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

28. Amon

28

Amon

Organizing my thoughts wasn’t going to happen this afternoon. I couldn’t risk having Lucy near me, not after the chemistry between her magic and my own. My shadows were sure to take advantage of her with my mind distracted and my guard down. With the news that Dad had been fired from the demon council, I had a whole new set of problems regarding my inherited talents that the Bone Threader wanted.

I manifested in my parlor, finding my father sleeping. He was sitting on a stool, his back propped against the wall with his arms folded across his front. Chin tucked to his chest, he snored loudly. No use waking him now to talk. Dad was a broken man, even if he was too stubborn to realize it.

His loyal spirit familiars were wreaking havoc in my parlor. Ravens were notoriously intelligent creatures, their curiosity following them even after they had died. Grief found a new place to perch, joining Sadness, who has always been the more mischievous of the two.

“Come on, git,” I growled, waving my hand at the ravens, who paid no attention to me .

Sadness swung his tail feathers sideways, knocking jars of pencils and paintbrushes over as he jumped off the shelf. He landed with an angry squawk on my drafting table, his tail feathers frilled to the max. He stabbed his beak into one of my spiral bound books, ripping a hole in the cover.

“Hey, quit it!” I bellowed, launching myself after the fucking familiar as he took off.

I grabbed the notebook and flipped through it, assessing the damage. He’d ripped a giant hole out of three pages of a sketch concept I’d abandoned years ago. My fingers itched to fix what Sadness had done, but paper was like skin. It bore scars and imperfections as beauty faded. Magic and ink were similar in so many ways. What we saw as permanent, the magic known as time would always make it fade.

Suddenly, I didn’t have enough time. With the grimoire gone, and the Bone Threader preparing to use Lucy’s magic to erase what remained of my family’s records in the shadow archives, I had to find a way to preserve my mother’s talents.

Her magic was what my father had fought for. It was as rare as Lucy’s. It wasn’t meant to be forgotten. No matter how much I tried to preserve it, I didn’t think I could ever do it justice like my father wanted me to.

The ravens continued to make a mess out of my art supplies, sifting through them with their sharp, greedy talons.

“Give that to me,” I barked at Anger, who clutched something I didn't want him to have.

He hobbled over to me and dropped a brown leather bundle on my table. He tilted his head to the side, intelligence shining in his soulful, ink-drop eyes.

“What do you want me to do?”

Anger snapped his beak at the twine that bound the medicine bundle I inherited from my mother.

When mom died, she gave me a gift. And I wasn’t going to take it for granted any longer. If Dad lost his position in the demon council, that meant I would need to step up and practice what I, her firstborn son, had inherited from her.

A hollow feeling I hadn’t experienced in years washed over me. Maybe the quote Lucy mentioned from C. S. Lewis was right about anger covering up one’s grief. Without Dad working for the council any longer, the Bone Threader’s bony fingers had the power to remove the Ravenblood family name from the shadow archives, permanently. If Dad had been fudging records like he’d admitted to, who knew how long it would be before the Bone Threader would make his move.

I fumbled the bundle in my hand. A small bead was fastened to the twine, decorated with a small black tree. Seeing the tree made me think of Lucy. What I had experienced from her magic was that it built like a storm. It started in wide open places, gathering moisture from the sea, before it warmed and became a billowing cloud full of lightning and thunder.

Working my fingers through the knot, I unraveled the sinew and poured the contents onto my table. The items scattered. Feathers. Bones. Quills. All were items that held medicinal purposes from a different time. Mom had given me her medicine bundle of art supplies right before she died.

I had opened the bundle before. I knew what was inside. Looking at items once sealed into a medicine bundle could bring bad medicine or magic onto the individual who gazed upon them. But until this moment, I hadn’t withdrawn the items from the bundle, nor had I noticed everything.

The pigments were powdered, each held together in small leather bags that tied off at the top. The pigments my mother painted with were red ochre, blue, and black. I knew this, because she adorned all of her son’s bedrooms with her paintings. These were the colors that made up a dream painting she gathered her visions from.

I grabbed the bags of pigment, weighing which to use. Black would come later. First, I needed to use the colorful pigments to flesh out the layers of her dreams. First, I added the red ochre pigment to a glass jar. After filling the jar with water, I grabbed one of the bones. I imagined they might belong to a rodent. I couldn’t help but notice the similar shape and size of the Bone Threader’s small, slender hands when he was disguised as a child.

Am I playing with wendigo fingers ?

The thought sent a chill up my spine. I didn’t need him creeping his way into one of Lucy’s visions that she had of the tree of shadows. She’d already mentioned that she’d seen a monster in the branches, and she believed the Bone Threader had taken on Jeremy’s identity. I didn’t want to risk having that vision become more powerful than necessary .

Out of caution, I set the bone down and picked up a feather and a quill instead. The quill was from a porcupine. The feather was jet black. I suspected it belonged to a raven.

