Chapter 19: Bargain
Sarah stared at the blinking cursor in the group chat window. Rain lashed against her apartment window, the city lights smeared into watery streaks below. Her thumb hovered over the screen. Three months of grey skies, burnt coffee, and the crushing weight of ordinary silence. The phantom scent of salt and plumeria felt sharper tonight, a physical ache beneath her ribs. The notebook lay open beside her phone, filled with jagged lines about pavement and the deafening quiet. Screw Tuesday. Screw Wednesday. Screw it all.
She typed, the letters stark and bold against the glowing screen: Anyone else feel like… baseline is actively trying to murder their soul?
A pause. Then, Maya’s response, tentative: The subway today smelled like despair and wet dog. I almost hyperventilated. Thought of Kiana.
Zoe’s reply was immediate, aggressive: My new pieces are TRASH. That buyer was right. Everything here is grey fucking sludge. Including me.
Another beat. Chloe, always measured: The Q4 projections are a study in existential pointlessness. The silence… it’s not silent. It’s hollow.
Sarah took a shaky breath. The words burned her fingertips: What if we didn’t have to stay?
The responses came like gunfire.
Maya: ?
Zoe: The island? You mean…?
Chloe: Azazel said… a standing offer. No strings.
Sarah typed, the decision solidifying like cooled metal as the words appeared: Exactly. Screw this grey. I want the blue. I want the quiet that doesn’t scream. Who’s in?
No hesitation this time.
Maya: Yes. God, yes. Anything.
Zoe: Fuck yes. Get me out of this concrete nightmare.
Chloe: Affirmative. Procedures for departure?
Procedures. Sarah almost laughed. That was the problem. But how? she typed. We don’t exactly have his number. No pentagram. No goat blood. No clue.
The chat went silent for a long minute, the only sound the drumming rain on Sarah’s window. The enormity of the ‘how’ settled over them, cold and daunting. How do you summon a demon who’s already had his price paid? Who offered paradise on a whim?
Zoe broke the silence, characteristically blunt: Airport? Find him leaning against a pillar looking smug?
Chloe: Unlikely. He appeared there specifically for our departure. He’s not a lost tourist.
Maya: Maybe… maybe he can hear us? If we want it badly enough? He said desire…
Sarah chewed her lip. Desire. That was the currency he’d hinted at back on the island. The raw, unfiltered wanting. Okay. Operation: Summon Smug Bastard. We try everything. Meet at Zoe’s loft tomorrow night. Bring… I don’t know. Willpower?
Zoe’s loft smelled aggressively of turpentine and the stale pizza box abandoned in the corner. Canvases leaned against every wall, vibrant blues and greens that now only served as painful reminders. Rain tapped against the skylight, the city glow a dull orange smear beyond the glass. The air crackled with a nervous, desperate energy.
"Right," Sarah said, clapping her hands together, the sound too loud in the tense space. "Ideas. Go."
Maya hugged herself, perched on the edge of a paint-splattered stool. "What about… calling his name? Loudly? With intent?"
They tried it. Standing in a rough circle in the center of the cluttered space, they shouted "Azazel!" into the dusty air. It felt ridiculous. Their voices bounced off the high ceilings, flat and unconvincing. The city hummed on outside, indifferent.
Zoe scoffed. "Weak. We need focus. Ritual shit. Salt circle? Candles?" She rummaged in a drawer, emerging with a half-used pillar candle smelling faintly of vanilla and a box of coarse sea salt she used for texture in her abandoned mixed-media phase.
They cleared a space on the dusty floorboards, poured a shaky circle of salt. Lit the vanilla candle. Stood inside. Chanted his name again, slower, trying to infuse it with the visceral need they felt. The candle flickered, casting long, wavering shadows. The salt felt gritty under Sarah’s bare feet. Nothing. Just the smell of vanilla blending unpleasantly with turpentine and the lingering damp of their rain-soaked coats. Maya’s shoulders slumped.
"Desire," Chloe murmured, staring at the candle flame. "He spoke about desire as the key. Pure, unadulterated wanting."
