Chapter 3. | Meetings And Madness|

The big, black cat was still staring at me with those strange, black eyes that scared the heck out of me. I knew that cat was no cat at all, it was something worse.

My tight catsuit suddenly felt tighter as I turned and immediately started to stumble away from the cat, trying get away fast. Almost like they were under some unexplainable influence, my feet refused to move a pace faster than a small jog. It felt like the air around me had gone thicker and more viscous, that movement was difficult, almost impossible.

What the heck was happening?

The cat was stalking away from the street lamp and slowly coming towards me now, like it had all the time in the world. It's eyes fixated on me like a predator would on a trapped prey.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, the cat was morphing and after a series of stretches, a man stood before me. He hadn't changed a bit since the first time we met, when I was ten years old, eight years ago. His pale white, gaunt face still held those midnight black eyes and I didn't think it was even possible, but he looked even scarier.

He threw back the hoodie of the black sweatshirt he had on to reveal his long, tangled dreadlocks and smiled a thin, wicked smile showing his abnormally, sharp teeth. He studied me through those soulless, bottomless, black pools he called eyes and took a few steps to my side.

The Devil himself.

What did he want? After all, he had tricked me into selling what was most important to me that night years ago and had appeared a week after to explain that I was his property now and we wouldn't meet again until he officially came to get me. I was his property, it was inevitable. Belonging to the devil was a secret I had over my head for years now, I couldn't go near any sacred place of worship, I couldn't touch bibles or even hear prayers. Anything religious related activity was forbidden for me, I didn't even like the light. Whenever people asked questions about my strange behavior towards religion, I gave flimsy excuses. The truth was that I had once tried going into the chapel before and my body had burst into literal flames at the doorsteps, I stayed in the hospital for months with the doctors having no explanation for my sickness.

But I knew.

Another case had taken place during one of the few occasions when I had accompanied my mom to the psychiatric hospital where she worked as a nurse just by the outskirt of town. I was sitting in the lobby licking my rapidly melting, lemon flavored ice lolly when a lady in the green hospital clothes the patients always wore walked past. It was quite difficult to say just how old she was with her tall, thin, bony frame and sunken, black eyes; exact same shade as mine. Her blonde hair looked thin and papery white and I got the feeling she usually pulled clumps of her hair out.

She met my eyes in one scary moment and then next thing I knew, she was pulling on my maroon sweater and yelling her head off. An hour later, bundled up in warm blankets in my mom's and sipping strong, sweet tea made by one of the other nurses to calm me down and appease me for the harassment, my mind kept going back to the crazy lady. She had been there for years and they referred to her as mad Maria, and they didn't know how she had left her ward.

I wasn't spooked out by the fact that a mentally deranged lady attacked me, it was the words she screeched out when she was being dragged out that would never leave my mind for as long as I lived.

"She's been shadowkissed by the Devil too, look at her eyes! Let me help her, I can see her demise coming!" Her sunken eyes were scanning the lobby as they tried to restrain her and she fought back, it was almost like she was looking for something in the room, or like she was terrified by something."He's here, don't let him get her, he's evil!"

With that, they escorted her away and my mom buried me in tight, warm hug and anxiously murmured pleas to my ears.

I never saw mad Maria again.

The Devil continued his survey of my body and my skin crawled like there were ants dancing all over it, he directed his gaze to the dark sky which looked as though all the bright stars had been switched off and spoke for the first time tonight. His voice was crystal clear but scary, the kind of impassive voices that made you want to bolt to the nearest exit.

"I need a favour." He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world, like he wasn't a thief, like we were friends that came to each other whenever they were in need and I glared at the powerful being that stared right back at me. Why wouldn't my feet move again and with faint surprise, I realized that he had probably enchanted them to the pavement. 

"Why would I do you any favours?" I snarled rudely, getting into a glaring contest with him and turning my eyes just seconds into it, I didn't like what I saw in the depths of those eyes. Judging from the amused tilt if his lip, I guessed he had done that to me on purpose. I wasn't supposed to be rude to the Devil, but he had already ruined my life, how bad could it get?

"Because, Ruby Davies," he started, reaching into his the pockets of his jeans to pull out a cigarette stick. He stared at it uninterestedly for a second or so and it lit up. "I'm willing to return your soul."