Chapter 16

Even though I didn”t sleep well without Rasmus by my side, I still managed to get some rest.

While I was making my way down the stairs the next morning, Rasmus and Zara walked through the front door. I walked by and waved as I went to my room to change.

Later, the guardian wrinkled his forehead at me over breakfast. I’d shaken my head to ward off any public discussion. We were acting like some old married couple talking with our eyes. If he started finishing my sentences, I would be in real trouble.

The breakfast conversation mainly focused on the jiangshi. Mulan was still on the fence about the best way to fix him. Of all people, it was Zara who chimed in with some truly helpful info. The female guardian gave us her best teacher-of-an-inferior-species look as she arrogantly explained.

“Traditionally, someone magickal creates a paper talisman with symbols which gets affixed to the jiangshi’s forehead. The symbols serve to hinder the creature”s ability to possess others, body hop, or otherwise abandon in their human form.”

Sipping his tea, Rasmus also contributed to the discussion. “Talismans also were the reason that many of the jiangshi got destroyed. Everyone knew who they were.”

I nodded at both of their comments. “I imagine their actual form was fragile with human death despite it also being magickly immortal. Mulan’s brother-in-law is an old man with a cane in his human form. Even someone ancient wouldn’t be hard to kill if they didn’t have some kind of powerful magick sustaining them.”

Conn’s head lifted from his phone. “I heard someone say kill. Are we killing him, after all? I’m ready to end this.”

My demon familiar picked at his soft scrambled eggs and nibbled dry toast this morning. I felt sorry for his loss of appetite but not enough to override Mulan’s decision not to kill her brother-in-law.

“No, Conn. We’re not killing him. Didn’t ya hear anything Zara said? Her idea is good. I can see a talisman working.”

And I was being sincere.

The guardians had nullified Zara’s negative motivations toward humanity but left the profound intellect that the female guardian had cultivated during her time alone on Earth. If I thought too long about how easily the guardians reprogrammed people, I might have killed both of them in their sleep and laid out a plan to get rid of all the others, including Orlin.

Ya’d think the female guardian might be a little grateful for me championing her idea. Instead, Zara shrugged off my compliment as if it meant nothing to her.

It was becoming clear that her innate resentment of me had evolved into a strong disdain, even if she didn’t remember the details of why she hated me. Did she instinctually know I was her jailer? Or had Rasmus and his cover story about me sparing her life thinned? She rebelled nearly daily. I currently doubted her reformation would last five weeks much less five years. But I was keeping that to myself for now.

Zara’s disgusted snort was loud. “What was done to them originally won’t work anymore. No one can walk around with a piece of paper stuck to their head in this century without being treated for mental problems. You need to adapt the solution to the current culture.”

“Maybe we use tattoos for symbols,” Mulan offered as a suggestion.

Zara nodded and smiled. “Yes. Tattoos would work well. The best would be to draw them in ink, and then magickly transfer them onto the creature’s human form. The only problem is that tattoos can be lasered off human skin—even dead skin.”

Then the female guardian pointed at me with her fork. “Aran knows a spell to drive the talisman beneath his human flesh. She did it to her family’s heirloom. Putting the talisman inside him would force it to remain a permanent part of him.”

“Are ya finding many spells of that sort in yer research?” I asked, pretending to be more interested in my food than in her answer.

Did Rasmus tell her about the Dagda stone? Or did she know because she sensed it? I watched as Zara paused while she thought about it. Then she finally nodded.

“Nearly every mythology talks about the original human-to-animal shifters receiving talismans from their alleged gods. It was those talismans that gave them the ability to shift. Powerful spells resided in those talismans which were usually made of wood. I’ve found one or two spells for talismans that have merit.”

Mulan frowned. “But we hoped to do opposite. We want him never to shift again.”

Zara looked at Mulan like she’d just failed a major test. “Spells work forward and backward. What happens is controlled by holding the proper intention. Ink on paper is the easiest to infuse. Wooden objects are the second easiest. Inscribing that much magick on a metal object or a stone would require significant power, but you have enough, Wu Shaman. All of them would work for you.”

Mulan nodded. “I see the wisdom of what you say. Paper would easily dissolve inside human body and become part of cells. Wood also would break down and be absorbed like plants are when eaten. Metal would stay metal and never become part of his true form. It could be removed.”

