Chapter 8

Chapter

Eight

" S exton will be fine."

I met his intense gaze with one of my own—a risk, but one I had to take. He would expect me to challenge him. "You used my full name."

"You have my apologies." The demon folded his enormous frame into the seat across from me. The way he moved was insectile, like a giant praying mantis readying for attack. "It was rude. It won't happen again."

"I'd appreciate that," I said. "Also, it would be nice to keep my tongue in my mouth instead of you feeding it to my partners. Fennel prefers tuna and Cecil likes boysenberries."

He blinked, slow and lazy. "I extend my apology to cover my rudeness on the phone as well."

At least now I knew how my client had known about Fennel and Cecil. Bertrand Sexton could find information on nearly anything he wanted to know, and apparently, he'd wanted to know more about me.

Marvelous.

As a gravedigger—or cemetery—demon with human-realm privileges, Sexton could exist in our world, though his ability to influence it was limited. He'd walked in here, and no one had seen him for no other reason than he hadn't wanted them to . They wouldn't see me talking to him, either. To anyone watching, I'd appear to be checking my phone or staring into space.

If that was the sort of magic Sexton was capable of constrained, one could only imagine the sort of power he wielded in the underworld, where he had no such limitations.

Goddess, I hoped I'd never find out for sure.

"Are you surprised to see me?" He moved with a fluid grace unusual for someone so tall, sliding his spindly legs beneath the table and crossing skeletal arms over his chest.

" Surprised ? Sexton, if I'd walked in here to find the Steve Miller Band singing an a cappella version of "Take The Money And Run" using only offensive taxonomical names of birds as the lyrics, I would be less surprised than I am right now."

He chortled at this, which was an unsettling thing to witness, as he laughed with his entire body, bones clacking together beneath his thin flesh. "I have missed your unique turn of phrase, young witch. It has been ages since I rested my gaze on your visage."

It had been seventeen years. And that was no accident.

"You didn't use your real voice on the phone," I said.

"No." He offered nothing further on the subject, and I didn't think it wise to push. I'd already gotten two apologies out of him. Asking for another just seemed greedy.

And incredibly stupid.

"Why didn't you get this yourself?" I set the wrapped bundle of belladonna on the table between us. "It would've been cheaper."

Sexton took the bundle in one spidery hand and brought it to his nose. He drew a long breath and sighed his way into a smile. "I've been temporarily banned from Purgatory."

"They can do that? I was under the impression you could go anywhere."

"No." He opened his dusty black coat and slipped the belladonna into a pocket inside. "It takes a high-caste demon to give the order, but I can be stopped, like any of us."

"For how long?"

"One hundred years."

I wanted to ask what he'd done to get himself eighty-sixed from Limbo for a century. I didn't dare, though. One did not push Sexton unless one was exceedingly brave or extraordinarily foolish.

"I deeply apologize for the postponements, but I've been dealing with an issue at the cemetery all morning."

The way he said issue made me think it was more serious than he was letting on. Again, I didn't ask him to explain. He'd tell me if he wanted me to know.

"Do you have concerns about my intentions?" Sexton asked.

It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the belladonna.

"No," I replied. "You're the one being I can trust not to use it to kill anyone."

" Truuuust ?" He drew out the word.

"If you want someone dead, you have more inventive ways of making that happen than simple poisoning. Besides, the minute you walked in, I knew what this was about."

Sexton slow-blinked. Not an affectation, just how he moved.

Because he was nearly immortal, time passed in lurches and drags in his corner of the universe. To him, the conversation we were having—and my entire existence—carried a significance similar to a house fly buzzing around a human. Slightly annoying, easily dealt with and forgotten.

I'd called him a demon, but really, his people— to use the term loosely —were lesser gods.

"Why do you believe I want it?" he asked.

"Tea," I said. "Demon-grown belladonna tea is a delicacy for your kind. It's how you remain in this realm so long without having to return to the underworld. It is, essentially, a homesickness treatment."

Sexton went dead silent. The air grew so cold that my jaw tightened to the point of pain and my brain felt crushed between two bricks.

" How do you know this ?" His voice was like an ice cube sliding down the back of my shirt.

I shuddered. "It's part of the history handed down to me through a long line of Lennox witches." I struggled to speak through chattering teeth, but somehow, I managed not to stutter. "A portion of our historical knowledge is transcribed, some is purely oral, but the largest part of it is through evolutionary engineering. In other words, our line evolved in such a way as to impart our shared magical knowledge to each other through a neonatal psychical transmission bond. Somewhere in the past, one of your kind must've shared the knowledge with a witch of my lineage."

He stared at me for a long moment through eyes that contained dark and unexplored galaxies. I respectfully, yet firmly, returned his stare, though it nauseated me.

Finally, he spoke. "Now we both know something of each other."

"Yes."

"I shall keep the secret of your lineage, Lennox witch."

"And, as with my ancestors before me, I will continue to keep your secret, Bertrand Sexton," I replied.

The air warmed, bringing relief to my brain and poor teeth.

"Tell me," he cocked his odd, skeletal head to one side, "did you keep any belladonna seeds for yourself?"

"A few. I want to try to grow this strain in my garden room. It'll be different, of course. Belladonna grown by a demon in Limbo gives the plant an unusual quality, but there was a time when my mother grew the plant successfully."

