by A. L. Tyler
“I don’t have much choice, I suppose.”
“You have every choice.” Another sickly grin spread across Charlie’s face. “You could wait me out. A week or two, and you won’t see me very often. A month, and I may be gone for good. You could accept that Rosie is invisible, and your friend is a cat, and Jennifer Wilmot will die. And all of it will be a tragedy, but you will have ridded this world of one more demon. You could say to yourself that I deserved it for the things I have done, and that you have spared the world a greater evil. But you would be judging a man for how he acted in his most desperate hour, Thorn, and I swear to you that I haven’t always been evil. I am capricious, but I can do good, too.”
It was a brilliant speech. Most of the things he said were brilliant, and even as I felt the slightest touch of pity, I knew I shouldn’t trust him.
“Kendra,” I said finally, holding out my hand. Charlie gave me the keys back. “I’ll get you Kendra. But afterward, we’re done, Charlie.”
Frowning, he gave me a solemn nod. “If you say so, Thorn.”
I started the car, and by the time I had shifted into drive Charlie was gone, but the image of him staring pensive into the darkness wouldn’t leave me.
If he was putting on an act, it was a good one. He was definitely a desperate man, though desperate for what, I couldn’t say. If being separated from Kendra was really killing him, then I didn’t want blood on my hands, demon or otherwise. Kendra could do her own murdering.
But it was a beautiful, starry night at least, and that was a comfort. I looked at the swatches of sidewalk and bushes swathed in moonlight and streetlight, and tried to think about college and my future. My long, demon-free future, which awaited me just beyond the horizon.
Gates was waiting for me, swishing her tail in agitation as she sat on the bed when I opened the door. With a heavy-handed peppering of expletives, she told me that she had called her mom to check in. Her dad had jumped a plane to her uncle’s place when he found out that she had ditched her last month of high school. They now knew that she wasn’t with her uncle, and he had been forced to confess that she was really in Eastern Europe somewhere.
“She’s pissed, Annie, I need to get back to school now,” she said. “What’s going on with Charlie?”
Bleary-eyed, I was barely able to focus my words into a response. It felt much later than ten to me, and it took me a moment to remember that I had spent nearly three hours in the Other Side. In my own time line, it was almost one in the morning.
I explained to Gates, and told her that Charlie had set a deadline of two weeks, which seemed to help her calm down. I didn’t tell her that it was an absolute deadline, after which she was likely to remain a cat forever.
She didn’t need to know that. I would cross that bridge when I came to it.
~~~~~~~~~
The next day at school didn’t improve my mood much. I got a full eight hours of sleep, hitting the snooze on my alarm five times and barely making it out the door in time to beat the bell. Time in the Other Side apparently carried a jet lag penalty as well.
I handed in all of my homework, done to perfection, and got glowing smiles from all of the teachers who had given me extensions. Only one of them asked me if I knew that Gates had jumped a plane to Europe; I’m pretty sure her parents had asked Mr. Sonderson to ask around, because he had a lot of specific questions about where Gates would have found the cash to go so far without using her mom’s credit card. She didn’t have a job, and was notorious for taking loans from friends to pay for extras on her school lunch.
“I really don’t know,” I said, trying to look a little more innocent than I felt.
“Annie…” he leaned in. Mr. Sonderson was a well-groomed guy, but Gates was right. He was suspiciously heavy on the aftershave. “All I am asking is, does Gates have some sort of business on the side? You can tell me. I won’t tell her parents.”
“Business on the side?” I searched my mind, trying to decipher his meaning. “She’s not a prostitute, if that’s—”
“Oh, goodness, no!” he balked. “I meant, if she’s selling something that some people might look down on…?”
“Oh…” I paused. “You mean drugs? No, she doesn’t deal drugs.”
“Hmm…” Sonderson nodded. “But it’s okay if she is. Just if she is, you can let me know. I’m not one of those people who has a problem with that. Because if she is, she might want additional clientele. Do you understand?”
