The Most Explosive Novel Since Fifty Shades of Grey

by BY LENA   Jan 17, 2023

 “Her Soul to Take” by Harley LaRoux is a tantalizing journey through a world where magic, lust, and darkness intertwine. When Leon, a formidable demon killer, crosses paths with Rae, a ghost hunter unprepared for the horrors awakening around her, their fates become inextricably linked. As a deadly cult seeks control, and ancient evil stirs, their twisted alliance becomes their only chance at survival. This erotic, supernatural thriller will keep you on the edge with its fusion of raw sensuality, chilling horror elements, and the suspense of a deadly game where souls are the ultimate prize. Experience it as a standalone or as the first entry in the riveting Souls Trilogy.

EPISODE 1

Leon

“Blood has been spilled in Its name. It is awake.”

I’d felt the stirring before he announced it. Damned mortals always stating the obvious, as if I couldn’t feel the ground trembling and the old roots tensing – tensing, like a body preparing to be hit. As if I couldn’t hear the whispers growing louder in the dark, tendrils of ancient, incomprehensible thought reaching out and prodding for vulnerabilities.

The concrete surrounding me – burying me alive – couldn’t hide the disturbance. I didn’t need Kent’s pompous ass strutting in here, making declarations as if I was supposed to grovel at the news. Seated cross-legged in my wretched binding circle, sharpening my nails against the concrete floor, I barely gave him more than a glance when he came into the room with his cronies in tow. At his declaration, I merely grunted, and that hardly seemed to satisfy him.

“Did you hear me, demon?” he snapped, and his fingers tightened upon the leather surface of his grimoire. That damned worn-out book was always in his grip, the hammer he had raised over my head. A non-magical man like Kent couldn’t control me without his little spell book.

“I heard you.” I sighed heavily, and leaned back so I could tap my nails upon the floor. “Pardon me for not jumping in joy, Kenny-boy. The fact that you’re here to gloat about your old God stretching Its limbs only tells me It hasn’t woken up enough to give you all that delicious power you seek.” His expression darkened dangerously, and I knew I was walking the edge of enticing him to hurt me.

Captivity was so endlessly boring that seeing how far I could push my master before pain resulted had become a real thrill.

I shrugged. “So, you’re here with a task. Here to send me off on some petty errand before locking me in the dark again. Thrilling.”

Kent’s knuckles had gone white. He had a certain aristocratic look about him; he would have been just as at home in Victorian London as he was mingling among Seattle’s business elite. Dark gray suit, a subtle pinstripe on his black tie, perfectly cut and combed gray hair. He was as muted as Washington’s cloudy skies, and about as unpredictable in his moods.

“I would save your strength for the work ahead, demon,” he said, his voice tight, rage barely restrained. “Rather than wasting it on that petty tongue of yours. Unless you’d like me to rip it out again?”

There was a snicker from one of the white-cloaked figures behind him, and I glowered but kept my mouth shut. Kent had them wear the cloaks and the stag skull masks, but I knew the two faceless beings that accompanied him down here were his adult spawns. Victoria, smelling of bitter artificial vanilla fragrance and all the chemicals in her makeup. And Jeremiah, reeking of cheap body spray and hair gel.

“Tonight, at midnight, you will go to Westchurch Cemetery. You will go silently and ensure no one detects you along the way. There, find the grave of Marcus Kynes. Dig up his body, and refill the grave. Then bring his body to White Pine. Is that understood?”

I rather liked my tongue in my mouth. Growing a new one was nasty business. “Understood.”

 

There was no clock in that wretched little room, but I could feel midnight arrive nonetheless. The world changed slightly, moving just a little closer to the boundary separating it from Heaven and Hell. Midnight always made me feel good, as did finally stretching my legs and leaving the binding circle.

Kent kept me in that circle so often he’d had it carved into the floor. Like his father, and his grandfather before him, Kent feared that if he released me from his service when he had no immediate need of me, I would somehow manage to escape from him forever. A lovely thought, but an unlikely outcome. Kent had the grimoire, the only remaining record of my name on the Earth. He alone could summon me because of it.

I suppose he also feared that, in my considerable amount of hatred for him, I’d bend the rules and seek vengeance by murdering him and his entire family after being dismissed from his service. Again, a lovely thought, and a far more likely outcome. I’d risk the wrath of my superiors in Hell if it meant being able to demolish this whole family.

