The bedroom smelled like burnt feathers and candle wax.

Liz knelt on the floor, knees pressed into a sheet of clear plastic. Her hands were shaking, just slightly, as she placed the final rune in place – a charcoal smear on the tile, traced from memory and obsession. Around her, twenty-three candles flickered in a crooked circle. Their light cast too many shadows. One of them shivered even though the air was still.

The chicken lay at the centre. Dead. Neck slit, blood pooling. Its eyes were open – glassy, accusing. She hadn't wanted to do it. But April's notes had been clear: flesh for contact, blood for anchor. She whispered the line under her breath like a curse. "No door opens without a cost."

A fan creaked above. The power had gone out half an hour ago. She'd pulled the curtains shut and unplugged her phone. This had to be done in silence. In secret.

Downstairs, the silence stretched. No movement. Dad wasn't home yet. Or if he was, he was locked in the garage again, tinkering with one of Ethan's defence drones, pretending the world outside could be managed with wiring and steel plating. He hadn't said a full sentence to her in days.

He hadn't been the same. Ever since that night, years ago.

The night the fire took mum, and left her father half-burnt, half-dead, and wholly gone. He looked like Max, but he moved like someone else now – too careful. Too quiet. His laugh had vanished. And whatever was left in its place wasn't strong enough to hold them both.

So, Liz had stopped asking.

Instead, she'd gone digging. Into April's old office. Into the files her father never looked at. Into the journals her mother had marked with red circles and black glyphs. She couldn't make sense of it all, but she didn't need to. She just needed to believe. Because April had believed.

"If the soul is real," her mother had once whispered to her during a thunderstorm, "then so is the key to open it."

Liz stared down at the circle now. At the broken offering. The symbols drawn in chalk and ink and candle soot.

Please work.

She reached for the book – April's worn leather-bound journal – and opened it to the right page. The sigil stared back at her, sharp-edged and delicate. It had taken her weeks to redraw it properly.

Her voice was steadier than her fingers as she spoke.

"By the mark of flesh and breath, By the price of blood and death, Let the veil between be thin. Let the soul that seeks… call in."

The candles flared – once, violently. Shadows whipped around her. The flame at the centre of the circle didn't dance. It turned still. Heavy. Like it was no longer fire but something watching her through the flame.

Liz blinked.

Then came the cold. Not breeze-cold. Not AC-cold. But deep, crawling cold – like hands pressing into her back through the skin. The chicken's blood on the plastic began to steam. The chalk around the circle bubbled. One of the candles snapped out.

She kept going.

"Name unknown, face unseen. Speak through flesh, through soul, through dream. I offer breath. I offer bone. Answer now. I call alone."

Silence.

A full breath. Two.

Then a whisper – not from the room, but inside her chest.

"…Yes."

Liz flinched. Her hands trembled. The candlelight shifted again, and this time the shadows on the walls didn't look like hers. One was too tall. Another blinked – even though there was no source. A drop of blood slid backward up her wrist.

Oh God.

The journal in her lap twitched. Not flipped. Not moved. It twitched – like something inside had shifted against the leather.

The circle should have sealed now. But it didn't. The chalk was cracking. The flame was rising.

Liz's heart slammed against her ribs.

She crawled backward, hands slipping in blood. The journal fell open again – not on the summoning page, but a different one. Scrawled in her mother's own ink, underlined twice:

"Some doors should not be opened alone."

And beneath that, a final warning:

"Power that answers without a name… is not what it claims to be."

The candles all went out at once.

And something began to speak from inside the chicken's corpse.

…………………

The circle pulsed.

Not with light, but with something deeper – a pressure behind the eyes, a weight in the lungs. Liz crouched on her heels, breathing shallow as the air thickened. The candles had guttered, but their smoke still hung in the air, curling toward the dead chicken at the circle's centre.

It moved.

Only slightly. A twitch of one wing. A shudder of soft tissue. Then came the sound – not one voice, but dozens, whispering through cotton and rot.

"You bleed for her…"

The chicken's breast tore open, not with a blade, but from within. The flesh split like paper soaked in acid. Something inside shifted – dark and pulsing. The cavity became a mouth. Then more followed. Mouths layered on mouths, speaking from wet meat.

"You speak her name, but not mine."

Liz didn't answer. Her throat had closed. Her fingers dug into the plastic, knuckles white.

The presence thickened. The air warped. The smell of blood curdled into something older – like spoiled milk and scorched paper. Something that remembered being fire.

"I cannot raise the dead, child," the thing crooned, a dozen voices stacked imperfectly on top of each other. "But you… you could become something worthy enough to find her."

One of the mouths smiled.

"You could tear down the walls between worlds. Lift cities. Split mountains. Call fire by its name. A touch – and they would kneel."

Liz flinched. The chicken's eyes had liquefied. Behind them, something watched.

"Telekinesis. Flight. Strength beyond men. Her knowledge… and more."

