Chapter 66: 54. Witches Wedges & Wings

"Am I the only one who thinks it's weird?" Kaylee asked as she looked towards Brooke and Paige.

Our new club leader shrugged, "It's different, but like Marissa said last week, new club new rules, right?"

Brooke nodded in agreement, then added "It's comfortable too. Cass, thanks for hosting. And thank your moms too."

It was another Friday night, and this time the five of us were in my living-room. Brooke and Paige were in the big easy chairs across from us, while me and Kaylee and Nina sat together on the sofa. I was in the middle as usual, since Kaylee still wasn't comfortable getting too close to my little sister. Not that she was happy seeing me being close to the small demon either, but at least she'd stopped complaining about it.

Back at the start of the week we were all messaging on the group chat, trying to agree on where to have the next club meeting. I ended up inviting everyone over, and we were going to order something in for dinner like we did the week before.

"You can thank them yourselves if you like?" I grinned. "They promised not to disturb us, but they're home."

Kaylee grimaced, "That feels weird too. But I suppose the only difference from our meeting at Melanie's place last week is your moms know about the club and know we're having a meeting here."

"Speaking of Melanie and Marissa, I wonder what's keeping those two?" Paige commented with a frown. "They both said they'd be here right?"

I nodded, "Yeah, as soon as we all agreed to do it here they both confirmed they were coming."

Brooke pulled out her phone as she said, "I'll text them. They're already ten minutes late, if they're not here soon we should go ahead and order dinner without them. Hopefully they'll be here before it arrives."

While she was doing that I asked the others, "What do we all feel like for dinner? Pizza's always an option, or we could try something else?"

That led to a few minutes of debate, before we settled on a new wings place that just opened up. I found their website and put in the order, we got a few dozen wings with a couple different sauces, plus a large order of onion rings and a large order of potato wedges on the side. It all sounded incredibly unhealthy, but it also sounded really tasty.

"So that's about forty-five minutes till dinner arrives," I announced when the order was in.

Paige commented, "I hope Marissa and Melanie get here by then. They're not usually late for our club meetings."

"No reply yet to my texts," Brooke commented as she glanced at her phone. "So what do you all want to do while we're waiting for dinner, and for our last two club members?"

I grimaced, then shrugged "I kind of wanted this to be a big surprise announcement, but Kaylee already knows so I may as well tell you two. We can fill in Marissa and Melanie later."

The two tall athletic girls looked to me with interest, they were obviously curious what my big announcement was.

"It's about Nina," I stated with a smile, then I leaned closer to her and pulled her into a side-hug. "She's officially my little sister now! She's Nina Underwood, our parents adopted her! She's officially moved in and everything!"

The shy demon blushed and squirmed a bit as I hugged her, but she didn't actually try and escape. At least not right away. Meanwhile both Brooke and Paige looked surprised, but after a second or two they both smiled.

"Congratulations," Paige responded. "I hope you're happy? And your parents are too?"

"Yeah," Nina nodded. She was smiling by that point, though still blushing as I held her close against my left side. "It's really nice, I never had a family before. And both Tanya and Julie... I mean mum and mom, they're both really nice."

Brooke asked, "So what are you going to be doing here? Apart from helping solve Cass's problem?"

"She's coming to school with us next month!" I stated with a big grin. "She spent the last three days with mom doing back-to-school shopping, getting clothes and notebooks and a laptop and all that stuff."

My little sister finally squirmed free of my hug, but she was still smiling and blushing. She added, "I won't be in the same classes with Cass or Kaylee or Paige. I'm going to start in grade eleven, so I might be in some of Marissa's and Melanie's classes instead."

"Wow," Paige commented. "I guess we'll see you around the school, or in the cafeteria at lunch?"

Nina shrugged, "Maybe? I've never been to school before. I know stuff, I learned lots on my own over the centuries. But being at school's going to be a new experience."

