EMBERS OF CONNOVER MANOR 1

Feature Writer: PoisonPen33

Feature Title: EMBERS OF CONNOVER MANOR 1

Published: 25.04.2023

Story Codes: Demonic

Synopsis: A young historian recklessly summons a being of illicit sex

Author’s Notes: Bonjour, cher lecteur. I’ve been suffering from the opposite of writer’s block for the past few months. Call it “writer’s overload,” where I’d start a story, get halfway through, and start second-guessing myself before abandoning it for the next shiny idea that came about. I was inspired to start stories, but couldn’t find the will to finish them. Cue late November. I was driving home from Christmas dinner with the in-laws and somewhere on a backcountry road (you never take the highways around here – they’re so packed, no one uses them) Spotify pulled out a song I hadn’t heard since high school – “Nothing’s Free” by Alice Cooper. By the time I pulled into my driveway, I had a story idea. By Valentine’s Day, I had a full outline for the tale, start to finish. Thanks to CT (1), PM, CT (2), NF, and as always, divine appreciation to the men and women of Arrow Aerodynamics!

Embers Of Connover Manor 1

Melody Langston felt the mansion’s presence before she saw it.

It was her third visit to the property, but it still took her breath away when the pine trees lining the driveway parted to reveal the sprawling manor house and accompanying outbuildings. The mansion loomed over Melody, drawing her attention away from the grand mountains surrounding the small town of Emerald Pines, Colorado. Despite being abandoned, as best could be determined, for nearly a century, the estate was mostly intact. The buildings were in the classic baroque style, with the rectangular structures sporting deep red stone walls and black windows. Each outbuilding had been placed in deference to the central mansion, offering worship to the three-story structure. The windows of the mansion gazed longingly at the twenty-nine-year-old historian as she swung her beat-up Jeep Renegade under the covered overhang outside the front door, bringing it to a screeching halt next to her boss’ BMW X5.

The late May sun hung in the sky, but shadows still played across the vast courtyard. Even the barely discernible descent of the sun caused the lines of shadow underneath the overhang to reach forward, waiting for that perfect solar moment to pounce and claim dominance over all.

She grabbed her leather portfolio bag from the Jeep and made her way to the front door. Three wide stone steps led to a large alcove and a pair of towering teak-carved double doors with silver wolf-shaped handles. Her honey-blonde ponytail swayed as she pushed the door open, The hinges creaked in greeting. Sunlight pushed its way into the darkened foyer, illuminating a narrow slice of the room.

“Keep the door open,” a voice called out. “This house could use all the fresh air it can get.” Her boss, Vera Sandoval, stood next to a small table holding a bright camping lantern that pushed back the darkness. Vera’s elegant confidence contrasted with Melody’s nervous eagerness. Vera’s salt-and-pepper hair was pulled into a tight bun, with only a pair of comfortable shoes contrasting her professional attire. Melody’s clothes were a testament to comfort over style– sun-faded jeans, worn hiking sandals, and a red blouse.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Vera called out before stepping away from the lantern. The darkness instantly embraced her, leaving behind only the muffled sound of her footsteps.

The chandelier overhead suddenly blazed to life, smothering both the sunlight and the lantern with the orange of its filament bulbs. The darkness pulled away as well, revealing the foyer in all its splendor. The grand staircase stretched three stories, from the ground floor to the second floor, with carved wooden banisters sporting the familiar wolf motif. Expansive balconies on either side of the stairs led to the mansion’s vast wings, while the walls were adorned with various furnishings.

Vera stood next to the dining room door, wearing a smile while she tapped the brass switch plate on the wall. “Not only is this place fully wired for electricity but it’s already connected to the county power lines. All the guy from Emerald Power had to do was flip the master breaker in the basement. And then there was light. Same thing with water and sewer. The plumber just had to call the county to turn on the main.”

“You’re right,” Melody responded as she looked up at the chandelier. “I don’t believe it. I checked out the town utility maps going back several decades and there’s no record of any connection to public services. Even the discontinued lines down to the railroad are listed, but this property was nothing but empty space on every single map I could dig up.”

“That’s what the electrician and the plumber said too. It turns out the lines were laid underground. We can’t do any landscaping or outside excavation until they’ve had a chance to mark where everything is, but at least we won’t have to work in the dark around here.” Vera chortled. “Now we just have to figure out where the hell around here is. Any luck?”

“I found a lead. It’s wet concrete at best, but it’s a start.”

Vera motioned to the dining room. “Let’s sit down.” Melody followed her boss inside. The blue walls sported raised patterns. A long table sat in the middle of the room, with high wooden chairs and a pair of carved seats that resembled thrones at the head and foot of the table. A portal in the rear wall led to the cavernous kitchen beyond. “So what do you have for me?” Vera asked once they were seated.

Melody pulled a manilla folder from her satchel. “I spent the past couple of days going through all over the county. Courthouses, surveyors’ offices, newspaper archives–none of them had a scrap of paper mentioning this property. A property this size… what did the surveyors measure it out to be?”

“Seventy-two acres.”

“You can’t have an abandoned seventy-two-acre estate in the Roaring Fork Valley, especially in Emerald Pines, without some kind of record. Google Earth came up dry too, going back twenty years. I even downloaded a couple of popular hiking apps and got the same results.”

“What about drone footage? Pitkin County’s overflown daily. One of them should have caught sight of this place from the air.”

“Nothing on YouTube. Just trees and underbrush.” She slid the manila folder across the table toward Vera. “This is the only lead I scrounged. As I said, it’s not much, but it’s as good a jumping-off point as any.”

As Vera studied the contents of the folder, Melody took in the spacious dining room. It was easy to fantasize about the lavish dinners and posh dinner parties that could have taken place here, with men in tuxedos and women in fashionable gowns waited on by impeccably dressed servants. The imagery threatened to coax her into a vivid daydream, but she managed to maintain her focus.

Maroon Bells Limited, the property development firm owned by Vera and her husband, had been engaged with the abandoned estate for over two weeks. What should have been a simple high-end construction and restoration job, however, had morphed into a jigsaw puzzle lacking edge pieces.

The Pitkin County fire crews had taken advantage of the late spring weather to get a jump on clearing out underbrush and other potential fire hazards along the forested mountain ridges ringing Emerald Pines. One crew had been cutting up a dense blackberry thicket along the western ridge when their tools hit a high stone wall buried deep among the thorns. The wall led to a wrought-iron gate flecked with rust, beyond which was a pasture and stables overgrown with wild blackberries and clinging ivy. Clearing the vegetation revealed a vast multi-building estate that didn’t appear on the fire crew’s maps.

Maroon Bells had made their name by developing and building high-end mansions for millionaires, who desired properties in Aspen and the surrounding areas with a desire to “experience country living” while cramming in as many overpriced modern amenities as the rat race dictated. The town of Emerald Pines, however, pushed back, citing a need to combat overdevelopment and maintain environmental balance. While Vera and others like her cried foul, pointing out how much money the Ellis family had poured into the year-round resort of Sapphire Drop high above the village to the south, Melody didn’t mind. She had lived in Emerald Pines nearly her entire life, save for her time at the University of Colorado getting a master’s in history, and appreciated its cozy ski-town feel.

When rumors of the abandoned property spread, Vera’s company pounced on the opportunity. Her husband had called in several favors, including one from a state senator, to twist the zoning board’s arm and grant them the right to restore, develop, and eventually sell the estate. There was a single roadblock, however. Maroon Bells and Emerald Pines were working on a handshake deal at the moment, with Maroon Bells restoring the estate and bringing it up to code in return for being granted rights to the estate if an owner couldn’t be found. So far, it was proving impossible to confirm ownership of the property, past or present. Which is where Melody came in.

Vera looked up from the folder. “This is it? A piece of paper and a photograph? Where did you find this?”

“In the basement of the new Public Safety Building. I was going through the police records. I thought there might be a citation for trespassing or a report on a lost hiker.” She motioned to the folder. “I was practically up to my arms in mildew when I found that at the bottom of an old fruit crate, mixed in with a case file regarding an illegal gin mill in the eastern mountains.”

Vera studied the folder’s contents one more time before setting the open file on the table. “Tell me what I’m looking at.”

“It’s a lead shallow enough that a minnow would suffocate in it. But if this pans out…” Melody spread her arms, encompassing the room and, by extension, the rest of the property. “…then you and I are sitting in the dining room of the most notorious piece of property in all of Emerald Pines–Connover Manor.”

There were two documents inside the folder. The first was a faded and mildewed cover sheet with the legend EMERALD PINES CONSTABULARY emblazoned across the top. A date almost one hundred years old was scrawled in the middle of the sheet. Right below were the words, “CONOVER MANOR.” The second document was an old photograph, yellow and cracked with age, displaying the front of the manor house. Several police carriages and ambulances were parked in the courtyard. On the back of the photograph, in what looked like the same handwriting as the police report, was the word “CONOVER,” with another date nearly a century old.

“Never heard of it,” Vera said. “What’s so notorious about this place?”

“It’s our local legend. You know how every small town has a haunted house or a creepy guy with a hook hand who haunts the local makeout point?”

Vera nodded. “Ours was an old quarry turned fishing hole. Kids would dare each other to go swimming after dark because the ghosts of the dead miners would pull you under the surface.”

“For Emerald Pines, it was this place. Although I always thought ‘Connover’ was spelled with two N’s, not one. It’s the story we’d tell at slumber parties or around the campfire–if you wandered up into the mountains, the Connovers would kidnap you and bring you to their house in the middle of the woods, where no one could hear you scream as Daniel Connover performed gruesome medical experiments on you before burying your corpse in the wine cellar.”

“Charming. Getting cadaver dogs to sniff out the basement would look great come appraisal time. No luck finding the rest of this report?”

“There were a couple of boxes I didn’t get to. I was hoping to head back tomorrow morning and keep looking.” She grinned playfully. “I borrowed that police report without asking. I could have taken a picture with my phone, but I figured no one would miss them and that you’d want to see them in person.”

“Thanks for making me an accessory.” Vera tapped her fingers on the table. “This information goes back to the Public Safety building as soon as possible. The ambition’s noted, but next time, a screenshot will do. I do want you to keep looking, but I’ll need you for the packout first. Everything in this house needs to be inventoried and moved into storage before we start renovations, and this place is big enough to need two people for oversight. After that, I’ll officially assign you full-time to research.” She glanced around the dining room. “For an allegedly haunted one-hundred-year-old crime scene, you’d think there’d be some kind of vandalism or graffiti all over the walls.”

“That’s another weird thing. No one could ever say where this place was. Growing up I heard it was on the east ridge, or maybe the west ridge or that Sapphire Drop was built on top of it. Some people said it burned down while others said the town had it razed.” Melody chuckled. “I remember two of my friends arguing–one said that the town got the priest from St. Isidore’s to salt the earth while the other said a Ute medicine man cleansed the property with the county’s blessing.”

“And what do you say happened here?”

Melody’s fingers traced the fine wood of the table before she got up and walked to the kitchen portal and gazed into the vast space beyond. When fully staffed and properly stocked, it could have easily fed the Connovers and household staff twice over. From what Vera had told Melody, the cupboards were full of dishes, the spaces underneath the counters boasted cast-iron pots and pans free of rust, and the silverware in the drawers was one good polish away from being usable. All that was missing was the fine china, its intricately crafted cupboard utterly empty.

It was the same throughout the rest of the house. First- and second-edition books rested on half-empty shelves. Blank spaces sat high on the walls where fancy portraits would have normally sat. And the armoires in the bedrooms lacked clothing. With a little elbow grease, the mansion would have looked like a showcase home for builders.

Melody turned back to Vera. “There’s nothing that suggests a gruesome crime took place. But there’s also nothing personal here. I can imagine people living here, but there’s nothing to prove people lived here. This place is off somehow. It’s a blank page waiting to be written on.”

“To me, it feels like finally getting our foot in the door here in Emerald Pines, to say nothing about the commission we’ll get when we sell it. There’ll be an all-hands meeting at the office on Monday to hand out assignments for the packout. Until we’re done cleaning out this place, focus on online digging online. Follow up on this lead.”

Vera stood up and handed the folder to Melody. “Make a copy of this and get it back to Public Safety. And don’t tell anyone else you borrowed it. If word got out that we stole public documents, it’ll hit us right in our reputation. Maroon Bells lives and dies by word of mouth. With me?”

Melody nodded. “I’m with you. I’m sorry, Vera. I got excited that I finally found something and took a leap before I took a look.”