But it had been over a century, and in all that time I’d been in service to the Hadleigh family. It was impressive, honestly — no one else had ever managed to keep me in captivity for so long without losing their lives. There was a good reason there was only one remaining record of my name. Summoners throughout the years had learned quickly that I wasn’t an easy one to command, and thought it best to discourage summoning me at all.

I’d left a trail of dead magicians in my wake, and was eager to add a few more.

The night was cold and foggy, the pines dripping with dew. Westchurch Cemetery was surrounded by trees, all but invisible from the quiet road that ran alongside it. Rows of headstones, some over a century old, lined the wide untrimmed lawn. It didn’t take me long to find Marcus. The plot of disturbed dirt gave him away, his grave freshly filled. A flat, simple headstone marked him.

Marcus Kynes. Twenty-one years old. The “spilled blood” that had awakened Hadleigh’s God. Odd that Marcus had been buried at all. A sacrifice was meant to be done in the cathedral, with the corpse offered up immediately – or offered alive, if possible, for God to toy with at Its leisure. The fact that Marcus had been buried seemed messy.

It didn’t take me long to dig down to him, using my bare hands and claws to wrench up the loose dirt. The coffin was a plain wooden box, utterly unadorned. The moment I tugged up the lid, the stench of formaldehyde rushed in my nose. Marcus had been buried in a cheap suit, his youthful face waxen with the amount of makeup that had been coated onto it.

“Wakey, wakey.” I hauled him over my shoulder and crawled up from the grave, dumping him beside the pile of dirt I’d just dug out. “Just give me a minute here, buddy. Can’t have your mother knowing her son’s grave has been desecrated.”

I quickly filled back in the grave, then, with the corpse over my shoulder, began to make my way toward White Pine. The area of forest, and the mine shaft that lay within it, was a quick enough run to make, but cumbersome with Marcus flopping over my back. Still, running through the trees with a corpse was preferable to my concrete prison.

The witching hour neared as I reached White Pine. A misting rain had begun to fall, and Marcus was smelling worse by the second. But beyond his stench and the aroma of wet earth, I could smell smoke. A bonfire somewhere in the woods. 

Deep in the trees, and a little way up the hillside, I found Kent and his merry band awaiting me near the flames.

They’d all donned their white cloaks and stag masks. There were at least two dozen of them scattered among the trees, speaking softly beneath black umbrellas. It was no wonder this little town was booming with cryptid sightings. Thanks to Kent’s little cult, who called themselves Libiri, nearly the entirety of Abelaum’s population had some fantastical story about seeing a monster in the woods.

They weren’t exactly wrong. They were seeing monsters, but of the human variety.

The only one not in uniform was Everly, Kent Hadleigh’s bastard daughter. A few months older than her half-siblings, Victoria and Jeremiah, Everly was blonde, willow-y, and garbed in her usual black ensemble. The fledgling witch looked absolutely petrified to be there, and when her blue eyes fell on me and the corpse I came bearing, she looked as if she would vomit.

“Brothers, Sisters, the sacrifice comes,” Kent spoke in a bizarrely theatrical voice when he was in front of his band of zealots. Somewhere between a fire-and-brimstone Southern preacher and a Kindergarten teacher who had bodies buried in his garden. It grated on my nerves, that voice, as did the way he snapped his fingers at me and pointed to the ground at Everly’s feet. “Here. Put him down.”

I let Marcus flop down unceremoniously at the young witch’s feet, and a flicker of pain went across her face. Had she known him? A fellow student at the university perhaps? Or had her heart gone suddenly tender when all her father’s preaching about the beauty of death became a very ugly reality?

“Remove his clothes,” Kent said, and I promptly stripped the corpse down, ripping the cheap suit like paper. With his chest laid bare, I found the wounds that no amount of mortuary makeup could have covered: multiple stab wounds were gashed haphazardly across his chest, and scrawled among them were the lines and runes of the sacrificial offering.

Messy. Very messy. Unplanned, if I had to guess. Spontaneous even.

I tweaked an eyebrow at Kent, a silent question I knew he wouldn’t answer. He gave Everly a brisk nod, and the young witch, looking sickly pale, knelt and began to examine the marks across Marcus’s chest.