"Yes, I know." He regarded me with another languid blink of his eyes. "If you will give me first right of refusal for the sale of your version, I shall take that as a favor and reciprocate."

Two demon favors in my pocket in less than twenty-four hours? Must be my lucky day. Except…

I sighed. "Though I'm honored by your offer, I hate to get your hopes up. There's no guarantee they'll take root. My mother passed away three years ago, and her soil hasn't exactly embraced me. I can only grow new plants in pots with soil I brought from outside the property."

"Your mother was a powerful earth witch." He left out the and you are not , but it felt implied.

"She was, yes."

Again, the slow blink. "If you know about our tea, might I also assume you are aware of my kind's affinity with the earth?"

"Yes, I am."

Gravedigger demons could speak to the soil. Because of their association with Death, they did not coax life from the earth, but they could speak to it in ways other beings could not.

"With your permission, I will speak to your soil," he said.

It was a risk. Inviting a gravedigger demon onto my land could not only magically deconsecrate it but kill it outright. They had that sort of power.

But Sexton wanted something from me, and in turn, from my soil. I didn't believe he'd do anything to harm it. And it wasn't like he could make things much worse anyway.

There was one more issue, though, and it was a big one.

"I'd need to know the exact time so I could warn Ida."

His lips creaked into a smile. "I swear on my honor the death walker has nothing to fear from me."

Death walker . Hadn't heard that term in a while.

Contrary to popular belief, necromancers didn't use dark magic. Their magic was neutral and required no conjuring, chanting, or sacrifice. When Ida traveled the otherworld realms in spiritual form, her ability was thought of as "walking with Death," which was why Sexton had called her that.

"Thank you," I said.

"I appreciate what it is to be misunderstood when you mean no harm," he replied. "I will arrive at the witching hour tonight. She will no doubt be sound asleep and miss the entire visit, more's the pity."

I wasn't sure Ida would see it the same way.

"Bertrand Sexton, you have Lilibet Flores Lennox's permission to speak to the soil under Siete Saguaros at the witching hour tonight," I said carefully.

He tipped his head in a nod.

All this talk about death called another thought to mind. "May I ask you a question?"

"You may ask," he said.

Which meant he might not answer. "The highway demon I cast into Limbo last night left a strange symbol in the air."

"Demons often leave signatures," he said.

"True, but this was … odd. I was hoping you might be able to give me an idea why he would do something like this." I told him about the Mictlantecuhtli glyph.

"Odd indeed."

"Right? It's normal to see a death glyph, but not a god of the dead. Seems like a dangerous way to make yourself known to someone who could erase you from existence with a thought."

"Draw the glyph," Sexton said.

I took a pen from my purse and drew it on the back of a paper coaster.

He studied it for a while then slid it back to me. "The swallower of stars would be mortified if he knew one of his images was being co-opted by a low-caste demon."

" One of his images?"

"The Aztec god of death was only one sacred form. Mictlantecuhtli, Anubis, Thanatos, The Morrigan and Shinigami, Ah Puch… All variations on the same god. The one we know as Death."

I wanted to ask if he was also one of those variations but kept my mouth shut. I already knew a lot about his kind. He might not be pleased if I tried to find out more.

"The demon may have been using it to frighten you. So much of what the young ones do is theatrics and cheap magic." His cosmic-black eyes rolled in their bony sockets.

These darn kids today… Apparently even cemetery demons weren't immune from generational conflict.

He tapped one long finger against his chin. "I will contact you after I speak to your soil. If you require me sooner, you can reach me at this number." He made a crosshatch sign with one long finger and my cell phone dinged.

"Thank you."

"You are welcome. The balance of your payment is in your account. I look forward to your version of belladonna, earth witch Betty. If you find yourself in Limbo again in the intervening period, I will pay you well for any additional plants you can procure."

And he knew I could use the money.

The demon's gaze, so otherworldly and vast, settled on me with full focus. "Would you be interested in another job?" His voice lifted on the word interested , as if he were testing the waters.

"Sorry, but I can't send Fennel into the underworld for a while. He got into trouble last night."

A bemused look crept over the peaks and valleys of Sexton's harsh, angular face. "Demonic cat nip?"

"He has a problem," I said.

"We all have our addictions. But no. This will not require a trip to any other realm. It is something to be done here, in the human world."

"Something you can't do?"

"It would be … messy were I to get involved."

"What's in it for me?" I asked.

"A great deal of money, if you are successful." He rose like a glitch-in-the-matrix shot in a horror movie. No time passed between him slouching in his chair and standing upright. "Contact me if you're interested."

He moved in two flashes. In the first, he made it halfway to the door, and in the second, he stood on the opposite side of it. Then he was gone.

The world snapped back into full focus. Ronan's head swiveled around, and the look he gave me could've flash-frozen a side of beef.

I threw some money on the table, gave him an apologetic shrug, and hustled out before he could confront me. Ronan might not have been able to see Sexton, but his wolf was no doubt scenting the demon. He had to be pissed I'd allowed one into his bar.

That I had no idea I'd been dealing with a demon until Sexton showed up wouldn't matter to Ronan. And if the shoe had been on the other foot, it wouldn't have mattered to me.

No one wanted demons around. They were scary as hell.