by A. L. Tyler
A room bigger than my room.
My eyes danced from the queen-sized bed to the balcony view of the beach at night. A moon hung low over the crashing surf, and I could smell the salty water. There was a walk-in closet on one end and an open door to a five piece master bath on the other. At the far end of the bathroom, I saw another door.
“You needed a second closet?” I asked in a deflated tone.
“That’s Lyssa’s room,” Gates said, practically skipping to her balcony. “We’re sharing the bathroom. Her room isn’t nearly as nice, which I don’t get. If she’s going to use it at all, then ethics be damned—really use it, right? I feel owed for the last few months. I still haven’t decided what color I want on the walls, but Charlie said I can decide later.”
“How nice for you.” I furrowed my brow as I stuck my head back into the kitchen, then looked at the new bedroom again. “Wait—did Charlie evict the guy in the apartment behind us?”
“This is a compressed pocket in reality,” Charlie said. The room was so big, I hadn’t even noticed him lounging as a cat by the dresser. “The occupants aren’t werewolves, so I can use more illusion with them. A room like this wouldn’t hold a werewolf—it’s almost entirely magic.”
He rose up and walked back to the kitchen. I left Gates alone in her new haven. My eyelids were beginning to droop with exhaustion, and I needed to sleep before anything else happened.
“Do you want any upgrades?” Charlie asked. “I can give you just about anything you want.”
“My room is fine,” I said.
“No beach view?” he asked in an airy tone. “No big bed, or walk-in closet? Heated floors?”
I rolled my eyes. Gates’ imagination had spared no expense.
“I’m good,” I said. Then I paused.
If Charlie could have smiled with his cat face, he would have. “A place for books, Thorn? Are you giving me permission?”
I dug through my kitchen cabinet, trying to find a good decaffeinated tea to drink before bed. I couldn’t help myself and smiled.
“Make me a library, Charlie.”
I saw his tail twitch, and then I finished making my tea. When I went into my bedroom, I found the door hidden behind the clothes in my closet. I only had the energy to peek inside and smile.
It was a smaller space, which was fine with me, but it was lined floor to ceiling with books. A chaise with an afghan thrown over it was situated next to a little end table with a simple lamp.
I closed the door, and wanted to go to bed, but I remembered that Vince was now living beneath my floorboards. Somehow, I felt like I needed to say goodnight and let him know I was going to sleep.
I went down the stairs again and knocked on the metal door at the bottom. It was still sitting open a fraction of an inch because it couldn’t be closed all the way without locking, and it only opened from the outside. I didn’t think that my knock had made enough sound, but then Vince opened the door.
He had already changed into nightclothes, and he was wearing sweatpants and a white cotton undershirt. I tried not to let my eyes leave his face. I knew I was going to blush again if they did.
“I’m going to bed,” I said, keeping my tone even. “Is there anything else you need tonight?”
A small smile flashed on his face, but whatever the joke was, he decided not to share it. “No, I don’t think so. Are you going to lock the door?”
I instinctively slid my hand down the side of the door. I hadn’t even thought about it.
Vince shrugged. “Just in case I’m not me by morning, I guess.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Goodnight.”
He looked like he wanted to say something else. We stood there awkwardly until I made the move to shut the door.
“Goodnight.” It felt wrong shutting the door on him, but I knew he was right. He was in my room, and if he lost control while I was sleeping, it could end badly.
I shut the door, and I locked it, turning the heavy wheel on the exterior until it wouldn’t turn any further to engage all the locks on the mechanism.
Then I went and crawled into my bed. My tea was still steaming up its last vapors on my nightstand, but I was too tired to drink it or dump it out. I don’t know if I dreamed that night or not. If I did, the memory of it was taken from me by my sudden awakening early the next day.
A noise that was half-howl and half-scream shook my whole room like a train was passing just outside the window.
