“The Kimono”, Chapter One.

I published this novel on Amazon.com in October 2018 on Amazon.  It took 12 years to research and write. It’s a novel of magic, time warp and love, plus war and revenge.  You don’t have to know anything about Japan to read this book.

Lady Nyo

It hung in the window of a shop as Mari walked around old Kyoto. The shop looked out on a very small, shaded garden. With the sun overhead piercing the fan-shaped leaves of a gingko, the ground beneath looked like a yukata’s repeat pattern. Mari’s gaze was drawn to a slim beacon of light. It was enough to make her enter the small shop.

“Ohayo!” The shopkeeper came from behind his counter and bowed respectfully to Mari.

“Ohayo.” Mari bowed back.

Mari was Japanese-American, married to an ex-military man and this was their first trip to Japan. The only Japanese thing she knew was food. This culture was no more hers than being American. She felt she would forever be caught in the middle, a tug of war between two sides, and neither to claim her.

Behind the counter, Mari saw what had caught her attention: a kimono, a black, formal tomesode that a married woman would wear, not dyed with the usual flowers worn by young, unmarried women. Winding around the hem in mountains and valleys and up in a serpentine path high on the left front was a wide silver band. Looking closer, she saw the intricate handwork of what looked like stitched, silver cloth.

“That is surihaku, embossed silver sewn foil.”

The voice of the shopkeeper startled her. She blushed, not hearing him approach.

“How old is this kimono? May I look at it closer?”

The shopkeeper took it down from the pole and carefully draped it over his arm. Mari traced the river of silver from the hem to where it stopped. She noticed the kimono also had five white crests stamped on the front, shoulders and back. The shopkeeper opened the left panel of the kimono. Mari saw black knotted embroidery around the tan, the part that encircled the hips. The silver was only the outside decoration. The embroidery inside was heavy and patterned.

Mari could not restrain from touching the embroidery. She wanted to close her eyes and read it like Braille. She had never seen a kimono quite like this. It wasn’t new but it couldn’t be too old, perhaps no more than sixty years. It seemed in excellent condition. Even the white thread that was used when the kimono was washed was still fresh.

“Do you know anything about this tomesode? Where it came from, perhaps?”

The shopkeeper sighed. “No. I am a widower. My wife must have bought it. I found it after she died, in a chest.”

Mari decided to purchase the black kimono. The shopkeeper wrapped it in a box and she brought it home.

Four years ago, she had married Steven. They had never really settled down, for his company sent him for long stays in different countries. She went along because it was what was expected. It was never clear to her what he actually did, something to do with numbers and systems and computer codes. He was an expert in his field and the company was happy to uproot them both and send them afield.

Mari was not unhappy in the marriage, just restless. Steven had his work but she had nothing to do except knock about the streets and look at people, read and think. Mari’s mother thought her malaise was over the issue of children but Mari didn’t think this was such a big issue for her. Steven complained children would complicate their movements and Steven was all about keeping things simple. Mari put up little resistance to whatever her husband wanted. Perhaps her mother, who was a traditional Japanese wife, had influenced her attitude. Her mother always submitted to what her husband wanted. Mari did likewise.

It was two days before she tried on the kimono. After carefully untying the string and opening the box, she took it out and held it in front of her. The weight of the winter crêpe felt heavy. Mari laid the kimono on the bed, kneeled, and again traced the silver river, this time with her face pressed on the cloth, her eyes following the winding course of silver. It was as cool as water on her skin. Laying it open on the bed, she looked carefully at the black embroidery, wondering if there was a pattern in the high knots that coursed around the silk. She couldn’t tell because the pattern was like hieroglyphics, perhaps a secret language sewn into the silk, something indiscernible.

Mari stripped and pulled the kimono around her, binding it to her firmly. It was heavy on her body, clinging like a second skin. She sat on the floor feeling suddenly overwhelmed with a heaviness her legs could not support. She held out her arms, the dull silk rippling like water. It fell into the form of her breasts and she felt her nipples harden. It must be the cold of the crêpe, she thought.

Sitting on the floor, Mari hugged herself. She watched the river of silver course up her leg and disappear into the interior of the kimono. She wondered about the course of her own life. What would the years with Steven bring and could she endure this dullness inside? With a start, she realized that was exactly what she was feeling, a leaden dullness that leached out all color around her. Perhaps that was the attraction of the kimono now wrapped around her, the silver surihaku that led to her noticing it in the shop, the brightness of something to catch her eye and fire her imagination.

Mari didn’t know how long she’d been sitting on the floor. Her thoughts spiraled inward like the design of a nautilus shell. She looked at the clock next to the bed and was amazed an hour had passed. She stood and dropped the kimono on the floor. It puddled into a landscape of black hills, valleys and rivers.

Mari touched her left hip and discovered a series of indentations in her skin. In fact, all around her hips, stretching from one side to the other, there was a definite pattern pressed into her flesh. She thought of the weaves of a basket, the marks of a rope, the binding of her flesh to something stronger than her own mind.

When Steven came home, she showed him the kimono.

“Why a black one, Mari? You will look like an old crow in that.”

A less than flattering characterization but Stephen was sometimes rather critical of how she dressed. Mari did not go for floral designs and bright colors. She picked colors that were neutral, earth tones, colors that made her disappear.

“Married women in Japan always wear black kimonos, Steven. It’s the unmarried women who wear floral designs.”

“Well, get a red one and I’ll be interested in your choice of bathrobes.” Stephen was not taken by Japanese culture. His whole purpose in life was to do his job and move on.

That night when they went to bed, Mari was cold. The weather had changed and fall was becoming chilly. She got out of bed and padded to where she hung the kimono. Pulling it around her body, its heaviness and drape comforted her. She returned to bed and fell asleep.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Devil’s Revenge”, Chapter 32

This was the second novel I wrote. I had killed off most of the characters of the first (unfinished) novel, but had grown ‘attached’ to those who escaped death.  I decided to write them into a new novel. This time they would take up the appearances (and natures) of Devils and Demons.

Madame Gormosy is an important  Devil in Hell, a Demon of Lust.  She can appear as either sex.  She cheats at faro.  Bess  is a modern day woman snatched by another Devil to appear in the 1830’s.  His name is Garrett Cortelyou.  M. Abigor is an Arch Duke of Hell.  He is close to the hoof of the Throne.  Madame Gormosy is grooming Bess for the appearance of M. Abigor at tea.

Lady Nyo

 

 

When I came from the other room, Madame was sitting in the window, waving her fan slowly.  Looking outside at the gray winter landscape, she seemed lost in thought. I could see her aged and transparent skin reflected in the cast of light.

Of course!  Madame is old, she is pre-history, and I forget her age.  She is such a fountain of knowledge, sometimes delightful.  I was embarrassed at Garrett hissing at her, but then again, what do I know about manners between devils?

“Thank you, Madame!  M. Demon must not be thinking clearly now because of his guests downstairs.”  I came into the room, shaking out my petticoats and tried to regain some steadiness in my walk.

“You must remember he is only part mortal and the other part of him does not suffer as mortals do.  Non, ma petite.  It is not because of his thinking.  It is because he is cruel as are all men.  And, yes, thoughtless.”

I wonder if Madame includes herself in this category, for I know her also as Monsieur.  I decide to be bold and ask a question.

“Madame?  I know you are a shape-shifter.    What would possess you to appear so?  In my experience, men are covetous of their identity and their…..ah…equipment.”

“Mon Dieu!  You are a saucy one!  But since you ask, I will tell.   We have a moment before M. Abigor appears at the door.”  She considered her words before proceeding.

“There are many Demons of Lust and Love in Hell.  But I am the only Demon to want to do such.  Ah! Men die and go to Hell, and few have learned much on Earth.  There is great seduction in women!  Their sex developed the art, yet they are called ‘the weaker sex.’  They use their wiles and within a short time, have all men in thrall.  You are weaker in strength, but you are stronger in the head.”

Madame snaps her fan closed and points at her head with it.  I laugh, as much as my tight corset allows.

“But! We have short time, now.  I must talk to you about M. Abigor.  You must be on your guard, ma petite!  Monsieur is a wily one.  You don’t become an Arch Duke of Hell for your kindness.  Non, M. Abigor is to be feared!  Do not put too much faith in his charms.  M. Abigor is known for his lust for mortal women.  Your M. Demon was right to charm up your sex, mais tres cruelle!”

Cruel indeed, Madame!  I could not agree more.  Especially how tea goes through me.

“Attention!  M. Abigor’s knowledge is vast.  He is known to be an intellectual in Hell.  There are many stupid devils, you know.”  Madame rolls her eyes.  “M. Abigor has many interests, cherie.  Philosophy, music, the dance, politics, especially the French culture.  Ah!  I know what you must talk with him!  He was un habitant  of the salons of France!  Ah! He was an intimate of Mme. Du Deffand et Mme.Necker, et  Mme. Geoffrin, just a few!  M. Abigor knew M. Grimm, Sainte-Beuve, Voltaire, Diedrot,  so many illustrious men and women!  Talk to him about the salons, cherie.  Entertain him with philosophy.”

Ah, Madame Gomosy, I thought to myself.  If only I could.  My memory and knowledge of such a time and place was miniscule.  But I would try.  At least we could talk of music.  Now, here I was competent.  Or so I hoped.

“Mais…M. Abigor is a genius, ma cherie.  But he leaves the trail of a serpent!  When you see on his forehead the reflection of a ray from Plato, do not trust it.  Look well, there is always the foot of a satyr beneath.”

Madame’s words made me shiver, though the room was warm.  Well, what should I expect?  I was dealing with devils!

“Now, when M. Abigor knocks, I will answer and present him, and you stand and curtsey your best.  I will leave you both and then will return when he leaves.  Ah! Be charming, my young friend.  Your fate depends upon it!”

I wondered if we have time for a round of faro, just to calm my nerves, when we hear a strong knock on the door.  Madame rose from her chair, blew me a kiss, and glided to the door.  She opened it, and gave a deep curtsey to M. Abigor, who entered the room.

I rose as gracefully as my trembling legs allowed, and curtsied to him.  Monsieur Abigor looked at me for a second, and bowed.   Madame past out of the room and left me alone with my visitor.

“M. Abigor.  It is delightful to see you today.”  My voice sounded strange in my ears.  Dancing with Devils, today!  I looked at him as boldly as I dared and saw a tall and elegant man before me.  He certainly had a presence about him.  He was dressed in a black coat, with a dark wine colored waistcoat, embroidered in gold.  Black breeches and hose, and a fine piece of plain linen at his throat completed his appearance. His grey hair, probably a wig, was powdered and curled.

I dared a glance into his face, and his eyes! They were blank, like the eyes of a dead dog! No reflection, dull like the light had faded.  Fear rose in my throat. As though reading my thoughts, a small smile crept across his face.   I motioned for him to sit in the chair across from me.  Madame had moved the tea table between us, but had faced the chairs to each other.  M. Abigor sat, and flipped out the tails of his coat behind him.  I wondered if he had a tail.  Just as the thought crossed my mind, I realized with horror he probably had the same power as all these other demons.  He could read my thoughts.  My face colored fast.

Abigor’s smile broadened, and I knew he had discovered my thoughts! All I could do was to go on, now uncomfortable. He cocked his head to one side, and I thought of an owl.  Of course!  I remembered a picture in one of those heavy books, of this Arch Duke of Hell. He rode on a wolf, had the face of an owl, and carried a sword.  Otherwise, he was human.  Very human, according to the drawing in the book.  M. Abigor gave a chuckle.  I was not doing well.

I cleared my throat, and tried to swallow.  “M. Abigor, would you like a cup of tea?”

“Perhaps that would be safest, my dear.”  His voice was deep and low. He smiled at me, amused by my gaffes.  I rose to pour him a cup of tea, and my hands shook.  “Would you like cream and sugar?” I asked over my shoulder at the console on the wall where the silver service was placed.

“I take it black.”  Of course, why didn’t I think of that!

“I understand from M. Garrett you are a writer.  And, a bit of a musician and dancer.”

Oh God!  What did the Demon say to him?  “I am hardly a writer, M. Abigor, as I have only written one book.  And that I have not finished.”    I brought him his tea and tried not to rattle the cup in the saucer.

“Ah.  One would think your change of….ah…circumstance…would retard your progress.  Very human.”  M. Abigor picked up his cup, his eyes stared over the rim, those two dead pools of darkness. My stomach gave a flip and my fear returned.

Yes, very human.  I decided to approach the issue of ‘circumstance’ delicately.  “Yes, one might say so.  I find my world exciting and confusing.”

“It is to be expected.  You are out of your element as they say.  It will take time to adjust.”  M. Abigor regarded me with his head cocked to the side.  Again, I thought of an owl.

