Page 18 of Take You Home (Redwater Demons #3)

C ASSIUS: Obie, you’re my best friend and I love you, but if you don’t take a break and actually hang out with us, then I’m going to have to give your best friend privileges to Roma, instead.

Obie blinks slowly down at the text message, absorbing the semi-threatening words.

Right now, he and Chester are holed up in Chester’s bedroom on one of the hunter’s precious few days off, Chester sprawled across his bed with one library book and Obie sitting at the desk with another as they try to figure out how to break the binding spell.

It’s a depressingly familiar position for them.

Despite their tentative shift from active adversaries to reluctant allies after the Laila incident, Chester still refuses to let Obie sift through his memories of the pre-casting process?—and Obie still doesn’t want a hunter anywhere near the spell to request a record from the Deep.

Now, after two weeks of near-constant research, they’re still no closer to finding a way to create a counterspell without knowing the original spell’s parameters.

It’s also been over two weeks since Obie last saw his friends, and the extended separation is really starting to wear on him. Letting out a slow breath, he sends off an answer to Cass.

OBADIAH: Wow. Not even Ez or JJ, huh? Going straight to Roma? That’s serious.

CASSIUS: Ez already has best friend privileges, and JJ has boyfriend privileges. And Desi obviously outranks all of you. But are *you* willing to be outranked by Roma Gutierrez, Obadiah? Consider your answer carefully.

Obie snorts. Chester throws him a confused glance. “You good?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Obie says, waving a hand dismissively. “Just one of my friends being stupid.”

“Trevor or Sasha?”

Obie blinks at him, surprised. “Um, no. Not them.”

Chester’s expression closes off. “Ah,” he says, busying himself with his spell book again.

Obie fights back a grimace. Last night was the second time Obie made Chester invisible for bowling league, and Chester is clearly growing fond of Redwater Bowl’s mozzarella sticks?—and the twin bowlers on Obie’s team.

He’s noticeably less comfortable with Maggie Khan, but Obie could’ve sworn he heard Chester clap when she managed to hit a strike last night.

Maybe Obie can risk bringing Chester along to see his friends. Carefully, he types in his response.

OBADIAH: I might be able to make it today. Where are we meeting?

CASSIUS: We were thinking of doing pad thai and cachapas in the Courtyard. Maybe some pavlova, because Desi is on a pavlova kick. JJ even tried making it from scratch the other day.

OBADIAH: Really? How’d that go?

CASSIUS: It was a trainwreck, but an amusing one. So are you in?

Obie hesitates, considering.

On the one hand, this is probably a bad idea.

Bringing a Sanctum interrogator into a crowd of fugitive demons and ex-hunters just sounds like a recipe for disaster, and Chester has already proven that he’s willing to do recklessly stupid things when he thinks his friends are in danger.

There are too many potential pitfalls, too many potential risks??—

Too many ways Chester could try and use the situation to the Sanctum’s advantage.

On the other hand, though, there won’t be many actual threats to Obie’s friends.

Even when Chester is invisible, Obie can still sense his presence acutely enough that he wouldn’t be able to do anything sketchy.

They’re meeting in a public place, so it’s not like anyone’s houses would be compromised. And above all??—

Another text from Cass pops up.

CASSIUS: Come on, man. We miss you.

That settles it. Decisively, Obie messages Cass back with an affirmative and snaps his book shut. “We’re going out.”

Chester squints up at him. “Out? What do you mean, ‘out’?”

“I mean that we’re getting out of this godforsaken place,” Obie says, pushing himself to his feet and stretching his arms above his head.

Trying to convince himself that this isn’t a terrible idea.

“My friends are meeting up for pad thai and cachapas, and I’m not one to say no to pad thai and cachapas. ”

Chester hesitates. “Smith??—?”

Obie cuts in before he can protest. Before last week, he would’ve thought that Chester was purposefully trying to isolate Obie from his friends, but after watching him frantically try?—and fail?—to rebuild his reputation in the prison since he “killed” Laila, well??—

Now, Obie thinks that Chester is just anxious at baseline.