“They’ll work,” she said at last. She hurriedly got to her feet and averted her eyes from the body. “The marks are crude but efficient.” Her eyes flickered among the crowd in a brief moment of worry. She thought what she’d said might offend, and offense could bring consequences.

“Very good,” Kent said softly. Then, louder, all theatrics once more, “Long have we waited for this day, my children. Long has the Deep One waited for this, waited with utter patience and mercy. Today, the first of three go to Its depths. May two more follow.”

“May two more follow,” the crowd murmured, save for Everly, whose lips were pressed into a thin, hard line on her pretty face.

“Servant, bear the sacrifice up to the mine,” Kent said. Servant. F***ing hell. I wanted to gag him with his own tongue. “Jeremiah will accompany you. This sacrifice is his to offer.”

A figure stepped forward, reeking of body spray. Jeremiah, of course. This messy, unplanned, absolute botchery of a sacrifice was all thanks to Kent’s dear son. I rolled my eyes, but hauled naked Marcus up off the ground and, without a word to Jeremiah, stalked away into the trees, away from the fire’s light.

Jeremiah tried to make a point of walking ahead of me, but I kept my pace just fast enough that he couldn’t. The boy had even less patience than his father.

“Slow the f*** down, Leon,” he said. “Or I swear I’ll have Dad rip your balls off next time.”

“Temper, temper.” I shook my head, but slowed. I’d let the asshole lead, let him revel in his little power trip. Staring at the back of his head at least let me fantasize about cracking it open. “So, this one’s yours, eh? Have a little trouble with him?”

“Bastard tried to run,” he said, then laughed darkly. “He didn’t get far. Squealed like a pig. I think I understand why you enjoy killing so much, Leon. It’s a f***ing rush.”

I grit my teeth. “Don’t think you understand death from one messy murder. Just wait until your God wakes up. It’ll teach you a thing or two about death.”

I’m sure he would have loved to snap back at me, but we’d arrived. There, in the shadows of the trees, was the White Pine mine shaft. Boarded up for nearly a century, the stained wood framing of the entrance had been covered with numerous runes: some carved, some painted, some branded. A metal sign dangled from the wood on a broken chain, reading, CAUTION: OPEN MINE. DO NOT ENTER. The ground was mossy, and numerous white-capped mushrooms grew in thick clusters around the shaft’s opening.

The ground itself was vibrating. The trees were restless. An odd smell, like deep water and rotting algae, permeated the air. Somewhere, deep in those flooded tunnels beneath our feet, an ancient God was stirring.

I didn’t spook easily, but I still got a chill.

“Well, here you go.” I shoved Marcus into Jeremiah’s arms, who leapt back with a yelp and let poor Marcus thump down into the mud.

“What the f*** is wrong with you?” His voice shot up in pitch. He wasn’t sounding so c*cky anymore. “I don’t want to touch that!”

“It’s your sacrifice.” I shrugged. “You really want a demon to claim your offering to the Deep One by tossing him in?”

Jeremiah wavered, his eyes flickering between the corpse and the mine. His throat clenched as he gulped. I really didn’t give a f*** how the damn body got down there, but if I had the opportunity to make Jeremiah squirm, I’d take it.

Finally, with a groan of disgust, Jeremiah hauled Marcus up into his arms; no easy task, considering the dead man was nearly his same size. He trudged toward the mine, and stopped just outside the entrance, peering into the utter blackness beyond.

How much would I suffer if I just shoved him in? Two sacrifices for the price of one. Kent should consider it a real bargain.

But I resisted. Vengeance would come, someday. 

Or the Deep One would wake and kill me first.

With a grunt, Jeremiah threw Marcus down into the darkness. His body hit the ground with a thud, there was a shuffle as he rolled, and then a splash as he hit the water in the flooded tunnel below. The smell of sea water intensified, and the wind picked up, rattling the pine needles above. My stomach lurched unpleasantly, and Jeremiah quickly stumbled back from the mine, wiping his hands on his cloak. He didn’t say a word to me, just marched back down the hill.

I stayed for a moment, staring into the darkness. My toes curled at the rumbling below, my skull vibrating with the force of it. The tides would be high tomorrow. These trees would begin the long, slow process of trying to pull their roots up from the dirt, as if they could walk away from the thing below that felt so wrong.

