Deal with the Devil

32. Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-one:

Amelia

Amelia furrowed her brows, a strange sensation washing over her. There was no time to debate what that was or why he said it so strangely. The feeling of the book tugging at her from halfway across the house. Declan was attempting to break into the office. How she knew that, she didn’t want to question. So, bare footed, clutching a baseball bat, and chasing after her fiend through a darkened house, Amelia left her sister in the protective wings of the Lord Commander. Howls of beasts and spawn charging the house were met with the shouts of the enforcers fighting them.

She didn’t have the luxury of worrying about her sister and how they were getting out of this alive. First things first, kill Rick and free Brayden. Then kill Declan…the rest would fall into place.

Must be bothering the shit out of Mr. Plan for my Plans for my Plans.

It was the little light in the dark of the night to think how peeved this improvised Knox had to be for this. When this was over, and they were laughing over a tub of ice-cream about it…then she’d tease him.

Amelia saw Rick first and came swinging. Before she could land the metal to his scummy head, he whirled around. Brayden screamed from behind Rick’s palms. Knox snatched Amelia before she had a chance to slam the bat into Rick’s head. Brayden thrashed in his father’s hands, clawing at his arms and kicking his feet. Rick wrenched him one way and Amelia yelled. With the butt of the bat, she knocked Rick off Brayden before he could snap the poor preteen’s neck. Knox was arm in arm, wrestling Declan against the wall. Brayden whirled to face his father and kicked him directly in the knee. Amelia followed it up with another swing of the bat. Kick. Swing. Kick. Swing, Brayden and Amelia beat the lanky, slimy waste of space down the hall.

“That’s for my mom!” Brayden snatched the bat from Amelia, bringing it above his head. “And this is for being a dickwad!”

The door to the office clicked open as Brayden brought the bat down. Rick’s chin hit the floor at the preteen’s feet with a hard crack. Amelia snatched the boy by the back of the shirt and wrenched him backward. “Go!”

“Not so fast!” Rick lunged, crawling with a cracked neck after them.

“Amelia!” Knox roared as he tossed Declan away from the door.

She had no time to choose. Something surged within her, like a panic response. There are those stories of mothers lifting whole cars when their kids are trapped underneath. It took over and Amelia saw red. Her hands wrapped around Rick’s throat and she sack tossed him through the doorway. Declan flew after her, claws out and fangs bared.

The door shut behind them, engulfing everyone in darkness as Knox locked them in.

No one in or out…this ends tonight.

Purple flames lit up the walls of the office. The fireplace burst to life with golden light. And yet, it wasn’t enough to cleanse the room of all the dancing shadows. Declan was gone and Rick was painfully face-first under a couch while the rest of him was pulled over the top of it. Amelia tiptoed around the couches, keeping her eyes peeled on Rick. His arms snapped back into place first. Peeling his head out from under the couch. It was twisted backwards, his eyeballs nearly bulging out of his head. He growled at her. “Couldn’t just leave it be, could you? You always were the worst sister. Always sticking your nose where it didn’t belong. Always fighting it. Wouldn’t leave good enough alone.”

“I don’t know how to do that. Not when it comes to them,” Amelia panted for air, scanning the room for Declan. Shadows played with the fabric of the curtains, made monsters of the paint on the wall and the furniture. Once this room was comforting. Then her heart skipped a beat at the crunch of Rick’s spine. He twisted his body back to right again.

Where’s the briefcase? She jerked, scanning the couches. Nothing. No restrained leather cases. No magic teethers. And no eldritch pulses of magic. Fuck, where was the book?

Amelia backed into something firm, and the stench of rot rolled over her.

“No!” Knox sprang from the shadows. A hand clawed down her arms. The sting was excruciating as every inch of her flayed skin broke out in angry, red boils. Something rotten ate at her flesh as she clamped a hand over her bicep. Knox rolled with Declan across the floor. “You don’t get to take her! You don’t get to take anything else from me!”

Amelia caught movement and saw Rick dive toward something. Out of instinct alone and petty rage, she dove for him. Catching him by the torso, she pinned him to the ground beside a couch. Record scratch. Amelia and Rick both slowly peeked up from the floor of the office. Under the couch, as if it’d chewed through the furniture itself, sat the book. It growled, teeth wiggling in their direction. It spat out cushion and springs in Rick’s face.

