by A. L. Tyler
I gave him a mournful look. He had gone out of his way and used his spell to save me from that demeaning fate. Now he was asking me to order him around, and it left a bad taste in my mouth.
“You need a bell, Charlie.”
The collar appeared around his neck in a shower of glowing sparks, and the little gold bell with it. And I wanted nothing more than to take it off of him.
“Charlie,” I said with a tight throat. “Please go somewhere where you can’t hear us until I call you back.”
He disappeared like a smudge rubbed off an image. I turned to Lyssa.
“I know you don’t like him—”
“I’ve been trying to save his life,” she said flatly. “You’re right that I don’t like him. I don’t like demons, but Kendra was convinced he was the exception to the rule. I’m not convinced. But I promised her that I would keep him safe, and that’s what I’ve done. I’ve been watching news reports for strange things ever since he left. That’s why the story about the girl at your school with the spontaneous peanut allergy caught my eye. I knew he would come back to the greenhouse looking for her if he ever made it back here. I’m not telling you what I know, because Charlie said it—the fewer people who know, the better.”
“Can she undo it?” I asked more forcefully than I intended.
Lyssa looked at me more evenly than I would have liked. She wasn’t even the slightest bit bothered by the idea of Charlie as a cat wearing a bell. “No. I don’t think she can. I’ve been trying to reach out to her since Charlie came back again, but she either can’t respond or she won’t. She didn’t tell me where she was going, Annie. She just packed up and said goodbye, and to get rid of Charlie if he ever came back. She said she had altered peoples’ memories to make them believe she was dead, and to go along with it. That’s what I did.”
I nodded, trying to think. The shower was still running, and I went to the door and was about to knock when I heard Gates sobbing inside, and I decided to leave it be. What she was going to tell her mother was another issue.
I was going to make Charlie fix that one, and I didn’t feel even slightly bad making him do it. That one was his fault.
“If he was human, would you feel bad for him that this, whatever it is, happened to him?” I asked.
I thought Lyssa would object to the question, but to my surprise, she was willing to play. “Yes, I would.”
Raising one hand to hold the pendant around my neck, I stared her down. “Then we need to help him. Teach me the spell, and I’ll do it. We’ll both do it in turns, nonstop, until she picks up the phone and answers. One of her exes is trying to kill me and the other is a parasite on my soul. She needs to come back now.”
Lyssa gave me a weak smile and nodded. She didn’t seem convinced that a constant summoning would help much, but if it made us both feel better, that was something.
We finished eating breakfast, and a long time later Gates came back out. She didn’t talk about the crying, and neither did I. I got her some of my clothes, and then she went to sleep while Lyssa described her scrying process to me, and then told me to change something about it that I thought was wrong. The whole thing seemed so different from the utilitarian spell that Charlie had made me do; I was pretty sure it wouldn’t work. It felt too much like a hippie meditation activity.
But then, I was trapped in my apartment by a crazed warlock, so I figured anything was worth a shot.
I called Charlie back and told him what I needed.
“And I want my human body back,” he said with a quick shake of his head. “I’m not going fetching as a cat. If Stark finds me—which is a likelihood, as we still don’t know how he found you—then I will be road kill.”
I hesitated, but Gates came out right at that moment, looking hung over and exhausted.
“It’s fine, Annie. I don’t know what to say to my mom anyway. I’m not saying anything until we figure out the crap with Stark, at least.”
“Are you sure?” I asked her.
She nodded, and took a deep breath. “It’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine, but Charlie did it anyway. He left and came back minutes later, sounding a bell before he arrived and toting the things I had asked for.
“Is that it?” he asked me, looking anxious.
I glanced over at the crate of supplies. New candles, new matches, a natural quartz, and a living yellow marigold. I had forgotten to tell him to bring yellow, but he must have seen it in my mind’s eye, because the one he brought was perfect.
“That’s it.” I shrugged. “Why? Somewhere you need to be?”
Both of us crouched down over the crate as I took things out. He met my gaze, and I saw the tick in his eye.
“It was Stark. He’s responsible for the curse.”
I put down the quartz to hold up my hands. “Whoa… she didn’t tell me anything.”
“Charlie…” Lyssa said in warning.
“I’m going to kill him,” he said, standing up. “It’s what I should have done to begin with.”
Lyssa’s eyes narrowed as she stood. She was no match for Charlie’s height, but with her hands on her hips, she was intimidating.
“You’re not going anywhere,” she said coldly. She pointed toward the bedroom, where Gates had gone back to sleep. “You owe that girl a body, and that means giving up yours. If you go out and get yourself killed, where does that leave her?”
I saw the tick in his eye get dangerously faster, but he didn’t respond to her. Instead, he snapped his fingers, and he was a cat once more. I heard Gates give a yelp as she fell off the bed in surprise.
“Could you maybe give her some warning before you do that?” I asked timidly.
Charlie turned and stalked away slowly to the kitchen. I turned back to Lyssa.
“Okay, then. Here goes.”
