by Michele Hauf
“Can that work for a familiar? Can you do this without…?” Bringing demons to this realm.
“I just did.”
“You were a virgin. Star, I don’t know what to say.”
“You are the first man I’ve trusted. Don’t be mad at me for not telling you.”
“I could never be mad at you. Surprised, certainly. Do you remember from your other lives?”
“Not exactly, but I know I’ve never let a man so close to me. A girl does know her body. Why was it so easy to let you in?”
“Hell if I know. I put you in a cage.”
“Yes, and I owe you a clawed bedpost for that one. But you won’t do it again, because you, well, you know.”
“I know.” I’d fallen in love with her. Men in love did not put their girlfriends in cages, even when in cat shape.
I kissed her then because I was floating on a crazy, lucid, happy bliss, and even though I’d once again foiled my own plans, I couldn’t have been more pleased to be holding Star in my arms—and not to have succeeded.
She nuzzled her head against my neck and her purrs rumbled against my chest. “I want to help you find your brother.”
“Summoning the demon is only the beginning. If it has the key, I have to get it from him, and then, well, then I’ve to actually go to Daemonia to find my brother.”
Daemonia was the place of all demons. Mortals might call it Hell, but it was different than that. It was an actual place, in another realm, locked to keep the baddest of bad demons from escaping.
“Let’s do it,” she said. “On one condition.”
“You are the one in control, Star. Name your condition.”
“I get to be your girlfriend.”
“Deal.”
Six
For Thoroughly to accept me as his girlfriend required him to let go of some control. I could see how he’d ordered his life to the minutest detail, and how some part of his wanting to cut out the middleman had been an innate need to control every aspect of his life.
I had gained some control. And I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
I am the one who arrives, lies on the bed and serves as a conduit. I do as I’m told. I leave. I’ve never been in a position, especially during sex, where I could expect more—such as kindness and intimacy and a man who wanted to give as much as he wished to take.
I liked it when Thoroughly took from me. Because he always gave back.
I glided along the length of his naked body. We lay in his big, comfy bed cluttered with pillows and soft, kneadable blankets. T.J. had a notebook open on his lap and was writing down things he’d explained he knew about Daemonia and his brother’s last-known words and actions.
“Certainly is the historian for the Council,” he explained. “He told me he had accessed some sacred demonic scripts and wanted to learn more, even after the Council warned him not to do so.”
“Demonic magic is evil,” I commented, trailing a finger along the fine black hairs queuing his belly and lower, to tickle about the base of his semi-hard penis. I liked exploring that part of him; it was ever-changing and frankly, fun to play with.
“It is glamorous evil,” he said reverently.
I lifted my head to study his face; he was intent on his scribblings. “It’s something you desire,” I guessed.
“No.”
“You claimed it glamorous as if it was a jewel you hoped to possess. Do you practice dark magic, T.J.?”
“What do you think?”
“Demon-summoning is as dark as it gets.”
“Then you answered your own question. As I’ve said, evil is necessary to balance the world.”
I nodded. It was true. Without evil there could be no good, and vice versa. Most did not understand the value of opposites, and I was no one to protest, demon-conducting familiar that I am.
“Glamorous, eh?”
Nodding, he hooked the pen on the notebook cover. He pushed his fingers through my hair and stroked me behind the ear, and I don’t think he realized what he was doing, but he had hit a sweet spot. It felt so good, I curled my body against his and swished my hair across his chest.
“Kitty wants to play,” I cooed, and batted at his now much-harder penis.
“You won’t be tired for later?”
We’d agreed tonight we would summon the demon. All seriousness. No love involved, just work.
“You could make love to me all day and I’d still beg you for more.”
I slipped a leg over his hips and straddled him, wriggling down to rub my moist clit against his hardness. Riding him brought me to a delicious hum of pleasure. Licking his nipple, I marveled at the tiny jewel. So small, yet it seemed to give him as much pleasure as when he did the same to mine.
