Cary stood at the door of the small cottage staring between the shades. Night had darkened the skies an hour earlier, but Emilia couldn’t sleep. Beside her, Betsy snored and tossed as if she struggled with something in her dreams. Emilia patted her head and whispered to her. “You’re safe. The demon and I are protecting you.” At once, Betsy’s restlessness eased and she relaxed.
When Emilia turned back to the door, Cary had her eyes fixed on her. As if she hadn’t expected Emilia to turn around so quickly, she averted her eyes and directed her attention back to the darkness outside. For a moment, Emilia considered leaving it alone. But something in her gut twisted at the thought that Cary wasn’t searching the night for intruders, but for a glimpse of Regina.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Cary started at Emilia’s question and turned back to stare at them.
“Betsy?” Cary shrugged. “I mean, she’s okay. But I do not believe she’s interested in women.”
Emilia snorted and rose out of the bed, a pale white nightgown wrapped about her in the dark of the room. “No, I meant Regina. That’s who you’re looking for out there, right?”
Cary tilted her head and then shook it, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her then. “She’s definitely interested, but only as a lark. I would be nothing more than a notch in her mattress. Her real interests lie with men, though she’s not afraid to experiment and is more than interested in carving that notch.”
Emilia gritted her teeth. “What about you, it doesn’t sound like you’d really mind being a trophy fuck, right?”
Cary kept her gaze out on the gardens outside. “Of course not. She is beautiful as you said. And my tastes are… expansive. I disdain only the unwilling and the immature…”
Whatever else Cary was going to say was lost to Emilia as she shoved past her. “Oh yeah, well then, fuck you!” She was louder than she meant to be. But Emilia’s swirling confusion of emotions had settled on something useful: anger.
After kissing Emilia, after binding their power together, Cary wanted to go and sex up anyone and everyone with a bit of interest? She could indeed go get fucked, Emilia wished every STI on the planet over Cary’s head as she darted into the night.
Cary started to follow her, but Emilia whirled on her. “No! You led me on, bound me up, and now you want to fuck Regina? I don’t understand you and I don’t care! Piss off, bitch!”
The anger shone bright in Emilia’s mind. It burned away the fear and the jealousy. It burned away the worry that her presence would only lead to hurt for the people she cared about. It tried to burn away the persistent attraction she felt toward Cary, the allure the demoness had hooked into Emilia’s heart. But that was made of sterner stuff than mere anger could blast away.
Wandering into the night alone wasn’t the best choice. Emilia knew that in her soul. Too much danger lurked around her for this to be a good idea. But she needed physical distance from Cary and her unreliable libido. Looking back, Cary’s eyes reflected twin flashes of light at Emilia, as if the demoness were tracking her despite the darkness.
That gaze only infuriated Emilia more. It drove her deeper into the night. By the time the atmosphere changed and Emilia couldn’t see the cottage or Papa Butch’s greenhouses, Emilia realized she’d wandered too far.
In the distance, cars streamed over I-35, trucks and travelers chugged along their courses. Their endless progression toward only god knew where sounded like mockery of grackles to Emilia’s ears. Only when she heard the actual chuckling did the anger and shame dissipate like mist before the sun. Fear took their place in her heart as a trio of black-cloaked people approached her from behind a series of hills.
“I told you the mousey-haired girl was the demon’s weakness, Samantha.” A man’s voice cut through the sound of the cars over the highway and chilled Emilia’s bones. “A drop of Rainier’s Jealousy and she came right to us. The old priest didn’t even notice the effect.”
A woman patted the cowled figure on his head. “You were right, Mathias. I owe you a quarter.” She dropped the hood of her cloak and stepped into the moonlight. Her face was surprisingly normal considering the sinister tone of her voice. Emilia opened her mouth to scream, but the woman made a curt gesture with her hand and cut Emilia off by seizing her vocal chords. “None of that now. I would guess your demoness, as compassionate as she pretends to be, is acting wracked with guilt and self-loathing at the moment. If you scream, she might come running. We’re not quite ready for that.” The woman snapped her fingers. “Take her, Mathias and see that she’s well-restrained.”
