Page 76 of Deal with the Devil

“Penny,” Amelia commanded everyone’s attention with one word. Penny’s lower lip quivered as her fight died down.

“Please, I can’t lose either of you,” Penny whispered.

“Amelia and Brayden will return to you.” Knox stared at Penny in the eye, trying to let her know out of everyone…the backup plan that formed in the middle of the hallway.

Knox was never going to be able to defeat Declan. But the book could…and Amelia was the key to using the book. As long as Amelia was human, she would never be able to do it.

There’s always one surefire way to fix the human aspect.Knox looked at Amelia, cupping her face with a sweaty palm. “We get the book, we kill Declan, and no one will die tonight.”

And it was a lie.

Chapter Thirty-one:

Amelia

Amelia furrowed her brows,a strange sensation washing over her. There was no time to debate what that was or why he said it so strangely. The feeling of the book tugging at her from halfway across the house. Declan was attempting to break into the office.How she knew that, she didn’t want to question.So, bare footed, clutching a baseball bat, and chasing after her fiend through a darkened house, Amelia left her sister in the protective wings of the Lord Commander. Howls of beasts and spawn charging the house were met with the shouts of the enforcers fighting them.

She didn’t have the luxury of worrying about her sister and how they were getting out of this alive. First things first, kill Rick and free Brayden. Then kill Declan…the rest would fall into place.

Must be bothering the shit out of Mr. Plan for my Plans for my Plans.

It was the little light in the dark of the night to think how peeved this improvised Knox had to be for this. When this wasover, and they were laughing over a tub of ice-cream about it…then she’d tease him.

Amelia saw Rick first and came swinging. Before she could land the metal to his scummy head, he whirled around. Brayden screamed from behind Rick’s palms. Knox snatched Amelia before she had a chance to slam the bat into Rick’s head. Brayden thrashed in his father’s hands, clawing at his arms and kicking his feet. Rick wrenched him one way and Amelia yelled. With the butt of the bat, she knocked Rick off Brayden before he could snap the poor preteen’s neck. Knox was arm in arm, wrestling Declan against the wall. Brayden whirled to face his father and kicked him directly in the knee. Amelia followed it up with another swing of the bat. Kick. Swing. Kick. Swing, Brayden and Amelia beat the lanky, slimy waste of space down the hall.

“That’s for my mom!” Brayden snatched the bat from Amelia, bringing it above his head. “And this is for being a dickwad!”

The door to the office clicked open as Brayden brought the bat down. Rick’s chin hit the floor at the preteen’s feet with a hard crack. Amelia snatched the boy by the back of the shirt and wrenched him backward. “Go!”

“Not so fast!” Rick lunged, crawling with a cracked neck after them.

“Amelia!” Knox roared as he tossed Declan away from the door.

She had no time to choose. Something surged within her, like a panic response.There are those stories of mothers lifting whole cars when their kids are trapped underneath.It took over and Amelia saw red. Her hands wrapped around Rick’s throat and she sack tossed him through the doorway. Declan flew after her, claws out and fangs bared.

The door shut behind them, engulfing everyone in darkness as Knox locked them in.

No one in or out…this ends tonight.

Purple flames lit up the walls of the office. The fireplace burst to life with golden light. And yet, it wasn’t enough to cleanse the room of all the dancing shadows. Declan was gone and Rick was painfully face-first under a couch while the rest of him was pulled over the top of it. Amelia tiptoed around the couches, keeping her eyes peeled on Rick. His arms snapped back into place first. Peeling his head out from under the couch. It was twisted backwards, his eyeballs nearly bulging out of his head. He growled at her. “Couldn’t just leave it be, could you? You always were the worst sister. Always sticking your nose where it didn’t belong. Always fighting it. Wouldn’t leave good enough alone.”

“I don’t know how to do that. Not when it comes to them,” Amelia panted for air, scanning the room for Declan. Shadows played with the fabric of the curtains, made monsters of the paint on the wall and the furniture. Once this room was comforting. Then her heart skipped a beat at the crunch of Rick’s spine. He twisted his body back to right again.

Where’s the briefcase?She jerked, scanning the couches. Nothing. No restrained leather cases. No magic teethers. And no eldritch pulses of magic.Fuck, where was the book?

Amelia backed into something firm, and the stench of rot rolled over her.

“No!” Knox sprang from the shadows. A hand clawed down her arms. The sting was excruciating as every inch of her flayed skin broke out in angry, red boils. Something rotten ate at her flesh as she clamped a hand over her bicep. Knox rolled with Declan across the floor. “You don’t get to take her! You don’t get to take anything else from me!”

Amelia caught movement and saw Rick dive toward something. Out of instinct alone and petty rage, she dove for him. Catching him by the torso, she pinned him to the ground beside a couch.Record scratch.Amelia and Rick both slowlypeeked up from the floor of the office. Under the couch, as if it’d chewed through the furniture itself, sat the book. It growled, teeth wiggling in their direction. It spat out cushion and springs in Rick’s face.

It was chaos. Amelia had been in fist fights that turned into brawls. She’d beaten a man’s face in with her bare hands while his friends rooted her on. She’d never been in so much madness as she did in that office. Books flew off the shelves, dive bombing Rick and Declan. Golden flames danced up the fireplace, burning bats that darted around, confused. The creatures screamed in agony before being turned to dust. Rick tossed Amelia off him, scrambling away from a book bound in flesh with teeth. It snapped its jaw open and shut, chasing him around the room.

Amelia climbed cautiously to her feet in time to catch the book and bring it to her chest. The spine slammed into her sternum, and she grunted. All the air was knocked out of her lungs as all the lights in the room turned back on as normal. Regular, blinding white lights filled the room shortly before the bulbs burst, leaving sparks flying everywhere. And in the crackling of glass, bats being roasted alive, Rick screaming as he avoided books like angry magpies, and Knox tossing Declan off him, she the world felt still. The book was still. She was…calm

Knox stood up in the middle of the chaos, panting for air. Sleeves rolled up, blood leaking from his bottom lip, one of his horns cracked and askew, and a pained look on his face. Amelia opened her mouth to speak but no words fell from her lips. With a classic Knox smirk, he winked at her. “Be a good pet.”

“Knox?” Something weighed down on her heart, tugging it into the depths of her stomach.

---