by Apollo Blake
Was Abbott Hunter’s last name, too?
“I feel like I shouldn’t be surprised that you know my name, but it’s still creepy.”
This was Hunter’s grandma? I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to grow up in a family of Charmers. I wondered if I should ask about the dream. I glanced back and forth between her and Ursa, but I couldn’t gauge whether it was the right moment or not.
Before I could make a decision someone stepped into the shop behind us. Althea’s eyes moved past me, and I saw them narrow. When I looked back I instantly knew why. The guy from the club was here—the blond who had unleashed that first Hound. The pretty Korean girl was with him, her sleek brown hair, nearly black, was pushed back from her face. They both wore black, but her outfit was covered in glitter. Where I’d perceived her teeth to be kind of crooked in the club when she smiled, I saw now that she had a pair of gleaming fangs.
No fucking way. . . .
I turned away sharply, hoping that they didn’t recognize me. Ursa seemed to sense my anxiety, her features slackening in concern.
Althea took charge. “You two go and make us a fresh pot of tea. I’ll handle these customers.”
She said customers the same way one might say cockroach infestation. She knew what she was dealing with.
“Come on, Sky.” I stood hastily and let Ursa lead my through a narrow doorway strung with swaths of teal silk, into the back room, fighting not to turn back for a last look before we were out of view.
The back was a cross between a kitchen and a break room, with a tiny kitchen on one side of the room complete with an old yellow fridge, an oven, and counters. The other half was dominated by a ratty old sofa and coffee table with a few books and magazines on it. There was a small bathroom beyond that, the green wooden door open and the light left off. How could all of this exist down here? The fridge gave off a light buzz, and the light was formed by the same floating balls that had hovered outside, and in the main room. In the back corner there was a shadowed doorway covered with a polka-dot shower curtain.
Ursa headed into the kitchen, so I followed her. As I watched her set about making the tea—filling up an electric kettle at the sink and setting it back on its base on the counter, pulling a jar full of herbal tea bags forward—I found that there was something distantly familiar about the way she moved, the set of her face.
“Do I know you?” I asked. She looked up, surprised. “I mean, have we met before today?” I clarified.
She shrugged, but she looked doubtful. “I think I would have remembered.”
“What high school did you go to?”
“Saint John High,” she said. “I graduated last year.”
I nodded. “That’s it; I dropped out two years ago. We must have been there at the same time at one point.”
I thought back to that time, when Mom had been ready to kick me out of the house for quitting school, and Riley had been worried sick about me. I’d sunken into a deep depression for a few months after—stopped painting, stopped going out, barely ate a thing, wouldn’t take clients.
Finally, Mom tossed some cold water on me, dragged me to the kitchen table, and plopped me down in front of the most disturbed married couple I’d met with yet. At least after putting up with our weirdness they turned out to not be cheating on each other, for once. That was always a shocker.
After that I picked myself up again, a little dimmer than before, but still burning at least.
Most people dismissed me as some phony, a fake psychic out to rob the tourists—and I had to admit the tourists were a large part of my business. But I’d turned out to be right enough times (all the times, really) to work up a bit of a reputation.
A reputation that had led me to Jackson, to Hunter. To the truth. And to this moment, now.
“You dropped out?”
“High school is hell.” I said. “And I was sick of hearing people lie all day. It hurts—and it kept pissing people off when I pointed them out, but I couldn’t help it.”
“Yeah, everyone tells lies. Tea?” she offered.
“No,” I declined, “but you are right. Everyone lies. It’s just that everyone lies more in high school.”
“I can understand that. Those kids are just starting to figure themselves out, you know? Their emotions, their identities. Everyone wants to fit in and seem normal. I guess that would make it a breeding ground for lies. Plus, people are assholes.”
I snorted. “You have no idea. Hell, I’m still trying to figure myself out. I didn’t even know I was a Charmer until a few days ago. Didn’t even know they existed.”
“Hunter told me about that,” Ursa said. “That is curious. Have either of your parents ever shown any strange sort of talent?”
“No. Well, not my mom. Not unless you count the ability to drink anyone in the world under the table in mere seconds as a magikal power. And my Dad—well, could be. I have no clue,” I said, and changed the subject. “What are those?”
Ursa followed my pointing finger to where the orbs of warm light floated above us. The sound of their clinking together and bobbing away was oddly melodic and soothing.
“Pathfinders,” she called them. “All Charmers can make them; they’re general magik. Althea or Hunter could probably teach you.”
“And you couldn’t?”