That ended up being the topic of conversation right up until dinner arrived. It was pretty exciting, or at least I thought it was, that after being so alone all her life my little sister suddenly had friends and a family and now she was going to school and maybe she'd even make more friends there. Either way it was really nice to see her happy and enjoying life, instead of being shy and scared and lonely and stuff.

When the food arrived I got plates out and drinks for everyone, and a whole package of napkins since wings were pretty messy and I knew I'd never hear the end of it if we got wing sauce or grease on the furniture.

"Still no word from Marissa or Melanie," Brooke frowned as she checked her phone again. "I think we're going to have to write them off this time."

Kaylee had been quiet for most of the conversation when it was about Nina, but she commented "They're probably goofing off together. Or maybe there's a Touhou convention or something?"

Paige sounded concerned as she responded, "I don't know Kaylee. I can't remember Marissa ever missing a single meeting before. You know what she's like, she lives for Club Luna as much as she does her Touhou stuff."

"I'll send one more message just in case," Brooke decided.

She tapped it out on her phone, then after that we all got started on the food, and the meeting.

"So Cass since we're meeting at your place, why don't you go first?" Paige suggested. "Did you talk to your moms about the fairy problem? And if so, can they help?"

I was already munching on a potato wedge, but I swallowed that and washed it down with some soda. Then I nodded, "I talked to our mum, but she said neither her or mom can really help with this stuff?"

"It's sort of like what Nina was saying last week I guess?" I added. "They're angels, they have holy magic. Their magic can affect fae just like it can affect demons and humans? But they don't have access to the fae realm, and they don't have a way to safely transport people to that realm."

Kaylee asked, "So they can't help us at all?"

I shrugged, "They can heal folks, and they can attack people or defend themselves and our family. Like if someone threatened or attacked me I'm pretty sure my folks would mess that person up pretty bad, whether they were human, angel, demon, or fae? But they can't open a portal or transport people to or from the fae realm."

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Paige finished another wing then nodded, "Ok thanks Cass. So on to Kaylee, did you find anything in your research?"

My girlfriend grabbed a napkin and wiped her hands and her mouth then replied, "I did. I found a banishing ritual that looks legit. The downside is we need to catch the fairies and keep them still while we do it?"

"Unfortunately this part of the plan kind of depends on Marissa," she continued with a frown. "So hopefully whatever she and her girlfriend are up to, they'll show up so they can help us out. But I thought if we could use your scrying Brooke to locate the fairies, then Marissa's sleep spells to knock them out? Then we could take them back to the clearing where their fairy ring was. We do the ritual there, banish the three of them, and that should send them home safe and sound."

Finally she added, "Banishing doesn't require a portal, and we don't need to do it at sunrise or sunset. It just forces them straight back home, and prevents them from returning again."

"Like how Socha was banished from the mortal realm," I commented. "Booted off Earth, and forbidden from ever returning. At least without help."

Kaylee nodded, "That's the idea."

Brooke responded, "The problem with this plan is, how am I supposed to scry for these fairies without some sort of focus or anchor?"

"I thought maybe you could just scan the forest for anything supernatural?" my girlfriend asked. "Sort of like that spell Mrs. Reeves used, to identify all the supernaturals in town? Except a much smaller scale, obviously."

Our former leader looked thoughtful, "That might work? It would be a lot easier if I had a focus that was linked to them, but just looking for supernaturals in general could work."

After finishing a honey-garlic wing I asked, "What about those magic mushrooms Marissa harvested? Maybe one of those would have a strong enough link to the fairies? Like whatever fae magic is on them might help you focus on fairies in general, right?"

"That's actually a really good idea Cass," the tall blonde replied with a smile. The smile faded as she added, "Except after whatever Marissa's done to them, boiling or pickling, that may have broken their metaphysical link to the fae."

"She was also dehydrating some of them. Those ones ought to be the least tampered-with, so they might still work?" I pointed out.

