Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (24 page)

I pulled Blackwell’s duplicate demon history book out of my satchel. Then — starting with page one — I began memorizing the bloody thing. I had no idea if Sienna would return to the same source material, but it was the only lead I had within my grasp.

Thankfully, the steward had Lindt chocolate on board. It wasn’t Valrhona or Amedei, but it would do. I bought every bar over 60 percent cocoa that he had, ignoring his flabbergasted response.

I had work to do, and it was time I started applying myself as diligently as possible to the job. Chocolate was damn fine at focusing me.

∞

The moms were waiting at the international arrivals gate just beyond customs at Vancouver International Airport. And though I was twenty-three-going-on-twenty-four, I was relieved to see Scarlett’s strawberry-blond hair seconds after I cleared customs. When the taste of my mother’s magic hit me — strawberry and white chocolate over her grassy witch base — I knew I was home. Which was odd, because Scarlett hadn’t really raised me.

Mory’s mom, Danica Novak, opened her arms — her face already puffy with previously shed tears — and the teenaged necromancer flung herself, sobbing, into them.

“She made me. She made me,” Mory said.

Danica’s eyes reminded me of Rusty’s, but her hair was a shade lighter. The taste of her magic — sugared violets — was a more pungent version of her son’s. The necromancer powers were usually strongest in the female line.

I reached out for a brief but fierce hug from my mother. Scarlett then turned and hugged Kandy, a gesture the green-haired werewolf accepted more enthusiastically than I would have expected.

Gran stepped around Scarlett, and I was shocked to realize I hadn’t seen or felt her beneath all the other magic around me. She grabbed me and didn’t let go.

“Your magic,” I cried before I could stop myself.

“It’s all right, Jade,” Gran whispered. “You’re home.”

That didn’t answer my question, so — still captured in Gran’s grasp — I looked to Scarlett.

My mother smiled one of those tight smiles edged in sadness that she was getting too good at. “The transportation spell. It’s not really my kind of magic, so Pearl took the brunt of it. Normally, we’d gather a coven, but time was tight.”

“I didn’t realize … I’m sorry, I didn’t mean …”

Scarlett interrupted my confused apology. “Don’t be silly, my Jade. We did what we wanted. It was the least we could do … we couldn’t … didn’t … We wanted you home.”

Gran pulled back from the hug and cupped my face in her hands. Her silver hair was pulled back into a loose braid, which fell down to her lower back. “I’m so proud of you,” she said. Her tone was defiant and fierce, as if she was ready to argue against anything I might try to say.

Tears welled in my eyes, and slipped down my cheeks. I couldn’t do anything to stop them.

“No, no,” Gran said. She wiped her strong, capable fingers across my cheeks to dry my tears. “A batch of cupcakes will sort out my magic, and a good sleep will do you some good.”
 

She linked her arm through mine. Scarlett did the same on the other side, and together they pulled me out of the airport toward the short-term parking lot across the main road.

“A grilled cheese sandwich would be nice,” I said as we dodged traffic and Scarlett stopped to pay the parking fee.

“With ham,” Kandy added. The werewolf was striding alongside Gran. Mory and her mother were trailing along behind us, still quietly weeping.

“What? No. Gross,” I said.

“I’m sure we can figure out something for both of you,” Scarlett said as she led us toward the car.

Gran squeezed my forearm, then released me to dig around in her purse for her keys.

We paused at Gran’s car and I watched Ms. Novak settle Mory in her car, two spots farther down from us. She looked up, caught my gaze, and nodded. Well, that was a step in the right direction. I’d been worried about her proficiency with death curses for over three months. Not that anyone would confirm or deny whether such a spell were possible, even for a necromancer of power. I wasn’t sure how powerful Danica or Mory were, because I didn’t know any other necromancers with which to compare them.

“I need to cast a circle tomorrow,” I said quietly to Scarlett before she slipped into the driver’s seat. It was the first time I’d ever seen Gran not drive. My mother nodded and ran her fingers down my arm, leaving the soothing tingle of her magic behind.

“Pearl and I will come to you. I gather you have a plan?”

“The start of one. A guess, based on something Blackwell said.”

Scarlett pursed her lips but then nodded. Blackwell was not her favorite subject. “Tomorrow morning. After sunrise to allow Pearl’s magic another cycle to replenish.”

