“The name Jennifer Bardak is real enough.”
I bowed my head politely. “I’m Alma Bellrose.”
As she stared at me, her face showed no expression at all, but her hands were busy twisting the rings on her fingers. “All right, we can go inside.” She glanced behind me at the redwood tree. “It’s probably for the best if Decorum Salix and I don’t run into each other.”
I looked behind me. One of my favorite books when I was little had been about a genie and a gnome trying to dunk each other in a well. “Do you mean Willy?”
“Our names adapt to human years,” she said. “He was Willow in the old country.”
“And you?” I asked impulsively.
“Too many years, too many countries to remember,” she said. “Let’s get this over with.” She nodded at my back door.
Avoiding having her behind me, I held out my hand in a polite, sweeping gesture, and we walked awkwardly side by side together. I opened the door to the kitchen and looked back at the redwood tree. If Willy was watching, he didn’t want to be seen, for which I was grateful. One proud, unpredictable, and powerful semi-immortal creature was enough for me at the moment.
She walked inside with her head high, showing no sign of feeling any of my wards.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” I asked.
“A glass of the wellspring water, please. But nothing in it.” She made a face at the mugs of peppermint tea still on the table.
I filled a shot glass, removed the tea mugs, and we sat across from each other.
“I’m a businesswoman,” she said, taking a sip. “I make deals. This is an offer I rarely make, but you’ll have to admit it’s a steal. For your silence about my existence, I will give you a wish of equal value.”
I’d been expecting something like it, but my heart began to pound anyway. A genie’s wish was thrilling, even for a witch. “Who determines what the value of my silence is?”
“I do,” she said.
“That hardly seems fair.”
She raised an eyebrow. Her eyelids were heavily made up with black eyeliner, even more precisely than Samantha’s. “You must know I’m capable of keeping you quiet in worse ways.”
I clasped my hands together under the table so she couldn’t see them shaking. The magic in my focus beads kept my arms from trembling right off my shoulders, but it wasn’t enough to calm me completely. “I do know. But there’s a risk in that. I’m a witch with Protectorate connections. Directors have been to this house.”
“To berate or employ you,” she said. “You have no power over those witches.”
“But they’d listen to me if I said a genie had set up a power anchor in Silverpool and has been feeding off the wellspring for—what, centuries?”
“I’m not originally from this land,” she said. “I arrived on the ships of gold hunters.”
“Almost two centuries, then.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what you know. When I grant your wish, you won’t be able to speak of it.”
“Only if I agree to your offer.”
“Why wouldn’t you? If I wanted to harm the humans or fae here, I would’ve done so already. Are you so spiteful you want to expose me just for the fun of it?”
“I’m not going to expose you if I can help it. I promise you that.”
“Your promise is meaningless without an equal exchange,” she said. “I need it to be binding.”
“This kind of wish would be different than what you give to customers at Cypress, though, wouldn’t it?” I asked.
She sipped the springwater. “It would be better,” she said. “It would be much more powerful. It’s your chance to think big, Alma.”
“When people go into the store and wish for things, they maintain some level of control.” I put my hands on the table and showed her how they were trembling. “But I’ve got no control over you, even here in my own house. Your magic is stronger than mine. It would be too dangerous to accept your offer. It would be insane.”
“You have to.”
I swallowed over the lump in my throat. “I don’t. I can still say no.”
“You’ve accepted my wishes bef—”
“I paid for them with my jewelry,” I said.
When I’d fought the demon, she’d taken my focus strings as well as the retail display of necklaces as payment for granting my wish to get home before the Protectorate arrived. Less than an hour ago, she’d taken the gold necklace to grant me my wish for renewed health. The velvet bag had also contained an invitation to meet me, including my promise to hide her existence from my friend, Birdie.
“The price for my health was defined upfront,” I continued. “But I don’t know what my silence might cost me.”
