The Sinner
“You dare defy me?”
The air shakes with Ashtaroth’s wrath. He rises off the couch, his own wings beating his foulness to me, his sword at the ready. Imps snicker and cower at his feet, hungry for my fear.
“Kneel, Casziel, or I’ll send a horde of my servitors to your pretty little Lucy, and you will spend your remaining days on This Side watching her descend into madness.”
Though he looks wasted and rotted, Ashtaroth is more powerful than I. A fact I will rely on in a few days’ time, but now I must watch myself.
I clench my teeth and it takes everything I have to force myself to one knee.
“Better.” Ashtaroth lowers his sword. “Your enduring regard for that human girl is disgraceful to our dark purpose.”
I raise my head. “Deber and Keeb.”
Ashtaroth smirks, a mockery of innocence. “What of them?”
“You and I made a pact. Lucy is not to be touched.”
“What the twins do is none of my concern.”
“You brought them to This Side.”
“Do they need my help Crossing Over? Besides, they’re the girl’s demons. Our agreement, Casziel, is between you and me. But we can modify the conditions if you so desire.”
My jaw clenches. “What do you want?”
“You know me better than that, my sweet prince,” Ashtaroth’s words are carried on the currents of his foul breath. He taps the hilt of his sword. “There is only one thing I ever
want.”
I transform into my human body, then roll up the sleeve of my shirt to reveal the four cauterized cuts on my inner arm that mark my time on This Side. Ashtaroth adds a fifth.
“It’s become obvious that this payment is not enough,” he says, still looming over me. “You have forgotten to whom you belong. If you wish to keep your Lucy safe, you’ll allow me to remind you.”
My frail human form trembles against my will. “I do this, and the twins don’t touch her.”
“I can arrange that.”
A demon’s promise…worthless. But there is no choice to be made. My pulse stutters as I strip out of the jacket and shirt and bow my head. I half-expect Ashtaroth’s sword to cleave it from my neck and send me into the nothingness of Oblivion.
Not yet. Not yet…
He exchanges his sword for a curved dagger. The room is dank, the air rancid and cold on my scarred flesh as Ashtaroth circles me, taking his time. Drawing out my fear. The imps slaver and mewl in the dancing shadows cast by the lone candle. The dagger begins to glow pale yellow. I feel the blade’s heat before Ashtaroth chooses his mark.
Then I know nothing but searing agony.
Again and again, he touches his dagger to my back, carving, cutting, burning. Ruining the flesh between my shoulder blades that hadn’t yet been scarred.
I don’t have to see what Ashtaroth does to know he’s branding me with his seal. A pentagram, bracketed with vertical lines that are tipped with circles and bisected with horizontal lines that curl at the ends. I keep the screams he hungers for locked behind my teeth until I can’t hold them back.
Then I surrender.
I give him my pain, throwing my head back and releasing it for him to drink down, to gorge on. The minutes drag and the torturous agony returns me to the night in the ziggurat, where I was beaten and burned to the brink of death. That pain I could take, but it’s married to the visions of my family dying, one by one.
And then it’s her turn.
She dies and then I scream for me. For what I’ve lost and will never get back.
When Ashtaroth is done, the agony seeps into my skin, into my heart. The blackened husk still has tender flesh left in it, even after all these years. A part of me that clings to the life she and I once had.