Where the Devil Says Goodnight (Folk Lore 1)

The question was so unsettling Adam had to force himself not to shift farther away. He could sense something cool at the back of his neck, as if it were the demon’s breath. “Why would you suggest he doesn’t?”

“You told me yourself that he forced you to do things you already wanted. He didn’t make you go on a murderous rampage.” Emil kissed Adam’s temple, as if he knew his words might be aggravating, but his lips felt cold and Adam flinched away.

“That’s not how I see it. I wasn’t ready. What happened later was in spite of him, not because of him,” he said, rising from the bed, unable to keep still with emotions creating a tangle inside his chest.

Emil grabbed Adam’s hand and brushed his lips against the cut on his palm. “I just don’t want you hurt again. You know the saying. When you step among crows, you have to caw.”

“I don’t want to be in his company or caw,” Adam said, reluctantly pulling away his palm. This whole thing was too much to process.

Emil got up too and gave him a hug. “We’ll work it out. In the meantime, let’s just keep him happy.”

Adam rubbed his nose as he watched Emil pull on a T-shirt. “Are you telling me, a priest, to become a devil worshipper?”

“Not ‘worshipper’. Let’s say… friend—no, reluctant ally? I’ll go see if breakfast is ready.”

Adam wasn’t hungry, but he could barely hear his thoughts while Emil was at his side, so he nodded and offered him a faint smile.

He got another brief kiss before Emil unlocked the door and left Adam with a profound sense of confusion. Hadn’t Emil seen what happened last night? Wasn’t he concerned that the demon made Adam walk around naked, wound himself and smear his blood over a weird rock in the woods? Why was he so content all of a sudden? Especially after his house burned down just yesterday.

Adam was getting a nasty itch he couldn’t explain. Something in this room wasn’t as it should be, and he looked around, unable to identify anything out of place. Well, except for the bowl of fruit, but while strange, it wasn’t the source of his discomfort.

His mouth dried with the need to go outside and have a drink of something cold, but he kept on watching the walls, which appeared distorted, their lines the tiniest bit crooked, as if they were alive and might slam into him at any second.

He was not going crazy. He was not.

The floor called out to him, the patterns of the raw wood inviting his touch, so he slid to his knees and faced the bed, slowly tuning to what the space was trying to tell him. A strange scent pulled at his nose and his gaze followed a line of sunlight pointing into the shadow under the very spot where he’d slept since arriving in Dybukowo. He moved his hand along that elusive arrow all the way under the bed where his fingers met something that shouldn’t have been there.

He didn’t want to look at it, but as he picked up the small wooden figurine with a lock of hair pulled through the chest, his thumb found its face, and then the horns on the tiny head.

“No.”

Just when Adam allowed himself to believe he’d found peace, his world collapsed onto itself once more. Emil had told him he’d burned the figurine. Adam could swear he’d seen it alight and smelled the burning hair, yet here it was, staring at him with the red smudges it had for eyes.

A sense of absolute dread set root in Adam’s flesh when he spotted a long strand of dark hair on the uncovered sheet. It was as if the universe was pushing the answer at him. The one answer he wanted to ignore no matter how much it made sense.

Emil seemed awfully happy for someone who’d lost everything less than twenty-four hours ago, but it was his relaxed attitude about the fact that Adam sleepwalked all the way to the Devil’s Rock and made a blood sacrifice that should have set off alarms. And it would have, if Adam wasn’t so devoted to him. So hopelessly, stupidly bewitched by a man who was manipulating him with promises of love.

If Emil really cared for Adam’s feelings and sanity, he would have done everything in his power to help him leave first thing in the morning, take him away from the clutches of a power neither of them understood. Instead, he entangled Adam in a false sense of security and clouded his judgment until staying seemed like a viable choice.

A terrifying thought shot through Adam like lightning, charring love and trust. Could Emil have put the figurine under the bed? Could the loving face obscure a side of him that wanted to keep Adam tied to this place, forever a slave to the devilish forces that overpowered Adam’s will with such ease? Could he have caused the possession in the first place?