Page 122 of Demon's Bluff
And yet a smile found me as I followed the bird’s attention to Elyse flirting with the man behind the counter. Though cheerful, the strain was beginning to show as the adrenaline of besting first Newt, then Scott wore off, leaving space for the aches and fatigue.Welcome to my world, babe.
Slumping, I stretched my legs out under the table, feeling the bruise developing where Adagio had pulled me out of the ground. Or maybe it was from jumping into the truck, or dragging Johnny into it. My elbow, too, hurt. I hadn’t a clue when I’d banged it.
Slick fluttered his wings in excitement as Elyse came over with a tray holding two bottled waters and two baskets. It smelled like warm bread, not pancakes and hash browns, and I sat up, curious. Burgers and chicken?
“Limited menu,” she explained as she set the tray down and collapsed in the chair across from me, her hand immediately going to fondle the crow’s neck. “I got a hamburger and a chicken sandwich. Take what you want. I’ll eat what you don’t.”
I claimed a bottled water and cracked the top. “Ah, I’ll take the burger unless your crow has a problem eating chicken.”
“Slick?” she said, blinking to turn her into a high schooler. “Good God, no. Crows eat baby birds all the time.” She grabbed a basket and cooed at the bird now at her elbow. “Don’t you, my little savage?”
The crow politely took the offered sliver of steaming chicken as I chugged my water. I’d forgotten how thirsty the old ever-after could leave a person. “Ah, thanks,” I said, lifting my burger in explanation. “How much do we have left?”
“All of it.” She fed the bird another sliver. “I sterilized a vat of water for them in exchange. They have coffee now for the rest of the day.”
“Oh! Great.” I took a bite, my shoulders slumping. “Good thinking…” The burger might be thin and the tomato slice skimpy, but I was starving and it tasted like heaven. Mouth full, I watched the bird accept a third sliver of chicken, holding it in his foot as he delicately nibbled the edges. “Scott will follow him right to us,” I added. “You might not be chipped, but your bird is.”
“Yeah, I know.” Elyse sighed, wiped her hand clean, and then took the bird’s head and forced him to look at her. “Slick, go play hide-and-seek with Scott.”
The crow bobbed up and down, then launched into the air, a cry of annoyance rising when he flew into the kitchen and presumably out an open door.
The flash of satisfaction on Elyse’s face was almost embarrassing, and I shoved the thin slice of tomato back atop the burger before I took another bite. Waffle House was one of the few multispecies restaurants to serve tomatoes. But Waffle House didn’t give a flying flip what anyone thought. “Hey, after we get Johnny on the boat, I want to take the truck back.”
Elyse went still. “Why?”
“Because it’s not ours?” I said, thinking it was a child’s question.
“We got it running,” Elyse said between bites of her sandwich. “No one wanted it.”
My breath went in and out. “Just because we got it running doesn’t make it ours.”
Elyse’s brow furrowed. “How about sleep?” she said, clearly annoyed. “You got sleep scheduled in there anywhere?”
I pushed away from the table, water bottle in hand. “I’ll take care of the truck if you want to crash in the library.”
“No, I’m good.”
I bet.I stared out the tall windows, watching humans and other day-loving citizens filter into the streets. There’d been too many sirens the last few days. Too many fires, too many threats. Al, though, was back in the ever-after.
“What I really want is to see you rekindle that charm,” she said. “If wehadn’t nearly lost our souls in the ever-after to get it, I’d say you were making it up.”
I stared at Elyse, her mouth full as she chewed almost belligerently. “I’m not making it up.”
Swallowing, Elyse leaned in closer though there was no one around who could hear. “If it could be done, the coven would know how to do it.”
A smile quirked half my mouth. “Maybe the coven did, and everyone who knew died before they could show you.” Which wasn’t true—it was a demon skill—but the reminder that the coven had probably lost a lot of skills from untimely attrition might bring her pride down a notch.
“Okay.” Elyse set the last few bites of her sandwich down and wiped her fingers on a thin, almost useless napkin. “Show me.”
“Now?”
Elyse mockingly gestured at the all-but-empty restaurant.
She wasn’t wrong, and I drew the defunct charm from my pocket. Elbow on the table, I cradled the ancient amulet in my fingertips. Elyse inched closer, shifting to hide the table from casual view. Yeah, I’d be interested in the impossible thing that might get me home safely, too.
“As I was told, you’re basically refilling the remnant shadow of energy that the original spell left in the metal,” I said, and Elyse nodded, focused on it with an eerie intensity. “You couldn’t do this with a wooden amulet. The surface decays and the pattern is lost. But you have to be delicate. Energy taken straight from the line will break it. You have to use the energy from your aura, and you can’t do it all at once. You have to layer it shell by shell.”
“Shell by shell?” Elyse questioned, making me wonder if she had the background for this. “You mean you separate your aura into its shells?”