She frowned and looked down at their intertwined hands. I watched as she absently ran her thumb over his. “Okay. So, hypothetically speaking, if a human woman and a demon were to have a kid together, what would the kid…be?”
Zack cleared his throat. “First off, I wish to state that if, hypothetically, I were a demon, I would never purposely get a child upon a human woman without her informed knowledge and consent.” The look he gave her was agonized and earnest. “And truly, if I were a demon, I would likely have had utter faith in contraceptive methods in place.” Then he winced. “Although, if I were a demon, I should have remembered that we are quite…virile.”
Jill’s lips twitched ever so slightly at that.
“But a child,” Zack hurried on, “would appear human in every way, though as the babe matured it might show an aptitude for handling arcane power.” He fell silent and looked at her miserably. “Jill, I care for you deeply, and I already love this babe beyond measure. But if you wish me to leave and cease to bother you, I will abide by your wishes. I do not wish to cause you to suffer.”
She let out a snort of laughter. “You ass,” she said and leaned in to kiss him. “Stop talking like that. You’re freaking me out. Don’t you fucking dare leave me.”
I excused myself as the two started shamelessly snogging, though I don’t think they noticed me leaving.
I headed out to the front porch, surprised to see Eilahn and Ryan sitting on the steps, the cat on the side of Eilahn away from Ryan, who glanced back and gave me an uncertain smile.
I gave him a reassuring one back, then crouched and tried to pet the cat. To my annoyance it hissed and swiped a claw at me, then ran off in a streak of calico fur.
I watched it go. “That cat is psychotic.”
“It hates me too,” Ryan offered, shrugging.
“Yeah, but…” I trailed off as a realization smacked into me. “She didn’t hate me when I was wearing the cuff.” I turned to Eilahn. “Can you go get her?” I asked.
Eilahn stood, nodded. “Interesting theory. You think she dislikes non-demons with arcane ability?”
“Exactly!” Maybe I didn’t need to worry about summoning another demon after all. Grinning, I dashed back inside and grabbed up the cuff. Jill and Zack gave me a curious look, but I simply winked at them and hurried back outside, just as Eilahn was returning to the porch with the cat snuggled in her arms. I snapped the cuff on and did my best to ignore the rush of queasiness that came with it.
Eilahn held the cat loosely as I reached out to pet her. Fuzzykins gave a mild mrowr and bumped against my hand. Grinning, I pulled the cuff off, nearly chortling in delight as the cat’s mood instantly shifted to hostile.
“Do all cats act this way around arcane practitioners?” Ryan asked, peering doubtfully at the cat. “Or is this one more than just a regular cat?”
Eilahn picked Fuzzykins up and nuzzled her. “She is simply a cat. Not a demon in disguise.” She shot Ryan an amused look. “Which is what you were thinking, yes?”
He chuckled, shrugged. “Do you blame me?”
“You know,” I said, thinking, “I had a cat when I was a little girl, but when I asked Tessa if we could have one she said she was allergic. And then after she introduced me to summoning she explained that cats didn’t like the smell of demons on us. I’d forgotten about that.”
Eilahn rubbed her nose against the cat’s. “She loves the smell of demons!”
I laughed. “Clearly so. I doubt Tessa ever conducted this sort of experiment. But either way, it’s nice to know we have a summoner-detector.”
“Time to pay a visit to the mayor?” Ryan asked.
“Damn straight,” I replied, then I glanced at my watch. “Well, first thing in the morning, that is. And with any luck he’ll also be violently allergic to cats.”
Chapter 18
After the others departed, I headed down to the basement and looked forlornly at the pristine floor. Even though I’d semi-promised myself earlier this year that I’d be better about concealing all signs of my summonings between rituals, my resolve to do so hadn’t lasted long. It was one thing when I’d only been summoning once a month, but when I started doing so more often it was tough to convince myself to scrub everything down when I’d only need to redraw it the next day or so. Plus, the power storage diagram kind of worked better when it wasn’t erased.
With a sigh I dug through my implements and found the tourniquet and syringe. The “traditional” way to get the blood necessary for the creation of a diagram involved a sharp knife and any of the veins in the forearm. Screw that. This summer I’d trained myself to use the same sort of equipment that phlebotomists used when taking blood. Helluva lot easier, hurt less, and I didn’t end up with scars all up and down my arms.
Luckily I only needed a couple of syringe-fulls to mix with the chalk. It took nearly an hour, but by the end of it I had both my summoning circle and my storage diagram rebuilt—and even had a bit of power channeled into the latter.