Neon Blue by E Frost (best big ereader .TXT) 📕

“I only knew it was you when I picked up the phone. How are you?”

“Good, good. How are you?” It comes out stiff, stilted. Painful. It used to be easy to talk with Ro. Until she began summoning demons.

“Good. Busy. Is this a social call? Because this isn’t really the best—”

“Oh, sorry. Should I call back another time?” Maybe I should give the crackpot in Philly a try.

“If you don’t mind . . . actually, how about we get together? I haven’t seen you in ages,” she says, as though we’ve just drifted apart after college instead of imploding. “Do you want to do lunch? There’s a place around the corner that has wonderful coffee.” She laughs her bright laugh.

She remembers. We used to have our best talks over espresso double-shots at the Java Xpress on Main Street. When we were still at school. When we were still on speaking terms. “Sure. What’s good for you?”

“Oh, tomorrow would be fine. Do you want to come down to the boutique? Say one-ish?”

I have a one o’clock appointment. Lin will have to cover for me for once.

“Okay. What’s the address?”

She laughs again. “You mean you can’t find me?”

I sigh. “Tracking charms were never my best thing.”

“Well, it’s nice to know some things haven’t changed.” She gives me an address on Newbury Street. “See you tomorrow, Zee-Zee.”

Her use of my college nickname should remind me of good times. Instead it makes the house seem darker, emptier. The sound of the rain pattering against the windows colder and louder. “Bye, Ro.”

I stand with the dead phone in my hand, in my dark kitchen, and listen to the rain, until a voice says from behind me, “Feeling sorry for yourself, eh, beti?”

I hang up the phone and turn to the ghost behind me. “Hi, Dala.”

She settles heavily at the kitchen table, turning slightly in the seat and propping one hand on her knee, the way she always did when she was alive. The pale shadows of three silver bracelets slide down her arm. Bracelets I now wear on my left wrist. “What’s wrong with you?”

I sit down across from her. “Nothing a good chat with my Dala can’t fix.”

“Now I know you’re trying to get around me. What’s wrong?”

“It’s raining. I’ve never liked the rain.” Which is the truth. Rain always makes me blue. Give me sun and wind any day.

“But that’s not what’s got you down at the mouth. What’s got you calling that gorgie Rowena Martin after all these years?”

“Manny Goldberg. He’s lost an inferiarcus. She’s the only one I could think of that might be able to help.”

My grandmother’s ghost shakes her transparent head. “Bengui.” She spits ephemerally. “You know better, beti.”

“Manny’s in trouble. The ring belonged to a client. He’s been accused of taking it. I said I’d try to help.”

She sighs heavily. “I know you feel you have a debt to him—”

“Without him we’d be having this conversation in Bridgewater State.”

“You could have gotten yourself out of that. I would have helped you.”

I shake my head. “What’s the point of having rules if you break them as soon as there’s trouble?”

“Beti, your silly rules are for gorgio—”

“Dala, please.”

“Well, that’s all by-the-by. Why didn’t you try a tracking charm before you called the demon-girl? Dearie dubbleskey, you could use the practice.”

“Thanks, Dala.”

“Well? It’s still a good idea.”

“Mmm. Maybe afterwards.” I slap my knee, my grandmother’s old sign that the heart-to-heart is over. “First, I have two love potions to do. And a rose-colored glasses charm to squeeze into two little pieces of plastic. I hope I don’t make him go blind.”

She frowns at me and disappears in a strange folding motion, like rolling up a shade.

“I hate it when you do that,” I say to the empty air.

Happily, it doesn’t answer.

Midnight’s come and gone by the time I climb into bed. The bed’s chilly, empty. My face is flushed from standing over my cauldron, but my feet are cold, and after lying shivering for a while, I climb out of bed and pull on a pair of fuzzy white ankle socks.

“Very sexy,” I tell myself as I climb back into bed. If Saul was still here, he’d be laughing his ass off. But, then, if Saul was still here, I wouldn’t have cold feet.

I lie in the icy bed, too tired to sleep. My mind’s still working. The rose-colored glasses charm wouldn’t bind to the contacts. It kept slipping off. Lying on my workbench like a dropped flower petal before vanishing back into the aether. There’s got to be some way to make it work, but I’m too tired to figure it out.

My thoughts turn instead to my ex-lover. How much I liked climbing into bed with him at the end of each day. How much fun we had together at the beginning. How much the hard words we threw at each other at the end hurt. Maybe I am impossible to live with. Too self-centered, too involved with something he couldn’t understand. Maybe it was too hard for him to deal with cantrips doing the chores, my midnight trips into the woods, and the occasional shape-shifting or fae dinner guest.

Or maybe he was just an inflexible bastard who couldn’t give me what I needed.

I listen to the sound of rain and think about Saul until tears run down my temples like the raindrops on my window.

Chapter 4

The clinic is still locked up when I arrive the next morning, which is a surprise, since I’m late, having stopped on the way in to drop off the fruits of my midnight labors with Manny. But a quick check of the message machine reveals that someone had a later night than I did.

“Hi, Evonne, it’s Lin. I’m on my way, I’m just running a little behind this morning.” She yawns audibly into the phone. “Could you push my ten o’clock back an hour? Or, in the unlikely event that she’s in, could you ask Tsara to cover for me? I’ll see you