Once You Go Demon (Pure Souls) (5 page)

“Can I help you?”

The woman’s accent intrigued her. Something close to French, but more exotic. The aroma of sage and cloves accompanied her prominent figure into the room and tickled Riona’s nose. It was a good thing they were living in the post-Massachusetts Bay Colony era; such a mode of dress would have landed someone on the galleys in Puritan times. Still, she broadcast a regal air that she wasn’t there merely for anyone’s enjoyment or discernment.

“I’m looking for Bunny?” Riona’s voice died in midair.

“Why is the Keystone Witch looking for Ms. Reed?”

Riona’s spine stiffened. It suddenly dawned on her that outside the Pure Souls, she’d never crossed paths with another wiccan. She wasn’t sure if the protocol of secrecy applied, or if admitting her roll was a
streng verboten
. “How did you know I was the … I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Fine, we’ll pretend.” The woman took a seat on a stool placed at the end of a long counter. A cash register that dated from the Taft administration and was probably heavy enough to kill a buffalo, should the need call, occupied a good deal of real estate. “Though you needn’t worry for your safety here. We are your kindred. All of our magic is possible because of you.”

She felt like Dorothy and Glinda had just sprung the things-I-could-have-been-told-earlier-to-save-us-all-time news that she’d had to power to go home all along. “What do you mean?”

“I see it’s true. There were whisperings that you were not raised in our ways, that you don’t know the path of the witch, are ignorant of our … of
your
heritage.”

“Well, I got that part of me from my dad, and he didn’t exactly stick around long enough to read any ‘See Dick and Jane Cast Hexes’ books. But I’m trying to learn. Oh, my mom is a witch all right, just not the magical kind.” From the bag hanging taut at her side, Riona pulled out one of Dee’s old castoff tube socks. “Let’s start with this. No one I’ve spoken to so far has had a clue, and a friend …” She paused to test the shape of the word against the place Jerry held in her life. The fit was wrong. “
Someone
told me that Bunny might be able to tell me about it.”

The woman eyed the object with a disinterested glare. “It’s a gym sock. Probably cotton with some elastic banding at the top.”

With a huff, Riona reached in and wrapped her fingers around the handle of the dagger, unsheathing it from its cotton poly-blend confines. Handing the weapon to the clerk, handle first, she waited. The woman’s eyes lit with a new appreciation.

“Yes,
this
is very interesting,” she agreed, nodding slowly. She turned the blade over, running her smooth fingertips over the jewels encrusted into its silver hilt, delicately traipsing a study by touch and by eye down its blade to the point.

Riona held up a warning hand. “Be careful. The tip is poisoned, or so I’ve been told.” She hesitated to add,
By Lucifer himself.

The clerk seemed amused. “I have no doubt. But it’s poisoned with magic, not some noxious liquid. On top of that, the charm on it isn’t intended for humans. It would only poison elites; Grigori, nephilim, that sort of thing.”

Nephilim.
She filed that term away for later exploration. She didn’t want to seem anymore a moron than she was coming off already. “You mean it’s cursed?”

The clerk nodded, gracing Riona with an acknowledging grin. “But only in the right—or is that, the wrong—hands. Those who are powerful enough to wield such strong magic are not many in this world, and certainly none of them are human.”

The clerk offered back the blade. Riona took it and placed it back in the sock. “So it’s not dangerous like I thought.”

“Of course, it’s dangerous. Curse or no, it is still a pretty damned big knife. You go jab it in a rabbit and see how it fairs. If there’s one thing I can advise you, Keystone, it’s to take a lesson of that. We witches sometimes become so focused on using magic to fight our battles, we often forget the weapons we may wield as mere men. Or in our case,
women.
”

She thought of how Marc had used this very dagger to sacrifice himself, to save her. No need to take a full-page ad out for that bit of advice. “Any idea where it’s from?”

“I can say only, it was not forged by mortal hands. As to its exact origin …” She shook her head from side to side. “Now, I have a question or two. How did you come to have such a powerful armament, and who told you to come here with it? Objects such as these … They are generally entrusted only to the most powerful and skilled wiccan warriors to face their greatest battles.”

