Victoria's Demon Lover - By Alia Bess Page 0,39

He only glanced at the green pumps.

“Jasper. I need you to take me to Shrewsbury.”

“No.”

She frowned and pointed to the shoes. “Alligator. Not really, but they look like it.”

“No. He told me no.” Jasper turned around so she could see his little monkey butt was red, like he had been spanked pretty hard.

Victoria narrowed her eyes. “He beat you?”

Jasper nodded. “I’m not taking you to Shrewsbury, and he told me to tell you that no one else will either. He said you need to look in the other direction.”

“Other direction than what?”

Jasper shrugged. “That’s what he said.”

“Who else?” she thought out loud. “The harpy.”

“He clipped her wings.”

“There must be someone else. Hell must be overpopulated, and not everyone can be afraid of him.”

Jasper made a wry face. “You’d be surprised.” He disappeared in a puff of chalk dust. Shrewsbury would have to wait.

But Victoria did not want to wait. “Albert Magnus!” she said, and looked at her phone. Her phone said, “That number is not available.”

Victoria wondered at that. Perhaps he had gotten to Mr. Magnus as well as Jasper and the harpy.

She picked up her book instead and flipped to the hell-harrowing chapters. She wasn’t trying to go to Hell, but rather a suburb of Hell, where people relived their sins over and over again. She remembered the story of Sisyphus who was doomed to push a stone up a hill and watch it roll back for all eternity. How to get there? The book said you had to have a guide or you would be lost and wander forever. She would need a guide. So far her guides had worked very well. She just needed a new one.

She looked at the names in the long column. Some seemed familiar, like Beelzebub and Mephistopheles. Famous demons. Others were only faint memory, like Nerulu and Ba’al.

She turned a page. She wanted an easy one like Jasper, not something big and scary and smelling like a cesspit. Her demon had appeared scary one time around Hallowe’en. She did not like it, and the sex was not good that night, though it had, indeed, been unforgettable.

This one: Marple. How could a demon with such a name be a horrible? She erased Jasper’s chalk circle and drew another one, this time with Marple’s name inside.

She lit a different candle, lit different incense, and pointed at it. “Marple.”

There was the expected flash, the smell of brimstone and an ugly fiend appeared in the circle. He was taller than she and spidery in his limbs. He seemed to have an extra joint in each thin arm and leg. He was a shiny blue-black and had several eyes in his tiny head. He unfolded the limbs and a double pair of insect wings, like a dragonfly.

“Uh,” Victoria lowered her arm, hoping he would stay in his chalk circle like he was supposed to.

“Shrewsbury is it?” he asked her with a metallic clicking sound.

She relaxed a little. Maybe he only looked scary. “Yes. Shrewsbury. But not just any time. It has to be…” she thought. She didn’t know exactly when Jack and Maggie lived there. “I have to see a demon who is there. All the time.” She hoped that was enough of an address.

“What do you have?”

Victoria realized he was talking about payment. She pointed to the alligator shoes.

Marple laughed and it sounded like crickets chirping. “I have no use for those.”

“Even as trade goods?”

“No.

“What would you like?”

“I see some juicy children down below.”

Victoria took a step back. “What? No.” She pointed at him and quickly checked her book for a banishing spell. Her last two summonings had ended in success. She had not needed to research a banishing spell.

“What about the German Shepard next door? And there is a cat on the fence outside.”

Victoria looked at him with derision. “No. Those animals are loved as much as those children.” She pointed at him and said, “Get thee behind me…Marple.”

He disappeared and Victoria sank to her bed in relief. She snuffed her candle and crunched the tip of the incense. She got up and smeared the chalk circle with her foot for good measure.

Shrewsbury would have to wait another day. She needed to talk to Mr. Magnus.

But that night she was awakened by something heavy pressing down on her. She opened her mouth, thinking she would be greeting her demon, but a hand covered it.

Not her demon. But it was a demon. He held her down and lifted her nightgown and then her knees. She kicked