by A. L. Tyler
“I trust him.” There was nothing else I could say. “I’m more worried about Martha. Charlie called Lyssa and asked her to come back, and I wish he hadn’t done that. I feel so stupid that I can’t handle this myself.”
“Don’t think about it,” Vince said light-heartedly. “Everything will be fine.”
“Yeah?” I asked. “Are you ever going to tell me what you did with your new friends in the mountains?”
He gave me a sly look, and then said that they had showed him around the camp, and talked about how they let the newcomers roam free during the moon, but had a buddy system with older and more experienced werewolves to prevent human encounters. They had tried to convince him to drop out of school for a year and devote himself completely to adjusting to his new life.
“I kind of think that may be for the best,” he said quietly.
I was shocked, and I nearly dropped the popcorn I had lifted to my mouth. “Really?”
Vince nodded. “Yeah. But this semester is already paid, and I figure I could give it a shot, because nothing’s lost if I go ahead and try to do both now. I’ll probably be spending most of my free time with them, though, and Adeline said she’d try to find someone down in this area for me to stay with.”
I wasn’t hurt, exactly. I was stunned, because I thought he was doing so well. The thought that his resilience was waning crossed my mind, and the disappointment must have shown on my face.
“It’s not you,” Vince said quickly. “Annie, I appreciate what you tried to do for me, but this is hell. It’s hell being locked up and going through… that. I can’t do it again, and I think we can both admit it’s been a little weird, with the way we’re living and everything.”
I looked away. I wasn’t sure if I understood his insinuations, so I only nodded.
Vince moved closer on the couch and took away the popcorn. He grabbed both of my hands in his, and a memory of my dad doing the same thing when he told me my mom had passed flashed into my mind.
Adeline was right. He was breaking up with me.
“This isn’t going to work out for us,” he said. “Not like this. That’s why I have to make some changes. I really want this to work.”
I was looking away into a corner when I saw him move in close. When I felt his lips touch mine, I was confused, and I froze. I didn’t kiss him back, and when he moved away, looking a little embarrassed, I grasped at straws trying to undo the awkwardness.
“I really want this to work, too,” I muttered. My smile came a little delayed. I shook my head, unable to hide it any longer. “Adeline said this probably wouldn’t work between us. She said you might want someone else, who’s…”
“Like me,” Vince offered. “They told me the same.”
“So if you want an out, I’m giving it to you. We’ve always been good friends. We can still be good friends.”
Vince smirked a little nodding. “Do you want an out? Because I told them to go screw themselves. What happens between us is between us and no one else. But I’ll understand if you want an out.”
I looked at him, shocked that he had even used the word “screw,” because he never swore in casual conversation. I had only heard him say “damn it” twice: once when he had slid his car into a phone pole after school during a snow storm, and again when he had rolled his ankle getting out of the car to check the damage.
I shook my head. “I don’t want an out.”
He gave me a little nod, and this time approached slower before he kissed me. I kissed him back.
Once again, we didn’t watch much of the movie that night.
~~~~~~~~~
Lyssa wasn’t happy with me.
When I opened the door the next day, she glared at me from behind the sunglasses that she liked to wear when she drove, and then carefully removed them and tucked them in the pocket of her pea coat.
“Charlie says you’re having sleepovers with the werewolf and you let a necromancer move in.” She took a deep breath, and forced a smile. “Please tell me he’s joking.”
I nodded, realizing how bad it sounded in its simplest form. “That’s about right.”
“Annie.” She hauled her suitcase through the door, and hefted it up onto the table. It was bigger than the last bag she’d brought. “I haven’t even been gone two weeks. How do these people keep finding you?”
A light clinking made both of us glance up. Martha had poured herself a cup of coffee in the kitchen. She held it gently in her hands, just above her exposed navel; she was wearing a shirt that was a little too small and tight even though the temperatures were dropping outside.
“Martha, resident necromancer.” She set the coffee on the table and offered her hand to Lyssa. Lyssa didn’t take it. “I knew Kendra.”
Lyssa glanced down at her hand again, and then whipped something out of her bag and tossed it at Martha. A shower of dead, crushed flower petals sprinkled over her and onto the kitchen floor.
“Prove it,” Lyssa said.
Martha glanced around, confused, and absent-mindedly tried to sweep the petals from her clothes and hair, but they were so fine that it proved futile. I wasn’t sure if she or Lyssa looked crazier in that moment.
“I knew Kendra,” Martha repeated. “We were friends.”
I looked at Lyssa, wondering what her next interrogation tactic would be. She zipped the pocket on her bag shut again, and a little smile graced her lips.
“Okay, then,” she said.
Martha’s smile lit up the room.
“Okay then! So much easier than the demon. You must be Lyssa.” Martha walked over and took Lyssa’s face in her hands. “You look so much like your mother. Pictures I saw from the wedding, I mean.”
