A Glimmer of Hope (The Avalon Chronicles #1)(44)
Layla wasn’t going to allow Terhal to know that she was frightened. “How did you end up in there?” She kept her tone casual, as if it was the most normal question in the world.
“The dwarves dragged me from my realm and imprisoned me in a scroll. They called me a demon; and then they made this cage my new home. Demon. It’s a strange word, but I like it.”
“You’re going to try to make me release you, so you can take control of my body and cause havoc.”
“I wasn’t planning on it right at this moment. Although I guess that is my end goal. I want to feast on those little humans that are so abundant here. Gyda let me out to feed, and I killed so many people. Servius too. Rosa never did. She was always too detached, too controlled. Shame.”
Layla’s confidence grew, her fear fading away into the background. “Do we need to do this with the darkness rolling around?”
The demon sighed and clicked his fingers, bathing the area in light, and showing Layla exactly who she was talking to.
Even though Layla had managed to figure out what Terhal looked like in the darkness, she wasn’t quite prepared for the hulking beast that stood before her. Terhal had the body shape of someone who bench-pressed buses, and hands that were tipped with jet-black claws that retracted and extended as she watched.
“I haven’t been in the light for a while now. No one else ever asked to see me this way. You know being in the light won’t save you. Won’t help you. I will be free, and you will scream while I devour your friends.”
Anger replaced the fear. Who did this demon think he was to threaten her friends? To threaten her? She’d seen monsters before. Monsters in the flesh. She’d escaped Elias, and the ogre, and she’d dealt with her father’s crimes. She could deal with this too. “So, I keep you in there and you drive me insane, allowing you to break free? Okay, so I’ll let you out.”
“But then the second you tap into the power I possess, that makes it easier for me to take control too. You can’t win.”
“You make it sound like I shouldn’t try.”
“Oh, no, please try. I do so love it when they try.”
“I don’t get it. Are you meant to scare me? I understand that if you’re released, you’ll cause devastation, and I understand that you’re a monster, but you’re also in a cage. Whether I accept you or not, you’re still in a cage, a cage I need to keep control of.”
Terhal snarled. “Don’t play with me, girl.”
Layla stared at the cage for several seconds before laughing. “Girl? You think that’s an insult? This girl isn’t someone who will let you walk over them.”
Terhal screamed in rage, changing the world around them, showing dead bodies piled high. Dozens and dozens of dead.
“Is this what I’m meant to do? You think nightmares are the best way to get to me?” Layla took a step forward, using the anger to force her forward. “I dreamed of nothing but death and murder and pain for years after my father was arrested. I dreamed of hurting people I love, of enjoying their suffering. I’ve seen the crime-scene photos of my father’s murders; I’ve seen the journals he kept. I know what he did, and how he did it. There is nothing you can show me that will do more harm to me than he already did.”
Layla turned and walked away.
“You’ll be back tomorrow,” Terhal snarled.
“Maybe. I’ll see how I feel.”
The bodies vanished, replaced with a scene of a car crashed head first into a tree. Layla’s mother had been thrown from the car and lay dying on the ground.
“How about this?”
Layla took a sharp breath. Her legs felt weak and she thought they would give way at any moment, but she still turned back toward the demon. “Is this really how you want to play this game?” Anger leaked from every word. If they’d both been in the real world, she’d have beaten Terhal within an inch of his life and regretted nothing.
The car vanished, replaced with a demonic-looking Layla standing over a prone and bleeding Chloe, who was pleading with her friend to let her live. The demon-Layla, her claw-like hands drenched with blood, looked over at her and began to laugh, the sound making Layla nauseous. She took a step toward the scene and it vanished, replaced once again with the glade.
“This is what happens when I take control. Either you accept me or you don’t, but you can’t stop this from being your future. And this will happen if you accept me. I guarantee it.” The demon didn’t sound smug about it, just matter of fact.
Tears fell down Layla’s cheeks as everything she’d seen suddenly felt as real as if it was happening to her right then. The sounds, the smells, the horrific brutality on display. Everything. She knew somewhere inside her that what Rosa had told her was true, that none of this was real, but it felt so real that she could think of nothing else but the horror before her. Her confidence had been misplaced. She thought she could be stronger than whatever the demon showed her. She had been terribly wrong. Layla wiped the tears away with the back of her hand.
“See you tomorrow,” Terhal said.
Layla woke with a start, the image of her pleading friend still fresh in her mind. She lay there for a long time, not wanting to get out of bed for fear that she was still dreaming, still in a world created by the demon. Eventually the sun broke through the curtains, and only then did she feel at ease. How could she let out a demon that would kill her friends? But then how could she keep him caged, if he would eventually take control anyway? She’d been right: she really was screwed.