the room was infused with its fragrance and the sharp smell of smoke. The clock cued her at midnight and she began reading from her book in the somber monotone she imagined was appropriate for this kind of work.
As she read her eyes would flick up between sentences, looking for him. She had followed all the instructions to the letter. There was a chalk circle on the floor. There were the appropriate candles burning in the appropriate colors for a summoning. She went on to the next paragraph, intoning the Latin words with little understanding of what she was actually saying.
She listened for the wind outside her window. Sometimes the wind would whip the branches of her trees against the panes just before he appeared. Tonight it was calm. She felt her eyes burn with tears of frustration. The irony was painful. For months she had lain awake in fear and dread that the monster would appear and force her to pleasure him. Now her chest was tight with the fear and dread that he may never appear again.
She put her book down and wiped at her eye. “I am very foolish.” She said aloud. She sniffed and closed the book. “He does as he pleases. Isn’t this what I have learned?” She did not say the next thought aloud. The idea that he no longer wanted her caused her to shake her head in amazement. “How can I be disappointed that a demon has left my life?”
She blew out the candles and sat on the edge of her bed, fingering the sheets.
Victoria heard a crash of glass and a roar like gasoline on a fire. A branch from the oak punched through her window and its barky fingers snatched her around the waist and lifted her from her bed. She was yanked hard and thrust outside, twenty feet above her patio, held tightly by the tree. Victoria’s eyes went wide. She kicked and dug at the twisted twigs that wrapped her waist. Her air was cut off or she would have screamed. She could hear the sound, now, of the wind in the trees. They were all swaying. The wind blew her hair away from her face and tangled it in the branches. The tree was angry. No. Something else was angry.
Red smoke swirled from a knothole and coalesced into a face bent and gnarled. Sharp teeth made from pointed branches and slanted eyes pressed themselves close to her and the stink of Hell was in its breath when it growled, “Who dares summon me?”
This was not her demon. Victoria could not speak because the grip on her middle was too tight to get enough air. She blinked rapidly and opened her mouth, trying to signal that she would very much like to answer, trying to signal that one minute more and she would not be able to answer.
The demon’s grip loosened. She slid a little. The branches snaked along her arms and ankles instead of her chest and stomach. She took a few tentative breaths, painful breaths. Her ribs hurt. She looked at the smoky demon and answered, “I am Victoria. I am summoning another demon. Not you. There has been a mistake.” This was true. She had expected a demon to appear. But not this one.
The demon turned her in the air and its eyes seemed to examine her. She was turned upside down and around. A smoky tongue wriggled from its mouth and tasted her. Another twig prodded her. Her hair was pulled and her clothes ripped. When the examination was over she was turned right-side up and positioned before the hard slanted eyes. They glowed red. Not yellow.
“You have to get the name right,” it grumbled.
She nodded.
“You say the wrong name, or say the right name the wrong way…” it paused and the bark bit into her arms and legs. “And you will get something you did not expect.”
“I see that now,” she whispered.
It looked at her for a long moment. “You feel familiar,” it said. The branches that bound her squeezed a little tighter. She felt the leaves and twigs stroke her legs and arms. “I have felt you before. But you did not look like this. This form is different.” The red eyes closed as the twigs slid over every part of her body. The movement stopped and the eyes opened again. “You are looking for someone. Yes. He is looking for you.” The tree demon’s smoky mouth widened in a grin. “He