Chapter 19
“I should have warned you.” Dahlia’s voice cracked through Talula’s skull. “I’m a drunk snuggler!”
Talula bolted upright, still in Dahlia’s bed.
Which, ordinarily, would necessitate a full five-minute freak-out as the night’s events came back to her.
But the shock was somewhat subdued by the hangover headache thumping steadily behind Talula’s eyes.
She needed a greasy breakfast. Or to throw up. Forever.
Dahlia was perched on the edge of the nightstand next to Talula. She looked fresh from a shower, wearing ripped jeans, Kiki’s necklace, and an orange sweatshirt with a toothy jack-o’-lantern print. She gave Talula an embarrassed grin. “Sorry I made you my personal teddy bear.”
“It’s okay,” Talula croaked. Actually, it had been amazing. But she still wasn’t sure how Dahlia wanted to play their impromptu sleepover.
“Here.” Dahlia held up a grease-spotted brown bag with the logo of a nearby diner. “It’s a breakfast sandwich. Definitely not as good as yours.” Dahlia and the sweatshirt jack-o’-lantern winked at Talula. “But it’ll do the trick.”
Talula knew that her mother kept a supply of literal hangover cure in the fridge for when her extended coven came into town, but that greasy paper bag gave Talula’s hungover self a reason to live.
As she sat up in bed, Dahlia handed her some napkins and a wax paper–wrapped sandwich. “Noosh-eh joon.”
“Khasteh nahbahshee,” Talula murmured groggily before taking a bite. Fluffy brioche. Bacon. Sausage flecked with apple and herbs. Spicy honey. Some kind of creamy aioli. A fried egg with a rich, jammy yolk. Talula was in a state of hangover rapture.
“I love this,” Talula croaked, on the verge of tears.
“Yours is better.” Dahlia plopped onto the foot of her bed. “Why doesn’t the Blue Moon sell breakfast sandwiches?”
Talula’s hangover took a back seat to the familiar surge of secret-keeping guilt. She kept this half-truth simple. “My mom wants us to focus on the occult part of the café.”
“I guess I can see that.” Dahlia handed Talula a cold bottle of water. “But is there someone else who can help you with your culinary aspirations? Like, a business partner? Your dad?”
Talula gulped down some water. “My dad’s not really in the picture.”
“Divorce?”
“They never married.” Talula set down the bottle. “Larry—my dad—he’s a reformed occultist.”
During his (very brief) pagan phase, Larry Alan Anderson had met Sara at a coven event in the city.
Their one-night stand had resulted in Talula.
When Sara discovered she was pregnant for the first time in her existence, she came clean to Larry about everything.
The Volta. Her pseudo-celestial origins.
Talula’s supposed Magical Destiny as her first-ever progeny. Everything.
And Larry was, quite frankly, wigged out. So, Sara raised Talula on her own.
“Did you get to see your dad when you were growing up?” Dahlia asked.
“Every once in a while, I’d spend a weekend at his place in the city. We’d do some father-daughter things, bowling and cookouts and stuff.”
But whenever Talula was with her father, it was clear Larry thought of her less as a daughter and more as a bizarre cultural exchange student.
He was too bewildered by Talula and her mother’s “specialness” (as he put it) to really connect with her.
Talula also supposed that Sara had a hard time seeing Larry as a useful co-parent.
She was an all-powerful immortal sorceress, after all, and Talula was her only child.
Sara wasn’t going to waste her first (and maybe only) chance at motherhood splitting holidays with a guy whose enthusiasm for the supernatural started and ended with cruise ship magicians.
Plus, Larry thought cilantro was spicy. What could Talula say about that?
“He’s nice, but we’re not close,” Talula managed, finishing off her sandwich.
“Your mom was your everything, huh?”
“Yeah. She really was. Is.” Thinking about her mom reminded Talula of her promise to Simon.
She wasn’t looking forward to telling Sara about Dahlia’s involvement in their Save Samhain plan (or Talula’s feelings for the young woman), but Simon was right.
Sara needed to know what was going on. Talula checked her phone.
No missed calls. No text messages. She frowned.
This wasn’t like her mom. Talula needed to go home and ask Simon to make an astral projection call.
A few minutes later, Talula stood at the Joneses’ entryway, changed out of the borrowed clothes and back into her date/not-a-date outfit.
It all seemed so strangely normal. Like she hadn’t just spent the night sleeping with Dahlia.
But the lingering scent of pomegranate on her skin was proof enough.
“You’re good to work on Phase One?” Dahlia asked as Talula buttoned up her sweater.
“When did we give our plan phases?”
