Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Aamon approached Lester and Caldwell, with slow, precise footsteps, kicking blood-soaked corpses out of his way with casual disdain as he moved.
The sound of his footsteps and the smattering of wet, warm liquid continued to turn my stomach over in knots.
The men before him cowered in fear, as they rightfully should.
How quickly the power-hungry fall in the face of true strength.
Aamon disgusted me, but them? I hated them and their insatiable need for power.
I hated the way they had misled this group of people that now lay dead all around us.
Aamon dropped his gaze toward them, cocking his head to the side with an air of indifference.
I wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but I knew what he would find.
Two dirty souls. I wasn’t sure why he sneered at them, though.
This was the behaviour that he sought out.
Relished in. Yet something about the two men before him seemed to sour his stomach just as much as he soured mine.
He looked down at them for a long moment, taking in the trembling forms.
“Pathetic,” he muttered. “Tell me what it is you want.”
Lester stammered, struggling to find his words. “P…p…power,” he managed, glancing at Caldwell, who nodded weakly in agreement.
Aamon raised an eyebrow, his lip curling slightly. “And what is it that I gain in return for this power you so desperately seek?”
The two men exchanged nervous glances as they surveyed the room of dead bodies. It seemed like there was no end to his desire to cause hell. What did he want? What more could he possibly want? More lives to add to the pile? More souls to see rot away?
Lester trembled before pointing a shaky hand toward Isaac and Esme, who were still clutching each other nearby. No. NO. Aamon’s eyes traced my two friends with painstaking slowness before turning his attention back to the two men on their knees in front of him.
“Does this please you, your holiness?”
Aamon’s eyes flickered back to the two men.
A wave of deep-set anger flashed across his face before being replaced by something else more akin to amusement.
He paused, mulling over a range of things I couldn’t see behind the eyes.
I could see my worst nightmares come to life as the cruel smile tore across the demon’s face.
“Very well. Kill them both.”
Caldwell and Lester moved toward them, knives dripping red and shining in the dull light of the church.
Isaac tried to pull Esme away, leaving trails of streaking blood in his wake before Caldwell grabbed Esme, dragging her away by her hair.
Lester was upon Isaac and pushing a knife toward his throat before I’d had a chance to blink, more beads of sanguine liquid forming below his jaw.
“PLEASE! PLEASE!” Esme screamed, a sound so piercing, so deafening, I could barely think straight. Focus, Quincey, focus. I knew that if I didn’t move now, I never would.
Another scream reverberated through the space as Caldwell pulled Esme’s head back by her long, now blood-stained hair. “QUINCEY!” she screams, and for the first time in my life, I never hated my name more. Isaac looked at me with a pained, scared expression.
“The book,” Thallor commanded, as he felt me shift under the weight of his grip. “It’s the only way.”
“Okay,” I said quietly, looking at him for what might have been the last time.
Stay safe, his eyes begged as he looked down at me.
And before I could even process it, I ripped away from Thallor’s grip.
I love you. It’s all I could think as I careened down the rest of the aisle, my legs screaming as I raced forward as quickly as my body would carry me.
My stomach was in my chest, and I could feel my heart beating at the back of my throat.
I didn’t dare look back at Thallor. I couldn’t bear to see the panic I was sure was etched across his face.
Every good memory of Isaac and Esme and Thallor flashed before me as I propelled down the aisle. Every reason why I would do this a million times over. I latched onto those memories like a shining light, storming into the darkness, diving forward.
I landed in the pool of blood as my hand found the teal book–one I wasn’t sure was my salvation or damnation.
My fingers trembled as I picked up the worn cover, not splattered with blood.
“Thallor, I wish you were free of this tether. Of this book. I wish you didn’t have to carry this burden any longer. ”
Power surged across the room, knocking me backward into the cool, hard stairs below the altar.
The little semblance of light in the church disappeared, leaving nothing but an ice-cold chill and an air so thick, I had to physically claw at my throat under the weight of it.
I knew the bonds holding Thallor to the book had broken the moment the atmosphere changed.
