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Desperation has a curious way of tempting one to believe in the impossible.
Candlelight flickers around Neil, casting odd shadows about his room. It’s appropriately thematic lighting, he thinks. No wonder the low-resolution scan of an old book he’d managed to uncover had required them as part of the ritual. Imagine doing something arcane and potentially Satanic under fluorescent lighting; that would just be ridiculous.
Almost as ridiculous as what Neil’s about to do.
Nothing’s going to happen, anyway. He knows this, rationally, but goosebumps still chase up his arms as he looks around at the setup he’s meticulously curated. It’s fine. It’s not like Neil has anything left to lose.
He swallows thickly, steeling himself for what’s to come. He’s honestly not sure which will be worse: if nothing happens, or if something does. Neil turns, picking up the dagger resting on the table as he moves toward the altar — the shrine — he’s made.
It’s Samhain. Halloween. All Hallow’s Eve. None of the rituals Neil found online seemed to emphasize any particular date, but he’d remember hearing once, maybe in a folktale from his mother’s old stories, that the thinning of the veil couldn’t hurt when making contact with the preternatural. That, sometimes, things can sneak through on nights like these.
Neil’s grip is sweaty around the dagger’s hilt, and he silently berates his endocrine system for its instinctive reaction to a blade in close proximity. It’s easier than he’d thought it would be, to draw the dagger to the already-marked flesh of his inner arm. To split the seam of skin directly over the runes he’d drawn in charcoal on the floor.
Blood drips down, its wet drip against the wooden planks deafening in the silence. The pain is almost negligible compared to the sudden pounding of his heart.
He’s supposed to — manifest — some sort of vengeful energy to summon the demon. Apparently the intensity of emotion is directly correlated to the strength of the creature that should, hypothetically, materialize within the confines of his binding circle. It’s arguably the easiest part of this entire ritual.
Nothing happens.
The more he stares around his room, the rune-filled circle, and his bleeding arm, the more insane Neil starts to think he truly is. What the fuck is he doing? He scowls down at his arm, ready to call this last-ditch effort at survival a bust. His mom probably would’ve managed to slap him into a real demon’s dimension for such idiocy, if she were still alive.
Between one breath and the next, though, before Neil can even process it, all of the air feels as though it’s been sucked out of the room. His ears pop with a sudden displacement of pressure, and a thick smoke fills the air. There is way too much swirling in the air to reasonably be from any of his frankly pathetic candles.
Neil feels like a deer caught in the headlights, frozen and immobile.
As smoke clears, an unmistakably humanoid figure stands — slightly shorter than anticipated, given the supposed otherworldly nature of a demonic beast — in Neil’s circle. The smell of ozone, sharp and fresh, permeates his room.
What.
Neil stares.
The demon stares back.
“Your arm,” the creature — oh, (un?)holy shit, Neil’s managed to summon a fucking demon — says finally, voice a deep growl as his eyes flick down at Neil’s sluggishly-bleeding wound. At first, Neil thinks this is a weird bloodlust thing (do demons drink blood? wait, no, that’s vampires), but then the demon continues, “Most people cut their hands for the sacrifice.”
Neil continues to look on in absolute disbelief. After a moment, he says, sounding vastly calmer than he feels, “Do you know how many nerve endings are in the palm of your hand? No thank you to unnecessary pain.”
The demon blinks, slowly, as if surprised by his response.
“Anyway,” Neil says, because why the fuck not, “you’re probably wondering why I’ve, ah… called you here.”
“I really don’t care.”
This conversation has lasted three seconds and is already absolutely out of control. Maybe whatever magic Neil managed has actually transported him to some kind of incomprehensible dimension.
“I think that maybe you don’t have a choice?” Neil says, though he sounds about as confident as a mouse staring down a snake, and the words come out sounding more like a question.
The demon’s attention focuses wholly on him as soon as he’s finished speaking. It is not a pleasant sensation, and survival instinct has Neil immediately wary. He hopes the demon isn’t about to impale him with the dark horns spiraling out of his forehead.
“And isn’t that wonderful for you,” the demon says flatly. There’s hardly any inflection in his voice, but an undercurrent of something that feels like quiet rage shivers down Neil’s spine. It’s probably his magic, or something: an oppressive, hellish force. It’s difficult to meet his gaze, blood-red eyes blazing with a quiet fire, but Neil’s had plenty of experience sharing a room with an apex predator.
