Chapter Thirteen #3
“That is why he was so desperate for a witch of his own blood. Especially, a blood witch,” she said.
“The thing gave him a very tenuous bridge that allowed him more freedom of movement than he had in three hundred years. The freedom to leave hell in the name of protecting his child.” She spat the word as if it didn’t apply to Dora.
“That is how he was able to save it from the crash, and how he was able to continue protecting you after the contract between us ended,” she explained.
“If you hadn’t decided to become it’s guardian and raise it after I died, he would’ve abandoned you to whatever fate my mother had in store for you.
It’s because you chose differently that he hid the two of you from magic and technology for four additional years. ”
She scoffed. “A fact he’s loved reminding me of whenever I’ve mourned the derailing of your future. Apparently, your future would’ve been derailed by my mother anyway, so I have no right to complain about you giving up your life for his creature. Smug bastard.”
“Garbage. Lies. Bullshit. Nonsense,” I thought, dismissing every word out of her mouth.
“But that is the past, my sweet girl. Now, I have to tell you what brought us all here,” she said. “As I told you, making a deal with the devil is the one thing a witch can never do. Once I signed on the dotted line, the goddess abandoned me and let me be cast into hell.
“What you likely don’t know—because demons are too stupid to figure it out—is that humans aren’t sent to hell without souls.
We have our souls when we pass. What actually happens is that our souls are immediately snatched from us by the lords of hell in a horrific ritual that gives them power, but turns us into nasty, twisted creatures with horns, scales, tails, fur, black blood, and red eyes.
We become something that is no longer wholly human. ”
Why is it that of all the things she told me, I had no trouble believing the lords of hell were stealing souls and lying about it?
“But when I crossed, Lucifer let me keep my soul, and with it, my body and memories. Why did he do this?” she put out. “Why else? He did it because from our very first meeting, he’s been carrying out a plan that’s taken twenty-two years to come to fruition, but will finally commence today.”
Wait, wait, wait... Did she just say his plan?
“A plan that will open the gates of hell and unleash holy terror on the world above. A plan that I have been willingly and diligently working to make a success.”
“What? Willingly?”
“I can guess what you’re thinking without needing to hear it,” the fake said. “You’re wondering why I would go along with any plan of his after he failed me and let me die, but honestly, on the very first day in hell when he rescued me and told me what he sought to achieve, all of my anger faded.
“This was always the only way this could’ve ended.” Clink. Clink. Clink. “And now I’m going to tell you, sweetie, so that you understand why Mommy had to do all of these seemingly terrible things.
“You see, three hundred years ago when the foremothers created the spell that locked the gates of hell, they collectively destroyed all traces of the act, and then committed suicide.”
I’d have gasped if anyone could’ve heard it.
“But because what they did was considered the greatest act of service and sacrifice, they all ascended immediately to heaven, and hell never had a chance to get their hands on them,” she said. “But Lucifer is nothing if not the master of playing the long game.
“First, he needed a soul contract with a powerful Avos witch raised in all of their knowledge and secrets.” I imagined her gesturing to herself.
“But because the signing of the contract itself would result in said witch—me—immediately losing my connection to the goddess, he needed another living one to lend her blood and blood magic to the spell. That is where you came in.”
I frowned. But that doesn’t—
“I once again can guess what you’re thinking. How can that apply to you when you also signed a contract with the devil? And the explanation is simple, sweetie. You didn’t.”
Shock whited out my mind.
“You saying the forbidden words dragged Lucifer out of hell, there’s no doubt about that, but what happened after was very much in his control,” she said.
“He made a complete show of taunting you, prodding you, and making you believe you forced him into a contract that gave you the upper hand, but I bet when your name was signed, you didn’t sign it with your own hand. ”
My breaths came in rapid pants. Casting back to that day, I couldn’t deny it. I didn’t sign the contract myself. The quill just stole my blood and wrote it for me.
