Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Avoiding discussions with the wizard-elephant, I pulled out my cell as I led the way to the Muni stop.
Ranth seemed completely fine, despite the chaos we’d experienced in the last hour.
Was that a superpower? I’d love to be that unruffled, but my insides were still churning.
Besides there being three portals in one day, every muscle ached from demon fighting. I needed a salad.
Ori had texted me seven times. Her latest was:
Ori:
R U OK? Where are you? I have STUFF to tell you.
She answered on the second ring. “You okay? I was worried,” she said.
“Sorry! I’m fine-ish. We’re trying to catch a bus.”
“We?”
I glanced at Ranth. “Yeah. Ranth is still with me. We went to meet someone to help us with the bracelet problem, but he might have made it worse.” Ranth was examining bougainvillea flowers outside a house. “So, what did you find out?”
“That doesn’t sound good. I didn’t find any direct Ahknim references, but I cross-searched with the places the wizard mentioned and the time frame, and I think I might have something,” she gushed, and I grinned. I loved when Ori got passionate about research.
“Hang on. Can you meet us? We’re on the way back to my place. I’m sending photos, and we have stories.”
“Sure, I guess,” Ori replied.
Ranth was peering into a green trash can like it was a treasure chest. I walked over and pulled him away. But my hand on his arm flashed the memory of his lips against mine—passionate but gentle. So easy to want more. What was I even thinking?
The bus turned the corner.
“I spent the afternoon doing research rather than the work I should have been doing, but it’s not due till Monday so…” Ori’s voice knocked me back to the moment.
“I owe ya. Okay, bus is here. See you soon.” Tentatively, I hooked Ranth’s arm and directed him to line up in front of the door. Holding on to him now was oddly good—like we fit together. His scent rose, and I let go.
“On my way in ten,” Ori replied.
Stuffing the phone in my pocket, I stepped onto the bus, and my foot slid out of the front of the boot, exposing my sock.
The driver looked down. “Shoes not optional.” She pointed to the sign.
I adjusted the boot and flashed my pass with a smile, then paid for Ranth.
We took seats three rows from the back. Ranth squished in next to me on an empty row.
The air reeked of something I didn’t want to try to name.
I sniffed my own arm. I wasn’t exactly rose-fresh, and remnants of pink goo were still visible if you looked closely.
A shower and a purification ritual would be essential if I was going to be presentable for the gig tonight.
That the goo hadn’t dissipated from the plane was odd and disconcerting.
Technically, I was wearing it, but it should never have existed in the real world.
I scraped off a sample and tucked it away to study later.
Questions burned silently. Ranth and I hadn’t really talked since we’d left Harold’s building. We’d both seen each other in a new way, and I needed to figure out how to deal with that. “That thing you did, can you do it again?” I whispered.
“The kiss you mean?” Ranth grinned.
“No, the fighting thing.”
Ranth studied my lips, and my pulse tripped. I shifted, putting another inch between us. I was weakened by the battle, and a part of me was still not sure I could trust him, but my body apparently was ignoring that.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Good, because if those visitors come back, we’re going to need to be ready for them.” His proximity jumped on me. I moved over again to put more space between us, but there wasn’t any place to go.
“I am ready.” He rubbed his arm where the burns had been.
Holy hellebore—they were gone. I was good but not that good. I traced my fingers over where they’d been. “How?”
“Training. It is important for all Ahknim to learn healing. But the Essifers will be back,” he said, locking eyes with me. My breath caught. “Because they didn’t get what they wanted. Yet.”
Halfway down the block of my house, I stopped. The house glowed with a lime-green haze that heralded a problem which the house couldn’t translate into a standard warning. That cottony feeling when you anticipate something going terribly exploded inside of me.
“What’s wrong?” Ranth asked, but his voice seemed far away.
“It’s the house. It’s green.” I was processing the best plan.
“And that means?”
“Light caution. If it’s red, it would be locked down, but it means something is off. It’s only been green a couple of times. Once when the power was out, and once when we’d had a minor quake tremor.” I held up a hand to Ranth. “You stay back. I’ll go first and make sure things are safe.”
“That’s not a good idea. I’m coming with you, Sorrel.”
“My house, my rules.” I rummaged in my messenger for my emergency stash. I pulled out a tin and took the top focus from its muslin bed.
“You should know you can’t give me orders like a dog.” His jaw locked tight.
