Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
“Hope?! What in the you are you talking about?! How have you given me hope!”
“Because if that’s why they’ve gone through the trouble of taking her—and I assure you leaving hell to kidnap her was no easy task—then they’re not going to hurt her before they’ve completed their goal,” he said. “The hybrid creatures gestate for six months. You’ve only wasted one. Even if the clock has already started, there is still five months left on it.”
He had to repeat that for it to sink into my horrified and traumatized soul... but I understood. There was a better than slim chance my sister was still alive, and if she was, she needed me more than ever.
My voice came back after a long, agonizing beat. “Is it likely she’s still there? At this school?”
“Very likely. No House would want it to get out that they have a young, ripe, breed-able human within their territory. They’d immediately come under siege. You are a very valuable commodity in hell, dear one.” His whispered, slithering voice dropped the ambient temperature twenty degrees. “Very valuable indeed.”
Lucifer’s sudden and disgusting offer to impregnate me took on new and awful meaning. I backed away from him, not stopping until the wall stopped me.
“You’ve made your point. There’s a deal to be made here, and I’ll make it,” I swore. “Just tell me what you can do for me.”
“That’s not how it works.” Rising up, the fallen angel of the heavens towered over me. “You tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you if you’ll get it.”
I swallowed hard. Of course he wasn’t going to present all the options like an all-you-can-eat buffet. That would make it too easy.
“Okay,” I rasped. “I want entry into Abaddon Academy.”
He snapped his fingers and the soul contract and quill reappeared. Said quill flew across the pages, presumably writing my terms. “Done.”
“I want... the means to get around undetected,” I blurted. “Unnoticed. I want everyone I come across to think I’m just another demon.”
The scritch-scritch-scritch of the quill tickled my ears.
“Done.”
“And,” I cried, struggling to my feet. “I want to be as strong as a demon. I want to be able to wield magic and do everything a demon can.”
Lucifer clicked his tongue. “Now you’re reaching too high, dearest. I can bring your body to its absolute and optimal strength and performance. I can even weave glamour magic into your pores that will make you look and smell like a demon, but if you want to be a real demon, you’ll need to make some spectacularly bad choices and then die. You are what you are, human, and only Daddy Dearest has the power to change that.”
I slumped over, holding my head in my hands.
“Don’t look so put out,” Lucifer sang. “You should be glad of that limitation. Understand that you are not the first human to make a deal with me. Not even the thousandth. Can you imagine what would have become of your world if I were able to make all of them the all-powerful beings they so desperately wanted to be?”
I did imagine that, and shuddered. If thousands of humans were granted the same abilities as those monsters who invaded our home and took Dora, the world would’ve been reduced to an apocalyptic wasteland decades ago.
“That’s all well and good for earth, but how does that help me in hell?” I cried. “Won’t I give myself away if I can’t do magic or fight back? Won’t it be impossible for me to beat those guys and get Dora back if I’m just a weak human against four demons?”
He hummed, rubbing his chin. “I can weave a layer of cunning into the glamour. Make it so whenever someone with suspicions about you looks into your eyes, those suspicions dissipate. Hmm, ah yes, and a little suggestion magic in your voice box would do a nice trick. Not so much to be detected, but enough that when you speak, your listener will want to believe you over their own internal voice.
“I have given those gifts to more than a few of your human counterparts.” He winked. “How else do you think the most despicable among you have risen to power and amassed followers, even though everything you humans know of goodness and morality was screaming at you to kill those bastards on sight?”
Bile burned in my throat. “I really don’t want to know who you’re hinting at right now, but you could explain why you’re saying you gave them that magic, but you won’t give me the magic I’m asking for.”
Lucifer sighed. “Don’t purposely misunderstand, darling, you’re too intelligent to pull off that charade. In those cases and yours, I’m using my own ability to boost your natural ones. You humans have already perfected the art of gaslighting, I’m merely making it more effective—as in effective enough to fool the creatures you’re about to meet.