Valeria thrust her head back, shaking it violently to and fro until the wooden dowels holding her bun fell out, allowing the neatly cropped bun to fall and her jet black hair to hang free down her shoulders. She pressed hard against Xlina’s abdomen, grinding herself into her stomach as her hands worked the Demon mark, caressing and fondling the glowing ridges. Xlina could feel her vigor being extracted through the mark as the demon drank deeply, consuming her energy and moaning wildly before coming to a stop. She looked Xlina in the eye and flashed a wicked smile before standing.
“Thank you for that,” she purred. “It’s been too long since I last tasted a soul like that.”
Xlina lay on the floor, shivering despite not being cold. She had been violated by this thing, not in a sexual manner of speaking, but in a spiritual manner. It had siphoned a part of her soul. Valeria was drunk on her very being and enjoying it, writhing in pleasure atop her. Her soul was like a drug, granting Valeria a perverted kind of pleasure. Worst of all, Xlina was powerless to do anything about it. She could feel Valeria’s control through the mark. She was undeniably bound to the demon.
“What happens now?” Xlina asked, her voice trembling.
“Why, for the most part, you’ll keep living all the same,” Valeria stated as she adjusted her skirt, frowning at the fresh tear. “But you’ll do as I say when I say it. You’ll fight who I direct you to... and occasionally I’ll be back to have another taste of your soul.”
“I hate you,” Xlina spat. As she finally regained control of her body, she began to get up from the floor.
“It doesn’t matter,” Valeria giggled softly. “Your soul will replenish over time, just so long as I don’t get carried away.”
“To what end?” Xlina asked, rising to her feet and stumbling. Her legs were still flooded with numbness, and her body ached from the demon’s vicious assault. “What am I, a pet?”
“Oh yes,” Valeria replied. “Such an apt description. You are just like a pet. I’ll teach you to do tricks, you’ll kill when and who I command, and in exchange, you’ll get to live at least as good a life as you had before.”
“You’ll never get away with this,” Xlina cursed. “I’ll tell my father your true name. He’ll bind you and make you release me. Then he’ll banish you to the Nine Hells, you demon bitch.”
“Oh now, Xlina,” Valeria replied tauntingly. “No need to talk dirty. I’ve had my fill for the day. But just to demonstrate your master plan for your freedom, please go ahead and say my name.”
“Vale...” Xlina began, her voice filled with venom, but she could not continue. Her throat ached, and her mouth filled with bile. She choked on the bile as the taste of vomit overwhelmed her and she doubled over. Valeria clapped slowly in a patronizing manner.
“Demon got your tongue?” Valeria asked wickedly. “As part of our pact, I claimed you with my true name. Which would normally give you or anyone else power over me. Except like a good little demon, I sealed our pact with a demon kiss.”
Xlina thought back to the assault, the demons engorged tongue pressing down her throat and the awful pinch. Her face blanched with understanding.
“A barb,” Valeria smiled casually. “It bored deep inside you. It’s part of me, you know. You should be flattered. It prevents you from saying, writing, typing, etc. You may know my name, sweetheart, but you’ll never tell a living soul.”
Xlina pulled back a fist threateningly and again was met with a flare of fiery pain in her lungs and side as the demon’s mark flared a bright orange once again. Xlina dropped to the floor in agony, writhing in pain and clutching the mark.
“Don’t itch it,” Valeria taunted. “You don’t want it to scar.”
Xlina thrashed violently on the floor as the mark continued to burn until tears once again rolled down her cheeks. Finally the burn subsided, leaving her a crumpled mess on the floor, her tears mixing from the blood still running freely from her nose. She rolled onto her back and just lay motionless on the cold floor, allowing the ache from the mark to die down to a slow, numbing throb.
“You better learn the rules fast, Xlina,” Valeria chided in a malicious tone that rang in Xlina’s ears. “You can’t attack me. Point all that rage and malice at me, and the mark will return it tenfold on you.”
