Layla's words were frightening, but they were true. This was not some kind of story where the main character gained power simply because he existed. Power always demanded a price. There was no exception to that rule.
Lucas closed his eyes. The image of his mother surfaced immediately. Her mouth hung open, her jaw slack like a broken hinge, her eyes wide in terror. For years, that had been the only thing he could remember.
But now, something else has emerged.
Her eyes. They were no longer wild or empty. They were filled with sadness, desperation, and regret, tears slipping endlessly down her face.
As if her soul had been trapped in that moment, forced to murder the man she loved and watch her son break under the weight of it all.
Her ghost lingered too. He was sure of it.
She must have seen everything. The humiliation. The abuse. The way that old hag and her lecherous son crushed him again and again until his life became something small and miserable.
Lucas's hands clenched until his nails bit into his palms.
"Even if I have to sell my soul to the devil," he said quietly, "even if I burn in the abyss forever, I'll take my revenge."
He stepped forward. Lucas pulled off Jordan's doctor's coat, then stripped away the rest of his clothes, leaving the body naked and exposed.
He dragged it carefully into the center of the pentagram, taking care not to smear the lines. Strangely, the symbols remained intact, the candles steady, as if the ritual itself refused to be disturbed.
"Do you have gloves?" he asked.
Layla walked back to the shelf and tossed him a pair of rubber gloves. He caught them easily.
"If you need help," she said casually, "I can do it faster. More precisely."
Lucas slipped the gloves on. "I'm a nurse. I know anatomy better than you."
Layla laughed and patted his shoulder. "That's cute. How many people do you think I've killed?"
The words stunned him for half a second. His mind flashed through old unsolved cases, serial killers who had vanished without explanation. He had a guess, but this was not the time.
Lucas crouched beside the body. He worked without hesitation.
There was no disgust, no shaking hands. He severed Jordan's genitals with steady precision, as if performing a clinical procedure rather than mutilation. His expression didn't change.
Then he shifted his attention to the upper body and frowned slightly.
"I'll need a bigger knife. And a saw."
"Why not the eyes and the tongue?"
Layla suggested, crunching on chips she had somehow taken from the same shelf as the ritual tools.
She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Three faces of the sinner. The mask he wore for society. The face of the perpetrator. And the face his victims saw."
Lucas paused.
Layla continued, her voice calm. "One woman died because Jordan drove her to suicide. Another was silenced, forced into an abortion, and bled to death afterward."
She shrugged. "All of it started with his mouth. His lips. His tongue. The way he watched them suffer without remorse."
The candles flickered. The pentagram pulsed faintly beneath the corpse.
Lucas turned toward her. It made sense. Too much sense. But the hands that committed the abuse were the same hands that touched the victims.
"You know," he said quietly, "maybe that mindset is one of the reasons Molok rejected your offer."
Layla froze for a moment, then clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes. "Fine. Believe whatever you want. But we don't have much time."
Her gaze sharpened. "The angel, the white witch or wizard. They've already started chasing us. So move, Lucas. Or do you want me to do it for you?"
BAM. BAM.
The door shook violently as something slammed against it.
"Open the door," a voice shouted. "We know you're in there."
Lucas stiffened. "David…" he murmured.
Layla didn't even flinch. "What are you waiting for? Do you want them to stop you? Or kill you?"
The pounding grew louder. The door trembled again.
Lucas moved. His eyes flicked between Jordan's face and the ritual markings. His hand hovered for a moment, hesitation creeping in despite everything.
"Fuck it."
He forced Jordan's mouth open and slashed the tongue cleanly, placing it carefully on the right side of the pentagram.
The severed genitals lay opposite it. He stood, yanked off his gloves, and turned just as the door cracked.
David's fist punched through the opening. His face appeared between the broken wood, strained and desperate.
"Lucas!" David shouted. "Don't cross to the other side. God is watching you!"
The word hit Lucas like a slap. God, that word feels like an insult to him. Rage surged up, hot and uncontrollable.
"I prayed every day," Lucas said, his voice shaking. "I knelt, I cried, and I begged Him to answer me. To take me out of that hell." His chest tightened. "But nothing happened, no one answered."
Tears burned behind his eyes, tears he had swallowed for years.
"So if the devil is the only one who will answer me," he continued, his voice breaking, "then so be it. I'll walk this dark, suffocating path. At least the devil answers."
Lucas turned away as he stood up. He opened the Ars Goetia and ignored the shouting, the chaos, the fear behind him.
The pages ignited. Fire crawled across the paper, writing words on its own. Without thinking, Lucas read aloud.
"I offer you the sinner of lust and destruction. The tongue that kills and the body that stains itself upon other human beings."
His voice grew steadier. "With all my wrath and the injustice of this life, for every right that was never given to me. Destroy everything with your fire."
"Every person, every being that tries to destroy me. I give my soul to you, O Asmodei, Prince of the Abyss and ruler of the new world."
Silence fell. The flames on the candle froze, the wind stopped, and even the pounding behind him ceased.
Then a low, guttural growl rolled through the room, vibrating through Lucas's bones. Every hair on his body stood on end as the blood on the floor darkened, thickening into shadow.
The blood stretched into writhing tendrils and tore open Jordan's stomach. His eyes snapped open in silent horror as something impossibly dark yawned inside him, a hole so deep it felt endless.
An abyss.
A voice echoed from within it, layered and monstrous. "Give yourself to us, Lucas. Come closer. Let the sinner devour you. Become one with us and claim the power you desire."
The shadows reached for him as the door behind him finally broke.