Zara arched an eyebrow at me when she answered. “Yes. It could.”

So that’s how she knew. Rasmus must have told her about Ezra.

I looked at them over my coffee. “Mulan’s specialty is wood. She made her own staff. I think that would be a good format for her magick.”

Mulan looked my way and smiled. “I see your wisdom too, Aran.”

I drank and then set down my cup. “It seems we potentially need two spells. The first will take away his jiangshi abilities and make him permanently human. The second spell is needed to restore him physically.”

Conn raised his hand. I laughed as everyone looked his way. “Are we raising hands to talk now?” I teased.

Conn ignored me to speak to Mulan. “Getting jiangshi to give up access to his demon form may not go as well as you think. Not to brag here, but being a demon is pretty awesome. I think he will be reluctant to let that state go.”

I smirked at him. “What are ya hinting at, Conn? Are ya saying being human isn’t equally wonderful?”

His grin said everything for him so I rolled my eyes. “Ya do understand that Mulan is human, don’t ya?”

“Oh, yes,” Conn said. “But I would never trade her places. She has suffered far more in her human life than I ever have in my demon one. The emotional abuse from her family is enough to fill me with gratitude for the species I was born to be.”

I looked across the table to Mulan. “How do ya put up with him, Mulan? No man is that good in bed.”

Mulan shrugged. “I often wish that were true but demon is magnificent lover.”

No one at the table laughed openly, but I saw Rasmus and Conn exchanging grins.

I was grateful Zenos had slept in this morning. It had spared us—or at least, me—his commentary during the testosterone-filled celebration. That would have been too much.

A short time later,Zenos tracked me down in the library.

I was sitting in the chair by the fireplace while going through my favorite spell books. After ruling out the possibility of Rasmus altering the creature’s genes without the use of a proper laboratory, I’d sent him off to check on Zara. I now sat alone researching potential spells.

No one except Conn knew that I kept my sacred books in the storage that he maintained for us. I’d sent him there with a list after breakfast and now I sat going through the ones he’d brought back to me.

Zenos barged in, his heavy footsteps echoing through the room, before flopping down unceremoniously in the second chair. My chair had sized itself to fit me with my feet firmly planted on the floor. His chair immediately enlarged itself to fit his greater height and size.

He smiled and widened his eyes. “Is this yer work?” he asked in awe.

The wonder in his tone softened me. “I’d love to tell ya it was, but no. Henry knows a talented witch with wood magick specialty. Maybe I should ask him for suggestions about fixing the jiangshi. He might know someone who can help.”

“That’s why I came here. How can I help ya, lass?”

My ego still stung from his teasing last night. I wanted to keep my distance from my so-called teacher but this was no time to be petty. If what Mulan tried with the jiangshi failed to restore him completely, we would need a Plan B to revive him.

The immortal dragon mage had more magickal knowledge in his little finger than I would ever possess in my entire body. I”d be a fool to turn down his help.

“Do ya know any spells that might restore real human life to a jiangshi?”

Zenos pondered it for a moment. “They call them ghosts because even their souls are undead. Their bodies do hang around, but their souls are driving them like a vehicle, rather than living within it. Some say it’s that very division that makes them so angry and insane.”

My mind raced with questions. “So how would they get anything from being in a physical relationship with someone? The jiangshi married Mulan’s sister and had to know she’d expect the relationship to be consummated.”

Zenos stopped explaining to stare. “Ya have the oddest mind, Aran.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I’ve been told that before.”

“No wonder ya’re a guardian’s wet dream. Ya have beauty and a unique mind.”

My lips flattened into a line. “Why do yer compliments never sound like compliments? Can we just stick to talking about the problem?”

Zenos grinned and shook his head. “Okay. I can see ya need some sexual education this morning.”

“If that’s yer idea of flirting, cut it out, Zenos. Ya know I’m not interested.”

The dragon mage rolled his eyes at me. “By the Ancients, ya’re a testy woman. The physical is rarely all physical, right? I’ve never asked yer nosy question of a jiangshi but I’m guessing they would enjoy the spiritual energy and the magick that comes with the sex even if they no longer feel the sensations in their own form. His body might function mechanically—like yer Wu Shaman’s vibrator—but ya’d have to check with them to see exactly what they get from having relations.”

