Page 40 of Hexes From Exes

They fell asleep like that almost instantly.

Chapter Sixteen

Rick couldn’t make sense of what happened last night.

No, not the sleeping with Stephanie thing - that made total sense. Perfect sense.

It was what happened during sex. One minute, he was plowing into her, having the best sex of his life. The next, he felt his skin tingle with the telltale sensation of magic. Magic! From nowhere!

But why? How? Was it just because he and Stephanie had a deal, one that he’d let sit by the wayside in exchange for spending time with her and then fucking her? That was the only thing that made sense. All deals ended in demons collecting magic. Usually, it was in the form of their soul or whatever else the person bargained in order to get their revenge. Rick would then take that magic to the demonic council, who would add it to the stores to distribute to the population. Rick got to keep a little for himself as payment, which he could use to buy things or add to his own life or health.

That must be it. It was payment, delivered directly into him instead of in a form he could bring back.

The alternative – that having sex with humans gave demons magic – would make no sense. If that were true then it wouldn’t be forbidden. Demons and humans interacted very little over the last century after the possessions were reigned in. Rick doubted he was the first demon to have sex with a human, in fact he knew he wasn’t. The human myths from before Christianity involved human interactions with demons, and they were often mistaken for gods. They sometimes had children together. Of course, this was taught with absolute disgust in school. It was an affront to nature, a sign of a weak population of demons. The current demons were smarter, more civilized.

But the current demons also didn’t live as long.

Rick couldn’t stop thinking about this as he left Stephanie the next morning. When her eyes flickered opened and he stared down at her beautiful face all he could think about was when he could come back. He kissed her, loving how soft her mouth felt against his. She didn’t even shy away from his true form. In fact, she demanded he shed his human magic to look like his normal self. That’s all it took for him to turn his reservations off. She wanted him as he was, not how he looked as a human.

Rick knew better than to portal from her condo. It was bad enough he’d broken multiple laws last night, the last thing he needed was to bring any attention to where he was. So, he turned on his human disguise and wandered through the empty streets of Phoenix until he found a secure location and portaled back to Anathamea. In the meantime, he puzzled over what he was feeling. The magic that coursed through his veins was more than he’d ever held at any point in time. Was their deal that strong? Why was it directly in him?

Jerry was sitting at the helm of the portal as usual, his eyes widening as he saw Rick step through.

“Oh, hey, Rick,” Jerry said, his eyes darting around the platform.

“Morning, Jerry!” Rick greeted pleasantly. Nothing could bring his mood down, not even the weird portal keeper. Maybe he’d be able to get his laptop back from IT and go back to pretending to work. He’d made his decision, Stephanie was not the problem, those horrific human men were. Once he figured out an ideal counter curse, he’d turn their curse back on them. Forget lessening Stephanie’s punishment, he’d completely negate it.

Love someone she can’t have, hah! He could think of countless other ways this curse could play out. He just needed some time to figure out how he could spend more time in the human realm with Stephanie once he finalized the details of the new curse. He was puzzling over this when he heard his name, this time from a voice he didn’t recognize.

“Rick?” It was a male demon. Rick frowned and turned around, seeing a group of three enforcer demons. He looked around the nearly empty street. Surely they weren’t talking to him? He was just steps from his office anyway, what were they doing there?

“Me?” Rick asked.

The enforcer demons looked between each other, then nodded at him. “You’re Rick, aren’t you?”

“Of course, I’m Rick, who are you?” he retorted. It was a stupid question. All enforcer demons looked the same. Rick often wondered if they were all bred to be big, stupid, and strong. Good thing Rick was also big and strong and, he liked to think, not stupid.

“You need to come with us,” one said.

By now a small crowd was forming, including Zed, who was watching the development with horror. His eyes were a little bloodshot from the night before.

“What’s going on?” Zed asked, moving through the small crowd to the front.

“None of your business, go back to your work,” said another of the enforcer demons. He was easily twice the size of Zed.

“Don’t worry about me Zed, I’ll be back in the office this afternoon. It must be something stupid,” Rick added, glaring at the demons. “Lead the way, let’s get this over with.”

* * *

Rick, it turned out, was the stupid one.

The enforcer demons all grabbed him and portaled him – he didn’t even realize you could portal within Anathamea! – to a dark building that felt like it was underground. It was cold compared to the warmth the streets outside, clearly the eternal flames didn’t penetrate this deep. They let go of him with a shove, making him stumble a few feet.

“Hey, what the fuck?” he retorted. To his surprise, another of the demons grabbed his arm and secured his hands together with cuffs. Rick jerked, trying to break them, annoyed to find they were stronger than him.

“Rickaron,” said the enforcer demon, who clearly didn’t know Rick’s actual name.

He was glad he’d been smart enough to keep the full name off public records. His parents both told him to register with the demonic council with a name close to his real one, but not exactly the same. Giving the demonic council that much power wasn’t something his parents felt comfortable with. He never understood that until now. They only had power if you’d done something wrong, otherwise they wouldn’t hurt him. Right?