CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Marcus had lefton Wednesday morning — some spiritual emergency that required his immediate attention — and wouldn’t be back until Friday evening. Which meant Ramona was running Mystic Moon solo for two days, and her days off shifted to Saturday and Sunday.
Normally, this would have filled her with low-grade dread. Two days of sole responsibility, of making decisions, of being the only person between the shop and complete chaos.
But Zara had volunteered to help.
“I don’t have anything else to do,” she’d said that morning over coffee, like it was obvious. “And I’ve already memorized your inventory system.”
“You memorized our inventory system?”
“It was poorly organized, and I optimized it.” Zara had taken a sip of coffee, completely unbothered. “You’ll notice the romance section is now alphabetized by subgenre and then by author.”
“When did you?—”
“Last week. You were restocking the crystals.”
Now it was Thursday afternoon, and Ramona was behind the counter with her laptop open, supposedly doing work for Marcus but actually deep in research about convergence point cleansing. Zara was efficiently helping customers with the kind of competence that suggested she’d been working retail for years instead of weeks.
“The amethyst or the rose quartz?” a customer was asking, holding up two crystals.
“What’s your intention?” Zara asked.
“Um. Clarity? Focus?”
“Amethyst. Rose quartz is better for emotional work.” Zara paused. “Though if you’re looking for focus specifically, fluorite would be more effective. We have some in the display case, including this gorgeous wand shape.”
The customer’s eyes lit up. “Oh, really?”
Five minutes later, she left with fluorite, a book on crystal meditation, and a manifestation journal. Zara rang her up with the efficiency of someone who’d spent three hundred years optimizing processes.
Ramona barely noticed. She was scrolling through yet another forum post about sacred site purification, growing increasingly frustrated.
To cleanse a convergence point, create a salt barrier around the perimeter and burn white sage while speaking words of intention…
Useless. She’d read a dozen variations of this same advice. Salt barriers. Sage smoke. Speaking intentions into the void. Nothing about demonic corruption specifically. Nothing about what happened when Hell magic infected a sacred space and started spreading like rot through living wood.
She opened another tab in Wandle, the search engine specifically for witches. She typed in:demonic corruption sacred sites medieval texts
More useless results. Academic papers about historical accounts of corruption, but no actual methodology. Forum posts talking about “negative energy” like it was something you could fix with good vibes and crystals.
“Any luck?” Zara appeared beside her, having dispatched the customer.
“No. Everything I’m finding is surface-level garbage.” Ramona gestured at her screen. “Look at this. ‘Cleanse the space with sage and positive intentions.’ That’s not going to fix demonic corruption. That’s not going to stop whatever’s happening at the convergence point.”
“What about the grimoires?” Zara nodded toward the back room, where Marcus kept his collection of “rare” magical texts that were mostly Victorian-era fakes.
“Already checked. Nothing useful.” Ramona pulled up her notes — a document she’d been compiling all morning between customers. “I found three references to convergence point purification, but they’re all from the same source text that I can’t find. And the modern interpretations are…” She scrolled through. “Watered down. Simplified. Like someone took actual magical knowledge and dumbed it down for general consumption.”
“Which is exactly what Marcus does with this shop,” Zara observed.
“Yeah.” Ramona closed that tab, opened another. “What about Hell’s databases? You said you’d search?”
“I did. All morning, between helping customers and reorganizing the herb section.” Zara pulled out her HellBerry, scrolled through her notes. “There are references to corruption incidents. Procedures for containment. Guidelines for damage control.”
“But?”
“But the actual cleansing rituals are classified.” Zara’s expression was frustrated. “I don’t have clearance. Apparently, you need to be at least a Level 8 Administrator to access purification protocols, and I’m—” She stopped.