We climbed into the car and Scarlett drove us home.

∞

Except for the new orchid plant on the granite countertop of the kitchen island, my apartment looked exactly the same as it had before I’d taken off for Portland. Scarlett hadn’t added a thing in the three months I’d been gone, even though she’d bought something new every week in the three months previous to that. Though my room was suspiciously cleaner than I remembered.

I skipped the grilled cheese and slipped into my bed, only stopping to remove my boots. It took me longer to fall asleep than I expected. I lay there for a while, feeling Kandy’s, Scarlett’s, and Gran’s magic in the kitchen and the comforting magic of my apartment wards all around me.

I wondered where Sienna was tonight.

No loved one had picked my sister up from the airport. No grandmother had been willing to drain her magic to send aid her way. No sister was there to whisper secrets in the dark … but then, Sienna didn’t have any secrets anymore. She only had whims, and she left only devastation in her wake.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I woke up around five o’clock, so I guess I must have eventually slept. The time change should have been confusing, but over the three and a half months I’d spent in the dragon nexus, I was never actually sure what time it was anymore, so it didn’t affect me.

I wiggled my toes into some flip-flops and promised myself a mani-pedi later that day. I made sure to not glance at my nails. I didn’t need to melt down over nail polish right now. I exchanged my crumpled jeans for an older pair of Sevens. I needed to cinch the belt down two holes. Well, that was a silver lining in an otherwise tumultuous and painful few months.

My room was rather tidy, not that I was generally messy. But it had a stale, unused feeling about it that I hadn’t felt in the rest of the apartment last night.

I pulled on a heathered navy T-shirt — the logo was a T-Rex trying to do push-ups — over my tank top and padded through the living room and down into the bakery.

I didn’t stop for breakfast. I already knew what I wanted to eat. Oh, yes, cupcakes.

The bakery was closed today — Sunday — now that Bryn, my very accommodating and definitely underpaid employee, had stepped up to cover all my baking shifts. Sales had slowed a bit but not drastically — according to Scarlett, who’d taken over the books.

Yeah, everyone was stepping up while I was stepping out to kill my sister. I pushed the nasty thought away, clipped my curls into a twist at the back of my head, and retreated into the pantry.

Surrounded by the delicious smells of chocolate, vanilla, and spices, I just breathed for a moment, willing everything to be okay. Even though it wasn’t, and I was fairly sure it never would be again.

∞

I hauled all the ingredients I needed out of the pantry and set them down on the long stainless steel workstation that I’d had custom made to accommodate my height. The stacked ovens and walk-in fridge were behind me. I immediately did up a batch of
Lust in a Cup 
— dark chocolate cake with dark-chocolate cream-cheese icing — because if I only had time for a single batch, it was going to be my favorite.

While those cupcakes were baking, I did up a batch of
Cozy in a Cup
with bananas Bryn had set aside. They looked perfectly ripe for the banana chocolate chip cake. I followed that up with an experimental recipe I’d been half-heartedly thinking about, something that combined the honeyed almond of Drake’s magic and a hint of the spices of Shanghai, such as peppercorn or cumin. I only had ground coriander, so I had to settle.

Something was wrong with the
Lust in a Cups
. They were almost too perfectly formed, and darker brown than I remembered. I checked the cocoa packaging, but Bryn hadn’t changed brands or percentages. I let them cool before frosting, thinking I was just out of practice.

Except … the
Cozy in a Cups
looked more like
Puck in a Cups
. Was the baking soda old?

I was peering anxiously at the experimental cupcakes as they baked when Kandy wandered into the bakery kitchen from the back alley exit.

“Thought I’d find you here,” the green-haired werewolf said as she snagged one of the newly frosted
Lust in a Cup
. I liked to wait until the icing hardened just a little before eating. That wasn’t insanely picky when it was your own baking.

“You’re up early,” I said, not taking my eyes off the oven window.

Kandy shrugged. “Time change.” She took a bite of the cupcake.

Then she spat it out.

Spat it out.

I stared at her, utterly aghast.

“Um,” she mumbled as she crossed to the fridge and drank directly out of a container of milk. “I think you forgot something.”