“Don’t let it get you down. Jobs like this are why I pushed to put a historian on our payroll. When it comes to tracking down obscure information, you’ll sink your teeth into a lead and won’t let go until you’ve gotten down to the bone. You just have to make sure you don’t choke in the process.” Vera gave Melody a reassuring smile. “By the time we close this deal, I expect you to have uncovered every scrap of information there is to know about Conover Manor.”

“Connover Manor,” Melody corrected. “Two N’s. Not Co-no-ver Manor, Conn-o-ver Manor.”

Vera motioned to Melody’s satchel. “That police report says ‘Conover.’ Until you prove otherwise, that’s what I’m going with.” She glanced at her watch. “Alright, it’s almost four o’clock. Let’s call it a day.”

Once they were in the foyer, Vera flipped the light switch, plunging the room into darkness. As her boss went to grab the camping lantern, Melody made for the open front door. The blackness seemed to caress her body, with her shoulder blades pressing together from the shiver that ran down her spine. The sunlight streaming through the doorway was confined to a narrow slice that shrunk as the sun began its slow descent.

Her steps slowed as she approached the door. The darkness pressed in, smothering the sunlight under its presence. The shiver became more pronounced. It was now a gentle tug at the back of her neck. What would happen, she thought, if she gave into the tug? Melody’s eyes fell closed as she imagined the darkness wrapping itself around her body, gliding across her skin, running through her hair as it slipped underneath her clothes…

It was enough to jolt Melody into hurrying outside. She quickly headed for her Jeep, her heart pounding in her chest like she was rock climbing. A ton and a half of Detroit steel and glass were enough to reassure her that her brain had played a harmless prank, even though her fingers loosely gripped the door handle and her keys were already somehow in her other hand.

Vera emerged into the sunlight, carrying the lantern in one hand. Relief sank over Melody when her boss locked the front door behind her. She managed to wave goodbye before jumping into her Jeep and pulling away as quickly as safety allowed, leaving Vera and Connover – Melody knew it was Connover, not Conover – Manor behind her for now.

X X X X X

Geraldo waved to Melody as she emerged from the north wing hallway. “All clear,” she informed him. “Everything out of the south wing?”

“There’re still two bottles of water back in the library.” The chief of the packout crew held a box of books close to his chest while keeping an eye on six men maneuvering a long wooden table down the stairs. “My hands were full and I didn’t want to put them in this box and risk getting the books wet. I’ll come back up and grab them.”

Melody peered over the railing at the ground floor. Several boxes were neatly piled along the walls, silently awaiting their turn while the final pieces of large furniture were being taken outside to be loaded into the moving trucks. After glancing down the long, well-lit central hallway of the south wing, she told Geraldo, “I’ll get them. You focus on packing the trucks. No need for you to make an extra trip up these steps if you don’t have to.”

He nodded gratefully before heading down the stairs. Melody watched him for a moment before turning towards the south wing. The old incandescent bulbs in the light fixtures lining the walls had been replaced with LED lights. Several doors led to sitting rooms and bedrooms, along with a short corridor ending in a linen closet holding old bedsheets and cleaning supplies from companies long out of business.

The hallway was the same as the others that ran the length of their wings–long and straight with doglegs at the far end leading to a large room. The corridor in front of Melody ended in a library whose shelves also stretched floor to ceiling, with tall windows that revealed a breathtaking view of the eastern mountains.

She had spent the past few days with the packout crew contracted by Maroon Bells working to catalog the contents of Connover Manor and outbuildings–the paperwork said ‘Conover Manor’ as per Melody’s discovery, but she continued to think otherwise despite her best efforts–for storage while they began renovations, starting with a thorough deep clean. Her assignment had been to oversee the packing of the second and third floors while her co-worker Breckin covered the ground floor and basement.

The packout had gone smoothly thanks to the professional and jovial attitude of the moving crew. Based out of Carbondale an hour north, they were unfamiliar with the legend of Connover Manor. To them, it was another abandoned property. Breckin, who had grown up outside of Grand Junction, had never heard of the Connovers either. “If this is a haunted house,” he had joked over lunch, “it makes Scooby-Doo look like Event Horizon.”

She agreed with Breckin, which was a rarity. None of the crew had mentioned anything strange or unusual happening while they packed up the manor. The supposedly tell-tale signs of a haunted house were absent as well. Melody had worked on enough renovations to know that the sound of distant footsteps was usually a pipe knocking against a support beam, or that a cold spot was nothing more than a fluctuation in the heating system.

The sense of Connover Manor being a “blank page” did linger with her but in a professional, not supernatural, manner. The packout crew had emptied the entire mansion, from the attic down to the wine cellar, while also going through every drawer and cabinet, without finding a single personalized item. There was nothing in the house or the outbuildings that could be tied to whoever resided there before it was abandoned.

She began her final walkthrough. The only thing left in each room was the barest layer of dust. Melody checked off each room on her phone, confirming they were indeed empty. Eventually, she came to the library, the final stop on her south wing walkthrough. The double doors stood open, adorned with a pair of silver doorknobs boasting the same wolf motif as the others in the house. Her fingers idly brushed against the cool metal as she passed.

Dark wooden floorboards complimented the crimson paint on the walls, with wrought iron light fixtures set into the plaster. Bookshelves lined every inch of the walls, cut from a black wood that Melody couldn’t identify.

There was another library on the ground floor, but judging by the furniture and the nature of its books, it was meant more as a showcase for the residents’ tastes in fiction and philosophy. This room, however, has probably been used for study and research, based on the historical, ethical, religious, and medical texts that once lined its shelves. Now, however, it was bereft of both knowledge and furniture. Even the thick curtains had been taken down for deep cleaning. All that remained were two bottles of water sitting on the windowsill. And sitting in a far corner, tucked within the shadows of the bottom shelf, was a lone cardboard box.

Melody walked over to the box, wondering how the packout crew could have missed it. She knelt down and saw that it was filled with loose papers, faded from age. The one on top appeared to be a receipt. Her heart began to race as she looked it over.

From Van Dorn Groceries, Denver, Colorado Territory

To Jack Gates, Ashcroft, Colorado Territory

What followed was a list of grocery items common for 1880s Colorado. Despite the mundane nature of the receipt, a bolt of anticipation shot through her. Ashcroft was the original name for Emerald Pines. The town had been chartered in 1882 on the site of a silver mining camp along the banks of Castle Creek and had been renamed in 1927 as part of an effort to reinvent itself as a winter getaway for Denver’s upper crust. Another piece of paper turned out to also be an invoice from Van Dorn Groceries, addressed to the same recipient.

She picked up the box and balanced the water bottles against her arms before leaving the library and heading for the foyer. It was empty, so no one saw Melody sit on the top step once she reached the stairs. Setting the box and water bottles down next to her, she grabbed one of the waters and took a deep swig, relishing the cool liquid as she tried to snatch coherent thoughts from the whirlwind of ideas whipping through her brain.

“No way,” Melody eventually laughed in disbelief. Here was the potential treasure trove of information that she had been seeking for over a week. Two pieces of paper. Two names. Two potential leads. But how had the packout crew overlooked it? Surely Geraldo would have mentioned it to her. She looked down the stairs to see if the foreman was in sight.

The foyer was empty of both people and boxes. The front doors were propped open, allowing her to hear the muffled sounds of the crew loading the final items into the moving trucks parked in the circular driveway. “Alright,” she told herself after finishing her water, “time to go.”

As she grabbed the box, however, the papers moved, revealing cracked leather. Melody pressed her lips together for a moment before moving the remaining papers out of the way. A quick peek to satisfy her curiosity, and then she was down the stairs and out the door.

Resting at the bottom of the box was a thick leather book with threaded stitching. Her breath caught in her throat as she realized that the cover was worn with age. All thoughts of leaving were instantly replaced with a strong desire to study what might be the oldest item discovered within the mansion. Placing the box back on the floor, Melody made sure her hands were clean before moving the papers to one side, allowing her to carefully lift the book from the box and set it down on the balcony.

The tome was substantial in size, but somehow not in weight. She estimated that it was almost a foot in height and eight inches in length, and the inch in depth gave her a ballpark number of four hundred pages. Small cracks dotted the surface and the richness had faded from the scarlet leather, but the stitching was still intact along the binding. The title of the book was embossed into the cover in gold leaf. “Rituum arcesse impios et sacrilegos,” she read out loud.

She pressed her fingers against the cover. Despite the cracks, the leather held firm. As she carefully traced over the embossed golf leaf, she felt a soothing warmth emanating from the book. It reminded her of sliding underneath the covers after spending an hour on top of them reading a new book. Melody called it “pre-heating the bed,” while Kristin had referred to it as “sleep foreplay.”

Tracing turned into dragging. Melody licked her lips as the feeling of the leather cover against her fingers reminded her of firm muscles–a chiseled shoulder, a tight butt, and rugged six-pack abs. Her hand drifted towards the edge of the cover. Her eyes fell closed while she imagined slipping a single finger between the tight pages, parting them to reveal the treasured knowledge within…

“Melody!”

Her hand jerked away and her eyes snapped open to see her co-worker Breckin standing on the second-floor landing. “Hello,” he said with a sarcastic wave and a cocksure smile. “Are you with us here on Planet Earth?”

Melody shook her head, trying to refocus. “I’m here, Breckin.”

“Finally hitting the wall, huh? I’m right there with you. I’m ready to head home and pour myself a stiff drink.”

“Are they finished loading the trucks?”

“Loading up your last pieces. Once you sign off we’re officially done for the day.” Breckin nodded towards the full bottle of water. “You mind?” Melody underhanded him the bottle. He deftly snatched it from the air and took a deep pull, unaware of her annoyance at being interrupted.

While Melody had been hired for her history degree and dogged research ability, Breckin Besch had been brought into Maroon Bells for two reasons–his people skills and more importantly, his last name. The Besch Winery was known as one of the finest vineyards in the American West. Having gotten their start by selling wine to churches during Prohibition while also running an illegal rural speakeasy, the Besch clan now owned several hundred acres of prime farmland across Colorado’s Western Slope along with multiple commercial properties. With rugged good looks, an easy-going smile, and of course an exclusive bottle of Besch’s finest vintage which he “happened to have on hand,” Breckin had opened a multitude of doors for the company. He had shut just as many doors within the company, however, with his dismissive attitude and haughty attitude to co-workers, including Melody. Never to management, of course. They always got a full-frontal view of his charm.

Despite having overseen the packing of both the bottom two floors as well as the basement, Breckin’s jet-black hair was still perfectly styled down to the part on one side. His brown Timberlands held a high polish that belonged on penny loafers, not boots. Even the dust on his tan work pants and black t-shirt added a fashionable accent. “Any problems wrapping up the downstairs?” she asked.

“Once everyone started listening to me and we got a rhythm going, it was smooth sailing.” He walked up the steps and planted his foot next to Melody. He leaned over her, forearms crossed over his thigh. She turned to face him while unconsciously shifting her body to hide the box from view. “The wine cellar was the toughest part. We packed nearly five hundred bottles. And the years of those vintages… if they had broken any of those bottles it would have made you cry. The appraiser my father is sending out is going to have a field day. If they’re still viable, I’ll have collectors from all over lining up at auction. Between the commission from fixing up this place and the finder’s fee from the auction, we’ll be in the black for the next couple of years.”

“Do you remember what the most recent vintages were?”

“1882. Everything else is older. The oldest was a Spanish wine, late 17th century.”

“Nothing later? Not even from the early 1900s?”

“Maybe the… what did you say their names were, the Connovers? Maybe they liked to drink their wine vins de primeur. That’s a wine that’s meant to be drunk the year it’s fermented. They tend to be fruitier and more sugary. Now, the liquor they had behind the bar, that stuff was brand new. As in, probably ginned up in a bathtub the morning it was bottled. It makes rotgut look top shelf.”

“Colorado had particularly strict temperance laws in the early twentieth century. Even rich families had difficulty getting their hands on liquor.”

“You could still get wine for religious ceremonies though. Maybe the Connovers were severe Jesus freaks. It would explain all the bottles in the cellar.”

“I haven’t seen a single Bible or religious symbol while we’ve been here.” Melody pressed the tips of her thumbs just above her chin as her brow furrowed in thought. “I don’t think I’ve seen a single book on religion either. Lots of books on philosophy, but nothing on religion. What about you?”

“I wasn’t paying attention when they were packing up the library. Dusty old books are your hobby, not mine.” Breckin missed the narrowing of her eyes as he continued. “I did notice something weird, though. Normally an old house like this, there’s evidence of infestation. Dead insects, mouse droppings, a wasp’s nest, stuff like that. I haven’t seen anything like that while we were unpacking, not even cobwebs. Isn’t that weird?”