I blew out a breath. “Sorry. I just...” I stopped talking before I dug the hole I was in any deeper. “So, okay. Back to the spell. Do ya know any that would give the physical sensations back to him? Maybe expecting to return his full humanity is too much.”

Zenos lifted both hands and spread them as he talked. “The only spell I know would require that we put a wandering soul within his body to join with his condemned one. The wandering soul would create a bridge over which sensations could pass.”

“That sounds creepy and too much like a three-way.”

Zenos stopped explaining to laugh. “We might manage to call a roaming soul to us, but if this jiangshi hates humans as much as ya say, giving him the power of two souls would be unwise. Ya could be creating a bloody supervillain who could possess anyone.”

Given my experiences with the magickal souls inhabiting the Dagda stone, more power was the last thing I wanted to give to the jiangshi who Rasmus had said craved power above all else.

”I”ll pass on that solution. I don’t want to make a supervillain.”

Zenos nodded. “No, I didn’t think so.”

“All I want is for him to have the semblance of a human life for as long as he lives. Mulan’s talisman should fix his vampiric tendencies to steal energy and possess others. But that leaves me fixing the zombie part of him. The power he’s leeched from others is all that’s keeping that dead body alive. Since we plan to take that power away, that leaves us the problem of what to use to help him stay alive.”

“Without his ability to leech off others, he will most certainly revert to the dead human he was when he became a jiangshi. His body would return to its decaying zombie-like form.”

“That makes sense, I guess.” I sighed as I looked down at my book. “He needs some sort of regenerative spell.”

Zenos rose from his chair to pace. “Aye. Or he needs to permanently possess a different body that’s not dead.”

There was a time in my life when I would have considered that sort of comment to be a joke. Rasmus had changed my views of what was possible. “Ya know, guardians make bodies all the time and can move souls around. I think they use a combination of science and magick. Science creates the organic matter but it’s the magick of multiple light beings that fuses the soul to it. I’m not sure how they handle the human programming part. It creeps me out sometimes to see how much they can dink with a person’s memories.”

Zenos snapped his fingers. “That’s it. It’s not regeneration, lass. Resurrection—we need a resurrection spell and one that can be repeated over and over. It would work like demon regeneration, only faster. If we got it right, his body would never go zombie on him again.”

I rubbed my forehead. What we were talking about sounded more like a movie plot than anything we could pull off in reality. “What kind of magick is strong enough to resurrect a person? That’s not what the guardians do. I think they start from scratch and grow their own.”

Zenos stopped pacing to stare at me. He blinked for a few moments and then laughed. “Guardians are irrelevant to this task. Still... ya’re not going to like what I’m about to tell ya.”

I chuckled. “Well, that’s nothing new.”

His grin was wide. “Yes, well, resurrection requires bending a few holier-than-thou rules about the life and death cycle on this planet.”

My face crinkled in confusion. How would our magicks bend holy rules? None of us were of that faith. Then it came to me and I smacked my forehead. “Good Goddess, Zenos. Ya’re not talking about using angel magick to restore him, are ya?”

“Aye—I am. The best part of this plan is ya already have all the angel power we need without us having to bargain with one of the sneaky winged buggers for some. My solution resolves yer fairy problem too. Ya can thank me later for that bonus.”

“What bonus? My fairy problem is not with the angel magick holding Ezra in place. It’s the fact that he wants to kill me.” Damn the dragon mage and his twitching lips. “Do ya seriously find it funny that someone wants to murder me?”

“Yes, I actually do. The only threat that bloated fairy poses to ya is in invalidating yer past with him. If ya cared less, ya would have taken his head instead of making him a decoration in yer home. All that power he’s carrying could become yers if ya killed him properly. Ya’re a woman of power. Use it for yerself now and again. It would be a good thing for people not to count on yer mercy.”

“But I don’t want the power Ezra stole from Goddess only knows who. I want him to leave this plane of existence so I never have to think about him again. I’ll be dead long before Ezra of Airingdale will be allowed on this side of the veil.”

