Page 60 of Demon Heart: The Complete Series

ROMAN

I almost fell to the floor. “What did you say?”

His grip loosened, though not enough for me to break free.

Sadness diminished some of his dark radiance. “The end of magic, Roman.”

“Huh?”

“Maybe we should have a seat now,” the fairy tried again.

I blinked up at the demon, attempting to wrap my head around his words. “The end of magic?”

A nod. “For everyone’s sake.”

I rubbed at my left temple. “You want to end all magic, including your own?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“For revenge, partly. To make us all equal—demon, human, fairy. Everyone. To see who can become the dominant race in the war to follow.”

I looked to Una, who’s wrinkled mouth hung open. “I never knew that.”

“You want war?”

“It would be inevitable after the end of magic,” he said.

“You’re a monster.”

He folded his arms across his chest, his outfit straining across his muscles. “Am I?”

“Evidence speaks for itself.”

“I see.”

“How is he any different to you witches?” the fairy asked. “You made a new magic, defied the laws of nature when you should be using Trace, not Synth.”

I tried not to glower at her. “What about your people?”

She didn’t respond.

Demons invaded the Fairy Wilds before Earth, messing things up so badly over there that the realm was now dying or dead. I wasn’t sure if it was completely gone yet, seeing as it remained completely closed off.

No one wanted this world to suffer the same fate.

“Ending all magic can set things right,” Butterfly jumped back in.

“You mean it can save your life?”

“Yes. But this is far more complex than that.”

I shook my head, fingers still resting on my dagger. “Not really. You want to end magic, put demons on top, take over my world. Simple. Don’t try making it deep, because it’s not.”

He stared at me, making the hairs on my arms dance.

“I’m not going back in time to kill that warlock. For better or worse, this is how things turned out for you. That’s life, I’m afraid. We have to suck it up no matter how much it hurts.”

And sometimes it really, really hurts…

He smiled again. “Under the correct conditions, the device will reach its next stage.”

I unclenched my fists, taking a step back. “Meaning?”

Butterfly unfolded his arms. “When you accept its real power, the device will fulfill its function. You are its host, but you have to want to use it.”

“Accept ending magic?”

“Yes.” He reached out to touch me, pulling his hand back. “I sense that condition.”

I didn’t. “I’ll never accept it.”

Could he do something to make me?

“It remains in your hands.”

“Isn’t that a flawed design?”

“How so?”

“Shouldn’t you have engineered this thing to obey you?”

“It is yours to command. I am merely the creator. My role, I now understand, is to help you see the light.”

Seriously? “There is no light. I’m not helping you end magic. You may as well take your device and shove it up your arse.”

“Why would I do that?”

I really wanted to crack him between the eyes.

“Is it wrong to want to live?” he said.

I swallowed, this house too hot, the air too close. “You’ve had your time.”

“How unfair.”

Grandma…

If anyone deserved a shot at more time, she did. Not him.

But the world didn’t deal in fairness very often. It would rather hurt, break a heart, tear my soul to pieces.

Hold it together!

Fuck this. Fuck all of this. “Why would you think I’d want to end magic? I’m a witch. I like having spells, complications be damned.”

The fairy shuffled away on her slippers. “I’ll be in the living room when you’re ready to talk.”

“Rest your bones,” Butterfly answered over his shoulder.

Una grunted something in answer.

“I have no leverage against you, Roman. Even if the mark were not tainted, I could never force you to do my bidding.”

“Seriously? Then this is all a bit pointless. Shouldn’t the supervillain have the hero by the balls? Not that I’m a hero by any stretch.”

He looked up at the ceiling. “I enjoy your turns of phrase.” Eyes back to me. “I will simply have to convince you.”

“I won’t be convinced.”

“Always remember I saved your life.”

He knew how to throw me off. “What? How?”

“If it wasn’t for the device, you would be dead from your queen’s bullet.”

“That’s…”

“True?”

