Emilia packed her sparse number of personal belongings into a bag while Betsy kept watch at the doorway.
“I think you’re overreacting.” Betsy folded her arms over her chest and cocked her head to the side. “You don’t even know if he was associated with the Cabal.”
Emilia waved Betsy’s words away like flies. “Yeah, right. Dressed like he stepped out of a steampunk novel, knowledge of empowered herbs, and oh yeah, full of magic that my own stupid powers responded to. What are the chances, right?”
Betsy rolled her eyes and peered at Emilia. “According to Cynthia, Austin and most larger cities are filled with potential magicians and witches. We’re not that special, Em.”
“Maybe. Or do you just not want me to leave?”
“Fuck no, I don’t want you to go…”
Betsy and Emilia froze as the door to the sales floor downstairs opened with a creak. Emilia tossed her go bag under her bed and made ready to walk back down the hallway with Betsy as if nothing were happening.
When Max’s face appeared at the head of the stairs, Emilia couldn’t help but let out an explosive sight. “Max, you scared the shit out of us…”
“She’s here. I just saw her pull the Deathboat around. You have seconds.”
At least he didn’t bury the lead. Emilia tossed her bag under her bed and raced downstairs to the sales floor. Escaping Cynthia’s porcine clutches terrified her. But nowhere near as much as the fear of being caught mid-escape. If Emilia got away from Mystical Wonders, maybe Cynthia would never find her. Maybe she would give up and stop chasing after Emilia one day. But if she found Emilia trying to flee, then she might kill Emilia as a lesson to Max and his sister. Hell, the fat evil cow might punish those two in Emilia’s stead.
When Cynthia burst into the sales floor, she smacked the door hard enough to leave a dent in the wall behind. Emilia and the others jumped, but that was the natural reaction to someone slamming into the room like that.
Cynthia’s eyes bugged out of her head, far enough they almost hit her grimy glasses. But she surveyed the room with a slow turn of her head and didn’t seem to find anything amiss. After a further moment’s regard, she grumbled something and left the sales floor.
Betsy, Max, and Emilia gathered near the cash register and waited at least a minute. Max scoffed at the other two and walked over to the employee-only door and flipped it open to reveal no one standing behind the door with their ear pressed to the wood. “We can talk people.”
“What the hell do you think was wrong with her?” Betsy spoke first, eyeing the door that blocked off the stairs.
“Who knows? She’s been keyed up since…” Max cut himself off with a piteous wince in Emilia’s direction.
“Don’t mind me. I know what I did.” Emilia felt small and pathetic right then. Cynthia had that effect on her.
Betsy slapped Max’s arm. “We should keep up appearances anyway. She’s likely to pull at least one Crazy Cynthia this afternoon.”
Right. Emilia drifted back to the register and counted out the till. When she realized she’d added the strange spell caster’s cash to the till, Emilia wanted to slap herself. With the Mandrake still here, the till would be several hundred dollars over.
Cynthia would ask about that.
Pulling the hundreds out in wads, Emilia’s waved Betsy over. “Hey.” Emilia pointed to the hundreds. “What should we do with this?”
Betsy’s eyes widened and she nodded. “Good catch, Em. That would have gotten us in a mess of trouble, huh?”
“Right? Do we tell the Wicked Witch or do we hide it?”
Betsy narrowed her eyes, licked her lips, and turned in place as if she were using some form of super-vision to pinpoint the ideal hiding spot. “I’m not sure. I think we should leave it down here…”
As she spoke, a figure slammed against the glass storefront ahead of them. A pulse and a tug informed Emilia at a glance this was the demon she’d summoned to murder Cynthia. But the woman looked odd, as if her body had been torn apart and reassembled wrong.
“What the actual fuck!?” Max ran for a broom as the demoness — Cary — stumbled toward the door.
People who passed by her wrecked form walked on faster than they had before they’d noticed her. Betsy and Max both approached the woman as she fell onto the floor ahead of them.
