Chapter 14

Fourteen

H ollis

“But I was just having a little fun!” The man who sold us beer is…apparently not a man at all.

Magda stomps her foot. “Almaak! You know perfectly well that you are not a wish demon and are not allowed to grant wishes to anyone!”

The man in the hoodie shrugs. “Chaos demons be chaotic.”

Magda, hopping mad, turns to Maple and me. “Is this the same young man who sold you the beer last night?”

“Yeah. And when you said ‘demon,’ I was expecting horns and a tail. This is not the Hail Satan vibe I was anticipating. Feeling a bit let down, to be honest,” I say.

A younger witch rests a calming hand on Magda’s shoulder, then she shoots a concerned look at another witch. “Alice, where’s your vampire?”

Maple laces her fingers through mine. “Vampire? Shit!”

Alice rolls her eyes. “I’ll be right back.” She scurries off through the gathered, bewildered crowd.

“Morgan, dear, please explain to these poor kids what happened. I’m too out of sorts, and if I speak another word, I’ll cast a spell on the whole legion by accident,” Magda says, pacing back and forth, clutching the lapels of her black satin robe, trailing in the breeze behind her.

The one called Morgan smiles and does her best to explain. “Almaak is a chaos demon, not a wish demon. Which is why we had such a hard time tracking down who did this to you. Chaos demons are supposed to stay in their lane, it’s all written out in the addendum to the 1859 Accords that allowed the rival groups to coexist in Birchdale, but sometimes, they step out of line. We’re all supposed to leave the normies out of our business, too. So it’s a double whammy.”

She winces as Magda throws up her hands. “I’ll have to call a meeting of the entire council about this. And you know how hard it is to set up a meeting with everyone’s schedules these days? Vampires and gargoyles can only go out at night…all these witches with their half-human children have sports ball games in the evenings…can’t get anything done nowadays. Used to be, witches only had witch business to do, and demons only caused problems when accidentally summoned by the normies. Now everybody’s in everybody’s business. I blame social media. I never needed to know what the other monsters got up to on their own time.”

From behind me, Maple squeaks, “Magda, are you okay?” I can feel her fear, and I slip my arm around her shoulder to hold her tighter to me.

Morgan winces. “Yeah, she’ll be alright. It’s not easy for a witch to rule over people who are thousands of years younger than she is.”

I scoff. “Thousands.”

But I don’t say anything else because the looks I’m getting indicate I’m the only one who thought that was a joke.

“Alice, you’re back,” Morgan says, addressing the witch who’s dragging along a man in a ball cap and ripped jeans. “Drew, will you please explain how the beer works?”

The so-called vampire called Drew looks confused. “I didn’t put anything in the beer except flavoring.”

“Drew.” The witch named Alice crosses her arms, suspecting “her vampire” of lying, I suppose. “This is serious.”

He relents quickly. “Okay, I might have gotten into Alice’s stash of herbs for flavoring, but that’s it. No spells. No incantations.”

Magda lifts her chin. “No blood?”

“Ma’am,” Drew says. “The blood bank is sparse enough. Do you think I’d just put some blood in my beer to sell to the normies, or do you think I’d be drinking it?”

I’d love to step in and remind everyone that they are certifiably nuts and that vampires aren’t real, but it looks like I’m outnumbered. And I did see a dirt cyclone turn into a human shape, so…yeah. Now is the time to keep my mouth shut and do the only thing I know for sure I should do…and that is protect Maple at all costs.

Magda drags the young Almaak by the ear into the circle’s center. “And do you supervise the demons you hire for your business?”

Drew shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “I…didn’t know he was a demon.”

Morgan clears her throat. “Time’s ticking. Almaak. Change them back, or I’ll turn you into a toad.”

Almaak looks profoundly unconcerned, studying his cuticles. “Aw, come on, girls. You know that’s not how it works. I need something in exchange for my troubles.”

Magda squares her shoulders, raises her hands skyward, and hollers something in a language I do not understand. The witches and everyone except Almaak and us scatter as two balls of fire shoot from her fingertips and set fire to the grass at Almaak’s feet.

“Fuck, lady!” the demon screeches, hopping around to avoid the flames dancing around his feet. “It’s not my rule; take it up with Sozomore, the author of Deals with Demons. ”

Magda smirks as everyone watches Almaak curse and dance around, extinguishing the flames with his steel-toed boots.

“Fine. Name your price, imp!” Magda cries.

I can see why they made her high priestess. I would not want to be the manager on the day she returns an item without a receipt.

“They can give me their firstborn,” Almaak says, tamping out the remaining embers attached to his boots and fingertips.

Maple yips, and I holler, “What the fuck!”

I’m going to have to kill him if Magda doesn’t.

Morgan heaves a sigh. “You know that won’t work. Demons raising human babies is too problematic.”

“Yeah,” I mutter. “That’s one word for it.”

Almaak curses. “Nobody lets us take their firstborn anymore. It’s such bullshit. Fine. How about an old-fashioned possession?”

“No!” This is unanimously shouted by everyone.

“What if I pick someone nobody likes?” Almaak presses.

“No!” Magda shouts. “Do you want to dance again, imp? I can summon hellfire, and not even you can put that out.”

“Fine! Fine! What about a lake monster?”

What?

Morgan gives him a shrewd look. “A lake monster. Why?”

Almaak shrugs. “This town is lame, but I’m stuck here. A harmless lake monster would be entertaining. Not to hurt the normies. Just to scare them a little bit.”

Morgan raises an eyebrow and stares at Magda. The rest of the crowd of witches murmurs like they’re actually considering this. I think I hear someone say something about lake monsters generating a new revenue stream of tourism.

Magda takes several steps forward, gets right in Almaak’s face, purses her lips, and declares, “You can have your lake monster. If, and only if, these two kids go back to normal. And I mean, exactly as they were before they met a chaos demon.”

“Splendid,” says the man in the hoodie, who turns to us, and with barely more than a flick of his finger, triggers a sensation inside my skull that feels like my brain is exploding into a thousand pieces.

My vision goes hazy, my knees buckle, and every capillary in my brain throbs. My only concern, however, is Maple.

I shout her name, which only intensifies the pain in my skull.

I hear her weak cry as I turn to her, wide-eyed. Her face changes, and she looks back at me in terror.

“Hollis, I don’t feel so good.”