Emilia trimmed dead leaves off of a plant who’s identity she didn’t know. After pacing for two hours, Regina had put her hands on Emilia’s shoulders and marched her out to a patch of unidentified bushes to “prune the dead stuff.” It felt like the dismissal a sensei would give a nervous pupil as part of their training regimen. The activity itself was less distracting to Emilia than the thought of what mysterious purpose it might serve.
When she felt Cary awaken across the compound, Emilia dropped the shears and ran for her. From a hundred yards away, Emilia could tell Cary was healthy and safe, though irritated. Now that Cary was awake, Emilia could feel something else too: tremendous hatred. Hate so deep it colored every part of Cary’s existence, like the diametric opposite of rose-colored glasses. A film of oil and soot that smeared itself across Cary’s vision.
If not for the urge to see her, to confirm she was awake and truly fine, the hatred might have brought Emilia to her knees from shock. Despite the urgency, despite the confidence Emilia had that Cary was safe, she hesitated at the door to Papa Butch’s infirmary. Her hand hovered over the wood and a force, akin to control Samantha had exerted over her, kept her from knocking.
The door opened and Papa Butch stood there, smiling down at her. “Come in child. There’s no sense in hiding out here till sundown.”
Emilia blushed at his gentle admonishment, but the moment she set eyes on Cary, all thought of Papa Butch or the other people in the room faded into her periphery. Her skin had returned to the original crimson and she had a pair of tiny horns poking up out of her hairline. Where her hair had been black before, so black it drew in the light around her, now it had a faint crimson sheen, as if bright red highlights had added themselves to the rest of her hair.
She looked down at the bed and bit her lip to expose a pair of tiny fangs. “Hey Emilia. I’m so…” before she could finish her sentence, Emilia rushed her and threw her arms around Cary’s neck.
“Don’t be sorry. Be proud!” Emilia buried her face in the demon’s neck. Her words ran down and tears flowed from Emilia’s cheeks. Coriander and peppermint flowed over her nose as she breathed in Cary’s musk. “You saved me. I’m sorry I ran away, I’m sorry I said those things to you.” Emilia pulled away then. “And I’m sorry for the magic… I did something to you. Papa Butch showed me how, he said it saved your life?”
Cary’s eyes widened and misted with the promise of unshed tears. Through the link between them Emilia saw the veiled filth of hatred recede from Cary’s vision. “You did save my life. But you bound yourself to me forever. Do you understand that?”
“No, but I don’t care.” She grabbed Cary’s taloned hand, it felt softer than down and the long talons of her fingers like fine porcelain. “I mean, I care about you, but I don’t mind that we’re bound. Forever doesn’t seem that long to me.”
Cary sniffed and pulled Emilia down to her. “In truth, it doesn’t seem that long to me either. Thank you.”
This time they kissed each other. The only power that passed between them born of nascent desire and the joy of reunion.
* * *
“You’re sure that little bracelet will be enough?” Cary asked Papa Butch for the third time while they packed their things. “Cynthia’s master is extremely powerful and the hateful witch has buckets of Emilia’s blood.”
Papa Butch waved Cary’s question off with the same mysterious smile as the first two times she’d asked. “Yes, child…”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Cary rolled her eyes. “You know I’m older that you. Hells, I’m older than most of human civilization and your Loa.”
Those words earned Cary a hearty laugh from Papa Butch. “And yet you need the assistance of some young whipper snapper like me to do magic for you.”
Any frown Cary could muster would be virtually meaningless directed at this old man. Not only did he speak the truth, but he’d saved both Cary and Emilia more times than Cary deserved. “You know I still owe you, right?”
Papa Butch raised an eyebrow at Cary and gave a Gallic shrug. “Perhaps. You keep my baby alive through what’s coming and I will owe you, child.”
Shivers rolled through Cary at Papa Butch’s words. “What have you seen?”
He flicked his gaze to the bracelet in Cary’s hands. “That little charm will stop Cynthia, for a time. The presence of the Cabal will stop her for the rest. But Emilia needs to learn to control her power or Cynthia will find a way to control her.” He raised his hands and shook his head. “Now, them’s the Loa’s words or I’m a painted lady. But…” the mirth drained from his face, “…the Loa say that there’s another dark cloud swirling ahead. A relic from your past, something you won’t recognize until the danger is upon you. Make sure Emilia learns to deal with demons before anything else. Insist on it and if the Cabal drags their feet, you teach her yourself, you got me?”
In the face of such a portent Cary had no choice but to commit the words to her indelible memory and strike the intention firmly upon her heart.
* * *
Pain. For a pregnant, howling eternity, all Samantha knew was pain. Her world burned, the surface of her skin scoured by molten metal and pierced with shards of glass lined with neurotoxins. No other emotion, regret, rage, or even sorrow, could penetrate the mind encompassing agony of her existence.
A pale white hand, clad in the finest silver lace reached for her and Samantha experienced the first jolt of emotion other than pain. Instead of grasping for her finger tips, the argent hand moved past her arms and took hold of her face. The voice that owned that hand reverberated through Samantha’s skull. “You failed me, servant.”
Samantha burbled over the link, begging her mistress for forgiveness, the chance to redeem herself. But the angelic presence possessed no mercy, would offer no way for the fallen sorceress to restore her life. All she could utter was one word, one syllable. “Please?”
And the response was equally monosyllabic: “No.”
When the hand retreated, the agony returned. Where the brief soothing caress of the angel’s hand passed, the fires and cutting glass burned more intensely than before. Searing and slicing had long ago left her tear ducts hollow, dry as her mistress’s heart. The link that had connected Samantha to the angel fell dead in a moment, severed from the angel’s end as a final decree of her displeasure.
Samantha could not say how much time passed before a second being entered into her presence. Unlike her angelic patron, this being possessed a palpable darkness. It drew the fire and biting shards into itself as black holes consumes light. A tendril, a sliver of the being’s mighty aura reached out and lapped at Samantha’s thigh. “You failed your former master.”
What could Samantha say other than the truth? “Yes.”
“What would you give for a second chance, a chance at freedom and a path to escape your present torment?” The voice injected streams of oil and acid into Samantha’s veins with its question, as if she needed a reminder that her world was painted and layered by woe.
“Anything!” If she could have kowtowed and pled, she would have. But this mental communication allowed only words to pass. “Please.”
“Your soul?”
Two short syllables. Simple and yet absolutely final. Samantha owned nothing now, from a position of power at the height of a rogue occult order to here, yet she still possessed the one thing that mattered, the lone portion of herself that over the decades she’d managed to keep inviolate. But the pain was too much. Who could refuse such an offer amidst a sea of brazen torments? Samantha filled her own head with excuses as she responded to the voice. “Yes.”
“Then it is done. Give yourself to me, Melezereth, and I will free you from this hell.”
“Yes.”
“You promise me your soul?” The formula always required three confident repetitions. No mortal was ever truly tricked out of their essence, not after a third firm acknowledgment. As if Melezereth sensed her hesitation, he added. “I will give you a chance at revenge against those who wronged you: the Cabal, the demon, and the witch.”
That was all Melezereth had to say.
“Yes.”