Chapter Five
I looked up when the soft conversation in the sanctuary gave way to clipped steps and Ceri peered hesitantly around the corner of the archway. Pulling the rain hood from her, she smiled, clearly pleased to see Jenks and me back on speaking terms. "Jenks, about Trent..." I said, seeing his wings turn an excited red. He knew that whatever Trent was, Ceri was the same.
"I can figure this out myself," he said, focusing on Ceri. "Shut your mouth."
I shut my mouth.
I stood and extended my hands to give Ceri a hug. I wasn't a touchy-feely person, but Ceri was. She had been Al's familiar until I stole her in the breath of time between her retirement and my attempted installment. Glancing briefly at my neck and bandaged knuckles, she pressed her lips disapprovingly, but thankfully said nothing. Her small, almost ethereal stature met mine, and the hand-tooled silver crucifix Ivy had given her made a cold spot through my shirt. The hug was brief but sincere, and she was smiling when she put me at arm's length. She had thin, fair hair that she wore free and flowing, a small chin, delicate nose, large pride, short temper, and a mild demeanor unless challenged.
She took off her rain cape and draped it over Ivy's chair, the self-proclaimed "throne" of the room. Al had dressed her commensurate to her earthly status while in his service - treating her as a favored slave/servant/bed warmer as well as an adornment - and though she now wore jeans and a sweater in her usual purple, gold, and black, instead of a skin-tight gown of shimmering silk and gold, the bearing was still there.
"Thanks for coming over," I said, genuinely glad to see her. "Do you want some tea?"
"No, thank you." She elegantly extended a narrow hand for Jenks to land on. "It's good to see you back where you can help the people who need you the most, master pixy," she said to him, and I would swear he turned three shades of red.
"Hi, Ceri," he said. "You look well-rested. Did you sleep well tonight?"
Her heart-shaped face went crafty, knowing he was trying to decipher what kind of Inderlander she was by her sleep patterns. "I have yet to take my evening rest," she said, shifting her fingers until he took to the air. Her gaze went to the open book on the table. "Is that it?"
A thrill of adrenaline went through me. "One of them. Is it demon?"
Tucking her long fair hair behind an ear, she leaned to take a closer look. "Oh yes."
Suddenly I was a whole lot more nervous, and I set my mug on the counter while my stomach churned. "There are a couple of charms I might want to try. Would you look at them for me and tell me what you think?"
Ceri's delicate features glowed with pleasure. "I'd love to."
I exhaled in a puff of relief. "Thanks." Wiping my hands on my jeans, I pointed to the curse to Were. "This one here. What about it? Do you think I can do it all right?"
The tips of her severely straight hair touched the stain-spotted, yellow text as she bent over the book. Frowning, she gathered the strands up and out of the way. Jenks flitted to the table as she squinted, alighting on the saltshaker. There was a crash from the living room followed by a chorus of pixy shrieks, and he sighed. "I'll be right back," he said, buzzing out.
"I've stirred this one before," she said, fingers hovering over the print.
"What does it do?" I asked, nervous all over again. "I mean, would it make me into a real wolf, or would I just look like one?"
Ceri straightened, her gaze darting to the hallway as Jenks's high-pitched harangue filtered in, making my eyeballs hurt. "It's a standard morphing curse, the same class that Al uses. You keep your intelligence and personality, same as when you shift with an earth charm. The difference is the blending of you and wolf goes to the cellular level. If there were two of you, you could have pups with a witch's IQ if you stayed a wolf through gestation."
My mouth dropped open. I reached out to touch the page, then drew back. "Oh."
With casual interest, she ran her finger down the list of ingredients, all in Latin. "This won't turn you into a Were, but this is how werewolves got started," she said conversationally. "There was a fad about six millennia ago where demons would torment a human woman in payment for a vanity wish by forcing a demonwolf/human pairing. It always resulted in a human child that could Were."
My eyes darted to her, but she didn't notice my fear. God, how...disgusting. And tragic for both the woman and child. The shame of dealing with a demon would never fade, always tied as it was to the love of a child. I'd often wondered how the Weres had gotten started, since they weren't from the ever-after like witches and elves.
"Would you like me to make it for you?" Ceri asked, her green eyes placid.
I jerked, my focus sharpening. "It's okay to use?"
Nodding, she reached under the counter for my smallest copper spell pot. "I don't mind. I could do this one in my sleep. Making curses is what demon familiars do. It will take all of thirty minutes." Seemingly unaware of my bewilderment, she casually moved the curse book to the island counter. "Demons aren't any more powerful than witches," she said. "But they're prepared for anything, so it looks like they're stronger."
"But Al morphs so fast, and into so many things," I protested, leaning against the counter.
