Demon Rogue: Brimstone Magic - Book 3 Read online

  “No. Not really.” She scratched her arm and then let out a breath. “I think I’m cursed.”

  I raised an eyebrow. Just because I didn’t sense any magic around her or see any demon shadows clinging to her, it didn’t mean much. There were as many kinds of curses as there were leaves in a forest and not all of them left traces a witch like me could easily spot.

  “Who cursed you?”

  She shook her head again. “That’s the thing. I don’t know. It’s not like in the movies where I offended a witchy-looking old woman or something. I’ve been racking my brain and I can’t even think of anyone who would want to curse me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not perfect or whatever, but I don’t have any enemies or angry exes.”

  “Okay,” I said, uncertain. “Then what makes you think you’re cursed?”

  She chewed her bottom lip. “Like I said, it sounds crazy.”

  My patience was running low. I tore open my Pop-Tarts and rolled my hand in a go on gesture as I took a bite. These were the cherry variety with sickly sweet frosting on top. Carbs and sugar, the breakfast of champions.

  “So,” Krissy said, “for like the last six months, literally everything in my life has gone wrong.”

  I blinked. “Everyone has a streak of bad luck sometimes.”

  “No. I mean, I know that. But it’s too much bad stuff to just be happening. First, my apartment building burned down. Then someone stole my car. I moved into a motel while I tried to find a new place and the motel had to close to fumigate for termites. So I moved into a friend’s guest room and her house was robbed three times. Three.” She held up three fingers and met my eyes, hers burning with intensity. “It had never been robbed before. She thought I was leaving the door unlocked or something and kicked me out. We’re not even friends anymore. Now I’m crashing with another friend and his condo keeps having electrical problems.”

  She let out a breath but before I could get a word in, she continued. “Meanwhile, I got fired from my job because I was late due to an accident that clogged up traffic and it wasn’t even my fault because I was on the bus, not even driving, and I tried to call to warn them I was running late but somehow my call wouldn’t connect. And then on my way out of the building, some guy ran into me on his bike and I fell and broke my wrist.” She held up her wrist in the brace to prove it. “I keep showing up late to job interviews no matter how early I leave. It’s like some force in the universe conspires to keep me from getting there on time. And to top it all off, I lost my favorite tube of lipstick and I can’t afford to replace it right now. I can’t afford anything right now.”

  She finally stopped and looked at me for a response.

  I struggled to formulate one. On one hand, this girl had had a really shitty couple of months. On the other hand, there was a reason the expression “when it rains, it pours” has become so cliché.

  “I’m really sorry,” I finally said.

  “So like… is it a curse? Because it feels like a curse. And when I asked around, people who looked like they knew a thing or two about curses sent me in your direction.”

  I wondered which people they were, exactly. Maybe she had a witch friend or two and didn’t even know it. Witches rarely revealed their nature to humans.

  “I can try and find out. My fee starts at two hundred a night. And I don’t make any guarantees. If it is a curse and I can stop it, I will. But it might not be or it might be beyond my abilities to undo.”

  “At least I’ll know.” She pulled out a checkbook, ready and willing to pay anything to get this settled. That, more than anything told me that she believed there was something beyond bad luck, given that she’d admitted she was having money problems. She handed me the check and I put it into my pocket.

  “From a cursory glance, I don’t see any signs of a curse,” I told her, “but that just means you don’t have any obvious spell over you, like a bad luck spell.”

  She furrowed her brow. “A bad luck spell?”

  I shrugged. If she was willing to believe in curses, that didn’t strike me as a huge leap. “What about bad luck potions? Did you start drinking something new when this happened? Someone bring you special smoothies or whatever? New friend buying you coffee regularly?”

  She furrowed her brow further, but I could tell she was thinking about it. “No.”

  I mentally crossed that possibility off my list. A potion would have to be re-administered regularly to have an effect potent enough to screw with her that much. “What else changed?”