“Madame tells me you knew many of the men and women in the salons of Paris.”  I sipped my tea, and hoped to turn the conversation.   “I have little knowledge of the salons, but I am very curious as to your experience, Monsieur.”

“Ah!” His  face visibly brightened. “The Salons! Yes, they were a lovely invention.  Some good friends I made on different days of the week.  Some good friends I occasionally still see.”

I thought about his words and again I shivered.  I managed a smile.

“Did you know Mme. d’Epinay, Monsieur?”  I had read some of her writings.

“Ah!  Mme. d’Epinay!  I remember her well, though I don’t think I have seen her sweet face since the 1770’s.”

Good, I thought.  Then she isn’t in Hell.  From what I had read of her, she was a wretched but sensible woman. She suffered terribly from an early marriage to a dissolute cousin.

“But her husband, now, M. d’Epinay….I have seen him around some.”  M. Abigor’s grin reminded me of a wolf.

“Madame d.Epinay now…how she was to be pitied!  She was peaceful, and sweet and trusting.  And she was a good writer. She listened to so many others as they read their works out loud to the room.  A sensible and courageous woman, married to a monster.”

I thought of what I knew of the women of that century. In my own century, which I had forgotten for my surroundings,  women had all the expectation to do with their lives. It was hard for us to understand a society in which the best female intellect was given over to entertaining and living their lives through the minds of the men around them.  They had little place else to wield power except in the drawing rooms.  But from these rooms, such ideas!  Revolution, class warfare, the liberating and the terror, these were fermented by sentiments at times vain and sensual.

M.Abigor threw out names from history.  Mme. de Lambert, Mme. Geoffrin, Mme. Necker are just a few he mentioned.   And the men!  Grimm, Diedrot, Voltaire just a few more.  M. Abigor captured my interest with his fascinating tales of long dead people.  I was discreet enough to curb my interest as to who was where in the universe.

“M. Garrett tells me that you dance, n’est-ce pas?”  He changed the direction of his conversation so fast it took me by surprise.  M. Abigor relaxed in his chair, and stretched his long legs before him.  I hastened to serve him some cake.

“Thank you.  I don’t usually eat sweet things, but this looks divine.”  M. Abigor took a bite of his cake and his eyebrows lifted in pleasure.  Ah! Madame had prepared Devil’s Food Cake.

“M. Garrett overstates my talent.  It is not the courtly dances you would be familiar.”  I presumed too much, for M. Abigor was as old as the Alps and knew much of the world.

“I am familiar with the Harem dance.   I have known many Sultans and their harems intimately over the centuries.  In fact, in my youth, I effected the guise of a harem guard.”  M. Abigor looked at me, that wolf smile again gleamed out over long, white teeth.

“But I thought only eunuchs were allowed in the harem.”  I spoke without thought.

Abigor laughed, his voice rumbling deep from his chest. “One of the privileges of being a Devil, my dear, is appearing as we want. Like our Madame Gormosy, we appear as a man, and a second later, Voila! A woman.” He waved one elegant long finger in the air.  I blushed from my thoughtless words.

“And we can dismiss parts of our anatomy, and gain them back at will.”  M. Abigor obviously enjoyed my embarrassment; his dead eyes suddenly glittered at me!

I took a drink of my now cooled tea to cover my distress.  “M. Abigor, may I warm your tea?”

“You have already warmed my heart with your blunders.”  He smiled and gave me a little bow from his chair.  My embarrassment was tinged with fear.  I remembered Madame Gormosy’s words of caution about his ‘charm’.

“I can see your M. Demon has great fun with you.  I myself have had many mortal wives in my time.  I enjoyed the naivete and companionship.  M. Demon is to be applauded his choice.”  He chuckled and again bowed from his seat.

I inclined my head to him, my blush now covering my neck.   I was being courted by an Arch Duke of Hell!

We talked about many things and I noticed the room was darkening.  It must be about dusk.  I rose to light a taper from the fire, and M. Abigor rose with me, picked up a hot cinder from the fire and lit the first candle.  I made an exclamation, as he was sure to burn his fingers, but M. Abigor just smiled and showed me his unscorched palm.  He took my hand and placed it against his.  It was warm but did not burn.  Close to me, I looked up into his face, and by the light of the one candle, saw something in his eyes that terrorfied me.  His eyes opened suddenly, like the lens of a camera, and I saw scenes   and I could not look away.

Like a card deck being shuffled slowly and each card held out for a nanosecond viewing, I saw  wars, tragedies, famines,  scenes of torment down through the ages.

I saw male babies thrown in the river Nile, to be drowned at the whim and command of Pharaoh, heard their gurgling screams as they sank beneath the waters, their mothers anguish ringing out on the banks of the turgid waters.

I saw the Crusades, many cards there, with Christians riding down the ‘unbelievers’, slaughtering young girls, children,  raping them and cutting their throats.

I saw and felt the tumbrels rumbling through Paris’ streets, the fall of the guillotine, the roar of the crowds, the spray of blood from that steel knife cover the crowds, and the heads tumbling into the  fouled straw baskets.

I saw the results of the War to End all Wars, the men falling to the ground, spewing their guts, vomiting in the mud from the mustard gas, nerve gasses. The horror of field hospitals with severed limbs piled up like cordwood, and broken lives never to be regained. Horses rotting in the fields of battle.

I saw the brutality of the boyars, the Cossacks, the military riding into peasant villages and all slaughtered, the babies smothered under the fallen bodies of their mothers. I smelled the cottages burning, heard again the wailing of the women.

And then I came to the card, flipped over in slow motion, of the Holocaust.  I felt the fire of the ovens, saw the mounds of gold teeth, smelled the burning flesh that swept across the countryside and I stood there, looking at my forearms, and was covered by human ash.  I saw the children clubbed to death, their bodies thrown into the pits after their parents were shot and rolled into the mass grave.

I think I stopped breathing. I felt time had suspended itself.  M. Abigor’s eyes closed and a tear dropped from one eye.  I watched the descent of that tear as if all the answers to this madness were in that single sign of human compassion.

But of course M. Abigor was not human.

Woodenly, I pulled away and place the candlestick on the table.  Turning, I stood behind my chair, my face shocked beyond expression.  I could not stop my heart from pounding.  I wasn’t numb for I was able to feel an overwhelming sickness, a terror with every heartbeat.  There was something in the room with us, a presence more than the two of us.  It felt like the Ultimate Evil.  I thought I would faint.  In the growing gloom of the room, M. Abigor looked intently at me, and saw my distress.

“Madame, I have most enjoyed our tea.  In the next few days, I will return and take you riding.  I understand you pine to go out of doors. I will be your protection from the elements.”

M. Abigor bowed, a figure of masculine elegance. He turned at the door, smiled and left the room. Within moments, Madame Gormosy entered.   I still stood behind my chair, frozen, barely breathing.

“Well, Madame, you have survived this visit unscorched.  Ah!  You minded your manners or at least you did not insult the Devil!  Bon!  You live another day.  Your M. Demon will be glad of it.”

Rooted to the spot, blindly I put my hand out to her, and Madame came to my side.  I almost fainted and I found Madame’s arms around me, supporting me.  But it was Monsieur’s arms now around me, transformed by her particular magic, and at this moment, I was grateful.  I leaned on his chest, and I could hear his heart.  I started to shiver violently and Monsieur picked me up and sat down in a chair.  He rubbed my arm, my back and thigh.  I couldn’t stop shivering, my shock so great and Monsieur cooed to me gently. Soon I was weeping into his linen.

“Ah, my poor thing.  Perhaps M. Abigor let down his glamour for a minute and you saw him for the demon he is?  Perhaps you looked into his eyes and were frightened? Ah! It happens with devils.  We look like humans, when we want to, it is our favorite disguise, but the eyes will tell all. The horrors of Hell show up in these dark pools.  It is the one piece of ourselves we can not transform.  Quell dommage!”

I still shivered and Monsieur crossed over to the bed.  He pulled back the bedclothes and covered me to my chin, chaffing my arms under the covers.  He also rubbed my legs but decided a few hot bricks would be of service.  Bringing two bricks from the fireplace he placed them by my feet.  In a couple of minutes, my shivering stopped.  I fell into deep sleep.

I was told I was unconscious for a day, and cried out.  There was little to be done, for the shock I received from the presence of M. Abigor would have to be endured.  I am now told M. Abigor was pleased with my company and his tea, and this was the usual fate of dining with such devils.  The next time my mortal system would adjust, and I would not suffer such effects, at least  it was whispered to me that it would be easier to dine with the devil.

If this is to encourage me, Madame Gormosy is wide of her mark. I saw too much in M. Abigor’s eyes.  No amount of immortal elegance could hide those visions of Hell.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2006-2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Devil’s Revenge”, Chapter 5

I haven’t looked at this chapter in a long time.  It needs rewriting, but until I do, it’s still a good story.  BEWARE:  Sex…sorta.

–

I had no way of telling time or sequence or anything that relates to the passage of time. I think of my life where we grew up around various clocks: mantel clocks, hall clocks, electric clocks in the kitchen, the battery run digital clocks by our bedsides, and our wristwatches. In the dimension I was visiting, or found myself, there were few clocks. No one so far wore watches. Perhaps there were pocket watches, but I saw few people and couldn’t tell

So I didn’t know what time it was of the morning, though I saw the sun had not risen. The room was colored by the timid light creeping into dawn, a blending of gray shadows. The fire had burned low during the night, and cast no glare. There before the fireplace was the Demon. He slouched in his chair, one booted foot upon the other, staring into the embers. He smoked a white, clay pipe, something I recognized as a “Dutch pipe.” He didn’t stir from his chair as I called his name, but blowing out a mouthful of smoke, he turned his face towards the bed.

“You are finally awake.” He grinned around the stem of his pipe, his large white teeth gleaming in the dim light of the room.

“It is too early to wake, Garrett. Aren’t you cold at the fire?” I snuggled back into my pillow.

“’Ah, an invitation to your bed this early? Would do, but there is a litter of puppies around your breast.”

I opened the covers, and there under the blankets, were his four pups. Little water spaniels, three boys and the girl, the runt, Sophie, snuggled between my breasts.

“Did you do this, Demon?” I laughed, for I had no memory of putting them there. The smell of puppies this close is a bit high, like sour milk

“The fire was low when I entered the room and you looked warm enough to comfort them.”

“Have you thought what you are going to do with them, yet?”

“I aim to keep them right here, and you, my darling woman, will be nursing them for me.”

“Ah, Garrett, had you ever thought that perhaps I might be a bit too busy to care for your dogs? I am trying to finish this novel, my friend, and perhaps it would have been nicer for you to ask me first.”

“Perhaps, yes…but it still doesn’t change the outcome.” He grinned and his eyes snapped in the firelight.   “The rules of the engagement are simple. You do what I want.”

“You are such an arrogant Demon! What makes you think I will do as you demand? Have you ever heard of free will?”

“Highly overrated and doesn’t apply here.”

He continued to puff and draw on his pipe and filled the room with his horrible smoke. Brimstone I believe.

“No so.” He continues to read my thoughts at will…his idea of free will, I suppose.   He packed down his ‘tobacco’ with his thumb. “It’s a nice cherry and spice blend I brought from the islands… Perhaps you would prefer a pipe of opium?”

“I have never done such a thing, thank you very much.”

He turned a half-opened eye at me, and said lazily. “Perhaps before you dismiss it, you should at least try it once.”

“And why would I do such a thing? It seems a half-death to me.”

My Demon continued to puff on his pipe, the lazy whiffs of smoke spreading across the room. When I first smelled the acrid smoke, I had thought fleetingly of the pot that I used to smoke on occasion. I thought, ‘fleetingly’, but that was enough for my demon to pick up. Suddenly, the smoke was not of tobacco, but of a sweet smelling herb I recognized though I had not smelled for years.

“You bastard demon!” I laughed at him, this conjuring trick a minor one in his bag. “Do you know how hard it is to quit that stuff? That is the last thing I need to smell this morning. Way too early!”

All this ruckus awakened the dogs in my bed. They were rolling over each other, and jumping at the pink ribbons of my mobcap. Little Sophie between my breasts grunted and stretched.

“You have disturbed your dogs, Garrett, now you better find something to feed them.”

He snapped his fingers and a bowl appeared on the floor in front of the fire. I handed each one from the bed to him, and he placed them around the bowl. Whatever it was, they ate with growls and snarls, stepping over each other.

“What is it you’re feeding them?” Even the runt Sophie was not shying from the food.

“Deer meat was handy.”

Well, at least he was sensible enough not to put down a dish of milk. Those pups would be runny within an hour.

“Oh, I thought about you nursing them but your nipples would give out fast. Though it would be amusing to see your milk spout when they started to howl.”