It was dangerous to make deals with genies, especially if you were desperate. If you promised something you couldn’t deliver, they could take the ultimate price from you: your life.
“I swear to you,” she said, “it would be a wish of equal value.”
The hair rose on the back of my neck. A colorful array of wishes paraded through my mind, but I clenched my teeth, remembering all the cautionary tales, and fought them off. “I can’t see the future. I don’t know what that value might be,” I said. “For all I know, hiding you might cost me my life.”
“I can’t let you expose me.” Her voice dropped. “I’m prepared to offer you a gift most mortals would kill for.”
To break the tension, I joked, “Too bad for both of us then that I have an Incurable Inability to kill.”
Her face broke into a wicked grin. “I can cure the incurable!”
“No!” I said quickly, regretting my joke.
“I’ve noticed your father can come and go in the genie fashion,” she said. “I can grant you that ability. But with a little more flair, perhaps? A nice puff of smoke for dramatic impact?”
I walked to the door and pulled it open. It was getting harder to resist her, not easier. Dreams of popping in and out of existence as I pleased, teleporting with the ease of a genie—how lovely that would be.
“It was a pleasure to finally meet you, Jennifer Bardak, but I won’t be accepting any more of your wishes.” I filled my words with the power of a magical vow, although I did add a silent at this time just in case. “I’ll do my absolute best not to reveal your existence. I’ve already hidden it from Birdie, as you saw. You have my promise.”
“Your promise is weak.” She glared at me, then emptied the glass of springwater. It seemed to soothe her, as it did for so many, and she gave me a smile as she stood up. “Sorry, maybe I came on a little strong. Tell you what, I’ll give you time to think about it. Don’t give me an answer now.”
Knowing it was wise not to argue, I remained silent. All I wanted now was to get her out of the house. My curiosity had been sated. Now that I was certain of the three beings Seth had detected on me, I could sleep at night.
As the wise witch Helen Mendoza liked to remind me, witches craved knowledge above all other fortunes. I was as greedy as any of us.
Jen walked out of my house, flicked a rude human gesture at the redwood tree, and strode off down the driveway. “You know where to find me, witch,” she called out. “When you think of that one thing you can’t live without, come to Cypress Hardware.”
She disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Birdie returned with Random just as the sun was going down. Still preoccupied by my interaction with the genie, I didn’t notice her car parked out front until she honked. I’d been sitting in my living room, which faced the street, and took the unusual route out the front door to greet her, kicking aside fallen leaves and sprawling rosemary from the path.
Random leapt out of the passenger seat and galloped over the overgrown shrubs to celebrate his return with me, but Birdie stayed in behind the wheel with the engine running.
Smiling at me, she reached over to pull the passenger door shut. “We had a great time, but I can’t stay. I love what you’ve done with your hair!”
>
I lifted my hand away from Random to touch my head. I’d done one of those absentminded updos that held only half my hair off to one side in a messy bun. “Thanks,” I called out. My spell must not have worn off yet. “How do you feel—?”
Not hearing me, she slammed the door and turned around in the street. In a moment, she was tearing away down the road. I turned my attention to Random and was grateful for how clean he was after a trip to the beach. Sometimes I had to hose him down outside before I could let him into the house.
Reunited with my dog, I locked up the house, put on my pajamas, and curled up on the couch to watch a movie with microwaved lasagna and a glass of wine. Random snuggled up next to me, and I enjoyed a long, relaxing inhale.
Life had gotten so stressful lately. Death, demons, deceptions… Thank Brightness for dogs. Instead of turning on the movie, I let my head fall back on a pillow and closed my eyes, stroking Random’s warm, furry head.
I should’ve felt worse than I did. The horror of the wedding, my illness, the confrontation with the genie…
Ah, that had to be it. The healing magic had soothed my spirits as well. Deciding I might as well enjoy it, I savored the comfort of the couch and Random’s affectionate cuddling.
