“Fiona, why is Reiko Sömmerhaulder sitting in your car outside my aunt’s house?” Nessa asked breathlessly after running up the stairs to the second-floor apartment.
“You’re back,” Fiona said setting her phone on the coffee table and jumping off the couch. “Thank God.”
Fiona grabbed Nessa’s arm, trying to pull her out the door she’d just come through.
Nessa wriggled out of her grip, setting the lap blanket on the sofa with Poppy.
Fiona’s eyes popped. “Why do you have Poppy?”
“Jeezus,” Nessa groaned, “does everyone in LA know this bird but me?”
“Poppy,” said the bird gazing around then locking its beady eyes on Fiona. “Fee,” it said bobbing up and down. “Fee, fee!”
“Hi, Poppy.” Fiona reached out to stroke the bird’s head.
“The bird knows your name?”
“Yeah, sure. She belongs to Brian Samejima.”
“Poppy daddy,” the bird called plaintively. “Poppy daddy.”
“You know Brian?”
“Yes. Come on .” Grabbing Nessa’s forearm, the other witch pulled her out the door and down the stairs to the driveway.
Pim followed slowly, as unhappy with this new development as Nessa.
“She called me from a Lift or Uber or something and I picked her up at the PCH Trader Joe’s. She asked me to drive her to the Infernal Court. I tried but there were some big black SUVs and sketchy people hanging around outside. Reiko refused to go in, so we came here. Then I couldn’t get her across the house wards.”
Pim was the one who’d noticed Reiko as they slid back the gate and motored into the driveway. He’d scampered onto the sidewalk, leaping onto the hood of the shiny import to inspect the stranger. His tail and whiskers had instantly popped up and out.
When he meowed an alert, she’d run to him.
A young woman stared back at Nessa through the windshield, looking surprised. She wouldn’t have been able to see Pim, him being invisible and all. After a moment she covered her face with her hands.
“Holy shit!” Nessa had squealed before dashing up the stairs to confront Fiona.
Fiona barreled on, talking a mile a minute. “Which is weird because she’s human. Not magical at all, right? Potions and stuff. No magic. She should have been able to walk right in like all your aunt’s clients.”
Nessa dug in her heels at the sliding gate. She’d automatically closed it after coming through. The entire property had a fence around it. A white picket fence for the yard and front walk. A sturdy sliding metal gate for the driveway and a six-foot wooden fence around the back. No gaps.
One of the house rules was all gates must be latched after exiting or entering. This was to keep the protective wards firmly in place around the property. Her aunt was a true spiritualist, communicating with ghosts as easily as the living. The wards were necessary to prevent spirits – and anything with malicious intent – from entering unless her aunt called them.
“Why didn’t you just ask Aunt Emerald to bring her across?”
Fiona pursed her lips. “Your aunt is in a bad mood because of your jailbird status.” She pointed at the pentagrams wringing Nessa’s wrists. Apparently, they were visible to magic users like a scarlet letter branded onto Nessa’s forehead. “You screwed up her appointments for the next few weeks. Not a happy woman today. Anyway, not relevant.”
What Fiona meant was it wasn’t relevant to her . Fiona lived in a Fiona-centric world.
“Come on.”
Sliding open the gate, she beeped the door to the Audi, motioning for Reiko to come out. Reiko Sömmerhaulder unfolded herself from the passenger seat to stand uncertainly on the sidewalk.
She’d cried Panda rings around her eyes through the mascara and eyeliner. Despite the charcoal smudges and road map of tear tracks through her foundation and blush, Reiko was a pretty young woman. She had a baby face Nessa thought looked more Argentinian or high-born Spanish than any other ethnicity. A little taller than Nessa, with lots of dark brown hair expensively highlighted in autumn shades. It had probably been pulled back into a neat ponytail earlier in the day. Now the ponytail hung lopsided with random strings of hair straggling on either side of Reiko’s face.
She was dressed simply in yoga pants and a denim shirt unbuttoned over a sleeveless white tank. Both knees of the yoga pants were ripped, and the denim shirt looked like it had a messy bleach stain down one side. She was wearing only one shoe. A Le Coq Sportif rooster on the heel.
