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“Why?” I asked.
She looked up at me, confused. “Because he worries, and he has cancer. So I don’t want him to have called me, me not answer my phone because it’s lost somewhere in your limo, and then him freak out because I’m not answering my phone and then… you know, die. Or you know… I worry about him, and I like to check in every day, and I hadn’t done that today.”
I frowned. Well, at least I knew he wasn’t a djinn. Djinns, as far as I knew, didn’t get cancer. Being cancer-free was a perk of not being human.
I found myself feeling a little softened by her thoughts and smirked. “The witch will be here soon. After that, you can call your brother. If he’s not already worried, then he’s surely asleep,” I reminded.
She nodded, seeming happy about this, and rubbed soap over her body. Within a couple of minutes of doing this, and her letting us just watch, we heard a noise come from outside.
“They’re here,” Murtagh said, going to the window and pulling the blinds apart enough to look through.
I joined him and saw, walking up to the house, a very tall blonde man wearing sunglasses despite the night being at its darkest point. His body was lithe, seeming almost feline despite his height, and holding onto his arm was a little black-haired young woman, who was tiny yet wearing a very vibrant, long skirt. If she was a witch, then she didn’t look like what I’d had in mind. She looked like she was a teenager. She tilted her head, looked right up at our window and waved. I think I saw the sight of glittery-gold eyes.
“How they got here in forty minutes is a fucking mystery,” Murtagh grumbled. “Unnatural is what it is. Their town is three hours from here…”
“Why did you invite them?” Zazie asked, trying to stand up in the bath water. I walked over and wrapped a towel gently around her shoulders. “Can they take away my monster-ness?” she asked hopefully.
Murtagh shook his head. “No. I want to make sure we’re not in danger,” he explained honestly.
“From who?” she asked, her eyes rounding as she stepped onto the ground, holding onto my hand to steady herself.
“From you.”
She jerked her head up to look at us, surprised. She did make me feel a little pathetic, but she hadn’t seen anyone torn apart from her kind before. Murtagh and I both had—that was one of the only ways we died. Djinns had evolved alongside us, knew our weaknesses, knew how to penetrate our scales. We enjoyed gems the same amount, enjoyed the same resources, ate similar foods. We were always clashing with them.
“Come on. Let’s get in there,” Murtagh said, directing her by the small of her back as she kept the towel close around her.
“Do you guys have any spare clothes?”
“No,” I replied.
“I’m glad you put a lot of prep-work into my kidnapping,” she grumbled as she let us guide her out the door.
The shadow creature had let the witch and her sun-spectacled companion into the room. The witch was even smaller than I thought, and as she came up close, I realized she was a whole head smaller than Zazie. The witch had a cat in her arms, a big, black, yellow-eyed hairball that was obviously shedding.
Disgusting.
Cats were the worst. Sometimes I’d lie and say I was allergic to them, because for some reason nobody could see how they weren’t house pets. They were wild animals; they were not tame. They clawed even their owners, they always seemed to leave messes. A hundred years ago, they were a necessity—everyone had a rat problem. But now cats weren’t even mousers. They ate birds, and only the birds that I liked …
“You definitely let a demon into my house,” I informed Murtagh, and I wasn’t talking about the shadow man. Honestly, I had no idea if he was a ghost, or monster, or demon, or what. But when I looked directly at the blond man, I realized he had nothing showing at all on the other side of the sunglasses. Just empty, inky blackness.
The witch plopped the cat right at her feet, where it then licked his paws and washed its face in its own saliva. Urgh.
“And a feline,” I was too busy curling my lip with disgust that I almost missed the witch coming animatedly towards me.
“Oh, cher! I’m downright overjoyed to finally meet y’all. Been knowin’ you was ‘round, mais—” the witch said, ignoring my comment to Murtagh and slinging her arms around me like we were long lost cousins.
I didn’t return it much—she’d just been holding a gross animal and there was probably loose fur on her now… Dear lord, it was probably on me now… My stomach was churning.
“A second dragon, hoo-wee!” The little witch looked up at Murtagh and waved her hand towards the blond man in an introduction, “An’ this here’s my Big Daddy, Samael. He’s come to help out—though that might be hard to tell, judgin’ by his face,” she added with a smirk at the tall, blond demon.
Samael let out a sigh, like being here was a chore.
“And, lawd, ain’t you somethin’! You smellin’ like sunshine in the mornin’,” she said, approaching Zazie and hugging her as well. “I’m big on embrassades,” she noted, still hugging her for a long moment without getting hugged back. Zazie looked at Wendy like she was a trick-performing bear. But the witch didn’t seem to mind at all. Pulling back, she said, “Allons, let’s get a gander at ya.” She scanned Zazie up and down. Then her face lit up with a grin. “Just as spooky as I thought, yep.” She turned her head to grin at Murtagh with this teasing smile. “You even had Sam thinkin’ you might be in a fix!”
“We are in fix,” Murtagh assured firmly.
The witch seemed very excited to argue. “You done found yourself a mate, cher! Just look at her—all ripe and bloomin’. Smells of your realm, so you ought to have no trouble with the works! I tell ya, y’all be hatchin’ baby dragons quick as a gator snap! I can’t fathom what the fuss is about,” she put her hands on her hips.