“Only until we can negotiate the terms of a contract.” There. That sounds like Neil knows what the fuck he’s talking about.
“What is it you want? Me, chained to your will? At your mercy, helpless to your commands?” His pointed words make it clear that he’s been summoned at a human’s behest before.
“Oh, fuck all of that.” Despite the creature not being human, Neil feels a sudden sense of kinship. He knows exactly how it feels to be under someone’s thumb. “I just want you to torture someone and maybe kill them in an excruciatingly horrible way.”
The demon quirks an eyebrow. “And then what?”
Neil’s life hasn’t really allowed for that type of long-term planning. “Don’t you just… go back to your realm, or whatever? I would’ve tried hiring an assassin, but I’m barely even allowed to breathe without my father’s permission. It took me three years just to sift through all of the bullshit occult shit on the Internet without getting caught to figure out how to do this summoning.”
There’s a beat of silence. Part of Neil wonders if the demon is allowed to turn him down, but he’s fairly sure there are some runes inscribed in the summoning circle that translate roughly to obey me or else. Writing them didn’t exactly make him feel comfortable, but he has honorable intentions, really. A little murder from God’s least favorite creatures should be a walk in the park for them.
“Binding yourself to me won’t be cheap,” the demon says, finally. He looks vaguely disgruntled, or maybe that’s just distaste at the lavender-scented candles Neil scavenged to line the room.
“That’s fine. I can pay whatever it takes.” And it really is. Neil’s due to die any day now; his cards are very much on the table.
The demon narrows his eyes, looks Neil up and down, and then his resolve solidifies as he stands up straight and points a clawed finger. “Speak the words, then. I will take ten years of your life.”
It’s ten years Neil doesn’t have right now. That’s a pretty good bargain.
There’s a script that Neil is supposed to follow, and his voice shakes as he reads off the half-crumpled paper. It’s a lot of lofty language — I bind thee to my service and a sworn vow to deliver excruciating, wrathful torment and whatnot — and the temperature in the room drops at least ten degrees the more he chants on. It draws to a climax as Neil pauses for the demon to concede to the terms, which he does by offering his true name. It’s a sibilant hiss of syllables that Neil immediately commits to memory. He offers his own, as well, though it’s hard to get through the entirety of Nathaniel Abram Wesninski when his throat feels drier than a desert.
This is really happening. Neil’s managed to summon a demon, and the demon will kill Nathan.
Something painful, feeling terrifyingly and exhilaratingly like hope, lodges in his heart.
“You’re probably the stupidest mortal I’ve ever met,” Andrew says. It’s the name he’s decided to go with as his human glamours settle, turning golden hair a more suitably-mortal shade of blond. Hazel eyes cover the deep burgundy that had pierced into Neil during the summoning, and his claws have been blunted into black-polished nails.
Neil kind of misses his curling horns the most, but that’s an absurd thing to actually tell your contracted demon.
“Yes,” Neil replies. “But that’s irrelevant.”
Andrew sighs exasperatedly. For an infernal creature of Hell, he’s absolutely nailing human mannerisms. “Walk me through your plan again.”
Neil holds up a finger for each step. “Number one: summon a demon. Number two: get said demon to slaughter my father. Number three: walk away from all of this bullshit and stop fearing for my life every moment of every day.” He’s really starting to adapt to this whole honesty thing. Turns out contracting with the most evil creature ever is doing wonders for Neil’s personality.
“Great logistics here. I need to spend at least a few days in close proximity to a mark for my magic to adjust to and penetrate their aura, and something tells me I’m not just going to be able to waltz in and claim to be your best friend.”
“I’m allowed to have friends,” he argues. He is absolutely not allowed to have friends. An outsider stepping foot on the Butcher’s estate might as well consider themselves already on the chopping block.
Luckily Andrew’s a little more hardy than any of Nathan’s victims.
“I’ll just sneak you into my room or something,” he decides. He’s loath to admit it, but Andrew sort of has a point: nothing in Neil’s life is private. Nathan’s already going to give him shit for the scabbed-over cut wrapping around his forearm — god forbid someone else get to touch what’s his.
Fuck, Neil can’t wait for a bloodbath to work in his favor for once.
“Death magic isn’t childsplay,” Andrew says sharply. “Committing patricide can be devastating if it’s not channeled correctly. Do you want him to return as a vengeful spirit because of a poor magic rebound? Or maybe you’d settle for everyone in the immediate vicinity inheriting his killing intent?”