“I’m not that kind of Charmer,” she said, then rolled her eyes. “I can’t do general magik, like everyone else can. It isn’t always genetic, you know. Magik is its own element—it pulses beneath everything, plays a part in every piece of the world. Sometimes it can seep into humans and change them. That’s what happened to me.”
She was some kind of. . .mortal/Charmer hybrid?
I drew back, shocked. So then there was a possibility that had happened to me? I’d had my gift as long as I could remember, but maybe something could have changed when I was too young to even remember. . . .
Ursa continued, either ignoring or not noticing my reaction as she poured two mugs of tea. “I’m an Empath,” she explained. “I can sense other people’s emotions. . .feel them for myself, if I want to. It’s a fairly common gift for mortals to inherit.”
There was so much I still needed to know about this world, and I could have asked her anything, but my curiosity got the better of me. “How did that happen?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t too personal. I didn’t want to offend her.
As Ursa opened her mouth to speak, Althea called in from the next room. “It’s safe to come out now,” her voice boomed through the wall. “And you better bring my tea!”
“Come on,” Ursa said. She grabbed the steaming mugs and headed for the door.
“How did you get this job?” I asked as I followed after her.
“This? This is nothing—” she smiled over her shoulder. “I also have a part time at a body product store. That’s the hard job.”
“Huh. What even is this place?”
“Magikal consultant agency,” Ursa said. “Althea offers advice and guidance to Charmers looking to improve their craft, teaches them new types of general Magik. It’s why Hunter’s so much better with wards than anybody else.”
“Are you serious? She’s a magikal self-help coach?” This was too good to be true.
Brute and Count Glitter were gone when we got back into the main room, and Althea was sitting back in her chair looking irritated, like she had an itch she couldn’t scratch.
“What happened?” Ursa asked as she handed the old woman her tea, and I heard a thread of genuine concern in her voice.
“Nothing exciting, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Ursa sat on the antique sofa next to Althea’s armchair and I dropped down next to her, observing the two of them. The magik user and her Empath assistant—young and old, Charmer and mortal.
Like opposite reflections of each other, the first and last pages of the same book brushing together.
Althea may have been her employer, but I could see from the way they seemed so at ease around each othe
r that it was more of a friendship than anything.
I didn’t know what to make of either of them. They seemed nice. But so did sharks until they opened their jaws and took a damn bite out of you. And I didn’t intend for it to be my blood staining the water if anything went wrong.
I was just barely sure I could trust Hunter, let alone his grandmother who’d been stalking me in my dreams, and her bubbly errand runner.
“Damn morons,” Althea said, almost as if she felt sorry for them. She took a sip of her tea and sighed. “They think that after what Crayton did to me they can walk all over me. I may not be strong enough to end that bastard, but I could still teach those two a thing or two about respect. Teach them to keep their noses out of things that don’t concern them. It wouldn’t be worth the retaliation, probably, but still.” She smiled. “I would enjoy every minute of it.”
There was that name again. Crayton. Hunter said he’d worked for him once, and now he wanted him dead. Now Althea had a past with the guy?
“What did he do to you?” I blurted out. I was just so full of tact like that.
Althea didn’t seem offended when she spoke, though. More saddened. “Crayton is a power-hungry Judas. And what he did to me is a travesty—one of the darkest acts a Charmer can commit. He drained me of my powers.”
My head snapped up. “He what?”
“He stole two of her three abilities to make himself more powerful,” Hunter said unexpectedly from behind me. He was leaning against the doorway, watching us.
“Oh.” I said, surprised. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself.” He came over and leaned on Althea’s chair, grinning down at her, and I felt myself die a little. Okay, sure, he was an asshole who’d locked me in a hotel room. And nearly gotten me killed. Twice. But damn, was he attractive.
And he was nice to his (not so) frail little grandma. It was cute.
“Did you break the bond yet?” I asked, and he chuckled.
“You’d feel it if I did.”
“Oh. Well do you at least have any ideas? Did you find anything out?”
“Enough,” he said vaguely. “Enough to know I can’t leave you alone for five minutes without you getting into trouble. Can I talk to you for a minute?”
I felt zero shame in my breaking out. I wasn’t a prisoner. “You are talking to me.”
“Alone.” He said in a way that made it clear it wasn’t up for discussion.
“Just go,” Ursa advised me. “He never lets things go until he gets what he wants.”
“How charming.”
She frowned. “Was that a pun?”
“I don’t even know anymore,” I said, and caught Hunter glaring.
“Come on.” He said. “This century.”
I rolled my eyes but got up and followed him into the kitchen. I was expecting a scolding, but as soon as I was through the door Hunter had me pressed against the wall, his face inches from mine.
