Page 54 of The Damned (Coven of Bones #3)

M A R G O T

The portal to Violence was a traumatic experience, striking far too close to home.

The memory of how Willow described the ritual Gray had performed to open the gate hung over me, the violence involved in magic like that serving as a reminder that not all magic was used for good.

That the magic held within blood could be used for something beautiful or adapted to something cruel and hideous.

Atrocities were committed when people claimed the ends justified the means, the loss of life somehow erased as irrelevant as long as the ending was a favorable one when all was said and done.

The altar rested atop a set of stairs that ascended toward the sky, ending abruptly as green flames danced behind the stone table.

Beelzebub kept my hand within his, holding me tightly as we ascended them slowly.

A single dagger rested on the stone beside a bowl, waiting for me to make my offering to the portal and see if it would permit me passage into the circle of Violence.

Since the archdemon for Violence had yet to be properly made, the portal hadn’t given up enough control for Belphegor to give us his blessing and allow us passage to the next circle.

The payment for Violence was blood.

We stopped before the table as Beelzebub wrapped hesitant fingers around the hilt of the blade, holding my hand out over the bowl as he stared down at me and waited for my permission.

I wished there were another way to pass through, but the alternative would have meant two days’ walk to the boundary itself, the circle of Heresy a vast network of tombstones and the suffering dead, and we’d be forced to listen to their muffled screams as they drowned each night and tried to claw their way out of their graves, only to be washed back in by morning and reburied by the force of the tide.

“It’s alright,” I said, splaying my fingers wide to give Beelzebub easy access to my palm.

He leaned down, running his nose along the side of mine as the tip of the knife touched my skin.

He pressed it deep, cutting through the skin and muscle to draw a straight line across my palm.

I turned my hand over, letting the blood drip onto the stones waiting at the bottom of the bowl.

They hissed with steam as they absorbed the blood, Beelzebub dropping the dagger beside the table to use both hands to bend my fingers back, forcing more blood from the wound.

I knew that while he’d cut me deeply, he’d cut me more shallowly than he should have for the offering.

He hadn’t wanted me to be wounded as we fought our way through the circle known for physical pain, preparing us to battle our way out the other side.

“I’m right here. Always, songbird,” he said, his voice gentle. It felt like a warning of what was to come, as if he could feel the fear consuming me. Something was wrong, a premonition I felt in my gut.

Violence would ruin me.

I tucked myself into his chest as a torrent of air surrounded us, whipping my hair about my shoulders with the force of a tornado.

It formed a swirling vortex, surrounding us in a tunnel of wind that destroyed the altar beside us, whipping the stone through the air.

The sound of it crashing into the platform where we stood made me burrow into his chest, shutting out the world around me and the fear that I might die before we could even reach the Ninth Circle.

The wind tore Beelzebub’s hand from mine, earning a scream from me as his form disappeared from in front of me. His chest was gone, leaving me to stumble forward as darkness descended upon me. Reaching for him, I called his name in desperation. “Beelzebub!”

Only the wind answered, the deafening sound of it surrounding me as I fell through time and space.

I landed in a pit of black, a complete void of light as hearing returned.

The wind vanished, making the air feel too still suddenly as I looked around for something, anything that might answer what had happened.

“Beelzebub?” I asked, my voice far quieter.

There was no answer, only that eternal darkness that made my breathing quake.

My chest shook with the force of it; a barrage of shallow breaths couldn’t draw in enough air.

I’d had enough panic attacks to know the makings of one forming in my heart, clutching at the organ when it couldn’t get enough oxygen.

My head went light as the memory of darkened nights in my childhood bedroom filled my head.

Of wandering hands on my skin and far worse things I refused to name even in my mind.

Just when I thought I might lose consciousness, stumbling to the side, lights illuminated the pit in front of me.

There.

I made my way toward the fairy lights, the small twinkle of them surrounding an intricate silver border.

The mirror was so like the gate to Hell, with the figure of a woman carved into the metalwork at the top.

A filigree of feathers and scales comprised the rest of the border as I came to a stop in front of it.

At first there was only darkness on the other side, and I paused as I wondered if it was a pathway.

“Beelzebub?” I asked again, spinning as I searched for the archdemon who belonged at my side.

There was no sign of him or his hulking form, only silence as I approached the border in front of me.

Reaching out with trembling fingers, I touched the cool surface of glass that cut through it, the warmth of my fingers leaving a mark on what I realized must be a mirror.

But there was no reflection in the glass, only darkness waiting on the other side.

I pressed at it more fully, contemplating breaking through the surface when a flash of movement came from the other end of the tunnel on the other side.

A flicker of light came from a torch as it approached, with a child’s delicate fingers wrapped around the body.

I followed them up the arm that came into view as she came closer, her small frame looking so tiny in the width of the hall that expanded out behind her.

She stopped only when she could press a free hand to the other side of the mirror, deep mahogany eyes staring at me blankly as my heart stalled completely.

I watched her for a moment, unable to stop the sob that made my throat close.

The younger version of myself remained perfectly still, studying me as if trying to understand how I had come to be the way I was.