  “Nothing. I got a haircut, which I do every six months. And a new tattoo.” She held out her not-broken arm and showed me a very pretty tattoo of a sunflower on her forearm. It was surrounded by other flowers and vines that wound all the way up her arm. “Just the sunflower. The rest was already there. It was the last part of this sleeve.”

  “It’s pretty,” I said. And it was. It was expertly done. But it didn’t look different than her other tattoos, except the ink was a little brighter. “Anything else? Bring anything new home? Do any shopping a garage sale and grab a haunted mask or something?”

  Her eyes widened. “Actually, now that you mention it, right before all this started, I did buy this old mirror at a garage sale. It’s a hand mirror with a really pretty silver frame and handle, like from a fairytale.”

  My pulse raced. Old mirrors were usually made of aluminum glass, and glass could be used to trap demons. If the mirror held a malicious spirit or a demon, that might be her problem.

  “All right. I’m going to need you to show me the mirror.” I chugged the rest of my coffee, grabbed the second Pop-Tart, and my sword.

  She gave the sword a funny look. I couldn’t tell if she was surprised or scared. “I thought you were a detective.”

  “When have you ever see seen a detective go around unarmed? At least it’s not a gun.” I smiled. She did not. “How did you hear of me again?”

  “These guys at the occult bookstore,” she said. “I went looking for books on curses and when they heard my story, one of them gave me your card.”

  Guess having a growing reputation among the supernatural world wasn’t all bad. I’d take business recommendations where I could get them.

  * * *

  Krissy’s friend’s condo was all the way down in Kirkland. At this hour, a bus could get us there but it was more hassle than I cared to deal with, so I borrowed Silas’ golden sedan. It was an ugly, older car, but it worked fine and got us there in half the time.

  The condo was spacious with high ceilings and skylights, brand new white carpet, and sleek modern furniture that looked more stylish than comfortable.

  Krissy had been put up in the guest room-slash-office in the front of the unit, a small, square room with two windows that probably made it feel less cramped when it wasn’t packed wall-to-wall with stuff like it was now.

  A desk and chair had been pushed almost up against the closet to make room for the futon to be flattened into a bed. The futon had been made up with a comforter and pillows. Krissy’s suitcase was propped against the wall by the door and her makeup bag and hair stuff was on top a small coffee table that had also been pushed aside. In the far corner of the room, at the foot of the futon, stood a stack of small boxes, labeled with things like “kitchen” and “fragile!” stacked four and five high against the wall.

  “Nice digs.” I wasn’t trying to sound sarcastic but sometimes my words came out flat and gave that impression.

  “Right now, I’m just happy not to be homeless, which is exactly where I’ll end up if I don’t get myself un-cursed soon.”

  “Where’s the mirror?” I asked.

  She grabbed the top box off the stack closest to the door and opened it, digging through tissue paper until she found the mirror. She handed it to me.

  It was cool to the touch and very pretty. The silver around the glass had been shaped into little roses that traveled down to the handle. The handle had bigger flowers and vines. It looked similar to her sleeve tattoo and I co
uld see why it had appealed to her.

  The glass was a little cloudy and old but still showed a reflection. I stared into it. All I saw was my face staring back at me: thin and plain, and no makeup today. I blinked into my shadow sight and scanned the mirror for demon shadows. None. Not a sign of demon magic at all. I let out a breath of relief.

  “Well?” Krissy asked as I turned the mirror over in my hands.

  “I don’t sense any magic and it’s not possessed by a demon,” I said.

  “A demon?” she squeaked. I always forgot how little mundane mortals didn’t know.

  “Demons can be trapped in glass, but if the binding spell isn’t done right, they can still affect the world around them, including wreaking havoc on someone’s life.”

  She paled a shade and her eyes widened. “That’s awful.”

  “It’s rare. But with old heirlooms, it’s good to check.” I handed her back the mirror, more relieved than I let on. I’d had enough of demons for the next decade.

  She was reluctant to take it back but finally reached for it. “So it’s not the mirror.”