“Yeah.” She gestured to the box of papers. “This would be a five-star nest for a rodent.”

A voice calling out from the front door preempted Breckin’s response. “Melody?” Geraldo stood at the bottom of the steps, an electronic tablet in one hand. “Everything’s on the trucks. Just need you to eyeball everything and sign off.”

Breckin was already heading down the stairs as Melody got to her feet. Her hand brushed against the edge of the leather cover. The gold lettering snared the light from the chandeliers overhead when she glanced at it, illuminating the lettering with an enticing glow. She reached down to grab the book…

“What do you mean, tomorrow morning?”

Breckin’s voice once again interrupted her. “Come on, Breckin,” she muttered before turning toward the bottom of the stairs.

Her co-worker’s arms were spread in confusion as he told Geraldo, “You mean Monday morning.”

“No, I mean tomorrow morning, Mr. Besch.” Geraldo tapped his tablet. “Vera made this a priority job. We’re getting time-and-a-half for unloading everything over the weekend. Your name’s on here to oversee the process.”

She had managed to safely repack the book in the box before Breckin called up to her. “But it’s Melody’s turn for weekend work. It is your turn, right?”

She shook her head while she walked down the stairs. “I covered the job in Leadville over the winter when it ran three days late. Remember? You had that ski thing in Park City?”

His shoulders slumped. “That’s right. The winter party with those guys from Salt Lake. I can’t be there tomorrow morning. I have somewhere to be.”

“It’s your turn,” Melody insisted. “We specifically talked about this in the kickoff meeting on Monday.”

“I forgot! Look, you have to cover for me,” he pleaded. “My Dad set up a golf outing with some bigwigs. If I blow it off he’ll be pissed! Cover me, just for tomorrow. I’ll be there Sunday morning, promise. And I’ll make it up to you down the line.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but you’re the one on the schedule.”

“Come on,” he pleaded. “I said I’d owe you one! Besides, it’s not like you have any big Friday night plans that’ll make you sleep in.”

“I’m actually helping pack boxes at church tonight,” she countered.

“I didn’t realize you and Jesus had a hot date. Is he staying over and that’s why you can’t get up early tomorrow?”

Melody crossed her arms and gave Breckin a withering glare. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was planning to go for a nice nature walk and get some fresh air after spending the past few days cooped up in here. Your failure to manage your schedule shouldn’t inconvenience me or Geraldo’s team.”

Geraldo coughed, drawing their attention. “Look, the trucks are packed and we’re ready to call it a day. We’ll be at the warehouse tomorrow at 8 a.m., sharp.” He held up his tablet. “It’s your name on here as the company rep, Mr. Besch. If you’re not there, well, I have Ms. Sandoval’s direct number. I can call her now if it’ll settle things…”

Breckin’s hands shot up. “Whoa, hey, there’s no need for that.”

“You’re messing with my crew’s money, Mr. Besch. That’s a need for that. Either you’re there, Melody’s there, or Ms. Sandoval’s there.”

Brecking turned back to Melody. “No, Breckin,” she quickly said. “I didn’t want to work over the weekend either on the Leadville job, but you were the one who told me to, and I’m quoting, ‘suck it up and be professional.’ Now it’s your turn. Suck it up and be professional.”

There was a flash of anger on Breckin’s face that only made her stiffen her spine. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he gave Melody a warm smile dripping with enough insincerity to seem legit. “I’m sorry, Melody,” he said smoothly. “I’m worn out from spending the past few days helping pack up the estate and didn’t mean to be rude. My father and I have a golf game in Snowmass tomorrow morning with a pair of tech bros from Denver. My Dad’s trying to convince them to build a server farm in Grand Junction, and I’m going to sell them on building summer homes here in the valley. If I can land them, that’s two high-profile jobs for Maroon Bells.”

He tilted his head, appearing contrite. “I’m sorry I forgot that I was on for this weekend. Please, cover for me. I’ll make it up to you in the future. Cross my heart.”

He wasn’t going to let this go. One quick phone call to Vera would immediately clear this up, but it would also let her know that Melody couldn’t settle a dispute on her own. She already had one strike against her for borrowing the police report. Denting Vera’s confidence in her wasn’t an option. Plus more jobs from wealthy clients meant more commissions, which meant she could throw more money at her student loans to pay them down faster. “Fine,” she eventually sighed. “But I won’t cover Sunday. That’s on you.”

“Great!” he exclaimed gleefully. “If Vera calls and asks why you’re there, tell her you had one of your moments of historical geekery. I’ll see you Sunday morning!” Breckin’s farewell was said to Geraldo as he quickly headed out the front door before either of them could stop him.

“You should have gotten that in writing,” the crew chief remarked.

“And I should have gotten him to apologize to you as well.” She rubbed her face before giving Geraldo a weary smile. “Breckin never puts things in writing unless they involve money. The important thing is, someone will be there tomorrow morning so we can start unpacking.”

“Still doesn’t mean you should cover his ass.”

“Nobody’s perfect. Come on, let’s double-check the trucks so we can get out of here.”

As she and Geraldo stepped onto the porch, Melody flipped the light switches and locked the double doors behind them, plunging the foyer into darkness.

X X X X X

“It’s one of those things you never think about,” Melody said as she sealed the final package. “Everyone donates food and canned goods, but we always forget about stuff like paper towels and laundry detergent.”

Pastor Cliff nodded as he picked up the package from the folding table. “‘Needy’ is often associated with ‘hungry,'” he said while setting the box on the cart with the other twenty-four boxes. “We know what it’s like to be hungry, but running out of toiletries or laundry pods is something most people consider an inconvenience. We’ve never had to choose between milk or a bottle of ibuprofen, or having to get napkins from a fast food place because we’re out of two-ply.”

Melody followed Cliff as he rolled the cart out to the church’s parking lot, where his pickup truck held the twenty-five boxes they had packed earlier. Working together they quickly unloaded the cart and secured the boxes with a tarp and bungee cords. Once they were finished, Cliff slapped the side of the truck. “Fifty care packages. The LIFT-UP center in Carbondale will appreciate these. And I appreciate you taking the time to help, especially on a Friday night.”

“People don’t stop needing help just because it’s the weekend.”

“If you’re not in a rush, want to sit and have a drink?” When Melody nodded, Cliff told her to meet him on the back steps of the church. He stepped inside while Melody walked around the side of the building, passing a well-maintained flower box that ran the length of the church before sitting down on a pair of recently refurbished wooden steps. The moon shone down from a clear sky, and she could hear the rushing water of Castle Creek beyond the pine trees standing sentry at the property line.

The red brick building had been Melody’s spiritual home for over a decade, and she knew its history like the back of her hand. Dating back to the foundation of Ashcorft, the building had served as a meeting hall for silver miners, a poorhouse for displaced families, a convalescence home for World War II soldiers, a hippie commune, and a doomsday prepper cult whose leader had emptied their bank accounts before vanishing, leaving behind nothing but a trashed house full of worthless junk.

The property had sat unattended for nearly a decade until the current owners purchased it for dirt cheap, fixed it up, shoved the junk into the basement, and opened its doors to the community. The Reconciled Church of Emerald Pines, or “RCEP” for short, had served the town ever since, with its twenty-fifth anniversary just around the corner.

The door opened behind her. “Here you go,” Cliff said as he sat down beside her. “A bottle of the Rocky Mountains’ finest filtered spring water, with added minerals for taste.” She took the offered bottle. It was frigid, just above freezing the way Cliff preferred. She carefully sipped from the bottle, letting the water warm up in her hands, as she quietly sat next to her pastor.

Pastor Cliff Waters had served as RCEP’s pastor for almost twenty years. He was in his early fifties, with tan skin from being a year-round outdoorsman and salt-and-pepper hair more salt than pepper. Cliff had been the one to confirm the Langstons into the Lutheran faith almost fifteen years prior when Melody’s grandmother had a religious epiphany and decided everyone else in the family needed to have one as well. Her parents had humored her, figuring one church was as good as another. However, Pastor Cliff’s dedication to social justice and caring for the community, regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof, slowly won them over, to the point where they had become pillars of the church. Due to the events of the past year, Melody was the only Langston left in attendance at the Reconciled Church–an attendance that grew more tenuous with each passing Sunday.

Cliff waited until she had finished her bottle before cautiously asking, “How are you holding up?”

“I’m fine.” After a moment, she blew out a shallow sigh. “I’m not fine. But I’m doing great at acting like I am. Does that count?” Cliff didn’t answer her. Instead, he pulled his knees close and looked at her with sympathetic concern. “It’ll be a year in a couple of days,” she said. “One year she’s been gone. Do I get a one-year anniversary cake? Buy me a belated sympathy card? ‘Hey Kristin, I’m sorry I’m sorry you’re dead?’ I have no idea what I’m supposed to do, and I feel horrible because of it.”

“You’re still grieving, Melody. It’s valid to be conflicted, or confused, or however it is you’re feeling. How are your parents taking it?”

She scoffed. “They haven’t mentioned it. The last time I talked to my dad, it was all about how they were settling in with my mom’s family up in Michigan. My dad, who never got along with my mom’s side of the family… was happy to be up there. They sold their house here in town and moved to Michigan without a second thought to get away from…”

Melody trailed off. Cliff kept silent, letting her work at finding the words. “They won’t even say she’s dead. Just that she’s gone. Even getting them to say that is like pulling teeth.” Melody finished the bottle of water. She leaned over and dropped it in the recycling bin next to the stairs. “And I know you’re going to ask, so go ahead and ask.”

“Do I need to ask?”

“Yeah, you do.”

“How’s your faith?”

“Still hanging by a thread.” She got to her feet. Cliff remained sitting while she put her hands in her pockets and looked up at the night sky. Without clouds, the stars crowned the towering Rockies surrounding the village like brilliant gemstones. To the south, the resort of Sapphire Drop glittered like an artificial diamond. “I can’t reconcile why God would take someone like my sister. She was young, vibrant, and could have changed the world, or at least this little corner of it. To slip and fall getting out of the shower… some people would make them turn away from God. I keep coming here because…”

She rubbed her eye with the back of her hand. “I keep coming here because I refuse to turn away. I want to look Him in the face and ask Him why. But He hasn’t called back. All my prayers for the past year have been one single word–‘Why?’ And He can’t even give me a simple answer.”

“You shouldn’t turn away.” Cliff got to his feet and leaned against the railing. “You should ask Him why. But don’t just ask Him through prayer. When was the last time you read the Bible?”

“Six months ago. John 11, verses one through forty-five.”

He smiled. “The story of Lazarus. You’re wondering why Jesus raised him of all people from the dead?”

“I read the online discourse. His way of showing his power over death, his way of showing grief at a broken world, yadda yadda yadda…” Melody winced. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I know I shouldn’t ‘yadda yadda yadda’ the Bible.”

“I’ll give you a pass on the book of Leviticus.”

“He hasn’t answered, Pastor Cliff. Right now I’m coming here not because of my faith, but because I believe in the good work that this church does. We feed the hungry, we clothe the poor, and we make sure their colors remain bright in the wash. But the day is coming where that won’t be enough justification to roll out of bed Sunday morning.”

“I hope that day never comes. I’ve tried to help you with your grief this past year, so I’m going to ask for you to do one thing this week. From now until next Sunday, I want you to listen.” He tapped his ear. “Stop asking for answers. Just listen. Sometimes God answers the prayers we don’t make.”

“I’ll try. Can I ask you to pray for me?”

“You’re always in my prayers, Melody.”

She managed to laugh. “This is different. I have a date tomorrow night. My co-worker set me up with her cousin. I’m not looking for… I just want to have a good time, and maybe forget about my problems over drinks and dinner. I know it’s a weird thing to pray for, but the last two guys were both a swing and a miss.”

“It’s not remotely the weirdest thing I’ve been asked to pray about. I’ll pray that you have a fun, safe time and that your date isn’t a loser. How’s that?”

“That’s fine, Pastor Cliff.”

Cliff walked Melody to her Jeep. Once she had gotten in, he said, “This is a question I have to ask. Will I see you in church this Sunday?”

“You will,” she promised. “Unless my date goes well.”

X X X X X

Melody swung her Jeep onto Castle Creek Road, putting Aspen in her rearview mirror, only to immediately get stuck behind an SUV with Texas plates which was overloaded with skiing equipment on the roof. She sped up, tailgating the SUV, planning to ride its ass until she could pass it down the road.

