Page 5 of Bent Out of Shade
2
“Is the demon dead yet?”I called out, twisting around to glance through the open sliding door. No one answered me, and I couldn’t see down to the patio.
“Nav will handle it,” Eli said, balling up the plastic sheeting.
“Sadie!” I yelled.
“What?” Her bellow from outside could be heard two blocks away.
“Stay on the tile,” her useless father called out. “And careful of the demon,” he added at my glower.
“I think I liked you better when you had issues with magic,” I said.
“A flamethrower isn’t magic, and you’re the one who gave it to her.”
I buried my head in my hands. “I did, didn’t I?”
Eli patted my back. “I’ve trained her on its proper use.”
Outside, Sadie gave a jubilant shout and started singing “Step in Time” from Mary Poppins, her happy dance song. What a weirdo.
I sniffed the air wafting in through the open sliding door, and my stomach lurched at the putrid odor of old fish. “That’s rancid.”
Nav strode back inside, his bootheels ringing against the floorboards. He had a look of disgust on his face. “Your excitable child took a selfie with the oil stain that was left after she torched the bugger.”
“She stained the flagstone?” Eli ran out in his bare feet.
Nav snorted. “The man frames a hockey jersey like a Van Gogh and gets upset about a little demon stain?” He shook his head. “His priorities mystify me.”
I stood up, stretching out my back. “He’s not even distractable during hockey games.”
“Trust me,” Nav said darkly. “I know.”
I laughed and grabbed my cardigan off the back of the chair, wondering if Laurent was back from his dybbuk hunting trip. It would be nice to have something distract me from the boxes of material I still had to catalogue for Tatiana’s memoirs. Something other than obsessing over how next to track down my parents’ murderer. “You two have plans tonight?”
Had they woken up this morning together? Done the crossword in bed? I didn’t miss doing that with Eli, but I craved the intimacy of a lazy Sunday with someone I cared about.
“Eli made a reservation at the new restaurant in the casino downtown, but the stench of that dead demon has put me off seafood.” Nav pushed the sofa back into place. “Luckily, it wasn’t that old, because once its kind gets into the hundred, hundred fifty year range, you need a gas mask when you kill it.”
I slung the sweater over my shoulder, then stilled. “Casino.”
He snagged one end of the rolled-up area rug and shook it out. “Yes, Miriam. With the bright lights, overpriced food, and strange architecture to coerce one into losing one’s sense of time and everything. Perhaps even a hand or two of blackjack.”
“No.” I moved out of his way. “The raven shifter’s casino. When Laurent and I went there it was hit by a blind spot.” It wasn’t a normal blind spot. Not only had it blown up to enormous proportions, fighting back when I attempted to protect the shifters, but it was a directed attack on the casino itself, a magic force. The birds hadn’t known who was behind it. “Poe said some Ohrists can manipulate ohr, but it’s rare. But now, combined with what you said about how long demons live, it’s got me wondering. Could a demon manipulate ohr? Throw up a blind spot?”
Nav smoothed the carpet edge down with his foot. “Not a blind spot, but some varieties with certain fire capabilities could produce something similar.”
My eyes widened. “Fire? Do they have other powers? Like snapping someone’s neck from a distance?”
“Doubtful. It’s not compatible magic.”
“Okay, what about working with someone who could kill that way?”
“Demons don’t generally play nicely together.” He lifted the coffee table with a grunt and set it in front of the sofa. “And they wouldn’t partner up with a human unless they were bound.”
“Are fire demons easy to bind, like kargh thurt demons?”
“Why do I sense there is more to this question?” Nav dropped onto the couch.
