A/N: So, it's been a bit… Yeah, I got nothing. Hopefully you'll enjoy the new chapter enough not to kill me for the long wait? Maybe? … No? Alright, I guess I deserve that.

Lucy really couldn't help herself while sitting on the couch and glaring at the demon she'd accidentally summoned. The thought of Dan's miserable life being snuffed out was kind of appealing. Except it was still murder, and murder was so, so wrong, and she wasn't a murderer. Even if she did have a bit of an obsession with horror and serial killers, she wasn't a psychopath who would murder her stupid ex-boyfriend for falling dick-first into some skank's crusty, possibly herpes-infested snatch.

She kind of hoped he got crabs, to be completely honest. Or chlamydia. Ooh, that would just be perfect. It would serve him right, that cheating shit-wich.

Jackal snorted beside her, drawing her attention back to the present. He sure looked like something was funny. But she hadn't said anything, and it was completely silent in her apartment otherwise. Unless he'd thought of something funny? Maybe he was teasing her in his head over how she'd summoned him.

"If you're finished," he drawled, leaning back on the couch and putting an arm behind his head. He pointed to another section of the text, and she forced herself to look at the words instead of how he looked all stretched out like some sinewy, delicious morsel of immortality. "It's up to you to read this. Memorize it if you want."

"Do you have it memorized?"

"I should. It's my book, after all." She wasn't sure if that meant he did, in fact, know it all from cover to cover, or… maybe he was saying that he was supposed to?

"What else should I know?" she asked, frowning as he flipped another few pages. "You can blow stuff up when you touch it, you'll only save me if I'm gonna die or if I make you do it. No one can see that you're a demon but me, unless you're in a Polaroid or they're connected with a demon themselves…"

"As far as the basics are concerned, that's really it," he said. Still, he pointed to another section titled Contractual Obligations. Lucy scanned the page, listening as he spoke. "This part is what you'll have to read before I can leave today. If you agree to keep my book, I'll show you how to sign it."

"Do I have to sign in blood?" she asked with a grimace. He was silent, and she finally turned to look into his bright golden eyes, only to find him looking back at her with an equal level of disgust. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?!"

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he spat. "Why would I want your fucking blood on my book?!"

"I don't know!" she shouted. "Because you're a demon?"

"Racist."

Her lips parted to yell back at him that she was not a racist, and neither was what she said. Except then she realized he was smirking at her once again, showing off all those dangerously pointed teeth. He was messing with her. Damn it all to hell, he was teasing her! "Oh, go to hell," she muttered.

"I will, just as soon as you read this and sign it the right way by keeping your damn fluids off my book."

With a roll of her eyes, Lucy set her attention on the book once more. She didn't try to take it from his lap - hell no, she was not getting in his personal bubble with any part of her body - and instead craned her neck to read it. Of course, she didn't understand most of what was written on the page. Lucy was no lawyer, and it was mostly that ridiculous legalese bullshit. It was like trying to read through the Terms and Conditions while downloading a video game. She wasn't really sure if she wanted to have a demon bound to her at all, but at the same time… What was the harm in it, really?

"Question," she sighed once she'd gotten halfway down the page.

"Answer."

Lucy sent him a half-glare. "Are you going to take my soul?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"When I decide that I want it."

"That doesn't really seem fair," she said, leaning away from the book again. "You can just decide that you're done with me, and you get to take my soul? Just like that?"

"There's more to it than that," he chuckled. Without looking, he pointed to a paragraph in the middle of all the jumbled text she could hardly understand. "By signing this contract with me, you're agreeing to surrender your soul to me at a time of my choosing; however, my decision to take your soul is based on when it's as ripe as can be."

"... Ripe?"

"I'm going to eat it," he said, and she found herself shuddering when he eyed the center of her chest as though he was considering doing it right then. "When your soul is at it's finest, when it'll taste the best, that's when I'll take it."

That really didn't sound like something she wanted in the slightest. She wanted to live a long, happy life. But if Jackal here was just going to take her soul when he decided it was time, maybe she wouldn't get a whole lot of anything out of her life. Maybe it would be a week before he finally killed her.

"If it makes you feel any better, I can't take it until you've had my book for at least a year."

"So, I'll have a year before you murder me."

"What have you got to lose, really?" he asked, raising his brow at her. "With me by your side, you can do anything you want. Without me, you're what? A waitress at some shithole bar-"

"Restaurant," she corrected.

"- Living with her brother. You can't keep a man-"

"Because he's a cheating asshole!"

"- satisfied, and it took you how long to get up the courage to talk to him in the first place?"

"Two months," she admitted, lowering her head.