Unfortunately. “I can’t be part of this.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s wrong. If magic has to disappear, it has to go on its own.”

“Says the man using Synth!” Una called from the living room.

I couldn’t run away yet, as much as I wanted to. The fairy still needed to tell me about the operation, how this happened to me.

My heart was a device. A fucking device!

Gah!

I could just throw caution to the wind and go back to get Xavier and stop this dead in its tracks. To hell with answers. Things were already too fucked up. If I stopped Butterfly now, then…

…what? What the hell would happen next? Could I really live without knowing the whole truth, sacrifice my probing curiosity for the greater good?

I followed Butterfly into the living room.

“Move those books,” the fairy said, nodding at the sofa buried under many dusty tomes.

Una occupied an armchair positioned before a crackling fire, resting her legs on a red footstool.

The room stank of bad breath and a hint of sweet decay, and the fire burned too hot.

The curtains were drawn, dim lamps filling the room with an anemic glow.

There were more piles of books around the bottom of packed bookcases, cracks in the yellow-stained ceiling, cobwebs everywhere.

A dirty mirror hung over the fireplace, a pile of chopped wood and balls of paper close by.

This house cried out for a nuclear spring clean.

I pulled on the collar of my jumper, sweat trickling down my back. When was the last time I’d got myself under a shower? I smelled as gross as this room.

Once the books were cleared, Butterfly sat on the sofa. I took the spot next to him, perched on the edge of the firm cushion. Tense beyond words.

I wanted to run again, glancing at the front door, torn between hearing the truth and scarpering.

Go get Darcy and Xavier and run for my life. Hide forever. If I could get beyond Butterfly’s reach, and Queen Margarite’s, everything would be okay.

Right?

“I’ll get straight to it,” Una said, releasing a soft moan.

“Throughout the years, the device was my guide. It absorbed the knowledge of this world, drawing everything it could into itself. The humming in its body was like a voice relaying details of its mission to grow.” Her eyes were fixed to the fire.

“I miss the humming.” She groaned. “Sorry. Whimsical prat. For a long time, I thought the device would be with me forever. But one day it told me to find a host for its incubation. It’d fed enough, the hungry caterpillar ready for its cocoon.

” She turned her head and smiled grimly at me.

“That same day I went with it in search of a perfect vessel, following its lead. I never understood why, only that I had to follow its will.”

I bit on my bottom lip, jaw clenching.

“It took me to the hospital you were in,” the fairy said to me.

“At first, it found a young witch girl in need of a heart transplant. But she died. Then it pointed to you, the boy with the poorly heart. With the device’s insistence, and after it transformed itself into a human child’s heart, I bribed the medical team to give it to you.

” Una pointed a gnarled finger at me. “The humans did my bidding, fitted it without question. After all, they were getting paid a lot of money, and under the threat of death to their families.”

I wanted to be sick. “Dr. James. She died in a car crash.”

I remembered Grandma telling me about my surgeon’s tragic death.

“She tried to renege on the deal,” Una responded. “The guilt got to be too much for her. So, I killed her.”

I grabbed my chest, the device thumping as if it really were my heart. “You… You fucked up my life. You both did.”

“Saved it. The doctors weren’t too optimistic about your surgery.”

Acid bubbled at the base of my throat. “Did my grandma know?”

“Of course not!” Una snapped as if I’d insulted her. “It was a secret mission between me and the device.”

I swallowed, the sensation of rusty nails in my throat. “It chose me at random.”

“You were in the right place at the right time,” Butterfly responded softly. “How fascinating.”

My right hand found the hilt of my dagger again, the lid on my rage trembling. “You killed that surgeon.”

“I had to,” the fairy answered.

“What happened to my real heart?”

“I put it to good use.”

My fingers locked around the hilt. “You did what?”

“Human hearts are valuable on the black market. Especially witch ones. I’m sure it’s been used to give a boost to some Synth potions somewhere.”

The lid blew off my fury in a volcanic eruption. Trained to temper my anger, I channeled any rage through killing competence. But this was different.

