Page 12 of Unholy Bond
Chapter 6: Levi
If you told me two thousand years ago that I’d be squatting in the undercroft of a condemned Boston church, watching a bunch of drunk necromancers try to outbid each other for demonic bric-a-brac, I probably wouldn’t have– fuck, no, that’s not true. I would have totally believed you. Some things about the world never change. The rich get their pleasures, the poor get trampled, and anything forbidden was worth quadruple if you could smuggle it in your ass or a diplomatic pouch.
The old stone basilica had been abandoned since the last stock market crash, bought and lost by three megachurches, then taken over by squatters who mostly just pissed in the nave and shot up under the stained glass. In the crypt below, though, you could still feel the original intent. Every step sounded like an accusation. The air was cold, damp, and heavy as nightmare.
I came in through the delivery entrance, nodding to the guy at the side door. He did not recognize me, but he knew the money I carried, and the rumor that I could rip out your soul and laminate it in less than a second. He frisked me, hands lingering at my belt, then let me pass without a word. Inside, the lights were candles set in hollowed-out skulls, shimmering in time with the echo of centuries. The crowd wore dark suits and cheap cologne, but underneath, you could see the old cult tattoos, the ritual scars, the family brands that never really healed.
Tonight’s auction had all the usual bait: vampire hearts, shrunken heads, a vial of angel tears (fake), some grimoire pages older than dirt (maybeauthentic), and a shelf of shrunken, black-spined books that hissed when anyone came too close. The real draw, though, was the key that sat on a velvet pedestal at the back. Its shaft was thick as my thumb, barbs curling along its length, and the teeth at the end were so intricate they looked like the jawbone of some extinct animal. Runes chased each other around the barrel, but if you stared directly, they rearranged, not wanting to be read.
I drifted along the periphery, sipping a glass of bourbon, keeping my posture casual. If I’d been in my demon form, with the scales and the fins, and my knotted cock hanging almost to my knees, the crowd would have scattered by now. But the human suit was convenient, and after a century or two you got used to the way it sweated and ached. I blended. I listened. I calculated.
The auctioneer was a tall woman in a skin-hugging red latex dress that left nothing to the imagination. I could see the fucking bumps on her areolas, it was that tight. Her arms and neck looped with serpentine tattoos that pulsed with each beat of her heart. She handled the artifacts like they were delicate newborn children—loving, possessive, desirous. Every so often she’d lift her eyes and catch mine from across the room, holding them an extra second, as if daring me to outbid the rest. I smiled back, lazy as a crocodile.
I made my way to the far wall, to the spot where the candlelight faded and only the drunks and the real predators hung out. Two men stood there—one with a blonde goatee and a nose that had been broken more than once, the other with an oiled man-bun and a black suit too expensive for his greasy posture. They both had knives somewhere on their bodies. I could taste the metal from across the room.
“You see the tits on the auctioneer?” Goatee said, staring over his drink at the dais. “I’d pay double to see what’s under that dress.”
Man-bun laughed. “Fuck that. You heard what she said about the next lot? The whore of Babylon, my man. If I caught her, I’d make the bitch crawl before I fucked her throat.” He made a hand motion, a little too practiced, as if he’d done it for real once.
Goatee grinned, teeth flecked with something red. “She’d like it. Girls like that, they only feel alive when you break them.” His eyes never left the key.
I finished my drink in a single swallow. Then I turned, closing the gap between us with the kind of speed you only get from millennia of fighting things that don’t want to die. I took Goatee by the throat, his Adam’s apple soft and trembling under my fingers. He tried to stab me with his left, a blade appeared likemagic in his hand, but I caught the wrist before he got anywhere near. I squeezed.
“Say that again,” I said, my breath hot in his face. “I dare you.”
He tried to kick, but his toes just bounced off my shin. The knife clattered to the floor. Man-bun stepped back, hands up, but I’d already made my point.
“You got the wrong idea, friend,” Goatee choked. “I—” He didn’t finish.
I slammed his face into the stone wall, then let it bounce off the floor. The sound his skull made was like a wet melon hitting pavement. I did it again. The third time, I let go. The body slid to the ground, jaw hanging open at a bad angle, the eyes rolling up. He wasn’t dead, not yet, but I had no plans for mercy.
Man-bun tried to run. I caught him by his stupid fucking bun and yanked him back. The pain made him go limp. I whispered in his ear: “You ever talk about a woman like that again, I’ll eat you alive. And I’ll start with your balls.” I let him go, and he pissed himself.
The auction stopped, everyone looking our way. The latex auctioneer cocked her head, then clapped twice, slow and deliberate.
“Well,” she said, “looks like we have a demonstration of Lot 7’s capabilities. The runes on that key respond best to a dominant touch. Thank you, sir, for showing us.” She smiled, eyes glinting.
I wiped the blood from my knuckles with a handkerchief. “You know who I am,” I called to her as I transformed into my demon form, my body growing, bulging, and twisting into my true form. “I’m taking the key.”
The crowd parted, some out of fear, some out of deference. The ones with weapons palmed them, but none of them would risk it. A few remembered my reputation. In the old days, I’d eaten men like them for breakfast, then spent the afternoon fucking their widows.
She lifted the key, presenting it to me with both hands. Up close, the runes shimmered, sliding along the surface in fractal patterns. I took it, expecting heat, but it was cold, cold enough to hurt.
To my surprise, as soon as I touched it, the sensation of something slithering or skittering, shot up my arm. I grunted in confusion but didn’t release the key. Some unseensomethingwriggled under the skin like a hungry parasite. It shot straight to my brain, then as quickly as the sensation began, it vanished, leaving me dizzy and a bit disoriented. For a second, I staggered, the world spinning. I caught myself on the edge of the pedestal.
“You feel it, don’t you?” she whispered. “The Void in there. It’s alive.”
I nodded. “It always has been.”
She leaned in, close enough for me to smell the wine on her breath. “Care to make a private arrangement?” She glanced down at my dick and licked her lips hungrily. Her hand ran along my forearm, nails digging into my dark blue skin just enough to draw blood.
“I only want what’s mine,” I said, pulling away. “Keep your fingers. You’ll need them later.”
Her smile wavered, but only a little. She dipped her head, then turned back to the crowd, resuming the auction as if nothing had happened. I pocketed the key and walked out, the stairs groaning under my weight.
Outside, the rain had finally stopped. After ducking into an alley, I pulled out the key, and looked at it under the sickly sodium lamp. The runes shifted, rearranging into something familiar, something from before the Fall. I remembered standing at the edge of the world, before the Titans tore it in half, and knowing that nothing built by mortals would ever last. This key had survived. And it wanted me to use it.
I wondered if Lilith had felt the same thing, that surge of power and pain all at once. The memory of her hair damp with sweat, the way she laughed at my jokes even when they sucked, the taste of her on my tongue hit me all at once, knocking the wind from my lungs. I doubled over, then straightened.