"Not to mention your parents are dead, and you don't have many friends to begin with." Jackal sat forward and wrapped his clawed fingers around her chin, forcing her to look at him again. Forcing her to see the wicked grin that curled his lips when he saw that he'd gotten under her skin. "So what's so bad about me taking your soul?"

"It's my soul," she whispered. "It's what makes me who I am."

"I'm fully aware of that," he said. "That's why it tastes so good."

He shifted closer to her, setting his book on the coffee table. Heat suffused her body, almost as though he was really touching her from head to toe. Except he wasn't. The only time their skin had come into contact was when she'd shaken his hand, and right then with his hand holding her chin. A soft blush crept along her cheeks as his warm breaths feathered over her lips.

"Question," she whispered.

"Answer," he replied, smirking at her breathlessness.

"You said you're already bound to me. Why would I have to sign something to finalize it?"

"Think of it like acknowledging receipt," he said, but he didn't move away. Honestly, she was torn between pushing him away from her and just pissing her pants right then. When he was so close, he was intimidating. Domineering. She could feel his presence wriggling through her pores and piercing her soul.

And just like the day she'd found his book in the store, Lucy was compelled to move by something invisible. It sliced through her wrist and drew her hand up, but she couldn't look away from Jackal's eyes to see if she was really bleeding. It wasn't until she was gently pushing his bangs away from his face that she knew for a fact nothing had hurt her, and nothing was touching her.

His eyes narrowed and his nose twitched where it sat mere millimeters in front of her own. "What are you…"

All she could hear was her staccatoed breath, the blood rushing between her ears. And somehow, some way, she knew that the low hum drifting beneath it all was coming from the demon in front of her. It wasn't his voice though. It was something else, entirely. Something dark, yet enticing as it pulled at the very depths of her being.

Jackal froze, pulling in another deep breath, and then grabbed her wrist hard enough to leave a bruise, wrenching it away from his face with a vicious snarl. His hand warmed in an instant and she was only vaguely aware of his blackened flesh shifting to a bright orange.

"Say what I tell you to," he growled, "And only what I tell you."

She didn't nod. She couldn't.

If Lucy was being honest with herself, whatever was happening was actually starting to scare her just a little bit. She didn't like this. She didn't like not knowing why he was moving until she felt both of his hands gripping hers tightly. She didn't like not being able to look away from his eyes, or this sinking feeling in her chest that reminded her of the time she'd nearly drowned in her old friend's pool when she was only six.

"With my soul, I vow this," he said quickly.

"With my… soul… I…" Her vision wavered slightly, and the warmth from his hands increased to the point of burning her. She gasped at the pain, but it brought his face back into focus. "I vow this."

"I surrender to Jackal of Tartaros," he continued.

The pain in her wrist increased, and Lucy wondered if there really was some sort of string wrapped around it, pulling taut and cutting into her. "I-I surrender to Jackal of Tartaros." She was saying the words he told her to, but they just weren't registering at all.

"My soul is yours to take," he said.

"My soul is yours to take."

"And in this binding, an eternal contract is made."

"And in this binding, an eternal contract is made." Fire crawled up the length of her arms, through her veins and toward the center of her chest. It burned. It burned so badly she wanted to shriek and collapse from the pain, but he held her in place with his strong clawed hands and his heavy glare.

"I cast aside my purity," he growled, and his grip tightened until all five claws on each hand pierced her flesh, drawing ten little dots of blood that seeped down to her wrists.

"I-I cast aside my purity…"

"For I am now a servant of Mard Geer."

The name alone had her body shuddering and flinching from him. It wasn't her trying to pull away though. She didn't know that name, but some part of her recoiled from it. He never looked away from her wide eyes, so she could only assume that there wasn't anyone else in the room with them. Still, it felt as though strong hands were digging into her shoulders and trying with all their might to drag her away.

"For I am now a…" She gasped at the feeling of his claws digging further into her hands, how Jackal pulled her closer to him. Was he trying to take her away from something? Was there really someone there with them? "A servant of Mard Geer."

She didn't have a chance to do much more than blink before he let go of her hands and wrapped his arms around her. There was a loud screech in the air, followed by what she could only describe as red hot talons swiping at her back and splitting her shirt and flesh open in one fluid movement.

Jackal pulled her off the couch with him just as her agonized cry left her throat a raw, ragged mess. Where her floor should have been was an empty abyss, and she fell through it with nothing more than a demon's arms wrapped around her. She caught the barest glimpse of a ghostly pale, harrowed man snarling down from her apartment above them, reaching into the hole that burned his hand away into bits of ash.

The last thing Jackal had wanted was to do this, but he really hadn't had a choice in the matter. It was either allow her to be consumed by some Vor, or take her and his book along with him back to the Underworld. And considering a Vor consuming a human soul as pure as hers would give it enough power to break free of its eternal suffering in limbo, he wasn't going to allow that to happen.

