covencraft 04 - dry spells (2 page)

Jade had the sudden ludicrous thought that she should be on a game show.
In one corner, the demon that haunts a witch’s pantry! In the other corner, the presumed dead mother of current Coven Leader. Our mediator is the witch who recently split herself into two. Who will walk away with a million dollars, a demon curse and probably sudden death?Find out live on Thursday night!

Unable to stand the silence any longer, Jade spoke. “As much as I’m sure we’re all enjoying this tête-á-tête right now, did you have any questions you wanted to ask?” she said to Paris, gesturing awkwardly toward Sakkara.

She figured the least she could do was give Paris first dibs on grilling his mom. Lily’s mind brushed against hers again - still on her way. Jade tilted her head to the side and tried to crack her neck, hoping the release she usually got from it would help with the pain seeping into her grey matter as her headache started blossoming.

Paris’ eyes focused on his mother. “Several. I hardly know where to begin.” He stared at her the way people stared at a math problem on a chalk board: bewilderment, concentration and a touch of fear all at once.

Sakkara’s face softened. “I’m sorry. I wish…” She sighed. “Things are complicated and I don’t know where to begin.”

Paris paused and Jade didn’t know if it was because he didn’t know what to say or he was just working out how to say it. “How about starting from why you let me, let the Coven, believe you were dead?” Jade felt a flush of pride in his steely tone. She turned her own judging gaze on Sakkara, hoping her expression carried the full weight of her own disdain.

“That’s… quite a long story.” Seth snorted from the pantry and Sakkara’s fingers tightened into a fist. “Must that… thing be present while we speak?”

Paris didn’t say anything and that spoke volumes to Jade. Paris hated Seth. He didn’t like to talk about him, didn’t like to think about him, didn’t like to say his name out loud. The fact that he had an opportunity to move the conversation out of the kitchen, away from the demon, and he wasn’t taking it was a flashing neon sign to Jade.

“He seems to have knowledge of you. Perhaps that knowledge will be useful.”

Sakkara had the gall to look hurt at Paris’ words, her too-blue eyes turning slightly watery. “You can’t be serious. I told you about demons, Paris. They’re not to be trusted, nor to be engaged with in any way.”

The muscle in Paris’ jaw twitched and Jade felt a coil of his power flick out of his control for a moment, brushing up against hers. Sakkara’s eyes darted down to where Jade felt Paris’ power press against her own, against Jade’s forearm. Her eyes moved up to meet Jade’s gaze and then slid back over to her son.

“At this point, I don’t think this particular demon has lied to me. I can’t say the same for you,” Paris replied.

Jade thought she might choke on the next words she said, but she managed to get them out without damaging herself. “Seth has never lied to me either. That I can tell.”

“And I never shall, Possum,” Seth called out from the pantry. Jade looked over to see him blinking dramatically and making a
cross my heart
gesture over his chest. Jade rolled her eyes. Jesus, what was her life?

Sakkara looked like she’d been slapped, but regained her placid expression quickly. “I see. I’ve hurt you very badly,” she said to Paris.

Paris inclined his head once, more of an acknowledgement he’d heard her speak than of him agreeing to her words. Again, he paused, seeming to weigh his thoughts and words carefully. “Why are you here?”

His question surprised Jade. She really thought he’d go for,
why did you pretend to be dead?
or
where have you been?
or even just
what the fuck
? Okay, maybe not that last one since that wasn’t really something she could imagine coming out of Paris’ mouth - too rhetorical and vulgar. Maybe he could ask it in a more British way. Something like,
what sort of nefarious chicanery is this?

“I need a favor.”

Jade felt a shiver run down the back of her neck at Sakkara’s words. They were the same ones she had said when she’d been haunting, stalking, Jade’s dreams. At the time, she never saw Sakkara’s face - had only seen a hooded figure, often surrounded by sparrows. Dreams of the lake and of Lily. Of Jade being underwater. While Jade could accept the truth those dreams revealed - that she’d once belonged to the Coven, as a small child, and had drowned at the lake - she was having a hard time figuring out exactly how she came to be merged, or fused with Lily, and then separated again. But those words -
I need a favor -
had been said by Sakkara once Lily and Jade had separated. Jade wanted to burst in with her own questions; it was her dreams Sakkara had been haunting, after all. But she figured mother back from the not-so-dead trumped that card and she’d let Paris take the lead.

