Devil's Deal: A Dark Fantasy Romance

2. Burn

Their expressions morph from anger, through confusion, into fear. I laugh so hard, my entire body shakes with it, my stomach hurting from the force of my mirth. It’s mad and unnatural, but I don’t stop. I laugh and laugh until Daga’s hold on me loosens and she moves away, her pale face flashing in the dark.

The night has fallen.

“What’s she doing?” Daga asks from somewhere behind me. She moves further away and Jaromir follows, getting to his feet as he looks around with watchful eyes.

“Have you called him here, witch?” he asks, his hands clenching into fists as I curl up into a ball, unable to stop my mad laughter. “Is he coming?”

I force myself to look up, my eyes falling on Miro. He flinches, crawling away on his hands and butt. He drops the knife and it lies harmlessly in the moss.

They are scared.That thought cuts through my odd state and the laughter gets stuck in my throat. I roll to my knees and stand up on shaky legs, looking at Jaromir with a smile. It comes easily, that expression. I’m no longer afraid. They are.

“Oh, he’s coming,” I bluff. “He’ll drink your blood and suck your marrow. He’ll be here any moment.”

A low cry comes out of Daga’s throat while Miro squeaks, moving back faster. Jaromir’s eyes narrow.

I turn and run. He roars and follows, bending to pick up Miro’s knife.

I don’t make it even ten steps when his arm snakes around my ribs. He raises his hand high, a dark shadow in the night, and it drops down in a graceful, well-aimed arc.

The knife plunges inside me, just under my navel. It scrapes my pubic bone on the way in.

For a moment, nothing happens. We both stand, breathing hard, Jaromir bent low over me.

Then the pain spreads, clawing my guts, cold and burning at once.

“I saw through your lies, witch,” he wheezes, rancid and horrible while I fight my throat to keep the scream from spilling.

It hurts. It hurts so much, and now there is no hope. Even if I get away, I’ll die. I know from my studies with Wiosna. A knife to the guts is deadly. Wounds like this can’t be cleaned properly. Even if I don’t bleed out, I’ll die from infection.

The undergrowth rustles and the others burst into view. Daga watches me with fear and triumph. Miroslaw just looks sick, the pallor of his skin flashing in the dark.

When Jaromir steps away, I sink to my knees. All fight trickles out of me, even if blood doesn’t. That’s why you eviscerate the sacrifices so they die fast. Sticking a knife in doesn’t do the trick.

I will die for a long, long time. Unless I pull out the knife.

“I was supposed to do that,” Miroslaw whines when I blink heavily, locking my body so I don’t fall.

The pain ebbs, growing stronger and weaker with my heartbeat. My breaths are shallow and sharp.

“Well, you couldn’t. You’ll never be a zerca at this rate,” Jaromir says, trying to sound arrogant. But I hear the weakness in his voice. The bile threatening to rise.

“W-what now?” Daga asks. “She’s still alive.”

I try to take a deeper breath to speak, but pain explodes in my belly. I wince and hold the scream in, clenching my fists. It doesn’t help.

I just want them to leave so I can die in peace.

“Now we wait,” Jaromir says, sounding more confident. “We have to make sure she is truly dead and doesn’t turn into an upir.”

I swallow and grab the handle of the knife, getting ready to yank it out. If they aren’t going to leave, I’d better get on with it. But I’m so afraid. As long as the blade is still in me, I can hold on to hope. But once the blood flows, it will be over.

“I won’t be an upir,” I say quietly, trying to distract myself from the terror so I can just do it. Just yank the knife out to end my pain. “Upirs are made from people who did a great wrong. I never did.”

“Why isn’t she dead yet?” Daga’s voice is squeaky with fear. “There’s a knife in her belly. She should be dead! Oh, Perun, what if she really is the devil’s…”

“Quiet!” Jaromir snaps, putting his hand over her mouth. “It’s night. We don’t call his name.”

My sweaty hand slides on the handle of the knife. I feel so cold, yet the carved wood under my fingers is warm. Like it’s drawing energy straight from my lifeblood.

