The taste of freedom

—Lucius

The effect was instant. The demon burst through the surface of me in a possession, and the pact magic overrode everything. It obliterated vampire bonds like they were fragile rope, denied me even the rights to my own body. It was the strangest sensation of being a prisoner in my own mind.

I was awake, watching through my eyes, but I had no control where they looked. He had everything, and he flexed his fingertips with a gleeful laugh. But I could sense that he, too, was limited. He was not free to do as he pleased, only free to take what was rightfully his by our bargain failed.

He sniffed the air of the cave and then spun in his circle. "Run away, little Astarte. I want to play and flay all day, and you need run away." His rhyme went something like that anyway. It's hard to translate his insanity to different languages, but it's close enough.

He said it in a sing-song voice and then stopped his circle, staring in a direction, and I felt what he felt.

He could sense her, knew exactly where she was by the powerful magic of his kind.

The urge to punish with sin was a demon's first and foremost drive, with the urge to follow bargains as a second. And with this, he got to do both at once. It was like an internal compass pointed him straight to her soul.

And then I got to experience my first materialization. It was f*cking cool. He literally just willed himself out of existence from one place and willed himself back into it in another.

I remember instantly hoping that trick might be one of the changes he spoke of that occurred from demon possession.

My grimoire had mentioned that too, that diets and appearances and mannerisms and just about anything were subject to change after a demon's ownership of a body.

It was another price I had predetermined worth it, no matter what grotesque changes happened to me. I could earn horns and total disfigurement forever, and I wouldn't have cared by then.

We appeared within a lavish home for that time period, too, without needing any invitation at all, without even touching the front door.

Depravity walked with a spring in his step, ripping doors just to feel his own strength, giggling when he crushed them into pieces.

There was a shriek in response to the noise he made and a sound of, "What the bloody hell is that?"

The first vampire that burst through the next set of doors was another female, and I would later learn that Astarte's gatherings were all of a political nature for her vampire clan.

She served blood teas and hosted dinner parties for others of high stature, keeping her favors with the Dark Court by performing little favors of her own. The vampire that appeared was one of her guests.

Of course, Depravity didn't see any of that or care about any of it. He giggled again. "Oh, she's been kind enough to invite voyeurs to watch our playtime together, too! How exciting. Maybe by the end they'll be mad as a bat with a cat and a rat on a mat."

Astarte followed through the door and stopped, stunned when she saw what appeared to be a twisted version of me.

Ever the high status vampire, she drew herself up against the shock and maintained that regal expression. "Little lion, I do not know what loopholes you found in my commands, but you will pay for this impropriety. At my feet, now."

Depravity howled in laughter, while I felt as Atlas might have if the world was ever lifted from his shoulders. He wasn't obeying, wasn't forced to obey.

This was what freedom finally felt like.

"You called him little lion and thought you cut his claws, but they grew back twice as long and dipped in poison, too." He grinned what must have been a terrifying expression because Astarte backed away from him, losing her regal appearance. "I'm not Lucius, Astarte, but he made a deal with a demon on your life and broke it. So here we are, with our little game."

He was pacing, dancing, but abruptly, he stopped that and turned to her, and his expression switched from madness to pure venom. "How dare you? How f*cking dare you! You would break the sacred bond of vampire Sire and fledgling, would break the unholy ties of the punished when our kind is all we have for comfort in our eternal hells? You will pay!"

She must have known instantly what he referred to because she turned and ran with the supernatural speed of her kind while her friend remained frozen in place by Depravity's magic.

He snarled at her flight and did that cool materializing trick again so that she ran right into his arms and screamed.

She struggled and sobbed, tried to kick him, but his strength was incredible. She was little more than a kitten trying to break his hold.

And I had the sensation that Depravity, and demons in general did not exactly have a thought processing. Because he was acting on an instinct of his kind and the sudden burst of rage seemed to be something he was suddenly forced to feel along with that urge to punish, to bring damned retribution on a soul.

Eternal life was always a curse, and evidently, a demon's purpose was to exact a twisted form of justice.

Astarte had been drawn to me because she was a vampire, a creature who feasted on blood, and I had poured out a river of it, so much that the Dark Embrace took hold of her so that she would punish me with eternal blood hunger.

Likewise, Depravity was drawn to Astarte for her twisted performances of his namesake, and his nature seemed to make him crave to act, to defile, to debase. It was so very beautiful, in a strange way, so poetic.

"No! Please! Please, I'll do anything! Make a deal with me instead."

He cackled again, his rage switching back to madness and delirious delight. "Oh, you're the begging kind! How unoriginal. And the scent of your fear is so cheap and... human in nature. That's boring. I think you can do better, so let's see what we can do to inspire you. Such a bad mommy you've been."

He laughed in joy at the way the word tasted, and then he did something I would forever be his friend for.

He ripped into her neck with my teeth, and even in the back of my head, I moaned with relief. Blood poured down my throat, a fountain of it, far more than her goblets, far more than I had ever hoped to have.

At least a gallon of it flooded me and the hunger was something that was ever present, something that could never truly be satisfied, but after so long with so little of it, I felt full and soothed.

He drained her dry while she sobbed in mad hunger, and, finally, I was the one who was replete, and she was the animal crying in starvation.

***