by Tessa Dawn
What kind of minions were the demons looking for these days, anyway?
She stared at the diagram and practically seethed with rage and frustration. Tawni had read every book she could get her hands on about conjuring dark spirits, and she had performed every nasty ritual imaginable, including sacrificing several cutesy little furry animals. So what! She had loved every minute of it. The surge of power she had felt as the creatures shivered in her hands, the thrill of possibility that washed over her when she thought about the absolute command she held over their lives—all of it absolutely titillated her, and she made no apology for her actions. She had even gone so far as to park her POS clunker outside of an elementary school the other day, just to watch the prim and proper children exit the building and get onto the little yellow school bus. There was a particularly cute kindergartener in pigtails who caught her eye, all flawless skin and big blue eyes, but she had been too much of a chicken to approach the girl.
Tawni had not crossed over into harming humans yet, not ever, but she was willing to consider it if she had to. Eventually, something had to work. She was getting tired of all the endless waiting.
She stepped into the center of the diagram and opened the tattered book of spells she had purchased in some corner dime-store shop in a quaint little village, the last time she’d been in Europe, and began to read a highlighted passage: “Dark shadows, wayward souls, I summon you now before me. With my free will and power, I bid you: Appear. Come to me. Come to me. Come to me.”
She waited quietly with bated breath.
When nothing happened, she read it again, this time placing undue emphasis on the last three phrases. “Come to me. Come to me. Come to me. Now!” She added the last word for effect.
All at once, an icy breeze swept through the kitchen window, as if from a sudden gust of winter wind—but the window wasn’t open—and a dark, evocative presence began to take shape in front of her like a specter rising out of a fog. She spun around on her heels to stare at the front door, as if a summoned soul would need to use a door.
She bit her bottom lip, barely realizing that she was doing it.
And just like that, the entity appeared in her living room, on the other side of the tiny bar that divided the room from the kitchen. The being was about six feet tall, imposing, definitely muscular, and he had the most glorious demonic-looking hair she had ever seen: It was halfway down his back, swirling in an unseen wind, like a host of living snakes, each coiled band shimmering midnight black or a deep blood red.
It was magnificent.
Creepy.
Unlike anything she had ever laid eyes on before. And bless the darkness, but unlike hers, it did not look like it had been dyed! She gasped and met his dark sapphire eyes with approval. They glowed with lethal intensity, and then he winked at her, his thinly arched brows furrowing from the gesture. “You called?”
She bowed her head in reverence. “Greetings, Dark One.” Her voice was trembling, and it caused him to smile. Smile. A grin of pure, unadulterated wickedness.
“You have no idea how truly accurate that salutation is.” His forehead creased with interest, and he gazed directly at her from beneath a pronounced widow’s peak before speaking once more in a heavily laced voice: satin, fire, and brimstone. “Greetings, Miss Duvall.”
She gulped. “Greetings.” And then her voice came out in a thin, fearful chirp. “Wh… what am I so accurate about?” She could barely contain her excitement, despite her mounting fear.
“The term you used: Dark One,” he lilted, almost singing the words. “It is fitting on so very many levels. It is, indeed, my correct title.”
She felt her knees grow weak beneath her. Tawni had anticipated this moment a thousand times in her mind, the excitement, the titillation, finally coming in contact with true dark energy, but nothing had prepared her for the sheer breadth of power that radiated about the creature now standing in her apartment. He practically oozed malevolence; cruelty emanated from every pore of his skin; and the taint of evil expanded and contracted with every flex of his muscles, accentuating his hard-cut body. His aura contained three distinct colors, inky gray, sickly purple, and a garish shade of yellowish green; and it swirled in and out of his thick mane of hair as if mating with the illusionary snakes.
He took a step toward the kitchen, gliding like an upright cobra, and every cell in her body trembled with terror. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. What had she done? This demon was death on two feet, and if he wasn’t intimately pleased with her efforts, she knew she would never live to see the light of day. It was written all over his beautiful, terrifying face.