Then, from the darkness, there came a howl. Like the scream of a fox, but drawn out into such an agonized cry that it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

It was time to leave. I didn’t feel like dealing with that now. Or ever.

The God wasn’t the only thing waking up.

EPISODE 2

Rae

There was something magical about going back to a place I hadn’t stepped foot in since childhood. Those early memories felt hazy, like a feverish dream, an entirely different world than what I’d gotten used to in Oceanside. Smoking joints and drinking Modelo on the beach had been my teen years, but when I was little? My world was those deep green forests that seemed to go on forever, full of fairies and unicorns, my little kid brain bursting with so much imagination that my dad thought I’d never manage to settle down and just exist in the real world.

He wasn’t wrong. The real world was boring and involved office jobs, stiff collared blouses, and way too many uncomfortable shoes. It also involved getting to retire to Spain — hence why I was driving back to my childhood home, while my parents finished the process of selling their house in Southern California to retire luxuriously on the Spanish coast.

I could have gone with them, sure. But choosing to stay and finish my last year at university was responsible and very adult, as my dad would say, which I needed to start acting like considering I was on the verge of no longer being a college student.

It was a long drive up north. My butt was sore, my back hurt, and my chubby kitty, Cheesecake, was absolutely livid to be back in the car for the second day in a row. Not even the fries I kept tossing him from my fast food bag were keeping him placated any longer. I drove through a world awash in wet grays and soaked dark greens until, finally, I passed the Welcome sign for the town of Abelaum, population 6,223 — or 6,224 now, thanks to me. The downpour became a drizzle, and the watercolor world deepened its tones until the forest took shape: tall pines surrounded by a thick undergrowth of ferns and saplings, with mushroom caps sprouting pale and ghostly among their roots.

I should have stayed at the house to unpack. Instead, after hurriedly hauling my boxes into the living room and making sure Cheesecake got his food and water, I got back into my car and made the short drive into town, to Main Street. Right in the corner shop of a three-story brick building, I met my best friend of nearly fifteen years, Inaya, in Golden Hour Books. 

Her Golden Hour Books. My best friend had made her dream a reality and was the proud owner of the cutest damn bookstore I’d ever seen.

“Almost finished,” she said, her fingers flying over her laptop keys. Her hands were adorned with delicate gold rings that shone brightly against her deep brown skin, the rings bejeweled with little bees and flowers that matched the cute floral patches stitched on her pink jacket. She was the brightest ray of sunshine I’d seen since passing San Francisco, and I felt warmer just being in her presence.

“No rush, girl, take your time.” We’d originally agreed to meet later that night, but I’d been too impatient to see her and too eager to shirk off the tedious task of unpacking my entire life from cardboard boxes to wait. I felt guilty now that I’d popped in on her when she was in the middle of cataloguing such a large new shipment of books.

I picked up one of the stacks she’d finished inputting and balanced them carefully against my chest. “Should I take these to the back?”

“That stack is as big as you!” She laughed. “You don’t have to do anything.”

I couldn’t exactly see her around the book stack, and my glasses had slipped down my nose. But I insisted. “To the back?”

“Yeah, there’s a yellow cart back there,” she said. “Thank you!”

Unfortunately, gravity and I had always had a strained relationship — pretty toxic, actually. Between my untied boot laces, slipping glasses, and too-large book stack, I tripped over my own feet halfway to the back and sent the books flying.

“Everything is fine!” I called as Inaya loudly burst out laughing. I scrambled on my hands and knees to collect the books — until my fingers brushed over the cracking leather-bound cover of a thin volume and I jerked back in shock. The book was cold.

I turned it over curiously. The lettering and filigree design on the front looked as if it had been burned into the leather, and the words were foreign to me: Latin, if I had to guess. I pulled out my phone and typed in the search engine for a translation. 

It was Latin, and it read: Magical Work and Conjuring.

“Find something good?” Inaya’s voice made me jump. There was a sound in my ears like the distant roar of waves through a long tunnel, and my stomach felt hollow, like the sensation of falling.

“Yeah, check this out. This one looks really old.” I handed the book over to her, and there was a jolt as it left my fingers: a tiny rush of fear that made me want to snatch it back. Inaya opened it, frowning.

