My blood freezes. He has seen it, the book. Brought it with him here. Knowing what it is. He doesn't take his eyes off me, waiting for my reaction. I can't think. Not a single word makes its way to the tip of my tongue.
"As I said before; I am much older than I look, and in my years, I have seen people go crazy looking for the Book of Death," Mikhael's voice is calm, but in his face, there's darkness, his eyes gleaming with both curiosity and fear. "It doesn't just show itself to anyone… did you know that? You need to pay for it..."
He stands up, approaching me. His body casts a long shadow. I take a step back, then another, and – my back against the wooden wall. I feel the heat from the fire on my skin. He could throw me in, just a light tug, and I would lose my bearings, fall right into the firepit, and the book, the book would be his. Who among us doesn't have someone they want to bring back from the dead? And someone much older at that. An army of deceased friends and lovers. Family.
He puts his hand on the wall behind me and leans in. His mouth to my ear and almost in a whisper he asks me what price I paid for the Book. I am confused by the question, but the damage I did while trying to get the Book out of the mansion - irreversible.
The words caught in my throat as I try to swallow them down. My eyes try to look away from him, find a way to get out of here, to run away. I need to run away. But my body doesn't listen. I'm trapped inside myself, my body just a vessel, a shell of bones and skin that doesn't heed my commands. I don't want to answer him, as I look into his eyes. The entirety of his body towering over mine, I've never felt this small before. Panic surges in my throat; I realize the words are on their way out. He makes me tell him. With whatever magic that's pulsating from him into me. I want to put my hands to my mouth, but I can't move.
No. No. No. Please, I beg, please, I mouth. No. Stop. A whimper.
"His servants," I say, and my words break out in a monstrous cry. "I killed them all. Friends of mine, he made me, it was… and he laughed while I did it." I claw at my head, and my face and scream. I fall to my knees, the pain in my chest keeps me from fainting at the surge of emotions that are running through my body. I slap my face, again and again at the sight of them, all of them. I hear him, the merchant, his laugh echoing in the cottage, hear him say "again" over and over as I sink my knife into the body of a young woman.
The Book coos at me.
"I couldn't stop. There was something in his voice, something like a spell… I have never felt that before," my hands are wet with tears. Almost breaking the skin as I curl them into fists. Mikhael stands at the same spot, my knees and forehead are heavy on the floor. "But I killed him last. As he tossed a cloth at me and told me to clean myself up and get out of his house. I fought the spell in his voice and put my knife through his neck." Relief is what I feel. Both in the memory of killing him and in the act of telling Mikhael about it.
"I believe you," is all he says. "The water is getting cold… go take a bath." And then he walks out of the cottage, leaving me in shatters on the floor.
--
I hold my breath and sink underwater. Murky and filthy water that caresses my skin, calming me. I wait for him to come back but he doesn't. I listen after him, to hear what he's doing out there if he's close, but there's only silence. Underwater my thoughts fade away, calming, washing away like dirt under my fingernails, yet still there. Like scars.
I haven't had time to think about what Verity must think of me now, what has transpired in the last couple of days as I left the town. I haven't meant to leave, just that the shadows… the second I left the house, a scream followed me as I ran through the garden and then an explosion of dark metallic mist.
My thoughts have only been on going back to get my money, to see Verity, to make sure she's okay, but now as I start to piece everything together again. Nothing about going back makes sense… they will be looking for me. For the book. They'll want me to hang no doubt for this if I even make it through the walls in the first place. What does Verity think of this? What does she know?
She had told me to let go of the book if anything turned south and it had before I could even get a hold of it. Before I could even as much as take a step in that library. The merchant had smelled me, found me, and wanted to make an example of me. He wouldn't have let me live to pass the doors, pass the gates of his house. It was a sport for him.
Now I know why so many other street rats had gone missing. It was him.
Out of breath, I shoot up from the bathtub water spraying everywhere. Mikhael is standing right in front of me, not averting his gaze from mine. Not even looking at my naked, wet body. His arms crossed. A soft chill goes down my spine at the look of his brown dark eyes.
"I have decided to help you," he says, his voice void of all emotion.
"Help me?"
"Yes. You need my help to get that book away from you. You can't just throw it away you know; it will follow you. But I know someone who is well versed in these kinds of… curses." He cocks his head towards the bed I had been sleeping in as if to say he knows the book is there. The sound of the word curse makes my skin crawl, and I realize why I hear that voice in my head.
"Okay," I say. "But do you think this person you know will help me?"
Mikhael presses his lips together for a moment and runs a hand through his hair. The dark brown curls fall around his head, framing him. "I don't know," he says. I'm taken aback by the honesty. A cold wind picks at my skin. "But it's worth a try, or do you want to be bound to that book forever?"
I shake my head. No, no I do not.
"Great," he says, still void of emotion. "We leave at first light." As he turns around, I catch his eyes wandering over my body. I feel nothing. Perhaps I should've been embarrassed but even though it's still 'my body', it has felt foreign, unfamiliar. This husk of skin and organs and bones is not me, it's filled with this Otherness I can't describe.
--
I do not sleep all night, the screams of those I killed follow me. Their eyes stare at me through the veil. I know they are waiting on the other side. Waiting to tear at me, claw through me. I see them everywhere. In the shadows, dancing in the ceiling, in the faint glow from the coals, in the markings on the wall.
"Soon", I coo to them. "Soon you shall have me."