Every Witch Demon but Mine (Maeren Series Book 1)

by Mercedes Jade

  “So, the queen really is soulless and her son is a demon?” Jill asked.

  “No,” their mother answered.

  Elizabeth sat right up. This was no time to rest.

  “Which one is no?”

  “The queen isn’t entirely soulless,” her mother replied. “The son was born a demon. I couldn’t take back her soul without destroying his soul, too. I gave the queen a piece of my soul instead. A tiny flicker of air. It wasn’t even enough power to do more than float a pen.”

  The girls didn’t ask how that was possible.

  Blood witches were supposed to be a myth. Now, not only was their mother one, but she was also healing soulless witches and giving them chi not part of their original souls.

  “You have to know that I wouldn’t have done it if I had known I was pregnant.”

  Elizabeth was a freak! Was this why she was born so different?

  “Of course. No harm was done. Confinement is a bunch of superstitious nonsense, anyway,” she reassured her mother.

  No crying over spilt blood.

  “I had almost let go of the queen when the demon found you. I felt his magic touch my belly, and then I felt you. A flutter like butterfly wings as you kicked.” Her mother brushed her hand against her abdomen in memory. “I threw myself back in my rush to get away.”

  “Oh,” Elizabeth said.

  Her mind was racing but she kept her thoughts locked up.

  “Prince Daemon is a lightning demon,” Jill said.

  The room was silent for a moment as they all absorbed that salient fact.

  “You’re a lightning witch,” Jill said.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Elizabeth said.

  They were not going there.

  “Language, Elizabeth!” her mother chastised, getting back to herself.

  “Okay. I’m fine. I like my lightning, thanks. Let’s get back to why the queen is here with her tiny bit of our mother’s soul and what this has to do with the demon epidemic,” Elizabeth prioritized.

  She would worry about her in-utero demon encounter on her own and not antagonize her mother about something nobody could go back and fix.

  “And don’t forget your retirement from slaying,” Jill added.

  She wished she had gone for that second cup of tea.

  “I was worried about you, Elizabeth. I couldn’t tell anyone that I was pregnant during that healing for obvious reasons. Your father left the front with the king after the attack. I announced the pregnancy a few weeks later, so your father quietly took me home. The queen never told anyone about her new air. She birthed a demon and everyone presumed she was soulless. They exiled her.”

  “How could the king banish his wife? It wasn’t her fault she was shot or that her magic was lost,” Jill said.

  Her sister still believed in fairness in the world.

  Elizabeth had a more jaded outlook.

  “The king knows, doesn’t he?” she asked. Her mother nodded and Elizabeth continued. “There is no way the queen could be hidden here with a magical soul, otherwise. She has to replenish her magic or else she’ll be sucked back. We all know what it feels like to suddenly end up in hell naked.”

  “The king created a portal for her use. The bit of magic I gave to her wasn’t strong enough to provide protection against another attack. It only would have made her a target if it was known she still had magic. The king had to hide her to save her life.”

  “He got his demon son. Not like he had any further use for her,” Elizabeth muttered.

  “You might be surprised,” her mother said. “The queen was the one that decided to leave her son behind. Her blood wouldn’t have sustained him.”

  “So, the king’s a warm and loving father, estranged from his wife because she left him?” Elizabeth sarcastically posed.

  “No. Don’t read more into it than the facts. The queen chose to leave, but she didn’t really have much of a choice. The king and the queen had only been together for months before the assassination attempt. The years they have been apart probably counted for more than those months together.”

  It made sense. Not romantic, but honest.

  Her mother lowered her voice. “It’s why I thought the king was the source of the demons earlier. I wondered if the king had been tempted to create more demons to keep the clans under control. I just couldn’t understand why he would send them to the human realm when he had never expressed interest outside his borders.”

  “You thought the king was trying to kill Ms. Sun,” Jill guessed.

  Elizabeth hadn’t made that leap in logic.

  She thought she had father issues, but Jill, sweet and innocent, baby Jill, had hardened her heart. It had turned to stone over the years when it came to trust and males. Her sister could qualify for nun-hood.

  That Jill suspected the king of betrayal was mostly because of his sex.

  “I wasn’t sure what to think,” their mother replied, seeming as startled at Jill’s leap as Elizabeth had been. “Demons aren’t the most faithful soldiers with their bloodlust driving their behaviour half the time. It seemed sloppy to send vampires and demons to the human realm to feed, while ultimately hunting down the queen to assassinate her. It’s also pointless as nobody else knows she is here.”

  “Are you sure nobody else knows?” Jill asked.

  “No,” their mother said.

  The concise answer explained why Elizabeth was allowed to hunt.

  There had been no direct threat to the queen or their family. Hunting had been okay if everything remained random and the pieces didn’t line up to point at their door. A vampire or demon, here and there, not a small army of them one after another, sent on a hunt in the human realm for a prize.

  Who were they looking for: Elizabeth or the banished queen?

  “Now what?” she asked.

  Their mother had identified a problem and Elizabeth staked things. The solution seemed clear to her and it didn’t involve retirement.

  “We’re going to save the world,” Jill singsonged, sounding more like herself.

