Chapter 17 Gracie
Suggested Listening: Crazy Kids by Ke$ha
T he upstairs has a left and right branch. Used to, it was just a landing with two bedrooms and a bathroom between them. Growing up, one of them was always my bedroom while the other has been Dad’s tattoo studio, my stepmother’s workroom, my workroom for a short amount of time, and a guest bedroom at times.
Because my gifts are in spellcrafting, it’s important I can ground myself to prevent accidents. Working upstairs when I was just learning was okay. But these days it’s not a good idea.
I pause at the top of the stairs and peer around.
“What?” Briella asks.
“Just seeing if anything’s moved.”
“Your room looks bigger.”
“It is bigger.”
Briella giggles and squeezes my arm to her side. “Do you remember the day Poppy and I moved in? We came up the stairs and just froze?”
It’s my turn to laugh. “And then we spent five minutes running downstairs then back up?”
We wasted a stupid amount of time trying to figure out how the two wings fit on top of the downstairs before deciding it didn’t fucking matter.
They each have a spacious bedroom, closet, and bathroom. We call mine the master, but they’re all the same size. A few more rooms have appeared over the years. Mostly space to use for storage or a special project. The library was probably the most extravagant surprise while the spa room was something the other two lobbied the house for.
We head down the right hallway to Poppy’s door and pause to glance at each other.
Briella takes action, shoving the door open and charging inside.
Poppy whirls from where she’s grinding witchweed and stares at us with wide eyes.
Her room is a lot like her. Almost everything in it appears somehow organic. Vines create a leafy canopy over her bed. The rafters look like tree branches with large, Edison bulbs hanging from them instead of a single light fixture. Sprinkled into all of it are fairy lights. She’s found some shag green rugs that make me think of grass. And spread between them are floral rugs here and there. Her other furniture is a total mixed bag. Most of it has been attacked with chalk paint and is now chipping where she hasn’t slapped stickers over it. And on almost every available surface is a pot with something growing in it or a glass of water with a clipping carefully poking out. The windows are open and unobscured to ensure the best distribution of light throughout the room. It’s all so uniquely her.
“What are you grinding?” I ask. I can smell the difference. Witchweed has a more floral aroma than cannabis.
“Bitchweed?”
No hairy goat then.
Briella claps her hands. “Oh, my favorite.”
Poppy’s lips twitch, as if she wants to fake a smile, but she gives up.
Briella crosses the room and takes over the task, nudging Poppy out of the way. That leaves her and I to awkwardly stand across the room from each other.
“Oh, come in, Gracie.” Briella smirks over her shoulder. “Don’t you know it’s rude to hover in doorways?”
The quote isn’t quite right, but it still makes me chuckle. Neither of them had been allowed to watch movies or popular TV. Their families had them in study all the time. I’ve enjoyed corrupting them and introducing them to all manner of mundane things.
One of us has to be brave.
I cross to the sitting area and plop down on the end of the sofa.
Briella gives Poppy a push, and she comes around to join me, sitting at the opposite end. She picks at a scab on her elbow and stares at the ground. Her pink and green hair is braided on either side of her head. She’s wearing leggings and a long tank top instead of overalls, so she’s done for the day. Was probably out running an errand when we got back.
“Here we are,” Briella says and hands Poppy the pipe. “Want to do the honors?”
We spend the next few moments listening to the soft music I totally missed while passing the pipe around.
Bitchweed is more of a mental high than hairy goat. It doesn’t relieve the full-body pain, but it does help to quiet my emotions and think with a little more clarity. So perhaps it’s the right thing for this moment?
I watch the smoke trail from between my lips as I begin to speak. “Poppy?”
“Yeah?” she croaks.
“Can we talk about Vyslan?”
The tension in the room ramps up. It’s palpable. Briella reverses direction and passes the pipe back to Poppy.
“He’s a demon , Gracie.”
“Yeah. So by that logic, we’re all the same.”