I stared at him without blinking, and realized I was starting to turn my head a little to try and escape. “Yes… I think I get what you’re trying to say…”
And then I walked right into a fresh nightmare.
About fifteen feet away from me down the freshman locker hallway, there was a girl with tears streaming down her red face. She had dark, straight hair and glasses, and she was trying to hide behind the stack of textbooks she hugged to her chest.
It took me a moment to recognize her, because I didn’t know her, but I knew of her. Some time ago, maybe earlier this school year or last, Gates and I had been joking around about how same gender siblings always seemed to go in different directions on the social spectrum of cliques.
And standing before me was the mousy, academic, geeky little sister to the loud, proud, and athletically popular Jennifer Wilmot.
I tried to ask her if she was all right, but she only mumbled a quick “Yes, thanks” before wiping her face on her sleeve and heading on her way.
My guilt came crashing down on me.
The rest of that week, I had trouble believing that Charlie wasn’t setting me up, because Jennifer’s sister was everywhere. I saw her sitting alone in the corner at lunch, withdrawn from her usual circle, probably because she wanted to be alone. She was in front of the office before school, and in the library after, and more often than not in the counselor’s office when she should have been in class. Maybe I was just seeing her because I was looking for her. Once I saw her, I started to hear the whispers.
Jennifer was doing even worse than before. Her parents were devastated, and her sister, Jessica, was only coming to school because things were falling apart at home. Her grandmother was coming soon to take her out and help out until things got better… or worse, as was much more likely.
So the two of us sat alone together, though she didn’t know it. I would watch her, across the room alone in her corner, as I sat alone in mine. I thought about going to talk to her a few times, but I knew it would be weird, and I would be doing it as much for my pain as hers. That felt wrong.
Things weren’t going any better with the spell, no matter how hard I tried. Charlie had me take a break for a while and do some easy spells, things to change my hair and eye color, just to prove to myself that I was capable. And I was, and the little cosmetic changes were neat, but the summoning spell continued to elude me. I mashed marigolds and dripped wax and stared into the quartz until I was cross-eyed, but nothing happened. I didn’t even know what was supposed to be happening, and I kept telling Gates to just hang on—I was going to fix things.
And that was my new life. Obsessing over a sad little girl during the day, failing at magic for several hours at night, doing my homework in hell, and lying to my best friend in all the cracks in between.
It was just that every time I looked at Jessica, I felt this deep tugging in my gut, because I knew the look. This was the moment for her. She would look back on this time forever, and know that everything up until now was before. And now, all she was going to have left was after.
I wasn’t sleeping much anymore, and when I did, it wasn’t well. When I asked Charlie about grabbing a few winks on the Other Side, he flatly refused.
“Why?” I asked. “I’m not going to make it another week.”
“That makes two of us,” he said with a frown. “But no, Thorn. You can’t sleep on the Other Side. It leads to complications.”
“Complications?” I asked.
He turned and looked me in the eye. His u
sual charm had faded as he watched me fail to find Kendra.
“Complications,” he said darkly. “The demons’ realm is a place of… fluidity. Malleability. Demons shape it, and it shapes us. Humans need to keep their grip on reality or they may not survive the encounter. Enter the dream world there, and you may never come back. Not as you, anyway. That won’t help anyone.”
I yawned. In that moment, late on Friday night, I might have sold anything short of my soul for some relief. I hadn’t seen Lyssa, Josh, or Rosie since Charlie had laid his curse, and that meant that the greenhouse was only open when I was there. I had thought that Charlie would pressure me to abandon the job, but I felt guilty having already caused Lyssa so much harm, and Charlie had embraced the idea without a fight. “What do you mean, not as me?”
Playing with a hand trowel, Charlie looked up at me from beneath his brow, still frowning.
I don’t know why it suddenly hit me, but it did. Staring into his deep brown eyes, it was like I had laid the last piece of the puzzle.
