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I looked up, scowling. “There’re benevolent demons?”
“Ouais. Depends on where ya standin’. Don’t forget now, there’s a whole mess o’ different kinds o’ demons out dere,” Wendy told me, her voice tinged with that type of verbal rhythm I had found was unique to Cajuns. “Some, yeah, they real bad, no lie ‘bout dat. But mine… Ooh, cher, mine can chill your blood right through, fo’ sure. Mais he got his soft spots, too.”
“Incredibly soft, indeed. Most of that softness applies to Wendy here, but he has also developed an embarrassing fondness for Hallmark movies,” the cat contributed with a sly tone. “And the other one really likes to cook. And clean. And he’s gotten very good at paper mâché in the last ten years.” His eyes gestured towards the box. Apparently the tea box was of the making of some sort of nightmarish being.
It was hard to imagine. All of the demons I’d ever seen were far too terrifying for any soft character traits to be believable.
“Ain’t we all like a good gumbo, spicy an’ complex, huh?” She gestured at the list with her spoon and added, “But don’t ya fret none, cher. I know fo’ sure as sugar that all dem talismans still around in dis big ol’ world. Just gotta go root ‘em out, is all.”
“Buried in some godforsaken desert hole, most likely,” the cat mumbled under his breath, echoing my thoughts.
Still, this was much more information than I’ve had for a millennium. I’d find those gems even if it meant I had to dig a billion holes.
“Anyway, if you can give me my blood by the end of the month, I’d be much obliged,” she told me.
“You can come back to my place and I’d give it to you now,” I offered, carefully folding up the paper and putting it into the decorated box.
“Can’t do that, no sir. My tarot this mornin’ done told me that soon as I set foot in your shop, you’ll be gettin’ a call that’ll have ya shooing everybody out. That’s precisely why I told ya to meet up right here ‘stead of over yonder.” She motioned around to the ice-cream parlor we were sitting in. I’d figured it was because she knew I loved ice cream. Mine was done in a fraction of the time hers was.
I rolled my eyes, knowing for certain that tarot wasn’t magical. And if it was, it couldn’t have given that sort of precise measurement. Even the tarot die-hards had described it as poetry. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m right across the way. It’ll take me less than an hour, probably, and I won’t have to drive all the way up to your place.”
She and the cat exchanged glances, but then Wendy shrugged and stood up. She was wearing flipflops and a tank top on her patched-up calf-length skirt sewed from patches of different cloth patterns. Even standing up at full height, she was a small woman. There was no way she was even five feet tall.
She threw away her empty ice-cream cup, then picked up her cat under her arm and followed me across the street, around cars and pedestrians, and then I unlocked and opened the door to let them through.
The phone was already ringing off the hook before I walked in. The shop had been closed when I was out, and it was still empty, so the ringing seemed to cut uncomfortably through the room.
Still, I ignored it like it wasn’t ringing, and when it stopped, I opened my mouth to speak to the witch, whose eyebrows were raised on her youthful face, seeming to expect something else.
And that was when the ringing started up again.
The witch smirked. “Go on now,” she allowed, nodding her chin towards the telephone sitting on the counter.
I snorted and plopped down the box full of magic tea onto the counter before I picked up the phone and said, “Rare Gems and?—”
“Murtagh, YOU PRIMITIVE CRETIN!” Caspian’s voice boomed from the other end, and I instinctively pulled the phone away from my ear. “After hundreds of years, a mate literally plops into your lap and you have the gall to hide it from me? How selfish can you possibly be? Really, inform me how you justified to yourself that you can just take your time with a breedable girl without even calling me on your prehistoric phone?”
My stance stiffened and my heart leapt into my throat. I had to clear it, in fact, to make a reply. There was no way that he could be referring to Zazie, was there? How could that be possible? “I beg your pardon?” I retorted like I had done nothing wrong.
I had, of course, done something wrong. I was lucky that I was getting railed out over the phone, in fact. If the roles were in reverse, I would have been motivated to simply drive over to my shop to try to pummel the shit out of me in person.
I glanced at Wendy and her cat, their amused gazes suddenly feeling too intrusive. “Excuse me, sweetheart. I need to take this,” I muttered, covering the receiver for a moment.
“I know, cher. Goes without say. I’ll see you when you stop on by Lil’ Mamas,” she assured me, twiddling her fingers around, referring to her shop which was three hours away in a bum-fuck-nowhere college town called ‘Newsome’.
I inwardly sighed and followed her out to lock the door behind her, and Caspian was back in my ear. “Girl,” he explained crisply, as if asking him to jog my memory was insulting to the both of us. “Chestnut hair. Grey eyes. Smells like Daconia. Calls herself Zarah. Am I ringing any bells?”
Yep, it was definitely Zazie. Had to be. Images of her flooded my mind and my pulse raced. “Zarah? Can’t say I recall,” I lied. I was curious about what he knew, and it was impossible not to delight in irking him. He made it so easy.
“If you wanted me to dance with you, Murtagh,” he growled, annoyance clear in his voice, “I’d prefer the waltz. Not this infuriating game.”
I grinned slightly at this and leaned my hip against the counter. “Her name isn’t Zarah. I have no doubt she told you that, because she’s a crafty one. But I know for a fact her name is Zazie Henderson. I’ve met her brother, and that’s what he called her. Otherwise, I would say it was anything. She tried to nick a ten-million-dollar necklace right out of my office a few years back. The necklace belonged to Marie Antoinette, and she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off it. Caught her stuffing it into her purse when she was supposed to be closing up on her own.”
“And what did you do?” he prompted with interest.
A flush of heat coursed through me at the memory. “She was barely eighteen. Let’s just say that I made it uncomfortable for her to sit down for a while. But things heated up so much, I took her right there on my desk. I meant to be her first and last, but…” My cock had swelled so many times just from the memory of it. I had felt so alive that night. I thought we were going to get a million nights just like it.
After a moment of silence, probably because he was simmering like bacon on the stove, he asked, “And? How’d she end up with me today?”
