Chapter 3 – Paying The Price

The motel room was gone.

Not destroyed. Not on fire.

Just... gone.

Max drifted in something that wasn’t darkness. It was deeper than dark. Thicker. Like swimming in oil or being buried alive beneath velvet. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t feel his limbs. Couldn’t tell if he was upright, sideways, or bleeding into the floor.

Only one thing remained.

Pain.

Not sharp anymore. Not even hot. Just slow and steady, like a hand pressing against his chest. Like something pulsing inside him with every heartbeat, trying to drag him downward.

He blinked. Or thought he did.

A ceiling appeared – stained yellow, pockmarked with water damage. Familiar. The motel. The real world creeping back in through the cracks.

Then the pressure returned.

Aamon.

The demon stood over him like a monument to something obscene. Its scaled coils writhed slowly across the ruined carpet, blackening every surface they touched. Heat shimmered in the air, warping the light, bleeding the edges of the room into soft hallucination. Candle wax still smouldered in little pools. A few of the symbols on the floor flickered faintly, pulsing in time with Max’s slowing heart.

Max tried to breathe. Couldn’t. Blood filled his lungs.

He tasted metal and ash.

His vision narrowed to a tunnel.

And then something shifted inside his chest – not in his ribs or lungs, but deeper, in the seat of his self. A vibration. A hum. A wordless summons rising from within his soul.

He remembered Liz’s face.

It came unbidden. Six years old. Grinning with a popsicle, juice staining her cheeks. Then fourteen, elbows on the kitchen table, telling him about a school project he didn’t understand. Then sixteen, just a glimpse in a hospital bed – still, unmoving, wrapped in wires and silence.

The memory broke him open. His lips moved.

“Please... Liz...”

No voice came out. Just a wheeze. A gurgle of blood.

The thing above him tilted its head.

Aamon’s glowing eyes fixed on him. There was no sympathy. No recognition. No humanity. Only curiosity. Like a biologist watching an insect twitch its last.

One of its clawed hands moved.

Not fast. Not slow. Just inevitable.

It reached out and pressed two fingers to Max’s chest, just above the heart.

The heat was instantaneous.

Not like fire. Like incineration. Like a supernova pressed against skin.

Max arched upward, mouth wide, but still no scream escaped.

And then – silence.

Everything stopped.

The world folded in half.

A second version of Max opened his eyes—not in the motel, but floating in a space made of smoke and mirrors, reflection and ruin. Light flared in fractal patterns. Shadows twisted into symbols. A mirror rippled in front of him, revealing a version of himself made of ash and blood.

He was dying. No – he was already dead. And something was holding his soul mid-flight.

A voice, familiar and alien, rang out – not in his ears, but inside his bones.

“The price was paid. The Contract is acknowledged.”

The mirror shattered.

And Max fell again – downward, through heat and fire and silence.

Back into the body.

Back into the pain.

Aamon was still there.

Watching.

Waiting.

Max’s heart kicked once.

Then again.

Then fire bloomed inside him.

…………………

Max couldn’t move.

His body was broken – torn, crushed, filled with heat that wasn’t his. He felt it crawling through his veins like magma under pressure. It wasn’t blood anymore. It was fire wearing the memory of blood.

Aamon stood above him like a cathedral.

Its head nearly scraped the ceiling, horns casting wild shadows across the ruined room. The floor cracked beneath its coils. Hellfire dripped from its mouth in steady arcs, vaporizing the puddles of spilled whiskey and blood.

But it didn’t attack.

Not yet.

It studied him. Not like a predator but like a scientist. Or worse, an artist about to begin.

“You...” Max gasped, spitting blood. “What... are you?”

The demon’s fanged mouth didn’t move.

Instead, its voice arrived from inside Max’s spine – wet and cold and inevitable.

“The one who heard your call.”

Its clawed hand moved again – slow and deliberate. One talon traced a glowing symbol in the air above Max’s chest. The lines burned blue, hovering. When the symbol was complete, the temperature in the room dropped – not rose – like Hell had vacuumed all warmth out of the space.

“You bled. You begged. You believed.”

Aamon leaned closer, nostrils flaring as it inhaled deeply—smelling Max’s soul the way a starving wolf smells blood on snow.

“A Contract has been accepted.”

Max shook his head, coughing violently. His side still throbbed. The knife wound had stopped bleeding but not because it had healed. It had sealed itself. Hardened. Scarred over from the inside.

“No... I didn’t... I didn’t agree to this. I didn’t mean to—”

Aamon cut him off with a soundless hum. The air around them shimmered.

“Intent binds stronger than words. You desired strength. Purpose. Survival. You offered your soul in the moment of belief. That is enough.”

“No,” Max whispered. “I wanted... to save Liz... that’s all...”

The demon’s eyes narrowed.

“You did not ask to save her. You asked for power. And now…”

It reached down. One claw slid through the burning air, through the glowing sigil, and touched Max’s sternum.