“Help me!” The woman raised her head as if trying to speak one more time, but then collapsed onto the rubber mat at the store’s entrance.
“Fuck me!” Emilia pointed to Cary’s body. “That’s the demon, Cary, guys.”
“What the fuck do we do with her?” Max stopped himself short before touching the demoness with the end of his broom.
Betsy held her hand on Max’s shoulder as if to keep him from approaching Cary too close. “What the fuck are you going to do with that, Max?”
Emilia ignored them while she stared down at the demon and considered her options. The people outside had moved on with extreme haste, their lizard brains recognized the existential threat someone in Cary’s shape might pose to them. But that threat wouldn’t stop those people from calling the police or crossing the street for a “safer” view.
“Get her out of the foyer and upstairs.” Emilia’s voice carried a strange note of command, aping Cynthia as she ordered her two friends around.
Neither Max nor Betsy moved to obey Emilia, her tone had clearly been off. Fearing she wouldn’t be able to drag Cary off, Emilia tried anyway. The demoness’s body was surprising light, as if her bones were hollow.
“Thank you.” Cary’s head lolled as she surveyed the shop while hanging from Emilia’s arms. Choking down a cry of surprise, Emilia shushed the demon as they reached the employee only door.
“Max, at least check for the Evil.” He hopped to at Cary’s orders.
Betsy followed, approaching Cary with more than a hint of caution. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
Emilia lowered her voice and shook her head. “This is a terrible idea. But, I don’t know. We can’t leave her in the middle of the shop for Cynthia to find. That would raise all of the wrong questions.”
Betsy bit her lip, stared back at the shop and then up the stairs. “If you’ve got her, then I am going to watch the store and cover in case Cynthia comes down here.”
“Good plan.” Emilia winked at her friend. “Thanks Bets.”
Max grabbed Cary’s feet and they carried her up the stairs in tandem. Only once they reached the top did Max shift position in order to check the hallway for Cynthia. He gave the all clear and they shuffled up to Emilia’s bedroom. No room of this compound was really safe or secure. But the bedrooms at least had doors that closed and as far as Emilia knew, Cynthia wasn’t on the warpath to search their things at the moment.
Cary had lost consciousness in the time they’d taken her up the stairs. That couldn’t be a good sign. Emilia knew very little about demons, considering she’d summoned one. But she didn’t know if they slept like normal people or if the loss of consciousness meant Cary would die.
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For that matter, she didn’t even know how to help Cary in the first place. But Emilia took each problem in order. First she hid Cary on her own bed, tucked under the covers like a dummy intended to trick the parents of the kids on TV into thinking they were home. Second, she ushered Max out of her room in case Cynthia appeared in the hallway.
He raced down the stairs and Emilia considered the final bit of her plan. Something was definitely wrong with Cary. As far as Emilia could tell, Cary breathed. But her body looked as if she’d broken it in several places, like she’d fallen into a car compactor. What could do that to Cary, Emilia had not the slightest clue. She certainly didn’t want to meet it, whatever it was.
At that thought, Emilia realized that Cary’s appearance would put her, Betsy and the others, in even more trouble than they’d been in with just the Cabal hunting them. Emilia’s only hope was that the wards Cynthia laid on the building to “keep the nosy out” protected Cary.
No one came thundering down the hallway and into Emilia’s room. As far as she could tell, their guardian and tormentor did not know anything untoward had happened.
Good. Emilia flipped through occult texts on her shelves for demons as she thought about Cynthia. Most of what Emilia had collected were more encyclopedic than specific studies. But she’d found a decent text on Demonology a few months ago. According to it, summoned demons didn’t suffer injury outside of the Infernim. Whether that applied to Cary or not was another matter entirely. The text didn’t have anything about healing demons.
The lack of information specifically about Cary’s condition didn’t deter Emilia. There were other ways she might be able to help. One of those methods was in her book. The details of the process gave Emilia pause.
