Neon Blue E Frost (speld decodable readers .TXT) 📖

“You leave my friends alone,” I hiss once he hands me into the passenger seat and slides behind the wheel.

“You got me all wrong, sweetness. Again. I was just bein’ friendly. Your receptionist an’ nurse, they ain’t got enough juice between them to make a margarita—”

“A what?”

“You know, the cocktail? Tasty. Anyway, I got no interest in them. An’ your dragon friend, her soul’s already spoken for. Last thing I want is fifty generations of Revered Ancestors on my ass.”

Having met some of Lin’s ancestral ghosts, I can understand that. I chuckle, and let my irritation drain away. “Really. So, where are we going?”

“Wherever you want. Where’s the best shoppin’?”

I stifle a sigh. It’s so much easier with a magical horse. “Head through Cambridge to Mass. Ave. and up to Davis Square. We can park up somewhere and walk up the bike path.”

The demon nods like he knows exactly where Davis Square and the bike path are. Maybe he does. He’s had plenty of time to explore Cambridge and Somerville while I’ve been working, but I had the impression he was doing other things. Like taking souls and killing smoke demons.

While Jou drives in his utterly smooth and assured fashion through the afternoon traffic, I open the bag he’s given me and wriggle around in my seat, trying to pull on the cable-knit sweater and slide out of my shirt without flashing my bra at the world. Watching me, Jou chuckles. “Cast a glamor if you’re feelin’ modest.”

I shake my head. Then wonder why not. “Do you use magic for everything in He—uh, when you’re at home?”

“You can call it Hell, sweetness. Everyone else does. An’ no. Power shouldn’t be wasted.” My feelings exactly. “But you got it to spare.”

I shrug. I have been feeling . . . full since the demon crashed into my life. Maybe full isn’t the right word. Bountiful. Not overflowing but . . . abundant. Like fall. As soon as I think that, my mind recoils. I do not want to be harvested. Not in any sense.

I finally get the sweater on and my faded shirt off. The sweater fits me perfectly, just like everything else the demon’s given me. “How do you know my size?” I ask.

“By feel,” he says with his wicked leer. “Jacket goes over that.”

I fish the plum cloth out of the bag. Unfolded, it’s a soft velvet blazer. I lay it across my lap. I’ll appreciate the jacket once we’re outside but it’s too warm in the car.

“Check the pocket,” Jou says.

I fish around in the blazer pocket. Cool metal. I pull out a handful. It’s a small chain of linked roundels: baroque pearls, silver and enamel beads. I roll it between my fingers, feel the pearls warm. The enameled beads are patterned with tiny blue roses. Like the one still sitting on my bedside table.

“Jou,” I say softly. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thought you might like it. Less threatening than those bindings, huh?”

I glance at him guiltily, but he doesn’t look angry, or annoyed. He looks pleased with himself. I look back at the bracelet quickly before he notices my expression. “I’ll help you put it on when we stop,” he says.

I nod. Clasps are not my best thing. “I haven’t got you anything.” I feel like I’ve missed an anniversary, which is ridiculous, since we’re not even dating.

Jou chuckles. “You can gimme a blow-job later.”

I swat his shoulder.

In the death triangle of Davis Square, a parking space magically opens for the demon. I don’t know how he’s doing it, but he must be glamoring the other drivers somehow. Before I lost my license, I could drive around Davis Square for an hour and never even glimpse a space in the distance.

Jou parallel parks. No one even honks at him while he’s reversing.

“That’s obscene,” I tell him.

He chuckles as he slides out of the car and collects a real wicker picnic basket out of the trunk. Where does he get this stuff? Then he comes around the passenger side. I climb out before he can do the annoying male door-thing and loop the jacket and jute carrier over my arm. He holds out his hand and after I second I realize he’s offering to help me with the bracelet. I hand it to him, then hold out my left wrist.

As I do, my heart seizes. The bindings. Surely he’ll be able to see what the Squire’s done on close inspection?

He loops the bracelet around my wrist and squeezes the magnetic clasp shut. The rest of the bracelet looks old, with the natural pearls and cloisonné beads, but the clasp is modern and solid.

Shivering, I look up into the demon’s eyes.

He smiles at me. Takes my hand and leads me towards the corner cross-walk.

My heart stutters back into a trip-hammer beat.

As we wait at the corner for a turning car, the demon turns to me. “Somethin’ wrong, sweetness?”

I shake my head. Grope around for anything to say to divert him. “How do you know where you’re going? Have you been here before?”

The demon glances across the square, then leads me into the entrance to Linear Park. “Don’t think so. ‘Course, it all looks different now, but I don’t think I came this far south before. I’m followin’ your memories.”

“I thought you weren’t in my head.” I don’t feel him, not even when I reach for him. Has he figured out a way to lurk in my mind, like a phantasm?

“I’m not,” he says.

Well, that’s a relief. “Then how . . . uh, wait, you haven’t, like, absorbed all my memories or something, have you?” Because that would be very creepy.

He chuckles. “I’ve got a thousand years practice rememberin’ shit, sweetness. You think I can’t remember the couple hundred places you been?”

“Oh.” I mull through the ramifications of that as we stroll together down the asphalt path. The traffic noise and pedestrian traffic fade behind us, until we walk down the leafy green tunnel of the bike path, with only the crunch of our feet on dry leaves and the occasional whizz of