The little demon hadn’t even had sigils. I eyed the gold around my arm like it was an alien. No. Not an alien. A parasite.
Spells could transfer in water, but not inside a circle, so what in the hellebore had happened? The longer the gold thing was onme, the more it was going to mess with my energy. I had to get it off.
Demons were relatively rare, and the chances of another portal opening today were low to nil. I had an hour or so before Ori arrived, and I needed food, stat. But as I walked to my favorite green juicery, the images of Brenda and the pink bumpy demon dog obliterated any rational thought. I was weak and hungry and rattled.
Standing in line at the juicery, I mumbled calming chants. Maybe it was my upbringing to respect nature, but over the years, I’d discovered that leafy greens, raw food, and freshly pressed juices holistically boosted my energy and refreshed my magic. Muscles and organs took longer to absorb the nutrients, but crunching leaves or sucking back a smoothie returned my power almost instantly.
My phone buzzed with a call from my father’s attorney, Charles Worthington III. I hit decline. The lawyer only called if it was about money. That could wait.
As far as I was concerned, the DNA my dad had passed on had nothing to do with who I was. He’d left my and Mom’s chosen life with the intentional community (which he chose to call a commune) and thrown in with a tech startup that ended up netting him millions.
My parents’ hefty divorce settlement paid for the Potrero Hill house, the taxes, and the retreat Mom and my stepdad, Bud, had built up in the redwoods. It also had a clause that my father would stay away from me. That suited me. He’d never really understood Mom, and he definitely would not get my specialness.
“You feeling okay?” the counter person asked.
"Yeah, just thirsty," I replied, taking my order of organic celery, pear, cucumber juice, and a couple of salads. Outside, Idowned a juice in four gulps. It was like a warm blanket after a night of stargazing.
Green power zipped through my veins as I hiked back up the hill to Potrero. Once I was safe inside my wards, I would get the damned bracelet off before it killed me. When I turned onto my street, I ran the rest of the way home.
CHAPTER FIVE
Antimony shifted on her pad in her most-loved sunny morning perch in the big bay window. I could hear herchirrupas she disappeared. The shade of mossy green paint Mom and I had agonized over had rooted our turn-of-the-century cottage into my soul. It was home, not because it was a house that sheltered, but because of the love that made it a place to feel safe. Mom might be gone, but her love had never left me.
Turning the copper key in the front door lock was the final connection to home. I breathed in the sage and rue as Antimony chirruped and bounded toward me. She dropped, then draped herself over my boot. I crouched down to run my fingers over her warm velvety belly fur. “Who’s a toasty kitten?” Her insta-purrs soothed away more of the morning’s awfulness.
I was lighter as I walked through the living room to the back of the house. I dropped my stuff onto the kitchen counter, grabbed a salad, then Ant and I walked out back into the walled garden. She twined around my ankles before setting off to hunt. As a kitten, she’d been scrawny with gray fur almost as dark as kohl. Her fur had lightened as she filled out, and now she was the gray of a daylight shadow with golden eyes like a full moon clearing the horizon.
Still jittery, I closed my eyes against the early spring sun, inhaling the freshness of yesterday’s rain. Each crunch of salad leaves bounced positive energy through me, and I sent quiet thanks out to the universe that Brenda was alive. The sun’s radiance, and the boost from the lettuce leaves, pulled more of the tension from my shoulders. I chewed, musing the sanctity of this place, this life. My garden was magical but way different from my childhood home, which had been nestled in almost a hundred acres of farmland bordering on forest. Mom’s years of training with her mother as a wildcrafter had steeped me in a primal love for nature. When my abilities had surfaced and we’d begun to research my uniqueness, we’d discovered that more portals open in populated areas. Like me, cities were demon magnets. We’d decided if I was going to reach my full potential we’d have to move. Back then, we decided things together. Now I was alone in making the best choices.
I fiddled with the slippery gold bracelet. The gold was smooth like serpent scales. The damned bracelet needed to come off, but first, I had to get some focus back.
Sitting on the back steps, I pulled off my boots and socks. Then, undoing my ponytail, I fanned out the silky silver gray around my shoulders and breathed in.
When Mom had been taken, the spells I’d tried to get her back had almost killed me and stripped the color from my hair. After I’d crashed and picked myself up, I’d embraced being alive and savoring every moment of that life. But I’d never stopped trying to find a way to get to her. If portals existed for demons to come through, then there must be a way for someone like me to go through them and return with her. Save her from whoever or whatever had stolen her from me.
I walked down the stairs and onto the stones, my toes curling in the damp grass. Birds twittered happily in the persimmon tree. The breeze dusted across my face. I lifted my nose to the wind, inhaling chamomile, mallow, daisy, creeping thyme, and memories of sunny days watching clouds.
The birds stopped singing.
I stilled, tingling, while sunlight glinted off the bracelet.
Ant tore across the garden in a gray streak, clawing up and over the fence.
My insides knotted.
Sulfur clouded the air and the telltale sucking sound froze my bones before my brain could catch up.
Pop.
Oh hellebore, no.
Mom and I had dug deep salt pillars at the four corners of the property, creating a field that deterred most non-human interlopers. A portal couldn’t open here—but it was.
I took the back steps three-at-a-time, leaping through the door and dropping the ward bar into place before tearing to the herb cabinet.
A keening in my head turned my thoughts to mush as the door opened.
Flipping Foxgloves.
