Chapter 10 – END

I didn’t release him because I am weak, or forgiving.

I have admitted that my lingering trauma played a big part in my decision, but here’s what the rational part of my brain said:

He might be getting a deal with Orcus right now.

And boy, I was right.

***

As soon as I pulled him from the space under the hen house and went outside again, there was a giant figure towering over me. Even the vision of its back was enough to terrify even someone like me, who considered herself to be used to the creepy and the supernatural.

Still with its back – nearly naked and completely scarred – turned to the hennery, the fat pig of a demon that bound Pandora to this godforsaken place rotated its neck to watch me, with a smile that was both cruel and delighted.

Seeing it in person instead of only in a memory was a sensorial overload: I’ll never get over its stink, how it moved like a legged ooze, how its whole skin was made of infected blisters, its voice, its wrongness.

Have you ever seen a being and thought “this shouldn’t exist. This is not only an aberration, but a proof that there’s no God looking after us?”

This is how I felt about The Captain. This thing right in front of me was in a whole other level.

He was outraged. Apparently, the demonic envoy had given his voice back partially, so they could make a deal.

“Come on, you rabid bitch! Tell this fatso who he’s messing with”, he spitted his words in raucous rage.

Lovely words to say about the being who granted you the ability to speak, and to the person who just freed you from a life of having chickens shitting all over you.

And he didn’t stop: “Fucking tramp, you always ruin everything! Can never do anything right, can you?”

The demon patiently read from a scroll: “Let’s make a bet. If she leaves you here to perish, I’ll release you myself and guide you to the house where you can kill her as you please. But… if she shows up within the next three hours, I win. She wins. I’ll rip you apart piece by piece and eat your soul.”

The scroll did have a bloodstain that was clearly a fingerprint.

But he wasn’t worried about the 9-feet-tall otherworldly creature and the deal he did with it. He was worried about destroying me.

“You’d better start saying my name and begging that I forgive you.”

And through everything, I smiled.

“You know… I spent all this time thinking that I couldn’t say your name because I’m scared of you, but it’s just that. No. I won’t say your name. Ever again. Because I refuse to acknowledge you as a person.”

The demon spit on his forehead, and it wounded him like a bullet. He whimpered.

He was then punched repeatedly until the two of them were inside the hennery again; the demon held his head against the chicken crap and used his face to smudge it, laughing manically.

The demon didn’t care who it was, as long as there was someone suffering.

And luckily, through all my bad choices and regrets, this someone wasn’t me or a person I cared to protect.

***

I watched it torture him for long minutes, and even decided to record it with my phone for good measure; Pandora had explained to me that powerful outsiders like this demon can’t choose to make themselves invisible for some people while visible to others, that’s why the time kind of stopped when she made her pact with it.

I knew that the demon wanted me to see it all to maximize his humiliation; so I let it put up a show for me.

Things started to get troublesome when it started whipping its fiery tail against the old, dry and very flammable hennery floor.

Without thinking it through, I jumped inside to save my chickens.

The demon mistakenly thought I was interfering with its job.

“Just watch it quietly, fool!” its thunderous, disgusting voice roared.

It was just a small slap. It was just throwing me out of the way.

But the thing was an emissary working under Orcus himself, and I was just an average woman.

As my lacerated abdomen bled enough to leave me unconscious in a matter of seconds, I smiled weakly, and I counted the chickens; at least I was able to evacuate all of them.

***

I don’t know for how long I blacked out. I just know that, when I came to again, I was dying in her arms, as she spoke to him – still being devoured bit by bit by the demon.

“Oh, you’re scared? Scared enough to beg a winged woman you don’t know to save you?” she chuckled, talking to him as she held me. “You deserve to be way more terrified for all the hell you have put Melinda through. Consider yourself lucky you’re only getting a painfully death once, if it was on me I’d murder you hundreds of times.”

“She’s strong now because of me!” he mumbled pathetically.

Pandora laughed again. “You didn’t make her stronger. You tried to destroy her and it’s all on her that she’s still standing, that she’s still kind, that she held on to every good thing you tried to take from her, that she became an even better version of herself. That she’s the woman I love and am proud of.”

I wanted to pretend I wasn’t hearing, but tears started streaming from my eyes.

“Hey, roomie, you’re up”, she said softly. Just then I realized she had ripped off a piece of her left wing to stanch my bleeding. “I’ve been thinking about something you asked me once.”

“Yeah?”

“If you ever got married and have kids. I’d protect your babies. I’d protect your guy too, but if he pissed me off I’d still draw little dicks on his forehead.”

I tried to squeeze her hand, but I realized my body was too weak to do it. Every surface of Pandora that I could see was covered in my blood.

“Sorry it took me a while to come get you. If I go dormant the other ghosts go too because I’m their boss, so I tried to stop being mad quickly. I punched a few holes in the walls.”

Although the pain was unbearable, I smiled.

