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My wound stung again, and I stumbled as I struggled to catch up with Florian, hating myself for getting too gung-ho, for not seeing the demon’s claws coming. And I hated to admit it, but Belphegor was right, for once. I needed a way to hide from the world, to disappear into the cracks of the arcane underground whenever I wanted.
I needed to kill two witches.
16
I would have loved to have spent the rest of the night talking, but as it stood, I really only had the energy to give Florian an abbreviated version of everything that had happened between meeting Beatrice Rex, Quilliam J. Abernathy, and Leonora. Plus calling on the Vestments had worn me out. Three times in the same day, no less. I’d never abused the Vestments quite so badly.
The same counted for Florian. He was exhausted by the time we made it back to our apartment, the sudden resurgence of his nature magic taking its toll on his body. I told him I understood, and I told him not to bother when he offered to help with my cut.
It was just a shallow wound, I said, nothing a little cleaning and some basic medical attention couldn’t help. I suspected that the angelic half of me contributed a little to my constitution. Getting sick had never been a thing for me, even as a kid, and while I never questioned why cuts and scrapes I earned on the playground healed over so quickly, now I understood why.
Florian did make me take off my shirt, though, enough so he could study the wound. It was, truthfully, worse than I thought, but I didn’t let on that I knew that. He came to the same conclusion himself, anyway.
“I don’t like the looks of that,” he said. “I don’t think that demon left any poison in you, though.”
My eyes went huge. “Wait. Is that a thing? Do demons excrete poison? I know they use it with weapons sometimes, but from their claws?”
He shrugged. “Who the hell knows? I mean, they’re demons. If they don’t produce it, they can always dip their claws in it, cut you open, and bam! You’re infected.” He peered closer, then sniffed at my wound. I flinched, giving him an odd look, but hey, the guy was hundreds of years older than me. I would have to put just a little bit of trust in his abilities.
It didn’t take very long. Florian spent some time poking at the dead plants and dried soil of the planter hanging out of our windowsill. I don’t know how the hell he did it, but when he came back, he had something green and completely alive in his hands, a thick green wedge of something shaped like a spike.
“Whoa,” I said, scuttling away, tripping over our coffee table. “What is that stuff?” Its edges were serrated, like a knife.
“Calm down,” he said, frowning. “Can’t believe you’re getting scared over a little aloe vera.”
“I’m not scared,” I spat, frowning back, but still regarding the thing with some suspicion. It was a leaf, wasn’t it? It kind of reminded me of a piece of cactus. Its wider end was glistening and wet.
Florian squeezed, producing a squirt of translucent gel out of its base. Then he lifted the dollop of something translucent to his mouth, muttering things I couldn’t understand. The gel sparkled as he chanted. I tried to be a big boy when Florian closed in to apply the stuff, tried not to wince and flinch when he smeared it across my chest. It was cold, and I hissed at the sudden sensation of it, but I was sighing in relief soon enough.
The pain of my wound was disappearing. I looked down and gasped. That wasn’t the only thing disappearing. The cut’s edges were closing in on each other, albeit very slowly. If this was what dryads could do, then hot damn, I was more than happy to let one live on my couch forever and ever. Color me paranoid, but I just knew it wasn’t going to be the last time I would need some magical not-a-cactus ointment to help treat my wounds.
I slept peacefully for the next several hours, and, I presumed, so did Florian. I wasn’t sure if I was just extremely tuckered
out, or if Florian had put something in that ointment along with the healing spell, but I woke up completely refreshed. I stretched out my arms, expanding my chest and studying myself in the mirror, and my jaw dropped. The wound was gone entirely, leaving just a faint white line in its place.
“That should disappear in time,” Florian said. I hadn’t realized that he was standing at the doorway, much less that he was awake. And he had two cups of coffee in his hands, too. I liked this new version of him, being all proactive and stuff. Being extra proactive, mind you, because the next thing he said as I sipped my black instant coffee came as a total surprise.
“Get dressed. We need to figure out who the hell keeps attacking you. Us. It’s us now, isn’t it? This is pretty cool.” I hadn’t answered – I was still slurping on my horrible coffee – but Florian looked taller that morning, happier, more alert. I didn’t know what all this awakening stuff was about, but it was doing him a damn world of good. And that good was spilling over onto my side of the apartment, so no complaints there.
I showered and dressed quickly because Florian was in a huge goddamn hurry to get to Heinsite Park. That was the second largest plot of nature in Valero, and without really knowing what he had planned, I at least had a hunch that Florian was going to exercise more of his dryad nature magic to help divine the source of our constant demon attacks.
So we hoofed it, because I was a good friend, damn it, and I wasn’t about to let Florian’s sudden burst of momentum and self-confidence go to waste. He kicked off his shoes as soon as we entered the park grounds, strutting straight for the farthest, emptiest picnic table. I was going to warn him about possible broken glass and hypodermic needles lurking in the grass, then remembered the natural toughness of his skin and decided against it. I just trailed after him, hiding my face behind a pair of aviator sunglasses, scanning the park for signs of a potential breakfast.
There was a truck parked at Heinsite’s far end, in fact. Florian shooed me off impatiently when I asked if he wanted a breakfast burrito. He was that excited about getting to work. Hell, I was pretty damn excited, too. If it meant finally getting all of these supernatural interruptions off of my back, then I was fine with letting him hang out at Heinsite all day.
I did buy a second burrito, though. Just in case he got hungry. So, coffee in hand, burrito in the other, and Florian’s burrito tucked delicately into one of my jacket pockets, I waddled back to our picnic table to find him sitting out in the grass, his shirt shucked and left on the ground, his feet planted firmly in the earth, his face raised to the sky. To anyone else, he was just some dude meditating in the park, basking in the warmth of the sun. But oh. Oh, wow. Did dryads get their magic through photosynthesis? I’d have to ask Florian later.
Much later, apparently, because it turned out that I had another minor distraction to deal with. There, of all people, sitting on the edge of our picnic table and buffing his nails with a nail file, was Raziel, the angel of mysteries.
17
Raziel kept on buffing and fiddling with his fingernails as I approached, not even bothering to look up, a languid smile on his lips.
“You got me breakfast?” he sang. “How very sweet of you, Mason.”
“Shush,” I grumbled, sliding into the picnic bench, carefully setting down my precious coffee. “The burrito’s for Florian. Go get your own.” I nudged my sunglasses up my nose, squinting as I looked Raziel in the face. “Besides, as if you haven’t already heard, money’s tight for us.” I looked down at my burrito, moping and frowning at it, but feeling guilty all the same. “But if you want a bite of mine, it’s okay.”
Raziel’s laughter was musical, like a summer breeze drifting through wind chimes on the porch of a house with white picket fences, or something charming and annoying like that.