  “You just wanted to say that,” Elizabeth accused, sticking her tongue out at her sister.

  “Hell-mouth,” Jill said and stuck her tongue out as well.

  “It is Maeren, not hell,” their mother corrected, ignoring their antics. “Yes, it makes sense to go to Maeren if we want to find this traitor. I’m afraid if we stay here, then we risk letting a demon army march on the human realm once they kill the king.”

  Was that the big bad’s plan? The demons finally took over the world?

  This was more like a television series than she liked, an apocalypse looming and they were the only ones able to fight back.

  “Does Ms. Sun know all of this?” Jill asked.

  “She is aware that Elizabeth hunts. I’ve talked to her about the number of demons lately, especially when I was worried about them coming after her. Although, I never . . . I couldn’t accuse the king without evidence. She doesn’t know about tonight, of course, as our book club was interrupted.”

  “Book club is like a fight club,” Elizabeth said, snapping her fingers.

  Rolling her eyes, their mother said, “Get your secret handshake ready then, because you will meet the book club president.”

  “We already know Ms. Sun,” Jill protested.

  “You will be meeting your queen.”

  Queen of the Blues

  Ms. Sun still liked cats.

  Three lazy Siamese greeted them at the doorway. Ms. Sun opened the door wider, expecting them despite the hour.

  The cats headed straight for Jill, winding around her ankles until she bent down to pet them.

  “Hello, Kaila. Hello, Jill. Nice to see you, Elizabeth. It's been a while.”

  Her voice was the same. Much deeper than you would expect from her small frame and a little gravelly.

  Now that Elizabeth knew who Ms. Sun was, she wondered if it had been fire that had thickened her cords and not a secret smoking habit.

 
; “Good evening, your Majesty,” their mother said.

  Their mother dipped into a deep curtsy and didn't rise. The especially fine clothes suddenly made sense.

  How much of this had been planned out before the demon staking tonight?

  Jill put down the cat she was petting. She looked awkwardly at Ms. Sun before kneeling and bowing her head to the ground.

  She mumbled something that sounded like, “Sensei, er, your Majesty.”

  Elizabeth froze.

  “Stop,” Ms. Sun said. “Call me Kim. Please come in. We have a lot to cover.”

  She gestured them inside.

  “The girls were never formally presented,” their mother said, slipping off her heels and into the comfortable slippers kept by the front door. “They don't have any court training.”

  That was the real reason that they were here.

  Kim was supposed to provide them with training to be able to infiltrate the court and track down a traitor.

  Their mother hadn’t really told them too much about the plan, although the conversation earlier had already been overwhelming.

  The few weeks their mother had been at court decades ago had been interrupted by the assassination attempt she’d thwarted. The rest of her time at court had been spent with their father, limiting her experience with other male elementals. Their father had been a jealous vampire.

  Elizabeth and Jill would have to know how to act in a courtship with other nobles if they were going to Maeren’s capital. Royal balls were far different from high school dances.

  “Better they present themselves as country bumpkins trying to climb the higher classes than to pretend they are more polished. The best lie is the closest to the truth,” Kim said without malice.

  She brought them into a room with low lying tables and cushions.

  Pocket doors made of bamboo and glass shut them into relative privacy, sliding closed with barely a snick to lock. An air barrier snapped into place to double the security. The feel of her mother’s magic was cool and comforting to Elizabeth, although Kim may feel smothered by another witch’s power.

  No complaint was voiced by Kim, however, and her mother’s easy use of her magic without seeking permission beforehand spoke of a long familiarity between them.

  The Blue Queen was friends with their mother!

  It still seemed surreal, meeting with their old teacher but realizing everything they thought they knew about her was a carefully constructed lie.

  Not that unlike their own fallacious truths, given to others so they could live freely in the human realm.

  Jill took the first seat after her teacher, a graceful bending and tucking of her limbs that looked practiced.

  Elizabeth didn’t even try to replicate the grace. She groaned as she spotted the teapot when she took a seat beside her sister. The world might be going topsy-turvy, but at least there was going to be tea.

  She sent Jill the image of them all sitting in a boat made from scones, floating in a sea of tea, with little sugar cubes and creamer boulders ready to dash their boat.

  “Would you like tea, Kaila?” Kim asked.

  Jill giggled at Elizabeth’s imagined illusion.

  “Yes. Thank you,” their mother answered, giving Jill a curt glance.

  Green tea poured from the pot, nary a stray leaf exiting the spout with the steaming jasmine scented liquid. It had to be looseleaf, of a good enough shelf quality to not have broken bits in it or steamed in a mesh ball.

  She remembered always being careful of the dregs at the bottom of her cup when drinking green tea given to her while she waited for Jill’s class to finish. Today must be a special occasion.

  They were drinking tea with a queen.

  Their teacher had hardly aged, although it wasn’t uncommon for witches to live a century and a half. Few greys lined her black hair, tightly pulled back in a bun. She wore makeup, but it was neat and mostly as discreet as her twin sweater set and freshly pressed slacks in neutral tones.

