The Devil's Fool (Devil Series Book One) (20 page)

I stared out the window toward the full moon above. It was a clear night. Tiny pin-pricks of light dotted the black sky. When their footsteps approached outside my bedroom door, I focused on the strength of the stars. No matter how many times night came, they always managed to stay bright.

The door flew open. Boaz, Erik, and Sable all walked in at once. Erik and Boaz were both smiling—not joyfully, but triumphantly—but Sable’s brow was creased, and she was wringing her hands.

Boaz set a wooden chest on my bed. Nobody looked at me except for Hunwald, who stood stiffly in the doorway.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Another present, love,” Boaz said.

He opened the box and gently removed an old, intricately designed silver necklace. The short chain was made of many jagged strands of silver wound around each other tightly, similar to the thorned stem of a rose. At its base was a spider-like claw that clung to a glass orb. When Boaz raised it to the light, a thick red liquid sloshed inside, coating the sides with a layer of what could only be blood.

“I don’t want any more of your presents,” I said, backing up toward the window.

“I’m afraid you have no choice.” Boaz turned to Sable. “And you’re sure this is ready?”

“Like I told you before, the necklace wasn’t made for this, but I think I have used its magic correctly. We won’t know until you put it on her.”

Erik let out an exaggerated sigh. “Let’s get this over with. If this doesn’t work we’ll just kill her.”

Boaz glanced at him sharply. “No one is to hurt her, do you understand? If this doesn’t work, we’ll find something else.” He turned to face me. “Erik, hold her.”

Erik moved behind me and pinned my arms to my chest. I didn’t struggle—didn’t see the point—but as the necklace moved closer and I was overcome by the suffocating feeling of absolute darkness, I thrashed wildly. It was an evil like nothing I’d ever felt before, the kind that exists only in a demon’s nightmare. I tried to shake off Erik’s grip, but I wasn’t just fighting his strength. Sable was nearby, chanting under her breath.

With Boaz’s free hand, he clenched my neck, and with the other, he twisted the necklace around me. He didn’t have to latch it—it latched itself.

They all stepped away from me.

I held still, my hands outstretched as if I’d been doused with water. At first, nothing happened. But within moments, the darkest of dark energy was spreading throughout my body. My arm twisted and jerked, and then my leg shook uncontrollably. I collapsed to the ground in agonizing pain, but it wasn’t physical. It was the pain of evil killing every part of humanity and decency inside me. I didn’t think there was any left after all the horrible things I’d done, but evil searched me thoroughly and found parts of me, though they were few, that still had goodness in them.

After the dark energy had taken over my extremities, it turned inward toward my heart. It stabbed at it as if a hot poker, branding its mark upon my most vulnerable and precious organ. It burned with hell’s fire, and I screamed. I didn’t stop until evil’s process was complete, leaving nothing left but pure, untainted rage.

I rose from the floor, power surging through me. Veins and arteries were visible just beneath my almost translucent skin; black blood pumped throughout my body. My hair had turned raven black, and it lifted in the air, swaying gently, despite their being no draft in the room.

Sable gasped, Erik grunted, and Boaz said, “Amazing.”

“Look at her eyes,” Sable whispered.

I couldn’t imagine how they changed, but looking out from them, the world was covered in a red haze that accentuated the tiniest details. It gave the room an eerie quality I liked.

It wasn’t just my vision that had been altered. Every one of my senses was magnified: I heard a deer breathing quietly in thicket far away, a bat’s wings beating through the night air, and a tiny ant as it scurried to an underground destination. And even though all these events were occurring at the same moment, I had the ability to separate them, almost as if I were slowing time, if not stopping it.

I had become a God.

I curled my lips. “Mother. Father. I don’t think I thanked you for coming out for my
transformation
.”

“We w-w-wouldn’t have missed it, Eve," Sable said and glanced at Erik hesitantly.

The sound of my former name felt as though she had pressed a cross to my forehead. “Don’t call me that. Ever. Call me …” I twisted my lips in thought. “Alarica. It means ‘noble power’. Appropriate, don’t you think?”

“How do you feel?” Boaz asked.

