Page 47 of Hell and Hexes
Chapter 19
Sylvie
“Idon’t know.” Cassie eyed me. “It sounds pretty convoluted. If they find out it was us that staged this whole thing, we’re even more screwed then we already are. And I don’t like the idea of using Eshu.”
I glanced over at the demon, who was rooting through Cassie’s kitchen cabinets in search of a snack. He didn’t seem to care that my sister was referring to him as if he wasn’t even in the room with us.
“The werewolves know Lucien, Hadur, and Nash,” I argued. “They don’t know Eshu, and he can stage the attack so it doesn’t blow back on us.”
Her eyebrows went up. “This is Eshu we’re talking about here. Something’s going to go wrong. With Eshu, something always goes wrong.”
“But then it always goes right,” I insisted. “Well, maybe not in the third circle of hell, but other than that, things always seem to turn out right. Plus, I get the impression it doesn’t really matter if Dallas thinks it was us or not. He needs an out. He’s stuck and he needs us to provide a solution where he saves face and doesn’t have to go to war with anyone or kill his son.”
She nodded slowly. “Kind of like what happened with Tink.”
“Exactly.”
She let out a breath and sent the demon an annoyed glance. “Stop going through my kitchen cabinets and come over here. I need to know what sort of creatures or beings you can shapeshift into.”
I winced at her tone. Cassie was always a bit bossy, but I really didn’t like how she was speaking to my boyfriend.
Yeah, he was my boyfriend. And the thought made me all warm and tingly.
“I can take the form of anything,” Eshu replied, starting to pull handfuls of spices out of a cabinet and putting them on the counter.
“It has to be something scary enough for the werewolves to need to work together and for them to want to accept our help,” I mused.
“But it can’t be a dragon, or a manticore, or a chimera, or anything we’ve got living in Accident,” Cassie added. “I don’t want any of the residents implicated in this.”
Yeah, it wouldn’t be good if Dallas came storming into town and accused Fernando of getting his dragon kin to attack them.
“Why can’t I just be a demon?” Eshu had moved on to the cabinet with the boxed goods and proceeded to empty that one as well.
“Because then the werewolves will think Lucien is behind it,” Cassie snapped.
I saw the mischievous glint in Eshu’s eye, quickly hidden as he shoved his hand into a box of Cocoa Puffs and crammed the cereal into his mouth. I knew what that glint meant, and although it would be funny if he impersonated Lucien and got the other demon into trouble, it wouldn’t help our cause one bit.
“Let’s think of something more interesting for you to shapeshift into,” I told him. “How about a phoenix? Or a djinn—”
“Too much like a demon,” Cassie interrupted.
“Or a fire elemental—”
“They’ll think it’s an ifrit.”
I threw up my hands in exasperation. “An alien? A dinosaur?”
Cassie snapped her fingers. “A dinosaur. A big T-rex. That will work.”
I wrinkled my nose, wondering if it really would work or not. I mean, therewereno dinosaurs. Wouldn’t the werewolves assume magic was involved if a T-rex stormed into the compound, and that we were involved?
“Like a skeleton T-rex? A museum fossil come to life?” I asked, thinking they’d surely blame Babylon for that one.
“No, like inJurassic Park. They’ve barely been out to the human world in centuries. They’ll buy it.”
“You sure a phoenix wouldn’t be better?” I pleaded.
Cassie waved her hand. “Nope. I don’t want to set the forest on fire or anything. T-rex it is. Can you shapeshift into a T-rex?” she asked Eshu.