“I hope he comes” I whisper, gripping the knife harder as my head grows dizzy. The forest around me sways, the shadows dancing like a group of wilas passing between the trees. “But which name? Devil, demon, czart, diabel, the dark one…”

“Shut up!” Jaromir screams with rage, but he doesn’t step closer. I think he’s afraid. They all are. There is nothing like the forest at night to feed your nightmares. But I’ve gathered herbs in the moonlight with Wiosna since I was five. The darkness doesn’t scare me.

Yet death does. If I can summon the devil to save me, by Perun, I will.

“Bies, the shadow, lord of darkness…”

“I told you to shut…” Jaromir starts but he breaks off with a shout when fire bursts to life right in front of me.

One moment there is darkness, the trees looming under the clear night sky. The next, bright, red flames appear from nowhere. It’s not a bonfire. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seem before, the fire shaped unnaturally, starting well over the ground.

I raise my arm to shield my face but drop it at once with a wince. My body feels so weak and heavy, and there is no need to protect my skin. There is no heat.

This is not a real fire.

My wound pulses with a steady beat, faster and faster to the rhythm of my pounding heart.

I recognize the fiery shape for what it is. Rectangular and tall, it looks just like a doorway. The flames are contained into the sharp-edged shape, not a lick flaming past. It seems kind of flat and deep. As if an invisible barrier cut off the reach of the flames.

But within the frames, there is a raging inferno that moves and flickers. For a moment, I glimpse depth that almost makes it look like… a tunnel. A passage.

Something that, I suddenly realize, leads from this place to another.

On the sacred roots of the Great Oak. I think I summoned the devil.

The others scream and try to run, but the fire shoots out of the doorway with a violent crackle. It shapes into long ropes which wrap around each of my tormentors. Round and round they go, thin loops of bright flame pressing their arms to their bodies, tangling around their legs.

They scream and struggle, but there is no smoke, no sizzle of burning clothes and skin. The ropes look like fire, but they don’t burn.

My hand slips on the handle of the knife as I look into the fiery doorway. I would never admit it, but I’m terrified. Even the pain seems to fade as terror consumes me, but I can’t run, and I’m too afraid to look away.

All I can do is kneel there in the cold moss and gaze into the door of fire, waiting for whoever created it to come out.

Maybe it’s Rod, Weles’ son, coming to claim my soul. Or maybe Perun has come to punish me for calling the devil’s name. After all, it’s fire. God Swarog wields flames, and he serves Perun.

I’ve never met a god or a bies. I’ll admit, a part of me never believed gods pay attention to us, mortals. Until now. Everything Wiosna told me comes rushing in, all the knowledge I have about the godly plains, Wyraj and Nawie.

But how could it help me? I might know everything about gods, monsters, and the creatures that supposedly slip between the worlds, but those are stories. Wiosna never taught me how to address a god. All I know is I should bow and show deference.

I’m already on my knees.

Pain flares as sparks shoot out of the fiery door, reminding me it’s pointless. I’m about to die. It must be Rod, then. He is the one who carries souls to Wyraj.

Daga screams, her voice plaintive and weak, while Miroslaw sobs quietly. Jaromir snarls, struggling against the fiery rope. I don’t pity them, but I don’t feel glad, either. I have no illusions I will be spared. Gods treat all mortals the same.

Or maybe it’s really him. The dark, evil creature with hooves and a tail every mother scares her children with.

Only Weles himself is worse than the devil, but Weles doesn’t wield fire.

A darker shape takes form in the middle of the inferno. The flames jump and coalesce, moving to the edges as a shadow fills the door. I watch with wide, unblinking eyes. It’s humanoid, and I glance at the top of the shadow’s head, certain I will see horns.

But I don’t. The shape is round, like a human head. I look down. The darkness gathers and swirls, and suddenly, a red leather shoe steps over the edge of the flame, followed by a black-leather-clad leg.

I breathe out with force, wincing when pain shoots through my stomach. No hooves.

A red coat hangs around the visitor’s thighs. I slowly raise my eyes higher, taking in a tight black corset peeking from between the flaps of the coat. My eyes widen. A woman.

