by A. L. Tyler
I hadn’t considered it. I looked at Vince, and he raised an eyebrow.
“Anything would be better than being indoors,” he said.
I turned back to Martha and her smart, friendly smile. Charlie’s bell rang an urgent alarm as he trotted back into the room and leapt up onto the counter.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “I’m not sending a werewolf out into the wild to do whatever his mood dictates. Someone will get hurt.”
We all fell silent, and I looked from Charlie, sitting still and determined on the counter, to Martha, carelessly leaning over on it. When she stood up, a small spark in her eye, I thought she was going to start the argument afresh.
“You’re absolutely right,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry I even mentioned it. It’s a terrible idea.”
I looked at Vince. He was already looking at me, and at least we agreed that what we had just witnessed was odd. Charlie shifted uncomfortably.
“I want your story right now,” he said. “You’re after something here. What is it?”
Martha leaned back against the far wall, waving one hand dismissively. “I was just looking for Kendra, to see if she was all right. That’s it.”
“How did you meet?”
“College,” Martha said without hesitation. “In northern Colorado. She was on the fifth floor in Jenner East, and I was third floor. We had a math class together.”
“Kendra hated math,” Charlie said.
“Yes,” Martha nodded. “It was the semester before she changed to music studies, and I’m sure that professor had a lot to do with the decision. Did she ever tell you about Dr. Ward?”
“Yes,” Charlie conceded.
“And his hair piece?”
“Yes.”
“And when he tried to kiss her after class?”
“Yes,” Charlie said in frustration. “When did you last see her?”
“In person?” Martha’s eyebrows shot up for a moment. “God, it would have been before the wedding. Her brother’s wedding, I mean, when she moved out here to start the greenhouse. I’ve never been a fan of living close to the major congregation sites because they tend to draw warlocks. I told her so, but she said there was strength in numbers and she wanted to be a part of her nieces’ and nephews’ lives. We met up in a cafe in New York. She was on her way back from Italy and I was on my way to Egypt. I stayed three extra days just to see her. I told her she was going to do great with plants. She has the right energy for it.”
Charlie narrowed his eyes and flicked his tail. “You’re not telling us the whole truth.”
“None of us ever does,” she said simply. “I doubt that any of us in this room can say we’ve been entirely honest in the last week, unless all of you go around openly advertising to everyone you meet how you spend your evenings in certain company or certain times of the month. I’m a friend of Kendra. I’m sure she had a reason for not telling you. I’d be willing to wager that it’s because society doesn’t look kindly on people like me. But then, I might be wrong.”
Charlie studied her, and gave me a long look before he left. He still didn’t trust her.
When he had gone, Martha flashed me another dazzling smile. “Has anyone ever taught you a resurrection spell? It’s not exactly what it sounds like, because the thing can’t be completely dead when you try, but I bet you’d be great at it. Kendra always was. I saw her bring back plants I was sure were goners. Very useful in her line of work. Would you like to learn?”
Vince hung around for the spell lesson, which I eagerly accepted after seeing the damage at the greenhouse, but it proved a lot harder than I thought it would. I had resurrected some roses once on the Other Side, and I knew I was capable, but I had trouble channeling my intentions—that was how Martha described it. Just being able to put a name to the problem made it seem that much more manageable.
We went to bed around ten, and Martha said goodnight before she slipped behind the tapestry in the kitchen. I went back to my bedroom. It still felt a little odd when Vince followed me in.
I tried to pick my words carefully. “Would it be weird if I asked Charlie to move your stairs to the living room?”
“It might be insulting,” he said loftily. “But not weird. Why? I kind of like getting to see the drool spot on your pillow in the morning.”
I cocked my head. “I don’t drool. And I change in here.”
“You have a closet and a bathroom,” he said incredulously. “Change in there. You really need a third room for changing?”
I didn’t respond, and continued to stare him down.
“I’m kidding, Annie,” he said. “That’s fine. Of course, people are going to talk when they see you leaving my place late at night. No one has ever believed that homework excuse.”
I made a face, pointing him toward his stairs. “The people who know me, and what a perpetual nerd I am, have never had any trouble believing it. Goodnight, Vince.”
He smirked at me as he went down the stairs, but then stopped, resting his arms on the landing.
“So what is this, then?” he asked.
“What is what?” I asked absently, pulling a pair of pajamas from a drawer. It was getting too cold out to keep wearing jogging pants and a camisole, which was my usual routine.
“Are we dating?” he asked. “What is this?”
I stood up straight, and then turned back to him, shocked that he could talk about it like it was something to be discussed in the light of… any light, actually. And he wasn’t even embarrassed.
“You live in my basement,” I said, confused.
He nodded, and his gaze wandered for a second. “Right. Well, goodnight, then.”
“Do you want to date?” I asked before he could disappear. “I don’t know what that looks like. I’ve never done that before.”
I thought he was going to say something snarky and inconsiderate, like how I really was a huge nerd, or how we might as well because neither of us was ever going to get a date given our current predicament, or how he was actually planning to ask my blessing to make a pass at Martha in all of her low-cut sheer glory, but he didn’t.
