Like the gnarled trees of the marsh, without her, I would have become one of them, twisted and decrepit, trapped in the seventh circle of hell by my own violence.

Hope is such a frail and flimsy emotion to hang our desires on.

While I hoped Halen would choose us in the end, the fiend in me made damn sure every move was meticulously calculated to ensure there was no other outcome.

For her, I will always be that devil.

From the moment I witnessed her wield her pain like a fury from the underworld, I understood I could have never been the one to offer her that complete solace, no matter how much I desired to be.

It was her who had to bring her course full circle.

I was merely an instrument in her design.

But I could look into her beautiful eyes of storm clouds and showering stars and accept her darkness. I could devour every last drop of guilt and shame that wanted to lock her in purgatory. I could become the demon of her nightmares, the monster of her shadowy abyss, and kill ruthlessly for her. This dark seed was already planted in my nature, but she gave it purpose.

My only risk of damnation was if I didn’t get the girl.

I lean against the deeply veined bark of a tree and spin my ring, thoughts chasing the symbols that still linger amid this marshland like the dwindling light peeking through the branches of black willows.

Halen is down in the ravine visiting her memories. I give her this time every year to be alone with her thoughts.

She’s become a highly sought-after criminologist the feds and other agencies request for the highest profile cases. Once she moved out of the shadows, accepting her unorthodox and even dangerous methods to profile the killers she hunts, she’s become renowned in her own right.

As for me, I never returned to my full-time position at the college. Rather, I opted to elevate my assistant professor, Ryder, to take over my course load so I could accept a research grant to write a book. While I’ve funded most of the research and trips myself, having it partially funded through the university faculty grant will give the project an air of credibility in academia for those who need that shit.

The book itself delves into the awakening I underwent during my sabbatical years ago in Egypt—the one that plunged me into the depths, where I uncovered a dark secret that the ancients hid from us all.

This awakening, I have no doubt, will rock the academic realm.

But damn, chaos is coded in my DNA. Let’s raise some fucking hell.

Hermes was the trickster god, after all. Wink.

So now, Halen and I divide our time between investigating crime scenes and traveling for the book. And in the moments between, we fuck, and fight, and love, and feed our desires.

We do have particular tastes—and an insatiable appetite.

When we’re hungry, we eat.

We’ve become quite adept at feeding our cravings.

And I still feel her when her emotions soar. Like they are now. A mix of elation and turmoil that makes me curious as to what my little muse is thinking about down in that ravine.

While I believe she’s come to a place of acceptance with her loss, at times I still sense the melancholy that grips her around the same time every year as her wreck.

Halen has never spoken of her miscarriage. There are scars outward and inward that haunt her, and the loss of her pregnancy is one of those. We did once have an unspoken conversation as to where we stood on contraceptives, when I tossed out the birth control pills her doctor prescribed her, and she smiled that devious sprite smile at me. Then we fucked like animals for hours afterward.

We’re not trying, but we’re not not trying. As time goes on, and she doesn’t become pregnant, we’re faced with the reality that it may not be in the stars for us.

My desire was born in her eyes, the eyes I want to pass down to that beautiful piece of us we can create together, but we are complete whether or not this happens. It would only add to our completeness, not steal from it otherwise.

Then there are other rare moments when I feel her fear, when I see it crest in her eyes as she looks at me, the fear of my deteriorating mental state. In this world, there’s a fine line between genius and mental illness.

Though I’ve never thought about it in a clinical sense, this is the only fear I wish I could alleviate within Halen. One misstep on the tightrope could mean the difference between creating a magnum opus and a permanent address at a psych ward.

So every day I strive to keep my vow to her, that she will never lose me. She’s the reason I remain in this world at all. She’s my answer to the manic episodes, the sleepless nights. The havoc that threatens to tear through my mind is quelled by her touch alone.

To obtain the desire of our heart, a sacrifice has to be made. There is always a trade.

My eyes were wide open when I made mine.

It wasn’t a difficult choice. It wasn’t a choice at all. Love lures us into a madness where escape feels like a cruel punishment.

One day, if the demons become too much of a threat, she knows how to make it stop.

And I will welcome her lovely damnation.

For now, when those restless instances do occur, I remind myself I’m just a speck of dust floating in the cosmos being observed by my seer. There’s an ironic comfort in knowing our crude, base material still has eons to go before it’s perfected into gold.

Then I kiss my muse, swallow the lovely sounds she gifts only to me, and plot our next life, where I get to seduce her all over again.

The magick in chaos is part stubborn belief in our will to be realized, and part the mechanics of the elements around us on a quantum level. For all that we know, there are infinite unknowns.

It’s what we cannot see that bends and shapes us, the darkest matter of the universe swims in our cells, a chaotic dance of form like the motions of the stars. The light is warped, but it’s how we know it’s there.

We reunite with our twin flame over and over through the course until we reach the highest form of harmony. But before we see the light, it’s going to get dark, and it’s what we do in those darkest moments that define us.

Muse to the devil. Goddess of the moon. She captures me in her beautiful flickers of light. That’s where I’ll always find her, there in the flicker.

I look down at my hand, spin my ring.

Halen feels me just the same, can always sense my hunger. When the need to surrender to the primal violence dominates my atoms, when the ravenous bloodlust demands to be satiated, my lovely, wicked muse speaks to me of omens and death, whispers of blood and retribution.

She feeds me in my dark abyss.

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HALEN

I trace my finger over the symbol of the philosopher’s stone engraved into the clay wall. I make two trips a year when I visit my parents’ gravesite, and then return to Hollow’s Row to visit the ravine.

This is where Devyn found her brother and buried him beneath the bones of their rend sacrifices. This is where she marked his grave with a symbol of their journey to deify themselves, to escape their disease together.

When the task force had the deer carcasses removed, most of Colter’s remains were discovered. His remains have since been relocated to one of the town’s cemeteries. Despite this, I feel Devyn would still consider this his place of rest.

During the case, Devyn chose to tell me about her brother when we were here together. I’ve wondered if she did so at the time because Riddick was nearby, to appear as if she was trying to steer me away from the society theory, or if there was some other, personal reason.

Even though this chasm has been cleared of all the death, the faint scent of decay remains, like the scene has been imprinted with her mourning. I often see her in my mind in those last seconds together on the crest of the dam, when I gave her my diamond pendant.