Hell's Spells (Ordinary Magic Book 6)

by Devon Monk

  “That was once!” I suddenly realized I’d been saying that a lot.

  “And you have to take it off the stove before the noodles dissolve.”

  “Good-bye, Myra. Too bad you’re not going to see any of the pictures of the inside of Than’s house.”

  “Don’t throw crackers in it while it’s heating up,” she added in a rush.

  I hung up on her. She rang me back. I jabbed the red button with glee, then silenced the phone.

  “You two be good,” I said to the creatures snoring away in the living room. “I’ll be back soon.”

  I paused at the door, thinking maybe I should leave a note for Ryder. Let him know I was out on a wellness check of sorts. I unsilenced my phone and decided that would have to be enough.

  Chapter Nine

  The house was cheerfully aqua, framed in white, with a white picket fence around it. A twisted shore pine marked the point on the property where SW 10th collided with Ebb, split into two and flowed around the home. On one side of the street was a Dead End sign, on the other, No Turnaround.

  Fitting.

  I hadn’t known Than was looking to buy a house until Barbara, Roy’s wife, mentioned she’d heard it had closed. I could only assume it had been sold fully furnished because none of us on the force had seen any signs of Than moving in, even though we’d been diligently driving by on the regular.

  We’d totally been snooping, but if anyone had asked, we’d just say we were making sure a member of the community was settling in.

  The curiosity was killing me. Myra, Jean, and I had all promised we’d share pictures if any of us got through the front door.

  Looked like I was the lucky one.

  I parked the Jeep on one side of the house. Than hadn’t bought a car yet. We had an office pool on when and what model.

  Before getting out, I checked my phone—Myra’s messages of fake outrage about me hanging up on her, Jean’s complaint about the unicorn flushing a quilt down the toilet, and then, more excitedly, squees and demands for pics as soon as I had them.

  I pocketed the phone, picked up the bag, and strolled through the little white gate, up the steps and onto the porch.

  I pressed the doorbell.

  The bell sang out a little tune about blue skies.

  I waited for a minute, then half a minute more. Maybe he wasn’t home. The front windows were dark.

  I tried the bell again. Blue skies. Nothing but.

  Footsteps, heavy enough to hear through the solid wood door came near and the curtained windows went yellow. A light over the door clicked on, punching a cone of light into the darkness.

  The handle turned—no lock—and the door swung inward.

  “Reed Daughter.”

  Than looked terrible. Well, he looked like he always did—pale skin, dark hair, and eyes that carried the cold light of a thousand dying stars.

  But those end-of-the-universe eyes were bloodshot, his chapped nose looked painful, and his hair stuck up at weird angles.

  So this is what Death warmed over actually looked like.

  His over-stretched pink T-shirt had a picture on it of two beach balls which fell over the bra zone. The words: Big Girls Love Big Balls were written across the bottom of the shirt.

  But it was the fuzzy pajama bottoms with little yellow ears of corn on them, and the…

  “Holy crap. Tell me those are fake.”

  He slowly peered groundward and shifted his foot. The slippers he was wearing—because gods help me, they’d better just be slippers—were huge furry spiders. Eight bent legs, a row of googly eyes.

  He shook his foot again. The eyes swirled.

  “They are not fake. They are house slippers.”

  “The spiders are…never mind. Let’s try again. Hey, Than.” I lifted the bag. “I brought you some stuff. Nice slippers.”

  The sallow light from the room behind him and the yellow light from the porch did his complexion no favors. He narrowed his eyes, probably trying to suss out if I were lying, then he shrugged. “They are warm.”

  I worked to keep my gaze on him and not peek behind him into the house. I was here because he was sick. Because he needed food. Not because I finally had a chance to case the joint.

  I motioned to the bag. “Chicken soup, soft tissues, medicine if you have what I think you have.”

  “I see.” Still the pause, the hesitation as he decided if his privacy was worth a can of soup. “Won’t you come in?”