The evening had been a disaster. Her date was an attractive man in his late twenties who belonged on the cover of an outdoor magazine, with tan skin and muscles in the right places. He was also an utter bore. The large majority of their dinner had been spent talking about his time skiing, hiking, and kayaking all across the West. Any time she mentioned her own outdoor experiences, he’d immediately counter with a bigger story. Her contributions had been reduced to repeated “ohs,” “that’s cools,” and “interestings.” The only time she had managed to grab the wheel of the conversation, she asked him who his favorite author was. She expected Jack London, or maybe Jon Levy or Christopher McCandless. At that point, she was willing to accept James Patterson. Instead, he responded that he didn’t read books because “Why would I read someone else’s experiences when I can have my own?”

She had begged off dessert, claiming that the food had disagreed with her, and made a hasty exit. Another strikeout with her dating life. Her last relationship had been over a year ago, right before Kristin died–a casual fling with someone she met at a bar that immediately ended when he got a job in Denver. She’d had three dates since then and not even a good night kiss to show for it. The only attentive lover she’d had over the past year had been her vibrator, which had finally given out on her last weekend.

Tonight served to compound the rest of the day’s failures. Geraldo’s crew had been a well-oiled machine and finished unpacking the trucks in just under eight hours. While they’d still get time-and-a-half for the entire weekend, it also meant that Breckin didn’t have to show up Sunday morning. Since she had forgotten to text Breckin last night to confirm their deal, odds are he’d conveniently forget about it the next time there was weekend work.

What bothered her most was her total failure at historical research. Melody had spent her lunch hour and two fifteen-minute breaks on her laptop searching online for anything related to Connover Manor or the Connover family, only to come up empty. Google, Bing, Yahoo–each search engine returned exactly one hit for a neighborhood of townhouses called Conover Manor in Conover, North Carolina, a small town that had been incorporated in 1877, and named by a woman named Julia Ann Seitz. Neither Ms. Seitz nor the town had any ties to Colorado that she could dig up.

Professionally stymied, religiously off-balance, riding a slow driver’s bumper, and criminally undersexed, it was the worst time for Vera to call.

Melody used the button on her Jeep’s steering wheel to answer the call. “Hey, Vera. It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday. Is everything OK?”

“You tell me.” Her boss’ voice was crisp and formal. “You did a walkthrough and confirmed that everything on the top floors was loaded on the trucks before signing off, right?”

“Yes, I did. The packout crew did a fantastic job. The second and third floors were empty when I checked them, both the north and south wings.”

“Then we have a problem. The security guard we hired to keep an eye on the place said he found a box on the third-floor landing. Either the movers forget about it, or you overlooked it. Which one was it?”

Melody shot up in the driver’s seat. “Damn it,” she muttered. “That’s on me. There was one box left in the library and I grabbed it during the final walkthrough.”

Melody tried to recall the previous afternoon, however, the memories swirled like eddies in swift-moving rapids. They flowed downstream, just out of reach of her mental grasp. “I… I think I set the box down on the floor while I was talking to Breckin,” she said while pulling into the other lane to finally pass the SUV. “I ended up going down to the foyer to smooth things over between him and Geraldo…”

“Smooth things over between Breckin and Geraldo? What happened?”

“Breckin being…” Melody suddenly cried out as her windshield was filled with LED lights. She jerked the steering wheel to one side and barely managed to swerve behind the SUV in time to avoid the sports car that had barreled up the other side of the road, blaring its horn as it sped away.

“Melody? Are you OK?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just some idiot in a sports car thinking he owns the road.” Her heart was still racing as she gunned the Jeep forward, finally whipping around the SUV.

“So Breckin and Geraldo? What were they arguing about?”

“I don’t remember, but I took care of it. We left right afterward though, and I guess I forgot about the box while I was locking up.”

Vera was silent for a moment. “This is the second time I’ve had to talk to you like this. If you sign off on something, that means it’s done. It doesn’t matter if it’s one box or ten boxes, your signature means we’re legally saying that part of the job has been completed. Fortunately, we don’t have a client to upset, but I still have to put a formal note in your employee record. With me?”

“I’m with you, Vera.” The gas pedal inched towards the floor as Melody’s Jeep tore down the winding country highway. “I’ll do my best to make sure I don’t repeat this mistake in the future.”

“Speaking of not having a client, have you managed to dig up any more history?”

Melody began to answer in the negative before her brain managed to pull something from the rushing water of yesterday’s memories. “I might have something. Van Dorn Groceries. That box had a bunch of receipts from Van Dorn Groceries to someone named Jack Gates in Ashcroft.”

“Wait. The box you left behind in the mansion had receipts dating back to the nineteenth century and you forgot to take it with you? That’s not like you, Melody. Normally you’d grab a lead like that with both hands and run it into the ground.”

It was unlike her. “I guess I was just done for the day. I juggled so much stuff this week, my brain decided I didn’t need to remember it. I’m sorry.”

“If this job’s too much for you, I can move you to another one.”

“It was a momentary lapse, Vera. That’s all, I promise.” With a glance at the mountains off to the west, Melody made some quick calculations. “I’m coming from Aspen now. I’ll detour up to the mansion and grab the box from the security guard. I don’t have any plans tomorrow, so I can go through it and give you a summary Monday morning.”

“OK,” Vera responded. “I expect a detailed report. Micah is supervising the cleaning crew all week, so after the Monday meeting, I’m putting you on research full-time. I want daily emails about your progress, and I expect you to find something by the end of the week if not sooner. We’ll talk details on Monday.”

“I understand. Can you text the security guard and let him know I’m on my way?”

“Already done.”

“Thank you, Vera. And again, I’m sorry.”

“I’ll accept your apology when you show me results. Good night, Melody.”

X X X X X

She drove past the lightless lampposts, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel when the pine trees parted to reveal the darkened mansion. The moon painted the driveway with a thin paint of dull silver as if the moonlight was clinging to the brick cobblestones by the tips of its fingers.

The trees eventually parted to reveal the mansion. The only light came from the white glow of the bulbs in the iron lamps flanking the front door and a security trailer parked near one of the outbuildings. As Melody pulled up next to the trailer, the door opened to reveal a large man in a security guard’s uniform. Once she had parked, the man motioned for her to roll down her window. “This is private property,” he stated.

“I’m from Maroon Bells,” she answered. “Vera should have texted that I was coming.”

She held out her employee badge. The guard shined a small flashlight on the badge for a few seconds before nodding with satisfaction. “You’re good, Ms. Langston. Just had to double-check.”

“It’s fine. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“I’m Rich.” Rich was a middle-aged man in his early sixties. He was tall but also showed signs of a late-age paunch. He wore a light gray security guard’s uniform and a silver star on his lapel, marking him as an employee of Silver Security, a firm that the company had used multiple times throughout Melody’s time there. “I’ve got the box in the trailer. Let me grab it.”

Melody tapped her fingers against her console as Rich walked back to the trailer. The lamps on the front porch illuminated the space under the overhang, but somehow the doorway was veiled by a drape of velvety shadow. Her eyes were drawn to the darkness. It swirled while she stared at it, something Melody ascribed to a trick of the light. After a moment, however, the darkness seemed to part, revealing the teak doors. The wolf-shaped handles shone brightly despite the surrounding shadow. It beckoned to her, like a moth to the flame. Her hand went to the buckle of her seatbelt…

“Here you go, Ms. Langston.”

She started at the sound of Rich’s voice. The security guard was holding a cardboard box that was instantly familiar to her. With his help, she managed to secure it in the passenger seat using the seatbelt. “What’s in there, anyway?” he asked once they were done.

“Some old receipts,” she said as she double-checked the box. “Oh, and a book.”

“It’s a heavy-as-hell book then. It felt like I was hauling a fifty-pound kettlebell down the stairs.”

“Sorry about that. I should have remembered to grab it yesterday before I left.” Her eyes drifted to the dark windows of Connover Manor. “Are you the only person here at night?”

“Yep. There are three of us working twelve-hour shifts when there’s no one here. This is my week.”

Curiosity overtook her. “What’s it like being in there after dark? Have you seen or heard anything strange?”

“The exact opposite.” He swept his arm across the manor and the nearest outbuilding. “This is my fifth night here. I’ve covered all the buildings and walked around the parts of the property you guys have managed to clear out, and I haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary.”

“Really?” she asked with disbelief in her voice.

He raised his hands in a two-fingered salute. “Scout’s honor, Ms. Langston. I was a Colorado State Trooper for nearly thirty years. I’ve been up and down the valley and worked both sides of the Continental Divide. I’ve been to all kinds of strange places and seen things I couldn’t even begin to describe. Abandoned buildings and haunted houses come with a certain kind of energy, right? Well, there’s nothing like that here. No creaking floorboards, hooting owls, or even a weird noise from another room.”

He gestured towards the mansion. “Even walking through the basement and wine cellar felt like walking through my living room. This place is completely, utterly normal, and that creeps me out more than anything.”

She patted the side of the box. “Hopefully this will help fill in the history.” With a friendly wave to Rich, Melody rolled up her window and pulled away from the manor, heading back down the mountain toward home.

X X X X X

Melody balanced the box of papers and the paper bag from Kenner’s Market on one arm while she unlocked her front door. While some people would consider going through a box of old grocery receipts while drowning their sorrows with a bottle of red wine a poor excuse for a Saturday night, she felt an eager thrill. Perhaps here was finally a concrete lead on the former inhabitants of Connover Manor. Something physical that she could hold in her hands instead of pulling up via search engine.

After changing into comfy clothes–a white tank top with red pajama bottoms–thoroughly washing and drying her hands, and pouring a glass of wine, Melody got to work. The receipts were first. Separating them by decade gave her six stacks of receipts and invoices, ranging from 1880 to 1933. The majority involved Van Dorn Groceries, which were always addressed to either a Jack Gates or an Ellison Gates. The earliest was the one she had originally handled upon discovering the box, dated 1882, and listed items such as heating oil, lamp oil, sewing equipment, a variety of alcohol both medicinal and non-medicinal, and double-digit orders for different cuts of meat. The purchases remained the same over the next fifty-plus years, with few variations.

“That’s odd,” Melody mused after taking a deep sip of wine. Everything listed could have easily been obtained at any general store or outfitter in the valley. Having it all shipped from Denver, first by wagon and then by rail, would have been prohibitively expensive, as the receipts confirmed. And, to her utter lack of surprise, a brief Internet search pulled up nothing on Van Dorn Groceries nor the pair of Gates.

She was going through the stack of receipts from the 1900s when she noticed a black smudge on her finger. One of the invoices appeared burned along the edges. A closer look revealed that a piece of paper was stuck to the back of the invoice. It took a pair of tweezers (and another glass of wine) for Melody to carefully peel the paper away. It was another invoice, but this one was from a brick maker in Aspen whose business was now a historical site, outlining a delivery to be sent to “the construction site of Jarlson Manor, Ashcroft.”

Melody had never heard of Jarlson Manor. Google and Bing had, however. Both listed an article from an 1882 issue of the Aspen Weekly Times. “Mystery Deepens Around Disappearance”, she read out loud. “Local authorities hold no leads regarding the vanished Jarlson family, who were last seen in the mining town of Ashcroft several weeks ago supervising the construction of their new mansion in the western mountains.”

The article mentioned that the Jarlson were a family of seven immigrants from Sweden developing ties to the area’s burgeoning lumber industry. They were living in a small cottage on their estate when they suddenly vanished one night. The article focused more on the authorities’ efforts to find them but offered no details. A quick online dive pulled up no further information either.

Another glass of wine served to fuel Melody’s curious confusion. She knew the history of the Roaring Fork Valley like the back of her hand but had never heard of the Jarlsons. Another Google search showed no connection between the Jarlsons and Connover Manor. Was the estate mentioned in the article the site of Connover Manor? It made sense, but Vera, as well as the offices that would eventually issue the permits, would require something concrete. Visions of local libraries and county clerks brought a smile to her face. This is what she imagined when she studied to be a historian–digging through old records and computer files to uncover the temporal truth, yearning to find that single piece of information that brought everything into focus and opened up new avenues of exploration.

Invigorated from uncovering a new lead, Melody spent several minutes sealing the stacks of receipts in crystal-clear storage bags before setting them on her dining room table and once again washing her hands. It was now time to see what the leather-bound tome held in store.

Melody sat down on the couch after topping off her wine. She reached into the box and carefully gripped the book by its edges. The leather held firm against her fingers as she set it on the coffee table and began studying it. The book appeared to be in good shape despite its obvious age. The threaded bindings had yet to fray, and the cracks in the leather cover were only surface level. The gold leaf lettering maintained its bright sheen. “Rituum arcesse impios et sacrilegos,” she read out loud. “Rituals… no, rites… rites to… to summon… the evil… the wicked… Rites To Summon The Wicked And The Profane.”

