Chapter Four #2
Nia breezed back into the room, ever the hostess.
“I told the hubs that we have to take a girls’ trip.
He’s elbow-deep in some video game and, thanks to whatever noise canceling headphones he’s wearing, didn’t ask a lot of questions.
Though, if anything happens to him…” She looked seriously at both Silas and Azrames as she said, “I’ll burst through the veil and kill you both. ”
God, I loved my friends.
Nia grabbed a dustpan to sweep up the glass shards from the unwanted visit, but Azrames was already on top of it. I let the two of them finish their busy work and helped Kirby load whatever was left of Nia’s liquor cabinet.
“So…that’s angels, huh?” Kirby said.
“That’s angels,” Silas agreed. He took the box from Kirby and began carrying it to the Jeep. It seemed frivolous, but the world was ending, and I supported the need to be drunk through the apocalypse.
Caught between a horned demon and a glistening angel, wine-buzzed, shoulders weighed down by heaps of fantastical information, Nia looked at me and said, “Because you’re the antichrist? That tracks.”
Kirby laughed, nudging me. “Your mom has suspected for some time, right?”
I gaped, ignoring the smirks from the gallery as Azrames made poorly concealed faces of amusement. “Are you serious? That’s all you have to say? After everything that happened?”
“It seems like what just happened is the confirmation we needed,” Kirby said.
“What!” Nia flattened one hand defensively. She cast a final look toward the basement before heading to the door. “You’ve uprooted our entire worldview in under an hour. We were nearly killed in my home for harboring a heavenly fugitive. Are we supposed to draw the line of disbelief now?”
Azrames leaned toward the glowing laptop screen, propping his elbows on each respective knee and steepling his fingers in front of him. “Okay, humans. We’ve wasted enough time. Everyone who can’t magically transport needs to head to the car.”
I caught the way Silas’s hand was raised in concentration, and I had to believe he was casting yet another shield as we moved from the house to the vehicle. Everyone piled in and buckled their seatbelts. I sat in the back middle with my preternatural bouncers on either side.
“You’re sure the car is safe?” Nia asked.
“It’s not ideal,” Azrames admitted. “But it’s temporary. The two of you are lower down on the list of priorities…unless one of you is a practicing witch? We need all the help we can get.”
“Afraid not,” Nia said from the front passenger seat. “Kirbs, didn’t you date that crystal bitch? She was a witch, right?”
Kirby grimaced apologetically from the driver’s seat. “She was problematic as fuck. White girls have no business selling white sage at the farmers’ market and making dreamcatchers. Besides, she got her tarot from an app. I’m not sure she’d pass a demonic power test.”
“We’ll need a little more juice for what’s next,” Azrames said. “Especially since we’ve seen Heaven flex its power. How about you, Mar? Do you have anyone up your sleeve?”
The comment made me uncomfortable, but I couldn’t totally put my finger on why. Heaven had been flexing its power for thousands of years. Their interference was nothing new. And yet, they hadn’t truly flexed it toward me…the voices, the angels, the earthquake…they’d been calling for Silas.
As if on cue, he gave my arm a squeeze. “You okay?”
“I don’t know if I want to endanger anyone else,” I said, ignoring the angel to answer Az.
“They may be in danger whether they know it or not,” Azrames said.
Silas was reluctant to chime in, saying, “If you do know a witch, loath as I am to suggest their help…they could begin warding our next location before I’m there to add the finishing touches. We could meet them there.”
Azrames and Silas exchanged a challenging, narrow-eyed look.
I understood the battle: Doubting the wards meant doubting Hell’s power.
And though I trusted my demons implicitly, Silas knew angels better than they did. I wasn’t ready to bet my friends’ lives on enemy intel.
My lips parted in regret, but I paused amid my head shake.
I’d cycled through a Rolodex of ineffective practitioners until I’d met someone with no bells and whistles, only raw, salient advice.
A memory of green hair and a chaotic toddler itched behind my ear.
I wasn’t sure if she’d be okay with demons, but she certainly seemed like the real deal.
“If you think reinforcements can help protect Nia and Kirbs, then…maybe. I need to borrow a phone,” I said. “Kirbs, can I use yours?”
Kirby turned the key in the ignition, bringing the Jeep to life. They procured the shiny brick of light, information, and infinite entertainment from their pocket. They frowned. “Where’s yours?”
“Hell? álfheimr? Athens? I’m unsure at this point.”
