Chapter 23: The Offer

Jenna led us upstairs to her room, and Zoe immediately plopped onto the bed. Her face was white as chalk, and her hands continued to tremble from grasping the pipe in her hand.

Vance sat on the floor in the corner of the room and pressed the grimoire close to his chest. His eyes scanned the walls and he did not set the book aside even for a second.

Mira leaned against the window and observed her reflection in the glass. For a split second, her irises flashed pitch-black before switching back to their usual brown color. Her hand reached out and left a blurry mark on the window.

"What can you feel now?" Dorian asked, leaning against the doorframe with his hands folded.

Mira still did not move, and her reflection stared at her back. "He is silent right now. Like he is contemplating or planning something in my mind."

Vance lifted his gaze from the pages. "He will gradually wear her down. Every time she falls asleep, he will try to take over. Someone has to watch over her all day long and all night long."

"I will take the first shift today. I am usually awake anyway," Jenna said, settling onto the edge of Zoe's bed.

I walked out of the room into the hall. The chilly temperature hit me as soon as I got there, and silence was ringing in my ears for the first time in several days. Leaning against the wall, I looked at my hands which no longer had the blisters, but were still raw like someone had used sandpaper on the skin.

Dorian came out behind me and leaned against the opposite wall. His shoulder brushed my skin, but there was some distance between us.

"Almost died tonight," Dorian said without preamble.

"No, I did not," I answered.

"You almost gave him the answer he was waiting for."

"No, I did not."

"You could have. He was inside your head, and he was winning," Dorian pointed out, narrowing his eyes.

I glanced at Dorian's face. He was as pale as ever, and dried black substance on his throat remained from the moment he was grabbed by the vampire.

"Next time you will not have a choice," he muttered. "You will agree to give him the essence whether you want it or not."

There were so many things I wanted to say right now, to remind Dorian of the moments he was there for me tonight, but my tongue was thick, and I could not find the words to say them.

"So you better take care of that bite mark on your throat, before it becomes infected," I said, instead.

Dorian almost smiled at me. "Sounds just like how my mom used to speak when she was still alive."

"Well, someone has to fill her shoes. Clearly you do not take care of yourself."

Vance walked out from Mira's room and shut the door behind himself. The book he held under his arm seemed to be heavy enough to serve as a ballast to him.

"There is yet another issue we must resolve," Vance stated. "Cross will not simply forget about the promise you made him tonight. He will show up here in another few days or even hours to take it from you, but he will bring far more enforcers than six this time."

"Isn't it possible to fool him?" I asked.

"Not with you. This guy is too old to be fooled with something fake," Vance replied. "He will easily sniff out a lie from a mile away."

"We will simply kill him," Dorian suggested abruptly, stepping out of the shadows into the light.

Vance snorted. "Not likely. Tonight when you had him alone and unarmed you did not manage to kill him. Once he arrives here again, with his full force, you will be dead within seconds."

The door opened, and Mira came out of her room. Her eyes looked as though she had recently been crying, but her cheeks were dry. Her hands clung tightly to her belly.

"I have an idea," Mira stated. "Raze has been dealing with other demons for centuries now. He knows how to destroy them. I can give him control over me for one minute, and he will tell us how to destroy Cross."

"That is absolutely ridiculous!" Jenna exclaimed from behind Mira.

"It is not. Raze is inside me now, and it is my call whether I risk myself or not," Mira retorted, looking at Jenna sternly.

"He might use that opportunity to gain control of your body," Vance muttered after some consideration. "If she manages to obtain the necessary information without being taken completely over by the demon inside, it might work."

"But she will have to share the vessel, nevertheless," I added.

"Yes, but we have a whole month until he breaks free from her anyway," Mira pointed out. "What else can we lose?"

"You will lose yourselves," Dorian muttered.

Raze's lips curved into a smile on Mira's face and made her look sinister. "I hear you talking about me from inside her head. You want to kill Cross, don't you? I can help you accomplish this task, but I require one thing in return."

"Which thing do you require?" I asked boldly, stepping closer to Mira.

"When I finally break out of this puny vessel, you give me permission to freely enter hell without any sort of binding spell or trap," Raze replied smugly, curling his lips in another malicious grin.

"Don't do anything like that, Kaseya," Dorian warned me.

"But why should not we?" Mira whispered. "He has offered us valuable information about how to kill Cross, and we have no way of doing that."

"You can take her out of here, if you wish to accept his terms," Vance stated, holding up the grimoire in front of me. "Or perhaps you want to kill Cross right here in the building, in front of the others?"

Dorian grabbed my sleeve firmly and yanked me away. "Don't make any deals with him!"

"Think about what he offers. One month of life is all you have left to decide," Raze said through Mira's lips. "But I will still wait."

Raze shut Mira's eyes for a moment before they flew open, looking pitch-black once again. Mira stumbled forward and Jenna managed to catch her from collapsing.

Mira looked at me with wet eyes. "He showed me something in his mind while controlling me. Weakness of Cross. He has a scar on his chest from an old injury, and if you stab him with silver, he will die for good."

"Actually, this is quite useful information," Vance remarked, surprised. "I never knew about it before."

Jenna straightened Mira and supported her by the shoulders. "Are you alright?"

"I will be. But Raze is always inside my head," Mira whispered hoarsely.

"You have a weapon now, but you have a debt to the other one. He will expect you to pay it back," Dorian noted.

"You have a month to prepare both for the battle with Cross and Raze," I stated. "Which gives us far more time than an hour ago."

Zoe walked out of Mira's bedroom. "I want to do something. I feel useless."

"You are far from that, Zoe," Jenna assured her, putting her hand on Zoe's shoulder. "This night you fought a vampire and broke his knee with that pipe."

"But it was not enough," Zoe whispered glancing at the ground.

"It was not enough for any of us tonight," Dorian snapped. "But at least we are still alive and hold the grimoire."

Vance opened the cover of the book and looked at its pages intently. "Tonight I will study the spell on binding demons into vessels, and perhaps find the way of making it irreversible."

"And what if you don't find one?" Mira asked.

Vance shrugged.

We were standing quietly in the darkness of the corridor where the ceiling lamp was flickering from time to time. Shallow shadow lines slid over the wall whenever the light turned on again.

"Should we sleep in turns now?" I asked Dorian. "It is necessary to constantly watch Mira."

"Yeah, I will take the second watch," Dorian agreed. "Jenna can watch over Mira first."

Jenna walked over to her room and opened the door. "Everybody in here. Too cold here, and we need to keep company."

I followed Mira into the room, and she passed me silently, her shoulder brushing against mine as she muttered a quick "thanks" for some reason.

After me, Dorian stepped into the room and Vance shut the door. Locking it, he pushed the chair underneath the door handle.

Zoe was lying on the floor with a pillow from her jacket stuffed under her head. Her eyes were shut, but she obviously was not asleep.

I sat in the corner of the room and leaned against the wall, pressing my knees to my chest. My palms were still hurting and my head was unexpectedly empty after the events of the night.

Raze was gone from me.

But he was still among us.

And Cross would show up sooner or later.