In the Company of Witches by Joey W. Hill

and gathered at one end of the antique dining table that sat twenty. Isaac was among them. Mikhael was on the corner chair at the other end, eating by himself, reading today’s paper. Apparently, he tracked local news.
    She subscribed to the paper because her staff liked passing around the comics and reading horoscopes. Or exchanging local news tidbits from the police blotter and front page. She herself nursed the private pleasure of cutting coupons, pestering Li to use them when she sent him and Gina out on supply runs in town. It never hurt to save a dollar.
    Given that Gina had spread the news a Dark Guardian was in the house, Raina was surprised to see everyone present, none of them chickening out and staying in their rooms. However, Gina would also have shared Raina’s statement that he was a guest and they would not be harmed. Their faith in her judgment, coupled largely with their passion for Monday-morning brunch, had apparently overcome any wariness. It was flattering, but a little disturbing as well, knowing they had that unwavering confidence, even in the face of a Dark Guardian’s presence. She hoped she could live up to it.
    Nonsense. Of course she could. It irritated her that she allowed herself a moment of doubt. They had a balance in her household. Her spells allowed her staff to feed on the sexual energy of clients without taking their life energy, which was a win-win. The clients were more exhausted afterward than they might be with a human escort, but they also had the sex of their lives, and a desire to return for more. She had only a few rules, but they were nonnegotiable. Her staff knew that if any one of them went outside of her house to feed, therefore resulting in a kill, they were expelled, out the door for good. As Isaac’s circumstances starkly demonstrated, most sex demons never found the safety her house offered, the stability and quality of life that existed here.
    Monday brunch merely punctuated that fact. Though they didn’t live on human food, succubi and incubi had taste buds like anyone else. Eating human food was like eating candy. No nutritional value, but they liked it, and it whetted their appetites for the real nourishment, arriving later in the evening.
    Matilda, their cook, was an unflappable black woman who could talk to spirits, and did so quite often. In fact, she preferred to talk to them, such that Raina often found out what Matilda was thinking or demanding only by her loud conversations with the spirits none of them could see. She ignored any menu Raina told her to prepare, doing what the spirits told her instead. Which was fine, since she had a flawless track record for providing the perfect thing for every occasion. She also knew when someone needed a comforting bowl of soup or a steaming hot cup of tea. As such, Raina had decided that, just because she couldn’t see Matilda’s spirit pals, there was no reason not to defer to their wishes in menu choices. It took meal planning off her to-do list, after all.
    Matilda went home each afternoon to her shack, built deep in the swamp on Raina’s property. She always left Sweet Dreams before they opened for business. The one time Raina had asked her to stay, to help cater a party event, Matilda had come to a full stop. Banging her wooden spoon on the edge of the chowder pot, she’d turned toward the potato and onion bins, where her spirits apparently preferred to congregate while she cooked.
    “Ain’t none of us going to stand for all that fornicating,” she informed those potatoes and onions. “No, sirree, we won’t be anywhere near this house when that nonsense is going on. And we going to put Tabasco sauce on that naughty Luke’s unmentionables next time he lets that robe gap open at dinnertime to tease old Matilda. He’ll be dancing and howling like all you spirits do on All Saints’ Night. Just you watch.”
    She was worth every penny of the exorbitant salary Raina paid to keep her.
    Matilda was a perfect mesh