The Demon Dealings

I wasn’t going to let anyone else die.

No, the only one who would die would be Lorna and she would die at my hand. Of that I was sure. It had to be me and only me from here on out. No one else could get involved.

I knew what I had to do. Carys could not remember me for her own sake. Succeed or fail. It was better this way. She would get out of this with her life and that was what was most important to me.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.” Matheas was standing in the doorway as I readied myself to leave.

“She can’t be a part of this any longer.” I replied quietly. “She can’t remember me…”

“If you do this there will be a hole in her memory. She’ll wonder for the rest of her life what was there.”

“It’s better than being dead.” I picked up my bag and headed for the door.

“Some things are worse.”

I brushed passed him, his words echoed him my head but I ignored them knowing I had to do something, anything to stop the bloodshed. To stop her from getting brutally murdered.

Carys was sound asleep when I entered her room. Her curtain let in little to no light from the outside. The only thing I could hear was the soft sigh of her breath.

I pulled a needle from a box I carried in my bag and pricked the side of my finger. I turned her palm upwards and drew my mark on it.

It felt like hours sifting through memories, deleting myself from them. I couldn’t stop. But there was something off, something that Carys knew about Jane.

“You can’t tell me where you’re going.” Carys told Jane who appeared reluctant to comply. “She’ll know. She has some sort of freaky sixth sense…”

“Ok… Just know… this will fix everything.” Jane told her.

“I’m not so sure about that but this is your life. You need to live it.” Carys replied.

“Thank you.” Jane replied.

Carys smiled sadly at her. “Are you going to be there tomorrow?”

“Yes. Nothing’s going down till later in the week.” Jane replied.

“She will look for you if you’re gone too long.” Carys pointed out.

“I know, I won’t be gone longer than a day.”

“Good, now let’s talk about something else…”

The memory faded into darkness. Carys had known that something was happening with Jane. She might not have known what it was or that it would lead to this steep descent into the pit of hell we were heading towards.

It didn’t matter. I would get rid of her memory of that event. I would get rid of everything leading up to this and tomorrow she will wake up knowing nothing. She would wake up without the knowledge of me.

And so I left here there like that. Without her best friend, without her boyfriend, it was almost as if I were leaving here with nothing and everything at the same time. It would be better this way.

I told myself that all the way home. I told myself that as I fell on to the bed and into a deep sleep. I had one last heartbreak, one last person to sever ties with.

Matheas was standing in the dark. There was nothing just him and I in the darkness.

“I think you know what I need to do.” I told him.

“The same thing that you did to your best friend?” Disapproval saturated his tone.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. There was enough tension in the air to reply for me. I was already inside his head that much he knew.

“It won’t work.” He warned me.

“I have to try.”

Matheas and the darkness disappeared replace with a scene, a memory from before the deal was made and Spiros was still here.

Spiros and Matheas stood in Spiros’s living room, staring at each other intensely.

“Why are you still here? Why show up after all this time when you might just leave again?”

“I didn’t leave because I wanted to. I’m bonded to her whether any of us likes it or not. My pack understands that.” Matheas told him.

“Don’t expect her to understand if you leave her for your pack.” Spiros narrowed his eyes at Matheas.

“I am her familiar. I might act like an ass at times but I will never leave.” Matheas deadpanned.

“Don’t forget that. I won’t be around for much longer. This deal will go south, it’s just a matter of when.”

I felt a push and took a step back. We were back to black. Matheas had managed to do what no one else had; he pushed me out, kept me from doing what I wanted to.

“That won’t do you much good. I can feel you in there.” I pulled back, slightly surprised.

“Is that a fact?” I spat.

“Yes. I know a lot more about it than you think I do, love.” He smirked, a far cry from the serious Matheas he had been in the memory.

“But you can’t stop me from doing what I need to do.” I narrowed my eyes at him.

“I’m offended Nash.” He said quite seriously.

“Don’t take it personally.” I was a tad more snarky than I meant to be.

“Oh but I do. How could you possibly think that something like that would work on me? I’m your familiar. Things are different with us.” He looked at me sharply but I ignored the look.