She walked over casually, reaching down to pat Xlina on the head like you would a puppy after rapping it on the nose with a rolled up paper. She cooed reassuringly, once again reinforcing the master–pet relationship the two now shared.
“Now you go and play,” she said in a high-pitched, playful voice. “I’ve got other matters to attend to. Don’t cause any trouble, and I won’t have to get you a collar.”
Xlina couldn’t tell if the demon was joking or if the collar was a serious threat. She needed answers; she needed to know more about what the terms of this pact meant and more importantly how to break it. There had to be a loophole.
“Xlina,” Valeria continued stroking her forehead gently. “I’ll be back in three days. Get some rest, as I’ll need your powers fully charged.”
Xlina could do nothing but nod solemnly. The mark made any other resistance not only futile but excruciatingly painful. She rolled to her side, then slowly rose to a kneeling position, struggling to get her wits about her. She was breathing heavy from the last flare of the demon mark, and sweat dotted her brow and dripped down the small of her back. She felt dirty inside and out. She doubted all the showering and body wash in the world would remove that feeling at this point.
“Good girl,” Valeria purred. “See? You’re already learning. This doesn’t have to be a terrible thing, my dear. Just be obedient, and I’ll take care of you.”
“Is that a pact?” Xlina asked wryly.
“Eager for more?” Valeria replied. She bent close and kissed Xlina on the forehead delicately, like a parent kisses a child before bed. It was a contrast to her behavior earlier, but Xlina had always heard demons could be erratic in their behavior. She kicked herself for not realizing the danger of Valeria sooner. Then as suddenly as she had appeared, she was gone, leaving a drained Xlina kneeling on her floor half naked, bruised, and bloody. She felt the weight of the world on her. Finding it hard to breath, she finally collapsed, exhausted, and darkness took her.
Chapter Six
Pride And Prejudice
The faraway sound of a ringing phone roused Xlina from a fitful slumber. Exhausted, she rolled to her side, looking about her apartment and wondering if it had all just been a bad dream. For a fleeting second, she allowed herself to believe that the entire ordeal had been just another in a long line of nightmares. A second ring from the phone snapped her back to reality. She looked solemnly toward her living room as the ring pulse droned on, waiting for an answer. Rising to her feet, she saw the torn tank top on the floor, bringing flashes of the brutal attack the night before by Valeria. She shivered in the open apartment despite it being warm and grew very conscious of her half-naked state, wrapping her arms about her torso defensively as if shielding her shame from the world.
“Hello, this is Xlina; you know the drill,” the answering machine played aloud, drawing her fuzzy attention back to the phone.
“Xlina, this is Mark. Look, you missed another shift. That’s the third no-call, no-show this month,” A frustrated male voice chimed in over the recording. “Listen, I know you have a lot going on, but we are running a business here, a business that requires employees to show up for their shifts. I’m sorry to do this over the phone, but I am going to have to let you go. We’ll mail your final check. Xlina, whatever it is you have going on... figure it out. Get some help or something. You’re a good kid.”
The dull beep of the answering machine signaled the end of the recording time, cutting her former employer off. She stared blankly at the red blinking light on the machine, wondering just what the hell she was going to do next. Absently, her hand drifted to the mark under her right breast, gently feeling the ridges of the sigil the demon had left behind. She slowly walked
to retrieve her cell phone from the kitchen counter, feeling numb down to her core.
“Hell’s harpy,” she cursed, looking at the date and time. “Almost the full day gone.”
Amber had left in the morning—early morning at that—then Valeria had appeared out of nowhere. She shook her head in fierce denial at the cell phone, which now read four pm. The day was almost gone. She had missed her shift at the Sea Shanty, and her boss had finally had enough. No job, demon-marked, and out of money—she was having a rough week. There still remained the heart and ink sac from the cephalopod in the refrigerator, however, and that might just be enough to get by if sold in the right circles.
