Page 1 of Monsters After Dark

The Demon’s Bargain

Nora Ash

This is what you get when you’re desperate enough to take life advice from a guy named Barry. Especially if Barry runs a tattoo-slash-corner store in the bad part of town, and smells like he only showers once a year for black Sabbath.

The ritual, not the band.

I gritted my teeth and glared at the tea-aged page containing the “summoning ritual” Barry swore would save my ass.

Honestly, fuck Barry. And fuck me for having gotten myself into a bad enough situation that I was willing to try goddamn witchcraft to get out of it.

“Hear me, hear me. Thrice, I summon thee. A bargain I offer, a bargain I urge. Hear me, hear me. Thrice, I summon thee. Fire and brimstone—” I paused, the ridiculousness of the words making them hard to spit out.

No doubt Barry and his stoner buddies were currently having a great laugh at my expense.

Maybe I should just leave the country? But that route cost money. Money I didn’t have—hence my current predicament.

“Fire and brimstone and ash. Hear me, hear me. Thrice I summon thee—Kurt.”

Kurt?I snorted and lowered my arms. Right. If I made it through the week with my thumbs still intact, Barry was going to regret the day he was born.

Okay, so he’d caught me with my fingers in the till, and convincing me to summon a demon named Kurt was pretty excellent revenge, but for a wild moment, I’d had just a tiny thread of hope. He’d looked so sincere when he handed me that stupid book, told me he knew about desperation, and that he understood most sane people would think him ridiculous for even suggesting it—but he swore up and down that it was real. That I had nothing to lose by trying.

He was right; I’d called him both insane and ridiculous. But in the end, I’d left with a book of “spells,” because when I’d brushed my fingertips over the leatherbound tomb, I’d thought I felt the barest whisper of… something.

Apparently, that something was nothing more than desperation. Quelle surprise.

I dropped said book on the floor and kicked it out of the circle of table salt I’d drawn in preparation for my first and last encounter with goth culture.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I was going to die. The men I owed money to would take my digits first, two at a time. Then my kneecaps. Then my life.

I could try to run. I probably would. They’d find me, of course. There was nowhere on the North American continent I’d be able to hide from this—and even if I’d had the money to leave the country, likely nowhere else. Judging by their accents, they were Russian mobsters, or something to that extent. Definitely internationally connected.

Five more days until they came to collect.

I bent to blow out the five black candles I’d placed around my salt circle, then crossed the floor of the single room that held all my earthly possessions and dropped into bed, clothes, makeup, and all. Skincare is for people who’ll live past twenty-one.

Tomorrow I’d figure out how to slip out of town on a quarter tank of gas. Right now, sleep was the only thing that was going to give me any relief from the fear gnawing through my veins like acid.

* * *

My heart slammedinto my throat, jolting me awake as brutally as if someone had punched me in the face.

I sat up with a gasp and tried to blink the sleep from my eyes, animal instincts on high alert for whatever had ripped me awake.

He was sitting at the foot of my bed, bathed in the dim light spilling in from the streetlamps, and when our eyes connected, he gave me a small smile that made every hair on my body stand on end as pure terror gripped me by the gut.

“I still have a week!” I blurted, scrambling backward on my narrow bed as if an extra couple feet would save me.

Oh, God, no. Please, please no.

“That’s not a lot of time, darling,” the stranger purred, that dangerous smile never slipping from his sensual lips. “How about we do something about that, hmm?”

I blinked, my heart skipping a beat as I took in the smokey rasp of his voice and the way he fixed me with his black eyes, as if he wanted to… to devour me.

I may have found him attractive, under different circumstances. He had jet-black, perfectly tousled hair, high cheekbones, and a soft mouth, and a black leather jacket and white T-shirt clung to what looked to be a well-shaped body. But the whole hitman-lurking-in-my-bedroom thing kinda killed any sexy vibe he otherwise had going.

“No—no, that’s quite alright. I’ll pay,” I squeaked. “But I still have a week. You can leave.”

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