I reached for a cupcake, broke it in half, and tried a bite. “Sugar,” I moaned. “I … I made an entire batch without sugar?”

“The frosting is good.” Kandy licked the dark-chocolate cream-cheese icing off the remainder of her cupcake.

“I forgot the sugar?” I repeated, because it was an unprecedented event and bore repeating.

Kandy was now peering suspiciously at the batch of
Cozy in a Cup
that I’d just transferred to a cooling rack. “What are these?”

“Cozy’s,” I answered, feeling a little weak at the knees.

The timer buzzed. Dreading what I was about to see, I pulled the experimental batch out of the oven and put them on the counter.

Kandy and I stared at the tray.

“They don’t smell right,” she finally said.

I started crying. I had been fairly certain I was done with the tears before we left London, but I obviously wasn’t.

Kandy wrapped her arms around me. Her magic tingled against the skin of my arms and filled my mouth with the taste of berry-infused dark chocolate with a fine bitter finish. She hugged me fiercely and didn’t speak.

I got the tears under control much quicker this time.

“God, I feel so weak,” I blubbered when I was capable of forming words.

“Yeah,” Kandy muttered, her voice heavy with unreleased emotion. “I’m upset about the cupcakes too.”

Then the green-haired werewolf released me. She shoved the mixing bowl of dark-chocolate buttercream icing for the
Puck in a Cup
into my hands, along with a spatula.

“Who needs a spoon?” I muttered as I crammed a mouthful of frosting in.

“Exactly,” Kandy said as she reached across the counter to retrieve a second spatula.

“London was a royal fuck-up,” I said. Kandy didn’t give a shit about my language, and I used the word with utter vehemence.

“Well, if you’re going to go royal, there probably isn’t a better place.”

I laughed. My tears had dried on my face and my skin felt like it was going to crack, but I threw my head back and laughed.

Kandy rescued the bowl of icing, but not before I got another scoop and — in between weirdly inappropriate guffaws — stuffed it into my mouth.

“I can feel the chocolate coursing through my system,” I said.

“That’s the sugar. The chocolate hit comes later,” Kandy said, sounding rather sage.

This statement renewed my laughter.

“I like your T-shirt,” Kandy said. She was wearing one with a kumquat and an apple. It was obscene, as usual. I often wondered how she wore those T-shirts in public. I guess she just didn’t care at all who she offended … or scarred for life.

I sobered and locked my gaze to the green-haired werewolf’s. I offered her a sad smile, and she returned it along with a bump of her shoulder.

“I almost got you killed,” I said.

“Nope.”

And that was it. She just outright absolved me of any responsibility for London.

“It’s going to happen again.”

“Yep.”

I took a deep breath, more for the oxygen to clear my head rather than a true sigh. “I need to go downstairs.”

Kandy stiffened.

“I’m not leaving,” I murmured, and the werewolf relaxed. She thought I meant the portal in the bakery basement, when what I really needed was a place to cast. A place accustomed to my magic. I was a terrible witch — spell-wise — I needed all the help I could get.

Kandy’s eyes gleamed the green of her shapeshifter magic, and she bared her teeth in her predator smile. “A spell?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you’ll bake again? Because this shit is unacceptable.”

This time when I laughed, Kandy joined me.

We were still laughing as we wandered upstairs to wake Scarlett and retrieve Blackwell’s demon book.

∞

“Explain it again,” Gran said. Her tone — though carefully measured — sounded full of doubt.

I sighed.

Gran, Scarlett, Kandy, and I were seated around the witches’ circle I’d inscribed in the hard-packed dirt floor of the bakery basement with a broom handle. The portal on the east wall at my back thrummed sleepily, but I didn’t need it today. Boxes that predated the bakery were piled neatly on wooden palettes to one side. The ceiling was low enough to touch, and the walls were concrete-patched brick. Gran hadn’t allowed me to renovate the basement when I’d taken over the lease and opened the bakery. I hadn’t understood why until I’d discovered the portal’s existence — or rather, Sienna discovered the portal and then tried to torture me into opening it.

“I know it might not work,” I said. “But it’s the only clue we have right now. And the sorcerer said —”

“Blackwell,” Scarlett spat.

“I know no one likes him, but you can’t deny he is powerful, and —”