covencraft 04 - dry spells (30 page)

“Hmmm.” The round man-thing turned a page in his ledger. There was a sharp clicking followed by the sound of something scurrying. An itch broke out on Jade’s neck and she wanted to immediately claw and slap at it. There couldn’t be anything crawling on her. It was just the sounds she was hearing. That was all.

“Who’ve you got with you in the car?”

Seth swallowed. “A witch. On an errand.”

“Hmmmm. Got papers for her?”

“No.”

“She can’t speak?”

Seth turned to Jade and gave her a look. Jade gave him one back. She was supposed to be silent. Seth’s head jerked slightly and he barred his teeth at her. Jade swallowed.

“Um, no. I don’t have any papers. We’re passing through.”

“Hmmmm.” The round man-thing’s eyes bore into Jade. He had no iris, Jade realized. He had sclera and a pupil. A white expanse and then black pinpricks in the center of the shocking white. “How long you gonna be?”

At Seth’s silence, Jade spoke, “Well, since we’re seeing his ex-girlfriend, it could be a while.”

Seth’s hand reached across the seat and a long, sharp talon slipped out of one of his fingertips, sliding painfully into the meaty part of Jade’s thigh, unseen to the round man-thing. Sweet lord, she’d thought there was no sensation in the Dearth. It was like his talon was covered in acid, lemon juice and sandpaper. Her eyes watered and she had to engage every muscle in her body to not flinch. “Or maybe we’ll be done quick. Who knows?” She smiled, knowing she was more baring her teeth and gritting them than smiling.

“Hmmmm.” Oh Jesus, did the round man-thing ever say anything else? He looked back down at his ledger and Seth wiggled his talon slightly. Jade pushed herself straighter, feeling like if she could just get on top of the pain he was causing her, it would be better.

It wasn’t.

She clenched both hands, her teeth, and then her toes. God almighty, his claw was just sitting in the fleshy bit of her leg, cutting into her. One of her hands came up and clasped at her salamander charm, pinching it between her fingers. It’s small but solid weight a comfort to her.

“I might have to file a form 34B.”

Seth’s claw dug in deeper. Jade imagined in her mind, she was making a high pitched whine from her throat. She couldn’t let the noise actually escape her, but it somehow made it more bearable to pretend that she was screeching against the pain.

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”

“Hmmmm. Demon. Traveling with a witch. On some kind of errand. And an auditor looking for you too. Might be at least a 34B and maybe a F-2200 as well.”

Seth exhaled through his nose, nostrils flaring. “Those forms take a lot of time and specialized effort to fill out. Time better spent on other pursuits.”

“Hmmmm. Don’t have many pursuits to spend time on. Life in the Dearth, you know how it is.”

“I sure do, my friend.”

Seth waggled his claw a bit and Jade couldn’t help the squeak that escaped her. Tiny, high pitched, not even worthy of a mouse. She clenched her salamander charm tighter, feeling the edges of it dig into her palms.

“Mighty fine charm you have there.”

Jade was afraid to speak when the guard turned his eyes on her with his empty and flat rectangular pupils. “Uh, thanks?” she managed, her voice croaking out.

“Hmmmm.” He nodded, his big head bobbing up and down.” Someone cast quite a spell on it. It’s been working overtime.”

“Okay?” Jade squeaked as Seth dug his talon in deeper. Seth looked from her, back to the Customs guard and then to Jade again. He shifted slightly so that he was blocking the Custom’s officer from Jade’s sight. He yanked his talon out of her leg and she bit back a yelp. She stared down at the wound, amazed it wasn’t bleeding. It just sat there. Open. She looked away.

“Your charm. Hand it over.” His words were a hiss, drawn out and hard, raking over her ears.

“What?” Jade’s clenched even tighter around the little charm. “No.” Paris gave her this charm. It reminded her of Bruce. She liked it.

Seth made a gimme motion. “No time to dilly-dally. Give it.”

“No,” Jade repeated, her eyes darting from Seth, to the windshield, to where the guard would be if she could see past Seth, back to the demon again. “It’s mine.”

“I may have a D-56 form around here,” the officer said. “Seems to me, I just had one.”

