The Devil Makes Three

by Tori Bovalino

  She was dead.

  But dead, in Tess’s mind, had never meant ceasing to exist. It had never meant exploding into nothing, leaving only bones and memories behind. Death meant a funeral and a gathering of relatives and a body and mourning. Death was not this messy, gory thing that she couldn’t understand, this skip from existing in one second to dissolving in the next.

  Tess knew they had to move, that they had to keep going, but she saw a scrap of lavender fabric that had been torn away from Mathilde’s sweater, and Tess found herself on her knees without any memory of falling.

  Eliot’s face loomed in her vision, too close and real. His ink-smudged hands moved to her face, cupping her cheeks, and she saw his lips moving but she couldn’t hear the words he was saying.

  Two deaths. Two people that she’d known, that she’d spoken to, and now they were gone. Because of her.

  Mathilde had held her as a baby, been at her first birthday party, held her hand when she’d crossed the street, watched her grow up. And now she was nothing but the ink soaking into the knees of Tess’s jeans.

  She closed her eyes, squeezed them against the memories. She felt Eliot’s hands but all she could hear was her aunt’s voice: Boys like that scare me. Because they want to know everything.

  She pulled away from his hands, from his comfort.

  “I never wanted her to die,” she choked out, skidding away from him. Her back hit one of the shelves of books and ink dripped onto her shoulders. “She shouldn’t have been— This shouldn’t have …” She couldn’t speak. Words were lost in the strangling ache in her throat.

  Eliot crouched in front of her. Shame flickered across his face. “Tess …”

  “Get away from me,” she said. She could barely speak, hyperventilating, suffocating.

  “Tess,” he said, stronger now. “That wasn’t Mathilde. You know that.”

  She choked on a cough. There was too much ink, too much death, and she was falling apart. She was shattering, splintering, exploding. She’d never get out. Neither of them would. They were going to die in this goddamn aisle, decay into ink, dissolve into nothing.

  He gave her a hard shake. “Tess.”

  She clutched his arms, nails digging into his skin. “Don’t let him take me.”

  He looked like a monster. He looked like a savior. Ink stained his cheekbones, sinking into his pores, darkening his eyelashes. Eliot took her shoulders, held her steady. “He’s not going to take you.”

  Eliot pulled her up to her feet. She wasn’t sure how, but she was conscious of him dragging her, of her putting one foot in front of the other, stumbling up the stairs and then up another flight. And then they were back out in the dim reading room, on the balcony of the third floor, and Eliot was pulling her into his office.

  She collapsed into a chair as soon as it was underneath her. This whole day, this whole month, was a horror show. And now that Tess knew what the devil could do, she had no idea how they were supposed to beat him.

  He knelt on the carpet in front of her. Eliot’s hands gently probed the skin around her throat. His hands were dark with ink and clammy, a reminder of what had happened to them back there—and what they’d done.

  When he was satisfied with his analysis, he tilted her chin down towards him, forcing her to look him in the eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  No, she was not okay. She was so far from okay that the thought of answering him made her feel a little hysterical, but her throat hurt so badly after the first giggle escaped that she trapped the rest of them behind her lips.

  Eliot didn’t blink, didn’t flinch away. His eyes were gentler than she deserved. She had to look away from him.

  “There was nothing you could have done,” Eliot said. “The devil got her before we were even here, Tess.”

  Tess closed her eyes. She knew he was right. He had to be. She didn’t know how or when, but Mathilde was gone before she and Eliot had come back for the evening. Like Regina, by the time they’d removed her head, she’d already been dead.

  “What will we do now?” Tess asked, and her voice was still too soft and too rough. She tried to clear her throat, but then it only burned.

  Eliot sighed, running an inky hand through his hair. “Well, we have to go back in the stacks,” he said. “And down to the tunnel. I don’t think Mathilde was lying to us about how to get rid of him.”

  “Reading it backwards,” Tess said.

