The High Priestess (The Tarot Club 3)

Marie sneered at me, pushing the wrist that I held further into my chest, crushing her hand even more, and even though I knew that the movement hurt, I stilled my entire being as I waited for her retort.

"You are nothing to me Demon, let's not grant you such a grand label in lieu of a couple of orgasms."

We both knew that she was lying.

"Then why are you fighting me?" It was a challenge, and as soon as the breeze stole the words from my lips she slumped away from me, her purpose driven rage somehow depleted. "Why do you rage when I am around? You've taken great care and energy on someone who is nothing."

She swallowed and the wind seemed to still. “You are nothing.” She croaked. “You are a nuisance - a distraction, and if we weren’t tied together because you bargained with the River herself, I would offer you up as a sacrifice.”

My grin was filled with malice and I allowed the Demon within me to rise to the surface - allowed the shadows to nip at her flesh with each word I spoke. “I am the sole reason you are breathing Witch, lest you forget that in everything else we are dealing with, you owe me a life debt.”

I watched her. Watched her throat bob in understanding, watched her chest rise and fall in quick succession.

“Take the orgasms as my debt paid - take the lust I offered you - that you fed off.”

I laughed a Demon’s laugh, and the cemetery itself darkened. And even with my cum dripping down her thighs, I was unforgiving in my approach.

“Lust is a pleasurableexperience, hardly a debt - don’t you think?” I watched her tongue flick out, sliding across her bruised lip as I spoke. Even this discussion excited her.

“My pleasure is your payment - isn’t that how Lust Demons work?”

“Hardly little Witch, that’s simply a benefit of knowing me.” I stepped back into the shadows, allowing my grin to be the last thing to fade and reveled in her scream of frustration, the wind rippling before me as she lunged where I once stood.

“Putain de Merde.” her voice carried her anger through the wind, but I simply blended into the shadows themselves and watched.

I couldn’t be around her without wanting to slide my cock inside her - without swallowing those soft moans she made that seemed to speak to my very essence. I wanted to fill her - to bite her - to claim her. Instead, I sated my curiosity instead by watching her.

I watched her gaze at the shadows where I once stood, watched her eyes narrow and her breath huff out against the air before her. Her rage and frustration was almost as delicious as her lust, for how easy was it to turn anger into desire? They were, afterall, two sides of the same coin.

After a few moments, she turned around sharply, mumbling under her breath, no doubt swearing about me and cursing the gods. I watched as her boots hit the ground, watched the sashay of her hips. She didn’t have to try to be seductive, it was simply a natural part of her being. She lifted her skirts and sat next to the newly turned grave, once more producing her apple.

The knife glinted in the moonlight as she sliced the apple in half with almost expert-chef precision. I had long since thought that chefs and witches could serve as a Nehebkau - each boasting the same set of skills and utilizing them for entirely different purposes.

Two slivers of paper appeared, each with a name neatly written atop it. The Witch pressed each piece of paper against one half of the apple, and when she pressed the halves together, forcing each paper to meet, it was as if the ground itself shuddered, repairing the rift between a gypsy mother and her wayward daughter.

I stilled my being further, watching how this Witch would fasten the apple together. I had seen the rift repair spell performed many times, and yet I was certain I had never been so entranced by the movement of a Witch’s hands alone. Her fingers made quick work of loosening her hair, freeing the strands from the bobby pins that held them in place. And once those steel bobby pins were free, she straightened two with militant precision, and pierced the apple, joining half with the other in a crossword motion, leaving the two straightened pins to lie atop one another at the center.

It reminded me of another time - another group of people who had dubbed themselves witches, and an overly arrogant man who knew how to wield Magick, living in a city not too far from this small village.

The tavern was dark, the women were loud and I watched the balding man seated at the center of the table, engaging his followers animatedly as he explained the theology of Magick - or at the very least, his version. The nineteen twenties in Europe served as a time of religious and magickalenlightenment, and each time such a period existed a new fanatic surfaced, becoming a self-proclaimed leader.

Yet, despite the man’s claims and self-importance, Alesteir Crowley was surprisingly good at ritual Magick - had taken it upon himself to travel the world with the intent purpose of expanding his Magickal knowledge. He also thrived in the fact that he could summon Demons. Once he summoned me in a demonstration of sorts, I decided to step through the shadows - decided to join this era he was creating where Demons and wielders of Magick mingled. That was how I found myself sitting at a bar in Turin, watching the man lecture his followers, his fingers strumming the wooden table in a rhythmic method that kept everyone on edge.

But it wasn’t him that I was watching - it was one of his followers, a peasant woman wrapped in mink fur slicing an apple.

Such eras brought about controversy, and in this case, a husband became a follower of Mister Crowley’s, whilst his wife remained a devout Anglican, shunning him for his choices. The witch slid their names on separate pieces of paper into the apple, melding the two halves together with long, broad pins, crossing them over one another in the center. I didn’t have to hear her over the noise of the tavern, to know that she was muttering an incantation, filling the apple with intention and purpose as she imbued the spell with her emotions, allowing it to pulse into the bright red peel through her fingertips. Not everyone was a fan of the dischord that Mister Crowley seemed to sow.

“Asmodeus.” Alistair’s voice carried across the room and I dipped my head in return. It was the name I had allowed him to summon me with - ludicrous really, as if lust and desire could be confined to one name - one calling. Still, I smiled at him, reveling in the fact that I was not hidden in the shadows and that these human’s knew me for what I was.

“Are you hungry, my friend?” An odd concept that he wielded - that someone such as myself could be friends with him. He still thought he had summoned me here - that I hadn’t come out of my own will and curiosity.

I grinned. “Sempre.” I switched our speech to Italian, knowing full well how the man delighted in lauding his skill of various languages over his followers - as if the fact that he spoke multiple languages somehow made him more important.

I tasted the lick of desire - lust - greed for power that rose up within him, allowing myself to absorb his mad energy - his emotions. A woman remained draped over him, and perhaps once she was a beautiful, seemingly unattainable thing, but now she simply looked a husk of a person - drained of life and substance. Her eyes seemed almost too large for her face, her body frail, and her hands shook as she clutched onto her cardigan.

This was the cost of drawing from the leylines when one was not able - the cost of those around him in their bid to wield magickal power that they had no right to wield. How many humans before him had tried and failed? There was a reason that Witches were sought out, that such Magick could not be institutionalized and taught to all, for not all were worthy - not all were capable.

But I was not here to correct the human flaws, I was here to feast.