Page 24 of The Monster of Darkspell Comics
“Do you think you might show it to me sometime? Beyond just what lies in your home?”
He stops walking altogether and stares down at me. “You just said that there are things in the fog that want to eat you, and you want me to take you there?”
I grin up at him and give his arm a squeeze. “Well, if you want to eat me, too, then it can’t all be bad, right?”
He blinks, and then a deep chuckle rumbles through him. “Very well. If you wish to be hunted through the fog, then we cando it now,” he says as he suddenly turns in the direction from which we’ve come.
“Wait!” I laugh as I pull back on his arm only to find myself dragged forward a couple of feet before he deigns to stop. He looks over at me inquiringly, and I tip my head toward the fortune-teller. “I still want to get our reading first.”
His head turns toward the psychic’s table, and his nose wrinkles. “Seriously? If you want to know our future, I can tell you that. It will likely involve fucking at some point, at a minimum. Other than that, you have long years leashed at my side to look forward to. What else is there that is worth telling?”
I choke on a giggle as heat races into my face. “Come on. It will be fun. Get in the spirit.”
He grins wickedly. “If you really want me to get into the spirit, I can always go possess someone.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “No paperwork required for that?” I ask innocently.
His smile is quickly replaced with a scowl. “Right. Damn it all to the pit. I miss the days when a random possession or slaughter could easily go overlooked and never reach the ears of the Master or any of his bureaucrats. Everything is so bloody documented now.” He sighs heavily and turns us back toward the psychic. “Fine, let’s go throw perfectly good money away.”
“Awww, how magnanimous of you,” I tease as I pillow my head on his arm and continue eating my candy apple.
“I’m nothing of the sort,” he denies, but the corners of his mouth hitch with obvious pleasure, and I can feel the purr rattling his body even though I can’t hear it.
I grin as I finish my apple and toss the remaining stick into a wastebasket as we walk past it.
“I will just collect out of your hide later,” he adds with a dark chuckle.
Leaning in, I pinch his side, drawing a deep, rumbling growl from him threatening retribution. His head dips toward me, his eyes burning with heat that his illusion struggles to hide.
“Just keep that up, female,” he warns in a low voice. “I won’t be polite when I give you exactly what you’re begging for.”
I grin at him innocently even as I silently beg him to do exactly that. Butaftermy reading is done.
The psychic looks up as we approach and take a seat in the two chairs on the other side of her table. She glances between us and smiles. “Ah, what do we have here? A pair of lovers are wishing for me to divine their beautiful destiny together? Perhaps you wish to know if marriage and children are in your future?”
Pashar snorts, and she just smiles back at him, undaunted. My eyebrows go up at her apparently oblivious expression. Doesn’t she realize she has a demon standing right in front of her? I wonder how a psychic doesn’t see him for exactly what he is. Surely no one would wittingly ask a demon about marriage and children as if he were just a normal guy out with his girl. I don’t know if I even quite qualify as being Pashar’s girl, but it still strikes me as odd.
“My offspring would gnaw the feet of anything that walked past them. That would be a hard no for me for the foreseeable future,” Pashar replies as he gives the psychic a chilling smile. “As for marriage—why be so shallow and accept merely that when I’m binding her completely to me?" he purrs in a way that makes me squirm. The psychic, however, just stares at him, her smile slipping.
“Perhaps we should just get started and see what the cards have to say,” she says as she removes her cards from an old, worn case.
I lean in a little, bringing her attention to me. “Please.”
Her eyes meet mine for a moment as she shuffles, and I get the disconcerting feeling as if she is staring deep into my soul. I don’t flinch away but return her regard curiously until, finally, her gaze drops away, and she focuses on her cards as she flips the first one over.
“I see a fool’s journey,” she says casually, her fingers sliding over the figure of a young man carrying a sack suspended from a long stick over his shoulder. “You’ve been wandering a bit, letting the winds of fortune carry you through life, and so you’ve ended up here in this little town, unaware and blissfully ignorant.”
She turns another card, and it is a figure holding a pair of swords. She sets this on the table between us with the first card. Coming here, you’ve arrived at a fork in your destiny. There is a road that will lead back to the world you’ve always known, where you will be as safe as any other person in this world. The other road...” she hesitates, her brow puckering, “is obscure.” Drawing a third card, she sets it to the left. Six coins surround the central figure on the card. “If you take the way back, you find that the generosity and kindness of others may help you establish a positive future for yourself where you will enjoy a long, happy, normal life.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, drawing the word out. So go back home and submit to whatever punishment and expectations my parents hold for me in order to win their approval and forgiveness for my unfilial behavior. Hard pass. “And if I take the other road?”
She sighs and turns another card over. The Devil. She smiles tightly as she stares down at the card. “Willingly bound and changed forever by it. You must carefully weigh what is in your own best interest. Many bindings lead to nothing but your own doom.” Her eyes slide to Pashar with a look of challenge.
The demon smiles coolly at her in return and stands, drawing me with him to my feet as he throws a tenner down on the table. “Thank you. Let’s go, Fanny.”
I nod mutely as I allow him to drag me away. What a fucking crazy experience. I’m pretty sure that she was trying to scare me, but if anything, it makes me even more certain that this crazy destiny is meant for me.
“I hope you know what you’re getting into by dallying with a demon, girl,” she calls after me, and I smile.
