> ## 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 6 of 6) - URL: https://www.ann-cudworth-writes.com/demon-seeks-witch-part-6-of-6/ - Published: 2026-09-15T12:43:42.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-15T12:43:42.000Z - Author: Ann Cudworth A few minutes later I possessed a gull and gave chase. Driven reckless by my need, we dropped to attack Dari in the water below. But Dari’s victim wasn’t Karly. A drunken Leah Sandover smiled at the stars as Dari towed her out to sea. “You’re not getting away with this,” I said. “Leah is one of Karly’s friends.” Dari rolled onto his back, holding Leah in his scaly arms, and laughed. “But I am getting away with it.” Bless it; even when he spoke, it sounded like a song. I could have given up and flown back onshore to search for Karly, but Leah didn’t ask to be a Triton's dinner. “You don’t get to do this on my beach,” I said. Dari laughed. I made the gull swoop to peck at Dari’s eyes and ears. “That’s useless, demon,” said Dari. Laughing as he submerged. He breached the surface with a half-drowned Leah, now a mile farther from the glow of the boardwalk. I dive-bombed the gull to attack his vulnerable spots again and again. The gull’s beak tore his ear and sliced off a piece of his right gill. Dari howled as his luminous blood suffused across the surface of the waves. It didn’t take long for the sharks to notice. In minutes, a menace of mako sharks swirled below, waiting for their opportunity to snatch a bite. “Leave him alone.” It was your voice, gargling like a bell in the deep. How could that be? We were miles offshore. I banked the gull and looked. You were jetting toward Dari like a squid. Your body, distorted under the turbulent water, looked longer and darker and multi-limbed. “Karly? Did you come to join the party?” asked Dari, his voice still a crooning caress. Then you laughed, showing a wicked beak, sharp as an obsidian knife, behind your red lips in the moonlight. “I think three is a crowd, Dari.” Your black tentacles slid around Dari’s waist and pushed Leah away from him. He didn’t fight you. As his arms slid from Leah, panic replaced her bliss. She splashed, gulping air, lips and nose dipping below the surface. “Help…hel…he…” Saltwater was filling Leah’s words. You and Dari thrashed in the water. It wasn’t a fight—you had your tentacles wrapped around him, and he was kissing your beak. Then there was ink all over the water. Gross. Your tentacle rose, slapped through the air, and degulled me. “Stop watching us, Hux.” Locked in a passionate embrace, you and Dari sank, scattering the sharks. I needed a host body, a waterproof one. I slid into the mind of the biggest mako. *Take me to shore.* *Whut?* Wow. How dumb were sharks? *Shore, swim, now.* *No water there.* This fish wanted to argue with me? I forced all my coercive power on him, and he turned. We passed Leah, who didn’t shriek or try to swim away. She grabbed the mako’s dorsal fin. “I need help, Mr. Dolphin. Please take me in.” My sigh came out of the shark’s gills like gas bubbles. The mako slowed and turned his head toward Leah’s feet. *Food for me?* I dug deep for that extra bit of control. *Ignore her. Shore now. As fast as you can.* Fortunately, this mako was fast. Leah, who was on the verge of losing consciousness, might have slipped into the depths if her armpit had not hooked over the shark's back. Once we got into the shallows, I dropped the shark and accompanied Leah on shore. Brandon, the vampire, was there, finishing his dinner. He looked at me, then at Leah, blood trailing down his chin. “May I assist?” “Keep her alive,” I said, sinking to the damp sand beside Leah, exhausted. My wisps were half their length and had lost their glow. I thought it was time for me to retire. Lucifer had a place for me. Sure, I’d have to retake the placement tests and start at the bottom. Agonizing and boring as it was, Hell was a place with rules. They made everything understandable; they had a handbook. I prepared myself, lying like a damp mop on the shoreline. But it wasn’t Morning Star that found me; it was Yofi, and their luminance hurt my eyes. “Now what?” I asked. “Can’t you see I’m dying here?” “You rescued Leah.” “What of it?” “Demons don’t do that.” “Look, I wasn’t….” “They want to reward you.” I wanted nothing from them, whoever they were. # Anyone who tells you that Heaven is all clouds and golden harps is lying. Heaven, at least the part Yofi dragged me to, was a nondescript box coated in layers of beige and blue petroleum-based materials. The space was encircled by rows of uncomfortable seats, interspersed with nondescript end tables covered with ratty issues of People and Life. The lighting buzzed with a greenish glow. The reception desk, where Saint What's-His-Name sat, was sheathed in plexiglass, except for the five-inch-diameter hole covered with a sneeze guard. With that level of protection, you’d think mortality was contagious. “Here, read a magazine,” he said. I faked acquiescence, but Yofi knew I’d try to bolt, so he held onto my wisps. I tried to escape again at the door of the operating room. “Hux, you’ve earned this. Be glad of the honor.” “This demon is transitioning to guardian angel?” asked the doctor. Yofi produced a document. “He saved the life of a mortal.” The doctor smiled at me, a horrifying experience. “This won’t hurt much, but you may be sore for a few days.” My new wings took six painful months to grow in. # Fourth of July 1993 I stood next to that stupid seraph, pulling on his sixth wing. Yofi’s eye was riveted on the nude beach below us. It was full of idiots turning their skin into bacon. “Listen, bag-in-cense. When are you going to explain about Karly?” “What about her?” “The wing buds, the tentacles, her mysterious past?” “You’ve been nagging me for months about this.” “Think I’m going to stop before I know the truth?” “Neither of them were her parents.” “Oh, why am I not surprised?” “I was her father; her mother was a Pacific Island Cecaelia.” His eye swung toward me. “Known in the local parlance as a sea witch.” “A sea witch? You dirty squid-loving freak.” “I’m not proud of it, but when Monoki abandoned her daughter. Karly needed a home.” “And the Blacks needed a child.” Yofi blinked and turned his gaze back to the beach. I couldn’t find an insult, so I looked back at the sea. Somewhere in the deeps, you tangle your tentacles with Dari. It didn’t matter now. Yofi’s gaze snapped seaward, and his halos spun up. “Make haste, Huxley,” said Yofi. “There’s a sailboat taking on water off the Southpoint lighthouse.” “Yeah, whatever you say, Ding-dong.” --- Demon Seeks Witch - Part 6 Previously in Demon Seeks Witch: Karly may not want Hux as a familiar, but he could still be a hero. Sometimes he surprised himself. 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.