> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.ann-cudworth-writes.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Demon Seeks Witch (part 4 of 6) - URL: https://www.ann-cudworth-writes.com/demon-seeks-witch-part-4-of-6/ - Published: 2026-09-01T13:44:34.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-01T13:44:34.000Z - Author: Ann Cudworth Sunday People were bored, the weather was unsettled, and the Play-a-Rama was busy. The arcade had made a tidy profit, but it didn’t make you smile. Your mood was bleak as you shuttered the arcade and got into your Ford Escort. Concerned for your well-being, I called my crows, and we followed. Ten miles north of Ruxton Beach, you stopped at Seacoast Community Rest Home to pick up a blank-faced man. I guessed that this was your father, Frank Black. You had his smile. Together, you drove inland to the Harmony Grove Cemetery. Inside the gates, your car crept along the narrow paths between the bone-colored slabs spotted with yellow fungus. Near the end of a row, you parked alongside a newish grave. As you placed a basket of artificial daisies on a small headstone inscribed with EVIE BLACK 1945-1987, the sky, flat and colorless as a silver mirror, spat rain on you. You stood silently, wiping your eyes with a Kleenex. Your dad seemed oblivious to the moment as he squinted at the trees, watching my crows. “Mom, I, we miss you. Dad’s doing fine at the nursing home,” you said, no louder than the wind whispering over the graves. Your father turned and took your hand as tears welled in his eyes. “Evie, I’m worried about Butterscotch. Have you seen her?” “Dad, it’s me. Karly. Our kitty died seven years ago.” I slid into his mind, hoping he remembered something about you that explained why we couldn’t bond. Dad’s brain train was off the track. It was an overgrown garden humming arrhythmically like a confused bee. After some gentle prodding, his oldest memories of you unfolded. I watched him find you, a newborn wrapped in a tattered plaid shirt, tucked into a wine crate. He’d gasped with delight. He’d been made infertile by a bullet in the war, and you were the answer to his prayers. He and Evie adopted you three months later. For a decade, you wore pink dresses and played with dolls. Your shoulder blades sprouted wings when you turned eleven. Evie begged Frank to do something. He used his army field kit to cut the growths from your shoulders and then vomited under the pine tree in your backyard. When your tentacles appeared, Frank hid them under baggy clothes until you learned to make them invisible. There was the answer to why we couldn’t bond. You were Nephilim—the offspring of a fallen angel. Hellspawn were forbidden to bond Angelborn. That was Demon Code 101; bonding with the other team destroyed both sides. “Why is this happening to me?” I bayed at the sky in frustration as I flew from the cemetery, heading to the salt marshes north of Ruxton. There I spun, tangling in the muddy cattails, calling for Goody Cabot’s spirit. “Huxley, I’m only a breath on the wind.” “I should have died with you,” I said, not for the first time. Goody didn’t reply. It was hours before I returned to the boardwalk and discovered what had washed ashore in Ruxton Beach. # Mystic Pony had a new singer. Dari DiMare cruised onto the stage with the graceful arrogance of a great white shark. His black eyes held no empathy. Humans were food to him, and he was hungry. He’d transformed his thick merman’s tail into muscular legs so he could walk among his prey. The black leather pants that encased his thighs clutched his hips under the hem of a blousy pirate shirt. Dari dressed like a cliché, but his female fans couldn’t stay away. His silken voice flowed over the crowd; his harmony gleamed like moonlight on the breakers. Yofi muttered vengefully about false rip-tide heroes. As Dari worked his way through the set, the barriers in front of the stage groaned, bending under the pressure from his banquet of female fans. Metal shutters clanged down as you locked up the Play-a-Rama across from the Conch. Dari swung into a Beatles medley, and thirty heartbeats later, you’d drifted across Atlantic Avenue to stand on the sidewalk in front of the stage. Dari met your eyes and sang to you. I writhed