Dang, Nessa knew she should have picked up the other shoe at the house in Pasadena.
“Reiko, Nessa. Nessa, Reiko,” Fiona said in a rush, shutting the car door. She beeped the locks then grabbed Reiko’s arm, pulling her and pushing Nessa to the gate.
Pim sat in the driveway on the other side of the gate, his eyes half closed. The cat looked like he was asleep on his feet.
“I’ve been looking for her all day,” Nessa couldn’t help pointing out.
“Really? You should have told me.”
Nessa rolled her eyes, “You weren’t here. You didn’t call and you didn’t answer your cell. And what makes you think I can get her across?”
Fiona tucked a lock of her straight blond bob behind one ear. “If I’m reading the wards correctly, it takes a blood member of the family to escort a newcomer.” She made a dramatic motion at Nessa. “Blood member.”
“Maybe she couldn’t get across because she’s a demon,” Nessa pointed out.
Reiko flinched visibly.
Fiona made a face, “Why would you even say such a thing?”
“I’m not sure what category shapeshifting Kitsune came under,” Nessa stated.
“Kitsune?” Reiko protested. “Why Kitsune? Because I’m part Japanese?”
Fiona shook a finger in Nessa’s face. “Yeah. You can’t run around accusing people of being Kitsune just because they’re Asian.”
She slapped Fiona’s finger away, saying to the other girl, “Hey, I’ve met your mom, Reiko.”
Reiko’s brows drew together. She looked honestly puzzled. “What does my mom have to do with anything? And where did you meet her?”
“At your house.”
Nessa didn’t think the girl could look any more distraught. She’d been wrong.
Reiko’s hands flew to her mouth. She looked, for lack of a better word, horrified.
“Later,” said Fiona, pushing Nessa. “Take her hand, get her across, we need to get inside and undercover.”
“Oh, so you do know people and not-people are looking for her?”
“Yes, I know.”
“There were Zombies at her house.”
“Zombies?” squeaked Reiko through her fingers.
“All the more reason to get her upstairs. Just do it, Nessa. Please .”
There was a note of desperation in the last word Nessa had never heard from Fiona before today.
Instinctively she looked at Pim to see if he agreed.
Yawning mightily, he wove between the bars of the gate onto the sidewalk. There, he circled the newcomer, giving her a thorough sniff.
“What are you waiting for?” Fiona demanded.
“Give us a second. Pim has to check her out.”
Fiona gave an exaggerated eye roll saying to Reiko, “She has an invisible cat.”
Reiko’s eyes got a little wider and she swayed back and forth as if she was going to fall.
Fiona reached an arm around the girl’s waist. “Hold on, Rei. Almost there.”
Pim bumped Nessa in the back of her leg, indicating she could go forward.
“Okay. Pim can smell evil at forty yards. If he says you’re okay, I guess you’re not a demon at least.”
She slid the gate partway open. Reaching out her hand, she waited for Reiko to take it. Hand in hand with Nessa in the lead, she tried to take her across the wards.
Reiko thumped against an invisible barrier as a “ twang ” sound like a tuning fork being struck vibrated through the metal railings.
“Ow,” Reiko said rubbing her forehead.
“Try again,” urged Fiona.
They did, very slowly and with Reiko’s hand up to protect her face.
Same result.
Same “ twang ” of vibrations.
“Fiona, the wards don’t like her.”
Fiona made a noise of exasperation, “Why? She doesn't have any magic.”
Before Nessa could correct her, she heard the front door of the main house slam. Aunt Emerald came striding down the front walk between the lush beds of white Margarites and yellow Conehead flowers. Instead of coming out the gate, she walked over the verdant green lawn.
The lawn was green despite California’s choking drought because once a week late at night Nessa created a focused rainstorm to drench the grass and flower beds.
Her aunt declared it saved her at least a hundred dollars on the water bill every month.