For only a moment, I saw the awe etched across Thallor’s face.
That awe quickly evolved into something more angry, more terrifying.
I scrambled backward as Lester and Caldwell began to write in pain, consumed by black flames, their bodies convulsing as the rest of us stared at them in shock.
The smell of death, worse than before, leaked into the space as the acrid smell of charred remains joined the sour metallic smell of severed flesh.
Esme and Isaac crawled toward me as I looked around wildly for Thallor. Before relief could strike at the adrenaline still coursing through my body, a piercing laugh cut through the space. I hate that sound. I hate that sound.
Cruel. Guttural. Harsh. It cut at me from the inside, leaving my soul to bleed invisible blood.
It filled every corner of the room. Rattling against the walls and hitting me from all sides.
I froze as it became louder, harsher. More manic.
I scrambled backward, heart hammering in my chest as Aamon approached; red eyes boring into me with a look of cruel amusement and mild disdain.
I hate you. I hate you. I clung to those words like a mantra.
“Falling in love,” he drawled as though unimpressed by my very existence. “You are nothing but a cliché.”
I just blinked. Unable to focus on anything.
The Malediction Codex hovered beside Aamon, and I felt the power emanating from it.
It was palpable and intense and riled my insides as I looked up at him with wild eyes.
“I have to thank you, human,” he began, voice amused but dripping with malice.
“I’ve been trying to undo that incantation for decades. ”
I looked up at him in confusion. Undo?
The book teetered mid-air, the pages billowing as if caught in a torrent of wind. A violent surge of concentrated energy erupted from the Codex, sending a tendril of black energy into Thallor, and him flying backward, before it disintegrated into ash.
“THALLOR.” The scream that erupted from the depths of my core felt like shards of broken glass as it pulled from my throat.
I felt like my soul had been ripped from my body as he crashed into the row of pews behind with a sound so deafening that the following silence made me want to retch.
Shards of wood flew into the air, benches splintering on impact.
Thallor lay motionless and buried under the wreckage of strewn wood and cracked stone as I raced toward him. “Thallor,” I bawled.
I don’t understand. This shouldn’t have happened. This shouldn’t have…
I dropped to my knees, ignoring the way my knees cut against the stone floor as I looked down at him.
I didn’t know it was physically possible to feel like this.
I screamed words that melted together into one as I pulled at Thallor’s limp body.
Sticky, black liquid oozed from the back of his head, staining my hand and the floor below him.
“Thall…Thallor,” I sobbed. But his body didn’t move.
“I love you,” I choked out behind the gasps of my own ragged breath.
“I love you. I love you. I love you.” I wasn’t sure if he could hear me.
But I repeated the words again and again and again as I held onto his lifeless body.
I poured every part of me into those words, as if the truth of them could undo everything that had just happened.
I didn’t know it was possible to feel like this–to love someone so intensely that their pain felt like yours.
“Please. Please,” I cried, slapping at his face in a futile attempt to bring him back to consciousness.
“You said you’d stay. You said you’d stay.
I love you, Thallor. I love you. Please don’t leave me. ”
I clutched at his body, hoping that it would stop the ache in my chest. I tried to will my tears away so I could memorise the softness of his face and the ever-changing shades of red in his hair.
I listened closely to the way his breath faltered as I begged for one more second, one more minute, one more hour. I want just one more lifetime with you.
When I heard footsteps approach, I instinctively covered Thallor’s body with mine. “Don’t fucking touch him,” I snarled.
Aamon’s eyes flickered over me with a sick satisfaction. He stepped closer, looming over our bodies with his disgusting, overwhelming presence. Any lingering hope was eviscerated in place of feral anger. I knew I was no match for the demon in front of me. But I didn’t care.
“Don’t come any closer. Just leave him the fuck alone.”
“We can let him decide who he wants to go with when he wakes up.” Aamon shrugged, his tone so far removed from the severity of the situation.
“You see, when my brother, the fool that he is, decided to leave all those years ago…you could say that I was bitter about it. One doesn’t simply give up on being a demon, you know.
