Chapter 56: Demon Dad
My attempt to sleep when I arrived home that Sunday morning was a wasted effort. There was far too much going on in my head to let me rest. In fact, my head ran so busy even my demon grumbled in protest.
So I dragged myself to the basement and tried to focus. If the night before taught me anything, I needed to get a handle on my power, like immediately.
I intended to spend my entire sunny Sunday locked up in the basement. I started running drill after drill, sometimes succeeding, most times not as my focus drifted in and out, concentration blasted by my lack of sleep, surges of nausea and worry about that thing being out there somewhere.
Part way through the morning, I felt the swell of power coming from my father's stone effigy and reached for him with relief. The doorway between our planes only needed a connection between him and someone on our side to open, despite the coven's need to glorify the process with stupid ceremonies. I gladly gave him the key he needed and the massive statue of a stunningly handsome man with chiseled features and tiny horns went from polished granite to flesh in a matter of moments. Haralthazar opened his arms to me and I went for a much needed Daddy hug.
"I'm impressed," he said into my hair.
"With what?" I mumbled around his shirt smelling faintly of stone dust.
"You're actually down here on your own with no one forcing you."
I pulled away and looked up into his laughing amber eyes.
"Figured with what happened I really need to grow the hell up."
Dad nodded slowly and I knew Mom already filled him in through their permanent link.
"You've had a rough six months, kiddo," he said.
I folded down onto the basement floor in the center of the pentagram, legs crossed, elbows on knees.
"You think?" I tried to harness the sarcasm but it oozed out around my defenses.
Dad took a seat next to me, stretching out on the floor. I always wondered how it felt so normal to have him around, that he appeared so ordinary despite the fact he was a demon lord.
Weird.
"We're both proud of you," Dad said. "We know you're trying, Syd. That's all we ask for, ever."
I nodded, feeling a little miserable again and hovering around the edges of self-pity. I hated it when I gave in and felt sorry for myself. I tried to be so past that.
"I just... I feel like if I had been more in control last night..."
"You would have been able to stop it," Dad said.
I nodded, feeling pathetic.
"What about Quaid?" Dad said. "He's been studying his whole life. Was he able to stop it?"
I shook my head. I knew where he was going and let him. I needed a little Daddy support at the moment.
"Syd, once that thing tapped into blood magic, there was nothing anyone would have been able to do. Not even me."
"I know," I said, feeling better. He was totally right. Time to kick the self-pity out and get a grip.
"You did what you had to and did it well," Dad said. "Despite all you've been through, you still don't understand what you have to offer will always be good enough."
I looked up at him, shocked he hit it so clearly. How did he know? He was a Demon Lord of the Seventh Plane, a powerful and respected leader. What did he know about not being good enough?
Dad kissed me gently before getting up and going back to where he started. I could feel the connective power waning and knew his time on our plane ran short. If I had more energy I would have helped him stay longer, but I knew I barely had enough to stay awake.
"I love you, cupcake." He winked just before freezing in place, skin melting to polished granite as he left me to go home to his own plane.
I stood up and touched his statue, feeling the residual warmth of him fading already as the cold of the stone took over.
"Love you too, Dad," I said. "Stop calling me cupcake."
I guess I could understand why he didn't answer.
I gave up trying to force it and went upstairs. I knew neither my demon nor I had the patience or the endurance to keep torturing ourselves over something we couldn't change and that if I continued to practice with so little energy and sleep, I could easily screw up and blow up the neighborhood.
So instead, I retreated to my room. Homework seemed like such a waste of time in the grand scheme, but it kept me distracted for a couple of hours. Part of me worried a little I hadn't heard from any of my friends about the night before and I wondered if Quaid and I were right no one besides us witnessed what happened.
Mid-afternoon, Mom arrived home. I tossed my copy of Romeo and Juliet and raced downstairs at the sound of her voice in the kitchen. I found her with Erica.
"Anything?"
Mom shook her head. "Not yet," she said, voice tired. "It really may have left the area, Syd. We can't find any trace of it."
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" I wasn't sure I wanted the answer. At least if it was out of our lands we didn't have to deal with it, right?
"I haven't heard anything from the High Council," Mom told me. "So it's bad either way."