At that moment, my phone chirped with the notification unique to Raynor.
“Demon’s balls,” I mumbled, squeezing my eyes shut. I didn’t move. A moment later it chirped again. “They have no idea what I could’ve wished for. I could’ve turned the whole stupid organization into a worldwide chain of toddler dance-and-music centers.”
After another sigh, I picked up my phone.
Meet me at Armstrong Woods, the text read.
When? I replied, but I could guess.
Now.
I scratched Random behind the ears, got up and gave him my dinner, which he seemed to feel was a fair trade for being pushed off the couch, and then got dressed in black denim, a black hoodie, black gloves, scarf, and my favorite black boots. If Raynor made the hours-long trip north to chat in a redwood forest at night, he wanted our meeting to be secret. The old-growth redwoods at the state park would block all overhearing and observation once we were inside, but I’d want to cross the boundary unseen as well.
The narrow, winding drive through the dark to Guerneville was slow, and I couldn’t help but muse how fast apparating would’ve been. I parked outside and slipped in on foot past the gate, which delayed me even more, and when I finally met him beside a massive redwood over a thousand years old, he’d had time to get cold and irritable.
“Vera’s body has been traced to a missing woman in Colorado,” he said without a hello, breathing a warming charm into the air around himself but not me.
“What was she like?”
“Who?” he snapped.
“The missing woman,” I said. “Demons choose their bodies carefully. Was she a mother? A criminal?”
He enhanced the warming charm, making it glow just enough to faintly illuminate our faces. “Both, it seems. Her stepson told the police his ‘guardian angel’ had arrived to take her away. He told them she’d been abusing him and his little brother.”
“Ah,” I said, my shoulders relaxing. So Vera hadn’t been totally amoral then. Most Protectorate witches didn’t think it mattered if demons possessed an evil human, but it mattered to me. Relieved she hadn’t taken a life indiscriminately, a knot of tension eased inside me.
Could she have been another demon with a heart of gold, like the one I’d met last month? Or had I been blinded by her quirky charms, my father’s love, the odd bridal gown?
“Aren’t you going to ask me about your father?” he asked.
“I saw your message he was under house arrest,” I said.
“Don’t you want to know more?”
“I assume he’s completely innocent and now you’re just trying to save face by keeping him under observation,” I said.
Raynor pointed a finger at me. “Don’t push me,” he said. “You’re a valuable agent, but you can’t afford to disrespect me, especially now.”
“I’m not an agent,” I said, angry. It was cold, and my dinner was giving heartburn to my dog instead of to me. “Why did you bring me here?”
He scratched his bald head and turned, looking up the massive trunk of the ancient redwood. “You should leave Silverpool,” he said. “Sorry. I know you like it there, but you need to pack up. Probably before dawn.”
Chapter Fifteen
I cast my own glow spell and thrust it out on my outstretched palm between us. “No. No way.” I tried to catch his eye, but he was looking down at his hands, playing with his array of rings. “Are they going to search for the demon from the hardware store again?”
He looked up and met my gaze. “Kurt Bosko will be coming to Silverpool as the new Protector.”
My anger turned into a cold stone in my gut. That murderous, bloodthirsty agent was coming to my little town? Too stunned to speak, and now appreciative of why Raynor had come in secret, I doused my light charm.
“I tried to stop the appointment, but one of the Sapphires in New York overruled,” he said. Sapphire-level witches were part of the top management in the Protectorate, overseeing multiple Directors all over the world. “They’ve given him the resources to have two assistants with him—an apprentice and another subordinate.”
“Three witches? Tristan managed the job by himself.”
“With so many, Bosko will be able to impose Protectorate rule over every creature in Silverpool, including you.”
“Why would he want the job?” I asked, clenching and unclenching my fists, longing to cast a decade-long forget charm on Kurt Bosko. “Why isolate himself in the middle of nowhere? It would be so boring for him.” Being the Protector of a wellspring was like being a justice on the Supreme Court—a lifetime appointment. Cushy and well-compensated, usually easy, but forever. Well, until death, which did come for every witch, often by foul play—like what had struck Tristan down over the summer.