  Shivers plucked my spine and the hair on the back of my neck stuck up. When Death invites you in—even Death who looked like he’d been run over by a truck—you felt it in your bones.

  “Thank you. Shoes or no shoes?” I stepped into the foyer.

  “Remove them.”

  I toed them off and nudged them against the wall. “This is for you.” I held the bag up again.

  He took a big step backward—spider eyes a-googling, spider legs a-jiggling—and pointed down the hallway. Then he lifted his other elbow and sneezed into it. Hard. Twice. Even the spiders trembled.

  “How long have you been feeling like this?” I asked.

  “I am sure I don’t know what you mean.” He sniffed into his elbow.

  “You’re sick.”

  “I am not—” He broke off into a coughing fit, his elbow still over his mouth.

  The coughs kept coming so I set the bag down on the little statue of an armadillo holding a silver tray near the door, and took Than’s free elbow.

  “Couch or bed?” I powered us forward.

  He sneezed and waved generally leftward. We went down the hall and through a wide archway into the living room.

  I was expecting quirky. I was expecting funeral home chic, but that’s not at all what I got.

  What I got was understated elegance. What I got was summery ease, splashes of eye-catching colors against lovely neutrals. Here a bit of red, there a bit of orange, and over there blue, and green.

  The furniture—couch, loveseat, and recliners—looked brand new, well built, and comfortable. One entire wall was covered with a huge flat-screen monitor. The west-facing wall was all windows.

  Soft music with wind chimes and the flow of water played from hidden speakers.

  But the thing that really caught my attention were the flowers.

  Hanging in pots, tucked into corners of the windows, stacked across the mantle, hooked into frames against the walls, trailing up the side of that huge monitor, were little blooms and buds. Beautiful. Fragile. Familiar and exotic, there were more than I could name.

  And all of them so green, green, green. The scents should have been overwhelming, clashing. But somehow there was only a sweetness in the air that was almost too faint to catch. The kind of fragrance that made me want to stop, close my eyes and take a sniff just to see if I could breathe a little more of it.

  This felt personal. Private. All these tiny pots, carefully planted, lit, watered.

  This music, wind, water, and softness.

  This room, furniture and comfort, inviting ease.

  I was standing in the middle of Death’s garden.

  The urge to take pictures for my sisters faded. This was his place to vacation, to be something he was not when he carried his power. And what else would Death want but the one thing his power never allowed: to nurture life.

  “Here,” he said, taking over the driving and getting us around the oversized couch.

  I helped him sit, then stepped back so he could recline if he wanted to. Instead he just stretched out his long, long legs—spiders jiggling—for miles, and leaned his head back against the cushion. He sniffed loudly, eyes closed, and after a quick scan, I went back out into the hall.

  I ripped the cardboard off the top of the box and popped two tissues out for him.

  “Thank you.” He took the tissues then held them up with a questioning look.

  “They’re…uh…for you to blow your nose.”

  “Whatever do you…? Oh, I see.” He folded them neatly, blew,
folded, blew. “That’s… Yes. Quite.”

  I sat on the coffee table, trying to stay out of his sneezing distance, hands on my knees. “I’m sorry you have a cold.”

  He wiped under his nose, looked down at the tissue, then back up at me. “Do I?” He shivered and cleared his throat. “Ah. How unpleasant. I am feeling extremely unpleasant.”

  “Yeah, that’s how it goes.” I removed everything else and set the bag beside him. “Drop the used tissues in there. Pull new ones when you need them. Have you eaten anything?”

  “Ever?”

  I held back a laugh. “Recently. Today.”

  He made an offended face. “Why would I? I am feeling extremely unpleasant. Have you not noticed, Reed Daughter? Extremely unpleasant.”

  “Don’t be a baby about it.”

  His mouth fell open with a little pop from his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “You are not very nurturing. Is that not the role of a…”

  “Woman?” I asked with my eyebrows quirked and a dangerous tone.

