Charlie tilts his head, looks up at the ceiling and then back at me before he shrugs. “You know what? I’m rolling with it. The house is sentient. Cool.” He comes over and gives the jar a sniff and nods. “Yeah, that’s medicine alright.”
“Great. I’m going to work on Jaak’s back and hopefully his demon healing takes over in time for us to go kick that head mage’s ass. After that little explosion, this beat down is personal.”
Charlie puts a hand on my arm to stop me. “Okay, I missed a few chapters hiking through the woods with a rat demon on a stick to find you. What are you talking about? I thought since you were here that the head mage got his ass kicked already.”
“What do you mean a rat demon on a stick?”
“Exactly what I said. I’ll show you in a minute. Accept my life’s direction like I accepted your house.”
“Fair enough.” I look down at the supplies in my hand and sigh. “It’s a lot to explain but the short of it is that those mages let Jaak out, they summoned him by marrying me to him, but turns out I already knew Jaak from my night terrors.”
Charlie nods. “Your dreams, okay. I’m with you. Keep going.”
“Right, my dreams weren't dreams. They were memories from dead beings from other worlds.” Charlie’s mouth falls open and his eyes go wide, but he doesn’t say anything so I nod and continue. “I learned about the dreams after Jaak and I were married. He told me about them after he handled the mages. I wanted to go back for you and everyone else but he told me if we didn’t move fast the real head mage behind all of this could strike at any moment. We’ve been in town looking for them.” I conveniently leave out the part of Jaak exploding the mages or the fact that I thought it was snow and got mage in my mouth.
“That’s a lot to take in. I’m going to not give you shit for not answering your phone because you have a demon husband and apparently a magical quest you’re on.” Charlie leans against the counter and gives me a frown. “I tried calling you, though. We were worried sick.”
I pick up the supplies and rock back on my heels. “Yeah, about that…I tried to charge it with my magic and ended up blowing it up. I wouldn’t have just not answered your calls if my phone was in one piece.”
Charlie nods. “I thought so. When you didn’t answer, I knew something wasn’t right. I went back to the clearing after you left. It was really weird, there was ash everywhere.”
I clear my throat. How am I the only one that thought it was snow? “Those were the mages,” I tell him. “Jaak did that.”
“Dammnnn, he’s powerful then, yeah?”
“Very. He’s old, like thousands of years old. He thinks Wrath is young. He called Lethos a bottom feeder, too.”
“An older man with power. Nice. I see you, Meadow. I get it.”
“Zip it. Tell me what happened with Buffy? Is everyone okay?”
“You want the good news or the bad news first?”
I bite my lip and squeeze the jar of ointment in my hand. I hear a slight crack in the glass and have to force myself to let go. Super strength is not a great combo with anxiety.
“The good.”
“The good news is that everyone is alive.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank the gods. I can finally stop freaking out.”
“You haven’t heard the bad news yet.”
“It can’t be that bad if everyone is alive. Hit me with it.”
“The bad news is that Wrath is severely injured, that shit with Roy being a traitor went deeper than him. There’s a good number of families that wanted to bring back the old ways. They were in on it.”
I almost drop the jar of salve. I have to put everything down just to stay upright. “What? How could they? E-everytihng is better with Buffy and Wrath in charge. Why would they do this?”
“Better the devil you know and all that fucking shit, I guess. They got it in their heads to summon some demons to take Buffy and Wrath out with people like Roy on the inside to help. That’s how Wrath got hurt. I guess them seeing the demons attacking us from whatever mage mafia you’re going after gave them some ideas.”
“So then how are you here? What’s going on?”
“I figured if Wrath’s god-like status wore off then the book was probably not doing so hot. It wasn’t in the clearing which made me think you were with the book. I mean, the state of that boulder was all the evidence I needed to know that you were alive. Whatever was in that thing got out and I knew you’d be with it and seeing as I didn’t know how to track the book or you, I used a demon to point me in the right direction.”
“A demon?”
“Yeah, those mini-demons. There were a few still alive after the ambush so I tied it to a stick and have been using it as a compass to find the book and you. After the ambush, the demons left were basically like Roombas trying to go home. I started tracking one but then said fuck it and thus the Demon on a Stick was born. That’s patent pending, so don’t even try and say you came up with it.”