She sighs, as if she’s put out. “What happened with your stepmom is not the same thing. You don’t really understand demons. Not the way I do. They’re bad , Gracie.”
“Is his food bad?” Briella asks.
“He’s just trying to get us to drop our guard,” Poppy insists.
“Ezra is in love with him,” I say. “I’m falling in love with him.”
She gasps. “But—Puck?”
“Puck is no longer my boyfriend, and I really don’t understand why the two of you are so fascinated by him.” I frown at Poppy then Briella. “What is it about him that you think is so desirable that I’d let him walk all over me?”
They look at each other and shrug.
Briella’s lip pops from between her lips. “The fae are powerful. Puck’s patronage means something for us. Protection. You might not like it, but being his paramour would grant us all a measure of safety.”
“You want me to fuck him so we’re all safe? When he’ll just up and leave for six months or a year at a time?” How did this turn around on me?
“They think of time differently, Gracie. Six weeks or a year is nothing to them. And as far as fae go, Puck was kind. I’ve never seen one take the stick out of their ass before and just be normal with us before. I’m not saying you should settle. I’m just saying that there could be more benefits than you realize. Than we know to tell you because it’s just what we know.”
“Vyslan is an archdemon. Can’t he protect me?” I counter.
They both recoil a little.
“Archdemon?” Briella mutters.
Poppy’s face has gone sheet white.
Shit.
I wasn’t supposed to let that slip.
“Look, according to Vyslan only the weak demons come to earth because they can’t hack it in their world. Their names are simpler, so it’s easier for a human to get right. He also thinks Ezra might be strong enough to beat him in a brute-strength fight. Vyslan didn’t mean to come here. It was highly inconvenient for him, despite it working out somehow. Poppy, please? I don’t want to be forced into a corner where you tell me I have to choose between the guy I’m falling for and my best friend.”
She leans forward, brow furrowed in concern. “He’s dangerous .”
“And so am I.”
She shakes her head. “Not the way they are.”
“Help me understand, please? I know there was some messed up business with a demon in your past, but… Poppy, please?”
She sucks on the pipe several times, puffing huge plumes of smoke around her.
I have never pushed. I knew her family had withdrawn from the coven prior to her birth then returned. But that was all before my time.
“My parents were part of a demonic cult. They wore robes and offered up blood sacrifices kind of cult. It started because Mom lost her true mate in the war.”
“True mate?” I parrot back at her. I’ve heard the term, but never applied to witches.
“Pure blooded witches don’t have true mates. You’re too connected to…” She gestures around us. “Everything. There’s a bit of druid in our bloodline. And Mom had a true mate. Another druid. He cut ties with his clan and devoted himself to Mom. That’s what true mates do. Their whole world becomes their person. And he dedicated himself to the coven. So when she lost him she felt betrayed by the coven, in a way.”
“How did she convince the elders to let them go?” Briella asks. “That’s one point I’ve never understood.”
Poppy passes me the pipe at last. She’s leaned back into the cushions and stares up at the twinkling lights overhead. “I think the elders knew she would be back, and her dedication would be stronger than ever.”
“Sorry, back to the beginning,” Briella mutters.
Poppy nods once and continues. “The demon sold her on the lie that after it got powerful enough, he would be able to bring her true mate back to life. Along the way, she got pregnant with me. According to my dads, the demon tried to get Mom to sacrifice me as a baby. But she wouldn’t do that. Then when I was six, the demon really started pushing for a child sacrifice, saying that the only way to get her true mate back was for a sacrifice of equal value. That’s when Mom left the cult, but she didn’t really stop believing.”
“Shit,” I mutter.
“I think she wouldn’t do it because of the coven. I am almost willing to bet she was afraid of losing a female child and getting in trouble with the elders, and that’s why she wouldn’t sacrifice me. But she never really gave up on the idea. So when I was sixteen, she convinced my dads to help her summon a demon. She offered to bind me to the demon as a mate in exchange for bringing Dad back to life. I spent a month locked up with that thing before I killed it. And Mom has never looked at me the same since. I think, to her, I killed all hope of her getting her true mate back.”