“My liege… my lord… Dark One?” Oh hell, she had no idea how to properly address him going forward. “I’m honored that you came. Thank you for responding to my summons.” She bent to one knee and bowed her head, too terrified to hold his piercing gaze.
“You may call me master,” he drawled lazily, and then he entered the kitchen noiselessly, though she never saw him move.
“Yes, master,” she whispered, feeling like she might just empty her bladder. Oh, please, no. Not now. Not here. She clenched her Kegel muscles as tightly as she could and bent her head even lower.
He took another step in her direction, stopping just short of stepping on her hair, and his presence, so near and domineering, was more than her quaking body could handle.
She fell prostrate on the floor, her forehead pressed to the cool, dirty tiles, trying desperately to staunch her rising nausea. The genuflecting wasn’t planned or even intentional. It was simply instinctive, occurring on a deep primal level. Somehow, Tawni just knew she had to become smaller, weaker, make herself less and less significant before him. She had to demonstrate her utter and absolute surrender… if she wanted to live.
He chuckled sardonically. “Very good, Miss. Duvall. I see you know your place.”
“I do,” she whispered, imagining what it would feel like if he actually touched her.
“I do, what?” he growled in that inhuman voice.
“I do, master,” she repeated, pressing her face further into the tiles. Good lord, he was scary… and sexy as all get-out.
He crouched down to eye her more closely, and she nearly fainted with anticipation. And then, he snatched her by the hair, yanked upward to force her gaze, and released a pair of wicked-looking fangs. “Look at me, human!”
Tawni’s scalp blazed as if it were on fire. His fingers were as strong as forceps, and her roots were burning. “My lord?” she asked, shocked by his sudden violence and anger. What had she done wrong? “I mean, Dark One, master?”
He chuckled deep in his throat. “Your place, Tawni Duvall, is as a grub beneath my feet. You don’t summon me. You don’t summon anything. You are nothing more than a paltry, insignificant worm, an ameba that I could crush in an instant, a vessel that I will use for my perverted pleasure—and your unspeakable pain—whenever I so desire. You are a mere tool within my hand, one that I may devour, destroy, or defile at will.” He looked down at her faded blue jeans and frowned. “And if you lose your bowels on this floor, in front of me, I will tear this hair from your head, wipe up your excrement with your scalp, and stuff it down your insignificant throat. And then I will snap your bones, one at a time, starting from your head to your toes, while I force you to eat them, before I let you die.” He paused, as if considering his next words carefully. “So, if you need to use the restroom, I suggest you do it now.”
Tawni froze.
This was nothing like she had envisioned.
He was nothing like she had imagined.
Perhaps she just needed to try harder to please him, to win his regard and affection. She could do that. She was born to do just that. She did have to urinate, but she wasn’t about to tell him that now. She could hold it. She would hold it.
He released his grip on her hair and stood up.
“Thank you,” she whispered, struggling not to massage her burning scalp.
“Get up!” he ordered.<
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She stumbled to her feet, took one hard look at his face, and nearly passed out.
He caught her by the arm and steadied her, maintaining his iron grip until she regained her balance. “Now then,” he drawled, “your master’s name is Salvatore Nistor, and I have come in answer to your request, not your summons.”
She started to reply, but he held up his forefinger to silence her, waggling it back and forth in warning.
Enough said.
No problem.
She waited like a silent lamb.
“The entities you seek do not exist as you have sought them, at least not in the way you imagine. Your human demons are inside of you, projections of your fears, manifestations of your own inner guile and bitterness. They are the living, breathing creations of so much envy, self-revulsion, and hate, born of your errant, contrary vibrations. Without your summons, they would not appear. Do not get me wrong: Such demons do, in fact, exist. They exist for those humans who desire, feed, or fear them, and they take the form of the monster that lives inside. They become that which you believe… or need… or create.”
Tawni frowned, not understanding his words. “Then… then what are you?”
