Page 77 of A Shade of Myself
“He had to run.” I wiped tears from my eyes, my chuckles dying down.
Nav did a pretty good job transferring his interest to the demon, circling the head.
“I torched it.” Sadie gestured with her hands. “It went all whoosh and huge and then it was gone and man, did it reek. Wanna see the gross oil stain it left on the road?”
“No, thanks.” He placed his hands on her shoulders. “Listen to me very carefully. You were brilliant, but don’t ever do that again. You could have been seriously injured or worse.”
“I won’t,” she said. “Not until Laurent trains me.”
Nav glanced at me with an assessing look.
“You’re actually going to start training with your father,” I said. “Laurent will take over later.”
“Really? Dad wants to train me?” Sadie looked so happy that I made a mental note to tell Eli. Even though she spent every other week with him, it wasn’t the same as having a father-daughter activity. “He’s always been so reluctant to discuss his cases with me or what he faces at work.”
“I didn’t realize you were curious about that.” This was a big deal, especially given Sadie’s anxiety, and I wish she’d been able to mention it before. However, I didn’t want to make an issue of her only bringing it up now.
“Duh. He’s dealing with murderers. It’s like how Jude said the more I knew about magic, the less scary it would all seem. You’re willing to talk about it, which is cool, but Dad? Forget it.”
Nav asked for a chopstick, using it to poke and prod the head. “I’d planned to do the same as your dad with Evani, when she was old enough to ask questions about my work. But you’ve got me rethinking that.”
“Totally,” Sadie said. “It’s much better to be open with her and tell her the truth because kids can make up some really scary shit. Especially around losing their parental figures.”
“You should tell your dad that,” I said.
“Yeah, maybe I should. Do you think he would train Nessa, too? I mean, it’s good for girls to learn to defend themselves. He doesn’t have to say anything about magic.”
“That’s something to discuss with him.”
“’Kay. I’m going to run next door and ask.”
She ran out the still-open back door, slamming it behind her.
I flinched. That kid would master wrestling vampires before she learned how to close a door softly.
Nav continued examining the demon head.
Sadie’s statement about her father had brought up a lot of emotions for me. I felt smug that for all of Eli’s bitching about magic, his Sapien job induced just as much anxiety in her as mine did. Sad, that she’d never felt able to talk to either of us about her fears regarding his job, and mad that my parents didn’t treat me the way I treated Sadie, and shared more about what they were involved in. Or, if they couldn’t do that, told me I might be in danger and asked my opinion on how I felt about that, like I did with my daughter.
When Sadie was born, I’d been overwhelmed by the advice in parenting books and had resolved to try to be the kind of mom to her that mine had been to me. But, looking back, I’d done the opposite, because while I had a lot of fun and happy memories from my childhood, I didn’t remember having any deep conversations. Not even when my magic first showed up. I shook my head. It’s funny, I’d never realized that.
“How’d you browbeat our friend into agreeing to train Sadie?”
I blinked at Nav and shook off my musings. “Laurent? He offered. Said they trained kids in his pack at a young age.”
That earned me a startled look. “He doesn’t talk about his pack.” There was a pause and then Nav tapped the demon’s head with the chopstick. “This is a kargh thurt demon.”
“Is it the one who cast the illusion on me?”
“No. Kargh thurts are dumb goons. Relatively easy to summon, bind, and force to do your bidding, even by Ohrists.”
“Hired muscle. Then who or what cast the illusion?”
“We’re still investigating. You planning on telling me the full story?”
“Client confidentiality, so sorry.”
“Says the woman who breached my headquarters.”
