“Eighteen years,” she whispered. “Eighteen years the three of us had together, before it all came crashing down. You see, when you make a deal with Lucifer, you have to be perfect. You have to think of every eventuality and every loophole. If you don’t, you’ll regret it for the rest of your afterlife... and I didn’t think of everything.
“When I made the contract, I thought the only serious threat against our family was the coven’s magic, and so that is what I told Lucifer to protect us from,” she said. “I never for a second thought that technology, tracking, and the internet would advance to the degree it did in the last two decades. All of a sudden, anyone could be found, andanyonecan be tracked.”
“Enough with the fairy tale! Just take me to my sister!”
“At some point, my mother figured out that magic wasn’t going to find us, but technology could do the trick just fine,” she said. “Mother hired someone to find me, your father, and the thing and kill us. With the three of us out of the way, you’d be alone and desperate for the only family you had left—her.”
“No!” I was desperate to cover my ears—block out all the horrible lies she was spouting.
“As far as you were told, your father lost control of the car on a wet, slippery road. He and I died, while the thing ended up in a coma. But of course, she said, that wasn’t the whole story. What truly happened is that the hitman cut our brakes, and Luciferletyour father and me die—choosing only to save his spawn.”
Tears soaked my face. What was wrong with this lunatic? What was she getting from stuffing my ears full of this bullshit!
“But in so doing, he left his spawn without someone to raise it.” More clinking. More scratching. “Despite what you may have been told, it’s not that demons can leave hell when mortals summon them. They can only pass through the closed gates when awitchsummons them through want or need.
“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 hischild.” 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 protectingyouafter 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 magicandtechnology 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 sayhisplan?
“A plan that will open the gates of hell and unleash holy terror on the world above. A plan thatIhave 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 anotherlivingone 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 oftaunting 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.
