Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Oriana’s bright energy blossomed as she stopped in the hall. “Sorrel? Where are you?” Ori looked at the door and ceiling as if there wasn’t anything to see. That was the plan. But she could hear me.
“You’ll have to drop the electronics, bae. The ward won’t open if you’re plugged in.”
Ori dropped her cell, watch, and laptop bag into a pile. Ignoring the continued shuffle of paper, I pressed both hands to the door frame. Chuckles behind me grated on my focus.
The shimmer turned from blue to green as I yanked the wards open, and Ori half fell through the door, shoving the duffel bag at me. I slammed the door behind her, and she staggered to the bed, her eyes wide, taking in Ranth. He rubbed his jaw as he stared back at her.
“Holy shit,” she said.
The air in the room expanded and contracted.
For ten seconds, it was like being inside a bouncy ball. I clawed at the wall to stop my fall. Ranth was thrown on the bed, and Ori was on the floor.
“Sorry, wasn’t thinking,” Ori replied sheepishly, leaning on the bed to pull herself off the floor while I righted the black frame of my favorite painting, Waterhouse’s The Magic Circle.
The swearing ward Mom had put on the house had trained me to keep to the positives.
When a non-allowed swear word was uttered inside the house, it would physically buffet the air.
I was strong enough now to dispel it, but the memory was more important than the constriction.
Mom had schooled me to swear in plant names, so only positive energy could come from negative thoughts.
Ranth was still reading my notes. “What part of stop didn’t you understand?” I asked, grabbing my pages out of his hand, then laying them on my silver-leafed night table.
“You don’t actually use those, do you?” He nodded at the pile of spellwork sheets.
“Why? Forget it. I don’t want to hear your twisted perspective, whatever it is.”
Ori unzipped the duffel. “Is this who the clothing’s for? I don’t think the T-shirt is going to fit.” She surveyed down Ranth’s bare chest to his towel-cloaked waist.
The bigger problem was she could apparently see Ranth. That was a whole new level of “what now?” If Ranth was surprised Ori could see him, he wasn’t showing it.
He stepped around me. “I’m Ranth,” he said, extending a hand. Ori reached out to shake it.
“Don’t!” I pushed down her arm before he touched her. They both looked at me like I was high on sage.
“He’s not what you think.” I nodded at Ranth.
“Guessing you’ll explain?” She waved her hand at the purple towel around Ranth’s waist. Ranth looked down at his belly button as if it had moved.
I turned to Ranth. “How can she see you? I couldn’t see you at Brenda’s.”
“Your bodily fluids released me from the gold. It didn’t happen before because Brenda wasn’t a wizard. The spell you attempted altered perception because of your unique gifts, so I am now able to project.” He pushed a strand of inky black hair behind an ear.
I gritted my teeth against the “attempted” but studied him, quietly running through the things I’d thrown at him.
Maybe it had been the combination of the herbs?
Sometimes I used rosemary for clarity, and it was sensitive to spirit manifestations.
But it wasn’t as if there was a rule book for wizards trapped in cursed bracelets.
Ori handed Ranth camouflage track pants, an oversized peony pink T-shirt with a vampire kitten on it, and some massive neon blue sandals. “Sorry, it was the best I could do on short notice.”
I stifled a snort as Ranth slipped an arm into a leg of the track pants as if it was a puzzle.
“What happened to the garden?” Ori asked, turning her back on Ranth. She mouthed, “Can we trust him?”
Ranth picked up the T-shirt like it was rotting lettuce.
My insides twisted. “What’s wrong with the garden? And I have no idea.”
He dropped the towel. The muscular bronze was everywhere. My hot-person meter rocketed to ten, and Ori and I stared at each other to give him some privacy. It would be a story we’d laugh over later, but right now it was a horror movie. I was torn between laughing and sobbing.
Ori settled a hand on my shoulder and rubbed it. “Hey, you should know, the mosaic is all singed like it was on fire or something. All the green is brown. Liesl is going to freak.”
Ranth’s honeyed voice cut through the despair that my garden was likely ruined. “The Essifer you saw at the old woman’s house was the brimstone kind, and that one might have been the fiery type.”
Ori pushed a cinnamon-colored braid back into her ponytail. “Fire and Brimstone? Interesting. Are they biblical demons, then? What’s the mythos?”