He isn’t sure if Chester is clinically diagnosable with an anxiety disorder?—Obie’s board certification in psychiatry is from the 1940s, and the DSM hadn’t even come out yet?—but he’s damn sure that therapy would do wonders for Chester.

“You have the full day off, Nehemiah is on another job, and?—if we’re being really honest here?—no one is going to come looking for you.

If it makes you feel better, we can even sign out with the guards instead of rifting straight to the Courtyard.

Give you a paper trail if anyone asks questions. ”

Chester only wavers briefly before nodding. “Okay, yeah,” he says, sticking a bookmark in his textbook and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “So which, uh, friends are we meeting?”

Obie keeps his tone casual. “Cass, Ez, JJ, Roma, and Desi.”

“Oh.” Chester swallows hard, his eyes flitting away. “How about, um, Sawyer and Naomi?”

Obie really hopes not. He’s cautiously inclined to think that Chester would try to be civil for JJ and Roma, but considering how bitter he and Bryant still sound about their old mentors, he doesn’t want to take any chances.

“Cass didn’t mention them, so I don’t think so,” he says, and he ducks his head, forcing Chester to meet his gaze.

“Just… keep it clean, okay? Let’s just have a nice meal and not talk about the Sanctum at all. ”

Chester’s eyebrows furrow. “It’s kind of hard to have any conversations when I’m soundproofed, Smith. Am I not going to be invisible this time? I mean, I’d kill for some good cachapas, but…”

Truthfully, Obie had been considering the same issue.

He’s kept Chester invisible and soundproofed during the past two weeks of bowling league, but that was more of a stopgap measure than anything else?—and he doesn’t want his friends to mention any incriminating information if they think Obie is alone.

A glamour would probably be the better option. Obie can just say that Chester is a new tenant or a fellow bowler, and??—

Aw, come on. Can’t you take one for the team?

A slow smile spreads across Obie’s face. That could work, actually. It would give Obie a plausible excuse to bring a glamoured Chester along to multiple gatherings, it would make his friends think twice before revealing anything about the conspiracy??—

And it would annoy the hell out of his spellbound idiot.

Obie might not want Chester Locke dead as much as he used to, but that doesn’t mean he’s above making Chester’s life more irritating.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to deny you your cachapas,” he says, pulling out his phone to send a follow-up text to Cass with an updated guest list. “I’ll glamour you as…

someone. I’ll work out the details in my head on the way into town. ”

Chester’s eyes light up. “Really?”

Obie nods firmly. “Really.”

“Cool. Thanks, Obie.”

It might just be the first time Obie has ever seen a real smile on Chester. It doesn’t look half-bad on him. Obie clears his throat, gesturing towards the door. “Yeah, sure. Ready to go?”

“Ready,” Chester says, pushing himself to his feet. “Hide yourself.”

“On it,” Obie says, draping the invisibility and soundproofing spells over his shoulders. “Let’s go, puppy.”

Getting out of the Sanctum is simple enough.

In fact, Obie has been taken aback by just how easy it is to enter and exit the building.

There are guards posted at every door to sign people in and out?—a newer development since JJ and Roma defected, apparently?—but with some solid glamours, it would be child’s play for Obie and his friends to infiltrate the very heart of the Sanctum.

Maybe this bizarre chapter of his life will have some benefits, after all. The idea gives him a savage sort of pleasure.

It’s only a few minutes before they’re strolling down the path towards Redwater. Once they’re out of eyeshot of the guards, Obie grabs Chester’s arm, dragging him off the trail so they’re hidden behind a cluster of trees. “Here. I’ll glamour you now. Fewer civilians to see us.”

Chester looks torn between nervous and curious at the prospect. “Sure,” he says, stretching his arms out wide. “Who am I going to be?”

“Hm…” Obie deliberates briefly before deciding on an appearance reminiscent of a character from a popular film franchise, sliding the glamour into place. “There. That should do it.”

