Page 15 of Chaos Carnival (Cirque de Sanguine #2)
Chapter 14: Eternal Pacts
Maverick
The dying sunlight painted blood-streaks across the cobblestones as we emerged. The iron gates of Père Lachaise loomed, twisted metal clawing at the bruised sky. I held Tess's hand tighter, trying to steady myself as another wave of vertigo hit.
“Fucking perfect.” My vision swam, the ancient tombstones blurring and doubling my vision. The poison spilled through me like liquid fire one moment, arctic ice the next. Each heartbeat sent fresh agony racing through my chest. “When Celeste said 'consecrated ground,' this seemed like the right spot.”
The gates' shriek set my teeth on edge as I pushed them open. My muscles screamed in protest, weakness seeping into my bones. The crystalline patterns spreading across my skin felt like thousands of needles burrowing deeper with each breath.
“You're the one who insisted on coming here.” Tess squeezed my fingers, her warmth temporarily cutting through the numbness creeping up my arm.
“Yeah, well...” I traced the outline of the ritual rings in my pocket, fighting back a wave of nausea. The metal burned cold against my fingertips. “There's something poetic about soul-binding in a graveyard.”
“Your idea of romance needs work.” Tess pulled her coat tighter with her free hand, scanning the entrance. “You sure the hunters won't track us here?”
“Sacred ground's got its own protections.” The words slurred a little as black spots danced, blurring my vision. My knees buckled, and Tess caught me before I hit the ground. The poison thrummed through my body like a second heartbeat, each pulse bringing fresh waves of agony and exhaustion.
Stone markers rose around us, their weathered faces telling stories of lives long past. My control leaked out involuntarily, coating the nearest headstones in delicate frost patterns that sparkled in the dim light. Beautiful, if you ignored that it meant I was losing control.
The path ahead writhed like a living thing, markers blurring my vision. Tess's presence grounded me, but the dark energy of that pulsing book canceled the effect. The cemetery's corruption called to it like a siren song. Each throb of its magic sent whispers, promises of unlimited power, if only she'd reach out and grasp it.
“Don't listen to that book.” I shot her a warning look over my shoulder. “Those kinds of offers always come with strings attached.”
“Yeah, I think I noticed,” she mumbled.
My legs threatened to give out as another surge of poison hit. I braced against a nearby crypt, leaving traces of frost creeping across the stone. Time was running out faster than I'd hoped.
The crypts loomed around us, their faces a blur of carved angels and death masks. My vision swam, the poison making it hard to focus on any one thing for too long. I recognized some names through the haze, legends, artists, revolutionaries. All of them rotting beneath our feet while their influence lingered on.
“It's mesmerizing,” Tess breathed beside me, her grip tightening on my hand. We passed under the deepening gloom of a monument that seemed to devour what little light remained. The poison crawled beneath my skin, trying to peel it from my bones.
“Home to some infamous residents.” I kept my voice low, though the dead didn't much care for whispers. “Morrison, Chopin, Piaf... plus practitioners whose names have been eaten by time.”
The silence that followed pressed down heavier than the stone around us. Every few steps, Tess's pulse would spike. Her hand felt impossibly small in mine, like holding onto a bird's wing in a storm.
The space between us filled with everything we hadn't said, every dark impulse, every desperate need, every corrupted promise.
The moment balanced on a knife's edge. I wanted to push her, to see how far she'd go, but something held me back. Not yet. Not like this.
“Come on.” I growled the words, tugging her toward a shadowed corner where the oldest graves lay. “Grave dirt holds strength. The older the death, the stronger the influence.”
Tess knelt in the dirt, spreading the book's pages with trembling fingers. The ancient leather cover seemed to drink in what little moonlight filtered through the branches above. She pulled out the rings—ancient metal bands that hummed with dark alchemy.
My legs barely held me up as she faced me. The poison had spread past my chest, tendrils of ice creeping up my neck. Our eyes met and locked, the gravity of what we were about to do pressed down on us both.
“Animas nostras conectimus, vinculum aeternum.” The first words of the ritual fell from her lips like drops of mercury, heavy and liquid. We connect our souls, an eternal bond.
She took my hand, sliding the cold metal onto my finger.
Power surged through the connection, raw and primal.
The ring burned, then settled into my skin like it had always been there.
My turn.
I fought to keep my hands steady as I placed the second ring on her finger. “Per annulum hunc, sanguinem et spiritum coniungo.” Through this ring, I join blood and spirit. Her voice never wavered as she spoke the words, though the dread was clear in her eyes. Each syllable bound us tighter, weaving our souls together strand by strand.