“What have I gotten myself into?” he said teasingly.
“Well, not me. Yet.” I shifted my hips and hovered above him. “You regretting this already?”
“No, but this—us—was unexpected. I never thought I’d fall in love. Ever.”
I tilted my head, locking onto his beautiful blue eyes. He seriously had not believed he could have love. Much as I hadn’t. And we’d found it quickly and it ran so deeply.
“You fear the price,” I decided, feeling a cold shiver streak through my veins.
“With dark magic, there’s always a price.” He pulled me toward him and kissed me deeply. “I would pay any price for you, Star.”
“Don’t say that,” I whispered, looking about but not seeing the invisible spirits I believed heard everything, and sometimes could grant wishes, for good or for evil. “Just…love me until you no longer can.”
“I will.”
I sat back onto his thick, hard shaft, taking him inside me. Together we clung to one another, barely moving on the outside, but grasping, squeezing and pulsing on the inside. This couldn’t be dark magic, this was as light as it came.
Truly it was glamorous.
As I paced the floor in jeans, my bare feet marked off the circle I intended to use—not to contain the demon, but as a safety barrier for Star once she had brought forth the demon. Everything had to be perfect, or I would not go through with this.
Days ago, I would have sacrificed the familiar in a heartbeat to get what I wanted. Things had changed. I was in love. Real, head-over-heels, walk-into-walls love. I could not fathom harming one hair on Star’s head to save my brother. C.J. was a strong man. A little out of the times, and a bit of a hermit, but he knew his magic and could certainly endure. That’s why our parents had called him Certainly.
So I’d come to terms with the fact that should anything go wrong tonight, I would abandon the spell to save Star. C.J. would understand. Hell, who knows, he might be having a grand old time in Daemonia right now.
No, he wasn’t. I wasn’t that stupid.
How to save them both?
Star had left, saying she needed a run, then quickly corrected herself, saying walk. I knew what she meant. She was likely pussyfooting around her neighborhood right now, sniffing out the Camembert the cheese shop owner left for her on the back step.
My girlfriend was a cat. I wager not many fellows can say that with a straight face.
I knew a few witches who were in relationships with shape-shifters. They weren’t bothered by it. I guess until Star curled next to me in cat form on the sofa, I wouldn’t have to face those feelings. But seriously, it shouldn’t bother me. It didn’t.
What should bother me was that I intended to use my girlfriend to raise the worst demon in Daemonia. It could go well. It could be a disaster.
I should find a different familiar. Someone…disposable.
T.J., you are a bastard.
I stopped in the middle of the protection circle, fingers outstretched to release my earth magic. Why did it have to come to this? A choice between my brother and the woman I loved.
I had never hoped to find love. Guess that’s all part of the glamorous evil in which I dabbled. What you put out, you get back. And for every particle of
evil energy put out, good must be returned. And vice versa.
I had received the good in the form of a gorgeous familiar who loved me.
I dreaded the evil to come.
Seven
In the dark, sheltered in T.J.’s arms, I felt as if I’d found an anchor in this big world that often hosted me, but never embraced me. Here, by my lover’s side, I could feel his breath become mine. His kisses opened me wide to receive the love I felt surround us both.
Together, on a couple of layers of blankets and pillows, we were curled in the circle he’d bespelled. A bottle of wine lay outside the circle on its side. We hadn’t needed glasses. His tongue licked at a trickle of pinot noir painting my neck, and I slid a leg to hook at his hip.
He lifted me and then knelt, laying me across the blankets. Jet hair dusted my nipples, and I arched my back to receive the delicious skim. We’d become lost in a realm no one else knew about. In this realm inhabited by the two of us, we could fly, dance and sing without leaving this room.
I didn’t want to think of the outcome of this coupling. I would not.
Combing my fingers through his hair, I dragged him down to kiss me. His mouth slicked under my tongue, and he sucked at my lower lip. I giggled, because our intimate familiarity made me happy.