  “You reading it backwards,” Eliot emphasized, picking at the carpet. She wondered if there was accusation in his voice, like he was afraid she wasn’t brave enough to complete the task, or if he was simply reminding her of what needed to be done.

  “I know,” Tess snapped.

  Eliot looked wounded, like her words were as sharp as the ink-and-blood-coated knife he still held in his hand.

  She wished she could say something, but how could she pick up the fractured pieces of herself and make them complete enough to comfort him?

  Finally, Eliot said, “I did what I had to.”

  “I know,” Tess whispered, and then quickly, “I would have done the same. “Immediately, she was ashamed of the response. As if that made her death sting less. As if that made her lack of existence bearable. “I … I don’t know how to feel about it,” Tess admitted, because it was the truth.

  Eliot nodded as if he understood, or at least, as if he was trying to. “I’m sorry, Tess. I’m so, so sorry.”

  She took his sympathy, swallowed it like a bitter drink, allowed it to absorb. “She took Nat and me in when we needed her.”

  Eliot laid one of his hands on her knee, fingers stretched. “She deserved better. You deserve better. And there’s only one way to avenge her.”

  Tess nodded, just barely. The truth bubbled inside of her, acidic, corrosive.

  “The sooner we finish this, the better,” Tess said.

  The thought of entering the stacks again made her heart shrivel up inside her and her stomach turn to lead. Tess didn’t want to go back. She wanted to run far, far away without returning to this godforsaken library ever again.

  Something vibrated against her. She nearly jumped out of her skin before she realized it was just her phone in the pocket of her jeans. With shaking hands, Tess pulled it out to see Nat’s name on the caller ID. She had to answer.

  Tess tried to clear her throat, but there wasn’t much she could do to help the hoarseness of her voice. Ignoring Eliot’s look, she half turned away from him to answer the call.

  “Hey, Nat,” she said, trying to sound bright and failing miserably. If she was going to risk her life going into the stacks, she wasn’t going to allow this conversation to be awful. Tess would even apologize for their fight, even though she wasn’t at fault.

  “Tess.” The fear in Nat’s voice was thick and piercing. “I don’t know how to say this, but I think your bookshelves are … bleeding.”

  Tess’s blood turned to ice. She glanced at Eliot, and it seemed that he could hear too, because he was looking back at her with that expression caught somewhere between misery and terror.

  “Where are you?” Tess asked.

  Nat’s voice was a shaky whisper. “Your dorm. I talked to Mathilde about our fight and she signed me out. Um. So I could apologize. I came to see you and Anna let me in and …” There was a pause, and Anna’s voice in the background, and then Nat was back. “We’re in the bathroom. With the door locked. We don’t know what to do.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked. Eliot moved closer, pressing his ear to the phone with hers so he could hear Nat’s response.

  “There’s stuff. Coming from your books and papers and … I don’t know. It’s everywhere. On the table and floor. Did you— Wait.” There was a shuffling noise, and Tess thought her fingers would break from how tightly she was gripping the phone. Then, hollowly: “It’s seeping under the door.”

  Tess took a ragged breath. Ink, she could deal with. Besides, she’d forbidden not-Regina—and the devil with her
—from going after Nat. Nat was safe, and ink was everywhere, so this was probably just a distraction. A scare tactic to get her away from the stacks, away from the book, so the devil could take her.

  “Get out of there,” Tess snapped, and the force of her voice surprised even her. “I don’t think it can hurt you. Not now. But you need to get out. Do you understand me?”

  A pause of silence, and Tess could hear Nat’s uneven breathing but nothing more. If the devil took Nat … If they had to … to … No. She couldn’t think of it. Eliot’s hand was on her back, then, as if he could ground her.

  Regular ink wasn’t going to hurt them, but the kind that looked like the universe. That ink, the kind that looked like the devil’s eyes—that was the dangerous kind. The kind that took over Regina and Mathilde.

  “Put Anna on, okay?”