  “…employer.” He blinked those bloodshot eyes, and I couldn’t tell if he was trying to look contrite or pulling my leg.

  “All you get out of an employer is a request for a note from your doctor and a dock in your pay.”

  “You don’t pay me, as I recall.”

  “See how smart I am? Since you’re sick and not coming into work anyway.”

  “Would you prefer that I—?” Face to elbow again for another round of sneezing.

  I really wanted to wash my hands. I stood.

  “No. I do not want you at work. You’ll get germs everywhere, and you look gross.”

  “I— What?”

  “Everyone looks gross when they have a head cold.”

  “I am hardly gross. Are you familiar with decomposition, Delaney? Intimately familiar? With decomposition? With things that have rotted down to a primordial ooze? The ending of organic life?”

  “Like old cucumbers in my refrigerator?”

  He blinked, and almost, almost smiled.

  “I am not a vegetable.” He sniffed and laid his head back on the cushion.

  “Right, so I’m going to make you chicken soup. You need lots of liquids. Tea or water?”

  “Tea. With honey and lemon. Please.”

  There was a hint of something in that request, almost laughter, almost fondness. He was enjoying this. A little too much.

  “Well, you’re getting water first.” I stood, took a wild guess at which direction the kitchen lay, found it beyond a small, but well-appointed, dining area.

  The kitchen was less modern than the living room. The walls were covered with white-washed wood cabinets that had hand-painted tulips, irises, and some sort of herb that might be rosemary etched across the corners. The little drawings added a feeling of spring, of living, growing things.

  There were real flowers here, too, and other plants—herbs poking up along the window sill, pots of succulents, and a spray of orchids. Some kind of vine crawled up the molding near the ceiling, and a pot in the corner held blossomless sunflowers that were almost as tall as I was.

  I opened doors, pulled out a glass tumbler, filled it with water from the door of the fridge, and carried it back into the living room.

  Than hadn’t moved.

  “This is unpleasant, isn’t it?” he said.

  “What? Life?” I came around in front of him, opened the box of cold tablets, and dropped two in the water.

  They fizzed medicinal lemon tang into the air.

  “No, a head cold.”

  “Yeah, they’re no fun. But it will be over soon.”

  “Quite like life, then.”

  I sat on the coffee table again. I couldn’t tell if the conversation had just turned dark, or if the subject of mortality was his go-to comfort convo when he was sick.

  “Colds end sooner than a lifetime.”

  “Within the hour, I should hope.”

  “More like four or five days.”

  “How disappointing.”

  “Here, don’t be sad.”

  He lifted his head, blinked to pull the room into focus, then noticed the glass I was holding out for him.

  “Drink. It will help.”

  “Offers such as that do not usually end well for the recipient.”

  I grinned. “It’s medicine, not poison. It will help with the sneezing and aches.”

  He took the glass, held it up to the light, then drank it down in one long, sustained pull.

  He dabbed a tissue against the corners of his eyes. “Hideous. I regret requesting your assistance.”

  “Too bad. That’s going to take a few minutes before it works. Stay here. I’ll make soup.”

  “And will there eventually be tea?”

  “Yes. Still regret requesting my presence?”

  “Less so, Reed Daughter.”

  I raided his kitchen for a pan, can opener, and bowl and got the soup heating. This kind didn’t even need me to add water, which I totally would have nailed, anyway.

  So there, Myra.

  I filled the electric kettle with fresh water, turned it on, and mooched my way through tea tins until I found one that smelled like chamomile and lemon. Honey was at the front of the cupboard, local stuff in a half-full glass jar.

  By the time I’d gathered a wooden cutting board, a mug with a bee in sunglasses tanning in the center of a sunflower with the words: life’s a bee-ch on it, and sliced a lemon, it was time to pour hot water into the little ceramic tea pot.

  I remembered to turn off the soup, then carried the tea out, setting it on the coffee table.

  Than still had his head back, eyes closed. He’d tossed a tissue over his face. It fluttered slightly as he exhaled, contracted on the inhale, forming to his nose, mouth, and chin before fluttering outward again.