The thought of calling her family for help sat like a brick in her stomach. Her sister was enrolled in college in the Midwest somewhere, living the typical girl life her father had wanted for them both. She couldn’t pull her from that to deal with demons, and with no magical aptitude or training, she’d just be an easy target. Her father was a sanctimonious ass. He had only gotten worse after her mother had died, retreating in his pain to the familiar arms of the Druidic Order. She knew what the Order thought of people who consort with demons. Their methods were almost as bad as those of the Spanish Inquisition or the witch trials of Salem, with the supposed cures for demonic contact often resulting in accelerated death. Despite being tricked into a pact, the fact remained that for the past few years, she had kept close company with a demon. Not a trifling matter to the religious Order. That really just left her brother, Arrivan, who couldn’t keep a secret from their dad or the Order if his life depended on it. In addition, the druidic dogma strictly prohibited the study of demonology. They would be of no help breaking her mark.
“I need an expert,” she groaned aloud, heading to her closet to throw on some fresh clothing. “Someone who knows demons or knows people who know demons. There has to be a way to fix this that doesn’t involve pressing, hanging, or burning at the stake.”
She stripped out of her yoga pants, wishing she had time to jump through a shower as she had originally planned before being knocked around by Valeria. As she flipped past hangers of shirts and dresses, she caught a good strong whiff of the musty odor clinging to her.
“Time or not,” she gasped at the putrid smell hanging about her, “I’ll get little help smelling like I slept in a dumpster. Shower first, help second.”
Nearly an hour later, she found herself walking briskly through the college campus toward Holder’s Park. Her hair was freshly washed and tied back in a neat but loose ponytail. Her still-wet hair bounced damply on her neck and shoulders, leaving a damp spot on her back and neck. She wished she had time to blow it out, but Valeria would return as promised, and the clock was already ticking. Fortunately, the navy-blue top she had selected showed little visible signs of the dampness from her hair, with its diamond-shaped cut that tied off at the neck, leaving her shoulders exposed to her mid-back. It was early fall, two weeks into September. Some days were hot enough to remind her of the passing summer, others were freezing cold to the bone, a chilling prelude to the long Maine winter season. She had matched the navy-blue ribbed halter with black denim boot-cut jeans hanging loosely around her trendy black ankle boots, which clacked loudly on the stone walk. A black purse was casually slung over her shoulder. She looked like any other student on campus, except that she carried a creature’s heart and an ink sac wrapped gently in butcher’s paper in her purse, where her wallet and hygiene items should be. She hurried through the campus, checking her phone twice and hoping that her prey would still be slinging sausages at this late hour.
Crossing into Holder’s Park, she breathed a sigh of relief at the odd sight of Oxivius closing down his stall at the farmers market. The student crowd had mostly dispersed, leaving a handful of vendors closing up their shops for the day, with a sparse amount of last minute browsers milling about. She approached him from behind as he struggled to cover the stall with an oversized canvas tarp. Storming up behind him with a steely purpose, she drove the heel of her boots hard into the cement parkway, announcing her presence.
Oxivius turned, muttering softly about being closed for the day, to see Xlina, arms crossed and foot tapping like there was unfinished business to be done. He let the canvas fall into place, turning back to his stall to ensure all was proper before promptly turning back to Xlina. He wore a red vest today over a black shirt. The vest was a deep red like the color of blood, and it brought fleeting images of the heart being ripped from the creature into her thoughts. His cane rested lazily against a bench next to his market stall. He smiled unexpectedly, as if he had not noticed her until that very second.
“Xlina Dar’Karrow,” he said with a flourish of his hands close to his chest and weaving to fully outstretched, dipping low in a bow. “A surprise to see you so soon after our last outing, but a welcome surprise to be sure.”
“Cut the shit, Ox,” she replied firmly.
“My dear lady,” he answered, arms stretched innocently out to his sides as if to signal his peaceful intent. “I am positive I do not know to which shit you refer, but if you should so desire, I will promptly begin the cutting of said shit. Would you prefer it diced, cubed, julienned perhaps?”