Oh, he was  such a bastard this morning!

“Well, I’m glad you decided on deer meat instead.” What a devil he was, to think of these ways of torment. His temper was like mercury, and he took offense easily. Perhaps it was part of the demon culture, for he certainly was a touchy devil.

“You should know, you thought me up.”

“Oh, Demon, I think you have had a long life before you ever came to thought.

“It used to be Demon Lover, and now it is ‘friend’? I think we go backwards.”

Opening the covers, I smiled at him sweetly, and decided to take my chances this morning. He was an entertaining fellow, and carefully handled, could be amusing.

He put down his pipe on the table, and moved to the bed, slipping in beside me. He placed my head upon his shoulder as he usually did  and settled next to me

“You know, Garrett, I have a lot of writing to do today. I am behind with the book and want to finish before the year is out.”

“You can write when I’m through with you, on the morrow…I want to show you things today. First I want to show John Thomas between us a seashell of delights.”

He was amorous in the morning. Actually, he was usually ready for a romp any time of the day or night.

“Besides, you avoided me in Chapter 4 and I mean to make up for that.”

He had a scent about him that was enchanting, a combination of musk and sweat and probably brimstone.

“It’s the scent of an aroused man, who is about to release a lot of little demons from his loins.”

I laughed at his clumsy wit, and blushed in his arms.

“You modern women wash too much. You have forgotten the scent of sex and its purpose. It draws the bees to the honey.”

Perfume and soap was such a part of my life that I didn’t realize my body produced its own scent of desire. Since he had bedded me my thinking on this had changed. After our lovemaking, we would lay in a nest scented with the smell of flowers, old flowers, ashes and wood. That must be part of his magic.

“Lie still, my darling woman, and indulge my mood here.”

When the demon demanded something, it was wise for me to listen. He had a way of bending me to his will, and I was learning, slowly, that sometimes there was an innate wisdom in what he did. Sometimes.

He touched my forehead, on both temples with one hand extended. He passed his hand slowly down to my eyes, and as he did, they closed. I barely felt his hand descend to my midriff, where he stopped and pressed down hard.   That is where I seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep, or at least a trance. Then, with something like a slow electrical shock, from the ends of my fingers and toes, I felt a gathering of energy, something warm and concentrating, moving down the passageway of my limbs to the center of my body, where he had pressed on my stomach. It seemed that all my nerve endings were coming alive, and centering in my stomach. My pelvis was flooded with a warmth that moved back and forth across my hip bones. An exquisite feeling of tingling took hold of my face, my breast, my entire body. Suddenly, it all rushed upwards, out of my body, like a current of many colored ribbons, opening upward and outward, bursting from my body like waves of liquid and spinning off like a million stars above me. I was lifted from all gravity and hurled through space like a ragdoll. I was transformed into pure energy, or something of that nature, for I had no words to describe what was happening to me. All I knew that it was an extreme pleasure, beyond anything I could imagine, and something that I didn’t want to stop. It dissolved my body into a stream of light, flowing through and around any obstacle, any fear. I felt like I was turned inside out, and my sex had blossomed like a giant orchid. My whole body, or what was left of it, pulsated with a spent desire. Slowly, I seem to have fallen to earth, to this bedroom, to this bed, and in the arms of a man who was lying there unconscious. I looked at him, and he was naked next to me, the bedclothes on the floor. The room was over heated, though the fire was still low. I felt a wetness on my side, and looking down, saw that he was bleeding from his left side, below his heart.

“Garrett!” I called out to him in a panic. “Wake up! Oh my God! You are bleeding, you have injured yourself.” I shook his shoulder, trying to arouse him.

He slowly came out of his trance, for it seemed that he was as spent as I was.

“I am fine. It’s just a little sacrifice for this pleasure.”

He passed his hand over his small wound, and it disappeared. My face was contorted with fear, my hands on his shoulders.

“What did you do? What happened to us?”

He smiled a weak smile and cleared his throat. “There are many things in this world and out of it. That is just one. It’s pretty spectacular, but there are even better things to come.” He burped loudly. “Right now, I’m starving, and am weakened with expending that energy.”   Turning over, he said with a grin. “Pretty good, no?”

I stared up at the ceiling, too weak to sit up. “Pretty good, yes.”

I lay there, silent, thinking of what had just happened. . My body felt like velvet, with no structure or nerves. I was empty of everything, completely undone.

“But why do you bleed?”

“Bess, you ask too many questions. Just think of Adam’s rib and the creation of Eve.”

He grinned and sat upright. Snapping his fingers, a tray of breakfast appeared on the table. He put on his long, linen shirt, and sat heavily in a chair.

I didn’t think that I could rise from the bed, much less walk to the other chair. My body was without bones.

“Oh, forgive me. I forget. That first experience usually knocks the wind out of your sails. You’ll find ways around that.”

He pushed out of his chair, and helped me sit up on the side of the bed, then led me to the chair. I sat there, not dizzy, but confused as to what had happened to me. Was this what is called Tantric sex?

“Nope,” I heard him mumble as he stuffed his mouth with bread and butter. “Far beyond that earthy delight, but we can play with it next if you want. Bit of a bore, though.” He drank a swallow from his tankard of ale, as he preferred this drink instead of my tea in the morning.

I could not imagine doing anything else that day or the next! He grinned at me, the lustful devil, and pushed some bread my way. He extended his hand across the table and looked at me tenderly, and I placed my hand in his. There was a little of that current still present in the air, and it melted my hand into his.

Ah, Devil, I thought to myself. You are a dangerous man or demon, whatever you be. I wondered when I fell back to earth if all the molecules fell back in place. I knew I had given something to him, far beyond my heart and sex, and it seemed to involve my trust. Perhaps that was the key to his heart.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2008-2016

 

 

 

 

“Devil’s Revenge”, Chapter 10

from website: halfhearted dude…and thank you.

Sorry for the chapter out of sequence.  Life is like that some days….

 Chapter 10

“Tell me, Demon. Tell me more about your ‘world.’ You certainly have pushed your way into mine.”

“I wouldn’t say pushed, Madame Author,” he retorted. “I would say, ‘pulled’ into your world, by the push of your ink.”

Perhaps. I was trying to make sense of what happened to me since he first stepped from the page.

“Can’t you write “leaped” from the page? Sounds manlier.”

I laughed. This demon  of mine “Capitals, Please…as in “Demon Lover” he whispers to me…

THIS Demon Lover…you got another? … is always concerned about his masculine…’virtues’. Can you use the word ‘virtue’ with a devil? Well, he is very concerned about how he appears. This little vanity makes him more ‘human’ to me.

“Don’t bet on it. You’ll lose your coin.”

“Then tell me, Garrett. By what other names have you been known?”

The Demon grinned across the table. “Pick a letter from the alphabet.”

“Stop being coy. Tell me about your world. What do you do with yourself when you are not here? That will do for starters.”

“Well, ‘for starters’ as you put it, I could say I bedevil other old maids or I could tell you I danced in the street to the tune of my fiddle, or I was a gigolo, or it was ‘none of your business’ as you say to me. Pick.”

“Ah! So…I’m an old maid to you? I guess this is the end of the honeymoon.”

“Could be. We almost started a litter last time.” He grinned broadly.

“You can start with that little event. What happened there? All I remember is being very heated.”

He grinned wickedly. “You could say that. I seem to have that affect on old maids.”

He is an insufferable boor. But I vaguely remember being….passionately aroused, out of my mind with lust. Then I remembered falling asleep.

He reached over the table and passed his hand down my face. I floated in darkness. There were stars above me, and little hills beneath, hills that looked like mole hills far down there.

“That’s a nursery.” He smiled, and then laughed at my expression.

“Mole hills? What are you talking about?”

“Some dimension’s nursery, where the little monsters are cradled until they are let out upon some world.”

Lately I have discovered the Demon has knowledge about worlds and creatures I don’t have a language for. Asked directly, he will hem and haw. But every so often, he slips up and tells me something actually interesting.

“You hurt my feelings, Bess. Everything I have to say is interesting.” The Devil is reading my mind. He does so when he damn well pleases.

“And besides, you are a virgin where the cosmos is concerned. I only tell you what you need to know.” He leaned towards me across the table, scowling for effect. “Besides, it can be a very scary place. Good thing you have me around.”

He puffed on his long white clay pipe and I would have to say that his last statement could easily be qualified.

“Tell me, Garrett, if I was ‘breeding’ as you say, what would the baby look like at birth?” I was curious as any woman would be.

“If they were female, they would have your breasts. If male….my cock.” He grinned nastily.

“No, I mean, would they be human looking?  Would I be able to love this child?”

“Every other woman who has had my children loved them. Don’t know why you would be any different, Bess.”

I didn’t expect this! Other children by him. Somewhere in the novel, I remembered writing he had two bastard children by a woman in Martinique, but then I had forgotten to follow up with more information about these children and the mother.

“You are slipping on a lot of things, sweet lady.”

“I guess because now I am an old maid?”

“You can be revived.”

He had a droll wit at times. Grinning and snapping his fingers, produced out of the ether two tankards of ale.

“Do you aim to get me drunk?”

I couldn’t drink more than a glass of wine. A tankard would put me to sleep. He snorted, again reading my mind.

“Tell me…you must know more than you let on. How did I become fertile?”

Certainly this was a worry, because I was beyond the age where a woman needs to carry around a pregnancy. I never thought of ‘demon-control’ before.

He looked thoughtful, and puffed on his pipe.

“There are many ways and many carriers of mischief. This could be what you call a succubus or it could be of another species altogether.”

“So, you have no control over what happened to me?” This was not welcome news.

“Oh no, I could make it happen myself, but it’s so early in the affair, sweetheart, and I wanted to have more fun before I loosed my seed up your womb.”

He laughed. “Much more fun. Besides, I would be turned away from your charms when you got heavy with whatever was brewing in there.”

He took a swig of his ale and his eyes glittered across the rim of his tankard.

“So it ever is with mortal woman.”

I took a sip of my ale.

“These mole hills you said were nurseries. What happens to the birthlings when they are born?”

“Think of spawns or swarms of fish. Most are eaten by other species, some by their own. Others end up ‘road-kill’.”

“Oh! That is too horrible!”

“No so much if you saw them. It would take a particular mother to nurture one,…like a blind one.” He laughed as he swallowed his ale, and managed to choke.

“Would our child appear like a monster?”

He put his tankard down and looked at me. “Not if you loved it from birth.”

That was not exactly encouraging.

“Garrett…do you have shape shifters in your world?”

“Doesn’t every world have that? I think you call them transvestites in yours.”

I had to laugh. Not exactly what I was asking, but I’ll take that answer. Witty Devil.

He knew much more than he would say.   He held some of the secrets of the ages and this I was sure. But he was a damn tricky Devil, and he made me work for it. It was like peeling an onion. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get to his center. He was full of mystery, but then, most demons are. If anyone tells you they are benign, or banal, don’t believe a word of it. They are charmers and tricksters and will keep you unbalanced. This Demon was a handful, but ‘life’ as I was becoming to know, would be a lot duller without him. I had learned it was not just the human heart that was layered with complexities. If I was learning anything, it was that the Universe held infinite mysteries, some of them anxious to be known.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2007, 201

‘Lord Nyo Meets His Son’, from “The Nightingale’s Song”, Part 12

–

Two years ago this November  Marge Chester died.  The night before she did, she called  to discuss this last episode of  what was to become “The Nightingale’s Song”.  She said these words of Lord Nyo, ‘this grieving ugly warrior’, had made her cry. She  followed the series of poems and had ‘become close’ to Lord Nyo and his transformation, his struggle to change in thinking and behavior.  Marge was a friend for over 24 years, the mate of my cousin Bobby who also died.  I couldn’t have had a better and kinder friend.  She was the strongest woman I have known. This end espisode is dedicated to Marge.

Lady Nyo

–

Perhaps a strong man

Should not offer love without

Having love returned

But this grieving ugly warrior

Still finds his love is growing

–

 

Lord Nyo stunk with the blood of battle

As his bow and swords cut a swath

Through men in service to another,

When the battle horns went silent,

With tattered banners like defeated clouds

Limp over the field,

Acrid smoke stained everything

And the piteous cries of the dying

Echoed in his ears.

He wondered if his life would end here.

–

But the gods he didn’t believe in

Were merciful.  He lived,

And his thoughts turned from fierce, ugly warriors

Towards home and a baby.

–

It took   a month

For Lord Nyo to lead his remaining men,

Battle-weary and maimed

Some in  body, all in spirit

Some not destined for further life,

But to die in the arms of women

In the shade of Gassan mountain.

No shame in this,

They had fought like devils

And only their daimyos

Could claim ‘victory’.

