Double-Sided Witch (Covencraft Book 3)

by Margarita Gakis

  Jade nodded dumbly, already sliding off the table and making her way to her clothes. Gellar placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze and although Jade wasn’t generally used to people touching her, she found she didn’t mind. Gellar’s hand was strong and solid.

  “Try not to worry, Jade. We’ll figure this out.”

  She gave Jade a slight smile and made her way out of the room. Jade stood there for a moment, fiddling with her bra, trying to get it right side up and proper side out, Gellar’s words in her head - ‘we’ll figure this out.’ We. Jade was part of a ‘we’ now, something she had to keep reminding herself. Jade was part of the Coven - even if said Coven didn’t always seem to be full of warm fuzzies for her, she was a part of it. It wasn’t just her alone anymore.

  #

  Paris looked up expectantly at Dr. Gellar as she came out of the examination room making quick notes in what was presumably Jade’s chart. He’d been randomly flipping through one of the magazines left in the waiting area, not really paying attention to what he was looking at, but feeling the need to have something in his hands. He closed the magazine, pinching it between two fingers as he stood to face Dr. Gellar.

  “Well, doctor?”

  Dr. Gellar came over to him, a wry look on her face. “You know I can’t tell you anything for two reasons. One: I’ve only just had a look at Jade and two: doctor-patient confidentiality.”

  “But if it’s something magic in origin…” Paris began, hoping Dr. Gellar would pick up on the thread.

  “If it’s something magic in origin, then yes, you will be the first to know and I’ll likely need help dealing with it or treating it with magic. But until we learn anything, I’ll treat it as a medical concern and that means no sharing.”

  Paris took a breath and let it out. It was totally expected and yet the exact opposite of what he wanted Dr. Gellar to say.

  “She might share with you if you ask her,” Dr. Gellar said cryptically.

  “So there is something to share?”

  Gellar shook her head and nearly rolled her eyes at him. “If you want to know, ask her. I’ve got lab tests to run,” she said, patting her pocket lightly. Paris was left standing in the middle of the waiting room, staring awkwardly at the door. Jade came out, moments later, still tugging her t-shirt down, giving him a quick glimpse of her pale midriff. He could see the dark pink slashes that were left over from her run-in with a demon. She hiked up her jeans on the way over, and then hopped on one foot as she adjusted one of her sneakers. She tended to favor casual clothing compared to some members of the Coven and since they had no official dress code, it wasn’t an issue. He recognized her t-shirt with the chemical compound for caffeine depicted on the front. It must be one of her favorites - she wore it often.

  Paris forced a smile to his lips, thinking on Gellar’s advice. “How did it go?”

  Jade paused midstep, hopping once more as she fixed her shoe before finally getting both feet back on the ground. She shrugged. “You know. Blood work, questions. Blah, blah. A regular trip to the doctor’s.”

  Paris nodded thoughtfully, wondering how to ask if she had anything else to share. As it turned out, he needn’t have worried. It seemed all Jade needed was a bit more silence to finish her thoughts. She pursed her lips, and then continued.

  “With the bad dreams I’ve been having, I haven’t been sleeping well. I bet all my electrolytes are off or something. Cortisol or adrenaline, all out of whack.” She waved a hand, her eyes darting around. “But, you know, everyone has insomnia now and then.”

  Now that tone Paris understood. Jade quite often expressed a thought that she wanted reassurance on.

  “Most people do have insomnia now and then, yes,” he said, knowing he’d said the right thing when her shoulders relaxed, no longer looking like they were attached to her ears.

  “Right? And it’s been pretty wacky around here with demons and Dex and Veronica,” Jade added, hesitating slightly before she said Veronica’s name.

  Paris bristled slightly, trying to mask his reaction. Having once been involved with Veronica, it stung that he hadn’t ever guessed she would be the type to deal with demons. She’d never been as powerful as other witches, but he never thought she’d make a deal to increase her abilities.

