“You know, I’m a little offended.” His hand brushed against the vase of flowers in the corner of the hallway. “Somebody enters your house, and your first thought is a primordial creature that can teleport wherever he wants?”

Ana gritted her teeth together. “Get out of my house. I told you not to come back here.”

He shrugged and crossed his arms. “You did, and I was only going to speak to you outside, but…your cat looked like she was starving. How could I not refuse her?”

“I don’t want to talk to you, get out!” Ana exclaimed, pointing to the door behind him. Her hands visibly shook, and Ana knew that he could tell.

He smiled at her. “No, I think you should hear what I have to say. I’ve waited a week for you to calm over from your little hissy fit, now you can give me just a few moments of your time to convince you to take my deal. ”

He took a few steps toward her, and she took a few steps back. “Get out now, or I’ll summon my father.”

He laughed. “Really? I don’t doubt you’ll summon him, but will he answer the call? I’ve never personally met him, but demons aren’t known to be responsible parents.”

She stumbled back, and he walked towards her. Think, she thought. Think of a way out of this!

As quick as a hare, she ran back to the living room and to the altar, but on second thought, she took a sharp turn and up the stairs, grabbing one of her heels resting at the bottom. She turned back halfway and spotted Deacon at the bottom of the staircase, grinning up at her. She threw the shoe at him and didn’t look long enough to see if it hit him.

“Where are you going, Kravens?” Deacon called from the stairs.

Ana ran into her room and slammed the door closed, locking it before shoving a wooden chair under the knob. She stepped back from it as she heard Deacon’s loud footsteps approach the door, her heart beating loud in her ears.

“This is really funny. A locked door? You think that’s gonna stop me?”

Ana’s heart leapt in her throat as she frantically looked around her room, trying to think clearly through the panic that was scattering her mind. Summon supplies….closet!

She wrenched the closet door open and pulled out a wooden chest. She lifted the lid and grabbed the extra supplies she had stuffed in there just in case of emergencies like this. She suddenly remembered another spell she was given, and frantically searched through her clothing bin for the pants she had thrown in there a week ago. She found the pants and stuffed her hand in the pocket, wrenching it out when she grabbed hold of a piece of paper. She unfolded it, slightly tearing it down the middle in her frantic movements.

Should I summon my father, or Beau? My father could get here faster, but would he even show up? Would Beau even show up? The paper crumbled in her hands as she clenched her fists.

“Shit..” She threw the paper to the side and moved back to the summoning supplies. She quickly drew Marchosias’ sigil as the door knob started to wobble.

“You wanna know something about your father?” Deacon called from the other side of the door. “The Creed of Solomon has records of him dating to the fourteenth century! He’s been around far longer than Christianity, let me tell ya. He’s had a habit of…abandoning his children. You weren’t the first, did he ever tell you that? Definitely not the first. Which raises the question of why he is making an effort to be near you? Why not any of your past siblings?”

Ana says the summoning invocations under her breath, and the sigils glows a bright white. He received the summons. Now I just need to delay Deacon.

Ana stood on her legs and pulled up the back of her dress, just enough to touch the tattoo on her lower back. She felt the tingle of mageia on her skin just before a gun formed in her hand, its weight feeling comfortable in her hand. She lowered the dress and raised the revolver, pointing it at the door.

“Then I started thinking…he knows about your double core. What other reason would an uncaring, antisocial demon stick around a mistake like you? No offense, but—I think we all know that first-born cambions are always mistakes. Who would want a baby with a monster?”

She watched as the door slowly unlocked, and Deacon attempted to open it. The chair held in place, screeching against the wooden floor for a moment before holding in place. Deacon let out a slow chuckle, one that made Ana’s skin crawl. “Really? You want to play this game?”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Ana pulled down the hammer on the revolver, gripping it with both hands. “I have a gun! Don’t open that door, or else!”

“Yeah…” he stopped jangling the door knob. “I should also warn you that this is probably going to hurt.”

She had little time to react before the door blasted open and the chair went flying. She ducked just as it went flying over her head, hitting the wall behind her and falling onto the bed. She stood up straight and aimed the gun at the door again, heart pounding in her chest.

Deacon strolled into the room, looking casual after he magically blasted her door open. The door knobs had been destroyed, and they now laid on the ground. Ana takes a few steps away from him until her back hits the wall. She swallowed and adjusted the grip on her revolver.

He eyed the revolver, a smile on his face. “I always saw those on your back, just above your pretty little bottom. Now I get to see you use them..”

“Don’t come any closer.”

He walked over to her closet and picked up the paper she had dropped. He took a moment to read it, turning back to Ana. He seemed as if he was holding in laughter as he turned the paper to face Ana. “You do realize that your burn-freak friend gave you an incomplete spell to summon a demon, right?”

He laughed, and Ana jumped. The gun’s handle now felt sweaty in her hands. Had Beau really tricked me?

He dropped the paper and walked towards her. Her bed was in between him and her, but he merely walked on top of it as if it wasn’t there.

“Stay back!” Ana cried. Final warning. He didn’t listen. He hopped off the bed and came ever nearer, a dark look in his eye—

She pointed the gun down and pulled the trigger. The gun fired and landed a bullet into his foot, causing him to fall to the ground. The blast made her ears ring and her hand hurt, and she was stunned for a few seconds.

