Page 34 of Eat, Slay, Love

Batibat purrs louder, smug as fuck, and I consider the way her presence has always made my skin tingle.

I drag a hand down my face. There is so much demon lore to unpack. There is so much slayer magic to address. And apparently, I have been living with a fractional demon for years.

The Tribunal is going to have an aneurysm.

We spread out across my living room floor as if we’re preparing for war—which, technically, we are.

Maps of the neighborhood cover every available surface, taped to the coffee table, the hardwood floor, even the lower half of the wall where we ran out of space. I mark likely entry points in red, my pen pressing hard enough to dent the paper. Jonah circles alleyways in black, his handwriting precise and elegant as someone who learned penmanship in an era in which it was important. We argue over elevation advantages, sight lines, possible civilian density. He adds notations in the margins.

We test symbols against Jonah in chalk along my hallway, wipe them clean with damp cloths, and redraw them in salt to see how the lines hold. I mix my salt with iron filings and powdered eggshell and a little something my lola swore would “make demons itch,” even though she never specified why itching was strategically important.

He watches me while I work. I pretend not to notice.

It would be easier if he weren’t here, if this were just another hunt, another problem to solve alone. Instead, every time I look up, he’s there—cross-legged on my floor, sleeves shoved up to his elbows, brow furrowed in concentration as he studies the map like he has something to lose. Because he does. His family, and maybe me.

I try not to think about how quickly that thought arrived. How naturally it settled.

I’m in the middle of sketching containment circles from memory, then redrawing them cleaner and sharper, adjusting for Belvedere’s strength, when Jonah breaks the silence.

“I have no idea how slayer magic works,” he muses.

“What, you mean that thing I do with my tongue?” I ask, waggling my eyebrows.

He laughs low and easy, the sound loosening something in my chest. His eyes soften for a moment before refocusing on the diagram between us. “That’s for later. But could you explain how your slayer magic works? As it relates to demons?”

It takes me a moment to answer, and in that hesitation I realize no one has ever asked me that before. No one in my family ever needed to. Slayer magic was the air we breathed, the language we spoke before we learned any other. It was never something I had to explain. It was something I simply was.

I sit back on my heels, shaking loose the cobwebs from that long-neglected corner of memory. “Every slayer family inherits a foundation,” I say slowly, reaching for words I haven’t spoken out loud in decades. “The basic structure of what their magic can interact with. Some bloodlines work with blood, others with shadow or metal. The Magdangal line is energy. We sense supernatural energy, gather it, redirect it, shape it. That’s how I knew what you were in the alley.”

“You sensed me.”

“Your energy. Demons have a distinct signature.” I gesture between us. “I can’t sense every demon in Manhattan. I have to be close enough to pick up the disturbance, and stronger demons are easier to feel. But once I’m close enough, demon registers as demon.”

His gaze drops to the circles scattered across the floor. “And these?”

“Same foundation, just a different application. Defensive, mostly. I can shape energy into containment—circles, wards, barriers. I can also concentrate it and force it outward as a strike, although I’m not so great at that. Energy has to come from somewhere, and my body can only channel so much at once.”

“So no unlimited demon-killing lightning.”

“Tragically.”

He smiles. “And everyone in your family can do that?”

“More or less. Same foundation, different strengths. But sometimes,” I say, “a slayer develops something more specialized—a refinement of that inherited magic that can do or sense something the rest of us can’t.” I pause. “We call that a forte.”

He studies me for a moment, mouth twitching. “Let me guess. Yours is awful one-liners.”

I smack his arm. “You’re an awful one-liner.”

Jonah laughs, leaning back on his hands, and I feel the warmth of his amusement ripple through my magic like sunlight through water. I’ve started noticing that here in my apartment—the way my magic responds to him. Soft around the edges. Reaching instead of recoiling. Something that makes me want to move closer and stay there.

“I didn’t have a forte,” I say.

His laughter fades. “Didn’t?”

“I think mine manifested very late,” I admit. “And I didn’t realize what I was sensing.”

“Until?”