” The chuckle that escaped him was so malevolent. So full of malice.
His gaze never left mine as he savoured the sting of his words. “I had him tethered to the book. Even for a demon, things come at a price. And his freedom, well, the price for that one was steep. Oh, don’t look at me like that—” Throwing caution to the wind, I spat at his feet.
“Call it brotherly love.” He leaned down slowly, but didn’t move any closer. “Anyway, I knew there was a possibility that eventually someone would try to free Thallor from his prison, so I made sure to put a clause in just in case.”
“If that ever happened… If Thallor ever walked free, well, the energy from the spell was meant to erase everything. Everything that had transpired between us. All of it, gone. From his mind, of course.”
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
What?
No.
“You’re lying,” I screamed, lacing my voice with every bit of ice that I could muster. “Why go to all that trouble? Why not wipe his memories to begin with?”
“Stupid, little human. Where is the fun in that?” And then he sighed. “Cry all you want, he won’t recognise you or the bond you shared when he wakes up.”
“LIAR! You sick fucking liar. You sick fuck.”
He just smirked down at me as Thallor began to stir.
He pushed himself onto his forearms, pulling himself up from the rubble.
I looked at him with wild eyes and tears that streamed down my face, falling with a violent fervour.
Through my blurred vision, I was filled with relief at seeing him breathe again.
In an instant, I was all over him in a flurry of shock, happiness, and desperation.
“I love you. I love you. I’m sorry. I love you. ”
The words poured out of me as I held his battered body against mine. For a fleeting moment, it felt like everything was right in the world.
And then he pushed me away. It wasn’t violent, but it was forceful enough to send my body tumbling backward into the hardened floor. I faltered, looking between him and Aamon.
“Thallor—” I whispered, reaching out for him again, confusion and hurt flashing across my face. I saw nothing behind his eyes. No affection. No recognition. Aamon’s laugh echoed through the space as I looked up at him. I don’t understand. I don’t understand.
His gaze flickered between disdain and disgust as he flinched away from my outstretched hand. He sat up properly, groaning and letting his hand trail to the back of his head, which was matted with blackened blood. There is nothing warm or soft behind the eyes that settled back on me.
“What did you do to me?” he snarled, and I scrambled backward away from him.
I saw the greying, blackened skin course up his arms. Him, this version of him, was alien to me.
He stood slowly, coming to stand beside his brother, looking down at me with an expression that was blank and devoid of all warmth.
Fuck self-preservation.
“FIX HIM!” I screamed, putting every ounce of conviction and hate into the words I sent hurtling toward Aamon.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?! What have you done?! What have you—” Broken sobs were all I could muster as the two demons looked down at me.
To them, I was nothing more than dirt—a vile, disgusting parasite to be discarded and forgotten.
“Come,” Aamon commanded, as he steered Thallor toward the doors of the church.
“Thallor!” I shrieked. “Thallor, please!” Please.
Please. Don’t do this. Don’t leave. My soul belongs to you.
I screamed until my voice was hoarse, and his name was the only thing I knew.
I cried until my eyes were burning and my hands bloody from where I pounded them against the stone floor.
I cried for a numbness that refused to come.
For one brief agonising moment, he stopped. His eyes were a dagger through my heart. I knew I was just trying to convince myself it was there. The ghost of recognition.
I sat amongst the rubble, unable to move, watching the door. But my heart hadn’t even caught up with what my eyes had seen–hadn’t fully registered the goodbye–when the pain started to bloom.
They don’t tell you how thin the line is between a whole heart and a broken one.
When love dies, it doesn’t just turn into mourning or sorrow or grief.
It ignites. It multiplies. It takes hold of you, planting itself deep.
It roots its way into those soft, breakable parts of you until there is nothing else but hurt.
Fairytales and bedtime stories promise magic moments and tied-up happy endings. They don’t tell you about the stories that go wrong. The stories that don’t end quite right. But, I only ever liked the stories with happy endings, I just didn’t realise that ours wouldn’t have one.
And just as easily as Thallor had walked into my life, he was gone.
To be continued…