Chapter 4 #2
My head swims, every single part of last night flitting through my mind at a million miles an hour. I don’t know how I could’ve fucked up. I don’t know where I could’ve gone wrong…
“So—I… what do you want from me?” I squeeze my eyes shut, barely resisting the urge to scream.
“Demons want things. You want—I don’t know—blood?
Souls? Do you need—goats? People sacrifice goats, right?
I don’t have any goats, by the way—I live in an apartment, but you already know that—oh, God—don’t hurt Vesper—”
A sharp snap of fingers sounds right in front of my nose. ”Hey. No. Look at me.”
My eyelids burst open.
“Good,” he murmurs, his gaze pinning me in place.
“There’s that little brain cell finally checking back into work.
Now focus. First of all—goats?” He clicks his tongue, shaking his head with a look of genuine distaste.
“I don’t do livestock. They scream constantly and shit wherever they please. I have standards.”
“But I—I just—”
He reaches out and delivers a sharp jab to my leg with two fingers.
“Ow!” I yelp, jumping in the seat, the sudden movement causing Vesper to dig her claws in deeper to my shoulder.
“There we go. Pain means you’re back in the room.
Congratulations. Now. Since you’re clearly determined to catastrophize yourself into a medical emergency, let me spell this out for you in very small, very mortal-friendly words.
You are not being eaten. And I’m not here for your soul, your blood, or your theoretical apartment goat. ”
I press a fist to my sternum, my shoulders sagging as my breathing finally peters out into something manageable. “So… you’re not going to hurt me?”
He blinks slowly. “That is literally what I just said. Do you listen? Or do the words just get slurped up by that mashed-potato brain of yours and congeal there like leftovers?”
He leans back against the counter, the pink butterfly stretching over his chest as he watches. He’s waiting for a response—I think—but his presence is filling the kitchen, leaving no room for me to breathe, let alone form coherent thoughts.
“Alright,” he says, clapping his hands once with a sound like a gunshot. “We’re moving on. New topic before I spontaneously combust from second-hand embarrassment.”
I stare at him, my mouth dry. The sharp sting on my leg where he jabbed me, and the pin-prick marks from Vesper’s claws the only things keeping me from drifting back into the panic.
He takes a step closer, looming over me. “Seeing as I’m the new guy and you’re my lovely, if slightly unstable, host, let’s try something radical. What do you mortals do for fun? Besides weeping into your tea and summoning things you can’t control?”
My brow furrows. My brain is trying to bridge the gap between eternal damnation and weekend recreation, and the gears are grinding. “Fun?” I whisper. “I—I read? And I cook? I don’t know, I haven’t really been in a hobby headspace since—”
“Reading,” he echoes flatly. “Cooking? Astounding. Be still, my eternal heart.”
He lifts Vesper from my lap, tucking her under one arm. “No recreational disembowelment? No light torture? No midnight hunts? No dancing around the remains of your enemies?”
I shake my head, feeling the last of the blood drain from my face.
“Unbelievable.” He turns and saunters into the living room. “I cross a literal dimension for you, and you’re just a domestic gerbil with a library card.”
I follow him on liquid legs, my knees knocking together.
I try to protest, but he’s already waving me off, plonking Vesper onto his lap, propping his silver feet on my coffee table.
He grabs the remote and begins cycling through the channels with idle disdain before stopping on a reality dating show.
He leans back, the pink butterfly wings on his chest stretching dangerously wide as he pats the cushion beside him with a little tap. “We are studying your species’ courtship rituals. This is anthropology. Come. Sit. Let’s bond, little summoner.”
I’m about to argue—to tell him exactly where he can shove his anthropology—when a sharp rap against wood echoes through the mindless drone of the TV.
“Eden?” A voice bleeds through the door. “You home?”
Oh, God. What is she doing here?
If she comes in here and sees a silver-skinned demon in a crop-top vest watching a dating show, I’m finished.
Piper doesn’t do ‘supernatural anomalies.’ She does emergency services.
She’ll have the police, a SWAT team, and a priest at my door before I can draw in a decent lungful of air.
The last thing I need is my overprotective sister getting caught in this fresh pack of bullshit.
“Eden, hmm? That’s your name,” he muses. “Fitting. A garden full of thorns and bad decisions. Who is our guest? Don’t tell me you have another boyfriend as well as the dead one?”
I whirl on him, pressing a trembling finger sharply to my lips. “My sister,” I hiss. “Do not say a word. Do not move an inch.”