“Yes,” he said. “I would. And I think it looks however you want it to. Is that okay?”
I didn’t know what to say. I had thought about dating Vince, and what it would be like, at least a dozen times. Somehow, I had never imagined this moment, or what I was supposed to say. I never thought he would be asking me from a hatch door in my bedroom floor, either.
“Yeah,” I said finally. “That’s okay.”
We stared at each other. I still didn’t know what to say.
“I’ve got a week left,” he said. “Before Charlie says I’ll be going downhill again. We could watch a movie or something, no homework. My place, tomorrow?”
“Sure,” I said quickly.
“Great. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
And he disappeared into the hatch, closing it as he went. I stood in my bedroom, wondering what that moment would have been like if I had never met Charlie. It might have gone better. Or, it might never have happened at all. Vince and I were two people inclined to go with the flow instead of taking huge risks, and Charlie knew that. The only way we would have ended up in any sort of dating situation was if we were forced into it.
For example, if he ended up living in my basement.
I went to my little library, and cracked the door just a little. Charlie had been spending more time in there since Martha’s arrival, and I found him curled next to an open book on the chaise.
“Thank you,” I said, half defeated. “I know you don’t like werewolves, but—”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” he said shortly. “I’ll move the stairs tomorrow. And we have to do something about Martha.”
“What?” I asked. “Charlie, she knew Kendra. There’s no other explanation.”
“There has to be,” he said, moving to sit up. “This doesn’t sit right with you, either. I know it doesn’t.�
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“She can help us.”
“She keeps saying that she’s going to help us,” Charlie reminded me. “She never says how she’s going to do it. Her friends, the ones that are going to help Vince, don’t exist outside of theory right now. She talks about breaking my curse like she already has the spell in her back pocket, but she won’t tell me what it is. I can’t read her thoughts and I don’t know what her game is, Thorn. I’m preparing for the worst, and I think you should do the same.”
I thought about it. I wanted to trust Martha, but it had been a week without any delivery on her promises. I was clinging to the little hope she had given me, but Charlie was right.
I nodded. “I guess that makes sense.”
Chapter 9
Saturday morning I woke to the smell of bacon and eggs. I looked at my door, confused, because Charlie hadn’t bothered making breakfast since Gates and Lyssa left. I usually preferred lighter fare.
The hatch was already open, and I was embarrassed thinking about Vince sneaking past me in my sleep. I slipped out of bed and collected some clothes, changing in my closet before I went out.
Charlie was sitting on the table while Vince and Martha ate breakfast. Martha was beaming, and she withdrew a hand from Vince’s shoulder when she saw me. He looked over with the slightest hint of a grin, apparently amused by the whole situation.
“I heard back from my friends!” she said, delighted. “They want to meet Vince. I set up the introductions for this afternoon.”
“This afternoon…?” I trailed off, looking at Charlie.
He blinked at me very slowly, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing. It was awfully convenient that Martha’s friends had suddenly come through. The very morning after we had discussed her lack of proof that she was going to help us, no less.
I tried to recover. If Martha really was up to something, I didn’t want her knowing that I was on to her. “That’s great. Vince, isn’t that great?”
“As long as they understand that I might choose to stay here,” he said firmly, but still smiling. “Then yeah, that’s great.”
“Oh, geez…” Martha swatted him on the arm as she got up to fix me a plate from the kitchen. “We’re not shipping you off to be institutionalized, Vincent. They’re offering you help. This is just to introduce everyone.”
I pulled a chair from the table and sat down, and Charlie gave me another slow blink.
“Martha thinks it might be best if I don’t go to this meeting,” he said in a fixed, calm tone.
I cocked my head as Martha set a plate in front of me. I picked up my fork. “I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with that.”
“Sorcerers who keep company with demons tend to make werewolves nervous.” She sat back down and flashed another smile, looking from me to Vince. “I’m sure you can understand that.”
“The only werewolf I’ve ever met decided to infect my friend as a preemptive warning, and they make me nervous,” I replied. “I’m sure you can understand that. No, neither of us is going without Charlie. I’ll risk the consequences, and apologize, and kiss whoever’s ass needs it to make it right after the fact.”
She gave me a long look. “If that’s how you want to do it.”
I ate a few bites in silence, wishing that there was some way that Charlie and I could communicate with each other without the others knowing. He could read my thoughts, and reading his might have made life easier. When I really thought about it, though, I wasn’t sure it was a fantastic idea.
Charlie chuckled, and I frowned as Martha glanced over at him.
“Nothing,” he cleared his throat.
I looked for anything to change the subject, and saw one of Kendra’s journals open face-down next to the sink.
“You found Kendra’s spells?” I asked innocently.
Martha glanced at it. “I did. I hope you don’t mind. She taught me a few things, and it’s kind of interesting to see where she went over the years. I can tell the exact moment when she took up with Stark.” She winked. “And when she took up with Charlie.”
“Okay,” Charlie stood up, stretching. “Don’t talk about me like you know me. You don’t.”
