“She chose it, not me,” I said. I pried my hand away from the hatchet’s handle.
“Well, this works as a kind of stopgap measure as a half-implement and half-familiar,” Rose said. “Not sure how you’re going to conceal that hatchet all the time, but it works.”
“It does. A step forward,” I said. My hand was throbbing now. I could feel the cold in the core of my bones. “We need to do it a few more times, in a few different ways, and we’ll have a passable power base.”
“There aren’t that many good options,” Rose said.
“We can try the less-good options,” I said. “And hopefully I don’t lose any hands doing it. Ow.”
“Hopefully,” Rose said. “Let me go over the inscriptions, and I’ll walk you through it.”
“I’m going to keep our new friend nice and warm like we promised, and see if I can’t warm myself up too,” I said. “Anything that involves the stove and kettle.”
I stepped into the kitchen to dig through the cabinets. I’d overlooked the hot chocolate before, dismissing the unpalatable mix of chocolate powder and water, but it suddenly seemed like the best idea I’d had in a long time.
In terms of hot food…
I grimaced and put the oatmeal aside as well. The only thing I could make in a reasonable span of time.
“Damned oatmeal,” I muttered. Louder, I said, “Remember that bit I said last night? About how you had to get on my case and remind me that I could have gone shopping but didn’t? Now’s the time. I feel like I’m going to cry.”
“Blake?” Rose called out.
Something in her voice caught my attention.
I turned around and came face to face with a scene.
A gray haired man, a twenty-something man, and a thirty-something woman sat on the couches and chairs in the living room. All wearing suits, all with nice, utilitarian hair styles.
Rose, for her part, was visible in the mirror. I couldn’t even process her expression. Even for this sudden appearance, the level of dawning horror on her face that I saw seemed like it was too much.
Was she seeing something I couldn’t? Or had she glimpsed something before I turned around?
“The lawyers of Mann, Levinn, and Lewis, I presume?” I asked.
“More specifically, we are Mann, Levinn and Lewis,” the young woman said. Blonde, with a tidy ponytail and a lock of hair strategically draped over the corner of one eyebrow. One of her pantyhose-covered legs was crossed over the other, her hands folded over her knee. “Please, don’t cry while we’re here. I can’t speak for my partners, but I’d be embarrassed on your behalf.”
2.04
“You took your time,” I said.
“We were prompt,” the older man said. Unlike my grandmother, he had the roughness of old age in his voice. Somehow more human than she’d been. “But if it helps, we can start the timer from the moment we made eye contact.”
The brown-haired young man, good looking enough to be an actor, but for the tiniest scar on his lip, looked at his watch. “Twenty nine minutes and forty seconds left on the clock. For that period of time, you have the benefit of our advice and knowledge, and you can make requests, though we can’t promise we’ll grant them.”
“If you want,” the woman lawyer said, “We can cut it short, and save the time for later this month. Once the month is over, we’ll be limited to short conversations for each month thereafter.”
“Are you devils?” I asked. “Demons?”
The older man chuckled. With the coarser voice, he did sound a little sinister in that moment. “Some would say that.”
“What would the rest say?” I asked. I looked at Rose, praying for some backup, but she still seemed out of sorts.
“The remainder would call us practitioners,” the woman lawyer told me. “Practitioners like you, even.”
“Well, we’re a fair bit different from him,” the older man said. He arched one thick eyebrow. “Question is, does it matter?”
I glanced at Rose, but she didn’t volunteer an argument. “I think it does. When I know what you’re doing, I can adapt. Why are you here?”
“Your grandmother willed it,” the young man said.
“Why?” I asked.
The blonde woman responded, “Because matters were too complex for her to handle on her own, it was an economical route to take, she needed power that she wasn’t willing to spare, and we offered.”
“Why?” I asked, again.
“Because we’re in the business of dealing with diabolists,” the older man said.
“Why?” I asked, once again. There wasn’t any sign that I was bothering them with this particular line of questioning.
“Because we are and were diabolists, ourselves,” the young man said. “Once upon a time. We were offered a contract. Call it bankruptcy. It fits on more than one level. Which brings us to you.”