Now, thanks to the penalty imposed by the Infernal Court, Aunt Emerald was going to be out-of-pocket for local water fees for the next thirty days.
No wonder she was pissed.
“What the hell is going on out here?” her aunt demanded in a strident voice.
She was dressed for work in a flowery, flowing ankle-length skirt, white peasant blouse and fringed paisley shawl in a classic blue William Morris pattern. Her hair was carefully coiled and pinned on top of her head.
The outfit meant she was still working.
Once she closed shop, Emerald changed into one of her many sets of vintage Juicy Couture velour track suits. For Aunt Emerald, the nineties had never died.
Fiona looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Her eyes grew big and she froze in place.
Reiko just dropped to her knees on the sidewalk as if she didn’t care what happened to her anymore.
“We’re trying to get Reiko Sömmerhaulder,” Nessa indicated the girl on her knees, “into the house. To keep her safe.”
Nessa was glad she sounded calmer than she felt. At the first sight of Reiko in the car, her stomach had plummeted into the soles of her Chucks. Her insides were still threatening to leak out the canvas shoes even now.
“Why?” snapped Aunt Emerald, hands on hips, eyes narrowed to slits. “Why do you have to keep her safe?”
Nessa moved closer to explain in a whisper, “Reiko’s best friend was killed by a demon this afternoon. She’s supposed to get to the Infernal Court. Fiona tried but said the court is being watched up and down, inside, and out. She wanted to keep her here until I got home.”
“Killed?” said Aunt Emerald, fastening on that one word.
“Petrified. Also, when Desiree and I went to the dead guy’s house, a couple of goons attacked us and we had to run.”
Keeping her hands on her hips she gave Reiko the side eye. “They want to murder her?”
“Not her. I think they want to kidnap her to get hold of a potion she invented with two friends.”
“She’s human,” Fiona whined. “I don’t understand why she can’t cross.”
Aunt Emerald gave a cackle worthy of an electronic witch at Halloween Horror Night. Attraction. “Human?” she chortled. “This girl is about as human as Pim.”
‘But... but... I am,” stammered Reiko, her voice cracking. “I’m a person. Nothing magical.”
Aunt Emerald cackled again.
“You willing to vouch for her?” her aunt barked at Fiona.
“For sure. Yes. Absolutely,” Fiona said earnestly. “I only want to protect her.”
Closing the gap between them, Aunt Emerald said, “If I let her across. You owe me.”
Fiona took a step back, frowning.
Owing a favor in their world was serious business. Boy did Nessa know that. She had been tricked into asking a favor to help free her trio of fairies a few days ago. Now she owed the Fae Queen of Air. One day the Queen was going to collect. The thought kept waking Nessa up at night with the shakes.
To Fiona’s credit, she only hesitated a few seconds.
“I, Fiona Garde…” she started.
“Fee,” Reiko protested, putting a hand on her friend’s leg as if to physically hold her back from making a bargain.
“Rei, stop.” She leaned down to remove Reiko’s hand. “You’re my friend. I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”
Pim and Nessa’s eyes met. They both scrunched up their faces in surprise. Fiona seldom showed a softer side.
The young witch faced Aunt Emerald squarely. “I, Fiona Garde ask for my friend’s safe passage. In return, I will owe you, Emerald Scott, a boon.”
“I accept,” said her aunt formally.
Emerald reached for Reiko’s hand. Hesitantly Reiko took it, getting to her feet.
Muttering under her breath, Emerald tugged Reiko past the gate and onto the driveway.
“There,” she said with finality. “It’s done. This is a one-time-only entrance key. Go out and she cannot come back in. Understand?”
“Yes. Thank you,” said Fiona, sounding very different from her usual self. “Thank you very much, Ms. Scott.”
Reiko said the same thing as Fiona guided her gently to the stairs.
Her aunt raked Nessa with a harsh look. “I want her gone tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” agreed Nessa. “I’ll call Ravi tonight and see about safe passage to the court.”
“Ravi Singh? He’s a good boy. I like him.”
