Page 1 of Mayhem and Ember

1

EMBER

Six months ago, if you’d told me I’d get a haircut from an imp, I’d have called you crazy. If you would’ve said I’d lose my sword in a twenty-foot-deep crevice beneath the biggest church in town, I’d have laughed. And the mere mention that my baby sister would be getting it on with a demon prince in the room down the hall would’ve had me in stitches.

Yet here we were…and the haircut wasn’t even a good one.

I rummaged through my mom’s sewing kit and grabbed her sharpest pair of fabric scissors before returning it to the shelf and padding across the living room in my socks. My door was the first on the left. Beyond that, Patrice slept in Cinder’s bed, and at the end of the hall, Miles and Shade shared my parents’ space. In between, Ash lay in her bedroom, snuggled up with Chaos, Prince of Hell.

I shook my head. That wasn’t even the craziest thing that had happened over the past few weeks.

After flipping on the light, I strode through my room and stepped into the bathroom. I could hardly bear my reflection. I’d showered and even put on a bit of makeup this morning, so I didn’t look terrible—aside from my hair—but the tightness of my eyes and the set of my jaw told the story of a woman who’d had the crushing weight of the entire world thrust onto her back in one fell swoop.

And she wasn’t sure how much longer she could carry it.

“One thing at a time, Em,” I said to the woman I barely recognized. “Focus on the things you can control. Complete one task, and then you can worry about the next.” Otherwise, I might curl into a ball on the floor and cease to exist.

Up first, fixing my hideous hair.

I glared at the side the imp had chopped off with a pair of garden shears. Granted, the slimy little sucker was going for my neck, so I should’ve been glad he only took off ten inches of hair. But it would take me at least two years to grow it back to the length I liked.

Switching my focus to the long purple locks on the other side of my head, I sighed. This was a thing I could control. A problem I could solve, even if the solution wasn’t appealing in the slightest.

I gathered a fistful in my hand and closed the scissors around it. I tried to, at least, but my hair was too thick. Working the blades open and closed, I sawed off a clump, leaving jagged edges and lament in its wake.

“Oh, honey. Let me help you.” Ash’s voice startled me, and I jumped, dropping the scissors into the sink.

“I didn’t hear you come in.” I picked them up and grabbed another fistful of hair.

“Give them to me.” She held out her hand, so I placed the handles in her palm. “That little bugger did a number on you, didn’t he?” She grabbed some clips and pinned up the top layer of my hair.

“It’s driving me bonkers. One side is too short to pull back, and the other gets in my way if I don’t.” I rested my hands on the edge of the sink and focused on the coolness of the porcelain seeping into my skin and the scent of citrus emanating from the plug-in air freshener next to the mirror. “Where’s your demon?”

“In the shower.” She began snipping, ten-inch-long strands of purple falling around my feet. “What’s our next move?”

I ground my teeth even harder. “I want my sword.”

She paused, pursing her lips before continuing my haircut. “You don’t need it to fight. You could stop a monster with a spell and your bare hands if you had to.”

“I want it,” I said, my bottom teeth never losing contact with my top. “It’s as much a part of me as my hideous hair.”

“It won’t be hideous much longer.” She unpinned a section and snipped some more. “I’m sure the church is closed. The foundation can’t support it after what Mayhem and Chrys did to it, and I doubt they’ll let us in.”

I lowered my gaze at the mention of our once-friend, Chrys. Her body still lay under enchantment in our basement. Hopefully, her mother would claim it soon.

Snapping my eyes to the mirror, I looked at my sister. “So what if it’s closed? That’s never stopped us before.”

“You could get a new one.” She cut the last section and began evening it out.

I turned my head to see her. “Why would I do that when I can retrieve my old one?”

With her fingers on my scalp, she turned me toward the mirror. “We still have to summon Mayhem, find Cinder and then our parents, all the while battling the bigger and badder beasties that are slipping through the veil. The less conflict we put upon ourselves the better.” She shrugged. “It would be easier to get a new one.”

“There’s a six-month waiting list to have one forged, and anyway…” I picked up a piece of hair from the sink and slid my fingers over the smooth strands. “Mom gave it to me for my twenty-second birthday. It’s special.”

Ash’s expression softened. “I hear you. All right. Step one: retrieve your sword. Step two: re-summon Mayhem the right way. Step three: break the curse and save the world.”

“You make it sound so simple.” I dropped the hair and returned my hands to the edge of the sink.

---