According to her book, the demon she’d summoned fed on Emilia’s energy, as well as a plethora of potential sources. With Cary asleep, the other sources didn’t apply. Furthermore, the book seemed to indicate that proximity to Emilia might help Cary. It didn’t say specifically what that entailed, though apparently summoned demons often preferred direct skin-to-skin contact.
Emilia swallowed and stared at Cary. She was beautiful, but Emilia didn’t want to force herself on the demoness. Right now, whatever afflicted her marred Cary’s incredible perfection; an ancient vase restored to shape with superglue and pieces missing.
Crawling into her own bed had never made Emilia this nervous before. She stayed over the covers, with a layer of cloth separating herself from Cary to show a measure of respect and privacy. Emilia kept a mental lock on her obnoxious magical powers. Their immediate effects appeared to be the opposite of what she intended for Cary.
The demoness stirred as Emilia lay down next to her, but she didn’t open her eyes, and her body didn’t right itself. Emilia didn’t have any other options. Nothing else in her book suggested a way to help Cary that didn’t involve blood. Besides, those required her being awake.
Fear thundering through her chest, Emilia wondered why she was doing this in the first place. Trouble had dogged her relentlessly since summoning Cary. Technically, nothing bad that happened had happened because of Cary, but that hardly changed the facts. Maybe her demon was cursed and Emilia suffered from some secondary effect related to the demon’s affliction this whole time.
Emilia found it hard to hold onto to that belief as she stared at Cary’s furrowed brow. The demoness shifted under Cary’s sheets as if warding off some dark figure from her imagination. Over the course of her short life, Emilia had learned to recognize the mask Cary wore. Betsy and Max had displayed it often enough, but mostly Emilia had seen it in the mirror, superimposed over her own face.
She did the thing she wished someone would do for her. Emilia brushed the loose strands of golden hair from Cary’s forehead and whispered into her ear. “Everything will be okay now.” The act hurt in a way Emilia had never imagined it would. A lance through her chest where the muscles tightened and tried to lock up, an ache in her back where Cynthia preferred to lower the bar, and a tick in Emilia’s jaw where she’d learned to clench it to keep from screaming all combined to bend Emilia around Cary.
Then the power flooded out of her.
Its escape bowed Emilia’s back. If not for her clenched jaw, she might have screamed as wind flowed over Emilia’s skin and swirled into Cary like a vortex. The sheets heated up as if Emilia had just removed them from the dryer and Cary’s small movements turned frantic and almost wild. Emilia couldn’t hold on or cling to Cary with her own body spasming. It didn’t seem to matter.
Cary’s eyes fluttered open and the irises shifted between slitted cat-like pupils, each a different color than the other, to the squares of goats, and finally to something closer to human. The colors danced and played about as if glowing balls bounded from eye to eye. The demoness stared at Emilia like she’s turned into a fine cut of meat.
“Accept me?” The question ripped itself from Cary’s throat as she lifted her hands to Emilia’s face.
“I just want you to be okay!” Cary tried to keep her voice low in the moment, but she had trouble with her power flooding out of her.
“Accept me.” Cary’s tone changed and something shifted low and deep within Emilia. The demoness’s question had been loaded down with meaning. Emilia nodded at her, but Cary rasped, “you have to say it.”
Emilia felt Cary’s pain, like a backwash from the energy connection between them. She wanted nothing more than to ease the agony wracking itself through Cary’s body. “Yes.”
“Kiss me.” Cary’s voice grew low and dark, reaching into the secret parts of Emilia’s body and stroking them with its heady tones.
“Um, okay?” Emilia leaned forward and closed her eyes. She’d kissed Betsy and Max before this was perfectly normal…
Cary grabbed her through the sheets, wrapping her in a double embrace as she made contact with Emilia’s lips. The demoness tasted of smoke and soil, of concrete and chrysanthemum. Her body shifted under Emilia’s grip as her tongue probed at the walls of Emilia’s teeth. Admitting the penitent, Emilia dropped the last of her resistance.
