Familiar Spirit

Feeling angry, tired, and vulnerable, Sarah followed Val­erie outside to the car. Another dead end, she thought. Valerie was useless, having made up her mind that Jade could not be defeated. Valerie was not the powerful witch Sarah had imagined, but just a crazy kid who had played around with forces she did not understand.

Maybe Valerie’s right, Sarah thought. Maybe all I can do is run, run away and not look back. Away from the house, it would not be her business anymore, not her fault what happened to other people.

Right, responded a bitter voice in her head. And all my life I can tell myself it wasn’t my fault. Not my fault that innocent people might be destroyed, not my fault if a demon is let loose in the world. Not my fault that I turned tail and ran, doing just what Jade wanted me to do. I’d be no better than Valerie if I gave up now.

At that moment Valerie turned to face Sarah, slumping against the side of the car. She looked very small and pathetic suddenly.

“I’d help you if I could,” she said. “Truly. But I’ve tried—I’ve tried everything I could think of, and none of it worked. The longer he goes on, the more powerful he gets. If he gets what he wants, he may come after us, and destroy us both. But I don’t know how to stop him. He won’t let me trick him again. But if there is something I can do—if you think of something—I’ll help you.”

This faint concession from Valerie—useless though it probably was—sparked hope in Sarah again.

“We have to try,” she said. “We have to. We can’t give up. There must be a way, and we only have to find it. We’ll talk more later, after I’ve done some research. Maybe there’s a ritual somewhere, in some old book, which will work. You can tell me exactly what you did to summon him, and maybe we can figure out how to reverse what you did. We can’t give in to him. There has to be a way to beat him, and we’ll find it.”

Sarah drove back to the house. During the drive, both women were silent, lost in their own thoughts. But as she pulled up behind the house and parked beside the Ferrari, Sarah remembered something Valerie had said and never explained. “When you said that Jade called you, how did you mean? On the telephone?”

Valerie released a brief, shrill laugh. “No. He has a better way than that. You’ve heard of witches’ familiars?”

“You mean like cats and things?”

“Like cats . . . and things.” Valerie giggled and scrabbled in her large purse. She withdrew something and held it out towards Sarah. “Meet my familiar—Lunch the toad.”

Sarah recoiled. Squatting on Valerie’s open palm was a live toad. It had bumpy, brown-mottled skin and two liquid, yellow-brown eyes.

“Don’t you like my precious Lunch, then?” As Sarah stared in queasy fascination, Valerie pulled the toad to her lips and kissed it.

Valerie’s grey-green eyes glittered. She caught Sarah’s look and giggled again. “Jade gave him to me, to be my companion. There’s a little bit of Jade in him. He controls Lunch, and Lunch lets me know when Jade wants me . . . and he lets me know other things, too.”

“You mean that all the while I’ve been talking to you about destroying Jade, all the while you’ve been offering to help me, you’ve had that . . . thing in your bag, listening to us? Just what do you want, Valerie? Whose side are you on?”

Valerie looked confused. Her lower lip sagged, and she looked away from Sarah’s angry face to the still, silent toad. “Lunch? I didn’t think . . .”

“A part of Jade,” Sarah said bitterly. “How many parts are there? What do we have to do to defeat him? How many scattered parts do we have to find and destroy? Get rid of that toad, Valerie! What the hell are you thinking of, to keep it? What kind of a hold does Jade have over you?”

Valerie stared at her, confusion battling resentment in her thin, sharp face. She held the toad clutched close to her heart. “He’s mine,” she said at last, her voice pitched defensively high. “I won’t hurt him, I love him. He doesn’t do any harm. He’s not powerful, not like Jade. He’s only my little familiar spirit; my little Lunch.” She bent her face close to the creature again and crooned, “Want your lunch, my pretty Lunch?”

She flashed Sarah a hostile, mocking glance and then, still holding the toad on one hand at chest-level, extended a finger of her free hand towards it. The toad opened its mouth and the end of Valerie’s finger vanished inside. Valerie gave a small gasp, and her eyelids fluttered.

“There, dear,” she murmured. “Suckle well.”

A few, interminable seconds later, Valerie withdrew her finger from the toad’s mouth. A drop of blood glistened on the end of her finger, like misapplied nail polish.

Sarah opened the car door violently and got out into the cool, fresh air, fighting the urge to be sick. A moment later, Valerie got out, too, and stood regarding Sarah across the top of the car.

“You see,” she said. “He’s like my own child, Lunch is. He’s a part of me, as well.”

Chapter Eight