beat a rich man at a game of chance, never bet anything you’re not willing to lose twice, and never, and she meant ever, marry the first person to ask for your hand in marriage. But she also knew, when a crooked smiling fiend in a good trench coat and cane says “Get them”, that their gooses were cooked. She just didn’t know why .

“You, uh, get new friends down at the bank?” Amelia squeaked, bounding over the unconscious bodies of the goons. The thunderous footsteps filled the trees behind them as they made the piss poor choice to fly into the haunted forest blind. In flip flops and tankinis, no less.

“Nope! He’s not mine!” Penny ducked, narrowly missing a branch.

“Well, he’s not mine!” Amelia pointed to their right and the twins trampled down a hillside into the belly of the beast. The forest was not called haunted for no reason. It was an ecosystem of magic and mayhem. After a good mile or so, the trees began to move. They got up, pulling up their roots like skirts, and scrambled across the ground. The two women were bolting between them, hoping to get the pack of hooting minions off their tails. Kind of hard when Penny had neon green hair and Amelia was sporting a baby blue color.

The pair rounded another base in the mountainous terrain, skittering down a hidden path. Trees whizzed past them in dizzy patterns. Something lunged out of a rocky cliffside. They shared a single thought as they avoided a pair of grabbing hands. The hands belonged to a bookie named Kyle. Penny, without missing a beat, punched him square in the nose.

“Rick,” they huffed in unison. Penny’s husband Rick owed Kyle money. Amelia grabbed her sister by the arm, and they broke into another run. Her thighs burned and chaffed from the drying lake water. Her flip flops snagged on something, and she went tumbling down. As Penny rushed to help her up, her hands came across something sharp in the underbrush. A rusty pocketknife. The women shared a look for only a moment before hearing the gaggle of goons once more and rushing further into the forest.

“How much does Rick owe that piece of shit?” Amelia hissed under her breath as they picked their way through the underbrush and rocky, forest floor. A small oasis came into view in the form of a rotten husk of a cabin. They dove for a chance at cover, ducking in through a broken-out chunk in the side of the house and slithering along the wall quietly. Voices flooded the air as the thunderous herd of assholes passed the cabin without even a look. Amelia let out a quiet sigh of relief.

Penny leaned against Amelia, deflating. “I don’t know, I thought he owed him like 20 silver. I gave him some silver to just take care of it, to get rid of him.”

“Well, whoever slinky McGee was, Kyle must work for him and decided they weren’t gonna wait for Rick to pay up.” Amelia ducked, creeping across the floor of the cabin. She kept to the shadows, eyeballing the trees where they’d come from. There was no sound. That’s suspicious. She shook her head at Penny who pouted hard shortly before cupping her face.

Amelia told Penny not to marry that sleazeball. Rick and Penny had one torrid night affair, and she got knocked up. They had been married for the last five years. Amelia never liked Rick. He didn’t deserve Penny. Her sister was a miracle to behold, a hard worker, and a funny person. She could lighten a room at the drop of a hat. And as Amelia crept back to the corner that Penny took up cover in, she swore to herself if she ever saw that dickhead Rick again, she would stab him with the rusty knife she found.

Bang.

Something slammed over the opening of their exit and the women shot back against the wall behind them. The front of the cabin was ripped off the building like it were the top of a muffin. Penny squeaked, scrambling as far into the wall as she could get as Amelia put herself between her sister and the crowd.

Five men in varying stages of black ‘shifty’ clothing stood in front of the building as the fiend with the cane sighed. An ogre dressed in a fine tailored suit tossed the siding of the cabin aside, the rotten chunks of wood breaking apart. Birds left the trees, and the forest was quiet. The fiendish man fixed the leather gloves on his hands. “I truly wonder how hard it was to grab two women in flip flops.”

“Keep back, creep!” Amelia flicked out the rusty pocketknife to her side.

He stared at her directly. A strange mix between purpley mauve and dark royal plum, the fiendish color palette winning through as he stepped into the single ray of sunlight breaking through the canopy. Like he was marble with cracks of gold and black all over. His cane pressed into the wood with a solid thud before he climbed up into the rotten cabin. Plum eyes with rivers of gold flickered from her to where she held the knife out at her side.

“Kitty has claws,” he purred smugly.

“What the fuck do you want?” Penny shrieked from behind Amelia.

