“It’s not your run-of-the-mill summoning spell, guys.”
I meet the woman’s eyes across the glow of the laptop screen, my last hopes for an easy fix evaporating. “On a scale of one to ten, just how fucked am I?”
“That depends.” She snaps the laptop closed. Folds her hands on top of it. Ponders. “Is one themostfucked or the least?”
“One is the low end of the spectrum. Best possible outcome.”
“In that case, you’re definitely a one…million.” The dark witch smirks at me as if this is the highlight of her week. “Completely, utterly, upside-down and sideways fucked with a broomstick, nary a bottle of lube in sight.”
Chapter Seven
VIOLET
“Here’s what we know,” Olivy says. “You summoned the Devil with some kind of bidding spell, but there’s also—”
“Now that we’ve got that sorted…” The Devil, horns intact but handsome human face back online, offers us an award-winning smile—probably the same one that tricks helpless victims into signing over their souls. “Kindly reverse it so I canbidyou adieu.”
“I wish I could,” Olivy says, “but this isn’tjusta bidding spell. That’s what I’m saying. There’s also a binding component, among other things.”
“How is this even possible?” I ask. “I didn’t perform any spells. Not really.”
My sister’s eyes narrow. “Define ‘not really.’”
“I mean, I said a few lines as I was copying them over, and then the Devil card from Gigi’s Tarot deck sort of… caught on fire? When Sunshine knocked over the candle? But I wasn’t speaking a fullbindingspell. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“It’s not just the words, Vi. It’s the intent behind them. The spell itself, the Tarot cards, the candle… all that stuff just amplified your true intention. Which is why you… Oh, shit.Amplified.” Her eyes widen with some new revelation. “Yep, you’ve got an amplifier component in here as well, and the quartz crystals called in that magic like a moth to the flame.”
The Devil rubs one of his horns. “The proverbial moth in this scenario being…?”
Olivy glares. “The left one’s looking a little droopy, Horns. You might want to get that straightened out.”
“It’s straight enough to impale you, should the mood strike. Anyway, if you’ve got all the spells and components, isn’t that enough to create a counter-spell?”
“A spell is much more than the sum of its components.” Olivy shakes her head, her dark hair almost blue in the dim space. “Tell you the truth, I don’t think I could recreate this spell if my afterlife depended on it.”
The Devil puffs out his chest, his eyes glowing red again, lip curling into a terrifying sneer. “And what if itdoesdepend on it, witch?”
“Really? We’re measuring dicks now?” Olivy crosses her arms and glares at him with a single raised eyebrow, a look half the men in this town have come to fear. “Do you honestly think there’s anything in this world I wantmorethan to send you straight back to the bowels of Hell from whence you came?”
“I didn’t come here from Hell. I came here from Los Angeles, where I was enjoying an intimate gathering of friends in my own home when I was snatched away without warning and—”
“Andwhat?” she demands, champion of witches great and small, my absolute hero, refusing to give an inch when the Devil wants to take a hundred miles.
Wisely, he backs off.
Score one for the witches.
Brushing the non-existent lint from his bathrobe cuffs, looking far more elegant than any Devil has the right to, he retracts the horns and says calmly, “I’m merely expressing my desire to bring this evening to a close post-haste so we can all get back to our regular lives.Separateregular lives.”
“And I’m merely expressing that you’re about to be disappointed.” Olivy returns to the laptop. “First of all? I’ve never evenseena spell like this, Vi. It’s like you combined parts of three or four different rituals and traditions, ancient and modern and some really experimental stuff all mixed in.” She continues tabbing through my files. “Damn, girl. This is some powerful magic. How long have you been sitting on this stuff?”
“Um… Forever? It’s just bits and bobs I’ve collected over the years. Some of it I use for teas and tinctures. Some I’ve just been… saving for a rainy day.”
A flash of lightning illuminates the space, and I swear I see a chill run through the man, head to toe. But when I meet his eyes, he looks away.
Olivy snaps her fingers, bringing the hearth fire back to life. The room warms considerably.
“So what, precisely, are we dealing with here?” the Devil asks. “I’ve been summoned, fine. With a possible binding component. But to what end?”