“I, sweet Tawni, am the real thing.” He laughed so loud that the foundation of her kitchen shook. “A monster unlike any you have ever envisioned: Vampyr… Nosferatu… a creature of the night. And I make the grotesque demons in your human art, your restless dreams, your furtive imagination, look like fairy tales, mere hoaxes that go bump in the night.” He narrowed his diabolical gaze. “I can assure you, I am very real. And in my world, the dark lords are real as well.” He reached out, produced a claw on his first finger, and began to carve a mock diagram, like the one she had drawn on the kitchen floor, into the front of her chest, just below her collarbone, just above her breasts. The pain was excruciating, yet somehow exquisite, and she bit down on her tongue to keep from crying out. And then, once he’d finally finished, he stepped back and tasted her blood, sucking suggestively on the tip of his finger. Her stomach clenched in reaction.
“So, think long and hard before you choose to trade your soul for the power I offer you,” he said. “For once you do, there is no turning back.”
Tawni glanced down at her bleeding chest and gasped at the perfect insignia. It was all she could do not to sway in place from the blistering pain, but she was determined to be strong… and to think. She placed her open palm over the bloody diagram and tried to regulate her breathing as his words sank into her soul: Think long and hard before you choose to trade your soul for the power I offer you; for once you do, there is no turning back.
She needed to ask more questions.
She cleared her throat and reached for her courage, and then she looked him straight in those demonic sapphire eyes. “I want it more than words can say,” she began, “but maybe I should find out a little more about what it is… first.”
He smiled in a deceptively gracious manner. “Ah, then you are not quite as stupid as you look.”
She nodded, but she didn’t reply.
He clasped her jaw in his hands, and his fingers bit into her cheeks. “Just so that we are crystal clear: Do you wish to trade your soul for power?”
She nodded again, still trying to catch her breath. If only he knew—that was exactly what she wanted, what she had always wanted—it was the stuff that had fueled her dreams as a child, given birth to her rebellion as a teenager, fed her fantasies as a fully mature adult. But he still wasn’t being very specific. “Yes, my soul for power… and for immortality.” She raised her jaw and boldly held his gaze. “I hate this weak, pitiful society I live in. I hate their trivial rules and their petty laws and their self-righteous ways. I hate their fake, ugly faces, their hollow platitudes, and their meaningless, empty lives. I want more, much, much more.”
He cocked an eyebrow with interest. “Such as?”
She drew in a deep breath for courage. “Such as power… domination… and immortality. I want to be at the top of the food chain.”
He nodded, far too slyly, and his smile was almost seductive in its duplicity—but for the life of her, she couldn’t detect any obvious deceit. “You wish to be dominant over other humans?” he echoed for clarity. “To possess an immortal body, with the potential to live forever? You wish to be at the top of the food chain, a mammal amongst mammals, physically superior to your planet’s animal and human inhabitants? Be explicitly clear, Tawni Duvall: Is this what you seek?”
She couldn’t think.
Her head was positively spinning with the possibilities, but yes, that sounded exactly right: Tawni wanted superiority over all the beasts of the earth, human and animal alike. She nodded emphatically, and he covered his mouth with his hand as if to stifle a laugh. She measured him sideways—what was so funny about that? Her throat was suddenly dry, and she cleared it for emphasis. “Can you, or can you not, give those three things to me, Master Salvatore?” She waited, hardly able to contain her hope as his eyes twinkled with amusement.
And then, just as rapidly, his face grew deathly calm and severe. “Oh, indeed, I can.” He waved his hand absently through the air. “And before all that is unholy, I promise you the exact three things you have asked for: power unlike anything a human may possess, absolute domination over the planet’s mammals, and a body that is capable of living forever. All three are mine to give.”
