Page 8 of Hell and Hexes
Chapter 4
Sylvie
The next morning, I chugged down a glass full of Glenda’s smoothie concoction, hoping it would be enough to get me through the day. Then I chased it with strong black coffee in an effort to get the foul taste out of my mouth. My first appointment was at ten, so I had time to scramble a few eggs and actually have a decent breakfast.
I felt…better. Maybe it was a good night’s sleep in my own home, although my couch wasn’t anywhere near as comfortable as my bed. Either way, I’d slept soundly all night, barely moving an inch. I woke up refreshed and happy.
Eshu had come over late at night. I was sure of that, even though it felt like a dream. He’d obviously slipped out sometime before I woke, but I distinctly remembered dragging myself out of bed to answer the door, having him try to cram blueberries in my mouth, and whack me with a pillow. Then he’d done this incredibly erotic leg massage that had made me wish I hadn’t been so tired.
Would he be back? He’d clearly gone to a lot of effort to track me down because I was sure none of my sisters told him where I lived. But Eshu was…well, Eshu. I wasn’t sure if his interest would last more than a day or two, if even that. I might not see him for months only to have him show up at my door again as if he’d never left.
I knew better than to try to change a guy like that or to expect anything more than who he was. I only hoped the next time he came around, I was more awake and could take that leg massage to the intended conclusion.
I couldn’t get too attached to him, though. I was vulnerable and recovering from a life-changing event. Could I enjoy what I needed, but not expect anything more, or would I end up with a bruised heart after he’d moved on to the next woman?
But I couldn’t obsess about that right now. It was Friday, and even though I’d only been back to my life and work for two days, I was thrilled. Maybe I’d head to Pistol Pete’s for the band tonight. Then Saturday I’d have breakfast at the diner, run a few errands, take an afternoon nap, and get ready for The Game.
The Game. I’d been on couch-rest for two weeks and left my adventuring party about to enter a condemned building in their perilous quest for the Stone of Power. There would be aliens. There would be monsters. There most definitely wouldn’t be the Stone in the treasure chest they were so determined to open. Some of them might die and have to roll up new characters, but we’d all enjoy ourselves for four or five hours while eating pizza and drinking beer.
It felt so good to get back to normal, to the life I’d had before I’d died. But as I thought of my weekend plans, my mind drifted back to a certain demon—one who’d made me laugh those two weeks on the couch. Would he stop by tonight? Next week? Next month?
If not, perhaps I could come up with a lame reason to go hang out at Cassie’s house with Lucien one day this week, just to see if he’d show up. Or I could just be honest with myself and ask Cassie about him.
No. I’d gone through enough. I didn’t need to be chasing after some demon that I was pretty sure was a total playboy. If he stopped by, I’d indulge in whatever he offered. And then I’d try hard to forget about him just as quickly as he forgot about me.
Brushing Eshu once more out of my mind, I stacked the dishes in the sink, gathered up a sweater and my purse, and headed to the office.
My first client of the day was Henriette, who was one of my life-coach clients. After a lifetime of same old-same old, she was trying to discover who she truly was inside. It was sort of a banshee mid-life crisis. Henriette’s current goal was to find something new and rewarding to focus on in the second half of her very long life, to find a passion hobby.
The past month I’d had her write down all the things she’d always found intriguing but never done. Narrowing them down, we ended up with a list of five. Her goal was to try one item from that list each week, then be prepared to discuss the experience at our meeting.
Sky diving. Knife-throwing. Irish dance. White water rafting. Plein air painting.
Yep, plein air painting. That’s what Henriette had spent the last three weeks working on because we hadn’t had a meeting due to my accident and recuperation and she wasn’t the sort of banshee who would proceed onto the next item on the list without my approval and guidance.
So far, we’d explored Irish dance, which the banshee had thoroughly enjoyed and had been actually quite good at, and knife throwing. She wasn’t as good at knife throwing, and after an unannounced demonstration in our session, I’d done what all my training forbade me to do and informed her she should give that one up immediately.
Let’s just say I’m glad I’m a luck witch because I’m pretty sure otherwise I would have spent some time in the hospital recovering from knife wounds.
Henriette was waiting for me outside my office door. One thing about banshees—they’re prompt. I guess it was that whole harbinger of death thing. It made me wonder if there was some connection between them and reapers. I’d have to ask Nash some time if he ever worked with banshees or if they’d been handled by some different department or his soul-reaping organization, whatever it was. I’d asked Henriette once about her banshee nature, and she’d told me it wasn’t like a job where she had to run around and shriek before every person in the world died. She said it was more like an impulse that hit her, and she never knew exactly who her wailing was for. She could be in a crowded shopping mall and bam—ear-splitting screaming. Moving to Accident made life much easier on her and her sisters. A town full of supernaturals meant there weren’t a lot of deaths to herald. And here there was no fear that someone would call mall security and haul her off for a psychiatric evaluation.
I let Henriette in and noticed that she was carrying what appeared to be the world’s largest briefcase. Once we were in my office, she unzipped it and I realized it was, in fact, the world’s largest art portfolio case.
It seemed the banshee had taken her plein air assignment seriously. I watched as she unpacked and displayed the various artwork, her black hair a lovely complement to her dark-gray skin. Had she colored it? It seemed shinier and a deeper shade than it was when we last met. And she’d coiled it up into a clip, the tail sticking up in a spray of ebony locks.
Hair color or not, Henriette seemed to be livelier, more animated than she’d been when she first started coming to me. It was a good sign—one that made me think we were on the right track here.
“What do you think?” She stood back and expanded her arms as if she were on a game show modeling the prizes.
“Henriette, it’s whatyouthink that matters. These projects are all about you finding what activities bring you joy. It’s the journey that matters, not the destination.”
“Yes, but are these the sort of destinations you’d not be ashamed to hang on your wall? Things you might actually praise or even pay for?”
I eyed them closely. They were amateurish in my estimation, but I was no art critic. One was a nymph sitting by a stream, combing her hair. Another showed a cow grazing in a field. Another was a scene from our own Main Street with the diner in the corner and John the Cyclops’ car parked out front.
“I like them. They’re not my style, and I don’t think they’d be sellable as art, but I believe you could hang them on your wall and not be ashamed to show them to your friends and family.”
She nodded, eyeing the paintings with renewed interest.
