Deal with the Devil

24. Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-three:

Knox

“Knox, come quick. Rick’s not dead.”

He ripped a portal open and Zavros, Hellen, and Knox stepped through it into the bank parking lot. Rage, fear, irritation, pain, all of it surged within him as he stepped out into a gruesome scene. Penny on the asphalt, away from the corpse at Knox’s feet, struggling to hold onto something. Doug was wrestling a half-alive Rick back down the ground. Amelia was nowhere to be seen.

Zavros jumped to help Doug keep the corpse pinned to the ground, Hellen rushing to Penny’s side.

“He’s alive!” Knox roared, storming up to the corpse. He stopped as he saw the splatter of his blood around the wheel well of a car. An Amelia-shaped spot between the blood was left untouched while there were bits everywhere else. “Where’s Amelia?”

“She ran after the driver,” Penny cried out, “Knox, you gotta stop her.”

He was stuck. Did he stay to figure out what was going on with Rick and how pieces of him were crawling back only to be ripped off and chucked away by Doug or Penny. Or did he chase after Amelia. He knew where his heart was going.

“Knox!” Penny shrieked. “The Enforcers are on their way. You need to stop Amelia!”

“From what?” He leapt over Rick’s thrashing corpse, rushing across the parking lot.

“She’s gonna kill that driver, you gotta stop her.” Penny jerked an arm out toward the sidewalk. Knox followed a trail of blood shoe marks across the concrete. He launched after them, hunting her down for the second time by the scent of her fear. This was different…she wasn’t afraid of him this time. She was angry, he could taste it in the air. Amelia was furious and afraid and hurt. It washed over him like a tidal wave as he ran through the city block.

The blood eventually dried up, but her taste didn’t. He followed it like a blood hound until he rounded a corner and found Amelia on top of a man Knox hired three years ago. She swung, one fist after the other, sobbing as she broke his face in. Knox lurched forward, grabbing her by the arms. His lover thrashed in his arms. “No! Put me down!”

“Amelia,” he exhaled, grabbing her by the sweaty wrists and restraining her. She was strong. Amelia ripped out of his arms once, but he grabbed her before she could pummel the dead man again. She’d smashed away all the bones in his face. His throat was clearly throttled. Amelia was feral. Her fingers were coated in blood and viscera. Tears cut tracks through the stains on her face. Her feet kicked out as if to strike him and missed.

Knox pinned her to the alley wall. She heaved for air, struggling to get free. Knox bellowed, “Maevin!”

Like he were made of shadow, his elf melted out of the wall and stepped into the alleyway. “Knox— oh .”

A shadowy wall of magic went up around them and the alley was blocked off. Anyone who would want to enter would be convinced by their own mind it wasn’t important. The noise they made was muffled in a second, and by the next, silenced completely. Maevin crept forward, inspecting the corpse on the ground. “What happened?”

“He betrayed us! He locked me in that car and left me for Rick!” Amelia stopped struggling. Her body trembled as the shock set in. Knox cupped her face, forcing her to look at him.

“Pet.”

“He locked me in that car, Knox, I just wanted to talk to him. He told me he’d rather die than talk.”

“Amelia,” he warned, and her mouth snapped shut. “I want you to breathe for me.”

“Knox, I didn’t mean to kill him, I just could—”

“I don’t give a shit that you killed him, Amelia. I can replace traitorous drivers. I can’t replace you. So, you will do what I ask for once, and you will breathe.” He watched her tension melt away as her bottom lip quivered. She took a shaky breath in. He nodded with approval. Amelia let it out, her exhale giving away to a broken blubbering. He stroked her cheeks, smearing her hot tears with the cold blood. She shook like a leaf in a tornado. Her very bones vibrated as she sank back against the brick wall.

“Yes, Sir,” she murmured.

“Good.” He brought her face forward and kissed her sloppy forehead. She tasted of ichor and iron. He didn’t care. Even as it burned away, the necromantic power pulsing through him cleansing the filth off his lips, he lingered there till she was still. “Why. Are. You. In. The. City?”