Sarah paced, frustration tightening her throat. "Okay. So how do we show desire? Like, really show it?" Her eyes swept the room. "What’s the most… fundamental expression of wanting something? Of vulnerability?"
A beat of silence. Zoe’s gaze met Sarah’s, a flicker of understanding, then defiance, in her eyes. "No fucking way."
Maya blinked. "What?"
Sarah stopped pacing. The idea was outrageous, humiliating… and terrifyingly plausible. Azazel was ancient, primal. Symbols mattered. Raw states mattered. "He said desire," she repeated, her voice low. "Stripped bare. Literally?" She looked at each of them. "We show him we have nothing left to hide. That we want this that badly. That the wanting is pure, physical… undeniable."
Chloe’s face was unreadable, but she didn’t object. Maya looked petrified, but she also looked like the grey city had scraped her raw. Zoe just snorted, a harsh, brittle sound. "Fine. What’s a little mortification between friends and ancient demons? Better than staring at this fucking cerulean failure." She gestured dismissively at a canvas.
The act felt absurdly mundane and profoundly charged. They turned their backs to each other, shucking off damp jeans, sweaters, socks. The loft air was cool against exposed skin. Sarah folded her flannel shirt neatly, a pointless gesture of order in the chaos. She felt goosebumps rise, a ridiculous vulnerability mixed with a strange, reckless determination. This wasn't sexy. It was desperate. It was surrender.
They turned back, standing naked within the salt circle, the vanilla candle flickering between them. The city lights painted abstract patterns on their skin. They avoided each other's eyes, the shared nakedness amplifying the rawness of their shared need. Maya’s arms were crossed protectively over her chest, her breathing shallow. Zoe stood defiantly straight, chin lifted, but her jaw was tight. Chloe stood with her usual poised stillness, though her knuckles were white where her hands hung at her sides. Sarah took a deep breath, the air cool in her lungs.
"Okay," she whispered, her voice sounding strange in the hushed loft. "Not just his name. Not just chanting. Feel it. Mean it. Pour everything out."
They closed their eyes. This time, it wasn't a shout. It was a low, guttural murmur that built from their cores, weaving into a dissonant chorus. "Azazel… Azazel…" It wasn't just a name. It was the taste of ash from the cafe’s burnt beans, the crushing pressure of Maya’s panic on the subway, the fury in Zoe’s chest at her diminished art, the hollow echo in Chloe’s meticulously organized spreadsheets. It was the memory of turquoise water so clear it hurt, of silence that was a balm, of sun that felt like absolution. It was the agonizing absence, the bone-deep craving. They poured the grey sludge of their everyday lives, the crushing weight of the ordinary, into the sound. They chanted not to summon, but to expel the despair, replacing it with a single, desperate plea woven into his name.
"AZAZEL!"
The sound vibrated in the small space, bouncing off the canvases, rattling the loose windowpane. The candle flame dipped violently, threatening to gutter out, casting frantic, leaping shadows that made their naked forms seem distorted, monstrous for a moment. They held the name, pouring every ounce of longing, every shred of frayed hope, into it until their lungs burned.
Silence crashed down, thick and heavy. Only their ragged breathing and the frantic drumming of rain on the skylight remained. The candle flame steadied, burning low and ordinary. The salt circle was just salt. The loft was just Zoe’s messy loft. No ripple in the air. No scent of ozone. No amused, baritone voice. Nothing.
The silence stretched, taut and suffocating. Maya whimpered, a small, broken sound. Zoe swore, vicious and low, kicking at the salt circle, scattering the grains. Chloe opened her eyes, her gaze flat and empty, fixed on the meaningless candle flame. Sarah felt the cold floorboards beneath her feet, the ridiculous vulnerability of her nakedness, the crushing weight of failure pressing down. It hadn't worked. None of it had worked. They’d stripped themselves bare, screamed their longing into the void, and the void hadn't even blinked.
