The High Priestess (The Tarot Club 3)

Or maybe they were - maybe they were supposed to present themselves as the ultimate package, drawing unsuspecting humans into their games for pure entertainment value. I didn’t know, the only thing I was certain of was that I needed the Demon to get the hell away from me.

“You are not my lover.” The words were supposed to come out harsh - brittle, channeling my irritation towards the creature before me. Instead, I found that I sounded husky - wanton, even, and it only strengthened my resolve in getting the Demon to leave.

“Yet.” The Demon winked seductively at me, and if he were human, I may have found his confidence charming.

I picked up the nearest thing in my vicinity - a decorative plate hung against the wall, and I flung the porcelain towards the Demon, aiming for his head - aiming for any part of his body that would see the item smash against him - force him to leave. He moved swiftly, the decorative plate simply landing atop the comforter in a rather anticlimactic fashion before I felt his breath against the back of my neck, causing my body to arch up into his energy - his very nature.

“You have to curse my name if you want me to help you.” I shivered against the innuendo of his words - shivered against the fact that my nipples had suddenly turned into hard, painful buds, despite the fact that my shirt had dried.

“Curse my name, little Witch, and I’ll help you in all the ways you seek.” I shut my eyes at the pulsing energy that seemed to consume the room, swaying against his honeyed tone - the chocolatey scent that had me craving submission - had me wishing that I was someone different - someone who could simply lean back into the mattress and part her thighs - someone who was ignorant.

But I was none of those things.

“Cortland. That’s my name.”

I felt his departure before I peeled the lids of my eyes open, felt the warmth that he seemed to bring with him evaporate, and I hated that my body was somehow pained by that loss.

I exhaled heavily, my palms itching to do something.

Before I stripped - bathed - changed, I pressed my phone against my ear, my face still warm from all the emotions the Demon seemed to draw from me. The heat that my phone emitted did nothing to quell the ache that was left behind from the Demon’s proximity.

As members of the Tarot Club went, Charl was the one who probably understood me the most. Whilst his family were not travelers like mine - did not breathe Magick into their very way of life, he still understood the nomadic lifestyle - still understood the ache to build roots - to belong. He had been passed from traveling member to traveling family member, learning to swindle and perform in traveling acts and shows, until one day he stumbled upon someone like me. A Witch of sorts - someone who made money from her craft and didn’t need to swindle - didn’t need to lie, because her visions - her connection was real.

Charlain had inadvertently saved me. From a young age, I was split between my grandmother and father - spending time in both France and America. I dreaded my summers with my father because he wasn’t equipped to look after a child, let alone a wild gypsy heathen who had a penchant for walking shoeless through his office. It didn’t take him long to discover that summer camps existed for the sole purpose of giving parents a reprieve from their unruly kids, and children a reprieve from their stressed out parents. At least that was the case in our situation.

My father loved me, but he didn’t understand me, and it didn’t help that I was a constant reminder of what he had lost - the whirlwind love affair that had changed his entire trajectory, leaving him with me.

Of course, when my mother had died, my grandmother had immediately taken custody of me, arguing that I needed to learn the ways of our people, and that the boardroom was no place to raise a child. My father - the ever practical man that he was - relented, demanding only that he got me for the summer months when business slowed down.

Such was the way the agreement of dual custodianship was struck.

The problem was that the quirks that he found endearing when it had come to my mother, he viewed as strange and bizarre coming from me. When a child loses a parent at birth, they tend to cling to the material possessions of the deceased, trying to fill the void their death left with items from their life - weaving imaginative tales of their own, whilst soaking in secondhand stories about that person from others.

I was no different, and so when I came of age to receive my own Tarot deck, I didn’t want a new deck - didn’t crave the beautiful imagery of the newer, polished Tarot cards that had since been developed, no, I wanted my mother’s deck. I wanted to feel connected to her in some small way. In my mind, she was the essence of Magick, and her deck was a direct tie to her and everything she was capable of.

If the stories were true, she was powerful - pushing away marriage alliances in lieu of traveling - finding her own sort of freedom. It was a concession my grandmother had made, aware that the responsibility of the village would be passed onto my mother, and as such, she gave her a sliver of freedom before arranging a marriage - before binding her to the land.

At least that was the way I understood it.

Of course, it didn’t take long for her to meet my father on a trip to Brazil. They were both eighteen, opting to travel the world before settling into their respective paths. But fate had other plans, and suddenly with my mother’s last breath and my entry into the world, her responsibility shifted to me.

My father didn’t understand my need to carry her deck with me everywhere I went, and when he walked out of a meeting one afternoon to find me perched on the receptionist’s desk, reading her cards, he virtually lost his mind, enrolling me into a summer camp quicker than I could take my next breath.

What he didn’t know was that in that one action, he had changed the course of my future - had changed the way in which I viewed my own Magick, because that was the summer I met Charl.

“Bonsoir.” Charl’s smokey voice drawled down the line as he answered in French - as was our custom.

“Charlain.” I spoke his full name, indicating that this wasn’t a social call simply, so he could practice his French - this was business. “Why did a Demon just bargain with the River herself and then sprout some nonsense about saving one of your Witches.”

The statement had irked me because I did not belong to Charl - did not belong to anyone. The Tarot Club was a business of Witches who shopped out their talents, whilst Charl was merely the administrator. Even if he had dubbed himself The Magician, he needed us as much as we needed him.

“Marie.” His tone was filled with the type of teasing that raised my hackles because this was how he always went about softening a blow. Merde. The Magician was actually working with Demons. “I have never known you to hold such prejudices.”

“Putain.” I swore, and hoped that Charl felt the gravity of my anger. “Why is he here, Charl? Why did your Demon follow me home?”

Charl’s chuckle did nothing to dissuade my panic. “If anyone can tame a Demon, Ma Cheri, it would be you.”

“I don’t want to tame your Demon, Charl; I want to kill him.”