Emme found the demon
in the basement, curled in on himself under a pile of
crumpled newspapers. Someone had drawn a circle around him
with a heavy layer of salt. She edged closer to the white,
patchy line and frowned. With time, the humidity made the
granules crust together. “I’ll have to get down on my hands
and knees and scrape it with a putty knife,” she muttered.
The newspapers
rustled and she saw one black eye in the shadows between the
pages. A ticklish sensation ran down her skin, the length of
her limbs and lingered in her breasts, perking her nipples.
She gasped, startled. “Oh, not yet then,” she whispered.
“There’s too much to do. I don’t have time for demons right
now.” She twisted a lock of straight, black hair around her
finger and let it go, the tendril falling back into place.
The narrow woman spun around. She started sweeping again,
trying to ignore the burning urge to stare at the being
occupying the room with her.
The cobwebs in the
corner of the basement were the worst part. Spiders
frightened her. She squealed when a black widow scrambled
across the dusty, wooden floor. “Oh, oh, oh!” she kept
repeating. Behind her, the newspapers crackled, and she felt
the demon watching, his hot gaze glancing over her backside
like sweaty palms. Emme flailed her hands in the air to calm
her nerves. She backed away from the black, eight-legged
monster and rifled in the pile of discards for a container.
Closing her eyes, she sucked in a dry breath, and twisted
the lid off a jelly jar. Kneeling, she swept the spider into
the jar with the dustpan, careful not to squish it. “There
now.”
She felt the demon’s
searing gaze following her up the stairs. When she crossed
the empty parlor, the jar held at arm’s length, the air
became cold in an unnatural way. Ignoring the sensation, she
exited the front doorway. Outside, she bent beside the pile
of leaves she’d raked yesterday and let the black widow go.
She turned her head and smiled at the basement window,
wondering if the demon saw her, certain that he was trying
to, and a little thrilled at finding him. Her father had
rarely kept anything so extraordinary for long before he
lost his temper and killed it.
She liked to think
she was not her father’s daughter.
