Page 64 of Demon's Bluff

Elyse pushed past me, making a beeline to the couch and flopping down into it, so ready to be waited on it made my lip curl in disgust. “Some of that coffee would be splendid.”

I smacked her shoulder to get her to sit up and stop being such a prima donna. “I’d love a cup, too, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“No trouble at all.” She hesitated. “Five minutes,” she said, then shut the door, her heels click-clacking down the hall as she called for someone.

The door obviously wasn’t locked, but there was no other way out and it made me nervous. I’d been here once before when I’d thought Trent had knocked up Ceri. He hadn’t. It had been Quen, and the result was Ray. All of which hadn’t happened yet, which was confusing all on its own. This room looked similar if a little larger with a small stage surrounded by three-way mirrors under lights. A couch and coffee table faced it. Racks and locked cupboards holding spells and props took up two more walls, all dimly lit to make the stage stand out.

A memory struck me of Trent standing on the stage dressed in a frumpy suit, charms about his neck as he tried to look like Rynn Cormel. Suddenly I found myself blinking fast to ward off the tears. I missed him. He was just across town plotting to buy the focus from me even as he wasgetting ready to marry Ellasbeth tomorrow. Slowly my melancholy vanished as I recalled his silent fury at me when I arrested him at his own wedding. He’d thanked me for it later, but at the time…

“I take it back.” Groaning, Elyse stretched out on the couch as if to nap. “This is better than a spell shop. I still think we need to stop at one. I feel naked without my usual accoutrements. What we are wearing is not going to help. We should be outfitting our spell lexicon.”

“I hear you,” I muttered as I tugged at a drawer labeledeyesto find it locked. “But what we are wearing will be the difference between surviving the first fifteen seconds or not. If we do that, we have a chance to get what I need and get out. Which is why I am this close to spelling you into a closet and going by myself.” Annoyed, I turned to her. “This isn’t your fight. It’s mine. You can’t best a demon, and certainly not Newt.”

Elyse smirked. “Sure I can. You’ve done it yourself.”

I let my bag hit the coffee table with a dull thump, book and all. “You mean like circle them and make demands? Is that really what you want to be known for?”

“Kick ’em when they are down and they might hate you, but they will leave you alone.” Worry marred her conviction. “And I need a stasis charm, one that will keep me alive.”

I shook my head, wondering if she was going to survive being the lead member of the coven—if any of them would. She’d been fed a steady diet of “Be the boss” her entire life. There was nothing wrong with being the boss. Being mean about it was, though. Not searching for the nonaggressive solution was, too. There was nothing wrong with everyone walking away with something.

“Or you could go out for a coffee and come to an understanding,” I said, and she snickered as if I was the one being naive. “Elyse, I’m going to make a deal with Newt, not subjugate her. Besides, a few days ago in this time frame I watched Newt blaspheme my church, then take down three blood circles. Magic won’t best her. You have to play on her failing. Curiosity. And for that, we need to appear…intriguing, not dangerous.”

Elyse brought her gaze down from the shadowed ceiling. “Always the hard way with you.”

“The demons are hurting,” I said, knowing she would never understand unless she saw it for herself. “Meeting their anger with mistrust and trickery only exacerbates the tension.”

“Tension.” She sat up. “You make it sound as if there is a way other than capture and force.”

“And you wonder why I refuse to join the coven.” Chin high, I slipped out of my jacket and set it on my bag, grimacing as two sequins pulled free from my shirt and drifted to the floor. “Let me get this straight,” I said, voice hard as I went to the stage and the brightly lit mirrors. “You think the way to success is to go in, circle her, force her to give you a stasis charm and me an Atlantean mirror, and leave. Either she will kill us for the audacity of trying to circle her, or she will play along out of boredom and give us what we want, knowing it will make things worse.”

In the reflection, I could see Elyse staring at the ceiling, hands behind her head and her feet on the arm of the couch. Silent. I wound my hair up so it would fit under the hat. “If you were half as open as Vivian was, you’d take the opportunity to listen to what I’m saying, look at what I’m doing—listen, learn.” Bun held tight to my head, I reached for the spelled bobby pins. Elyse was silent as I wedged in three of them, then added one more. The messy blob was not as good as a pixy could do, but it would hold. “Maybe you should admit that you don’t know squat about demons and consider that I might, seeing as I’ve worked with them more than anyone alive and that I am one.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of, Morgan.” Elyse sat up, her feckless act gone. “A coven member might be worth an Atlantean mirror.”

I met her eyes in the reflection. “Iwanted you to stay in the library.”

“Lee told us how you gave him to the demons. You have done this before.”

I turned, flustered. “Lee has a skewed vision of what happened. I did not give him to the demons. He tried to give me to them, miscalculated,and was taken instead. I did, however, get him free.” Or I would, in a few days’ time. Which kind of sucked seeing as the man was now the architect of Trent’s current legal woes.

Elyse gestured angrily. “Then why are you dressing me up like a doll?”

My next words hesitated as I saw things from her viewpoint. “I’m not dressing you like a doll. I’m dressing you as a valued asset. It will give us a good ten seconds to—”

“Not circle her,” Elyse interrupted.

“Pique her interest.” I got off the stage, wondering if I should go look for Sylvia. It had been a while. “I’m wearing the same thing. What is the problem?”

“Admit that giving me to Newt would be a win-win for you,” Elyse said bitterly. “If I’m gone, no one will dare put you in Alcatraz and you get what you need.”

I bobbed my head. “You’re absolutely right, but when have I ever done the easy thing?” Silent, I came to sit at the chair kitty-corner to her. “Maybe you understand demons after all. You don’t trust anyone, either.”

Elyse pushed back into the cushions, arms over her chest as she stewed. I mirrored her in my stiff chair, thumping my boot heels onto the table in a silent rebuke to her mistrust. Kisten was sitting at the curb this very moment, given as a blood gift to someone, punishment for defying Piscary. Kisten would die twice tonight, and here I was, shopping with a coven member. I couldn’t interfere. I couldn’t change anything.

“This sucks,” I whispered, and Elyse’s attention flicked to me.

“Knock knock…” came cheerfully from the hall. I sat up and took my feet from the table as the door opened and Sylvia came in pushing a rolling rack with our robes and an assortment of hats, both flat-topped and pointy. Behind her was a young woman with the coffee tray. “This is Laura,” the older woman said as she parked the rack beside the mirrors. “She’s going to help me get you looking exactly the way you want.”