In his place stood the Devil.
He was gripping something in his clawed hand—a squirming, snarling creature no taller than my thigh. It had the gnarled face of a gremlin, but with sleeker limbs and short, matted brown fur. The thing writhed, kicking its legs as it chittered in panic.
The Devil’s massive hand clenched tighter.
“Please stop! Stop!” the creature screeched. “It wasn’t my fault!”
Bones cracked like dry twigs. My stomach turned.
“I didn’t give you permission to touch her,” the Devil’s voice thundered, low and vibrating with rage so raw it nearly shook the walls.
“She came to me.”
“I don’t care.”
The creature gasped, squirming. “I—I thought you sent her! The mutts brought her here—”
There was a final, gruesome pop—followed by a wet squelch.
The thing went limp in his grasp, and he tossed the body aside with a dull thud, like it was garbage.
Then he turned toward me.
I stiffened, lifting my blade between us as instinct kicked in. Still trembling, still raw, still recovering from what I’d just endured.
“I told you not to attempt anything,” he said coolly, tail flicking once across the floor like a whip itching to strike. “Come here.”
I gritted my teeth. “I don’t care what you might do next. I’ll tear you limb from limb.”
A lie, maybe. But I needed to believe it.
My body still felt hollow. My heart still pounded with betrayal. Seeing my father’s face twisted with hate, hearing those words—it hadn’t just hurt. It had gutted me.
“What did you see?”
I didn’t like the inspection in his glowing red eyes. It felt invasive, like he already knew.
“I liked that one,” he muttered, motioning to the crumpled corpse. “Useful little bastard. He could unravel souls if he caught them weak enough. Made my people remember what they hated most about themselves.”
He looked me up and down. “And now it’s dead because of you.”
I scoffed. “I didn’t ask you to kill him.”
Even if I wanted to. That part was true.
Still, his words made me pause. The Devil didn’t strike me as the avenging sort, especially not for my sake.
“Why did you do it?” I asked, eyes narrowing. “I thought this was all your game.”
His expression didn’t shift. His monstrous chest rose and fell, but his voice remained even. “I told you what your punishment would be for attempting anything. And it wasn’t this.”
I blinked—remembering.
The tail.
My horror must’ve bled into my face because his tail suddenly thwacked loudly against the floor like a judge slamming a gavel.
“Don’t make that face,” he sneered. “It twists those annoying features of yours into something grotesque.”