“…you are awake.”

Fire ignited in Max’s chest.

He arched upward, muscles convulsing. His lungs filled with heat. His heart punched against his ribs like it was trying to escape. Every nerve ending screamed.

The mark burned its way into his soul – not on his skin, but somewhere deeper. Invisible, permanent, alive. A spiral of runes now coiled inside his being, threading through his memories, his thoughts, his grief.

He screamed.

Or maybe he didn’t. The sound was eaten by the fire.

The sigil above him shattered – light cascading into a thousand flecks that sank into his eyes.

Max dropped back to the floor, panting. Steam rolled off his body. His shirt had burned away entirely. His skin wasn’t torn anymore but it was different. Hardened. Veins glowing faintly beneath the surface. The Hellmark pulsed once on his chest, then vanished beneath the skin like it had always belonged there.

He was alive.

Alive in a way he had never been.

He could feel the room – everything in the room. The flicker of dying souls. The cold aura left behind by the dead attacker. The lingering ash of the summoning circle. His senses burned.

Aamon’s voice returned.

“The Contract is complete. You are bound. You are mine.”

Max’s heart skipped.

“What did you say?”

The demon smiled.

“You are awakened. Now, I feast.”

…………………

Max lay gasping on the floor.

The fire had receded but not vanished. It now flickered inside him, coiled beneath his skin like a second heartbeat.

His fingers twitched. He felt blood pumping again—thicker, stronger. His wounds were gone. Scarred over, but solid. He wasn’t whole, not really, but he was standing on the edge of something... more.

He pulled himself up on shaking arms.

Aamon watched, unmoving.

The demon’s hulking form was coiled in the centre of the room like a king on a throne of ash. Its expression hadn’t changed – those glowing, pitiless eyes still locked on Max like a butcher watching livestock stumble to its feet after the first cut.

Max didn’t speak. He couldn’t. His throat was raw. But his mind was racing.

He was alive.

He was changed.

And something had shifted in the world. He could feel it. Not like an instinct, but like another sense had awakened. The air tasted different. The blood on the floor smelled like history. The broken ritual circle still whispered. He could hear it.

No, not hear. Understand.

And something else, just at the edge of consciousness…

Liz.

Max's breath stilled.

And then – he felt her.

Not with his ears. Not with eyes. Not even with memory.

With something new. Something deeper.

A thread stretched out from the burning core of his chest, invisible and electric, snaking through the air like a live wire humming just beneath the surface of the world. It reached out, pulling his awareness along with it – through scorched walls and ruined streets, beyond the grime-streaked windows of the motel, past alleys and highways and layers of glass and steel.

And there – faint and flickering – was Liz.

She lay still in a hospital bed, surrounded by humming machines and antiseptic light. He couldn’t see her, not really, but he felt her. The distant rhythm of a heartbeat monitor. The soft click of IV drips. The subtle tremble of her fingers beneath the sheets. Her soul was there – small, dimmed, flickering like a guttering candle in a storm.

Not gone.

Not lost.

Just waiting.

Waiting for something – or someone – to reach her.

Max’s vision blurred, but not from pain. His fingers curled into fists. The fire inside him roared higher, not in rage, but in resolve.

He wasn’t finished.

Not yet.

And then Aamon stood.

The motion was fluid. Effortless. Despite its size, it moved like a shadow across firelight – graceful, ancient, endless.

“The Contract... it’s done.” Max managed to say. His voice was ruined, cracked and dry like wind through a burned forest.

Aamon said nothing.

It approached.

Max’s heart kicked into overdrive. He instinctively pushed himself to his feet, staggering back against the wall, fists clenched. He didn’t have a weapon. He didn’t know what he could do. But he felt something in his blood, like potential waiting to be shaped.

He squared his stance. “So, what now?”

The demon stopped, looming a few footsteps away.

Its voice returned – not with volume, but weight.

“Now... I feed.”

Max’s breath caught.

“What?” he said, already knowing the answer.

“You are awakened. Your soul is ripe. You are no longer just meat.”

The demon stepped forward, all four of its arms flexing at once.

“You are fuel.”

Max shook his head, backing away. “You said… You said we had a Contract.”

Aamon’s jaws parted.

“We do. It is complete. You are empowered.”

It smiled – wolfish and wide, with too many teeth.

“Now, your purpose ends.”

The ground beneath Max’s feet buckled. Not physically. Spiritually.

Something cold clutched at his chest. His Hellmark flared. His vision blurred.

The room dimmed again. Not into shadow, but into void.

Max’s soul trembled.

Aamon reached out, one claw raised – not to strike, but to claim.

“You are mine.”

…………………

Max dropped to one knee as the room rippled.

Not the walls, not the floor – reality.

The light bent. Sound vanished. He couldn’t feel the floor under his feet, only pressure, like the gravity of a black hole. The colour bled out of everything. All that remained was Aamon, towering, glowing, inevitable.

