Home > The Bone Witch (The Osseous Chronicles #1)(4)

The Bone Witch (The Osseous Chronicles #1)(4)
Author: Ivy Asher

Message received, ancestors, message fucking received.

I give myself another minute and then unpeel my pancaked body from the kitchen floor. I feel like I’ve aged a hundred years. And like a semi just hit me. Pretty sure that semi was hauling pepper spray that just so happened to leak all over every inch of me, because ouch. The stinging sensation thankfully starts to recede, and I pull myself up. Shakily, I lean against the counter for support as I try to regulate my breathing and convince my legs that they don’t have to act like we’re Bambi on ice.

I stare down at the bag of bones. The bone that has the slashed diamond with bolts of lightning at each corner is still sitting on the top of the pile, and words like obligation, honor, and gratitude float to the surface of my mind like I’m a Magic 8 Ball supplying the answer to a question that was just asked.

I cinch the pouch of bones shut and throw my head back to the heavens. “I get it, okay!”

I look down to the ground beneath my feet and repeat myself, because fuck knows some of them are surely down there too. When my legs feel less like jello, I stomp toward the front door, my reflection in the mirror hung above my entryway table catching me off guard. I pause mid-step, my mane of dark-chocolate and cinnamon-kissed curls definitely having seen better days. Oddly, my tawny-beige complexion has a glow to it that wasn’t there before, the golden undertones of my skin alight, vibrant, and making me look entirely too radiant for how crappy I feel. Toffee-colored eyes stare back at me, and they’re filled with shock, wonder, and doubt.

I stare at myself for a moment, trying to see a woman that is ever going to live up to the legacy that just dropped like an anvil on her head, but no matter how hard I search, I can’t find her.

The mirror doesn’t take on any magical properties, declaring me the fairest of them all or answering any of the questions swimming in my gaze, so I turn away, shakily grabbing my purse and keys from where I previously deposited them. I take one last look at the velvet pouch that now owns me and then open my door and step out.

I better find a familiar before these impatient bones, and all the ancestors attached to them, zap me again.

“Fucking rude, if you ask me,” I grumble under my breath as I shut my door and lock it. Then I warily look around, hoping none of them actually heard that. The last thing I need is to get brained by something as I trudge down the stairs in search of a familiar like a good little Osteomancer is supposed to do.

I rub at my eyes with my palms and groan pitifully. I’m seriously going to suck at this so bad. Maybe the bones chose me purely for amusement. Maybe the ones who have gone before me were in need of a little pick-me-up, and it’s all about to happen at my expense.

A moth dive-bombs me, and I swat at it and squeal, ducking and tripping down the last couple of steps. Bastard bugs. Oh god, please don’t let my familiar be a moth—or worse, a ferret. I have a hard enough time finding decent guys without a pet that smells like piss following me around all the time.

“No goldfish!” I shout out like I’m beating my ancestors to the potential comedic punch.

A man gives a scared yelp, which makes me scream because I didn’t see him rounding the corner. I watch as the shrimp scampi I was looking forward to goes flying out of the bag clutched in the startled delivery driver’s hand. Its trajectory arcs up for a moment before it plummets to the ground, breaking open to spill its delicious contents all over the sidewalk. A piece of shrimp lands on the toe of my boot, and I look down and stare at the mess while the delivery guy groans and starts to rant at me.

I sigh, open my food delivery app, and tip him twenty bucks before walking away without a word. Yep, that about sums up my life. Now off to find a familiar that I hope like hell isn’t a shrimp or any other kind of crustacean.

 

 

“Where are you?” Tad asks me, judgment oozing from his tone as he answers my call.

“Where do you think I am? I’m at a shelter, working on step number two. The problem is that I can’t remember what I’m supposed to do after I find it,” I confess to my cousin as I walk slowly down the line of plexiglass-enclosed cages that are filled with various cats.

“Where’s your guide book?”

“At home. Can you please just get yours and tell me what the hell I’m supposed to be doing?” I plead, hoping my desperation will motivate him to be fast about it.

“Why is it at home?” Tad asks instead as I give an orange tabby that’s giving me the stink eye a wide berth.

“Well, after being magically tazed when I sealed the bones to me, I was kinda in a hurry and forgot it. Can you please just remind me what it says about familiars?” I beg, and I can practically feel the head shake Tad is doing on the other end of the line.

The distinct sound of him clomping up the stairs to his room has me releasing a relieved exhale. I knew I would be bad at this, but my level of suckage is surprising even me. I need to up my ginkgo biloba because I’m struggling to recall any of the things that have been hammered into me since practically birth. I forgot that I even owned a book that details what to do if this ever happens, that’s how bad I am at this.

I wait patiently as I hear Tad rustling around on the other end of the phone, and lean in closer to an adorable calico kitten that’s lapping up water from a stainless steel bowl. I smile and swallow down the awww that I’m just about to voice when the kitten looks up at me and immediately arcs its back and hisses. Every hair on the kitten fluffs out to stand on end, like each individual follicle is offended by my presence, and I quickly back away from the angry little fur ball.

Sheesh.

“Okay, I’m paraphrasing here,” Tad starts. “But it pretty much just says that you need one, it can be any living thing, and you’ll get all tingly when you find a good fit for you,” Tad tells me, and I can hear the flipping of pages as he scans his guide book for any more useful information. “Yep, that’s it aside from the incantation to bind a familiar.”

Words and their cadence pop into my mind unbidden, and I immediately recognize the very incantation he just mentioned. Weird. Maybe my brain is just rusty and not useless like I thought. Tad starts to read the first line of the binding.

“I know it, don’t keep going!” I shout, hurrying to cut him off before he completes the incantation and accidentally makes Small, Poofy, and Ragey my next familiar. He stops and I press a palm to my chest. That was close. I back further away from the still angry little kitten.

“Thank you, Tad. I’ll let you know if I find one.”

“Better hurry, it’s almost seven, and I’m sure pet stores and shelters will all be closing soon.”

Panic flares through me, and I hang up the phone before he can say anything else, and hurry on with the task at hand. I scan the rest of the cat cages hopefully and continue to make my way through the feline portion of the first shelter that popped up on google. Like some weird Peeping Tom, I peer into every cage, my eyes intense and my body expectant. I stare and I wait for the tingles that are supposed to come, but after my second round of creeping out the cats, nothing happens. I sigh tiredly and accept that finding my familiar at the first place I stopped was probably wishful thinking.

I leave the cat enclosure, defeat echoing in the tap of my steps against the polished concrete floor. I rummage through my purse for my keys and pull up on my phone a list of other shelters or pet stores I can try to get to before they close. A cacophony of frantic barking pulls my attention away from the maps app I just opened. I look up and see rows of kennels with a myriad of different-sized dogs in each chain-link pen.

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