“If you fall asleep on the Other Side, you become a demon?” I asked him. But with a chill, I already knew the answer. “Did Kendra make you a demon?”
That’s why he wanted her so badly. It wasn’t that she banished him—it was that she made him a demon to begin with.
Chapter 8
A grim and slightly annoyed smile spread across his lips. “Something like that, Thorn. As I said, it’s complicated.”
I shook my head, still in disbelief. “Why would she do that? Make you, and then banish you?”
“It’s a long story…” he said simply. “But no, it wasn’t me. I’m one hundred percent pure demon from the Other Side. It was my former master that she demonized and banished.”
“That wasn’t a long story,” I said.
Charlie analyzed me. “His name was Stark, or at least that’s how I always knew him. And I knew him for hundreds of years… Since the black death in Europe, prior to the eleven-hundredth century. But as I said, a long story…”
He shook his head, staring at me without blinking. I think he was hoping for some sort of reaction from me that he had lived that long, or maybe that Stark had lived that long. But now that my best friend was a cat and my niece was invisible, there wasn’t much that was going to impress me. If he was trying to bribe me with immortality, I didn’t want it.
“He was a warlock, and believe me when I tell you that being in the service of a warlock is the ultimate achievement of demonic existence. There are several minor nuances that distinguish the magical classes, but for our purposes, warlocks don’t enslave the demons they summon. They don’t treat them like collared dogs to be trained to do their bidding. They let them run free, and demons make their deals, and warlocks use what’s left over. There are a surprising number of warlock spells that call for body parts, so a wild demon can come in quite handy.”
I cocked an eyebrow. Charlie grinned and leaned in.
“He met Kendra on a cold night in November, just after the Day of the Slayers, when we were drawn to this greenhouse by the signs of a hedge witch. Stark needed a witch’s heart to close a deal with a dragon,” Charlie scoffed a laugh, and then frowned. “He managed to subdue her, but when he cut her chest open, her heart wasn’t there. She’d hidden it, because she knew it was a sought-after commodity on the black market. She laughed at him, and against my better wisdom, Stark fell for her.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Mutilation and mockery. A classic recipe for romance.”
Charlie chose to ignore me. “There was some half-baked deal about how he was going to find it, and she swore he never would. He never did, and some years later she decided the relationship was done and had him banished to the Other Side.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. It seemed a little heavy-handed for a breakup.
“You put a girl in a coma for a few rumors told to a boy,” he said cynically. “The frequency with which people lose control is much more evident when they have more power at their fingertips. Yes, Thorn, he used to be like you. Now he lives in hell and feeds himself with mischief and hair, or whatever else he’s taken a liking to. I wouldn’t know; I haven’t seen him since.”
“You put a girl in a coma,” I corrected. “And I’m sorry if Kendra ended your sweet deal by banishing your sugar daddy. How did she get him to the Other Side?”
“She summoned a demon,” he said. “She made a deal to have him left there, and even though I imagine he tried very hard, he eventually gave in. And now he wears the shackles for the rest of eternity.”
I thought about what he had said for a minute, but something didn’t make sense. “Wait… the demon she summoned. It was you, wasn’t it?”
Charlie looked at me and cocked his head. “Could have been.”
I furrowed my brow. “But if you were so happy being with Stark, then why would you—?”
He vanished like a candle extinguished in a sudden downpour, and the bell over the customer entrance tinkled an announcement. I looked up to see my father, looking glum and confused.
“Oh…” he stared at me for a moment, and his confusion turned to concern. “Sorry, Annie, no one was answering the phone here, and I just thought I would check…”
“I’m fine,” I said with a frown. I followed it with a tired but winning smile, wishing I had a more charismatic way with people. My father had been through so much, he deserved someone who could at least tell a convincing lie.
He smiled back at me, relaxing. “Well, I was just wondering if you’d like to go out to dinner with me this evening.”