The candle nearest her sparked to life again, burning deep red.

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"You would never be helpless again."

Liz swallowed. Her voice, when it came, was hoarse.

"…I didn't summon you for power."

The mouths fell still.

"…I want my mother."

For a moment, there was no reply. Just the sound of blood drying on tile. Then:

"You ask too much child," the thing said – but colder now. Less amused. "She is gone. But I can give you a new shape. One that can find her."

"I said no."

Something shifted in the dark.

The chicken corpse jerked again. Its neck twisted in a slow, wet spiral. The smell of burnt teeth filled the room.

"Power was the price," the voices said flatly. "You opened the door. And now you refuse the gift?"

The cold deepened. Liz's breath fogged. Her fingers had gone numb.

All at once, a dozen tiny eyes blinked open in the dark – not in the circle, but behind it. Along the edges of her room. Blinking. Watching. Waiting.

The mouths twisted into something like disappointment.

"Very well."

And for a blink of time, the veil tore open.

Not fully. Not a gate. But enough.

She saw it.

Not mum – not April.

Not anything human.

A face – slick and twitching with hunger – pressed against the space between. No mouth, but it smiled anyway. No eyes, but it saw her.

And then the blood reversed.

It started slow – a single droplet dragging itself across the plastic, pulling toward the circle. Then another. Then a stream. Liz's cuts stung as her offering recoiled.

The ritual wasn't over.

It was turning.

…………………

The circle shattered.

Not with a bang, but a crackling sigh – like glass remembering how to bleed. Every candle flared at once, erupting into thin columns of blue flame that bent toward the centre. Pressure slammed through the room like a heartbeat, and Liz was flung backwards, hitting the floor hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs.

She gasped, choking on incense and fear.

The chicken exploded. There was no other word for it. Its skin peeled back like fruit, bones unspooling, flesh inverting into shadow. And from within – through that ruin of meat and old blood – something crawled out.

Not crawling on hands. Crawling on presence.

It was wrong. Not just in shape, but in idea. A slithering of soul across the surface of the world.

Then it changed.

A flicker. A curl of light. A name forming from familiarity.

And standing in the middle of the circle, barefoot and calm, was April Jaeger.

Mum.

Wearing her old blue cardigan. Hair a little messy. A tired, tender smile on her lips – the one she always gave after too many nights grading papers. She blinked once, slowly, like she hadn't seen sunlight in a while.

"Lizzy," she whispered. "You called me?"

Liz's lungs seized.

Her limbs moved without thought. She scrambled forward on hands and knees, heart thundering in her chest.

"Mum?"

April knelt, arms open.

"I'm here, darling. You did it. You brought me home."

Liz reached for her – and paused.

The warmth in her chest shuddered.

April's smile was perfect. Her hair was perfect. Her voice was perfect.

Too perfect.

No rasp from the hospital cigarettes she never fully quit. No smudge of ink on her wrist from hours of red-marking. No lightness behind the eyes from sleep deprivation and stubbornness. Just smooth skin. Even tone. A model of April, not the woman herself.

But Liz wanted. So badly.

Tears welled. Her hands shook.

April leaned forward – closer now. The smell of rosemary and lemon shampoo filled the space between them.

Then her arms slid around Liz's shoulders.

Not gently.

Tight. Possessive. Cold.

There was no warmth in the hug. No heartbeat behind the ribs. No tremble of reunion.

Only stillness. And April's mouth too close to her ear.

"Let me in, darling," she whispered, breath icy. "We can be together again."

Liz froze.

The sigil beneath them pulsed – then buckled. The lines twisted, not like ink, but like memory: crumpling, softening, unravelling into childhood phrases and bedtime lullabies.

It was no longer binding a demon. It was bleeding the shape of love.

April's hands tightened. Fingernails pressed against Liz's back – too sharp now.

Not her mother's. Not safe. Not real.

…………………

The ritual was over. The circle destroyed, and Liz's world torn apart.

No sound marked its collapse. No explosion. Just silence – a silence so sudden it devoured every flicker of flame, every whisper of presence. The candles snuffed one by one. The chalk lines on the floor bled out like ink in water. Even the light bent away, retreating from what now slithered forward.

The thing that had worn April no longer pretended.

It opened its mouth – if it had one – and from that impossible void, it poured.

Not wind. Not spirit. Something thicker. Black oil and breath and thought, all at once. It moved with intent. It knew her. It had waited.

And Liz screamed.

Her back arched violently as the first tendrils of the Devourer pushed into her mouth. Down her throat. Through her nose. Her ears. Her eyes. Slick and cold and thinking. It didn't knock – it entered. It didn't ask – it took.

Her body spasmed.

She stumbled backwards, knocking over a chair, her bare feet slipping on the laminate floor. She bolted from the room, barely able to see, the hallway warping around her in flashes of light and shadow.