He gripped my sides so hard it was an effort not to wince.
“When I told you to stay put, it was for your own protection,” he said, voice rough with barely contained anger. “If you persist in trying to get yourself killed, you will succeed, and I won’t be able to help you. You think you know what you’re doing, you think that you can take care of yourself. You’re fucking wrong. This world will kill you, Sky. Make no mistake.” I was silent. I tried to form words, but nothing came. His hands gripped bunches of my shirt, creeping into my jacket. He leaned closer, so I could feel his breath. “And if Crayton had gotten his hands on you? You have no idea, what he would do to you. Death would be a mercy, if they caught you. You would beg for it.”
I swallowed, heart thumping audibly. His words painted themselves into images in my mind, blood and chains and screams rending the air.
He was talking about torture. What had I found myself involved in?
“I’m allowed to take my own risks. Is there a reason you’re eating up my breathing space?”
He shook his head and dropped me, taking a step back. “I’m no good at this. I’m trying to tell you I was worried.”
“Really? Because you seem angry.”
“That, too,” he said.
The idea that he might have a genuine interest in my safety outside of some weird sense of responsibility for the situation was one that I didn’t know what to do with. I quickly shoved the thought aside and looked away from him.
“It’s not my fault those wards didn’t hold, anyway.”
He groaned. “I brought down the layer keeping you bound last night when I got back, so I could redo it—I’m too much of a perfectionist for my own good—but when I woke up this morning I just spaced. I have too much in my mind, things keep slipping out.”
“Huh.”
“Plus, your snoring was distracting.”
I put my hands on my hips. “I do not snore.”
Hunter smiled. “No,” he admitted. “But you do drool. Just a little.”
“No I don’t!”
“Don’t worry, it’s cute.”
“Whatever.” I wasn’t looking at him. “Well, if that’s all—” I ducked out the curtain, back into the other room, before he could say anything or try to catch me.
I heard him scoff in amusement before he followed.
Althea looked up and set her mug down as we came in. Hunter had just caught up with me when the curtain at the front door was whisked aside again, and a familiar pair waltzed in.
Berserker and Glitter Bomb, back for round two.
Glitz N’ Glam smiled, showing her gleaming canines, and let the curtain fall shut behind her. Hunter reacted instantly, shoving me behind him roughly, and I grumbled a protest. Across the room Althea rose to her feet and clapped her hands, drawing their attention.
“I told you that you aren’t welcome here. Leave.”
“Oh, we’ll leave,” the blond said, a smile stretching his already too-wide face. “As soon as we’re dragging your grandson behind us with his hands tied.”
The girl smiled, baring fangs, and the two of them stepped forward to take Hunter prisoner.
THIRTEEN
I’M A VAMPIRE, DUH
Althea didn’t blink. She spoke slowly and deliberately. “Ursa, lead Hunter and Sky out the back. I’ll handle these two. It’s about time they were taught some respect.”
The blond cracked his knuckles. “I have no problem hitting an old lady as ugly as you.”
“That’s rich coming from a guy who looks like Draco Malfoy after a steroid bender,” I said, glaring.
The girl at his side laughed in a sort of surprised, delighted way. She looked back and forth between us in shock, and let out another choked noise.
The blond glared down at her. “Shut up, Destiny.”
“What’s the matter, big boy? Vertically-challenged Barbie got your tongue?” She licked her lips. “You can have him, anyway. I want the big one. He looks like fun.”
“Freak,” I mumbled.
Her head tilted towards me. “On second thought. . . .”
God, I would love for her to swing at me. I would love an excuse.
I just wanted to fucking be done with this, and the whole attempted kidnapping thing? I was over it.
My priority was the bond, and this was an interruption and a waste of time.
At that point Ursa stepped forward to usher us out the back door. Hunter’s long fingers wrapped around my upper arm and he began to lead me away, but I jerked back and stepped out of his reach. I was not leaving an old lady here to fight two twenty-somethings, magik or no.
I turned in time to see Axel charge Althea at full speed. He pulled back his thickly-veined fist, aiming a punch at her head as he steamrolled into her.
The impact never came.
Althea raised both arms into the air and shoved as if she touched a solid wall. Her muscles strained, gown whipping behind her. Axel was knocked back as if he’d been hit by a truck. He sailed across the room, crashing against the rock wall so hard it cracked under the
blow. Dust crumbled over him as he slumped to the ground and didn’t stir.
There was a blur of dark movement on my left, and I whirled to meet it. I knew full-well what I’d find when I turned, and I was right.
Let’s do this.
“Sky!” Hunter rushed after me, but I had eyes only for Destiny.