Page 3 of Ex-Mas
“You should have read them if you wanted to know.” He tosses them up into theair and they immediately disappear, then brushes off his hands as he walks toward the door. “See you soon, Lysie. You might want to clean this mess up and close the gate you opened.”
He winks at me and vanishes, his chuckle echoing behind him as I cuss myself out loudly for not realizing I could summon more than one thing.
I got the one I need, so now I just have to go back to the stupid book and figure out how to end it.
Good enough.
2
My heart beats wildly in my chest as I clean up the mess.
What the hell did I just do? Summoning a demon is all fun and games until one actually shows up. The pain in my thumb reminds me I was too fucking stupid to read the contract I signed, and the more I think about it, the more I wish I could take it back.
No demon who presents himself like that wants anything good. He showed up knowing my name, knowing my favorite band, one of my favorite shows. Everything about his entrance was meant to deceive and manipulate and I fell right into it.
I — am not alone anymore.
I look up from the ground I’m scrubbing and freeze when I see my demon lickingblood off of his hand. His nose scrunches up as though it’s disgusting, but when his eyes meet mine, I see nothing but excitement.
“Please tell me you didn’t actually enjoy that,” I grumble. “He’s not even cute.”
“He really wasn’t, and I’m offended you expected me to actually stick my dick inside that. I enjoyed what happened for different reasons though. You want to hear?”
Before I can respond, the room fills with the agonized screams of my former boss, his pleas echoing off the walls before we’re settled in silence again.
Yeah, that’ll do.
Smirking, I stand up to dry my hands. “Are you afraid of catching something? Do demon venereal diseases exist?”
“No. Now let’s go.” He closes the distance between us and grabs my arm. “Say goodbye to this miserable world.”
“What?” Jerking back, I stumble over the smoldering trash can in the middle of the room. “I’m not leaving. You don’t get to kill me.”
“I didn’t plan on killing you,” he growls, shaking his head like he’s disappointed. “Poor little Lysandra, always in a rush. You never read what you sign, do you?”
No, I don’t. What weirdo reads terms and conditions? Who has that kind of time? Breathing gets a little harder as my heart races faster. “You want my soul, right? Jokes on you, I don’t have one.”
That makes him chuckle, his arms crossing as he stands taller. “Tell me more about the human soul since you know so much.”
I’m just buying time and I know that. I’ve already gotten a sense of what he can do, and there’s no way I can fight him off — especially if Peter couldn’t. “They don’t exist. And if they do, they don’t belong to people like me. And even if I’m wrong about that, why would you want mine? It has to be the soul equivalent of a Waffle House dumpster.”
“Because you’ve murdered someone?” His intense gaze locks with mine, and before I can find words to respond, he continues, “This isn’t about your soul anyway. It’s about all of you. You agreed to come live out your days with me in Hell for your revenge. You gave your blood for it, and I’m done up here.”
All the lights go out in a flash, a warm breeze enveloping me in a way that says I’mno longer standing in my apartment, and I vomit violently the moment it stops.
I’m definitely somewhere I shouldn’t be, but it can’t be Hell. Despite all the evidence presented to me today, I’m not open-minded enough to just accept the existence of any of this without question. Hell isn’t real. Demons aren’t real. This has to be a fucking fever dream.
Standing up on shaky legs, I glance around ‘Hell’ and start laughing. There’s no hellfire, no torture or depictions of eternal suffering. Just Christmas decorations everywhere and that stupid Mariah Carey song blasting in the background.
It looks like Santa vomited all over the place, not me. “So Hell is just the Maco Mall from November to January, huh? Seriously, where are we?”
“MyHell,” he admits from so close behind me, I stop breathing. “I’m sure yours would look a little different.”
Suddenly, my blood runs cold. He doesn’t sound like a non-British Ardis Darling anymore, he sounds like...
Whirling around, my heart stops completely for a moment. No longer am I staring at the alt-rock god who has given me so many wet dreams. Instead, I’m staringinto the face of the one man I thought I’d never see again. The one man I don’tdeserveto ever see again.
“Fuck you,” I force out. “Is this what gets you off? Bringing people down here and forcing them to relive the worst night of their lives? Show me what you really look like. You don’t deserve to wear his face.”
