Chapter 5 #2
“It’s doctor, not professor, and I’m wholly uninjured, I assure you. I merely have a strong preference for literature and an even stronger aversion to humans, and I refuse to apologize for either.”
“I wasn’t looking for an apology, I just thought—”
“A book can transport us to other times, other realms, other levels of consciousness. A well-told story, fictional or factual, is a balm on a weary soul, a key to unlocking the gates of wisdom, a journey by which the armchair adventurer can’t help but be wholly transformed.
A book is its own magic, Miss Bonnivarde.
Surely as a witch of your lineage you understand this. ”
“As a witch of my lineage, I understand jick-jock-jackety shit.” She hops up onto the table beside the crate, legs dangling, the bottoms of her bare feet black with dust. “I’ve only known about this fucked-up fairytale for a few hours.
My sisters don’t want to believe it, despite some pretty convincing evidence including but not limited to a magic house and a shapeshifting middle-aged woman with a fondness for scarves.
I haven’t even told them about the ghosts yet.
Now you show up with your books and your tweed and your superiority complex, like…
the Giles to my Buffy, the Men of Letters to my Sam and Dean, and I’m supposed to just—”
“I’m sorry. The what to your whom?” Satan’s balls, is she always this difficult to follow? “And I do not have a superiority complex. I’m… intellectually discerning.”
“The point is, professor,” she says with a little huff, and damn it if I’m not starting to enjoy how she calls me ‘professor,’ so much so that I don’t correct her this time, despite that I’m technically not a professor but an archivist with two doctorate degrees who was railroaded into this sub-par teaching position as punishment for my—yes, superior—knowledge, and I really should insist on a more formal boundary between us, “twenty-four hours ago, my biggest worry was finding another crappy job and a crappier lease and a less crappy weed hookup, and maybe figuring how to get back at my cheating ex without getting arrested. Now, I’m supposed to study magic and save the world from a demon invasion—with the help of a demon, which is definitely sus—and my sisters are breathing down my—”
“Demon invasion? What ever are you talking about?”
“That’s what Helena said. The demons are cooking something up.”
“If that were true, I would know about it. I assure you.”
“Sounds exactly like something a demon revolutionary would say.”
“A demon rev—listen, we are veering very far afield, and I think it best we—”
“It just doesn’t make sense, professor. I’m not exactly a numbers girlie, but the math ain’t mathin’. That’s what I’m saying.”
“If you’d let me get a word in, I might—”
“You’re not friendly. Not patient. Not a hugger.”
“I hardly see the relevance—”
“You’re not a people person at all, actually.”
“I’m not a person at all. I’m a demon. And as—”
“You don’t like me, obviously, and you don’t want anyone touching your things or breathing near your precious books, and it’s clear you’d rather be anywhere else but here, probably sequestered in a decaying library somewhere buried under a pile old manuscripts surrounded by candles and—”
“I beg your pardon!” I gasp, my heart startling at the image. “I would never! The fire danger inherent in that combination is beyond—”
“Listen. I get that I need help with the whole demonic abracadabra thing. I’m just trying to figure out why they sent you.
Isn’t there another demon available? One that’s a little more…
” She wrinkles her nose and winces, as if whatever’s coming next tastes as sour in her mouth as it surely will to my ears. “…cool?”
“Cool?” I scoff. “Cool?” I want to inform her that I am wholly unconcerned with being cool, that if my time were my own I most certainly would be in a decaying library somewhere, without candles, and if there was any other demon both qualified and available, that demon would be the poor bastard currently subjected to her inane, insulting ramblings while I would’ve been left to my work, and what in the realms of all that is evil have I done to deserve such punishment?
But, despite the raging mental diatribe, the only words that find their way out of my mouth are, “I never said I didn’t like you.”
A soft sigh. A graceful lift of the shoulder. A quick dashing of a single tear I’m certain she didn’t mean for me to see.
Damn it. Again.
“Perhaps we should begin anew,” I say. “I’m Dr. Merrick Sutherland, your liaison and professor, if that term helps you feel more comfortable.
And you, Miss Elizabeth Bonnivarde, are third and last in the line of Bonnivarde witches, a line that stretches back centuries, beginning with Calista Bonnivarde, first anointed Guardian of the Grave.
As your birthmother bound your powers and buried your legacy, you require educational assistance in order to comprehend, reconnect with, and channel your magic to the task at hand.
Our arrangement is no more or less complicated than that. ”
The witch looks up at me, her eyes newly alert. “She bound our powers? Seriously, that’s a thing?”
“Have you ever utilized magic or experienced it in any intentional way before this evening?”
She shakes her head.