Emilia’s muscles largely refused to answer her. But as the man trussed her up, she managed to scrawl “Samantha” into the dirt with her toe. Based on what she knew of Cary, she would be able to track Emilia through the night. There was nothing else Emilia could do as the hooded figures finished tying her up and carried her off between them.
They dragged her off to a group of black suburbans parked a quarter of a mile away from the Voodoo Gardens. Emilia was a bit surprised at how far she’d managed to run considering how short her run had been. She cursed herself for the weakness of her will and her own stupidity. Looking back, she could see how her attitude leading up to dinner had been the result of a spell. She had to wonder if Cary was even as attracted to Regina as Emilia had imagined.
Cary acted surprised at the accusation. And Emilia had not even given her a chance to defend herself. It might have been the hostile magic acting on her will, but her behavior brought shame to her face. Cary had been cool at times, and her attitude a bit confusing to Emilia. But based on what Betsy said, she’d been utterly devoted to Emilia, after she returned from running away, after she’d kissed Emilia the way she had.
A part of them was connected on a spiritual level. Cary had said it herself, hadn’t she? They were bound as master and servant. If Emilia weren’t so incompetent at magic, she could have alerted Cary to her capture, let her know where she’d been taken. But she only knew one spell, the invisibility spell Cary had taught her and it wouldn’t do any good here. They’d tied her up and could easily find her by groping with their hands. Emilia didn’t want to give these cultists, or whatever they were, further excuses to touch her.
The road rumbled by beneath the floor of the car. Grackle calls transformed into the steady grind of tar, grease, and rubber. Once they had her in the suburban, the cultists fell silent, as if they could further cow Emilia by robbing her of their words.
Once they dropped her on the floorboards of the car, Emilia found she could speak. “Want are you doing with me? Where are you taking me?”
A mocking scoff answered her. “Whatever we want, wherever we want little magpie.”Long-nailed fingers reached out from the seat ahead. They ran over her face and hair, as if scent marking her. “Do not think we will be so crass as to reveal our grand design to you. Your only purpose here is to draw your demon to us and to die when we decide. If we kill you before she arrives, the demon will know and that simply won’t do.”
“Cowards.” Emilia found a bit of her courage and spat out the insult as the woman stopped speaking.
“Perhaps, though I consider us opportunists and hunters more than anything else.” The nails bit into Emilia’s cheek. “Do not think yourself safe just because we wish to draw your mistress to our trap. There is a good deal we could do to you that would not require your end.”
With that threat, the nails ripped at Emilia’s skin, drawing blood. She sucked in air as the woman brought her hand back to the front of the cabin. Blood fresh from her body could be used in several ways, many of which Emilia had recently learned about. The woman surely cut her to that end. Emilia bit her lip and tried to look out the windows, to see where they were taking her.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
But her captors had foreseen that possibility and covered the windows so Emilia was left to wonder and worry.
Whatever they intended to do couldn’t be that much worse than what Cynthia had done on a daily basis. She dared them to do their worst, though not aloud. Those taunts she kept to herself.
Sleep eluded Emilia, though she hadn’t slept naturally and fully in days. Too much adrenaline poured through her body to let her sleep. Exhaustion set it, but sleep hung just outside of her grasp. When the suburban stopped, Emilia braced herself, but the voice from the front of the car, Samantha, ordered her to leave the vehicle and stand in place once done.
Emilia’s body complied without commands from her brain. As if Samantha’s voice had wired itself directly into Emilia’s spine, she pulled herself out of the suburban door, which opened on its own and out onto the concrete floor outside. She stood swaying back and forth, unable to do anything she wasn’t otherwise ordered to do.
Samantha emerged dress in a dark maroon power suit, gone was the obvious cultist garb. She looked Emilia up and down and snapped her finger. “Hop on one leg.”
