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I started to say something snarky, but then I realized she was wearing an actual vest made of small turtle shells daisy-chained together. In the center of the vest was a much larger shell. All of them had strange writing on them. The Wu Shaman held one shell in her hand as she walked toward us. Her other hand held a plethora of green scarfs.

Rasmus backed into me as Mulan advanced on him. “What do you want?”

Mulan peeked around Rasmus to look at me. “Do your job, witch.”

“What job?” I asked, glaring at her.

“Hold him still so I can measure his crotch. One compulsion remains that I see, but it is a bad one. It has many layers. We will use bone oracle to clear the whole spot. It will take big turtle bone to cover everything, but I think I have something that will fit.”

“Aran will measure me,” Rasmus said. To make sure the Wu Shaman understood, he pulled me around and held me in front of him. “She’s already seen everything. She won’t mind.”

Mulan’s mouth twisted as she stared at him. Rasmus was the first to look away. His face was red as could be. I didn’t know whether to laugh, be angry, or grin at Mulan because he wouldn’t let her touch him.

Muttering what sounded like angry Chinese, Mulan stomped to a room off the one we were in and returned with a big box in her tiny hands.

“Put on gloves and you find turtle bone shell that covers him,” she ordered, pushing the box into my hands.

Under a pair of disposable gloves had to be at least fifty empty tortoise shells similar to the biggest one comprising Mulan’s shaman vest. They were of varying sizes, varying colors, and all had strange writing on them. It looked more like runic writing than the flowing script of any Chinese dialect. I felt true magick radiating from all of them.

Curiosity overrode all my complaints about her attitude. I placed the box of shells in the shampoo chair, put on the gloves, and gently sorted through them. Rasmus held the towel on his hair in place with one hand while he looked over my shoulder to watch.

“Is all this really necessary?” he asked in a low whisper.

“Apparently,” I answered, pretending I wasn’t searching for ever bigger tortoise shells in the box. Good for Rasmus, though, for not commenting on my search. None of them seemed big enough based on what I remembered about him, but I definitely wasn’t voicing that out loud. “Conn said we need to see what the Wu Shaman can teach us about demons. She casts them out for a living.”

“Maybe she simply scares them to death. She certainly makes me want to run screaming out of here.”

I chuckled. “I had that reaction too when I first came here. Then she grew my hair six inches. Magick lessons are never comfortable, Rasmus. Ya’re a big boy, though. I’m sure ya can handle yer discomfort for a bit longer.”

I dug out the only shell I thought might work and held it up for him to see. “Do ya think this would work as a jock cup for yer man bits?”

He pressed his lips together and nodded. “Yes, but I’m not getting naked in front of her to try it on.”

“No one is getting naked,” Mulan said, rolling her eyes.

Rasmus shrugged before glaring at her.

She turned to me. “He has enormous problems.”

I would have laughed, but I knew her words weren’t innuendo. She was reading his energy.

I set the box back down on the shampoo chair but left my gloves on. “We’ve got the shell. What’s next?” I asked.

“Pick long green scarf and tie it around him like putting diaper on a baby. Hand me shell first.”

I carried the shell we’d chosen over to her. She plugged in a ceramic knife before fishing a bottle of swirling black ink and a feather from her shaman duffle bag. “I can tell the symbols on the shells are magick. Are they part of your shaman work?”

“It is Ancient Chinese from the Shang Dynasty era. What I have written is my name and my credentials. I will add your long-haired lover’s name and question to his shell. Then we will do magick to divine his answer. I give you only information today and not drive out demons. He has other problems that could interfere and make him sicker. I see drugs, but nothing normal. Most drugs turn energy black in humans. This is sticky gray and all over him.”

“Ya just confirmed what the demoness told us. Rasmus has some amnesia about his life. We think he served in the military and they did something to make him forget. That’s another mystery we have to solve. What’s the heated knife do?”

Mulan turned to look at it and then at me. “I write his question on the shell, put magick on it and your lover, and then I take the shell and put the heated knife to one symbol to make it crack.”

“I’ve read about that. The crack is supposed to make symbols that can be deciphered.”

“Yes.”

“Fascinating,” I said. “Tell me about the history of your magick.”