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“Then help me,” I said. I wasn’t going to get through a barrier like Callum. I’d end up as a bloody pulp on the floor. I needed the witch to cooperate. “My sigil is all I need. And you’ll never be bothered with me again.”
She frowned, and her hand went protectively to her pocket again. Her expression hardened as she said, “I’m willing to give you your sigil, Leon. But you need to promise me something.”
“Demons don’t make promises.” Not technically true, but I wasn’t about to jump into making promises to a witch. “Unless you’re trying to make a deal?”
Callum growled at my suggestion, an angry dog worried over his bone. It was a silly thing to suggest anyway: Everly had clearly already given him her soul. Souls weren’t able to be offered in parcels, it was all or nothing.
Everly wrapped her hand around his arm, and his growling stopped. The softness of her touch made me remember Rae sitting on my lap, and how gentle her hands were while she cleaned my wounds, and something bizarrely warm seemed to leak through my stomach.
Was she safe? Had I been gone too long? What if she—
“I need you to keep Raelynn alive,” the witch said. The demand was so unexpected, my confusion must have shown on my face because she said quickly, “Time is running out. The Deep One is restless, and my father knows it. If he gets Raelynn, then I…” She took a deep breath. “I might not be able to kill the God.”
I barked out a laugh. “You—what? You’re trying to kill the God?” Surely, she was joking. It was a terrible joke, but still. “You can’t be—”
“She means it,” Callum said roughly. “I’ve been alive long enough to see gods die, hellion. They’re not above death.”
“I’m going to put an end to all this.” Everly reached into her pocket, and at last, she drew out the damned little book. “The Deep One never should have been awoken, and It never should be freed.” She flipped through the pages, her fingers moving rapidly as if she already knew exactly where to turn. She tore out my page, my sigil emblazoned across it, and held it up. “You say youthinkyou love her, but it’s clear that you do. It was clear the moment Kent told you to take her.”
Love.What an awful, beautiful, terrifying word.
There were only a few beings I’d ever dared grant it to. The one human I’d dared utter it to, before Raelynn, well—I’d regretted it. I’d learned just how much it hurt to lose alovedthing. I’d promised myself I’d never experience that again. I wouldn’t bother. It wasn’t worth it.
Yet here I was, so goddamn certain that in every way, she was worth it.
“I’ll do what I can,” I said, when what I wanted to say was that I’d kill anything that tried to hurt her, and if keeping her safe meant stalking her every damn day to make sure she didn’t fall into trouble, then I’d do it. “But I’m not a guard dog.”
I expected Everly to insist, but instead it was Callum who smirked and said, “You don’t hide your feelings for the human woman very well.” He turned and wrapped his arms around Everly so that she was tucked up under his chin, and muttered, “He’ll protect her. Send him off. I want to continue our game.”
Her cheeks flushed red, and as she extended her hand to give me the sigil. I noticed for the first time the imprint of braided rope around her wrists.
Fuck. I’d want to hurry back to that game too.
Taking that sigil into my hands felt surreal. I almost expected it to crumble into ash the moment my fingers touched it. The last record of my name on earth, my last tie to this place. My freedom.
I could leave. I could never look back. There was nothing to keep me here anymore. Nothing.
Except…
I folded the paper up and tucked it into my pocket, and turned for the door without a word. It was no concern of mine if the witch killed the God, or if all of Abelaum burned, or if humanity itself was wiped out under the heel of a sadistic God.
But Raelynn? She was mine. I wasn’t about to give up what was mine.
“Damn, is this a house or a modern art museum?”
Inaya chuckled at me, my nose pressed to her car window as she drove up the winding driveway to the Hadleigh’s house—estate, mansion, literal museum perhaps. The place was massive, tucked back among the trees of their sprawling, stone-walled property. “Girl, I told you it’s excessive. You’ve never been to a party like a Hadleigh party. Their place is unreal.”
Unreal was accurate. The house had been constructed in such a way that the upper floor was larger than the first, like it was floating above the ground. It was all hard edges, steel, concrete, wooden beams, and massive glass walls. I could see the crowds gathered on the upper floor through the glass, dancing to the thumping bass that I didn’t even need to exit the car to hear.
A knot of anxiety had been growing tighter in my stomach with every day leading up to October 31st, and this legendary Halloween party that half the university campus suddenly seemed to be talking about. I guess I was now regarded as having some kind of “in” with the Hadleighs, because I’d gotten approached more than once by people on campus that I didn’t even know, asking if they could get an invite or if the party was, “just, like, open to everyone?”
Stepping out of the car, dressed in an orange sweater, short skirt, and knee socks as Velma from Scooby-Doo, only solidified that anxious knot inside me. I didn’t feel safe here. In fact, I was certain Iwasn’tsafe here, but what the hell could the Hadleighs do with so many people around? Sacrifice me in the middle of the crowd like some kind of morbid Halloween stunt?
Not only that, but the sun was setting. Twilight’s pale golden light streamed through the trees, but the shadows lay thick beneath them. In that darkness, I knew what was lurking. I knew the monsters would follow me here, watching, waiting for the opportunity to grab me.
Their gross severed heads had seemed to do their job to keep them away from my yard, but those things were nearly rotted now. I’d kept sleeping over at Inaya’s, since Trent was away on a business trip she enjoyed the company. But I’d started hearing the howls again at night, even from her apartment. Inaya thought it was foxes screaming, but I knew better. I knew what hid in the dark.
I wasn’t here to get drunk, but I was certain I’d need the liquid courage anyway. Somewhere in this house, there had to be something that could help me. A weapon, or maybe some clues to make the monsters leave me alone. Maybe some kind of spell to make the God lose interest in me.