–

Lord Nyo pushed himself,

His aging war horse,

His men,

Only stopping to bathe

Once in a cold mountain stream,

To wash the dust of battle

From his eyes,

The soot of many fires from his face.

He still looked like a ghoul,

would frighten any baby.

–

Finally he came through the wicket gate

Of his house,

Saw the assembly of servants, women

And Lady Nyo on the veranda,

All bowing to the ground

In honor of their lord,

Though Lady Nyo held his new son

Like a Madonna before her,

And Lord Nyo, ugly, old warrior that he was,

Felt the sting of a woman’s tears fill his eyes.

–

He bowed to his wife,

A deep, respectful bow,

And went to view his son

In the arms of his lady.

–

His son was blowing bubbles,

Cooing like a turtle dove

But when he saw his father,

His leather armor and helmet still on his head,

His eyes widened in fright

Then shut tight

As he howled like a dog

Greeting the full Moon!

–

The women all shuddered!

What a greeting to a new father,

And what would their lord do?

Lord Nyo narrowed his eyes,

Threw back his head

And gave a great howl of his own.

–

Tsuki stopping in mid-yowl,

Staring at this leather-clad stranger

Who would dare howl louder than he!

–

It was not seemly

For a great warrior,

Just back from a long battle

To show such interest in a child,

But Lord Nyo put all that aside.

A tender nature came forth

And no one would laugh or smirk,

For he was a new father,

Though an aged one,

And would by rights,

Enjoy his only son.

–

He fashioned leather balls

To roll under bamboo blinds

To entice Tsuki

Like a kitten to chase,

even poked a small hole in the shoji

Of his lady’s rooms so he could watch

Unknown (he thought)

Of the servants and even his wife,

–

But all knew and whispered

Behind their sleeves

And noted his curious love.

No one thought the lesser of him for doing this.

–

Lord Nyo made

By his own hand

A tiny catalpa-wood bow,

With tinier arrows,

Fitted with feathers from a hummingbird

And arrow heads of small bone,

Something to shoot at birds,

Or perhaps cats,

But Tsuki only gnawed on the gleaming wood,

His teeth coming in,

And all he could reach

Was his personal chew-toy.

–

One day soon after his return,

Lord Nyo peered through the shoji,

Watched the old nurse bathe his son

When Tsuki climbed from his bath

And started to cross the tatami mat.

Lord Nyo saw the tail,

And almost tearing the shoji off its tracks,

Stormed into the room.

–

“Wife, Wife!

What little devil have your spawned!

What malevolent kami have you lain with!”

–

Lady Nyo, writing a poem in her journal

Rose quickly from her low table

And rushed into the room.

–

“My Lord!

I am told this little tail

Will disappear in time.

It marks our son for now

As a gift of the gods.

This little vestigial tail

Portends great deeds to be done

By our Tsuki.”

–

The old nurse shrunk back,

Well familiar with the temper

Of her lord,

Praying at this moment

For the kindness of a stray kami

To turn her into a bar of soap.

–

Tsuki, for his part

Saw his father

And with a great squeal of joy

Crawled as fast as his fat little legs could carry him,

His tail a propeller going round and round

Not at all helping the situation.

–

Lord Nyo staggered back against the shoji

Ripping even more of the delicate rice paper

And the frame asunder.

Lady Nyo rushed to pick Tsuki up,

Wrapping him and his offending tail

In the long sleeve of her kimono,

Holding him to her breast

.

But Tsuki wanted his father

And cried, “Baba, Baba!”

With a piteous tone,

Not knowing the proper name for Father,

As the nurse rolled her eyes

Cowering behind her lady,

Wondering if this ugly, old warrior

Had lost his wits in battle.

–

We know Tsuki was a gift of the gods,

Or at least Tsukiyomi,

The god of the Moon.

–

When Tsuki was in his basket

And the moon was full,

Lady Nyo and her old nurse

Placed small lanterns around his cradle,

To lessen the glow of her son,

As he slept in the moonlight.

It was unearthly how much Tsuki gleamed at night

But how pale tofu-colored he appeared during the day.

–

One night of the full Moon,

Lord Nyo lay besides his wife

And was awakened by Tsuki gurgling

From his basket.

His son talking to the

Moonbeams which danced into the room

From the high window above his cradle.

The small-wicked lanterns had burned out

And the moon and the moon child

Brightened the room.

Lord Nyo watched his son weave strands of moonbeam

With his feet, cooing and laughing,

Clear crystal ribbons of light floating

Around him

Out the window

And up to the moon.

He saw the benevolent face of Tsukiyomi above,

Looking with obvious love at his son.

–

Lord Nyo felt the weariness of years fall away;

Felt tender love for this Moon-child,

And yes, both of them blessed by the changeable gods,

A gift for an ugly, old warrior

A gift of life in the midst of such death,

A gift for the remaining years of his life.

–

THE END

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2012, 2013

“Devil’s Revenge”, Chapter 40

sky in the NorthEast, Jane Kohut-Bartels, June 25, 2012

What a day. I had a friend have a meltdown, a computer process that scrambled chapters, and the weather keeps threatening rain. What else can happen?

Oh, I’ve been asked to read a poem at a poetry club tomorrow and haven’t a clue as to what to read. There are good poets there, and though it’s a welcoming group, I don’t read my own poetry well in public. My husband tells me to practice, so I’m walking around mumbling.

A good friend read this chapter. She has an interest in Celtic Mythology, and I told her before she got this chapter today that I was taking great liberties with Celtic Mythology in this chapter. Actually, in this book.

So….the Demon and Bess find themselves in early 7th century Wales, and that’s what happens when you are loitering around the ley lines of the Earth, also known as ‘dragon lines’ by the plain folk. This chapter will confuse those who have been reading “Devil’s Revenge” because I haven’t posted anything that segues into this scene, (or century) but there it is. Hope it entertains, which is all writers of fiction can hope to do.

Lady Nyo

“DEVIL’S REVENGE”
Chapter 40

The sun was barely above the horizon when they rode down the causeway and onto the shore. Skirting the water, they came to the main road and rode through the forest up into the hills. They rode for Gwynedd, days in the distance. Lord Evan looked with narrowed eyes at the far hills, soon to turn into mountains. He was leading these men, but one amongst them was the true authority. He prayed this man would help protect them. He was getting too old for these forays. Soon the soil would warm and the spring planting would call for his presence. The comfort of his own bed and wife beside him was alluring enough.

Lord Dilwen was that man of authority. He sat his horse with suprising grace for one so old and though the pace was not fast, they traveled over landscape that rolled with a constant rhythm. The journey would challenge his bones, but he savored the chance to get away from the women. Given to the Goddess more than sixty years ago, he was trained to endure hardship. He was a very old Druid and the priests of the Christ did not challenge him. If they thought of him at all, they dismissed him as senile. Lady Dilwen and he now lived in the comfort of the castle and both needed the warmth of the hall fire in winter. Spring was appearing, the weather had changed. He was glad to be out from the castle. It did a man good to be with men, out of earshot of women.

Lord Evan sat on his horse, lost in thought. He knew the three men from his homeland to the west. They would follow his orders. The new one, this Lord Gwrtheyrn , was a puzzle to him. He would dismiss him as a cipher, but saw the behavior of those about him. He hadn’t a clue why the younger lord had such value. He smelled like a damn foreigner, but he knew enough to withhold his contempt. He was commanded by his council of his lordships to deliver this Lord Gwrtheyrn to the Isle of Skye. He hoped they would meet little resistance as they passed through the kingdoms. All except Lord Dilwen were competent swordsmen. If the young Lord Gwrtheyrn was killed by a raider, they could turn their horses homeward that much sooner. It was all the same to him. He smiled to himself in thought. Lord Dilwen may not be a swordsman, but he had other powers to compensate. Lord Evan’s horse was leading them through the forest and he looked back at the Lords Dilwen and Gwrtheyrn. He could vaguely hear Lord Dilwen’s voice behind him.

“It’s a twisted history this land has been given.”

Lord Dilwen’s voice was low for they passed through a forest not of their own. Better they pass quietly, without drawing the notice of locals. They were too small a group to take on another force. Lord Evan would know where they were, but to the other’s eyes, one forest was the same as another.

Lord Dilwen rode next to Gwrtheyrn. “The Battle of Camlan, now that’s where Arthur carried the image of Saint Mary on his shield. That showed the Old Ones how much Arthur betrayed them. He had been King Stag at the Beltane, yet look what he fell to!”

Lord Dilwen spat over his horse. “It was his love of peace that set this betrayal. With the priests of Christ welcome at his council, there was no turning back.”

They rode in silence for a while, while Lord Dilwen collected his thoughts, remembering the past, or perhaps considering the present, the future.

“Arthur and his forces were up against Medraut, the son of Llews. That was your foster-father.” Lord Dilwen paused a bit, and thought back over his history. “Medraut joined forces with the Picts and Saxons and blazed through the north.”

Lord Dilwen’s memories heated his words. “Ah, things were again to change, though news traveled slowly. The great five princes of the land, Constantine from Cornwall, Virtipore, who had Dyfed and the regions south, let me think now. Ah! It was Cuneglase of Powys and Maelgun of Gwyddyl, and I believe Conan of Gwent., they held the land in the name of the Goddess back then.” He fell silent again and his eyes darkened a bit.

“It was the wavering of Maelgwn who was won by the Christ’s priests. He was the snake in the grass! When he was young, he served the Goddess well, taking many heads of tyrants. But age can sometimes do strange things, my young lord.” Lord Dilwen spit over the side of his horse again. “Maelgwn repented of his past and swore before the priest’s Christ that he would be a monk amongst them. He was powerful, but turned too much to the council of those priests. They gelded him.”

Lord Dilwen took a water skin from his saddle mount and drank deeply. He offered it to Lord Gwrtheyrn, who shook his head.

“So, what we have, my young lord, is chaos and confusion. Princes raiding princes, Kings breaking pacts. The land is in turmoil, and the Christians no longer wait as wolves at the door. They have made good egress into the minds and hearts all over the island. Their brand of ignorance is particularly galling. Now, the Goddess hides Her face, and plague has descended in the east. This pox lasted 6 years last time. . It took your family along with King Llews. With no one to plow and crops to be set, famine takes what plague didn’t get.”

Lord Dilwen looked sideways at Gwrtheyrn. “Did anything of your childhood come back to you when you entered the land of your ancestors? Did you remember your foster father, King Llews?”

Lord Gwrtheyrn shook his head silently. “I remember nothing, of people nor place. One mountain could be as another.”

Lord Dilwen’s eyes glittered for an instant, and he smiled to himself. “Our priests were wise in preserving your life. You might pay with it now, but there was a greater wisdom in removing you.” He was silent for a moment. “Do you feel any stirrings of your magic?”

Lord Gwrtheyrn looked at him in surprise. “It is that apparent? No, it seems all magic and power have left me. I wondered what had happened.”

Lord Dilwen chuckled to himself. “It will return, my young lord. You are standing in many magic fields, what they call dragon lines, though that is the name used by the people. The old Druids knew another name, one that is not mentioned aloud, and it’s hard to tell where one stops and one starts. They crisscross the earth, and are especially potent underground. Your lady will have some knowledge of its workings before she is finished.”

Lord Gwytheyrn looked hard at the old Druid, his mind forming questions. “I know, my Lord, of some of the plans for my being here. The council has made clear what they want from me. But as to Bess…I mean my Lady Bethan, is it wise to give her such knowledge?”

“Do you not trust her, my son?” Lord Dilwen’s voice was soft, his eyes looking at the back of Lord Evan’s jacket.

Gwytheyrn was silent in thought. “It’s not that I don’t trust her, my Lord. It’s that she is so distanced in mind from all this.” He made a rude choking gesture with his hand. “She will be trouble for the one who is doing the teaching.”

Lord Dilwen laughed. “All women are hard to teach, especially when they resist the lessons. But none of these plans were made without care. We all have a reason for being here, though the Goddess doesn’t tell that to men. Perhaps in the matter of women, She is more gracious.”

Gwytheyrn lapsed into silence. Whatever they were planning for Bess back in the castle, she would give them a good run for their money. He knew her to have a sharp mind, but she was a modern woman, removed from the turmoil and customs of this present land and time. It would take a major adjustment to not be overwhelmed and he did not think that could be avoided. Well, there was nothing he could do at this distance. Those around her would have to adjust to her own behavior. He smiled to himself. It would be quite a contest of wills and he was glad he would be miles away.

