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

I sit in the darkened car, feeling both relieved and, bizarrely, humiliated. Lights go on inside my house. I watch for a moment. Feeling like the outsider. Dammit, it’s my house. I drag myself out of the car. The tink of the blade against the car door reminds me that I’m still clutching my kama in my hand. I reach and tuck it away in its shadow-sheath, hoping that the magical sheath can accommodate the blade’s new dimensions.

Only as it slides into shadow do I realize that the blade has turned as black as the demon’s heart.

My house looks the same. Smells the same. But it’s not the same. As soon as I step over the threshold, I feel the difference. The presence of the demon. He’s done more than simply spend time here. He’s altered the aura of my house. He’s made it, somehow, partly his.

I drift down the hallway, feeling angry, feeling lost. My house has been the one thing that I could call my own. I found it, bought it with my own money, decorated every corner, built my herbarium and hearth room with my own magic. Maybe it’s not the perfect home, maybe it’s never really felt like Home, but it’s mine.

Except it’s not anymore. Now there’s a male presence in the house. A presence that has insinuated itself into the warp and weft of my house’s fabric. Subtly altering the pattern.

I stop at the hall closet and take off my coat. It’s usually the beginning of my evening ritual. Taking off my coat, making dinner, summoning the Squire and walking the woods, or relaxing in front of the tube on the nights I don’t need to go gathering. Peaceful time. Quiet time. My time. Tonight, though, there’s no sense of closure. Everything that was wrong with my day is still with me. Roaming around in my kitchen.

I open the hall closet and reach inside to hang up my coat. As I do, I catch a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror.

I look bad. My eyes are puffy. My lips cracked and bruised. My cheeks hollow. The surgical tape on my forehead that’s holding a poultice on the gash from Rowena’s demon-wheel is only a shade or two lighter than my chalky skin.

But that’s not what catches my attention.

My hair falls in a straight, dark brown curtain to my shoulders.

I touch it with a shaking hand. It was red this morning. Well, streaked black-cherry at any rate. And I’d just chopped it off below my ears.

I throw my coat into the closet, slam the closet door and march down the hallway into the kitchen.

“What did you do to my hair?!” I yell at the demon.

He glances over his shoulder from the stove, where he’s stirring something with a wooden spoon. “Improved it.” He takes a thoughtful taste from the spoon. Rolls it around on his tongue. “That red shit didn’t suit you.”

I clench my hands into fists. How dare he mess with my hair? That is the final straw. I’m going to kill him. “You have no right—!” It ends in an inarticulate wail of frustration and anger.

The demon lifts the pot from the stove and heads through the pocket door into the dining room. “Simmer down. Dinner’s ready.”

I do scream then. Loudly. Head back. Back arched. Fists clenched.

The room rocks around me. A distant roll of thunder shakes the house on its foundations.

I turn and run out of the kitchen, up the stairs and into the sanctity of my bedroom.

His black jacket is draped across my bed.

I pick it up and hurl it out into the hallway. It explodes against the bathroom door in a swirl of ash and embers. I slam my bedroom door behind me.

Chapter 16

A soft noise makes me lift my head from where I’ve buried it in my pillow.

I wait, wiping my nose with my fingers. If he tries the door he’s in for the shock of his life. Only my hearth room is more heavily warded. And he said it: I may be shit on the offensive, but I cast a mean protective circle.

A puff of mist around the bottom of the door coalesces into a wicker tray, set with a plate, a bowl of soup, a glass of wine, and, sitting in an egg-cup that’s been in my family since my great-grandparents came over from the old country, a single blue rose bud.

With a sniffle, I climb out of my bed and cross the floor. The tray remains sitting on the floor, innocuously, like it didn’t just materialize there. There’s no noise from the hallway.

I look at the tray for a moment. The demon’s made me dinner. Soup. Grilled fish on a bed of couscous. An artistically arranged pile of vegetables. The way I’d cook if I had more culinary ambition, and unlimited time.

It’s a peace offering. Or he’s gone to great lengths to poison me.

I pick up the tray and carry it over to the bed. Sitting cross-legged, balancing the tray on my knees, I sniff the food warily, but it just smells like food. Good food. And he couldn’t have gotten it through my wards if it was poisoned. I pick up the folded napkin and begin to spread it over my lap.

A line of flame scrolls across the white paper napkin. I drop it onto my bedspread in surprise. When nothing further happens, I lean over and nudge the napkin open. The thin line of fire curls into neat, scrolling script.

Less invasive?

Yes, I think grudgingly.

Good. The letters unravel, reknit. Try the vichyssoise.

I do grudgingly. It’s excellent. Tiny salty bursts in each bite turn out to be caviar. I never would have thought of putting caviar into potato soup.

Wow, that’s good for tinned soup, I think.

A frowny face appears on the napkin, complete with glowering, flaming eyebrows. Point to me.

I grin at the napkin. It’s good. Really good.

I eat the soup slowly. Savoring it. When I try the fish, a thick piece of cod