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

14. Amon

14

Amon

“ It’s time you remember what your shadows did to me over three hundred years ago .”

Those sinister words had come straight out of Melrose’s twisted mouth moments before she released me. She wanted me to find something the Bone Threader had taken from her, even if it meant me getting devoured in the process.

I fell forward, staggering until I caught myself before I went headfirst into damp pavement. The Summoning vanished. I was back in the physical world.

The first rays of sunlight branched over the sky. I felt naked as golden strands of daylight touched my face and arms, which illuminated the damage Melrose’s vines had done.

The tattoos on my arms looked like they’d been through a blender. My shadows were so angry with how I’d treated them that they’d gone and withdrawn beneath my skin. They hated it when I restricted their aggression, even in the face of a witch who wanted me dead.

“ Well, well, well, look who crawled out of the sewer ,” a grouchy voice sounded from the sidewalk. Lucy’s familiar was making quick work of the patch of weeds curling in the morning sun. A couple of hedgehogs scurried away from the weeds as I turned my attention toward the bookworm.

Who knew where Melrose had gone, or when she would attack me again. When I confronted her about Lucy, she mentioned that she wanted to thank her. Not a good sign. She still blamed me for her death and had yet to forgive me.

I had two options. Trap her back in the grimoire, or find the Bone Threader before she did. Would Krim’s plan to help me trap her vengeful spirit actually work before the Bone Threader found out she was free? His idea with bewitched pastries was starting to look more promising.

My fingers craved soil, anything to rub the dry, gritty textures of Melrose’s sharp fingernails away from my skin. I itched all over. For all I knew, those vines were really poison ivy.

Something fell out of my pocket. I grabbed my cell phone, which I hadn’t turned on in over a month. I pressed the power button and waited for it to turn on. Dad avoided the message I sent him, which was probably a good thing. I hoped that Dad didn’t come storming into town acting like a witch hunter like he did with most mortal settlements, scaring the living with a few choice poltergeist maneuvers to get heads turning. I was sure he’d be angry if he saw the new wounds Melrose gave me.

I could hear his dry voice ripping into me had he seen the state of my shadows. “ What did you do, Amon ? Go fuck yourself up on a thorn again ? ”

I shook my head. Dad had scars all over his arms and back and other places mom loved about him. I gathered what I could of my shredded tattoos and headed for my apartment.

Moments later, I settled into my living quarters above the tattoo parlor. My flat wasn’t much. It was always messy and smelled like stale Chinese food from the last time I had my brothers over.

The bachelor life was a lonely life. I hadn’t had a girl over in ages. Exploring a real relationship had never been an option for me, given the angry and unpredictable nature of my shadows.

I walked into the bathroom and turned on the tap in the shower. I tore off what was left of my shirt and pants and stepped beneath the steaming water. As the water worked over the tension in my neck and shoulders, my tattoos began to change. I knew for a fact that many of them wish they could wash down the drain.

One of the tattoos on my arm morphed until a hand appeared. The middle finger elongated toward my elbow as it flipped me the bird. My shadows were pissed, rightfully so. They were as lonely as I was, tethered to a world without much love for demon kind. Demons were revered for our magic, and feared for what could result from it. My meeting with Melrose had only reinforced how badly I wanted to be desired by a witch, not feared by her. I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I had been touched with affection, let alone flirted with .

I couldn’t get Lucy’s smell out of my nose. Her magic was electricity setting fire to the air, and it somehow permeated a deeper part of my soul. How much I wanted her to want me with the same vengeful ferocity displayed by Melrose.

My cock hardened as I imagined what it must feel like to slam her against a bookshelf. How badly I wanted to make that sweet round ass bounce as I plunged into her.

I pumped my hand over my cock, finishing myself in seconds. I couldn’t be this hot and bothered when I faced Lucy next. I had a feeling my shadows might get the best of me before Melrose did.

I turned off the tap and toweled myself off.

My phone buzzed. I retrieved it from my pants pocket. Zed had sent me a text.

Come to the graveyard. Something real strange has been digging the graves I’m pretty certain isn’t the hedgehogs.

The graveyard wasn’t far. Of all of the odd earth-shifting jobs that Zed worked, this was probably his least favorite, as he always had a heck of a time getting past the familiars who find their homes in the first few feet of earth.

The first thing I saw was a massive pile of dirt with a few gravestones jutting up beside it. Zed had a shovel resting on his shoulder. His tattoo was exposed, muscles in his forearm glinting with sweat and morning sun. I knew I’d be touching it up for a second time before the week was over.

“Didn’t I tell you not to let it get dirty?” I scolded, stopping beside him.

“Yeah, well. There are more people dying to get in here than there are folks willing to dig graves,” he gripped as he set the shovel down and turned to me. “Whoa? What happened to you?”

“Melrose.”

Zed’s eyes went wide. “How? Didn’t Dad seal her spirit away in one of his grimoires?”

“Yeah, well, that grimoire ended up at the library. Lucy found it before I did and opened it.”

“Meaning Melrose’s spirit is out?”

I nodded.

Zed glanced over his shoulder. “Fuck. Does Krim know?”

“He does. Tonight, he’s agreed to help me try and trap Melrose back in the book with one of his baking experiments.”

“Who has the book?”

“Lucy.”

“Lucy is a witch, right?”

“Partially. She’s not practicing her magic.”

Worry crowded my youngest brother’s electric green eyes. “Shit, where is Melrose now?”