Tawni could hardly believe her ears. She knew there was a catch—there was always a catch—but so what? If she had that kind of power, who could stop her? If her body was immortal, then what could she possibly have to fear? And if she was at the top of the food chain, then well, that kind of said it all. Granted, he had called himself a vampire, some kind of Nosferatu, or something like that, but that wouldn’t pose a challenge, not if she was one, too. She swallowed hard and asked her last remaining question. “And in return?”
“In return?” He licked his lips like they were coated in honey.
“Yes.” She cleared her throat again. “What do you want from me in return?”
Salvatore Nistor pursed his lips and furrowed his dark brows magnanimously. “Everything,” he answered plainly. “From the moment you consent, you are mine: your body, your soul, and your allegiance. And there is no going back.”
For a split second, something in Tawni’s spirit registered an infinite and lethal warning: Danger! There are words beneath his words; there is a threat beyond the fantasy; duplicity, brutality, and deception are laced on his forked tongue. But as it stood, all she heard was the promise of power: the allure of a future without vulnerability; the ability to take and destroy and dominate, at her leisure, each carrot dangled so temptingly before her as if suspended from a golden string. “I understand.” She spoke firmly.
“Oh,” he snickered, “I don’t believe you do, but you will.” He winked as if they were partners in a devilish conspiracy, and then he waved his hand to dismiss both the words and the gesture. “That is of no consequence: All that I need to know right now is whether or not you consent.”
Tawni thought about it.
She really thought about it for a moment. And then she slowly arched her back, squaring her shoulders to this terrifying being. “And just out of curiosity, if I don’t? Consent, that is? What then?”
“Then… ” He drew out the word. “Then I will kill you, Miss Duvall.” He spoke without pretense. “Slowly, painfully, simply for wasting my time, but”—he reached out and placed his forefinger over her lips to make sure he had her full attention—“and it’s a very important but; fear of death cannot be the justification for your decision.” He shrugged as if his promise to kill her was no more significant than the weather. “You should have thought that through before you summoned me. No,” he warned, “it is far better to die with your soul intact than to relinquish the one thing you can never reclaim out of fear of temporary suffering. If you trade your soul for what I have to offer you, you do it freely and without reservation. You do it because it is yo
ur true heart’s desire, or you don’t do it at all.”
Tawni’s knees grew weak beneath her, but fortunately, they didn’t buckle. She marshaled her strength and sidestepped past him, praying that he wouldn’t swat her like a fly for the insult. And then she wandered into the living room, where she felt like she had a little more room to breathe, and began to pace in tight little circles, all around the cluttered space. To her utter surprise, he left her alone. In fact, he simply watched like an innocent bystander.
And waited.
As if even he, in all his dark, brooding malevolence, understood the gravity of the decision, the sacredness of the moment.
She ran her hands through her hair and thought it over: True, she did not want to die. And there was no question in her mind that Salvatore would kill her, and when he did, it would be a grisly and painful death. But he was right. It was better to die than to make the wrong decision. No, she had to do this because it was truly what she yearned for, truly what she wanted, not because the six-foot lethal demon would torture her mercilessly.
She drew in a deep breath and returned to the question: Was this what she wanted? Not just now, but for all eternity? A chorus of nervous laughter escaped her throat, and she bit down hard on her tongue to make it stop. May propriety and convention be damned: It was.
This was exactly what Tawni wanted, and she didn’t need to think it over any further: Salvatore Nistor was the stroke of luck Tawni had been waiting for her entire life. Since the day she had turned five years old and drowned her birthday kitten, since the time she had entered the third grade and begun setting things on fire, since the day she had been mocked and ridiculed and called a witch by a group of teenage girls in the cafeteria—the day she had let the hatred burn, fester, and develop into a full-fledged obsession for vengeance—she had wanted nothing more. From the day she had begun listening to jarring music and imagining wicked scenarios, the day she had chosen hate over forgiveness, self-pity over survival, and to use her imagination to create pain rather than possibility, she had made the decision. Truth be told, Tawni Duvall had relinquished her soul a long, long time ago. Whatever happened today would be a mere formality.
