Demonic Dates

By Kat Simons

Some houses have history…and demons.

 

After receiving a mysterious invitation to visit the home of an infamous seventeenth century witch, Lexie Alexander hurries north from New York to Salem, Massachusetts, eager to explore and learn every hidden secret kept about this witch. As a historian, she's one of the few people alive who knows exactly what this ancestor witch's powers could do, and how dangerous all witches like her could be. But even Lexie isn't prepared for what she finds in the huge, eclectic, creepy house. She's even less prepared for the home's current owner.

 

Miles Reid didn't ask to be related to a notorious witch. He certainly didn't want to inherit her former home, a cursed house passed down through his family from one unlucky relative to the next. Now trapped in the house, barely able to leave without being dragged back, Miles desperately searches for any solution that will get him out of the family curse. And as the anniversary of his ancestor's death approaches, his desperation grows. His only hope, another witch.

 

Together, Lexie and Miles must confront a historical horror and face not only their own demons, but demons from the past, still locked in a house…

 

That doesn't want to let them go.

 

Author's Note: This novella is also published in the collection HAUNTS AND HOWLS WHERE DEMONS DWELL.

• Language: English
• Publisher: T&D Publishing
• Release date: Sep 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215559970

Kat Simons

Kat Simons earned her Ph.D in animal behavior, working with animals as diverse as dolphins and deer. She brought her experience and knowledge of biology to her paranormal romance fiction, where she delights in taking nature and turning it on its ear. After traveling the world, she now lives in New York City with her family. Kat is a stay-at-home mom and a full time writer.

Book preview

Chapter

One

Lexie Alexander stared at the invitation in her hand, the expensive cream card, the gold leafing, the faint fragrance of musk that emerged with the square of paper whenever she pulled it from its envelope. An envelope that had been sealed with wax and pressed with a single initial.

Then she looked up at the house. Alone on a hill, outside the borders of the nearest town, but not so far away as to make the journey to town a day long event. Surrounded by a forest of maple and oak, an earthy loam mingling with the faint musk of the invitation. The house itself was what her grandmother would have politely called…interesting.

Which was maybe an understatement.

Three stories, at least above ground. And a strange mix of Victorian peaks and porches, with a castle-like stone wing to one side and an almost New York Brownstone look to the other. A large, square of a building with all these different elements sprouting off in different directions. Everything about the arrangement looked wrong. An assault on the eyes. Like the architect had been on LSD when they’d designed the place and just tacked on whatever took their fancy.

It wasn’t a pretty house either. Not even a little. Despite the lovely finial designs decorating the tops of the gables on the more Victorian parts of the roof, and the almost comically fun gargoyles spitting on the castle side, and the sweeping stairs leading up to a large oak door on the Brownstone side. None of it…went together. There was no flow or cohesion. Not even the colors worked together. A dark gray with bright purple highlights in the Victorian parts, gray stonework in the castle with no break for color, and a soft muted orange on the Brownstone walls, with some white decorative elements.

Staring at the house was disorienting. Made Lexie feel like she was falling forward even though she wasn’t moving. Like if she took a step toward the house, the ground would suddenly vanish, and she’d fall on her face. Or worse, just keep falling into some kind of abyss.

The temptation to turn around, return to her car, drive back down the hill, and ignore the invitation was strong. Stronger than she’d have expected given how excited she’d been to receive the invitation in the first place.

Not every witch gets the opportunity to visit the home of one of the most notorious witches in the history of witches. The witch who’d tried to loose a hoard of demons on the fanatics who were burning witches in the seventeenth century here in the US. She’d been destroyed by her own coven in the end, because she refused to stop letting demons into this realm, and those demons weren’t restricting their havoc to fanatical witch-burners.

Her name was never spoken. Not many witches even knew of her. In fact, most didn’t from what Lexie had learned. Only a very few, a tiny handful over the last few centuries, kept the knowledge as a warning, a lesson from history to be avoided. Lexie had learned of the infamous witch through her own grandmother, who’d passed the knowledge down from her grandmother. Lexie was charged now with keeping that history.

The house wasn’t the exact place the witch had lived of course. It had been added to over the years. But the core of it was her home. Somewhere in the middle of all that chaotic architectural junk was the place this witch had lived, learned, tested her magic, and plotted her revenge.

And because Lexie was a historical record keeper, a collector of details to record and preserve, even if the information was too dangerous to release to most, she couldn’t have resisted an invitation to this particular place if she’d tried. Especially given the date.

The invitation coming from said witch’s very mysterious and enigmatic ancestor was even more irresistible. There were rumors about him, some of which she’d decided had to be more myth than reality, some of which had made her…wonder. But all of it had her curious. Extremely curious.

Which, as her grandmother would say, was the trait that killed the cat.

But she wasn’t a cat. She was a historian. A record keeper for the witchy community. And this was a bit of history that, even if she couldn’t share it wide, should be preserved.

Or at least that’s what she’d told herself when she’d rented a car and driven up here from New York, to a house located miles outside of modern-day Salem, Massachusetts.

She’d studied the location on various map apps and had assured herself the place wasn’t that isolated. The main road got plenty of traffic, and she could still hear that in the distance. There were some scattered farms and houses in the area, though the closest was a mile away. But really, that wasn’t that far.

A cold autumn breeze lifted her hair off her neck, sending a chill down her spine, despite her heavy wool coat. This late in the season, almost November, and the winter cold was already creeping in, portending things to come. She didn’t mind. Lexie liked all the seasons. But the breeze, in just that moment, felt like the dance of cold cold fingers along her spine.

A warning and a threat.

She huffed out an irritated breath with herself. Then she, metaphorically, pulled up her big girl pants, straightened the strap of her oversized purse on her shoulder, and marched up to what she hoped was the front door. She was here to do some research. On a historically important witch. Whose ancestor had sent her a special invitation to come to the house and do that research on this historically important date. There was nothing to fear and no reason to run.

It was just a fucking house after all.

Miles Reid watched as the woman approached the house with trepidation. He couldn’t blame her. This wasn’t