His jaw snapped with every word.

“I thought The Lord Commander called. He asked to talk to us about the case. However, when I called him back to tell him we were in the city, it wasn’t him. And Penny needed to help her boss at work, and I didn’t want her to lose her job. I didn’t want him to come sniffing around and get you in trouble. I thought they wouldn’t attack us in the daylight or in a crowded place.”

Knox wasn’t angry. Not at her and not at Penny. They couldn’t know fully how bad this was. They didn’t know Declan. They couldn’t understand. How could they? Only those who survived Declan knew what he was like.

However, Knox was furious.

“Boss, he’s dead-dead,” Maevin whispered.

“Get rid of the evidence. Rick’s bloody enough, that’ll explain the shape she’s in.” Knox pulled away from his lover and glanced at his right-hand elf. Maevin nodded before snapping his fingers. Ash colored tendrils of smoke slithered out of the walls and crawled over the body. It hissed and bubbled and popped. The flesh melted away, leaving nothing but bones at first, before they too were eaten. As the body disintegrated, the bones giving away with loud cracks, Knox returned his attention to Amelia.

“I’m so sorry.”

“You’re not breathing,” he warned.

“Yes, Sir.” She nodded vigorously, returning to her shaking inhales and exhales. He pulled her into his arms and engulfed her. Blood soaked into his suit and left him sticky. However, he wouldn’t pull away for anything. Not as she clung to him and pressed her face into his chest. “I’m so sorry, Knox.”

“I know, pet.” He kissed the top of her hair. “I didn’t tell you about Declan yet, not all of it. And I will…you’re alright. We’ll get you home, cleaned up, okay?”

“Hey, boss?” Zavros’ worried voice came over the speaking stone in his pocket. “Enforcers are here, what do you want me to tell them?”

Knox pulled the rock out of his pocket and sighed, “The truth. Tell them Declan Vorhalis is alive, an infected vampire, and is killing people to try and ruin my business. Tell them if they care about people’s lives, they’ll purge the world of Rick Calhoon, or whoever he really is, and they’ll burn everyone they find dead by Declan. Did they catch that?”

“Loud and clear, Mr. Zrazduel. Might I have you come by the council building to make a formal statement?” The familiar, grumbling voice of Aravis Blightwood filled the speaking stone.

“Absolutely,” he huffed, glancing down at Amelia. “Tomorrow morning. Right now, I need to tend to my family, get them back to safety.”

“Hmm, well then, tomorrow morning, bright and early.” The sounds of Aravis sending Penny, Zavros, Doug, and Hellen home filled the crackling stone. Knox wasn’t sure if Aravis believed him. He was more likely to just follow them home than to wait for Knox to answer then. The fiend was more than amicable to that. As long as he got Amelia and Penny home.

“Zavros, please escort the widow Calhoon home. Ensure Doug and Hellen come with you, I want a family meeting. Inform them they will be paid overtime for all their effort.” Knox stuffed the stone in his pocket at the sound of Zavros replying with ‘you got it boss’.

Knox glanced back at Maevin who was dusting the ground with a box of some powdery substance. As it hit the ground, it crackled before turning invisible. Eventually, it stopped crackling and Maevin stopped pouring it out, rubbing any leftover residue into the concrete with the toe of his boot. Finally, with a nod, Maevin put the powder back in his trench coat pocket. “We’re clear, our driver was never here.”

“Good, let’s go home.” Knox ripped open a portal on the opposite wall and nodded for Maevin to lead the way. He had to coax Amelia to move her legs. After she was moving, she practically bolted through the portal onto the other end.

His feral, stab first and ask questions later, lover was now on the other end of murder. With Rick, it had been personal. This was anger…and when it’s anger, the scar it leaves behind is expansive.

As Knox stepped into the foyer, he found Denver frozen, almost touching Amelia, but afraid to break the woman standing before him. When he glanced up, he opened his mouth to speak but Knox waved it off. “I want everyone gathered together and brought in for a family dinner. Maevin has a special concoction for drinks. Anyone who refuses is walked to the cellar and held for questioning, am I understood?”