“You knew,” she barked in reply, not even the hint of a smirk crossing her stern face at his attempts at levity. “You knew what she was. What part did you play in this?”
“Interesting game you play, love,” Oxivius replied solemnly, seeing she was in no mood for levity. “What has happened?”
“She happened,” Xlina spat back, her voice full of venom. She held her arms crossed with her hands under her biceps, squeezing tight to avoid clobbering him with all the nightmare energy she could muster.
“Oh, I see,” he responded, starting to understand. “Now she cannot be named, else you choke on bile and vomit the words from your mouth without a sound.”
“What part?” she demanded firmly.
“Nothing, I assure you, love,” he replied, patting his hands in front of him in a “slow down” gesture. “I suspected her origins, but I assumed you did as well, love. I mean from the outset, when a being from the Otherworld shows up offering help and favors, one must be suspicious, no?”
“You lived in the Otherworld,” Xlina said. It was more an accusation than a statement of fact.
“And I helped you,” He agreed with a nod. “But you wasted no time in asking about my humanity and what my intentions were. Why, I wonder, did you give Valeria a pass?”
“She helped me,” Xlina stated firmly. “She was court assigned; it was her job.”
“Sure,” Oxivius replied. “Because beings of power are just dying to come and toil away at human endeavors. What do you think? After thousands of years she just decided that she could find more meaning in her existence pushing papers?”
“Yes,” Xlina stammered hesitating. “No, I mean... not like that.”
“Look, Xlina,” Oxivius continued, staring deep into her eyes with those icy blue orbs of his that genuinely seemed to have no limit to their depths. “I’m not saying you’re a bad person, love. Just that it’s in a moment of weakness, where you blame the world and are desperate for a way out, that these bloodsuckers emerge. You didn’t ask because you needed her, and when those needs were met, you simply continued on blind faith, love. Not wanting to know the hows and wherefores, just grateful that she was there.”
“So how do I get out?” Xlina asked, not confirming his assertions but not denying them either.
“You broke a pact.” He shook his head and lifted his shoulders as if there was nothing he could do.
“It was a trick,” Xlina replied fiercely. “I didn’t mean it to be a pact; it’s just something we humans say.”
“That’s why they are demons, love,” Oxivius answered plainly. “It’s what they do.”
“There must be a way out,” Xlina barked back. “You must know a way.”
“I must?” Oxivius asked incredulously. “Because the evil necromancer consorts w
ith demons every day at noon-time tea? Because surely one who eats death is little more than a demon himself?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Xlina quipped defensively.
“But it was your intent,” Oxivius growled in perhaps the first time he had shown something other than a gentlemanly tone.
“That’s not—” Xlina interjected, but she was cut off as he turned to the bench to retrieve his top hat and cane.
“Still,” he replied dully, all hint of emotion drained from his voice. “You have not learned that intent is everything that matters, girl.”
“Ox,” Xlina protested as he turned and began walking away. “Ox, please.”
“My friends call me Ox,” he replied over his shoulder.
“I want to be your friend, Ox,” she replied, keeping pace just a few steps behind as he stormed down the parkway.
“Do you?” he asked, turning a backward glance over his shoulder. “Or do you want answers?”
“That’s a low blow,” she protested, noticing the many other park pedestrians taking notice of their squabble. “Will you just stop and talk to me? You’re making a scene.”
“A scene,” he snapped, turning on her so his face was inches from hers. “Is it too much for the college girl? One of your vanilla human classmates might see you?”
“It’s not that,” she protested again, a tear beginning to form in her eye. “You stupid, prideful man!”
“Prejudice,” he replied coldly. “Your prejudice is just like everyone else. It’s what drove me to the Otherworld to begin with. You’re prejudiced against what you don’t understand; all wrapped up in your religious dogma like a warm, cozy blanket, living in a world of blacks and whites. Sitting atop a throne of moral superiority, built on the bones of those with past transgressions. Monsters are monsters and men are men, love. Druids, wasn’t it?”
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