The Demon Abraxas

• About the Author
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty-One
  

Copyright © 2013 by Rachel Calish

Bella Books, Inc.

P.O. Box 10543

Tallahassee, FL 32302

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First Bella Books Edition 2013

Bella Books eBooks released 2013

Editor: Katherine V. Forrest

Cover Designed by: Kristin Smith

Photograph Credit: Elena Koulik and Aldra

ISBN: 978-1-59493-379-0

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Rachel Calish lives on the Internet, but frequently downloads herself into real-time so she can play with her pup and two cats. She’s a fan of Border Collie mixes, because any dog blends well with Border Collie, and stays in shape by trying to keep up with one. Rachel grew up on mythology and fairy tales, to which she has added a deep love for fantasy stories and gaming. These days, you can often find her in the company of literary werewolves and entrepreneurial elves. As her staid, grown-up personality, Rachel Gold, she is the author of the young adult novel
Being Emily
.

Visit her on the web at rachelcalish.com and beingemily.com

For Kim Albee, who is good with all sorts of beings.

I’d like to thank Professor Larry Sutin who went through many edits with me back when this was my Master’s thesis. (Yes, you can get a Master’s degree writing fantasy!)

Many thanks to Katherine V. Forrest for her edits and humor—and to Linda Hill and Karin Kallmaker at Bella Books for their encouragement.

I can’t thank enough my astounding beta readers (especially those who read two or more drafts) and early editors including Wendy Nemitz, Sara Bracewell and Lyda Morehouse, and my cherished alpha reader Alia Whipple.

I also want to thank Jane Wisdom, for her significant help with the early drafts, and Allison Moon, for invaluable brainstorming and other inspirations.

And this book wouldn’t be complete without expressing my deep gratitude to Reggie Ray and Craig Lindahl-Urben for being embodiments of wisdom—they get the credit for all the wise things Abraxas says and I’ll take credit for any of it that I messed up in translation.

“This name occurs in connection with Greek magical formulas and is frequently considered the name of some magician’s helper such as certain uncivilized tribes believe in even at present. But it appears that Abraxas has a much deeper significance. We may conceive of the name as that of a godhead whose symbolic task is the uniting of godly and devilish elements.”

— Hermann Hesse,
Demian

“We could be out dancing,” Ruben said and rattled the ice in his glass impatiently.

He looked like a Titan standing in the same room as the men Ana worked with. Most of them were short and skinny or short and potbellied, plus they’d given the casual, thirty-second attention to their clothes that most straight guys did. In his short-sleeved designer shirt, Ruben looked like a movie star—even though he was only a semi-employed character actor.

“You invited yourself to this party, remember?” Ana told him and tried to keep from smiling. She wanted him there with her just in case that last-minute invitation she’d fired off actually bore fruit.

“I forgot what a straight wasteland you work in,” he said. His beautiful mouth sulked, but his eyes were bright with teasing.

“Bear that in mind the next time you suggest I find a girlfriend at work,” Ana told him.

She set her empty glass down on a table and peeked into her purse to check the clock on her cell phone. In another half-hour they could make a graceful exit. She could send Ruben off to the bars and…do what? She was all gussied up in a Donna Karan silk dress she’d picked up crazy on sale, maybe she should try wearing it out on the town. It wasn’t like she could do any worse.

“I should go talk to my boss,” she said.

“I thought she wasn’t here.”

“Not Helen, my other boss. The boss of both of us. Can you stay out of trouble?”

“No.”

“Try?”

He pouted and she rolled her eyes at him. At least flamboyantly gay didn’t stand out in San Francisco the way it would have in South Dakota. Ruben could butch it up for events like tonight, but his bearing still screamed “Queer!”

Ana turned away to look for Stephen Detlefsen, but he was already headed her way. His massive shoulders, the remnant of youthful athleticism, were now entirely dwarfed by an expansive belly so large he could have been carrying two children full term.

“Great work on the anniversary announcement,” he said and clapped one heavy hand on Ana’s shoulder. Ana was taller than Detlefsen, even when she didn’t have heels on, but that never seemed to faze him.

“That was mostly Helen,” Ana admitted.

“Where is she?” he asked. At the same time, Ruben said, “Holy shit, is that HER?”

Ana turned in the direction Ruben faced. In a room full of men wearing khakis and ill-fitting jackets, the woman in the ivory suit looked like a swan landing in a junkyard. Dr. Sabel Young, professor and occasional corporate diversity trainer, stepped into the crowd easily, greeting people as she passed, lightly pressing hands offered to her. Ana didn’t know if Sabel remembered everyone who turned to say hello to her, but they certainly remembered her. She wasn’t tall, maybe two inches short of Ana’s five-foot-nine frame, but her body moved with a composed elegance that made her seem taller—or maybe it was the heels. Ana couldn’t see her feet and even if they were visible, she wouldn’t waste her time looking there.