Seth shifted closer, his ears twitching. “Make no mistake, while it holds it magic better if you remove it voluntarily, I will rip it from your neck and I don’t care how much blood and skin comes along with it.”

“Why?” It was foolish. She knew that. But she didn’t want to give it up.

“It’s imbued with magic.”

“So are a lot of things.” Jade gestured at the expanse in the Dearth. “Demon magic can’t be rare here.”

“Magic of demons and of the Dearth are hardly commodities here. Your talisman is witch magic. Powerful magic as well.”

“Fat lot of good it’s done me so far, if it’s so powerful.”

“You’ve no idea what that little trinket has done for you. What do you think Sakkara’s magic would have done to your noodle if you’d not had it?” Seth made a popping motion with his hands. “Splat. And your trip here? You know, a lot of mortals don’t survive the trip over.”

The silver charm warmed in her hand as Jade held it. She could remember Paris holding it up for her the first time she saw it, at the Coven Ball. Hannah placed it over her neck, binding it to Jade as she did. Jade’d only had it a short time, but she’d come to be used to its weight against her collar, her fingers worrying the charm back and forth on the chain as she thought over something or read.

“Isn’t there anything else?” she asked, her voice quiet, low. She didn’t think the Custom’s officer had heard her, but she couldn’t be certain.

“I will garrote you with it, if you don’t hand it over. We’re not exactly flush with options here.”

But still, her little salamander charm? “Don’t you have anything? Aren’t you, like, I don’t know, some kind of powerful demon god?”

Seth held out his hands, even his tail coming up to show how empty it was. “Like what, Possum? My fantastic wardrobe?” He patted his chest with his hands, the triangular tip of his tail snaking into one of his pockets and coming back out empty. “Silly me, I left all my charms and runes in my other pants. You know, the ones I wasn’t wearing
when you yanked me into the Dearth
.”

His tone made her ear drums ring. He hadn’t spoken any louder, but the power behind his words gave her slight vertigo. A grumbling sound from behind Seth had his eyes darting sideways.

“We need that talisman.” He pointed at her necklace.

“It’s just a charm,” she protested, hating the weakness in her voice. She should hand it over. But she had so few things that were hers and only hers. Made for her.

“That a Coven Leader made for you,” Seth added. “That also repelled the full force of Sakkara’s magic when she was invading your dreams. Magical energy is all over that charm.” Seth inclined his head. “It’s got your Englishman’s magic on it and when it repelled his mother, that added to its energy. Even when Mother Dearest was forcing you here, that little lizard around your neck was struggling. Sometimes magic wears off when it’s used. Other times, it rebounds stronger. Like a solar panel - the more it’s exposed, the stronger it becomes.”

If she didn’t want to give it to Seth before, she wanted to hand it over even less now. Jade worried the charm back and forth on its chain, listening to the zag-zag sound of it as she did.

“Is there anyway I can buy it back later? Maybe with something else or?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Some other kind of magic?”

“Possibly.”

She sagged. “You’re lying.” She really was getting better at reading him.

“Yes.” Seth was straightforward about it.

“Ugh, I hate you.”

“I don’t care. Hand it over.”

In movies, people always yanked a necklace hard and the chain snapped. Some dramatic motion that was probably supposed to be fraught with symbolism. Whatever. She didn’t want to break her necklace, never mind the horrible sensation if she pulled and it didn’t break. She reached behind her neck and carefully undid the clasp, pulling it off and placing it Seth’s outstretched palm. She shivered, not from cold, but from
something
.

Seth’s palm closed around it, his eyes flashing a deep gold color. Without a word, he turned and handed it to the Customs guard.

“Hmmm.” The guard hefted it in his hands. Jade hated seeing his meaty paws on the cute salamander. “If I see that auditor, Imma tell her you were down this way.”

“You do that. I welcome the opportunity to work with the Auditing branch. Meticulous souls.” Seth sounded like he’d eaten a bunch of glass and was rolling it around in the depths of his throat.

The guard made a
go-ahead
gesture with his fingers, his eyes still transfixed on the talisman. Seth stepped on the gas and as they pulled away, Jade couldn’t help but stare back at the little Customs booth where her charm remained.

#

Paris pulled into his driveway, and before he could give it too much thought, he exited the car, tucking the demon grimoire under his arm.

