Free Claimed by Her Demon by Lili Detlev Page B

stacked each item on the floor.
    “Did you kill them?” she asked.
    “No. They’ll wake up with concussions and some broken bones, and think they went off the road. Their car is crumpled against a tree. But they had seatbelts and airbags, so they’ll live.” It opened the front pouch of her backpack and pulled out a simple cloth bag that was closed with a drawstring. “Well, well. What have we here?”
    Melinda swallowed hard.
    Her backpack dropped to the floor with a soft plop, and the creature worked open the bag. It chuckled as it pulled out a thick deck of tarot cards. “Beautiful,” it said, stepping closer to her. It held the deck up in front of her face. “There is much wisdom to be found in these pretty pictures. Tell me, my sweet, do you spend your time summoning creatures like me to do your dark bidding?”
    “I don’t even know what you are.”
    “Some of your kind would call me a demon.”
    “I don’t believe in summoning such things.”
    “Nevertheless, here I stand.”
    “If you’re here, it’s because you chose to come. I try to follow the Wiccan path. But I don’t believe in deities.”
    “Yet you consult an oracle like the tarot.”
    “It helps me to think and focus. And you said it yourself: the artwork is beautiful.”
    “And the spells you cast?”
    “I’m not a witch. I just like the simple spirituality of that belief system. I’m not perfect, and yeah, when I was a kid I played with Ouija boards and other silly games. I like wearing black and listening to Goth music. People make fun of my hair colors and my clothes. But these things make me happy. Nothing more, nothing less.”
    It stared at her for a bit more, and then seemed to come to some kind of a decision. It nodded once, and the chains dropped away from her limbs. But Melinda didn’t move a muscle.
    It held the deck out to her. “Will you read them for me?”
    She blinked. “I’m sorry?”
    “A reading. You know how to do a reading, yes?”
    “I, er, guess so. I mean, yes, I know how to do a reading. But….”
    “But?”
    She reached for the cards, taking comfort in their worn familiarity.
    “But I don’t even know your name.”
    “You may call me Ramael.”
    She sounded the name out slowly. “Rah-may-el? I’m Melinda. So, um, is there a table I can use?”
    “Follow me.”
    The house looked much less dilapidated now that it was lit with torchlight. There had to be some serious magic at work here. Melinda decided that she was still probably dead, or maybe dreaming, and wouldn’t believe otherwise until she was back on campus and talking to other people who could tell her that she was alive and whole. In the meantime, at least she wasn’t tied up or bound by chains. Whatever else happened, she was pretty sure she’d never be turned on by bondage again.
    The entered a small but elegant dining room. Or at least it was turning elegant. She caught a glimpse of it just as Ramael entered, and it seemed abandoned and crumbling. But by the time she stepped over the threshold, lights shone off of gleaming hardwood floors, and an elegant table appeared, surrounded by four high-backed chairs.
    “How did you do that?”
    Ramael gave her what appeared to be a smile. “The magic is not in the beauty, but in the illusion of ugliness.”
    “So this is what it normally looks like?”
    “It is.”
    “Whoa.”
    He motioned to a chair at one end of the table. “Please.”
    She sat. The demon took the chair to her right. She felt a thrill of fear and excitement as it opened the massive wings on its back, then refolded them over the back of the seat. “Can you fly with those?”
    “I can.”
    “Neat.”
    She shuffled her cards from hand to hand, then split the deck and bridge-shuffled them a few times. The demon studied her movements. Melinda took comfort in the riffle and purr of the cards as they mixed and fell into place. Sometimes she shuffled them just for the sound. It calmed her, eased her nerves, made her feel a