Call to the Devil (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #5)

Prologue

Lazarus

It is done.

His blood slicks the bedsheets, my blade stuck deep in his guts.

His eyes are open wide, but they are now unseeing.

His head lolls on his shoulders, dangling from the threads of tendon that hold fast despite the carving I have done to him.

Never again will he breathe.

His lungs lay empty.

His heart sits in the opening I carved into his chest.

Still.

Silent.

It is done.

The fire in the fireplace spits and snaps, burning what I’ve thrown into it to ash and dust.

And that is when I laugh. I let go of myself and shriek joy to the world around me. I do not care who comes, because it is done. It is done, and I am pleased.

Blood slicks down my bare chest, and I rub it into my skin, painting myself with the glory that is all mine. I would bathe myself in him if there were time.

Time!

There is no time left.

Not for me or for him. Soon they will come and collect me. Father and his men will come and get me. I can hear the screaming. The beating of feet on the wooden floorboards. The shouts and squeaks of doors opening and closing and people coming.

Coming to get me.

Coming to see what I have done.

At long last, it is done.

I kneel on the rug at the foot of the bed, head tilted back and eyes on the ceiling.

Eyes to the Lord who has forsaken this room.

Eyes up to the God who allowed this to happen.

He did not stay his wicked hands, so I did not stop myself from taking what I took.

And I took it well.

I took it with blade. Teeth. Clawed hands. I took it all, and it is done.

Delight ripples through me as I stretch my arms wide, grinning to the ceiling and the God who lies above it all.

And the devil who dwells below.

And me in the centre of it all.

Father screams and I laugh as he runs to the bed.

I laugh and laugh as he scrambles on the blankets, trying to piece Ezekiel back together, screaming and crying his terror to anyone who can hear it.

His precious brother.

His Blessed Lamb.

Father will not find all the pieces.

Father cannot put his brother back together again.

I have taken his favorite piece away from him and burned it in the fireplace.

“You are the devil, Lazarus,” someone shouts, grabbing me where I kneel. Slamming my head to the ground. Pressing his boot to the back of my neck. Pressing down.

Suffocating the breath out of me, but still I laugh.

I laugh into the pure red, untainted blood on the floorboards beneath me, wheezing and coughing as my lungs spasm.

“He should have left you dead,” Father cries.

“He should have,” I agree, lips sticky with sweat and blood and other vile things I cannot put into words.

I died on the night I was born, but his breath brought me back.

Risen from the dead, I am Lazarus.

I have died many smaller deaths since then, but nobody has offered breath to patch up those wounds.

I am Lazarus, as he made me.

As he created with his own wicked hands.

I am Lazarus.

And he is nothing.