Neil pales at the thought. He’s already haunted by his living father; the specter of him absolutely can not remain once he’s been killed. “Okay,” he says, effectively cowed. “What’s your plan?”
Andrew’s plan is ridiculous, but Neil has to admit that he pulls off an excellent bodyguard. There’s absolutely a shitton of deceptive magic at play: Lola’s hardly even suspicious that a five-foot-nothing guy in his 20s could have strong enough contacts to come highly recommended for the Butcher.
Neil’s a little offended that Andrew won’t be around him while he works, but it’s not like he would ever be granted something as respectful as a bodyguard. Neil’s not worth protecting, unless it’s to supervise him when he’s either bleeding out or a flight risk. As a result, they don’t see much of each other once Andrew’s escorted into Nathan’s office.
It’s not as though Neil would have been allowed to converse with him, of course, but it still sucks. The one thing he’s finally managed to do for himself, and he’s immediately cut off from it because of his father’s controlling, manipulative ways. Ever since Mary’s failed escape attempt and subsequent death, the only people Neil’s authorized to engage with are Lola and Romero. Anyone else on Nathan’s payroll is off-limits, unless Neil is in the mood for a charming bit of torture.
It is amusing, though, whenever he catches a glimpse of Andrew standing stoically at the door to Nathan’s office. It’s less amusing when, one day, Andrew’s guarding the entrance to the basement when Neil is hauled down the steps by Jackson for some imagined slight.
They make brief eye contact, and though Neil knows Andrew will do nothing to stop the excruciating pain he’s about to be in, there’s almost something… comforting about knowing that, for once, someone’s on his side.
(His throat is raw from screaming by the end of it, and the menacing weight of magic that Neil had felt when first summoning Andrew seems to bathe the basement as he limps his way back up the stairs. For once, though, Neil’s fairly sure the anger isn’t directed at him. )
They do get to spend a single day together, which is more than Neil would have believed was possible. Nathan and his closest cronies are out on negotiation with some Japanese organization on the East coast, and Andrew’s been assigned guard duty. It’s absolutely not for Neil’s protection: rather, he’s being babysat (read: locked into his bedroom) until his father returns to the compound.
Luckily for all parties involved, though, Neil’s currency goes further than Nathan’s ever could with this particular bodyguard, and Andrew watching over Neil like he’s a troublesome toddler is something that all of them seem to want.
“What will you do with them, anyway?” Neil asks, kicking his legs up onto his desk as he leans precariously far back in his office chair. His bedroom is fairly barren: no fun posters or decorations for the Butcher’s son. Even his desk is pathetic, filled only with blank journals and a few trashy novels. Nathan doesn’t allow him anything as luxurious as unsupervised Internet access.
“With what?” Andrew leans against the door, eyes closed. He looks almost — peaceful. Neil would even go so far as to blaspheme that, with the golden sunlight trickling in and catching his hair, he could pass for something angelic.
“My years. Will I spend them in the bowels of Hell, or do you just grip onto my soul and yank it out?” He’s honestly curious.
Andrew’s eyes open just enough for his pupils to catch Neil’s. “Your lifeforce fuels ours, but only if corrupted. That’s why the worst types of people end up in our realm — their souls are damaged and ripe for fueling our magic.”
“Ooh,” Neil says. “So my dad will be some sort of battery for a hellbeast?” He almost likes the thought of that. “I hope it’s painful. Wait, unless I’ll experience that type of pain, too?”
There’s a quirk to Andrew’s lips that’s just subtle enough to pass as a twitch. Neil knows better, though. “No, you’ve managed to negotiate with one of us… hellbeasts. The unwilling suffer a far more excruciating fate.”
“Oh, good. I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.” Even the slightly truncated one he’s now beginning to believe might actually happen.
They spend the afternoon like that, whiling away the hours by sharing truths about themselves. It’s one of the easiest things Neil has ever done, opening up to a creature devoid of judgment. Even his worst thoughts and moments must seem like childsplay to a demon like Andrew, and Neil feels a bizarre sense of irony at the thought that the single being he’s connected the most with isn’t even human.
Is better than a human.
He feels like a sated cat, stretched out and purring. At least, he does until he hears Nathan’s car returning and Andrew melts away to return to his feigned duties. For a moment, Neil had almost forgotten the reality of his situation.
