on saving my relationship with Trixie. Man, I was an awesome boyfriend!
Calling up a ball of white light, I stepped over the threshold with it hovering just over my shoulder. It did little to cast light over the room. The shape of a chair a few feet in front of me and what might have been a table cluttered with books were barely discernible within the gloom.
And then something moved. It crossed from right to left, as if circling me. I didn’t see it so much as felt the movement within the darkness, as if it were nothing more than a ripple of energy. Twisting around to try to keep whatever it was in view, I tightened my grip on my wand. My heart was pounding and my palms were growing sweaty, making me feel as if my wand was going to slip right out of my hand.
The door slammed shut, cloaking the room in darkness. My body tensed, waiting, but the creature didn’t attack. It moved around me again, drawing a little closer as if testing what I’d tolerate. The only sound in the room was my breathing as it broke past my lips in short gasps. There were no sounds of claws on the stone floor, no shuffling sounds of cloth or the rub of fur. I couldn’t even hear it breathing.
That’s when it dawned on me that this was no living creature I was facing. As I had feared, this thing was similar to what I had guarding the basement of Asylum. But even as my heart ramped up with this sickening idea, I was confused as to why it hadn’t attacked yet. The spell at Asylum launched itself at anything that just partially descended the stairs, ripping the poor fucker to shreds. If this were the same thing, I should have been dead before clearing the threshold.
It was watching me. Waiting.
Praying that my shields would hold, I pulled together the same spell I used to disarm the protection spell at Asylum. As I did, the creature in the darkness drew closer on my left. I couldn’t see a shape or any defining features. It was just the sense of a massive force that was a little darker than the unyielding blackness of the room.
Why are you trying to lock me up?
The words drifted through my brain, but it felt as if they had been hissed in my ear. I lurched back a step, trying to put some distance between myself and the darkness. But there was no getting away. The force was everywhere in the room, crowding close but still not harming me. Was it toying with me? Playing with its food out of boredom? That couldn’t be because that would mean this wasn’t just a spell. This dark energy was a thinking, feeling creature.
“Why haven’t you attacked yet?” I asked, trying to make sense out of what I was faced with.
She’s asked me not to kill you.
“She? She who?” I barked.
The thing laughed without making a sound. I could feel its amusement, leaving behind the feeling of oily sludge sliding down the back of my throat. The darkness rippled and the little light I had created winked out. I couldn’t see anything, not even a strip of light leaking into the room from under the door. I wasn’t even sure I was still in Simon’s rooms but was now floating in nothingness.
The one you’ve been promised to.
“Lilith?” I breathed as my hearted threatened to explode in my chest.
It didn’t answer. It didn’t have to. Besides the fact that Simon had handed over a chunk of my soul to the Queen of the Underworld, I had killed two people using magic. I owed magic two years of my life and when it came time for me to pay up, Lilith was the one I went to serve.
The creature laughed again and I fought the growing wave of nausea threatening to send what little I had eaten that day up my throat. Clenching my teeth, I drew in air through my nose and slowly released it, pushing back against my twisting stomach. Puking now would break my concentration and I’d lose all the protective spells I was clinging to. I certainly didn’t trust this thing not to attack me just because Lilith had asked nicely.
“You’re one of her monsters then,” I said when some of the queasiness had passed.
What twisted amusement I had felt from this thing disintegrated in a heartbeat and it was instantly on me,