Trial by Fire (Covencraft Book 1) (29 page)

Her love affair with the search engine lasted only as long as it took her to read that Seth was an Egyptian god, although he generally went by Set. She dropped her head in her hands.

“I’m so fucked,” she said to nobody specific.

Callie’s head popped up from where she sat at her chair. “What is it?” She came over to where Jade sat, reading over Jade’s shoulder. “Seth is the god of the desert, storms and foreigners. He may also be attributed to darkness and chaos.” Callie’s face was pale as she rested her hand on Jade’s shoulder. “It… It might not be that bad.”

“It says he killed and mutilated his own brother!”

Callie looked torn and Henri buried his head back into the book he was reading. Paris stood silently by the kitchen doorway, hovering.

When nobody offered any comfort, Callie patted Jade’s shoulder. “Mythology is quite often only metaphors for the morals and values people wanted to instill. We don’t know if that’s true.”

“Well next time he pops out of nowhere, I’ll be sure to get him to confirm or deny.” Jade rubbed at her face. “You know, I went a really long time without being on anyone’s radar and now, all of a sudden, there’re witches and demons all around and they want stuff and I’ve got this power and it actually kind of sucks.”

Callie squeezed her shoulder and Jade wondered if this was the price she was paying for having people in her life. Like some weird kind of balance or scale, if she wanted to have friends - or whatever Callie, Paris and Henri were becoming - this was what she was going to have to deal with.

“At least it doesn’t seem like he wants to hurt you,” Callie said finally, still reading over Jade’s shoulder. “I mean, he seems kind of invested in getting a deal out of you, but he needs you alive for that.”

“Fantastic. I feel so much better already.” Jade deadpanned.

“It just… It could be worse.”

Jade eyeballed her. She didn’t want to be fatalistic, but it was about as awful as she could imagine. She wanted to say she didn’t see how it could be worse but she wasn’t dumb enough to toss that out for fate to stomp all over with some fresh new hell she hadn’t thought of yet.

Depressingly, this was only taking into account demon number one - he who was formally known as Bob. She had no info on demon number two, Doug - a lesser demon according to Seth. Not to mention their unknown witch who was the root of all this.

When she figured out who it was, she was going to punch them in the throat, she thought grimly. Really, really hard.

Callie moved all her stuff to be closer to Jade to offer moral support or something, Jade didn’t really know. She wasn’t exactly an expert on people skills. Paris sat at the other end of the table, studying two of his mother’s books. Jade looked up at him every now and then and saw his dark, bleak face. She kind of felt sorry for him. She’d known from a young age her parents were grade-A class scuzzbags. It must be a real punch in the gut to find that kind of thing out later in life and have it take you completely by surprise.

She didn’t have time to be sentimental for herself, let alone for someone else, so she pushed it aside for now and focused back on the demon grimoire in front of her. Jade had been keeping thorough notes as she read through books in the library - and now one of Sakkara’s books - and she found it useful to go back and search bits and pieces of items she’d transcribed and compare it to what she was reading now. She wrote out some ideas as she worked, making additional notations and theories as she went. At some point, she vaguely overheard Paris telling Callie about their scrying mirror and asking if they could come by and borrow her cat when they dug it up. She wanted to ask about it but got distracted by another hex at the bottom of the page. It looked only partially finished but it had little tiny stars drawn around it, which Jade had learned was Paris’ mother’s way of indicating her interest in something. She took out her phone and snapped a picture of it, sending it to her laptop and pasting it in her growing document.

Bringing witchcraft into the twenty-first century
, she thought, smirking. Whether it wanted to go or not.

They ordered delivery for dinner and she longingly stared at the menu online before settling on salad with grilled chicken, thinking about the state of her jeans. She thought about ordering a whole cheesecake since it very well could be the end of her world. But if it wasn’t, she’d spend the rest of her life trying to get that cheesecake off her ass.

