Chapter 5 #2
Every terrifying thought I could possibly conjure up flooded to the forefront of my mind.
The main one being that the man from the bar somehow managed to stalk me home.
So this is it, this is how I die. I was going to be murdered in my home by a greasy man in a pinstripe suit; I was going to be murdered in front of a cat that wasn’t mine, and because I couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t feast upon my dead body, I was sure my crime scene would be tainted, meaning they would never catch my attacker and—
Ugh, how fucking cliché.
My eyes darted from the triple lock and the chain latched on my door to the small digital clock sitting next to my coffee machine.
3:41 am.
Not an appropriate time for visitors. I pulled out my phone to see if either Esme or Isaac had texted but my last text from Isaac was when he was drunk on Halloween and my last text from Esme was at 10:27 pm.
“Rewatching She’s All That. I’ll take Freddie Prince Jr. with a side of fries any day!
” We were very much in agreement on that.
The same rhythmic knock sounded from the other side of my door again.
Okay, maybe they had the wrong apartment.
That was a logical conclusion, right? Someone in the building was having a late-night booty call, and they had just mistyped the number, and now whoever it was, was banging on my door instead of theirs and—
The knock was getting forceful and more irritated by the minute.
And with that, every alarm bell began to go off in my body like I was a fucking church.
I did everything in my power to stay silent as I crept over to my kitchen and pulled the only knife I owned out of the drawer.
Bread knives have the power to maim, right?
Mortimer jumped up on the counter behind me and began to meow aggressively.
“Oh my god, do you want to get us both killed?” I hissed, grabbing him before tiptoeing into my bedroom and throwing him onto my bed.
The look he gave me was part rage and part betrayal.
“You do not have permission to feast on my carcass,” I growled before whipping around to face my door at the end of the hallway.
I shuffled forward slowly, listening to the way my blood rushed in my ears. I swallowed down the vomit, which was halfway to my mouth, before peering out the peephole.
I clutched the knife in my hand a little tighter, keeping the “What the fuck?” that I desperately wanted to scream quiet as I continued to peer at the man standing on the other side of my door.
Tall.
Broad Shoulders.
Red Hair.
What the fuck is he doing here? First of all, how does he know where the fuck I live? Second of all, what in the fucking fuck? Not only was this a massive invasion of privacy, but if this was some weirdly strange attempt at being romantic, it was falling on deaf ears.
I punched 911 into my phone, blessing the technology gods for allowing me this one reprieve to type it in correctly the first time before taking a few more steadying breaths.
The last thing I would allow myself to be was a statistic, a news reel, or another tragic story of a young woman lost too soon. Not today motherfucker.
I cleared my throat and spoke in the most authoritative voice I could come up with in my current state (I most likely sounded like a teenage boy going through puberty with the number of voice breaks I suffered).
I was wearing tiny celestial patterned shorts and a matching vest and my fluffy Birkenstocks.
My legs had all but goose-fleshed, and my knees were about thirty seconds from giving out completely.
I told myself I was the pinnacle of intimidating, anyway.
“Who are you and what do you want? If you don’t leave, I’m calling 911.”
The broad man on the other side of the door stiffened before standing up straighter. He must have been at least 6’4 or 6’5 and towered well above the peephole of my door. His jaw seemed clenched in response to my threat, as if any other sane person wouldn’t do the same.
“What the fuck do you want?” I repeated, anger shrouding any fear I currently felt.
“I was summoned.” Oh God, this man needs to be institutionalised. He wasn’t all there. Why was I even bothering to converse with him? Call the police, Quincey.
But I didn’t. Call it a lack of self-preservation. Maybe it was his unbelievable attractiveness or fiery red hair; either way, I just stood there. Bread knife in one hand and phone in the other, a cat’s persistent meowing as the theme tune for whatever the fuck was currently going on.
“I didn’t understand what you meant by that yesterday, and I still don’t today, okay?” I spoke through the door with a curt voice, or at least I tried to. Although the door was deadbolted and double locked, I could still feel my breath hitch in my throat.
“You…” I heard him snarl from the other side of the door. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“I’m telling you, I’ll call the police if you don’t leave.”
“Call them. They won’t make it to the top of these stairs alive,” he snarled through the door. What the fuck does that mean? He could not possibly think he could take on multiple officers, could he? I mean, he was tall, clearly worked out. Probably had a chest that rippled with muscle…
Jesus, Quincey, the first crush you’ve had in years and it had to be on a psychopath.
I had no idea what to do. This was one of those situations you never really thought about or prepared for because you never thought it would happen to you.
And then it did, and you were left wondering why you never played it out as a real-life scenario before you took your last breath.
I stepped back away from the door, giving it a wide berth as if the further I got away from it, the safer I was.
“Did you follow me home? Why are you here?” I pleaded, panic seeping back in. “Please, I just want you to leave. I won’t call the police—I won’t tell anyone you were here, I swear. Please just leave.”