“I wish I could…” I started, feeling the pang of regret in my heart as his expression fell. “I’m here alone tonight because Rosie has the flu still. And after that I have homework, and then some laundry… Maybe we can go out next week?”
His smile re-lit, and his eyes wandered the greenhouse. For a moment I was afraid he was going to offer to stay and help me, but his cell phone gave a quick beep that said business was calling him back, and he gave me a nod and a quick but genuine goodbye. We would pick a night a go out next week.
I watched him go out the doors, the last bit of sunlight streaming in around his large frame, and Charlie’s voice faded back in around me. The sound of his fingers snapping made me jump in alarm.
“He’s going to meet a woman in the parking lot,” he said lightly. “She’s not the love of his life—any man lucky enough to love a witch will never replace her—but she’ll be a very good friend.”
Frowning, I ran out from behind the counter, hoping I was in time to stop whatever catastrophe was about to befall my father, but by the time I had turned the corner to where he had parked, it was done.
He was standing there talking to a woman, about as old as he was, with short blond hair, an average build, and thick glasses strung on a long beaded chain that draped her shoulders. He was smiling and laughing as he offered to take a large stack of books from her, and she nodded agreeably as she passed them off.
“No tricks, Thorn…” Charlie whispered into my ear. I stayed where I was, unseen in the shadows, as my father helped the stranger to her car and started to load her trunk. “I told you before, I can do good. This one is on the house.”
My father, the man who hadn’t left his bed for almost six weeks after his wife died, was smiling from ear to ear as the woman with the glasses picked up one of the books he had carried for her and pointed something out on the cover.
She didn’t look anything like my mother, and I was grateful for it. I was grateful for his smile, and his laughter, and oddly, for the fact that he seemed to have forgotten me completely.
“He’ll want to invite you over for dinner to introduce you two next month,” Charlie said calmly. “You and Lyssa and Josh, and little Rosie. In a year he’ll be proposing, and in two you’re going to be a bridesmaid. They’ll grow old together, Thorn.”
I hadn’t realized it, but a little, sad smile had spread across my lips. My dad was a good guy, but women never
figured that out. He never went anywhere where he met any women to figure him out.
My smile flatlined as I turned to face Charlie. Dark circles hung heavy under his eyes.
“What do you want?” I asked him, immediately disentangling my emotions from their source.
“You know what I want,” he said without blinking. His eyes flashed to my father. “But as I said, this one is on the house.”
I didn’t thank him. He didn’t seem to expect that I would. We returned to the greenhouse and I set about practicing my magic, and Charlie set about watching me with a disappointed stare. We didn’t talk about my father again. I knew he was trying to manipulate me to some ends, but I didn’t care what he was trying to achieve.
He had made good on his promise that he could do good, and he had done it in just the right place and way. He knew it, and I knew it.
I no longer believed he was completely evil. I still wasn’t going to be his bridge.
I went about crushing marigolds as I stared at him, wondering what his game was.
And that was when it happened.
Chapter 9
The pestle in my hand flashed like it had been struck by lightning, and I dropped it. Screeching as I raised a hand to shield my eyes, I felt it before I saw it.
The air in the room sucked out in a rushing gust that made me gasp for breath, and the twinkling darkness that surrounded me moments later made me turn around again and again until the cobblestone of a European street appeared beneath my feet.
“Charlie!”
I felt panic rising in my chest. Something had gone wrong. I was in the Other Side, and Charlie was nowhere to be seen.
“Charlie!”
I ran through the streets and toward the one tall building at the end of the lane. I wasn’t sure, but I thought it was the place where Charlie had taken me before. I burst through the door just as Charlie burst through a door at the opposite end of the room. His hair was disheveled and his eyes were wild, and they went bloodshot and determined as he paced toward me and grabbed my arm, dragging me back into the street as I uttered some agitated and terrified questions.