I’m shocked.
Stunned.
Emotional stuff isn’t my forte, but my insides ache for her.
“Oh, Poppy,” I mutter and set the pipe down on the glass side table.
Briella and I both converge on Poppy. She collapses sideways into me, tears streaming down her face.
I always knew that Poppy’s relationship with her mother was strained and difficult. But I never really understood. I didn’t ask, because I thought it wasn’t my business.
“None of that was your fault.” I squeeze her tightly. “None of that is your fault, do you understand?”
“How can she have asked me to do that? How can a mother lock her own kid up like that?”
“Oh, Pops,” Briella mutters.
“Was I just a bad kid?” Poppy asks, her voice small and broken.
“No,” Briella and I say together.
Poppy clings to me and sobs against my shoulder. She’s always so chipper and happy, but I suppose that helps hide this hurt. I don’t have it in me to put on a brave face the way she does. I don’t know how she does it.
Eventually, Briella squeezes onto Poppy’s other side and we stay like that until Poppy has cried herself out. I’m damn grateful for my own numbness otherwise I might have cried right along with her. And that would be too damn much emotion for one day.
At long last, Poppy’s breathing evens out and there aren’t any more hiccups or sobs.
“Vyslan isn’t anything like that demon,” she mutters.
I hold my breath and remain perfectly still.
“He’s pretty good in the kitchen,” Briella says.
“Yeah.” Poppy’s voice is watery, like she might cry again.
Briella leans in and whispers, “He said he’s making bacon wrapped asparagus with baked brie as an appetizer.”
Poppy moans. “Fuck, that sounds good…”
Briella sighs and continues. “But, it likely isn’t safe to keep eating his food if you’re certain he’s dangerous.”
Poppy begins gnawing on her lower lip, brow furrowed. “What could he do to the asparagus?”
Briella’s peers at me over Poppy’s head, eyes wide.
What the fuck am I supposed to say?
“I mean, all sorts of things. He could poison it. He could hide something between the bacon. He could spit in it. But he could have done that to any meal he’s fed us in the last week. What’s to say he’d start tonight?”
“No, he wouldn’t ruin good food like that,” Poppy says with confidence. In the next moment her body seems to deflate and she turns her head to look at me. “But, what if he takes you away from us?”
My heart catches in my throat and my body is on fire for a fraction of a second. Then I throw my arms around her and squeeze.
“That will never happen,” I mutter into her hair.
“How do you know that?”
Fear isn’t rational. I won’t try to reason with the phantoms in her mind. I just squeeze her harder.
“Vys and I just had a bit of a talk.” I sit back. “I asked him to stay. He’s really just scared about his presence putting us in danger. And I think that’s because he doesn’t know our world. Ezra’s head-over-heels in love with him already. And I’m in love with Ezra. So it’s all kind of knotted together.”
Poppy snorts and wipes at her face. “Why am I not surprised?”
“He did agree that any moving between worlds would be after a conversation. I’m not saying there will never be a day where I tell you I’m going to Hell, just that… You’d hopefully have some warning. And it wouldn’t be permanent.”
“Could I go with you?” She wipes at her face. “Someone has to protect you.”
Briella clutches Poppy’s arm to her side and snuggles closer. “If she’s going, you know I have to go, too.”
“Well, of course! Why don’t we go let Vyslan know our terms and eat the appetizer?” I suggest.
“Okay,” Poppy says in that small, soft voice that tells me she’s still hurting.
She’s always going to yearn for her mother’s affection, and now I know why it’s a losing battle. To her mother, Poppy killed the man she loved the most. A man Poppy never got to meet.
I’m going to figure out a way to break the coven’s control over us. We’re going to be happy. We’re going to live our own lives out from under the elder’s control. And we’re going to do it our way. I just don’t know what that looks like. We still have to figure out a way to pay the loan off, and we’re running out of time. The mortgage is due tomorrow by noon, and we’re still five hundred short, though Poppy did text to say she thinks she can sell all the budder before the cut off. If it wasn’t for Ezra buying us groceries, we’d be eating salads from the garden and nothing else.