The despair was a physical wave, threatening to buckle her knees. They stood exposed, foolish, shivering in the aftermath, the enormity of their failure a cold bath. Paradise remained locked away. The grey pressed in, heavier than ever.
Then, it hit Sarah. Not like a flash of lightning, but like the slow, sickening drop of a stone in her gut. Her eyes snapped open, widening. She looked at the others – at Maya’s tear-streaked face, Zoe’s furious humiliation, Chloe’s icy resignation. The nakedness felt different now. Not just vulnerability. It was… an offering. And they’d offered everything but the one thing they’d never considered desiring.
He hadn’t just said desire for the island. He’d said… desire. Pure and simple. And what was the most fundamental desire? The most dangerous one?
Her voice was a dry rasp, barely audible over the rain. "We… we offered the island. Our need for escape. Our loathing of here." She swallowed, the realization chilling her more than the air. "But maybe… maybe it's not just about what we desire." She met Chloe's suddenly sharp gaze, saw Zoe's furious scowl falter, saw Maya's tear-filled eyes focus. "Maybe…" The words stuck in her throat, thick with a new, terrifying understanding. "Maybe we need to desire… him."
"Maybe we need to desire… him."
The silence that followed Sarah’s raspy words wasn’t just quiet. It was the stunned vacuum after a bomb detonates. Maya choked, a strangled gasp escaping her parted lips. Zoe’s defiant posture crumpled slightly, replaced by naked disbelief. Chloe’s analytical gaze sharpened, dissecting Sarah’s face like a complex equation. The cold air of the loft felt suddenly charged, prickling against their bare skin. Desire him? Desire the ancient, terrifying entity who’d orchestrated their sublime torment? The architect of their current, shattered reality?
"Him?" Zoe finally spat, her voice thick with revulsion. "That smug, suit-wearing, dimension-hopping asshole?" She gestured wildly at their naked state within the scattered salt circle. "We’re standing here freezing our asses off, looking like idiots, and you think we need to… want him? Sexually? Is that the fucking key?" Her laugh was harsh, brittle, echoing off the canvases. "That’s insane. Even for us."
"It is insane," Sarah admitted, wrapping her arms around herself, not just against the chill. Her skin crawled at the thought, a primal recoil. Desiring Azazel felt like willingly touching a live wire. "But what else? We offered our desperation for the island. Our hatred for this… grey sludge." She kicked lightly at the spilled salt. "We threw everything out there. Everything but that." She forced herself to meet Zoe’s furious eyes, then Maya’s terrified ones, finally landing on Chloe’s unnervingly calm stare. "He feeds off intensity, right? Raw feeling. And what’s more raw, more… fundamental… than that?" It wasn’t about attraction. It was about channeling their fractured, desperate energy into the most potent, dangerous form of wanting they could conceive. Using the terrifying intimacy they'd forged on the island – the shared vulnerability, the enforced closeness – as fuel. "Think about it. On the island… we were exposed. Totally. He saw everything. Felt everything. Maybe… maybe that’s the frequency."
Maya shuddered, tears finally spilling over. "He scares me," she whispered, her voice trembling. "So much. That… power. The way he looked at us. Like toys." The memory of Kiana’s invasive touch, Azazel’s watchful amusement, flooded back. "But…" Her breath hitched. "But the silence… the panic clawing up my throat every day… it’s worse. The grey is eating me alive." She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, leaving a faint smear. "I’ll try anything. Even… that."
Chloe stepped forward, her movements precise despite her nudity. She picked up the half-melted vanilla candle, its flame guttering weakly. "It’s a hypothesis," she stated, her voice devoid of inflection. "Based on observed behavior and stated parameters. Azazel derives satisfaction from indulgence, from provocation, from manipulating human vulnerability. Our current presentation is undeniably vulnerable." She placed the candle back on the floor, directly in the center of their disrupted circle. "Channeling directed desire towards the source of our distress is illogical. It’s also… potentially effective." She looked at each of them. "The alternative is returning to baseline. Indefinitely."