“Thank you!” Lyssa smiled. “So, Charlie said something about you trying to become Stark’s bridge?”
Martha had looped her arm through Lyssa’s and they started walking back to the hidden door in the kitchen.
“That’s it?” I asked after them. “You blew some crap at her, and all over the kitchen, and that’s it?”
“Violets, Annie.” Lyssa waved at me as they went through the door together. “Just sweep them up!”
I turned back around and looked at my dirtied kitchen. Charlie was standing there. His fur was a little puffed out against the cold draft that the open door had let in, and he looked dumpy and unhappy.
“That didn’t go as I planned, either,” he said. “Something’s up with her.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s in that book?” I asked him, reaching for the broom. “Why you think she wants it?”
“No,” he said. He flicked his tail, and the mess disappeared. “She’s not getting it, so it’s irrelevant.”
“You didn’t tell me about your history with werewolves because you thought that was irrelevant,” I pointed out. “Is it suddenly going to become relevant when it screws us all over?”
“It will never be relevant enough for me to tell you.” And he walked away.
I shook my head and went back to my library to read and study.
Vince had cleared out that morning, but Charlie left his safe room furnished and in place. Adeline had found another werewolf, some guy named Blake, who was willing to let Vince room with him. Vince had gone to meet him, give it a few days, and see if it would work out.
The memory of the previous night still made me smile. We had been too shy to do much more than kiss, but to me, it still felt like we had moved too quickly.
He kissed me again before leaving that morning. The sudden change in our relationship fascinated me to no end, and I loved it. We were going to meet for lunch on Tuesday.
Lyssa took the time to work a spell to block my thoughts from demons so that Stark wouldn’t know what we were up to, but she warned me that he probably wouldn’t like it when he found himself unable to read my mind.
He found me on Monday, and she had been right. He taunted me with more stories of Charlie, and things that he had done. They made me wince, but I held my tongue
and refused to be provoked.
Vince came by the apartment for lunch on Tuesday because I didn’t want Stark to interrupt us, and Lyssa and Martha cleared out to run some errands and see to the greenhouse. He said that things were going well with Blake, but he glossed over the details, so I took it that he didn’t want to focus on his malady or its effects on his life. We talked about that week’s astronomy assignment instead.
On Wednesday, Stark followed me around to my classes, invisible to everyone else, and told me a long history of how he and Charlie had been the most feared pair in Europe a few hundred years back. He was getting bolder, and I spent that night worrying that Saturday wouldn’t be soon enough, because he had said something about medieval torture and how he would have the book from me by Monday.
I stayed in the apartment on Thursday and Friday, telling Vince to stay away and emailing my professors that I was sick. It was still early in the semester, so it wasn’t a big deal, but all of their well wishes only made it worse. I didn’t know if I would be better by Monday or not. I might be dead.
Martha had managed to get in touch with Walter, and they bumped the plan up to Friday night.
When the knock came at my door, I was more than ready for everything to be over.
Chapter 12
When I opened the door, I was shocked by how much weight Walter had lost since I had last seen him. He looked ill as he stood there, taking me in and nodding in defeat.
“Vince’s girlfriend,” he said quietly. I think he meant it as a joke; we hadn’t actually been dating when I met Walter. “I didn’t know who you were when all this started. You’ve got friends in high places.”
I moved to the side so that he could come in, and his eyes fell on Charlie. He froze.
“Low ones, too,” I said.
Charlie had arranged things with Gates that morning, and she told her mom she’d be staying with me that weekend. As long as she answered any phone calls, no one would be the wiser that she was actually hiding in Vince’s former basement apartment as a cat. She had refused to be on site at first, saying that her mother wouldn’t be able to cope if she lost her now. Charlie assured her that the room would do just as well keeping werewolves out as it did keeping werewolves in.
The look in Walter’s eyes made me think he was going to change his mind and bolt, but he didn’t. Martha came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck before kissing him on the cheek.
“It’s all going to be fine!” she said, her voice quiet. “Charlie’s a friend. You don’t have to be afraid of him. Are you ready?”
Walter looked at her as she walked around in front of him. She was wearing short shorts and a tank top that showed off several tattoos I hadn’t known about. Even with circles under his eyes, Walter still tried to stand a little straighter in her presence.
“I’m ready,” he said.
Martha smiled, taking one of his hands again. “Good.”
“Good,” Charlie echoed. “I would rather Lyssa does this part.”
Martha’s smile turned to a frown. “What?”
“I’m not giving you any demon, let alone Stark,” he said. “If we’re going to do this, Lyssa will be the bridge. I don’t see any reason the plan can’t proceed the same outside of those details.”
“I’m a necromancer,” Martha said. “He doesn’t know me. He’s more likely to accept me as a bridge, because he won’t suspect anything.”
