Deal with the Devil

22. Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-one:

Knox

Sitting back in his office, spinning a knife around his finger. It was a hunter’s knife, thick handle, ring on the end, thin blade with serrated edge. It normally sat in his desk, at the very back. He’d cleaned it several hundred times…trying to get the sight of his blood off of it. Nothing works. When he looked at it, he still saw his plum-colored blood dribbling down it onto Declan’s fist.

Buttons showed him one thing…Declan was alive. That son of a bitch was alive and out for his blood again.

Declan was his infected vampire. He saw the puss-filled pustules, the fangs like daggers, the hollow of his eyes as he loomed over her. He’d hunted her down at her home, tied her up over her days off, and broke her like he did everyone.

Once upon a time, Declan was a very pretty elf. Tall, broad shouldered with slender hips, cheekbones like carved marble, and flowing, platinum blond hair that sparkled in the sunshine. He used to wear pinstripe suits and shiny shoes. He had brown eyes like melted chocolate and a debonair smile; it’s how he charmed his way into the good graces of the council. The councilwoman over business never took one sniff at his casino or his large estate outside the city, never asked a single question. Declan was once a very delightful businessman.

Oh, how the tables have turned. The image of Declan burned into Button’s mind, and now Knox’s, was decrepit. His face was sunken in, pockets of boils and puss leaving large craters in his skin. The only teeth in his mouth were the fangs, the rest of his teeth were either blackened or gone. His eyes were at the bottom of deep wells for eye sockets, the skin a sickly yellow. Inky and green veins lined his elongated arms and legs. He continuously hunched over Buttons, spitting at her as he spoke.

“ Traitor!” he barked. Declan was deranged, muttering to himself and fiddling with his clawed fingers as he paced.

“He’s supposed to be dead,” Knox growled, chucking the knife across his office. It sank into the hard wood walls like it were made of soft butter. Knox inhaled sharply through his nose, letting it out in a long, infuriated breath.

Declan should be dead. Knox killed him years ago. Sank that very knife into his chest and left him to bleed out in the forest floor.

“Knox?” Maevin whispered, knocking against the door frame.

Knox snapped his fingers and the knife returned to his hands. Maevin put his hands up only to sigh with relief as Knox chucked the knife again, sinking it into a different spot on the wall. The fiend stared, dead eyed, at the wall as he replayed Buttons’ memories over…and over…and over again. Buttons went to work, smiled at customers, laughed with coworkers, grabbed food, and went home. Wash, rinse, repeat, she would spend her days off sleeping in, listening to music, walking the parks, all mundane…all avoiding life. This was not the person he thought he hired. This was not the woman he thought he scraped off the floor.

“ I did this all for you! You promised me that you’d be with me!” Buttons’ words replayed in his ears. “ I stayed for you .”

“Knox?”

He finally blinked away from the spot on the wall to his best friend and colleague. “She was working for him the whole time.”

“What?” Maevin’s face fell into an expression of horror as he quickly scrambled into a seat across from Knox. “She’s worked for us for years.”

“And she spent every day waiting for him to come back because he swore he would come back for her.” Knox shivered with disgust as memories of Buttons, real name Havlaina, draped across Declan’s chest. Naked in his bed, sweet nothings whispered into her ear. Knox growled audibly as he summoned the knife back and stabbed it into his desk. “It was all a lie. Everything he ever did was a lie. He led that poor girl into thinking he cared, that he’d help her and all he did was play her. She was his pawn and she never even…”

He trailed off, pulling away from his desk.

Maybe I shouldn’t have killed her. The nagging thought never left. He’d been so angry, he didn’t even consider maybe she could be forgiven. Could she had ever see reason? I’ll never know. Knox would never know if he could have convinced her to know the truth. Declan used her. Declan abused her love for him. And then he left her for dead.

“But he did come back,” Maevin whispered.

“Not for her.” Knox looked up from his hands. “He came back to kill me. That’s the only reason he’s here. Buttons, Kyle, Rick, maybe even Sandy…he didn’t come back to help them, he came back and used them again…just like he used to—they’re-they’re-they’re nothing but pawns to him!”

Knox was shaking with rage as he snapped to his feet. Maevin patted down the air with his hands. “I should go get Amelia.”

“What? No!” Knox barked.

“Oooooh-kay? Is there trouble in paradise?” Maevin cocked a brow.

