Page 1 of Contract Marked (Interdimensional Beings #1)

Chapter One

Erin

“A fate worse than death awaits you, wrapped up in a pretty package.”

Sunken, pale eyes met mine over the glass ball resting on golden talons. A bit cliché for a fortune teller shop, but who was I to judge, considering I was the one who decided to enter this little hole in the wall? Purple drapes hung on the walls to hide the shabby windows. The only light came from a sketchy light fixture dangling overhead and a few generic candles that looked like they would start a fire any minute. It was over the top, but since this place was in the middle of nowhere, I guess you did what you had to do to earn money.

“I was expecting to hear ‘I’ll meet the love of my life this year’ or ’good fortune is upon you,’” I half-heartedly joked, but I was far from a humorous mood. My therapist said it was a coping mechanism, using humor to deflect real-world situations I felt uncomfortable with. And well, she wasn’t wrong. I certainly was uncomfortable.

The woman—whose name I didn’t catch in the beginning and was too nervous to ask ten minutes into the session—grabbed my wrist with unexpected firmness.

“What kind of trouble are you in, girl?” She frowned, and the skin between her eyes folded.

I was far from a girl, with my thirties just around the corner, but considering this woman had decades on me, compared to her, I was just a girl. A girl who was here of all places on a Saturday night instead of out at the bar, or hanging out at a friend’s place, or honestly anywhere that didn’t scream ‘lonely’ or ‘lost.’

“Uh, could it be the IRS? There was one year I didn’t file my taxes correctly and—“

She yanked harder and I winced, wondering if I should try and make a run from this crazy lady.

“I’m being serious. I’ve never met someone with a future so … dark.” She released me suddenly and I rubbed my wrists, leaning as far back in the velvet upholstered chair as I could get.

“Well, I can assure you there’s nothing dark or mysterious about me, that’s for sure.” No family—growing up in the foster system isolated me more than most people—only one friend I could count on and a day job I was great at but was heavily exploited with no hopes of a raise or promotion any time soon. My life was pitiful but average, nothing special or … dark. “If you’re looking to sell me a good luck charm or anything, I’m sorry, I’m not about that kind of stuff.”

The woman sighed. “I sense you find all of this ridiculous.” She waved her arms at the décor. “This is not my style at all, but it’s what people expect. Tell me, truthfully. Why did you come in here tonight?”

I blinked, not expecting to be called out right on the spot. “Well … it’s kind of embarrassing when said out loud.” Embarrassing? Try straight-up sad. “I, uh, recently broke it off with a guy I’ve been seeing for several months. Turns out he was just trying to recruit me for some not-safe-for-work stuff.” I awkwardly laughed, avoiding her gaze. “Before him, I hadn’t dated for a couple of years due to a bad break-up, and well … I don’t have a lot of friends, and life just seems pretty boring. I guess I was hoping to hear something exciting, something more worthwhile than this everyday normal, boring routine.”

“I could’ve spun you pretty lies, taken your money, and closed up shop for the night, but that wouldn’t have helped you.” She leaned forward to rest on her crossed arms, the smell of incense and cedar stronger as she hovered closer. “Sometimes, this boring, everyday routine is something we take for granted. Life could be much worse.”

She slid something across the table. The silver coin had a symbol I’d never seen before, almost a three-leaf clover with a line dashed through it and strange markings on the side. It could be another language, but it wasn’t any I recognized at first glance.

“Take this, free of charge. Regardless if you believe my words here tonight or not, you’re in danger or will be very soon. Keep this on your person at all times, if possible, in the shower, in the car, at work, everywhere. It just may save your life.”

The coin felt cool in my hand, and it was only a third the size of my palm. “What’s the point of it?”

“I can’t say for sure, but I’m being told you’ll know when the time comes.”

I suppressed an eye roll but then frowned. It would be arrogant to assume I knew everything about the universe and all its secrets. Who’s to say this woman isn’t telling the truth? Even if I didn’t fully believe her, it didn’t hurt to pocket the coin and take her advice. I gave her a smile and left the shop feeling more lost than before.

My friend Megan was waiting by my door as I pulled into the parking lot of my apartment complex.

“I told you it would be a minute,” I said, unlocking the door to the generic, white-walled apartment. If anyone—other than Megan—came over, I’d lie and say I was into minimalism when in reality, the rent was too damn high to afford anything else, let alone posh furniture.