It’s with complete certainty that Neil acknowledges he would have done anything to take his father out of the picture, but he feels good knowing his payment will go to Andrew and not some actually monstrous being.
Neil is categorically not an expert of demonology, but he’s fairly sure there’s something strange going on with Andrew. An infernal creature with murderous magic should be able to make short work of someone as evil as Nathan: surely, that’s their entire purpose, to savagely execute Earth’s worst mortals, or whatever. But as the days pass, Andrew doesn’t seem to be doing much. He guards whatever (or whoever) he’s assigned to for the day, and when he’s off the clock, Neil can’t find hide nor hair of him.
It’s almost like he’s either fairly weak on the ranging scale of baby demon to Satan Himself, or otherwise he’s been overworked. Or whatever the equivalent to overwork for an ethereal creature is.
Possibly he’s just slacking and feeding off of Neil’s fear and pain.
Something about that narrative doesn’t sit with him, though. So far, Andrew’s demonstrated nothing but a straightforward approach to Neil’s contract. He’s infiltrated Nathan’s inner circle, and unless he plans on somehow betraying Neil as a co-conspirator, everything’s going to plan.
Neil’s not used to the fragile fluttering of hope that sits in his chest, but with it comes the swooping sensation of fear: that he’ll fail, that Andrew will fail, that all of this will amount to nothing.
He shoves that anxiety down. Trusting Andrew is all he can do for now.
Nathan knocks Neil out of commission for two days after trying out a new knife he’d received as a gift. Neil loses track of time in a dizzying mix of blood loss and a feverish haze, waking only to wish he hadn’t to the lingering ache of fresh wounds.
When he’s finally cognizant again, entire body an inflamed nerve, he sees there’s a note left on his desk. Hours pass before he’s sturdy enough to sit up in bed and hobble over on shaky legs to read it. It’s unmistakably from Andrew, though Neil’s never seen his handwriting before. In small, blocky letters, gouged deep into the paper, it says, He will pay. Soon.
Consciousness is an elusive creature, but Neil shuffles back to his bed and falls back asleep clutching the note to his chest like a lifeline.
“Neil. Wake up.”
Neil jolts awake at the sound of his name, limbs instinctively curling around his abdomen in some weak attempt at self-preservation. It takes a few frantic heartbeats for his brain to register that the shadowed figure at the foot of his bed is far too small to be Nathan, and the voice far too deep to belong to Lola’s petite frame.
It’s Andrew, and the moment he consciously recognizes that, Neil’s body shivers and relaxes.
“Hey there, stranger,” he manages, though his voice is shaky and he feels like he’s run a marathon.
“I’m ready,” the demon says without preamble. “Are you?”
Is Neil ready for the hellspawn he summoned to brutally eviscerate his father?
“I thought you’d never ask,” he says with a grin that stretches his cheeks so far it hurts.
(“You’re not what I expected.”
“I could definitely say the same of you. Aren’t you supposed to be a nasty little creature who manipulates us precious, innocent mortals?”
“How rude. Humans are the true deceivers: selfish liars and thieves. I deliver only what you ask of me with fidelity to your wishes.”
“Isn’t that a bit of irony? An honorable demon?”
“We were angels, once. Some things about one’s nature never change.”
“Lucifer was totally right for disobeying God, though. Shitty guy to let all of this horrible stuff happen to his special creations. I mean, it’s pretty fucked up that he’s okay with human suffering and war and evil but blames it on you. Wasn’t he the one who made all of us this way in the first place?”
“Maybe that’s just the price you pay for constantly running your mouth.”
“Hey!”)
Nathan Wesninski is, when all is said and done, a man. A body of blood and flesh, vulnerable to the looming threat of death. Mortal. Human.
Neil’s forgotten that, over the years.
He remembers it, quite suddenly, as Andrew strolls up to Nathan’s bedroom, unlocking and opening the door with a careless wave of his hand. His fingers are honed into sharp, knifelike points, and they slide into Nathan’s chest like a knife through hot butter.
Nathan’s mouth opens and closes wordlessly, like he can’t believe what’s happening. Neil, as loath as he is to compare himself to his dad, can’t help but agree.
He doesn’t know what Andrew does with the heart. One moment it’s there, beating out a final, tachycardic rhythm before slowing to a halt, and the next it’s gone. It’s the honesty of it all that finally strikes Neil like a punch to the solar plexus: Andrew’s brand of violence is so goddamn honest. It’s straightforward, a blunt, terse message that delivers exactly what it says it will.