“Be still,” the demon whispered.

But it wasn’t a whisper. It was command. It hit Max’s soul directly, freezing him in place. His limbs wouldn’t move. His lungs refused to breathe.

And then Aamon touched him.

One claw pressed to Max’s chest.

The Hellmark exploded with light – searing blue flame shot outward in a perfect spiral, a rune-burst that mapped itself across the air like a living equation.

Max’s spine arched. A soundless scream tore out of his mouth.

Something was being pulled from him.

Not blood.

Not heat.

Him.

It started at the edges – memories unravelling. He saw his mother’s face and forgot what she sounded like. He remembered holding April’s hand and couldn’t feel it anymore. Liz’s laughter echoed… and then stuttered. Faded. Vanished.

Every second Aamon touched him, Max lost pieces.

Aamon was feeding.

The fire inside him, the power that had awakened with the Contract, was being peeled away like skin from bone. It burned—but not from heat. From extraction. Like someone digging into his very essence with rusted claws.

Max dropped to both knees, coughing blood.

His veins glowed.

The Hellmark was splitting—cracking, fragmenting under the pressure. Aamon’s other hand rose. A second claw plunged through Max’s shoulder, impaling him without tearing flesh. It went through his soul.

And Max saw it.

Just for a second.

The truth of Aamon.

Not a demon.

Not a beast.

A hollow.

A shell of cosmic hunger filled with heat, rage, and cold purpose. A mind made of suffering, crafted to devour life and echo forever. It had done this before, in other worlds. It would do it again.

Max was just another vessel to be hollowed out.

And he was losing.

He felt himself slipping.

“Liz...” he whispered. “I’m sorry...”

Aamon tilted its head.

“Your final thought is regret? How small.”

The demon leaned in, mouth yawning open, tongue of fire licking across Max’s skin.

“Let me show you oblivion.”

And it struck.

A full surge of devouring force.

Max’s eyes rolled back.

But then—

Something broke.

Not outside.

Inside.

A sudden spike of cold. A sound—metal shrieking against metal. A flash of inversion. Like his soul turned itself inside out.

And the fire inside him pushed back.

…………………

The world stopped breathing.

Aamon’s claws dug deeper into Max’s essence – ripping through the lattice of his soul like talons through cloth. But instead of unravelling, something inside Max locked shut.

Hard.

Final.

In his mind, there was a sound like stone slamming into place. A deep, echoing click that rang not in the ears but in the bones of existence itself.

Aamon froze.

Its muzzle twisted in confusion.

“What... is this?”

Max couldn’t answer. He wasn’t in control.

His body trembled, hanging on the edge of death but his soul had begun to move.

A structure ignited inside him. Not flame. Not light. A cage. One made of symbols, chains, spirals and willpower that had never been written by mortal hands.

A wheel turned in the centre of Max’s spirit. Slow at first, then faster. Each rotation pulled something inward. Tightened. Drew in Aamon’s claws like a black hole pulling threads of shadow and fire.

“No,” the demon hissed. Its voice cracked for the first time. “No, this is not... this is not possible.”

Max’s eyes flared open.

Not his usual blue. Not stained red.

Gold.

Blinding gold.

The circle of his Hellmark lit up across his chest but it wasn’t demonic now. It had changed. New runes burned through the flesh, old language etched into the blood itself. A prison sigil.

Aamon tried to pull back.

Too late.

Chains of soul-light lashed out from Max’s body – spontaneous, chaotic, wrapped in barbs of memory, pain and strong will. They coiled around Aamon’s limbs, its neck, its tail. The demon howled.

“What have you done?! WHAT ARE YOU?!”

Max rose.

He wasn’t standing – his body floated, suspended in the cage of flame and force his soul had become. His wound glowed like a furnace. His hands were cracked open at the seams, blue fire pouring from every joint.

His voice came out layered – his own and something else underneath it. Something ancient.

“I didn’t summon you to be devoured.”

Chains tightened.

Aamon thrashed. Its body warped, burned, compressed.

“I didn’t make a deal to be your food.”

The light grew brighter. The motel cracked – walls buckled, mirrors shattered. The ritual circle exploded in reverse, pieces of ash flying upward.

“I called for power.”

Max stepped forward.

“And you gave it to me.”

Aamon shrieked – a sound not meant for this world. Not meant for any world. Its body was folding in on itself, crushed by something it didn’t understand.

“Stop! I am a Lord of Hell! I AM AMONG THE FIRST!”

Max stared.

“No. You’re mine.”

And with a final snap – the sound of a soul being caged – the flames vanished.

The light disappeared.

The chains fell silent.

The room went dark.

Aamon was gone.

Only Max remained – collapsed on the floor, panting, half-dead, alone. His hand twitched.

From deep inside him, something stirred.

A spark.

A whisper.

A presence.

Still alive.

Inside him.