“Welcome back, friends, to the Crooked Crown,” Georgie greeted her guests, each watching with rapt attention. “I’d tell you how much it means to me to have you here, but then again, you’re not here to listen to me, are you?”

The crowd chuckled, but there was something sharp in their anticipation, and Miriam found herself staring just as hard at the pale-haired couple on stage as if something was about to happen she had a chance of missing. The lights around the lounge turned down while the spotlights glowed warm gold, and the bass player smirked to himself as he began to pluck out a sonorous melody.

Without any further preamble, the blonde woman took several steps forward and began to sing. From the first note, Miriam was as captivated as the rest of the room: the soloist’s voice swept over them like clouds unfolding after a storm, as clear and full as any that had shook the halls of Boston’s finest theaters. Miriam never would have expected to hear something so operatic in a smokey basement speakeasy, accompanied by the jazzy thrum of the bass. Emotion resonated so clearly in each flowing tone, reaching forward and then receding, the woman’s hands gesturing in supplication. It sounded very much like a prayer, and Miriam was so engrossed that it took her the entire first stanza to realize that the woman was singing in Latin.

Georgie stood back, watching as easily as if she were one of the spectators. Then the tone and tempo began to change. The bass player quickened the pace; the woman’s gestures grew sharper, her voice more insistent. “Et virtutem terribilium tuorum,” she sang, His great and terrible acts, and Miriam whispered the words back, feeling them pluck against her skin.

“It’s Latin,” said Darby, and Miriam startled, having completely forgotten that he sat beside her.

“I know it’s Latin!” Miriam hissed, swatting at him without taking her eyes off the stage. The tension was rising all around the room, building to something, and she wasn’t about to miss whatever it was!

At last Georgie stepped forward. She timed the clap of her heels to the bassist rapping on the wooden side of his instrument, and the audience leaned forward in their seats, anticipating something Miriam couldn’t even guess at. They came together once more, and Miriam felt the back of her neck grow hot as she remembered Georgie pressed tight against her in a similar fashion only minutes ago. Georgie snaked her arm around the woman’s torso, long fingers gliding over the gentle folds of her white dress to caress her full breast.

The woman gasped--it, too, timed so seamlessly to the end of the phrase, that with eyes closed no interruption would have ever been noticed. In that moment the golden lights were suddenly replaced with a single, blood-red spotlight from above, painting the room black with only two eerie figures at the center illuminated in stark shadows. It was only a moment as long as her breath--that swift intake the only sound in the hazy room--but in it, Miriam felt as if her whole world changed.

In that red light, Miriam glimpsed an outline that was not human. The hand seizing the soloist’s breast, the chin leaning against her shoulder, the flash of lavender eyes--they were strong but misshapen, elegantly grotesque. The figure that had once been Georgie Royale fit like a key into Miriam’s chest and twisted, and she shivered all over.

The lights flicked back to normal--the soloist broke away from Georgie and resumed her song. The Lord is gracious and merciful she sang in another tongue, as if pleading for such a God to come to her rescue. But again Georgie pursued, lips curled and wicked; Miriam held her breath, and again when they touched the lights flashing from gold to red revealed an unholy silhouette she could barely discern before it disappeared.

“What was that?” she whispered to Darby, though she dared not look away in case she missed it again. The whole room seethed with her, gripped by a curiosity that lay deep within the forgotten portions of their imperfect brains. “What just happened?”

“That’s how you keep guests in seats,” Darby replied with a kind of charmed condescension, seemingly unaffected by the fervor of Georgie’s other patrons. Miriam risked shooting him a sour look, only for the clap of Georgie’s heels to snatch her attention straight back again.

The chase had become a dance, which was in turn rippling into a seduction. In circles about the limited stage Georgie followed her quarry, chasing her down and cutting her off--catching bits of her skirt, even boldly groping her breasts, hips, and buttocks when she could. She was confident and inescapable, and the soloist’s religious pleas faltered. They shall tell of thy power she sang as Georgie drew her in again, face to face, her psalm growing bittered and uncertain. The devil, it seemed, was getting its teeth in her. And as Georgie lowered her in a dip, as the crimson spotlight bathed them in its frightful glow, the vision of Georgie’s impossible shadow looming over its ethereal captive sent Miriam’s nervous system alight.

