Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (34 page)

“Gran …” I felt the tears start to stream down my cheeks.

Gran nodded. “Let’s go home.”

I nodded.

Then she looked down at Sienna lying dead at my feet and sighed.

Scarlett reached around Gran and brushed her fingers down my arm.

“Mom …” I said. I just wanted her to make everything right again. It was an impossible wish.

Gran leaned down to Sienna, snapping a curt, “no,” to Desmond when he also bent. “She is my responsibility. Witch responsibility.”

The four witches gathered around Sienna. I stepped back as they lifted my sister between them and carefully carried her off the rock and through the surf.

“Jade,” Desmond murmured, still beside me.

I shook my head and wiped the tears from my cheeks.

Then I very deliberately locked eyes with him and placed my fingertips to his chest. He looked momentarily pleased, until I started to push. I pressed with just the tips of my fingers. I didn’t flatten my hand or lean in with my shoulder. When he didn’t immediately yield, my feet slipped back on the wet rock. I anchored my stance to continue pushing. I kept my eyes locked to his and then — as surprised flashed over his face — he moved. Just a step back, but involuntarily, as he’d been resisting my push.

I turned my head toward the beach and dropped my hand. He was no longer in my peripheral vision.

Message sent and received.

I am stronger than you.

I stepped off the rock and into the crashing waves to follow my sister’s body as it was carried across the beach.

Yazi appeared at the edge of the forest, not a scratch on him though his armor was pock-marked by demon blood and covered in sand. I saw the moment my father laid eyes on my mother for the first time in twenty-four years. I saw the sorrowful smile they exchanged among the chaos and carnage of the dark early morning.

I took another step and fell, feeling Kett’s magic as he caught me before the waves swept me away. For the briefest of moments, I wished he’d let me go.

Then I didn’t see anything for a long, long while.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

When I woke up I was in my bed, in my apartment, staring up at the ceiling. The room was dim, but only because the curtains were drawn.

I felt as if I’d just stepped from the beach into lying on my bed, except I was healed again … in body and magic, if not mind. Though I think I’d already proven to myself on multiple occasions in the last six months that I was capable of healing my mind as well, I was just slow in that general area.

I reached out with my dowser senses to test the wards around my apartment, then instantly reined them back in when that tiny taste was rather intense.

I turned my head to observe the sacrificial knife sitting on my bedside table. It was resting on Blackwell’s demon history book — the original, by the taste of it — and it exuded pissiness. Which was worrisome, as inanimate objects really shouldn’t have moods. Someone had put me to bed and brought the knife and chronicle home as well. I wondered what else had been cleaned up while I was unconscious … I guessed that depended on how much time had passed.

I rolled out of bed — literally, since I wasn’t completely sure I was ready to be on my feet. But I stood steadily enough to pull on jeans and my red ‘Smart Ass University’ T-shirt over my tank top and underwear.

I noted in the mirror that I didn’t have a scratch or bruise on me. Even my hair looked amazing — gleaming and perfectly curled. I narrowed my eyes at this suspiciously. I suspected magic. Witch magic, probably from the witch currently puttering around in my kitchen.

The jeans were loose — damn dragon training, they were my favorite pair — so I cinched on a belt as I wandered down the short hall to the main room of the apartment.

By the light filtering through the windows, it was midmorning. The North Shore mountains were snowcapped and stark against a light blue, cloud-free sky. A nonrainy day in Vancouver in November? Odd. Maybe I’d lost more time than I thought.

Gran was making waffles in the kitchen. I didn’t own the waffle maker she was using, so it must have been another addition courtesy of Scarlett.

“Good morning, sleepy head.” Gran gifted me with the blinding smile that she had only ever bequeathed for an A-plus on my report cards. I wouldn’t have seen many of those smiles while growing up if I hadn’t have been good in home economics.

“How did you know I was awake?” I asked as I pressed a kiss to her temple, then poured myself a glass of orange juice. It looked freshly squeezed.

“How I always know,” she replied.

“You spell me?”

“Of course,” she answered without shame. “Sit. I’ll serve.”

Gran loaded two waffles onto a plate — I could smell the cinnamon in the batter and was already trying to not salivate.

