I raided the herb stash in the kitchen cabinets and hauled out braids of garlic, sage, garlic oil, mace, and a bag of elderflowers.Ranth crouched beside me as I draped a sage wreath around my neck. “Do you have syrup of dates?”
“Molasses? Brown rice syrup? Maple syrup?”
“I don’t know what those are, but you need to hurry.”
Blackstrap molasses was in the closest cupboard. I twisted the top off and thrust it at him as the Essifers ambled into the kitchen. Chanting or cursing in words I didn’t recognize, Ranth slowly poured a triangle of molasses around us as I opened a bag of maca root. He had half a triangle drawn out when the Essifers closed in. Ranth squatted, smearing brown goo into a solid line.
The Essifers stopped and looked around the kitchen as if we’d disappeared.
“What does this do?” I asked, but the demons locked on to my voice, moving closer. Ranth brought a finger to his lips. I pushed a piece of maca at him, making the motion of clamping it between his teeth, but he shook his head.
He held up his hand, signaling for me to stay put. Instead of wasting energy and time yelling at him, I dropped a garlic wreath over my head. Wielding the other wreath of garlic, he stood up and stepped out of the circle before I could stop him.
I crouched, ready to go planar, but waited to see what he was going to do first.
He stilled as the Essifers locked on to him. They rushed forward. He raised his hand, and his arm shimmered and grew longer. Green-gold layers of sigils rose up and rotated around his molasses smeared wrist and forearm. With the sigil-swirling arm, he dropped the garlic wreath over the first Essifer. The demon froze and dropped to the floor as if it had been made of ice. Then with the same hand, Ranth ripped out the insides of the second one.
Ranth staggered back as the pink smoke dissipated, and he used the wall to hold himself up. I stepped out of the triangle and bit down on the maca. Thewhooshof the change blurredmy vision for a second. I hit the Essifer frozen on the floor with a fuzzy silver energy ball. The demon dissipated, leaving the sour scent of burned garlic behind. Garlic was a protector, but it shouldn’t have a direct attack effect on demons. Ranth had stuff to tell me.
I slid on the molasses, spat out the maca, and helped Ranth to a kitchen chair. “These portals have to stop—now. What do we need to protect the house?” I asked, surveying the smeared triangle of smoking garlic and molasses. Clean-up was going to suck.
Ranth’s eyelids drooped. Right, he needed energy. I ran to the fridge and pulled out protein bars and the jug of ginger-laced carrot juice I’d made before I went to Brenda’s. I shakily poured a glass and returned to him. He was looking better and sitting up, but there was a slowness to his movements that concerned me.
He rambled about protection herbs as he wolfed down the second bar. By the time he’d chewed the last bite, he was standing up.
“Happy you’re feeling better. How did you touch the demon? How do you make the green stuff, and what is Darseenee?”
The answers to the first one and second were illuminating. The power he funneled was enhanced by the gold of the bracelet. Because it was existing both elsewhere and this world, he could use it to connect with demons out of the plane. It also made the green leafy energy possible.
Searching the internet, I found the common names for archaic terms like the Darseenee, Baabooneh, and Jowz Booaa—which were cinnamon, chamomile, and nutmeg. About ten minutes later, I stared at the pile of herbs, eggshells, and salt on the kitchen table, suddenly seeing the connections.
“We’re making a salt pillar, right?”
He poured himself another glass of carrot juice. “An obelisk is a kind of pillar. You’ll need one in the center of the house to tie the wards together. Otherwise, the wards won’t hold back the Essifer.”
“And the spices blend with the herbs to do what?” I was already pulling out mixing bowls.
“We are grounding the house using all parts of the earth. Flower, nut, seed, gum, and bark.”
“Fruit and leaf. Gotcha. But if demons can portal in here, then why haven’t demons come in here before? You said Essifers are special, but you didn’t really explain it.” I scooped salt rocks out of the sack into the bowl.
“I did explain. Essifers are like hunting creatures controlled by their masters, the Derellers.”
“Why don’t the Derellers just come themselves?”
“It takes energy to come through the portal. Demons, as you may have realized, don’t like to lose energy. They want to gain it.”
“The Derellers use the Essifer as their minions, basically?”
“The Essifer are created from their energy, but it is finite. They have locked on to the energy of the gold. With the Dereller’s energy collectively driving them, it allows the smaller Essifers to wander places that other demons cannot access.”
I nodded. “But why do the Derellers want to kill you? Hand me the cinnamon sticks.”
He passed me the bag of rolled bark. “Not kill, but capture. They are likely being promised something they wish to have, by another entity who wants the gold I wear.”
“Entity? Another demon type?” I broke up the finger-sized sticks into smaller pieces and got up to get a knife and cutting board.
Ant mewed as she came into the kitchen.
