Chapter 8

Heather slept through most of the next three days. She missed Bobo coming home because a Sons of Lucifer jacket with Aubrey's hair on it was found downstream of where Aubrey's body had been found. It was the heaviest she had ever slept in her life and it freaked her out. Fiji said that it was normal to be tired after using magic your body wasn't used to, but losing three days for some pretty light shield seemed ridiculous.

Joe and Chuy corrected her, saying that her Light wasn't just "some pretty light" but an extension of her soul and using a bunch complicated of words that she couldn't understand in her half-asleep state. She was pretty sure Chuy had started speaking entirely in Latin at some point. But whatever. They weren't going to let her practice using her Light until they could be sure that what she had done to protect Fiji hadn't drawn any unwanted attention. Joe was pretty optimistic that it hadn't since she was only half angel and a guardian not a warrior, but Chuy wanted to be more careful.

By Friday she was actually awake. Marina said she wanted to celebrate by smuggling her out of the house, stealing a car, and going to a club, but Heather quickly got her to admit to the joke. They arranged to meet up after school at a bakery café in Davy that Marina liked and then Heather hung up the phone and tried to figure out what she was going to do for the next six hours. After trying and failing to salvage her fire-damaged English book again, she decided to walk down to the Inquiring Mind to visit Fiji.

Mr. Snuggly meowed loudly when the door opened. Heather crouched down to scratch him behind his ears. She was still only feeling her own emotions, so she didn't know if she and the cat were alone in the house. Fiji didn't usually go anywhere without locking her door, but she might have popped out for a quick visit with one of their neighbours.

"Fiji, you home?" Heather called.

"In the greenhouse," Fiji called back.

Heather gave Mr. Snuggly one last pat and went to join Fiji in the plant filled glass room on the side of the house. The witch was plucking leaves from a plant hanging from the ceiling and adding them to the bowlful of herbs she was carrying.

"Protection spells?" Heather asked after identifying a few of the herbs.

"Protection spell," Fiji said. "We had a visit from the Sons of Lucifer yesterday and I want to put a barrier around Midnight to keep the baddies out."

"Won't that make the cops suspicious?" Heather asked. The gang suddenly steering clear of Midnight seemed like something that would raise eyebrows. The cops were already looking at them too closely without them wondering how the Midnighters had gotten a dangerous biker gang to leave them alone.

"It's for their own good," Fiji said. "Lem and Olivia have already had to kill two of them and we don't need any more bodies around here."

She paused. "You didn't hear me say that."

Heather mimed zipping her lips shut. "Can I help?"

Fiji looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "How am I feeling about that?"

"Uhh...I don't know."

A staring contest that consisted of Fiji trying to look stern and Heather giving her puppy eyes commenced. Heather won.

"Fine, you can help," Fiji said, "but no magic."

Heather grinned.


Hermione frowned. The Arithmancy problem she was working seemed to be dancing across the parchment. She blinked a few times and when the numbers didn't stop wobbling she looked around for an explanation. The Weasley Twins weren't in the common room. Actually, no one was in the common room aside from her and Crookshanks, and the cat was asleep.

After a truly ridiculous amount of time considering that she was the smartest witch in Gryffindor House, possibly the smartest student in all of Hogwarts, Hermione looked at the clock.

"Sweet Merlin," she muttered. She didn't know how she had missed the clock chiming midnight, but it was now four hours past that. No wonder she couldn't concentrate.

She started putting her books away but stopped when she uncovered the book bound in black leather that hadn't left her side for a week. If she hadn't found it in the Hogwarts library she might have been worried that it was cursed like the Chamber of Secrets journal from last year. As usual, she flipped the book open to page 103 and read through the entry for Midnight, Texas. At the bottom of the page there was a sentence that she didn't remember seeing before. She stared at it.

If you're so interested, why don't you just go there?

She blinked and read the sentence again. Was the book mocking her?

Another sentence appeared.

The bottom of your bag is not at all comfortable. I want to be back on my shelf.

Hermione shook her head and closed the book. She really needed to get more sleep.