Denise Hardy was not happy to see me, when I walked in the door of her mom’s potion shop, slinking like a whipped dog.

She gave me a frosty, “Can I help you?” as I walked up, using that tone women use when they are very, very mad at you, but are forced to speak to you anyway.

“Hi,” I said. “It’s good to see you again.”

I couldn’t just go into this cold, and I had to find some way to take that look off her face, so I wandered over to the giant bookcase by the door and inspected an ornate golden lamp that looked like a movie prop.

“Is this a real genie’s lamp?”

Denise said, “See for yourself. Rub it and make a wish.”

“Yeah, I’m not fallin’ for that twice.”

I turned away from the lamp and ran my finger along the row of mass-market hardbacks.

“Oh man, you weren’t kidding about the books.” I reached over and read the title of the first one. “Hardy Witches and the Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb.” I turned to Denise, unable to conceal the childlike glee on my face. “Are all these real? Did all this stuff really happen to you?”

“Only my publicist knows for sure,” Denise said. “Some of them are real, but these are books for young girls, fairy tale versions of stuff that mostly didn’t happen.”

I was still grinning like an idiot. “So, what was in the Mummy’s Tomb?”

“A mummy.”

“Was he cursed?”

“Only at the box office.”

I grabbed the next one, “Hardy Witches and the Secrets of Atlantis. Is Atlantis real? Have you been to Atlantis?”

“Atlantis is real, but we missed it. It only crosses into our dimension once every twenty years or so. Mom says it’s coming back in about five years. She says we’ve ‘got reservations’ but I don’t know if that’s real or just a Mom joke.”

“Sounds like your life is a lot of Mom jokes.”

“You have no idea.”

“Hardy Witches and the Sons of Anubis,” I read, and before I could ask...

Denise said, “The Sons of Anubis were real, and they were serious dicks. I can’t talk about what we did to them, but I assure you, it is not in the book.”

One book was a different color and didn’t look like the others. It didn’t have happy blonde Mom and plucky blonde daughter on the cover. It was just a man, a pudgy, balding man in a janitor’s uniform, with Mars in the background. It was titled, “Hardy Witches and the Man in the Moon.”

“That’s a weird one,” Denise said. “Maybe the weirdest thing Mom ever wrote, and she swears every word of it is true. It was a publishing disaster, only sold a handful of copies, and it’s named wrong. I’m not in it. Mom’s not really in it, she’s just the narrator, telling the story of a janitor named Ralph Hanley, who worked at a research facility in the 1980s. The story says Ralph stepped into the wrong experiment or something and came out with the powers of a god. Mom says he set up residence on Phobos, one of the moons around Mars, and sits up there all day, protecting the Earth from invasion from space and other dimensions.

“Mom says Ralph decides what portals are allowed to open on Earth, and what’s allowed to come through. She says he’s stopped a bunch of different alien invasions, but he’s never killed anybody with his powers. She says Ralph is effectively omnipotent, but he has the mind of a child. She says he had an IQ of 80 when he got his powers, and he’s scared to make himself smarter. He thinks if he gets too smart, he won’t care about people anymore, so he keeps himself simple on purpose.”

“So, what do you think? Do you think he’s real?”

Denise dodged the question. “Take down number eighty-four.”

I read the title, “Hardy Witches and the Roswell Reunion. Oh, no way. This one isn’t magic. This has gray aliens. Please tell me you’ve met aliens.”

“No,” Denise said. “This one happened before I was born, and I need to explain, you can’t always trust what my mother says, even to me. Especially to me. Sometimes she lies to me because she wants me to catch her, and sometimes she tells me the truth in a way that says she wants me to question it. And this story... this one is maximum Mom.

“Mom claims that around twenty, twenty-five years ago, when she was just starting to get famous, a man and woman came into the shop and said they were travelers from an alternate Earth, where their planet had just been invaded and destroyed by a bunch of alien machines. They said they found a portal on the Moon and put an alien drive on a shuttle to cross through to our Moon and land on our Earth. They gave Mom an old-fashioned thumb drive with video clips on it, claiming that it contained video evidence of the invasion and destruction of Earth, recorded from a telescope on the Moon.

