"See you later sis!" I said as I climbed out of the car. "Good luck with work tonight!"

Tabby added, "Thanks again for the drive Avery, bye for now!"

My sister just nodded and waved, then as soon as Tabs and I were both out and the doors were closed she pulled back out of the driveway and headed off.

I looked to my best friend and asked, "Do you want to come in and hang out for a bit? Or are you going to head home now?"

"I'm coming in with you," she replied. "I have some news I wanted to tell you about, stuff I wasn't sure it was ok to mention in the car."

That made me grimace, "Ok Tabs. I need to check on Jinx first, but hopefully that won't take long."

Avery was pretty unhappy after that mess Tuesday afternoon with Jinx and Raven and everything. She flat out refused to bring the small demon to college again, but at least she didn't follow through with her threat to leave Jinx tied up in a closet all day long while we were out.

Since then my sister had started to lighten up again, and to be fair Jinx hadn't caused any more trouble the last couple days. On the other hand both me and Tabby were a bit reluctant to discuss supernatural stuff around Avery, incase she was still uptight about it.

So the last three days Jinx had been left at home on her own, to watch TV or read or whatever. Which was pretty boring for her, she hated the isolation and being ignored. It meant she was kind of sad and grumpy every afternoon when we got home from college. The fact that we hadn't done any more cursing since last weekend was also getting to her.

I was planning to fix that today though. Now that it was Friday afternoon and we had the whole weekend ahead of us, I figured I could start doing some of the safer curses again. I really hoped that would cheer her up.

"We're home!" I called as soon as I unlocked the front door and stepped inside.

Tabby followed me in and called out as well, "Hi Jinx!"

There was no reply, but I wasn't too worried. Me and Tabs went up the stairs to the living-room and sure enough the half-demon was laying on the sofa staring at the ceiling, while some daytime show played on the TV.

I left my backpack on the floor next to the sofa, then went up to the kitchen to get us all some drinks. Juice for our half-demon friend and cola for me and Tabby. Then my best friend and I got Jinx to sit up so we could join her on the sofa. She was in the middle, with Tabs on the left and me on the right.

"So I was thinking," I told her as I handed her the juice, "It's Friday afternoon, we've got the entire weekend with nothing to do right? Well, ok there's homework and my math tutor is coming over again tomorrow afternoon, but other than that there's nothing going on. So maybe we could start doing some more curses again?"

Sure enough that got her attention. Jinx gave me a hopeful smile as she asked, "Really? You're not just saying that?"

"Really," I nodded. "I do have a question for you though? How are we supposed to look up different curses now that you aren't a book anymore? Like we obviously can't just flip through pages, so how do we find what curses we want to try?"

The small half-demon grinned, "You can ask me! Instead of hunting stuff up the hard way just ask me and I'll tell you the answers. And if you want to use the curse then I can focus on it and the text will appear where you can read it."

"I've been practicing while you were at school," she added proudly. "Even if I can't use the curses myself, I wanted to be ready for when you started using them again. So ask away, and I'll get you the right curse right now! Where do you want to start?"

I shook my head, "We're not ready to start right this second, sorry Jinx. I need to talk to Tabby about something first, then we'll get to the cursing. Ok?"

"Fine," she sighed as her shoulders slumped. Her smile faded too, like she probably thought I was just putting things off again.

I figured she wasn't going to believe me until we actually started doing curses, but that would have to wait until after Tabby shared whatever it was she had to discuss.

So I looked to her and asked, "What did you want to talk about, that we couldn't say in the car?"

My friend had a gulp of her soda then grinned, "Ben got his miracle last night. He was absolutely ecstatic when I saw him in class this morning? And Chrissy's still practically glowing, she's so happy after getting her miracle Wednesday night."

"That's awesome!" I smiled. "And it's kind of wild too, right? Like praying to a real life goddess, who happens to go to the same school as us? And she's actually answering prayers and granting miracles!"

Jinx sighed, "Yeah awesome. And nobody had to curse anyone."

I leaned closer and gave her a side-hug, "I told you we're going to do more cursing in a little while, ok Jinx? I promise."

Tabby asked, "Have you been praying to Amethyst as well? I guess nothing's happened yet?"

"Not yet," I shook my head. "I've been praying for her to help Jinx, but maybe she can't actually do that?"

Our small demon friend pouted, "Or maybe she doesn't like cambions. Or maybe she just doesn't like me in particular. Maybe Raven told her about me and told her to ignore me."

I frowned, "You know, I don't think Raven would do that? She said you could try praying, I don't think she'd have said that if she was going to turn around and tell Amethyst not to help you."

"So why do you figure our local goddess isn't helping me?" the half-demon asked.

"I don't know Jinx," I shrugged. "Like I said, maybe she can't help free you? Like maybe there's some technical reason she can't do that? Or maybe she's prioritizing helping trans people. I'm going to keep trying though. And in the meantime I'm serious about doing more cursing again, now that it's the weekend."

That made her smile, "Thanks Cheryl."

I smiled back, then looked at Tabby and asked "Do you have any plans for the rest of the weekend? Want to get in on some cursing action with me and Jinx?"

She hesitated, "I've actually been thinking about that again. I may have figured out a sort of loophole, to get us money without getting us arrested or running into any of the other problems that Avery mentioned?"

"Oh yeah?" I asked with an excited grin. "What's the trick, what did you figure out?"

After another gulp of her cola she replied quietly, "It's a bit of an oddball idea, but I was thinking of that insufferable billionaire who's all over social media these days? What if every time he's dealing in cash, some small percentage of that disappeared and turned up here? Or actually a better option would be to have some specific place for the money to appear. Like your purse, or your backpack maybe?"

