“Don’t remember saying it was anything that would make me want you to.”
God, the look he gave her for that. It was almost sultry.
She had to force practical thoughts into her head, just to force out the ones saying things like:He’s done so many nice things to you and you haven’t actually returned the favorandDoes he want you toandMaybe he’s starting to get a little sexually frustrated. Because of course this wasn’t the time, or the place.
And plus, Popcorn was watching from the back.
He lookedpissed. She had to say something normal just to get him to stop standing on all four stumpy legs, glaring at her. “What is it I’m touching?” she asked, and Popcorn deigned to sit down, as Jack answered.
“The shadow of my demon soul. I don’t shed it, you see, it’s still tethered to me. It just dims down to almost nothing—or at least, almost nothing to most. To a witch, it will always be sort of visible. It will always be felt.” He shrugged, all that sultriness gone as quick as it had come. “Like I said, she will figure it out.”
“But what do you think she’s going to do when she does?”
“Banish me to a null dimension. Maybe try to yoke my ass.”
“I don’t even know what a null dimension or a yoke is.”
“A kind of void that can hold a demon, and a way to bind one to you.”
“Cassie wouldn’t do that. She’s not like that. This place she’s made—I think it’s, you know, to help supernatural beings. In fact, I know it is now, because I can see the fricking sign on the ground over there.”
She pointed back toward the house.
But when she looked at him, he didn’t seem convinced. He seemed weary. Knowing.Tooknowing. “You’ve almost been here before, haven’t you,” she said, as she realized. And he shrugged in answer.
“Yeah, I figured what she was doing a while ago. Most supernatural beings have already heard. Witches are pretty rare, usually, and so when one shows up and is interested in helping the community, word spreads fast.”
“But you didn’t think she’d help you.”
“I just know that I’m scary, okay. Scarier than you seem to consider me to be. And that’s nice, but it’s just not reality, kid. So you go, and you talk to her, and you find out whatever you need to find out, for you. And I’ll be here, waiting,” he said, then gestured to the house. At which point, she realized.
He hadn’t really brought her here to find answers for himself.
He’d done it so she could find answers forher. So she could talk to another witch, and find her community. Finally sharethings with a friend that the friend had probably been waiting for. She even felt as if she could almost remember now—sometime in her store when Cassie had come in and tried to say something.
You went blank. You couldn’t see it, you had suppressed it, just like Jack said, just like you guessed, she thought, as she gave his hand one last squeeze and walked up to the house. Knocked, and waited for Cassie to answer—which she did, in a flurry of dark hair and flour and pink cheeks. Though none of those things were what Nancy noticed.
Instead, she saw into the house beyond.
And everything was just as it had seemed the last time she had been there, and yet somehow utterly different at the same time. Sparkles hung in the air above the big pot that sat on the stove. The microwave readout had words on it, aimed at Cassie’s boyfriend, Seth.I can’t believe the raccoon has stolen your shoe again, it read, as he hopped around the kitchen.
Then she looked down, and there was the raccoon in question.
The one that chittered at Cassie in a way-too-human sort of way.
And Cassie answered, “I don’t care how much you want it, give it back. We have company that can see you now, so you’d better smarten up and fly right,” she said—because she knew, of course she did. She could see that Nancy was different now, that she understood now.
She even winked at her as she bustled back into the kitchen.
“I’m guessing you’d like some guides right around now,” she said, and before Nancy could answer, Cassie started gathering up books, muttering as she went. “The witch one, obviously, maybe this one on familiars, this thing about how to unearth your knack… Seth, can you pass me that pamphlet on deadly creatures?”
Then Seth grabbed it, and set it atop the pile.
With a hand that didn’t look quite human.
“Are you…” she started to say.
But he was already answering. “Werewolf,” he said, as the raccoon attempted to steal his other shoe. Which kind of blunted the scary impact of such a revelation, she had to say. Because, sure, he probably sprouted seven-foot fangs and giant rippling wolf muscles. However, he could also be felled by a small furry mammal, apparently. And not even a particularly terrifying mammal.