“The video was… boring. Mom said it was just the lights of Earth slowly going out, with the cities slowly turning into black patches that lit up with different colored lights after a while, until the whole Earth was black and all the cities were gone, with just these weird alien lights scattered around. The last surviving humans lived on the Moon and were trying to hold out and escape before the aliens came to kill them, too.

“Any first-year film student could have produced this video, but then the person making it turned the camera around, and she looked like an alternate version of Mom, begging her counterpart for help from another universe.

“Mom said she turned everything over to the government and never saw the visitors again. She told me if anybody ever asked about this, I was supposed to say the video was fabricated by a celebrity prank show, and Mom was so embarrassed by her reaction, she sued the producers, so it never went on the air. There’s even a court case. I looked it up.

“But Mom swears this video was real, and she hopes somebody in the government was able to help them. And here’s why I’m telling you this. Mom says, on this alternate Earth, time is moving at exactly the same rate as in our universe, and they have... they had, versions of most of the same people who live in our universe, they just don’t have magic there. Mom says the same invasion started in our universe, at exactly the same time, but we have magic, so we had Ralph, and they didn’t.”

I was trying to maintain a little detachment from these stories, but this one made me go pale. “Do you believe this? Do you believe in Ralph? Do you believe in these aliens?”

“I don’t know. Like I said, maximum Mom. But I’ll tell you this. Mom says March 3rd each year is the only day Ralph walks the Earth. She says he only lets himself directly intervene and save three people a year, as a birthday present to himself. So, every year, Mom bakes cookies and leaves them out for Ralph’s birthday.

“I’ve been on my own for a few years, but even in the tower, I did it, too. Every year, I leave out cookies for Ralph, and every year somebody eats them.” Denise threw her hand up. “I know it’s probably Mom. Because driving across town to sneak into her daughter’s living room and eat cookies to fuck with her head is exactly the kind of shit my Mom would do. But I slept on the couch for five years straight, and I never caught her.

“Of course, my Mom is a powerful witch. Could she drug me or put me to sleep and sneak in just long enough to eat cookies? Of course. Could she send a little djinn to do it, so fast that I would never see? Sure. There’s a hundred ways she could do this, and I would never catch her, so I may not know for sure until she’s dead. Really, not even then, since she’s got a hundred faeries who would love to take this one over. But honestly? If Ralph is real, if there’s even the slightest chance that this brave, beautiful man exists, and spends every day saving the Earth from terrifying cosmic shit? Well... I’m gonna bake him some fuckin’ cookies.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

* * *

“Most of this stuff is just cute,” Denise said. “I just have one problem with the books. Take down the first one. Now take down the last one. What do you see?”

I frowned. “They’re all the same. Happy round mom, little angel Denise. Oh, shit.”

“Right,” Denise said. “I’m a grown woman out of college, but after twelve years, that little girl is still ten years old. Mom lives in her head, and in her head, I’ll always be ten years old.”

* * *

“You didn’t just come here to look at books, Tim, and I really need to do some inventory before Mom wakes up. And by the way? For future reference? It’s considered really rude to charge a girl up like that and just walk away.”

“Denise, is this shop secure? Like, totally secure, so nothing supernatural can spy on us?”

She frowned like the sudden subject change hadn’t quite overcome her anger. “We’ve got all kinds of stuff going. I really wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Can you bump it up a notch? It’s really important that nobody hears what I’m about to tell you.”

She waved her hand in the air and said, “That’s it. That’s the best protection I have.”

No choice but to trust her. I stepped up to the counter and said, “This is what I was hiding from you, the night we met. My powers come from my family, too. An ancient family, bound by a blood contract with a demon prince. He gave me this big magic book and assigned me a… supervisor, who’s supposed to oversee my training until I’m ready to start doing missions for him.

“I’m in my grace period now, the training period when I’m supposed to be learning magic, but my time is almost up. She’s going to send me on my first mission any day now, and they’re gonna make me kill somebody. She said I may not have to hurt anyone, but that’s a lie. She tells that to everybody, so they don’t resist right away.