Neil has lived his entire life playing Nathan’s Wesninski’s game of brutality. Everything was weaponized and punishable, and Neil constantly misstepped due to a lacking knowledge of every new game’s parameters.
But this… this is new.
Neil asked, and Andrew delivered. His violence is punctuated by the blood that runs out of his father’s chest, and it’s real.
It’s everything Neil has ever wanted and more.
“Ten years,” Andrew muses. They’ve finally washed the blood off him. Neil feels — hollow, but in a good way. Like the rot’s finally been carved free of him, and he can finally refill the space with something new. Something fresh.
“They’re yours,” Neil replies.
Andrew looks at him. Smoke from the cigarette dangling between his fingers curls up and into the air. “Contract magic is the worst I’ve experienced,” he says. It sounds like an offering. “But sometimes it’s the only way to replenish our reserves. If we run out of magic entirely, we die, and it’s unpleasant, to say the least. It’s why many of us don’t even bother traveling aboveground — not worth the risk.”
But Andrew did. Neil hopes one day he can ask why. Now, though, seems like a time for listening, and not talking. He tips his head in acknowledgement of how difficult these truths must be.
“The last human who summoned me was worse than Nathan,” Andrew says. There’s no inflection to the words, yet at the same time, Neil knows he wouldn’t draw a comparison like that lightly. He recalls what Andrew had snarled at him, when he’d first been summoned. “I won’t apologize for the time it took to kill your father. My magic was sabotaged by — him, and it took time to recover. And when I am not bound to a contract, I can make my own choices. And I think—” Andrew inhales slowly, carefully “—I’d like to kill him myself, when I’m strong enough to.”
“I could help,” Neil offers. If there’s one thing he’s learned tonight, it’s that humans can be killed. He may be one of them, but he’s on-board with risking his own life to right the wrongs Andrew’s suffered. Revenge is highly satisfying, after all.
Andrew looks at him thoughtfully. “I could take your decade right now,” he murmurs quietly. “It’d give me the power I need.”
Something cavernous opens in Neil’s chest, but he has plenty of practice hiding the pain. He’d thought, maybe — but clearly the two of them aren’t on the same page. “Then do it. Take what is owed to you.”
There's nothing but silence in the wake of his words. He’s not sure what he has to do to give Andrew his lifespan: is it another ritual? Another splash of blood on ancient runes? Maybe it’s something quiet, his age slipping away from him with the subtlety of a shadow.
Andrew had said it wouldn’t hurt, but that could have been a lie. His chest definitely aches something fierce right now.
“I don’t want to eat your years, Neil,” Andrew says, finally. The words are so quiet he has to strain to hear them.
Neil’s heart is fit to beat right out of his chest. Andrew’s words sound like salvation. He can do nothing but reply, “They’re still yours. Whatever you want to do with them.”
There’s a controlled, deliberate exhale of smoke as Andrew looks at him. “The debt can be paid another way, if you’re interested.”
He nods. His entire life tilts on the knife’s edge of this moment.
“Pay the time to me. Pretending to be human isn’t so bad, and if you were by my side, I could generate enough magic to take care of Drake once and for all.”
Nathan’s death has created a vacuum: a wide, yawning expanse of possibility in front of Neil to be whoever he wants to be, to do whatever he wants to do. A decade, if not more, with Andrew…
“I’ve heard it’s bad luck to contract with a demon,” Neil says, giddiness overtaking his words. “But you’ve got yourself a deal.”
Andrew reaches out a hand until his fingers hover by Neil’s jaw. He doesn’t touch, but Neil’s skin feels electrified by the proximity, anyway. He offers a subtle nod, and the way Andrew cradles his chin feels almost — intimate.
Andrew tastes like smoke and copper when their lips finally meet. Belatedly, Neil realizes this is the solidification of their negotiation: sealed with a kiss. He can’t help but laugh into it, which earns him the sharp pricking of Andrew’s nails on the tender flesh of his neck, but that only inspires a small gasp of pleasure, not pain. They sink into each other, and enough time passes that there’s absolutely no way this kiss could be interpreted merely as a business transaction.
There’s nowhere else he’d rather be. Nobody else he’d rather be with. Neil’s bargain with the devil has turned out to be the best decision of his life.
Desperation has a curious way of tempting one to believe in the impossible.