Nessa didn’t try to hide her surprise. As far as she knew, Ravi had never been to the Hermosa Beach house. “How do you even know him?”
“I know his mother. We serve on committees together.”
“Committees?” choked Nessa.
“Meow meow?” echoed Pim.
Neither of them could imagine Nessa’s aunt interacting politely with anyone except her clients. And only because they paid her.
A car slid up to the curb near the house. Nessa automatically cataloged it. Mitsubishi Lancer. Older model. Maybe 2003 or 2005.
“Here’s Mrs. Winters, my six o’clock.”
“Wait,” said Nessa rummaging in her backpack. “I got some Korean rice balls for you when I was in Glendale.”
She handed the little bag to her aunt.
Emerald gave her a quick smile and patted her arm. Turning away, she went to greet the middle-aged woman who got out of the driver’s seat holding a pink pastry box. The woman did not look like Nessa’s idea of a classic Lancer driver. Lancers were a favorite of street racers and super valuable.
Well, looks could be deceiving. Maybe she was the Grand Dame of LA street racing. Queen of the drift turn. Mistress of Pink Slip Sweepstakes.
Nessa had witnessed stranger things. Like when she was picking up a tiny old lady who turned out to be a fire demon nearly torching Nessa, Pim, and the Redondo Pier Parking Garage.
She scooped Pim up, yawning again. Holding him close, she dragged herself up the stairs.
To Nessa and Pim’s great surprise, they saw Reiko cuddling Poppy. The bird had pressed her head into Reiko’s neck and was cooing and murmuring an occasional, “Poppy daddy.”
The sight reminded Nessa she’d forgotten she told Jun Hee to meet at the office.
Pulling out her phone she saw a string of calls and texts from the man himself.
Crap.
She hurriedly dialed his number.
“Hey…” she started to say.
“Where are you?” his voice had an angry edge. “I’m at Barracuda Bail Bonds. You’re supposed to be here.”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“Where’s the bird?”
“Here,” she reassured him “At my place. Safe and sound.”
“I can be over in about half an hour.”
“No need. You know the guy who died? His partner is here. Poppy seems super happy to see her.”
“But…”
“ But if the bird needs a home, I will let you know.”
There was a jumble of incomprehensible words before her boss’s voice boomed over the phone, “Where are you? Have you got Reiko Sömmerhaulder? I want my money.”
Nessa pulled the speaker away from her ear. “I found her. She’s here.”
“Here where?” demanded Barracuda.
“At my aunt’s house. Fiona brought her. I don’t know more than that right now. Fiona said they tried to go to the Infernal Court but it’s being watched by scary people. I promise to call you back once I have her at the court. Okay, Mr. Barracuda?”
He gave a throaty growl. “Humph. Guess it will have to be. She gonna’ stay there the night?”
“I think that’s the plan. Oh, and remember Spring Break is over. I go back to school Monday.”
He harumphed into the phone, “See you get this Sömmerhaulder girl to the Infernal Court before then and get me my money.”
This was followed by loud grumbling before Jun Hee came back on the line.
“I can be there in half an hour like I said.”
She remembered his tattoos and the ghostly female Shaman she had only recently discovered was after him. The tattoos were to protect him from the vengeful spirit. During their adventure with the Soul Eater, she’d seen the woman when one of his tattoos was breached by an injury. The long-haired ghost in a flowing white dress came screaming after them in a parking garage in Redondo Beach. They’d only escaped by hopping into faerie.
Nessa didn't know Jun Hee’s story and wasn’t sure if she should ask. Dad had schooled her to be extremely private about her curse and she assumed – rightly or wrongly – other people were as well. In fact, his predicament was not so different from the Fallen Angel chasing her.
No way her aunt’s protective wards would let him cross with that thing after him.
“You’d never get inside,” she said honestly. “I could put the bird in a box and leave it out front.”
Poppy screeched at full volume, “No box!”
“No boxes!” Jun Hee yelled.
“I’d put air holes in it.”
“No box,” he said again.
Nessa laughed. “Kidding. Take it easy.”
