Me and the Devil: Sebastian Sallow

Chapter ONE TWENTY NINE - Shadow of a Brother

(Me and the Devil - Soap & Skin)

Chills wound down around from the tips of my ears to the edge of my smallest finger, a crooked sort of shiver that shook through my bones. Painful and determined.

Sebastian stood behind the flames while the dead crashed up around him. Though he stood closest, their chomping teeth and slashing bones brushed right past him, pausing just around the edges of the room to surround us entirely. Their hollow eyes pierced through our skin.

Ominis had tucked Anne behind his back though both of their wands were raised, her eyes glued and red to the shadow of a brother.

Sebastian's small smirk at the tips of his lips did little to ease my discomfort, the air thickly laced with a feeling I knew not how to describe other than dire.

"The relic IS the answer!" He held the little glowing pyramid out as he spoke but his fingers looked nearly bruised as they clutched it deeper. "I've been trying to reverse the dark magic that cursed Anne but this..." His eyes flicked down for a moment, glinting in the flame light. "...this will allow me to control it. Just as I can control the inferi."

"Control?" Ominis' voice dug deep against the catacomb walls. "We had to fight our way in here Sebastian. You could have killed us?"

The tip of Sebastian's brow twitched but his grin never faltered, his eyes danced over his friend's shoulder to the highlight of his sister's face illuminated by a heap of crackling debris just ahead.

"This will solve everything." His gaze shifted and locked to mine. "This will set everything right. I can-"

"And what about the 'dark sacrifice'?" A venom unfamiliar to me pulsed through my veins and dripped from my tongue, a cautious terror of something that could very well bury everything I loved six feet deep.

Sebastian took a step around the flames, inching towards me. The sound of dirt shifting from my right highlighted Ominis' movements as he too stepped forward. Sebastian's jaw clenched tight for a moment but he kept his gaze on mine.

"I would give it all to make this world better for the ones I love. I would- will give my soul for that."

My brows inched together, warmth at my palm the only indication that I had been clenching my nails into my skin.

Sebastian continued.

"With this magic I can control it all Atley. Don't you see?"

Anne's voice whispered so quiet it was almost lost among the crackles of the fire. "Sebastian this isn't you..." 

"Then you don't know me very well." He snapped though his brows softened quietly. "I'm doing this for you. I will always do it for you."

"But I don't want this Sebastian. I just-" Her words muffled behind a sniff. "-I just want my brother back."

The muscle against his jaw bone twitched.

The inferi to his left tilted their heads, bones creaking restlessly.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Please..." She raised a shaking hand toward him. The hesitancy in her motions crumbled my heart into a million pieces. "Please stop."

"Why should I? This is going to save you! I just want to help!"

"THIS is why Sebastian." Ominis pulled a little silver rectangle from his pocket along with something small and round attached to a loose chain and slammed them both against the brown haired boy's chest.