Page 7 of Each Their Own Devil

There was a part of her whose spine seized with fear. The human in Aleja remembered that Marc had been drunk. That all he had seen of her was a foreign girl with a distracted brother who would forget about her the minute she was out of sight. A girl who he knew had cash and no way to call for help, because the wild bassline from inside would cancel out even the most high-pitched of screams.

Unlike Marc, his companions did not sway on their feet. There were two: one man with closely cropped hair, like his skull was dusted by rose gold, with a thin scar across his right cheek. The other was very pale with dark hair and a gaunt, vampiric face. Both watched her with glittering narrow eyes.

But there was another part of Aleja now. The part who had killed a Dark Saint. The part who had undergone three Trials where she had been forced to confront the worst parts of herself. The part that had become the Lady of Wrath in a time of war and made a bargain that she would rip out the Messenger’s heart with her own hands.

That part was not afraid. That part was angry.

“Hey. Are these your friends?” she said, slurring her words.

“They are. They heard you wanted to party and decided to join us,” Marc said. In the red glow of the exit sign, he took a step forward, one hand shoved into his pocket.

“I changed my mind. I need to get back to my brother. He’ll be looking for me,” Aleja said. “Just let me bum a cigarette first, would you?”

She said the words before realizing why. Alejawantedto give Marc one last chance to walk away. Maybe not a chance to redeem himself after what he had done to Josephine, but a chance to show that he didn’t deserve the fate she had cooked up for him.

“Look at the little lamb,” said the man who resembled Dracula. “You were right, Marc. She seems delicious. Don’t be boring. Let’s go have a night to remember.”

Shadows vibrated against her skin in anticipation.

“I already told you, I don’t want to,” she said.

The man with the reddish-blonde hair moved first, flanking her to the left. As if they’d practiced this exact move before, Marc darted right, closing the distance between them so quickly that he could have grabbed her before she managed to open the heavy door again.

“Damn,” she breathed.

“Don’t worry, lamb,” Dracula said. “We’ll make sure you have fun.”

“I wasn’t disappointed for me. I was disappointed foryou. There is something I didn’t want to have to show you,” she said. Her palms warmed with fire, but in the red glow of the exit sign, it was impossible for anyone to tell but her.

“It’s okay, baby. You can show us anything,” Marc said. This time, he reached for her wrist, snatching it before Aleja’s hand moved away. At the heat, he hissed and pulled back. A momentpassed before the smell of smoke filled the air, another until it was followed by that of burning flesh, and one more until Marc roared with pain as the sensation finally awakened his nerves.

The other two men exchanged wide-eyed glances before their attention snapped to Marc, who was cradling his hand against his chest. Already, a stream of yellow pus seeped out from between his index and middle fingers.

“What the fuck was that?” he hissed.

Nicolas’s shadows trembled against her with barely suppressed rage. If she didn’t end this, the Knowing One might do it for her.

“You really should have listened to me. I was trying to save your lives. I wanted to warn you: you didn’t corner a lamb. You cornered a wolf,” she said.

That line was cool, right? I think that line was pretty cool, she said.

Not bad for a first-timer, Nic’s shadows whispered back.

The man with the rose-gold hair barked, “She burned him! She’s a damn witch.”

No. Aleja was one of those beings even the bravest witches warned against contacting. She allowed the flames to engulf her entirely, the heat licking at her skin without harm. In the faint reflection of a puddle, she caught a glimpse of herself, her armor stripped of its glamours by the fire.

The men managed a few frantic steps before the shadows merged with her flames, shifting their colors to flickering shades of blue and violet. As the dark fire left her hands, it expanded—grew—taking shape until it resembled three of Garm in his monstrous form. Hulking beasts, as if they had clawed their way up from the pits of the earth where survival depended on smoke and sulfur.

With a single nod from Aleja, the three beasts pounced, each striking their target with unerring precision. If the men triedto scream, their lungs were too choked with smoke to produce more than rasping gasps.

“Where were you going? I thought we were going to have fun,” Aleja said with a pout.

Marc twisted beneath the creature’s grasp, but the motion only served to scorch another section of his skin as it clamped an enormous paw down on his shoulder.

“What are you— Someone, help!” he managed through a smoke-filled throat.

“I am the Dark Saint of Wrath, and you’ve made an enemy of me, Marc,” Aleja said, crouching beside him. She did not think she was enjoying this. These were bad men, but perhaps they hadn’t always been. They’d been young once—little boys who probably liked to dig up earthworms, ride their bicycles, and dream about how much ice cream they would buy themselves when they grew up.

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