As the throng of shades stormed Davara, a roar of pain and rage rising from the center of the circle once they’d closed in on her, I could see that I’d been right on both counts.
Then the shriek cut off abruptly in a massive flare of scarlet light, as the demon finally called it quits on this earthside outing. Apparently the prospect of munching on a witch’s soul and wreaking some small-town havoc wasn’t worth the trouble of getting nipped to （un）death by a rabid spectral horde.
“Woooooo!” I cheered, yanking down a victory fist as the light faded away, bright afterbursts still popping in my vision. “And that is how it’s done, motherfuckers!”
The ghostly mob slowed in their maddened whirling, settling back to hover just above the stones. Then they turned to fix the glowing craters of their eyes on me—aka, the presumptuous scally who’d seen fit to drag them here.
“Oh, fuck me,” I groaned, the garnet at my throat throbbing as I flexed my fingers. “Okay, then. Let’s go.”
2
Not Enough Heart
I’m not gonna say I agree with Aunt Elena, because that would be treacherous,” Letha said, sidestepping the hairy animatronic tarantula that leapt out at her, hissing, from inside the dark passageway that led out of the teenage witch’s lair. “But let’s say, just as a hypothetical, if you turned my house into a poltergeist nest for shits and giggles? I, too, might be a little spicy with you for a while.”
My cousin was referring to the lingering psychic fallout from my improvised banishment. It had taken me all night to subdue my ghost militia, and even then the fix had been only temporary; over two weeks later, we still had knives embedding themselves in the ceiling, shadowy figures hovering over you while you slept, doors slamming open and closed in a syncopated rhythm designed to drive us all mad. Not to mention the way the mirrors distorted your reflection into a Munchian horror show when you were just trying to put on some fucking mascara. You know, the kind of trippy shit that really got under your skin.
It had also scared my three cats half to death, not to mention the zebra finches, which was the part I felt the guiltiest about. Maybe it was my imagination, but even Starbuck the hedgehog seemed a little nervy.
Suffice it to say, things between me and Elena had been . . . strained, ever since.
“Just because you’re turning it into a hypothetical doesn’t make it any less treacherous,” I informed my cousin, summoning a witchlight to hover above my palm so we didn’t have to fumble through the dark. We kept the entire haunted house space—a retrofitted warehouse adjoining the Arcane Emporium, our family’s occult megastore—glamoured with a fortification of the Oblivion Charm that cloaked all of Thistle Grove. Any normie visitor or member of the cast that happened to catch my spell would forget it within seconds. “Also, it wasn’t for shits and giggles. I had to get rid of the demon somehow, didn’t I? Even Elena’s not such an agent of chaos that she’d be down with me unleashing an ancient big bad unto the mortal plane.”
“A big bad you summoned in the first place, Issa,” Letha pointed out with irritating logic. “For the aforementioned shits and giggles.”
“Okay, fair. And I do wish Davara would’ve talked to me just a little before trying to bust out of the circle,” I added, pouting. “I had so many pressing questions. Like, do first-tier demons naturally have such popping skin, or does she moisturize with, like, the tears of the damned or something? Do they all smell weirdly amazing, or was that just her? The kind of stuff that isn’t in the books.”
Letha shot me an aggrieved look. “Yeah, about all that . . . how come you didn’t invite me to spot you? Davara Circlebreaker sounds like a snack. And maybe I could have helped, before things got that far out of hand.”
I squeezed Letha’s shoulder apologetically as we stepped into the next scene—then yanked her out of the way as a hysterical prom queen in ruffled fuchsia taffeta nearly barreled into us, fleeing a chainsaw-wielding prom king with artfully disheveled feathered hair. A cluster of real visitors—cowering by a table scattered with severed hands, corsages, and a cut-glass bowl of bubbling “poisoned” punch—shrieked with terror, then dissolved into panicky giggles.
As the prom king sprinted past us, muttering to himself, I appraised his shredded powder-blue tux and bloodstained Converse with a critical eye. Stylishly fiendish, sure; but also just kind of dull, in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“Trust me, she was on the too-evil side of evilly hot,” I assured Letha. “Even by your standards.”