  “Nope, doesn’t seem to be.”

  Her face fell. She re-wrapped the mirror in tissue paper and put it back in the box. “Figures it wouldn’t be that easy,” she mumbled.

  The power flickered. The electronic buzz of the kitchen appliances just outside the room cut out and the hall light blinked off. For a moment it was silent, and then everything hummed back to life.

  Krissy flopped down onto the futon, defeated. “See? The power’s all messed up. It was fine before I got here. David’s owned this place for two years and never had an issue. Now his electricity is on the fritz. It’s not a coincidence.” She folded her arms and stared defiantly at me, daring me to disagree.

  I didn’t. “If there is a curse on you or some other magical cause, I’ll find it. And if not, hey, it means your luck has to change eventually. Either way, this misery isn’t permanent.”

  She didn’t look convinced, but she did drop her arms. My eyes landed on her new tattoo, the lines bolder than the ones surrounding it.

  “Hey, where did you get your tattoo?”

  “This shop called Floral Ink. Not my usual parlor but my usual artist was out on maternity leave and I really wanted to get the sunflower to celebrate my promotion. I found a coupon for this new place on my car.” She looked at her arm sadly. She’d been fired not long after getting it, which had to sting. “Why?”

  “We eliminated the mirror as the source of any curse. Now we go down the list: check out the tattoo parlor, the place you got your haircut, anything else that you can remember doing right when your luck changed.”

  “You think my tattoo artist cursed me?”

  “Or your hairstylist.” Hair could be used in curses, Voodoo dolls, and other binding spells. So I figured we’d cross the tattoo place off the list and move on to the salon. If that didn’t pan out, we’d go from there. “Look, this is a process. We eliminate everything we can as the source and see what’s left.”

  And hope whatever was left was magic that could be easily dispelled.

  Chapter 3

  Floral Ink was in a strip mall, so I wasn’t putting high odds on it being the source of her curse. Not that evil never came out of strip malls. On the contrary, they were a breeding ground for it. Just not usually the supernatural variety, although once I had to stop a necromancer who sold taxidermy squirrels out of a strip mall. The fact that anyone bought them sort of confused me, but these weren’t just any dead woodland creatures: at night, the necromancer brought his little squirrels to life and had them steal precious jewels and cash from his customer’s homes.

  “I told you it’s not my usual place,” Krissy said a little defensively as I stared at the storefront. It was located in northern Lynnwood, which was a bustling suburb of Seattle. It was a bit south of Everett, where I lived. The tattoo parlor was next to a hair salon, a teriyaki restaurant, and a HomeGoods store. Not exactly what you picture when you think of wicked curses.

  “It’s nice,” I said. The store front was well kept with a sleek design. Those were points in the shop’s favor. “Shall we?”

  Krissy swallowed uneasily and nodded, opening the shop’s door.

  Inside, it was as sterile as a doctor’s office, including the cloying smell of disinfectant. The floors shone white and the black plush chairs were brushed clean. Magazines were stacked on a frosted glass coffee table. The reception desk was black. To the left was a black door that apparently led to the work rooms where tattoos would be inked.

  The receptionist was a skinny guy with pale skin and a dusting of brown facial hair. The hair on his head had been dyed a bright blue. He had a lip piercing and gave me a withering look of disapproval, though he perked up a bit when he saw Krissy, whose sweater sleeves were pushed up to reveal all of her ink.

  “Hello. Can I help you?” he asked, but not like he really wanted to. “We do work by appointment only but if you’d like to book an appointment…” He gave me a very dubious look. Guess I didn’t seem like the tattoo type. My leather jacket apparently wasn’t cool enough. Sort of made me wish I’d brought my sword inside. I’d left it in the car, as most businesses tend to frown on people carrying weapons inside.

  “Actually, we’re hoping to speak to…” I turned to Krissy, who hadn’t told me her tattoo artist’s name.

  “Jade,” she supplied.