  “Tea,” I said. “Be right back.”

  He moaned softly, the wuss.

  I left him to it and got busy with the soup. Crackers too.

  “And here’s the soup.”

  “Chicken soup?” his muffled voice asked from beneath the tissue.

  “With stars.”

  I set the soup down next to the tea and dropped into the wingback chair. I scooted it closer to the couch so I didn’t feel like I was halfway across the room.

  Than sat and drew the tissue away from his face with the kind of dignity no one should be able to pull off with a nose that red.

  “Stars?”

  And oh, how his eyes glittered.

  “In the soup.”

  He picked up the bowl and brought it to his lap. He scooped a spoonful and stared at it.

  “It’s soup,” I said for what felt like the millionth time. “Chicken and vegetables and broth and little star noodles. You eat it by putting that spoon in your mouth, not by staring at it.”

  He flicked a look my way, and okay, yeah, there was a death glare.

  I pointed my finger at my open mouth.

  He twitched one eyebrow upward. Sniffed. “I know what soup is, Reed Daughter.”

  “Delaney, remember? Or Boss, if you’d rather.”

  “Yes. Well.”

  He lowered the spoon, gave the liquid a slow stir, scooped again. Just when I thought he was going to do nothing but stare at it, he opened his mouth and took a deliberate mouthful.

  Not every god fits into Ordinary seamlessly. Some refused to give up their names and their bombastic mannerisms. Some walked around like they owned this universe and collected rent from all the others.

  But even the gods who tried to play it cool, who fit into the mortal world easily, like Crow, like Cupid, still had this little something that shone through every now and then. Something that set them apart.

  I was very aware that I was watching the god of death try a new thing: canned chicken and star soup. Watching him experience the world was fascinating.

  He lowered the spoon back into the soup, stirred, and tried a second bite.

  Then he placed the spoon and bowl back
on the coffee table.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “I can’t like something I am unable to taste. Isn’t that the pleasure of consuming? Isn’t that the point?”

  “Sure,” I said, nodding at the tea, which he proceeded to pour, then dollop honey into. “But food is more than just consuming. More than just the pleasure of taste. It’s necessary for a mortal body to function. Especially when a body is fighting a cold.”

  He hummed, pinched and nasal, and sipped tea. “Much more pleasant.”

  His eyelids drooped, and his normal complexion—somewhere between fish belly and snow melt—had an uncharacteristic blush over his cheeks.

  Fever?

  “I need to touch your forehead.”

  He froze, both eyebrows lifting.

  “To see if you have a temperature.”

  He opened his mouth.

  “A fever,” I corrected. “Because if you have one that’s too high you could need more than just soup. You might need stronger medicine. Or to go to the hospital. People your age…”

  “My age?” He drew himself up, shoulders pulled back. “People? There are no other people such as I, Reed Daughter. The god of death is not some kind of…of plastic membership card handed out at street corners for all comers. My temperature—”

  He bent to the side and sneezed again into his elbow, careful to hold his tea up to keep from spilling.

  “—is of adequate joules. Fever. Indeed.”

  “I’m not even going to comment on that little tirade. Where’d you learn to cover your sneeze?”

  I pressed the back of my hand against his sweaty forehead. He was hot, but not burning up. I didn’t know what his normal temp might be, but if it was anywhere in human range, I’d say he was in the clear.

  “I am Death,” he said, his nose all stuffed. He blew again, folded, blew, then dropped the tissue in the bag. “I am familiar with sickness and disease.”

  He sipped tea, and those eyes over the top of the cup were sharp. Had this all been a lark for him?

  “Tell me you didn’t just invite me over so you could show off your cold.”

  “Delaney. Such cynicism. Now, tell me why you are unhappy.”

  Nope. Not falling for it. Not going to tell Death my problems. “Like I was saying, you might be running a slight fever, so drink liquids—more than normal. Get plenty of rest.”