“Yes,” I answered them both.
“Perfect!” Bryn declared. Then she squealed again and said, “I have something for you to try.” She ran out of the kitchen. The swing doors, which I often kept open while I was baking so I could see a slice of the bakery and street, swung closed behind her.
“Hot chocolate,” Gran said. “She’s been testing recipes with your ganache as a base. Dark and semisweet.”
“Nice,” I said. That was a great idea for the fall season. It was obvious the bakery would be okay without me, but I wasn’t ready to walk away from everything I’d worked so hard and spent so many early mornings to build.
I ran my hand over the pristinely clean stainless steel counters and smiled.
“You’ll stay,” Gran said.
“I can’t promise not to travel.”
“Why not?” Gran said with a shrug. “There’s a portal in the basement only you can use.” She laughed, not a hint of fear in her face. I’d been wrong. I thought she’d be afraid of my dragon half. “You were brilliant, my Jade,” Gran whispered. “I’m so proud of you.”
My heart constricted. My thoughts were on the knife upstairs, and on the blood magic I’d performed. Gran couldn’t forgive that. She would never be proud of that.
She stepped back to me and touched my hand where it still rested on the workstation.
“There’s this knife I made,” I whispered.
“I’ve seen it,” Gran said, completely matter of fact.
“The treasure keeper wouldn’t take it, but he also didn’t think it was for me to wield.”
“Interesting. He was the bear of a man … dragon, I mean … in the fur coat?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, we’ll talk more about that later, shall we?”
“Will there be a tribunal? For London, or Tofino?” I wasn’t quite ready to simply brush it off yet.
“No,” Gran said, her tone unassailable. “It’s done. The price has been paid.”
Sienna was dead, she meant. And oddly, she didn’t sound completely happy about it. Perhaps Gran hadn’t buried every hint of love she’d held for her foster child.
“The knife,” Gran continued. “And … anything else isn’t anyone’s business.”
“The end justified the means?”
“Today, yes. Maybe not tomorrow.”
Well, it was hard to argue with that.
“And Sienna’s … body?”
“Cremated.”
“And the human victims?” I asked.
Gran sighed. “You wanted to bake.”
“When I was in London … when I thought Kett was dead and Kandy was dying. And Mory … I didn’t know what to do. I should know what to do.”
Gran nodded. “The Convocation employs investigative teams. For Tofino and London there was no investigation, just clean-up.”
“You covered up a mass murder in Tofino?” I didn’t know how I felt about that.
“Restaged.”
“With someone else taking the blame? One of the humans?”
“Yes. At a camp site.”
Silence fell between us. Gran waited patiently for my next question, but no matter how many questions I asked today I wasn’t going to feel any better. I understood that the Adept had to limit their exposure to the nonmagical world, had to protect themselves … but I didn’t have to like it.
“I think I shall have Todd make me a latte,” Gran said.
She turned away and I let her go. I was wearier than I’d thought when I first woke.
The healing of my soul would obviously take the longest of all.
∞
Kandy wandered into the bakery kitchen via the back alley just after lunch. I was shocked to see her arm in a sling, but tried to not show it.
“Purple?” I asked, referencing her newly dyed hair.
Kandy bared her teeth in the nonsmile that usually preceded claws also being bared. “Lara thought she’d be funny,” she spat, “seeing as how I’m currently unable to wring her neck.”
Lara was alive then — thank God — and she was obviously still mad about purple.
“I don’t like it as much as the green,” I said, hardly believing that to be the truth even as it came out of my mouth.
“Give me two or three days,” Kandy said. “I’ll fix it.”
“And is Lara’s neck still in jeopardy?”
Kandy shrugged and ran her finger around the edge of a bowl I’d filled with warm chocolate ganache. Bryn’s hot chocolate idea had galvanized me to try a recipe I’d always deemed too difficult to serve and too costly to charge for.
“Gone,” Kandy said, answering my question about Lara. “Back to Portland. All of them.”
The last sentence was heavy with implication. Desmond, she meant, was back in Portland. Fine. That was where he belonged.
“And yet, you’re here,” I said.
Kandy shrugged again, then leaned around me to see what I was making.
“Grab a couple of stools from the office,” I said.
She obligingly wandered off into my tiny, windowless back office and came out with two stools. She plunked them down on the opposite side of the steel workstation across from me.
I crossed to the freezer and pulled out the ice cream I’d put in there to set. I’d never actually used the ice cream maker before, but found it upstairs in a cupboard when I thought to look. Thank you, Scarlett.
“What are you making?” Kandy breathed with anticipation. She lifted her nose and scented the air.
“Just wait,” I said with a glance at my oven timer. I poured a circle of chocolate ganache — it was thick but still pourable — on two plates. “Are you staying in Vancouver?” I asked the purple-haired werewolf as I carefully sliced two strawberries.
“Why not?” Kandy answered. Her grin wasn’t as nonchalant as her tone.
“Shouldn’t you be with the pack?”
“They’ll get along fine without me.”
“But I won’t?”
“Nope.”
A warm mushy feeling bloomed in my chest and I grinned at Kandy like an idiot.
“Ice cream?” she asked.
I laughed, then pulled a teaspoon through the ice cream twice to collect two tiny scoops. It could have used another hour in the freezer, but Kandy wouldn’t care.
“The kid is upset.”
“Mory?”
“Yup.”
“But alive.”
“Thankfully.”
“Is she angry I didn’t let her kill Sienna?”
“She tried to kill the black witch?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit. No, she’s mourning Rusty.”