I lit my candles in a row and set the quartz down in the soil with the marigolds. Somehow, crushing the flowers felt too aggressive, so I let mine be and focused on Kendra. After a while I went and got one of her diaries, one of my favorites where her handwriting flowed in long, smooth lines, and held it loose in my hand while I focused.
Lyssa got bored and went to make lunch some time later, and Gates eventually came out and I gave my permission for them to turn on the television while I continued to stare at a rock in the dirt. The afternoon passed by faster than average, and when the sun started to tuck away behind the mountains, I was just about ready to give up my shift to Lyssa.
She said she would take over, just as soon as we had eaten dinner. She fixed the meal and then we all sat down together. Even Charlie joined us, having materialized the steaks that Lyssa found in the refrigerator, and the conversation took a lighthearted turn when he offered to create an elaborate back story for Gates’ absence. The story he told involved being kidnapped and forced into slave labor making tiny coin purses that were sold on the cheap to tourists, and eventually making a convoluted escape that involved two llamas, a lighter, and paying a garbage man in candy bars.
Gates had cracked a smile, tossing her fork. “Well, at least I didn’t pay him by more lewd means.”
“The candy bars can be an innuendo if you want,” Lyssa suppressed a smile.
I grinned at Lyssa for having said it, and we both laughed. Gates waved a hand.
“Okay…” she started. “No, really. I’m thinking maybe I just entered a fugue state, like that writer…you know who I’m talking about?”
“Agatha Christie,” Charlie offered.
“Agatha Christie!” Gates smiled wider. “And I ended up in this East European sanitarium for a while, and then…”
Lyssa’s cell phone rang and she excused herself to the kitchen to answer it. Gates continued to concoct her story with Charlie, but I saw Lyssa’s face fall from a cheery smile to a frown when she pressed the phone to her ear. She saw me and turned away, and I immediately assumed the worst.
Something had happened to Rosie and Josh.
I got up from the table to console her,
and Gates and Charlie fell silent. Just as I got close enough to give her a hug, however, Lyssa turned back around, looking confused.
“It’s for you…” She held the phone out to Charlie. “It’s Kendra.”
Chapter 11
Gates gave a yelp that turned into a feline screech as she dropped onto all fours. Charlie only glanced at her as she took a swipe at him.
“Oh, calm down!” he snapped. “I need thumbs to hold the phone—you can have your turn back as soon as I’m done!”
He took the phone from Lyssa and walked into the kitchen. As though it made any difference; we could still hear him.
“Long time, no…No, no! Now you are going to listen to me, Kendra! I want an answer!” He fell silent. I got up from the table and went to the kitchen to stare at him, and he turned away, annoyed. “We have an audience. Your apprentice and her sister. Yes, the talentless one, which is one more bone I have to pick with you. No, I cannot. Because we’re under siege and I doubt this coverage plan extends to the Other Side. Why?”
He turned back to face me, and set the phone on the kitchen counter, turning on the speaker phone.
“Hello? Lyssa, can you hear me?”
Lyssa and Gates joined us in the kitchen, and Lyssa leaned down over the phone, propping herself on one elbow.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“I told you not to summon him, and get rid of him if he showed up!”
Lyssa raised her eyebrows and sighed. “I didn’t summon him, and I did get rid of him!”
“Well, then why—”
“Annie agreed to be his bridge, so there’s not a whole hell of a lot I can do about it!”
A long pause followed. I thought I could hear wind, or traffic, or something else in the background. She must have been outside.
“Well that was dumb of her.”
I rolled my eyes. “He turned my best friend into a cat!”
I heard her scoff. “Damn it, Charlie…”
“You banished me and disappeared!” he said with a sneer. “I’ve been starving in the Other Side. I had to do something to—”
“Yeah, but that’s not you!” She talked over him, and to my great surprise, Charlie shut up and listened. “You promised me. You promised me that you would find someone deserving before you started, because you wouldn’t wish that curse on anyone. You cursed a little girl?”
“Hey!” Gates said indignantly. “Young woman, thank you very much!”
Kendra sighed. “Someone put the kids outside. There’s too many people talking.”
“Only if I want them dead…” Lyssa looked exasperated. “Stark found us too.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Annie summon him too?”
“No!” I said, insulted. “He snuck up on me while I was on campus and offered me a soda. I know better than to summon any more demons after Charlie!”
“Campus?” Kendra paused. “Aren’t you…how old are you?”
“Almost nineteen!”
More static and white noise on the line. “It’s been longer than I thought.”
We all waited for her to say more, but she didn’t.
“When are you coming?” Lyssa asked, as though we were trying to plan to have her for a vacation week.
“I’m not.”
“What?”
“I’m not coming,” she repeated. “I just…can’t. You understand.”
“No, I don’t—”
“It’s complicated, Lyssa, but I can’t be there. You’ve got to figure it out for yourselves. I’ve got to go…”
“No!” Lyssa grabbed the phone, nearly choking it with her hands. “No, Kendra, do not hang up! I need help—”
“—and I want an answer!” Charlie finished for her.
I could hear Kendra breathing into the phone on the other end of the line. She only said one word. “Stark.”
And then she hung up.
