Avery couldn't move. Stars danced in his eyes; stars with bright, blood-red edges, as if coated in actual blood. Stars that laughed at him, screamed inside his head, told him he'd escaped death for the last time.

His throat was in agony, and he could have sworn Jessamine's handprint burned onto his skin. Every time he swallowed, he felt fire rushing up to blow out his mouth in clouds of steam. Breathing wasn't much easier, and his lungs were squeezed tight, desperate for oxygen that he struggled to provide.

The stench in the basement didn't help either, making him dizzy. He was knocked out, collapsed from his mishap in the demonic dimension, then his encounter with Jessamine—demon-Jessamine. Her arrival threw him off, and her departure more so. Without forgetting what she'd done to him, the mixed emotions she'd left him with.

Half kneeled near the wall holding up the stairs, he dared a glance at the glowing red door. Its brightness never dimmed, not even after Jessamine departed. Those demons on the other side were waiting, still hopeful that they'd be rescued by their host, or that their savior—Avery—would prove useful and release them somehow.

He never wanted to touch that door-handle again. Not with how it had scorched him, not with how it had locked him in a scary, sepia-toned realm he wasn't meant to escape from. Not with how close he'd come to never breathing normal air again.

He was beyond lucky to have gotten out, and more so alive. But if Jessamine hadn't been the one to release him, then who'd done it?

He rubbed his wrists, pulling his gaze away from the door. Some questions would remain unanswered, that much he was sure of. Jessamine's captors weren't talkative enough to divulge all their tricks, and Ada would be cryptic as always. No one would own up to saving Avery from his doom, but it was getting to where he no longer wanted to know. Multiple demon doors, multiple realms, monsters created on earth at the beginning of time... he'd absorbed sufficient information for a lifetime, and didn't think his head could take much more without exploding.

Demonic whispers rolled over to him, seeping under the threshold. Even without him looking at the door, it managed to get into his mind, to coerce him into opening it again. But hadn't he shown himself as a betrayer? Hadn't the demons on the other side seen through his ruse and attempted to break him down and use him to get out, or to feed on?

Why would the door still be summoning him forward to open it?

It's a trick. I'm not falling for it.

He swiped a hand through the air and grimaced at the pain it caused. "Nope, I'm never going to that place again. I'm done. Shut the fuck up," he growled at the door, "and leave me alone."

He cradled his arm against his body, sensing his forehead beading with perspiration. The whispers were fierce, flocking to him like moths to a flame, but he gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, ignoring them.

He'd almost died. Not once, but twice. He'd knocked at death's door, pounded on it, even, and he'd been denied access. Why wasn't he happy about this? Why couldn't he relax, knowing demon-Jessamine let him live another day to plot against her? Knowing he'd not yet earned a one-way ticket to whatever hell was reserved for folk like him?

He'd caused this, all of it. His stupid actions, his love-struck reaction towards Jessamine made him weak, and he'd let her go. He'd allowed her entry into the house that would be her demise. Everyone's demise.

Those demons want to restore the world to how it used to be... surely that means decimating all of us in the process, right?

Their motives weren't as shockingly sinister as he'd anticipated, yet there was a tint of malice to every word the red-orbed creatures had uttered in the demonic realm. They'd sounded almost noble, wanting to go back to older times. But older times meant having all sorts of inhuman creatures on earth, mingling with the living, and likely exposing them to immense perils. It was clear the demons didn't want to intervene—it was everyone for themselves, and if they died, they died, and were sentenced to roam the world until the end of time. Non-dead humans, ghosts, monsters—all living in bloody harmony, supervised by the demons?

"Fuck," he spat, attempting to straighten up, holding the wall for stability. "I feel even worse now."

He shuddered, realizing that fixing his mistake would involve seeing demon-Jessamine again, and remembering that she'd issued a messed-up warning to him. She'd kill him on sight next time. She wouldn't toy with her food like she had this time. She'd take two bites out of his neck and rip his throat out and feast on his blood. With a smile on her face.

