"Seriously?!" I heard Avery exclaim in reaction to something as I made my way down the stairs.

My sister was in the kitchen, and from the sound of it our small half-demon friend was in there with her. Avery had already started talking again, "That's awful Jinx, I'm so sorry you had to go through that! Hopefully you'll never have to see her again. You should be safe here with us, right?"

It was bright and early first thing Saturday morning, and by 'bright and early' I mean it was probably before noon. Maybe even before eleven. Tabby and I spent night in my bedroom experimenting with my enchanted bling, which was every bit as amazing as I'd hoped. Even if it was a little more 'enchanted' than I'd expected.

I really didn't mind though. It was honestly pretty fun when Tabby took advantage of the 'compliance' thing in bed last night. Which was part of the reason a lot of my muscles still felt like jelly this morning. That and the horniness slider that she kept at level-two or above for most of the night.

However my mind was on something else entirely this morning, so for the moment I forgot about my enchanted bling along with all the good stuff me and Tabby did with it. I also kind of ignored Avery and Jinx, who were sitting at the kitchen table. It was the smell of fresh-brewed coffee that got me up, and I made a bee-line for the machine to get myself some.

Once I had a big mug all ready to go I moved to join the others at the table, and finally acknowledged them both as I mumbled "G'morning sis, mornin' Jinx. What's got you two up so early?"

Avery rolled her eyes, "It's half past ten Cheryl. We're not up early, we're just up."

Jinx added, "I'm surprised you're up already. From all the noises you and Tabby were making last night I figured you'd need at least a whole day to recover."

My cheeks went red, but I couldn't help smiling. "We definitely had a fun night. Thanks for using your last curse on me like that Jinx."

My sister rolled her eyes again as she shook her head. She didn't respond though, she just had a sip of her coffee. And Jinx was drinking orange juice. Both of them were fully dressed too, while all I had on was another nightshirt.

After a big sip of coffee I asked, "So what were you two talking about? It sounded like something bad?"

"Jinx was telling me how she ended up being turned into a book full of curses," Avery replied. "It wasn't a great story, but it kind of explains a lot."

She added, "Now that she's free and has all her memories again, I wanted to get to know her a little better. Like where she's from, what she's like, that kind of thing."

The caffein was helping get my brain more active and I turned to smile at the little half-demon, "That's right, you're free! That's awesome Jinx! Congratulations!"

"Thanks Cheryl," she smiled back. "It's pretty cool."

She didn't seem as happy or enthusiastic as I'd been expecting, and my smile faded a bit. "What's wrong?"

"Hey folks," Tabby mumbled as she joined us in the kitchen. She wasn't dressed either, all the gorgeous catgirl had on were a pair of panties and my other nightshirt which only came down to her hips. She headed straight for the coffee machine as she added, "What did you say about something going wrong?"

Jinx shrugged, "Nothing's wrong. It's just, now that I remember all the details of my past I know how long I've been gone and how much I've missed. It's been over three hundred years. All my friends, almost everyone I knew back then would be long gone. If it wasn't for the three of you I wouldn't know anyone at all, and I wouldn't have anywhere to stay."

I moved closer then pulled her into a hug, "I'm sorry Jinx! But you do have a place to stay, and you have us."

"Thanks Cheryl," she hugged me back. Then after we let go of each other she added, "Avery said the same thing earlier. And I really appreciate it, I'm grateful for everything all three of you have done for me."

Tabby sat down next to me at the table with her coffee, and the three of us were quiet for a few seconds as we all just sipped our drinks and thought about the stuff Jinx just said.

"So who did that to you, do you know?" I finally asked. "I heard Avery say something was awful earlier, was that about you being turned into a book?"

Jinx sighed and stared down at the kitchen table, "Yeah. She didn't do it herself, she didn't have that kind of magic? But my mother had someone else curse me, to turn me into a book of curses. She was mad at me for not being evil enough and stuff like that? Because I didn't take advantage of humans the way she did, she said I was a disgrace and an embarrassment. So because I refused to hurt people she had me turned into a book full of curses who's sole purpose was to hurt humans by cursing them."

I blinked a couple times as all that sank in. Then I frowned and gasped, "Your mother?! Your own mother did that to you? What the heck?!"

"Holy shit Jinx I'm so sorry!" Tabby added. "I can't even imagine how horrible that must feel, knowing your mom did that to you."

The small half-demon shrugged as she continued to stare at the table, "She was always pretty nasty. My first fifty or sixty years she kept trying to get me to feed on humans like she did, she wanted me to hurt them. That's not what I do though, and it just made me really uncomfortable."

I stared at Jinx, "Fifty or sixty years?! Just how old are you?"