I stumbled into the Malediction Codex, still lying on the floor, which almost sent me flying into the new yucca plant I’d just had delivered. I picked up the book and placed it on the breakfast bar before looking over at the door again, too afraid to step closer.
“Are…are you still there?” I called out, my voice sounding feeble and betraying each and every emotion I was trying to hide. Although he probably already knew exactly how I was feeling. He probably got off on it too. Sicko.
I made out more muttering on the other side of the door and one heavy sigh. “Obviously.”
“Why? Why won’t you leave me alone?” I whimpered, stalking over to the door in a flurry of stupidity and anger and maybe courage (but also probably not courage).
I could see the way his shadow danced beneath the door, flickering slightly in the dim light of my apartment. He seemed impatient. Desperate.
“Because someone, I am going to assume you, has been messing with things they do not understand,” he gritted out. What?
Once again, I wasn’t sure if I was scared of the guy or just worried about his mental state. “What are you talking about?”
“My name is Thallor Malphas. I was summoned.”
Malphas. Malphas. Where had I heard that before?
I knew for a fact I didn’t know this man.
He was nine parts crazy and ten parts breathtaking.
If I’d met him before, I definitely would have remembered him.
But nothing. I couldn’t come up with a single reason why I may have come across that name or him before.
It was an odd one. Not one you’d hear in a small town like this.
It sounded foreign. Or made up. Or something that you’d pull straight out of a—
Malphas. The Malphas Treaty.
“There is no fucking way…” I muttered to myself, side-stepping the ring of salt and the massive appendage lying askew on my hardwood floor as I whipped open the Malediction Codex.
A manic laugh escaped my mouth as I tried to make sense of my current predicament.
This wasn’t real. This wasn’t real. Demons didn’t exist…
did they? I mean, I knew I wanted it to be real, but I’d also wanted Santa Claus to be real when I was six years old and look how that had turned out for me.
Maybe this was just a dream. I wasn’t 100% sure it wasn’t.
I slowly approached the door, moving purposefully slow as if not wanting to startle a frightened animal or anger whatever predator was on the other side.
“What are you?” I asked this time, trying to ignore the pounding of my heart, which was so aggressive, I thought it might spring from my chest.
“Given the change in question, I am going to assume you already know the answer to that.”
I was around ninety percent on the way to throwing caution to the wind, but I knew a thing about stranger danger and wanted to ensure it was safe before letting him in. (The irony was not lost on me but beggars can’t really be choosers). “Can you recite step four of the incantation?”
“‘Can I recite step four of the incantation?’ I don’t know what you think this is, human, but you don’t get to make requests until our treaty is in place,” he growled through the door.
“Fine,” I said matter-of-factly. “You can fuck off then.” Please don’t call my bluff. Please don’t call my bluff.
A long, silent pause stretched between us.
And then another exasperated sigh. This time, it was him, not me.
“In the very fibres of my being, exists both want and greed. It’s three wishes I seek, and three wishes I need.
In pact, we’ll be tethered, all wishes made whole.
In return, I offer everything, everything and my soul.
” I wasn’t sure if I was reading into it, but whilst his voice sounded cold and restrained, it also sounded unbelievably tired.
Like he didn’t have the energy to be annoyed at me.
“Okay, cool, so what now? Is this like a vampire situation where I need to invite you inside?” I asked through the door.
If I thought I was bad or awkward in social interactions with other humans, I was at a fucking loss when it came to talking to…
Well, I’m not sure who or what I’m talking to exactly.
Demon? The Devil? A Jinn? A leprechaun on steroids?
And from the other side, all I heard was a deep laugh. It seeped through the crack on the underside of my door and into my ears. Again, it sounded weathered, tired, and possibly a little surprised? As if he wasn’t used to laughing. Again, I was probably reading a little too much into it.
“I don’t make a habit of barging into people’s homes.”
“You did it yesterday.”
“The door was open.”
I wasn’t sure what finally convinced me to unlock the door, but something did. My hands trembled violently as I picked up my key, pushed it into the first lock, and twisted it.
I repeated the action with the second. Push. Twist.
And the third. Push. Twist.
Until there was nothing but the dead bolt shielding me from my stupidity and whatever it was on the other side.
Although I enjoyed old things, I was also a fan of more modern inventions like doctors, vibrators, and rainbow-coloured cereal.
But the singular chain, latched to my door, was as old as the building, which was old but relatively new by today’s standards.
The paint was chipped and the metal rattled slightly in my hand, but I hoped, for my sake, that the chain would do what chains did best as I pressed my hand to the door handle.
But before I did, something insane came over me.
Something ridiculous and unhinged that had me pawing at my clothing.
I rolled my moon-covered shorts up one degree so they sat higher up on my ass, and I pulled at my vest so it accentuated my chest a little more.
Taking one deep breath, I pulled open the door. Dead bolt still secure, of course.