Neon Blue by E Frost (best book reader .TXT) 📗

There’s nothing left of her. Just powdery ash and remnants of what was a silk ritual robe. The mate of mine. We bought them together, our first year at Bevvy. Embroidered them together, laughing when we pricked our fingers, bandaging each others’ hands so we didn’t stain the white silk. I search through the rags until I find the black and silver ring.

I pick it up gingerly, but as soon as I touch it, I know it’s dead. The huge onyx is clouded. The silver symbols fused to gibberish.

I stand and look across the dark altar warily. Because I’ve just realized what he is. And the one thing that could control him is sitting dead in my palm.

“You’re a demon,” I say.

“No shit.” He lifts a black eyebrow. “Took you long enough.”

I give him the best smile I can muster under the circumstances. “Well, you’re my first demon.”

“Not yet,” he says, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “But I will be.”

I swallow hard. Because I’m not sure what he means, but it doesn’t sound good. “So now you toddle off home, right? Her soul’s yours. Your work here’s done.”

He chuckles, and it’s a completely humorless, pitiless sound. “You wish.”

Oh, yes, I do wish. Because I’ve unleashed him on the world. And it’s just occurring to me that I have no idea of how to put him back.

I clear my throat painfully. “Then what now?”

The leering grin. “Now you toddle off home. And I clean up.”

“Cleaning up meaning?” I can tell I’m not going to like whatever his idea of cleaning up is.

“No jail time for you.”

I glance back at the pile of rags. That aspect of cleaning up hadn’t occurred to me. But there’s a pile of ash where a Newbury Street business-woman used to be, and Boston’s finest are going to want to know why.

“Okay, thanks.” It can’t be a good thing, being in a demon’s debt. But I don’t want to argue with him. Somehow, I think that would be a very bad idea. “And then?”

He tilts his head, eyes glinting through the fall of his dreadlocks. “Worried about putting the genie back in the bottle?”

“Something like that.”

That merciless chuckle. “Then you’re fucked, witchy-poo.”

My stomach sinks. He’s right. I have no idea how to force him back to Hell, or wherever he came from. “I don’t suppose I could appeal to your better nature?”

A bark of laughter. “You could if I had one.”

I sag against the table, recoil when a wave of cold slaps at me. Something horrible happened on that table. Or somethings.

“You don’t want to touch that, white meat. Or, should I say, dark meat? ‘Cause I can see some shadows on your soul.”

Better than dead meat, I suppose. I nod tightly. “Don’t we all?”

He stretches, showing off the huge muscles of his chest and shoulders. “Nope. Some of us don’t got one. Wouldn’t mind adding yours to my collection, though.”

I edge a step back. Time to go. I got what I came for. I can’t put the demon back in the box by myself and sticking around sounds like a good way to lose my soul. Sayonara.

“Okay, well, I’ll just be going now.”

He yawns, stretches again. “You do that. I got work to do.”

I back away, stepping carefully over the pile of ash and cloth. I jump when the door-handle bumps against my back. Twisting my arm behind my back, I fumble with the handle. My relief when it turns and the door swings open is so strong I nearly pee in my pants.

The demon leans casually against the black altar, watching my retreat, eyes glinting that eerie, electric blue. “Ciao, sweet meat.” He raises one huge hand, waggles his fingers at me. I almost have the door shut when he grins and says, “See you soon.”

I run.

Chapter 14

My dream again. Crows calling. The smell of wild garlic. The man on the edge of the woods. Tall. Still. Standing in shadow. Waiting for me.

Tonight he wears a halo of red dreadlocks.

I wake screaming. Thrashing my way out of sweat-soaked sheets. Witchlight flares all around me, lighting up the room like Fenway Stadium.

My Dala’s voice. “Beti, beti, turn off the lights. You’ll have the gavver and the power company breaking down the door.”

I sit up, wrapping my arms around my knees. The light flickers, dims. When I hold out a shaking hand, the witchlight wraps itself into a dim sphere on my palm. The soft glow illuminates the three ghosts sitting on the foot of my bed.

“Auntie Rupa,” I say, wiping my hand across the back of my dry lips, acknowledging the one-armed ghost who has joined my grandmother and uncle. “I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

Probably a good thing, since she’s been dead for twenty years.

“Nor I you, chavi,” she whispers. Her voice echoes oddly, as though it’s bouncing off walls that are in different places, much more distant places, than my bedroom. “You’re all grown up. But you’ve gotten yourself in a heap of trouble.”

Oh, great. As if Dala’s lectures weren’t bad enough.

“I called Rupa back,” Dala says. “She’s the only one of us who has ever dealt with the beng.”

“It was a demon. Not the devil.”

“Same difference,” Uncle Billygoat interjects.

“No, it’s not,” I grit. Politeness and respect for my elders both go out the window at four in the morning. Especially after the night I’ve had. “The devil is a projection. He doesn’t exist. Demons are completely different.”

“That lady doctor hasn’t done you any favors, chavi,” Uncle Billygoat says.

I’m not up to arguing with him. Particularly not when I can still feel the raw ache of the wrist broken by my particular, very real demon. “Fine, Auntie Rupa, how do I get rid of him?”

The ghosts are silent. I sense a shuffling of ethereal feet.

“You don’t know,” I say flatly.

“The beng that came to me wanted something very specific, káulochírilo. I gave it to him and he went away.”

I lean forward. “Well, this beng wanted