Again, Emilia immediately complied, unable to do anything but what the woman ordered her to do. One thing she did notice as the woman snapped at her again and told her to stop, one of her fingernails glittered with a fresh red dot of blood. With as much time as past, it should not have been so fresh or ruddy. And the snap should have flung the droplet of blood away from Samantha’s middle finger the first or second time she did it. It had to have something to do with the control Samantha inflicted on Emilia, though she could only guess how the woman did it.
“Put on these clothes and be quick about it.” Snap. Emilia had the urge to reach out and jam those fingers backwards against their joints. Samantha handed Emilia a nicer suit and skirt than she’d ever worn in her life, complete with three hundred dollar heels. The whole outfit was dark green, including the shoes. Emilia slipped on a pair of panty hose over her bare bottom. Those were the only piece Samantha handed her that wasn’t green.
“Eyes up front.” Samantha snapped again and pointed to her own eyes with her other hand. Emilia’s gaze locked with Samantha’s. “Tell me your Demon’s True Name. Right now.” Snap. Emilia looked forward to breathing those fingers.
Her body shook with the effort to comply with Samantha’s order. She didn’t know Cary’s True Name, though she knew that Cary had withheld it. As a result, she couldn’t follow Samantha’s order. As her body struggled with the contradiction, she could feel the woman’s control slipping. The impossible command must have done something to the magic to render it ineffective.
“Stop. Do you know her True Name? Answer me.” These snaps were already getting old.
“I do not know Cary’s True Name.” Emilia spoke again, without giving her body any specific instructions.
“Fine. Follow me and do not speak further until I tell you to.” Samantha spun in her eight hundred dollar shoes and flicked her hand toward Emilia.
She followed Samantha up a flight of stairs and into a bustling office. Here and there people flitted out of or into cubicles. Some of them walked into tiny glass front offices or held meetings behind closed doors.
“Hey there Eileen!” A man wearing a cheap suit, clearly several levels of cost below Samantha’s, waved to the two of them. “This a new trainee?” He gave Emilia a hungry look, starting from her nearly non-existent chest down to her feet and back up.
“Oh yes, sorry Dave, but we’re in a rush to meet with the man upstairs. You understand.” Samantha — or Eileen — winced and gave a curt bow as if she were truly apologetic that she couldn’t stop to chat. Emilia had to admire the woman’s capacity for deception. In Emilia’s life, she’d never possessed the acting chops Samantha did.
Samantha unlocked an elevator with a key tied around her wrist. Until the jingling movement drew Emilia’s eyes, she hadn’t noticed the ring there. Once they were in the elevator, Samantha flashed Emilia a knowing smirk. “You’d be surprised how many of the fortune 500 are really covers for organizations of wizards.”
It was the only real piece of information Samantha had given Emilia so far. And it didn’t amount to much. Downstairs, there was an entire floor of people working who probably had no idea who they really worked for. How many of them had suffered under Samantha’s control the way Emilia did? That was an idle question if ever there was. Even if Emilia confirmed that every officer worker below was controlled by Samantha, what would that do for her?
“If you’re thinking they might be able to help you, don’t.” Samantha sniffed disdainfully down toward the workers. “Each one of them is beyond disposable. If we ever had the cause, we would sacrifice each and every one of them for a few dollars. Heck, we do that anyway even though we don’t need the money.”
Samantha hadn’t permitted Emilia to speak, so she didn’t say or do anything by way of reply. Emilia had nothing to say anyway. The only reason she could fathom Samantha would say was to intimidate her.
The elevator took longer to ascend to the top floor than Emilia would have imagined. At the top, rather than the usual thin carpet and equally thin walls, a dark misty hallway made of mottled wrought iron yawned before Emilia. As the compulsion Samantha had placed on her remained in effect, Emilia followed her silently. Samantha hadn’t said not to look around, so Emilia studied the edges of the floor and the corners of the ceiling. Nothing presented itself that Emilia could use against her captors. But she could still check. Otherwise she would never know.
