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

29. Lucy

29

Lucy

I couldn’t believe it. Amon sent me back to my bedroom like a child. Fuck him. He peered into my mind, then disappeared?

I patted my sides, my pockets, and found my phone. A text from mom lit up.

Call Me. I want to know how you are doing with Amon.

I wanted to throw my phone out the window. This was ridiculous! How was I supposed to understand my magic and save my library if he could call the shots on when he wanted to disappear? All because he wanted to have a private discussion with his father who apparently got fired from a demon council?

My stomach twisted. I didn’t want to admit that this feeling might be jealousy. No man should have the power to disappear into the shadows.

Not a demon, my ex, nor my father.

A noise echoed from downstairs. It was probably one of Victoria’s familiars knocking through her pots and pans. That, or a rogue hedgehog had found its way in .

I crept downstairs, careful not to step on the squeaky stair. Once on the landing, I peered around the wall, spotting a woman standing by my sister’s bookshelf.

A curl of red hair unraveled from her shoulder as she thumbed over Victoria’s naughty novel collection. “What’s this? Something Wicked This Witch Comes ? Oh,” She turned over another title. “How about Hex My Ex ? That sounds absolutely lovely.”

“Melrose?” I asked. “What are you doing here?”

She continued flipping through the books, keeping her back turned to me. “I wanted to find you and thank you for what you did for me on Halloween. You see, it’s not every day that another witch comes along who has the power to set the captive spirit of a witch free.”

“Captive? What do you mean?”

Her lips pursed as her face became a transparent blur. “Didn’t Amon tell you? After I died, that pompous ass of a father of his took it upon himself to lock my spirit away into that nasty book of shadows.” She evaporated, taking on a transparent ghostly form as she hovered about the room. “Maybe if you weren’t suppressing your magic, you would know what lived in those pages, and you wouldn’t be trying to help Amon or his father with their hideous attempt to save their archive.”

The scent of damp, stale earth suddenly filled my mouth and lungs. “Why did you give the grimoire to the Bone Threader?”

Melrose’s face came dangerously close to me. “He has wanted that grimoire ever since Amon’s father locked me inside it, then magically lost it. Now that you freed me, I have the power to dispose of it. ”

The smell of rot tinged my nose as Melrose drifted too close. I took a step back, my butt bumping into the bookshelf.

Melrose continued to encroach on me, her transparency wavering as she shifted between her solid and spirit form. “I can smell the other books on you. Amon has taken you to the shadow archives, hasn’t he?” Melrose whispered, fury quaking her voice. “What I want to know is why he took you to such a dangerous place while you were alive.”

Memories of the archive flashed before me. The grimoires emerging from the hollows in the wall. Amon's hard body pressed against me. The way his shadows became a sinuous cloak of bones and feathers as he encouraged me. “You also went into the archive when you were alive, did you not?”

“My reasons for entering the archive changed after I died. Only after I died, did Amon realize I had visited the archive to help find someone I lost.”

“How did you die?”

Melrose’s face twisted. “That, I cannot remember. When I became a spirit, my desire to learn the language of shadows became my only focus. The symbols inside of the grimoires can be used to translate many things related to magic.”

“Could they tell you how you died?”

Melrose nodded. “I quickly learned that a witch has a much better chance of getting into the shadow archives after she has experienced death. Amon could not prevent me from getting into the archive, so Eugene locked my spirit into one of the grimoires I so desperately wanted.”

I folded my arms. “The difference between you and I. I don’t want to practice magic unless I have to. You seem to want to practice it for reasons you can’t remember.”

“Reasons a demon has stolen from me!” she screamed.

I clapped my hands over my ears as the wine glasses on the kitchen table shattered.

Melrose leveled her gaze with me, her face trembling. “A demon does not help a witch understand her magic unless his shadows have ulterior motives.”

“What kind of motives?” I asked, lowering my hands.

The freckles on her nose crinkled. “Do you know what horrors live in those pages? Do you know why familiars work so hard to keep their witches safe from a demon’s shadows?”

The symbols in her eyes mixed with rage—the same symbols I’d seen on Amon’s arms when he’d been touching up his father’s tattoo. “No, I don’t know what the pages hold. The grimoire wouldn’t open after I released you. And the books I saw in the archive also refused to open.”

Melrose’s smile became a wicked one. “They refuse to open, because the magic that binds them is trying to protect itself from the demon who created them.”

“The Bone Threader?”

Victoria’s kitchen fell away as Melrose clapped her hands and released a wave of surging magical energy toward me. Thick, suffocating clouds of dust and ash blew into my face.

Amon .

His name was all I could think as the ash clogged my nose and mouth. Magic bound my body, tugging me underground. The sound was deafening, like I was being dragged along the bottom of a riverbed, tumbling with the stones as the water forced me forward.

My foot gripped solid ground. My fingers scraped against damp stones as I dragged myself out of the rushing water. A giant black tree towered over me. I had been in this place before. I must be back in the Summoning.

The shadow archives were nearby. But all I could see was an ebony tree. The tree had a gravity of its own. I was pulled toward it as the branches lashed out in the wind above my head.

Silver wisps of light drifted between the branches. Spirits, dozens of them, were hovering about. But they were not familiars. They had human faces, some gnarled, some young. All were women. They were the spirits of other witches like Melrose.

One of the spirits was crouched over to inspect the river that brought me here. When she stood, her expression was half there. Her face had changed as the water came rushing toward me.

I knew this witch. I had seen her before. Amon had called her Changing Woman.

“I am not who you think I am,” a voice filled my head. Her eyes met mine, warmth buried deep inside of them.

“Who are you?”

“I wish for you to give a message to my son. He likes to hide from his responsibilities, even though I gave him something to help him sort out the mess with his father.”

I swallowed. “Are you Amon’s mother?”