  Her dark-red lipstick was the only concession to a bolder choice and her Asian colouring even toned that down.

  Elizabeth couldn't help but think the blood-red lips said more about Kim than the rest of her appearance. Only a woman sure of her power could wear such a shade with casual confidence.

  The girls each nodded ‘yes’ to tea as well to be polite.

  Kim poured her own cup last and they all sipped for a moment of silence.

  Kim smiled at Jill.

  “It's nice to finally greet you as a witch and not just another talented student.”

  “Honestly I’m still shocked at hearing you were the Blue Queen.”

  Jill put her cup down and turned it, examining the intricate flowers edging the top.

  “With your family living in the human realm, there was no need to bring up old Maerenian history. The first time I saw your mother at a school meeting, we decided to try to leave the past behind.”

  Suddenly, it was easier to see Kim as an abandoned queen. The loneliness in her eyes when she spoke of forgetting the past made Elizabeth grateful for her family.

  She knew her mother would forbid it, but she glimpsed at Kim’s thoughts, feeling the strong emotions attached to them.

  Not surprisingly, Kim was thinking of a young baby and then a handsome little boy, images flashing by like photographs being flipped.

  Elizabeth wanted to dig further to see if Kim knew what her son looked like now, but the intrusion seemed too much.

  She hesitated, memorizing the demon’s child features.

  Prince Daemon had dark hair, eyes full of mischief, and more power than any child should be forced to endure.

  “Humans say the past comes back to haunt us,” her mother said, interrupting Kim’s reverie and Elizabeth’s spying.

  “I don't think they meant demons, literally,” Jill commented, reminding them all of the main problem that had brought them together.

  “Demons are an embodiment of a past mistake, intended or not, and it's only a matter of time before the cost of that mistake comes due,” Kim said.

  She drained her cup but didn't pour herself more tea before her guests.

  Her shared wisdom created an awkward silence. Did she hate her demon son for stealing her chi? It had resulted in her banishment to the human realm as a soulless witch.

  “Why do you even care?” asked Jill.

  Elizabeth saw that Jill imagined a literal demon with horns tormenting her teacher instead of the little boy his mother remembered.

  Jill couldn't see why an abandoned queen would care about a world and a family that threw her out and forgot about her.

  “That’s enough, Jill,” their mother admonished.

  “But why should any of us care about what happens in Maeren? If they leave us alone, the monsters can all fight each other.”

  Elizabeth could see her sister was still stuck on questions of fairness, whereas she wanted to know who she had to stake to make this all go away.

  “I care because I am a witch,” Kim replied.

  She spoke with a great deal of pride, not diminished at all by her power-poor state.

  “You, too, will feel the yearning to protect Maeren when you are back home,” Kim promised. “There are monstrous things in Maeren, just as there is evil among the humans. Yet there is the magic, pure and life-giving as the air. There are families and hope and joy and love as strong as any in the human world.”

  When they were back home?

  Jill sucked in a big breath, although she hadn't really been scolded. “Not all children are loved.”

  Elizabeth straightened in her chair.

  Had their mother told Kim everything?

  “Don't Maerenian children deserve someone, like you, to love them even more, Jill?” Kim gently asked. “Royalty and nobles have forgotten about the powerless in their drive to be stronger. Edge towns are teeming with broken families from the demon epidemic and most of those children don't have a mother as resourceful as yours.”


  It was a hard truth.

  “How do you expect us to make a difference over there?” Elizabeth asked, feeling overwhelmed as she tried to figure out what the queen wanted from them.

  Jill would always have a role anywhere there were children or the sick in need, but Elizabeth couldn't exactly go around stabbing demons on the sly.

  Staking would be bloody and permanent in hell. No magical ride to the other dimension to reform.

  “But that is just it. There is no one else that could make the difference that you can. All of you. I have been waiting for the chance to fix things. Fate has given me the perfect opportunity with you,” Kim explained.

  Elizabeth looked at her with her mouth slightly ajar.

  Never was it good when a magical being started invoking fate.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” Kim added, looking directly into her eyes.

  With a blink, Kim’s intense focus was gone.

  Elizabeth could almost believe she’d imagined it.

  Every mental wall she had snapped up, despite her mother’s warning to keep her lightning tightly bound. Instinct drove her more than logic, well aware that a nearly soulless witch shouldn’t be able to detect her magic.

  She felt like a porcupine, bristling at a perceived threat, not ready to settle until she was safely in her burrow.

  “We grew up in the human realm. Jill and I don’t know anything useful about Maerenian society and our magic is greatly limited here, so to be quite honest, we are probably the least qualified to do what you want.”

  She didn’t mince words. They couldn’t compete with Maerenian royalty. Kim might be planning to use them as pawns for some bigger, overarching plot.

  The only reason she was even sitting here to listen to Kim was for her mother. Past loyalties only go so far. How much did Kim think she could ask from their family before it was considered too much?

  With their mother staying strangely quiet, she worried the answer was ‘whatever the queen needed’ from them.

  “Are you familiar with the human concept of an underdog?” Kim asked, seeming to change the subject.

  She gave Elizabeth another assessing look as she topped up her cup of tea.