A Demon’s Book Of Shadows (Witches & Demons #1)

2. Amon

2

Amon

Seething black waves pulsed through my aura as Lucy Crow stormed out of the library. There wasn't much a demon could do once a witch—especially a book loving one—made up her mind. I’d been harassing her for over a month now, but today, I accused her of hiding a magical text, which made perfect sense to me. Witches were very protective of the magic they practiced, especially old magic that hadn’t been dabbled in for well over a century.

I’d followed the grimoire’s magical aura to her library, where the vortex of shadows were currently so powerful, I could barely manifest into my physical form. I was so close to discovering the location of the grimoire, I could taste it. My bones rattled any time I thought about holding the magical manuscript and flipping through the gritty pages once again, especially now that the Bone Threader had threatened me.

In addition to tracking down the grimoire, there were other reasons I had been attracted to the library, and in particular, Lucy. You see, shadow magic did a remarkable thing to witches. It made her blood trill and burn and strike musical notes that enchanted a demon’s soul. She became an instrument of seduction and power that pulled a demon’s shadows closer to her, tethering him to her in a way that he became in danger of losing himself in her magic.

Maybe doodling images and sticking gum into one of the books in the children’s section of the public library wasn’t the best idea. Although my behavior was definitely not as destructive as what her grouchy familiar was getting away with. With the library closed, and my prized librarian gone, I was left hovering over the bookshelf, pondering my next steps on trying to track down the grimoire. Even though I hadn’t discovered the book, I had observed something very strange about the librarian witch’s magical practice.

Any normal witch would have used her magic to remove the invasive wad of gum from the books she tended to. But Lucy Crow did not use a spell, or charm, or hex to address the gum. Instead, she had unfolded the pages, gathered the nasty ball of gum I’d spent the day grinding between my teeth, rolled it into a piece of paper, and disposed of it.

After a month of testing her magical boundaries, I’d concluded one very startling and unusual thing.

Lucy Crow was suppressing her magic.

Why, I didn’t know. But magical suppression, if practiced for a long length of time, could become quite dangerous. Suppressing one’s magic made a witch a target for other witches who would gladly take advantage of her magical focus.

I coalesced, solidifying myself as I was the only soul left in the library. The annoying munching sound was still coming from the stacks. A lumpy green bug was feasting on the doodles I had left in one of the children’s books .

“ Your art tastes like garbage ,” the inchworm said to me, his grumbly little voice echoing in my mind.

“Inchworm, I’m not here to—”

“— Bookworm ,” it corrected. “ I have a name other than It .”

I sighed. The last thing I needed was another fucking familiar trying to convince me to pull my hair out.

“ Nice try with attempting to accuse my witch of stealing one of your stupid grimoires .”

“Do you know where it is?”

“ If I did, I wouldn’t be telling you, now would I ?”

I scoffed. “You won’t scare me off that easily.”

“ Try me. I have horrible breath after I’ve eaten lunch .”

I backed away as the nasty little creature manifested on the bookshelf. It let a noxious plume of green gas out of its mouth. “I forgot just how protective of witches you familiars are.”

“ Hey , that’s what us familiars do . We protect our witches from exes, assholes, and nasty demons like you ,” he barked. “ Now, go back to the crypt you came from before I take a bite out of your nose!”

“Shouldn’t you be preparing to, I don’t know, turn into a moth or something?”

“ Shouldn’t you be haunting a graveyard instead of doodling in a bunch of children’s books ?” he huffed. “I’m going to be spending the rest of the afternoon munching through the doodles you’ve made and returning the books to their original form.”

I pinched my brow. While Lucy hadn’t discovered my other drawings, her familiar had. Since when had familiars become such obnoxious librarian companions?

I dipped back into nothingness, stepping into the edge of the Summoning. The parallel existence us demons drifted through next to the physical world was like walking through a door where the inside air and outdoors mixed, only time didn’t follow. As much as I wished I could stop time, my thoughts could not linger here. The Summoning was a place for lost spirits and abandoned magic.