“Mrs. Calhoon, a pleasure to meet you,” the fiend grinned from pointed ear to pointed ear, motioning behind him swiftly. Two of his goons tossed something out from behind them. Rick landed face first on the cabin floor.

“Babe.”

Amelia held her twin back against the wall, her body a concrete barrier as she stared the fiend down. He raised a perfectly sculpted brow up at her. Amelia cocked her head to the side. “Hey Rick, what cha doin? Who are your new friends?”

“Ricky, baby, what did you do?” Penny croaked.

Rick was ripped from the floor by his scalp. The boss had a fist full of Rick’s roots, making him face the two women backed into a corner. “Yeah, Rick, what did you do?”

The lanky motherfucker that Amelia’s sister married stumbled forward after being shoved carelessly in their direction. Amelia kept her full focus on the man in charge. Her arm hair stood on end. The first two goons had their identities blurred by magic. However, the rest of them didn’t wear a single enchantment. They weren’t getting out of this alive. Her blood ran cold as she swallowed a lump in her throat.

“Babe, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t trying—”

Penny slapped him the second he stood close enough to her. “I told you to pay off that debt! I told you we would be done if you didn’t stop the gambling. What did you do?”

“Rick here owes me 300 gold and a priceless crystal vase.” the fiend in charge called out, quieting the whole forest.

Amelia’s hackles rose. “We don’t have that kind of money. Penny certainly doesn’t. Rick can pay off his own debts.”

300 gold? She could buy a house with 300 gold! She could buy three cars and a vacation in another realm with 300 gold. How did he get that much to lose?

“Rick?” Penny gasped for air. “How?”

“I didn’t know what to do. Kyle said I owed him interest. So, I bet the 20 silver and I won big. Ten gold. So, I tried to pay off Kyle but then…I started betting it, just so I could bring home some, you know? I bet some, then I bet some, then I bet some.”

Penny sobbed as Amelia felt unbridled rage fuel her insides. “Rick, where did you get the rest of the collateral.”

“I… Uh…”

Amelia twisted to look as he reached toward Penny. Something in her snapped as she realized all too well what was going on. No! Not her sister. Not Penny. Without a second thought, she lunged for Rick before he could grab Penny. They were fucked either way. Amelia got him in the shoulder, wrestling him to the ground. She came out on top and didn’t hesitate to sink the blade into the side of his neck. Rick thrashed, hands clawing at his throat as Amelia wrenched the blade out of his jugular.

Blood coated her hands, her knees…her everything. She scrambled back across the warped wood, her sister helping pull her by the armpits.

The fiend stared at the pair with wide, impressed eyes.

Amelia held the blade in front of her. “You leave her out of this. He’s a fool for gambling and you’re a bigger one for letting him owe you money!”

Slick haired, cane in hand, looming over the room even though he wasn’t more than an inch taller than her, the fiend stepped over Rick’s body. Hands broke through the wall behind her. Penny yelped but before Amelia could rip around and stab who was snatching Penny through the wall, their new friend had her pinned to a different chunk of the wood. His cane pressed against her wrist, keeping her knife stretched out to her side. He grabbed her by the chin.

“Well, now I can’t even remotely get my money back from him, now can I?” He leaned in close, breathing in her face. “You must have really wanted Rick dead, to have stabbed him in the neck like that. Looked personal.”

Amelia grunted, struggling to throw him off. His trench coat and suit obscured most of his body from her, but he didn’t look big. He wasn’t a brick wall or tall or built. He looked lean from the cinch of his belt around his waist and the slope of his shoulders. And yet, he was able to keep her easily pinned to the wood. She spat over his shoulder at Rick. “How much is she worth?”

“What?” He blinked once, his face wiped clear of its previous sneer.

“Did he sell my sister to pay off his debts? How much?” Amelia had maybe ten silver to her name. Her next paycheck was directly tied to the hopeful royalties of a series that not many people knew about. But she’d give blood to save her sister.

“No, he sold what she can do for me. I don’t deal in people, pet.” He trapped her lower lip with a press of his thumb. He let it go with a long drag of his leather glove against her skin before pinching her chin and pulling her face even closer. Their noses touched ever so slightly. “What kind of man do you take me for?”

“A fool who let Rick play with his money.” She tugged on her arm and found he held her even tighter. Baring her teeth, she shifted her legs. He snapped a knee out and pinned her by the shin against the wall too.

