Slurping a coffee, I slouched on my couch. “I’m not crazy.” Despite the importance of a statement like that, my words came out garbled behind the mug.
Misha made a non-committal grunt from where he sat next to me. I tried to be a good host and poured him a cup from the coffee pot, but he hadn’t touched a drop. Misha sat and stared. His eyes remained focused forward.
I lost track of the number of times the dehumidifier clicked on and off as we warmed the couch in my basement.
His silver sword, still in its scabbard, propped up his chin as he rested his hands on the hilt. Thumb caressing the speckled bloodstone that ornamented the pommel, the hunter studied the occupant of my circle.
I waited Misha’s judgment as he remained motionless except for that rubbing, back and forth, up and down. After fifteen minutes of sizing up the demon, Misha glanced in my direction and gave me the disapproving stare of a father who caught his child out past curfew.
“Crazy, no. Idiotic beyond reason, yes.”
I blinked at him and frowned from his less than encouraging words. “Misha—”
“Cadaverina are heralds, Alex.” He shifted on the cushion, sitting up straighter. “Wherever they appear, bad things will happen.”
The object of our discussion crouched behind the domed ward of my circle, the fat chalk outline on the floor glowing blue. Folding its long spindles for fingers together, its hands fell towards the floor. The pose reminded me of a gargoyle without wings.
“Where did you see the first one?” Gripping the scabbard nearer to the middle of the sword, Misha stood and approached the demon. Sensing who was in front of it, the cadaverina took a step back and shied away.
“In Alice Sweetwater’s vision.”
“Why were you at Alice’s?”
“Why does anyone go to see Alice?” I set my mug on the floor and crossed my arms, moving to stand next to Misha. The top of my head came to the middle of his neck and I was certain two of me would fit in his shirt. “I was trying to locate Oliver McArdle.”
The cadaverina craned it’s long neck to glance at me. Expressionless, its only facial features were the large elliptical eye sockets and a long vertical ridge where a nose should have been. A small slit gave the impression of a mouth. Red vapor trailed from the empty eyes.
“Why McArdle?”
I sighed and gave Misha a smirk. “This would go a lot faster if I gave you the Cliff Notes instead of playing Fifty Questions.”
When he remained silent, I began the tale, outlining everything from the point I left his office. He listened without turning from the demon until I mentioned Julia Adams. That earned me a head turn and an arched eyebrow.
“That was my reaction too!” I waved a hand at his sudden show of expression then pointed at him. The corners of the hunter’s lips turned in a smirk.
“That’s when this thing—” He spat the word as he glared at the demon “—showed its face?”
“Yes. Tripped my wards and trapped itself.”
Misha focused on me again, one eyebrow arching upwards. “And you decided to keep it as a pet?”
“A pet? It’s in a circle.” To reiterate the point, I jabbed a finger in the direction of the glowing blue line. “I’m not taking it for walks or scooping its litter box. I’m not even feeding it!”
“Why didn’t you send it back?”
“I was going to—”
“But?”
YOU ARE READING
Tripping Magic
ParanormalMatthew Vaughan. My mentor. My lover. In death, he left behind a silver ring imbued with his spirit. If I brought him back to life with it, could he help me find his killer? A tale of magic, mystery, and mayhem.