"Oh uh," she hesitated as she blushed. "If you don't count all the time I spent as a book I'm about eighty? Cambions live longer than humans though, so I could live another two or three centuries maybe?"

Tabby sounded a little wary as she asked, "Is there any chance your mother might still be around? And if so, where do you figure she'd be living?"

"I'm asking so we can stay the heck away from her," my girlfriend added.

The half-demon replied, "She's definitely still alive. Mom's a full demon and they're basically immortal. She was already nearly eight thousand years old when she had me? I doubt I was her first either, and she could have had other cambions after me. She might even have a true demon kid out there somewhere? She didn't talk much about that stuff, but I know she had a demon boyfriend. And she mentioned once she used to have a demon girlfriend too."

"My dad was human," she added. Then she frowned, "Or at least I assume he was? No idea why I turned out so small though, mom's human shape is normal sized and her demon shape's more than two meters tall. I never actually met my dad, I figure mom probably killed him when she was done with him. That's what makes me a cambion though? One demon parent, one not-demon parent. If both my folks were demons then I'd be a true demon too."

"Anyways mom lives over in the UK," she continued. "She has a few properties there, but when I was with her we moved back and forth between London and a big house out in the country. No idea what those places would be like now, but I'm positive she'll still be there. She told me once, she lived her whole life in the British Isles, and there was no reason for her to move anywhere else."

I smiled, "Well that's easy enough for us to avoid. England's like five thousand kilometres away from here. So you should be safe from your mom."

Jinx smiled back, "Yeah. It's kind of nice knowing I won't ever have to see her again. That and having you three as friends makes up for all the other stuff I lost and everything I missed over the last couple centuries."

I ended up pulling her into another hug after all that. It really did sound rough and horrible, but I was happy she was free and able to put all that behind her.

Then Avery spoke up as I sat back down, and she sounded kind of worried and uneasy. "Jinx? You mentioned a few minutes ago about your mother feeding on humans. Do you think you could elaborate on that? Does she um, literally eat people?"

The half-demon grimaced, "Oh right! I can see how that might sound bad. Demons and cambions don't actually physically eat people. We're not monsters, we don't consume your flesh or do any gross stuff like that. What we eat is energy."

The rest of us just sort of stared blankly at her, so she continued to explain.

"Different demons feed on different intangible energies," Jinx stated. "Like my mother feeds on positive emotions? Joy, love, hope, that kind of thing? Like she'd find someone who was really happy or head over heels in love, and she'd just drain all that positivity out of them until they were a husk. It's pretty awful, but then so is she."

"I'm not like that at all though," she added in a firm voice. "Every demon is different, and while cambions usually take after our demonic parent we can sometimes end up being different too? That's what happened with me. I don't feed on emotions at all, let alone positive ones."

Avery still sounded wary as she asked, "So what do you eat? And um, I don't mean to offend but will you or have you fed on any of us? Would we even know it if you did?"

The small half-demon grimaced again, "I haven't fed on anyone yet. Until I was free I didn't even know that's what I did. And the only one of you who'd actually be a good source of sustenance for me is Cheryl."

"Me?!" I squeaked as I looked at her wide-eyed. "You want to eat me?!"

Jinx looked apologetic as she nodded, "Yeah. See, the intangible energy I consume is luck. Specifically, bad luck. And out of the three of you, Cheryl's the only one who generates much of that."

Both my sister and my girlfriend ended up staring at me, while I felt my cheeks start heating up.

"What would happen to Cheryl if you um, 'ate' her bad luck?" Avery asked after a couple quiet seconds.

"She'd be less unlucky," Jinx replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "Having less bad luck doesn't mean she'd get lots of good luck, she's not going to suddenly start winning lotteries or anything. It just means she won't have as much bad stuff happen to her, or around her."

Tabby smiled, "That's honestly a win right there."

"Yeah," my sister nodded in agreement.

I was still cringing though as I asked, "Does it hurt? I mean if you eat me, will it hurt? Will I even notice?"

My girlfriend couldn't resist teasing, "You didn't seem to mind getting eaten last night. In fact you looked and sounded like you were really enjoying it."

"Tabs!" I yelped as my cheeks were suddenly on fire.

Avery was blushing a bit too in sympathy, while both Jinx and Tabby grinned. Then the half-demon answered, "It doesn't hurt, you won't feel a thing. I'd probably do it when you were asleep anyways? But I wouldn't feed on you without your permission."

"Ok Jinx," I nodded slowly. "I'm sure it'll be all right, but I'm going to think about it. I'll let you know later."

She smiled, "Thanks Cheryl."

"So Avery, I guess you're not mad at Jinx anymore?" Tabby asked my sister. "You seem pretty friendly with her again this morning. Actually even last night you didn't seem too upset about the way things had turned out."

