Page 5 of The Bone Man

Not trusting the change, we waited another month while we set up the new house. But as suddenly as Berdherst’s interest in the half-demon his wife had spawned appeared, it had vanished.

It appears that getting elected mayor flipped a switch, and whatever plans he had for Aediva vanished.

The little blond girl runs up to me and solemnly holds out a large teddy bear.

“Why don’t you put it right there?” I point to an empty gap between boxes.

Aediva nibbles her lip as she steps forward, sliding her bear into place, and I catch the box at the top as it wobbles, threatening the careful stacking job I did.

She quickly retreats, fear in her wide eyes, and I give her a reassuring smile. “No harm done. We’re fine.”

Lia hurries forward to rest a hand on the little girl’s shoulder, and the chaotic energies swirling around Aediva settles.

Lia is one of those rare, gifted humans able to neutralize magic in any form, which makes her ideal for raising a household of half-demon children.

How demonic magic comes out in mixed-blood spawn is never predictable, and often dangerous, like with Aediva. The small girl has enough chaos in her to trigger negative events.

Right now, it’s only tipping over a stack of previously steady boxes, but left uncontrolled, she could cause buildings with enough code violations to collapse.

We’re hoping that, with enough training, she’ll be able to learn control and even trigger positive events in the future, but she wouldn’t have time to learn that skill without Lia here to help.

It’s lucky that her mother hired us to exorcise her demon-half just as her powers were coming to life, or she’d likely be dead, along with anyone around her when it happened.

Instead of performing an exorcism that would have ripped her in half—she wasn’t possessed, she was naturally born with demon DNA—Flint and Pen made it appear that she died in the process, then whisked her away to safety and put her in Lia’s care.

"Come on, Aedi." Alaska, a boy a couple of years older than her, grabs her hand and smiles, cracking the ice crystals on his cheeks. "You can sit next to me. Star says she can glow the entire trip to our new home, but I think she’s full of it.”

Star tosses her hair, the magenta streak stark against the black, and her purple eyes flash. “I’m not full of it, and when Idoglow all the way there, I’ll get first pick of the bedrooms!”

“I want to sit next to Anny!” Trevor yells, and Flint’s familiar barks from inside the van.

The kids race away, Alaska and Star squabbling while Aediva stares on with wide, blue eyes that have seen too much in her short life.

Lia steps up to my side and gazes around the garage. “I’ll miss this old place.”

“The new one is twice the size,” Flint assures her. “With an entire entertainment center in the basement. I’m talking movie theater, mini-bowling alley, and air hockey.”

“There’s a rock-climbing wall and a swimming pool in the back, too.” I close up the van. “And a better home security system.”

Lia looks over at the kids. “They’ll like that, but are you sure we need to leave Clearhelm?”

I understand her reluctance. She’s been in this house since before the Others came out of hiding. She has her patterns set, her favorite places to visit, and the layout of her stores memorized.

But as soon as Mr. Berdherst showed up at our office demanding we return Aediva, we decided to move them. We still don’t know how he found out Aediva is alive, but after we learned his ancestors have a history of human sacrifice, it cemented our determination to keep Aediva away from him.

So here we are, once again spiriting these kids away to a new location.

“It’s safer this way.” Flint glances toward the closed garage doors. “There’s something coming. Clearhelm’s not a good place for kids right now.”

He had mentioned that the students at the Conservatory have been restless lately, and even some of the teachers have brought up the tension in the air. The city feels like it’s holding its breath. But for what?

Tension filled the air when we set out from home before dawn with our vans. We drove out of town until we were sure no one was tailing us, then pulled over on the side of the road to slap magnetic decals on the sides of our vans, transforming them into Jimmy Bob’s Exterminators work vehicles.

With our disguise in place, we drove to Lia’s new house, where we draped the windows in plastic to sell our purpose for being there.

Then we hauled ass to get the vans loaded with their most important belongings. Everything else will be left behind.

The new house is fully furnished, with a stocked kitchen, which makes this escape easier.

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