“Look, call me in the morning. Bird or no bird, I can help run interference to get this girl to the Court.”
Jun Hee was a manly man with kick-ass martial arts skills backed up by fierce fighting spells. She thought about asking him, then stopped.
“Wait a minute. How much of a percentage are you going to demand?”
Jun Hee was all about the money.
“Jeez Nessa, I’m not a monster.”
“How much?” she said again.
“Three percent.”
“Forget it.”
She clicked off.
Dick.
Reiko and Poppy were in the kitchen. Nessa saw her turn on the faucet and place Poppy in the sink. The bird spread her wings making happy little squeaks.
When Nessa approached, the bird shot her a look full of suspicion.
“Box?” Poppy squawked.
Nessa held up her hands. “No box.”
Fiona pulled a bottle of Champagne out of the fridge.
Where did the bottle even come from? Nessa didn’t remember seeing it there this morning.
“Pim, are you hungry?” she asked the kitty. “Want some salmon?”
Pim chirped an affirmative.
Nessa squeezed into the kitchen, pulling the salmon and a lemon out of the fridge. She wriggled between Reiko and Fiona to set the cutting board on the small prep space by the sink.
“Why do you need to hide her?” Nessa pointed with her chin at Reiko as she sliced the lemon in quarters to squeeze over the salmon. “Emphasis on you, Fiona.”
With a pop Fiona had the Champagne open. She had two glasses ready and waiting on the little kitchen table and eagerly filled them.
“Oh my gawd, I need this. We went to school together.”
Nessa blinked at the other witch. “School? Where? Hogwarts?”
Fiona snorted a laugh. “No . A private girls’ school. Human girls. Sacred Heart. The one in the hills. You know.”
Nessa did not know. She wished she did. What would going to a private school instead of an online one be like? Friends. Activities. Someplace besides a cheap hotel with the curtains drawn to study in.
“Our moms are best friends, too.” Fiona blithely chattered on. “They met when Rei and I were in pre-K.” She handed a glass of bubbly to Reiko before taking a sip of her own.
“Champagne?” she asked Nessa. “I have another glass in my room.”
Nessa placed the dish of cold smoked salmon with lemon on the kitchen table. Pim hopped up onto his chair and began to delicately eat.
“No. No Champagne. I want to know why Reiko Sömmerhaulder is hiding in my apartment while Zombies, goons, and I suspect a demon are hunting her.”
“She needed help.”
“Did she call you before or after her partner was petrified?”
A crash made Nessa whip around.
Reiko’s glass lay shattered on the floor.
“No,” she whispered.
Nessa wasn’t feeling especially sympathetic toward the girl.
“Yes. He’s dead. On the floor of your house. Lying all by himself. Was it you who summoned the demon?” Nessa asked.
Reiko sank to her knees like she had on the sidewalk. Poppy hopped out of the sink. Shedding water droplets everywhere as she jumped down beside Reiko.
Reiko said nothing, either unable or unwilling to answer.
“I mean,” continued Nessa, “you do have a demonic Japanese altar in the living room, right?”
Reiko sagged. She thrust her hands out to keep from falling all the way over. She looked like she was going to be sick.
On the side of caution, Nessa ran into her bathroom, grabbed the plastic wastebasket, and ran back to set it beside the girl. Only then she saw Reiko had put her hands on top of the broken glass. Trickles of blood leaked out from her palms.
“Jeezus, Joseph, and Mary,” Nessa muttered grabbing the roll of paper towels under one of the cabinets and tearing off a handful.
Fiona was still standing in the same place and position, glass halfway to her mouth. “Demon altar?” she said.
“Frack, frack, frack,” Nessa chanted. “Give me your hand. Poppy! Stay out of the glass!” She pushed the bird aside as it tried to climb under Reiko’s bent form and wriggle onto her lap.
Holding her hand, Nessa pulled out the pieces of jagged glass embedded in the skin.
Reiko winced and gave a little sob. Whether physical pain or mental anguish, Nessa wasn’t sure. Probably both.
“Ointment, band-aids,” Nessa ordered.
