Private Finished In Which The Book Can And Will Stare Back At You

As the shapeless, shifting clump of black stuff floated before her, Madison's skin crawled. It was like sticking her fingers in a vat of slime, the way the book's soul clung to her fingers. She tried valiantly to shake the horrendous feeling with quick flicks of her wrist, but to no avail.

Then, a second onslaught of visions pushed themselves into her mind. More promises of power, of strength and wisdom and magic beyond her wildest dreams--

For a price.

With a blink of an eye, the visions were gone, and she was face to face with the floating abyss once more. A cold laugh rattled out of her throat as the reality of what the grimoire desired of her settled in. Gone from her mind were the delusions of power, replaced swiftly by cynical practicality.

"Okay, hang on there, book," the necromancer snorted. "You want my soul?"

She had half a mind to dump the book on the dirty, sticky floor of the bathroom right then and there. That'll teach it!

There was no way Madison was going to give up her soul. She never put much stock in them in the first place; at least, the souls of normal, everyday people. But for her work? Madison read on more than one occasion that a person's soul was like their own little Luck modifier. If she gave it up, there was a litany of things in her life that could go wrong. Sales in Dog Eared Books could go down. Acquisitions for Epilogue could dry up. Her necromantic rituals could backfire on her, or fail altogether!

And that would not do. Not one bit.

But... The taste of power that the grimoire imprinted in the darkest, greediest corners of her mind... Almost too tantalizing to give up.

There had to be a way to unlock the book's secrets without giving up the one thing that allowed her to be Madison Mortiere, right?

It was a long moment before she whispered to the book, "What about other people's souls?"

Huh. How about that.

Answer a shady listing online for a rare book, cough up a grand, and walk away with a mythical, otherworldly book that would grant you all sorts of powers for the low, low price of someone else's soul.

Madison was incredibly relieved to hear that she could sell other people to the book. Her soul? Super valuable. Without it, horrible things would happen. Constant melancholy. Walking into rooms and forgetting why she did. She'd probably start listening to old MCR again and try to remember her DeadJournal login info. Perhaps she'd slip during necromancy practice and accidentally unleash a plague of festering undead upon Manta Carlos City, wiping out most of the population and scattering the remnants to eke out a living in the Forbidden Forest. That would be her luck, wouldn't it?

But the souls of others? The very essence of their mortal beings, the spiritual coding that defined their life and purpose? Well, what good were they doing her, all trapped up in their meat prisons and not being turned into bitchin' superpowers?

The Grimoire was right. There were those on the island that had no use for their soul. People who had other things to worry about, people probably thought that the one they got stuck with is what cursed them with bad luck in the first place. Hell, there was one guy who loitered in the alleyway near Dog-Eared Books that would probably fork his over for a pack of cigarettes, a Diet Pepsi, and a plain bologna sandwich.

A small price to pay for the chance to cheat up the ability to melt someone's face off with a snap of her fingers, even with that recent skyrocketing increase in the cigarette tax.

Madison smiled a deliciously greedy, sinister smile. Visions of dark power granted by the eldritch tome swirled around in her mind--and only half of them came from the book itself.

"Well then," she whispered, her finger caressing the corner of the book's spine. "Let's get to work, shall we?"

There was so much to be done. So many preparations to make. So many secrets to unlock, so much power to obtain.

Maybe they'd stop by an orphanage or a homeless shelter on their way back to Maddy's bookstore. Get this party started off right.