They were following a rough road that wound through the hills and through more forests. The hills mounted upward, and soon Gwytheyrn could tell that they had left the lowlands. They crossed over a long valley and began to climb into the mountains. Lord Dilwen sat his horse easily, and at times appeared to doze on his mount. When they began to climb, and the altitude changed he became awake and looked about him carefully. He explained to Gwytheyrn that he was looking for a particular place, sacred to the Old Druids and he wanted to pay his respects to this place. Lord Evan knew his plans and dropped back to speak to the old Druid. Gwytheyrn slowed his horse and fell away from them, allowing the two men privacy. They talked together for a while, though Gwytheyrn would not hear their low voices, but Lord Dilwen eyes were keen in observing all about him. It was an hour further when they pulled their five mounts together and stopped for the night.

* * *

Lord Dilwen walked apart from the remaining four up a steep hill and into a clump of trees. Taking his bearings, he walked westward through these trees until he came to an outcrop. There he climbed around rocks and boulders until he found what he was looking for. It was called “Idris’Chair” and it looked out onto a valley below. However, Lord Dilwen had to carefully step down a very narrow path till he could climb into the stone chair.

It was not cut or hewn, but of a natural shape. Deep and wide, it was a place of great lore and mystery. Only those who had the power to command these mysteries would dare to sit here. Only one who had training and was conversant with magical powers would dare to touch its stone.

Those Druids who had meditated there had transformative experiences, such that either they awoke the next morning enhanced, wise or dead. These high points served as windows to the otherworld. Lord Dilwen had demons to command and he needed these sacred stones for his personal protection. Respect and regard on earth was very different than what was batted about in the otherworld.

Lord Dilwen settled himself into the cupped bottom of the stone chair. Dusk was settling fast and the first star of the heavens was clear and high. Soon the moon would rise in the western sky before him, a beggar’s cup a quarter full. It was the right time, and the forces could be called to him with this moon’s rising.

Lord Dilwen stretched his arms out on either side of the stone arms. It would be cold tonight, the spring very new and tender, but he knew he would be past feeling discomfort. The trance he would slip into would make him insensate to all elements. Only those creatures that would float through the portal of his mind and into his essence would matter. Commanding the demons and spirits he needed would be tricky. Some would try to lure him over the side of the chair, his body to fall to the rocks below. He would have to discern the tricksters from the ‘helpful’ ones, and this would be even more a test of wills.

Taking out a stone from a pouch threaded through his belt, he held it in his right hand, and traced the labyrinth cuttings on this slightly larger than palm-sized stone. He hummed a particular tune, and to a hidden listener, it would sound out of tone, an eerie scale of strange notes. Over and over his hand traced the same lines on the stone. The birds had settled in for the night and the wind picked up and blew sounds like low notes from hollowed out bones.

He knew that the trance, the altered state was approaching, and the serpent’s tails on his wrists started to twitch. Lord Dilwen’s eyes rolled back in his head and his neck fell backward, his shoulders cradled by the hard stone.

“I call out to you, the powers of the Universe, those foul and fair. I have need of your counsel, I have need of your power. Come to me, horrid Morrigan, Come to me, in t-Ellen trechend- come to me three headed Ellen, and give me your wisdom.”

The wind picked up and moaning was heard around the valley below. A low cackle floated up on the breath of the wind and circled the stone chair.

The night was dark, and the beggar cup of a moon seemed to telescope, to move closer to earth, to enlarge itself and spread like a sickening smile across the sky, east to west. Lord Dilwen knew that the power was upon him, for his breathing slowed and he could feel his heart beat lessen. A warm, caressing air embraced his old bones and he knew he was being tempted by some demonic spirit. It would call out to him in whispers, for him to

Stand up and come to me! Come to me, my dearest lover, step out into the night time air, walk to me, I am waiting, waiting.

He knew this was a first temptation, and he willed his loins to shrivel. It was a seasoning, a seasoning of unholy lust that was calling within his mind, and he knew it to be false. His manhood had not shown such vigor in years, and this was the first telling of the temptation.

He shook his head and raised his arms and the serpents crawled up and down his arms, their mouths opening and their tongues flicking. One hissed and the other snapped his jaws, and the whispers moaned and disappeared…for now.

Lord Dilwen knew he would not sleep tonight, for to sleep would be to seal his death warrant. There would be no awakening on the morrow. His limp body would be found either in the chair, stone cold and dead, or his body on the rocks below in the far distant valley.

Still his hand did not stop his tracing the tracks of the labyrinth. He hummed a different and as discordant tune and around midnight, the wind picked up from the north and blew hard down the valley. Lord Dilwen knew then he was to be granted the presence of some spirit, and perhaps it would be the great Morrigan herself. But there would be a price to pay, there always was.

Suddenly the air was filled with a foul odor. Lord Dilwen knew what this plague was, because it was a plague sent by the foulest forces of the Underworld. It was another attempt to frighten him away, but he had smelled death many times before, the particular sweet-sickening scent of putrefaction. He had been on battle fields where the stomachs of combatants had split in half, and had stepped in their fouled guts with their staggering last steps. He had smelled the land when plague took entire villages, and had arrived days later when the stench could be smelled a mile away on the wind. No, this was not of the earth, it was a huge swarm of red-ochre colored birds, the birds of the dead- whose breath withered fields and orchards and suffocated any man or beast they passed close by.

Lord Dilwen tied a cloth over his nose and slowed his breathing. He knew it was a test, another one to see how strong he was, and how much he could stand. After a while, the birds disappeared, but the valley was befouled with their droppings. Where their shit landed, there were burn marks in the grasses and trees would look in the morning as if they were struck by lightning.

Suddenly, the wind picked up again, but this time no foul stench from birds. A vapor appeared in the valley and swirled and gathered, entwining like a coven of ghosts. It rose and exploded, and formed again, tendrils shooting off the tops and sides, then an updraft of energy exploding it all over again. The wide smile of the moon constricted as if even this cosmic form was diminished by what was happening in the valley below where Lord Dilwen sat. This vapor formed again and again, slowly rising up towards the place where he sat. Lord Dilwen continued to trace the lines of the labyrinth. He reached into his pouch and pulled out the dried leaves of mugwort, sacred to Morrigan. For him to eat it would be certain death. This would leave him paralyzed in a dream, where he would not be able to move. But spreading it before him on the ground would be an offering. He also took a clear quartz crystal, her stone, and placed it on the left arm of the stone chair.

When the swirling vapor reached level to his chair, it suddenly burst into a multi-colored display of streamers that shot out into the air, disappearing with a fury of energy.

Lord Dilwen felt a presence and looking to his left spied a huge raven

“Ah! Goddess Morrigan! You are honoring me with your presence. I have come for your counsel and bring you gifts.”

No sound came from Lord Dilwen’s mouth, but a tinkling of what could be called celestial music, or to other ears, a well tuned wind chime. It was answered by a rude calling, a cackling, a low, menacing call not expected from a raven.

I already know what you want, Lord Dilwen. You have called me from my labors to answer that of a mortal’s concern? Of what is in it for me? Why would I mettle in such mundane affairs of mundane creatures?

Lord Dilwen knew he had to proceed very cautiously. The Morrigan was a touchy Goddess. But he also knew her to be a curious one. Mettling in the affairs of mortals, attempting to mess with fate was second nature to these immortals. They fed on this as a mortal would his meat.

“I am here as an avocate to Lord Gwythern in his battle against another force. I ask your counsel, wise Morrigan. I know these two were once locked in battle as young bulls in our prehistory. They continue to clash and it is time that one over come the other. This battle must end.”

There was silence. The dawn wind was unusually quiet, and no birds yet to be heard. The sickly grin of the moon had dipped low in the western sky, faded, muted though the sun was not yet on the horizon.

The raven was as still as a statue. Lord Dilwen rubbed his finger over the stone, a meditation path protecting as well as communicating other things to him.

Go home, you old fool. You mettle in things you know not of. No power of Heaven or Hell or of Annwn will protect or succor your young lord. Go home. Your quest is pointless.

Lord Dilwen sat in silence. Perhaps another way could be found to the Morrigan’s counsel.

“What price, Morrigan, do you demand for your counsel? Would you want the remaining breath of my body? I would give it to you, for I am an old and feeble man, with little life left in me. Is this your price?”

Suddenly the quiet of the predawn was broken. A low and rumbling cackle filled the air, and seemed to creep up the walls of the cliff face from far down in the valley. Lord Dilwen knew this hellish sound was from the Morrigan, though the raven sat its perch on the rock, silent.

Of what value to me the rattling and stinking breath of an old mortal, even one such as you? Priest! Hear me! You attempt to change the forces of fate with your puny involvement. These issues are far beyond your power.

Aye, she will take the bait, it is only the matter of time.

“But they are not beyond you, Morrigan. You can change the fate of all, and the outcome will be to your glory if you just stretch out your hand. You can trump the Christian Devil himself and show the power of the Old Ones once again. Our ways have faded to nothingness, our Gods and Goddesses now reduced to the leprechauns and fairies in the myths. But you, Great Morrigan, with your power can restore a rightful history. You can redeem the true faith.”

A wind whipped up from the valley and the near-morning stars seemed to churn in the still dark heaven. This wind tossed branches, uprooted small trees and large bushes and like a vortex, danced in front of Lord Dilwen’s stone chair. He pressed himself back in terror as the vortex crept closer and closer, drawing the breath out of his lungs. His eyes glanced over to the raven and saw it surrounded in an unearthly glow, and its beak was transformed into a terrible smile. The words of the Morrigan came now from that raven’s mouth.

You shall have what you have sought, Lord Dilwen. I will command the trees of the forest to gather in battle, under the banner of your Lord Gwytheren, to fight all the forces of Hell. But this must not take place on our soil. Go home, go home to your particular Hell. Let none of the forces of God’s Hell gather on our land.

The next morning, the men found Lord Dilwen, cold, seemingly dead, cradled in the stone seat of the chair. They wrapped him well in cloaks and carried him to camp where they tried to revive him. Chaffing his limbs and forcing him to swallow a strong liquor, they were able to bring him to some life, but he seemed beyond intelligent speech. The only words he would utter sounded like jibberish, but the best they could make of it was the sound of “ca godu”. To them, it was the dying rattle of a very old man. And so he died. They bundled his thin body in his cloak and set out to return to the castle for his burial.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2009, 2013

“Devil’s Revenge, Chapter 8

It’s summer, it’s humid and I am sick of poetry. I’m working on this novel, and trying to determine whether it deserves the energy it will take to finish and rewrite. It was my second novel, and a strange one at that. I started it in the beginning of 2007 and the plot demanded a lot of research in an area that I would rather not. But, it has a charm of its own, and I grew fond of the little devils. There is a shift coming in the plot and that is where I have some concerns. It seems to be two books, and how to marry them is a problem right now.

I do have all summer to work on it. We’ll see what happens.

Bess has been assaulted by one of the dangerous characters from her previous book, this Obadiah, and she is trying to regain her balance. Rather hard to do because she’s caught up in this world of demons and magic.

Lady Nyo

DEVIL’S REVENGE

Chapter 8

Since Obadiah’s visit, I have been sickened, fallen into a malaise. Whether it was the strength of his attack or the realization I had lost control of everything, I can’t tell. But I know I am suffering.

I find myself haggard, in pain in parts of my body, with no energy. I feel buffeted by everything that is of material substance: I knock into furniture, unsteady in my gait. I feel I have been thrown under the wheels of a carriage. Even the effort of placing my arm on a table makes me weary. My arm is too solid flesh, heavy, and the wood of the table, hard.

I would prefer to spend my time in bed, but the Demon tells me I have to rally myself. I have to ‘walk it off’. I don’t know. .He could never feel this way. He looks and acts the picture of health.

“You don’t remember the knife wounds you wrote into your book? That hurt. A lot.”

Today he is here, and seems to be constantly. Actually, I was in this room for the past few days. He says I am ‘recovering’. I wonder. I seem to be falling into depression. I wonder what is happening at home in real time.

“Nothing that needs you, darling. They don’t even notice your absence.”

“Oh, like that is supposed to make me feel better?” I direct my words at him because he is sitting across from me, having arrived in ‘our’ room a few minutes ago. He thoughtfully brings me a dish of tea in the usual way, by snapping his fingers.

Pure magic.

He is dressed in the same shirt, with large, blousing sleeves, and the vest I embroidered for him. His boots are none too clean, as I see he has tracked some mud from outside into the room. The rain has been falling gently all day, and it seems that the sky will never clear. His shirt seam at the shoulder has ripped and it gapes open.

“Take off your shirt, Garrett. I’ll sew your sleeve for you.” He grins at me, and throws off his vest, and pulls his shirt over his head. It is not an invitation to mate and I tell him pointedly.

“But it’s been so long since I heard you coo in my arms, my sweetwoman.” He tosses me his shirt. It is warm and smells of his scent, which I tease is of brimstone.

“You need to think and write more original material. You’ve used that joke too much before.” He reads my mind at will. Let him read this piece of advice, I think to myself.