  The guy made a point to look behind him at the wall, as if he could see through it to find out if she was there. Then he slowly turned back around. “She’s gone for the day.”

  I was fairly sure he was lying, but I couldn’t do anything about it without causing a scene.

  “When is she in next?” I asked, forcing a polite tone.

  “Well, if you want to see her, I recommend making an appointment.”

  I did not pick up the little potted cactus on his desk and throw it at his head, which took a lot of restraint.

  “She recently did some work for me. I just have some questions,” Krissy said, holding up her arm to show him the sunflower tattoo.

  “Okay. But like, you still need to book an appointment to see her,” he said impatiently, as if he were tired of explaining it.

  “How about tomorrow?” Krissy suggested, with more charm and grace than I could have mustered.

  “She’s not in until next week.”

  I stepped back and let her hash out the appointment with the desk clerk. If need be, I’d come back sooner, but I was hoping we’d find the source of the curse before I had to. This place, with its sterile hospital smell and cold ambience, made me uncomfortable.

  While I waited, I did a quick check of the place with my shadow sight, but there were no demon shadows. That was good. It meant no one was summoning demons in the back room. But that didn’t rule out other forms of sinister magic.

  Still, nothing about the place gave me a bad vibe. It was pretentious but as far as I could tell, it wasn’t evil. By the time Krissy finished, I was ready to check it off the list.

  “All right,” I told her. “Let’s go visit your hair stylist.”

  * * *

  If I thought the tattoo shop was too mundane to harbor anything more sinister than a pixie, the salon was a far worse candidate. It was in the Alderwood Mall, between a Forever 21 and a shoe store. It had two styling chairs on either side, with a few wash basins and hair blowers in the back. The receptionist was a perky girl with an under cut and faux hawk who greeted us warmly.

  “Need a haircut?” she asked me hopefully.

  I probably did, but witches didn’t get their haircut in salons. We did any hair maintenance in the privacy of our own homes or friends’ homes, where we could collect all of the hair and make sure it didn’t fall into the wrong hands.

  Curses were discouraged by witch society, of course, but there were plenty of persuasion and control spells that weren’t strictly against the Magic Council’s guidelines and leaving your hair around in big clumps for anyone
to pick up was reckless. The Council saw it like this: sure, casting spells on people using their hair was bad, but letting your hair fall into the wrong hands was negligent, so the bad spell was sort of your own fault.

  “We’re hoping to see Olive,” Krissy said. “She cut my hair six months ago.”

  The woman studied Krissy’s hair for a second and then nodded, pointing us to a woman sitting in a styling chair, doing something on her phone. She looked up at our approach.

  Olive the Stylist was not a witch or a mage, as she lacked that little glow around her aura, and she wasn’t pale enough to be a vampire. Her ears were exposed and perfectly round, which didn’t mean she couldn’t be fae, but it made it less likely.

  “Hey,” Olive said, smiling warmly. I couldn’t tell if she actually recognized Krissy or was really good at faking it, but she greeted us like we were old friends. “Here for a trim?”

  Krissy glanced at me and I nodded. It wasn’t like she could curse her worse.

  Well, maybe she could. But I was here, and I’d see her using magic. And then we’d know whodunit.

  Krissy got her hair trimmed and I tried not to wince at the purple locks littering the floor. Instead, I used my shadow sight again and didn’t see any sign of demonic magic. Nor did I see any sign of the stylist using witch magic or spell work. Some of her hair products had floral scents, but it all had that slightly unnatural tinge to the aroma that meant Olive wasn’t cooking up hair potions in her garage.

  The most sinister thing about her was her collection of scissors and razors.

  “Nothing?” Krissy asked, once she’d paid for the cut and we got outside.

  I shook my head. “Not even a wisp of magic. If she’s fae, she has a damn good glamour.”

  Krissy sighed, defeated. “So we’re nowhere.”

  “Is there anything else you remember happening around that time? Someone being especially rude to you? Anything that felt innocuous at the time but now in hindsight might have been something more?”