  A brief shuffling sounded, and a few sniffles that made Tess grab for Eliot’s hand. He squeezed back fiercely. And there was Anna’s voice, strong and clear. “Tess, it’s all over the floor. We can’t get out without stepping in it.”

  “Do you have shoes? Anything to cover?” Eliot asked, leaning in to be heard.

  “No,” Anna said.

  “We’ve touched it enough, and we’re fine,” Tess said slowly. “You’re going to be fine. You just need to get out of there.”

  “I’m not going to sugarcoat this,” Anna said wearily, “but the ink … burns? Nat didn’t touch it but I did and it definitely stung.”

  Tess and Eliot exchanged a look. All Tess could think of was Anna, the night she’d found Tess bleeding in the bathroom. The warmth of her body in the morning, nestled next to Tess, with the sunlight playing on her shoulders.

  “Get out of there now and nothing will happen to you,” Tess said, feigning surety. “We’ll handle it. Just get out of there, away from the ink, and it will be okay.”

  “Listen, Anna,” Eliot said. Tess angled the phone so he could speak into it. “Don’t touch anything that has ink on it. Posters, signs, any paper. Keep on walking until you’re at the park. Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” Anna said.

  “Can I talk to Tessy, please?” Nat asked.

  It was that squeaked “Tessy” that was enough to break her out of her trance. She pulled the phone back. “Natalie, listen to Eliot. Go with Anna. Wait for us there. We’ll be there soon.”

  “I’m scared, Tess.”

  That small admission was enough to undo her. Tess breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth. The devil could not have Nat. He could take Regina. He could take Mathilde. Fuck, he could even take Tess. But she would not let him take Nat.

  “You have to be brave, Nat. It will be okay. Go with Anna.”

  “Okay,” Nat whispered, and Tess could hear the edges of tears in her voice. “I love you. And I’m sorry.”

  Tess’s voice caught when she said, “I love you too.” She hung up the phone. Inches away, Eliot was watching her.

  “It’s hurting them,” she said quietly.

  Eliot closed his eyes for a moment. She watched him take a deep breath and release it slowly. “Then we have to be fast, don’t we?”

  Tess leaned down and rubbed her hands on the carpet, smudging the burgundy with gore. She got up from the chair and reached a hand down to Eliot. He looked at it for a second, and then his eyes flicked up to hers. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  She wasn’t okay. She most certainly was not okay. But she was not going to let anything hurt Nat. Not anything that she could prevent.

  fifty two

  THERE WAS A WAY INTO THE BOY.

  When you as the old woman gripped his arm, you felt the call of it even through his shirt. Master master master, the ink called, we serve as always serve you want you help you let us in.

  Just before the woman was bested and your vision cut, you saw what you needed, imbedded into the skin, a way to take him even through the protection of his magic.

  You were a boy once yourself, before you were a devil. Sometimes, you remembered being a boy, not pulled into the shape of others, not commanding skins that did not belong to you. You remembered what it felt like to touch, to feel, to consume. To live. You wanted that, above all. To feel that way again.

  It was easier not to remember what you sacrificed. There was a book and a boy, and then you were the boy and the book was not you, was not consuming you from the inside out and turning your soul to ink.

  Freedom, the book begged, the first time you traced your paint-stained fingers against the cover. Give me freedom and I’ll give you eternity. So the bargain went, hammered and defined, and there was no need for the book to kill to get what it wanted then. Either because you were weak or because you wanted.

  Now, you were not so lucky. Tess did not want the way you wanted; she was not willing to bargain the way you were. It was like the other reader, all those years ago, who would not cave to your demands even as you burned the world around her.

  You could’ve formed your ink around the shape of her, pressed your half-formed palms to her shoulders, carved her body through what little power you still had, and yet she would not have bargained.

  You saw it in her. You admired it in her, even as it tore you apart; even as your ink craved to feel the warmth of her skin once more.

  She would not bargain for much, but she would bargain for the boy—which turned your glimmer to ash and curved your ink around the words jealous and sacrifice.

