The demon waved his hand, and dark… something left his fingertips, floating toward the sleeping trio. It swept around them like a thick fog, tendrils slipping into their nostrils, mouths and ears before it finally evaporated.

“There,” the demon said, sending her horrified grimace a smirk. “They’ll have a headache in the morning, but you and I can discuss our business undisturbed.” He pulled up a piece of paper and presented it to her. “The contract.”

She reached out and gingerly took the single sheet. The lettering was handwritten, with swoops and swirls that could have made any calligrapher green with envy. Georgia raised her eyebrows as she scanned over the words. The greasy demon didn’t look like the kind of guy to care much for penmanship, but apparently he was.

“It says in exchange for my brother getting brought back to health, I will give ownership of my body, including but not limited to, my blood and vaginal secretions, to the demon Lewin?” she read from the page, grimacing at the mental pictures that painted.

“That would be me,” the demon—Lewin—said, bowing his head in mock civility.

“I thought you just wanted my blood?” she said. “Why does it say you get ownership of my body?” And vaginal secretions. Ugh.

“Because, when you eventually die, I’m going to suck all that delicious bile straight from your gall bladder, rip open your stomach and lick the juices from your intestines,” he said, slurping for emphasis. “Mmm-mh! Plus, nothing’s quite as delicious as menstrual blood straight from the source. I do hope yours is chunky. Wait—don’t tell me. It’ll be a nice surprise.”

Georgia choked back the nausea rising rapidly in her throat. “Ew, maybe learn to sugarcoat things. Jesus Christ.”

“I would,” he hummed, “but you’re going to sign that piece of paper no matter what I tell ya. No human desperate enough to come to me offering her soul as the first bargaining chip has any other options left.” He produced a pen and handed it to her. “You can sign on the dotted line.”

He was right. If this had been for anything other than Larry’s life, she’d have never talked to any of them, let alone revealed that she saw them for what they were. It didn’t matter what he wanted to do to her—even if he decided to murder her the moment she signed, to drink the bile he was so enraptured by. Not so long as Larry lived.

Numbly, Georgia took the pen from his outstretched hand. It was an old-fashioned fountain pen, the kind you dip in ink. Only there wasn’t any.

One glance at Lewin, and a particular aspect of the research she’d done on demons as a teenager, back when she finally realized she wasn’t crazy, sprung to the forefront of her mind. A contract with a demon was always signed in blood.

Georgia poked the pointed tip of the fountain pen to her fingertip, breaking through the skin with a quick jab. Crimson blood pooled from the wound in a single droplet, only to be funneled up into the metal tip of the pen.

Breathing out quietly, she turned the now red tip to the paper.

Don’t.

The word rang in her ears as clearly, as if someone had spoken it directly by her side. She startled, dropping the pen as she whipped around to see who’d snuck into the room without her noticing. But there was no one conscious but her and the demon.

Warily, Georgia bent to pick up the pen from the floor as she kept an eye on the demon. He was watching her intently, with bated breath, and she knew…

That voice, she’d heard that before. Warning her as a kid when she was about to scream at the horned creatures no one else seemed to be worried about.

Always it said the same: Don’t.

Don’t draw their attention.

Don’t go near them.

Don’t look them in the eye.

Don’t.

Don’t.

Don’t.

When she’d listened, she had avoided their attention.

But this time, she couldn’t obey the voice. Even if she knew the creature staring at her as if she were lunch had undoubtedly planned even worse things for her than what he’d admitted to.

Georgia shot a last, lingering look at Larry’s pale, still figure before she scribbled her signature across the dotted line, finalizing the contract.

Lewin smiled slow and wide when she handed the piece of paper back to him. Before she could pull her hand back, he snatched her by the wrist and pulled her arm up, closing his lips around her wounded finger. His mouth was hot and dry, and her finger stung when he swiped his tongue over the pen-prick with a visible shudder of pleasure.

“My, you taste delicious, my dear,” he rumbled when she managed to yank her finger from his mouth.

“Yeah, well, you don’t get to taste before you uphold your end of the deal, remember?” she hissed, cradling her hand against her chest. Shivers of revulsion still prickled across her skin from the feel of his tongue.

“Sure,” he said, giving her a nasty smile before he turned to the bed. “One cancer-free brother, coming right up. And then… then you and I are going to enjoy ourselves, little girl.”

The dark fog from before gathered around his hands, sweeping over Larry’s still figure. Nothing but the demon’s panting breath and the slow beeping of the machines her brother was hooked up to disturbed the quiet of the hospital room for several minutes.

Finally, Lewin sagged against the bed with a curse, the dark fog vanishing. “Shit.” He rubbed a hand against his forehead and turned to look at her. “It’s too strong.”

“No!” Georgia hissed, tears blurring her vision as impotent anger fizzled in her veins. “No! I signed your stupid contract! You heal him! Now!”

She didn’t realize she’d gotten to her feet, nor that she’d charged at the monster, until his hand connected with her chest and he shoved her to the floor by the side of the bed.

“You really have a death wish, don’t you?” he snarled, and though it wasn’t the fog from before, something dark and sinister gathered around him, emphasizing the shadows under his eyes and the otherworldliness of his horns. “You know what? Fine. I was going to let you out of the contract, but if you insist…”

She frowned, unease creeping along her spine at the threatening tone. “You’ll… you can save him after all?”

Lewin’s thin lips turned up in a nasty smirk. “For you, I’ll find a way.”

3

Georgia

“Where are you taking me?”

She’d managed to keep her mounting fear under control as the sleazy demon drove her out of the city’s center, all the way into the depths of the industrial quarter. But when he pulled the car to a stop deep in the midst of stacked shipping containers, by the side of a large, run-down warehouse with a broken neon-sign spelling out ‘HELL’, Georgia’s bravery started to fade.

“What’s eating your brother from the inside, we need more power than I’ve got,” Lewin said, flicking two fingers at her to follow him as he got out of the car and began walking to a door on the side of the warehouse. “Jimmy will be able to source that. For a price.”

Georgia bit her lip, every instinct in her body telling her not to trust the demon—but if Larry’s salvation lay beyond the dingy metal walls of that warehouse… well, that’s where she was going.

Lewin led her to the door and yanked it open, clamping a hand around her shoulder when a broken sob from within met them.

Georgia hesitated, frowning at the dimly lit room inside. It wasn’t more than a small space walled off by flimsy plasterboards, but another demon sat behind a reception desk. He was about as sleazy-looking as her companion, with small horns poking out through the greasy strands barely covering his scalp.

Lewin shoved her through the door and slammed it shut behind them, never releasing his grip on her shoulder.