Zoe stared at the floorboards, jaw working. The fight seemed to drain out of her, replaced by a weary, bone-deep resignation. The vibrant fury that fueled her art was ashes. "Fine," she muttered, the word sharp, final. "But if I have to pretend to swoon over that smirking bastard, I might puke." She squared her shoulders, a soldier facing a distasteful order. "Get back in the damn circle. Salt’s everywhere, but screw it. Let’s get this creepy shit over with."
The circle was a ghost of its former self, salt kicked into drifts against Zoe’s paint cans. They stepped back into the approximate space, their nakedness now feeling less like absurd vulnerability and more like a grim uniform. The air hummed with a different tension – charged, electric, thick with shared dread and a terrifying, burgeoning intent. They closed their eyes again, not to block each other out, but to focus inward, to ignite the awful spark Sarah proposed.
It was agonizing. Forcing desire towards Azazel felt like swallowing broken glass. Sarah focused on the memory of his power – not the fear it inspired, but the sheer, terrifying force of it. The way the air crackled around him. The impossible depth in his eyes. She imagined touching that power, not with fear, but with a desperate, clawing need. Beside her, Zoe’s breathing grew harsh, ragged. She wasn’t picturing charm; she was conjuring the raw, dangerous presence, the entity beneath the suit, wanting it with the violent intensity she usually reserved for her art. Maya trembled, tears still wet on her cheeks. She thought of the terrifying peace that followed Kiana’s touch, the absolute stillness Azazel commanded, and a desperate, needy ache bloomed low in her belly – a plea for that oblivion. Chloe’s face was a mask of concentration, her desire a cold, calculated thing: the ultimate solution, the key to escape, focusing her formidable will on Azazel as the necessary, dangerous means to her end.
This time, they didn’t shout. They didn’t chant. They leaned into each other, shoulder to shoulder in the broken circle, skin touching skin. Sarah reached out blindly, her fingers finding Maya’s cold hand on one side, Zoe’s tightly clenched fist on the other. Chloe completed the circuit, her touch cool and deliberate. The connection jolted through them – fear, revulsion, determination, and beneath it all, a terrifyingly forced current of wanting, directed outwards, into the ether. They breathed together, a ragged, synchronized rhythm. The scent of vanilla was faint now, overpowered by nervous sweat, turpentine, and the sharp, clean smell of rain.
They poured it out. Not his name. Just the feeling. The raw, ugly, desperate want for him. For his presence. For the terrifying promise he embodied. It wasn’t love. It was hunger. A dark, all-consuming craving for the source of their ruin and their only salvation.
The air pressure dropped abruptly. A low hum vibrated the floorboards, rattling Zoe’s abandoned palette knives in their jar. The single candle flame didn’t just dip; it stretched vertically, impossibly tall and thin, burning a cold, electric blue. The scattered salt grains skittered across the floor like terrified insects, reforming instantly into a perfect, sharp-edged circle around them, glowing faintly with the same unnatural blue light.
A scent cut through the loft – ozone, hot stone, and something ancient, like dust and dried blood. It slammed into them, erasing the mundane smells of paint and rain.
"Well," drawled a voice, velvet-wrapped steel, dripping with amused disbelief. "This is an unorthodox invitation."
He stood just outside the newly formed salt circle. Not leaning against a pillar. Not in a suit. Azazel was barefoot, clad only in loose, dark linen trousers that hung low on his hips. His chest, sculpted and powerful, gleamed faintly in the blue-lit gloom. His dark eyes burned with predatory interest, flickering with embers of crimson deep within. He looked less like a businessman, more like a fallen god casually surveying an unexpected sacrifice. A slow, devastating smile spread across his face, all sharp teeth and terrifying promise, as his gaze swept over their linked, naked forms within the glowing circle.
"Undressed for the occasion, I see," he murmured, the words curling like smoke. "And radiating such… fervent petition. How utterly irresistible." His smile widened, chillingly intimate. "Paradise awaits, little moths. But first… let’s discuss the price of burning so brightly, shall we?"