“Hey,” Ethan says, voice thick with sleep. He’s still in bed from when he had fallen back asleep. “What are you doing?”
“Just looking through the book,” I tell him and open my mouth to mention the disappearing footprints then stop myself. It sounds crazy, even to me. “I’ve flipped through it a hundred times but I’m hoping I missed a clue or something.”
He gets out of bed and picks up his pajama pants from the floor. Ethan almost always sleeps naked, not that I’m complaining.
“It would drive me crazy not remembering parts of my childhood. No one should be able to mess with your mind like that. It’s not right.”
He’s talking about what Aunt Estelle did to me, but it makes me think of someone else who can change memories. “Can vampires really hold people spellbound?”
“Only the old ones.” He makes a face. “Which are few and far between, according to the Vampire Council’s reports.”
“You think they lied?”
“Oh, for fucking sure. Vampires older than five hundred are supposed to be regulated and, with no way to prove how old they actually are, it would be easy to lie.”
“There’s supposedly a super old vampire in Chicago.”
“There is,” Ethan tells me. “The Order keeps an eye on him.”
I’ve yet to meet a vampire, though we did have a few as clients when I worked at the veterinary clinic back in Syracuse. We had limited after-dark hours, so they’d have someone else bring their pets in for them. Maybe it’s naive of me to think if a vampire can love a dog enough to spend thousands on allergy testing and then get a custom-made antigen therapy created for said dog, they can’t be that bad, right? I suppose you can have pets and still be a serial killer, though.
“Do vampire and witches, like hang out? I mean, we’re both supernatural in a way.”
Ethan shakes his head. “I don’t know. I’ve, uh, never thought about it.” He looks a little uncomfortable, and it’s not the first time our difference of opinion about vampires caused tension. Ethan was raised to believe anything remotely monstrous is just that—a monster.
“Too bad I can’t talk to him. A vampire that old might know something about the witches in the area.”
“I doubt that vampire knows anything about witches.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right.” I close my book and take a drink of coffee. It’s getting cold now. I guess I didn’t realize how long I’ve been sitting here looking through my book. I set the coffee back on the side table and hold my hand over it, taking in energy from the air. The coffee starts to steam…and then boil. “Shit,” I mutter and snatch my hand back.
“Want to spar later?” My headache is gone, thanks to the caffeine, and I’m feeling a little jittery.
“You don’t have to ask me if I want to spar.” His cheeky grin is back, and he goes to the dresser, getting his workout clothes out. “I’m not going easy on you this time.”
“What’s going on in here?” Ethan sets his gym bag down and looks at the books I have spread across the coffee table in the library. There are a few open on the floor as well.
“These are all the books about magic I have—so far—from Aunt Estelle.” I tap a handwritten letter on the center of the coffee table. “And this is a list of potential demons who could come looking for revenge against her. Maybe they don’t know she’s dead and will think I’m her, or maybe they’ll try to strike while they’re ahead and kill me before I bind them. Even though I don’t know how to do that.”
Ethan nods, coming over. We’ve gone through the books before, and Ethan sent a photo of the letter to his dad, hoping he could use some Order connections to find out anything about the demons. They’re named specifically, so unless someone has come across them, having their name isn’t helpful.
“There has to be something.” I heft my heavy Book of Shadows onto the coffee table from the floor. “Why didn’t Aunt Estelle put the binding spell in here? She seemed to love it.”
“If there is something, we’ll find it. But, Anora,” he starts, crossing the room and sitting on the couch behind me, his hands landing on my shoulders. I’ve been hunched over for hours and didn’t realize how sore I was until Ethan starts to massage me. “You have your whole future ahead of you. Don’t…don’t waste it by obsessing over the past.”
“Obsessing?” I jerk my head around to look at him.
“Bad choice of words,” he offers. “You know what I mean. Look how far you’ve come on your own. A few months ago you didn’t know you were a witch and now you use magic pretty much every day.”
“You’re right.” I let my hands slide off the coffee table and I lean back. “I hate this feeling that the other shoe is going to drop, ya know?”