Chapter 3
I jumped out of the bed like it was on fire. It took me a moment to remember where I was, and who was living in the room beneath me.
Shoving back the rug, I flipped open the hatch and descended the stairs. “Charlie!”
He stopped me just as my hand landed on the wheel to open the door.
“Thorn, I know what you’re going to say, and trust me, you don’t want to even look.” He spoke quickly, looking me directly in the eye. “I’ve already been in to see him, and he’s not in a good place to have company right now.”
There was a loud grunt, and something exploded against the wall inside the room. The entire apartment shook.
“Is that door going to hold?” I asked frantically.
“I hope so.”
“You hope so?” Something else cracked and hit the door, shaking dust loose around the seams. “It isn’t even the full moon… Is he going to get worse? Stronger?”
Charlie glanced back as Vince, or whatever he had become, started ramming repeatedly into the door. “Yes, Thorn, he’s going to get worse and stronger, and probably more desperate to escape—”
A loud howl cut him off, and I ducked and covered my ears. When it finally subsided and the attempts to break down the door started again, Charlie gave me a long look.
“I’m doing what I can to dampen the seismic effects and the noise outside of this apartment, but like I said, werewolves have some immunity. You asked for this.”
And all at once, the pounding stopped. No howl followed, and I looked at Charlie. We both turned back to the door, and I reached for the viewing hatch. Charlie caught my hand.
“Thorn, I really wouldn’t—”
I shook him off and opened it.
It took a moment before I could see anything, because Vince had already ripped one of the lights from the ceiling; the other had been bashed in and flickered slowly on and off. Every square inch of everything in the room had been smashed, gnarled, twisted, chewed, broken, and completely annihilated. I didn’t see any chunks larger than a softball, and in the flickering mess, something larger than a bear and covered with silver-gray fur streaked in blood was passed out next to a wall.
I blinked my eyes, and Charlie was inside the room. The lights were back on, and he’d at least cleaned up the debris, leaving only the scratched down walls.
Kneeling over Vince, he used one hand to move his massive, canine head to the side to take a pulse, and then picked up each enormous, bloody paw. Vince had ripped off some of his own claws in his rampage.
“He’s cracked his skull open,” Charlie said, laying his head back down and positioning his arms more comfortably. But the body of the wolf-man was shrinking, and the fur started to shed off of him in tufts. The teeth crowded in his jaw before falling out, replaced by normal human ones, and he was Vince again. Still bloody and battered and unconscious, but Vince. Charlie gave me a look when I reached for the wheel again. “Don’t you dare. He’s going to be fine. He’ll heal up and do it over again. Again and again until the moon’s waning. We’ll deal with whatever’s left at that point.”
I clutched the wheel to stay standing. This was a terrible idea, and once again I was left with no way to fix what I had done.
Charlie’s eyes moved to look behind me, and I turned to see Lyssa giving me a pitying look.
“Are you sure you don’t want some of this blood?” Charlie called to her from inside the cage. “It’s a crude solution, but it’ll work, and it’ll work immediately. Werewolf’s
blood makes a great protectant against just about any magical force trying to do you harm.”
“No one here wants to drink blood,” Lyssa said to him. She was still looking at me, and it did nothing for my guilt.
“Do you think he’d mind if I took some?” Charlie asked. “For my own personal stores. It’s kind of a commodity, if you can believe it. You could all live lavishly and die wealthy just selling what he’s already left behind here.”
He picked up some of the wolf’s discarded teeth and examined them.
“We’re not interested,” I replied weakly.
He cast the teeth aside.
“I know you’re not.” He was standing next to me again. “I’m making a point that you should probably not tell anyone what we’re doing here. Assuming any of us survive, I mean. There are some unscrupulous people in this world who might be willing to kill you for the endless gold mine you’re living on top of.”
Lyssa’s eyes still hadn’t left mine. She tilted her head a little. “We’ll be sure to remember that. If you want cast-offs, ask Vince the next time he’s able to answer.”
