“Hardly.Youwill start with the fundamentals.” I gesture to a separate array now assembled in several neat stacks on the table. “The crate that you so willfully assaulted is merely a sampling from my personal collection. Some light reading, should an unoccupied sliver of time appear on my schedule.”
“You traveled here from Hell and you brought an entire collection of books?”
“Entire collection?” I laugh. “This is but a fraction. I never leave home without books.”
“But… why?”
“What if I should find myself in an awkward social situation from which I need immediate escape?”
“Like what?”
“Like any number of unpleasant encounters. What if some self-proclaimed good Samaritan finds me sitting on a park bench, my thoughts and hands blissfully unoccupied, and he attempts to… toconversewith me?”
“Groundbreaking idea here, brace yourself, but you could… like… talk to people? Be friendly or something?”
Friendly?What in the… I pinch the bridge of my nose, take a cooling breath, and wait for the nausea to pass. It does not.
“Seriously, professor. Who hurt you?”
“It’sdoctor, not professor, and I’m wholly uninjured, I assure you. I merely have a strong preference for literature and an even stronger aversion to humans, and I refuse to apologize for either.”
“I wasn’t looking for an apology, I just thought?—”
“A book can transport us to other times, other realms, other levels of consciousness. A well-told story, fictional or factual, is a balm on a weary soul, a key to unlocking the gates of wisdom, a journey by which the armchair adventurer can’t help but be wholly transformed. A book is its own magic, Miss Bonnivarde. Surely as a witch of your lineage you understand this.”
“As a witch of my lineage, I understand jick-jock-jacketyshit.” She hops up onto the table beside the crate, legs dangling, the bottoms of her bare feet black with dust. “I’ve only known about this fucked-up fairytale for a few hours. My sisters don’t want to believe it, despite some pretty convincing evidence including but not limited to a magic house and a shapeshifting middle-aged woman with a fondness for scarves. I haven’t even told them about the ghosts yet. Now you show up with your books and your tweed and your superiority complex, like… the Giles to my Buffy, the Men of Letters to my Sam and Dean, and I’m supposed to just?—”
“I’m sorry. The what to your whom?” Satan’sballs, is she always this difficult to follow? “And I donothave a superiority complex. I’m… intellectually discerning.”
“The point is,professor,” she says with a little huff, and damn it if I’m not starting to enjoy how she calls me ‘professor,’ so much so that I don’t correct her this time, despite that I’m technically not a professor but an archivist with two doctorate degrees who was railroaded into this sub-par teaching positionas punishment for my—yes,superior—knowledge, and Ireallyshould insist on a more formal boundary between us, “twenty-four hours ago, my biggest worry was finding another crappy job and a crappier lease and alesscrappy weed hookup, and maybe figuring how to get back at my cheating ex without getting arrested. Now, I’m supposed to study magic and save the world from a demon invasion—with the help of a demon, which is definitely sus—and my sisters are breathing down my?—”
“Demon invasion? What ever are you talking about?”
“That’s what Helena said. The demons are cooking something up.”
“If that were true, I would know about it. I assure you.”
“Sounds exactly like something a demon revolutionarywouldsay.”
“A demon rev—listen, we are veeringveryfar afield, and I think it best we?—”
“It just doesn’t make sense, professor. I’m not exactly a numbers girlie, but the math ain’t mathin’. That’s what I’m saying.”
“If you’d let me get a word in, I might?—”
“You’re not friendly. Not patient. Not a hugger.”
“I hardly see the relevance?—”
“You’re not a people person at all, actually.”
“I’m not apersonat all. I’m a demon. And as?—”
“You don’t like me, obviously, and you don’t want anyone touching your things or breathing near your precious books, and it’s clear you’d rather be anywhere else but here, probably sequestered in a decaying library somewhere buried under a pile old manuscripts surrounded by candles and?—”
“I beg yourpardon!” I gasp, my heart startling at the image. “I wouldnever! The fire danger inherent in that combination is beyond?—”
“Listen. I get that I need help with the whole demonic abracadabra thing. I’m just trying to figure out why they sentyou. Isn’t there another demon available? One that’s a little more…” She wrinkles her nose and winces, as if whatever’s coming next tastes as sour in her mouth as it surely will to my ears. “…cool?”