~~~~~~~~~
Lyssa sat there, staring at the phone, for a long time. Her complexion had turned to ash, and she partially hid beneath her reddish-blond curls. None of us knew what to say. Long into the dark of the night, we sat up together, starting quiet conversations about what we were going to do. They never went anywhere, and they all inevitably died back into foreboding silence. Lyssa stayed quiet nearly the entire time, only giving short, clipped responses when I forced her to.
Just before midnight, she stood up from the couch, looked at each of us, and made an announcement. “I’m going to stay a week until the charms are complete. I can do that much. But I’m not going to talk anymore. Not about anything related to…anything. That’s just how it has to be.”
“Oh, for the love…” Gates glared at her. “You figured it out, didn’t you?”
Kendra had said we had to figure it out for ourselves, and Gates and I had spent the better part of our islands of conversation debating what she had meant. By the way Lyssa only turned and left the room, it appeared that she had, in fact, figured it out.
And she wasn’t going to share her revelation.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“That’s really not helping much, either,” Gates turned and snapped at Charlie.
“She said Stark was the reason.”
“You asked for a reason, and she said ‘Stark,’” I replied. “It’s not the same thing.”
“If I am cursed, then killing Stark would release the curse,” he said. “It made sense to me.”
“Yeah, and that’s the problem,” I said. “You’re already guessing that whatever it is, you’re not allowed to know about it. So why would she give you a clue that only you would understand?”
Charlie looked to Gates, but she only nodded and shrugged. If Kendra was trying to keep him alive, she wouldn’t have given him anything that would have jeopardized that.
“I could kill him anyway,” Charlie offered.
I sighed and rolled my eyes as I looked over. He was lounging on the coffee table that I had rescued from the side of the road along with two matching end tables. They were all from the 1970s, but they got the job done. Charlie stared at the door like his eyes could punch a hole in it, with one leg hanging off the table. I once again remarked how much better the cat skin seemed to fit him.
“Is there any chance that if you run out and kill Stark, he somehow has a dead man’s trigger built into this curse and you die, too?”
Charlie didn’t answer immediately. He gave an irritated twitch of his ear.
“It’s possible.”
“Then let’s not jump to anything rash,” I said.
Gates shifted uncomfortably. “Annie, we’re trapped in an apartment by a psycho using magic to try and kill us. If now isn’t the time for rash decisions, then I don’t know when—”
“No one is dying to kill Stark,” I said flatly.
Gates narrowed her eyes. “I don’t understand why you care all of a sudden. Even two weeks ago you would have been thrilled to be rid of Charlie, even if it meant him dying.”
I looked her in the eye. “No one is dying to kill Stark.” I nodded at Charlie. “He’s a cat right now by choice, and that has to tell you that he’s at least not a complete ass.”
“Yeah, that or he wants something,” Gates shot back.
“Kendra screwed him over. In a big way.” I raised a hand to rub at my eyes. If Lyssa wasn’t going to help us, we were never going to figure it out. I didn’t even have the training to make an educated guess. “Given how this whole mess started, I think I can give him a pass on wanting revenge.”
“Technically, she screwed me, and then she screwed me over,” Charlie said dryly. He gave another flick of his ear. “In a big way.”
“Thanks, Charlie, too much information…”
I got up and went to the kitchen. Putting the kettle on the stove, I shook my head as I quietly wished that Charlie was still human so that he could brew my tea for me. But, sadly, he only had those extended abilities when he wasn’t bound, and i
t made me guilty for even thinking of him being human if Gates would have to take the cat skin again.
I had just pulled a mug from the cupboard, and I dropped it into the sink as my heart gave a leap. The ceramic broke to pieces when it hit the metal bottom, sending pieces scattering.
Charlie couldn’t do much as a cat. And he couldn’t do any of it without strict permission.
“Annie?” Gates was standing at the kitchen entrance, looking concerned.
I looked up at her, still so happy to see her face. There were times I had thought that I would never see her again. Then I looked at Charlie.
“A demon can have two bridges, right?” I asked anxiously. “Can a witch have two demons?”
“If a witch were up to the task,” he said, seeming to imply that I wasn’t. “Sharing a bridge is like being forced to share a toothbrush. I wouldn’t expect either demon to be particularly happy about it.”
I ran out from the kitchen, kneeling down before him, and he withdrew back into his own space a little.
“But it can be done,” I said. “I can summon another, and then bind him into a familiar. Like a cat. A cat that sits there and sulks all day because he hasn’t got permission to do anything.”
Charlie’s ears perked up as he stared at me. “Oh, that’s a very dangerous proposition, Thorn.”
“Could I command him to remove his curse on you? Any curse, even if I don’t know what it is specifically?”
He turned his head a little to the side. “Theoretically. I would feel better about the plan if we knew the specifics.”
“I’m going to summon him—”
“NO—!”
The shout came from next to me and behind me as both Lyssa and Gates came running toward me. Lyssa clapped a hand over my mouth, and then patted me gently on the shoulder. Once again, she had gone white, with all of the blood drained from her face.
“Let me teach you demon binding first,” she said shakily.
“Why teach her at all?” Charlie asked, gazing up at Lyssa. “You know what you need. Have you done a binding before?”