Page 4 of Hell-Bound (Pacts of the Infernal #1)

Benji was ecstatic when Renata arrived to give him half her earnings. He refused at first.

“Look, Ren, I ain’t no charity case. I get my earnin’s fair and square!”

“Okay then, how about this? We play cards and you can win it off me. Fair and square?”

she offered, trying to hide her smile,

His eyes lit up.

“Yeah. yeah! I could do that.”

They settled in, using an abandoned crate as an impromptu table.

It wasn’t the fairest game. Benji was obviously cheating, and Renata couldn’t remember the rules, but it was a silent agreement to save egos.

She spent the rest of the day with Benji, learning to play and enjoying how the hard cardboard felt against her hands, perhaps an echo of familiarity there. Benji also insisted that she perform a lively sea shanty.

“It goes like this…dun dun dooooh deeldl dee dee…”

“Um. Like this?”

She tried to match his cadence as best she could but, judging by his expression, failed miserably.

He grimaced.

“Yeah, ugh…that’s about it.”

Unsuccessful in an attempt to also not wound her pride. But she didn’t mind.

“Benji?”

she asked as she watched him shuffle the cards with skilled hands.

“How did you first begin working on ships?”

Renata was surprised that Benji stopped shuffling and puffed out his chest.

“I was blessed by Nainaur, or my mother was!”

“Really?”

she asked, surprised.

“How was that?”

The small boy flipped an ace through his fingers.

“Well, my paw left me and my mom—but he said he’d come back! But…after a while, my mom…”

He stopped, a flash of pain crossing his face before it, just as quickly, disappeared.

“She stopped getting out of bed for a while. She kept saying he’d come back—told me that while we waited, that I was the man of the house.”

He puffed out his chest again proudly.

“She would only leave bed to go to the temple of Nainaur every evening to light a candle for paw. One day, after I came home with some food, I saw her note. It said she’d gone to join my paw and Nainaur in The Heavens, to not look for her because she had become a special angel.”

He stopped again, this time looking down at his knees.

“It was hard at first, knowing she was gone. But…I only had to live alone for a bit before I found the shipping yard.”

He looked up at Renata.

“And I’m special because I have an angel looking down on me! So nothing bad can ever happen to me!”

Benji looked at her expectantly, but Renata didn’t know what he wanted from her. Even though he had so many more memories than her, he was still just a child. It was easy to forget that he was so young, his air being so capable and independent. She wondered how long he would believe this story that he told himself. That if he would wake up one day and accept that his mother had left him. Or if he’d hold on to that story for the rest of his life.

I guess sometimes memories are what you decide they are.

“I’m very happy to hear nothing bad will happen to you, Benji,”

she responded.

“I’ll need you to escort me back to Vergessen when I return.”

As the sun started to set and she began packing her new set of cards and piccolo, she felt a tug on her tunic. Before she could fully turn, Benji had slung two stiff arms around her neck. She was taken aback at first, but that gesture wasn’t entirely unwelcome.

The awkwardness came when she realized she didn’t know what to do with her arms. She tried to imitate the gesture as best she could and hoped that her movements didn’t seem disingenuous. He didn’t let go for a few beats, so she supposed she had succeeded.

This feels nice.

It was warm despite the chilling ocean breeze, she acknowledged before he broke the hold.

She gave one more small wave and walked off the docks, tracing her steps back to the tavern, looking forward to the bitter taste of ale. Her booted feet kicked up rocks as she shuffled down the empty street. It wasn’t long, however, for her ears to twitch slightly, hearing another set of footprints scraping stone.

Someone is following me.

But her body didn’t want to run, and she didn’t feel threatened by the footsteps coming closer and closer. A small whisper in the back of her mind told her to just keep walking. So she did.

She walked—still looking at her feet but not sure where she was walking to. She passed the tavern, and soon, the streets became dark. There was very little light in this part of the city, making her pulse tick up a notch.

She then felt the hair on her arm stand on end right before a hand roughly grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. She abruptly found herself face to face with a hulking Orc, one of the same she had seen at the tavern.

His skin was a sallow shade of green, like mold on bread. His tusks protruded from the bottom of his mouth and were so long that they threatened to poke holes through his top lip. He was completely bald and had a long scar from his scalp to his cheek.

“Hey, flute girl! Wanna share those coins yeh got there?”

he grunted, gripping her arm painfully.

Her ears perked again as she heard some rustling in an alley nearby. He wasn’t alone.

“Right, s-sure,”

she said, reaching into her satchel.

With a start, she realized that her hands were searching for something other than coin. She suddenly felt at war with herself—stuck between crashing thoughts—and froze, one hand still in her bag.

The scarred Orc grunted again as two other males approached from the alley.

“You better hurry, little bard,”

he said, producing a club from behind his back.

“We’z don’t care how well you play that pipe. We’ll beat the coins out of yeh.”

The war in her suddenly stopped. She could feel the blood flood to her ears as she whipped around.

What are you doing?

The losing side of her brain shouted as she raised onto her toes to get eye level with the tall figure. Her patience had run out.

“Fucking try it, prick,”

she snarled.

His eyes widened in surprise.

“Oh, ho, ho.”

He laughed falsely.

“You remind me of me old lady—before I tore her ears off. Tell yeh what, apologize and hand over the coin, and I only tear one of those pointy things from yer skull.”

A few drops of spittle landed on her face as he dug his grimy fingernails into her arm.

“And I’ll take that second-rate instrument yeh got. I’m sure I could sell it for at least a few copper.”

As he raised his club, Renata’s body reacted to the threat. She spun, using momentum and her lithe body to twist around, bending her arm, causing the beast to lose grip.