with envy as glittering magic flowed from your heart and danced over the crowd to him. “Do something!” demanded Yofi. I hated when he used his seraph’s voice inside my head, and for a moment, all I could do was hiss like a deflating bicycle tire. Then my wits caught up with his words. For once, the cranky Seraph and I were on the same side. I shorted out Dari’s amplifier with a hex and a minor explosion of sparks, seeking to break his sonic spell. Dari shrugged and continued the song on his acoustic guitar, and when I broke two of its strings, he shifted key and kept singing. Before I could bring my crows in for an attack, Dari finished his song. Yofiel appeared beside me with a puff of incense. He rolled his eye toward me. “Huxley, we must protect Karly from that Triton. He’s here to kill.” “What did you have in mind?” “I’m sure I don’t know. I’m overworked, guarding humans from the undertow, preventing sunburns, and keeping the lightning offshore. You’ll think of something.” “Yes, we all know about your righteous workload, but what do you want me to do? How am I going to stop a Triton?” Even when he tried to be civil, Yofi irritated me. Maybe it was a demon thing. We didn’t do civility. “Warn Karly away from him.” “Fine, but I want something in return.” “Such as?” “To bond with Karly.” Yofi’s halos clanged with the sound of a steel door slamming shut. There was a rumble of distant thunder. His wings blurred into high-speed motion as his ancillary mouths chanted “holy, holy, holy” as fast as chipmunks. “A storm is arriving. I have duties that cannot wait.” Yofiel spun up from the sidewalk. “What? Is that a 'no'?” I reached for him, trying to catch one of his wings, but that brassy incense burner was gone. # Dari kissed your hands, wrapping the tentacles of his dark green magic around you on the steps outside your apartment. “Howh, howh, howh,” said my crows, growling and hunching with displeasure at this fishy interloper. “He’ll be leaving,” I said and waved them off. I had hexes to cast. At your apartment windowsill, I hunkered down to lurk. No, I didn’t watch you have sex with Dari. I may be a demon, but I have standards. After Dari’s hours-long performance in your bed, I slipped past his consciousness and into his shiny mind. It was a house of mirrors, confusing and depthless. For a moment, the ignition of a bond flared, and then you looked through his eyes at me. “Don’t,” you said. Menace growled at me from the back of your throat. As I retreated, Dari murmured, “Don’t what?” You rolled off him. “Nothing, but you seem distracted.” “Things on my mind, babe.” “Like what? “Mystic Pony is leaving Ruxton after Labor Day. We’re fronting for The Vingors on a New England tour.” “How long will you be gone?” “Why don’t you come with me?” Dari’s question hung in the air as you went to the kitchen for a snack. The smell of rotting fish whiffed into the bedroom. Dari smiled with anticipation. Somehow, I had to warn you. I rejoined my crows on the roof. Your Ouija board lay on the tar paper beside a lawn chair, warping in the dew. --- Demon Seeks Witch (part 4) Previously in Demon Seeks Witch: Hux is trying very hard to win Karly over, but a sexy singer has arrived and now he's got competition. Some thing is off about Karly, and Hux learns why. Demon Seeks Witch is a paranormal fantasy featuring hidden heritage, a love triangle, and a redemption arc. Set in Ruxton Beach, N.H. it follows Huxley Bleakbeam Hollowstew, a demon-familiar, as he seeks to woo Karly into becoming his witch, while her guardian angel father and a golden voiced rival work to make sure he never gets the chance. Ann Cudworth (also writing as A. C. Worth) is the author of short fiction in Metaphorosis Magazine, Exterus, and Sci-Fi Lampoon, and the anthologies Score—An SFF Anthology, Radicle, and Sages of Metaphorosis. She writes science fiction and urban fantasy, shaped by workshops at Odyssey Writing Workshop and the Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute, as well as Futurescapes and the Juniper Writing Institute. Copyright 2026 Ann Cudworth. All rights reserved. Read more at [https://www.acworthwriter.com/](https://www.acworthwriter.com/?ref=ann-cudworth-writes.com) My stories are written by hand and edited with ProWritingAid.