“Bess! I am shocked that you would ask me to do such a thing…besides, I can’t reach that part of my anatomy with–”

“Enough, Devil…even for you.” I have little tolerance for his antics today, and feel weary. I just want peace. I stitch his shirt and toss it back to him. He sits there with his chest and shoulders exposed to the cold air of the room.

“At least you have some tender thoughts for me today. I was beginning to worry you had replaced me.”

He grinned and pulled the shirt over his head. The insolent devil grinned some more as he unbuttoned his pants to tuck his shirt. I rose from the table and turned to the window. I would worry if he changed his ways. I was getting used to him, and a difference would arouse my anxiety even more.

“Let me look at your backside, Bess. I promise to be proper.” I was hurting and could only rely upon his magic to stop the boiling pain. But like all medication, his magic wore off.

“Come here, darling, and stand between my legs. I need to see you closely. Obadiah has used his own particular magic on you.”

I moved to stand with my back to him, and lowered my robe. Anything else on my skin was intolerable. If it weren’t for the laudanum he mixed in water every few hours, I would not be able to sleep. Obadiah had deeply scratched my back and my buttocks in a frenzy of hatred. He had also raped me, and had drawn blood.

“Stay still, lambkin, and I will apply this ointment where it will do good.” His hand moved across my back and I felt a warm sensation spreading across my skin. He did the same for my backside and then gently pulled my robe back across my shoulders.

“There. That should do it for a couple more hours.”

I turned around and sat down on his knee, leaning my head against his shoulder. I glanced at his face, and caught a slight smile. He was surprised at my tenderness. He enveloped me in his arms and we sat quietly for a few moments.

“Help me understand, Garrett. Help me understand the world you and Obadiah come from.”

He didn’t answer, but gave it some thought. “Obadiah and I don’t exactly come from the same worlds, sweetheart. You drew us together with your book, but I wouldn’t say he and I would necessarily be found in the same dimension.”

“Then Obadiah is from Hell and you are from Heaven?” I was hopeful that this would explain them both.

He chuckled. “You insist in making comparisons to your Heaven and Hell. There’s so much more to this universe, Bess. But if you can only think about things in this small dimension, then think of the Talmud.”

Oh Great! Jewish history! Just up my alley. Even more confusing than the Christian Bible, something I avoided in any case.

“There’s lots of good stories in that one, my dear woman, like the Songs of Solomon, and all the orgies and wars.”

“Oh, you would think of all that.” I laughed at him and slapped him on his breast.

“Well, then, explain it to me, my Demon Jewish Scholar.”

“You have heard of Lilith?” I nodded, but not sure who she was. “Have you heard of her consort, Asmodeus?” I shook my head.

“Asmodeus translated from the Hebrew as “Evil Spirit.” He thought a bit. “Or better yet, Belial. He controlled 80 legions of demons, 6,666 demons per legion…that’s a lot of devils! And he brought pain and suffering to humanity. His particular talents were lust, perversion and guilt. Think of Obadiah here.”

“I’d rather not,” I said dryly.

“Well….he delivered lust and perversion upon you last time you met, so the example is lucid.”

“Rape isn’t lust, Garrett…it is pure violence.”

“Ah, you modern women. Lust gives the stiffness to that which rapes. Think of lust as starch.”

I chuckled at his example. He had me there. “So you are saying you and Obadiah know each other but aren’t connected?”

“No, I’m saying that Obadiah and I are connected, but not in the ways you would understand.”

I was getting uncomfortable sitting on his knee, and crossed to my chair. I sat down gingerly. His magic was good, but not complete.

He smiled at me, and extended his hand across the table. This was a familiar gesture he made each visit, and it took me a while to trust him enough to join my hand with his.

This time, he opened my hand and played like he was a fortune teller, reading my palm.

“I see there is another man in your life, Bess. He has charmed you with a sweet, melodious voice, and your husband would load his shotgun if he knew your thoughts.”

I blushed and took back my hand.

“Oh, I don’t need your paw to tell me what is going on in your heart. Perhaps other places?” He grinned at me and my blush increased.

“You Devil! Do I have any privacy here?”

“Nah…not with me. I have my own interests to protect.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“You wouldn’t. I don’t like competition.” He grinned, but I took him seriously. There was something a bit menacing in his tone.

“ I admit it took me a bit of time to figure out some of the allusions to him in your novel, but they keep popping up before me. Like securing passage on the Mystic.

My God! I hadn’t even written that in yet. But it was a great name for the boat the two characters would use to escape.

“Ah, Devil…leave him alone. He once was a friend but it ended badly.”

“Ah, Lilith! Follow your own advice!” He laughed at my expression.

I wondered what I had been doing myself. I didn’t know he had numerous affairs for the past 15 years, and I would have been another notch on his belt. It was a sweet relationship, but as things go, it was bound to blow up in my face. He left his email open and his wife of many years read all. The last straw came when he hinted he might have done this on purpose. God! The trouble a man gets when he deceives himself! His wife demanded he break all contact, and he would not honor her request. I said hurtful things to him to end it all. Sin definitely finds you out, even if you don’t believe in it.

“I bet he would like to be a ‘very strong part’ of something else, my darling.” He laughed at his words. “All men like notches on their belts.”

“Oh, Devil! Don’t torment me now. I already told you. It ended, and ended badly. I have lost a friend here, it had started so sweetly.”

“If his cock isn’t his first concern, then he’s not much of a man. You women…you fall for such morality! He ‘appears’ sweet, because he knows a pot of honey attracts the bees. He has sucked you in and he hasn’t even waggled his finger yet! Let him waggle another part and we will see what you do.”

Oh! He was such a vulgar Demon. “You could not understand such friendship, even though it has ended. It was a false friendship, and should have ended. He was a moron and a deceiver, but I was a dupe. You can only waggle your own ‘part’ and think that women should fall on their knees before you!”

“Not a bad place for a woman, between my knees, don’t you think?” He sat back in his chair and grinned at me, a perfect false charmer.

I had to smile a bit at his banter. He had been a generous lover and was becoming a friend.

“About the opposite with your friend, wouldn’t you say? A friend about to become a generous lover?”

I sighed heavily. My friend had never been that. He was a middle aged man afraid of growing old. A vicious temper, with childlike tantrums was the last memory I had of him. An overgrown child.

“Oh, stop it! What would you know of men and women? You are nothing but air!” I snapped my fingers, and he pushed his lip out at me.

“Be careful what you assume of me, Miss Bess. I have more substance than you know.”

Well, I did know that he was flesh and blood enough when he made love to me. It felt more than real. What had grown between us was more enduring than a mere sexual act. Something was of the heart. My demon had a heart, and I was finding that I had one, too.

“Promise to leave him alone?” I asked sweetly.

He grinned at me and stretched his hand again across the table. “Oh, I’ll leave him alone, enough. But you do the same.”

There is no arguing with a Devil. This one was right from the start. I just wish I had known. I could have avoided a lot of grief.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2007, 2013

“Devil’s Revenge”, Chapter 11

This chapter begins the building of allies of the two Demons, Garrett and Obadiah. Obadiah has already harnessed two minor (or common) demons, Salaah and Cheitan, to do his bidding. Garrett has to step up his game, but realizes Obadiah has become more powerful. The study of medieval demonology took very seriously this issue of powers in Hell, and this influences the action in “Devil’s Revenge”. Bess has been raped (in a previous chapter not posted) and the fear is that Obadiah will use his gathering forces to snatch her from under his arch rival’s nose.

Lady Nyo

DEVIL’S REVENGE

CHAPTER 11

I was standing at a window in this bedroom. I found myself more and more in his world, the world of the Demon. I was not sure of the sequence of time, but it seemed that every few days I appeared back in this room. Today, I was busy for a number of hours writing a chapter, one I hoped would bring me to the last one, the conclusion of the novel. I have been in starts and stops over it for the past month, and have trouble forming my thoughts. Of course, there has been much to distract me. His presence in my ‘life’, for I guess you could call this life, has been a major obstacle in finishing it. He is entertaining but brings much chaos to my existence.

All in all, it’s been a fruitful time, for if I stumbled in the writing, there is much to take up my imagination. I have found out numerous things about him. He is a jealous demon, who prates he will chase away any competition, and has little regard for my earthly marriage. He already admits he visits me, and not just in my dreams, but takes a seat next to my bed, and involves himself in my sleep. My patient husband sleeps deeply, and I am not sure Garrett, the mortal name of the Demon, does not have his hand in this. A dear friend from the ‘north country’ as my Demon calls him, already has caught his interest, and he has as much threatened me with some foul magic if I continue to converse with him. I will not bow to his threats, for I think he has become fond of me, and does not want my displeasure. He can be a bully but I know now he needs much assurance from me, and that I give most willingly. I have grown as fond of him, as he seems to have of me, though he goes to great pains to hide it. His human side seems to be growing.

Ah! The masculine vanity! Alive even in immortals!

I was looking out on a bleak landscape, standing at the window. The middle of winter, and there was fog swirling on the ground around a clump of trees in the midground distance. Or it looked like fog. But then again, it came together like smoke and rose from a central point in the trees. How strange. It whirled and eddied and took shape like smoke from a chimney. It held my attention and I thought I could easily go out for a walk. I threw on my red cloak and went downstairs and out the front door. It was not a long walk to the stand of trees where I saw the smoke, and I felt a strange compulsion to follow. The trees were bare of all leaves, their black limbs silhouetted against the gray, winter sky. I walked through them, feeling a sense of discovery, being pulled by my curiosity. There, before me, was perhaps a low fire, though I can’t see any flame. The smoke was thick, and it seemed to pour from the ground! As I looked upwards, around the trees, there were blackbirds perched in the limbs. They were totally silent, which is strange for a flock of blackbirds. Suddenly the smoke parted, and there, sitting on a stump, about twenty feet from me, was Obadiah!

Oh! I couldn’t tell if he was an apparition, a ghost, or something else, but he sat there, his long legs stretched out before him, crossed one upon the other, and his arms crossed over his chest. He was not wearing a coat, but was dressed in a white, linen shirt, with a black stock wound around his neck. His face had no expression, but his eyes pierced me with their intensity, and I wavered where I stood, not sure what to do. He smiled at me, a mocking smile, devoid of any kindness. For some reason I found myself drawn to him as in a trance. I should be afraid of him, considering what he has done to me, but I was not. I was excited and unsettled, perhaps fear plays into these emotions, but curiosity and a perverse desire was overcoming all else, all caution.

Suddenly, I was laid out on the ground, pushed violently from behind. Obadiah disappeared in a flash, and standing over me was Garrett. He had a sword in his hand, and his face was terrible to see. He grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me to my feet, scowling and in a fine high temper. He dragged me out of the glen and I don’t remember my feet even touching the ground. I heard the bedroom door slamming shut. It was as if I was in a dream, or a trance, and I tried to shake myself awake.

“You damn little fool!”

I heard something clatter. He had thrown the sword from him onto the floor.

He was furious, and grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me hard, like a rat caught by a terrier. My head was thrown back and forth by his violence and I thought my neck would snap. He released me and I fell to the floor. I lay there for a moment, aware he was standing over me. I could still feel his wrath, like a thick fog in the air. I gasped with fear, and turned to look up at him. By the look on his face I thought he would kill me.

“Nay, get off the floor. You look like a kicked dog. I’ll not harm you more.”

His voice was strange, as if his anger had broken him. He extended his hand and pulled me to my feet, where he looked at me closely. I could tell he was still angry, but he was trying his best not to act upon it.

However, I was now furious. How dare he shake me like a child! How dare he throw me to the ground! Without another thought, I raised my hand and hit him hard across the face. I saw his surprise, and then, to my horror, heard a hollow laugh. He grabbed both of my wrists in his hands before I could think and pinned them behind me. He did not spare me any pain in the doing.

“So you want to play rough, do you?” He laughed again, and sat down in a chair. He up ended me across his lap and pulled up my skirts. He exposed my nakedness and beat me hard with his hand. I yelled loudly, and cursed him with all the names I could think of. He thrashed me, hitting my buttocks and also the tops of my legs. I screamed out until I thought I would go hoarse. I cried and pleaded with him, yet he did not spare me his blows. Throwing me to the bed I cried and sobbed mightily, more from fear than pain, but there certainly was enough of that! My butt was burning with his blows. I hated him thoroughly, for I had never been treated like this before. I cried myself out and he didn’t offer a word of compassion or apology. When I finally uncovered my face from the pillows, I saw him sitting there, smoking his pipe, like nothing in the world had happened. I felt humiliated and belittled. Obviously this was his purpose.

“Tell me,” he said between puffs. “Tell me what possessed you to leave this room and go into the woods.”

His eyes glittered through the smoke. Now that I knew he would not spare me his hands, I was afraid of him.

