Eva #2
“No seriously, Evie, the guy is a ten. Shit, I might need to summon my own demon.” Riley peers out the back window toward the shed, looking for any glimpse of my unsuspecting houseguest.
“I don’t think there are other demons like him.” I join her at the window to make sure Sorren is safely out of sight.
“You two seem,” she searches for the right word, “close.”
“How could you have possibly gotten that from shaking his hand?”
“I can just tell. He’s into you, and girl, if you don’t take this opportunity, I might kill you myself so you can get in his pants.”
“Riley!” I shriek. “You have to stop. The poor guy just wants to get home.”
Outside, Sorren opens the shed door, and his eyes immediately lock with mine through the kitchen window. He laughs and shakes his head on his way back to the house.
“Seriously, Riley. Be good.”
“How was your meeting?” Riley asks sweetly when Sorren steps back in, bringing Catrick Swayze with him.
“It was fine. My brother had a quick question, but it’s all good,” Sorren says nonchalantly.
“That was a great idea with the bell,” I tell him.
“Thanks!” he says, obviously very proud of himself.
Riley’s eyes dance back and forth between Sorren and me, watching the exchange.
After a moment of awkward silence between the three of us, Riley finally says, “Should we show Sorren the entries I found about dark magick?”
“Good idea.” I sit down at the table, Riley plops down next to me and Sorren on the opposite side facing us. My foot accidentally touches his under the table, and I jerk it back, banging my knee on the hardwood.
Riley reads through the passages on the dark magick debate. She pauses when she gets to the part with the demon horn and blood-soaked hands.
“Do you know who she took the horn from?” I ask, afraid of the answer.
“I think I do. It sounds like it might be Vincent. He’s a decent demon who keeps to himself mostly. There are definitely worse ones down there,” Sorren answers reluctantly.
“We obviously don’t do this kind of magick in our coven. We are trying to figure out how this happened,” Riley explains.
“This can’t all be a coincidence.” I shake my head, trying to think. “It’s got to be connected somehow, the leylines, the dark magick, the coven split—”
“Sorren.” Riley adds his name to the list of complications.
The chairs complain when we all lean back from the table, deep in thought.
We’re missing something. There has to be something tying it all together.
“I bet your aunt knows something,” Riley speaks up. “And your mom. But I think we could get more out of Paige, she likes to gossip.”
I weigh the possibility of bringing another person in on my mess. “I’m teaching the novice class with her this afternoon, we can ask her after,” I suggest.
“Good idea,” Sorren says.
Realizing that it is, in fact, already ‘this afternoon’, I look at the clock on the wall over his head. “Dammit! I’m late for class!” Riley and I grab our stuff in a hurry and run for the door.
“Bye! Good luck!” Sorren calls after us from the doorway.
“See you later,” I yell before slamming the truck door closed, immediately feeling terrible for leaving him behind yet again. The poor demon must be going stir crazy.
“‘See you later?” Riley impersonates my tone. “You have it so bad.”
We slip into the room as the last girls are taking their seats. Aunt Paige waives us both forward to begin.
Riley groans, “Can’t I just wait in the back until it’s over?”
I link my arm with hers in a firm hold.
“You’re helping tonight.”
“I hated this class when I was little. I still hate it.”
“Shush, you might learn something,” I tell her under my breath.
“Young ladies, we have a special guest with us tonight. I’m sure you all know Ms. Nguy?n.”
Riley plasters a fake smile on her face and waves to the class.
“Tonight we will be discussing the Wiccan Rede, the Rule of Three, Consent, and Intentions.” Paige turns to the whiteboard behind her and writes the four topics separated into columns.
“Does anyone know what the Wiccan Rede is?” Paige asks.
The girls sit there silently, no one willing to raise their hands.
She recites the Rede from memory while passing out copies to the girls. As she comes to the end of the poem, she walks back to the whiteboard to write the final words in bold letters:
These eight words the Rede fulfill,
An it harm none, do what ye will.
Follow these rules, and you’ll never harm someone.
This guiding principle has been hammered into me for as long as I can remember.
A heaviness weighs on my chest that I’ve never felt before.
I always believed our coven to be full of joy and positive energy.
Now that I know someone in our coven attacked a demon, I’m struggling with what else I don’t know about our past.
“Simple words, with many different interpretations. What ‘harm’ means to one witch, might mean something completely different to another,” Paige explains.
My mind doesn’t want to comprehend why a witch would think that attacking a demon isn’t causing harm.