The final incantation hit like a physical force. “Duae animae, unum cor, una vita.” Two souls, one heart, one life.
The magic settled into place with an almost audible gasp, and suddenly I could feel her—not just next to me, but inside me. Part of me. Like she'd always been there, just waiting to be acknowledged.
First the curse, then the mate bond when I claimed her, and now this.
Three times bound, three times sealed.
Forever.
I should have felt guilty. Should have hated myself for the chains I'd wrapped around her soul. But looking at her in that moment, the echo of her heartbeat alongside mine, I couldn't summon an ounce of remorse. Only bone-deep gratitude that threatened to bring me to my knees.
My obsession with her from the moment I first saw her wasn't anchored in the curse or satisfying desire. It went deeper than that, ran through my blood like a fever I couldn't shake. Even before all these bonds, and despite the curse, something in me was drawn to her sharp wit and fierce spirit, to the way she challenged me at every turn.
And what flowed between us now ran deeper than magic, deeper than blood, deeper than any curse or bond could reach. It felt like coming home to a place I'd never known I was missing, like finding the missing piece of myself I hadn't realized was gone until she filled that void. Every shared breath, every moment spent in her orbit only confirmed what I'd suspected since the beginning—that Tess wasn't just another witch who'd crossed my path. She was my anchor in the storm I'd been weathering for centuries.
The air crackled. Something had changed. Arrived.
I felt the demon's presence first, an ancient darkness that made even my seraph power recoil. The grave dirt writhed as he materialized.
“Little runaway.” The demon's voice slithered through my skull. “Still carrying my mark, I see.”
My jaw clenched as the old bargain's price charred beneath my skin. I kept Tess behind me, though the protective gesture felt hollow against Baphomet's control.
“Not here for a social call.” The crystalline poison made my movements jerky, uncoordinated.
“Just checking my investment.” His gaze dissected us both. “Though turning a mortal into a half-breed? Wasn’t that deliciously unexpected?”
The scar on my chest singed at his words, a reminder of that desperate bargain centuries ago. Stone, Lux, and I had been stupid enough to think we could outrun Hell.
“That debt was paid.” My voice came out rough as the poison ate its way through me. “In blood and pain, just like you wanted.”
But the argument was flimsy. We both knew I was always on call for him.
Baphomet's form shifted, smoke and shadow resolving into something almost human. “Strange then, that you stand before me bearing a hunter's curse. One might think you're still running.” His gaze fixed on Tess. “Unless you've found something worth staying for?”
Tess tensed behind me, her energy flaring in response. The book she carried thrummed, calling to Baphomet like a beacon.
“The witch's alchemy has changed you. Made you less pure.” Baphomet's claws traced patterns in the air. “The seraphim hunters can smell it. And our original deal specified a pure seraph's future.”
The implications hit like a blade between my ribs. I'd signed away my future to save Stone and Lux. Now that future was entangled with Tess's.
“Leave her out of this.” My shadows writhed uselessly alongside his overwhelming presence.
“But she's already part of it, isn't she?” Her eyes narrowed, sharp as daggers. “You've become such an entertaining collection of corruptions, I'm willing to renegotiate. All it will take is one small promise...”
Tess's breath caught, the cursed book's hunger thrumming between us. The smart move would be to phase us out, find another way. But Addie was running out of time. And this poison...
“Why would you help?” The words tasted rancid, bitter.
Baphomet's shoulders moved in a fluid motion that reminded me of writhing snakes. “Let's call it restructuring our arrangement.” Each shift was a promise of exquisite pain. “After all, your choices have made things so much more interesting.”
The air grew thick with his presence, that same devastating force that had carved our escape route through Hell's armies. My muscles locked as memories of sulfur and screams flooded back. The price of that “help” still haunted my nightmares.
“Join me for lunch?” His claws traced patterns in the air. “I promise to make it worth your while.”
Behind me, Tess's fear crashed against my senses like a rocky shore. The bond between us thrummed with her tension, her unruly magic coiling defensively around us both. But my mind raced through the calculations. We were running out of options.
The poison spread further each hour. Ivan's carnival of horrors awaited. And the hunters tracked us with renewed vigor, drawn by whatever this bond had made me. The corrupted ley lines pulsed beneath our feet, feeding off the demon's overwhelming presence.
Every choice promised pain, but which would hurt less in the end?