“A favor,” Paris repeated, like he wasn’t quite comfortable with the word. “What kind of favor requires such lengths?” He looked between his mother and Jade, understanding filtering across his face. “Because you need it from Jade. Of course. If you’d needed a favor from me or the Coven, you could have just asked. We’d be just as surprised at your return from the dead, but for the former Coven Leader, for my mother, we’d do anything. But you don’t have that kind of history with Jade.”

“No, I don’t. And it’s a rather specific favor that requires specific skills.” Sakkara’s eyes darted over to Jade, pausing for a moment and then moving back to her son. Jade could see, almost out of her line of sight, under the table, one of Paris’ hands was clenching into a fist. More movement under the table caught her eye and she looked down to see Bruce wrapping his tail around one of Paris’ legs.

“Our dear Possum has always been popular,” Seth said from the pantry.

Shut it
, Jade mouthed at him. He grinned and for a moment his eyes seemed to flash gold at her and she could almost see a tail swishing gleefully behind him.

“It’s true.” Now that Seth had Jade’s attention, he didn’t want to let it go. “Oh, you might not be the prom queen with flocks of friends gathering around your side and legions of adoring fans. But you certainly caught my eye with your power. And I imagine that should you ever travel to the other side,” Seth made a gesture over his shoulder, “you’d be quite… marketable.”

Jade wrinkled her nose. She’d never had an interest in what was on the other side. Hearing Seth say she would be marketable, like some kind of a commodity, made her want to know even less.

“You’ve lots of power,” Seth continued. “And it’s quite interesting how well you use demon magic.”

“This is why I would prefer to have this discussion without him here,” Sakkara interrupted, glaring at Seth. Seth stuck his tongue out at her. “He likes to confuse the situation. Double talk and irrelevancies.”

Suspicion swirled and coiled in Jade’s gut like thick smoke at Sakkara’s tone. She was afraid of what Seth may say, Jade realized. “I think Seth’s pockets are full of relevancy and that’s exactly why you don’t want him here.”

Sakkara looked away, her face grim.

“Better be careful with this one, Mommy Dearest,” Seth said.

Jade felt Lily arrive at the cottage seconds before she heard the front door open and close. Lily came rushing into the kitchen, her hair swinging loose around her shoulders. She hadn’t gotten close enough to yoga to pull it back in a ponytail. Jade didn’t know how she stood it, falling down around her shoulders, on her neck. Jade always wore her own hair back, securely out of her face. It was odd at times to see it down around Lily’s face, an exact copy of her own face. They were identical in every way except for their eyes. Lily’s were wide and green at the moment as she first looked at Jade, checking in that Jade was okay both with a visual and with a quick brush through Jade’s mind. Jade couldn’t stop the flinch as another bolt of pain shot through her brain. Lily paused, her eyebrow already furrowing, but Jade waved her hand. She didn’t want to discuss her headache right now. Lily’s gaze moved to Bruce, Paris, then Seth and finally Sakkara. Her eyes had narrowed at Seth and got narrower still when she saw Sakkara.

“I’m really not sure who to get more upset about here,” Lily said.

“Double trouble! It’s so good to meet you in person,” Seth crowed. “I’ve always been able to ‘sense’ you around.” Seth made a swirly motion with his fingers. “But now, here you are, in the flesh.”

Jade’s skin crawled at the way he said the word
flesh
. She felt the same feeling of disgust rush through Lily.

“Gross,” Lily replied, her tone flat. She looked back at Sakkara. “And you, Sparrow Lady. What do you want?”

The question was more rhetorical as Jade could feel Lily start to scan through Jade’s recent memories, getting caught up on conversation.

“A favor?” Lily said, her information pull from Jade’s mind complete. Lily pulled up the only free chair left at the table and sat down. Jade rotated her neck again, feeling the ache of a migraine settling in for the long haul.

Sakkara watched Jade and Lily with way too much intensity for Jade’s liking. Yeah, okay, they were twins. Or twin-ish, Jade supposed since they weren’t technically related by birth. There was something rare and attention grabbing about that. But the way Sakkara looked at them… it was like she saw them as both more and less than what they were. Like they were commodities and rarities at the same time.