I took a swig of orange juice and crossed around the kitchen island to hop up on a stool. The juice was freaking amazing. The taste practically exploded in my mouth. “What are these, magical oranges?”

“Olive grows them in her greenhouse,” Gran answered absentmindedly.

I’d been joking. “Olive?” I echoed. “A witch with a plant affinity?”

“You met her,” Gran said. “She held the protection circle over Scarlett when she fell.” Gran looked up at me, utter pride in her voice. “I would never have thought Scarlett capable of such a spell, even backed by six other witches. She was magnificent.”

Gran was referring to the spell that had cleared the path for me through the demons once the necromancers had countered Sienna’s summoning spell.

The orange juice turned sour in my mouth. I set the glass down and fiddled with my fork. Gran had set two plates.

“How many …” I started to ask, but then stopped myself. I wasn’t sure today was the day for such questions. Instead, I watched Gran spoon strawberries and whipped cream on the waffles, eagerly taking the plate when she offered it. I was starving.

Gran settled in beside me and we ate. Then I helped myself to seconds. She hadn’t finished her first plate yet.

“Where is Scarlett?” I asked between mouthfuls of goodness.

“With your father.”

That stopped me midbite. “Err, really?” I said. “Where? Here?”

“They’ve gone for a walk, apparently,” Gran said. Her tone implied exactly what she thought of this improper walk.

I wasn’t prepared to think of my parents together. That was disconcerting in a life-altering sort of way. “You think they’ll bring back ice cream?” I asked.

“If you ask, I believe they will both do anything.” Gran squeezed my knee, and I kept my suddenly teary eyes on the kitchen sink across from me. “We all would.”

“Gran —” My voice broke with the emotion once again choking my throat. I never remembered being like this before — so wracked with emotion, and constantly on the edge of tears — not even as a teenager.

“Not as many as you would think, Jade.” Gran answered my unasked question. “We slowed the demons. They became unfocused once you penetrated Sienna’s circle. Then the blindingly gorgeous Brazilian man who seemed to appear from nowhere healed many I would have thought already beyond the veil.”

Excuse me, grandmother? Blindingly gorgeous Brazilian? Up to that point, I would have told you that my Gran didn’t even notice people’s gender … just whether they were Adept or not.

“Qiuniu,” I murmured.

“Oh, yes,” Gran said — and then she actually rested her hand on her heart as if it was beating too fast. “You should have seen him run to you when you fell.”

“I think that was Kett,” I said dryly.

Gran waved this comment off. “After that. And the kiss! I could actually feel the magic moving from him to you.”

“I gather I’m not the only one he kisses like that, Gran.”

“No matter,” Gran said as she stood to clear the plates. “Even if you’re one of the few he kisses like that, it’s good to remember.”

Oh, God! I could see the matchmaking wheels turning. Gran now saw me married to a guardian dragon. One of the nine. The idea was utterly terrifying.
 

“Leave it,” I said to Gran. “I want to bake.”

Gran looked pleased — it didn’t always take a gorgeous Brazilian to turn her head — and I wandered back to my bedroom for some sneakers and a hair elastic.

∞

The bakery was open and full of customers. Bryn squealed and threw her arms around my neck when I entered the kitchen from the apartment stairs. Her dark hair was longer than I remembered — the bob now brushed her shoulders.
 

“Missed you,” she whispered into my hair. Bryn didn’t have a drop of magic in her, but I swore she was related to the skinwalkers. The brave, practically-human themselves skinwalkers, who had defended the necromancers with their lives.

I pushed my rising tears away — again! — and tried to not hug Bryn too fiercely.

“Are you back?” she asked.

I looked up and saw Gran over Bryn’s shoulder. She’d paused halfway through the kitchen on her way to the storefront — paused to hear me answer Bryn’s question.

“Will you stay?” Gran asked.

“Yes,” I answered them both.

“Perfect!” Bryn declared. Then she squealed again and said, “I have something for you to try.” She ran out of the kitchen. The swing doors, which I often kept open while I was baking so I could see a slice of the bakery and street, swung closed behind her.

“Hot chocolate,” Gran said. “She’s been testing recipes with your ganache as a base. Dark and semisweet.”