“A deal with Lucifer must be entered into willingly, and yes, something as small as him writing your name for you makes it automatically void. So even though it looked real to you, it never was.”
“Oh no... Oh no...” I was starting to do something terrible.
I was starting to believe her.
“But what you did do willingly was demand he help you get into hell, and contract or no—your passage was secured. After all, the gates are only closed on this side.” She sighed deeply.
“A long game. From the beginning, he was plotting. From the start, he was scheming, and it’s only now that I see his intentions.
“This is why he forced me to be kind to it and treat the both of you the same. This is why I wasn’t allowed to get between the two of you and hurt the creature by forcing you to ignore it.
It’s all because Lucifer needed to be sure that when he reclaimed the thing and brought it back where it belonged, you would risk everything to come after it.
Even if it meant chasing it to the depths of hell. ”
My tears ran in earnest. Soundless, hiccupping sobs heaved my chest. Why was she saying these things? Why was she speaking about Dora this way? This can’t be my mother. This can’t be the sweet, kind woman who laughed under the covers with us as she read us bedtime stories. She can’t be!
“And as soon as you entered the academy grounds, the plan was set in motion,” she said.
“You were raised free of magic, so it was down to me to complete the ritual. But because I’m a demon now, and no longer a witch, the only magic I can cast is dark magic—and dark magic requires a price.
And there is no stronger currency than—”
“Sacrifices.”
“Hatred.”
What did she just say?
“That is what those murders were meant to achieve,” she continued.
“Hatred against witches. Hatred against each other. Hatred in all its vile and most violent forms. But what I never wanted is for you to become the focus of that hatred,” she said.
“When I knocked you out in the library, I was going to carry you back to your bed, but then that fae boy burst in.
I had no choice but to leave you, and it all went wrong.
“But, that’s all in the past now,” she went on. “You’re safe now, and I was able to channel all the hatred from that fae brat’s little witch burning into pure magic. Now we have everything we need to open a window into the past, and discover what spell the foremothers used to close the gates.”
She snapped her fingers and suddenly I was upright and spinning around. Just like that, I was faced with the scene she didn’t want me to see too soon—in case I might overreact.
I took a single look, and screamed.
A scream that ravaged my throat and shredded my heart, but did nothing to block out the raving lunatic that used to be my mother.
“Once the gates are open,” she said as she moved around the edge of the pentagram, placing items where she needed them, “hell will unleash on earth, and Lucifer has promised me that the first to die will be the Avos coven,” she gritted, her voice rotted with the same hatred she forced upon Abaddon.
And deep in Abaddon, we found ourselves in a large, bare, stone room. A massive black pentagram dominated the floor. At each end of the five-pointed star, there was a jar of black blood, severed wings, a desiccated heart, and a pair of golden eyes.
“My mother and the only family she ever fucking cared about will pay for killing my husband, snatching me from my daughter, and forcing me to give birth to a beast just to get away from their control.”
I don’t even think she was talking to me anymore, because I was fairly sure that last horrible comment was directed at the young woman lying still in the middle of the pentagram.
Dora.
“Dora,” I screamed uselessly. “Dora, it’s me! I’m here! Wake up! Please, wake up!”
She couldn’t hear me, of course. She probably wouldn’t have heard me even if I wasn’t spelled silent.
Dora looked exactly as she did the night she was taken.
The same dress. The same hairstyle. The same butterfly shoes.
The same bits of food on that dress, shoes, and on her hair from the last meal we shared together.
A meal that ended up all over her when the demons took her in the dining room.
It looked like she’d been immediately spelled into a coma, and left to rot for almost two months.
The two months she waited for me to come and rescue her.
“But, you don’t need to be scared,” she told me.
“When hell is unleashed, we will be too. Together, we’ll leave this wretched place and be reunited with your father.
” She turned a sweet smile toward the ceiling.
“He’s in heaven of course, and unlike hell, heaven is not a prison.
Those who ascend can always return to a mortal life—albeit through reincarnation.