She looked deep into my soul, seeing straight through me in a way that no child should ever be able to.

Her favorite nightgown was intact, the innocence that had been taken from her staring me in the face for a brief moment before her mouth spread into a cruel, sardonic smile.

She screamed, the sound tearing through the air and shattering the glass of the mirror.

I hurried to bend down, shielding my face as I curled away, covering my ears with my hands in a desperate attempt to shut out the sound.

Stabbing into my head, drawing a matching scream from my own mouth, I was oblivious to the shadows arcing through the air after the glass.

The girl took a step forward, toward the threshold as I finally pulled my head from my knees and looked to her.

Blood dripped down her ears, sliding down her neck as moisture coated my own hands.

Her scream stopped as shadows played in the hint of light from the twinkling vines on the border of what remained of the mirror, leaving me to pull my hands from my head finally and stare down in horror at the blood that covered them.

I took a step back as the girl lifted her nightgown to show the bruises covering her thighs as she did.

She crossed the threshold, emerging into the pit with a roll of her neck.

The shadows that had swirled about in the light moved, striking me in the chest and knocking me airborne.

I struck the wall on the other side of the narrow abyss, my teeth rattling in my chest before I fell to my knees in the dirt beneath me.

Tiny stones cut into my palms, embedding themselves in the slash that had gained me entry to Violence.

I’d expected a war. I’d expected pain.

I hadn’t expected the circle to use my worst memories against me, to make me face the fingerprint-shaped bruises on the thighs of my childhood self.

I sobbed, gasping for air as shadowy tendrils grabbed me by the arms, flipping me over and pinning me to the dirt.

My legs thrashed, a fight I remembered all too well, moving my muscles as the girl came to stand before me.

She was perfectly calm as she looked down at me, an empty shell of a child where joy should have been.

“You let him touch me,” she said, swiping her hand through the air.

A shadow followed her motion, slicing through my thigh so sharply I screamed in pain. I stared down at it, the deep gash to the muscle of my leg where her bruises had been. It disappeared from her body as others emerged, covering her form by the markers of years of abuse.

“No, I didn’t. I swear,” I said, pleading with her to see reason. I hadn’t let him do anything, hadn’t wanted him to come to my room at night.

She vanished from my sight as the shadows surrounded me, cutting into my skin in every place I’d ever hurt.

Marking me with each bruise, bleeding me and reopening those wounds all over again.

I whimpered through the pain, but it wasn’t the sharp pain of open wounds I felt.

It was the dull throb of bruising hands, of fists and violence that had made me hate myself.

“I’m sorry!” I screamed, my fingers breaking beneath the force of a boot. “I’m so sorry.”

“You became everything we hate. You became a monster just like him,” the child’s voice said, soft and smooth and unmarred by the emotion threatening to consume me.

I couldn’t breathe through the weight of the shadows, so like the weight that had covered me, making me feel like I might be better off buried alive.

“I’m not like him,” I protested, shaking my head as those shadowed hands clawed at my skin, tearing my bicep open and letting my blood soak the ground beneath me.

“You can’t control it forever, and then what will you be? Another rapist, taking what isn’t yours from those who wouldn’t give it if not for your magic?”

I couldn’t deny the warning, couldn’t shove away the knowledge that it would happen one day. They’d all warned me what the consequences of withholding would be, and I’d be ready to end it before that time could come.

The girl knew that resignation, knew the choice I’d made when I was barely older than her. I would never allow myself to be like him, never let it get that far.

The shadows circled back, retreating as the girl stepped closer.

I fought my way to my feet, wheezing through the pain as fresh blood pumped onto the floor.

Something glimmered in her hand, sparking in the light from the mirror behind her.

I stood before her, towering over her small frame as she raised her hand and opened her palm, revealing the jagged shard of glass she held within.

I shook my head, already knowing where this path led. “It’s time,” she said, her voice softening as I took a step back. “This is how you make it right. This is how you fix what you’ve become. You save all the people you’ll hurt if you end it.”

I reached out with trembling fingers, taking the piece of glass from her hand. It cut into the wound on my palm, reminding me of the archdemon who’d said he would be with me.

But he wasn’t. He’d left me alone, left me to face this demon on my own.

I raised the glass to my throat, pressing it against the carotid artery that would offer me a quick death. A mercy I didn’t deserve for what I was, and I stared at that little girl who had lost everything.

The one Itan had taken everything from. Her mahogany eyes were warm and familiar as she watched me, filled with sympathy and understanding.

I remembered her vividly in my mind, but I wasn’t her anymore. I didn’t hate myself with the same visceral violence she did, didn’t want to die.

He didn’t get to take that from me, too.

“No,” I said, taking back my power with the word that hadn’t been heard.

It hadn’t stopped him, but I knew it would stop this.

I stumbled back a step as my lungs filled with a sudden shock of air, cooling my too-warm insides as I dropped the glass to the ground.

It shattered on impact, the vision of the girl fading away as she lunged for me in horror.

And it all faded away in a sudden shock of light, cutting through the darkness and surrounding me with warmth.