I needed to meet with my brothers and come up with a Plan B on how to track down the grimoire.

With my exhale, I exited the Summoning and stepped once again into the physical world. I was met by the obnoxious blare of an electric guitar. The afternoon crowd at Shadow Daddy’s local bar was always hit-or-miss. But on Halloween Eve, all of the spooks in town were preparing for a little adult entertainment.

A live band played in the corner. It wasn’t even five, and the bar was nearly full. Both pool tables had a dozen people crowded around them.

I spied the sunburned head of my younger brother over by the bar. Zed had the least amount of hair of us three brothers, being completely bald. Between his band and his schedule working a bunch of odd jobs, he was probably the busiest of us.

Zed liked to drink when Krim, my other brother and bar owner, wasn't here. He flirted with the waitresses and got free booze Krim would otherwise charge him three times the amount for .

“Skelly Zelly,” I said, sliding up beside my brother. His fingers curled over an ashtray, a dying cigarette drooping from them. The embers burned his fingernails, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was talking to a chick next to him who was busy flirting over his tattoo. I’d given him the tattoo only a few weeks ago when he’d gone through a nasty breakup. Zed had the heart of a lion trapped in the body of a wolf who had forgotten how to shift properly. “Why isn’t it you up there and not these creeps?” I asked as I eyed the band, knowing how musical my younger brother was. He could hit circles on the drums better than Led Zeppelin.

Zed had a soft spot for animals, and the girl ogling his new ink had a cat tattoo on her forearm.

“No idea,” Zed barked, not turning to acknowledge me.

“Where is Krim?” I asked, and the girl with the cat tattoo batted her eyes at my brother, then slinked off with her beer toward her girlfriends playing pool.

“Teaching,” Zed said, his eyes following her across the bar before he swung his head toward me. My younger brother was very flamboyant and animated in ways that might make him seem gay. But he wasn’t. He devoured women like chocolate ice cream on a hot summer day.

“I thought he had Friday’s off,” I protested, stealing the girl’s seat. “Hey, you know you’ll get your ass handed to you if Krim finds out you lit up in his bar,” I said, knowing well that Shadow Daddy’s had a very strict rule about no smoking of any kind.

Zed tapped out his cigarette in the ashtray and slammed his beer bottle onto the bar. “Krim can shove one of his nasty pastries down his throat. I need you to do me a favor. See this?” He rolled up the fabric on his shirt and showed me his forearm.

“What did you do, dunk it inside of a deep fryer?” I asked. His flesh was a crispy black and blue.

“No,” he growled, his head trembling. “My gig at the graveyard is pulling double shifts, and a demon can’t pass up the opportunity to make some quick cash. I dug too far into the neighboring grave, and accidentally scraped my arm against a rusty casket.”

Digging in the dirt and mud, Zed saw lots of familiar kin. Many of his odd jobs brought him closer to the earth and decomposition. Krim and I called him Skelly (skeleton) Zelly. The guy was basically a bag of bones walking down the street. Despite his bony appearance, he was the strongest of us brothers. Even though he’d forgotten how to shift into the ravenous wolf that he was, he still had a powerful set of paws. I’d seen the guy win arm wrestling matches at this very bar with only his pinky finger.

While all of us demons had shifter talents, those who possessed forms that resembled creatures were preferred to serve on the demon council. Something animalistic peeked through Zed every once in a while. Watching him go through puberty was fun, his inner demons fighting over which form to take on. He would have been perfect for a position within the demon council serving alongside Dad, had he not forgotten how to shift into his creature form.

“I told you to keep it clean for a fucking week,” I bit out.

“I think the rust makes it look kinda pretty, don’t you think?” he replied, taking another swig of beer. Condensation beaded on the bottle, dripping as he slammed it down. “Anne said it’s gorgeous, but it lacks red.”