Google failed to pull up any historical texts with that title, in Latin or English. She delicately opened the tome to the first page, where she was greeted with the title written in black ink with expertly flowing strokes. In the space below the title, penned by a different hand, was a sentence written in French–“Le ciel est fermé à tous sauf à ses sycophantes, mais le Porteur de Lumière tend la main sans attente.”

Melody turned to Google Translate. She could imagine professional historians groaning with each keystroke, but Latin and Spanish were her studied languages, not French. “Heaven is closed to all save His sycophants,” she read on her laptop, “but the Lightbringer reaches out without expectation.”

Turning to the next page revealed a detailed portrait of a squatting lump of flesh with appendages barely long enough to count as limbs and wide, panicky eyes. Underneath the portraits was its title–Putrida daemonium, or Stinking Demon. The accompanying Latin text on the next page outlined a detailed ritual for supposedly calling the being forth from Hell, complete with a small ritual circle and words of summoning. More French was scrawled in the bottom margins–“Un démon pitoyable. Utile uniquement pour l’entraînement ou l’ennui.”—“A pitiful demon. Useful only for practice or annoyance.”

Melody leaned into her cushions. “No way,” she breathed. Sitting on her coffee table was an honest-to-God… she couldn’t say that, but she wasn’t going to say honest-to-Lucifer… book on demonic summoning. It had to be fake of course, but whoever had written the French passages seemed to believe otherwise. Were the Connovers devil worshippers? Or maybe the Jarlsons? Was their disappearance tied to some kind of ritual?

Melody scoffed. “What the hell am I thinking?” she asked before finishing off her wine. This book couldn’t possibly be legitimate. It had probably been picked up as a curiosity, something taboo and scandalous for the idle rich to jokingly discuss over fine cigars. Demons didn’t exist except in horror novels and scary movies…

“If you believe He exists, why not us?”

Melody froze as a voice spoke with the whisper of an amorous lover. After a moment, she shook her head and got up. “No. No, it’s the wine talking, I drank too much at dinner and now with the wine it’s finally hitting me…”

“Are you not a seeker of knowledge?”

She was ready to offer a rebuke when she realized she was about to argue with a book. Either she was drunker than she realized, or the tome open on her table was talking to her. It had to be the first one since books didn’t speak.

“Are you not a seeker of the unknown?”

The pages of the book began to gently turn, slowly revealing their secrets to her. There were rituals to summon demons for various tasks–to grant riches, murder your enemies, help you fall in love, and enhance your art. Each one was written in Latin, and several came with French additions in the margins.

Her anxiety gave way to rapturous interest. Melody sank onto the couch, enthralled by the incredible scene unfolding in front of her. Was this real? It had to be. “Holy shi… I mean, Jesus Chr… whoa.”

The pages stopped turning. She nervously leaned forward. “Can you hear me?”

“We hear you, Melody.”

“OK. Wow. What do you want?”

“To show you what awaits.”

“That’s… specifically vague. How about we start with an introduction? What’s your name?”

“There are many names within this tome. Names of those who offer untold delights. Long have we yearned for one to open our pages and seek the nourishment within. What we offer will satisfy your hungry curiosity and fulfill your deepest desires.”

She had seen enough movies and read enough books to instantly recognize the cliches within the book’s statement. This is where a smart person, like her sister, would have closed the tome and walked away. But talking to the book… where was the harm in that? As long as she didn’t do anything stupid or reckless, she’d be fine. Most importantly, this book had been found inside Connover Manor. Maybe it knew something about the estate. Going to work Monday morning with a wealth of history would help soothe Vera’s disappointment with her.

“How did you end up in the mansion?” she asked. “Who brought you there? What happened to the people who lived there?”

“An inquisitive mind excites us. You opened the book. You translated the words within. You ask questions. We can provide those answers, Melody. All the knowledge you wish to acquire, we can give you. But you’ll need to clear your thoughts. Your brain is fogged with arousal. We can assist. See what awaits you.”

She opened her eyes. Looking up at Melody from the page was an intricate sketch of a voluptuous naked female. Long, powerful legs complimented a sleek tail, strong arms, and broad shoulders. A pair of veined wings stretched out behind her, a wicked spike capping each segment. Curved horns provided a glorious crown, accenting a firm bosom that plastic surgery could only aspire to. Such was the detail that Melody could make out the lips resting at the bottom of a neatly trimmed patch of pubic hair.

The Latin title read Sexus Muliebris Daemonis–Female Sex Demon. Accompanying the text was more French–“Le terme préféré est ‘succube’. Cependant, les plaisirs qu’il offre sont indescriptibles.”

As she typed the phrase into Google, Melody’s gaze kept returning to the figure. The tail curled around the demon’s upper thigh like a worshiping lover. The erect nipples on its round, full breasts spoke of the creature’s desire. Its hips were cocked to one side, accentuating the enticing look the demon wore.

Her hand began trembling with each keystroke. A gentle heat was building below her stomach, and she felt the muscles in her legs tighten. The sketch seemed to breathe the more she looked at it. Its shoulders rose up and down. The tail around its thigh slithered invitingly. And its eyes, somehow, alluringly stared back at her.

The heat was now accompanied by an anticipatory feeling in her stomach as if she was climbing the initial hill of a roller coaster. Her nipples had swollen underneath her tank top, and that slow yearning to be filled was coming together between her legs. She finished entering the French phrase into the translator. “The preferred term is ‘succubus.’ However, the pleasures it offers are beyond description.”

“This could be yours.”

As Melody fanned herself using her tank top, one thought went through her mind. “If this is a female demon, what would a male demon look like?”

She turned to the next ritual. Once again she was greeted with an anatomically detailed sketch, this one of a lean, slender male. Its taut muscles reminded her of a steel cable holding an incredible load. His hands were on his hips, feet spread in a wide, confidant stance that matched the mischievous glint in his eyes. The male lacked wings but did sport a pointed tail and washboard six-pack abs. And then there was the substantial penis that hung between its legs, majestic even in what Melody assumed was a flaccid state. “Masculum sexus daemonium,” she read; ‘Male Sex Demon.’

There was more accompanying French, but Melody couldn’t take her eyes away from the drawing. It was as near a perfect nude male figure as she had ever seen, something a Renaissance artist would have dreamed of creating. It was either the wine or her neglected libido that turned her gaze toward the figure’s lower body.

“Damn!” she blurted out. “That’s a penis!”

If asked to imagine the perfect dick, this is what Melody would have envisioned–long, powerful, and thick, with a curve that hinted at the soft places it would touch inside of her. Merely staring at it sent a thrill passing through her body, aimed directly at the yearning wetness growing between her legs. Licking her lips, she gently pressed her finger against the drawing of the penis. There was a gentle sigh from the book…

“NOT HIM!”

An intense force pressed against Melody’s chest, shoving her into the back of her couch. Pinned in place, she watched the tome fling itself shut with a definitive thump. The force ceased the instant the book closed. Her eyes were wide as she ran her hands through her hair, trying to make sense of what happened.

It was her sister Kristin’s voice that squelched the mental static. “Remember,” she had teased Melody when she received her bachelor’s in history, “if you ever come across an evil book, don’t read it. Or better yet, burn it. If those two Lovecraft novellas Mr. Cole makes his students read in Honors English taught me anything, it’s that you always burn the evil book.”

Immolation of the written word would always be a non-starter for Melody, but her sister’s advice held enough water to rinse away her confusion. She kept a wary eye on the book while she got to her feet. It sat ponderously on her coffee table as if she had never opened it. She briefly considered calling out to it to see if it responded but decided that she’d had enough. Between her lousy date, being chided by Vera, and dealing with an otherworldly book, Melody was ready to call it a night and start fresh in the morning.

Her arousal still lingered as she locked the front door and turned off the lights. Her stiff nipples brushed against the fabric of her tank top with each step she took up the stairs, amplifying the desire that was streaking through her body with increasing frequency. She pulled her tank top over her head the moment she walked into her bedroom, hurling it with practiced aim onto her hamper’s lid. Her shorts joined the pile soon after, leaving her clad in only a pair of black panties.

She leaned over the dresser, meeting her eyes in the mirror. Her firm breasts hung full and free as she lightly gripped the edge. Her eyes fell closed as a mental image began to form. A darkened room lit by candles, the gentle caress of a lover’s hand, scarves of the sheerest silk draped over her naked body. A shiver ran through her while she imagined his hand running down her side. It glided over the curve of her hips, allowing him to slip his fingers inside her panties to wantonly squeeze her butt. Her imaginary lover laid warm kisses along her neck and shoulder, generating an equivalent heat in her lower body as she thought of that magnificent cock being separated from her womanhood by nothing more than thin fabric.

Melody gasped as she slid her panties off. She was so incredibly wet that they peeled from her dripping lips. She needed to cum–hard, fast, loud, and repeatedly. She turned to her nightstand and yanked the middle drawer open, revealing expired condoms and a half-full jar of lube, but nothing else, specifically not her vibrator.

Her eyes widened with the panic only experienced by the desperately horny. She swept the condoms and lube aside to reveal the bare wood. Sweeping them the other way produced the same result, as did opening the top drawer. Only then did realization burn away her fog of arousal. Her trusty toy had finally given up the ghost the previous weekend. Its gel remains were currently on their way back to the company she had ordered it from, EdenFantasy, for a $5 waste disposal credit and 15% off her next vibrator.

She flopped on the bed, slamming her fist against the mattress while cursing her environmental and fiscal responsibility. Simply plunging her fingers between her legs wouldn’t satisfy her sexual craving. She briefly considered using her detachable showerhead before sighing despondently. The universe had conspired against her libido and won. Instead of a needed release, a frigid shower would be how her evening concluded. She couldn’t even take a sleeping pill thanks to the bottle of wine she had imbibed.

“Damn it.” Melody had gotten off the bed when a monstrous thud shook the hardwood floor under her feet. She froze, her heart now racing with anxiety instead of anticipation. All was silent until a whisper drifted from downstairs.

“Melody.”

She grabbed her flannel nightrobe from the closet door and knotted it tightly before stepping into the hallway. She kept her steps light while moving to the top of the stairs. All was quiet as she gripped the banister’s post and carefully leaned to one side, peering down into her darkened living room. The only illumination came from a nightlight plugged into an outlet near the kitchen. Its clear white light splashed over the coffee table, outlining the open book sitting upon it.

Anxiety was replaced by inebriated annoyance. “Screw this.” Her footsteps echoed through the house as she stomped down the stairs. The book had given her nothing but trouble, along with a frustrating case of blue bean, since she found it in the library of that dusty old manor. It didn’t matter what the book could tell her about Connover Manor. It was going right into a sealed bag, and tomorrow morning she’d drop it off at the office in Aspen before heading to church. The visage of the female demon, the succubus, gazed up at Melody as she reached out to close the tome…

“We can satisfy your urges.”

The enticing words were spoken with a boldness that made her pause. Her hand hovered over the erotic sketch as the voice spoke to her.

“You are sodden with desire, Melody. You crave an exquisite rapture that will not be reached unaided. Our flesh can fulfill your wishes. Blissful are those who come to our supper.”

The honeyed words curled around Melody’s libido, squeezing new life out of it. Her robe felt tight around her body. It constrained her and hid her nakedness. Surely it would be better on the living room floor.

Her drunken mind raced, the arguments careening off one another, while her fingers toyed with her belt. She needed that release, for her body to shake and her womanhood to clench and pulse while wet heat coated its walls. A warm mouth on her throat, firm lips against her breasts, and something deep inside her, drawing forth that incredible sensation as only the forbidden could.

Rationality made one final attempt, utilizing the voice of her departed sister. “This is stupid and reckless, Melody. It’s an evil book filled with foul creatures and profane rituals. It’s a literal tome for summoning actual demons. What would God say?”

“He hasn’t said anything to me in almost a year,” Melody quietly proclaimed. “Why would He start now?” She flung her arms out and raised her voice to the ceiling. “If this is such a horrible idea,” she cried, “now would be a good time to talk to me! Hello? Is anyone up there? Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

The succubus gazed lustily from the page, promising unknown pleasures. But there was no hesitation on Melody’s part as she turned to the next ritual.

“Melody?”

“Sorry,” she told the book. “I prefer men.”

