As if she’d been hit by an enormous custard pie, hurled by a clown.
Only of course when she looked, it wasn’t cream and crust.
It was red, and sticky, and thick, and it was all over her, it was everywhere. It dripped off the tips of her fingers and the ends of her hair. Her blouse was ruined, her skirt was worse; she had to take off her glasses to get a good look at what she’d done to cause this. And then, there it was:
That hellhound split clean down the middle.
One half still kind of standing. The other collapsed in a heap of gore.
And after that it all went, and she could see beyond it. She could make out Jack as he finished bursting through the wall she’d made. All covered in brick dust and flecks of mortar, as if thewhole thing had been as real as anything on any building in town. She wondered if it would stay now, invisible to most but there for anything supernatural to see. A monument to her clumsy witchy abilities.
Or, at least, that was how it seemed to her. Until she saw his face.
He didn’t even seem to register the mess she’d made of herself.
He just stared, awestruck, at the wonder she had become.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The first thing he did once he’d called the truck back, and gotten her into it, was tell her he had never been so mad in his life. And even after he stopped raging at her for risking her neck for no reason, he seethed. He fumed.
Though even as he did, she could see it underneath. A hint of that same expression he’d had when he’d clocked everything she had done. It was there in the way one side of his mouth kept trying to quirk up. How it trembled with the effort not to. How his eyes sparked bright before he looked away.
It still had him all awestruck that she’d done it.
Awestruck, and just a little gleeful. Like he was proud, in some way, that she had gotten out. That she had cast that wall spell. Then split that thing in two. And then just as she was thinking,Maybe this was a far-fetched thing to imagine, he grumbled some grudging words as they climbed out of the truck. “Well, I guess at least you remember enough about spell casting to somewhat take care of yourself,” he said. “Even if you are boneheaded enough to risk your life for mine.”
But she couldn’t let that stand. “Maybe I was just inspired by the fear of losing you,” she said, in a way she thought sounded jaunty. Only it stopped him dead in his tracks. One foot on theporch, one off it. Every muscle tense. It took him an age to turn around, and even longer to say something.
“You don’t mean that.”
“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I? You’re my friend.”
“That seems like a lot of friendship for someone like me.”
“I don’t even think it’s enough, considering what you’ve done for me,” she said—much to his obvious irritation. Very obvious, because on his big demon face everything was exaggerated. A scowl seemed three feet deep. The downturn of his mouth was almost cartoonish.
Especially with those lower fangs peeping up over his top lip.
Yeah, that shouldn’t have been adorable. But it kind of was.
“Don’t talk about things like me telling you it’s okay to be a witch, and saying there’s nothing wrong with you, as if they mean you owe me something for them. They’re a given. They’re standard. They’re just standard reasonable concepts anybody should impress upon you.”
“Okay, but you know all these cool things you’re saying are making my need to be super friends even more, right? I’m already dreaming up matching sweaters to buy us, and thinking of writingBFFs foreverin the journal I can now actually have if I want to, without any fear at all. Heck, I can even start writing stories again. ‘Why Jack and Nancy are the two bestest friendsto ever friend.’”
“These are weird ideas to have while covered in gore thatIam the cause of.”
“Well, I guess you’re just going to have to make it up to me by soaping it off.”
She didn’t wait for him to respond. She just sauntered past him, up the porch steps and into the cabin. And she had time to, because he seemed so flabbergasted he couldn’t do anything but stare for a moment. He watched her go, like he’d never seen her in his life before.
It made sense, though.
She wasn’t sure she’d ever really seen herself, either.
She felt electric, brand-new. Like she could do anything, if she wanted to. And apparently that included really leaning in to this whole having a wild tryst with a demon thing. Even if the demon was very disturbed by this casual suggestion. “Hey, now, whoa there, honey, I know that is not something a friend says to another friend.”
“I don’t thinkhoneyis what one friend says to another friend, either.”