I moved my gaze to Boaz and slowly looked him up and down. I moaned and licked my lips. “I feel—omnipotent.”

Boaz fed off my bliss. “It’s incredible, isn’t it? We are going to rule the world.”

“We?”

“Of course, love. I fulfilled your dream. You and I together, doing whatever we want forever. With the power between us, we will be unstoppable.”

“It wasn’t my dream,
love
,” I said. “It was Eve’s.”

Boaz’s jaw clenched tight, but he controlled his anger. “No matter. You will realize that together we are more powerful.”

I chuckled. “You really have no idea, do you?”

Boaz raised an eyebrow, Erik stood in a defensive position, and Sable backed up toward the door.

“I don’t need you,” I said.

Boaz took a threatening step toward me. “Let’s not forgot that it was I who gave you this power. It can just as easily be taken away.”

“Don’t threaten me.” With a thought, I sent him flying backwards into the wall. He smashed against it and fell to the ground in a crouching position.

When he looked up, he too had transformed himself into the true monster he was. His face was suddenly translucent. Black blood veins appeared behind his transparent skin. His blue eyes lit up like cold fire, and inside, his black pupils swelled from the darkness within them. They bulged outward as if the evil were trying to escape, but he shook his head once, and his pupils receded back to their original size.

Erik bolted for me. I grinned and stopped him with only a hand gesture. I then raised him to the ceiling and held him in midair. This new dark magic was so easy to control. I had only to think it, and my desires became a reality.

A stream of vulgar profanities spewed from Erik’s lips.

“Rot in hell,” I said and then flicked my wrist toward the window. He smashed through the glass and flew into the frigid air. His cries pierced the night until they were cut short by his body hitting the ground below. I scanned the room for Sable, but she had already fled.

Behind me, I sensed an object flying toward me at an incredible speed. I turned around and caught it a fraction of a second before it plunged into my stomach. I turned over Boaz’s dagger in my hand. It was the same one that had pierced Eve earlier.

“I’m disappointed, Boaz. You turn me into what you desire, but now you want to destroy me?”

Still in a crouching position, with one hand on the ground, he growled, “Not destroy, but you need to be taught a lesson on who’s boss here.”

He rushed me and slammed into my body at full force. The weight of his body against mine threw us both into the wood headboard, splitting it in two.

I whispered a command, one in an ancient language—that of the first demons who roamed the earth before man. Boaz looked at me, surprised. In response to my magical command, the wooden frame bended and curled tight, trapping Boaz inside. I had already moved away and was standing on the other side of the room. I laughed at his predicament, but my laughter was cut short when Hunwald grabbed hold of the back of my calf. I cried out and jerked my leg away, throwing the wolf from me.

Meanwhile, Boaz had freed himself. “Very creative. You know more than I thought, but it doesn’t change things. You will submit to me.”

I smiled serenely, folding my hands in front on my lap. “You can’t make me, and I’m not just saying that to be dramatic. There is absolutely nothing you can say to make me
ever
submit to you. But if you submit to me then maybe, just maybe, you might get out of here alive.”

He let out a feral cry and rushed me again, but this time I was ready. I waved my arm and whispered the word “wall”. Boaz crashed into an invisible barrier separating us. He stepped back, his eyes burrowing into mine. Something tickled my skin, as faint as a feather's wisp, and I smiled in understanding.

"You're trying to take my power, aren't you? Like you did to Eve. That's not going to happen." I paced back and forth, enjoying his frustration. “Before I destroy you, I want you to witness the destruction of the few things you might actually care about in this world.”

Boaz wasn’t listening as he was frantically searching for a way around the invisible barrier.

“Let’s start with your feeder girls downstairs, shall we?”

His head snapped up. “What are you going to do?”

My eyes grew big, and I felt evil dance within them.

“Burn,” I said.

An explosion downstairs rocked the house. Boaz cried out.

“And how about the immaculate gardens that you take such pride in?”

Boaz’s eyes flickered to the window just in time to catch the woods bursting into flames.

“This isn’t necessary,” he shouted.