“Wow.” Her eyes went wide as her fingers moved reverently over the page. “This isn’t a printed book. This is handwritten.”

I got to my feet and leaned against her shoulder so I could see. She’d opened the book to the center. On one page was a sketch of a bizarre mutated zombie dog, ragged and skeletal. The other page was covered in rows of neat Latin text. It reminded me of an explorer’s journal, like something Charles Darwin would have carried around as he explored the Galápagos — if the Galápagos had been filled with monsters and magic.

“I think it’s a grimoire,” I said softly. She glanced at me in confusion, so I explained. “A book of spells and rituals, like the Key of Solomon. An original like this is rare. Really, really rare.”

Inaya shook her head as she shut the book carefully, a wry grin on her face. “Sounds like it’ll be right at home with you then. Do you want it?”

“Inaya, that thing has to be priceless! I have to pay you something —”

She ignored me as she carried the book toward the front counter. “Consider it part of your bridesmaid’s gift,” she said. Moving with the utmost care, she pulled out a roll of brown paper from beneath the counter and wrapped the book, finishing it with a bit of tape and a bow of twine. “All these books were donations from the Abelaum Historical Society, so don’t worry about money. These volumes had just been sitting in storage.” She held it out to me and I took it delicately into my hands, as if she’d gifted me a holy relic. “A creepy book for my favorite creepy girl. Now, I think we could both use a break. What do you say to some coffee?”

 

“She just dumped you? The week before you move and she’s just like, peace out, good luck, bye?” Inaya shook her head, pink nails tapped irritably on her coffee mug. “You have a really bad habit of dating assholes, Rae.”

I nodded with a heavy sigh. The sting of Rachel dumping me because I’d chosen to move out of state was still potent, needling into my side like a thorn. I hadn’t exactly thought we’d be together forever, but our shared interest in the paranormal and urban exploration had managed to gloss over our deeper issues for the six months we’d dated.

Inaya added quickly, “I love the post-breakup haircut though! So mod. Very 60s. It suits you.”

I brushed a hand over my hair, smiling widely at the compliment. It was a lot shorter and darker than the last time she’d seen me — I’d dyed my naturally reddish brown hair black and cut it into a blunt bob the same night Rachel broke it off. It felt good. Fresh. A clean slate.

“I feel like I can call myself a Library Goth now,” I joked, pushing my black-rimmed glasses a little further up my nose. Inaya raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Nerd Goth, maybe?”

“You’re still my Ghost Girl Goth, honey, no matter what you do with your hair,” she said with a giggle, and we sat in silence for a few moments as we sipped our coffees. The shop we sat in, La Petite Baie, was just next door to Golden Hour Books. The decor was a pleasantly eclectic mix of local artists’ work, odd bronze sculptures, and a variety of cushy chairs and upcycled tables. Inaya and I had taken two seats by the window, where we could look out and see the forest pressing close against the opposite side of the street. 

“How are you liking being back in the cabin?” Inaya said, taking a sip of her latte. “Have you seen your old ghost yet? What did we used to call him?” She thought for a moment. “Oh yeah, the Nighttime Cowboy!”

I smiled at the nickname we’d given to my childhood ghost. I hadn’t thought of it in years. “I haven’t seen him yet, but we’ll see how the first night goes.” I tapped my chin thoughtfully. “Maybe I’ll set up a few thermal cameras, and see if I can finally get a full-body apparition recorded.”

“How’s that going, by the way? The ghost vlog?”

I giggled at Inaya’s apt description of my “ghost vlog,” even though the question made me wince internally. “Oh, you know. The channel is growing.”

“You caught anything big lately? Apparitions, or…”

“Caught some disembodied voices. Orbs.”

“Oh. That’s cool.”

That’s cool. Yeah, that underwhelmed response was exactly what was going to happen with my vlog audience soon too. The internet just wasn’t the place for genuine paranormal investigations; not when all the other “paranormal” channels were pretending to summon The Midnight Man and using special effects and mediocre acting to draw in an audience looking for instant gratification. In comparison, my lengthy recordings and vague electronic voice phenomena captures were boring.

I needed something big. Something shocking.

I needed something real.

