Page 136 of The Blue Moon Café & 24-Hour Occult Emporium

He shook his head. “Any magic they’d have to do would be too complex in the time we have. Damn those cuffs.”

“Then we bring in the big guns.” Talula took a breath. “Simon, now’s the time for serious magic. Demonic shadows. Pickle dimension. Earwigs. All of it.”

Simon swallowed nervously. “I can’t.”

“What?”

“I haven’t regained my power all the way yet. Six weeks ago, I was just magical plasma!” Simon cried. “I can do illusions and a few little tricks, but nothing big. Not big enough for this.”

Talula sank onto the café sofa, turning over their options in her head. “What about Elegba? Can you try reaching him?”

“I don’t have a direct line to his astral signature. No one on the Council does. He’s an orisha; he operates on his own terms. Did the cookbook say anything?”

Talula shook out her hands. “I made the last recipe. But it was just eggs! Unless Kiki wanted me to scramble Damien to death—”

“Kiki,” Simon said. He didn’t meet Talula’s eyes. “Kiki could help.”

Talula crossed her arms. “Their ex is the one doing this, Simon. Their abusive ex. Kiki came to the Blue Moon to get away from Damien. We’re not going to bring Kiki into this.”

“Then what do we do?” Simon asked quietly.

Talula searched her brain. Then she remembered what Kiki had said about the ring they’d given Dahlia.

It may summon jinn, any jinn, all jinn, some jinn, one jinn at the will of a sorceress. The ring will not allow jinn to be bound to your command, but they can be bargained with.

“We can still use the ring. But we summon any jinn who’ll answer the call. We see who’s willing to make a deal.”

“That seems extremely ill-advised.”

“We can reason with jinn. We can’t reason with mass-murdering sociopaths.”

“Those categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive!” Simon let out a distressed groan. “But you’re right. It’s our best option. Even though negotiating with unknown jinn is dangerous and stupid and we all might die with jinn-conjured weevils erupting from our anuses.”

Talula let out a horrified half laugh.

“But we need the ring,” Simon said. “And Dahlia has it.”

“I’ll get it.” Talula shook out her shoulders. “I’ll just conjure it.”

“I don’t think—”

But the door had opened in Talula’s mind. In her blue-tinged magical vision, Dahlia sat at her kitchen table, staring wretchedly at the poster board Talula had left on the counter next to the scrambled eggs. Pain cracked through Talula’s heart. But she couldn’t get distracted now. Kiki’s ring glittered over Dahlia’s shirt. With her magic, Talula reached for it.

Something heavy tugged at Talula’s power. She frowned, pressing her will into the conjuring. She felt something snap, like a rubber band stretched to its breaking point and recoiling.

When Talula came out of her magical trance, the ring was in her hand. Which was still attached to the necklace. Which was still attached to Dahlia.

“Whoa!” Dahlia gaped. She watched the blue sparks of magic drift around her. “That was extremely cool. But also, not cool?”

“I didn’t mean to do that. I promise I didn’t mean to do that!” Talula dropped the ring and sprung away from Dahlia. She was not ready to have this conversation. “I know we need to talk about some big things, but I just wanted to conjure Kiki’s ring to save Samhain.”

Dazed, Dahlia stumbled onto the café couch. “Save it from what? I thought we already saved it.”

Talula, totally unprepared for any of this, decided to just launch into it, giving Dahlia the bare-bones details. “There are mercenaries holding the town hostage until I give them every magical being at the festival so they can sell tickets to magical creature hunts. We need Kiki’s ring because it can summon jinn. We need to make a deal with a jinn before the hunters start killing everyone in Pine Hollow.”

“Kiki gave me an all-powerful jinn-summoning ring?” Dahlia held up the ring appreciatively. “Nice.”

“If I could just borrow it—”