“What an extraordinary work of magic you are,” Sakkara said, her tone almost reverential as she stared at Lily. Lily wrinkled her nose and scooted her chair a bit closer to Jade. Sakkara addressed Jade next. “And you, the crafter of the magic. Do you recall how you did it? How you made the two of you separate? Were there words that you said, or did you simply will it happen?”

“I’m really getting an
eau de creeper
vibe from you right now. Like way more than before and that’s saying something since we all thought you were dead,” Jade replied.

Seth snorted from the pantry and the sharp sound had Bruce jerking up a bit from where he’d had his head resting on Paris’ foot. Bruce hissed and spat three times in Seth’s direction, his pink tongue flicking in and out of his mouth as he did. Seth hissed back at him and Bruce actually curled one corner of his mouth up, like a dog snarl. Jade didn’t even know he could do that.

“It’s okay, Bruce. He’s still stuck in the pantry,” Jade said, thumping Bruce’s solid belly with the flat palm of her hand.

“For now,” Seth added. This was hands-down the most stressed out Jade had ever been in her kitchen and that included the time she was halfway through making cookies and realized she was out of chocolate chips.

Bruce smacked his chops and settled back down, again curling his tail around one of Paris’ legs. Lily’s mind poked at Jade, a sort of
look-look
vibe running across her grey matter. Jade looked up to see Sakkara watching the way Bruce had moved his tail to encircle Paris’ ankle, a small smile on her lips. She looked… glad? Smug? Satisfied? Some weird combination.

Serious
eau de creeper, Lily’s voice drifted through Jade’s mind and she nodded. Another twinge of pain ricocheted in her brain and this time, Lily noticed, turning sharply toward her. While Lily didn’t feel the pain herself, Lily sometimes seemed to get some kind of ‘sister sensation’ in her brain in the same area as Jade would experience the migraine.

Headache?

No.
Yeah, it was a lie and yeah, Lily knew right away, raising an eyebrow at her.

Jade eyeballed her back.
We kind of have bigger things to worry about right now, don’t you think?
She tipped her head toward Sakkara.

“Are you speaking with each other right now?” Sakkara asked, her voice alight with interest and fascination. She was eagerly watching them both. “It’s exactly this integration that’s required and why the two of you are needed.”

“The two of us?” Jade repeated. “Hold up. You said you needed a favor from me.” She pointed to own chest. “You didn’t say anything about Lily.”

“Well, it’s your dual nature with Lily that’s required and so her participation is required by default.”

“No. Nuh-uh,” Jade said, shaking her head. She might have maybe, possibly, somewhat entertained the notion of doing Sakkara a favor, but not if it involved Lily.

“I’m a big girl. I can make my own decisions,” Lily said easily.

Jade didn’t like it. She’d only just gotten Lily back - from the dead, from the ether, from wherever she had gone when they separated. She didn’t want anything to take her away again. Didn’t want anything that would put her in danger. Based on all the trouble Sakkara had gone to, Jade didn’t think her ‘favor’ would be a simple walk in the park.

Plus, while Lily had magic, it wasn’t as strong as Jade’s. Lily did show better control and seemed to have an aptitude for small spells, but she didn’t have Jade’s memory for printed material nor her brute force behind spell work. She said as much to Lily, not using her voice, but pushing the words across the mental bridge they shared, despite the flare of pain it caused. Even though the pain always centered around the back of her head, Jade tipped her head forward and rubbed her sinuses, hoping to distract her senses from the oncoming migraine. If this one proceeded like the others, she had about twenty minutes before she’d be useless.

Jade felt Paris’ hand come to rest lightly on the top of her knee, but he didn’t say anything. His mother wasn’t as circumspect.

“Headache, dear?” Sakkara asked.

Jade raised her head, focusing like a laser on Paris’ mother. “I’m fine.”

“You know, Possum, I could probably take those away from you. For the right kind of deal.”

Oh Jesus, this was turning into a shit show. While having Seth present hadn’t bothered her all that much, given he was the devil she knew, Jade doubted she’d be able to keep up with his one-liners and still carry on a conversation with Paris’ not-so-dead mother, all with a migraine. With a flick of her wrist, she sent the pantry door slamming shut. Seth immediately started cackling from behind the closed door. Lily murmured a quick silencing spell, repeating it twice: once to keep Seth’s voice from crossing over into the kitchen, and then again, with some slight tweaks, to keep their voices from traveling through the door back to him.