Fiona, still holding her glass, went into her bathroom – the apartment had two – returning with a box of sticky bandages and antibiotic cream. She set them down by Nessa.
“And broom? You know? To sweep up the glass?”
Apparently, Fiona had reached the end of her helpfulness because she plopped down in the kitchen chair and refilled her glass, drinking half of it in one gulp.
Reiko remained silent as Nessa tended to her other hand. It took all of Nessa’s strength to get the girl off the floor and into one of the kitchen chairs. She slumped there, boneless as a jellyfish.
Broom in hand, Nessa quickly swept up the glass before wiping up every trace of blood with more paper towels. Switching on the fan, she put the bloody paper towels in a special iron pot she kept under the sink along with the bags of salt. She dropped in the pieces of glass she’d removed from the girl’s skin.
She struck a match from the box in the utility drawer and burned the paper towels in the iron pot. Once they were ash, she emptied a handful of salt over them and the glass bits and covered them with water. Saltwater negated spells.
“There,” she said out loud. “That should eliminate any traces of you.”
Blood was a powerful accelerator for spells. Particularly spells against the owner of the blood. It wasn’t like just anyone could come into Nessa’s little apartment. Still, it paid to always be cautious with blood.
Nessa flopped into the third chair. The movement made her shoulder throb and her neck twinge in protest. Dang. She should have gotten the prescription-strength ibuprofen out of the bathroom when she grabbed the wastebasket.
Pim jumped onto her lap. He bumped her under the chin, rubbing his face against her throat before turning around. He placed his front paws on the tabletop, ears pricked forward.
“Do you want me to get your Speak and Spell?” she asked.
He shook his head.
Poppy flapped up in a flurry of feathers to land on the table. The bird twitched its head from Reiko to Fiona before settling on giving Pim the stink eye.
Fiona poured more bubbly. Reiko stayed silent.
Looked like Nessa would have to get the conversation started.
“You haven’t answered my question. Did you summon the demon from the altar?”
“ What altar ?” Fiona said sounding exasperated. “Reiko does not have a demon altar.”
Nessa pulled out her phone and scrolled to the photos she’d taken.
Fiona swallowed her Champagne too quickly, choked, and as she coughed pointed at the photos, eyes watering.
Leaning over, Nessa showed the pictures to Reiko. “Your house. Your altar.”
“No, no. My house, yes. Brian’s altar.”
“At your house,” Nessa said with emphasis.
“He couldn’t keep it where he lived. His roommates are…” she trailed off.
“High all the time?” put in Nessa.
Reiko dropped her face into her hand, nodding weakly.
Pim and Nessa exchanged understanding looks. Having visited Brian’s place, keeping the altar at Reiko’s made sense. Less weed, more privacy.
“Your mom seemed surprised by the altar. Hasn’t she seen it at your house before?”
She lifted her face. “My mom was at the house? My house?”
“Sure was. Checked out the demon altar. Tried to break the wards. Threw a handful of kick-ass hexes at them. No luck. Said you couldn’t have made the wards because you weren’t strong enough.”
Reiko started to speak but Nessa held up her hand to stop her. “Not ‘you didn’t have magic.’ No. You didn’t have enough magic to set up the wards.”
Reiko swallowed, opened her mouth, swallowed again, and said, “My mother is not magic. She couldn’t have thrown hexes. You must have made a mistake.”
Nessa snorted. “No. No mistake. Your mother is a shapeshifting fox with a magnificent white furry tail, possibly more than one, and an excellent glamour. It almost worked on me and that’s saying something. I can see through any glamour .”
“It’s not true,” whispered Reiko. “My mom hates magic. When I spent a semester in Japan, I had to hide my research investigating Yokai legends.”
“Yokai?” asked Fiona.
“Japanese supernatural creatures,” Nessa explained.
Fiona waggled her glass in her friend’s direction. “Rei is an alchemist from an ancient line of alchemists. Basically, she’s a glorified chemist.”
This got a wan smile from Reiko. “Gee, thanks, Fiona.”
