Chapter 23
Wesson
I loved them both.
I knew that deep in my bones.
And the monster had been clawing at my insides since last night, since I’d unlatched his cage and let him have free roam of my body. He’d seen Marta and Atlas, he’d tasted their blood and flesh, and he wanted more.
“Come to me,” he chanted, tearing at my mental barriers with his inky claws. All night and all morning, it had called to me. “Come to me, and I won’t kill them. Deny me, and I’ll paint the entire world with their blood.”
At first, I thought I’d been imagining it.
We’d been here two months, and I was only now starting to hear voices.
But after it attacked the estate, I realized I was the problem.
Whatever I’d done during the ritual, whatever I’d allowed to be done to me, it had given the demon free rein to invade our wards.
It used my energy against us, used my blood against us, and it would keep coming after us until I gave in.
I was the weak link. Maybe I always was. I’d been the one to cause all of this. I was the one who got hurt, who’d been dreaming about the demon pouring out of my mouth and nose.
“I’m already inside you,” it said. “You have no choice. This is your only choice. Come to me, and I’ll leave them alone. Let me have you, only you, and I’ll let them leave this place.”
I had learned early in life that demons lie. They twist the truth and torment the soul until the human feels like they have no choice but to comply. This happened in Biltmore Forest. This happened all over the world all the time. But I was just so tired of being here, and we were so close to home.
“Come to me, or I’ll tear this liminal apart with you in it.”
I made sure Marta and Atlas were safe. I got them in the church where the demon couldn’t go, and as soon as I could, I got away to get some clarity.
We were reading each other’s thoughts now. The flesh-binding ritual had made that permanent, so I didn’t understand how they couldn’t hear the monster in my mind. But I suspected Marta felt it. That shadow. That darkness she’d sensed this morning. It was me.
I told myself this was the only way to keep them safe.
I told myself that I would just let it have me, that they could complete the soul binding, use each other’s magic to contact the other side, and slip through the veil at midnight.
I told myself they wouldn’t miss me, that once they realized what was happening, it would be too late, and they wouldn’t be able to stop it.
But as I held my hand on the latch to open the door, I paused, listening to the sounds of Atlas’s deep timber.
“I just wanted you to know. I thought my brother was the only person in the world I’d ever care about. And now…Now, I can’t imagine life without you in it.”
I sensed his deep, abiding affection for her, his love and adoration pouring out of him. And as much as it surprised her, she returned it. Somewhere along the line, her heart had started to beat for him.
I should have been jealous. But like everything in the liminal, that seemed too pedantic to put into words. I ached for Marta, and I yearned for Atlas, and I always would.
“Atlas, I don’t know how I would have gotten through this without you…without you both.”
She almost stopped me. She almost made me turn back. But the demon wouldn’t stop coming for us unless I did this.
This is the best way I can protect them.
I turned the latch as quietly as I could and stepped outside, right into the dark spiraling cloud of evil.
“Alright,” I said, closing my eyes. “Take me.”
I thought it would hurt more. I thought I would burn and bristle and set me on fire from the inside out, the way it had to Atlas when he’d merely been touched. But no.
A cool gasp of air flowed down my throat and into my lungs, and then I was back in the woods from my nightmare, standing in the salt circle with candles licking flames all around me.
The cricket and frogs sang their nighttime chorus, just as they had the night we’d come here, just as they had in every nightmare since.
“Wesson Colt,” came the soft, feminine voice. “At long last.”
“You wanted me, you’ve got me,” I said, glancing around to see who, or what, I was talking to.
A tall woman wearing a white dress stepped around a tree, her bare feet blackened with soot and undergrowth. Her long blond hair fell in messy waves down to her waist, but her silver eyes cut through me, almost glittering with intensity.
“You’ve answered my summons,” she said, slowly walking around the circle, glancing from my face to my boots and back up again. “Are you willing to pay the price?”
“I want a deal,” I said. “That’s what your kind does, isn’t it? Making deals and condemning souls?”
She laughed, and the sound reminded me of shattering glass, high-pitched, nearly manic.
“What did you have in mind?” She raised an eyebrow and circled the perimeter.
“You want me, you can have me. But you let Atlas and Marta go. You let them leave the liminal. You let them get on with their lives. You and me, we stay here.”
At that, she tilted her head to assess me, staying quiet for far too long as she considered. The silence made me itch, made me want to keep talking if only to fill the desolate void.
“You’ll give me your body?” She licked her lips, almost too hungry at the prospect.
“If that’s what you want. You want to possess me? You want to live inside this skin?”
“Perhaps. It has been a long time since I’ve been invited inside mortal flesh.” She hummed. “And what will we do, you and I? We’re stuck in this cage. If I possess you, what then? What fun can be had when we’re one body, one soul, one mind, but we’re all alone here?”
I took a deep breath as repulsive images flooded my mind, ones where she chained me down and stripped the skin from my bones, or practiced pulling my insides out until I screamed. Then she’d heal me only to do it all over again. And again. And again. On and on for eternity.
“If you let Marta and Atlas go, if you stop attacking them, if you let them leave, I’ll do it.” It was the sacrifice I had to make for them. It was the only way to make sure the demon left them alone. I’d do far worse for that.
“So noble,” she said. “So heroic. Who knew you had it in you?”
I didn’t answer, but it didn’t seem like she wanted one from me anyway.
“And why should I take you instead of the witch or your brother? Hmm?” She clasped her hands in front of her.
“Either would be a better pick. The witch is strong, and your brother…” She shook her head.
“Well, we’ve been having so much fun with his father where I’m from.
Adding him to my collection would be quite extraordinary. ”
I winced at the thought of my father…Atlas’s father…in hell or wherever she was talking about. Was he being tortured for all of eternity? Was I bound to end up like him, no matter what?
“I’ve already got a demon inside me, right?” I said. “The monster. The one who carved up my chest like a Christmas ham the night we got stuck in the liminal. It’s in me, isn’t it? We woke it up when we did the flesh-binding ritual.”
She smiled, but it wasn’t happy or jovial. It was creepy, like a villain in a horror movie, like other monsters I’d killed when they thought they had the upper hand.
“Yes, it’s in you,” she said, and it seemed like there was more to the story, more she wouldn’t tell me. “No tricks? You don’t happen to have an anti-possession charm on you or some protective enchantment that will cast me out as soon as I take root?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I did,” I said.
“Good.” She held out her hand. “I accept your deal.”
I swallowed and stared at the outstretched palm, wondering again if I was making the right call. If I didn’t do this, we would die in that church. The demon wouldn’t leave us alone until it had us, and after last night, I feared another binding ritual would make this monster indestructible.
This is the only way. This is it.
I took her hand and gave it a firm shake before brushing some of the salt away from the circle so she could step inside.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” she said. “Wesson Colt, I am disappointed in you.”
My heart sank before I could regain my courage.
“Didn’t your father ever teach you to figure out who you’re dealing with before you agree to terms?” She flashed that evil grin again and shook her head.
“I know who you are,” I said. “You’re an Asmodeian. You’re the one who terrorized Asheville and made all those people consume each other.”
At that, she laughed and yanked me closer so she could fist a handful of hair behind my head. “No, my darling. I am Asmodeus. And together, we’re going to raise hell.”