But spirits operated on their own time, not mine, and continually coming away from my investigations of “haunted” locales with nothing to show for it was frustrating. The time and effort I’d been dumping into my passion would soon have to go toward finding myself a “real” job. Ad revenue from the channel wasn’t going to bring in enough to keep me going on my own, not once my parents sold the cabin they’d given me a year to stay in while I finished school.

“I’m sure you’ll be able to find some good places to record up here,” Inaya said, snapping me from my mental pit of despair. “All the legends in this town…girl, it must be a treasure trove for you.”

I nodded. Growing up in Abelaum was like getting raised surrounded by ghosts; not real ones, necessarily, but ghosts of the past. Once one of the most lucrative mining towns of the Pacific Northwest, boarded-up mining shafts could still be found throughout Abelaum’s surrounding forests. Dozens of its original buildings were still standing, carefully restored and maintained by a passionately dedicated local historical society.

There was a lot of history to be found here, and with history, came tragedy.

“Oh sh*t, have you seen Mrs. Kathy yet? She still lives just down the street from your place,” Inaya said. “Remember how angry your dad was when she told us about the whole tragedy of ‘99 thing?”

“Girl, that story got me addicted to horror, of course I remember! Honestly though, who goes and tells a story like that to their first-grade class?” I put on my best imitation of our former teacher, making my voice high-pitched as I wagged my finger at an imaginary room full of kids. “Oh, children! Do you want to hear about the miners who were trapped in the flooded mine and ate each other to survive? If cannibalism doesn’t give you brats nightmares, what if I tell you about the monster who lives down there too?”

“The old God.” Inaya air-quoted with her fingers, shaking her head. “She believed it though. Mrs. Kathy was batty.”

“She did not…”

“Uh, yeah, she did. Don’t you remember all those fishbones and silver spoons she hung around her house? She told my mom it kept away the evil eye or some sh*t.” Inaya shrugged, finishing off the last of her latte. “I love this town, but people can get really weird when they live out in the woods for too long. Mrs. Kathy wasn’t the only person who believed those old legends.”

“Speaking of legends…” I tapped my fingers on my cup, trying to look innocent. “Is that old church still up there? Near the shaft that they pulled the last three miners out of?”

“St. Thaddeus? I think so.” Inaya frowned. “I doubt Mr. Hadleigh would let them demolish it. He’s really protective of those historical sites.” Seeing my look of confusion, she said, “Kent Hadleigh is the head of the Historical Society. Super nice, super wealthy. I’m in some of the same classes as his daughter, Victoria. I’ll introduce you on Monday.”

I mouthed an “oh” at her explanation, my brain still focused on the fantastic potential of a hundred-year-old abandoned church with a tragic backstory. She didn’t miss it and narrowed her eyes. 

“It’s condemned, by the way,” she deadpanned. “The church is condemned. Like, not safe to go inside.”

“Oh, sure, sure.” I nodded quickly. “Old, probably haunted, abandoned church? Wouldn’t even think of going inside it.”

Inaya sighed. “You’re crazy, girl. You’re gonna get yourself into real trouble one of these days.” 

I laid my hand over my heart in mock offense. “Me? Get into trouble? Never.”

EPISODE 3

Rae

My earliest memories were in this old cabin. The single bedroom house had been big enough for two newlyweds when my parents first bought it. But then I came along, and my dad’s corner office became my childhood bedroom. Eventually, we just outgrew the place, and my dad had been eager to escape the small town he’d spent his entire life in. We’d moved down to Southern California when I was seven, and I’d been there ever since. The cabin had become our vacation home, and Dad rented it out to other vacationers the rest of the year. 

Nostalgia clung to the wooden walls as bright as their glossy finish. Childhood memories held an entirely different feeling than my memories as a teen — they felt softer, richer, like streaks of acrylic paint across a canvas. 

The forest had been my fairy kingdom, the stairway that led up to the master bedroom was the grand path I’d lead my army of imaginary friends along. On one of the baseboards, hidden under the kitchen cabinets, was a little sketch of a dog I’d drawn with red pen when I was five. Mom had never found it, and it still brought me a little thrill to see it was there, my inner child convinced she’d pulled off a master crime of vandalization.

The corner office-turned-bedroom held wild memories of its own. That was where I’d seen my first ghost.