"The victim would be a rich asshole that nobody likes," she explained, "The money should be untraceable, and if it's disappearing through magic then there's no way for him to find out where it's going. I think that covers all the requirements and possible gotchas? The only drawback is it might be kind of unpredictable? I don't know how often rich people actually deal with cash. I doubt this will make us rich, but it might be some unexpected spending money now and then. It might even replace what you'd make at a part-time job if we're lucky."

Then she added with a smile, "The best part is if it works, we could try and repeat it on other annoying rich guys."

"I like it," I said as I smiled back at her. Then I looked to Jinx and asked, "So what do you think, do you have a curse like that?"

Tabby added, "Something where we can specify those sorts of details, who's going to lose the money, how much they'll lose, and where it'll turn up when it vanishes?"

Jinx thought for a few seconds, then she nodded "Yeah! I know a curse that can do all that. You'll have to do the wording as specifically as you can, but it ought to work. Should we do it right now?"

"Not just yet," Tabs shook her head. "Can it be reversed or cancelled if we get it wrong? Or will it wear off after a while on its own? What about any warnings or caveats? Actually is there a way we can access all the curse background info, like when it was in book form?"

Our small friend frowned, "Ok this is less convenient but I can recite the full text and all the background information for you."

Then she spent the next ten minutes or so telling us all the boring stuff that I'd have glossed over if I was reading it in her book. Tabby looked like she was listening carefully though, so I figured I didn't have to.

When Jinx was finished Tabs nodded slowly, "Ok this sounds like it'll work. It wears off in a month, but we can always renew it if it's actually useful. What do you think Cheryl? Should we give it a shot?"

"Yeah," I replied with a wide smile. "Let's try it out!"

My friend replied, "All right then. I guess I'll do it since I know you weren't paying attention to half the stuff Jinx said. I'll use your backpack as the destination, and I guess we'll know if it works if you ever find some unexpected cash in there."

"Ok Tabs," I agreed as I sat back with my drink and watched.

Jinx didn't have to bare her back to show us the magic words, instead she was able to get them to appear on the inside of her arm.

Tabby didn't just dive in and say that stuff out loud though, instead she spent another couple minutes carefully planning how she was going to do it. Which was another good reason for her to be doing that sort of thing instead of me. She even pulled some scrap paper and a pen out of her backpack to jot down some notes and stuff.

When she was finally ready she announced, "I'm going to go for ten percent. Basically for every ten bills in his possession, one will go missing and end up in your backpack. I figure that's low enough that it won't immediately cause problems, like we're not going to empty his wallet or anything."

"And by targeting cash only," she added, "It won't touch bank accounts so there won't be any kind of computer audit trail. Like I said, it should be untraceable. The main drawback is if he never uses cash then there won't be any money to steal."

Finally she said, "From what Jinx said this curse will trigger once a day for a month. Then we can decide whether or not to renew it, or if we should target another insufferable billionaire."

"Sounds good," I replied with an excited smile. "Let's do it!"

"Yeah!" Jinx nodded enthusiastically as she held her arm out for Tabby to read.

Tabs took a couple deep breaths, then she started speaking the strange words out loud. She paused a couple times to concentrate, and at one point she said the rich guy's name before she continued with the magic words. It took a few more seconds before she was finished.

As she wrapped it up we all heard a funny muffled 'pop' sound from the direction of my backpack, which I'd left on the floor to the side of the sofa. And at the same time Jinx gasped and her eyes went wide. Both of those things together made me think something maybe didn't go quite right.

Tabby looked at me and suggested, "Cheryl maybe you should check your backpack? I'm not sure what that noise was but I wasn't expecting anything like that."

"In a sec," I told her. Then I asked, "Jinx are you ok? What's wrong?"

The small half-demon's eyes were still wide as she looked at me. In a quiet, sort of stunned voice she replied, "I think that goddess helped me too? She couldn't just free me, but I think she changed the rules a bit. When Tabby did that curse I saw a number tick down from 'four' to 'three'? As in, three more curses and I'll be completely free!"

"That's awesome!" I smiled as I pulled her into another side-hug. "It won't take long to do that, we can probably do all three before Avery gets home from work if we pick some easy ones!"

Jinx hugged me back, she was obviously happy and excited but also looked like she was maybe a bit anxious too. I found out why a moment later as she asked quietly, "What if I get all my memories back and it turns out I really was evil after all? And if I'm free then I won't be bound to you anymore. Does that mean you and Avery will kick me out? Will you even want me around if I can't do curses for you?"

"We won't kick you out Jinx," I stated as I held her a little tighter. "I promise. And if you're worried, then we don't have to rush through those last three curses right away. Maybe we can even talk to Avery about it if you like? I won't let her kick you out though. She might be my big sister, but this is my house as much as it's hers. Things will be ok, I'm sure of it."

"Ok Cheryl. Thank you," the small half-demon replied as she finally let go of me.

I smiled, "You're welcome. Now I better check my backpack, so we can figure out if that loophole curse worked. If it did then maybe that'll take care of any extra expenses that come up? That's the only thing Avery can hold against us right now, since she's the one paying the bills."

Both Tabby and Jinx watched as I reached around the side of the sofa where I left my backpack. Then I frowned as I hefted it up onto my lap. It was way heavier than it should have been, and was obviously stuffed to the limit with something.

"Uh-oh," Tabs grimaced. "That doesn't look right."

My pack was stuffed so full the zipper was actually hard to budge. I had to force it, then once I got it open a pile of cash spilled out all over me and Jinx.

My eyes went wide as I gasped, "Oh wow!"

Meanwhile Tabs looked scared as she gasped, "Oh no."

And Jinx just grinned, "Oh nice! Now we can go back to that cafe so I can finally get my dragon drink thing!"

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