Denver furrowed his brows, “You’re not…this concoction isn’t going to kill them?”

“No,” Maevin sighed, pulling a satin sack from inside his heavy coat. “It’s a truth serum.”

“Oh! Then, yes, absolutely, sir. Maevin, feel free to whip up a batch of drinks, I’ll rally the staff.” Denver nodded vigorously before giving Amelia a sympathetic smile. The bloodied woman stumbled past him, through the foyer, and to the stairs. Every single staff member that weaved in and out of the foyer stopped dead in their tracks at the sight. Amelia hung her head and climbed the steps. Denver whispered, “Sir, is Ms. Armstrong okay?”

“No, but she’ll be okay.” Knox bowed his head to the centaur before following Amelia up the steps. “I’ll be back down shortly.”

Amelia got to the room first but was hovering over the tub when Knox slid the door shut behind him. She was sobbing while peeling the clothes off her arms and legs. The fiend tiptoed closer, watching her dutifully stumble to the standing shower and rinse off the gore covering her body. Clumps of flesh and sinew coated the drain as she scrubbed it off her body. The tile was splattered with crimson.

“Amelia?” He stood inside the door, watching her.

“I’m breathing,” she croaked, glancing up from her dirtied toes. “I promise I’m breathing. It’s just…I never…I thought I was better. I thought I wouldn’t do that again. I just wanted to stop him. No, that’s a lie. I wanted to kill him. But I told myself I could hold back. Dad taught me better than to unleash like that. But the driver just…kept… laughing .”

Knox pulled off his dirtied trench coat and peeled his ruined button down off his chest. Inch by inch, piece by piece he disrobed till he could join her in the shower. Amelia trembled now, but it wasn’t shock. He cupped her chin and brought her to look up at him. Fear permeated the air. It tickled his tongue and coaxed him, begging him to take a gulp.

She’s afraid of herself.

“Have you killed someone before?” He spoke in a soft, raspy voice.

“You saw me stab Rick in the neck,” she retorted, ripping her chin away. He snatched it back and forced her to look at him once more. Amelia’s lower lip quivered. She knows better than to resist me. Knox traced her lower lip with the pad of his thumb. A soft, puff of air brushed down the back of his knuckles before she spoke again. “I lost it once…really lost it...when I was a kid. We were at a championship tournament, in Tritus. The city over next? We were in a hotel, and the kid I took down came for my neck in one of the hallways. I don’t remember what he said…I just remember blinking and his face was caved in and my dad was screaming at me to stop. They dragged me off him.”

Knox furrowed his brows, “How did that get pushed under the rug?”

“Dad pulled a few strings. I worked community service and the Tritus enforcers didn’t mention that a six-year-old girl broke all the bones in some kid’s face…I don’t… I never found out if he died, or just needed severe healing. So, I just assumed he was dead.”

“You…you were six?” Knox blurted out.

“I got a broken leg from the encounter.”

“Where you learned to write,” he exhaled, suddenly seeing everything clearly now.

“I write to get the anger out. To get the red out of my eyes. I thought I was better. Then, when I was fourteen, a man tried to steal Penny’s bag after a dance recital. We were walking back on the sidewalk, he grabbed her duffle and tried to bolt. I broke his legs and was bashing him with Penny’s tap shoes when Dad pulled me off him. Then Rick…and now the driver.”

Knox rubbed her back, allowing her the space to cry and scream into the shower. A quick silencing spell and a firm arm wrapped around her, he let her unleash it. He knew what it was like. Unleashing all that pent up energy. Pent up pain. It took a chunk out of the soul.

“You can stay here. I have to take care of my employees.” Knox turned off the water once she’d rinsed off completely.

“No, no, I’m...I'm good.” She shook out her wet locks of hair. “I just...it hit me hard, but I’m good.”

He kissed her temple, not sure if he should call her bluff. Instead, he let her dry off and pull on clothes. Knox dried his own hair, brushed it back between his horns, and straightened his suit.

This was going to be ugly.