Ruby thought back, aeons back, to her mortal life.
"I had a family. A pretty big one. I was married, I had kids." She looked down and saw Sam’s eyes widen at that.
"No I don’t remember their names Sam so don’t ask," she continued sharply, and the big man stayed silent.
I must have been around your age, when I made the deal. The Black Death was all over by that point. I was going to bind a demon to my family’s health.” She laughed bitterly.
"You can see how well that turned out. It’s certainly not the most interesting bargain on record."
"I’d been practicing magic for a while, thought I was real good at it, thought I could handle anything I called up. So I bound it, and it twisted everything I said back in on itself. Eventually, I thought the only thing to do was listen to its terms. It told me what the deal was, and I agreed." She met Sam’s eyes briefly; he hadn’t spoken after he’d asked her to tell her story. She looked back down at her hands, twisting a piece of paper.
"Ten years seemed like a bargain back then. Half my friends were already dead from the plague and I probably had it too. When I ensured my family’s wellbeing, I managed to make sure that I would live the full ten years and not bite it early."
Her voice softened. “I think more than a few demons hated that fact, since I would summon them to work for me. It probably wasn’t the best idea, looking back.”
"They tear you apart on the rack. It’s the essence of you that feels it and it hurts worse than any physical pain ever could. It warps you eventually until you become one of them. That’s the goal of all that torturing. Yeah, there’s a point to it. After so much pain, after the agony of your soul tearing apart day after day, after you’ve been ripped apart so many times you can’t remember anything else…you become a demon."