Page 18 of The Witching Hours

“Oh, yeah,” he smiled. “Today I signed a three-year contract to work for a finance genius. I still can’t believe he wantsme, and I still can’t believe all the perks.” The smile faded from Brigid’s face, and she felt her fingers loosening around the solo cup she held. Judd was too euphoric to notice the change of expression on his mom’s face or that her usual rosy color had faded to pale. He didn’t notice a thing until the cup dropped from her hand and splashed fruit punch for several feet around.

“Oh no,” she said, “seeing that the pants of her son’s silk suit were ruined.

He laughed. “No worries, mom. I’ve got other clothes with me.”

A couple of the women who were hostessing cleaned up the mess with rags and assured Brigid it wasn’t a big deal.

Afterward, Judd picked up where he’d left off. “Anyway, I was saying that I invited him because we’re leaving right after this for a celebratory trip. ToVegas! Private jet and all!” He laughed. “What’s even weirder is that he says you know him. Oh. There he is now.” Amon was making his way through the crowd toward Brigid wearing an unmistakably triumphant smile. When he reached the spot where they stood, Judd said, “Mom, you remember Amon. Right?” Judd waved at someone behind Brigid. “Excuse me for a sec. I’ll be right back.”

Brigid had changed, noticeably, in twenty years, but as might be expected, Amon had not. Not in the slightest.

“What’ve you done?” It was rhetorical. Brigid hadn’t expected sound to come out when she tried to speak.

Amon chuckled softly. He lowered his eyes, lifted his solo cup and talked into it. “Our boy is going to apprentice with me. Imagine that. Just like we always planned.” His gaze came up to meet hers, and there she saw all the things she’d intuitively feared. “Surely you know that once a demon is summoned, he can’t be simply dismissed. A conjuring alters fate. It sets wheels in motion that are beyond even my control. Much less yours. Your refusal of benefits doesn’t change the outcome.

“Well, gotta go,” he said with an indescribably wicked smile. After handing her his half full solo cup, he leaned close and put his lips next to her ear. When he whispered, his breath chilled her blood like death. “I never lose.”

CROSSROADS

Jeanette was just about ready to sit down for lunch with her family just as she had every Sunday after Mass for as long as memory served. The silent contract she’d made with her parents was that, if she came home every Sunday for Mass and lunch, she’d be otherwise free to live life as a Tulane student free from their meddling. It was a good bargain. Worked for them. Worked for her.

Her parents sat at either end of the rectangular table that had been in the family for generations and waited for the cook to serve. Her younger brother, Mace, the eleventh-grade football-playing heartthrob, sat directly across from her. He liked to position himself so that Jeanette couldn’t miss the doting and adoration their parents sent his way. Mace liked playing the star. He’d even managed to upstage Jeanette at her debut. He should’ve gotten a prize for that. It’s not easy for boys to outshine debutantes at their own coming out parties. But she didn’t mind all that much. Being the center of attention didn’t make her list of priorities.

Jeanette had been pulling out her chair, about to sit when everyone gathered in the dining room froze. Someone out front was honking. Repeatedly. Jeanette closed her eyes and hoped it wasn’t Tristan. Her parents already had a healthy disapproval growing like a blister full of pus.

So much for magical thinking. A quick glance around the table suggested the Guidry family was unified in their assumption that it could only be Tristan. Mace raised hiseyebrows and smiled like the Cheshire cat. Nothing pleased him more than watching his sister squirm. He knew their parents were sending accusing looks her way. He could feel it, and even describe the scene without looking. Their parents had perfected the art of venomous looks delivered by perfectly weighted darts.

Mace’s smile broadened into a grin. All that was left was the final plunge of the knife. “Who could that be?” And there it was. “Oh! I bet it’s Tristan.”

Without making eye contact with her parents, Jeanette allowed herself a second to add this incident to the already voluminous list of reasons she had to hate her brother and only sibling whose real name was Mason. The fact that he chose to go by Mace really said it all.