He'd never hear the end of it from his father if he lost her soul so quickly after she'd summoned him. Especially not to some mindless peon like a Vor.

Her thoughts shot off rapid-fire, which was honestly a surprise, considering he knew she'd been nearly sliced to ribbons by that stupid thing. And she was fully aware of it - the searing pain in her back was nearly all she could think about, after all - but she wasn't screaming. No, instead he was stuck with a blonde woman crying in his arms, against his bare chest, holding onto him for dear life because she knew, instinctively, that she was a whole lot safer with him than in her own apartment where that fucking monster was.

Of course, if he'd been paying a little more attention to the tunnel they were hurtling down, to the doors they passed along the way, then he would have slowed them down and taken her to his own room. But no, he was too preoccupied with her crying all over him, holding onto both her and his book, and the fact that she was screaming obscenities in her head far louder than he'd ever heard from a human before. At least she was inventive. He'd never heard the phrase I'd rather be raped with a minotaur before. That was a little humorous, and just a bit on the graphic side. He couldn't help but picture a seven-foot bull-man trying to squeeze himself between her legs, face and shoulders first. The horns alone would be quite the feat.

So, it was all of these things combined that caused Jackal to completely miss his own room without realizing it. And they just kept falling and falling until they reached the bottom. Except, once his feet touched the cool stone sigil that made up the entirety of the floor, he finally came back to reality and found a most unwelcome sight before him.

"Jackal, what a surprise," Mard Geer hummed, setting down his glass of wine on the arm of his throne made of bones and sinew.

Shit. Double, no triple shit. "U-Uh… Hey…?" he sputtered. He hated talking to his father. Actually, he hated his father in general, and it was partially because their "talks" usually consisted of intense glaring and scathing remarks from the king of the Underworld, and Jackal biting his tongue until it bled.

Mard Geer raised a single, thin brow. It was only then that Jackal realized he was in his human form, instead of the grey-skinned monstrosity he really was.

Lucy's head lifted slowly, and Jackal could feel her whole body trembling in his grasp. He looked from his father's unimpressed gaze down to her, then back. Quadruple shit. He wasn't supposed to bring humans down here. Had it been his room, he could have gotten away with it, but she wasn't dead and she wasn't just a soul, and she was bleeding all over his father's fucking floor, right in front of him, and he was watching it happen.

Was quintuple shit a thing? Jackal was running out of shits.

The fact that Mard Geer still said nothing, and instead just had that stupid fucking smirk on his face while his head tilted to rest on his open palm, really didn't bode well for Jackal. Not at all. He wanted an explanation, and he wanted it now.

"She summoned me," he explained quickly, and honestly? Jackal didn't give a shit that his ears lowered against his head, or that he heard his brothers walking into the throne room. "And before we could have her finalize it, a Vor came out and tried to make her kill me! So, she did the thing, and then it tried to kill her! I-I swear, I didn't mean to bring her all the way down here. I didn't!"

"And yet, here she is," Mard Geer sighed. "A human…" His crimson eyes narrowed only slightly at the long slashes running down her back. "A resilient one, though."

"Are you fuckin' kidding me?" came a gruff voice off to Jackal's left.

"Shut up, Gajeel," he snarled, turning his attention to his brother. He had the same crimson eyes as their father, but his hair was much more unruly. The entirety of his body was covered in iron scales. That had to mean he'd just come back from the mines where there had been an uprising of some sort.

"You really brought a human down here? Jesus fucking Christ, Jackal." His head turned the other way to find another of his older brothers, the seventh son, glaring at Lucy with disdain pouring from his single indigo eye.

"Ooh, Cobra said a bad word," cackled Bickslow, the third son of Mard Geer... and Cobra's lover. Jackal was still very weirded out by those two getting their freak on, considering they were brothers. Half brothers, they liked to correct him, and separated by several centuries in age, but still related enough for it to be fucking gross. Then again, they were in Hell already. No, no, he wasn't going to start making excuses for that level of depravity.

He set his attention back to his father. "I'll take her to my room and clean her up," Jackal said. "And I'll go make sure the Vor's sent back to limbo as soon as I'm done."

"Just eat her fuckin' soul already," Gajeel snorted.

"He can't," Cobra chuckled. "He's on restriction, remember?"

Lucy's hazy eyes slid open and locked onto Jackal's scowling face. She whimpered when his claws dug into her bleeding wounds where he held her. Her knees buckled, but he caught her just in time before she could smear more of her blood on the floor. "R-Restriction?" she muttered, mostly to herself.