We tromp downstairs and my stomach rumbles as we smell something delicious. I clutch my stomach and groan.
These two are going to be the death of me. But I’ll die with a full, happy belly.
Vyslan, looking totally human, turns from where he’s minding the stew pot to gesture at a tray of still-steaming bacon wrapped asparagus and a small white dish of melty cheese. “Ladies! I hope you’re hungry.”
“Starving!” we say as a chorus.
There’s a brief fight over who gets the mushroom fork. Our cutlery doesn’t match, and everyone wants the mushroom fork. Poppy gets it without too much of a fight, and then we’re all moaning over the perfect textures of the appetizers.
“Goddess.” Briella groans. “Vys, if you ever get tired of Gracie…”
“Shut your face,” I snap.
She grins then giggles.
Poppy steals a bite and looks at Vyslan. She nibbles some, then watches him a moment. And he takes it all in stride, ever cheerful, always smiling.
“Vys?” she says and I think it’s the first time she’s addressed him directly.
He perks up and turns from where he’s hovering over the stew. “Yes?”
“Can demons bring the dead back to life?” she asks.
“No.” His face falls, and he shakes his head. “No, I’m afraid that is not within our power. We aren’t from this world. And we don’t have dominion over your final resting place, either. All of the heaven and hell mumbo-jumbo is just that. Bullshit. Not to say this world’s gods don’t exist, but the common stories are just… Stories the mundanes believe.”
She nods slowly and blows out a breath. “You’re saying it’s not possible. Not that you can’t do it. That no demon could do it.”
“Not without very specific circumstances. For example, let’s say one of you dropped dead right now. My abilities to sense emotions isn’t a living or a dead thing. I could still feel your spirit’s pain and hold on to it. Then with the proper application of healing techniques or spells, you could be revived and your soul returned to your earthly vessel. It’s not reanimating a corpse or bringing the dead back to life. It’s more like… Gluing broken pieces back together.”
“Is there any kind of a demon that could do that sort of thing if someone had been dead six or eight years?”
He slowly shakes his head while staring at the ceiling. “No. No, I cannot think of a single demon with that kind of power. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a being from your world that could do it, but if a demon has sold you on that promise, they’ve lied.”
“Not even twenty years later?”
“Certainly not that.”
“Oh. Okay then.” She blows out a breath and stares at the counter. “Oh, boy.”
I wrap my arm around her and squeeze. “I’m sorry.”
“Did some demon promise to bring someone back for you?” He braces his hands on the counter, face lined with worry. “I’m so sorry, Poppy. But, no demon with any real power comes to your world. Whoever made you that promise was a bottom feeder preying on your desperation.”
She laughs, but it’s a pained, watery sound. “That makes so much sense.”
“I’m very sorry,” he says again.
She waves her hand. “It wasn’t you. What do you have to be sorry for?”
“My kind… We’re competitive. It’s all about power or besting your betters. Demons come here in the false hope of amassing enough power to mean something back home. I’m afraid that means we’ve taken advantage of those in your world.”
“Have you ?” she asks.
“No. As an incubus, your world holds little interest for me once my curiosity has been sated.” He gestures at me. “At least, that was the case before now.”
Poppy draws herself up straighter and narrows her gaze. “If you hurt her, I don’t care if you are an archdemon. I’ll make you pay.”
He inclines his head. “And I would deserve it.”
My insides go soft and gooey. I glance around, eager to change the topic. That’s when I feel the missing presence of one person in particular. “Hey, where’s Ezra?”
It’s like we all freeze and look at the clock.
Vyslan and I hadn’t been here long when the girls got here. But I was upstairs for at least an hour. That’s more than enough time for Ezra to do an errand.
I reach over to my bag and pull out my phone. I hit his contact and we all listen as it goes straight to voicemail.