“The Nighttime Cowboy,” as I’d called him. Mom said I’d been only four when I first mentioned him. He’d appear through the wall, walk past the foot of my bed, pause, and then disappear just beside my window. A hazy figure, as if he was made of smoke, in boots, denim overalls, and a large-brimmed hat — hence why I called him a cowboy as a kid. He wasn’t scary, just interesting.

And he started my life’s obsession.

 

Classes didn’t start until Monday, so I had the whole weekend to try to reassemble my life from the stacks of cardboard boxes. The gray sky had darkened after I’d parted from Inaya at the coffee shop, and rain tapped against the windows in a sporadic shower. I lit the fireplace and pulled back all the curtains, basking in the pale natural light that made its way through the clouds.

I couldn’t stay here forever. Sooner rather than later, I’d have to begin the search for an apartment, but the idea felt daunting.

I fit my books onto the empty shelves, placed my collection of potted succulents in the kitchen window, and left my laptop and recording equipment scattered across the desk in the downstairs bedroom. Organizing was exhausting. I connected my Bluetooth to the portable speaker on the coffee table and put my playlist on shuffle, dancing through the tedious work to Monsters by All Time Low.

Night had fallen, and the cloud cover made it pitch black outside. There was a pause as the next song buffered, leaving only the tapping of the rain on the glass, the soft wind, and the crickets chirping. The window panes had become one-way mirrors: my reflection stared back at me, glasses slipping down my nose, over-sized sweater draped over my hands. Outside, in the dark, I wouldn’t know if something was staring back.

Someone could have stood right outside the glass, and I wouldn’t be able to see them.

The next song began to play right as a chill went up my spine. The cabin seemed inconsequential in the night, as if its bare wooden walls and large windows could do nothing to hold back the dark. Instead of me observing from the inside, I felt like something out there was looking in. Observing me.

I jumped as my phone buzzed on the coffee table. I snatched it up, my music paused, and smiled when I saw the caller ID. 

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hi, sweetheart! How’re you settling in? Was the drive okay?”

I could hear something sizzling in the background and my smile widened. Mom would be cooking dinner, Dad would be in the living room with his glass of scotch and his latest mystery novel. My parents had been, as they put it, “free range parents,” mostly leaving me to my own devices unless I was about to do something catastrophically dangerous or destructive. Mom was the epitome of a Woodstock hippie all grown up, while Dad had more of the quiet, studious thing going on.

“Long drive,” I said, and snickered as a pan clattered and my mom swore softly. Mom and I shared a love for talking each other’s ears off when we probably should have been concentrating on other tasks, like cooking — or unpacking. “But it was really gorgeous.”

We chattered on as she caught me up on all the gossip she’d gathered in the mere two days I’d been gone. Dad was, as usual, meticulously planning every aspect of their international move, while Mom remained far less concerned about having a perfect itinerary — yet more proof that I was truly my mother’s daughter.

“I forgot how nice this town is,” I said, having abandoned unpacking altogether in favor of munching chips on the couch. “The people are friendly, there are no chain businesses. There’s cute little mom-and-pop shops everywhere. Why did we ever move anyway?”

My mother chuckled, but lowered her voice a bit as she responded. “Oh, you know your father. All his superstitions, his…anxieties…small town life wasn’t for him. He felt like people were too up in our business, whatever that means. It got worse when you started grade school.” She paused, as if there was more she was about to say — but she seemed to think better of it. “California had more opportunities for his line of work.”

“Ah, Dad’s good old superstitions.” I laughed. “The one trait I was lucky enough to inherit from him. Let me guess: he’s checked the history of every house you’ve looked at buying to make sure no one has died there?”

I could practically hear my mother’s eye roll. “Naturally.”

“Good call.” I nodded. “You don’t need your retirement interrupted by vengeful ghosts.”

“Oh, don’t start.” I could hear the clink of plates, and knew she wouldn’t put down the phone to eat unless I forced her.

“I’ll let you go, Mom. I love you. Miss you.”

“Miss you too, sweetheart!” There was a murmur in the background, and she added, “Dad says to stay safe out there.”

The house felt even emptier once I’d hung up the phone. I was grateful for Cheesecake, who sauntered over from the kitchen meowing loudly for his dinner. He was a bossy roommate, but he was so damn cute I had to forgive him.