So I had felt Rusty’s magic along with the necromancers’ spell as it passed over me to break Sienna’s hold on the souls she’d collected. “He carried the spell?” I asked, my prep momentarily forgotten.
“Yeah. It was the only way they could figure out how to get it through to the black witch. He was already tied to her.”
“And he hasn’t come back?”
“Nope. Moved on, they’re saying. Might be for the best though, you know?”
Yeah, I knew. Mory didn’t need to have her dead brother, who might also be a serial werewolf killer, hanging around for the rest of her life. But the fledgling necromancer wouldn’t see it that way.
“A lot of people sacrificed themselves to save the day.”
Kandy nodded.
“How many?” I forced myself to ask the question.
“Desmond brought our thirteen best fighters. All volunteers, all capable of half-beast form. Trained, Jade, to defend the pack at any cost.”
“How many?”
“We lost two, Jamie, a fox, and a werewolf, Tina.”
I’d seen Jamie in fox form just outside of the park ranger’s hut, but never met him or Tina in person. I inhaled deeply and then held my breath to stop myself from crying. Then I asked, “And who survived but w
on’t ever be the same again?”
“That dragon healer is crazy powerful. He brought back three that I thought were already dead, and Audrey.”
“Audrey?”
“Yeah, she was a goner. The healer brought her back, but she was still crazy injured. Desmond finished the job by making her beta, tying her to the collective power of the pack. Tore a big chunk out his arm and fed it to her right there on the beach. An accession is usually a bit more formal.”
I stared at Kandy.
She shrugged. “The bitch saved my life. She’s going to be totally insufferable about it.”
“So now the truth comes out. Audrey’s staying in Portland, so you’re staying here.”
Kandy grinned. “Something like that.”
The oven buzzer sounded.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Always.”
Pushing away all the things I knew I would grieve for months — even years — to come, I focused solely on the task before me. I pulled the cupcakes out of the oven just as Kett wandered back from the storefront and settled into the stool beside Kandy. I’d known he’d been pretending to drink coffee with Gran out front, though I doubt they’d exchanged a single word. The werewolf didn’t acknowledge the vampire. Her eyes were firmly fixed on me as I flipped the hot cupcakes onto the cooling rack. I’d only baked two to start, because they had to be served warm. Gran would have to wait for the next round.
“I gather we have a circlet to steal from Blackwell?” Kett asked as I placed the piping hot cupcakes on the ganache in the center of each plate.
“It isn’t stealing when the retrieval is dragon certified.” I quickly poured the remaining ganache over the hot cupcakes, then dropped the mini scoops of ice cream on top, along with the fanned sliced strawberries.
Kandy snickered and Kett nodded sagely, as if he’d known I was going to take Blackwell’s circlet and give it to the dragons for safekeeping all along.
I pushed the plate across the table to Kandy. She gazed at it in awe.
“This is not a cupcake,” she said. Her tone was reverent, as if confronted by some miracle.
“It is,” I answered. “It’s a molten dark chocolate cupcake covered in ganache and served with a dollop of mint ice cream.”
I found a fork and took a bite. It was utter heaven in my mouth.
Kandy didn’t bother with a fork. She picked the dripping cake up off her plate, smearing warm chocolate all over her fingers, and wedged a quarter of it into her mouth.
“I’m thinking of calling it Unity in a Cup.”
“Screw that,” Kandy said, her mouth full. “It’s a freaking orgasm in a freaking cup.”
I laughed and took another bite, closing my eyes to savor this one. “It’s like you and Kett had babies,” I said, my mouth full of insanely good goodness that tasted almost exactly like Kandy’s and Kett’s magic combined … except sweeter.
“That’s disgusting,” Kandy sneered. Then she lifted her plate and licked it clean … literally.
Kett threw his head back and started to laugh.
I took a third bite and melted into the perfectly molten moment.
For Michael
If I have to fight demons I’m glad I do so by your side
With thanks to:
My story & line editor
Scott Fitzgerald Gray
My proof reader
Leiah Cooper
My beta readers
Ita Margalit and Joanne Schwartz
For their continual encouragement, feedback, & general advice
Patrick Creery, for the French
Gertie, for the cupcake holders
Heather Doidge-Sidhu, for double checking everyone
My lovely bloggers, for reading & reviewing
The Retreat, for letting me play in your sand box
For her Art
Elizabeth Mackey
Meghan Ciana Doidge is an award-winning writer based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She has a penchant for bloody love stories, superheroes, and the supernatural. She also has a thing for chocolate, potatoes, and sock yarn.
Novels
After The Virus
Spirit Binder
Time Walker
Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser #1)
Trinkets, Treasures, and Other Bloody Magic (Dowser #2)
Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (Dowser #3)
Novellas/Shorts
Love Lies Bleeding
The Graveyard Kiss
For giveaways, news, and glimpses of upcoming stories, please connect with Meghan on:
Her personal blog, www.madebymeghan.ca
Twitter, @mcdoidge
Facebook, Meghan Ciana Doidge
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TREASURES, DEMONS, AND OTHER BLACK MAGIC
Copyright © 2014 Meghan Ciana Doidge
Published by Old Man in the CrossWalk Productions 2014
Vancouver, BC, Canada
www.oldmaninthecrosswalk.com
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be produced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, objects, and incidents herein are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual things, events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Library and Archives Canada
Doidge, Meghan Ciana, 1973 —
Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic/Meghan Ciana Doidge — KINDLE EDITION
Cover image & design by Elizabeth Mackey
ISBN 978-1-927850-08-4
Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (Dowser Series) Page 28