Page 35 of Demon's Bluff

“I have coffee, too,” I added when he tossed his heavy bearskin coat to the eat-at counter.

“Coffee, I will indulge in. It is much appreciated.” He hesitated as if I might get off my dead ass and pour him a cup, and when I didn’t move, he frowned and went to the pot. He hadn’t so much as glanced at the book I’d stolen to pay for the translocation stone, and I wondered if I’d done something wrong.

The last of the brew chattered into his traditional rainbow mug. There was a pause, and then a sigh of contentment. “This tastes so much better without the bitter ash of burnt amber.”

“Yeah?” Demons once reeked of charred sap, the scent clinging to them from their forced occupation in the hellish ever-after, the reality so abused and beaten by magic that you couldn’t survive on the surface. But he wasn’t showing any signs of making more coffee, and I finally flipped the book closed to make a puff of burnt amber and went to run the tap.

“Well done.” Al’s boots clicked on the tile as he went to the book I’d stolen for him and flipped it open. “Bold is half the battle and should be rewarded when real risk is required.”

Our positions had been reversed, and I threw out the old grounds. “I wasn’t bold, I was pissed.” My elbow ached as I put a new filter in and added fresh coffee. “They lied to me.”

“Did they?” he drawled, using one finger to flip from curse to curse until he settled on the one I’d been hoping would bring Kisten’s ghost back.

I measured out the grounds, accidentally spilling them. “They knew the spell wouldn’t work. Bis went over it. It needs an intact body, not ashes.” I should have done more than walked out with a couple of books, and I slowly exhaled to bring my anger down. I’d have to play it cool if Elyse and her little gang showed up.

Al studied the book, his lips pressed. “Perhaps it is for the best. The spell you used to draw Pierce’s ghost from purgatory is bastardized from this very stirring, and like the spell you stirred when you were eighteen, the price for giving a ghost enough mass to touch is that the magic only works when the sun is absent.” He closed the book with a thump. “You would have to perform it every sunset.”

The water went into the reservoir, and I hit the button to start the coffee brewing as he strode across the kitchen to the other spell book. “I could do that. Iwoulddo that.”

A smile quirked the demon’s expression as he flipped the book open—right to the spell to uncurse Brad. “Of that, I have no doubt, but tell me, Rachel. When would you cease preforming it and let his soul rest?” He eyed me over his blue-tinted glasses. “Five years? A hundred? Two hundred? You’re not only making a choice to bring him to life but taking on the decision to choose when he finally moves on to whatever awaits all of us.” He turned his attention to the book, studying it. “You will decide when he dies his final death. I see no benefit for the vampire in question other than him seeing you and Ivy happy.”

My arms crept up over my middle. It sounded selfish when he put it like that. “Kisten deserves to have a life. Piscary cut it short because he stood up for me.”

His head bowed, Al dipped his fingers into a small pocket in his vest to withdraw a smoky-gray glass. “No one knows you have it?” he asked.

“I’m not sure.” I glanced at the empty hallway, hoping Ivy wasn’t hearing this. “Ivy was right about them expecting me to burgle their office for the book, but they left some guy they pulled out of retirement to guard it.” I hesitated, remembering the bitter anger on Scott’s youthful face. “Seeing as the only person at the curb this morning is that bounty hunter lookingfor Trent, I’d say either they haven’t opened it up yet or they are ignoring I have it.” I leaned against the counter, watching Al run that smoky glass over the print to see if anything new showed. “Maybe Scott was too embarrassed to tell them we tied him to a chair and hasn’t said anything.”

Al straightened from his hunch over Brad’s countercurse. “Since you risked everything to recover it, consider it yours fully and unconditionally.” He grimaced. “You earned it.”

“You mean the one I stole for you?” I blurted, warming in embarrassment as he eyed me over his blue-tinted glasses. “I mean, thank you.”

He nodded, a soft smile flickering before he hid it. “Well. That was my last idea.” He pocketed the glass and closed the book with a peeved flick of the finger. “Brad Welroe’s curse can’t be broken. Rachel—”

“I’m not hiding in the ever-after.” Annoyance and a little fear trickled through me as I nudged him aside and flipped the book open again. “As tempting as that would be with Trent stuck there as well.”

“It’s not hiding,” Al coaxed. “It’s a short sabbatical in the ever-after to build on your skills. We all take sabbaticals. Say, a hundred years? Good round number?”

Jaw clenched, I stared at the book.

“A few more spells in your chi would put you eons beyond any upstart at Camp Wanna-Be-a-Ruler,” Al said. “Your gargoyle, Bis, would assuredly be rebonded to you by then, and you would be able to jump the lines. My synapses would no longer be burned. This fuddling about as a half-ass demon is making us all look bad.”

I spun, annoyed. “Then help me.”

“That is what I am doing,” he practically growled, and my shoulders tensed. “Home is where your books are,” he added as he took a sip from that rainbow mug. “I can move the entire church. Pixies, gravestones, Vivian’s ghost, and all.”

“I can’t leave,” I said, amazed that, only two years ago, he had been trying to own me, because to own and dominate had been the only way he would allow himself to care for someone. The day I’d figured that out had been as scary as all hell. That we were now arguing as peers was a fragilecandle I would fight to keep lit. We did not have an equal relationship. He needed me more than I needed him: to teach, to argue with, to stand with against his kin, who were still mired in the past. The responsibility of that scared the crap out of me.

“Al, I have worked too damn hard at getting demons in reality for me to walk away,” I said softly. “This is my home. Tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing.”

The demon slumped. Slowly he lost his bluster, and his head bowed. “I would,” he said as he stared into the depths of his coffee, and from the far corner of the room, Getty sighed.

Frustrated, I crossed my arms over my middle. All for a lack of a friggin’ mirror destroyed two years ago with the original ever-after. Lost.

Al shifted, and my shoulders relaxed when he began to fiddle with the curse book again. “I’m surprised Elyse isn’t banging on my door,” I said sourly. “Scott might be too embarrassed to tell her what happened if he got out of those zip strips.”

Al snorted, then flipped to the last few pages in the book where the index would be. But Newt never bothered to make an index, and it was only a curse to turn stone into water.

“He’s got a really nasty curse on him,” I said as I leaned against the counter. “Yesterday, at the coven offices, I’d swear he was over a hundred. Last night at Elyse’s place, he was ten. And when I looked through the transposition charm, he was about sixty. It’s hard to tell.”Even when he’s naked.

---