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Or perhaps it is because I don’t feel a tell-tale presence following after me as I had felt lurking around Black Crow and Bell. Although I hadn’t felt any threat from it, its darkness had a weight to it and a familiarity that I couldn’t place that made me nervous. How had it even found me all the way from Blackspell’s manor? Or perhaps it hadn’t at all and the charged atmosphere around the shop and my own paranoia had just gotten to me. For a moment there, I thought I had felt it the moment I left the shop, as if it were a shadow that peeled off from the side of the building. But it had dissipated so quickly that I couldn’t even say for sure if it was my imagination or not. Either way, I’m humming a cheerful Halloween tune beneath my breath.
I jog up the steps to my porch and salute the jack-o’-lanterns as I unlock the door and duck inside. I flick the lock back in place and head toward the kitchen stripping off my witch’s hat and cloak and tossing them onto one of the two chairs set around the table. I’m still humming to myself as I put the kettle on the stove, pull out some apple cinnamon tea, and plop a teabag into my mug. I prop my hands on the counter and lean against it, stretching my back out as I roll my neck. I briefly consider calling Damon tonight and checking in with him, but then I recall that he's at the Hex Festival and don’t want to interrupt.
Maybe a movie?
I slowly straighten and brush my hands against my long black skirt. I pause mid-motion my head cocking as I hear a rap against my door. Strange. I had left a giant bowl of candy by the door and while it had looked pretty decimated there had still been enough to satisfy any of the later arrivals. Unless there was a sudden spurt that escaped my attention?
Grabbing the bag of candy from the fridge, I pass back through the living room as I tear open the top. I guess my stash of peanut butter cups will have to be sacrificed. Oh well, I sure hope the kiddos enjoy them as much as I do. No matter, it seems that I get to give out some candy to a trick-or-treater after all.
“Happy Halloween—“I chirp brightly as I open the door only to bite back the greeting in shock as a very tall man grins at me.
No, this is not a man. Although he’s dressed as if he stepped right from a Renaissance party with his puff-sleeved doublet bearing its bold orange and black stripes complete with the elegant frill of his black collar and matching black cloak draping elegantly over him that drew the eye lower to his black stockings, his widely flared knee-length breeches, and elegant boots, there were dead giveaways that he was anything but human. Not with his strange deep gray coloring that bleeds into a deep charcoal hue of his hands and black claws. I might have tried to dismiss that as clever body paint but not even the best prosthetic horns looked like that, and the thick spikes that jutted from carefully hemmed slits in his doublet were all too real. Something curls suggestively by his leg, and I jump, clutching the ridiculous chocolate to me as I stare wide-eyed at his long tail with its rounded, heart-shaped tip as it loops up into the air beside him. Two large black wings flex just beyond his shoulder, nearly invisible in the darker shadows at the back of my porch.
This is definitely not a man. This is a monster—a demon, and somehow, he found me.
His red eyes glow and he grins wider, displaying his sharp teeth. “Happy Halloween, my pet,” he growls, and the inhuman sound sends a tremble through me that I can decide whether it’s desire or utter terror.
Chapter 7
“This is not possible,” I whisper, my eyes darting down to the jack-o’-lanterns. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be able to stand there beside my wards like that.
His eyes follow the direction of my gaze, and he chuckles softly. “Oh, my love. Did you think that you would be able to hide from me behind them? It is an applaudable attempt except one tiny detail—well, they are not even real.”
With the toe of his boot, he kicks over the nearest pumpkin, sending the battery-operated candle tumbling onto the ground. I curse silently to myself as I watch his foot come down on the flickering bulb, brushing it beneath his heel. I should have known the damn thing was going to be useless. As a last-ditch effort, I throw the entire bag of candy at his face, surprising another deep laugh from him as I spin around to grab my autumn spice air freshener sitting on the shelves I’ve set up by the doorway. I unload the can at him as I toss the mixture in the bowl still sitting there from when I refreshed my wards this morning.
He’s no longer laughing and I’m not sure whether to feel victorious or afraid as his hands shoot up to his eyes. He slashes a hand through the air in front of him and the ground mixture suddenly bursts from his body in a cloud as he pins me with an affronted look. He barges forward, his hand snagging around my wrist, drawing me up short. He pulls me with him into my house and a scream of shock tears from my lips as the familiarity of my living room melts away as a dark shadow fills it, leaving black stone walls and elegant tables set with candelabras glowing with lit candles on every surface. He dashes at his eyes as he walks, muttering beneath his breath as he walks. I’m certain at first that he’s cursing until I feel a cool rush of healing energy curl around him.
“You shouldn’t be able to do this,” I protest, my words garbled as I’m dragged after him, my head shaking roughly in denial. “The spices should have deterred you. At very least the cinnamon and ginger.”
He scoffs but doesn’t slow down as he continues to walk at a clipped pace through the rapidly expanding room. It no longer even vaguely resembles my apartment but a large study of some sort, the deeply shadowed walls heavily lined with shelves of books.
“Cinnamon and ginger,” he growls, and he shakes his head. “Don’t be absurd. It would keep out harmful and vengeful spirits of the dead, maybe an undetermined fairy or two, but it hardly does any good against my kind. As it happens, a full day in your world has been a revelation. I like pumpkin pies and the odd coffees you drink that smell so strongly of it.”
Well, damn, I guess sucking down all those lattes did next to no good.
I tug at my wrist in mute protest of being dragged any farther and to my surprise he lets go and stalks over to a decanter to pour ruby red liquid into a goblet. His eyes lift briefly to eye me before returning to his task as he fills a second goblet that I could’ve sworn wasn’t there just a moment ago. I stare at the cups of liquid for a long moment before my gaze finally tears away from them and flits around the room. There is a luxury to this space and within the shadows a hint of something akin to technology that looked familiar to things I am accustomed to. More than anything the appearance of the room teases something in my memory that I can’t grasp, and I stare harder as I peer at my surroundings, trying to decipher them.
