Page 17 of Warmongers and Wands
Chapter 7
Bronwyn
Islept. I slept a lot. I don’t know whether it was the hot bath, the orgasm, or just general exhaustion, but I pretty much slept the day away, waking up for dinner and more hot tea, then promptly going right back to sleep.
The next morning, I felt good enough that I made use of a much-needed toothbrush and ultra-whitening toothpaste. Then I hobbled outside with Hadur’s assistance and the help of two crutches he’d put together for me while I was sleeping.
And can I just say, Thank God that raccoon brought toilet paper from one of his late-night supply runs.
He’d also brought a carton of fake eggs with chopped up peppers in it, so we ate omelets for breakfast along with some bread that Hadur fried in a pan. After breakfast, I read Tiger Beat and a five-year-old edition of Cosmopolitan, then dozed a bit while Hadur snuggled up against me.
Sleeping with him was the most amazing thing ever. Well, I’m sure sex with him was going to be more amazing then sleeping, but for now the snoozy cuddles were top of my list. Having the security of his solid form behind me, his arm gently around his waist, his warm breath in my hair was pretty darn close to heaven. It wasn’t confining; it was comforting. It made me want this private time in his cabin to never end—well, except for the broken leg part.
When I awoke from my nap, Hadur was up and about, another steaming trough of water in the middle of the room, cheese and a selection of crackers on a plate next to my bed. Diebin was nowhere to be found, so I assumed he was out on another run, or off doing whatever raccoons did to entertain themselves. I ate some cheese, drank the tea Hadur had been practically force-feeding me since my arrival, took care of some business out by a tree, and let Hadur help me into the tub.
“You never did tell me how you managed to get this hot water going so quickly.” I was fully aware that Hadur was watching me soap up my body. It made everything south of my waist tingle a bit.
“I’m a demon. I can heat water without fire.”
“Inside a summoning circle? Because Lucien can’t do much of anything inside the town wards beyond show some pretty wings, beat the snot out of werewolves, and juice up Cassie’s spells. You’re dealing with the effect of the same wards combined with the summoning circle. I’m surprised you can do anything demon-magical at all.”
He blinked, shifting his gaze from my boobs to my face. “Lucien?”
“He’s my sister Cassie’s main squeeze. Do you know him? He’s a demon. Says he’s Satan’s son, but who knows if that’s true or not.”
“I know Lucien. Why is he here?”
I shrugged, wondering if I could manage to wash my hair or not. Actually, it wasn’t the washing I was worried about; it was the conditioning and the combing. My hair was in a short bob, but super fine, and washing it with a bar of rose-scented soap would probably turn it into twelve inches of knotted mess. Hmm. I wonder if Diebin could steal me some dry shampoo from the Walmart?
“I think he told Cassie he was here on vacation. Charon dropped him off or something. He was a bit surprised about the wards around the town. And all the supernatural beings who live here. And the witches.”
“Charon brought him.” Hadur scowled.
I paused my scrubbing to eye him. “Does that have something to do with you? You said you had no idea who had summoned you or why.”
“Most likely not. I was summoned so long ago. And demons cannot summon one another. It was a witch who summoned me.”
“And Charon would have no reason to pay a witch to summon you, get you out of his hair or something?” I asked. “Do you demons get into fights? Have feuds?”
He shot me a sideways smile. “I’m a war demon. I get into fights and have feuds all the time. But not with Charon that I remember. He’s simply the ferryman. He brings demons into and out of hell that are not summoned.”
I nodded, remembering Cassie telling me the dude was like Uber for demons. “But youweresummoned. Two hundred years ago, you were summoned. And no witch ever showed up to make a request. Why go to all the bother, and I assume it’s a big ass bother of a ritual, to summon a demon and not show up to close the deal?”
“I have never known of this happening before,” Hadur said. “Never. That is why I was so certain that Adelaide had been the one who summoned me. She was right here at the edge of the circle when I appeared.”
“Could she have done it by accident?” I envisioned a witch skipping along, singing some song she’d read in a spell book while just happening to trace the appropriate symbols in the air. The odds of that happening were probably a gazillion to one. And I couldn’t see any witch being so stupid as to sing a spell without knowing it might stick. That would be like lighting your drapes on fire then being shocked when they went up in a blaze.
“No. But there might have been another witch nearby.”
“You can’t tell one witch energy from another?” I asked. Sheesh. Did we really all look alike to demons?
“I can, but families have similar energy. Covens have similar energy.” He reached out to touch my shoulder. “When I sensed you, I thought you were Adelaide. Your energy is nearly identical to how I remember hers being.”
“We Perkins women,” I joked. “Strong family resemblance, I guess.” It did make me think of something, though. “Maybe it wasn’t Adelaide, but some other member of her family. If it had been a sister of hers, or her mother or an aunt, then you might not have noticed the additional energy and just attributed it all to Adelaide.”
He nodded. “Yes, but then why would this other witch not reveal herself, give me my task, and release me from the summoning circle?”
I shrugged. “Maybe this witch wasn’t supposed to be summoning demons and didn’t want Adelaide to find out? Maybe by the time it was safe for them to come back and give you the task and release you, they’d been struck down with the plague or something?”