“But we have such delights…”

The voice was smothered as the book settled on the incubus’s page. Her eyes were drawn to his cocksure smile, which offered a good time, and then to what hung between his legs, which offered exactly what she was looking for.

The ritual called for several items and a space large enough to draw a ritual circle. She gathered the required items–a bowl of ashes from her fireplace, a bottle of spring water, four candles, fireplace matches, and a needle from her sewing kit, as well as her phone to help translate–before heading to her basement. The unfinished space served as a makeshift library. Shelves overflowing with books lined the walls.

The concrete floor was cold under her feet, but it was her goosebumps that made Melody shiver. She cleared a space in the middle of the floor and set the book down. Verbalizing the Latin to help translate, Melody first poured the water into the bowl of ashes and used a paintbrush to mix them. The needle was next. She had to pinch it between three fingers to keep it steady. “One,” she said nervously, “two, three!”

A harsh gasp slipped her lips as she pricked the side of the ring finger on her opposite hand. A spot of crimson liquid heralded her success. “This is no different than using a spirit board during a slumber party,” Melody told herself while squeezing her finger over the bowl. Several drops of blood fell into the gray water. Gritting her teeth, she managed to coax a little more from her finger. She sucked on her finger while combining the blood with the ashy mixture to give her a watery paint.

It was now time for the ritual circle. Instead of the expected pentagram, the circle reminded Melody of a simplified royal seal. The round middle was surrounded by triangular shapes and intersecting lines. She swayed as she set the tome on the ground and began painting the circle using the mix of ash, water, and blood. Her first attempt at painting a section of the inner circle produced a meager trail of pale gray barely visible against the concrete.

“I don’t have enough blood for this,” she groused as she dipped the paintbrush in the bowl. This time she got down on her knees and focused on tracing over her previous efforts. By her third attempt, enough of the ashy mixture had pooled on the concrete to give her a solid crescent Bolstered by her initial success, Melody continued her efforts to bring forth the ritual circle from the pages of the tome. The outer symbols weren’t to her liking, but they matched up with the drawing, and while she had to run the brush along the edges of the bowl to gather up stray drops, she had enough of the mixture to touch up the thin parts of the inner circle, making it as enclosed as she could around the tome occupying the center.

The instructions now called for candles among the outer symbols. While the ones in the drawing were tall and narrow, Melody had to make do with a quartet of large floral-scented jar candles from a local company up the road in Basalt. She set a candle at each cardinal point along the outer circle and used a long fireplace match to light all four. The pleasant scent of freesia soon filled the air as the candles became fully aflame.

She used her phone to translate the next set of instructions. “Provocator nunc nudus esse debet et in reliquo caeremonia sic manere. The summoner must now be nude and remain so for the remainder of the ceremony.”

Her eager hands quickly unknotted her robe. She pulled her arms free, allowing the constraining garment to pool on the floor behind her. Standing nude in her basement, tipsy from the wine, frustrated with life, with a ritual circle to summon a sex demon on the ground in front of her, Melody felt an erotic charge throughout her entire body. Her skin was flush with anticipation. Her rock-hard nipples begged to be pinched. A thin sheen of sweat covered her body while her heart pounded in her chest, sending rushes of blood pumping through her veins. Her toes curled against the cool concrete floor. And a craving, that yearning to be filled, to have her velvet walls pushed apart over and over again, her essence hot and dripping around her lover’s manhood.

Settling in the middle of the ritual circle, Melody crossed her legs and set the tome in front of her. She sat up straight, rolled her shoulders back, and began the crux of the ritual–the ominous Latin chanting. She carefully sounded out the words, focusing on properly pronouncing them.

“Per vires infernales”

“Invoco eum”

“Sensuale silentium”

“Consort Regium”

“Amator Ex umbris”

“Exite ut impleatur…”

A black smudge, possibly a stray drop of ink, blemished the next word, making it difficult to read. She squinted at the page, trying futilely to make out the obscured letters, before deciding to just skip over it. “Exite ut impleatur… necessitates meas.”.

A firm knock rolled through the basement the moment the final word left her mouth. The candles’ flames intensified, with their light now stretching to the dim corners of the basement. The flowery scent grew stronger as well, but underneath was a faint aroma that Melody was unable to identify.

“Per vires infernales”

“Invoco eum”

“Sensuale silentium”

“Consort Regium”

“Amator Ex umbris”

“Exite ut necessitates meas.”

The knock that followed was strong enough to rattle the bookshelves along the wall. Melody’s ponytail snapped like a whip from the impact as it rolled over her like a peal of thunder. Instead of fading away, however, the force of the knock continued, turning in a low rushing wind that whipped the flames of the candles into a mad dance. The pungent smell of sulfur intertwined with the freesia.

The wind pawed at her naked body. As she prepared to chant for the third time, however, the voice from earlier called out. “Stop!” it cried over the sound of the wind. “You know not with whom you meddle! He is not the one you wish to summon! We forbid it!”

Melody gritted her teeth. She had been denied twice today, once by her date and once by her lack of a marital aid. She would not be denied a third time. She grabbed hold of the book as the wind tore at the pages, and began shouting.

“Per vires infernales”

“Invoco eum”

“Sensuale silentium”

CEASE!

“Consort Regium”

“Amator Ex umbris”

“Exite ut necessitates meas!”

A blinding flash erupted from the tome. Melody leaned away, shielding her eyes with her forearm. Put off-balance, the third knock sent her sprawling backward out of the circle and into one of her bookshelves. The tome was torn from her hands, falling shut as it bounced underneath the stairs. Her ears throbbed from the forceful noise, and her eyesight was dotted with searing dots of pure white. It took several moments for her to sit upright…

“Are you alright, mon étoile?”

She slowly lifted her eyes at the smooth voice. The wind had died down, but sulfur still permeated the air. The four flames surrounding the ritual circle danced with rage inside their jars, illuminating the male figure standing in the middle. “Ah,” he exclaimed, “the frustration, the fury, the raw desire in your words as you summoned me. I haven’t felt such exquisite desire in ages!” The red-skinned being gave her a beaming grin, revealing white teeth crowned with a pair of fangs. “Bonne soirée mon cher. Comment allez-vous?”

Melody screamed. She grabbed a hardcover from the shelf behind her and hurled it at him. The demon looked at the book in confusion as it impacted his chest and fell to the floor. By then Melody had scrambled to her feet and fled up the basement stairs. Bursting into the kitchen, she collided with her refrigerator, bouncing off of it and slamming into the counter in front of her sink. Her feet threatened to slip out from underneath her, but her hands blindly grabbed at the edge of the counter, helping her barely maintain her balance. She hunched over the sink, panting wildly while her heart slammed against her chest.

Her brain was trying to process the past few seconds when the voice called out from downstairs. “Excuse me,” it said politely. “Are you OK?”

She couldn’t formulate an answer. All Melody could do was fill a glass with cold water and attempt to chug it, only to fail and spit what she had drunk back into the sink. Hot fear had replaced burning desire. “No,” she muttered to herself as she tried to drink more water. “No, no, no, no…”

“Are you speaking to me, or yourself? I understand if it’s both.”

Melody stared at the open basement door with dawning apprehension. A demon. She had summoned a demon from Hell. She had summoned a demon from Hell into her basement. She had summoned a demon from Hell into her basement with the expectation of sex. She slid down to the kitchen floor. Pulling her knees up to her chest, Melody rocked back and forth. “This isn’t happening,” she said. “Damn it, Melody, you told yourself not to be stupid and reckless…”

“You sound upset, mon étoile,“, the voice said in a soothing, apologetic tone. “I promise, I am unable to harm you. I cannot leave the ritual circle. If you would come back downstairs, I promise to allay your fears. You may stay away if you wish, but I’d prefer not to yell back and forth up the stairs.”

The voice sounded sincere. If that demon meant to harm, it would have bounded up the stairs after her. She pulled herself to her feet and finished the glass of water before cautiously heading down to the basement. The red-skinned demon was still in the middle of the ritual circle. He watched with keen interest as she reached the bottom of the steps and picked up her robe from the floor. She kept a wary eye on him while slipping into it, wrapping it around her tightly to cover as much of her bare skin as possible.

As best she could tell in the dancing candlelight, the demon in front of her looked identical to the sketch in the book. He had red skin with yellow eyes, pointed ears, and short coal-black hair. The sideburns grew into a trimmed beard with a mustache. Small horns jutted from his forehead. His lean body boasted six-pack abs and tight, muscular limbs. And a long, thick, curved penis hung loosely between his legs.

As she tied off her belt, the demon held up the book she had thrown at him. “Swan Song,” he said. “Robert McCammon, 1987. A first edition, no less. I approve of your taste in horror authors, mademoiselle.” He casually flicked his wrist. The book leaped from his hand, spinning end over end until it landed back in the gap left behind when Melody had pulled off the shelf.

“Whoa,” she said before turning to meet his gaze. In the absence of any other options, she offered him a half-hearted wave. “Um… hey there?”

The demon put a hand over where his heart should be and inclined his head. “Good evening. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

“I’m Melody,” she said hesitantly. “Melody Langston.”

“It is an honor to meet you, Madame Langston. Allow me to introduce myself.” The demon’s voice took on a deep tenor as he put his hands on his hips while adopting a bold stance. “I am Xilveth,” he proclaimed bombastically. “The Amorous Whisperer. The Consort to Royalty. The Lover From the Shadows. The Ten-Inch King.” He glanced down. “The last one is an informal title, but still appropriate. Don’t you agree?”

She did agree, at least mentally. “It’s nice to meet you. Look, I’m sorry, but this was a mistake. I did not intend to actually summon a demon…”

“Considering the primal force in your words, Melody… may I call you Melody?… I don’t believe this was a mistake. You’re simply nervous. It’s OK. It happens to a lot of summoners.”

“No, no,” she said, emphatically motioning with her hands. “It’s not that. I… I was bored and frustrated, that’s all. It’s like I was messing around with a spirit board at a slumber party.”

“Considering the effort you put into this ritual circle, I do not believe you were messing around. This is quality craftsmanship for an amateur.” He sniffed the air. “And… freesia candles? Freesia is often tied to rituals meant to heal the balance between body, mind, and sexuality.” He quietly clapped his hands. “Well done, Melody. That is a sign of quality research as well as an inspired touch.”

“That was an accident,” she admitted, before adding, “I mean, this whole thing was an accident. I’m sorry, but… this is wrong. Really wrong. On so many levels. Is there any way you can… I mean…”

She was struggling to find the right words when he held up his hands. “Allow me to hazard a guess at your concerns, mon étoile. You’re concerned that you sold your immortal soul to Lucifer.”

Melody’s skin instantly paled. She had to lean against a support beam as Xilveth’s words sank in. “I… I am now. I didn’t… oh no…”

“Please, Melody, take a deep breath. Just one. Good. Now another. And another. Try to relax. You didn’t read the entire ritual, did you?”

“No. I only read the instructions.”

“My dear,” he gently chided, “always review every word and symbol of a ritual when dealing with my kind. There are plenty of demons, including incubi like me, who would claim your soul if you slipped up. Give them a mortal inch, they will take an infernal mile. Whereas I am offering you ten infernal inches. Your soul is safe. The ritual you used to summon me did not put it at risk.”

Her curiosity peeked out from behind her anxiety. “Incubi? Is that like a succubus? There was a ritual for summoning one in the book.”

“We are kin. A succubus, plural succubi, is a female demon who offers her carnal services to humans in exchange for their sexual essence. An incubus, or incubi, is a male demon who offers his carnal services to humans in exchange for their sexual essence. And a fuccubus, or fuccubi, is a non-binary who offers carnal services to humans in exchange for their sexual essence. They’re a new department in Hell, but they are expanding rapidly.”

“I think there was a succubus talking to me.” She looked around for the book as she explained, “It was a female voice that spoke to me from the book. It was insistent that I summon it. It was yelling at me to stop while I…”

He finished his sentence for her. “Summoned me? That doesn’t surprise me. They were probably upset that I cut in on a potential deal. Succubi hold great power in Hell. After money, their services are the ones most requested by mortals. Since their summoners tend to be luckless virgins, out-of-shape neckbeards, or women haters, most of them will leap at the opportunity to enjoy congress with a beautiful woman such as yourself.”

“What about you?”

“I would also leap at the opportunity to enjoy congress with you.”

Her cheeks turned red. She almost followed up on his statement, only to remind herself that she was talking to a demon she had inadvertently summoned. “What if I don’t want your carnal services? Can we cancel this so you can go back to Hell and we can forget I did something so monumentally idiotic?”

