Appears before him it confesses all,
And that grim sorter of the dark and foul
Decides which place in Hell shall be its end,
Then wraps his twitching tail about himself
One coil for each degree it must descend.”
I frowned before asking,
“Are you telling me where it is you come from?”
He sighed and, for once, he dropped the attitude while telling me,
“The realm of Oblivion.”
I frowned and shook my head a little as I tried to get my head wrapped around it.
“You mortals know it as Limbo,” he added, when clearly my wrinkled nose was enough for him to get the hint that I needed more.
I think, at this point, I was still holding out for the fact that I drank too much caffeine and was clearly under a lot of stress. That I was, in fact, hallucinating, and he wasn’t actually real. But now he was telling me he was from one of the circles of Hell and that I had summoned him from there.
Thankfully, I was saved from answering as I paid for the cab and, seconds later, was standing back in my mom’s shop, facing my sister, who was currently serving a customer.
“Lily-pad, you’re back!” she exclaimed happily, well, that was until she saw my face, one that must have said it all.
After this, she lost her usually infectious grin quickly, and finished serving the customer before wishing them well in the usual Shadowmere family way.
“Thank you for shopping at The Littlest Witching Hour, and remember, to be a witch is to know the power of your own magic.”
The woman smiled and walked out of the shop with her goods. A Vampire’s Tears candle, easy to see, was sticking out of the top of her bag.
“What happened? Oh, tell me it wasn’t that Slutbag Jennifer again?” I was about to answer when the goblin jumped up on the counter and said,
“Well, hello, beautiful.”
I rolled my eyes, making my sister frown in confusion when I snapped.
“Will you quit it! Oh… no, wait… that wasn’t aimed at you…”
She looked behind her to see if there was anyone there, which there wasn’t.
Something that prompted me to ask, “Is Nate still here?”
“No, he had to finish early… why?”
I rushed over to the shop front door and locked it before flipping the open/close sign that was a pair of witch’s hands surrounding a glass ball.
“What are you doing?” Sabrina asked when I even went as far as pulling down the blinds. Ones my mom installed for whenever she was using the shop as a place to hold séances. Or any other meetings centered around trying to communicate with spirits of the dead. Damn it, she would so know what to do right about now.
“Oooh, right, setting the mood, I see,” the goblin said, clicking his fingers and igniting some of the display candles. Something that naturally made my sister jump.
“Quit that!” I snapped, looking at where he sat with his legs dangling over the counter, staring up at my sister like she was some demonic sex symbol. Naturally, this little fire starter startled my sister enough for her to stare wide-eyed at the candles as I went around blowing them out.
“Whoa, how did you? Noooo,” she said before covering her mouth with her hands as if she had just figured it out.
“It’s not what you think,” I said quickly, knowing exactly where my sister’s head was at. Something she confirmed when she exclaimed excitedly,