The High Council. What a useless bunch they were turning out to be. The Council of North American Witches, the overseers of all covens on the continent, failed to answer us when we were attacked in the fall and now were just as silent when other covens, let alone normals, were under possible threat. I always held the Council in awe, but right now I just felt pissed. According to Mom, they were notorious for minding their own business, but this was ridiculous.
Mom and Erica left and I was alone again. Well, not quite. I had my not-all-there grandmother, Ethpeal, for company, but it was hard to carry on a serious conversation with a witch who lost her marbles in a fight to the death.
I did check in on her, though. Mom often left her damaged mother warded in her room when she left. I could visit, no problem, but Ethpeal herself couldn't leave. The wards were keyed to her specifically and kept her inside. Since I was tired of the whining of the star-crossed lovers, I went down the hall and knocked on her door.
I didn't get an answer and never really expected one. I opened the door and peeked around the corner. Ethpeal had her back to me and sat hunched over at the end of her bed, rocking slowly back and forth, her head of wispy white hair swaying slowly in time with her movements.
I went in, closing the door behind me. "Gram?" I made my way into her room slowly, a little worried when she still didn't answer. She was once a powerful witch, the leader of our coven. But a battle royale with a rival family left her broken and childlike. Only problem was, this child had power she threw around like fireworks. Noisy, dangerous fireworks.
I always felt bad she stayed locked in her room so much, but there was little else Mom could do to keep her and the neighbors safe. And there I was, feeling even more guilty as I watched her rock herself, clutching a pillow, staring out the window.
I sat down next to her and touched her shoulder.
"Are you okay, Gram?"
She turned to me suddenly, eyes wide, mouth in a half-grin, half-grimace, face smeared in chocolate. She giggled like a little girl, lips working around a huge piece. She wasn't upset at all. She hid her stolen prize, the remainder of which she clutched in her hand, the shiny gold wrapper destroyed in her fight to get it in her mouth as quickly as possible.
The only way to calm my grandmother these days was with chocolate and lots of it. And a full bottle of tequila would oddly enough do the trick. Gram was crazy either way, so alcohol in her system made little difference. I still found getting a chocolate bar in her much easier than explaining why an under aged girl needed booze.
Mind you, too much chocolate for her could almost have the same effect as alcohol on normal witches. It could turn her into a very energetic and very playful child with some seriously dark ideas of what was funny.
The sight of her, covered in sticky sweetness, giggling to herself in private delight, triggered something. I couldn't help myself any more than she could.
I sat there and watched her and laughed.
I think she understood somehow I wasn't going to take the rest of her prize, and that made her generous.
"Yummies?" She held up the drool-smeared remains of the huge bar.
"No thanks, Gram," I said, still laughing. "It's yours. Help yourself."
She crinkled her face at me, happy. And sobered suddenly. I'd seen it happen a couple of times before and it freaked me out. She stared right in my eyes and I held my breath, knowing how rare these moments of partial lucidity were, how few and far between, and how they were so often connected to impending disaster.
Ethpeal grabbed my hands with her free one, skinny fingers grasping like a fragile claw with steel at the core. Her bright blue eyes sharply focused as she leaned toward me, so close I smelled the chocolate on her breath.
"Too old for you," she whispered. "Too old for her. Need help to find the hidey-hole, Syd."
I desperately hung on to every word, knowing what she said was important but not getting it. I knew it would all make perfect sense when the crisis was over, as it did when she tried to warn me about the Moromonds, but just like then I was in the dark as to what she tried to tell me.
"Gram," I said, "what help? Who do we need to help us?"
"Blood, earth, fire, flesh." She was so close I could barely focus on her eyes but didn't want to break the moment by pulling away. "All are connected. All need to be fed."
I could see the moment when her sanity left her and desperately tried to get her back.
"Gram! I don't know what that means!"
She leaned back suddenly and cackled, crazy all over again. She made a face at me and I recognized the expression linked to the old question. I knew before she said a word what she was about to ask and still didn't have an answer.
"Do you have something for me?" Her voice hummed soft and little, a child's voice with a plea in it. She had been asking me the same question my entire life and I had never been able to figure out why.
I shook my head and looked out the window, trying not to cry. So much for making me feel better. I was at a loss as to what she tried to communicate, the important warning she fought through her insanity to deliver. Worse yet, I couldn't even help a crippled old woman find whatever it was she needed so badly.
I left her, happily finishing her contraband, knowing I would probably get yelled at when Mom arrived home but not really caring.
***