“We could. You have until sunrise to close the deal. If you choose not to, then come sunrise I will simply disappear and return to whence I came. If you do close the deal, then you and I will couple until sunrise, and I will raise you to such heights that you have yet to experience and may never. Either way, I cannot leave this ritual circle. Our coupling would take place inside, although your screams of delight would possibly echo across… where are we, exactly? I can sense that we’re over a mile above sea level. The air tastes of the mountains. The basement decor and your accent are North American, possibly Canadian, more certainly American. I would hazard… the Colorado Rockies. Vail, perhaps? Telluride? No… no, I sense the obscenely wealthy a short distance away. Aspen. We’re currently in Aspen.”

“Close. We’re about a dozen miles to the south, in a small ski town called Emerald Pines.”

“Emerald Pines.” He drew out the second word slightly. “I’ve never heard of such a village.” He held up a finger. A long tongue snaked from his lips and ran along the tip, coating it with saliva. Melody watched as he held the finger in the air. “Emerald Pines… oh my. Forgive my crudeness, however, this is a severely horny town. It is dripping with erotic possibilities. I’m becoming aroused simply thinking about the fun my kind could have here.”

Melody’s gaze fell on Xilveth’s penis. His words rang true as they began to stiffen. After a few moments, his powerful member jutted into the air. It throbbed slightly, causing her to lick her lips. The skin at its base was smooth, free of hair or stubble. Hanging underneath was a pair of thick, luscious balls–words Melody would have never used to describe testicles in any circumstance, but words that applied here.

No longer did Xilveth have a beautiful penis. What he had was a truly magnificent cock. And Melody wanted it inside of her.

“Do you admire what you see?”

As Melody looked up, Xilveth gave her an alluring smile. “Mon étoile, that is why you summoned me. To satisfy you and soothe what ails you.” He took a step forward toward the edge of the ritual circle. His eyes ran over her body, drinking her in. “It has been too long for you, has it not? Too long since a lover took you in his arms and made you experience the sensations you deserve.” He tilted his head to the side. “There’s more. The frustration in your chanting. The turmoil swimming underneath the surface. This impedes your life. Your social life, your sex life, your professional life, I don’t know which. But it’s there. Therapy falls to the angels since they enjoy talking for hours on end. I’m a demon of action, not words. I can cure what ails you from now until sunrise, through words of affirmation and physical touch. Satisfaction, sexual and emotional. It will be yours.”

There was no denying the physical attraction Melody felt. The pressure between her legs was intense, and squeezing her thighs together did nothing to alleviate it. “So you’re doing this for my sexual essence? What does that even mean?

“It’s a mix of the emotional and the physical. Your intense state of arousal would charge me ala a battery. For the physical, let’s just say that the wetter you become, the better it is for me.”

“So in other words, tit for tat?”

“You do indeed have elegant breasts.” He dropped his eyes downward. “And you’re a natural blonde, I see.”

“I can’t same the same for you.” She gestured at the smooth base of his cock. “That black hair of yours could be a high-end dye job.”

“Oh, I’m entirely supernatural, head to toe and tail. Incubi find a hint of grooming cut downs on gagging. However, we’re getting off-topic. You have amazing sex and I soak in your essence. That’s the deal. If you want fucked, I will fuck you until you can’t walk. If you want to be held, I will hold you and stroke your hair. If you want to make love, I will whisper in your ear and tell you the truth about how stupendous you are. You can say no, Melody. You can go upstairs and leave me here to vanish at sunrise, no harm done.”

He slowly extended his hand toward her. The tips of his fingernails hovered at the edge of the ritual circle. “But I do not believe you’ll say no.”

“Oh, what the hell.” She untied her bathrobe. It fell to the floor, leaving her naked in front of Xilveth. Trembling eagerly, Melody stepped forward. She reached over the ashy line on the floor and placed her hand in his. The warmth of a summer’s day pressed against her palm.

“Excellent,” he said softly. “You do this of your own free will?”

“I do.” She placed her other hand against Xilveth’s chest. His pectoral was rock hard under the pressure. “What do we need to close the deal?” she asked while tracing his nipple with her finger.

“A drop of yours, a drop of mine.”

He grabbed her forearm and yanked her into the circle. She reflexively tried to pull away, but his iron grip held her still. Xilveth’s eyes shone with taboo hunger. A bolt of fear raced through her while he ran his long tongue over his lips like a predator sizing up prey.

Both of his hands dropped to Melody’s butt. His fingers dug into the firm flesh for a brief moment before the demon effortlessly lifted her into the air to set her on his shoulders and shove his face between her legs.

She barely had time to grab an exposed pipe overhead before Xilveth dragged the tip of his tongue over her clit with a feather’s touch that caused her to scream in pleasure. She had been turned on for over an hour and even the barest contact against her throbbing button almost set her off. She braced herself for another brief assault, only for Xilveth to lay a trail of kisses along her inner thigh as the initial jolt faded.

The light kisses made her sigh. She kept one hand wrapped around the pipe, allowing her to intertwine her fingers in Xilveth’s black hair. His hands squeezed her firm butt, holding her in place while he ran his tongue around Melody’s dripping lips. She shifted her hips, trying to make direct contact, only for him to pull away and resume kissing her thigh.

Playful teasing turned into denial. Melody gasped with shuddering breaths as Xilveth tortured her without directly touching where she desired most. His tongue glided past her womanhood close enough to feel its passage but not enough to give her the pleasure she craved. Sweat dotted her body as Xilveth’s attentions made her pant. Her skin was flush. Her nipples were as hard as bullets atop her quivering breasts. And she swore she could feel her essence slowly leaking out of her. All of this, despite the fact he hadn’t done more than tickle her clit.

Her gasps had turned into groans when Xilveth suddenly pressed the flat of his tongue firmly against Melody’s clit. She shot upright, fingers twisting Xilveth’s hair, as he began assaulting her with his lips and tongue. He held nothing back, using long, slow licks that caused incredible sensations before a quick snap from the tip of his tongue briefly turned her clit into a joy buzzer.

The pressure quickly doubled and redoubled inside of her. Melody’s wanton cries echoed throughout the house as Xilveth’s tongue drove her pleasure to its peak, causing her body to lock up just before the pressure boiled over, unleashing an orgasm that encompassed her entire body. Everything happened at once–a wine-colored flush raced over her skin as black and white dots exploded in her vision, and her vagina clenched with a tightness she never knew before. The cold metal pipe left indentations in her hand as her grip threatened to tear it from the ceiling. Wetness flowed from her womanhood as a series of rhythmic pulses fluttered along her velvet walls.

She eventually managed to breathe. Her body was on fire, and even shifting her hips on Xilveth’s shoulders threatened to set her off again. Little earthquakes rumbled through her lower body.

“Watch your head.” Her demonic lover crouched down in the ritual circle. He kept his hands on her hips as she stepped from his shoulders, a gesture she was thankful for as her body threatened to collapse on the concrete floor. “Was that acceptable, Madameoiselle Langston?”

A weak nod was the best compliment she could give him. Xilveth smiled at her erotically disheveled state. His beard was soaked with her fluids, and his chin dripped with her wetness. “Fantastic,” he stated.

He used one hand to keep her upright. His other hand ran along his lips and mouth, gathering her juices. “Ah,” he said as he gleefully rubbed the tips of his fingers together. “That’s part of what we need to close our deal.” Melody watched as Xilveth smeared her wetness across his chest and abdomen, using two fingers to draw some sort of pattern. He grinned at her once he had finished. “A sigil of bonding,” he explained. “To experience everything I have to offer, you and I must boast corresponding sigils drawn in the other’s essence. I’ve drawn mine with yours. Now, you have to draw yours with mine. Don’t worry. I’ll assist you. It simply requires your fingers against my skin.”

“That makes sense,” she said as if anything had made sense this evening. She looked down at his cock with uncertainty. A drop of clear precum adorned the mushroom tip like morning dew. As beautiful as it looked, Melody didn’t want it in her mouth. Giving oral sex wasn’t something she enjoyed. The handful of times she attempted it she barely lasted ten seconds before coming up gagging. And those occasions had been with men who were substantially shorter and less girthy than Xilveth. “I don’t want to be rude because you just went down on me but I don’t like… I’m not a fan of going down on guys. Plus there’s no way I’ll be able to fit that in my mouth.”

Xilveth waved his hand dismissively. “Tch. It is not a requirement that you take me in your mouth. Using your hand to draw forth my essence will suffice.”

That, she could do. Melody reached down and carefully wrapped her fingers around Xilveth’s hard cock. He sighed as she dragged her hand along his shaft. It was as hard as stone, barely yielding within her grip. After several strokes, each one accompanied by a sound of approval from the incubus, Melody ran her palm across the tip of his cock. His precum leaked into her hand. It left a glistening trail along his erect member as she ran her hand down to the base. A sharp gasp escaped Xilveth as Melody boldly cupped his full balls.

Xilveth had leaked more precum by the time she brought her hand back to the top. She had to tighten her grip as she spread the extra lubrication along his shaft, making it easy for her to begin jacking him off in earnest. Precum continued to trickle free, and eventually, his entire cock glistened in the candlelight. “If it’s like this now,” she thought as her pace quickened, “what’s it going to be like when he finishes?”

She felt a warm hand on her shoulder. “That feels positively delightful, mon étoile.” A firm squeeze punctuated Xilveth’s statement. “I’ll be putty in your hands in but a few moments.”

A hint of pride settled upon her at the demon’s praise. She pressed her body against his, trapping his cock between them. “You keep calling me mon étoile,” she stated as she began using both hands. “What does that mean?”

“A term of endearment. In French, it translates to ‘my star.’ You’re not familiar with the language?”

“I know Spanish and Latin. Someone did add notes in French to the summoning book, though.”

Xilveth groaned while she teasingly dragged two fingers along the bottom of his shaft, lingering at the gentle curve for a brief moment. His tail gently flowed back and forth behind him, snapping to one side on occasion. “How messy is it going to be?” she inquired. “You’ve been leaking since before I started and… you feel full… oh God, I’m being rude.”

“First, no, you’re not. Second, don’t mention Him. Some of the acts us demons perform would make even Him take his son’s name in vain… that feels superb.” His hips shifted forward, gently fucking her hand in time with her strokes. “Third, my orgasm will be substantial,” he admitted. “It’s the nature of being a physical incarnation of illicit sex. The same holds true for my…”

His chuckle held a ring of sincerity. “I have never heard it described as ‘leaking’ before. Put bluntly, sexual demons may self-lubricate. Too often has someone called us to perform some profane act yet not had the foresight to bring lubricant. Some demons take delight in that, but I am a gentleman first and foremost. And speaking of being a gentleman, I should warn you…”

Xilveth suddenly ground his teeth, revealing the pointed fangs. His body tensed while his fingers dug into her shoulder. A firm warmth rolled over Melody like the sun moving from behind the clouds before the incubus’ hips thrust forward. Wet heat exploded in her hands, coating her stomach and the underswell of her breasts. Xilveth cried out as he spilled on Melody’s body. By the time his cock had finished spurting, rivulets of warm white-yellow fluid ran down her front. “Wow,” she remarked. “That was substantial.”

“And that was exquisite. Your skills with your hands rival the priestesses of Priapus in Lampsacus.” Xilveth gently took her by the wrist. “Extend two fingers, please.”

She did as he requested. Using her hand as a makeshift brush, Xilveth used his essence to draw a sigil on Melody’s body that, as best she could tell, mirrored the one on his chiseled frame. The passage of her fingers left a dripping trail of liquid heat simmering on her skin. It was her turn to moan quietly when he teasingly dragged her fingers over her breasts, causing them to tingle for an all too brief moment. “Now the deal is closed,” he said as he released her wrist. “I am to satisfy you until the sun arises, or until you wish to end our arrangement.”

The heat on her body paled in comparison to the driving pressure inside of her, a feeling that intensified as his cock began to once again stiffen, reaching its full length within seconds. “If you think it’s stupendous now,” he grinned, “imagine it sliding inside of you.”

It was almost all she could imagine. Rationality, having surrendered the evening, found the will to ask one final question. “Should I go get a condom? I have one up in my purse.”

Xilveth put a hand against his chest. “Melody,” he proclaimed dramatically, “you wish to put any sort of barrier between us?”

“I don’t want to get pregnant. The last thing I need in my life is to carry around the demonic fetus for an absentee dad.”

A warm smile touched Xilveth’s lips before he lightly dragged his fingernails along her jawline. “Brilliant, beautiful, and responsible. Incubi are infertile unless the contract specifies otherwise. A brood of half-demonic children running around would draw Heaven’s eye, and that never ends well. I could spill my seed on your body again if that is your preference.”