“Oh, my dear Bess, I can smell your fear, but that is not what I am after. Tell me, now, why you went into the woods.”

I rose up from my stomach, and gingerly sat on the bed. My butt hurt. He certainly was strong.

“I don’t know. I saw some smoke coming from the glen, and I thought it interesting. I felt curious.”

“Ah. Did you feel drawn to the woods?” He puffed more forcefully on his pipe.

“Well, the smoke drew me, but then when I got there, I felt strangely drawn to the trees. The birds were silent, no birdsong. I remember that.”

“Looks like Obadiah has called upon other forces for his designs.” He puffed on his pipe. “Seems like he is getting a bit desperate.”

“What do you mean?”

“He is charming you and others to do his bidding. I don’t like it a bit. Makes me work harder, something I generally avoid. Looks like he’s ready for battle.” He spit on the floor and I grimaced at him.

“Who is he charming, you make no sense?” None of this made sense at all.

The Demon thought a bit before answering.

“You asked me before about my world. Well, there are many worlds. I frequent a number of them. This one, where I appear to you, is full of characters. I get lost in the numbers, can’t remember all the hierarchy. But it’s simple enough, or at least I’ll make it simple enough for you. Listen closely.”

He packed down his pipe with his thumb, though the tobacco glowed red in the bowl.

“Demons are intermediaries between gods and men. Most of us, what you call ‘demons’ were once men. We were not angels. Don’t make that mistake. No, there are lots of shapes and shifts abounding. There are Fates, who alter destiny, there are what you know as poltergeists, who cause much mischief, there are the incubi and succubae you have already experienced (here he tipped his pipe in my direction), there are familiars, who assist what you call witches.”

He puffed on his pipe, and a blue smoke whirled above his head in lazy, sensual spirals.

“There are Demons formed from human semen.” Here he grinned crazily, the smoke swirling around his face, obscuring his eyes.

“There are disguised Demons, which I fear our friend Obadiah is, makes it tricky in dealing with him. And there are Demons that instigate Witchcraft. I don’t know what we are dealing with at present, but we are about to find out. He grows more powerful.”

“Is he more powerful than you?” Oh! I have such fear about this!

He grimaces around the stem of his pipe. “No, I’m still more powerful. But he grows. And he has enough tricks to harness Cheitan and Saalah to do his bidding.” He barked a short, bitter laugh.

“And who are they?” I didn’t like the sound of this.

“They are some minor demons, spirits if you will. Not of much merit, but amenable to a bribe. Cheitan is the demon of Smoke and Saalah is a demon that entices women into the wood. All kinds of mischief can befall a maid in the wood. They are known as some of the ‘Devil’s Handmaids’”.

He puffed on his pipe, sending up a plume of smoke to the ceiling that circled around as it hit the beams and spread outward. An example of “Cheitan”?

“And about your being in the wood, my dear lady. Very foolish of you. Had I not come at the moment I did, you would have suffered another rape by Obadiah. He seems to delight in taking his perverse pleasures with you. You can now thank me for saving you from an even more terrible attack than last time.”

What worse could he do to me than when he raped me? I shivered, remembering those details.

“Oh, there are plenty of tricks he could render upon your soft body, my darling,” said the demon, reading my thoughts. “What he did the first time was just a first course for his appetite. You forget we demons have terrific appetites, especially for mortal women. Your flesh, especially those places between your soft, white thighs, are irresistible to us.” He leered at me. Nasty bastard.

“And with what bribe does he induce them to work for him?”

“Probably your blood, or a piece of your flesh. Or, if he’s in a particularly generous mood, a piece of your ass. Of course, that would be after he has sated himself on your charms. He would turn you over to them, where they would use you until they were bored and would tear you to pieces.”

Oh, what a terrible mouth on him! But now I was really afraid.

“You see, my dear, as long as Obadiah thinks that you are, ah, I think you call it “a free agent’ in your world? Well, as long as Obadiah thinks he can take you at will, even from under my nose, he will come back and try again. There are only a few ways to discourage him from this behavior.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Well, it is not by my authority to tell you how to end your novel, but killing him off would help….for a while. That would be one way. There is another way, but you would not want to go down that path.” He laughed to himself, and puffed hard on his pipe, his eyes glittering with mischief.

“And what is that path, dear Demon?”

It seemed the room darkened, or perhaps the sky did outside. But something changed. He still sat in his chair but it seemed he was whispering in my ear.

“A woman is much happier if she has a Master. Authority thrills a woman, my darling. Nothing but complete subjugation will finally satisfy her.”

He smiled at me, and I shivered at his words. What a strange and alien a concept to me. To call him “Master”!

“In the animal world, its nature’s decree the male shall dominate. And you are my little vixen, my little red fox.” He smiled around the stem of his pipe. “And I am very much the male here.”

I would not dispute that statement. He was more ‘masculine’ than ten men– twenty. And very proud of it. No ‘metrosexual’ confusion for him.

“You know, sweetheart, I am thinking Obadiah is more a very powerful incubus. Certainly a devil, he comes by that honestly, but…. Sexual relations with an incubus are decidedly unpleasant and an often painful affair. I think that you would agree with that.”

He would get no argument from me.

“So, Demon, what are you saying I should do?”

“Why don’t you refer to me as Demon Lover anymore?”

“After that beating? What do you think?

“Look, Bess, I think that you should come under my power completely, and let it be known.” He grinned broadly. Oh! This was fun for him!

“What is it you are saying I do?”

“Sex is a powerful thing in our worlds, as well as yours. I am suggesting you become my consort, for as long as you inhabit my world. That could be a long time, it depends upon things.”

“What things, Demon?”

“Ah, that I have no competition in your heart and mind, that you submit to everything I say and do, and that I am Master of you and your body. That you obey me and submit to me in all things.”

“I don’t know. You know that I am married.”

“Well, I can not trample upon your marriage vows, came long before me.”

“So did my friends, Garrett.”

“Ah, that is another complication. But I will look the other way if you please me in all other things.”

“Are you talking about whips and chains and things, Devil?”

He laughed. “Why in Hell’s good name would I need such things? I’m talking about the natural roles of man and woman, or in this case, Demon and mortal woman. What could be clearer?”

“You have lost me. I don’t know anything of subjugation or submission. We modern women tend to avoid all such talk and behavior.”

“And are you any happier for it?” His eyes glittered through the smoke he exhaled.

He had me there. Relations in the twenty first century were confusing enough. Was there any real happiness between men and woman? There was a lot of anger, and sham, and moving about, exchanging partners and forming anew. There was a lot of unhappiness and divorces. The roles between women and men seemed to be mandated by some chaos that we danced to faster and faster. The ‘natural’ roles that seemed to work for past generations were lost to us now. Women were more like men, and men! God! They were like women! Most women I knew had more ‘friends’ who were homosexual, gays, than girlfriends. They were interchangeable. The roles and relations had become very confused. Perhaps he had a point here. Perhaps what he was proposing was a balancing of the roles. The strong man (or devil) and the soft, weaker, woman. Perhaps he was on to something.

“You promise not to hurt me?” I asked him seriously. I don’t know what I was afraid of, but I was.

He shook his head at me in wonder, and laughed. “Are woman from your century so distanced from their natures that they don’t trust the masculine? Can you place your heart and body in my hands and know I will protect you? What is it that men do in your domain? Do they not occupy this fundamental role?”

“Well, not without a lot of confusion, Garrett. They get mixed messages from all sorts of places. I don’t think modern men know what to do with women.”

He laughed delightedly and gave me his opinion. “You fuck them good, and often, and they keep you entertained. It’s really an easy exchange. They lay down and spread their legs on demand, and you chase off all the wolves. What’s so hard about that?”

Ah, he is a trying and primitive Demon! He has the manners of a goat, but that I have told him before. It is an exchange he is proposing here. My protection and security from Obadiah if I ‘cleave’ myself to him completely. He hasn’t given me much to go on yet, but I am interested in his idea. And he has allowed my marriage and my friendship (there are others he doesn’t know about) and promises to wink at them.

In any case, I am way over my head here, and not believing in anything supernatural or paranormal, I find myself at a disadvantage. He holds all the cards right now, and I am at his mercy. My fear of Obadiah and what he can do overcomes my disdain for my overpowering, vulgar demon.

Hopefully, he will be a kind and generous ‘Master.’ I think this is called ‘bargaining with the Devil’.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
copyrighted, 2006, 2013

“Devil’s Revenge”, Chapter 10

Summer in Scotland, watercolor, 2003, Jane Kohut-Bartels

I want to thank the readers of this story. I didn’t know how well it would be received, but I see that people are reading this tale all over the world. That is extremely gratifying. It encourages me to rewrite this long book.

I had some questions at first about even posting these chapters, because of the issues of religion, etc. …plus sex, that would keep people from reading this FICTIONAL tale of devils and demons and mortals. Some people can’t relax even to read something of such fantasy because the words demon or devil set something off in them. Hah!

The imagination of writers is something that expands, except when it doesn’t, and then perhaps they make for very dull books. I hope to avoid that plague.

I don’t believe in these little buggers, but they make for a lot of good story telling. So, thank you, those who are brave enough to enter into this story.

Lady Nyo
DEVIL’S REVENGE,

Chapter 10

“Tell me, Demon. Tell me more about your ‘world.’ You certainly have pushed your way into mine.”

“I wouldn’t say pushed, Madame Author,” he retorted. “I would say, ‘pulled’ into your world, by the push of your ink.”

Perhaps. I was trying to make sense of what happened to me since he first stepped from the page.

“Can’t you write “leaped” from the page? Sounds more manly.”

I laughed. This demon lover “Capitals, Please…as in “Demon Lover” he whispers to me…

…THIS Demon Lover…you got another? … is always concerned about his masculine…’virtues’. Can you use the word ‘virtue’ with a devil? Well, he is very concerned about how he appears. This little vanity makes him more ‘human’ to me.

“Don’t bet on it. You’ll lose your coin.”

“Then tell me, Garrett. By what other names have you been known?”

The Demon grinned across the table. “Pick a letter from the alphabet.”

“Stop being coy. Tell me about your world. What do you do with yourself when you are not here? That will do for starters.”

“Well, ‘for starters’ as you put it, I could say I bedevil other old maids or I could tell you I danced in the street to the tune of my fiddle, or I was a gigolo, or it was ‘none of your business’ as you say to me. Pick.”

“Ah! So…I’m an old maid to you? I guess this is the end of the honeymoon.”

“Could be. We almost started a litter last time.” He grinned broadly.

“You can start with that little event. What happened there? All I remember is being very heated.”

He grinned wickedly. “You could say that. I seem to have that effect on old maids.”

He is an insufferable boor! But I vaguely remember being….passionately aroused, out of my mind with lust, and then I remembered falling asleep.

He reached over the table and passed his hand down my face. I floated in darkness. There were stars above me, and little hills beneath, hills that looked like mole hills far down there.

“That’s a nursery.” He smiled, and then laughed at my expression.

“Mole hills? What are you talking about.”

“Some dimension’s nursery, where the little monsters are cradled until they are let out upon some world.”

Lately I have discovered that the Demon has knowledge about worlds and creatures I don’t have a language for. Asked directly, and he will hem and haw. But every so often, he will slip up and tell me something actually interesting.

“You hurt my feelings, Bess. Everything I have to say is interesting.” The Devil is reading my mind again. He does so when he damn well pleases.

“And besides, you are a virgin where the cosmos is concerned. I only tell you what you need to know.” He leaned towards me across the table. “Besides, it can be a very scary place. Good thing you have me around.”

He puffed on his long white clay pipe and I would have to say that his last statement could easily be qualified.

“Tell me, Garrett, if I was ‘breeding’ as you say, what would the baby look like at birth?” I was curious as any woman would be.

“If they were female, they would have your breasts. If male….my cock.” He grinned nastily.

“No…I mean, would they be human looking? Would I be able to love this child?”

“Every other woman who has had my children loved them. Don’t know why you would be any different, Bess.”

I didn’t expect this! Other children by him. Somewhere in the novel, I remembered writing he had two bastard children by a woman in Martinique, but then I had forgotten to follow up with more information about these children and the mother.

“You are slipping on a lot of things, sweet lady.”

“I guess because now I am an old maid?”

“You can be revived.”

He had a droll wit at times. Grinning and snapping his fingers, produced out of the ether two tankards of ale.

“Do you aim to get me drunk?”

I couldn’t drink more than a glass of wine. A tankard would put me to sleep. He snorted, again reading my mind.

“Tell me…you must know more than you let on. How did I become fertile?”

Certainly this was a worry, because I was beyond the age where a woman needs to carry around a pregnancy. I had never thought of ‘demon-control’ before.