Fiona bumped her with one elbow. “You know I mean it in the nicest way.”
Pim put a paw on Nessa’s chest.
“Do you want your Speak and Spell now?”
He nodded.
Lifting him off her lap, Nessa went to the door where she’d dropped her backpack. Speak and Spell in hand, she placed it on the table. Pim jumped back on her lap.
His paws flew over the keyboard. Reiko stared as the keys seemed to depress themselves.
“Invisible cat,” Fiona reminded her.
“Oh, right, right.” Reiko kept staring.
Poppy walked across the table to peer at the brightly colored machine.
“What’s this?” the bird squawked. “What’s this?” She tapped the top of the screen with her beak.
“Stop touching,” the bland female voice said.
“It’s how my cat can communicate with me,” Nessa answered.
Pim’s paws flew over the keyboard. “Is not having magic merely a tradition in alchemical clans or a prerequisite?”
“Um…” Reiko said unable to look away from the machine. “Um…”
“Focus,” sighed Nessa.
“Right. Focus. Both. You can’t participate in the alchemical work of creating and mixing potions if you have magic. A witch or warlock from outside the family provides the final spark to the formula. Or vats of formula in corporate alchemy like what our clan does. We still keep magical relatives in the family business, like my Uncle Robert and his daughter Kate. They have a tiny bit of residual magic. They head up different Admin departments. Magic is fine in Admin. Dad and my stepsister Elizabeth are magic free. She’s Chief Chemist at the plant. Dad is CEO now.”
“And you…” Pim typed letting the sentence trail.
“Dad wouldn’t have married my mom if she’d had any trace of magic.”
“And there’s the story right there,” Nessa said with finality as the scenario unfolded in her head.
“What do you mean?” asked Reiko.
“Your mom wanted to marry your dad. Hopefully because she was madly in love with him and not for the money.”
Reiko sat up straight, looking offended. “She was in love with him. How could you insinuate otherwise?”
“Where did they meet?” Pim typed.
“In Tokyo,” Reiko said, still sounding huffy. “My mom owned a club in Aoyama. Dad used to go there. We do some research and development in Japan.”
“Suppression spells,” Pim typed.
“What?” said Reiko.
“Suppression spells. To hide magic,” Nessa explained.
As an Elemental Witch, Nessa didn’t have a coven. Blood witches shunned Elementals knowing them to be more Fae than human. A fact Nessa had only recently learned. Not having a coven meant she was often clueless about many common witch practices and hierarchies. Except for protection spells. Her whole life had been a succession of spells and amulets to hide her magical aura from Frank and his Sniffers.
“Look, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings on what is already a rotten day for you.”
“I feel a ‘but’ coming on,” said Fiona, taking a quick swallow of her drink.
“Your mother is made of magic. She’s a Kitsune. You are magic as well. Being a Kitsune is in your DNA. Your mom has suppressed your magic. Very effectively with amulets and probably tattoos or sigils inked onto your body.”
Pim tapped the keyboard, “Your mother married your father despite the rules against magic.”
“What is this? A freaking soap opera?” said Fiona. “Besides, how does Reiko having magic affect what’s happening now?”
“It might not,” agreed Nessa. “Unless Reiko summoned the demon.”
“Not me. Brian. He…he’s the Warlock. He summoned the demon. Bargained with him for the incantation to juice up Bee Buzzed.”
“You knew it was magic. I mean it was already magic when you bottled it?”
She met Nessa’s eyes squarely. “My portion of the recipe wasn’t magic. Neither was Reese’s. Brian gave it the zing it needed to transform from ordinary into amazing. All our Sömmerhaulder and Villanova products are juiced with magic. That doesn’t make them dangerous.”
Fiona cleared her throat. “Let me get this straight. Brian summoned a demon, bound him…”
“Set up an altar to him,” interjected Nessa.
“Yeah. A demon. Then extracted a magical formula from said demon which you used in the energy drink you guys have been working on for the past year.”
“Yea.. yeah…” Reiko stammered.
“Far be it from me to criticize witches who dabble in Black Magic…” Fiona started to say.
