“Demon Boy,” I said. “What the hell is he doing here?”
“I don’t know,” Beryl hissed, “but would you get your butt up here and help me out?”
I managed to ding my thigh on the table closest the door because I couldn’t take my gaze off Demon Boy’s face. He and I had history. He had history with Alderose, and with Beryl too.
Separately.
“I’m texting Alderose,” I whispered to the back of my sister’s head.
Kostya, aka Demon Boy, Troublemaker, and half a dozen other monikers, pressed his massive palms against his side of the glass and grinned. “Let me in,” he said. His low voice set the door to vibrating. He glanced to where I’d traced the heart on the glass, breathed a foggy patch above it, and drew a smiley face with horns.
Beryl shook her head as Demon Boy ran his tongue across his lower lip and went to his knees on the stoop. “Should we let him in, Clemmie? He’ll only try to distract—” She shook her head and snorted. “Now he’s doing that thing with his tongue.”
Demons of every gender had forked tongues, and this particular demon knew how to use his to the extreme. My brain hollered to batten down the hatches as I rested a hand on Beryl’s arm and peered over her shoulder. “Do we have any reason to not let Kostya inside?”
“History? Who knows what wild mission he’s on.”
Last I heard, the demon in question was in training to become an investigator for the Board of Magical Governance. “Was he ever less than gentlemanly with you?” I asked. Kostya was the horniest male of any species I had ever come across, but his use of consent was stellar, and his ratio of orgasms provided to orgasms obtained positioned him in the top three of my list of lovers. Not that I was keeping a list. Or that we were lovers any longer. “Beryl. Answer me.”
“Sorry, I was just remembering how good he is with that tongue,” she said. “I’m fine with letting him in. He never broke my heart. Or yours, right?”
“Only thing he broke was my bed.” I reached under her arm to undo the lock.
Kostya grinned at the squeak of metal on metal and straightened his legs the second the door began to swing toward him. “Beryl. Clementine. May I join you?”
“We were just debating that question, Kostya. Can you behave yourself?”
“Always and in whatever manner you request.” Peering past our shoulders and into the shop, he asked, “Is Alderose here too?
“Yep,” I said, pointing behind him. “And you better not give her any reason to drop our dinner.”
Kostya glanced over his shoulder as he crossed the threshold to the shop. A lone thread grazed the top of his head and glowed green for a moment.
Safe. Mom had built a simple, familiar code into her protective spells, one that mirrored the non-Magical world and had been easy for a kid like me to remember. Green for go, yellow for caution, and red for stop.
Beryl resumed tracing the wood framing each window and chanting. By the time she finished, Alderose had crossed the street. The top half of her head was visible over a bag and two pizza boxes balanced atop a cardboard box from the liquor store.
“Kostya.”
The demon bowed. “Alderose.”
“Can you guys move? This is heavy.” My sister shoved the boxes toward Kostya, wiped her boots on the worn welcome mat, and locked the door. “Put that on the table, then tell us what you’re doing here.”
I darted to the counter and hefted the adjustable oak stool; the same one I had toppled off of countless times as a kid. Kostya retrieved two more stools, and a chair from one of the alcoves facing the street.
An early-October weather front had arrived, darkening the sky, dropping temperatures, and bringing a smattering of rain. Beryl jogged to the back of the store, hit a light switch, and emerged from Mom’s office with a plate of beeswax candles and four teacups. She leaned over the table, shrugged the cup handles off her fingers, and centered the plate. “Kostya, would you light these?”
The demon flicked a fingernail against his prominent, pointed thumbnail. A flame flared at its tip. He lit the candles one by one, then wrapped his fingers around his thumb, extinguishing the flame. “Thank you for letting me in,” he said. “I heard you three were in town and I wanted to offer my condolences about Serena’s passing, amongst other things.”
“Would you like a slice of pizza?” I asked, pointing to the boxes with my elbow as I wiped dust out of the fragile porcelain cups.
“And some bubbly?” Beryl lifted a bottle from the box. “We’re toasting our mom.” At Kostya’s nod, she handed him the champagne. He used the same sharpened thumbnail to slice the foil wrapper before he untwisted the metal basket trapping the cork.
“Alderose, would you like to do the honors?” He tipped the neck of the bottle in her direction.
Alderose shook her head. “I left my sword at home,” she said. “Try not to dribble over everything when you pop the cork.” There was enough sly humor in her voice to signal she’d gotten over any weirdness that might have arisen when she saw Kostya was joining us.
The demon shrugged out of his worn leather jacket and used the bottom of his T-shirt to grasp the head of the cork and twist. At the muted pop, he brought his mouth to the neck of the bottle and captured the foam. Alderose, Beryl, and I might have groaned in unison as we lifted our empty teacups in his direction and waited. Kostya made an elegant show of filling them one by one.
“To