“After rice-and-curry self-portraits but before we tried gargling the cheap wine to see if it would taste better.”
Talula laughed. “We were helping it breathe more.”
“This was fun, right?” Dahlia leaned against the doorframe, as cool as a ’50s heartthrob. “Minus the dire circumstances, of course.”
It’d been the most fun Talula had had in a long time. Instead, Talula said, “Dire circumstances are the spice of life.”
Dahlia gave her a lopsided smile. “When Samhain’s saved, we should do it again. But maybe with fewer slide decks.”
“Knowing you, more slide decks,” Talula teased.
Dahlia and her crewneck’s jack-o’-lantern gave Talula matching grins. “You know me too well.”
But I want to know so much more. Talula’s eyes traced the divots of Dahlia’s dimples, the shine in her deep, warm eyes. But she didn’t say that, either. “I’d better get back to Simon.”
“Wait.” Dahlia reached for Talula’s elbow, holding her in place.
Talula froze as Dahlia pressed her thumb to Talula’s mouth, at the corner of her lip.
Talula gave a small gasp, thighs suddenly clenching.
Gently, Dahlia drew her thumb over Talula’s softly parted mouth, cresting over her cupid’s bow, then sweeping upward and, suddenly, away.
“Eyelash,” Dahlia murmured, holding up a nearly invisible crescent of hair.
Talula couldn’t respond. She’d been rendered immobile by the most erotic eyelash-catching of her life. She was completely at Dahlia’s mercy, as if Dahlia had cast a lust spell with just the brush of her thumb.
Dahlia offered the lash to Talula. “Make a wish?”
With Kiki’s ring so near, Talula didn’t dare. Just in case. “We don’t need it.”
“You’re damn right,” Dahlia said. She flicked off the lash, then took a step back and saluted Talula. “You’re officially cleared for takeoff.”
Flustered, Talula croaked out a “see you later” and darted through the front door.
As she pedaled away, she tossed a look over her shoulder to see Dahlia watching her depart.
Talula’s skin hummed, a feeling somewhere between stage fright and sorcery.
Giddiness flooded her veins, effervescent and reckless.
When Talula was far from Dahlia’s sight, she reached for her air affinity.
Even though her bike wheels only lifted a few inches off the ground, Talula soared home under a jewel-bright October sky.
Head still buzzing with lingering hangover and Dahlia’s touch, Talula came home to Simon sitting expectantly in the entryway.
“You look like something dragged right out of a pig god’s anus.” Simon sniffed at her, then curled his lip. “You smell like it, too.”
“Good morning to you, too, Simon,” Talula replied pleasantly.
“You should have told me you were going to be out all night,” he barked. “I almost sent a golem after you!”
“Sorry for worrying you. I didn’t realize I was going to stay over until much later.” Talula walked past him to the kitchen. The breakfast sandwich had been great, but she needed Sara’s potion. “Also, how could I have told you? You don’t have a phone.”
“You could have sent a raven. Or a telepathic missive.”
“I can’t do any of those things.” Talula fumbled around in the fridge, pulled out the bottle of hangover cure, and chugged.
It tasted like rosemary, salt, and melted popsicles.
As soon as the last drop slid down her throat, a wave of magic flooded through Talula’s body, chasing away the lingering effects of too much wine.
“Of course you can’t do those basic things. You’re a sorceress in remedial magic training!” Simon howled.
No longer hungover, Talula set the empty bottle down on the counter and stared at Simon. That kind of comment was better suited to the Simon of two weeks ago. Not this pro-Dahlia, shepherd-loving, budding foodie Simon. “What’s going on?”
Simon sat down hard, his ears still flat against his small head. “Your mother called.”
“What? How?” Talula’s heart raced. Why had Sara called Simon and not her?
“Astral projection. She abandoned her phone in case the hunters were tracking her through it.” Simon paced, his nails clicking against the wood floor. “Your mother is getting close to pinpointing the trophy hunters’ headquarters.”
“Then why do you look so upset?” Talula asked gently.
Simon stopped his pacing. “Sara found the missing griffin.”
“But that’s good, isn’t it?”
“When Sara found him, his wings had been cut off.” Simon’s voice was quiet. “He was still alive.”
Talula’s stomach lurched. Bile filled her throat.
She ran to the bathroom and almost didn’t make it.
When she was done, Talula sat back on her heels, loosening her grip from the toilet seat.
Tears pricked at her eyes. A warm weight pressed into her side—Simon was leaning his fuzzy body against her consolingly.
“Is the griffin…” Talula couldn’t finish the question. She was too scared of the answer.