Page 7 of Grimoire Omens

“Oh, that’s foul.” Flo staggered to the door and opened it.

Me, I crawled because I suddenly felt very woozy as the effects of the booze and joint hit. With Flo waving the door back and forth, the miasma from the small cauldron dissipated, sucked out into the night.

A night that didn’t suddenly produce my one true love.

A good thing since my stomach suddenly rebelled against the wine and I threw up all over my front step.

2

As I knelt, hunched over my fouled front step, Flo exclaimed, “Looks like someone is having a party in the park.”

A bleary-eyed glance showed the sky a few blocks over glowing golden.

“Wanna check it out?” Flo was holding her liquor and dope better than me.

“Fuck no. I think I need to go to bed.”

“Party pooper,” Flo teased, but being a good friend, she helped me stumble to my bedroom, where I collapsed and passed out until late the next morning.

Waking proved traumatic.

Gritty eyes. A sour mouth. Super rumbly belly. A cloudy brain. The mother of all hangovers had me shuffling to the bathroom, where the only good news was the abrupt cessation of my flow. A brush of my teeth and a wash of my face restored me a little bit, but what I really needed? A coffee. I stumbled to the kitchen and leaned against the counter while I brewed a pot of caffeine.

Flo staggered in just as it finished dripping, looking as good as I felt. “Man, I should have gone to bed when you did,” she groaned.

“You stayed up?”

“Thought I’d tidy up our mess while I finished off the bottle of wine.”

A glance through the archway to the living room showed the many ingredient bottles and candles gone, the chest back in front of the couch with the Grimoire sitting atop it.

“Guess the spell didn’t work,” I stated because, hello, still no dashing prince on my doorstep.

“Give it time. I mean, did you think he’d just show up in our living room?”

“Well yeah.”

Flo snickered. “Can you imagine if a guy had appeared? Poof.” She snapped her fingers. “You’d have likely brained him with the candlestick.”

“True dat,” I agreed.

“What should we do today?”

“Other than die?”

“Feels like a vegging day to me.”

Agreed, hence why me and Flo spent a quiet day wrapped like burritos on the couch until the arrival of the demon in the kitchen, and the judgy cat that tsked.

Nothing like being reprimanded by a mangy feline. “You cast a summoning spell while under the influence, didn’t properly measure I’ll imagine, and compounded that error without specifying who?” Cedric did not sound impressed.

“I… Uh…” I stuttered before lamely replying, “I didn’t have the name of my one true love. If I did, I wouldn’t have needed a spell.”

Cedric sighed. “Your Grams was right. You are an idiot.”

“Hey!”

“Don’t hey me. Do you realize what you’ve done?” I swear, if the cat possessed hands and hips, the hands would have been planted in reproach.