The Orc stepped back, disoriented.

“Don’t just stand there! Fucking kill her!”

he shouted, trying to regain his equilibrium.

Renata shuffled back as the other two Human males leaped forward, grabbing for whatever purchase they could. Unlike their boss, they were quicker and less lumbering.

Run you dumbass, her brain screamed at her.

She was outmatched, outnumbered, and unarmed. Anyone with half a mind would run.

Fortunately for Renata, in her state, she didn’t exactly have half her mind, only her two internal voices of self-preservation and instinct.

And she found that the action, the threat of danger, excited her. She couldn’t stop the gleeful smirk that appeared on her face.

This was like music. Something inside of her remembered—her body remembered. These echoes lived in her limbs, not her mind, and refused to be forgotten.

She sidestepped the first Human and positioned herself to his back. She then leaped off her feet and threw her weight towards him, lacing her arms around his neck. She was small, but she found that she could feel her muscles flex, securing a familiar grip and blocking any air to his lungs. She somehow knew that if she leveraged her knee in the center of his back and leaned her weight into his neck, he would quickly fall unconscious.

In the confusion, the second human—armed with a dagger—hesitated, his face bewildered as he looked dumbly at his flailing comrade.

The Orc growled, obviously less concerned, and lunged at Renata, knocking all three to the ground. She landed painfully on her back, the weight of the Orc crushing her lungs. She gasped with the impact, momentarily losing her hold on his neck. As the Human scrambled away, the Orc grabbed her and lifted her high over his head, slamming her down again to the ground.

Her entire body was rocked with pain, the air leaving her lungs. The Orc reared back to bash his body into hers, but she rolled to the side just in time for him to collide with the rocky cobblestones.

She was still trying to gulp down lung-fulls of air as she scrambled to her feet. The adrenalin was pulsing through her veins now, constricting her pupils and dulling the aches in her body.

The three began to loom closer, brandishing their weapons and chuckling.

“Is that all?”

Renata heard herself say.

“Tsk tsk, my boys. Are you going to let a little lady take such easy advantage of you?”

As a response, all three lunged at her, but she was ready. She sprang up and grabbed hold of a protruding brick on the wall several feet above her that she had seen while splayed out on the ground, waiting for her eyes to focus. It was only a foot wide, but she was able to easily perch herself there, balancing on her toes and dispersing her weight by leaning her back against the wall, arms out wide. On her pedestal, she was about six feet higher than her attackers.

“What the?”

one of the men murmured as she shot upwards.

Renata gave a wicked grin.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the Defender of The Planes, gentleman. But I suggest you don’t test the meaning of that name.”

Of course, it was an empty threat. Even Renata’s instincts told her she couldn’t take the three males without a proper weapon. Still, it filled her with a sense of satisfaction, of pride.

Theeeeeere you are, my darling. It has been too long. Have you missed me?

That. was not her voice.

Thrown by the intrusion, she almost lost her precarious balance. She glanced in every direction, but no other attackers were waiting. Even so, the voice was too close. It would already be upon her if it wasn’t..in her. Blinking rapidly, she recovered herself.

Time to go—her own voice this time—insistent.

Remembering the men, she looked down.

They were gone.

She stared at the empty space, uncomprehending. She hadn’t been that scary. And again, she wasn’t armed. They knew that.

She leapt up, grabbed the exposed edge of the roof, and pulled herself to sit, dangling her legs. The ocean wind blew aside her silvery hair, and as it did, a black smoke swirled around her. Another unrecognizable sensation tingled her body as she surveyed her hands and arms. The mysterious vapor was so black that it seemed to absorb the little light that flickered from the lanterns.

“What the hells?”

She gasped, holding her hands out in front of her as if they would burn her if she let them touch her body. She had just bested three attackers, and now she was…smoking? Where would she even begin with processing all of this?

As the minutes ticked by, Renata kept her ears fixed, listening for any voices that could indicate the return of her assailants. But after half an hour of silence, she reluctantly decided the coast was clear. By that time, the smoke had dissipated, and the tingling had stopped.

Satisfied she was back to her new normal, she leapt down deftly from the roof and began retracing her steps to the tavern.

Once in her room, Renata sat on the bed with her knees tucked up to her chest, her piccolo set lovingly on the edge of the sheets, and a beer, untouched, waited on her nightstand.

She lowered her head to her knees breathing out a few shaky breaths, surprising herself as she shed a few tears. It hit her all at once.

It was too much—entirely too much. Everything was spinning out of control, and her mind couldn’t grasp any surety. She had woken up, lost and floundering, to an unknown life and a burden of expectations before her. Now, half a world away from those expectations, she was thrown in the middle of a conflict involving gods and Devils and couldn’t even explain what was happening to her body.

This body, this vessel that housed her, was entirely unfamiliar. The way it moved, the power it emitted, felt like another stranger making demands that she was unable to fulfill.

How sad it was to think about. That, at one time, she’d had everything—a family, a lover, friends, and favorite places, or so they all had told her. Yet now she had to live knowing that none of it was hers anymore.

As the sheets of the small tavern room dampened from her tears, she thought of Benji. He had no family. He was nothing more than a child, taking money from other crew members to survive. She felt selfish—feeling so lonely and sorry for herself. She wasn’t actually alone. There were people who loved her. She should be grateful. Still, she couldn’t shake the hurt and confusion. Everything was just…out of control. Her life was happening around her, and she was paralyzed to just watch.

With nothing else to do, she sat silently on her lumpy bed, staring at the sheets. Letting the tears fall until, eventually, she let herself drift into an exhausted slumber.