Riona slipped the sheathed dagger back in to her bag. “I’m the Keystone witch. You’re implying I’m not worthy?”

“On the contrary. But you are new. I’m merely saying, it may be possible that you are not ready for it.”

Riona waited a moment for that to sink in. In the silence, the clerk seemed to grow amused at her own comment. Riona reminded herself that she didn’t come to be someone’s entertainment. She came for answers. “Do you think Bunny would have any more information?”

One perfectly-penciled eyebrow arched. “I
am
Bunny.”

Riona squared this revelation against her expectations. “But Jerry told me Bunny was at least sixty or seventy. You can’t be a day over—”

“Jerry? Jerry who?”

“Um … Romani?”

A storm struck in Bunny’s eyes. “That … snake! That cur! Please tell me you have not let yourself fall victim to that debaucher! That ingrate of Hell!”

From recesses she didn’t even know she had, Riona felt her impulse to defend spark to life. Yes, Jerry had his bad points, but even as a demon, there was a great deal of good about him. On top of that, he’d helped to take down a few of his former brethren since returning to the topsoil. Surely that, and the fact that he had a fresh cup of coffee ready for her each morning, had to count for something.

“What business is it of yours if I have?”

In a sweep of her hand, Bunny raised her hands to her face and fingered her chin. When she tugged down at the cleft, a hazy cloud of skin and hair fell with it. A glamour. A very good, very sexy, but no less deceiving, glamour.

Bunny was
ancient
. At least seventy, if not older. And what was more, she was damaged. A scar crossed from her cheekbone diagonally to her hairline, and where her right eye should have been, only a patch of scarred flesh remained.

“Jerry Romani is the reason for this!” Bunny exclaimed, pointing to her mutilation. “Fifty years ago, he seduced me and sought to bring me under Lucifer’s power. When he reached in to my mind and fingered through my thoughts, the payment the shaman who aided me in breaking the connection demanded was my right eye.”

She couldn’t help but ask. Riona swallowed her fear. “Was he worth it?”

Bunny crossed her arms over her chest and inhaled deeply. Knowledge filled her features. “He’s propositioned already.”

“That is none of your business.”

Bunny tilted her head, as though studying Riona with fresh eyes. “Your aura is free of a demon’s fingers. He has not a path into your thoughts now. Or at least …”

“Yes?”

The clerk appeared unsure of whether or not to trust her suspicions to sound. “Do you know why you are called the Keystone?”

“Because the council of seven generally suck at naming things?”

Rumor had it they were behind the concept that later became known as “for unlawful carnal knowledge”.

But Riona said nothing, only shook her head.

“It is because all magic allowed to us in this world comes through the Keystone’s existence. Your soul is the bedrock upon which all wiccan works are built. A tremendous flow of light, of pure power, from the Heavens, down to us on Earth. I’ve known my share of Keystones in my day, and always this flow of light passes through each of their auras. But you, your aura is somehow … different. It moves in two directions.” Bunny paused before her mouth drew out in to a smile. “He’s had you in the past, but you severed the bond somehow. Good, Keystone. Very good. Be warned, Satan does not favor a single sortie. If you’ve blocked one, Lucifer will only send another along the same path. One of your position would be well advised not to fall into that trap again.”

As far as she was aware, there had been no frost advisories yet announced for Hell. Consequently, Riona was as warm to the idea of accepting relationship advice as having her liver carved out with a souvenir spoon.

“I can assure you, Jerry Romani and me will never be an item again. I learned my lesson the first time. Besides, I vanquished his ass a while ago. I assure you, that particular demon will never again walk the planet.”

A technicality, but damn, if you learned anything from living through the Clinton administration, it was the utility of a technicality.

Approval came in the form of a studying, and if she was pressed Riona would have said, regretful expression and nod. Bunny’s hand passed before her own face, recalling the glamour that had concealed both her age and her deformity. L’Oreal had nothing in the way of age-defying like Bunny’s magic. When again she’d taken on her youthful frock, Bunny rounded the counter and took four steps in Riona’s direction, thereby crossing the width of the store.

“Go on your way now. Your dagger, I believe, will find a way to tell you its truths when it feels you are ready. And between you and me …” She leaned in closely, giving Riona a familial and playful jab in the shoulder. “He was worth it. But you already know that.”

