Chapter 13 #3
“The vast majority of demons are born in the pits of Hell and must crawl through hellfire. Only the strongest survive and make rank.”
“Like turtles.”
The look he gives me is concerningly close to confusion. Does he not know what turtles are?
He scoffs, scowling at me. Touchy subject, then. “Others were born human and turned into demons by humans playing with magic they have no understanding of. It’s how Tony became a demon—except he was intoxicated and did it to himself.”
He what? A story for another time.
“Why were you turned? How does that work?”
For a second, I feel sick because one jarring thought crosses my mind: Wait until Ella hears about this.
She got such a big kick out of things like this. If I told her I met a real-life demon—two, in fact—she might get jealous. But Ella isn’t here anymore, and it’s looking more and more likely that I need to accept I’ll never speak to her again.
Lynx’s lips thin. When he doesn’t answer immediately, realization dawns on me.
“You don’t know.”
“A man told me to go to hell just before stabbing me with a special object. He got his wish. When I woke up, I was being—I woke up in Hell.” He glares at the ground.
“What… why did that…?”
“I stole from him.” His eyes snap up to me as if I were the one who delivered the killing blow.
I straighten, gearing up for a fight. “That’s a dramatic reaction,” I say, referring to the aggressor in his story.
My hackles rise when his lips curl into a sneer, and I shift to face him fully. Panic at the prospect of everything he could do tightens my chest. At the end of the day, he’s still a demon who’s made it very clear I’m no match for him in a fight.
“The rich do what they want because they think they’re above law, humans, and God because at the end of the day, we drop to our knees for them as they’re the hand that feeds.”
“Not always. Karma always comes around.” The words taste sour because it took too long for karma to come around for our family, and the greatest price wasn’t even paid by the ones who committed the wrong.
“Good.” Lynx looks down his nose at me. “I hope you and yours got what was coming, and you watched as all your riches were taken from you.”
I flinch like he’s just snapped my neck again. How fucking dare he? To think, for a moment, I thought he might have some humanity left in him. And to say my sister deserved to die?
“Don’t you worry.” I swear I can see red in my vision.
“We lost all the money, and because of it, I lost the only thing I cared about. She’s in there with me because I couldn’t afford to keep getting her the medication she needed, and she’s in there with me because karma decided we had to pay for our parents’ sins, you fucking asshole. ”
And I’m paying for mine forever.
I don’t know when I started getting closer to him, but I don’t realize that I have until I’m shoving him backward.
“She was my sister—my sweet, loving, funny, caring sister. There isn’t a universe where she deserved any of the shit that happened to her. So fuck you for saying that, you heartless piece of shit.”
My finger is pointed right in his face, and I’m panting, barely able to get any oxygen into my lungs. I feel like screaming, like ripping his hair out and my own.
Lynx doesn’t react to my anger like I expect. He doesn’t give me what I want and start the fight I’m itching for. He just stares at me, looking both human and demon at the same time.
“Is that how she died? Illness?” His tone is calm, steady—understanding. That last part could just be a trick of my imagination, but I swear something like it flashes behind his eyes.
There’s a pause before the answer comes out of my mouth. “Yes.”
I step back, straightening my fingers before curling them back into fists, repeating the motion as I resist the urge to pace to expel this suffocating energy inside me.
“She got sick, and I spent three years working two jobs to put food on the table, keep the roof over our heads, and get her seen by doctors and—and it turned out it didn’t matter. She stopped taking her medication because she didn’t want to see me kill myself to keep her alive.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
I sway back. Of all the things that could come out of his mouth, that was the very last thing I expected. Those five words are like a bucket of ice over my fire, dousing my fury so all that’s left is the emptiness.
My nostrils flare as red tinges my cheeks like I’m going to be hit with another round of tears. “I never told her that I would’ve worked myself to the bone for the rest of my life if it meant she were still alive and okay.”
“She knows,” he says with certainty.
I shake my head. She doesn’t, and there’s no way he could possibly be sure about that. I can’t keep having this conversation with him. He doesn’t care about anything that I’m saying. He just wants—I don’t know what the point of this is. But this line of questioning needs to come to an end.
I change the topic. “Did you see the spell I did? The one in the grimoire?”
He nods.
“Do you understand what it means?”
Another nod. “It’s to summon spirits from the afterlife.”
“Spirits, not demons,” I clarify.
The internet told me as much. I thought there could have been nuances to the language that I wasn’t accurately translating. But I suppose this would be more his area of expertise than mine.
“So the spell said,” he confirms.
Or maybe not?
Or maybe because he and Tony were once humans, they’re classed as “spirits”?
“Then how are you here? And why are you connected to me?” This isn’t the type of shit they taught in high school. I doubt they did in college either—not like I ever got the chance to find out.
“If I had the answer, I wouldn’t still be here,” Lynx replies, deadpan.
“What if I redo the spell but with you standing in the circle? Or reverse-engineer it somehow?”
He stares off into the distance, genuinely considering my suggestion—something I never thought he’d do.
A divot forms between his brows. Not the angry kind. More… confused. It’s… charming, in a way. Another glimpse of the person he is beneath the Devil horns and red eyes.
I prefer this version of him. It’s like I’m seeing the man behind the mask.
“Based on what happened with Tony, you’ll end up summoning another demon. And trust me, you don’t want to do that. Pray that you never, ever come across one that was born.”
I never wanted to come across one that was turned either.
I run my fingers through my hair, and his eyes track the movement. “Maybe there are other spells in the grimoire that could undo—”
“There are none—unless you can speak Latin better than I can, there’s nothing in there that would do anything beyond cause more problems. Any more demon activity than what’s already occurred and you’ll be bringing Hell to Earth.”
“So what do you suggest we do?” I snap. I don’t appreciate being cut off. It’s something my parents always did—and all those fucking customers. “Only one of us is offering any suggestions.”
And just like that, we go back to how we were before my burial: glaring at each other like we’re in our very own war.
“You stop thinking, and you let me work it out.”