“I’ll see who it is,” she said quietly, releasing the chairback she’d been squeezing. As she walked toward the front of their historic Garden District house, she said a quick prayer.

Please,God. I went to Mass today even though I didn’t want to. I even tried to pay attention and be sincere. Now just do me this one favor and please, please, please don’t let it be Tristan.

She hoped against hope that it was a plumber loudly objecting to somebody double-parked, but she doubted she’d be that lucky.

It was only a few steps from the dining room to the foyer. The Guidry house wasn’t huge, but it was in a good Garden District neighborhood, in the middle of the block on a narrow boulevard that quietly featured well-maintained houses and landscaping. It was a cheerful pale yellow made stately by the Greco-Roman façade and wrought iron fence with pineapple finials. Theirs was the sort of house sought after by people who pride themselves in good breeding and good manners. The kind who understand that “quiet” equals desirable. The Guidrysloved the social standing that came with their combined family legacies, and they’d go to great lengths to protect it.

They werenotthe sort of people who sit in cars and honk horns. The fact that their daughter was acquainted with such a person came close to the invisible, but real border where acceptable ends and tawdry begins. While Jeanette was silently praying it was someone that had nothing to do with her, Dr. and Mrs. Guidry were praying that none of the neighbors thought they were associated with the kind of riffraff that would cause such a ruckus.

Peering through the wide slats of white plantation shutters, Jeanette confirmed the worst. ItwasTristan.Why? Why? Why couldn’t it have been a random plumber?For a few seconds she entertained the idea of returning to the dinner table with the plumber story, pretending that her boyfriend wasn’t gauche, wasn’t there, and that she’d willed him away with telekinesis. She would’ve done just that if not for the fact that she knew Tristan well enough to know that he’d graduate to ringing the bell if no one was roused by honking. He could see Mace’s Rubicon parked in the narrow driveway, a sure tip off thatsomebodywas home.

A lot of parents would’ve been pleased to have their daughters date a guy from a rich and influential family, but Jeanette’s parents didn’t care about bank accounts swollen with new money. They cared about the social registry and the secret underlying codes that enable bluebloods to recognize one another. Like whether a person knows the difference between formal and black tie without looking it up on Google. Likewise, it didn’t matter that she was the envy of a lot of her sorority sisters.

Tristan’s father was the chief executive officer of VE Energy, an oil and gas company of which the Ogilve family held controlling interest. Not to be outdone, his mother was from an old family and on the city council.

The Guidrys didn’t want their daughter to end up like Tristan’s mother, married to someone rich, but ineligible to move in their circle. They knew they’d be unlikely to dissuade their daughter from doing what she wanted. Jeanette was close to being a model child. Good grades. Good manners. Good reputation. But she did have a mind of her own and a stubborn streak.

She certainly wasn’t going to put NOLA social history above qualities formed by self-determination.

Tristan wasn’t just the dreamy son and heir to VE Energy. His ambition didn’t end in a top floor office overlooking the Mississippi or being a trust bum who spent his days playing cards and sipping juleps. Tristan had serious plans about re-energizing the New Orleans skyline with his unique architectural designs that married French Quarter charm to glass buildings with heads in the clouds. He was talented and passionate and impossible for Jeanette to ignore because she believed she was neither of those things.

When it came to family acceptance, Tristan’s family was the opposite of the Guidrys. They were deliriously happy that their oldest was busy making a match with one of NOLA’s old families. To her credit, they liked Jeanette as well. It was a win-win for Tristan, but that was no surprise. She was the sort who could manage to charm anybody. He was the sort who always seemed to land on his feet. He considered it a stroke of fortune, maybe great karma, that he happened to love her as well. He told himself he’d want her even if she was barefoot and homeless.

Standing in the street next to a bumble bee yellow sports car with the top down, wearing a tomato-red henley, Tristan would be hard to miss. Or dismiss.

“Jesus,” she said to herself through clenched teeth as she hurried down the front steps.

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