It looked almost exactly like the wispy, hand-drawn illustration of Darby Fairchild’s Emerald L’Belle. The muscular creature and its willowy lover were drawn in front of Miriam in broad strokes rather than frail scratches on a page. Even as the song and dance continued the image was burned on Miriam’s retinas, along with everything she had felt while flipping voraciously through its salacious pages. The rest of the lounge, Darby and Joey and his silly book suddenly felt very far away when compared to what she was witnessing, and a cruel envy gripped her heart. She watched Georgie’s blonde gradually bend to her will, swooning beneath the monster’s hands, arching into her touch when she had previously retreated. The prayer became a curse against a thoughtless God who could never offer its disciples a rapture like this. A fairy tale of corruption played out across the dim theater and Miriam was so jealous she could have burst.

She’s not just a witch, she thought, eyes wide and eager to drink in every whip-quick glimpse in the dark. And she sure as hell hasn’t been blessed by an angel. Were those horns creeping out of the crop of pale blonde hair slicked with sweat? Was that a tail curling down from her tiny skirt? Each was spirited away too quickly for her to tell for sure. She’s not even human--she’s My Favorite Abomination, she’s—

Miriam managed to tear her eyes away, casting a quick look at Darby beside her. He was reclined deeply in the sofa, easy as you please, smugly entertained but completely lacking in the fascination the moment deserved. His eyes, ever silvery and pale, seemed to glow in the dark.

They’re demons. Darby’s slow smirk cast in her direction made her shiver again, and she confined her gaze from then on to the stage. He signed her book as The Stag, but her name is on the door. Her palm itched as if she could feel the raised brass from club doorknob branding its sigil into her skin. Gremory, The Duchess.

The thought that she might have finally uncovered real magic set Miriam’s heart fluttering wildly, and she sat utterly captivated for the rest of the performance. She could barely put one thought after the other any longer as the blonde’s melody intensified, drawing her and Georgie’s devilish courtship toward its final crescendo. By then there was no separating them: they danced as if one animal made of many limbs, spinning and dipping in a frenzied ballroom display played to each corner of the stage. It reached its peak right in front of Miriam almost certainly by design. Georgie locked eyes with her, and all her earlier frustrations were seared away by the heat that tingled all across her skin.

The final note was struck, stunning in the woman’s tremendous, almost orgasmic voice: Adlevat Dominus omnes. The audience vibrated with her, though none more so than Miriam, each of them eager and anxious for one last look at The Beast. They tethered together as if on the edge of a remarkable precipice, lusting for it. But Georgie left them wanting. As the singing stopped, as the music stopped and the house lights relit--as only their hard, exhausted breath filled the warm space, very slowly the crowd unwound. 

If only I could have seen it one more time, Miriam thought, the sentiment all but throbbing in the air between everyone. I could have really seen it, if only I had one more chance.

Georgie and her co-star smiled at each other. They shared an almost embarrassingly chaste little kiss and then split up to move about the closest tables, accepting the surge of applause and catcalls that greeted them. Georgie gave Miriam a wink; she looked genuinely winded, and her flushed and grinning cheeks had Miriam’s emotions tangling again. But before Miriam could collect herself enough to pounce, Georgie moved on--deliberately heading toward Joey Trieppi where Miriam was sure not to follow.

Miriam collapsed back into the sofa, and when the whiskey glass was nudged back into her hands, she gulped it down without forethought. She didn’t taste the burn. Only after she had downed it and caught her breath did she once again remember Darby next to her, and she let the glass fall to the ground to turn on him.

“You’re not human,” she declared.

Darby regarded her accusatory glare with amusement. “Keep your voice down, please.”

“You signed that book as a demon,” Miriam insisted, pointing emphatically. “I thought maybe it was some kind of private joke, but it’s the truth, isn’t it? You’re really—”

“Miriam,” Darby cut her off, still amiable but much more firm. “Please, keep your voice down.”