“No!” Knox ripped away from his desk, pacing from it before returning and snatching up the knife. “Yes, but no. I’m… She demanded to stay by my side, she refused to go home, so she watched me feed on Buttons and…I may have gotten a bit carried away. But then she…”

It still left a queasy feeling in his belly. He hated and loved how good her fear tasted. It was deep, profound, true terror that was directed at him. She’d been afraid of him in the woods. Normally, that would turn him off. He wasn’t with Amelia because she was scared of him. But, in that moment, thoughts and mind swirling with betrayal and hurt…he wanted it. He wanted to feed on her fear and fill his chest with the familiar feeling.

Because fear was somewhat of an old friend of his.

“I think we’re fine,” Knox whispered.

“Well, before you stab someone, maybe you should go see about getting a relaxing bath or a snuggle or something. Take the edge off. You can’t think clearly when you’re riled up.” Maevin slipped around the desk, putting a tender hand to Knox’s shoulder. “I have some leads, and with your information from Buttons, he can’t hide from us.”

Knox dropped the knife into the open drawer from whence it came and slammed it shut. “You have a point.”

“Go take care of you first.” Maevin squeezed his shoulder cap affectionately before shoving him toward the door.

Knox stepped out of his office and came to a screeching halt inches from the frame when he found Amelia coming down the steps. She was in a large t-shirt and pajama shorts, hugging her torso. She looked up from the steps as she stepped into the foyer. Her face softened and she croaked, “Hey.”

He closed the space between them, only leaving an inch as he cupped her by the bicep. “Why are you up?”

“You didn’t come to bed.” She furrowed her brows. “I was coming down here to strong arm you into coming to bed.”

His lips curled into a smile as a choked laugh fell out of his mouth. “Ms. Armstrong, trying to strong arm me into returning to bed.”

Amelia chuckled, rolling her eyes, “Laugh it up now, Mr. Zrazduel.”

“Now?” He cocked a brow. “Thinking of changing your name?”

“Maybe…or maybe, in the future I’ll take someone else’s?” There was a challenge in her eyes as she sat back on her heels. “If, that is, he can ever find the time to come to bed with me.”

Knox made a show of mewling over it. Amelia narrowed her eyes on him. He smirked in response, “I thought you had a rule against marrying?”

“I have a rule against marrying the first guy who offers, but you haven’t offered yet…and you’re also not the first one to offer.” She stuck her tongue out and he nearly snatched it with his teeth. He lurched forward but froze as she stared up at him. Flashes of her in the forest returned with a vengeance. She searched left and right for him, eyes wide. He could hear the panicked thump of her heart against her ribs. He could smell the fear pouring out from her skin. He could taste the tangy terror as he chased her through the trees.

She wasn’t scared now. Knox forced his mind to remember. They’d fought and she apologized…they’d talked it out. Yet, why did he feel like something still hung in the air? His shame hung in the air. He’d fed on her fear and felt himself a monster. I’m your monster, Amelia Armstrong.

His ego would not be easily healed.

“I would have thought you wouldn’t find my presence comforting.” His raspy, whispered confession lingered in the air.

“Do you smell any fear on me?” she shot back, crossing her arms tighter under her chest.

“No.” He scanned her from head to toe, then back to her pretty, sharp eyes once more. She cocked her head, as if waiting for him to explain but he didn’t. So, instead, she peeled an arm away from herself and offered it to him. Knox let his pet lead him up the steps, around the bend of the hall, and back into his room. She brushed off his suit jacket and undid his vest. When he tried to undo his belt, she slapped his hands away. Knox held still while Amelia undressed him down to his undershirt and boxes. Then, she took his hand again and brought him to the bed.

“You never want to feed on my fear again,” she broke the silence first with a sigh. “And I never want to go to sleep alone again.”

He chuckled, “I’m not amending the contract.”

Amelia huffed, “Why not?”

“Because you’ll get my soul too easy. I can’t promise work won’t keep me up or away at night when humans sleep so regularly.” He pulled back the blankets once more and slid into the bed. She dropped down into the mattress with him. He kissed the back of her head, sinking into the scent of her soap and clean skin. “But I can swear that if I am available for sleep, I will never deny you again.”

“Good.” She snuggled back against him, using his arms as a blanket to wrap around her. He gladly engulfed her in his arms and relaxed into the mattress.

