Night Shift (Kate Daniels #6.5)(40)

Say what you want about Jim, he always treated my magic with a healthy dose of respect. My calligraphy didn’t always work, but my Balinese magic was a different story. He had never seen that side of me before.

I popped the trunk open and got out of the car. Two chests sat in the trunk, the small one with my calligraphy supplies and the large one with all of my Balinese items. A box of donuts sat on top of the bigger chest. Jim’s eyes lit up. He reached for the box and I slapped his hand lightly. “No. Offering.”

I opened the large chest, pulled out a necklace of iron wood beads with a large black amulet hanging from it. A stylized lion, bright red with details painted in gold gleamed on the amulet. The lion had large round black eyes half covered by bright red lids, a wide nose with two round nostrils, two wide ears, and a huge open mouth filled with bright white teeth.

“Barong Bali,” I told Jim, as I put the necklace over his neck. “King of spirits and sworn enemy of Rangda, the Demon Queen.”

Jim studied the amulet. “So how often do you do things like this?”

“About once every couple of weeks,” I said. “There is usually something untoward going on.”

“And it’s an insult to offer you money for it?”

“The legend says that a long, long time ago on the island of Bali, there lived an evil sorcerer. He was a terrible man who summoned demons, cast curses, and stole children and young pretty men and women to drain them of their blood so he could use it in his dark rituals. A man called Ketut had had enough and he asked Barong Bali for the strength to destroy the sorcerer. Barong Bali spoke to Ketut and told him that he would grant him powers to banish evil, but in return if any villagers came to Ketut for help against the dark magic, neither he nor his family could turn them away. Ketut agreed and Barong Bali made him into Barong Macan, the Tiger Barong. Ketut defeated the sorcerer and his descendants have guarded the balance between evil and good ever since.”

“Do you think it’s true?” Jim asked.

“I don’t know. But I’m a tiger, I have the power to banish bad magic, and people come to me for help.”

“Are you afraid that if you started charging for the services, you would be tempted to prioritize?”

I glanced at him in surprise. Wow. Nailed it. “Yes. Right now rich and poor are equal to me. I get no compensation either way, except for the satisfaction of restoring the balance and doing my job well. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“There should be some reward for this,” he said.

“People leave gifts,” I told him. “Sometimes money, sometimes food. Mostly on my doorstep or with my mother. I never know who they are from but I appreciate it always.”

I opened the large chest and took out the statue of Barong Bali. It was about a foot tall, but size didn’t matter. “Please put him under the tree.”

Eyang Ida had loved the tree. It grew with her as she aged, and I could feel traces of her in the tree’s branches. The tree’s spirit loved her. It would help us.

Jim set the statue by the tree roots. I slipped my shoes and socks off and took my offering out of the chest. I had made it in the house before I left. Jim regarded the banana leaf twisted into a small basket, the elaborate palm leaf tray, and the arrangement of flowers and fruit, and raised his eyebrows. I added a donut to it, took it to the statue, knelt, and placed it at Barong Bali’s feet. Jim knelt next to me.

I sat still, sinking into meditation, and let my magic permeate the lawn. It flowed through the soil, touched the tree roots, and spiraled up the trunk into its leaves. A subtle change came over the magic emanating from the tree. The spirits noticed Jim and pondered his connection to me. If there was enough of a bond, they would recognize it. Trouble was, I wasn’t sure if there was enough of a bond.

“So is the sugar-glazed donut a traditional Indonesian offering?” he asked.

Smart-ass. “No, the traditional offering calls for cakes. In this case I’m offering something that I like very much. The effort in making canang, the offering, is what counts.”

“Why don’t you just do your sticky-note thing?”

The last time we went into a house corrupted by magic, I had written protection kanji on a sticky note and stuck it to his chest.

“Because this dark magic is of Indonesian origin. I’m much stronger at my native magic than I am at writing curses on pieces of paper.”

The spirits still weren’t sure. I couldn’t just leave him on the lawn here. He would beat his chest and follow me into the house. I had to show them why he was important.

“Jim?”

“Yes?” he said.

“I need help.”

“I’m here,” he said.

“I need you to think about why you first asked me out. Like really think about it.”

“I asked you out because—”

I raised my hand. “No, please don’t tell me.” I was too scared to find out. “Just think about it.”

“Okay.”

I knew exactly why I had a crush on Jim. It wasn’t just one thing, it was the whole thing. He was one of the smartest men I’ve ever met. When Curran painted himself into a corner, he went to Jim and trusted him to think of a way out of it. He looked . . . Well, he was hot. Unbearably hot, like the kind of man you might see in a magazine or on TV. There was this raw masculinity about him, a kind of mix of male confidence and power. He was so unlike me. I was small and slight, and he was large and corded with muscle. I liked that duality, the contrast between me and him. It turned me on and I watched him when he wasn’t looking. I knew the way he held his head, the angle of his shoulders, the way he walked, unhurried and sure. In a crowd of identically dressed men, I would instantly know my Jim.