“A minute, my ass, Erin. You drive like a grandma.” She stormed past me, taking a seat on the black couch I copped at a thrift store. A fitted striped top tucked into straight-leg jeans on anyone else would look plain, normal. On Megan it looked like she just got off the runway, her physique, sculpted face, and mousy brown locks screaming model-worthy—maybe because she was one, her face on the cover of multiple magazines.

“Where were you?”

To anyone else, I would’ve come up with a plausible story, but not to Megan. “I went to a fortune teller’s shop.”

Her eyes widened. “Wait, you give me grief when I talk about anything occult-related, and here you are getting your fortune taken without me?” She held up a paper bag of mouth-watering fast food. “Even after I bought us some food, too.”

I put my hands together in universal symbolism for worship as I tore into my cheeseburger and fries. We both ate around the coffee table since I hadn’t yet found a table that was reasonably priced to buy. “I thought you had a date with what’s-his-face?” I said after downing my burger in three bites.

Megan shrugged. “We’re always hanging out together. I wanted to be with you tonight for once like we used to all the time back in college.”

“How very sweet of you. So, what happened? Did you guys have a fight? Is he out with the boys tonight?”

She playfully punched my arm. “I can’t believe you don’t think I genuinely want to hang out with you?”

I didn’t say out loud that I knew I was a boring person, preferring my solitude and late-night TV shows over going out as Megan did with her boyfriend and her other friends most weekends. Megan had invited me more than once, but I just couldn’t find the energy or desire to try and interact with new people. It was exhausting trying to make new friends at this age, especially when most had kids and a husband or a circle of friends that had already been established. I hated feeling like an outsider every time.

“Okay, well, you caught me. Kind of.” She pulled out a book—more like a textbook than anything—from her bag with faded lettering and yellowing pages. It looked like it belonged as a prop to a haunted mansion set. “I wanted to try this, and I knew you’d humor me.”

I polished off the rest of my fries and sat back on my hands. “Oh really?” I pretended to act offended, but she was right. I’d do anything for Megan. “And what will we be doing with an ancient textbook? Did you steal that from the library? Definitely smells like it.”

“Of course not.” She set it down on the glass coffee table between us, legs crossed as she flipped open its pages to one with a hot pink sticky note stuck to it. “I recently watched this show. Romance, supernatural, you know, all the good stuff, but there was a scene that is supposedly based on a true story.”

I raised my eyebrows in feigned surprise.

She tapped the page with one manicured finger. “Tonight, we’re going to summon some ghosts, or demons, or whatever.”

“What?” I sat up, skimming the page where her finger still rested. Something about a circle, a chant, and … blood? “It’s a bit too early for Halloween.” It was currently August, and not a bit of cold weather to break up the horrid heat.

“Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“Your idea of fun and mine are very different.”

She poked me in the side, right where she knew I was ticklish. I jerked away. “We rarely hang out, and it’s not like anything will actually happen. I’m just … curious.” She pegged me with typical Megan-fashioned pleading eyes. “Life gets boring sometimes, got to shake it up somehow.”

It was uncanny how I had said something similar in the fortune teller’s shop. “That’s what vacations are for, not demon-summoning circles.”

“Oh, please, nothing will happen anyways. It’s just an old folktale, but aren’t you curious?”

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. Still … something about the chant looked familiar. It was written in another language and sounded out phonetically in English beside it, but I felt I had just seen those symbols today.

My heart pulsed faster, and I reached inside my jeans pocket for the silver coin. As expected, the symbols matched. It was the same language.

“What’s that?”

I showed her the coin and told her about the fortune teller, pointing out the matched writing in the book.

Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my gosh, Erin, it’s meant to be!”

But it didn’t feel that way to me, an uncomfortable feeling settling in the pit of my stomach. After what the woman told me earlier that day, it was too much of a coincidence.

A fate worse than death awaits you…

Megan clasped her hands, bouncing up and down on her crossed legs. “I can’t believe this; crazy stuff like this never happens to us. Oh, we got to do this now. It must mean something.”

Yeah, like my unending misery, I didn’t say. I didn’t believe in the paranormal like Megan, despite my earlier destination. Logic and realism kept me in a space I felt comfortable with, one I expected and could reason with. Weird coincidences, ominous fortunes, and folktales were far outside of that space.

