My teeth have dulled this past year, but they’re still there. I feel it beneath the surface, simmering, biding its time as the well that is my rage refills. It’s a familiar friend, that anger. But right now it’s doused by fear.
Raising my chin, I force a mask into place. It’s flimsy at best, with fraying ribbons and peeling leather, but it’s still a mask that dries the tears.
“So? Are you…?”Eldriths don’t ask, Ella. They tell.I can hear my mother’s voice as if she’s whispering in my ear, and that’s just pissing me off.
Fuck her for being the person I think about in a moment like this.
“You’re a ghost too,” I decide.
“Wrong.” A crooked smile spreads across his face. “A demon.”
My stomach plummets. I stare at him, waiting for the punchline. I couldn’t possibly have summoned a demon because demonsdon’texist. The grimoire said the spell was forspiritslike my sister. A spirit likemenow.The alternative—I don’t want to think about it because what if I’ve sold my soul to the Devil?
He’s lying. He’s messing with me for some reason.
This time, when he takes a step forward so there’s only two feet of space between us, I remain firm, and that might just be my biggest mistake because his head tips to the side, teasing yet impatient. It’s the look a hunter gives its prey when it’s playing with it.
“Don’t believe me?” His amusement is dipped in irritation, and my own amplifies. I’m done with the bullshit, and the sooner I can figure out how to get out of here, the better.
My annoyance sputters and fizzles out because his entire body changes, and every horror story I’ve heard of comes to life.
Blue eyes morph into stark crimson, and two curved crimson horns spear from his hairline and reach for the ceiling. Curvedears sharpen into points, and nails elongate into black talons that stain the once tanned skin of his fingers charcoal.
My trembling multiplies with each new revelation, breaking my brittle mask.
A long, sharp-tipped tongue pokes from his mouth when he pulls his lips into an earsplitting smile. “How about now?”
Half a second is all it takes—and it’s the deadliest half second I’ve experienced. Adrenaline explodes through my system, and I fucking lose it, flying through the walls and out into the shrubbery outside the house.
I run like the hounds of hell are at my heels—and for all I know, they might be. My senses hone and sharpen, fueled by the terror of the monster I unleashed upon myself. I don’t know where I’m going—don’t care where I end up, as long as it’s far the fuck away from him.
“You think you can outrun me? I’ve been torturing souls longer than you’ve been able to breathe.” His voice booms through the forest.
Swirls of fog drift through my legs. Each dewdrop on the long blades of grass lies perfectly still as I sprint across the field into the tree line, navigating the forest with no plan in mind. No clouds of condensation follow my ragged breaths. I occasionally—pointlessly—jump over tree roots and fallen logs out of habit, and somewhere at the back of my head, there’s a pounding, like a warning bell that something else is going to go wrong.
I keep telling myself it can’t be possible, but I know what I saw. How the shadows molded and reacted to him before he broke my neck. How he appeared out of thin?—
“Boo.”
My scream pierces the morning air, but it sounds hollow without the foreboding echo that would usually bounce off the trees.
The demon appears in front of me with a grin, revealing sharpened canines that I missed the first time.
I scramble away before I run into him. “Leave me alone,” I yell.
Fuck, how does a ghost kill a demon?
A sound of irritation comes from his chest. “I’m trying.”
Trying?The creature advances, and I keep one eye on him as I edge backward, attempting to infuse some semblance of confidence and authority in my voice. I fall well short.
“Don’t follow me.” My words are shrill.
“I have no desire to. But it seems whenever you get too far, I’m forced to fucking show up.”
Yet he does follow—he keeps stalking forward, backing me up against a tree as my energy continues bounding hard through my ghostly veins. I hold up my hands. “Stop right there.”
He raises a brow in amusement. “You think death keeps you safe from me?”