“Truth is, they make you kill early, to take your innocence and convince you there’s no way back. They know the angels won’t take us after we kill. There were seven guys before me, and they do it the same way every time. They strip everything away from you and make you kill, until the only source of comfort you have left is the woman he gave you. And the really crazy part? These guys are happy, once they give in. She’s so good at her job, she even makes the killing feel okay.”

“But I’m not gonna do it.” I was trying to sound tough, but fear was choking me up. “I’m gonna fight them. Even if I’m not ready, I’m gonna fight. I have a plan worked out, but I don’t have all my tools. That’s why I came here. I need a knife sharp enough to cut demon flesh. I can’t do anything while this supervisor is watching me, so I have to take her out.”

Denise opened her mouth, but I shouted before she could start. “And don’t tell me to call the police! And don’t tell me anybody can help me! They can’t! I’ve been through all of this, and they can’t. A couple of my ancestors tried to resist, and it ends in a massacre every time. Tobias asked for help, and they burned his monastery to the ground. They killed everybody he ever knew until he had nothing left but her.

“Jacob tried to weasel out of it, and they burned his village. They might have even killed his mother. I’m putting you in danger just telling you this. The only way out is to put myself in prison, or sell my soul to the angels, or hide in some DMA shitbox for the rest of my life. I won’t live like that, Denise. I won’t die like a coward, waiting for these things to come and get me. I’m gonna fight, and I need your help.”

Denise said, “Wait here,” and disappeared in the back. She came back with a black handgrip, set with gold runes. She stalked up to the counter and laid it down in front of me.

“I don’t see a blade.”

Denise picked it up, and a thin, straight blade popped out of the handle.

“Is it sharp?”

The north wall of the magic shop was solid brick. Denise walked up to it, positioned the knife, and stabbed it straight into the wall. There was no resistance, just a smooth scraping sound as she pulled it out.

She slapped it on the counter and said, “Is this what you need?”

“I think so. How much?”

“We’ll call it a loaner. And now, whatever fight this is, you have to win, because if you don’t bring this knife back, Mom is gonna kill both of us. I’ll hex it to your hand, so the blade won’t pop out by accident.”

I nodded and held my hand out.

“I have to touch you to do this. Do you understand?”

I didn’t, but I nodded anyway. Her touch was gentle and sweet this time, sending a silent question up my arm. I was trying to contain myself, but the emotions were just too strong. Fear, anger, determination, desperation, it all came pouring out.

Denise stroked my hand. “Oh, Timmy, why didn’t you tell me?”

I couldn’t answer.

She cast something and made a pattern over my wrist. I thought about the knife, and it popped into my hand, without crossing the space in between.

“That knife carries my Mark now,” she said. “Never cut a human with it, and never kill an animal with it, unless you’re killing to survive.”

I had just put the knife in my pocket when Cecilia Hardy walked out of the back bedroom and took a good hard look at the boy who was holding her daughter’s hand.

* * *

This was not at all funny when it happened, but I’ve got to say, watching it again now, on the mirror in Purgatory, watching Cecilia Hardy’s face go through the full spectrum of emotions as she read my aura for the first time, cycling through awe and wonder to fear and disgust, before settling into cold maternal rage, was the funniest moment of my incarceration thus far.

I laughed so hard; I made Azael teach me how to rewind.

* * *

“THIS is the boy? This is the boy you...” Cecilia slumped and put her head in one hand. “Oh my god, of course it is. Of course, it is.” She stormed across the room and stopped short, like she was scared to get too close to me. “What even are you? I’ve been wrangling curses for thirty years and I have never seen anything as...”

She broke off and yelled at Denise, “Were you too busy to notice the...” She squinted and twitched her fingers at me. “Three, four... five, I can’t even... the entire fucking rainbow of astral tethers going from his spinal cord straight down to Hell? Did you forget how to scan for that, or were you too busy ramming your tongue down his throat?”

“MOM!”