Avery nodded, "Yeah I've forgiven her. It took me a day or two to get over it, but once I cooled down I realized a few things. Like for one thing Jinx was honestly trying to help, and it wasn't her fault she didn't know any better way to do it. And even if it didn't actually work, at least I learned that Raven's way out of my league and I never had a chance with her anyways? So now I can move on. And I won't spend the rest of my life kicking myself for never working up the courage to ask her out."

"I'm sorry you couldn't hook up with Raven," I told her. "But I'm glad you and Jinx are friends."

Tabby added, "Thanks to Jinx we also found out about that local goddess, and that information already helped a couple of my trans friends get miracles in the last few days. It probably even led to Jinx being freed early, right? We're assuming some prayers to Amethyst led to it only taking four curses to release her?"

Me and Jinx both nodded as I replied, "Yeah! That's what I figure. Honestly the whole situation's really cool! Hard to believe me making one little mistake ordering the wrong book would lead to so much cool stuff happening? Like we learned magic is real, me and Tabby and a couple of her friends all got cool transformations, we made friends with Jinx, we found out angels and goddesses are real, we got a pile of money..."

"Speaking of the money," Avery said in a serious tone, "We'll need to figure out how to launder that so we don't raise suspicions with it. I think for now we can stick with Tabby's suggestion of only taking a couple hundred a week? Use it sparingly, don't flash it around. Maybe each of us can open savings accounts at our bank then deposit a few hundred a week. That's a small enough number to fly below the radar, but it'll add up over time."

Tabby smiled, "I like it. Is five hundred a week too much to deposit? That's just over twenty-five thousand each per year, so a little over a hundred thousand a year going into four separate bank accounts. It'll take us almost five years to deposit it all at that rate, but as long as we're patient we can turn around and use the money for bigger purchases down the road."

"We can also invest it," Avery pointed out. "Getting it into a savings account is a good start, but investing it would be better in the long run."

"Good thinking," my girlfriend nodded in agreement. Then she added, "We still have to burn Cheryl's backpack though. Otherwise the curse will stay active and it'll keep stealing money."

My sister got a sly look on her face as she replied, "We'll burn it, but not until tomorrow. Let's let it go one more day."

That made me grin, "Ooh! I like this new improved version of my sister. But what happened to the Avery who didn't want to do any curses and was opposed to using magic to get money?"

"I'm not opposed to money," she replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "I'm opposed to being arrested or otherwise getting in trouble. And Tabby did a good job figuring out those loopholes yesterday."

My girlfriend smiled at the praise. Then her stomach rumbled and she grimaced, "What are our plans for today? And do those plans include food any time soon?"

"Now that you two are finally up I'll make us all some breakfast," Avery announced as she got to her feet.

That got me smiling again as I responded, "Wow, thanks sis!"

She smiled back then asked, "As for plans, you have your math tutor coming today don't you?"

"Not until two," I replied. "Then I'll be busy for an hour."

"Except I still haven't got that math textbook I need," I added with a frown.

Avery rolled her eyes as she stirred up some pancake mix, "You and Tabby were in such a hurry to get into bed yesterday afternoon you didn't even bother looking at the mail when I dropped you two off. There's a package on the coffee table for you sis. I just hope it isn't another magic book."

Tabs and I were both blushing again, but I took the opportunity to escape. I hurried down to the living-room, and sure enough there was a padded shipping envelope there with my name on it. I brought it back up to the kitchen, then sat back down at the table and tore it open.

Inside was an old second-hand textbook. It had a blue cover, and in the middle on the front was a white six-sided polygon with some mathematical notation indicating angles and stuff. Above that in bold white lettering was the book's title, The Art of the Hexagon.

I set the book down on the kitchen table where Tabs and Jinx could both see it then sighed, "I don't even know if I should be relieved or disappointed. No magic book this time, just a boring old math book."

"Let's go with relief," my sister said as she got some pancakes cooking on the stove. "Nothing against Jinx, I'm glad she's here and glad her magic has been able to make you and Tabby happy. I'm glad you both got bodies you're comfortable with. But I think one supernatural housemate is enough."

That put a smile on my face and I leaned over and gave our resident supernatural a hug, "I'm glad you're here too Jinx."

"Same. It's been a wild week, but I'm grateful you're here Jinx," Tabby added.

Our little half-demon grinned happily while her tail swished back and forth behind her, "Thanks Avery, Cheryl, and Tabby! Nobody's ever been so nice to me before, or so happy to have me around. I'm really lucky to have ended up with you three."

"And I think we're lucky to have you," I told her. "Welcome to the family!"

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