Deacon let out a cry of pain as blood gushed from his bleeding foot. Ana wasted no time in getting away from him and ran for the door, smoking gun in hand.

“I’m not finished with you!” Deacon cried behind her.

Ana dashed down the steps, taking two at a time. On the last few steps, her foot slipped and she was sent careening to the ground. She landed on her face with a solid crack of her nose. She laid on the ground for awhile, her mind blank with shock, spending a few too many seconds not breathing. She finally let out a gasp when pain erupted from her nose and she felt blood drip down onto her cheek. Only when she heard footsteps from above did she try to lift herself from the ground.

Deacon was slowly making his way down the stairs, walking as if he didn’t have a bullet in his foot. Ana realized he must’ve used some kind of spell to deafen the pain, which didn’t work out for her. I should’ve shot him in the fucking chest!

As blood gushed from her nose, she got up and stumbled to the front door. So close. One step after another, she made her way to freedom. So close! She reached for the doorknob and turned it, and became confused when it wouldn’t open. It was unlocked, but the door wouldn’t budge. Why? Why?

Deacon came closer. She frantically wiggled the doorknob, pulling on the door, but nothing happened. She began banging on the small window, her breathing becoming fast and harsh. She whipped around just as Deacon grabbed her hands and pinned them to the door behind her. She let out a cry of rage, fighting against his unnatural strength but failing in the end.

“Are you done now? Good.” He pinned her legs with his knees. “Maybe I can tell you what I wanted to tell you without getting shot at.”

“Get off. Get off!” She raged, still making an attempt to lift her arms and throw him off of her, but he was too strong.

“No, no. Just wait. You remember when we first met, right? I knew you were a cambion then, and a pretty one too. But you acted like you didn’t know that I was, until I realized you had no clue. So…” A smile crept on his face. A cold, creepy smile. “I took you home, and I made sure you knew that I wasn’t leaving your side. But oh no, you didn’t want a relationship. You just wanted to use me whenever you got bored, but I didn’t care. As long as you didn’t care that I never used protection, I was fine. That’s the only part of my mission—oh, my mission! I haven’t told you about that, have I?”

“I don’t care about your sick fucking fantasies! Get off of me!” She yelled, spitting in his face. Where is my father? Why isn’t he here yet?

He wiped off the spit with his shoulder before leaning into her, his nose touching her cheek. “You know why I chose you for my mission? That first night you were asleep in my bed, I checked your core. Dark purple and dark orange…such a strange mixture of colors, but I knew then that I needed you—to find a cambion woman for the sole purpose of creating a cambion-cambion child. That’s unheard of, you know? A cambion and a cambion having a child together?”

Ana turned her face away from him, but he leaned in further until his mouth grazed her cheek as he talked.

“Most cambions think it would bring the apocalypse…but not my family. They’re working with the Creed of Solomon to try to make it possible and all that. Modern science brings…great things. You haven’t gotten pregnant yet, but..I know the scientists can fix that.” His lips pressed down on a tear that left her eye, and she let out a sob. “This has been my mission for the past two years, and I won’t let some ugly Frankenstein of a man take you away from me. You have no life in this hillbilly town, and you will have no future if your father is still around.”

Tears streamed fully from her eyes as the reality of the situation dawned on her. She tried to move her arms out of his grip, but failed again. At first, she was angry at him for entering her house, but now she was scared. She feared for her life, and she feared what the next few minutes had in store for her.

“I never wanted this—I never wanted any of this! I didn’t—leave me alone, I don’t want any part of this!” She sobbed.

“You don’t have a choice anymore, I’m afraid. My family and The Creed of Solomon already know about you. They want me to give up on you out of fear for who your father is, but I won’t do that. You’re much too…valuable. So…” He lifted her hands above her head and held them both with his left hand. She tried to break free of his grip again, not that he had only one hand holding her wrists. He dug his nails into her skin until she stopped struggling, and then took a knife out of his pocket. “You’ll just have to deal with me for now.”

He ran the blade along her cheek, piercing through the skin. Blood seeped from the cup, and Ana cringed away from the blade, stopping herself from crying out in pain. He begun chanting in a language that sounded vaguely French, and Ana began to panic as she felt mageia flow through her.

“No, stop, stop—please! I don’t want this!” She cried, struggling even more under his grip, but he didn’t stop. Instead, he began to rush his chanting as swirls of silver mageia danced all around them. Ana looked at them in alarm and she slowly realized he was transporting them both somewhere. She started breathing faster out of panic, gasping in great lungfuls of air that never seemed to be enough.

“No—father! Father, please! Help, help me!” She screamed and cried into the air, but he didn’t appear. Ana was beginning to think he didn’t ever plan on coming.

All of a sudden, Deacon stopped chanting, a shocked look on his face. At the end of his words he let out a sharp and sudden gasp, eyes wide and mouth open. He acted as if something had hit his back, leaning into her momentarily. They were both stunned into silence as blood began to drip from his mouth and onto the floor. He let go of Ana’s hands and slowly turned around, Ana forgotten in front of him. Ana took in a dark stain on the back of his gray shirt just before a silver gleam flashed before her eyes and then—blood sprayed across the hallway.

It continued to spill out onto the floors and hall until he, finally, fell backwards onto Ana, not moving, not breathing. He fell to the ground, dragging Ana along with him. Deacon was dead.