What she needed was a spell to make cheesecake calorie-free but taste exactly the same - now
that
would be useful.

Despite the dire circumstances, dinner was a fairly light affair. Henri and Callie supplied most of the conversation, both of them talking about their significant others and plans they were making for vacations or anniversaries. Callie invited Jade over for dinner with Callie’s boyfriend Nick, Henri and Henri’s boyfriend Daniel, ‘once this whole mess was sorted out’ which was a really nice way of saying ‘you know, after we take care of your little demon problem.’

Callie also suggested bowling which started a fight over the last time the foursome of Callie, Henri and their significant others went bowling and apparently ended when Henri ‘lost’ the scorecard only to keep Callie and Daniel from coming to blows over who was the victor.

They were both quite competitive, it seemed, and Henri had decided then that all sporting events, board games and quiz shows were out of bounds for double dates.

By the time Henri and Callie called it a night at about nine o’clock, Jade was already yawning and wishing for a few more painkillers to take the edge off. But she felt a little bit lighter than she had all day.

“They’re fun,” she said simply as the door closed behind Callie and Henri.

Paris nodded.

She gave a big, jaw cracking yawn, feeling like her mouth needed to go just that extra bit wider to make it really satisfying.

“You should head to bed,” Paris said and she nodded. It was early, but she was already beat. She looked almost longingly at the books spread out over the table.

“It will all be here tomorrow,” he added.

“Yeah. Okay,” she agreed and trudged up the stairs. Halfway up, she paused, watching Paris head back to the table. She surprised herself when she said, “Hey, Paris. I’m sorry about your mom.” She felt immediately kind of lame until Paris offered her a weak smile.

“Thank you,” he replied softly.

She stood on the stairs for a moment more, unsure if she should say something else. In the end she decided just to head on up. Like the night before, she heard him moving around downstairs for quite some time after she was already in bed. She managed a whole half hour in bed before she again jettisoned the idea of sleeping there and made her way to the closet and settled into the inky dark.

*

Jade practically vibrated through most of the next day, counting the hours till sunset when they could dig up the scrying mirror. They had spent the day at Paris’ house again, Callie and Henri coming back over to offer moral and intellectual support. Plus, Henri brought food so that was a bonus. She was learning more about demon magic but Paris was unsurprisingly reluctant to let her try any out. She could admit to herself she was a little wary as well, given what Seth said the day before about her warding being like a beacon.

On the flip, she wanted to learn and the best way to learn was by doing. Callie argued that Jade would likely never have the opportunity to use demon magic again; it was rare and no one dealt with demons. Jade replied back that she’d been at the Coven less than a week and already had two demons on her back. Statistically speaking from her viewpoint, Jade would need it a
lot
.

She grew even more fidgety and restless as the day wore on, a combination of anticipation and cabin fever. Callie made a trip over to Jade’s cottage and returned with the rest of her suitcase, which included her runners. While Jade ran for exercise, she couldn’t say she actually enjoyed it. Well, she didn’t hate it. It was something that needed to be done. But today, waiting around for sunset and being cooped up in Paris’ house, she stared longingly at her runners and thought about a jog. She felt like a border collie without a job - full of bottled up energy, just waiting to be directed toward something.

Either it rubbed off on everyone else or they took pity on her. After lunch, Paris went outside to his backyard and warded the area. He dug up some badminton rackets from his attic and-

Seriously? Badminton rackets?
She was never going to let him forget that.

At least she got the chance to burn off some excess energy by messing around with Callie and Henri. They were all equally awful at it, lunging and dodging for the shuttlecock and missing more often than not. The only thing they excelled at was making all kinds of innuendos and dirty jokes about the shuttlecock, all three of them snorting and guffawing with laughter at their horrible grade school mentality.

It was the most fun Jade had had in a long time. The air was cool and crisp and she felt red-cheeked and a little winded after all her inactivity over the last week. Callie and Henri were joking back and forth with each other, locked in a battle of double entendres regarding their boyfriends and the shuttlecock. It all had Jade thinking, again,
wow, I really could live here
.

