Page 28 of Strike It Witch

Chapter

Eight

“Sexton will be fine.”

I met his intense gaze with one of my own—a risk, but one I had to take. He would expect me to challenge him. “You used my full name.”

“You have my apologies.” The demon folded his enormous frame into the seat across from me. The way he moved was insectile, like a giant praying mantis readying for attack. “It was rude. It won’t happen again.”

“I’d appreciate that,” I said. “Also, it would be nice to keep my tongue in my mouth instead of you feeding it to my partners. Fennel prefers tuna and Cecil likes boysenberries.”

He blinked, slow and lazy. “I extend my apology to cover my rudeness on the phone as well.”

At least now I knew how my client had known about Fennel and Cecil. Bertrand Sexton could find information on nearly anything he wanted to know, and apparently, he’d wanted to know more about me.

Marvelous.

As a gravedigger—or cemetery—demon with human-realm privileges, Sexton could exist in our world, though his abilityto influence it was limited. He’d walked in here, and no one had seen him for no other reason thanhe hadn’t wanted them to. They wouldn’t see me talking to him, either. To anyone watching, I’d appear to be checking my phone or staring into space.

If that was the sort of magic Sexton was capable of constrained, one could only imagine the sort of power he wielded in the underworld, where he had no such limitations.

Goddess, I hoped I’d never find out for sure.

“Are you surprised to see me?” He moved with a fluid grace unusual for someone so tall, sliding his spindly legs beneath the table and crossing skeletal arms over his chest.

“Surprised? Sexton, if I’d walked in here to find the Steve Miller Band singing an a cappella version of “Take The Money And Run” using only offensive taxonomical names of birds as the lyrics, I would be less surprised than I am right now.”

He chortled at this, which was an unsettling thing to witness, as he laughed with his entire body, bones clacking together beneath his thin flesh. “I have missed your unique turn of phrase, young witch. It has been ages since I rested my gaze on your visage.”

It had been seventeen years. And that was no accident.

“You didn’t use your real voice on the phone,” I said.

“No.” He offered nothing further on the subject, and I didn’t think it wise to push. I’d already gotten two apologies out of him. Asking for another just seemed greedy.

And incredibly stupid.

“Why didn’t you get this yourself?” I set the wrapped bundle of belladonna on the table between us. “It would’ve been cheaper.”

Sexton took the bundle in one spidery hand and brought it to his nose. He drew a long breath and sighed his way into a smile. “I’ve been temporarily banned from Purgatory.”

“They can do that? I was under the impression you could go anywhere.”

“No.” He opened his dusty black coat and slipped the belladonna into a pocket inside. “It takes a high-caste demon to give the order, but I can be stopped, like any of us.”

“For how long?”

“One hundred years.”

I wanted to ask what he’d done to get himself eighty-sixed from Limbo for a century. I didn’t dare, though. One did not push Sexton unless one was exceedingly brave or extraordinarily foolish.

“I deeply apologize for the postponements, but I’ve been dealing with an issue at the cemetery all morning.”

The way he saidissuemade me think it was more serious than he was letting on. Again, I didn’t ask him to explain. He’d tell me if he wanted me to know.

“Do you have concerns about my intentions?” Sexton asked.

It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the belladonna.

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