The warning resonated a little too well with Miriam’s still pounding heart, and she clapped her mouth shut to reassess. Before she could try again from another, more restrained angle, Darby chuckled.

“There’s no need to get so worked up,” he told her. “It’s just a show.”

“It’s not just a show,” Miriam whispered back. “I saw it!”

“And so did everyone else.” The waitresses were moving between the tables again, and Darby motioned one closer. “I’m sure it’s very exciting, being your first time, but it’s smoke and mirrors, darling. Nothing more.”

No, that can’t be. Miriam twisted about to watch Georgie chatting with Joey. There was still a wicked little curl to her lips and Miriam couldn’t look away from; she felt as if at any moment they would pull back to reveal fangs. I saw her--I felt her. It was real and it wasn’t human.

Georgie caught her staring, and with a wink she sent Miriam whipping about again to hide her blush. “Then...then why did you sign that book as Furfur?” she demanded as quietly as she could manage given her agitation. “Earl of Hell--the Demon Stag--don’t think I don’t know these things!”

Darby shrugged easily and accepted a whiskey from the waitress. “I didn’t.”

“You...but you did!” Miriam pawed her copy of The Affairs of Emerald L’Belle and showed him the first page and its unmistakable sigil. “Look, right here!”

“I didn’t write that,” Darby drawled.

Miriam blinked at him, trapped between confusion and exasperation. For a brief moment she doubted just about everything, but as Darby hid a smirk against the lip of his glass, her righteousness soared back into place. “You did,” she said, admonishing. “Don’t lie to me, Mr. Fairchild. Georgie said so, and you said yourself it would increase the value.”

Darby took his sip, unhurried. “Ahh, it does, doesn’t it? Particularly for you.”

Again Miriam was caught off guard, her cheeks red and prickling. “Yes, but…” She heaved a great, frustrated sigh. “You’re so much more terrible than I ever expected, you do realize?”

Darby grinned openly at that. “Terribilium indeed,” he agreed.

His reference to the performance and its unusual lyrics, however casually delivered, once again sent the cogs in Miriam’s mind spinning. “Indeed,” she muttered, and she shivered again as she remembered the final phrase of the soloist’s bold song. “Adlevat Dominus omnes,”  she murmured. The Lord lifteth up all. She had been so embarrassingly caught up in that climactic moment that its familiarity had failed to make enough of an impression on her, but with her nerves finally...starting to unclench, it finally occurred to her how well she knew that phrase.

“The Lord lifteth up all that fall: and setteth up all that are cast down,” she quoted, pulse again hitching up into her ears. “That’s one of the psalms--that’s the psalm, the correct one that should have been in the book! The one that—”

Darby was blinking at her in amazement, and she quickly hushed herself again. “That’s the psalm used to summon Poiel,” she finished again in whisper. “The book got it wrong, but she sang it just now, here, tonight!”

“My.” Darby took another sip of booze. “That’s an incredible coincidence.”

“Coincidence my ass. Why can’t you just give me a straight answer?” Miriam huffed in mounting irritation. “You introduced me to the book. The book that has Gremory’s sigil in it, which is on the door to this club, which you’re in right now--which Gremory herself—” her breath caught, and she licked her lips “--Gremory herself is also in, performing a psalm from an Angel summoning ritual!”

At last Darby betrayed a hint of interest; he even straightened his posture. “Gremory is in that book?”

“Don’t you know that? It was your book.”

“I never mess about with real magic, which is what that book is.” Darby took another drink as if trying to recover from exposing his honest curiosity. “I don’t suppose you have it with you?”

Miriam gulped. “Of course not, that would be so…”

She couldn’t help it; she turned to peek at Joey’s table. With the lounge’s usual din having resumed there was very little chance that he would have heard any of their conversation, but paranoia got the better of her anyway. He looked like he was placing an order with the waitress, but more relevant to Miriam, Georgie was no longer there. With a start Miriam began scanning the room for her, only for—

“Well?” Georgie teased, standing just in front of their table with her hand cocked to her hip. “Did you like the show?”