Page 45 of Wicked Warlock
The professor poured herself a steaming cup of hot water. She picked it up and blew across the top. “That’s not important right now. We have work to do, and it won’t be easy. You’re going to need all the strength you can muster… because this is going to hurt.”
Chapter 22
Zinnia
“What are you two doing in here?” I didn’t want my voice to be filled with anger and annoyance, but this was my mom, and no one should be down here. I was too busy trying to calm down Astrid in the courtyard when the silent alarm triggered in her room. And this what I find. A psychic and a demon walk into a room and find a corpse. It sounded like a bad joke. But none of this was funny to me.
Maze spun around to face me. “Why do you have a dead chick in the basement?”
“That’s my mom.” His words had stung. “And she’s not dead.”
He held up his hands. “Hey, man, I got bad parents too. You don’t have to explain shit to me.”
It had been such a long night and an even longer morning. I was struggling to maintain my patience and hold in my emotions. Sometimes it wasn’t so easy being me. I sighed and walked into the room. It had been too long since I visited her. “She wasn’t a bad mom. In fact, she was the best.”
“Cool… Soooooo… why do this to her?” He crossed his arms over his chest, staring at her in fascination.
I wanted to tell him to leave. To give me a moment alone with her. I needed to talk to her, to get her advice. I wished that could just have a moment of comfort with her. We were at a dead end, and I didn’t know where to go. When things got like this for me, I had always turned to her. And now, I was completely on my own. Sometimes a person just needed their mom and no one else.
“I didn’t do this to her. Beckett did.”
Maze arched his eyebrow at me. “And you forgave him?”
“Ugh.” I wasn’t explaining this the right way. But it was difficult to explain to anyone what happened. It was forbidden, illegal, and was crazy. We did everything we could to save her and it might still kill her. “It’s a long story.”
“I got time.” He walked to the other side of the room and leaned against the wall. A loud growling noise broke the silence, and he pressed a hand to his stomach.
I eyed his stomach. “You sure you have time?”
Odin wrapped his body around Maze’s feet and meowed at him. Maze pressed his finger to his lips. “Shh, we’ll find food in a minute.”
I dropped down onto the floor next to my mother and rested my hand on the cool glass covering her. Kumi, my familiar, walked into the room behind me and lay down next to me. I knew on some level she could feel my pain and wanted to comfort me. She curled one of her tails behind my body. Can I eat it?
“No, you can’t eat it,” I answered before thinking.
Maze pressed his hand to his chest. “I get being hungry, but I don’t taste good.”
“Not you. She wants to eat Odin.” I waved away their panicked faces. “She won’t do it.”
Yes, I will. Demon is delicious.
I shook my head at her.
Fineeeeee.
She groaned and put her head down on her paws. Odin trotted across the room toward her, and she picked up her head. Delivery… Excellent.
He sashayed up to her only the way a cat who didn’t care could. Then he lifted his paw and smacked her right across the nose. They both froze. Kumi looked at him. The audacity! And Odin looked at his own paw like he couldn’t believe he just did that. He flipped over onto his back, exposing his belly fully to her.
Awww, I will keep it and call it… Death Wish.
“He already has a name. It’s Odin.” I sighed and shook my head.
Death Wish… One day I will kill it, or I will love it. Not sure which.
I couldn’t handle these two. I turned back to Maze. “You worried about your cat?”
“Nah, he can handle himself.”
