Page 4 of Unleashing Mayhem (Demon Bound #4)

Matty

M atty lasted until nightfall.

He’d done okay for the rest of the day, if he didn’t count the frantic trembling and equally frantic rechecking of all the doors and windows. He’d even talked to Sascha briefly and put on a brave face for his friend, though he wasn’t sure how convinced Sascha had been.

But then the sun had finally set, the automatic porch light turning on as the outside world plunged to darkness, and that was it.

Matty hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that face he couldn’t have seen, of phone calls being made, of a group of terrifying men bursting in with guns and knives and—and him at the forefront.

There you are, Matteo. Disobedient as always. Now what will I do with you?

Matty could picture it too perfectly: his worst nightmare come to life. And he just…couldn’t do it anymore. He was tired, and he was scared, and he’d been both of those things for so long now, and he didn’t want to be. Not anymore. Not for another second.

And maybe now was supposed to be the moment in his life where Matty turned inward and looked to his pool of inner strength to become something better than a scared mouse. Something braver. Something bolder.

But whatever inner strength Matty might have held had been broken a long time ago by cruel hands and terrifying threats, and Matty didn’t think there was any better or braver or bolder version of himself waiting in the wings.

Matty needed someone. Someone who was his . Someone he didn’t have to feel guilty about clinging to by his pathetic fingernails.

Sascha and Kai were wonderful, but they had lives of their own, as this vacation of theirs proved.

And really, they’d given Matty too much already.

Sascha had even gifted Matty with access to one of his generous bank accounts, since Matty had been too terrified of anyone tracking his funds to use the one meager account Luca had allowed him.

Matty was penniless, jobless, and cowardly beyond measure. A failure of an adult human.

But that was all going to be fine because the someone Matty needed wasn’t human at all.

Matty had been doing his best to hide from the monsters of his past, but he was done with all that.

It was time to catch a monster of his own.

Matty shook off the blankets shrouding him, rose from the couch, and shuffled over to the bookshelf.

He began painstakingly checking between each book, hoping what he was looking for wasn’t hiding between any of their pages.

He was pretty sure they’d all been left by the previous owner of the house—there was no way Sascha had ever bought a book called Lighthouses of the World: A Beginner’s Guide on purpose—and there were a lot of them packed together on the bookcase.

But Matty didn’t have to go through each individual book.

He found it on the middle shelf: a loose page of strangely thick paper, with words in a language Matty didn’t recognize on one side and a foreign symbol on the other.

The symbol was painted with thick black lines, smudged and twisted at various points.

Some people would probably think it was creepy-looking, but Matty couldn’t help smiling as his eyes followed its path.

He thought of Kai in his demon form, huge and blue and horned, able to cut through nine armed human men without breaking a sweat.

He thought of Nix, beautiful and sly and willing to stand up to Ivan at his scariest. He thought of the chaos demon, small and kind of cute, but with a predator’s edge and talons that Matty had been told shredded through flesh like butter.

Matty traced his finger along the stark black symbol; it was oddly warm against his fingertip.

He hoped it summoned the scariest monster there ever was. He hoped the demon waiting within its magic was vicious and bloodthirsty and willing to do its worst.

Maybe then Matty would finally feel safe in a way that lasted.

He continued to trace the symbol as he tried to remember the instructions Kai had given him when he’d suggested Matty summon a protector.

Copy the symbol. Recite the words. Spill his blood.

Kai had taken his suggestion back that very night and told Matty in no uncertain terms that the demon this page would summon was not someone Matty would want around, even in the short term.

But Kai wasn’t here right now, was he? He and Sascha had left, and now Matty had to do what he had to do, didn’t he?

He just hoped they’d forgive him later, after the fact.

Matty looked around the room for something to copy the symbol with. He was pretty sure Sascha had summoned Kai with a bottle of nail polish, but that had been a whole accidental thing. This was on purpose, and Matty felt like he should make it nice. So his scary monster demon would feel welcome.

Oh! He had something!

Matty ran up the stairs. Sascha and Kai had gotten him art supplies, back when they’d had hopes for him adopting a hobby that didn’t involve watching bloody movies and hiding in his room.

Matty found the box in his closet and gathered everything he could carry before rushing it all back down to the living room.

He spread the mess out on the floor, seeing what he had to work with. There was some thick, artsy paper—the kind people drew beautiful portraits on—and Matty carefully laid a piece of it on the living room rug, separate from the rest.

He sorted through the remainder of the supplies and finally settled on a plain piece of charcoal. There were other, brighter paints and markers, but the charcoal felt right.

Matty set the demon’s symbol next to his blank page. Should he just…go for it? Was a piece of paper and a stick of charcoal really enough to summon a monster?

He hopped up, remembering that Sascha had gotten flowers for the house before he and Kai had left.

They were still in a vase on the kitchen table, and Matty selected a mostly wilted and forlorn-looking purple flower and brought it back to the living room, setting it above the blank page where he was going to copy the symbol.

There. That was kind of…appropriately gothic? Maybe?

Although, the more Matty stared at it, the more it looked like nothing at all.

Voices rang through the air outside, and Matty jumped in place before turning to stare through the living room doorway.

The voices sounded deep. A group of men?

Were they on the street or had they made it to the porch already?

Were they coming for him finally? Had he been too slow in realizing he needed protection?

But then there was bright laughter and then the lighter, higher-pitched voices of small children, yelling something about a beach. A tourist family on the way back to their rental, most likely.

Matty sat there clutching his chest, his heart racing much too fast.

He couldn’t do this anymore. Couldn’t jump at shadows and panic over nothing over and over again.

Appropriately gothic presentation or not, it was time.

Matty waited until his hands were as steady as they were going to be, and then he carefully copied the symbol onto his paper, the charcoal blackening his fingertips. When he was done, he cocked his head and narrowed his eyes, studying the final result.

It looked…close enough.

Matty turned the symbol over and painstakingly sounded out the strange words on the other side.

Now he just needed blood.

Matty refused to touch a knife—not to harm another human, not even himself—so Matty bit down as hard as he could on his lower lip, wincing at the sharp sting.

He swiped at it with a charcoal-dusted finger, then smeared the blood on the symbol he’d traced.

It messed up the lines a little, but hopefully that wouldn’t matter.

Matty repeated the words on the page one more time for good measure, even though he was pretty sure he only needed to say them once.

There. It was done.

Wasn’t it?

An icy wind blew across his back, and Matty hunched over his paper to keep it from blowing away. Had the front door opened somehow? It was locked. Matty knew it was locked. But…were the wrong monsters already here? The human kind? Ready to steal him away and make him hurt? Make him pay?

But then a dark fog poured in from nowhere, filling the room and bringing with it the scent of smoke and hidden shadows. It wasn’t long before the living room floor was hidden from view, the smoke still rising steadily, Matty’s hold on his paper the only reassurance that it hadn’t disappeared.

Matty grinned around chattering teeth, the pain in his lip sharp and satisfying as the wound stretched.

He’d done it. Matty had actually done it.

His monster was coming for him.