  “It’s definitely been a trying time,” Paris replied, his voice low. Jade was right of course; even without his worry over what was going on with Jade and Bruce’s strange scaly patch, it had been a difficult time. It wouldn’t be strange if she were suffering from insomnia or the like. He just didn’t think that was all she was suffering from.

  “Yeah,” Jade said, picking at one of her cuticles. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Veronica, hey?”

  Paris shook his head. “No. I don’t expect to.”

  “I kinda thought maybe she’d reach out to you, either to ask about your mom’s demon grimoires or to ask me about Seth.”

  The way Jade casually spoke of the demon made him want to flinch. Paris grew up with a healthy aversion to demons. His mother had drilled him on how dangerous demons and their magic were. It was why he was so stunned when he found out his mother had regularly dealt in demon magic. She’d been adamant his entire life that demon magic was to be avoided at all costs. Before Jade joined the Coven, Paris honestly and, perhaps, naively thought that no one dealt with demons any longer. Then he found out that one of his own Coven members, Matthew, dealt with a demon trying to steal Jade’s power. And then Veronica - dealing with a demon to boost her power so that she could never have her Coven Leader position taken from her. That deal still had the bitter taste of betrayal for Paris. He and Veronica had been close. To find out that she’d not only made a demon deal, but that she’d colluded with Dex to cast a spell on his entire Coven, including Paris, had been harrowing.

  “I think that Veronica knows me well enough to know I would never entrust her with any grimoire of my mother’s. Demon or otherwise.”

  “Not even if it could get her out of a demon deal with Seth?” Jade asked.

  Paris paused, wondering what he would do if Veronica came to him for help. “If she did contact me and asked, I’d prefer you and I go over the grimoires ourselves and we could provide any reasonable leads or spells to her.”

  In contrast to Veronica, Paris trusted Jade implicitly with his mother’s demon spell books. Jade kept one at her house, studying it in her off hours. She was far more proficient at demon magic than Paris. Indeed, more proficient than any witch in the Coven. If there was something to be found that could assist Veronica, Jade would be the one to find it. They could then pass it along to Veronica, if she ever surfaced again. She’d not been heard of since she left Paris’ Coven.

  “In addition, it’s not as though we know a great deal about… Seth,” Paris said, hesitating over saying the demon’s name. He could still hear his mother’s voice in his ear, ‘Speak of the devil and who shall appear?’ Seth once told Jade that all she had to do was say his name, with intent, and he would cross over from his dimension. Paris wasn’t comfortable with the vagary of that statement and wanted to hunch in on himself whenever he had to say the demon’s moniker, which thankfully, wasn’t often. “Other than him showing up when you first arrived and trying to intimidate you into a deal, he’s not really been an issue.”

  The way she bobbed her head and avoided his gaze made the hair on the back of his neck tingle.

  “Has he?” Paris put a little oomph behind his words, trying to get every ounce of his authority behind it.

  Jade toed her shoe against the floor causing the rubber to give a squeak. “Look, I was going to tell you.”

  He put one hand up to his eyes, his other hand crinkling the magazine he was still holding, the paper slick and fragile under his fingers. He had not been expecting this, although in hindsight, perhaps he should have.

  “But it’s not like I had a lot of spare time what with stopping Dex and everything, if you recall,” Jade said, crossing her arms over her chest.
Damn it, there was that sharp tone of hers. Jade seemed to have a rule - the best defense was a good offense and her offense was pretty damn good. “It wasn’t like anyone was lining up to believe me when I said Dex was out to get us. Which he had been, with his freaky blood spells and,” she uncrossed her arms for a moment to waggle her fingers in the air, “memory voodoo. So, I didn’t really have time to mention that Seth was showing up in my pantry-”

  “Your pantry?” Paris repeated, incredulous.

  “I told you I don’t keep any food in there!” Jade made it sound as though that should have cleared the whole issue up in the first place.

  Paris pinched the bridge of his nose. “Goddess protect you.” He made a tired ‘go on’ motion. “Please continue.”