On my way back to the couch with some dip for my chips, the brown paper parcel poking out of my bag caught my eye. The book Inaya had gifted me, the grimoire. Excitement squeezed its fingers around my stomach, a feeling not unlike walking into a haunting investigation for the first time: a thrill, mingled with trepidation.

I unwrapped the book on the coffee table. I probably should have worn gloves; the thing was so old it should have been in a museum. A signature was scrawled in the corner on the inside cover, but the calligraphy was too fancy for me to make out.

I flipped through the pages, marveling at the detailed sketches and tiny, neat Latin. There were drawings of herbs and plants, and some quick use of an online translator told me that the text described the greenery’s magical properties. Then there were the sketches of monsters: the boney wolf zombie, a lean, faceless creature draped in seaweed with tentacle-like legs, a multi-limbed thing that looked like a spider with a bird’s beak made out of broken tree branches. The art was amazing, the kind of design that would have inspired Creepypastas and indie video game developers.

 There were pages on purifications, clothing, prayers, astrological events — I only had the patience to translate bits and pieces, but the sheer amount of information was mind-blowing. This grimoire was an absolute treasure. Every time I turned the page, my heart beat a little faster.

Then I found a drawing unlike the others. It was a sketch of a man, around my own age I guessed. His hair lay in waves that curled around his ears, soft pencil strokes portraying a lightness to it. He was shirtless, the muscles of his lean chest starkly outlined but marred with what I could only think were meant to be scars and the vague outlines of tattoos. His lips were full, his chin dimpled. Beneath dark, heavily drawn brows, his eyes had been colored gold.

It was the only spot of color I’d encountered in the book so far. It made his eyes look alive, as if they were watching me, and there was a texture to them as if they’d been formed with flakes of gold leaf. 

The adjoining page read, Operation for the Summoning and Binding of the Killer.

The Killer…summoning and binding…

These were instructions for summoning a demon.

I leaned back from the book, the trepidation that had been lurking at the edge of my excitement taking center stage. I wasn’t sure if I believed in demons and magic. Ghosts were one thing: the remnants of departed souls, lingering energy, stranded spirits. But demons were something else entirely, one of the many creatures that had lurked in the shadows of human fears for centuries, for millennia. I didn’t deny the possibility they could exist — but like gods and angels, I usually assigned them to the realm of mythos.

Demons were exciting, fascinating. The possibility of a place not being merely haunted, but possessed by demonic forces was the driving entertainment value behind numerous horror stories. They played perfectly on human fears: unexplained, terrifyingly powerful, tempting and seductive, representative of sin.

I’d walked through places where demons were said to play. I’d found them no more frightening than anywhere else.

 

I couldn’t get those eyes out of my head. Golden, glowing, piercing in the dark. I was still awake at nearly 2am, lying in bed with my laptop open, trying to use my body’s refusal to sleep as an opportunity to brainstorm new vlog ideas.

My subscriber count was being swiftly surpassed by newer channels, channels that played up the drama rather than the science of careful investigations. WE USE A OUIJA BOARD IN MASSACHUSETTS’ MOST HAUNTED FOREST! ATTACKED BY A DEMON! Millions of views for this sh*tty clickbait. It had only been up a few days. 

Shot in the green lens of night vision, I watched the group pretend to be possessed. I watched them run through the woods shrieking, move a planchet around a Ouija board to form threatening messages they all gaped at. It was fake, all fake. I think the audience knew it was fake too, but judging from the comments, no one really cared. It was exciting, it was funny. It was entertaining. Dozens of channels pumped out content like this while mine wallowed behind on views because I insisted on authenticity.

I snatched up my vape pen from the bedside table, inhaling irritably. If I didn’t turn something around soon, I wouldn’t be able to keep up the channel. Pretty soon I’d have to face reality, get the office job, and settle down. Every fiber of my being cringed away from that possibility, but I wasn’t a teenager anymore. I had bills to pay, and this adult thing seemed determined to crush every last dream down to a pulp.

The Killer. Golden eyes in the dark.

I’d bookmarked that page, and I wasn’t sure why yet. It became even harder to sleep knowing that downstairs on the coffee table, the grimoire sat closed — but within those pages, in the dark, those golden eyes still shone.

Watching.

Waiting.

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