“Well, Anne can go back to ogling her sun-faded cat. Orange isn’t the best pigment for skin anyway.”

“I’ll be ogling more than her pussy tattoo later,” Zed said, his eyes meeting mine. They were bright green, electrically so. He set his arm on the bar, swinging one of his steel-toed boots away from the other. He cocked his head sideways. “You know what? You're too uptight about this grimoire business. You need to get laid.”

“I don’t have time for a relationship.”

A wolfish grin spread across his face. “Who said you need to be in a relationship to fuck?”

I sighed. I didn't need my brother to tell me just how uninteresting my sex life had become.

Zed slapped me on the shoulder with his giant hand. “Come on, Amon. Look around you? There are plenty of women here who would love nothing more than for a nice thick demon cock to go sliding between their legs, no strings attached. You’ve been searching for this book for how long now? Why don’t you indulge in your wild side a bit?”

“I’ve been searching for as long as I’ve been missing one of my shadows,” I replied, thinking back to the wendigo’s hollow eyes from only a few months ago. His hot, rattling breath still permeated my skull. “ Your fate is bound to the grimoire, Hidden One. You know what happens to a demon when he’s missing one of his shadows .”

“You know that us demons can make both witches and non-witches alike feel like a queen. We have a special talent for awakening their inner goddess,” Zed boasted. “You’ve got a hard-on just thinking about this Lucy chick at the library. Have you considered giving her a real tattoo, if you know what I mean?”

I knew that Zed took the whole marking thing to another level. His animalistic side often emerged when it came to hunting down a true mate.

I shook my head no.

“I’ve got to know. Does Lucy have those big sexy librarian glasses that she’s constantly straightening on her nose?”

“Nope, she does not,” I replied, thinking back to the gorgeous color of Lucy’s bright eyes. I liked the fact that she didn’t have some thick, clunky glasses separating her gaze from mine. I liked looking into those blue eyes of hers and fantasize about all of the wild things I wanted to do to her.

“ You mean the things that we want to do with her .”

I shuddered, slapping my arm.

“Amon, you all right?” Zed asked as he took another swig of his beer. “Or did you get caught up fantasizing about those glasses?”

“I’m just a bit tired is all,” I grumbled. My shadows often had fantasies far darker than my own when it came to bedding a witch.

“What’s stopping you from laying her out?”

“A familiar,” I grunted.

Zed’s eyes went crossed. “What kind?”

“A fucking bookworm.”

Zed hiked his head back as he laughed, spittle flying out of his mouth. “Wow, Amon. You really know how to pick a witch! ”

His laughter faded. I was grateful, because right now, I felt like a piece of shit. Familiars, especially the ones that were bugs, were incredibly protective of their witches. There was a reason so many Halloween stories involve the lesser-loved creatures. The earth magic that protected a witch was owned by familiars.

“I confronted her today about the energy I’ve felt around the library. I know the grimoire is nearby.”

“What did you say?”

“I accused her of hiding the grimoire. She promptly blew me off, and her familiar basically cussed me out.”

The bartender set another beer down in front of Zed, which he slid toward me. “Halloween is tomorrow. You’ll be fine. You’ve got this Lucy librarian chick in the bag. Keep pestering her. Leave her familiar to me.”

The beer stopped in front of me. I could see my own terrified expression reflecting in the dark glass. “You want to help me?”

“Of course I do. I want to help my oldest brother rebuild the confidence he used to have with witches, if you know what I mean.”

I chuckled darkly. Confidence . What a lie that word was.

Zed threaded his fingers together and cracked them. “That’s why a demon needs brothers. You’ve got two who’ve got your back in this.” He tilted his tattooed arm toward me. “Before you work your shadow magic on little Miss Librarian, I need this fixed.”

“Can you swing by tomorrow? I’ll make time for a touch-up.”

Zed grinned, his wide, wolfish mouth displaying a set of perfect white teeth. “I’ll be by bright and early. Halloween is the perfect time for fresh ink.”