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I sunk to my knees on the soft leaves. I shoved my phone into my pocket, tucked the dagger into my boot, and reached out for him, my fingers shaking. I couldn’t bear to touch him. I couldn’t. Surely, it wasn’t him; I couldn’t feel his heat.
I laid my hand against his side. No warmth, no smoldering heat that I’d come to find so much comfort in.Cold. As cold as the icy night air. A little tremble went through him at my touch, and that somehow snapped me out of my dazed terror.
He was alive.
I took his face in my hands, his blood sticky on my fingers. His eyelids twitched but didn’t open, and he gave a weak gasp of pain. “I’m here, Leon,” I whispered. “I’m not leaving you, I promise, I’m not leaving.”
His lips moved, but no sound came out. His hand—the one not attached to his poor, mangled arm—reached for my face and brushed against my cheek. I leaned into him, blood and dirt sticky on his fingers. His eyes twitched again, and this time he managed to open them—bloodshot, one pupil dilated and the other small as a pinprick.
“...coming,” His voice rasped, and he tried again. “Jeremiah…’s coming. Go.”
“Not without you. I’m not fucking going without you.”
“Can’t walk.” He coughed, and I had to hold back tears as he choked on the blood that spattered over his lips. “Can’t...can’t heal. Not...f-fuck...not strong enough.”
Fumbling with my cold, bloodied fingers, I pulled the grimoire page out of my pocket. “Tell me how to do it, Leon. Please. Tell me how to offer my soul. I want you to take it, please. It’ll give you some strength, won’t it? And you can heal…”
His eyes were fluttering closed again, and suddenly, behind us, I heard the sound of footsteps in the trees. They were still far away, but there were a lot of them, and I could vaguely see the beams of flashlights moving in the dark.
“OhRaaaaaelyn! Where are you hiding, girl?” The voice was distant, but familiar, echoing in the silent forest. It was Jeremiah.
My heart was pounding in my chest, and when I looked back down to Leon, I was shocked to see his eyes wide.
“Go.” He tried to shove at me, but there was so little strength in him that it was barely a tap. “Run, Rae. You...you have to…”
“How do I offer it?” I insisted. “I’m not leaving you like this, Leon! Tell me what to do!”
“No time…”
I clutched his bloodied hand, leaning over him, even as the voices grew closer and I could hear Jeremiah’s sadistic laughter carry through the night. “My soul is yours, Leon. It’s yours. Please. Please, tell me how, and I’ll go. Just...please.”
He was struggling to stay conscious, his eyes nearly rolling back. But he grit his teeth, and his finger barely tapped the edge of the paper. “My name...in your flesh...and...blood…”
“Aww, howsweet! You came back for your poor, mangled demon.”
My heart lurched as I turned. Jeremiah stood there, dressed in a white suit, flanked by figures in white robes and masks shaped like the skulls of stags. There was a dozen of them, if not more, standing silent and eerily still as Jeremiah looked at us with a wide smile on his face.
“I see my Reaper did its job. You see, Leon? I told you I’d punish you. Now, Raelynn”—he held out his hand, as if he actually expected me to take it—“it’s time to stop running.”
I don’t know where he found the strength, but Leon shoved himself up. Even crawling, one arm dragging, he put himself between me and Jeremiah and bared his teeth, spitting blood on the ground. Jeremiah tweaked an eyebrow, his expression half amused, half exasperated.
The white-cloaked figures were spreading out around us. I had nowhere to run, but if I couldn’t run, then I would fight. My fingers twitched, ready to reach down for the dagger in my boot, until I realized I couldn’t move.
Jeremiah’s eyes were locked onto mine, and they were pale as fog. It was as if I was staring at him from the end of a long tunnel, nothing but darkness around me, and his form was wavering, morphing,mutating. He was shaking his head, and holding out his hand still, but it wasn’t a hand anymore. It was a tentacle, gray and thick, slithering through the leaves as his entire form seemed to grow, so huge and so unnatural that it was impossible to look at him without falling to my knees in abject horror.
The vision shattered as Leon attacked him. Jeremiah caught Leon by the throat and wrenched him down, the injured demon’s strength sapped away. As Jeremiah shoved Leon to the ground with a single hand, he snapped his fingers and said calmly. “Take her.”
Hands seized me from behind, my arms pinned to my sides. I struggled, kicking and screaming as hard plastic bit into my wrists, zip ties tightening to keep me restrained. I threw my head back, trying to bite the arms tightening around me. Cloth was suddenly pressed over my mouth and nose, a smell like sweet acetone flooding into my head.
I stumbled, my muscles going limp and my limbs refusing to obey. My head swam, my vision faded—the last thing I saw was Jeremiah smiling as he approached, Leon limp on the ground behind him.
God was calling my name.
The voice sounding in the dark, in the cold, stroking its subtle influence around my skull was not just calling me butsummoningme, demanding I answer. It was the voice I’d heard for months, the one that haunted my dreams, my nightmares. It was louder now. It was close.
I couldn’t wake up, but I couldn’t truly sleep. I was trapped in my own body, screaming wordlessly when I heard movement around me, when I felt the pinch of a needle in my arm. They were keeping me unconscious, keeping me helpless. It felt like an eternity had passed...or maybe it was only hours.
All I knew, with a certainty that made every inch of me feel cold, was that I was going to die.
