Chapter 8 #2
“That’s not the Latin. Is it some ancient form of it?
Oh whatever. You messed with them, so the energy is ruined.
I’ll have to use the herbarium in the workshop.
” I reached out a hand, and he dropped the vials into my palm.
His long fingers hovered over mine as he locked eyes with me.
His were inky, divided by an elegant angular nose.
An amber scent clouded around me as I studied the way his ear peeked out of chin-length hair.
His hair had the blue sheen of a sky before dawn, and he had excellent proportions.
Why was I thinking—I stepped back, breaking the contact, and my head cleared.
That was not good.
I exchanged silent looks with Ori that pretty much said, What are we going to do about him?
Ranth walked over to the bed and examined the pink T-shirt. I raised an eyebrow, and he tugged it over his head. His torso rippled as he pulled it down, the fabric clinging like a second skin and ending above his navel. Not the best look on most, but strangely cute on him.
I rubbed my moon pendant, hoping for some focus to come back.
“I need to go downstairs. Stay behind me until I know what we’re dealing with.
Okay?” I got a nod from Ori, but Ranth glared with steel behind his eyes.
He stayed quiet though. I opened the bedroom ward.
If a demon was inside the walls of the house, I’d instantly know about it. All seemed good, no demon energy.
We passed through the shimmer into the hall. I kept my hand on the wall, tuned into the house as we trailed downstairs. I had to keep Ori safe.
Things in the house seemed stable, but my anxiety was amped.
Even though I knew it should be safe, it hadn’t been from the Essifer.
I’d learned early that physical fear also had nothing to do with common sense.
If these demons could interact with real things, then none of us were safe—anyplace. I had to change that.
We made it to the kitchen. Sunlight streamed through the window, catching the hanging crystals and making rainbows on the Mexican tile floor. I peered through the glass in the back door, at the charred remains of the garden.
“Holy hellebore,” I said, swiping at my eyes, but it was no use, the tears wouldn’t stop.
The burnt line ran along the east side of the backyard, past the poison garden, and all the way to the drying house.
Fortunately, the herb beds on the west looked unscathed.
I’d have a new crop to dry in a month or two. Still, it was a disaster.
“What’s wrong, Sorrel?” Ranth’s voice lowered as if he truly cared. But he had no idea what that garden meant to me.
Ori’s hand covered my shoulder. “We’ll replant. It’ll be fun,” she whispered, pulling me into a hug. I breathed in the vanilla jasmine of the hair gloss she loved—and her positivity.
“Thanks, I know, but it’s a lot. Mom’s work is all gone…”
“The mosaic is still there. We’ll fix it.” She patted my back.
“You know you’re the best ever, right?” I said as she let go of me. She smiled, lighting up her aura with gold flecks.
Worry knotted me. Ant was nowhere to be seen, but she’d been freaked out and would probably go on a neighborhood tour before returning. Ant wasn’t quite a witch’s familiar in that she didn’t have any innate magic and didn’t enhance mine, but she was the kitten Mom had brought home to me.
Tears blurred the world as I surveyed the damage, hoping to spot Ant.
The center mosaic was a toasted scorch mark of browns and blacks.
With demon traces left behind, we’d have to dig it up and start again.
I’d grown used to pulling moon energy into the circle.
Now I’d have to do the intention oil in the basement with salt lines.
“You and Liesl will fix it.” Ori rubbed my shoulders.
“I know. She’s amazing, but it’s going to take days to replant and years to get it back.
” It had taken Liesl and I two weeks of hard labor to set the stones and plant between them.
I was tearing up. Liesl, my bestie growing up, was now a biodynamic farmer raising Kashmir goats up north.
She’d be up to the challenge, but this was crushing.
I grabbed one of Ant’s favorite mouse toys, then cracked the kitchen door open.
“Ant?” I called out while jingling the bell.
“Ant?” I called again, my heart squeezing with concern. The scrabble of claws on wood turned everything golden. Ant appeared on the top of the fence and parkoured down into the singed yard. She streaked across the ruined mosaic, then shot past my legs.
I closed the door, leaning against it with relief. Ant was safe, and the garden could be repaired. Now to deal with the wizard.
Ant hissed like another cat was in the kitchen. She’d frozen by her water bowl. Her back was arched, and her tail puffed out. She growled from her belly.
“Ant!” I crouched down, but she hissed again in Ranth’s direction. Then before I could get to her, she skirted the baseboard and flew out of the kitchen. Her paws thudded up the stairs at Mach 1.
“What the?” Ori said.
“I dunno. Spirit-wizard issues?” I glared at Ranth whose reply was a raised eyebrow smirk.
“She’s safe. That’s the important thing.
” Pushing back against a wizard scaring my cat and the crippling panic of knowing that demons, which could pop at any time, were able to burn pieces of my world to crispy bits, I crossed the kitchen to the fridge.
With sleep unlikely, food was the best choice to get me through whatever the next few hours looked like.
I eyed the coconut cashew gelato thinking how good it would be if it were Ori and I, a couple of spoons, and endless episodes of Charmed.
But this wizard was here, and I hadn’t even recovered fully from Brenda’s.
Suppressing the memory of her almost-death, I poured out glasses of pressed spinach, cucumber, kale, and apple juice and handed plant-based protein energy bars to Ori and Ranth.
Ranth stared at the bar which I’d pre-ripped for him. “What is this?”
If he was human, did he function as a human? Demons don’t need to eat to sustain themselves, and spirits don’t need human sustenance, although they’re often fascinated by it. “Food,” I replied, hoping for a no-go.
He put the bar under his nose like a gorilla would sniff an unfamiliar fruit.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed, then popped a morsel of the organic, raw almond butter and brown rice bar in my mouth to cover it.
Ranth sniffed the bar again and then followed my example. Chewing, his eyes narrowed, causing little forehead furrows.
“Hmmm, dates. Needs camel’s milk.”
He could eat human food. That meant he was in fact “human,” and I’d have to hold to my personal code of magic.
It also meant his story might be true. If he wasn’t a demon, I couldn’t dissipate him.
If he wasn’t a spirit, I couldn’t get rid of him.
This was a much bigger disaster than I could have ever imagined.