It was chaos. Amelia had been in fist fights that turned into brawls. She’d beaten a man’s face in with her bare hands while his friends rooted her on. She’d never been in so much madness as she did in that office. Books flew off the shelves, dive bombing Rick and Declan. Golden flames danced up the fireplace, burning bats that darted around, confused. The creatures screamed in agony before being turned to dust. Rick tossed Amelia off him, scrambling away from a book bound in flesh with teeth. It snapped its jaw open and shut, chasing him around the room.

Amelia climbed cautiously to her feet in time to catch the book and bring it to her chest. The spine slammed into her sternum, and she grunted. All the air was knocked out of her lungs as all the lights in the room turned back on as normal. Regular, blinding white lights filled the room shortly before the bulbs burst, leaving sparks flying everywhere. And in the crackling of glass, bats being roasted alive, Rick screaming as he avoided books like angry magpies, and Knox tossing Declan off him, she the world felt still. The book was still. She was…calm

Knox stood up in the middle of the chaos, panting for air. Sleeves rolled up, blood leaking from his bottom lip, one of his horns cracked and askew, and a pained look on his face. Amelia opened her mouth to speak but no words fell from her lips. With a classic Knox smirk, he winked at her. “Be a good pet.”

“Knox?” Something weighed down on her heart, tugging it into the depths of her stomach.

“Don’t worry…I can’t die.”

No sooner had the words passed his lips did an unhinged, rotten jaw wrap around his throat and rip out a life ending chunk from it. Knox’s head snapped off his spine and hit the floor with a resounding thud. The lights died and everything was black.

And for a moment, in that stillness, she didn’t react. It hadn’t sank in. It wasn’t real. It was just a nightmare.

Then the book opened and snapped it’s jaw tight and it all came crashing back to her. Flames like glowing rubies scorched up the walls, whole pillars made of bright red. The room was drenched in her anger. It radiated off her in waves on uncontrollable fury. Her hands trembled. No. He lied. No, he said he can’t die. He lied. He promised.

Amelia didn’t realize she was screaming until she was standing over Rick’s headless body. Record scratch. She turned on her heels, inch by inch, staring wide eyed at Declan. He stood at the center of the room, holding up Knox’s head by his uncracked horn. He lied. He lied! He lied!

She bolted across the room with speed she’d never had before. The front of the book hit Declan first as she bashed Knox’s head out of his hands. He doesn’t get to claim him. Amelia swung again, catching the vampire by the chin with the edge of the book. Knox doesn’t get to just leave me. She bound up above Declan and drove the book down over his skull. He doesn’t get to die! Flashes of the forest bled in with flashes of the red room. In one blink she was breaking the driver’s face in. In another, she was bringing the spine down onto Declan’s face. Flash, she was in the ring, trying to push a kid off her. Another, she was in the office, stomping her foot down onto Declan’s chest and tearing his arm off with her own fangs bared.

Horns poked at the flesh on her forehead as she chucked the arm over her head into the flames. They burned brighter. She ripped off a foot. Brighter. Amelia ripped and tore and shredded with her quaking hands until it was just his head. Then she opened the book and stuffed it inside.

Once the book bit down onto Declan…the red stopped.

The flames died and she was left in the dark again…alone again…

Twice Knox had made a deal with her.

Twice Knox had left her.

There was no pulsing of magic, no pressure of madness, nothing. Just the thick, empty darkness and the stench of decay.

Amelia sat in a sticky puddle for a long time, clutching the tome to her chest. It was quiet for once, finally satiated. Why did he lie. Amelia spun in her own mind, replaying it. Like he’d done it on purpose. He looked her dead in the eyes and lied, knowing Declan was coming for his throat.

He’d lied to her…breaking their contract. A small, singular candle lit up on the desk across the room. Behind him, a grinning crone sat. Her long, gnarled fingers were threaded. He broke the contract on purpose. The crone nodded, sitting back in the chair. Why?

“Why does anyone do anything, sweetheart? Madness!” The crone let out a wheezing laugh.

Amelia climbed to her feet. The office faded away and she was in a cottage. A bubbling cauldron sat in front of the crone instead of the desk and candle. She stirred it steadily, watching Amelia as she stumbled into a new realm. “Wait…where am I?”

“The Nightmare Realm.”

“How?” Amelia spun slowly, soaking it all in. The cottage was small with exposed rafters and dangling herbs. It smelled of fresh thyme and lavender soap. A wooden counter covered in bottles as well as cutting boards full of things caught her attention. Knox’s horn sat on one of the chopping blocks. Split and in pieces, but she’d know those purple and black things anywhere. Her legs wobbled under her as she rushed to the counter. Amelia snatched up a chunk of them on one hand, holding the book to her chest in the other. “Bring him back!”