Brooke thought that over for a few moments then nodded, "It's worth a try anyways. When she finally shows up I'll ask her to set aside a couple of the dehydrated ones for me to scry with."

"Sounds like we have a plan?" Paige asked. "All we need to do is pick a day to head back to Monora Forest."

"And we can't really pick a date without knowing when Marissa and Melanie are free," Kaylee stated with an unhappy frown.

Our club leader shrugged, "We can still pick a date. We just won't know if those two can make it until they get back to us."

Kaylee sighed, "Except my plan kind of depends on Marissa and her sleep spells. And we could use Melanie's nose too, since she can sniff out supernaturals."

"For that matter we don't even know if there's been any more sightings or any more fairy trouble," she added a moment later, "Since Marissa was our source for that information."

That left a frown on Paige's face, and for the next few minutes we all just quietly ate our wings and rings and wedges.

Finally the tall brunette seemed to make a decision. She stated, "Ok, keeping with the 'new club new rules' theme? We're not going to be stuck just because one or two members can't make it to a meeting or have to miss a planned outing. Especially now that there's more of us. This time last year, when it was just the four of us, then we definitely needed everyone to contribute. But now we've got Cass, Nina, and Melanie. And we still have Brooke and me, Kaylee and Marissa."

"So if we don't have Marissa's sleep spells we'll ask another member to take care of that," she explained. Then she looked to Nina and asked, "Do you have some non-violent, non-lethal magic you can use to subdue a couple fairies?"

My little sister nodded. She seemed a little embarrassed but she responded, "I can make them sleep. It's not harmful or anything. Demon equivalent of a sleep spell I guess?"

"Good," Paige smiled. "Thanks Nina. And Cass, I know you can see magic. If Melanie can't make it then you'll be keeping an eye out for the fairies. I know you'd be doing that anyways, but you'll be our go-to if we don't have a werewolf's nose that day."

Brooke suggested, "If we can't get the mushrooms from Marissa, or if we do but they don't work, then I can do the scrying from that clearing where the portal was? Even with the portal closed there might be some residual fae magic left, in the grass or maybe even the soil. I can try and use that as a focus, to locate the fairies."

That made our leader smile even wider, "Perfect! So it sounds like we're good to go, with or without Marissa and Melanie. We just need to pick a date. And I think sooner is better, considering those fairies pose a real risk to people."

Everyone wiped their hands clean before grabbing phones, then we all checked our calendars and stuff.

Paige added, "The full moon is just after eight Sunday morning, but I'm not sure we want to go fairy hunting right after that? Or right before. Unfortunately the only weekday I'm free next week is Wednesday."

"I can do Wednesday," Brooke responded. "If that works for the rest of you?"

Me and Kaylee and Nina all nodded, so it was agreed. We'd meet somewhere Wednesday afternoon, then head back into the woods to deal with some fairies. With that settled we all put notes in our calendars about it, and Paige sent a reminder to the group chat as well. She also texted the info to both Marissa and Melanie, to make sure neither of them could claim they didn't see it.

Then we all got back to the food again, and as we enjoyed our wings and stuff Paige asked Kaylee "Is there anything we need to know about this banishing ritual? Anything special we have to bring?"

"Just salt," my girlfriend replied. "It's pretty similar to the ritual Marissa found, for closing the portal? Same sort of thing, we make a salt pentacle, add the specific runes, then raise the chant. After we stick the fairies in the middle of the circle, that is."

I asked, "We don't have to do this at midnight? The other one was supposed to be done at midnight, right?"

Kaylee shook her head, "According to what I found, it can be done whenever."

"Can you email it to everyone?" Paige asked. "Or post a link on the group chat? So we can all have a look, and prepare in advance if necessary."

"Sure," Kaylee agreed.

Nobody else had any questions or anything, so Paige decided that was the end of the meeting. After that we ate more wings and streamed a movie on the TV while we all hung out together. And both Brooke and Paige talked more with Nina, about her joining the family and her plans for school next month.