In a fucked up twist of fate, Avery almost wanted to see her again, despite the threat of his death looming over his head. He'd been immensely terrified of her, but also eerily attracted to her. When she was up close, her breath blowing over his face, into his nose, flurrying into his mouth, he'd salivated. He wanted her to kiss him subconsciously; and when she had, responding to his unspoken desires, every nerve within him had fired up.

He frowned at the realization that he'd been so fired up that he still had an erection. The more he thought of demon-Jessamine, the lesser his chances of ever getting rid of it were. But he couldn't help it; the image of her red-glowing self was imprinted on his brain, and he was too tired to fight it off. She'd been right there, right in front of him, her eyes wide and alert as she devoured him. And that poisonous aroma of blood and cinnamon had been so impossible to resist, so horribly alluring, that it was still stuck in his nostrils now. Even the bloodlust in her aura, smacking him in the face, hadn't been enough to turn him off. She was a monster who wanted to kill, who had killed, and who was enjoying it. He hated how completely terrified, yet infatuated he'd been by that show of confidence, no matter how immoral.

She was a sexy serial killer who thrived off her kills and yearned for more, and it disgusted him profoundly, yet...

"Jeez." He slammed a fist into the wall. "Of course, the one time I let myself fall for a woman and feel like I can be myself and let my guard down... this is what happens, isn't it?" He smirked, shaking his head, though there wasn't an ounce of joy in his being. It was a dishonest smirk, one of someone who'd come to terms with how wholly fucked he was. "She turns out to be a fucking evil demon-gobbling vampire witch thing? Ugh!"

He jammed his other fist to the wall and pressed his forehead to its warmth. All his life, he'd lived with distinct rules regarding women and allowing them to capture him like Jessamine had. If anything, he'd thought they'd never get this close—and boy, had he been wrong about that. With how she'd rejected him, and with how he'd felt so enraged whenever she was around, there'd been no way in his mind that they'd ever get intimate. Not even for a friendly hug or a sympathetic pat on the back.

But they'd gone and gotten way too involved with one another. That night of drinking and flirting had lowered both their barriers and made them much more interesting, much more vulnerable. Had he not succumbed to her, had he resisted the delicious curves of her body, had he been able to control the damn bulge in his pants... would things have unfolded the way they had?

And why, why had he returned her kiss just minutes ago? He should have spat her tongue out and shoved her off and scrambled up the stairs, far, far away from her. By kissing him, she'd made herself weak, and he should have taken advantage of that to escape her grip and flee. But he hadn't. No, he'd stayed there, a zombie under her wicked spell, enticed by the scent and the flavor of her, determined to speak with Jessamine's soul directly. And he had—he'd rolled his tongue along hers, tasted her danger, craved her more than ever.

Now, he was exhausted and winded, as if he'd gone through hours of foreplay for no satisfaction, no relief. His balls hurt, throbbing with the need for her, but he wouldn't let loose now. Not in a dingy, blood-ridden basement with a door that might blast open any moment and unleash hell on him—literally.

"Why didn't I think with my fucking brain, for once?" He cringed, his nails scraping the brick-like surface of the wall.

So many times he'd followed his dick, not his brain, but he'd never gotten into trouble this deep. He'd pissed off an ex-boyfriend or two, once or twice a husband, and had nearly been shot at as he ran out of a house after one woman's dad discovered them together under his damn roof. But being seduced and targeted by a demonic woman he seemed unable to resist—that was new.

It's a situation where I definitely should have ignored my penis as it begged me to sleep with her again.

He should have let his heart open and take over. In his heart, he knew Jessamine needed to die. That he needed to avoid her, to shut down his attraction, his feelings for her.

Then again, had he been following his heart sooner, Amy would be alive.

He snickered, tapping his forehead against the wall. "Stupid, stupid—why am I so damn stupid?"

Had he been smart, he'd have clarified the situation with Amy. They wouldn't have had the argument that caused her to run off and be reckless. He'd have let her down nicely, but immediately, letting her know he wasn't in love with her. To top things off, he'd have steered her towards Jamie, who was more or less in love with her. They'd have been happy together, and alive.

Had he listened to his heart... he'd have never met Jessamine.

He winced, pushing off the wall. "But that would have been for the best, wouldn't it have? Since our destinies are to be each other's undoing, or whatever."