So, so different.

I threw myself at the fairy, driving the blade into her throat first, then into her heart.

“You did fucking what?” I screamed, blood spraying my face with each strike. “You fucking did what?”

I lost count of how many times I stabbed her. When I stopped, she slumped forward, tumbling off the chair and rolling onto her back. Blood pooled beneath her, seeping into the floor. Her left arm landed at the edge of the fireplace, the sleeve of her jumper catching alight.

Breathing frantic, her blood running down my face, dripping from my fingertips, I stared at the lifeless fairy.

“You fucking did what?” I whispered.

“What have you done?” Movement behind me, the calm tones of Butterfly.

I wiped sweat from my brow. At least, I think it was sweat. I didn’t know, didn’t care.

“Killed her,” I said. “What does it look like?”

“Why?”

I sniffed, turning to face him. He stood a few feet away, his hands clasped together under his breastbone—the kind of pose you see a dead body in when it’s all done up pretty, made to look like they’re resting in their finest clothes, laying on a bed of silk.

Like Grandma in her favorite dress, hair done beautifully, makeup on point, surrounded by pearly white silk. Sleeping. Peaceful. In a better place, her best friend told me so.

Only, I knew better. That wasn’t her, that thing in the coffin.

And there’d been nothing peaceful about her death.

I knew the pain she suffered, how the sepsis ravaged her body.

Maybe she was better off being out of that agony, but she wasn’t in a better place.

This world, with all its flaws, was the best place for her.

With me, living our lives, her not gone and me without a hole in my heart that would never heal.

Heart! Ha! I didn’t have one. It all made sense.

A man who killed so easily for his queen, took a life without hesitation, he’d never have a real heart.

No way. Even when I tried to say things were changing since losing the woman who raised me, when I saw the flaws in my life, I remained a heartless bastard.

I still killed, I still walked around with a machine in my chest.

It was tempting to cut it out, put a stop to this now. I’d get to see Grandma again. Maybe even meet my parents as an adult—which would be like meeting them for the first time.

Could I? Would I be allowed into the same place as them? Or was I carrying a one-way ticket into some dark pit to pay penance for God only knew how long?

I’d put my money on the latter.

“Roman?” Butterfly spoke gently.

I barely heard him, replaying every moment with Xavier, how he’d made me want to find something better. Went through the doubts over the morality of my job, the choices I’d made, only to end up here as this demon’s bitch, nothing but a tool.

A real fucking tool.

Tears broke free, searing their way down my cheeks.

“Talk to me, Roman.”

“Fuck off.” I let the silent tears roll free. With no sobbing behind them, they sure did leak heavily.

The fire spread up the fairy’s arm, moving across her chest. It wouldn’t be long until her body became engulfed, then the rest of this room.

“Let it burn,” I said.

“There is knowledge held within these walls,” Butterfly responded. “We cannot let it burn.”

Every muscle in my body strained. “Then put the fire out.”

“I think I will.”

I released a blast of Synth into his chest, sending him hurtling through the air. He crashed through the closed curtains, the window exploding.

“Fuck you!” I screamed after him, making a run for it toward the back of the house.

Using more Synth, I blew the back door apart, then cast a diversion spell on myself.

My hands throbbed in response as the red energy coiled around them.

So, what. I loved this spell. Anyone or anything that looked my way wouldn’t see me.

Their eyes would move to the side or whatever.

The next best thing to pure invisibility.

Tears still streaming down my face, I leaped over Una’s back garden wall, landing at the edge of her neighbor’s pond.

Kept going, clearing wall after wall until I reached the main road.

Made a run for it, passing some open shops with fruit and veg stalls outside, dodging people until I eventually reached a quiet alleyway, my chest on fire.

“Oh, God…” I wheezed, catching my breath.

What the hell had I done?

Fuck it. Fuck the fairy. Fuck Butterfly.

Closing my eyes, I summoned the power of the device, finding the path to go back in time once again.