Page 23 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
“I know what it looks like,” Grace said, reaching up to run her fingers through her hair. Even frazzled, even harried, she was beautiful. If we weren’t neck deep in a mound of shit, I’d have told her so. “But we need his help.”
“No, no, absolutely not,” Giles said, backing up and putting his hands out palms up. He looked between Grace and Monster before swinging his gaze over to the three of us, an accusation there, like we should have known better. “I won’t let your mother see him; it will undo her. Grace, do you remember what he did to you?” Her father was practically pleading now, and I knew he was seconds away from calling the rest of the coven.
There was only one thing to do with an errant demon on Samhain night—and that was to send him right back to Hael.
“Dad,” Grace repeated, speaking with a sharp crispness that reminded me that she was still the High Priestess of Coven Apothecary. Giles might be her father, but he still had to defer to her position in the coven. “This goes so much further than Monster,” she said, gesturing toward the front door. I noticed she made no move to invite him in. “Where’s the rest of the coven? I thought we were having the bonfire here tonight.”
Grace’s dad looked a bit chagrined, reaching up to rub at the back of his head, orange pumpkin lights glowing from the staircase behind him, casting strange shadows across the room. From behind us, I could hear the merry laughter of trick-or-treaters, but with such a large group of strange adults clustered at the doorway, nobody bothered to come up and ask for candy. They couldn’t if they wanted to anyway, seeing as the house was spelled to encourage strangers to stay away.
“We are hosting the bonfire tonight,” he said, glancing to his left as if he could see out the back doors. They were around the corner and out of sight, a set of sliding glass doors that led onto the deck. Usually, when the entire coven was gathered, you could hear them from a block away, laughing and chatting in the yard. Tonight, it was nothing but silence. “Most everyone’s been called away for some urgency or another. Don’t worry about the kids; Suze has them covered.”
Grace glanced over at me and Argent, flicking her eyes down to Caine last. The wolf shifted back into human form with no concern for his nakedness.
“Dad, we need as many members of the coven as we can get at the portal. There’s an entire swarm of krampus coming our way.” She took a deep breath, and I could see that she was falling into her role and letting the panic and the fear slip away. What good would it do us anyway?
Giles opened his mouth to speak, but Grace waved his questions away. “No time,” she said, “just get in touch with everyone that you can; let the Three know what’s going on. That’s all I can say for now. Once we have the portal shored up, and I find Hex so we can cast Mom’s spell, I’ll explain more. Goddess knows I won’t be able to explain after,” she mumbled under her breath.
Grace was right: once we cast that spell to cure her mother’s curse, we’d all pass out, and wake up sometime later, with vague memories of what had happened. Our magic would be drained, and for a while there, we’d be completely vulnerable. In fact, the bigger the spell, the more time was lost, and I knew that this one … was gonna be a motherfucking doozy.
“What happened to Hex?” Grace’s sister, Suzanna, asked as she came out of the kitchen, bouncing a little were-tiger on her hip. The orange and black striped cat hissed at us and then snuggled against her mother’s chin.
“I mean, other than the fact that he was summoned? I have no idea,” Grace said, sighing and pressing her fingers to her temples. She looked over her shoulder at Monster again. “But I’m guessing he has an idea.”
“He was summoned?!” Suze choked out, eyes widening. I could hear small wolf howls coming from the den near the back of the house. My babies. I wanted nothing more than to go back there and see them, but first, we had to find Hex Sorciere.
Monster smiled and took a few steps back to lean against the porch’s banister. He didn’t seem at all concerned by the situation, and not at all like he was in a hurry. Maybe he wasn’t, but we sure as spells were. Not only did I want my children to have a relationship with their grandmother, not only did I want my wife to be able to keep her mother around for a good long while, but I also knew sure as shit that whoever’d cast this curse had a nefarious reason for doing so. Fuck them and whatever their damn motives were.