“Oh, don’t you ‘Mom’ me. And you,” she gestured. “Whatever you are, you get the hell out of my store, and if you ever come near my daughter again, I swear I will not call the police. I will deal with you myself; do you understand?”

“Ma’am, please...”

Cecilia waved her hand like she was dismissing me, then turned back and squinted again. “Is that my knife in your pocket?” She turned and yelled at her daughter full blast, “You gave him my knife?”

Denise was strangely composed in the face of her mother’s anger. “He needs it, Mom. Tell her. Tell her why you need it.”

I took a breath and did my best, “I haven’t surrendered to these things, ma’am. I’m fighting them. I came here for help because I’m trying to fight them. I have... a plan.”

Cecilia’s face fell from anger into blank incomprehension. “Oh no. Oh no, you poor stupid boy. You don’t fight things like this. You don’t fight things like this with a juiced-up pocketknife. To fight things like this you need friends, powerful friends, angel friends. You’ve got a demon bond thicker than my arm diving straight into Hell and you’re gonna fight them with... what could you possibly do with that knife?”

I barreled on. “I need to cut a lock of hair from a succubus so I can...”

Cecilia threw her hand up and said, “Stop! Just stop. It’s already too stupid. I can’t even...” She paused. “What’s your name? Your family name?”

I said, “Kovak.”

“No,” she said. “Say it right.”

“Kovach.”

Cecilia frowned. “I’ve heard it, but I don’t remember where. I’m not gonna like it, am I? I’m not gonna like what I find when I look it up.”

“No ma’am, you will not. I sure didn’t.”

“How are you even here? How can something this powerful, this evil be in my city for... how long have you been here?”

“My father moved us here when I was twelve.”

“And you’re?”

“Twenty-five, ma’am.”

“So, you’ve been hiding right under my nose for thirteen years? How is that even possible?”

“I don’t know how it works, ma’am, but my family… We don’t usually draw magic from the Earth, so it doesn’t actually kick in until...”

“Until your handler arrives.”

I nodded.

Cecilia shook her head, more sad than angry now. “No. No, there’s only one option for you, and it sucks. You go straight to Holy Cross. You prostrate yourself before the altar of God, and you pray, you beg, you stay on your knees all day and all night, and you beg for your worthless life, for whatever remains of the Heavenly Host to come and save you.

“They won’t come, of course. They’ll ignore you like they’ve ignored every other demon-haunted wretch for half a century, but you stay on holy ground, and then you go to the priest. You say you’ve got a demon the size of a Volkswagen on your back, and you beg for sanctuary. Then you get in a holy bus sanctified with everything they can throw at it, you drive to some monastery at the top of a mountain far, far away from innocent people, and you cultivate a love of gardening and calligraphy for the rest of your sad, doomed life. That’s it. That’s your only option.”

Cecilia inched closer, gritting her teeth. “And boy, if you cut a deal with these things and come back here, we will put you down.”

Denise yelled, “Mom!” again.

“Quiet, girl! If you cut a deal and try to come near my daughter again, I will kill you dead, right here on my front porch. Your aura is… unbelievable, so I’ll probably need some help. But I will summon whatever friends I need and pay whatever price must be paid to remove you from my city and from the face of this blessed Earth, do you understand?”

“Yes ma’am,” I said. “But you don’t need to worry about that. I’m not gonna let these things use me. I’m only coming back if I win.”

Cecilia blinked and walked to a shelf in the back. She grabbed a potion without looking, gulped it down, then closed her eyes and counted to ten. Then she looked at me with witch eyes, like she was looking through me. “Say that part again. That part about dying, say it again.”

“I’m not coming back if I lose. I win, or I die.”

And all the anger drained out of her, just like that.

“Okay,” Cecilia said. “Good luck. What’s your name again?”

“Timothy.”

She said, “Good luck, Timothy” and turned away like she was going back to her room.

I looked from Denise to her mom and back again. “That’s it? We’re good? Can I keep the knife?”

Cecilia shrugged. “Sure. The knife will come back to me when you die.”