Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  The timer buzzed. Dreading what I was about to see, I pulled the experimental batch out of the oven and put them on the counter.

  Kandy and I stared at the tray.

  “They don’t smell right,” she finally said.

  I started crying. I had been fairly certain I was done with the tears before we left London, but I obviously wasn’t.

  Kandy wrapped her arms around me. Her magic tingled against the skin of my arms and filled my mouth with the taste of berry-infused dark chocolate with a fine bitter finish. She hugged me fiercely and didn’t speak.

  I got the tears under control much quicker this time.

  “God, I feel so weak,” I blubbered when I was capable of forming words.

  “Yeah,” Kandy muttered, her voice heavy with unreleased emotion. “I’m upset about the cupcakes too.”

  Then the green-haired werewolf released me. She shoved the mixing bowl of dark-chocolate buttercream icing for the Puck in a Cup into my hands, along with a spatula.

  “Who needs a spoon?” I muttered as I crammed a mouthful of frosting in.

  “Exactly,” Kandy said as she reached across the counter to retrieve a second spatula.

  “London was a royal fuck-up,” I said. Kandy didn’t give a shit about my language, and I used the word with utter vehemence.

  “Well, if you’re going to go royal, there probably isn’t a better place.”

  I laughed. My tears had dried on my face and my skin felt like it was going to crack, but I threw my head back and laughed.

  Kandy rescued the bowl of icing, but not before I got another scoop and — in between weirdly inappropriate guffaws — stuffed it into my mouth.

  “I can feel the chocolate coursing through my system,” I said.

  “That’s the sugar. The chocolate hit comes later,” Kandy said, sounding rather sage.

  This statement renewed my laughter.

  “I like your T-shirt,” Kandy said. She was wearing one with a kumquat and an apple. It was obscene, as usual. I often wondered how she wore those T-shirts in public. I guess she just didn’t care at all who she offended … or scarred for life.

  I sobered and locked my gaze to the green-haired werewolf’s. I offered her a sad smile, and she returned it along with a bump of her shoulder.

  “I almost got you killed,” I said.

  “Nope.”

  And that was it. She just outright absolved me of any responsibility for London.

  “It’s going to happen again.”

  “Yep.”

  I took a deep breath, more for the oxygen to clear my head rather than a true sigh. “I need to go downstairs.”

  Kandy stiffened.

  “I’m not leaving,” I murmured, and the werewolf relaxed. She thought I meant the portal in the bakery basement, when what I really needed was a place to cast. A place accustomed to my magic. I was a terrible witch — spell-wise — I needed all the help I could get.

  Kandy’s eyes gleamed the green of her shapeshifter magic, and she bared her teeth in her predator smile. “A spell?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you’ll bake again? Because this shit is unacceptable.”

  This time when I laughed, Kandy joined me.

  We were still laughing as we wandered upstairs to wake Scarlett and retrieve Blackwell’s demon book.

  ∞

  “Explain it again,” Gran said. Her tone — though carefully measured — sounded full of doubt.

  I sighed.

  Gran, Scarlett, Kandy, and I were seated around the witches’ circle I’d inscribed in the hard-packed dirt floor of the bakery basement with a broom handle. The portal on the east wall at my back thrummed sleepily, but I didn’t need it today. Boxes that predated the bakery were piled neatly on wooden palettes to one side. The ceiling was low enough to touch, and the walls were concrete-patched brick. Gran hadn’t allowed me to renovate the basement when I’d taken over the lease and opened the bakery. I hadn’t understood why until I’d discovered the portal’s existence — or rather, Sienna discovered the portal and then tried to torture me into opening it.

  “I know it might not work,” I said. “But it’s the only clue we have right now. And the sorcerer said —”

  “Blackwell,” Scarlett spat.

  “I know no one likes him, but you can’t deny he is powerful, and —”

  “Too powerful,” Gran interrupted. “And with an agenda where you are concerned.”

  “Right,” I muttered sarcastically, “he’s figured out a way to capture me, or drain my magic, or hypnotize me with this stupid duplicated demon book just as soon as I cast a spell.”

