Excerpt: Bride of the Demon Prince (working title)

The night wore on. We had started the ritual for the Sabbat of Samhain just after sunset. By now it was well past midnight. I didn’t want it to end, so kept on changing the topics when the others started to wind down. It was around three in the morning when Wendy was nodding off and Brooklyn was playing with the salamander that Jane, at last, brought up the one thing that at least I had been looking forward to.

She reached into her purse beside her and pulled out a yellow plaid bag with a simple ribbon drawstring. We all recognized it. That little bag held her Tarot cards. I grinned and set aside my cup of cider, eager to hear about the year’s reading.
Wendy snapped awake and gulped down some of her own drink, placing the empty cup next to her knee. The sylph descended from her shoulder to perch on the lip of the glass, ephemeral wings flexing. The gnome started to dig around in the bowl of dirt next to me.

Brooklyn placed the salamander near the red candle while Jane kept the little undine in her lap. The other candles in the middle of the Circle glowed brightly, though the wax barely melted.

“I guess it’s time for the reading, isn’t it?” Jane said, shuffling the cards. She wasted no time in cutting the deck and shuffling them again before laying out ten of them in a Celtic cross design. It was standard, the ten-card spread.

“It looks like new foundations this year,” she began, pointing to The Tower. A dragon coiled around the base of it, rattling the cornerstone of the building with its huge claws. “The Three of Swords here suggests that we need to communicate more. Or maybe with someone new, as suggested by the weird placement of the Empress.

“New beginnings,” she whispered, her hands straying to Death. “It looks like we’re in for quite a new year, though. I think we should become an official Coven and elect a High Priestess. Then we can name ourselves. That would be one way to communicate better, don’t you think?”

I frowned and looked away from the spread, furrowing my brow. Name ourselves? Did she want something like Beautiful Unicorns of the Hunter’s Moon or something? Maybe she wanted us to name ourselves to feel more secret, so I asked her.

“No, I just think we’ve been together this way since fifth grade. It’s about time we made it official. Maybe got more people.” Pointing to the Three of Cups, she said, “Reunion. I think that this is pretty important. The cards suggest that we strengthen ourselves.”

“But it’s always been us,” Brooklyn interrupted. “Just us four. What the fu—er. What the heck do we need more people for? We have enough to call the Corners and we take turns calling the Lord and Lady. Why ain’t that enough?”

The sylph shifted on her precarious seat at the glass, looking up at Wendy. I could feel it, too. The tension was starting to mount as we debated the idea of adding more people.

“I agree with Brooks,” Wendy said. “We don’t need anyone else. We’re just fine the way we are. It’s hard enough to find people who accept us, let alone want to join us.”

All three looked to me. So far it was two to one in the favor of remaining just us four. I could vote for and win it, or I could vote against and land at a stalemate. I bit my lip and fussed with the little hat the gnome had doffed to bury himself up to his nose in the soil.

It all boiled down to me. My decision. As the caller of Earth, I was often seen as a cornerstone. A lot of the time, I think that that was the only reason they all looked to me. Gods forbid they name me High Priestess. I’d suck.

“Put in the spotliiiight,” Brooklyn teased, a crooked grin on her face. I could tell she was loving this as much as I was hating it.