Charlie walked back up the stairs. Lyssa slowly reached over and shut the viewing hatch.
She sighed.
“This was a terrible idea,” I said. “We can’t keep him here.”
“It’s done, Annie,” she said. “We can’t move him until we’re sure he isn’t going to have an episode, and it’s a few days until the full moon passes. All we can do now is make him as comfortable as possible.”
Horrified and stunned, I leaned back against the wall for support. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right. Vince hadn’t done anything to deserve this. He was just a guy that knew me. That was all Walter and Stark knew about him, and they had done this to him, just for knowing me.
“Are dad and Janet safe?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And Rosemary and Josh?”
“Yes.”
“How safe?” I knew I must have sounded crazy right then, but Vince was only a friend. If this was what they were doing to my acquaintances, I didn’t want to see what would happen to the people I actually loved.
“They’re safe,” Lyssa said, not blinking. She put a hand on my shoulder. “Annie, this isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known that this would happen. He’s alive, and safe, and we’ll find a better way if we have to, but you did good. Whatever you’re feeling right now, it’s the lesser of two evils, because we could have left him to die last night. I wouldn’t want to be living with that guilt.”
A scuffle and a growl sounded behind us, and there was a sniffing at the door. Once again, the beast was throwing himself at it, making the heavy metal casing rattle and clank and squeal in protest.
I shook my head. “I’m not so sure I would feel any worse.”
Lyssa put an arm around my shoulders and led me back upstairs. Charlie must have done something, because the noise of Vince’s struggle below was already dampened.
Putting me in a chair at the kitchen table, Lyssa started making breakfast.
“Dad called,” she said. “I told him you were feeling better. He said to wish you good luck on your first day.”
“Thanks.”
She hesitated. “So, I didn’t tell you before, because you had enough to deal with, but I had Charlie pull some strings, and Dad got a job offer in California.”
“What?” I looked up at her as she tried to hide her eyes, busying herself cracking eggs into a bowl.
She nodded. “He’s going on vacation with Janet to see if they can find a place out there. They left on Friday. He really wanted to come and check on you before they went, but I told them I had it handled.”
I wasn’t sure why I was angry, but the way Lyssa was hiding her eyes told me she was guilty, and that was enough. “Why would you do that?”
She took a deep breath and sighed before looking up at me. “Because this only gets worse from here, Anise. There’s a truly deranged ex-warlock and a werewolf after us, and they have all the unlimited power of a demon at their disposal now. Your boyfriend is trying to break out of our basement to kill us, and your best friend has a timeshare as a cat. No one, not even Kendra, is going to help us. We need to start cutting our attachments now, or it’ll only give them more ways to get to us. So if you can think of anyone else that could be used against you, it’s time to ask Charlie to make them disappear for a while.”
I shook my head, not wanting to believe it. “For how long?”
She laid both hands flat on the counter to steady herself. “Until Stark is gone for good. And the way things are going with that…”
I continued shaking my head. “But you’re making protection charms. Once the charms are done—”
“—we can leave the apartment,” she finished for me. “But what then? You’re going to find Walter and kill him, hoping to god he isn’t anticipating that’s what you’re going to do and gets you first? And even if we did find him, and murder him, then what? Trapping Stark as a cat is a long shot, Annie. He and Walter are going to be throwing up hurdles for us wherever they can. I think you should adjust your expectations, because this could go on a lot longer than you want to believe.”
She looked exhausted, and a little sad. It took me a moment to realize why.
“What about Josh and Rosie?” I asked.
Tilting her head, she nodded. Lyssa had never been a selfish person. She didn’t like to bring up her own problems or sacrifices. I could tell she had wanted to bring this one up, though. If she wasn’t feeling angry or resentful over them right now, she wouldn’t have been human.
“Josh is taking care of Rosie,” she said levelly. “I promised I would take care of you.”
I scoffed. She said it like it was really that simple.