  If all else failed, there was another place you could find yourself welcome: Tess’s threshold had been blessed, but the boy’s purifying magic had swept it all away. He had gotten rid of the wards that prevented you from entering. You dripped from music notes and novels, from homework and cookbooks and fast food advertisements.

  There were fates worse than death. There was grief endless as time itself. It was time Tess learned that.

  fifty three

  Eliot

  BACK TO THE CAGE, WHERE IT ALL BEGAN.

  The pale glow of the emergency lights cast ghostly shadows as they made their way back down the stairs. It reminded Eliot of the dim lighting of his mother’s sickroom. He hated it. It didn’t help that they were making their way through an inch of murky ink that covered the floor like a swamp.

  The devil was everywhere here.

  They heard his laughter in every corner and his whisper from every shelf. He had no body to inhabit now, but that didn’t stop him from throwing up illusions in the shadows or making the aisles slick and hard to cross.

  He ran through incantations in his head, as if that would help. Healing. Purity. Goodness. Strength. If he had his mother’s magic, he would’ve been able to cast spells now, but he was useless without a great many objects. And even if he could summon magic, it was too difficult here, away from any natural sources of power.

  They held hands, more out of safety than anything else. It was good to be tethered to her, Eliot thought. The dark smudges on her face and bruises on her throat made Tess look even more threatening. She was a forgotten warrior, a lost god, fierce and terrifying.

  Eliot caught a glimmer out of the corner of his eye and turned to face it. He almost slipped on the stairs to the basement, but caught himself quickly on the railing. When he pulled his hand away, it was black with ink. A ray of light shone across it, revealing a glimmer of—something. Before he could be certain, the shimmer was gone.

  A pinch of fear started in his stomach. He quickly wiped away the ink from his bare skin, but when he did, he saw that his hand was already blistering. Eliot gritted his teeth against the pain. There was some sort of reaction happening, and magic fizzled in the back of his brain. He reached for it, his own magic, and it eluded him.

  “Tess,” Eliot said. “Is the ink hurting you?”

  She glanced back at him, over her shoulder. “No,” she said, and something changed in her voice. She leaned in, scrutinizing the ink that surrounded them. “Why? Is something wrong?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. Maybe the ink was burnin
g, Eliot thought horribly, because it was finally infecting him.

  Eliot shoved his blistering hand into his pocket and released a shaky breath. He thought of his mother, lips pursed together, suffering without telling him how much. If she could be strong, so could he.

  He followed Tess through the muck of the basement to the cage. The metal of the grated gate was twisted in places, as if the ink was eating away at it as it dripped between the bars.

  It looked like the entire library was melting.

  Tess set to work on the lock. Somewhere in the library—upstairs, maybe?—there was a distant roaring. To Eliot, it sounded like the ocean.

  Above them, one of the emergency lights flickered and burned out.

  Tess swore under her breath. The key wasn’t fitting or something, but Eliot couldn’t look.

  Somewhere, the roaring, whooshing sound grew louder. Eliot looked up, wondering if it was the building’s air conditioning kicking on. Only then did he notice the ink running down the stairs, rushing heavier than it had before.

  “Tess,” he said, and his voice was thin and his mouth dry. “I think there’s—”

  He didn’t have time to get the words out. The rush of ink increased to a torrent, to a tsunami. She turned into his chest, clutching his shirt. He only had time to lock his arms on the grate on either side of her, pressing his face into her hair before the ink swept down the stairs like the ocean had been unleashed upon them.

  Before that moment, he’d never thought of what darkness tasted like.

  The taste was rot and corruption and bile and horror, death and sadness and hopelessness all in one, mixed with the chemical taste of ink and mustiness of dust. The wave passed and he gasped for air, coughing against Tess’s hair, and then, all too soon, a second wave came. He rocked unsteadily on his feet, and it felt like the ground was sucking out from under him. Tess’s nails scratched into his chest, and he wondered if he was suffocating her or if her head was even above the level of the ink.

  The ink was in his nose, in his throat, thick and hot like blood.