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

fingertips, and shape the mother of all cantrips. It roars around me, drying the water on my skin instantly, blowing silky strands of my hair around my face, sweeping up the gooey remains of the ghost into a funnel worthy of a Dyson. The whirlwind brushes past me, twisting across the hall into my bedroom where it sucks the sheets off my bed, gobs of demon seed joining the blue ectoplasm swirling around in the cantrip’s cyclone.

I watch it twist its way downstairs with grim satisfaction before I stalk into my bedroom and pull on jeans and a tee I bought in college that proclaims, ‘Thunderbirds are Go!’ When I turn from my closet, the demon’s leaning in the doorway, a towel wrapped around his hips, watching me. His eyes are still lit with neon and the corners of his mouth are twitching like he's having trouble suppressing that wicked leer.

If he thinks we’re having sex now, when I’m this pissed off at him and my family and the world, he can think again. “I’m going to brew,” I snap.

He nods. “Might come watch if there’s nothin’ on the box.”

“Try to stay out of the cantrip’s way. It’s not selective about what it cleans.”

“Sure.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Your family’s a bitch, sweet meat.”

I grab a scrunchie off my dresser and twist my hair up into a knot. “You’re telling me?”

He pushes away from the door and crosses the room to pull a pair of jeans out of a drawer that’s been empty since Saul left. Seeing the neat pile of men’s clothes the drawer now holds makes my throat tight. Makes my eyes burn. I blink furiously, trying to hold on to my good, clean anger.

He pulls the jeans on, leaving the fly unbuttoned. His dark pubic hair curls through the open vee. For some reason, that brings my anger rushing, roaring, spitting back.

“Don’t you ever turn it off?”

He grins. “Nope.”

I turn on my heel, intending to stalk away from him. He catches my shoulders and pulls me back against his chest. He breathes warmly in my ear, brushes his lips against the lobe, before he says, “Just so you know, I don’t accept substitutions.”

I blow out a breath that’s thick with the toxins of fury. “Because I’m the main event, right? What’d you call me, the entrée?”

“’Cause no human’s asked what I like before.” He runs his hands down my chest. Smoothing my tee over my breasts. Under his hands, it becomes a leather halter. Sleek and black and beautiful. “Or taken me for ice cream.”

“It’ll get ruined,” I choke. Just like everything else in my life.

“You could soak it in salamander spit an’ nothin’d happen to it. I’m gonna make quiche for lunch. Come back inside when you get hungry.”

“Jou—”

He swats my butt, a sharp smack even through the denim of my jeans. “Go put that anger t’good use.”

His manhandling reignites my rage and I cling to it the way I sometimes cling to him. With a curt nod, I walk away, through my house, following the path of the cantrip, which is leaving everything cleaner than even my efforts with the bleach and scrub-brush before the Squire’s visit, out into the yard and to my hearth-room. The pentacle and circle and ley-line flare like supernovas when I cross them. Nethancs flap among the branches of the oak tree. Under my cauldron, a fire roars to life. I call rosemary and pinecone-shaped hop umbels to my hands and toss them into the cauldron. A moment later, my blood spatters down over them, courtesy of the sharp edge of my kama. I pick up the long-handled, horn spoon I use for brewing and begin to stir the base of the potion that I hope will make Peter forget he ever knew me.

Chapter 25

When I return to the kitchen, I’m sweaty but calm. A rich egg smell greets me and the demon glances up from the newspaper he’s spread over my charred but gleamingly polished kitchen table.

“Quiche is almost done,” he says. “How’d yours come out?”

I place a bowl full of glistening red liquid on the table. There’s no point in bottling it. I want Peter to drink it immediately. So he can get back to his life. Without any memory of my disastrous interference in it.

“It smells right,” I say.

He sniffs, nostrils flaring. “So d’you. You smell like pure sex after you’ve been doin’ your greenwitch thing.”

I flush and wish it didn’t bother me. Because he’s right. Magic has always been a big turn on for me. I get aroused even when I’m just brewing. And I’ve always felt vaguely guilty about it.

“Nothin’ to be ashamed of, sweet meat. Sex is the oldest magic there is.”

I know that. And I know that tapping some of that sexual energy makes my charms and potions particularly potent. But after years of doing it under the watchful eyes of my family and teachers, it still feels slightly dirty. Like getting caught masturbating.

“What’s happening in the world?” I ask, to avoid any further discussion on that unhappy topic.

“The dead bitch’s boyfriend imploded.” He holds up the edge of the paper so I can see the headline. ‘Sex, Drugs and Andy Smith,’ it says. I don’t have to read the article underneath. No matter how modern a city Boston’s become, any time a gubernatorial candidate is associated with extramarital sex or illegal drugs, Boston’s Puritan roots come screaming out of the political closet.

“What happened?”

“Got caught with coupla hookers and a baggie of somethin’ that wasn’t talcum powder.”

I lean against the sink. “Was Ro—” I pause, because I don’t really want to know. She’d enslaved a demon and was using his power to fuel her political ambitions. What could be worse?

“A cokehead?” The demon shakes his head, dreadlocks swishing softly over his bare shoulders. “She was too afraid of losin’ control. Didn’t even drink. Not like you.” He gives me a speculative leer.

I rub my hand over my eyes. Feel the