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“Please,” I urge again. “What is it? I mean, you’ve now got all the important details from this end, so—”
“No.” Doug doesn’t alter his expression even as I pin him with my flummoxed one. “No, I don’t haveallthe important details.”
I let my brows pinch tighter. “So, what else do you…”
He drops his chin but reinforces his stance. His response comes with equal deliberation to each syllable. “How did you get out of hell?Exactlyhow you did it?”
Maximus leans forward. “We already told you. The book—”
“You mean the grimoire,” Doug points out.
“Yes,” I say. “It was a grimoire. It…spoke to me.”
“Spoke to you,” he echoes. “As if it werecallingto you?”
I squirm, feeling as if he’s peeling back veils from those hallowed moments of my life…in my head. Times that feel intimate. Special. Too rare to be discussing while sitting on a table covered in paper, beneath lights that illuminate my pores like mineshafts.
“Yes,” I finally stammer. “That’s a lot like how it felt, I guess. The letters on the cover were glowing, and the air around me was practically vibrating. The feelings intensified as I got closer to the book.”
“You weren’t even touching it at that point?”
“No.”
He closes his eyes like I’ve confessed to watching the sky fall. “And it had Hecate’s name embossed on the cover?”
I’m still too fixated on his features to answer right away but then I realize I don’t have to. Yet again, he’s already detected my answer by simply studyingmyface. But also again, he’s brought out the mental fighting sticks to flick my way. It makes me flinch this time, but Maximus ropes an arm around my waist to keep me from falling off the slippery table paper.
“Oh, my, my,” Doug mutters. “Thisisgetting interesting.”
“Interesting?” Maximus retorts. “Or troubling?”
“A bit of both, to be honest.”
“Which means what?” Kell asks.
“What’d you do with the grimoire when you returned?” he asks Maximus and me. “Assuming it came back with you?”
I wince. “Yet again, how honest do you want us to be about that?”
His hands, down at his sides, start to flex against the air. “To be clear, you don’t have room to live in lies about this.”
“It’s stored safely,” Maximus states without fanfare. “Only Kara and I know where it is.”
“Good,” Doug says. “Keep it that way. Don’t even tellus.” He indicates between Kell and himself with a finger, though returns right away to nervously flexing his hand in time with the other one.
Kell goes for an opposite vibe, tightly folding her arms. “I’m probably going to regret asking, but why? Is that spell book all that important? Or powerful?”
“Both,” Doug replies at once. “That grimoire is potent. It’s imbued with the energy of ages past. The forces that can only be gathered from centuries of siphoning its content from the human race.”
Kell angles her head up and away though maintains a steady regard at the doctor. “Excuse me, buthuh?”
“Beings like us—demons and gods, ghosts and angels, mages and witches, and even semi-breeds—we’re awesome and amazing, but that’s because we’ve beenallowedto be through the dominion that the humans have handed to us since the beginning of time.”
As he circles his scrutiny around, some of the color returns to his face. It’s reassuring, even if it’s far from his usual geniality.
“This isn’t saying that we’d be wholly different creatures if history went down differently. Powers are powers and magic is magic, no matter how the earth turns and who’s here to observe it. But there were times, thousands of years ago, when none of our forces were consideredspecial, per se.”
Maximus’s forehead scrunches. “So, everyone on earth was mystical in some way?”