  “Well, that seems far-fetched,” Gran said.

  Kandy started laughing. Scarlett grinned, and suddenly all the tension diffused from the basement storage room. Yeah, that was my mother’s magic and it packed a lot of mojo.

  “The dowser is still pissed about the cupcakes,” Kandy said. She was sitting cross-legged in the dirt on the west side of the witches’ circle. Sienna’s spot. You know, from before my sister became all blood crazed and power lusty.

  “You would be too,” I snapped at the werewolf. Then I smiled.

  Gran gave a soft ‘humph’ and I knew we were settled enough to move forward.

  My grandmother sat at the north side of the circle and Scarlett sat at the south. Gran had been waiting for us in the bakery kitchen after we’d managed to drag Scarlett out of bed. She’d been frowning in the general vicinity of the cupcakes. As soon as I had a moment, I needed to hide the evidence before anyone else saw the disaster in the bakery, and the dumpster out back was the best choice.

  I placed the book of demon history in the middle of the circle and then nodded to Kandy to light her pillar candle. We each had a candle sitting on the edge of the circle, but not touching. Kandy, Scarlett, and I sat cross-legged. Gran had brought a yoga block to perch on. It was a great idea, which I might appropriate. You know, if I ever tried to cast again.

  “There was this witch in Ireland, Amber —”

  “Cameron,” Gran interjected as she lit her candle with the taper Kandy passed to her.

  “Yeah. She carried these ancestral stones with her, which got me thinking about my witch magic and how it’s way stronger here, I think. You know, beneath my home. Near the portal.”

  “Ancestral land,” Gran said. She sounded exceedingly intrigued by my mention of the stones. I was probably in for an interrogation later.

  “And with the addition of you and mom here, I thought I just might be able to cast a seek spell for Sienna.”

  “With a book.” Gran was back to doubting without sounding at all doubtful.

  “I’m just looking for a hint. This book is tied to the original by a thin thread of magic, and maybe the original is aware of where it is?” The question fell on hesitant ears, though Scarlett did smile encouragingly. Yeah, I got that the book was an inanimate object.

  I lit my candle and passed the taper to Scarlett.

  “Don’t we need a map?” Kandy asked. “Wouldn’t that help?”

  “Magic is rarely literal,” Gran said.

  With Scarlett’s candle lit, we all raised our pillars and blew a breath through the flame toward the circle. Not hard enough to snuff out the flame, but just enough to pass some of our magic into the circle.

  There was a chance none of this mattered … the circle, the candles, the breath of magic. But this was how casting a circle worked for me, so this is what I did.

  For a brief moment, Kandy’s eyes glowed green as Scarlett and Gran’s glowed blue. I felt their combined magic whirl around in the circle. I presumed mine was in the mix — though I couldn’t taste it — and the circle closed. The combined magic whirled in a storm of green and blue before me, dancing over the book and testing the edges of the circle like a capricious child.

  “I seek — as I have done before — my sister, Sienna.” Though speaking out loud wasn’t a
ctually necessary, I found it easier to make my intention clear through vocalization. “She holds this book. Where is it?”

  The magic dipped and swirled around the book. I could imagine it tasting and testing the residual duplicated magic of the sorcerer who wrote the demon histories collected within the leather binding.

  Nothing else happened.

  “She seeks something in this book. Something interests her in this book,” I said.

  The book flipped open, the pages fanning back and forth. The magic intensified and dipped again, tasting, testing, seeking. Then the pages settled.

  The four of us leaned forward.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, like the magic was a dutiful puppy.

  The book was open to a tale of a demonic summoning that had happened on the west coast of a large island. It included a sketched map, which looked a lot like the Pacific Rim National Park on Vancouver Island. Or, specifically, Long Beach, which ran between Tofino and Ucluelet.

  “Sea demons?” I asked. “What does that have to do with —”

  Gran gasped. I flinched. I’d never heard that sound from her before, and it had shocked me right in the pit of my frosting-filled stomach.