“Fine. Sorry. I’m trying to keep you safe, so we both don’t die.
I figured that was obvious. Hold this and stay out here until I call you.
” I thrust a hand-sized statue of Lord Byron at him.
Blood red ribbons flopped around as he examined the wax charm seals to which I’d bound the five corresponding herb powders of amaranth, cinnamon, cloves, chamomile, and rue.
It would keep him invisible from planar creatures for a few minutes. Safe and out of my way.
Not waiting for the questions, I shoved the tin, a holy water tampon, and two white linen-wrapped pouches of edelweiss and amaranth in my pocket as I dashed to the front door.
Slinking around the edges of the living room, I got halfway to the kitchen before ducking behind the dining-room door.
Two imp-like Essifer demons were sitting on the counter, eating something from an open cupboard.
Holy Crocus. They were inside the house. The wards had failed.
With shaking hands, I squeezed out the holy water tampon in droplets of a circle to shield me while I prepped.
Flipping open one of the pouches on my belt, I threw back a vial of poppy-infused chicory water in one gulp.
The stuff was painstaking to make, so I used it sparingly, but it would give me limited invisibility to the other plane.
In this tight space, I’d need the extra time.
Maca-ready and silver pins extended as backup weaponry, I was ready to burst out of the circle and into the kitchen when the back door opened.
My heart leaped to my throat.
Mrs. Finnegan, my stepdad’s friend and housekeeper, walked in carrying grocery bags. In the chaos, I’d forgotten she was coming over.
“Sorrel?” she called out.
The demons turned. I froze. Mrs. Finnegan couldn’t see me or the demons on the counter, but they were surveying her with great interest. Whatever she had in those bags attracted the attention of the larger one. He darted through the planar air and appeared at her feet, poking the bag.
“Sorrel? Are you home?” Mrs. Finnegan set the bags down to close the door. The Essifer poked again and pushed the bag over spilling out the contents.
Oranges rolled, a cauliflower bounced, radishes toppled, and a box of pea shoots split open.
“Oh, my goodness,” Mrs. Finnegan gushed, bending over to pick up the fallen produce. The Essifer followed one of the oranges across the floor.
Blood oranges.
The red acid was an energy amplifier. I didn’t know if it worked for demons, but I wasn’t going to wait to find out.
I popped open another belt pouch and took out a baggie with the chunks of jaggery—an unrefined sugar which I’d infused with a protection charm.
I had to make it to Mrs. Finnegan before the Essifer bit into the blood orange.
In the planar space I’d be safe, but saving my dear friend was more important.
The imp-like demon leaned over the orange, its smoky jaw clouding it with a pink haze.
The red blush from the blood orange was deepening and soon would liquify.
The Essifer didn’t have the usual jaw protrusions of normal demons its size, or any sigils, but it was still interacting with the orange’s surface like a regular imp.
I inched around the door. Mrs. Finnegan was going for the last orange. I darted across to her, and her eyes widened as her hand flew to her chest. “Sorrel, I didn’t see you…”
Before she could choke out another word, I stuffed the jaggery in her mouth. “Bite down and don’t spit it out. Stay very still. Life or death, understand?” She nodded, her pupils dilating as I removed my hand and picked up the cauliflower. I shoved a dried maca root into my mouth and went planar.
The smokiness of the demons turned solid as the planar air stilled, and I fought against the wooziness of transition. I chawed down on the maca, its malty sweetness infusing me with fire. My blood thrilled as the demons locked on to me.
Their motions sped up and then slowed into a stillness like you see in those Chinese Kung-Fu movies. A director must have plane-walked at some point because they were spot on.
My palms burned with my inner power, and a silvery glow wrapped around the cauliflower.
With one smooth swing, it hit the first Essifer and knocked it off the counter.
The cauliflower bounced twice and rolled at the second Essifer at the speed of a gasoline-powered bowling ball, knocking him over.
The demons hadn’t disappeared yet. Usually, my energy knocked them out of the plane right away, and they dissipated…
I backed up, eyeing the second grocery bag. On top was a box of rice cereal and a bag of my favorite purple masa tortilla chips. It would have to be the chips. I spit out the maca and squatted behind the groceries.
The cellophane of the chip bag wasn’t tearing. I pulled at the seam as the demons came closer. Mrs. Finnegan looked down at me and began to tug the hunk of jaggery sugar out of her mouth.