Jackal really hadn't planned on telling her about that. Or anything about himself, really. She only needed to call him when she wanted something, after all, so he'd planned on just staying the hell away from her until he was needed.

Except his father had that damn look in his eyes again, and that never ended well for Jackal.

"Ah, yes, I did put you on restriction, didn't I?"

"You did," Jackal muttered.

"What was it again?"

"He has to keep a contract for a year before he gets the soul," Bickslow shouted, grinning from ear to ear with only his lips visible beneath the black skull visor he wore. Creepy ass motherfucker. Jackal really didn't care if it was his job to collect souls when he wasn't under a contract. He'd always been a fucking creeper.

"And even then, he doesn't get to take it right away," Cobra said. His gaze travelled over Lucy's body where she hung limp in Jackal's arms. "Maybe if you hadn't had that fucking tantrum and destroyed a whole wing of the Underworld…"

"Fuck you, Cobra," Jackal bellowed. "You started it!"

Mard Geer cleared his throat, causing all of his sons to fall silent. Slowly, he stood from his throne, and Jackal went stone still. His father never walked away from his throne while someone could see him. He was sure the only time the guy left it was when he was off getting a piece of succubus ass. But he was moving right then, and he was looking at Lucy. Finally, Mard Geer stopped in front of them. He used only one finger to push Lucy's bloodied blonde hair off to the side, and inspected the long slashes running from her left shoulder down to her right hip. The same finger dug into one of the wounds, ripping a crackling scream from her, and he pulled back to taste her blood. The sudden flash of intrigue in his eyes really set Jackal on edge.

"How is she still alive?" Mard Geer whispered to himself. He lifted her right wrist, turning the bruised appendage in his hand, then grinned.

"Wh-What is it?" Jackal asked, hunching his shoulders just a little when his father turned to him again.

"Someone has severed her strings, Jackal."

His golden eyes widened, and he looked from Lucy - whose head lolled back while she tried to regain her composure and combat the excruciating pain Mard Geer had put her through - then to her wrist, still held in his father's grasp. "The Vor was pulling them," he said. "I-I had to-"

"Not you," Mard Geer sighed, but there was still that conniving grin curling his lips. "Someone else… They replaced her strings, Jackal. This looks like a fairy's handiwork."

Jackal nearly dropped her right then from the shock. A fairy had come along and severed the strings that bound her to the mortal realm, then replaced them? For what purpose? Why in the hell would someone do that?

"It seems, they've been experimenting again."

"Wh-What?" Experimenting? What did that even mean? Fairies didn't do experiments. That was more Lamy's thing, and she was a fucking demon. And an annoying one, at that.

"It seems they've picked up where they left off with that prophet," Mard Geer sighed. "They wanted to make her a martyr."

Silence reigned in the throne room after that, with only Lucy's ragged breathing and muted whimpers echoing in the air. Even his brothers were quiet. Because they all knew what this meant, especially as their father's fingers passed through Lucy's wrist - first one, then the other, then down to her ankles - and pulled out a glittering, silver string that crumbled in his palm.

The strings of humans were supposed to be red, only visible to demons when the human in question was on their deathbed. But silver? That was unheard of. Well, it was to Jackal. Then again, he was the youngest of the nine hellspawn. He'd yet to get through all of the world's history while reading in his spare time.

"Gajeel, summon Lamy," Mard Geer said. He ignored his eighth son, who nodded and rushed out of the throne room, instead choosing to tip Lucy's head back to look at her face.

"I-I can do it, father," Jackal said quietly.

"Lamy can do it faster." He paused, looking into Jackal's eyes. "Cobra, Bickslow, leave us. I need to discuss something with him."

Jackal didn't move a muscle under his father's narrow, penetrating gaze while his brothers left. Once the door closed behind them, Mard Geer ripped open the front of Lucy's shirt and pointed to the symbol that had been burned into her chest.

"You realize what this is," he said.

Jackal nodded. "It's a protection seal," he whispered back. "I can take her soul, but I… I can't…"

Mard's eyes narrowed even further. "You really are a disappointment," he sighed, watching as his son's head lowered and his ears flattened against his head once again. "You can do it yourself, in your room."

Jackal's head shot up in shock, his eyes wide and surprised. "But I thought you said Lamy…"

"She can clean up the blood instead." Mard Geer waved his hand and walked back toward his throne, then took a seat and sipped at his wine. "Get this human out of my sight."

With a quick nod, Jackal gathered Lucy into his arms with one around her back and the other around her knees, then turned to leave.

"And Jackal?" He paused when he heard his father's voice. "I don't ever want to see you wearing a blanket as a skirt again." With his face suddenly flaming, Jackal stormed out of the throne room, leaving a grinning Mard Geer of Tartaros behind him.