“I can’t, dear.” Persephone, the witch from the woods, shook her head.

Amelia stomped closer, rattling the horn before the woman. The cottage and Persephone were much larger now, as if Amelia were a dwarf and the cottage were ogre sized. Amelia shook the horn again. “I said, bring him back!”

Her voice broke as fat, stinging tears trickled down her cheek. Persephone immediately snapped a long fingernail out and caught a single drop. She slipped it into the cauldron, the whole concoction glowing purple and gold. Amelia fell back. Her back hit the counter as it felt like a dragon sat on her chest. Please, bring him back.

“I can’t, dear. I’m not in possession of his soul.” Persephone grinned at Amelia mischievously.

Amelia’s face fell. “That’s right…it…it belongs to me now.”

“Such a smart thing you are.” Persephone reached out a hand to Amelia. Uncurling her fingers, she waited till Amelia could peel the horn chunk from her palm. Amelia dropped it into her hand, hugging the book to her chest with desperation. It purred in delight. Persephone plopped the horn into the cauldron. “But I can help you get him back, my little horror, for a deal.”

“Little horror?” Amelia furrowed her brows.

“Now, now Amelia,” Persephone snickered, her yellow gaze snapping up from the cauldron. “You didn’t think you’d get out of this human, did you?”

Amelia opened her mouth to speak only for her mouth to dry up. Get out of this human? Amelia’s heart hammered in her chest as she glanced down at the book. Didn’t I just tell Knox I wasn’t strong enough to use the book? Now it bent to my will? How did that happen? It happened because she’d gotten Knox’s soul in the transaction.

“What am I now?” she squeaked.

“Like Knox, you’re a little eldritch horror now. Different flavor, but a Nightmare all the same. Take a look.” Persephone nodded her chin toward the wall behind Amelia’s head. The blue-haired, used to be human woman turned inch by inch. Along the cottage wall was a jagged cut of glass. In a grimy, slimy reflection, she saw herself. Blue hair, round face, nose with a slight break in the middle, bushy brows. Amelia Armstrong. However, there was something behind her, hovering over her shoulder like a shadow. She grabbed one of the many destressed towelettes on the counter and wiped away the grime. Instead of Amelia, there was a shadow. Three yellow eyes blinked back at her with a grinning, open maw of razor-sharp teeth. Tendrils of smoke danced around her shadow reflection. Long, curling horns poked out of her nightmarish reflection. Amelia reached out, studying her reflection that mimicked her.

“Is it reversable?” Amelia croaked, glancing over her shoulder at the crone.

“Nope!” Persephone quipped with wicked glee.

“So…I’m just…a horror?”

“You connected with a tome of madness, little horror, no human could survive that. You saw what happened to Declan who suffered a single bite from it. You are tethered to it, able to wield its unknowable knowledge; what did you expect to happen? Plus, there’s the little deal of you now possessing the soul of a devourer.” Persephone pulled out a flask and dunked it deep into the gurgling cauldron. The skin around her arm hissed and sizzled but just as soon as it was burnt away, it returned. She pulled it out and capped it before handing the dripping container to Amelia. “Hold that, you’ll need it later.”

“Okay?” Amelia held it and the book tightly as Persephone climbed to her feet finally. She cracked the whole way, groaning with delight. “So, what now?”

“Well, you’re a Book Guardian now. First one in a dragon’s age. The old Hungry One ate all of their previous guardians. Kind of why that shit-for-brains Declan was able to break in and steal a tome in the first place. But, now that you’re a guardian, you ought to go put that book back in the library.” Persephone waddled to the front door of the cottage and pushed the creaking wood open. A gust of dry, hot wind rushed through the cottage.

“Whoa! Wait, what about Knox? I thought you said you could help get him back?” Amelia ground her heels into the floor of the cottage.

“I did,” the crone motioned vaguely at the flask, “I said you were going to need it. And you will. But the answer to how to bring him back is in the library and…well, you completed me and Knox’s little deal when you showed up here in my cottage. And you’re not mine, little horror. You and that book belong to the Library of Madness and the Hungry One. Out you go now, you got one more person to return to the book before you can put the book back.”

Amelia tentatively stepped out of the door and blinked rapidly as she stepped out of the office.

She jerked around, glancing every which way only to find herself in Knox’s manor.

Alone again with less answers.