This time the power flow curled her toes as it lit her nerves aflame with pleasure. Magical energy flickered between the two, building each time it passed through the other’s body. By the time Emilia lost all sense of her room and the passage of time, the energy towered over her bed, grew higher than the building she’d slept in her entire life. It pounded through the halls of Emilia’s home, there it found Max and Betsy, lent them a fraction of its potential.
Where Cynthia should have been, Emilia found a blank circle. As if her power shuttled her senses around on its crest, she could see Cynthia huddled in a circle beseeching an alien power for aid. The sight of the woman’s nude body brought bile to Emilia’s throat. That was an image she would have preferred to never see.
And with that final intrusion, her power swirled back into her body, splitting itself between Cary and her own skin. As it did, Cary’s first tentative probing reached Emilia’s tongue. They split apart and Emilia found herself in bed with a gorgeous crimson-skinned woman with blazing golden locks of hair. Cary’s face hardly changed, though the asymmetries and other defects of her form had been pounded out of her as if by the hand of a master sculptor.
Cary stared into Emilia’s eyes and licked her own lips. “It turns out my human has a potent gift.” She purred and stretched, avoiding hitting Cary with her muscular limbs. “Thank you.” The second kiss skirted the line between chaste and lascivious, and it was nothing more than a gentle peck on the cheek. “Your mortal mistress will certainly have sensed the disturbance in the flow of magic nearby. We should rise.”
Emilia stammered out her agreement. Though her body felt light and airy, healthier than she’d ever remembered, her mind would not let go of her natural timidity. Cary didn’t share in Emilia’s hangups. She slid out from under Cary’s sheets like water escaping a jug.
And she was entirely nude.
Emilia’s breath caught in her chest as she stared up at Cary. For all the demoness reacted, she might as well have been alone. But in the moment, Emilia’s eyes drank in the sight of Cary’s scarlet form. From the delicate feet and toes as they scrunched through Emilia’s worn carpet up her athletic legs. The twin mounds of flesh at the base of Cary’s spine demanded Emilia’s attention. How was she surrounded by lovely women with ideal asses? Cary’s back curved to support her ample chest and rippled, muscular back.
Cary shook herself, with made those muscles twitch and flick with coiled potential. She looked over her shoulder and grinned at Emilia. “You like what you see.”
“Um, no.”
Cary snorted. “I wasn’t asking. The desire is written across her whole body for any to observe.” She stalked to Emilia where she lay on her own bed. Raising a smooth red hand to Emilia’s cheek, Cary purred again. “I appreciate your regard. But for now I require clothing. And we should flee this place before your sorceress mistress escapes her own master.”
Emilia found herself nodding at Cary as she slid from her own bed. The demoness caught her and tilted her head as Emilia’s ear and neck pressed against her breasts. “You are power drunk? This may not end well.” Still clutching Emilia, Cary turned and walked toward her dresser. She knew where to find Emilia’s clothing, clucking her tongue at the selection.
Cary’s body shimmered as the ripples of muscle and flesh flowed down from her crown. The demoness shrank and her skin-tone took on something more appropriate for the climate, a light pale flesh like an apple. Her breasts and rump shrank while Emilia chided herself for staring too hard.
“What are you doing?” once Cary pointed it out, Emilia sounded drunk to herself. She giggled as Cary rolled her eyes and bent over to remove underwear and a bra from Emilia’s drawers. Along with delicates, Cary withdrew a pair of patched bluejeans Emilia had stopped wearing this year. They made her feel cheap for not possessing more sophisticated or expensive clothes.
Clucking at Emilia’s dizziness, Cary set her on the bed and dressed herself. She raised her nose and sniffed the air. “Cynthia approaches. Should I slay her for you now?”