  She shrugged, arms still tight against her chest. “I don’t really have anything else to say. Seth likes to show up. He thinks he’s wooing me or buttering me up and he maybe helped me with that demon rune I cast on myself.” At the look Paris gave her, she straightened her shoulders and eking every millimeter out of her spine to put her only a scant two inches under his height. “Nobody else was able to help at the time, if you remember.” Jade pointedly looked at him. He didn’t have a leg to stand on for that accusation. He hadn’t believed her when she accused Dex and even though he’d apologized for it, it was still fresh enough that he should steer clear of the topic if possible. He also hadn’t been able to assist her with the demon rune she’d cast on herself that would expose liars. “So, if Veronica contacts you,” Jade continued, “given that her deal is held by Seth, she might like to know that he does show up in my pantry. Occasionally. Sometimes. It’s not like I encourage it.”

  Paris could hear the paper in his hands tearing as he tried to keep his voice calm and level. “Will you please let me know if he shows up again?”

  “Sure.”

  “Has he been contributing to your insomnia? Is there anything else you’re not telling me?” This could change things entirely. If Jade still had the demon showing up, possibly working magic…

  “Seth?” Jade asked, voice incredulous. Paris winced at the easy way she said his name. “No. I mean, it’s not exactly comforting that he shows up in my pantry, but the house is warded so he can’t show up anywhere else. Besides, I’m pretty sure he just wants me to deal. As long as I keep not doing that, he’s kind of a known quantity.” She smirked. “I guess he really is the devil I know.”

  “I would feel better if you kept me apprised of his appearances.”

  “I said I would.”

  “Anything else bothering you?”

  A weak laugh burst forth from her lips, seeming to surprise her as much as it did him. “Um, no.” She shook her head. “Just same old stuff as always.”

  Paris frowned. It wasn’t really the answer he’d been hoping for. “I hope you know that if something is troubling you, I’m happy to help, if I can.”

  Jade nodded, staring down at her feet, her ponytail swinging to and fro as her head bobbed. It was pretty clear she was humoring him so he let it drop.

  “You probably have Coven-y Leader things to do. Shaking hands, kissing babies. You can go, if you want.”

  “Your health is important to me, Jade.”

  “No, I get that. It’s just… I’ve got stuff at Counter-Magic and… things.”

  It was so clearly a dismissal and done so awkwardly, he wanted to wince for her.

  “I suppose you have been gone from your desk for a while.”

  “Yeah and I’m not high up on the food chain like you.”

  Paris felt his lips curl into a slight smile. “No, bit of a grunt, you are.” He gestured with one of his hands, realizing he was still holding the magazine from the waiting room. Jade snorted as she caught sight of the cover.

  “A little light reading?” She smirked.

  He glanced down at the cover, a slim model proclaiming she knew all the secrets to weight loss, great sex and eternal happiness. He dropped the magazine back on one of the side tables, wanting to brush his hands off. To be honest, he hadn’t noticed what he was picking up and flipping through while he’d been waiting for Jade. He’d been too worried about what was going on behind the closed medical examination room door to focus on what he’d picked up.

  “Yes. However did I run the Coven before without that wealth of knowledge? Surely no one will be able to resist me now that I know all the secrets of body language and low-carbs.”

  Jade laughed, letting herself be corralled somewhat by him, heading toward the exit of the medlab. The sound was warm and bright and he leaned toward her to soak it up.

  “Don’t be hard on yourself, English. Next month’s issue will come out and all of it will be proven wrong and you’ll have to learn some other heretofore unknown tidbits.”

  “How will I keep it all straight?”

  “That’s why they pay you the big bucks.”

  #

  Back at her desk, Jade tried to push the visit to medlab out of her head. There wasn’t anything she could do about it now. She could sit there and borrow trouble from the future, wondering what her lab results would be, or she could try and get some work done. She texted Paris to check if Bruce was still in his office and Paris replied back that he was, still sleeping in front of the fireplace. Jade felt a quick surge of pride, realizing she’d been able to keep the fire spell stable for him even through her trip to medlab and from the distance of the Counter-Magic offices. She hoped Bruce was okay. She worried about him. He clearly knew something was wrong and was trying to communicate that with Jade - first showing her his scaly patch and then, when that didn’t work, showing Paris. Paris texted back again, asking if he should bring Bruce down and even though she missed him and would love to have him sit by her feet while she worked, she knew he’d be happier in front of the fireplace. She typed out a quick text back.

