Black Arts, White Craft by Hailey Edwards

2

The reality of a hulking daemon standing on my doorstep, dressed in nothing more than a pair of yellow skintight boxer briefs that might as well have been reflective, muted my shock and kick-started my brain.

“Have you lost your mind?” I tugged on his fever-hot elbow. “Get in here before someone sees you.”

“Rue.” The daemon prowled inside then presented me with…a cupcake. “Brought gift.”

This wasn’t a cupcake from today. Wrong flavor. The delivery had been apple cider cake filled with apple chutney and topped with caramel icing. This hit me as more death by chocolate meets molten lava cake. It could give an ice cream cone a run for its money with the amount of decadent frosting twirled on top.

It was also missing a bite.

Which would explain the frosting smear on the daemon’s upper lip.

“Thank you.” I checked the street then shut the door behind him. “What are you doing here?”

“Clay busy.” He held the cupcake closer to me. “I come alone.”

Any closer, and he would smash frosting up my nose. “So, you’re blaming this on Clay.”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.” I accepted the treat. “That’s convenient.”

The daemon did his best to appear angelic, which worked about as well as you would expect.

According to Asa, the daemon was and wasn’t him, which made addressing them problematic.

Half daemon, half fae, he considered himself dae. Too bad my options weren’t as catchy. Using his logic, I qualified as either a blite witch or a whack witch, given my parents practiced both branches of magic.

“Can I talk to Asa, please?” I turned the cupcake this way and that. “I’ll take a bite if you do.”

The daemon raked a fang over his bottom lip, clearly tempted, but he shook his head. “Asleep.”

“Asa is asleep?” I wasn’t sure how I felt about the daemon seeking me out solo. “Okay, where is Clay?”

“Hotel,” he grumbled. “Said we come tomorrow.”

The big galoot had to be kidding me. “He didn’t notice you leaving?”

“He petting his hairs.” The daemon curled his lip. “He bathe them too.”

Clay was created bald, as all golems were, but he did love his wigs as if they were his children.

A spark of inspiration burned in the daemon’s eyes as he shoved a hank of his hair at me. “Rue pet.”

Goddess bless.

In lusting after Asa’s hair, I had created a monster, and I had only myself to blame.

Cupcake in one hand, hair in the other, I had a choice to make. I set down the cupcake and fished out my phone. Clay hadn’t changed his number since he and I were partners, a fact that gave me warm fuzzies.

Dialing from memory, I waited for him to answer, then drawled, “Missing something?”

“I’m already in the SUV,” he grumbled, “on my way to you.”

At seven feet tall and four hundred pounds, he had a knack for busting captain’s chairs if he breathed too hard while sitting in them. I hoped he made it to the shop without incident. Usually, he rode in the back for the extra support of a bench seat.

“Don’t get huffy with me,” I said as I got huffy with him. “It’s not my fault your partner wandered off.”

“I warned you.” He blared the horn and cursed the traffic. “I told you not to mess around with Ace.”

“I didn’t mess around with him.” I flushed under the daemon’s stare. “There was no messing around.”

“Ace is complicated, Rue.” Clay’s breath filled my ear. “So are you.”

“Huh.” I pretended to ponder that. “I would never have put that together if you hadn’t told me.”

A low growl pumped through the eavesdropping daemon’s chest. “Rue mine.”

On that note, this bracelet was gone the instant I got a free hand and a pair of scissors.

“This right here,” Clay informed me, “is what comes from swapping spit muffins with Ace.”

Spit muffins.

“That was wrong on so many levels.” I cringed from the accurate descriptor. “Like, all of them.”

“Dammit, Rue, this is serious.”

“What do you want me to say? I didn’t invite him over. I wasn’t expecting him. I didn’t know you were in town. No one told me.” I noticed the daemon wince and eased my grip on his hair. “Why didn’t he call?”

“If I had to guess,” Clay said with a long-suffering sigh, “I would say he wanted to surprise you.”

Aww.

That was sweet.