Zenos made a humming sound as he scratched the beard that had grown overnight. “Do ya want the fairy out of yer life as badly as ya wanted the other bastard who betrayed ya out? Ya spared yer ex-husband because of the child ya shared between ya. Ya spared the fairy’s life because ya shared a past. The fairy folk will consider the fairy to be the hero for retaining yer loyalty even after he attempted to kill ya. They will consider ya a fool, Aran.”

I threw up my hands. “If this is a lecture about being too merciful, I get enough of that from Conn.

“Because ya’re a passionate extremist. Revenge doesn’t always have to come from swiping yer sword through the air. Sometimes it can come from a well-placed spell of the proper magnitude and good threat.”

“But ya’re talking about spelling a fairy. They’re mostly immune to witch magick.”

“They aren’t immune to druid magick and that’s what ya carry inside ya. Druid magick is the closest to dragon magick. The Dagda wasn’t supposed to allow it to continue in the world but he wasn’t exactly a rule follower. His mother created the druids and The Dagda spared their lives the only way he could. Now then... how much of a rule breaker are ya willing to be?”

I put a hand to my chest. The stone vibrated under my fingers. Goddess, was I really thinking about this? “Are ya saying my stone might know a resurrection spell?”

“No, Aran. Ya’re getting ahead of yourself. I’m suggesting we drain the angel magick from the fairy and put it into yer anti-zombie talisman with the resurrection spell I’ll do for ya. But ya’ll have to put a binding spell on the fairy to keep him constrained until his people can collect him. This is yer best answer.”

I blew out a breath. Why did the idea of spelling Ezra bother me so much?

Zenos clapped his hands together and smiled. “Ya know... thinking this hard makes me hungry. I’m going to search out the lovely Gale and see if she’ll feed me. I’m sorry I missed breakfast earlier but I needed the rest. If I thought I could steal that demoness from Henry, I would. That woman can cook like no other. She’s easy on the eyes too.”

“Stop that. Gale has been Henry’s mate forever. Have ya no shame, dragon?”

“None that would make me pass up being with a beautiful woman,” Zenos said with a grin.

“Ya’re incorrigible.”

“Aye... that’s how I stay worthy of a woman’s walk on the dark side.”

“Henry would destroy ya over her.”

Zenos laughed. “Oh, aye, he would, but what a way to go. And I’d eventually regenerate. Everything I do is a win-win scenario for me. The demons and I have many immortal life perks in common.”

I blinked at his audacity. “Yer arrogance is worse than a guardian’s and that’s saying a lot.”

Snickering, Zenos walked to the door. “I might be arrogant in yer eyes, lass, but I call that confidence. And I know my idea will work. It will cost me but I can move the angel energy into the talisman ya create. The one it belongs to won’t like me doing that, which will be the best part for me. But don’t ya worry about it because we’ll be using angel magick for some genuine good instead of creating chaos like they usually do.”

And with that parting remark, the dragon mage left.

I chewed my lip and wondered whether or not I should warn Tony of what we were about to do. Then I remembered his wicked side—the one I’d clearly seen when he froze my daughter to shut her up. He’d seemed genuinely disappointed not to turn me loose on Hisser so he could watch me kill the snake. Something told me he’d pretend to be upset by our plans for using his magick to power a resurrection talisman but also might secretly admire our nerve.

Zenos and his big idea had given me a lot to think about. Plus, every plan this risky needed a failsafe.

My chest vibrated to get my attention. It was like a phone I couldn’t shut off.

We need to talk, Aran of The Dagda. We have an idea about how we can help you with your task.

I closed the spell book. Not only had the stone gotten in touch, but the magickals powering it had listened and heard every conversation I’d had with people about it.

I didn’t know whether to be shocked or happy. I chose the latter out of curiosity.

“I’m listening. What did have in mind?”

Instead of speaking words, I got shown a mini-movie featuring myself as the star performer. It was a little gruesome to find myself starring in a horror vision of a potential future, but it was also illuminating.

It made me wary to learn that the stone had its own motivations for getting in touch with me but no one ever got something for nothing. When this was over, I was calling The Dagda for a long talk about the druidic relic he’d passed down through his descendants. I didn’t want them taking me over. It was too late to remove it from my person so the only choice I had was learning to control it.

Yet I instinctively knew what they had shown me would work. It would also do what the dragon mage had suggested.

I picked up my notebook and jotted down the spell they’d provided before it slipped away.