As she walked deeper into the hall, impossibly far considering how short their walk in the lower floors had been, magic grew thick and heavy in the air. It permeated the surfaces beneath her heels and the walls just beyond her touch. A nagging feeling of trepidation warned her away from touching any part of the structure with bare hands. Emilia couldn’t tell if that effect came from the magic or from within, a feeling of foreboding intended to protect her from doing something foolish.
Foolish like running away from Cary.
Emilia chided herself for the first time since she’d left the suburban under Samantha’s control. If Cary had been here… Samantha didn’t appear to fear Cary exactly. She definitely intended to lure Cary in using Emilia as bait. A ruse that would have failed if not for the pit of ugly jealousy in Emilia’s heart.
Jealous of Regina and Cary?
The thought of her own envy sickened her as much as the thought of Regina stealing Cary away or vice versa. Cary’s casual attitude about and insight into Regina’s feelings stunned Emilia now that her mind was clear. Regina preferred men, but wanted to experiment with women. The thought would have been… arousing if not for Emilia’s present circumstances.
Not one door appeared on the left or right as they walked down the hallway for minutes. Samantha never once turned her head to check on Emilia’s progress, confident that her charge would follow no matter what happened. Based on her brief experience, Emilia thought Samantha’s confidence reasonable and unfair.
At last they reached a doorway at the end of the interminably long hall. Runes traced the edges of the door, gliding over and down as if they matched the non-existent doorjamb. Samantha traced her finger over that edge, skipping runes too quickly for Emilia to track. As Samantha did so, whole lines of runic carvings lit up and seemed to glow with ironically dark invitation.
Emilia didn’t want to enter that room. Everything in her body fought against the contents of that room as the door slid open. Until then, the hallways have smelled neural, with a faint tang of iron in the air from the rust. But once the door cracked, the sewage reek of incontinence assaulted her nose and watered her eyes. Over the years, Emilia had grown familiar with that reek, often from her own abuse-based evacuations. This room carried the odor of dozens of Emilia’s own soiled regrets.
Gagging uncontrollably, yet without speaking a word, Emilia stumbled into the room after Samantha. Oozing bits of glistening filth ran down the halls here and the floor squished under Emilia’s feet.
A woman, taller than Samantha with a golden cast to her skin sat at the desk across from her. She folded her hands and pale white wings as she leaned toward the newcomers. The woman’s gold trimmed suit and white shawl were the only unsoiled parts of the room. Lacking orders to the contrary from Samantha, Emilia covered her nose and mouth as she followed the other woman.
“Samantha? This the bait?” The woman’s voice rang with echoes, as if she spoke with three or more mouths that Emilia could not see. Spikes penetrated Emilia’s mind at the sound of the woman’s voice. Her nose began to bleed and the woman’s eyes widened. “What do we have here?”
Samantha turned and gasped in shock at Emilia’s response. “You twisted little…”
“Samantha, silence please.” The angel didn’t snap her fingers or speak above a triple-throated whisper. Yet Samantha complied as surely as if the angel possessed a drop of her blood too. “Turn the child’s control over to me and leave us.”
Emilia was still forbidden to speak, but she wanted to beg them both not to leave her alone with this white-clad woman. Though her eyes were pale white, lacking pupil or iris, Emilia saw within them a worse monster than Cynthia. Emilia’s Godmother tortured them because she enjoyed it, because it fit the twisted purposes of discipline and pleasure. But this angel would torture Emilia out of curiosity, but only at first. Those eyes told Emilia a frightening truth: that angel would torture her because she believed it would help Emilia. Exhaustion, sickness, maybe even death, none of those would bar the angel from what she believed to be her sacred duty. Compared to the twisted mind behind those white eyes, Cynthia seemed downright motherly.
A flash in her chest burned Emilia’s attention back to Samantha as she leaned forward and handed the Angel something too small for Emilia to make out from here. The angel nodded and faced her. “Do not leave this room until you are told.” She faced Samantha with the same penetrating eyes. “Leave and do not disturb us Samantha. Do not return until I call for you.”
No one had told her not to speak, not to make noise. Emilia screamed as Samantha shut the door behind her. The angel just cocked her head to the right as if she’d expected that reaction.