I interrupted, “Demons can’t leave traces on the earth. They’re predators. They only deal with human energy.” How did he know what kind of demons they were?
Ori glanced over at Ranth and tapped my shoulder to let me know it was safe to look. Ranth had figured out the track pants and was sticking his massive feet into the strappy Keens. He was still shirtless.
“I’m not sure what you’re asking. Essifer aren’t regular demons. They have more power and can interact with things as well as absorb human energy. It’s what makes them good hunters.”
The room swam as our eyes met. “That can’t happen. It breaks the demon laws. It would mean…”
“Essifers and Derellers are the most dangerous of the demon types when they are hunting.”
“And what are they hunting?”
I knew before he answered.
“Me.”
I hugged myself, dealing with the magnitude of demons being able to burn or destroy real world things, and they were tracking Ranth—and obviously now me.
“Why are they hunting you?” Ori pulled out a notebook. “How do you spell S-See-Fur?”
“E-S-S-I-F-E-R,” Ranth replied, his accent turning the I into another type of E. “The Essifers are after this bracelet. This one, not yours.” He pointed to the gold band circling his upper arm.
I slid the gold snake chain up my forearm.
Ori was scribbling notes. “So, Essifers are the demon type?”
“Yes,” he and I replied at the same time.
I glared at him and crossed my arms. “Why did they want to kill Brenda if they wanted you?” If they were after his bracelet, then they were after him, not me, so if I got rid of him, that would solve the portal problem for now.
“For me, the death of the wearer usually results in a renewed period of boring confinement—which I’m rather sick of. You seem entertaining and resourceful at eluding the Essifers and potentially the Derellers. I am pleased with the change of situation.” His grin dimpled his right cheek.
I was ready to start casting random spells to see what worked.
His gaze flicked from my boots to my lips. “And your ability interests me. I don’t believe I’ve met someone like you.”
I dug my fingernails into my upper arms to smother the snappy reply. Making this man mad was not my goal. “What are Derellers?” He was going back to where he’d come from as fast as I could get him there.
“They run the Essifer like hunting dogs. I’m not a demon expert, I only—” He stopped speaking.
“Yes? What about them? Keep talking. Besides, I have the demon part covered.”
“Maybe not. They’ll do anything to get to the gold, which they think they need to harvest. But it’s not really what they need.”
“Wait, gold not energy? What do they need?”
“I think it’s probably better if I don’t tell you.” He folded his arms.
I exchanged looks with Ori, then smirked at him.
“Perfect. You continue to keep all the secrets while we deal with all the problems—you included.” Assuming another demon portal could open at any moment, and we’d need something to confuse the demons—plus some kind of ward to protect ourselves until I figured out how to get rid of this foxglove wizard.
Walking into the bathroom, I leaned on the doorframe for a second as the reality hardened. If the demons truly were looking for something other than the energy they usually came for, I was dealing with something entirely new. But the wizard could be lying.
Some of the glass bottles in my built-in redwood apothecary cabinet were upside down, and none of them were where they should be.
I growled and whirled around. “What did you do?” Herbs were my first go-to in a crisis.
Someone else touching them defiled my sacred space almost as much as the demons.
“You said you reordered the herbs, but it’s—” I waved my hand through the air to describe the emptiness where the words should have been.
Ori leaped up to peer into the bathroom.
Ranth set my book aside and looked up at me as innocently as a puppy who’s standing in a puddle of pee. “You didn’t have the sacred order set. I moved the bottles into the glyph order and fixed the ones you hadn’t warded.” He raised a bushy black eyebrow at me as if I were asking the obvious.
“It’ll be okay Sorrel. We’ll fix it,” Ori said, rubbing my shoulder. I relaxed. Maybe, just maybe, I was overreacting. I closed my eyes for a sec and breathed. “Cool, cool. Maybe you could explain what you did exactly?” I asked, but I was gritting my teeth.
His round brown eyes narrowed. “Mekons, Argemone, and Somnifer, then Ballestera and Kolcha…”
“What are Kolcha and Ballestra?” I crossed my arms.
He disappeared into the bathroom and brought me back vials of crocus and hellebore.
He held up the crocus. “Kolcha.” He raised the etched vial of hellebore. “And Ballestra.” His tone ticked me off, like what he was telling me was obvious.