Chester immediately pulls out the front-facing camera on his phone, peering at himself with interest. Obie tried to match his basic features as closely as possible, so his skin is still pale and his height is still the same, but his hair is light brown instead of its usual blond and his eyes are blue instead of hazel. “Huh. Nice. Who am I?”

“A minor character from Water Wars,” Obie says. “One who dies.”

Chester shoots him a look. “Gee, thanks.”

“No problem,” Obie says, peeling off his own invisibility spell. “Do you want to rift to the Courtyard? Or go on foot?”

“It’s only a twenty-minute walk. Might be nice to stretch our legs.”

Belatedly, Obie realizes that Chester hasn’t voluntarily left the Sanctum’s property at all since they’ve been bound together. Sure, Obie has taken him to bowling a few times, but beyond that, Chester has barely breathed fresh air outside of his early-morning training sessions with Bryant.

Probably because he’s spent all of his spare time researching how to break the binding spell.

Obie’s heart twinges at the thought. Sure, this entire situation is Chester’s fault, but he doesn’t want the stupid hunter to never see sunlight again.

“On foot it is, then,” he says, leading the way back to the trail.

“And we’re clear on the rules, right? No trying to pry sensitive intel out of JJ and Roma? ”

Chester actually looks a bit stung. “I wouldn’t do that.”

Obie’s eyes narrow. “Really. ”

“Yes, really,” Chester says defensively. “I do have basic human decency, okay? And I?—??” He looks away. “I’ve missed them. It’ll be… good to see them again. Even if I can’t tell them who I am.”

And that’s another reason why Obie thinks the benefits outweigh the risks of bringing Chester today: if he sees that JJ and Roma are truly happy outside the Sanctum?—and not brainwashed by the evil demons?—then it’ll make this entire situation more bearable.

“And you’ll play nice with Cass and Ez?” Obie presses.

Chester’s jaw works. “I mean, I’ll try. I’ll shake their hands and??—??” Abruptly, he stops dead. “Wait. I can’t actually touch them??—them or JJ. Corrosion spell, remember?”

Right. It’s been so long since Obie was affected by the enchantment baked into Chester’s skin that he almost forgot about it. “Well, I can deactivate it for twelve hours?—Ez created the spell. It’ll block all of the Sanctum enchantments, though, not just the corrosion spell.”

Chester hesitates. “For twelve hours?”

“Yep.” Obie checks his watch. “It’s eleven-thirty a.m. now, so you’ll be back in business by midnight.”

After a long moment, Chester nods. “Okay. Do it.”

Pleasantly surprised, Obie claps a hand onto Chester’s shoulder, murmuring the incantation under his breath. Within seconds, the potent magic sewn into Chester’s bones seems to vanish, forced down like it was never there in the first place.

It makes Chester’s entire presence feel different. Obie is somewhat confused to find that he doesn’t like it. Fighting back a scowl, he turns away. “All good,” he says briskly, starting to walk towards town again. “Let’s go.”

Chester falls into step beside him, occasionally looking down at his hands like he’s fascinated by the glamour?—or like he can physically feel the lack of Sanctum enchantments.

The silence is almost companionable as the neat dirt trail gives way to cement and asphalt, and twenty minutes seem to fly by in a flash, both of them content to lose themselves in thought as they make the well-worn trek on autopilot.

They’ve almost reached the familiar cobblestone pavement when Chester finally speaks again. “So what’s my cover story?”

The opening to the Courtyard looms large ahead of them, the sloshing of the tiered fountain and the delicious scents from the food trucks beckoning them forward. If Obie squints, he can see the table where he and his friends usually set up shop, occupied by five ostensibly unfamiliar faces.

But the little girl sitting on a man’s shoulders is unmistakably Desi, even with her glamour. Time for action. Decisively, Obie wraps an arm around Chester’s waist and pulls him against his side. “Your name is Kyle Chad. We met at bowling a month ago, and we’ve been dating for two weeks.”

Chester jerks around to face him, horrified. “What?”

“Play along or you won’t get your cachapas,” Obie says, and, feeling extraordinarily pleased with himself, he drags Chester over to the table where his friends are waiting.