“And things are different with me. Things are different now.” I looked away from him. “I’m not the same person I was a few days ago. I killed someone Matheas and I don’t feel a thing.”

“I know you feel something because I can feel it to.”

Those were the last words he said to me before he disappeared and I woke up with a headache and a stomach full of butterflies.

I jolted out of bed and walked down the hall to Matheas’s room. I did not knock before entering. I knew that he was awake and contemplating what I had told him last night.

“I’m going to kill Lorna. Are you in or are you out?” I already knew the answer to my question but I asked anyway needing verbal confirmation.

He laughed and I frowned, “You’re thinking too far ahead sweetheart.”

“And you’re not thinking far enough!” I cried. “I can’t make a plan without making a goal! And I will kill Lorna.”

“The question is; how do you plan to kill her?” he deadpanned.

“I will give her what she has been angling for this whole time.”

“And what is that?” We both knew the answer but I would tell him anyways.

“Me.” I paused, “She wants me and when I’m close enough I will kill her. It doesn’t matter whether I live or die, it matters that she dies in the process.”

“Do you expect her to come to us? Because I don’t think they don’t operate that way.”

“How would you know?” I asked him with narrowed eyes.

“I’ve been around a lot longer than you have.” Of course he had. He was a shifter and shifters had a tendency to live longer than humans.

“I can’t just walk in there and give myself up.” I replied snarkily.

“Of course you can’t but there aren’t many other ways to do this.”

“I just think she went through a little much to try and turn me so why waste an asset now? I mean Lorna may not come to us but her cronies will.”

“Are you trying to say that I should just let you get kidnapped, that I should let them take you?” He was skeptical of the plan at best.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I am saying.”

“I might not agree with this plan but I will tell you what we need. We need hell’s gate.” Matheas smirked.

“Uh, what?” I felt a slight sense of sorrow at the fact that Spiros was no longer around to teach me any of this stuff anymore.

“It’s a trap for dark walkers.” He informed me. “No evil being can get out of it if done correctly.”

“And I’m going to need to trap her in one.” I replied slowly.

“I’m going to trap her in there. Along with all of her minions, all you have to do is make sure she doesn’t notice.”

“In other words I have to wing it.” I replied, not amused.

“Something like that.”

Matheas and I went over the details somewhat before I left to return home. The last place I wanted to be considering both my parents were dead one of which I found scattered throughout the house. So instead I took a detour to Spiros’ house.

I felt safer there.

There is a certain aura about houses when they are abandoned. When their owner has been killed or in this case sent back to hell. It felt somewhat bitter. I had lost a lot during the time I had been here. I could chalk it up to my curiosity but somehow I knew that it was more than that. That this would have happened with or without my will to find my missing friend.

The first thing I saw when I walked in was a picture frame. I didn’t know who was in the picture or if the frame even held a picture, for that matter I just picked it up and threw it across the room.

I cried out in rage. I grabbed a vase sitting on the end table and threw that as well. I turned over the end table rage filled my veins. I ripped pictures and movies from the wall unit, smashing them on the ground. I grabbed the entire thing and slammed in to the floor.

Broken glass, electronics and other valuables from the once very nice wall unit littered the floor.

I took a deep breath and fell to my knees.

“Why?!” I cried “This wasn’t supposed to happen!” I cried out in rage again but I could quickly feel it fading.

I stood up and walked over to the only thing in the room left intact; the couch.

I sat on Spiros’s couch recounting the amount of knowledge I had taken in on that couch. It had seemed that my life was turned upside down in that very place. Everything I knew was not all it was made out to be.

I closed my eyes for a moment, allowing myself to feel the pain. To feel what I had not been able to feel because there were more important things at hand. A tear rolled down my face. I felt like it was my fault that I lost everyone because of the choices I had made. I almost wished it had turned out differently.

When I woke up I hadn’t realized I had fallen asleep. I was still sitting on Spiros’ couch oddly enough in the same place. I had hardly moved at all. I opened my eyes and let out a long breath. I turned my head to the right. I could only make out a figure before I was knocked out.

“Witch! She’s a witch!”