“No idea. But she said a couple of things that concerned me. She said I would be the one to find what the Bone Threader hid from her. Then she said she wanted to thank Lucy for setting her free. ”

Zed’s eyes dropped to the dirt pit. “No shit. I think I know whose claws are responsible for digging in the dirt.”

The earth was disturbed all right. Gouges lined the dirt where Zed had been digging. Massive three-pronged grooves criss-crossed each other. Whatever had been digging here had some seriously large claws.

Silence fell between us.

“What could the Bone Threader be digging for?” I asked.

“The tree of shadows was cut down after Melrose died. I’m convinced it’s regrowing somewhere here in town.”

“ Regrowing ?”

Zed nodded. “I’ve been finding a lot of roots that I’ve never encountered when digging graves before.”

“Could the roots regrow under the library?” I asked.

Zed rolled his neck, cracking his vertebrate. “Considering the fact that you found the grimoire there? I assume you might be right.”

My gut twisted. I was not liking this picture at all. Not only was Melrose on the loose, but we had a wendigo digging closer to where Lucy spent most of her time working.

I needed to get to the library.

Voices sounded from the stacks as I manifested in the library. I recognized Lucy’s voice. The other belonged to a child, a young boy. Yet his sound sent my tattoos scrambling up my forearms .

I hid behind the bookshelves and peered through the opening. Lucy was sitting next to a young boy who had a pencil in his hand. “Miss Lucy, I can’t do it.”

“Give it another try. You can spell the word tree. Sound it out with me,” Lucy replied

The boy held his pencil over the paper in concentration, then wrote the letter T.

“Perfect. And the next letter?”

He wrote the letter R, then set his pencil down. “I can't remember the other letters.”

“You are so close, don't give up! I’ll help you this time.” Lucy held her hand over the paper. Purplish-blue light fizzles out of her fingers. The last letters, two Es, manifested on the paper. The letters glowed a vibrant electric blue before they faded to black.

“You lied to me,” I said, emerging from the stacks.

Lucy jumped as I approached.

The boy didn’t look up, but Lucy did. Her expression was fire and daggers.

“How long have you been there?” she demanded. The freckles on her nose burned red. That sexy, angry look of hers was going to strike me dead.

The boy stood up. “I think that’s enough tutoring for today.”

“Same time next week?” Lucy asked.

“Yes. I’ll be here on time.” The boy didn’t acknowledge me as he left for the exit.

“And what did I lie about?” Lucy snapped at me.

“You do practice magic. ”

She closed the book, her fingers leaving a trail of brilliant blue energy as the pages sealed shut. “I only use my magic under one circumstance—if it has to deal with reading.”

“Is this your own magical service?”

“If you are asking if I get paid to do it? No.” She glared at me. “I just volunteer on Sunday mornings when the library is closed. My boss lets me open the reading room just for tutoring purposes.”

“I saw that kid’s face light up. What does your magic do?”

“Reading is all about confidence. Building it, and keeping it, so they keep coming back to read more. I had dyslexia as a child. Growing up, magic helped me to cope with it.”

“Isn’t dyslexia a reading disorder?”

“Dyslexia is more than not being able to read. It’s how our brains process symbols and make sense of our world, both visually, and audibly,” she corrected me in a matter-of-fact tone. “It’s estimated that one in five children have dyslexia, and one in ten adults do. It’s something many people live in silence with, instead of learning how to cope.”

Her words resonated with me somehow. When she admitted that her reading had not always been whole, I thought about my shadows. How that inner void has always rustled against my ribs, emptiness filling me with questions I had yet to answer.

Lucy’s gaze found me. “Why did you jet out of here like a bat out of hell after I discovered the grimoire?”

“There have been some new developments regarding the spirit that you freed.” I reached down, grabbing the drawing the boy made .

Our fingers touched.

The moment her magic touched mine, I saw the tree of shadows. Its long black branches whipped in the wind as lightning burned across the sky. I was transported there momentarily by Lucy’s magic.

Her hand pulled away from me. “What just happened?”

I looked away from her as the intoxicating smell of electricity setting fire to the air burned through me. “Your magic, that’s what. It’s awakening something that’s long been dormant.”

“You’re mistaken. I don’t openly practice.”

“Magic is not something that we can predict when it will emerge, or what it will do once it’s started to flow. Can you encourage with your magic like you were doing with reading? Yes. But, control, no.”

Lucy blinked. Her eyes dropped to my lips, her gaze thickening as she found my eyes again. “You saw it too, didn’t you? The tree?”

“I’ve seen it since the grimoire went missing from the shadow archives.”

Lucy’s brow furrowed. “Shadow archives?”

“Come to Shadow Daddy’s bar tonight. My brother Krim owns the bar. He is hosting a books and baking event. I’ll share more with you about the book’s history.”

“Why do you want me to come?”

“Krim wants to help us trap the dangerous spirit that escaped the grimoire.”

My bicep burned as one of my tattoos inched down my forearm. “ You know you don’t want to leave this witch. You still haven’t had your fun. You want to pin her against the bookshelf and — ”

I slapped my arm.

Lucy jumped.

“Sorry, I thought I saw a spider,” I stammered, rolling my sleeves down. The last thing I needed was for my shadows to start expressing their desires for her.

Lucy was still assessing me, her lips curling into a smile. “I’m in. When does it start? What do I bring?”

“Seven this evening. Make sure you bring the grimoire.”