Hollywood Demon (The Collegium Book 6) by Jenny Schwartz Read Free Book Online

a quick shower instead of a leisurely soak. She borrowed her grandma’s herbal shampoo, and the scent of rosemary was a sharp, aromatic counterpoint to the horrors of the morning. It smelled like incense.
    Hair wrapped in a turban and another towel around her, she opened the bathroom door to find her duffle bag deposited outside it. She hadn’t heard Mark climb the old wooden stairs. She lifted the bag, carried it through to the second bedroom, the one that had been hers in childhood, and dressed quickly in black yoga pants, a plaid pink and cream shirt, and a snuggly soft gray cardigan. She padded downstairs in socks with her brown hair still wet and loose about her shoulders.
    Doris had made hot chocolate. “Two marshmallows?”
    “Three. It’s definitely been a three-marshmallow morning. Thanks.” Clancy took her mug and slid onto a chair at the round table in the sunny kitchen. Cream colored walls made the most of the light and the worn Spanish tiles on the floor gave the room warmth and character. She faced the same cuckoo clock on the wall that she’d wound in childhood. Except now, marshmallows and cuckoo clocks couldn’t provide quite the same comfort. “It was definitely a demon, Grandma.”
    “Mark is obsessed.” Doris stirred her mug of hot chocolate, swirling the melting marshmallows. The puffy curls of red hair that framed her face seemed limper, or perhaps, it was the worry deepening her wrinkles that made them seem so. Doris was concerned. “He believes a demon took Phoebe’s soul.”
    “So he told me.” Clancy paused to savor the rich chocolate flavor of her drink. Doris added cinnamon, vanilla and love to her hot chocolate. No other ever tasted as good. “What if Phoebe really did sell her soul to a demon?”
    Doris sighed. “We’ve had the Collegium’s best demon hunters out here, twice. They found no evidence of demonic activity—or no more than the usual level of idiots attempting and failing to summon them.”
    “Was Fay Olwen one of the demonologists?” Clancy caught a marshmallow with her tongue and let it finish dissolving in her mouth.
    “No.” Doris was suddenly defensive.
    The marshmallow no longer tasted so sweet. Clancy turned the mug around on the table, studying the pattern of daisies painted on it, trying to phrase her question and challenge tactfully. “Then you didn’t actually have the best, did you? Grandma, a demon infiltrated the top of the Collegium before Fay discovered and defeated it a few months ago. It could have hidden this demon’s presence.”
    “Why would it? Demons aren’t known for working together.”
    Which was true. Clancy sipped hot chocolate.
    “Was it very bad?” Her grandma asked. She meant the encounter that morning.
    Clancy put the mug down. It landed with a bit too much force, a minor thud that set the hot chocolate sloshing. “I froze. In the face of an obvious physical threat, I froze. Grandma, I’ve trained for years in Taekwondo, yet Mark had to save me. He pulled me out of Bryce’s reach. He fought the demon in Bryce’s body. Mark even had to push me to make me run. I can’t believe that I froze!” She could hear her voice growing shriller, but couldn’t seem to stop it. This selfish but real concern had been simmering away beneath everything else, and now, in this room where she’d confided so many of her hopes and fears to her grandma, the deepest one spilled out. “I’m a failure at magic, and now it seems I can’t even handle ordinary life.”
    “A demon is hardly ordinary. And you’re not a failure. Not at anything, ever.” Doris gripped her hand. “Honey, what did they do to you at the Collegium?”
    Clancy shook her head, pulling her hand away and physically leaning away in her chair. “It’s not what they did. It’s how I failed.” She became aware of her huddled posture and forced herself to straighten. “And it doesn’t matter. Not now. Grandma, Mark wants to go after this demon alone.”
    “Honey.”