There was an outcry within the town. The villagers began to grow angry blaming the accused of crop failures, missing goods and even the death of a loved one. It seemed as if the raging mob doubled in the blink of an eye and the accused was quickly snatched from her place in the market.

She snarled wildly, adding to the ever growing mob’s hatred.

“You will not escape this Melinda Warren!” The accused cried to her accuser.

Afraid of what the witch would do, Melinda scurried away from the mob and towards her home to her family.

Melinda Warren was not a bad person. She was just a simple farmer’s wife in Salem Massachusetts. Her husband was a humble man with one son and one daughter to look after while Melinda got their much needed supplies at the market.

Now the mob had over turned most of the stalls and seasonal vegetables and fruits were scattered and stomped across the ground. Melinda paid no mind to this as she ran home to inform her husband of the news.

“Josiah!” Melinda cried once she had stepped through the door, “There is a witch! I have seen it with my own two eyes.” She told her husband the moment he stepped up to meet her.

“And who is the accuser?” He asked calmly, as if this were every day for him.

“I am.” Melinda stated bravely.

Josiah looked at her warily, knowing very well who she was talking about. The run ins they had with the very woman had been enough to put Josiah on edge.

“Come, the trail will be over shortly we must go.” Josiah told his wife as he slipped on his coat.

Confused, Melina followed Josiah back into town where the mob hauled a now bald accused witch. Melinda look on horrified but relieved at the same time. Josiah on the other hand felt afraid for his wife.

The watched as the towns people tied the witch to the stake and gathered bunches of straw. As the set about their work the sky grew darker. It was only midday and already cloudy at that, but somehow the light dissipated slowly.

The witch was muttering something.

The fire was lit.

“Melinda Warren.” The witch no longer sounded like a woman, she no longer sounded human, “I curse you. I curse you and your daughters after you. I curse the accuser with the accused.”

Melinda looked on worriedly and Josiah began to drag her away from the scene realizing the mistake he’d made. The fire was roaring and all she could hear was the witch shouting at her in Latin. No screams of pain just her voice carrying over the wind.

It was not natural.

Josiah sat Melina on the couch once they got home, her shaking form no longer being able to stand. Melinda was rattled, she was rattled to the core.

“What do you think it means?” She asked her husband quietly.

“I don’t know but we should not dwell on it.” He gave Melinda a concerned look as she nodded numbly.

“Maybe I should rest…” She slowly got up from her spot on the couch. Josiah took her hand and led her to their room.

She set on the bed for a few moments and Josiah took it as a hint to leave. Once alone she let out a breath. In her gut she could feel a sense of terror, of foreboding. Something was wrong but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

Melinda laid back on her bed in attempts to calm herself. She closed her eyes for a moment when she finally thought should could get rest but excruciating pain swept through her body.

She cried out in agony. There was something very, very wrong.

The pain came in waves, crushing her beneath their weight. It wasn’t like anything that she had felt in her life. Josiah rushed into the room, having heard her cries. He tried calling out to her with no avail, he push his hand on her should but she only cried out more. She cried and screamed in pain until finally Melinda was no longer Melinda.

“Hello Josiah.” She grinned manically at the man.

“Melinda, what’s wrong? Are you alright?” His concern for his wife was touching but not enough to get through to her.

“Not Melinda and we don’t need you anymore.” She stepped on to the floor and walked towards him slowly.

“I don’t understand…” He backed away from her slowly but she continued to advance.

“You don’t have to.” She let out a feral cry and jumped on him.

“Melinda! What-“ he was cut off when in a feat of strength she snapped his neck.

She spit on his corpse, “Melinda isn’t home.”

She exited the room with a smile on her face, “time to cut the ties Melinda.” She laughed as Melinda screamed at her to stop pleaded for the lives of her children but it was too late. She set fire to the house with the children inside taking the lives of the Warren family that day.

She walked through the fields, the Warren house burning behind her. She made her way to the forest.

A man, not much older than Melinda wait for her. His eyes were black and his aura radiated with evil. He was a demon ready to make a deal.

“What is your name?” He said in an unnaturally deep voice.

“Lorna.” She responded.

“Well Lorna. Let’s make a deal.”