She gulped. She shot a nervous glance over her shoulder, toward the chapel, where the body of the beast lay.
“How can something like that exist?” she said softly. “It seems like they’d be killing people all the time, that they’d be seen.”
“People go missing all the time in the woods.” I stood beside her, and she looked over. Her eyes drifted down my body, lingered over my chest, and very pointedly avoided looking between my legs, despite that I’d already buttoned up my jeans again. I grinned. “The Eld are attracted to magic. Unless a human is unlucky enough to come across one deep in the forest, it’s unlikely the average mortal would ever encounter one. Eld won’t bother to come hunting in human cities unless they have a good reason.”
“Then what’s their reason?” she said. “They’re coming after me because I have the grimoire, I get that.” She didn’tget that, but whatever. “But were they only coming after Kent because he had the grimoire before?”
“Start walking, and I’ll keep talking,” I said, giving her a nudge in the direction of the gate. “The sooner we get the grimoire out of your hands, the better.”
She pouted, but she was obedient for once. The buttons on her sweater were ripped off, so she tugged it tightly over her chest and folded her arms to keep it closed. We left through the gate together, not a single car in sight as we made our way up the road toward her home.
“I need to know how to protect myself from those things,” she said suddenly. “You said they might not stop hunting me, so…”
“Move away from Abelaum,” I said. “That’s the best thing you can do. They’ll hunt you wherever you go now that magic has touched you, but living in Abelaum is like sticking your hand straight in a beehive and wondering why you’re getting stung.”
She looked at me in alarm, but I was just trying to be honest. There was no point in lying to her that things would somehow get better once the grimoire was gone. She’d be slightly less attractive to the Eld, but the Hadleighs were a whole other problem.
“I can’t just move,” she said. “I don’t...I don’t have the money yet…”
“Then stay in at night. Board up your windows. Burn rosemary and sage from sundown to sunrise, Eld hate the smell of it. And stay away from the goddamn Hadleighs.”
She frowned. “Why? If Kent is a magician, maybe he can help me!”
I scoffed. “Not a single member of that family is interested inhelpinganyone but themselves.”
Her frown deepened into a glare. “They’ve been kind to me. You’re just saying that so I’ll feel like I have no choice but to accept yourbargain.”
“Do you want to know what Kentreallydoes?” I stopped walking, hot with frustration. “Do you want to know what his Historical Society”—I put massive air quotes around the fabricated title—“really is about? There are far worse things in Abelaum than monsters. You know the legends. You’ve been to the church. The Hadleigh family isn’t interested in helping you. They’re interested in furthering their own power.”
She bit her lip, arms still folded. I couldn’t fault her suspicions—she knew I was a demon, of course she’d believe I was a liar. But it didn’t matter if she believed me. As long as she heard me. As long as I could reassure myself Itriedto warn her.
Guilt wasn’t an emotion that was natural to demons. We simply had no room to learn it. If a young demon fucked up in Hell, they’d likely find themselves dead, slaughtered by someone more powerful than them, or executed by a Reaper if theyreallypissed someone off. There was no room forguilt. Get away with it, or get it right the first time.
Feeling that annoying, needling, uncomfortablepressof guiltiness now, only served to show I’d been on Earth far too long.
I didn’t owe this woman a damn thing, but it sure as hell felt like I did.
She’d stopped walking. She was staring at me, a little way ahead of me on the road, arms clasped around her drooping sweater, shivering in the cold. It made me want to hold her, wrap her up, warm her. Fucking hell, I’d gone soft.
“What do the legends and the church have to do with the Hadleighs?” she said softly.
“Morpheus Leighman owned Abelaum’s silver mines,” I said. “His son, Benjamin, changed his surname to Hadleigh, after his father’s cult nearly got the family run out of town.”
Morpheus: the first summoner in centuries that I hadn’t been able to kill. He’d been careful, obsessively so. A smart man. Trapped underground with his miners when the shaft collapsed, he discovered many things in those long-forgotten underground caverns. He’d found the remnants of an old religion, centered around the weakened God that spoke to him in the dark; he’d found the grimoire, written long ago by a powerful witch...and by extension, he’d found my name. He’d found the iron amulet the witch had made, offering him additional protection from me.
As much as I’d wanted to, I couldn’t kill him, nor could I kill his son Benjamin when Morpheus passed the grimoire and the amulet on to him. I had remained captive, over a century in service to the same family as they grew in power, largely thanks to me.
“His family’s cult,” Rae murmured, her eyes wide in the dark. “You’re talking about the God, right? The monster in the mine?” She shook her head. “That’s a stupid story told to scare children. The only cult members in Abelaum are edgy teenagers who want to hang around in St. Thaddeus and pretend they’re communing with some old god while they trip on acid.” She scoffed. “Come on. I literally research this stuff for fun. I’m not scared by Abelaum’s personal Creepypasta.”
I laughed. “Fine. Don’t believe it. Kent is obsessed with keeping that church from being torn down and the mine shafts from being sealed because he’s justreally investedin the town’s history. Victoria and Jeremiah want to be friends with you so badly because they’re just such good, kind people.” I brushed past her, walking on toward her house. I could feel her glare on the back of my head.
“What exactly are you even trying to say?” she snapped, jogging to keep up with me. “If Kent believes there’s a God in the mine, so what? Is he planning to make all of Abelaum drink the Kool-Aid? Is he going to try to recruit me to the cause?”
“Not recruit you,” I said. “Sacrifice you.”
She laughed, but she sounded nervous now. “Right, okay. The Hadleighs are all members of a cult that practices human sacrifice and I’m their next victim. Oh,please.” She would have sounded more determined if her voice wasn’t shaking with cold. “Your ploy for my soul won’t work. I’ll survive without your deal just fine, thank you very much.”
“Says the girl who was just fucked by a demon.”