“Look at me,” he whispered, and I sought his blue gaze in the darkness.
He was a shadow of this world, so dark, creeping along the edge between right and wrong with a skill that could become unbalanced and teeter him off. I would hold him here. Clasp him to my world, and keep him in my eyes. I felt that powerful. Love gave me strength.
Our gazes locked, he entered me with his hardness, filling me, claiming me, marking me as his. Owning me. The giddy connection tingled my being and I gripped his face and pulled him in for another long, lush kiss that delved as deeply as his cock. Inside one another, we fashioned a rhythmic blending of souls.
“After tonight, never again,” he said. “I promise. The two of us will only make love to pleasure one another.”
“Agreed. I love you, T.J.”
“I love you,” he gasped.
My body sang as the slick of his finger found my clitoris. The sensitive jewel hummed and swelled at his direction. He moved back and forth inside me, rapidly, and yet his finger danced a slow, firm challenge to me. And my body accepted the challenge and set me free.
T.J. cried out harshly. His hand gripped my shoulder and lifted me to him as we both came at the same time. The air lightened and we were surrounded by spectacular lights. I don’t know what it was, but it had to be his magic, joining us, bonding us.
The light seemed to move through my body, glittering a hot path to every particle of my ultrasensitive skin. My lover glowed, his head bowed over mine, as we took in the magic.
“Earth and air,” he said. “It’s forging together inside us. Never thought it could happen. So powerful…”
Rational thought fled. Suspended in ecstasy, I took my lover with me, soaring together.
Exhausted by the climax, I wilted and spread my arms over the blankets. Too good. But I wasn’t about to linger on this very important night. With but a nod to T.J., I gave him permission.
The witch knelt, huffing still, yet in grasp of his focus, and began the spell. He spoke forcefully and in a rhythmic chant which felt like ancient music shimmering along the magical glamour still tingling my skin.
His intonation rose, as did he to stand directly over me. I felt the immense power we two had created. It squeezed at me, and not gently. Clutching the blankets, I prepared, feeling my senses open and my pores ready to conduct. At once every hair on my body prickled, and I gritted my jaw.
This was too strong. It had never been so forceful….
I spoke the last word. The summons to the demon Navicrux had been put into the atmosphere. I could feel the air tighten and sense the subtle changes. The glasses in the kitchen cupboards rattled. The wine bottle suddenly rolled across the floor and under the bed. Silverware clinked. The chandelier over the bed clattered.
This glamorous evil I worked was strong. More so for the direct connection between myself and the familiar.
Star’s body arched, her hips grinding into the blankets and her breasts lifting to open her chest for conduction. Her arms were outstretched and her hair spilled over her face as she opened her mouth as if to scream.
She did not scream. Instead, her body put forth an incredible burst of white smoke. It billowed from every pore dotting her skin as if forced steam, and rose into a thick, undulating cloud above and beside the bespelled circle.
Stepping from the circle, and hastily grabbing a blanket to wrap about my waist, I waited, yet still commanded the atmosphere with my air magic. The demon was incorporeal, yet it could shape the preternatural substance it used to conduct to this realm into a human form.
A meow from the floor alerted me. A black cat sat on the blankets, looking at me with wide green eyes. Goddess, but I loved that cat. And she was safe inside the circle.
“Navicrux, make yourself known!”
At once the white cloud coalesced, then shaded gray, and then darker, until it roiled into a black billow, tightening and bulging as if with muscles, a monstrous amalgam of contained evil.
I lifted a hand to control the air and keep the demon in one place. Containment was the easy part, as long as I focused.
Something rubbed against my ankle. I shook my foot, then realized what it was. “Star, no! Get back in the circle!”
The demon cloud did something unexpected. It tunneled above me, swiftly formed to a narrow, pointed column, and then shot directly toward me.
Kicking frantically, I managed to shove Star inside the circle—and the demon entered my body.