Silas smirked. “Greece? Why doesn’t it surprise me that the Hellenic pantheon set up shop in the human realm. Is that how you met…Remind me what those gods are going by?”
I appreciated that we were all on board with the game plan. We were going to move forward.
I answered both Silas and clued in my friend in one fell swoop.
Angling toward Nia, I said, “Did I leave out that Hades and Persephone are going by Poppy and Dorian, running a gorgeous private museum on the Mediterranean coast, living in a cliffside mansion, and are probably connected to the mafia?”
Nia looked at me with the sort of exhausted long-suffering one could only get from their dearest friends. “All of your words are beautiful nonsense. I wish I had the capacity for shock.”
“Everyone, shut up,” Kirby said. “Someone put an address in my GPS. Mar can call her witch friends while we drive.”
Nia announced, “Twenty-six minutes in traffic. Should have been a twelve-minute drive, but—”
“That’s fine,” Silas said. “I’ve got my shield over the car. Let’s go.”
With the address secured, the Jeep rolled forward, and I pulled up the social media app to find the only witch I knew.
Xuan’s profile was the second to pop up, based on sheer proximity.
Their bio included an emoji of the evil eye ward, a link to their shop, an email for bookings, and a phone number.
If I remembered anything from our last encounter, all of Xuan’s phone calls were visual.
I clicked the number and held the camera out in front of me.
“Listen,” came Xuan’s voicemail on the third ring, “if this is about the ad, I just don’t know how to take it down. I’m just old. Please, stop calling. The motorcycle has been gone for months.”
I held the phone steady as we merged onto the highway. “I have to say, we are two for two on the most chaotic greetings I’ve ever received over the phone.”
A beat. “I’m sorry, who is this?”
“Oh, shit. This isn’t a voicemail. Your camera wasn’t on, so I—”
The blur of colors became a face. An impatient, green-haired Asian-American mother of two stared impatiently back at me.
I grimaced. “Sorry, yes, I should have introduced myself. We’ve spoken once before. I called a few months ago over a meditation problem. And now I’m in need of a witch.”
I glanced at Nia’s phone mounted near the windshield. Twenty-two minutes. We could do this.
“Oh, this is work! Sure, sure. Hang on.” The muffled static of palms covering mouthpieces did little to drown out her shouts as she hollered for someone to come get the baby.
A male voice said something unintelligible in the background before Xuan’s voice returned.
She set down a bright orange bag of snacks and looked at me.
“Okay, the kids are now with my fiancé. You have at least a few minutes of my undivided attention. What’s this about?
Ghost problem? Tarot reading? Deity confirmation service? ”
“Umm.” I fidgeted nervously. “I really need help with an…exorcism.”
Azrames cocked a disapproving brow at my side. Silas, on the other hand, seemed to be pressing his lips together to suppress a smile.
“Great!” came Xuan’s enthusiastic response.
“Hollywood has everyone calling priests over that shit, but really you need someone who can talk to entities. Treat it like a hostage negotiation with a psychiatrist instead of a police shakedown with some dude in a robe who’s just going to piss it off.
But before I get going, do you have cash? Exorcism’s not a cheap service.”
The Jeep lurched as Kirby changed lanes ungracefully.
I struggled to sit still as I maintained composure.
Adjusting the grip on the phone, I said, “Money’s no object.
But this is urgent. From your bio, I know you and I are in the same city, but we may need…
backup. Do you have anyone else you trust when it comes to working with demons? Anyone legitimate?”
“You’re sure you don’t want me to take a stab at it first?” she asked, sucking the last of the orange powder off her thumb.
“Trust me on this one. I’m going to need as many real witches as I can get. Preferably ones who don’t have negative feelings about demons.”
The highway continued to vibrate beneath us, colors blurring, time passing, as I waited to see if this green-haired wild card would save the day.
The drawn-out hum was neither a yes nor a no. “Real witches for an exorcism? Ones who are pro demon? Hmm…demonolaters aren’t common, but there’s one more in our city, as far as I know.”
“Who are they?” I asked, unsure why it mattered. I didn’t have any criteria as to what made a witch good or bad. All I knew was that I’d wasted a lot of money on New Age gibberish, when Xuan had fixed my meditation issues free of charge with no nonsense. Perhaps my bar was low, but I trusted her.
“Do you follow Priscilla Weber on socials? I think that’s her handle on every platform. Lemme double check…” Xuan’s screen blurred once more as she toggled away. After a few taps, she returned. “Thespiderqueenwitch, all one word. I think she lives downtown.”