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I shrugged. “I lust for him a little... and I feel for his dilemma. Neither of those are the sort of thing a woman should let her guide her decisions about a man.”

“Are you forty or a hundred?”

I snorted. “I admitted to feeling lust, Conn. What more do ya want from me?”

“I want a sign that Jack didn’t break your heart so badly that it will never mend. Not only did Murieann never marry again after her husband left her, but she never dated either. Handsome men would come along. I could tell she found them tempting but none were ever tempting enough. Sometimes a physical connection is all that makes our lives tolerable. She died alone with no lover saddened by her loss.”

“And then ya came to serve her naïve grandchild who was too busy carrying her own child to think straight.”

“You were full of light and life. You still are. I was grateful for you.”

I got up from my chair and went to put my arms around Conn’s waist. He released a wistful sigh and hugged me back.

“Caring is not a weakness. It fuels magick of all sorts,” I told him.

“I know. I still want to kill him for what he did to you.”

“Rasmus or Jack?” I asked.

Conn answered with a wicked grin. “Take your pick. I’ll see you this afternoon.”

“Good. I need ya to keep an eye on Rasmus while I do my spells. He’s edgy today and I can’t tell why.”

ChapterTwenty

Rasmus opted to wait for me in a coffee shop a few doors down on Mulan’s block. I gave Rasmus my phone so he’d have something to do.

The coffee shop was one Conn and I used to frequent. And to think that a Wu Shaman was running a business so close to us and we never knew it. Or at least, I didn’t know. I suspected Conn knew. He’d probably been keeping an eye on Mulan since the day they met.

She was with an older client when I walked inside her shop. I waved when she saw me and took a seat. Ten minutes later, the woman was rolled up and under a dryer. Ma got that done when she came. Ma liked a fluffy heat style set on rollers that “made the curls last” as she put it, while I settled for a damp blow dry on the best of days.

At the length my hair was now, I didn’t bother to dry it at all most of the time. I used a curling iron for special occasions or simply twisted it up. Fixing my hair every day took too much time. I was not one of those women.

My daughter, though, was a girly-girl like her grandmother. She’d fiddle with her strands for hours until she was satisfied they looked artfully chaotic. She’d gel her hair into submission and then shoot it with something called a freeze spray to make sure it stayed in shape.

I used to wonder what Fiona would have done with power like mine. Would she have refused to fight if it messed up her hair? The thought had me smiling.

“Where is my biggest failure today?” Mulan asked by way of greeting.

I intended to teach that woman to properly say hello even if it killed both of us. “If you’re referring to Rasmus, he’s having coffee down the street. I came alone to ask ya something. With those compulsions still in place in his pelvic area, I don’t trust Rasmus to hear this conversation.”

“I have quit Wu Shaman work. This is hair shop only. Do you need shampoo and set? Or styling lessons for your unruly curls?”

I motioned to the shop door and outside. The reluctant Wu Shaman sighed heavily but nodded before following me out.

“I think you know why I’m here, Mulan. I need your Wu Shaman services.”

“No. I am failure. Find another who is success.”

“There’s not another Wu Shaman in this country, much less in Salem.”

“There is no Wu Shaman here. There is only former one who should retire in shame.”

I crossed my arms and glared. If I didn’t give Mulan something bigger to feel than her own self-pity, she wasn’t going to help me.

“Ya need to quit whining about what happened to Rasmus, which is still unexplainable, and help me figure out his bigger problems. To do that, I need to locate a demon caste and constrain them if they get fight-y with me. Conn is too compromised to be of any use, which is why I need ya so desperately.”

As impossible as I found it, Mulan’s frown deepened. It was like watching a total eclipse of her humanity. The darkness on the Wu Shaman’s face scared me and I wasn’t easy to scare.