  The magic of the circle snapped and was gone.

  “What is it?” I asked, already dreading the answer.

  Gran held out a shaking hand to the inked picture that accompanied the tale. It depicted a long wooden shaft with a hand-carved stone arrowhead and feathers on its butt end. It looked like it was of First Nations design.

  Scarlett moaned.

  Then it hit me. Gran owned this spear. It hung in her study, almost hidden behind the mountain of books.

  “Your grandfather,” Gran said, then faltered. She held a shaky hand to her mouth and looked over at Scarlett. I’d never seen her look to her daughter for support before … and neither had my mother. Scarlett absorbed the responsibility quickly.

  “Is it still in the study?” Scarlett asked.

  “I … I’m sure it is,” Gran said, not sounding at all sure.

  “Did you change the wards, Gran?” I asked.

  She looked at me with tear-filled eyes and shook her head. Sienna would have unhindered access to Gran’s home. She could come and go without Gran knowing as well, because Gran couldn’t taste residual magic like I could.

  “How many?” Kandy asked. She steadied her voice. “How many fucking demons?”

  I glanced down at the book. It was still open to the specific chronicle, but I had already practically memorized every story already.

  “Dozens.” I was feeling dizzy, though I was still sitting down.

  “Impossible,” Scarlett said.

  I locked my gaze to Kandy’s. I’d never seen the werewolf look frightened before. I imagined that terror was echoed on my face.

  “Okay,” Scarlett continued. “First, we need to figure out if the spear is gone. With all due respect, I’ve never seen a seek spell work like this —”

  “Jade’s magic is not to be underestimated,” Gran said.

  That should have felt like praise. It should have felt like support — but it felt way more like a warning.

  Damn it all to hell … which was exactly where we were all going if the magic and the book were correct. Hell on the gray-sand beaches of beautiful Tofino.

  ∞

  The four of us stood staring at the blank space on Gran’s study wall that had once held the native spear. Not that I’d even really taken notice of it before today, before it was gone. But Sienna would have. My sister had always been far more interested in magic than I was. I imagined how gleeful she must have been when she’d recognized the drawing of the spear in the chronicle. I wondered when she took it. Did she risk coming back to Vancouver with Mory in tow? Or did she return after London? After she’d test run the triple demon summoning?

  I couldn’t taste any residual magic in the study other than Gran’s. But then, when Sienna wanted to pass unnoticed she knew how to hide her magic from me.

  Scarlett was poring over the entry in Blackwell’s demon history book. Her strawberry-blond hair formed a waterfall all around the black leather binding. I was fairly certain she’d read it at least four times now.

  “Does it have a date?” Kandy asked. “Sienna seemed big on the anniversary in London.”

  Scarlett shook her head, making her curls dance. I wasn’t sure Kandy caught the gesture, so I spoke up. “No date. Not even a season. And I’m guessing at the location —”

  “No,” Scarlett said. “You’re right … a beach discovered by James Cook … called Nootka Sound. That’s 1778 or so.”

  “Yeah. It was the description of the long beach on the Pacific coast that solidified it for me.” My sarcasm fell on preoccupied ears, and that was okay because it wasn’t terribly witty.

  “Native spear. West coast of Vancouver Island,” Kandy said. “Standard Adept protocol is we contact the skinwalkers.”

  “What? No,” I said. “No. No. They don’t want protocol or to be interfered with —”

  “That’s a good idea, Kandy,” Scarlett said, continuing to ignore me.

  Gran sat down heavily on an antique chaise lounge that I wasn’t sure had ever been used before. Her magic was sparking off her in a way that unnerved me. I’d been trying to ignore it.

  Gran’s movement drew Scarlett’s gaze from the book, but not her full attention. “Will you go?” she asked Kandy.

  “Already gone,” Kandy said as she headed for the door.

  “Wait,” I cried. “They’ll see it as protecting their territory. They will want to come —”

  “I hope so,” Scarlett said, grim and matter-of-fact about it. “We’ll wait for Desmond and however many shifters he can rally quickly, then we’ll head for the ferry.”