“Oh, a sister?” He coos, settling deeper into the cushions, stretching his legs out. “How quaint. Should I be preparing to charm another mortal? I mean, you’re my favorite, obviously, but if she’s even half as pretty as you—”
“Stop,” I whisper-yell. “Please. I’m begging you.”
“Eden! I know you’re in there,” Piper yells from the other side of the door. “I can hear you talking. Open the door. I swear to God, if you’ve done something—”
“Just—one second!” I croak.
In a moment of pure, adrenaline-fueled insanity, I lunge forward and grab his wrist. My hand wraps around his silver skin in a white-knuckled grip, and I yank. To my shock, he actually follows, stumbling to his feet with a look of amused surprise.
“Oh,” he murmurs. “This is exquisite. I’ve always enjoyed a good kidnapping.”
Vesper lets out a sharp, high-pitched trill, weaving between his ankles with treacherous speed. He nearly trips over her, shoulder clipping the doorframe.
“Coming to join your favorite demon?” he whispers down to her with a wink.
I give him a final, desperate shove, pushing him over the threshold. “Be quiet,” I grit out, my face inches from his. “Do not speak. Do not touch any of my things. Do not breathe if you can help it.”
“Open. The. Door.” Piper’s voice is borderline furious now.
“Yep! Coming! One second!” I slam the bedroom door in his face and scramble toward the front door, wiping my sweaty palms on my shirt. My hands are shaking so hard the deadbolt feels like it’s made of ice, slipping through my fingers twice before I finally manage to throw it open.
The moment I click it back, the door swings open with enough force to make me jump.
Piper stands there like a storm cloud, a flask tucked under one arm and a reusable grocery bag looped over her wrist. Her brow is furrowed into a single, deep line, and her eyes scan me in one sharp, scowling sweep.
“What the fuck, Eden?” she snaps, stepping in without waiting for an invitation.
“Wow,” I manage, plastering on an awkward smile. “Good to see you, too.”
“I could hear you talking to someone. Who’s here?” She says, dropping the stuff onto the side-table.
I freeze, brain stalling, mental gears grinding up against each other.
What am I supposed to say? “Oh, no one, Pipes. I was just trying to hide a demon from Hell in my bedroom. It’s a whole thing. Don’t worry about it.”
I can’t exactly tell her that. I can’t tell her anything.
“The TV!” I say quickly, gesturing shakily toward the screen. “I was… I was arguing with the TV. The dating show. You know how those things go. They’re super frustrating. Total nightmare.”
She turns slowly. “You were whisper-shouting at the TV instead of answering the door that’s ten feet away?”
Dammit, why did I go with that? I should’ve just said I was talking to Vesper.
“Well. Work called me,” she says tightly. “They said you didn’t show up. Said you weren’t answering.”
Work. Of course they rang her. She’s been my emergency contact since Matthew died, a safety net I’d forgotten was even stretched under me. But I didn’t think they’d call her because I’ve missed one morning.
Before I can scramble for a lie, she reaches out, pressing the back of her hand to my forehead.
“You feel fine,” she murmurs. “You’re not feverish. So what’s going on?”
Her gaze flicks around the living room, over the discarded contents from my stupid ritual, then she goes completely stock-still.
The knife. The bloodied parchment.
Shit.
“Eden... what the fuck did you do?” she says cautiously. “Have you self-harmed? I knew it. I knew you were spiraling.”
She’s already reaching into her pocket, pulling out her phone. “I’m calling Mom. We’re getting you to the hospital.”
“No!” The word rips out of me and I lunge forward, my fingers catching the casing of her phone just as it begins to ring.
I disconnect it and we scramble in a brief, desperate wrestling match in the middle of the tea-and-salt-stained rug. I manage to wrench it from her grip, stumbling back, chest heaving.
“No,” I gasp, holding it away from her. “Piper, listen to me. It’s not—it isn’t what it looks like. Do not call her.”
“If you didn’t cut yourself,” she says, her hand held out, “then why is there blood on your table, Eden?”
I look at the dried crimson staining the parchment. “Okay! Okay, I did cut myself, but—”
“Fucking knew it!” She snatches the phone back with a snarl of triumph and terror.
“No! Fuck! Piper, just listen to me, it isn’t like that, alright?”
My mind is a frantic, whirring machine. If I let her think it’s self-harm, the sirens start.
The whole family machine grinds into gear.
Dad will have another heart attack from the stress, Mom will start that haunting, quiet crying again, and I’ll be watched every second of every day. I’ll be smothered.
I need a middle ground. Something weird, but ‘grief-weird.’ Not ‘danger-to-myself-weird.’
“It’s a ritual!” I blurt out, the words tripping over each other.
“A what?”