Page 13 of Devil's Delirium

I had to do what I had to do. I wouldn’t tell him ahead of time, though. He’d want to use me as an ally, and I’d need space from him and his orders to think through my plans.

I heard a series of shuffling noises, and Ivan stomped out the back door without a word. A cold numbness spread from my chest to my hollow gut. The pure terror of what my entire life had led to. A loud thump from outside brought me out of my haze, whipping my attention to the front door. I raced across the room to see an entire group of starlings lying on the sidewalk, having flown into the window and snapped their necks.

“A harbinger of the darkness to come.”

Chapter Eight: Wilde at Heart

Tess

“Well, I have beensaying you need to find a way out of this place.” The voice came from a shelf by my workstation. “How fortuitous.”

Oscar had managed to stay silent all day. He’d always been wise enough not to let Ivan know about him. I was still constantly impressed that he managed to keep his mouth shut, so to speak, no matter what horrifying shit my boss said.

But then, Oscar has never been dumb. He sold the parts of his soul he didn’t need to a demon for eternal consciousness when he was on his deathbed over a hundred years ago and now resided in a crystal skull. When I met him in a curio shop where he was for sale on a display shelf, he somehow convinced me to buy him. I was as shocked as you’d expect to be if a crystal skull whispered to you out of nowhere, but he’s always been persuasive.

When I got him home, he told me he hadn’t spoken to anyone in decades, but boy, did he make up for it with me.

I dragged myself back to my station so I could clear it and get home. “Hardly. He’ll win, and then he’ll come back. Who knows what he’ll be capable of?”

“Well then, you have to stop him.”

I began wiping down the gleaming stainless steel surfaces. “There’s nothing I can do, Oscar. I’d die in that competition, and Ivan owns me until he doesn’t want me anymore.”

“So you’re just going to let him go and come back more dangerous than ever? If I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath that freedom is around that corner.”

“Thanks, that’s encouraging,” I said, scrubbing the last traces of ink. “You’re right, though. He’ll probably kill me to squeeze out every drop of magic he can.”

“And yet you’re still here.”

There was no denying the obvious. Oscar knew it; I knew it. The universe knew it. But I couldn’t say it out loud. I loaded the equipment into the autoclave for sterilizing and turned it on. “What would you suggest?”

“Join the games, Tess. There must be a spell, a ritual, a demon you can summon.”

“I’m not summoning a demon to double down on his mistake.”

“He’s not got a demon, just a piddling little… essence of demon. It’s pathetic, really.”

I raised an eyebrow. He didn’t have eyes to see, but he still managed to sense everything a human would. “And yet you hide."

"I’m just saying if you summoned a demon, it would easily solve your problem.”

“At what price, though, Oscar?” I knew he was right. I didn’t have a death wish, but I did feel a sense of responsibility. If Ivan walked out of that house a psychotic god because of me and reigned terror onto the city or worse, I couldn’t live with myself anyway.

“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery,” he announced for the thousandth time.

“And I would have agreed before all this happened.” I organized my tools, placing each one back in its designated spot and leaving the bottles of vibrant ink neatly arranged on the counter, ready to be used for the next day’s creations. And when everything was done, I said goodbye to Oscar and locked the door.

As I locked up the shop and stepped out into the cool night air, the weight of my decision pressed down on me. I knew I’d have to tell Addie eventually—my best friend deserved to know why I might not come home after Halloween. But not tonight. Tonight, I just wanted to pretend everything was normal for a few more hours.

I pulled my jacket tighter around me and started walking, not toward home, but to the all-night diner where Addie worked two nights a week. I’d sit in her section, order my usual coffee and pie, and we’d chat about mundane things during her breaks. We’d laugh about her latest Tinder disaster or gossip about the other regulars.

And all the while, I’d be memorizing every detail of her face, every cadence of her laugh. Because soon, I’d have to tell her that I was voluntarily walking into what would likely be my death. But not tonight. Tonight, I just wanted to be Tess, the best friend, one last time.

Chapter Nine: Trust No One

Maverick

I stood amidst thefading echoes of applause, my adrenaline still flying high. Sweat and magic lingered in the air as the last match of the night concluded. The ring, alive with the clash of combatants a mere twenty minutes earlier, was now silent.

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