Riona looked at her in confusion; not because she hesitated to agree, but because she didn’t.

“I am old, Keystone,” the shopkeeper continued. “I am a crone. Death will find me soon enough. But if Jerry Romani were to come my way again, I still have another eye to give.”

Chapter 7

Jerry watched as Riona emerged from Bunny’s shop. Sending her into Salem had been a risk to the vow he’d made not to squeal what he knew the second he was back on Earth. Like he’d have had a chance. Unbeknownst to the bitch squealers, also known as the Council of Seven, he’d gotten that memo from Big Boss Himself. The archangels had also reminded him when he had come horns to halos with the bastards, that there was nothing to be gained by confusing Riona with his “half-baked theory” of her lineage.

But Lucifer didn’t raise no dummy. Any demon who knew his shit and paid close enough attention to that witch could figure out the truth. Given that his miraculous resurrection and raising from Hell was contingent on staying on the angelic asshats’ good sides, he wasn’t about to screw things up by blabbing. However, there was no reason he couldn’t point her in the right direction and still claim innocence.

Jerry knew Bunny would recognize the magic woven over the dagger as something exotic, something not placed upon it by any back alley enchantress. The question was, would she know exactly
how
exotic? Judging by the red cheeks polished to a glow and scowl on Riona’s face, probably not. Oh well, there were surely other ways of tipping her off. If there was one thing he’d learn from centuries of service, it was that opportunities, despite the famous cliché, were hardly ever once-in-a-lifetime. There was something more going on here, Jerry suddenly realized as she marched across the street like she’d been ordered by Patton to take the opposite sidewalk at any cost. Riona looked … determined, despite also looking flustered. And while he generally liked associating things that started with F with Riona, this was an exception.

But then, he found himself smiling. Riona was angry. No, Riona was
pissed
. And while that might not be a good thing for most situations, pissed was not overwhelmed, distraught, or depressed. Pissed was an actionable emotion. Somehow, getting shafted on the quest for knowledge rekindled Riona’s chutzpah. 

The witch had spent the several weeks since Marc’s death and Jerry’s own return in a perpetual demonstration of “going through the motions.”  She moved, but only in circles. Mostly, he let her stay there, because who was he to come out and tell her that she of all people shouldn’t grieve? She damn well knew that Marc wasn’t really gone, he was only deterred, and that she better get her shit together in a hurry because when that priest came back, he wasn’t going to be her friend. She was going to have to toast his ass, because Marc would be the Devil’s quickest route to twisting her soul into a pretzel before throwing it into Hell’s stoves to bake.

Fucking, hell yes
. “That’s my girl!” he exclaimed to no one in particular, fist pumping the empty air.

Jerry caught himself only a moment later.
His
girl. She wasn’t, and despite what Ramiel and Dee thought, Jerry didn’t jump on to the ‘Jerry must be the risen soul of which prophecy bespoke’ bandwagon. Oh, sure, he might tease and flirt. And hell yeah, if she happened to give him a ‘come hither’ stare, was so going to have her ‘coming hither’ in about two minutes flat. But reality and he still broke bread in the morning. He loved Riona enough to know that, after the way he had betrayed her, he would never deserve her. What’s more, she’d never want him.

“Taxi!”

The blue car that pulled up to the curb drew Jerry’s attention away from his cup of Tart n’ Cherry with lychee and rainbow sprinkles. Riona paired her exclamation with a fervent shaking of her hand in the air. The train station was just a few blocks away, why was she taking a cab? What was the whole point of sabotaging her Miata’s transmission if she was just going to so suddenly ditch public transit and patronize the Eastern Massachusetts’s taxi driver community?

He pitched the pint cup in the trash and dashed out of the Mo’FroYo at a speed that would have made a Jamaican jealous. The cab door was already swinging shut, and where it would speed his witch away to, he hadn’t a clue. Panic seized him, and drove him to do something incredibly stupid.

And this from a “man” who had bought stock in 1998 in every company with a name ending in dot-com.

“What the hell are you doing here, Jerry?”

Riona looked more disappointed than surprised as he slammed the door behind him and made for the seatbelt, as though his being in her cab had been pre-arranged.