Page 85 of The Little Shop of Curiosities, The Music Box Part 2

“Surely you can’t be this naïve? You think he’s just going to jump out of the floor and hand himself over to you? Into slavery to a human? You have no idea if Cordelia’s original spell is powerful enough to extend to her descendant or how extensive her control of him actually was. Have you ever thought he was playing her? That he just pretended to be her tame demon, to give her the illusion of control, because he has his own agenda? He’s a fucking demon!”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” he scoffs.

“Issac, I know you think you are, but you’re not strong enough to control a demon. It will turn on you the moment it is free, and the whole world will burn for your avarice.”

“I have Cordelia’s blood burning through my veins. It bowed to her, it will bow to me.”

“If that’s true and she did actually find a way to control the demon, it bowed to her because she had The Book of Lala Khal. You. Do. Not.” I take a deep breath. “Issac, it is going to kill you and everyone else that stands in its path. Are you willing to unleash that kind of evil on the world? Are you really that deluded? That power-mad?”

“Enough!” he snaps, but before I can say anything else, a familiar sound echoes through the room.

It’s my phone. I look around frantically, not that it would do any good in my current predicament. It rings off and then a second later starts again. I watch as Issac smirks and reaches into the pocket of his robe, then produces my phone and glances at the screen.

“Ah, it seems your PI friend is trying to reach you.” The phone rings off and then starts again. “My, my, he is very insistent. Perhaps I should answer? Oh look, he’s left you a message. Shall we listen to it?”

“Leave him alone, he has nothing to do with this.”

Ignoring me, Issac plays the voice message.

“There’s no point in hiding from us, Prickles.” Sam’s annoyed tone echoes in the stillness of the room. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”

“Prickles?” Issac eyes me with interest. “Hmm, your friend seems very unhappy about something, do you think your secret’s out…Sage?”

My tone is glacial as I stare at him. “If you go near him, I will make you suffer like you’ve never suffered before. It’ll make whatever that demon is planning to do to you look like a Sunday fucking picnic.”

“You do have a temper hidden under all those neatly pressed, tightly buttoned-up clothes of yours, don’t you, cousin?” He tuts mockingly, but before I can respond, the phone rings again, and this time he hums in pleasure when he looks at the screen. “Oh, it’s Tristan. What do you think? Should we invite the whole gang along? After all, my demon will be hungry after rising from such a long confinement. I for one cannot wait to see him rip the good detective Hayes into tiny little pieces.”

“I mean it, Issac.” I growl. “It’s me you want, stay away from them!”

But he ignores me. Instead, he connects the call and raises it to his ear, then listens for a long, excruciating moment.

“I’m sorry.” He smiles at me slowly. “Harrison can’t come to the phone right now. My cousin is rather”—his gaze flicks to my wrists—“tied up at the moment.”

20

Iwatch as Issac bustles around the circle, and I don’t bother to try and interact with him. After all, what’s the point? There’s nothing I can say that he’d actually hear. You can’t argue with stupidity. Or, in this instance, a raging case of ego and lust for power.

The fool is going to get himself and everyone else killed—not that I’ll probably live long enough to see it if Issac has his way. The stupid thing is, if he’d been a little saner, a little more pleasant…a little less…well…evil, I’d have given him the damn bookshop. I don’t want the inheritance, I never have, not even the money. Now I don’t have a choice, I’m probably the only Crawshanks descendant left.

As much as it pains me to agree with anything Issac says, he’s right about one thing. This place has too much power, too many secrets, and is, frankly, just too fucking dangerous to let fall into the wrong hands. It’s my responsibility whether I like it or not, and for the first time since my dads told me about Vivienne and the circumstances of my adoption, I’ve actually begun to understand what it was like for her.

Fuck.

I reach for my magic again, frustrated when it gives a muted pulse but refuses to unfurl. Fucking witch rope, fucking Issac, fucking whole Crawshanks family and their stupid fucking bad decisions leading to a fucking legacy we’re still paying for generations later.

I am not dying like this. If my magic won’t work, I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way. Glancing up at the rope, I can see where the flare of my magic caused by my flash of temper singed it. Several of the tiny white flowers were burned away and the threads have begun to fray. It’s obviously still strong enough to bind my power, but maybe sheer brute strength would make the rope snap.

There’s just two problems with that. One, I don’t have brute strength, and two, I don’t have anything to brace myself against to apply pressure in order to leverage the non-brute strength I do have.

Plan B: Maybe if I just wriggle a bit, I can either make the rope fray more or somehow unhook myself. Taking a deep breath, I start to struggle, undulating my body and trying to pull myself up.

Note to self: Build up upper-body strength.

My arms are noodles and my shoulders are in agony from being in this position too long and from all my thrashing about.

After several moments, I hang uselessly, worn out. My frantic wriggling has achieved nothing except I now spin slowly on the hook like a rotisserie chicken. I look down at Issac watching me with a dry expression. Instead of commenting on my feeble escape attempt, he simply raises his hood and kneels inside the circle. A bone-handled knife with a wicked-looking blade rests on the floor before him.

He begins to chant, but I can’t make out the words. They don’t seem to be English, but given that he’s about to raise a demon, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what language it is.