I’ve never heard Ezra’s voicemail before. He always answers.
I dial a second time.
And a third.
Still no answer.
“Maybe he’s just…” Poppy’s mouth moves, but no sound comes out.
“This isn’t like him,” Briella mutters.
Vyslan reaches over and turns the stove off, then carefully plucks the strings on the apron before lifting it off and balling it up on the counter. “What kind of errand was he running?”
“He…” I swallow. “He said his blood supplier… Something about picking up blood.”
I never paused to think about this before, but Puck was the one to recommend a blood dealer. Now I can’t believe I never mentioned that.
Vyslan draws in a deep breath. “Does Ezra have any enemies?”
“I mean…” I give him a pointed stare. “Besides the obvious?”
“I’m thinking about his sire, not his biological family or Puck,” Vyslan says, keeping it vague.
“Oh. Oh!” I blink at him. “But, his sire hasn’t done anything. Why would he make a move now?”
Briella makes a humming noise, and she squints at me. “I’m not so sure about that. Zephyr has heard some things.”
“Cerdan’s mentioned a few things, too.” Poppy looks at me and winces. “Sorry, I didn’t think it was my place to say anything.”
“What the fuck?” I throw my hands up. “We’re keeping secrets, now?”
“They weren’t secrets, just rumors.” Briella holds her hands out as if to stop me from hitting her, and I want to plant my fist in her mother’s face all over again. “You know some of my wine mom deliveries aren’t mundane. I’ve heard some things. There’s this nice lesbian couple of liches and they were asking me about the local vampires a few weeks back. Something about of thrall bodies turning up at the dump site and how everyone was afraid to touch them because of who their sire is.”
“Yeah, Cerdan’s mentioned seeing thralls in town, which isn’t really normal, Gracie.”
“Wait. Wait. Wait.” I hold out my hands. “What are you guys saying? Will you just spit it out already?”
Briella takes a deep breath and I focus my attention on her. “I think… And this is just assuming on my part, so I could be totally wrong, okay? I think Ezra’s sire has been sending thralls after him, and Ezra’s been killing them.”
I open and close my mouth.
There’s no way Ezra would keep something like that from me.
I glance at Vyslan, who is studiously staring at the counter, lips pinched.
“Vys?” I whisper.
“I’d wondered…” He glances up. “I’m sorry, Gracie. I hadn’t asked him. But I had wondered. Vampires and demons, we get on well together because we are similar. Vampires are territorial. Ezra’s sire would believe they have a right to him. That he is their property. The idea that a thrall could be taken from a vampire, without their consent, is going to rile them up. If he’s survived for a year, that’s good. But, so long as his sire is alive and they haven’t had a reckoning, there is still some danger.”
“Shit. Fuck. Okay. Damn. What the hell are we supposed to do? How do I find him? He needs help. How…?” My eyes betray me and tears begin to cling to my lashes. I can’t lose Ezra. Not so soon after admitting my feelings to him. We have something here. That vampire cannot take him from me. I won’t allow it. I draw myself up and look around the room. “I have to find Puck.”
Poppy flinches and her eyes go wide. “Puck? Why?”
“Puck is who gave me the blood dealer’s information for Ezra. He’ll know… Something.” If I’m right, I don’t owe Puck any loyalty on this one. But this is a secret I can’t bring myself to betray. “Vyslan, will you please accompany me to the road? I’m going to call Puck and we’re going to have a chat.”
Briella gets up scowling. “If you think you’re leaving us behind—”
“I’ll bring Puck back to the house,” I say over her. “If Zephyr and Cerdan are available, it might be good to call them in.”
Briella and Poppy look at each other. I suppose each of us has had a blind spot. Ezra was mine. That makes it easier for me to see theirs. But it isn’t my place to point things out until they’re ready. And I don’t think either of them are.
“I’m with you, sweet witch,” Vyslan says in a low, tender voice.
I nod and head toward the doors. They fly open ahead of me and I stride into the night.