It was unseasonably warm for the winter, a fact of which he’d normally not take much note. But now, he felt as though he was searching for portents and omens everywhere and he wondered if it meant something.

The front door opened as he approached, its well-oiled hinges silently giving way.

“I wondered when you’d return.”

Sakkara’s voice echoed through the foyer. He took his shoes off at the door, carefully placing them on the mat. He hated when mud was tracked through the house. A habit he’d inherited from her. He found her in the study; his study, her study - he was no longer sure to whom it belonged. As a child he recalled sitting on the floor, playing with toys, then as he got older, reading a book, then doing his homework. All the while, she worked at the large oak desk. The scratch of her fountain pen against the stiff parchment of her grimoire, the sound of the paper turning had been like a melody to him. Had she worked on her demon magic even then? He remembered peering under her arm, spying over her shoulder from time to time, as children often do with their parents. He’d felt dangerous and stealthy, but in hindsight realized she’d indulged his subterfuge.

It was at that same desk where she sat now. Her hair had only had a touch of grey when she died - when he thought she had died. It was the same now. By magic? Some kind of vanity? Or perhaps time was different where she’d been. It was perfectly pulled back in an intricate style, not one strand out of place. She wore dark clothing, a slight tint on her lips, her skin pale against the fabric. Watching her at the desk, it could have been any memory from his childhood and he tried to discern if there was something altogether different about her now. Now that he knew her predilection for demon magic. Now that he knew of what she was capable. He saw, in his memory, the way Jade struggled against her, the way she had pinioned Jade down - pressing into her shoulders, branding a demon mark into her, banishing her to the demon world. The Dearth.

“I see you have one of my grimoires,” she said. “I had hoped you’d never have need of them, but if you had been touched by demon magic, I wanted to ensure you found them.”

“I didn’t find them. Jade did.”

“Ah, Jade. Of course. Have you heard anything from her? From the demon world?”

“You mean the Dearth?” he asked.

She frowned in confusion.

“That’s what it’s called. The Dearth.”

Her eyebrows went up slightly at his words. “So you have heard from her?”

“Enough to know she’s alive.”

Sakkara did not react to his tone. “She’s quite bright and resourceful. I’ve no doubt she’ll be successful.”

“And if she’s not?”

“Pardon me?”

“If Jade is not successful. If she fails, what will you do?”

“Have you reason to think she will fail?”

“Have you?”

She shook her head. “Answering questions with questions. I raised you better than this. You’re still angry. Churlish. Hurtling queries at me without truly thinking. Paris, love. Come now. Remember your lessons. A Coven Leader does not fish for information. A Coven leader either has information or requests it. One does not fumble around in the dark for answers.”

Paris set the demon grimoire down on the desk in front of her, flipping to the page with the rune. “Very well. Demon runes.”

Her eyes flickered down to the grimoire and back to him. “What of them?”

“The rune for Resurrection. Did you perform that spell?”

“No. Of course not,” Sakkara answered immediately.

“Do not act surprised that I’ve asked. I found the rune in your books.”

“A similar rune,” Sakkara clarified. “One of many that I studied. If you had studied it as well, you’d see it’s not truly the rune of Resurrection itself. Such magic, Paris.” She paused. “It’s an abomination.”

Her tone was outrageous to him. “Do not sit there and pretend as though this rune is the one thing that spurs your moral compass into action. Not when you’ve admitted to being in the service of a demon, not when you’ve lied about your whereabouts,
your very death
for all these years. Not when you’ve banished one of my witches to the demon world on some foolish errand. You haven’t the right to claim the high road in this matter. My entire childhood, you warned me against demon magic, demon deals. Now I find that you’ve been invested in them all along and you’ve the gall to lecture me on whether I’ve studied it enough! Well. I haven’t. But Jade has. And I trust her magic before yours.”

She stared at him, unblinking. “I had no idea. Of course, I realized you had a certain connection given your reactions. But.” She made a disgruntled sound. “If
Jade
,” she stressed the name unnaturally, “had bothered to investigate or study it further, she would have learned that rune is not quite the one for Resurrection. As I said. Such magic is an abomination.”

Paris shook his head. “I’d be a fool to believe anything you say.”

She pursed her lips at him. “You’re being overly dramatic.”