He looked thoughtful, and puffed on his pipe.

“ There are many ways and many carriers of mischief. This could be what you call a succubus or it could be of another species altogether.”

“So, you have no control over what happened to me?” This was not welcome news.

“Oh no, I could make it happen myself, but it’s so early in the affair, sweetheart, and I wanted to have more fun before I loosed my seed up your womb.”

He laughed. “Much more fun. Besides, I would be turned away from your charms when you got heavy with whatever was brewing in there.”

He took a swig of his ale and his eyes glittered across the rim of his tankard.

“So it ever is with mortal woman.”

I took a sip of my ale.

“These mole hills you said were nurseries. What happens to the birthlings when they are born?”

“Think of spawns or swarms of fish. Most are eaten by other species, some by their own. Others end up ‘road-kill’.”

“Oh! That is too horrible!” I was shocked.

“No so much if you saw them. It would take a particular mother to nurture one,…like a blind one.” He laughed as he swallowed his ale, and managed to choke.

“Would our child appear like a monster?”

He put his tankard down and looked at me. “Not if you loved it from birth.”

That was not exactly encouraging!

“Garrett…do you have shape shifters in your world?”

“Doesn’t every world have that? I think you call them transvestites in yours.”

I had to laugh. Not exactly what I was asking, but I’ll take that answer.

Ah…Witty Devil.

He knew much more than he would say. He held some of the secrets of the ages and this I was sure. But he was a damn tricky Devil, and he made me work for it. It was like peeling an onion. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get to his center. He was full of mystery, but then, most demons are. If anyone tells you they are benign, or banal, don’t believe a word of it. They are charmers and tricksters and will keep you unbalanced. My Demon was a handful, but ‘life’ as I was becoming to know, would be a lot duller without him. I had learned it was not just the human heart that was layered with complexities. If I was learning anything, it was that the Universe held infinite mysteries, some of them anxious to be known.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2007-2013

“Devil’s Revenge”, Chapter 4

My beloved Sparky who died June 20, 2011. An English Field Spaniel who was the best dog on Earth.

This is one of my favorite chapters of this book. It reminds me of the landscape and some of the Dutch-American characters of that time. Even in the 1950s and 60s, there were Dutch ancestor farmers where I lived. If the ghosts of their kin of two centuries ago were to appear at their tables, they would not feel to be strangers. Some relatives received wooden shoes, carved in the winter from these old farmers idled by the season. Most of them landed in the fireplace. They were noisy on wooden floors.

Lady Nyo

DEVIL’S REVENGE, Chapter 4

Bleary with sleep, a dull pain in my head, I opened both eyes carefully. That wine last night, must be the reason my stomach hurts. I am playing with fire if I continue to … Oh Crap! I’m back here again! I sigh with disgust, my legs tangled in the sheets. This bedroom has become my new dungeon and looking out of the east window is the dungeon master. I turn over and glare at him.

“Good Morning”. This time he said it in English instead of Dutch, but didn’t turn from the window.

“Ah, Garrett, how long have you been there?” I yawned, rubbed my eyes and pulled my mobcap off. His commanding me here was becoming a bit routine now. How many times? At least a dozen but time was different in his realm.

“Not long,” he said, continuing to stare out the window. I looked at his figure illuminated by the sharp morning light. He was a pretty (“handsome” I heard him think!) man, broad in the shoulders, his back narrowing down to strong buttocks. Wearing the usual shirt of gentlemen and farmers, a heavy white linen cut bloused at the sleeves, his waistcoat was sleeveless, made of dark plum colored wool, and reached to his hips. The breeches were cut from heavy twill and his boots were brown leather, scuffed about the ankles. He had walked in deep mud somewhere. His boots were covered with muck.

“Get up, I want to do something different today.” Ah, this was a change; he usually wanted to play around in the morning.

“Oh, later for that. More important things first.” He finally turned from the window, hands on his hips, and looked at me with dour expression.

“Van Doren down the road has a litter of pups. Daniel said they’re old enough to take from the bitch. I want the whole litter. I’ll train them as gun dogs and hunt them next fall”.

Oh God, he probably will want to stable them here where it’s warm…

“My guess is you haven’t been paying attention. This house is haunted,” he said softly, his eyes narrowing to slits.

“What do you mean, ‘haunted’?” I shivered though the bed was quite warm.

“Those dogs will be flesh and blood, as you are, but invisible. No one would feed them.”

“So, I could go downstairs to Daniel and Anna and they wouldn’t see me?”

“Hell, I could stick you on the end of my –“

“Garrett!”

“– and walk you around the house, and they still wouldn’t notice. They may wonder why John Thomas was saluting the wind, but you would be air.”

I had to laugh. He had a way of describing things. Vulgar, but comical.

“What time is it, Garrett?” I yawned and stretched my arms over my head, not wanting to move from the warmth of the bed.

“Time you get your pink butt up and come with me.” He went to the wardrobe and started tossing clothes. Out came some petticoats, woolen stockings and a heavy linen chemise. He rummaged around the hooks and drew out a green woolen dress.

“Can I use the chamber pot first, please?” I slipped to the side of the bed, my feet cold from the draughts on the floor.

“Do you need any help with that?” he asked, half turning around to me.

“I need you to leave the room so I can get dressed.”

“Won’t happen. I happen to like seeing you struggle into your clothes. Arouses me.”

“Everything makes you horny, Devil.”

He grinned, his foul lust a tease and a torment. I did not dally, knowing he would not leave me in peace for long.

The clothes were thrown on the table by the fire. “Come here, be my angel and let me dress you.” He was sitting there with his legs spread.

“Are you a crazy man? I can very well do it myself.” He had some nerve this morning.

“Have it your way.” He snapped his fingers and my nightgown fell to the floor. I was naked, the room cold, and he still a damn devil!

“Garrett! Stop screwing around! I’m freezing.” It was one thing to be naked by candlelight, another to be standing in the sharp eastern glare of early morning. This type of light magnifies all imperfections. I heard him mumble something….

“Love casts a glamour on things.” His words surprised me, for they were tender and almost human.

“Put you leg up on my knee and I’ll pull your stocking up.” I balanced myself on one leg, and put an arm on his shoulder. I could smell the sharp smell of brimstone.

“Very funny. Now, the other one.” He couldn’t resist running his hand up my inner thigh. I slapped his hand and jumped back.

He held out the heavy linen shift, and pulled it over my head and opened two petticoats for me to step into.

He was a foul demon but did get me dressed. He seemed to know his way around the hooking and lacing of tapes, and all were in place. I wondered what shoes to wear.

“Oh…must not forget these.” From behind his back he drew a big pair of Dutch wooden shoes. He placed them at my feet. I stared at them and started to laugh.

“You write about Dutch farms and farmers, yet you don’t know the muck they produce. Guess women writers from your century float over the shit. We’ll probably cross over a couple of pigsties in the going.”

Lovely.

“You’ll enjoy the fresh air. I want those dogs, so let’s get going. It’ll give you something real to write in your book.”

He walked to the door, and I gingerly shuffled after him. He muttered a low curse, and picked me up over his shoulder like a sack of flour. A wooden shoe fell off my foot and tumbled down the stairs, sounding like thunder as it bounced to the hall floor. The other one followed. He dropped me on my feet and led me to the front steps. A black rig and a blacker horse were standing outside. Of course! A black horse, something a devil would ride.

“Would you be quiet? The horse might have feelings on the matter.”

I laughed. He was comical this morning. It might prove to be a good day.

He helped me into the rig, walked to the head of the horse and whispered to him. He sprung into the seat, grabbed up the reins. The horse trotted to the main road, turned left and moved out smartly on the highroad.

I held onto my bonnet, which fell back with each jounce of the rig. The horse seemed to skim over the dirt, getting faster and faster.

“You really want those dogs!” I said, laughing.

The Demon grinned at me as he shook the reins, and the horse fairly flew down the road.

The air was fresh and brisk for it was early winter. The fields were dun-colored but the cloudless sky was a crisp blue. I could see trails of smoke rising from distant houses across the far hills. At least the scenery looked normal with cows huddled under trees and along fences. I thought of a piece of Handel I had heard the night before. Written for harpsichord, last night played on piano. The rhythm of the music mimicked the fast trotting of the black horse. Suddenly I was hearing the music! I looked over at Garrett and saw him smile to himself. The black leather of the rig surrounding us was our stereo and the horse’s speed matched the tempo of the music. Ah! a good piece of magic!

We traveled for a mile when the horse turned to the left. Down a short land was a large, white house. Behind it were red barns. . Garrett stopped the rig and helped me down in the cumbersome shoes. He straddled the rig right over the mud and I looked at him with a grimace. My shoes sank almost to the ankles. He grinned and led us to the back of the house near the barns.

“Van Doren!” Garrett shouted. “I’m here to see those dogs.”

A clang like a bell rang out, but it only was a piece of metal being dropped. It bounced around for a bit, sounding like chimes. A rotund Dutch man came walking out the dark passageway, his eyes blinking in the bright sunlight.

“Ah, young Cortelyou! Goedenmorgen to you!” He wiped his hands on his trousers as he came toward us. “So you here to purchase my pups? Well, others hearing of this fine litter, so it’s goot you come when you do.”

The joy of exchange among countrymen was both in the bargaining,- and the coin. I was raised in the Dutch countryside of New Jersey. I had seen this before. I had heard it before.

Van Doren looked to be in his seventies. He was a hale and hearty man, with a halo of white hair. He had a full, white beard, bright blue eyes and a red nose signaling he liked his ale too much.

“This is my Aunt Sophie from upcountry, Abraham. She’s visiting Catherine for a month.” His Aunt! Do I appear that much older? Well, at least I wasn’t a ghost to van Doren. He gave a slight nod and led us into the barn.

“There are four pups, but one of them is a runt. All livers, with white chests. They’ll be about 2 months out, I believe. You wanting the whole litter?”

“I would, first I see them.” It seemed men talk differently to each other. Sharp, short sentences as if they were fearful of too many words.

“Dam’s my Lilly, and not a finer dog in the township. The sire is Rumble from over Vieght’s way.”

“How did she take to Rumble? He’s a brute of a dog, too tall in the withers for a spaniel.”

“Aye, these are big water spaniels, all except for that runt, which probably won’t live. I should bash her head in. The others will benefit.”

Van Doren fell silent. “So, you thinking of breeding your own pack here?”

“When I see them, Abraham.” Abraham walked to the back of the barn, and in a dark stall, a bitch lay in a corner, her pups in the straw.

“Hush, Lilly, some one to see you.” Lilly was a thin hound, small for a water spaniel. Three of the pups were large. The fourth lay next to her, hopefully asleep.

Abraham van Doren, a farmer and used to all sorts of death, picked up the runt by the back feet and shook it to see if it breathed.. I uttered a cry and rushed toward his hands.

“Give her to me! Don’t shake her like that.” The Dutchman almost dropped the pup in surprise, but handed her over. It was now awake and I held her to my breast, warming her with my cloak. I looked defiantly at Garrett and saw him suppress a smile.

“Abraham…I’ll take all the pups, and if you throw in the runt for my Auntie here, I’ll give you a shilling more.”

They settled on a price for the dogs. Picking up an old basket, Abraham van Doren dropped the pups in. Lilly whined and struggled to her feet.

“Quiet now girl.” His voice was kindly. “You’ll get some bacon with your porridge tonight.”

We left the dim barn, and reentered the sunlight. My eyes blinked and finally adjusted. A few more minutes with Abraham van Doren, and I mounted the step to the rig.
Garrett placed the basket at my feet and taking the reins from the post, turned the black horse homeward.

“So…I hear I’m your ‘Auntie’? Does incest play into this story?” I looked at his profile, and saw him smiling.

“I told you about the glamour. Convenient part of magic, that trick. Can make people see whatever you want.”

“Oh.” I couldn’t resist asking him. “And how did I look to Abraham van Doren?”

“Oh, old enough to throw off any scent of scandal. About Catherine’s age.”

“With all the wrinkles and fallen- in gums?”

“Yep…and bald under your cap and bonnet.” He was laughing now, and turned his wicked eyes on me.

“Thanks a lot, Demon,” I said sharply. “Now you can read my thoughts and alter my appearance? Is there anything you can’t do to me?”

“I told you when I first saw you, in this story I am pulling the strings. You write the book, my good little ‘Auntie’, and I direct the play.”

He gave a short laugh and turned silent for a moment. “I can make you do anything I want… except one thing.”

“And quickly tell me what that is!” I said, laughing.

Looking ahead at the road, he said softly, “I can’t make you love me.”

My heart flipped in my chest, and my eyes misted over.

Ah, Garrett, my sweet Demon. I am glad you aren’t looking. My face would betray me. I would be totally lost.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2009, 2010, 2013