Page 107 of Demon's Bluff
Newt turned, a bottle of something in her hand as she glanced at my shoulder bag. “I want to know how Gally escaped the ever-after. I’m the only one allowed to do that. How is it he’s in reality when the sun is up? Can you tell me that? No? Then you’re mine.”
“Yes!” I exclaimed, almost shouting the word. “I can. I know! I saw it!”
Newt paused and put the cap back on, little sparks of energy falling like pixy dust. “Yousawit?”
“Lived it, you might say.”
Elyse put a hand on my shoulder from behind. “Don’t,” she whispered. “You can’t.”
Newt frowned. “You. Junior coven member. Shut it.” Confidence absolute, Newt sat down, her arms draped across the back of the couch as she faced us. “You know,” she added, gesturing for me to join her. “How could you possibly know? Entertain me with your stories. If I like them, I might keep you alive a little longer.”
Speak truth only to the dead.That’s what Al had said, and I felt a quiver race through me. Ah, well. Minias would probably make her forget. “I know because I was there. I can tell you how he did it. I can tell you why he did it. And I can tell you when it’s going to fall apart and he’s tossed back into the ever-after like a fish too small to be bothered with.” I took a slow breath, my pulse fast. “And I can tell you what you were trying to find in my church and why Minias dosed you into forgetting. All of this in one simple act.”
Newt’s hand trembled, and I wondered if I’d gone too far. “That’s where I know you,” she said, her expression blanking, and I stifled a shudder. “That church. I blasphemed it to get to you. But you are not you. You were…unripe. Now you’re bursting with potential.”
Unripe?I suppose I was, two years ago. “The mirror and two jumps to reality,” I prompted, and she twitched her robe in agitation. “Promise it,”I added. “The mirror and two jumps to reality. I want to go to the Basilica. Both of us when I ask. Not when you feel like it.”
Her black eyes narrowed on me. “Providing you tell me the truth, Iggy, and not a story.”
I nodded, and Elyse inched closer. “You can’t,” she protested.
“She’s going to remember it eventually,” I muttered, and Newt beamed beatifically. “I need a knife,” I said, knowing I didn’t have one in my shoulder bag.
“What for?” Newt eyed me suspiciously.
“To show you the why, the how, and the when concerning Al’s actions,” I said, and the demon took one from her sleeve and flung it at me.
It hit the cushion beside my leg with a soft thump and I jerked, hesitating briefly at the bite of cold on my fingers before I tugged it free. “Thanks,” I said, then used it to pierce my thumb. Red welled up, and I smeared it on the knife, standing so as to carefully hand it to her over the slate table.
“What? Am I supposed to be impressed?” she said, and I resettled myself, knees watery.
“Al— I mean, Gally was,” I said.
She slowly tasted it, then lifted her eyes. “You are not a witch,” she said, then flipped the knife in her grip to rend. “I killed all my sisters!”
I twitched, forcing myself to stay put, to not yank the line into me, and to sit quietly, hands in my lap. “I’m not your sister,” I said. “I’m the way back, born a witch with the right amino acids to kindle demon magic and join the collective. Kalamack Senior repaired the damaged portions of my genome so the elven curse laid on you so long ago wouldn’t kill me.”
The flicker of unharnessed magic vanished from Newt’s hands. “You are witch born?” she said, voice harsh. “And now the spawn of a Kalamack owns you!” she finished, furious.
“Trent does not own me!” I shouted, warming as I made a fist to hide the ring he had given me. “I’m currently arresting him at his own wedding. Does that sound like he owns me? My dad paid that debt with his life. I do what I want!”
“As do I.” Newt hesitated, black gaze shifting between me and Elyse. “You are here and there both. You are yourself and yet different.”
Ripe and unripe.I nodded. “This is how Al escaped and how he will be forced to return shortly after sunset tonight. I wasn’t the only infant Kalamack Senior fixed. Gally’s newest familiar, Stanley Saladan, was repaired as well in the hopes that in a few months from now one of us would fulfill Kalamack Senior’s wish and steal a pre-curse elven DNA sample from the Basilica to cure the elves.”
Newt sneered, shifting to sit almost sideways on the couch. “Over my dead body.”
I shrugged. “Oh, you seemed happy enough with it.” Elbow on my knee, I leaned forward. “I am going to bring back the elves, and because of it, I have the strength to save the demons. Put them in reality’s sun where they belong.” I hesitated. “Promise. It’s already done.”
Newt considered that, her black eyes giving nothing away. Behind her, a bottle began to crack, a thin spiderweb of fractures spreading over its surface.
“I need the mirror and two jumps to reality. Right now.” I held my bag close, fingers trembling. “In that order. I’ve held up my end of the deal.”
She stared at us. I could feel Elyse behind me, jerking when Newt leaned over the table and exhaled a warm mist.
“There’s your mirror,” she said, and I winced, remembering her doing the same at the bar. Mist and fog. She was giving me a riddle. “How is Gally getting around the curse that pins us here?”
Maybe if I spelled it out, she would do the same. “He’s possessing Stanley Saladan, the link lasting past the sunrise because Stanley is genetically a demon. It wouldn’t work with anyone else.Except me.But I will circle Al’s frustrated, angry ass tonight and send him back to you.”