  Let him snooze. I’ll swing by when Callie’s ready to give us a ride home.

  Jade lost track of the day, caught up in trouble-shooting a more complex spell than she was used to. Feeling like she’d finally been given something more than a ‘rookie’ task made Jade want to nail this spell. She had quickly learned when she started that while her knowledge of magic was still growing, she had a good intuition and she trusted her gut. However, there was no getting around that she just didn’t have as much experience as other witches. She’d gotten used to querying the Counter-Magic’s databases for similar spells, but in this case, she didn’t find anything that felt like a ‘match.’ Finding nothing in the database meant she’d have to check the shared drives. Ugh. Nightmare. They were disorganized and haphazard with no one controlling the files. Everything about them made her want to start organizing them, even if she wasn’t paid to do it.

  She started poking around, opening some folders and files and doing some keyword searches. The spell she was working on had to do with heating up water and she knew she was going to have a hard time with it. Her water skills were horrible and she had no desire to work on them at all. But, if she avoided fixing this spell, it might lead to questions she didn’t want to answer about why she wasn’t solving it. She couldn’t say, ‘You know, I just get this hinky feeling in general about water magic, so I thought I’d avoid it all together. Why, no. I don’t want to talk about it.’ So, Jade was going to figure it out, fix it and then move on.

  The problem with the shared drive wasn’t usually no results, but too many. Searching for ‘water’ was like going to the grocery store and asking for ‘food.’ A lot of items came back from the query, but one word kept catching her eye.

  Lake.

  Her mouse pointer hovered over a spreadsheet that the search tool indicated had several hits regarding the lake. It was created this month and worked on just ten minutes ago. Should she click? It definitely didn’t contain any information on the spell she was working on, so she didn’t need to open it. Her finger twitched on the mouse. Did she need anymore fodder for her nightmares? She fiddled with the salamander charm on her n
ecklace, running it back and forth on the chain. Was she being ridiculous? It probably wasn’t anything to be worried about. It was probably some kind of ecological study or environmental report. Something horrendously boring and full of mundane data. Right? Right.

  Jade double clicked on it, holding her breath while it loaded. When the spreadsheet opened, she felt sick in her stomach and her throat was tight.

  It was a Counter-Magic complaint log about the lake. Witches were complaining the lake area felt ‘worse’ than usual or ‘stronger.’ It was hardly quantitative and, since Jade was new to the Coven, it didn’t tell her much. She didn’t know how witches felt about the lake before. She started reading and felt her stomach take a further dive when her name came up in conjunction with the bad feelings people were having. Checking the dates of the log, she saw the calls and complaints started right after Coven magic had been reset. Jade glanced around, checking that no one was watching her or walking by her desk while she was reading the spreadsheet. Although, she thought, if someone tried to open it while she had it open, it would show as locked under her username. She closed it quickly and took a copy to open on her own computer.

  The complaints started slowly but had increased. Her fingers trailed across the screen lightly as she read the spreadsheet from side to side, noting the date, the witch that called in and the details of their complaint. The complaints came in regularly and then started spiking - becoming more prevalent late at night or early mornings.

  Around the time she would be asleep, or rather, having a nightmare.

  That couldn’t be her fault though, could it? She wasn’t actively doing any magic at night, she was sure of it. Also, she preferred the demon grimoires, finding their spells more precise and measurable. She was extra careful working with those, knowing that slip-ups with demon magic were likely to be worse than other kinds of spells. She had proper wards up, checked in with Paris before she did anything and always completed the spells as written. To be any more careful, she’d have to be in a full on bubble suit inside a padded cell.