“I don’t know, this feels like a bad idea. What if …” I couldn’t believe I was actually saying this, “What if something does happen? What if we’re tricked or we’re caught in something bigger than we intended?”

Megan shoved several fries in her mouth looking completely unbothered. “Coming from you? Now that’s saying something. What did that fortune teller even tell you?” She shrugged. “You’re smart and good at reading people. If something happens, I’m sure you’ll get us out of trouble.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I’m afraid you’re mistaken and, honestly, a bit delusional if you think I can protect us from some supernatural monsters.” I smiled at how ridiculous that sounded, and it eased my fears a bit. It was ridiculous. There’s no way anything would happen.

Megan got up and rummaged through my pantry. “Not true. Remember that one time I dragged you to that house party, and we got caught by the cops? You somehow talked your way out of it, and they let us go—“

“That doesn’t count; the cop was my therapist’s husband. I knew him.”

“And the time I was getting stalked, you successfully tracked him down and blackmailed him to stop following me.”

“That’s only because we frequented the same web forums, and I recognized his profile and put together some of his posts. He brought that on himself for being an idiot and making his stuff public.”

“Or.” She gave me a sharp look to stop interrupting her. “When you found out that guy at the bar roofied me, and you kicked him in the groin so hard I don’t think he’ll ever have kids.”

I wasn’t one for confrontation, Megan doing most of the verbal fighting on the rare occurrences a guy would snub me or a girl would hurl a nasty remark. But if they endangered my friend, I became a menace. “That was different.”

She audibly huffed. “The point is, you undersell yourself, as usual. Also, where’s your salt? Ah, never mind.”

She plopped down my big container of table salt and a knife on the coffee table and thumbed the sticky noted page. After a few embarrassing moments of fumbling through the written chant by herself, I eventually joined Megan and rehearsed the lines we were supposed to speak aloud.

“Okay, it should be good enough. Now, I’ll make the circle,” she said.

“I hope you know you’re cleaning up all that salt when you’re done.”

Megan nodded absently, her eyes skimming the page. Where did she even find this book? Then again, it was probably another book she planned to add to her collection. No one would guess my gorgeous friend would have a dark side. The last time I stumbled into her room, I swore it resembled something out of a horror film. Lacy black curtains had draped her French windows, and tarot cards, random bones, and all sorts of books on the occult were displayed with care on floating shelves. She’d never brought any of her boyfriends back to her place for that reason alone. I guess I was the only one lucky enough for her to show me that side.

Megan moved the coffee table and rug aside to make a salt circle that was more oval-shaped, but she looked happy with it. I suggested turning off the lights and lighting some candles for ambience and she flashed me a smile that would’ve stopped anyone on the street.

“Alright, everything is set up now. We just need to drip some of our blood here.” Her nail tapped the plate in the center of the circle, a circle wide enough to fit a single chair—if I had one. She then pricked her finger, squeezing a couple of drops onto the plate. The flames from the surrounding candles laid out on the floor illuminated Megan’s sharper features making her words come out a bit creepier than normal when she said, “Your turn.”

This whole thing was outrageous. I almost would’ve rather gone out to a bar or some stranger’s house party. Almost.

I audibly sighed for dramatic effect but pricked the tip of my finger with the knife. I didn’t squeeze out the blood like Megan had, instead dabbing the plate, hoping it was good enough. I then shook my head at the thought. Nothing was going to happen anyway, I should’ve just skipped out on this part altogether, but Megan looked so happy.

My friend clasped her hands together and looked at me expectantly. We started to chant.

Aside from feeling foolish for even doing this, there was something powerful about this moment. I didn’t know if it was the candle-lit atmosphere, the idea of doing something deemed dark and forbidden, a placebo effect taking hold that made my pulse thrum faster with every word, or the room tilting and spinning.

Before I knew it, the chant ended, and silence descended like a thick smog in my small living room. Megan and I stared at each other for a few heartbeats, waiting. Even I, admittedly, was hoping for something to happen.

A car alarm started outside the window, and we both jumped. Then we laughed at the ridiculousness of it all when suddenly a shadow loomed over my friend—black smoke blooming and taking shape from the center of the salt circle. The room grew colder, and the smell of fire and spice filled it.

We both sat on the floor, making me crane my neck up at something I thought wouldn’t happen, couldn’t happen, because—like Megan had said—this kind of stuff just doesn’t happen to us. Doesn’t happen to normal people.

“Good evening, ladies,” the shadow purred.