And All The Devils

PROLOGUE

"Hell is empty, and all the devils are here."
-William Shakespeare

The fire spread too quickly. It weaved through the carpet and leapt up to devour the curtains, never slowing, never ceasing.

Yeva Volkova stood in the living room of her childhood home and watched in horror as the flames grew ever higher, until their brightness was too much to look at. She knew her parents were dead. She had known that the moment she had crawled in the kitchen window and tried to head for their bedroom, only for the flames in the hallway to beat her ceaselessly back towards the living room. There was no way they could have survived the devastation. The smoke alone would have killed them long ago.

But her parents weren't the only ones in the house.

Yeva whirled away from the hallway and hurried across the living room, shying away from the heat as it crept closer and closer. She moved towards the back of the house, where her bedroom was. Where Nikolai would be.

"Ye...va..."

She stopped, looking around wildly and straining to hear anything except for the rush of the fire and the crackling of wood. The living room was a mess of reds and oranges. She had just turned away when she heard it again, a soft whimper being buoyed up by the heat.

"Here..."

There. A dark shape huddled against the couch. A shape that, while not moving, was distinctly alive due to the rise and fall of its chest. Yeva made to hurry to the couch just as an ominous creaking sounded from all around her. She barely had time to look behind her before the windows exploded, glass blowing both in and out of the house. Smoke billowed around her, covering her in a dark wave. Yeva cried out as a shard shot forward and lodged itself in her calf. She went down hard on her knees, feeling the broiling heat of the house beneath her jeans. Her hand shook as she reached for the glass shard, grasping the rough edges in her palm.

"Yeva..."

Nikolai's voice came again, quieter now. She abandoned her feeble attempt to remove the glass from her leg and managed to crawl forward. Unable to see through the smoke, she tried her best to follow the sound of his voice.

"Yeva," he said again before breaking into a fit of coughing. She crawled faster until her twin brother, Nikolai, suddenly appeared from the smoke like an apparition. He was propped up against the side of the couch. His eyes were only half-open and his mouth was parted slightly as he tried to suck in what little oxygen was left in the room.

"Please..." Yeva whimpered as she closed the distance between them. "Please..."

His chest was barely moving, his breaths too shallow. She tried to drag herself over him, so that she could protect him from the burning flame. The fire licked at her ankles and she sobbed as her skin bubbled up at its touch. 

"Please..." she whispered again. "Anything... I'll do anything..." 

"Ye... va," her brother said, his voice barely audible over the sound of wood collapsing around them. "You... have...to..."

"It's okay," she said, before her lungs seized from the smoke and she was thrown into a coughing fit. 

"Yev..." he tried again. "R...un..."

Then he stilled. His eyes became two vacant pools, reflecting the flames but no longer able to see them.

Yeva threw herself over him and cried. She could feel the heat pressing against her back as she pulled her brother against her. Destruction rained down as the house disintegrated. A strange smell of spices filled what little air was left in the room. Yeva turned her head toward the china cabinet that held her parent's ceremonial items; like everything else, it was burning. The fire caught ahold of the sage and other spices that the cabinet held, as well as the herbs used for protection spells and wards. Yeva watched as they all crumbled into ash. 

The cabinet slanted sideways and crashed to the floor with a booming sound, and all manners of magical tools and trinkets escaped onto the floor beside her. She could see her mother's athame, its blade glowing so brightly that it looked to be absorbing the heat around it. A ouija board tumbled out, bursting open and flinging its planchette across the room.

Yeva remembered what her mother said the first time she had shown Yeva a ouija board. The words came to her so clearly, so concisely, amidst the noise that it was as if her mother was suddenly standing right beside her.

You must always be careful with a ouija board, her mother had told her.

Slowly, Yeva's sobs subsided into hiccups. She released her brother and tried to stand, yelping as her leg gave out from under her.

A ouija board is a gateway.

She gritted her teeth and started to drag herself across the living room floor. A flash of russet red stood out among the searing orange of the flames and she glanced sideways to see the family dog. He was lying on his side, barely panting, his back leg bleeding freely. She looked away. 

Always use the board to contact someone specific, someone close to you.

Ahead of her, the planchette gleamed as the flames crept ever closer. Yeva forced herself forward, using her forearms and any furniture left to push herself.

It is very important that you always ask for someone you know.

Yeva reached the planchette at the same time as the flames. She cried out as the heat lashed out at her fingers, using all of her remaining strength to push herself backwards, so that she was sprawled awkwardly against the fallen cabinet.

There are many spirits out there who would cause you harm, Yeva.

Here, she finally reached down and yanked the glass from her leg, screaming hoarsely as the shard slid free. The glass tumbled from her hand, coming to rest beside her foot. Yeva ignored it and reached for the wound, letting the blood pool around her fingers. She needed blood to open the gateway.

They lurk just beyond death, waiting to be let back into life.

The wood was hot behind her back and shattered glass crunched underneath her legs. She ignored all of this, all of her pain, and gripped the planchette in her bloody hand, holding it up to her heart.

A ouija board can let them in.

"Please," she cried in a raspy whisper. It was all her throat would allow. "Please, anyone, help me-"

Another great crash erupted from all around her and chunks of plaster and debris rained down around her. It seemed the fire had finally reached the roof. She squeezed her eyes shut.

"Anyone out there, anything out there, I'm begging you! I'll give you anything! You can have anything you want! Just don't take my brother from me. He's only twelve, he can't die yet! Help us--"

Her hair was burning. She started to cry again as the fire tickled her neck and cheek. There were no tears; the heat dried them before they could fall from her eyes.

"Not my brother..." she sobbed.

Time seemed to slow around her. She felt her heart thump heavily in her chest just as a tremor raced through the room, rippling the fire around her, extinguishing the noise as it went. In the sudden silence came a stillness, a pause in the chaos, and the entire house seemed to be holding its breath. Yeva held her own breath with it, her heart still pounding erratically in her chest. 

Then the fire in front of her parted neatly in half and a demon walked through it.