Martha held up her hands. “I wasn’t! I was just pointing out that you had an influence, and I feel like those books are filling in a life story that I missed out on. Annie doesn’t mind me reading them, do you, Annie?”
I didn’t see the harm. Most of them were too mixed up to mean anything, anyway. So far Gates was the only person to have deciphered anything relevant from them.
“No,” I shrugged.
“See?” Martha said. Her eyes lit up. “There aren’t any others, are there? Could I see them?”
Charlie froze. It was only for a split second, and then he flicked an ear and sat back down, suddenly looking much more relaxed. I hoped that Martha would take my sudden glance at him as annoyance that he had tried to start another fight.
“Yeah,” I said, shaking my head and trying to focus on her again. “Yeah, there are plenty. I’ll find them for you. Enjoy.”
Vince asked her a few questions after that point, and I ate my breakfast. Apparently Martha’s friend was a woman named Adeline, a werewolf, and the granddaughter of the elder of the pack she hoped to ingratiate Vince with. They lived a long ways into the mountains, and while it would have been nice for Charlie to just transport us there, he couldn’t transport Vince.
Martha read Kendra’s journals until it was time to drive. If Vince was nervous, he didn’t let on.
Martha entertained us the whole way, telling us stories about Kendra and dumb things she had done in college. Trouble she had gotten into, and more than one close call she had managed to escape. Kendra had apparently been the one to introduce Martha to Adeline’s mother, Terra.
Terra and Kendra met in the late ‘70s, when they had both been young teens sneaking out to attend rock concerts.
“You knew Terra?” Charlie interrupted, baffled. “Terra Joyner?”
“And you sure as hell didn’t,” she chuckled. “Or she wouldn’t have told her daughter stories about you before she died. And they’re some pretty gruesome stories, Charlie.”
My heart sank. I didn’t want to ask, and I didn’t have to.
“It was a different time, Thorn,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I killed a lot of them, but I didn’t kill Terra. Kendra was still mourning her passing when we met. Terra died from cancer.”
“You killed a lot of them?” Vince said with sudden interest. “Excuse me?”
I looked over and saw his frown. I hadn’t told him about Charlie’s history.
“It was a different time,” Charlie repeated more forcefully. “It was wrong, but it’s not like I was sneaking up and killing them in their sleep. The easiest way to find a werewolf is by the carnage they leave behind, and that was my hunting tactic.”
“So we’re driving up to meet a bunch of people, and we’re bringing a notorious serial killer with us?” he asked.
He turned to me. I didn’t know what to say.
“Well, that’s great,” he muttered.
“He’s a cat,” I finally managed.
“Even better,” Vince said. “We’re bringing a cat to a dog fight.”
“I meant he’s not going to do anything!” I said. “It’s not like he can wield a knife with paws!”
Charlie laughed derisively, and for the first time, he and Martha seemed to agree about something. Neither of them was certain what was going to happen when we got there, bringing a demon into the midst of werewolves. It wasn’t going to be appreciated, and that was if things went well.
Martha made a last-ditch effort to convince us to leave Charlie waiting in the woods, but we wouldn’t hear it. If it ended badly and we had to run, then so be it.
Even as we drew near to the camp, doubt still lingered in my mind. It was possible that Martha had brought us all the way out here to kill us. I found myself wishing that I had told Lyssa where we were going, just in case, and
pulled out my cell phone to send her a text.
There was no signal.
When we got out of the car and started to walk into the trees, Charlie’s calm pace helped me to relax. He had been laid back since breakfast, but we hadn’t had the opportunity to talk alone yet. I could only assume that he had figured something out about Martha.
We came upon a small settlement of cabins. Several of them were overgrown with flowering wisteria that looked out of place on the bed of fallen pine needles. They were like a little colony of storybook cottages hiding in the drought-blighted forest.
Charlie stayed close to my heel as a woman came out to greet us. She looked older than I would have thought, maybe slightly older than Lyssa, with a thin frame and a braid of graying hair that hung all the way to her waist.
She studied me with a shrewd expression, and then her eyes landed on Charlie. Behind her, I could see more shadows moving through the windows of the cabin she had emerged from.
“I told you not to bring that here,” she said, though her tone was surprisingly gentle. She was like a mother chastising children.
Martha held up a palm in apology. “Her friend was attacked. This was her first experience with werewolves, and they didn’t feel safe coming alone.”
“They’ve got you,” Adeline accused. “A necromancer would have been more than enough firepower, if they had needed it.” Her eyes flashed to me. “You won’t. There are people here who won’t want to let him leave, and that means keeping the bridge, too.”
“And if that’s the case, they will need the firepower,” Martha said firmly, stepping between us. “You said you kept up with Kendra longer than I did, so I know you must know about Charlie. He’s stopped, and he’s repented, and he’s not with Stark anymore—”
“—And our memories aren’t so short,” Adeline finished. “We understand better than most about warlocks and demons, Martha. I know the difference between a weapon and the hand that wields it. All the same, you can’t bring him here and expect people not to be insulted. Charlie’s the reason I had a falling out with Kendra. And just because people will want to keep you here doesn’t mean I’m going to let them. Kendra’s the only reason for that.”