By the time sunset came around, the sky blazing orange and pink, she felt calmer than she had in days, despite the circumstances. Callie and Henri headed off, Callie promising to see them shortly at her house so they could borrow her cat, and Henri saying he’d see them both tomorrow.

Jade and Paris drove back out to the nature preserve, Paris easily navigating back to where they had buried the mirror. She used her phone to verify the sun was well and truly set, since they couldn’t see it directly with the tree coverage. Paris dug quicker than before, the ground softer from previously being disturbed. It occurred to her on the car ride back to Callie’s that she’d never asked what the cat was for.

“We’re not killing the cat, right?” Jade blurted.

The heavy weight of the scrying mirror and cloth bag was on her lap, inside a garbage bag to keep the loose dirt contained. The everydayness of Paris suggesting a household garbage bag to preserve cleanliness had struck her as funny and so simple. Of course they could put a scrying mirror in a garbage bag, he’d told her. Why couldn’t they?

It had just seemed so… Normal.

“Of course we’re not killing the cat,” he said, like the notion was completely absurd. “We just need it to look in the mirror first.”

“Oh, of course,” her tone was sarcastic.

He turned to face her at a red light, slightly hindered by the slight bucket seats of his car and the steering wheel. “After we prep the mirror, we can’t be the first to look at it or it will steal our soul.”

She laughed at his ominous tone, figuring he was having a joke at her expense. “Right,” she huffed.

He frowned. “I’m serious.”

Jade stared at him, watching him for a smile or a hint of mischief and felt her own smile fade at his stillness. “Holy shit you
are
serious. Fuck me. Okay, don’t look at the mirror. Got it.” She shivered at the implication, not wanting to ever find out if it was really true or some kind of urban witch legend.

“Cats have always been close to witches, guardians of the underworld, associated with Hecate. She’s the closest thing we have to a goddess. We make a scrying mirror and then a cat will look into it first. After that, it’s safe for us to use.”

“So, how many people do you lose to scrying mirror incidents yearly?” she asked, wondering if there was some kind of statistical recordkeeping for witchcraft related accidents.

“What? None,” Paris replied, eyes looking forward as he drove.

“Seriously? With temptation like that, no one has done it?” She was flabbergasted, assuming it was like the warnings on everything else in life. Make it idiot-proof and someone will make a better idiot.

“We don’t teach scrying to children. Everyone who does it is an adult. They know better than to look.”

“So there’s no kind of Darwin awards for those witches that just screw the rules, muck it up and get injured? Or dead?”

“I’d like to think we’re a bit more civilized than that,” Paris said wryly.

“So does everybody,” she replied with a shrug.

They arrived at Callie’s place, an older-styled duplex which reminded Jade of the 1940s. Stairs climbed over the car park and onto the patio where the front door was located. The house was painted a deep purple that conveyed the feeling of happy-welcome-frivolity all at once.

It suited Callie well, Jade thought, as Callie swung open the glass-paneled front door, her blond hair swaying with her movement.

“Hey, long time no see.” Callie joked. “I put out some food for later but I figured you’d want to get the mirror done first.”

Paris had taken the mirror from Jade as they left the car and he carried it to the kitchen, to a small island that was set apart from the rest of the area - clearly Callie’s witchcraft station. The island featured runes and wards sketched into the surface and also carried a beat-up, well-used air which the rest of the kitchen lacked.

Paris felt along the bag for a moment and when he pulled the mirror out, it was reflective side down. He kept it like that the entire time, polishing it with a cotton cloth. After that, he produced the hex bag, this time seemingly not caring if he touched the contents or not. There was no longer a foul stench accompanying the hex bag and Jade remembered Paris saying the smell would dissipate as the magic did. Callie took the hex bag items and put them in a large stone mortar, setting them on fire with the touch of a match.