Which color should I paint with first?

I grabbed a spray bottle full of water and doused the pigment. Once the colors were saturated, I dipped the quill into the blue pigment and traced it across the parchment. The ink bled, then pooled, repeating the same movement as I worked it back and forth. Painting on paper was so different from skin. It was far less forgiving. Next, I dipped the feather into the red and repeated the same movements. The two colors mixed, turning into a purplish mess.

Shit. This isn't supposed to happen.

I flayed the feather across the pigment, hoping to smear the colors away from one another, but I only made it worse. I should have just painted in black to begin with.

“ What have you been up to ?”

I jumped as Dad’s voice filled my head. My ghoul of a father stood by the front door, golden threads of the sun dancing over him. His features were oddly soft given all of the lines in his weathered face.

I saw real age in him. Dad was a few hundred years old, even though he refused to act it.

“Wow, you look like crap,” he said as he approached.

“I feel it.”

He stopped at my side. “Where the hell is Lucy?”

“I sent her back home. ”

“What? Why?” he questioned, scrutiny wrecking his expression. “I could have sworn the two of you were sending each other I want to fuck you vibes.”

I shifted in my seat to face him. “Look, we need to talk about this shadow archive business and the fact that you are no longer in a position to defend it.”

Dad’s eyes flashed a dangerous shade of red before returning to black. “Or maybe we should discuss the fact that you decided to bring another witch to the shadow archives without first consulting with me.”

I dropped the feather, smearing the pigment across the parchment. Energy crackled between us, the air practically snarling. My forearms burned. Even my shadows knew not to snap back at my father.

Dad’s shoulders rose and fell as he sank down into the seat next to me. “I’m not mad at you.”

My body relaxed. “You’re not?”

“No. I know you would have only taken Lucy into the archives if you wanted to do what I’ve spent three hundred years trying to do for your mother. Preserving a witch’s magic is easier said than done.” His eyes meet mine. “The question is, why didn’t you tell me about it?”

My stomach twisted. No more secrets. I had to tell him about my meeting with the Bone Threader. “Look. A few months ago, the Bone Threader confronted me about the Ravenblood family archive. He had discovered that the grimoire you locked Melrose’s spirit into went missing, and threatened to devour our portion of the archive if I didn’t find it.”

Dad’s brow furrowed. “I lost that book over three hundred years ago. Why would he just now start harassing you over it?”

I thought back to the boy patting his belly at the diner. “He complained about something giving him a stomach ache?”

Dad’s face twisted. “What could possibly make a wendigo sick to his stomach? They’re disgusting demons and can devour anything.”

“Except death,” I said, looking down at my painting. Death had always been the subject that mom had made beautiful.

“I guess our question is then, what could he have eaten that was dead?”

“No idea.”

One of Dad’s bushy eyebrows arched. “I think it has to do with the Separation of Magics Movement. The demon council has taken opposite sides on how to handle the way familiars have started to establish boundaries between witches and demons.”

“How so?”

“Witches have a singular bloodline, where the magic of their ancestors is passed down from females only. Us Demon’s, we have two bloodlines. A demon can inherit magic from both his father and his mother. You, my son, ended up inheriting the best of both worlds. Lucy’s last name is Crow, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Most witch and demon families have their last name formed around a species of familiar. Crows and ravens are a great way to illustrate just how similar goddess and shadow magic is.” He gazed at my painting, where both Anger and Sadness hobbled about, inspecting the splotches of black ink that bled all over the parchment. “Crows appear as one. Ravens almost always show up in pairs. In your case, you have multiple shadows.”

My tattoos darkened at father’s words. My shadows formed according to my mother’s magic. They all knew where they originated from. Instead of doubles as Dad had dictated, I had multiple shadows that branched as earthly symbols of feathers, mushrooms, and snakes across my forearms.

“We both know that female demons went extinct long ago because our shadow magic could not adapt to the greedy desires of some of our ancestors. Why us demons look to marry a witch is due to our dwindling bloodline.”

“Are you saying the Bone Threader might be trying to separate our bloodlines?”

Dad’s eyes darkened. “It sounds like he might be trying to do more than that. I’ve known him for a long time. This wendigo has tried to devour as many magical talents possessed by witches as he can. The fact that he is preying upon Lucy’s magic to try and steal the talents your mother possessed? That’s where I wonder if he’s trying to destroy more than just the Ravenblood family archive.” His gaze returned to me. “Why didn’t you tell me that he was harassing you?”

“Why would I? You were overseas. I knew you were dealing with some disaster within the council, and I didn’t want to bring you home. ”

“You also didn’t know that your old man had been fudging records,” he growled, his shoulders slumping over. “The only reason that fucking demon got control over the shadow archives in the first place, was due to the fact that your mother’s magical talents threatened his own.” Dad’s gaze dropped to my mess of a painting. “Your mother used to write like you can paint. I know for a fact that you inherited many of her artistic talents.”