Her breath came in short, ragged gasps. Fog poured from her lips with each exhale – not mist, but soul-steam. Her lungs weren't just failing. They were being reprogrammed.

Her eyes shone wrong. Not red. Not gold. Not white. Just void – pits of reflected hunger.

She clawed at her arms, at her face. Trying to tear it out. To scrape it off. Her mouth twitched with words no child should know – guttural consonants, wet syllables older than language.

"Ssrah'nor… vel'tak… ssah..."

Her body slammed into the hallway wall. She kept moving. One step, then another – lurching, twitching.

And then –

"Liz?"

A voice. Human. Cracked.

Dad.

He stood at the end of the hall, dishevelled, red-eyed, shirt half-buttoned. There was a bottle on the table behind him – a stupid one. Cheap whisky. Still open.

He wasn't drunk. Not really. Not yet.

But he'd been trying to be.

And now his hands were shaking as he saw her.

"Liz…? LIZ?!"

She looked at him. Just for a second.

And in that second, he saw the fire all over again – not in flame, but in her eyes. That same helpless burn.

She wasn't crying. That made it worse. His knees buckled before he even moved.

She screamed. Not words. Not even her voice. Just noise. Pain. Pressure.

Then she collapsed.

Her body slammed into the kitchen tiles, limbs twisting. Her fingers curled in unnatural spasms. Her back arched again. Foam and blood smeared her chin. Her feet kicked once – twice.

Then stopped.

Max ran forward, breath caught in his throat. His knees hit tile. His hands went to her shoulders – shaking her, yelling her name. Again. Again.

But Liz didn't hear him.

The kitchen smelled of iron and wax.

The chalk was gone. The sigils erased.

Only a girl remained – her eyes rolled back, chest rising too slowly, too thinly, too wrong.

She was still.

But something else now lived behind her ribs. Her battle just begun.

…………………

Liz staggered forward, breath sharp in her throat.

The hallway pulsed around her – not like a house, but like something alive. The floor had veins now. The walls flexed, not with wind, but with breath. Her fingers brushed the surface and felt it twitch. Warm. Damp. Beating.

Not wood.

Flesh.

Her halo flickered behind her, casting red against the meat-halls of her soul.

The door she'd come through had vanished. Shut without sound. No lock. No handle. No going back.

Only forward. Only deeper.

Liz stood still. Her chest rose and fell. Her hand curled against the wall, and her knees nearly gave out as the truth sank in.

She whispered, voice shaking: "It wasn't a failed contract…"

The words echoed in her ears. And behind her eyes – the past stung to life.

The demon never offered resurrection. It offered power. Temptation. She'd refused. She remembered that now. She hadn't accepted anything.

But it came through anyway.

The blood. The crack in the sigil. The lie in her mother's voice. She remembered the hug. The way it gripped, not comforted. The way her mother's voice hadn't said I missed you. Not I'm proud of you. Just let me in.

It never fulfilled its end. Never even tried. It didn't want a deal. It wanted access.

A key. That's all she'd ever been to it. Not a daughter. Not even a soul. Just a key with shaking hands and grief soft enough to pick the lock.

"I didn't make a contract," Liz whispered. Her nails dug into the wall's pulsing surface.

"I was the contract."

"I was the door."

The words hit like a slap.

"I was the door," she repeated, louder. "It didn't want to give me anything. It just needed a way in."

A vessel.

A girl grieving enough to perform the ritual. A body foolish enough to open the circle with memory instead of magic. A child missing her mother.

Her voice cracked. Her eyes stung. But she didn't blink.

And her halo flared.

Red light surged behind her. A spiral of crimson fire ignited from her shoulders – climbing her arms, wreathing her chest. It didn't burn her.

It fit.

Like armour she'd always had but forgotten how to wear.

The flesh-walls recoiled. The hallway hissed. Somewhere in the house, a low rumble answered back – the sound of something massive shifting in rage or fear.

Liz stood tall.

Her halo brightened to a ring of raw crimson – not flickering, not weak. Solid. Wrathful. Her eyes gleamed the same colour.

She remembered her mother's voice – the real April. The one who laughed too loudly and spilled tea on her notes.

"If the soul is real," she'd once whispered, "then so is the key to open it."

Liz wasn't the key anymore. She was the lock. And she was slamming it shut.

Armour bled into shape around her. Not steel. Not psychic plating. Something older, sculpted by fury and forged from her own soul. Shoulder plates flickered into place. A chestguard of ribbed light settled over her heart. Her hands were gauntleted in thought – sharp, gleaming, trembling with power.

The house around her convulsed, as if trying to smother the light.

But Liz didn't waver.

She stepped forward once. Then twice.

And whispered to the walls: "You tricked me."

She lifted her head. Her halo roared to life. A vengeful red sun. All-consuming.

"You crawled through me once. Through my grief. Through my love."

She let the silence stretch. Let it hurt.

"Now I'm going to end you. Forever."

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