“Oh, but it is!” I shouted back. “You will be destroyed by the very evil you created. You stupid idiot! Did you really think true evil would share power?”

Frustrated, Boaz tossed a dresser across the room.

I closed my eyes briefly and opened them again. “I lost focus. Where was I? Ah, yes, destroying your ‘creature comforts’ of life. How about your precious opera house?”

Boaz stopped moving. “Impossible!”

“Is it?” I closed my eyes for just a moment before I snapped them back open and said, “Done. The Metropolitan Opera House is no more. Now for that Hell Hound of yours.” I stared at Hunwald, who was barking furiously at me.

“Don’t do it, Eve. Not Hunwald,” he said.

“I’m not Eve,” I cried. The wolf’s fur ignited. Boaz was upon him in an instant with a blanket trying to snuff the flames.

“Awe, how touching,” I said.

Boaz stood up very slowly. His chest heaved and, with both hands, he pushed against the invisible wall. I tried to fight back, but his rage proved too great. He broke through it with a ferocious veracity that sent a blast of air striking me square in the chest. I flew backwards out the same window my father had been thrown from only minutes before.

I hit the ground hard then, after taking a deep breath, I stood up and looked at the grand mansion one last time.

“Burn,” I said, and I walked away.

Behind me, the very flames from Hell consumed their master and his home.

I returned to the only place I knew—my parent’s home in upstate New York. Unfortunately, Erik and Sable were nowhere to be found. The torture I’d put them through would be my finest work yet. I had no doubts that Erik had survived the fall. Sable must have sensed what was coming and ran outside to either prevent it or fix his injuries. None of it mattered to me, though. As soon as I sensed them (most likely they were guarding their location with magic), I would destroy them like I did the Opera House.

It was a disappointment to still have Eve’s memories, most of which were useless to me. There was the potential of many painful memories that I could have relished in, but whenever I tried to recall Eve’s juicy abuse, they were cut short and replaced by a silly place she called Eden. This infuriated me because I only wanted to remember Eve’s grotesque mistreatment.

It had been days, and I was incapable of sleep as the evil within me refused to hold still. It was restless and always searching for a way out, to destroy and mangle. I wish I could’ve released it all, but it would be stupid to destroy everything. What would be left? As a result, I released the evil in little spurts, destroying only what was necessary. I’d already burned the area around the home; I could still smell the smoke from outside. Only the mansion remained intact, but just barely. The only thing that saved it was focusing my dark magic on different areas of the country like I had with the Opera House. I’d picture it in my mind and then imagine its destruction. Buildings I’d visited, places I’d seen. Burned up in flames.

Containing the power required a lot of concentration, which gave me a constant headache. I forbade the servants from using all lights, allowing only the use of candles. This helped alleviate the pain somewhat as evil was not as restless within the dark. The first servant who balked at my request keeled over dead. The others obeyed out of fear just like they had with my parents. I knew the drill.

Every time I exploded something, I would have a few restful moments from the sharp pains in my head, but as days turned into weeks, the pressure grew, and I wondered how much more my body could take. If I could, I would have removed the necklace, but that was impossible. The evil inside me was far stronger than any will of my own.

All the recent fires and explosions baffled people. Because they couldn’t come up with a logical explanation, they assumed it was terrorist attacks, and the country was on high alert. I laughed at them, at how the government tried to make the people feel safe. They would go to war if the attacks didn’t stop—the President had said so earlier this morning. I hoped he wasn’t bluffing. War would provide the perfect cover for my destruction.

Still without sleep, I paced the halls of the Segur estate at three in the morning with my hands clenched tight, nails digging into my palms. The pain was so intense that I couldn't think of anything else, not even a place to send the dark magic to.

The trapped energy screamed inside me, chanted and begged to be released. The skin on my arms vibrated strangely as if someone was holding a struck tuning fork to it. Then, to my horror, the skin began to stretch outward by the evil within. Physically, I could no longer control it. The left wing of the mansion exploded into flames, releasing some of the pressure.

It didn’t take long for the old mansion to be consumed by the fire. The servants who had chosen to remain with me out of fear now fled. No attempt was made to save the home.