Maevin’s right, they would be able to find Declan in the morning. That cretin had already robbed Knox of too many good nights of sleep. He wouldn’t allow him to rob Knox of another. Breathing in her scent, feeling her warmth against his chest, he descended into sleep after an hour.

At first it was blank. Endless, inky, peaceful. Nothing but the back of his eyelids and the feeling of Amelia in his arms. However, as he slipped through the night, something began to play in his mind.

Something that wasn’t his.

“ I swear I don’t know what happened to it,” Havlaina cried out, strapped to a chair. Beside a massive fireplace, crackling fire and bubbling potion to her right. A bubble burst and splashed across her face. Havlaina screamed, lurching away. The chair groaned and forced her back in place once more. “Please, please let me go! I don’t know what happened to it! I didn’t see anything.”

“Tsk, tsk, little one,” An old crone stepped out from the shadows of the cabin. The familiar wooden hutch of a home full of fresh herbs, creaking floors, and feathers littered across the ground from the fresh chicken on the counter. Blood and viscera covered the countertop where the witch butchered the fowl thing herself. The same knife used to process her dinner was now level with Havlaina’s eyes. “We both know you saw a lot more than that!”

“No! No, please!”

“Oh, don’t you fret, little one…you’ll be cute as a button when I’m through with you.”

Havlaina’s screams filled Knox’s head as everything when dark. He woke with a gasp. Drenched in sweat, he slithered away from the lightly snoring Amelia. His feet slapped against the floor as he dragged himself to the bathroom. The door closed and lights off, in the pitch black of night, he leaned over the sink. Cool marble zapped his soul back firmly into his body. As he finally glanced up to the mirror, he came face to face with his maker.

“So, she was a liar…” he panted.

“And a thief. That little shit. ” Persephone’s nose scrunched as she paced in front of a mirror deep into the Nightmare Realm.

“What did she take?” He rubbed his sweaty palms against the slick surface of the sink.

“A book, a spell book of mine I put in the Library of Madness. She took it and refused to tell me where she put it. I took her eyes so I might follow the rat back to her nest…but then I found something more valuable than her.” Persephone grinned, showing off her rotten teeth.

“She stole a spell book from you the same time that Declan kidnapped me?” Knox furrowed his brow. “Why didn’t you tell me before who she was? What she was?”

“Never show your hand until it’s time to reap the benefits, my boy.” She tapped playfully against the glass. “Besides, I still had access to her eyes. I saw the way he looked at her afterwards, he could hardly stand her anymore. Then, my little devil took his throne with blood and ink and suffering… It was all going so well, with or without that damn book.”

Knox tried to think. Tried to peel back the layers of her soul deep within him and find the book. Right where he could find it, before Persephone snatched her through a mirror and after she took it from the library. A massive red castle with spiraling staircases that led nowhere. Deep within its cracked, stone walls was a library. Shelves upon shelves of books from everywhere. Books that were burned in their homes, books that were drowned in the ocean, books that were soaked in so much ink their pages were illegible, all things ruined ended up in the Library of Madness. And there was little Havlaina.

She scurried through the shelves, a thief in the night. Many things tiptoe through its halls and she just had to be quieter than the loudest one. Up on a shelf, just an inch out of reach, was a journal. Bound in flesh with two massive fangs embedded in the front, and two crystal eyes in the back. When she opened it, the eyes bled…but when she closed it, the book tried to bite her. Havlaina dropped it, peeking around to see if anyone noticed. However, when she picked it up a second time…the memory went blank.

“Someone erased her memories,” Persephone whispered like a ghost with lips against his ear.

“Declan, he was a well-practiced wizard. A memory erasure would have been no problem. I saw him enchant a charm over the front of the casino once, to ensure people would forget anything illegal they’d seen.” Knox shook his head in disbelief. “This book, should I be looking for it?”

Persephone nodded, fading away from the mirror. “I think you’ll find the answers you’re looking for inside it.”

“Answers?” He let out a wheeze, stepping away from the sink. What answers were he looking for? Yet, he knew the moment the thought crossed his mind. Knox desperately want to know how Declan was still alive. How did he go from an elvish wizard mob boss…to an infected vampire? To this cursed existence…how did he survive being stabbed through the heart and beheaded?

Knox had many questions it seemed. And two major jobs then—Find Declan AND find the book.

Great.