The warmth of his seed still lingered on her skin. She had to know what it would feel like after he shot it deep inside her. “No. No, that’s OK. But I am going to grab a blanket. I don’t want to have sex on a cold floor.”

“From prior experience, I recommend a pair of pillows as well. And don’t concern yourself–you are free to go and come from the ritual circle as you please.”

She stepped over the ashy gray line without issue and headed for the camping gear packed away in one corner. An appreciative hum came from behind her when she bent over to grab a thick picnic blanket and two travel pillows. “Indeed,” Xilveth remarked, “you are breathtaking from every angle.”

He stood in the middle of the circle, hands unabashedly on his hips, cock pointing in her direction. The sight of him sent a flutter between her legs. “You’re a work of art as well,” Melody told him while walking back to the circle. “It’s like you were sculpted from marble.”

“I was,” he said while helping her unfold the picnic blanket. “There’s a marble statue of me in the ballroom of the Château de Fontainebleau outside of Paris. It was sculpted by Benvenuto Cellini during the reign of Francis the First.”

She made a note to look that up online as Xilveth took her in his arms. His eyes never left hers while he gently lowered her onto the blanket before stretching out next to her. He placed one pillow behind her head while setting the other underneath her hips.

Warmth radiated from his body as he pressed against her, rolling deliciously over her body. Melody thrilled at the thought of taking her exotic lover, even if they had red skin, stubby horns, and a pair of fangs. She wasn’t worried about her immortal soul. God hadn’t answered her prayers in almost a year. If He was paying more attention to a sparrow falling out of a tree than He was to her, then that was on Him.

Melody closed her eyes as Xilveth began dragging a fingernail down her flank. The gentle pain caused her to sigh. The incubus’ hand drifted over the curve of her hip and traced a path along the top of her thigh. She spread her legs, encouraging him to move his hand to her eager center, but instead, he teasingly ran his fingernail down her inner thigh and up the opposite one before running the flat of his hand across her pubic mound and onto her stomach.

When she opened her eyes and looked up at him, Melody saw him gazing at her with a lean and hungry look crowned by a devious smile. “No, no, mon étoile.” He reached over and used two fingers to gently close her eyes. “Don’t rely on your sight. Listen to the beat of your heart as I explore every inch of your majestic form.”

He palmed her breast, slowly drawing his fingers up the firm mound. Her low moan turned into a sharp gasp when he pinched her erect nipple, and the sharp gasp became an ecstatic cry when he twisted it. Her back arched from the blanket at the contrast of pain and pleasure. Right before it became too much, his hand drifted toward her neck. The fabric of the blanket bunched between her fingers while he traced a path along her jawline and earlobe. His fingers ran through her blonde hair, gathering up the long strands before twisting his hand. The brief flare of pain along her scalp lasted exactly as long as it needed to, causing her to hiss while making her crave more.

He repeated the journey down the other side of her body–ear, jaw, throat, breast, stomach, thigh–before coming back up. The pleasure Melody felt at each trip was tempered with every pinch, twist, and gentle scrape, always providing enough discomfort to amplify her pleasure without going too far. She continually pushed herself against his hand, especially when it journeyed between her legs, but Xilveth’s fingers stayed away from where she wanted them most.

She could feel the sweat coating her skin. The worn fabric of the blanket clung to her body, and she breathed with shivering pants. No other lover had ever come close to making Melody feel as aroused as she was, and Xilveth had done nothing more than touch her. Her nerves were on fire. All she wanted was to be filled by his long, strong cock. Everything else was secondary.

She risked opening her eyes to see Xilveth looking down at her with an amorous gaze. Before he could say or do anything, she reached up with both hands and pulled herself up, mashing her lips desperately against his and gripping his black hair to hold him in place. Her tongue forced its way into his mouth, briefly dominating his before he returned the favor.

There was an underlying smokiness in his kiss. When she finally pulled away, Melody’s expression was one of pure lust. Xilveth nodded wordlessly. She lay back as he climbed on top of her. She spread her legs wide, tilting her hips with the assistance of the pillow, opening herself fully to her summoned lover. “This is your last chance to back out,” he told her. “But this is what you want.”

She didn’t know if that was a question or a statement. All Melody knew was she reached down to set Xilveth’s stiff cock against her dripping lips. He set himself above her, muscular arms holding him aloft, and effortlessly thrust inside of her.

Melody cried out. Despite being worked up for most of the evening, the initial penetration hurt. Her walls stretched out further than she had ever known as Xilveth filled her to the hilt. “Too much,” she managed to tell him between gritted teeth. “It’s too much.”

Xilveth’s answer was to pull out, only to immediately push back in. The pain was still there, but it wasn’t as intense as before. She still felt full, but not to bursting. The third thrust came with more bliss than discomfort. This time Xilveth held himself inside. “I apologize, Melody. It takes several thrusts for an incubus’ cock to acclimate to its lovers.”

“Acclimate?”

“To borrow an American phrase…” He rocked his hips, shifting his cock inside of her before pulling back out and sliding back in. “…one size does not fit all in our case. Some lovers prefer bigger members, some prefer ones with more curve, and some care not for size as long as the focus is on their clitoris. It takes some time to ensure we’re endowed to satisfy your lusts. In your case,” he remarked as he pulled out, “I am sad to say, I am no longer your Ten-Inch King.”

“That’s fine…” Her reassurance turned into a keening cry as Xilveth pushed forward, whipping up a fury of undistilled delight as he buried his perfect cock deep inside her soaked womanhood.

“I am now what you truly desire, mon étoile.” With those words, Xilveth began driving in and out of her. Melody barely had time to press her feet against the floor and grip the blanket before waves of silver rolled over her, breaking against the yearning force in her lower body that had been building all night. There was no tenderness or romance in Xilveth’s actions. He was fucking her, plain and simple, hard and rapid. The tip of his cock brushed against that secret spot inside of her with each thrust, while the curve in his shaft rubbed her walls in a way no lover had before.

She vocalized her ecstasy with loud, wanton cries and feverish moans that echoed off the basement walls. Melody didn’t notice that the flames dancing in the candles along the ritual circle were intensifying with each thrust from Xilveth. A determined look sat on his face. It spoke of his desires to satisfy the woman who had summoned him. His cock was a fiery rod that drove in and out of her over and over, spreading her wet heat along her inner thighs.

As the pleasure heightened, Melody pinched her nipple, only for a firm hand to latch onto her wrist. “That’s my job,” Xilveth said as he grabbed her other wrist as well, pinning her arms to the floor. She squirmed as his warm tongue lashed her nipple, and screamed when he dragged a fang across it. His lips found her neck, sucking on her pulse point as it beat wildly underneath her skin. His pace never slackened, as his cock slid in and out of her with the lustful grace of a well-oiled infernal machine.

That pressure inside her was beginning to crest, and she tilted her hips, trying to catch even more of his cock, when Xilveth suddenly stopped. “No,” she cried, trying to pull her wrists free. “I was so close.”

“You believed you were close, but Melody, we’re just getting started.” He resumed his thrusting, but now he focused on slow, deep thrusts. His body pressed down on her, squishing her breasts between them, as he gently kissed her cheek and ear. Melody’s climax had been within sight, and despite how good his stiffness felt inside of her, she craved more. Making her cum with his tongue was amazing, but she wanted to quiver and clench around his unyielding cock while he spilled his hot essence inside of her.

He began to speed up. Melody managed not to beg as Xilveth worked up to his earlier pace. Her pleasure amplified with each thrust, spiraling to dizzying heights. His hands dropped to her hips. She winced as his fingernails dug into her skin, but that pain was soon forgotten as Xilveth sat back, kneeling between her legs.

His pace slackened. “No,” she protested, reaching out for him. “Please, don’t stop.”

“I’m not stopping,” he teased, punctuating his statement by sliding forward, inch by delicious inch. “What, did you think I was going to simply be two pumps and a weak squirt? No, Melody, you summoned a demon from Hell. You say you wanted laid, but you want more. I can see it in your eyes, and I can feel it surrounding me. It has been too long since a lover made you feel every spark of ecstasy your body is capable of. When you finally surrender your essence to me, you’ll truly know what it’s like to be taken.”

Her body ached, sweat covered every inch of her skin and darkened her hair, her nipples felt as if they were going to explode, and her clit throbbed with every heartbeat. Melody didn’t know how much more she could take. She lost track of time as Xilveth continued to toy with her. Sometimes on his knees, sometimes lying atop her, sometimes licking her nipples, sometimes biting them, pulling her hair, kissing her fiercely, always changing his speed, never giving her body a chance to kindle. When she tried to pinch her nipple or rub her clit, he stopped her. Her entire world soon boiled down to the sensation of Xilveth’s perfect cock inside her velvet walls and her overwhelming desire to finally cum.

Melody was completely at Xilveth’s mercy when he finally stopped teasing. His hips were a jackhammer driving between her legs over and over again. That pressure inside of her had stopped increasing. Instead, every thrust from her demonic lover chipped away at it, bleeding a little away at a time. Xilveth wasn’t looking to release that pressure like a rattling steam valve. Rather, he was drilling into it, aiming for the diamond of absolute rapture that formed its heart.

When everything else had fallen away, all it took was his thumb pressing against her clit to shatter that diamond.

She screamed with a primal urge, spurring Xilveth on. Everything proper and civilized had been stripped away. Melody had been reduced to her basic erotic instincts, wanting Xilveth to cum inside of her, to fill her with his essence. Her back arched, her breasts bouncing with every determined thrust, as her orgasm finally broke. A fountain of bliss erupted inside of her. Her body shook like a ragdoll while her screams reverberated throughout the basement. Liquid warmth flowed between her, spilling around Xilveth’s driving cock as her walls clenched with an iron grip.

Even as her climax took dominion, Xilveth continued thrusting. Melody’s climax rolled from peak to peak as Xilveth’s thumb ran over her engorged clit. When she finally came down, Melody fell limp on the blanket, arms thrown to the side, legs flat on the ground, greedily gasping for air.

“That was… that was…”

A hard, driving thrust cut her off. She turned her head towards Xilveth. The demon’s smile utterly lacked playfulness. “Did you think we were done?”

All Melody could do was grip at the crumpled blanket as Xilveth resumed fucking her with the same fervor. Her body shook at his touch. More joy flowed through her, this time without teasing or buildup. Each thrust was pure pleasure, bereft of emotion or consequence. She cried out as her lover drove himself to satisfy her again and again.

Her second orgasm hit her like a rockslide. There was little warning as her ecstasy spiked over and over, hitting high peaks that rivaled the Rocky Mountains, before crashing into her with the force of a runaway boulder. Even after she came for the second time, Xilveth didn’t stop. The pillows under her head and hips were her only salvation as he continued fucking her, playing with her clit, squeezing her breasts, drawing every last drop of joy from her.

Time had no meaning when she finally collapsed on the blanket with him still burying his cock inside of her again and again. She knew nothing but pleasures she’d never forget. “Please,” she croaked through dry lips. “I can’t take anymore…”

“Do you still wish for me to spill inside of you?” She managed a weak nod. “Very well then, mon étoile.”

He pressed his body atop hers. He took Melody by the back of the head and looked her in the eye. She cried out wordlessly as he slid into her with renewed effort. His determined cock pushed her soaked walls apart. It was enough to spur her body again, despite their prolonged coupling. She managed to throw her arms around his neck, pulling him down so she could kiss him. Their tongues danced as he began to thrust at an inhuman pace. She moaned into his mouth as he coaxed one final orgasm out of her. She shuddered, her walls gripping his cock.

The flames of the four candles around the circle suddenly shot into the air like road flares. With a low, guttural groan, Xilveth finally came. He dropped his head and pressed his forehead against hers as he spilled inside of her. As his heated essence coated her velvet walls, a soft pleasure settled over Melody. She managed a gentle smile at her lover, cupping his cheek with one hand before her body fell blissfully unconscious.

X X X X X

Xilveth carefully pulled his softening cock from Melody’s body. A content sigh escaped from the demon as he felt his lover’s power soaking into his spirit. “That was impressive,” he told the sleeping woman. “You lasted longer than I believed you would. Our coupling was definitely worth my journey.” He glanced at the window sitting high on the basement wall and sighed when he saw the blackness outside. “And, as always, I wait until sunrise, alone and with no one to talk to but myself.”

He carefully wrapped Melody up in the camping blanket.

“A pity to leave you on the basement floor,” he remarked. “But I can’t leave the circle to carry you to bed…”