“He seems to think the wellspring requires more aggressive protection,” Raynor said. “You know, your father thanked him for the Protectorate’s action in stopping the wedding. He seemed sincerely anxious about almost marrying a demon. We couldn’t find any evidence he’d known what she was.”
Malcolm thanked him for stabbing Vera? “Nice euphemism. You did more than stop the wedding,” I said. “She was a smoky husk the last time I saw her.”
“The body was not her own. She killed the poor woman months ago.”
The poor child abuser, I thought, but maybe my judgment was flawed. Vera had charmed me as well as my father. “I didn’t feel any demon sign on her. Had you? Is that why so many agents were there?”
“No, that was Bosko’s doing. He was still angry about the torc. He wanted to find evidence to haul your father in while he was distracted by love.” Raynor snorted. “Looks like it could’ve worked. Whatever love delusion your father was under, it was strong enough to hide the demon’s nature from him over all the months they were together. As soon as we cleansed him of all enchantments, he snapped out of it completely. He barely remembered anything about her—where they’d met, how long they’d known each other. She’d convinced him they’d met years ago, which was impossible, of course.”
“So it was just the opal ring that tipped him off?” I asked. “Bosko is wearing an amulet that tells him when somebody might have demon ancestry in them? What’s to stop him from just going around killing everybody he suspects of being guilty of supernatural qualities he despises but doesn’t understand?”
“This is why we are standing here right now, my friend,” Raynor said. “I’ve taken the opal away and locked it up again at Diamond Street. But he’d convinced New York to let him have it for your father’s wedding, and there’s no telling when he’ll convince them again. He’ll be Protector of a wellspring. He’ll have a case for screening unknown visitors to Silverpool for demon print.”
“How about existing residents?” I as
ked. “He’ll know about me if he shakes my hand.”
“Yes.”
Shaking with anger and cold, I closed my eyes and considered my options. If the ring responded to my presence the way it had the last time, he would know there was something inhuman—something demonic—in me. He wouldn’t care that it wasn’t really me who had been touched, but an ancestor, possibly centuries ago. One of my great-great-great-great-grandmothers might have been temporarily possessed, like Samantha had been—and left a mark that carried down the generations. Bosko, indifferent to nuance, could have me immediately detained at the Protectorate, sent off to Death Valley for lifetime detention or—true to his brand—stab me in the chest with a silver stake. Any metal would work on me; I was human. He didn’t care. His type never cared about the details.
“How have you hidden your own mark from him?” I asked. We hadn’t discussed our shared trait recently, but as Director he was more vulnerable than I was.
He didn’t answer my question. “Will you leave before dawn?” he asked.
“Before dawn? Of course not. My life is here. My house, my magic, my workshop, my friends, even the fae—” My voice cracked. Not wanting him to see me cry, I turned my head into the shadows. I would leave if I had to, but I’d take a few days to prepare. I wouldn’t let Bosko drive me out in the middle of the night as if I was a criminal.
Seth… I had to warn him. A tear managed to slip out, and I angrily wiped it away.
Raynor was holding something out to me on his palm. He pointed at it with his other finger, casting a tiny light spell to illuminate a piece of metal. A ring. “I was afraid you wouldn’t be logical about leaving immediately,” he said.
It was a plain, simple band made out of—I cast out my senses—copper. Tarnished, it didn’t sparkle. In fact, it was almost invisible, embracing the darkness around itself. I bent over, found a twig on the ground, and used that to pick up the ring. My affinity for wood gave me enhanced insight to the ring’s magic—and would protect me from any curses. Raynor was unlikely to hurt me intentionally, but he wouldn’t be a Director at the Protectorate if he wasn’t ruthless.
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