Flames erupted over my wrist and I screamed through the agony.
“Thirty three years, Dany. That’s how long you have to kill them. Their souls are yours to own; to keep. And in repayment, every year on this, your Death Day, you will give me three souls in return. Do you understand this?”
“Yes,” I cried. The heat sank straight into the bone. I felt it claim me like an invisible brand searing its way around my wrist, one slow, merciless inch at a time.
“I will give you strength,” he crooned, thumb stroking over the blazing mark like he was soothing me instead of torturing me. “Immortality, and every tool you need to lay them bleeding and powerless at your feet.”
My back arched off the pavement. Nails clawed at the air. The world narrowed to my own raw throat and his voice.
“In return,” he said, “you will be myUnwanted. Do you understand, Dany?”
“Yes,” I sobbed.
The fire caught, a blinding, white-hot spike, and just as soon as it peaked, it cut off and I hit the ground in a pile of bruises and tears.
My wrist throbbed, the brand pulsing in time with my heart. The air above me shimmered with leftover heat. Every nerve screamed. My lungs dragged in a ragged breath that tasted like blood and asphalt and him.
“Open your eyes,” he said again.
I did, and the world swam into focus as if he’d cleared the blood from my eyes. Kneeling beside my broken body in a pristine suit, hair swept back like he’d taken time and care to place every strand, and two mismatched eyes with slit pupils was–
“Who are you?” I breathed.
“My name is Lucifer,” he said softly. “Happy Death Day, Dany.”
Pounding at the front door broke through my angry wails.
“Go away!” I screamed. I laced bloody fingers through my hair, barely feeling the sting as the sticky coating pulled a few strands from the root, and pressed my palms into my eyes. I was being overrun by the past, bombarded by the present, and absolutely terrified as to how it would all piece together the future.
Boom, boom, boom!
“Open this door, girl!”
The doorknob jiggled violently against the lock.
Fire erupted inside and a voice I didn't recognize from myself bellowed, “I saidgo the hell away!”
I covered my ears as the pounding persisted, each beat of their fists driving me closer to a complete, psychotic blackout.
And then, I froze.
“Jesus,” I ground out. “Do. Not.”
If cats could sneer, he did.
My one million pound demon cat jumped onto the entryway table, reached out…
“I am warning you cat.
…with one steady paw and, after a couple of pats, flipped the deadbolt.
“You sunnuva—”
The door burst open and I was across the room in an instant, that same knife finding its home in my palm once more. I was either going to kill the cat orwhomever he’d just let through the door.
Jesus yowled and scurried out of the way. Some rational part of me long since tucked away knew that if either of us made it out alive, he’d make me pay for this.
A blurry figure took a single step toward me, but I was already there, arm pulled back and positioned to land a killing blow with a war car cry on my lips.
