After Mina messaged me for the last time, I threw my phone at the wall. The glass shattered and fell all over her couch. I smashed a few vases and ripped some cabinet doors off their hinges for good measure. Leo came down from upstairs to see what was happening. I swiftly picked him up by the scruff of his neck and barreled out the front door with him in tow. He was the only one left I could salvage. Mina, Bunny, even Biologist—all gone.

  Every single pact with the devil I made, every minor demon I could conjure, every dove I slaughtered. Mina got exactly what she wanted, so in a sense, I was successful.

  But it didn’t go to plan.

  Nothing did.

  While running down the sidewalk towards my apartment, I felt a horrible, nauseous sensation that I knew well. It’s obvious when a demon is looking directly at you, but even more obvious when there are dozens of them.

  Magic isn’t free. It comes on loan, with a price. My creditors were coming to collect.

  Before a word could even escape my mouth in my fear, I vomited neon purple sludge onto the ground. I felt myself choking as tiny, grey demon hands writhed their way up my throat and out of my mouth. I fell to my knees, unable to do anything.

  That was the first demon coming to get its payment. But far, far from the last.

  The whites of my eyes started spewing onto the pavement. My spine contorted and twisted, and my ribs grew spiral branches that pierced out of my chest and my clothes. Then, the entire left half of my body vanished—it was being pulled into another plane.

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  I wasn’t even a human anymore, I was too warped. My organs and biological processes completely stopped, but I could still think. I could still feel. Even though my neck was bent at a 90 degree angle, and my skull was being flipped-inside out, and my sinuses being violated by tendrils, I was still alive. And I would stay alive.

  They couldn’t kill me. They were trying, desperately, to wring me dry of anything I had left. But I had nothing. Nothing but Leo.

  I thought that a long time ago, Leo had escaped from my apartment. Now I know it was Bunny who smuggled him out, because she was worried I’d kill him like all those doves. If she just would have said something, I would have told her the truth.

  Leo is a guardian spirit. You can’t die while he’s around you. That’s the only reason Mina made it so long.

  He gently licked an indiscernible part of my malformed, writhing body—to comfort me. He was telling me that everything will be okay soon. I trusted him. Deeply.

  My skin, or what was left of it, began to crack. With loud pops, huge fractures dug through my body. It started with what used to be my legs, then moved up higher with a frightening velocity. I was in pain—agony, even—but I wasn’t afraid.

  With a horrible plume of ash and smoke, everything exploded into a homogenous grey dust. And yet, as the wall of smoke drifted away in the wind, my body remained lying in the pile of ash. All the horrific transformations were gone. I looked exactly as I did this morning, just a little… ashier.

  Just like that, it was over. I had survived my first round of demonic debt collection. I hugged Leo, thanking him for saving me yet again. He just wriggled out of my arms like cats tend to.

  These attacks were only going to get worse. We had to go into hiding, no way around it. Sure, I’d live, but my psyche would be demolished in no time if I had to go through that every day.

  I had a vague idea of where we were going. It was like a silver palace, hung by chains in an abyss. It was a secluded part of the cosmos, one that is often regarded as a prison, but I think that’s a matter of perspective. Just ask Mina.

  One day, when I find her again, I’ll give her a piece of my mind.

  But that’s a story for a different time. You have a happy ending to get back to.