Crazy inconvenient, given his daemon side had jumped the gun, but I didn’t hate Asa’s thoughtfulness.

Voices drew my attention toward the front of the shop, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach.

“Oh crap.” I passed the daemon back his hair to free up my other hand. “Hold on, Clay.”

Quickly, I checked my messages, and sure enough, I’d missed a text from Arden naming a time and place for dinner with her, Camber, and Nolan. This must be them come to fetch me. From the shop. Which I had promised to leave twenty minutes after they ended their shifts. Hours ago.

“I have to get that.” I turned on the daemon. “Stay put.” I tapped his nose. “Don’t let anyone see you.”

With one final warning glare at the daemon, I loped to the front of the shop, cracked open the door, and wedged my foot behind it to prevent the girls from pushing inside to fuss at me.

Nolan, his strip of hair twisted into a messy man bun, stood with his hands in his pockets. “Hey.”

The girls, their arms linked, stared me down over his shoulder, clearly unimpressed with my appearance.

“I lost track of the time.” I shoved damp hair off my forehead. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go out like this.”

Their twin glares made it plain I had disappointed them, but I couldn’t leave the daemon unsupervised.

“You’re grounded.” Camber thinned her lips. “No breakfast smoothies for a week.”

“Two weeks,” Arden countered. “She must be held accountable, or she won’t learn from her mistakes.”

The number of people bold enough to threaten me could be counted on the fingers of one hand. But the girls had no fear of me. They trusted me, loved me, and times like this, I felt humbled to be seen. Not as a black witch or a white witch, but as the person I wanted to be when all was said and done.

I wasn’t her, not yet, but I was working toward it with every practiced smile, scripted kind word, and planned show of kindness that one day I hoped would come naturally to me rather than require so much effort and study to make it appear as effortless as the people I had chosen to emulate.

“Maybe some other time?” Nolan scuffed his boot. “When you’re not grounded?”

“Sure.” I hurried to agree to win the girls’ forgiveness. “We can all do lunch one day.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” He backed up, bumped into the girls, then blushed. “See you later, Rue.”

“See you.” I slammed the door in his face then felt warm breath on my nape. “What in the…?”

The daemon stood on my heels, the forgotten cupcake on his palm. “Eat.”

Not this again. “I’m not hungry.”

The spit-muffin thing had ruined my appetite.

“Eat.”

The daemon thrust the cupcake under my nose, leaving a daub of icing on the tip, which made him grin.

Smiling right back at him, I gripped his wrist, brought the treat closer to my mouth, then pushed out with all my might, smashing the treat between his burnt-crimson eyes.

Crumbs sprinkled onto my clean floor, and icing slid off his nose in thick plops, but it was worth the mess to see him blink out at me from behind a thick layer of chocolate.

A snort of laughter shot out my nose as the daemon wiped a hand down his face, which only made it worse.

But I shut up real quick when he smeared that chocolate-coated palm across my cheek.

“That’s how you want to play this?” I sucked on my teeth. “Okay, then.” I curled a finger. “Bring it.”

Scooping more frosting off his face, he grabbed for me, but I ducked his arm, palming fallen cake off the floor. I threw a glob at him, nailing his shoulder, and he broke into a smile that showcased thick fangs.

We flung crumbs until they were too small to pick up and hurled icing until there was none left.

The daemon balled up the pleated wrapper and chucked it at my head, which devolved into a dodgeball-style battle. I slid in a smear of frosting and spun into a skid across the floor…right into Clay’s open arms.

Dressed in his usual black suit, he looked good. The wig du jour, a neon-blue quiff, brought out his eyes.

“Um.” I clutched his broad shoulders to regain my balance. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

The daemon, wrapper in hand, walked up to us and bounced the paper off my forehead. “I win.”

“That’s cheating,” I protested, then bit my lip when Clay rolled his eyes heavenward in a plea for help.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he muttered. “Food fights are daemon foreplay.”

Of course, they were.

What else would they be?