“Amen,” Nessa added with a sarcastic twang. The whole reason they were roommates was Fiona’s tendency to play on the dark side.
Fiona gave her a look. “However, your clans have staff with decades of experience in the Dark Arts working their demonic connections. You, Reese, and Brian do not.”
Pim growled low and long. “How could this not be a recipe for disaster?” He slapped both paws on the table as he finished typing. Jumping off her lap, he paced around the kitchen in agitation.
Poppy followed, walking after him in her odd rocking gate.
“What was Brian giving the demon?” Fiona asked. “They don’t do anything for free. He’d want parts of Brian’s true name, enough to eventually put it all together and gain control of him. Or bites of his soul. Or other people’s true names as a sacrifice. Demons do nothing for free.”
“I don’t know what he gave the demon.”
“Why the hell did you or he summon a demon in the first place?” Nessa asked. “You said Brain was a warlock. Couldn’t he come up with a spell on his own?”
Reiko gave her a confused look. “Potion Masters use demons all the time for this kind of stuff. How did you think it worked?”
Honestly, Nessa had never thought about potion work at all. Potions were her aunt’s thing.
“You just said Potion Clans keep a witch on staff to weave the spell.”
“The witch or warlock is on staff to control the demon then weave the spell into the recipe. It’s how it’s always been done in our clan. The Villanova’s call on demons for their recipes as well.”
“Did you know this?” Nessa asked Pim.
He jumped back on her lap, typing. “Heard rumors. Wasn’t relative to us.”
She knew by ‘us’ he meant the Chevalier witches he’d served for generations. Chevaliers were Air Elementals. They brewed a few potions as most witches did. Go-to recipes for health, injuries, poisoning. None of the gifted in the family were Alchemists.
Nessa shook her head, not liking this one bit. “With a demon involved no wonder Bee Buzz speeds up Zombies. He probably gave Brian a slightly nasty edge to the recipe on purpose. You and your friends created the perfect potion for Necromancers to juice up their walking dead.”
“I thought it was under control,” Reiko protested. “Brian said…”
“Brian is dead,” Nessa pointed out. “Obviously the altar was not under control. Were you there when the demon broke out of the summoning circle?”
“No.”
“No as in no, you weren’t there?” Nessa asked. “I found your shoe in the foyer.”
Reiko shook her head. “I mean, no there wasn’t any summoning. Brian and I were sterilizing the lab and working in the kitchen. The demon surprised us, appearing outside the circle.”
Fiona poured the rest of the bottle into her glass. “Oh shit,” she moaned.
Reiko’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Was it because Brian’s wards weren’t strong enough to protect us?”
Nessa blew out a hiss of breath in exasperation. “You have no idea how demons work, do you?”
“Rei,” Fiona said in a resigned voice, “what it means is someone else knew the demon’s true name and summoned him into their circle.”
“You can hijack a demon?” she asked.
Pim’s paws flew over the keyboard. “A demon can be summoned by anyone who knows its true name. Whether the person survives the summoning depends on their skill in building a protective circle to trap the demon. Then the bargaining begins.”
Fiona nodded. “Right. And whoever it was, sent the demon back to your house to kill Brian. A mission the demon would have gleefully accepted for very little payment because demons hate being controlled. All they want is to get their claws into the summoner and rip them apart.”
Reiko had gone pale again. “Who? Who would do such a thing?”
“Belencourt for one,” said Nessa. “He wanted to partner with you guys.”
“We turned him down.”
“Right. Sure. And he would be like, oh well, too bad, bye!” She pretended to wave goodbye, then snorted derisively. “Bee Buzzed supercharges Zombies and makes supernaturals go nuts. Who knows what else it will do with a little tweaking? Your formula is gold. Belencourt could want it for himself or to sell to the highest bidder for gazillions of dollars.”
A tremor shook the house. The shaking grew until it tipped over the empty bottle of Champagne. A high-pitched shriek of anger echoed from the other side of the house.
Nessa was on her feet and running.
Aunt Emerald.