Zoning out, he paced on the opposite end of the basement, reanimating his stiffened muscles. Everything about his visit with demon-Jessamine had rendered him rigid with worry and angst and revulsion, and he needed to shake it all off. How was he supposed to re-focus on the matter at hand if he was still battling the erection Jessamine had given him with her daunting, delirious games of seduction?

"Avery?" A voice came from upstairs, from the hole leading into the basement. A voice sounding faintly like Jamie's; low and throaty, but tinged with worry.

Avery looked up towards the stairs, slowing his pacing. Would he be able to get up there now? He wasn't sure he was ready to confront Jamie, and certainly not Ada. To explain to them what he'd uncovered in the realm, and to tell them he'd survived that only to be nearly choked to death by Jessamine.

And her tongue shoved down my throat?

Did they even know she'd been there?

"Avery! You down there?" Jamie's timbre rose to a frightfully high volume. "You out? Alive? Answer us!"

Avery opened his mouth to belt out a reply, but a whoosh of frigid air swept into the area instead, followed by a blur of blue smoke that soon took on the feminine shape of Ada.

Her face—completely defined, compared to the demons—was calm, but her eyes were narrowed on him as she set her fists on her hips, assessing him for damage. "So?" She angled closer, analyzing him. "Well, you're not dead. Did you get in? Did you see them? What happened?" She moved backwards, her shoulders tensing. "I sensed a deep, dark energy concentrating down here, and I figured you were in danger, but I couldn't do anything. Like there was a blockage over the hole... I couldn't break through until now."

They have no clue.

He glared at Ada as he recoiled backwards. "Yeah, a deep, dark energy in the shape of Jessamine."

Ada gasped. "Jessamine? The vessel? She was down here?" She zoomed so close to him their noses would have touched had she been corporeal. "Did she hurt you? Possess you? You smell," she sniffled, her nostrils growing wide, "mostly normal. Afraid, though. Warm on the inside. And," she gazed down, right where Avery had grasped his hands together to cover up the area where his erection hadn't quite died down, "animated?"

His cheeks inflamed, and he stretched his arms to push her away, though they only went through her misty body, coating his skin in goosebumps. "She hurt me, yeah, but as you can see, she didn't kill me."

Ada wrapped her hands around his wrists, her energy swirling up and down his limbs. "Why?"

He flinched. "What are you doing?" He tried to yank from her, but her power held on to him, keeping him in place as she continued to sniff at him. "Let me go!"

"I'm trying to figure out what she did to you. I detect something else on you—spicy, bloody, cinnamon? Was that her?" She released one of his wrists to set a finger under his chin and use her energy to tilt it up. "Something's wrong."

"Yeah!" He took advantage of her free hand and tugged himself loose. "Jessamine is wrong. The demons are wrong. All of it is fucked up, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't get in my space right now. What are you trying to do? Possess me?" He sneered at her. "No, thanks. I had enough assholes seeking to get in me while I was in there." He pointed a wobbly finger at the demon door and gulped.

Ada waved dismissively. "I'm not trying to possess you. Guides need permission to do that."

A repressed memory floated through Avery. "Wait—permission?" He cocked his head. "If you needed permission, how the fuck did you plant a Guide inside Jessamine, back when she first came here? I don't recall her consenting to that."

The corners of Ada's lips twitched. "Her soul consented. It knew she needed the help and sort of... communicated with us. Deep down, she knew she'd be confronted with many trials if we didn't place a Guide inside her to block out all her trauma. And we were right to do so."

A pang of pain jolted up Avery's back and immobilized his neck. "Fuck." He sent a hand up to massage the spot where his cranium connected with his cervical spine and scowled towards Ada. "Yeah, I can see Jessamine's soul being stubborn as fuck."

Of all people, Avery could attest Jessamine's soul had a mind of its own—since it was held hostage inside her body by thousands of demons, but powerful enough to rebuke them, to pester them and their plans. Stubborn enough to bargain and temporarily save Avery from death. And intoxicate him. And kiss him. Without forgetting to make him remember why he'd fallen under her charms in the first place—

"Fuck, I need to get out of here."

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