Tiny boots clicking, Ceri turned from one of my cupboards, a wad of wolf 's bane in her hand. The stuff was toxic in large doses, and I felt a twinge of worry. "Al is a higher demon," she said. "You could probably best a lesser, surface demon with the earth magic you have in your charm cupboard, though with enough prep work a surface demon is as powerful as Al."
Was she saying I could best Al with my magic? I didn't believe that for a second.
With a preoccupied grace, Ceri lit the Sterno flame canister from a taper she started from the gas burner. The stove served as my "hearth fire," since the pilot light was always burning, and it made for a stable beginning to any spell. "Ceri," I protested. "I can do this."
"Sit," she said. "Or watch. I want to be useful." She smiled without showing her teeth, sadness clouding her clear eyes. "Where do you keep your blessed candles?"
"Um, in with the big silver serving spoons," I said, pointing. Doesn't everyone?
Jenks swooped in, gold sparkles sifting from him in agitation. "Sorry about the lamp," he muttered. "They will be washing the windows inside and out tomorrow."
"That's okay. It was Ivy's," I said, thinking they could break every light in the place if they wanted. It was more than nice having them back - it was right.
"Al is a walking pharmaceutical," Ceri said, flipping to an index to check something, and Jenks made a hiccup of surprised sound. "That's why demons want familiars experienced in the craft. Familiars make the curses they use, the demons kindling them to life, taking them internally, and holding them until invoking them with ley line magic."
With the first inklings of understanding, I pulled another demon book out and rifled through it, seeing the patterns in Al's magic. "So every time he morphs or does a charm..."
"Or travels the lines, he uses a curse or spell. Probably one that I made him," Ceri finished for me, squinting as she snatched one of Ivy's pens and changed something in the text, muttering a word of Latin to make it stick. "Traveling the lines puts a lot of blackness on your soul, which is why they're so angry when you call them. Al agreed to pay the price for pulling you through the first time, and he wants information to compensate for the smut."
I glanced at the circular scar on my wrist. There was a second one on the underside of my foot from Newt, the demon from whom I'd bought a trip home the last time I found myself stranded in the ever-after. Nervous, I hid that foot behind the other. I hadn't told Ceri because she was afraid of Newt. That she was terrified of the clearly insane demon and not Al made me feel all warm and cozy. I was never going to travel the lines again.
"May I have a lock of your hair?" Ceri asked, surprising me.
Taking the 99.8 percent silver snippers I'd spent a small fortune on that she was extending to me now, I cut a spaghettisized wad of hair from the nape of my neck.
"I'm simplifying things," she said when I handed it to her. "And you probably noticed he has a few shapes and spells that he enjoys more than others."
"The British nobleman in a green coat," I said, and a delicate rose color came over Ceri. I wondered what the story behind that was, but I wouldn't ask.
"I spent three years doing nothing but twisting that curse," she said, fingers going slow.
From the ladle came Jenks's attention-getting wing clatter. "Three years?"
"She's a thousand years old," I said, and his eyes widened.
Ceri laughed at his disconcertion. "That isn't my normal span," she said. "I'm aging now, as are you."
Jenks's wings blurred into motion, then stilled. "I can live twenty years," he said, and I heard the frustration in his voice. "How about you?"
Ceri turned her solemn green eyes to me for guidance. That elves were not entirely extinct was a secret I had told her to keep, and while knowing her expected life span wouldn't give it away, it could be used to piece the truth together. I nodded, and she closed her eyes in a slow blink of understanding. "About a hundred sixty years," she said softly. "Same as a witch."
I glanced uneasily between them while Jenks fought to hide an unknown emotion. I hadn't known how long elves lived, and while I watched Ceri weave my hair into an elaborate chain that looped back into itself, I wondered how old Trent's parents had been when they had him. A witch was fertile for about a hundred years, with a twenty-year lag on one end and forty at the tail end. I hadn't had a period in two years, since things pretty much shut down unless there was a suitable candidate to stir things up. And as much as I liked Kisten, he wasn't a witch to click the right hormones on. Seeing that elves had their origins in the ever-after, like witches, I was willing to bet their physiologies were closer to witch than human.
As if feeling Jenks's distress, Matalina flitted in trailing three of their daughters and an unsteady toddler. "Jenks, dear," she said, giving me an apologetic look. "The rain has slacked. I'm going to move everyone out so Rachel and Ivy can have some peace."
Jenks's hand dropped to his sword hilt. "I want to do a room-by-room check first."
"No." She flitted close and gave him a hovering kiss on the cheek. She looked happy and content, and I loved seeing her like that. "You stay here. The seals weren't tampered with."
My lower lip curled in to catch between my teeth. Jenks wasn't going to like my next move. "Actually, Matalina, I'd like you to stay, if you could."
Jenks jerked upward, a sudden wariness in him as he joined her, their wings somehow not tangling though they hovered side by side. "Why," he said flatly.