Eight
Navicrux inhabited me. It spread like black sludge through every neuron pulsing in my being. Heavy and rancid, it brought me to my knees. It pushed against my bones, and I felt it spiral into my skull.
It wasn’t trying to assume control of my body, to move and talk through me. No, I realized with horrifying clarity it was instead trying to kill me—by shattering me.
I had practiced dark magic for so long my soul was tainted. So that made it easy for the demon to pull me into the darkness where I no doubt belonged.
Clasping my head, I squeezed against the brain-splitting pressure. I tried to summon a shackle spell, but my eyes shuttered and everything grew muzzy. I would not leave this mortal coil without a fight. Just…need…the spell.
Fingers fisting, my knuckles grazed the wood floor, unable to clutch or grasp the air, to form and control it. I had lost my…control. How to get it back?
Where…where was she? Struggling to maintain vision as my bones weakened inside my muscles, I looked toward the circle.
No cat.
No, Star. Where are you?
Abandon the spell!
Too late. Can’t…breathe. Skull is going to….
Sudden, slashing pain cut through my face and the side of my neck. Had my skull broken through flesh? Was I to die slowly, achingly experiencing every single bone tear through skin as the demon mastered this feeble shell?
Blood oozed down my cheek. And with the release of my blood, the air in the room sighed.
My fingers loosened and I caught myself in a slide onto the floor. I felt as if I’d been released and, in confirmation, I rolled to my back to spy once again the black demonic cloud above me.
My flesh must have been cut open and that had opened a passage to release the demon. It could not remain inside the body that was wounded, the receptacle of skin damaged.
Thrusting out a hand, I squeezed it to command the air and contain the demon with a vise about its loose form. “Where is the key to Daemonia?” I shouted.
The demon growled, its tone rumbling and yet open like a vast cavern. “There is no key. Release me, witch!”
“I bind thee! You are my slave until you fulfill my wishes!” I squeezed my fingers into a fist. Invoking the correc
t spell, I bound the demon to my will. “You know where the key is!”
“It is not in this realm.”
“But where?”
“In Daemonia. It is not an object but an invocation that must be used from within. Now release me!”
Holding the bind upon the demon firmly, I lay sprawled, supported on my elbows. Invoked from within? But how then would C.J. ever get out?
“You know how to use the key?”
“It requires a powerful witch.”
“My brother, Certainly Jones, is in Daemonia. Trapped. You will activate the key and release him or this binding will hold you ever after.”
The demon struggled within the confines of my air magic. I had bound it so that even when it returned to Daemonia, it could not break free until it had completed the requirements I put to it.
“What is my reward?” the demon growled.
I had intended to learn the key’s location and then banish the demon back to Daemonia. But if I expected it to help me, I must offer it a reward.
Where was Star? If the demon had—
I spied a flurry of black fur scamper behind the sofa. Good girl.
“I want the kitty,” the demon said.
“No soft things for you,” I admonished as firmly as I could, though the thought of the demon touching a hair on Star’s head sickened me. “But I will grant you…” What would a demon most desire? “A day of freedom in this realm.”
The demon moved its form in a manner implying agreement.
“Go!” I sent it back whence it had come.
The room cleared. I had promised a nefari demon free rein in the mortal realm. I would suffer the consequences from the witches of the Light if and when Navicrux were to release Certainly.
Star scampered over and climbed upon my chest, her green eyes seeking mine. I smiled, patted her head…
…and passed out.
I shifted to human form, and still lying on top of T.J., searched his face for signs of life. His chest rose and fell. The scratches from his cheek down his jaw and to his neck still seeped blood.
Touching the wounds tenderly, I winced, but couldn’t feel too sad. I think scratching him had been the thing to free him from the demon. I hadn’t known what was happening as T.J. had fallen to his knees and seemed to be struggling inwardly. I’d only known it wasn’t good—so had reacted.