  Kandy nodded and left. I sat heavily on the end of the chaise and stared at my mother. Some power shift had happened and I wasn’t sure when … or what was actually going on.

  “Desmond?” I asked weakly.

  “Yes. Kandy’s been texting with him since you came back from London. Well, since London, I think. He’s just been waiting for word.”

  “I’ve been so wrong …” Gran was whispering behind my back, so I swiveled to look at her. “So wrong about how I raised you and Sienna —”

  “That’s not needed right now, Pearl,” Scarlett said.

  I whirled back to stare at my mother. She looked strong and defiant. Her magic rolled across her eyes as she reached over to tuck my chin up. Yep, I’d been hanging my mouth open.

  Scarlett held her fingers underneath my chin and smiled at me, that tender smile she reserved for me alone. “Will he come?” she whispered. “If you ask, will he come?”

  It took me a second to figure out who she meant. Yazi, my father. God, I wondered if it hurt her to ask me. We hadn’t discussed him much during our hurried conversations the few brief moments I’d managed to step out of the nexus. He was too epic for a phone conversation — epically life-altering … and yet not, because Gran and Scarlett were and always would be my family. I believed Scarlett loved him — though they’d only had that one night together — but his sheer power frightened her as well. This was why she and Gran had kept me so cloistered my entire childhood. The fear of what I was capable of, and what attention that would draw from other Adepts — like Blackwell — who’d try to take advantage of my magic.

  “If we can’t stop dozens of demons from rising on the west coast, he’ll come,” I said. “One black witch isn’t a big enough threat to draw the guardians’ attention. They oversee the entire magical and human world. But dozens of demons would be.”

  “But he … Yazi might come if you asked,” Scarlett said.

  “It’s my mess.” Suanmi had really driven that home for me, like a spear through my heart ironically.

  “No, Jade,” Gran interjected. “It’s beyond that now. It never was your fault.”

  “Fine,” I said. “He’d come.
If I could find him quickly. And if the world isn’t ending somewhere. He doesn’t exactly have a cell phone. The guardians aren’t Gods. They’re not even all nice people. But it’s Haoxin’s territory. She might come.”

  “Ah. That explains this entry,” Scarlett said. “He … your father is the warrior that the sorcerer makes note of.” She looked back down at the book in her hands. “ ‘And at the side of Haoxin, a warrior with a golden sword came to the aid of the beleaguered natives.’ The writer goes on to assume they were sorcerers.”

  “Of course he does.”

  “So this Haoxin —”

  “Different person.”

  “Sorry?”

  “It was 1778, right? Best I’ve been able to figure, Yazi would have just become a guardian then. The Haoxin I’ve met is newly … I don’t know, ordained, ascended. Like only a hundred years old or so.”

  Scarlett was staring at me, the book all but forgotten in her hands.

  I changed the subject. “The sorcerer doesn’t say how the demons were summoned or what triggered the rising.”

  “No,” Scarlett agreed. “Which hopefully means Sienna won’t know either.”

  “But it also means she’ll try everything she can think of.” My mind flashed to the memory of the altered sacrificial knife in my sister’s hands.

  “Will you ask him then? Or Haoxin, if you can’t find your father?”

  I pushed past the dread settling in my stomach — the dread of what that knife might do in Sienna’s hands. “I could go through the portal in the basement, but …”

  “You might not make it back in time.”

  I nodded. Suanmi’s warning had been very, very real, and it resonated with my own guilt.

  “I left spur of the moment,” I said. “I was afraid they wouldn’t let me go, not that they would force me to stay, but it’s just … Chi Wen’s vision.”

  “I know, my Jade,” Scarlett said. She touched my shoulder, and her magic brushed against me soothingly. We might not have spoken about my father, but I had recounted the vision to my mother. I’d needed her and Gran to understand why I hadn’t returned.

  “I didn’t want the far seer to show me anything else. I didn’t know I wasn’t going back right away. I’m so sorry.”