I know we’re not allowed to look into the eyes of gods if we ever meet one. Wiosna drilled it into me with conviction, but I can’t help it. Curiosity makes me look higher, taking in the woman’s wavy red hair. Red like mine.

I gasp when my eyes finally reach her face. There is something familiar about her. I can’t quite pin it down, though. The pain, the fire, the screams around me fill my head with chaos.

So I just stare, taking in her long, strong neck, a sharp chin, her round cheeks dusted with freckles. Her lips are full and red, her eyebrows dark slashes over eyes that… that…

She focuses her gaze on me, and I stop breathing.

Her eyes are mismatched. Just like mine.

One green, one purple. They glint in the light of the fire, clear and assessing. A moment later, a proud smile curves the woman’s mouth.

Oh, Perun. Maybe they were right. Maybe I am the devil’s daughter, but the devil is a woman.

Suddenly, she laughs. It’s a full-throated, untamed laughter, deep and cruel. It’s so loud, so dominant, even the screams and sobs fall silent. My tormentors gape at the woman, just like me.

A cackle. She’s cackling.

“I’m not your mother, little one,” she says with amusement, coming closer.

“Then who are you?” I ask without thinking.

She doesn’t reply, looking away from me. Her eyes grow cold and flinty as they trail from Daga to Miroslaw, finally settling on Jaromir. She bares her teeth at him, snarling like a wild beast, and he flinches.

“I waited a long time for this,” she says in a quiet, ominous voice that carries through the cold air.

She raises her arms high over her head. A powerful gust of wind pours through the trees, ruffling her hair and whipping my face. She grins, her expression twisting into something primal and terrifying, and yet, all I feel is awe.

She is powerful, this woman. More powerful than any mortal I’ve met, or even most gods from the stories. She commands fire and wind, two elements already.

If I live through this, I want to be just like her.

Then she slashes both her arms through the air, fast and cutting, and I realize she commands something else, too.

My tormentors drop to the ground, their bodies bleaching of color and life until they are more akin to white, crumbling sculptures than to human beings.

This woman commands death itself.

The wind dies down. The forest grows eerily quiet around us, only my quick, shallow breaths breaking the silence.

I look away from the bodies as my stomach turns. White and textured, they look like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s unnatural. No human body disintegrates like this.

But when I look at the woman, she watches them with a wide, triumphant smile.

“They won’t even get to rot and nourish the earth,” she says with vicious satisfaction. “And they won’t go to Nawie. Their souls will crumble to dust.”

She puckers her lips and blows out a long breath as if to extinguish a candle. I glance at the bodies, my gorge rising when they turn to dust and lift, scattering through the forest. As if the woman’s breath is a powerful wind blowing their remains apart.

It’s horrifying if what she said is true. Barring souls from Nawie is an extreme punishment. But despite my horror, my heart thuds with gratitude. She avenged me.

And they deserved it.

When there is no sign of the bodies left, all white dust blown away into the night, the woman’s eyes settle on me.

“My, my. Was I really that small and terrified? Well, rise, little one. Let me see you. You’re certainly different from how I remember myself. Perspective changes so much.”

I don’t move, staring at her with open mouth, because her words make no sense. And yet, that feeling of familiarity grows stronger as she steps closer and crouches in front of me, raising her hand to tuck my hair behind my ear. Her touch is cool and gentle.

And her eyes look just like mine.

“I can’t rise,” I say through chattering teeth, suddenly cold and terrified, my mind still refusing to believe what my gut already knows. “I’m wounded.”

“Are you?” she asks with a playful smile, gesturing at my stomach.

I look down. There is no blade sticking out. No blood. No pain. My hand is pressed to my belly through my dress, and there is no hole in the fabric. As if there never was.

“You healed me,” I say, looking up with wonder. “I won’t die.”

“Of course you won’t,” she says with a scoff. “Or how else would you grow up to be me?”

I stare, finally accepting what she’s saying, what my soul already knows.

This woman is me. Older, wiser, more powerful. And she came back through time to save my life.

“Rise then, little one,” she says with a smile, cupping my cheek. “Rise and live so you can come back to this moment and save yourself one day.”