the Book of Twist

❦❧Three - Deals With A Devil❦❧

The fall was brief. Without warning my body slammed into something hard, slicing my screams into silence. Pain shot through my body like a viper, quick. It hummed up and down my left side where I'd landed, and my hip felt like it'd been jabbed by something sharp.

I groaned softly, rolling on to my back to ease the pressure on my hip, my chest heaving as I gasped to catch my breath. A chill suddenly swept over me like a hiss of warning, and I struggled to push my aching body up into a sitting position, my chest tight with apprehension.

My stomach dropped. I was sitting on nothingness. Dark. It was just dark. There was no tangible material, no sheen to suggest a floor. I could be lying on a cloud. I could be lying on nothing at all.

The thought was not in the least bit reassuring.

One look down and I realized this wasn't just darkness. Living shadows like the inky smoke that took Beau and Bay encased me, slinking over my arms like snakes, curling around my waist and torso. I let out a strangled shriek and shot up, rubbing and clawing at my arms wildly, trying to get the smoke off of me, away from my body-

"Do calm yourself, Darcy. The smoke is harmless, just a side effect I assure you."

That voice. It sounded from all sides, as though he were surrounding me, as though it came from the very darkness itself. I whipped around in panic, my mind blanking in my fear, trying to find the source.

"Don't trouble yourself, darling. I will reveal myself soon enough. For now, you may know me as the Sayre. The boys already stole from me a more enigmatic entrance, quite tragically."

I closed my eyes and breathed heavily through my nostrils in an attempt to calm myself. The Sayre. Bay's words came back to me.

"...he's something powerful...something beyond human..."

I thought of a calming technique I was taught by one of the guidance counselors I'd been forced to endure in my school years, a technique I hadn't used in some time; at least something came out of those useless visits. Repeat the facts. Repeat the facts...

It's just a dream. A nightmare. This isn't real. This is just a dream. I am Darcy Goulding. I live in Virginia. Magic is not real. Shadows do not eat people or crawl on your skin in Virginia, or anywhere else for that matter. I think. I shake my head.

Magic is not real. Beau and Bay are not real. This Sayre is not real. This is a nightmare...

I repeated these facts in my head over and over, without opening my eyes, willing myself to wake up. Screaming at myself to wake up.

But when I opened my eyes, I saw nothing but darkness. A tendril of shadows brushed my right cheek, sending a chill over my skin. My side still throbbed. Shit.

"Oh, Darcy, you didn't really think it was that simple, did you? I deserve more credit, darling. See, you have something I want. And when I want something, I can be a very... tenacious man."

My head pounded as I processed these words. Something he wanted? What could I have that he would want?

This a dream. He cannot hurt me. Beau and Bay are not real. They can't be hurt. They're not real, they're not in danger. He cannot hurt me. He is not real. This is a nightmare... just a nightmare...

"Unfortunately," The Sayre continued in what I could only describe as something of a low, saccharine purr. "I am not at liberty to obtain this, darling. Not without you."

His accent. I could finally detect it, in the soft lilt to his words. It was slightly different, but the accent was familiar. It was like Beau and Bay's brogues, accept it wasn't as thick and there was something else mixed into it, a sharpness to his pronounciation. I had no idea what this meant.