“You’ve got fight, pet, I’ll give you that, but I saw what you did with that knife to Rick…and I’m not looking for a new neck tattoo. No matter how pretty the knife.”

She huffed, trying again only to be held precisely where he wanted her. Panic filled the cavity of her chest. “Please, just let her go. She can’t do anything for you.”

“She’s a manager at King’s Falls First. She can do plenty for me,” he purred.

“Please—” Her voice cracked as the reality of the situation set in. The sound of Penny being dragged despite her thrashing and shrieking filled the air behind her. No, no, no, no, no! Think, Amelia, think! She could taste her heart beating up in her throat as she nearly shouted the words in his face. “Take me instead.”

He sat back, face pulling away from her. “And what can you do for me?”

Amelia Armstrong did not have 300 gold worth of skills or a job that could get him the gold. She was a struggling author with a day job at the local bookstore. Amelia was the strange aunt who lived on her sister’s couch and ate cereal with her nephew on Saturday mornings.

“What do you want…me to do?” She regretted it but…Penny had a job she couldn’t lose. Penny had a kid she needed to feed. Penny couldn’t be caught up in whatever this was.

He knocked the knife from her hand with a single shove of his cane against the meat of her palm. It hit the floor with a resounding thud that echoed around the rickety cabin walls. Then, ever so slowly, he brought her hands down to her sides. Amelia knew exactly what kind of deal she was striking with the devil as his plum eyes roamed her body down to her toes. He let out a long exhale through his nose. Those sharp eyes raked up her legs, over her striped bottoms, across the exposed inches of her stomach, up the wire bra of her tankini keeping her breasts under control, then stopped at her eyes.

“I don’t deal in people.”

“I didn’t ask you that. I asked what do you want me to do. What’s worth three hundred gold to you?”

There was a dark hunger in his eyes that turned her stomach into a roiling cauldron of acid. “One night.”

“One night?” She exhaled, rubbing her wrists in front of her stomach. Really? A night was worth three hundred gold?

“You belong to me for twenty-four hours. Your sister goes free, and I bring you home personally. How’s that sound?”

She scowled, a slick, slimy feeling coming over her. “You won’t…hurt me, will you?”

He grinned impishly, flashing all his pearly teeth with two sets of fangs for his top and bottom row. “No, pet, I’m not in the business of hurting my things.”

“I’m yours for twenty-four hours, and then…we’re done. You leave my sister and me alone, you leave her kid alone too! You forget we even exist. I never, and I mean ever, see you or your goons ever again?” She set her teeth on edge. Was she willing to do this? Did she have a choice? He was going to have Penny rob her own bank or worse? Who the fuck was this guy, anyway? Not that she lived in the underbelly of King’s Fall. But she’d never heard of a handsome fiend with a cane who smiled like a shark.

“A deal then.” He quirked his brow in a teasing fashion, biting his middle finger with his sharp teeth and tugging his glove off in a smooth motion. He exposed a royal purple hand with black painted nails. From his knuckles to his wrist were swirling sigils and spells tattooed into his hands.

A deal with the devil. It was just twenty-four hours…she could survive that…right?

“A deal,” she breathed, taking his hand. The spell circles on his skin glowed a sparkling gold and his eyes brightened with magic.

He slammed her into the wall, their hands hissing as the deal sealed her palm with his. She gasped as he knocked all the air from her lungs. He pressed her into the wood till it groaned. Her head spun like a top as their noses were touching once more. He smirked, brushing his lips dryly against hers. She panted for air, struggling to fill her lungs. He stole a single kiss. Swift, hungry, and hard before ripping back from her mouth. “Your twenty-four hours starts now, Amelia. Zavros, please escort the widow Calhoon back home and ensure she gets there safely.”

A portal ripped open the air next to the pair. Amelia glanced at it, seeing the city street just beyond the rippling gold ring of magic. It crackled and spat like boiling oil. A car rolled up beside the portal and the driver got out. The devil she’d made a deal with stepped back from her, leaving her palm seared with his spell. A magic contract was tattooed to her flesh without any pain.

He waved a hand to the portal, “After you, pet.”

She didn’t even fucking know his name! Guess it didn’t matter. She had made a deal, and magic contracts can’t be broken without a heavy price. Amelia steeled her resolve and squared her shoulders. She was his for the next twenty-four hours; whatever awaited her on the other end, she’d taken worse lumps in the ring. Pushing off the rotten wood, she stomped in her flip flops through the portal and into the awaiting car.