“I’m not a kid,” I said. “And this isn’t your fight. You need to be with your kid, Lyssa. Let me deal with it. Or maybe I won’t. I don’t want to think about Rosie growing up without her mother—”
She raised her hand to stop me. “Mom didn’t want to think about you growing up alone, either, Annie. I’m not leaving you alone, and I’m not abandoning Rosie. It’s going to be complicated, but we’ll make it work.”
She went back to avoiding my gaze and started chopping up vegetables for our omelets.
“I want you to go and see them,” I said. “As soon as the charms are done. Vince will be healing, and I’ll have classes to distract me, and so will Walter. I can manage for a few days.”
“Annie—”
“Do it, or I’m going to ask Charlie to make it happen,” I said shortly. Lyssa stopped to look up at me. “He likes me more than he likes you. You know he’d do it.”
She shifted the chopped veggies into the bowl with a vengeance and then glared at me. “Fine.”
“Where is Charlie, anyway?”
“He’s running the greenhouse,” she grumbled, going to the refrigerator for butter. When she caught the look on my face, she rolled her eyes. “That’s my livelihood, Annie. I have no money without that greenhouse, and I do have bills to pay.”
Dumbfounded, I tried not to let my tone slip too far into mockery. “With all the crap we have going on, we’ve got a demon, and you’ve decided to have him run the greenhouse so you can make money instead of, I don’t know, asking him to just give you money? Scratch that—we’ve got all this crap going on, and your priority is sending the demon to earn money instead of protecting us?”
She gave me a long look. “Diapers aren’t cheap. Neither is preschool. And I would like to have a normal-ish life to return to when this is all done, whenever that is.”
The eggs splashed into the skillet and started to sizzle. Gates emerged from behind the tapestry on the wall wearing a large, fluffy bathrobe. She shut her bedroom door behind her as she toweled off her hair.
Lyssa stopped, staring her.
“Good morning?” Gates asked as Lyssa continued to gape at her.
Lyssa was still standing still as a statue, the
spatula barely hanging in her hand. “You’re not a cat.”
“No…?” Gates turned her head to the side, looking to me for help.
“If you’re not a cat, then how is Charlie running the greenhouse?”
We heard the light tinkle of a bell, and Charlie came padding in. He jumped up on the kitchen counter to stare at Lyssa.
“Charlie knows how to outsource,” he said. “I hired some people. We have a very productive phone relationship, and they know not to slack off. Because somehow, I always find out who screwed up or slacked off.”
“I can’t afford to pay employees,” Lyssa said, scooping an arm under him and putting him back on the floor. Charlie hissed at her. “Ask Annie.”
“I’ll pay them,” Charlie said.
“I don’t need the IRS nailing me as a money laundering operation because I’m paying people more than I’m making,” Lyssa protested.
Charlie narrowed his eyes. “I’ll take care of that, too.”
“Charlie…”
“Lyssa,” I said calmly. “He’s keeping the greenhouse running. As we just discussed, we’ve got a lot of other crap going on right now, so let’s call it good enough.”
We spent the rest of that day trying to ignore the grunts, howls, and crashes coming from the basement. I don’t know about Lyssa and Gates, but I felt bad ignoring them, even if there was nothing we could do.
I kept waiting for Walter and Stark to throw something else at us, but Walter must have been in a bad state, too, because nothing came that day or the next. Lyssa showed me the charms she was making, and told me about how she had learned to make them.
They were mainly composed of althaea root and small white selenite stones in cotton bags. Apparently Kendra had started using them some years earlier to ward off vampires. They had come for her a second time just before her car accident, and that was when she had taught Lyssa about them. They were strong, but very specific, because they had to be made with the names of the individuals you wished to ward off in mind.
Lyssa needed moonlight to renew the selenite while she burned white candles circled by salt. She had also burned some bay leaves and hidden belladonna somewhere in my apartment.