“Sorry I stormed out like that. I was scared”, I feebly apologized; I didn’t want to die without doing so.

“Yeah, girlfriend, I was scared too, in a sense. But I guess even scared you were able to figure out something that I couldn’t. And hey, now we’re in kind of a pinch that I can’t solve myself. Aren’t those stupid officers coming? I need someone with a body and able to leave the property to get you to the hospital.”

The fat demon continued eating the last bits of his body carelessly, paying no mind to Pandora or me. Soon, he was going to be just a miserable head, and then completely erased from existence.

“The hennery is on fire, so I guess the neighbors will notice it all soon”, I replied; it was also hot as hell where we stood. “But I don’t know if I can make it until they come.”

“Let me tell you a little something about being physically hurt by a demon. The problem is not your body, but your soul. You’re surviving because you have a strong soul”, she put her hand on my sweaty forehead. “But I don’t know if it’s strong enough to make it through completely.”

“I’m sorry for dying on you, Pandora.”

“Although… there must be a way”, she hesitantly added.

__________

Circumstance number one: the person has to be entirely familiar with the terms of the contract, word by word.

I saw her memory in my sleep over and over, and I can recite every word from it.

Circumstance number two: the person has to be alive and unbounded by other contracts.

I’m a freelance writer. My mortgage was put under my parents’ name – they insisted their credit score was better so I’d get to save some money.

Circumstance number three: the person has to be willing to not only take Pandora’s place, but to become Pandora herself.

This one is easy. I feel that we’re so connected that we’re already part of each other.

Circumstance number four: the person has to agree that Pandora takes the person’s name and life for herself.

And there’s nothing I’d like more than have her live a normal life at least for a few decades.

Circumstance number five: the person must have been touched by the bearer of the contract.

So there we have it. The final requisite.

__________

“All this time I didn’t want you mortals to get close to me because I know you’re reckless. I feared someone would offer to take my place, having no idea what it means, but…”

“But what?”

“But letting you take my place to save your soul is different.”

“So let us do it”, I said softly. Despite her magical tourniquet, I was fading again.

“You stupid fuck. You know what that means for you, right? Forever. For the rest of eternity. You’re damned and a slave to Orcus.”

“Pandora… I lived a fulfilling life. I had loving parents, I liked my job, I got this great farm and was able to meet you and all the others, even Mentally Challenged Rob”, we both chuckled. “I don’t have big dreams or plans, but I still don’t want this life to go to waste. So please, let me offer you a little kindness to make it up for all the horrible things you went through.”

“You’ll be chained to this house forever.”

“Yeah but you get to be free. Plus I quite like this place.”

She hesitated for a while, then smiled. “Well, I do think that you’d make a great leader for the ghosts.”

“I have so many ideas! Anyway, how do we do it?”

“That’s pretty cheesy, but you know how they say that every time you kiss someone you two exchange a piece of your souls? It’s like that.”

So she leaned towards my face like a Prince Charming, giving me the kiss of immortality, and we held hands as we swapped.

***

It’s been two years now. My soul could take the wound, but my poor body still ended up with a nasty scar; luckily, it didn’t take long for a few neighbors to come get us help.

I used to be someone a long time ago, then I lost the right to have a name, and then she came and named me Pandora. Now I inhabit a body named Melinda. The body of the prettiest, strongest, weirdest woman I have ever met.

I left the farm for the first time in forever to go to the hospital, and I’ve been leaving it daily. Even the most mundane task like grocery shopping amazes me. I just make sure to never spend too much time away from my savior – not because she will get lonely, but because I will.

I’m working on my rage because it is such a waste to treat poorly the life that she so kindly gave me. Thanks to her, I look forward both to living and to one day, in a few decades, finally dying and finding rest on the other side.

Although we couldn’t break the curse, I think we at least weakened it, because two things changed:

The first is that she doesn’t have to survive on raw chicken; we think that it’s because she kind of died protecting a few dozen chickens, but she can eat pretty much anything now – of course I’ve been improving my cooking skills so she can dine like a queen; it’s the least I can do for her.

The second is: part of the original deal was that I was forgotten, but now she’s in my place, and I’ll never, never forget her.

Now I, the former raw chicken eating demon, am a writer with a mortgage, and she – Melinda I, the most amazing woman that ever lived –, has hoofs and fights against invaders. You should see how cool she is, fighting with two khukris; she’s a better me than me.

So much that she has gained the favor of the other shamans and even convinced many of the ghosts to go to the light, including all the former slaves. Of course, more will always come, but they will be in good hands.

It’s funny how you can be broken in a million pieces and still find someone who’s broken too but whose pieces match yours completely. Melinda I likes to say we saved each other, but she’s the one who saved me. She’s the one who saves everyone.

And when I die she’ll still be here, taking care of whoever erratically walks around this place like a fallen angel. Maybe you humans were right in your fairy tales, and true love actually can break curses somehow.

Or maybe she’s always been more than human.

My beautiful demon wife.