“Nice,” I said. That was a great idea for the fall season. It was obvious the bakery would be okay without me, but I wasn’t ready to walk away from everything I’d worked so hard and spent so many early mornings to build.

I ran my hand over the pristinely clean stainless steel counters and smiled.

“You’ll stay,” Gran said.

“I can’t promise not to travel.”

“Why not?” Gran said with a shrug. “There’s a portal in the basement only you can use.” She laughed, not a hint of fear in her face. I’d been wrong. I thought she’d be afraid of my dragon half. “You were brilliant, my Jade,” Gran whispered. “I’m so proud of you.”

My heart constricted. My thoughts were on the knife upstairs, and on the blood magic I’d performed. Gran couldn’t forgive that. She would never be proud of that.

She stepped back to me and touched my hand where it still rested on the workstation.

“There’s this knife I made,” I whispered.

“I’ve seen it,” Gran said, completely matter of fact.

“The treasure keeper wouldn’t take it, but he also didn’t think it was for me to wield.”

“Interesting. He was the bear of a man … dragon, I mean … in the fur coat?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, we’ll talk more about that later, shall we?”

“Will there be a tribunal? For London, or Tofino?” I wasn’t quite ready to simply brush it off yet.

“No,” Gran said, her tone unassailable. “It’s done. The price has been paid.”

Sienna was dead, she meant. And oddly, she didn’t sound completely happy about it. Perhaps Gran hadn’t buried every hint of love she’d held for her foster child.

“The knife,” Gran continued. “And … anything else isn’t anyone’s business.”

“The end justified the means?”

“Today, yes. Maybe not tomorrow.”

Well, it was hard to argue with that.

“And Sienna’s … body?”

“Cremated.”

“And the human victims?” I asked.

Gran sighed. “You wanted to bake.”

“When I was in London … when I thought Kett was dead and Kandy was dying. And Mory … I didn’t know what to do. I should know what to do.”
 

Gran nodded. “The Convocation employs investigative teams. For Tofino and London there was no investigation, just clean-up.”

“You covered up a mass murder in Tofino?” I didn’t know how I felt about that.

“Restaged.”

“With someone else taking the blame? One of the humans?”

“Yes. At a camp site.”

Silence fell between us. Gran waited patiently for my next question, but no matter how many questions I asked today I wasn’t going to feel any better. I understood that the Adept had to limit their exposure to the nonmagical world, had to protect themselves … but I didn’t have to like it.

“I think I shall have Todd make me a latte,” Gran said.

She turned away and I let her go. I was wearier than I’d thought when I first woke.

The healing of my soul would obviously take the longest of all.

∞

Kandy wandered into the bakery kitchen via the back alley just after lunch. I was shocked to see her arm in a sling, but tried to not show it.

“Purple?” I asked, referencing her newly dyed hair.

Kandy bared her teeth in the nonsmile that usually preceded claws also being bared. “Lara thought she’d be funny,” she spat, “seeing as how I’m currently unable to wring her neck.”

Lara was alive then — thank God — and she was obviously still mad about purple.

“I don’t like it as much as the green,” I said, hardly believing that to be the truth even as it came out of my mouth.

“Give me two or three days,” Kandy said. “I’ll fix it.”

“And is Lara’s neck still in jeopardy?”

Kandy shrugged and ran her finger around the edge of a bowl I’d filled with warm chocolate ganache. Bryn’s hot chocolate idea had galvanized me to try a recipe I’d always deemed too difficult to serve and too costly to charge for.

“Gone,” Kandy said, answering my question about Lara. “Back to Portland. All of them.”

The last sentence was heavy with implication. Desmond, she meant, was back in Portland. Fine. That was where he belonged.

“And yet, you’re here,” I said.

Kandy shrugged again, then leaned around me to see what I was making.

“Grab a couple of stools from the office,” I said.

She obligingly wandered off into my tiny, windowless back office and came out with two stools. She plunked them down on the opposite side of the steel workstation across from me.

I crossed to the freezer and pulled out the ice cream I’d put in there to set. I’d never actually used the ice cream maker before, but found it upstairs in a cupboard when I thought to look. Thank you, Scarlett.

“What are you making?” Kandy breathed with anticipation. She lifted her nose and scented the air.