“The Bone Threader knows that I inherited mom’s talents. And to get them, he would have to kill me. So he unearthed the grimoire so Lucy could find it, using the opportunity to get a taste of her magic.”

“And you walked right into his trap?”

I nodded.

Dad’s shoulders stiffened. “He wanted your mother’s talents, and now he’s targeting Lucy? What for?”

I clenched my fist. “Shortly after Lucy discovered the grimoire, her own magic went haywire. That’s why I brought her into the archives. I thought for sure that one of the elemental books would give us some clarity.”

My father’s massive hands fell upon my shoulders. I felt the scars and calluses of his rough fingers. “The elements are as elusive to a witch as they are to a demon. I’ve been too hard on you. I know I’ve been an ass since your mother. . .” his voice trailed away. “I’ve become a monster to you boys, not the father your Mom always wanted me to be to the three of you. Being my firstborn, I have been the hardest on you, Amon. ”

I didn’t know if I should move, or run. Dad’s never been this open with me. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I think the real question is, has something gotten into you? Do you love Lucy?”

His words were so up front, it took my mind a moment to register. “It’s so soon for me to know how I really feel about her.”

“Your mother and I fell in love as fast as a wildfire. Even though that was over three hundred years ago, fire still works the same. But love isn’t the same as magic. It can burn you up quicker than you can tame it if you aren’t prepared to embrace it.” He glanced up at the portraits on the wall. “The talents you inherited from your mother were meant to be shared. How? I don’t know. All I can say is that I’ve spent the past few hundred years wishing I could preserve what I remember of her.”

I gazed down at my artwork. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t abandon Mom’s magic. And I can’t force it on a witch who refuses to practice.”

“Have you thought about asking your mother? She talks to Krim on a regular basis.”

“Yeah well, she sure doesn't talk to me.”

"She does. I just think that you choose not to listen to her sometimes."

I shook my head. Dad knew how Mom’s choice of son to talk to had created some jealousy between Krim and I. Even if Mom did try and communicate with me, I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say. Krim kept most of his discussions with her private .

“She was a remarkable witch in life, and even more remarkable in spirit,” Dad said. “I know she’s looking after all of you boys.”

Dad’s eyes met mine. “I think you need to tell Lucy how you feel about her. Make your feelings real. Stop hiding behind your shadows.”

“I don’t understand how my feelings for Lucy could fix our problem with the shadow archives.”

Dad’s hard weathered face softened. “Son, the magic in those grimoires belongs to witches just as much as it belongs to demons. We need to remind them of that. Many women are forced to live in shame because of their magical talents. Many don’t ever realize they possess talents at all. Us demons, we’re just viewed as nasty, bad, dark, malevolent, cocky beings. The world might not like us, but at least we are accepted for what we are.”

I reflected on Dad’s words. Acceptance . What a strange juxtaposition of what I’d always felt demons faced in the eyes of humanity. We were dark and had hidden agendas that didn’t always coexist well with the human world.

But he was right. Our shadow magic was what it was, and we weren’t persecuted for it. We were accepted for our darkness.

Dad shook his head. “I hated that your mother suppressed her magic. It wasn’t until you were first born that she began to see her talents differently.”

“How did you get her to share her talents with you?”

Dad chuckled. “I’m not going into those details. In fact, I wasn’t the one who convinced her. I just put the ball in motion for who would eventually change her mind. ”

“Who are you talking about?”

“ You were the one who convinced her to share her magic.”

“How did I help her?”

“She realized she wanted to share who she was with her little boy, so one day he would be able to embrace to the fullest what he was. As the first born, you got the brunt of mom’s magic. She was terrified to use it at times, but you were always there to make her laugh and cry and embrace the mistakes and imperfections that came with wielding it.”

Emotion twisted my stomach. “Why didn’t you ever tell me this?”

“You never asked. And talking about her is not something your old man is fond of doing. It makes me feel full of regret.”

“What do you regret?”

“Not sharing with her what I was sooner. Not being vulnerable to her in a way that she was with me.” He withdrew his hand from my shoulder and began to pick at a callus. “I know what it’s like to be lonely. To feel like you’ve lost something special you will never find again.” His gaze met mine. “You fight for her, even when the magics tell you not to. Even if those blasted little fuckers rise up and create another Earth Uprising, you do what is best for your witch. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Good, because witches have craved our magic for far longer than the earth has had soil. Sure, a witch derives her goddess magic from the earth, but even the earth came from a cavernous, dark void.”

My shoulders tensed. I wanted to help Dad as much as I wanted to help Lucy. But doing both would be a challenge .

I glanced down at my painting. A liquid message formed on the parchment that sent my shadows clawing at my chest.