The ivory jacket was gorgeous with a single button below the delicate V of the deep collar and a subtle empire waist. Sabel had paired it with a black shirt open at the throat and showing just the top rise of her breasts. Her straight black hair matched the shirt and the contrasting black and ivory highlighted her pale skin.

Ana felt too tall, too awkward, too heavy, too much shoulder and angle, bone and weight and muscle. She was as uncoordinated as a kid who’d happened into her mother’s closet. Her purse didn’t match her dress, the shoes weren’t right at all, she should have worn the pearls…oh, that’s right, she didn’t own pearls. But of course Sabel did—a tiny strand of pearls strung on white gold that looked almost as fiercely expensive as that jacket. Did she moonlight as a corporate trainer just for the outfits? Ana wondered as Sabel headed for them.

Sabel had worked with Roth Software to deliver two trainings to their nearly four hundred employees and Ana had been the one assigned to help set up the rooms and coordinate the events. At first she believed the frivolous assignment was a hint that the company thought she had too much free time. By the time they were setting up the second training Ana began to wonder if Sabel had asked for her specifically. She couldn’t tell if Sabel was flirting with her in a subtle and completely corporate-appropriate way or if it was only her wishful thinking.

Ana had already spent the whole three hours of the first training mentally undressing Sabel, assuming she was safely inaccessible. But then something she said in their last meeting stuck with her and inspired Ana to forward the invitation. After hitting send, she’d realized that she should have just added Sabel to the batch email list and not waited days and sent the invite personally.

Ana picked Ruben’s glass up off the bar and took a long drink from it. The alcohol burned her back to the present.

“Dr. Young,” Detlefsen said, boomingly because he never said anything quietly. “Are you checking up on us?”

She smiled and inclined her head as she shook the hand he held out to her. He spared her his usual bone-grinding grip.

“You remember Ana?” he asked.

“Yes, she took wonderful care of me.”

“Thank you,” Ana managed through dry lips. “And this is my roommate Ruben.”

“My
pleasure
,” Ruben said with too much emphasis. He held out his hand but when she reached to shake it, he turned her hand and bowed his head to kiss her knuckles.

Sabel bent with him so that her head remained lower than his throughout the gesture.

“I’m utterly charmed. Is that Armani?” Ruben said. Ana wanted to kick him.

“You have a discerning eye,” Sabel told him and gently reclaimed her hand from his fingers. She turned back to Detlefsen. “I wanted to congratulate you, and everyone, on your fifth anniversary. That’s a landmark for so many companies. I hear you started with four people.”

“And now we’re nearly four hundred,” he said proudly. “Let me introduce you to the founders.”

The two of them went off toward the center of the party and Ana stared after them.

“Yes, you should,” Ruben said.

He caught the bartender’s eye and ordered a fresh drink while pushing the half-empty glass back toward Ana. She sighed and took another sip of the fruity vodka thing.

“Do you really think she plays for our team?” Ana asked.

“You said she was flirting with you.”

“What if I was reading into it?” Ana watched the moonbeam brightness of Sabel’s suit move through the room away from her.

“A diversity trainer? Honestly? Honey, that’s a synonym for queer.”

“I thought you told me to stop chasing ice queens.”

“That was so last week,” he declared. “I’m making an exception. I’ll take your car, you tell her I was a shit that forgot about you and you ask for a ride.”      

“Like hell you will. I was thinking I should go by Helen’s place. It’s not like her to miss this event.”

“This thrilling party of the century?” Ruben asked.

He waved his hand around in an arc to indicate the vast room filled with people talking quietly to each other.

“She practically helped found the company,” Ana told him, but the words sounded thin.

“And that’s a reason to go by her place in the middle of the night? Oh, wait, she lives near that gal you hooked up with a few months back, the swimmer?”

“Marine biologist,” Ana said.

“And you’re trying to tell me that an advanced degree beats an Armani suit?”

Ana glanced across the room and got a beautiful view of the way the short jacket ended just above Sabel’s shapely backside. “She has a Ph.D. too,” she said, her voice sounding plaintive to her own ears.

“That’s it, I’m catching a cab to the bars—you’re not allowed home until you have her number.”

“I don’t think the security system has a ‘dateless and denied’ setting,” Ana told him.

“It does now.”

He kissed the side of her head and headed for the door. She could tell the sexual orientation of every man in the room based on whose eyes followed Ruben as he left.