store together.” I nodded toward the bag as I took a sip from my mug. It was still a little too hot to drink, so I set it back down on the counter.
“I couldn’t sleep, and I wanted to see if Opal was okay. I figured I’d stop to grab some beer on the way back while I had the chance. I’ll go out again with Coop later.”
“So is Opal okay?”
“She had kind of an interesting time with the Circle Jerks after we left, but now everything seems relatively calm. The critters are fine. We had to fix the front doors and one of the upstairs windows, but it could have been worse. The Jerks seem to have called off the dogs for now.”
The Warlock set the bag down on the counter beside me and reached inside it. “I also picked up a little something Coop said you needed.”
He tossed me a fresh six-pack of women’s cotton bikini underwear. The size was right, and the colors weren’t hideous. I was ridiculously thrilled.
“Yay! I don’t have to go commando today! Thank you!” I impulsively hopped up on my toes and gave him a quick kiss on his bearded cheek.
Suddenly, I was lying on a concrete basement floor, my eyes covered with a cloth blindfold; “The Twelve Days of Christmas” tinkled from a music box nearby. A man intoned a command I was too young to comprehend, and the blade of a knife came down on my tender throat, a silvery pain as it sawed through my windpipe and arteries—
“Whoa, Jessie, are you okay?” the Warlock asked.
I’d fallen to my knees on the kitchen floor. My throat still ached from the relived murder, the psychic imprint of the Warlock’s death during the blood ritual. It took me a moment to get any words out. “You died.”
The Warlock looked supremely puzzled. “What?”
I coughed, trying to clear the phantom pain. It was gradually fading. “Your father made Cooper … made him sacrifice you. To steal your magic. When you were a baby. Death’s all over you. You don’t remember?”
He shook his head, his puzzlement changing to a look of worry. “No, I’ve never been able to remember what happened then.”
I picked my underwear pack off the floor and slowly got to my feet. “Be glad of that.”
“I am,” he said faintly.
Mother Karen came down the stairs in a well-worn purple bathrobe, her wet hair wrapped up in a green towel. “Who’s next for the big kids’ bathroom?”
“Me,” I said. “I definitely need a shower.”
chapter
seven
Riviera
Taking a shower when one of your hands is made of fire is a bit more challenging than you might expect. Almost immediately, I got water in the opera glove, and the bathroom filled with thick, sulfurous steam despite the vent fan’s buzzing labor. Within a few seconds, it was pretty hard to breathe in there. I quickly soaped and rinsed all the important parts one-handed and got out to get dried and dressed.
The Warlock was waiting by the bathroom door when I emerged, toweling off my hair. He held his nose and waved his other hand dramatically when the rotten-egg steam reached him. “Sweet Zeus, woman, what have you been eating?”
“Oh, bite me.”
“I’d love to, but I’m sure my dear brother would object.”
I made a rude noise and whipped my damp bath towel at the back of his legs; he narrowly dodged the snap and danced into the bathroom, quickly latching the door behind him.
Downstairs, Mother Karen was busily directing her teens in the kitchen; it looked like French toast and sliced fruit were on the menu that morning. The smell of the toast made my stomach growl; I hoped it wouldn’t taste of caged horror.
I went out into the backyard to take Pal’s order (a bucket of peeled cantaloupes and a few dozen hard-boiled eggs) and woke Cooper, who was still snoozing away in the tent. I brought him inside and he helped me set the table.
Breakfast with eighteen kids was pretty loud, but went far better than dinner had; the French toast gave me a brief twinge from a couple of weevils that had fallen into the wheat grinder, but the ambrosia salad was quiet and sweet. Afterward, we helped clean up and then played boxing and snowboarding on the Wii in the rec room until it was time to talk to Riviera Jordan.
Mother Karen led me, Cooper, and the Warlock upstairs to her study. The room was one of many spatial surprises in the house; its door