Charlie crossed his arms and grinned. “We’ve got the cooperation of the current bridge, so I don’t see the problem with forcing his hand. I think Walter has known for a while that he’s a dowry. Stark is going to butcher and sell him to the first warlock he finds who knows the value of a werewolf. It’ll be a hard hit to Stark, losing a bridge to death, but that’s never fatal if he already has a new bridge in place. If he doesn’t, well…”
My eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
Lyssa spoke from behind me. “We talked about it, Annie. I knew you wouldn’t like this, with Vince and all, but it’s the only way. Walter, you’re already dead if this doesn’t work. What we want to do is summon him, and then threaten him with your death if he doesn’t take me as a bridge. If he does, then I will bind him, and you’ll be free when I make him consent to severing the bond with you. That’s the only way we can be certain to keep you alive—force him to consent to breaking with you. That means a second bridge and a binding. If he refuses to have me…”
I turned to look at her. She didn’t want to say it.
“Then you’ll kill me,” Walter finished.
“Charlie will,” Lyssa said despondently. “I don’t think I could…”
“No,” Walter said suddenly. He looked back at Martha. “She’ll do it.”
The deep red smile on Martha’s lips and the focus in her eyes nearly sickened me. She was looking forward to it, and for the first time, I saw what Charlie saw when he looked at her. She was a killer.
And she had known, too, because she pulled a knife from under a pillow on the couch, and then leaned in to kiss Walter on the cheek again. She whispered something in his ear, and kissed him on the lips as Charlie rolled his eyes.
“I’ll make it quick,” she promised.
“Just summon the jackass already,” Charlie groaned.
Walter was still staring into Martha’s eyes, mesmerized, and I wasn’t sure if he was himself when he nodded. He said some words under his breath, calling out to Stark, and it took less than a second for the blond-haired man to appear before us.
He turned in a slow circle, the smile spreading across his lips as he faced his old friend.
“Charlie,” he said. “You were always good at fooling the girls. How much do they really know about you? Kendra doesn’t know. She wouldn’t be with you if she did.”
“If I could have killed you years ago,” Charlie replied sourly, “I would have.”
The next voice to break the silence nearly broke my heart, because I could hear the tears in Walter’s words.
“I’m breaking the bridge with you,” he said. “I’m not going to end up in someone’s wardrobe.”
He pulled something from his pocket, though I couldn’t see what it was. Stark froze, and Charlie’s eyes flashed.
“Walter—!” Charlie called out, but it was too late.
Stark turned on us, and his eyes looked from one of us to the next. He was glowing—glowing—with a pale blue light that burned my eyes and my skin, and I ducked down, shielding myself with my arms as Lyssa started to scream.
When I opened my eyes, I thought I had gone blind, because the bright light had left a halo of darkness on my retinas where my apartment should have been. Charlie was mumbling incoherently, and I looked over just in time to see him and Martha bowing down over Walter.
“The idiot!” Charlie hissed. “He was supposed to wait for Stark to take a new bridge so this wouldn’t happen!” He pulled something from Walter’s hand, and looked at it, then turned his accusing eyes on Martha. “How did he get this?”
Martha took her bracelet talisman back from him, and then frantically bent over Walter’s corpse, waving her hands over his chest like she was trying to fan a fire.
Sparks appeared.
I hoisted myself up onto my elbows to see better, and Charlie looked over like he had forgotten I was there.
“Thorn!” he yelled. “Lie still!”
He rushed over, but I still saw. Martha’s hands illuminated a tight knot of glowing thread in Walter’s chest, red and pink and white, and she bowed down over him, basking in them before she used her fingers to delicately pull a few of them loose into her palm before they all burned into blackness.
I had witnessed the moment of Walter’s death.
“Thorn, can you breathe?”
It took me a moment to register what he was asking, and when I looked down, I saw the blood. It soaked my shirt, and the carpet.
The scar that Stark had put on me before had ripped wide open. And it didn’t hurt at all.
&
nbsp; “What did she do?” I asked, pointing lazily. “What did she do to him?”
“Thorn, lie back before you kill us both!”
I stared at him, and then looked back down, and I was sure that all of the blood had come from somewhere else.
“It’s not my blood,” I said, trying to get up. “It’s not my—”
I stopped as pain overtook me. Shrieking and falling back into Charlie’s arms, I saw Lyssa’s body jump on the ground next to me as she regained consciousness. She had a gash on her head and panic in her eyes as her face swam over me, and for some reason, Stark’s words came back to me.
Kendra doesn’t know. She wouldn’t be with you if she did.
My hands were shaking as I clung to Charlie. I was cold, but I felt like I was sweating.
“What doesn’t Kendra know?” I asked, feeling my tongue slide around my mouth as I fought to stay conscious. The last time I had given in to the darkness, I had become a demon, and that wasn’t going to happen again. “What doesn’t Kendra know about you?”
Lyssa shook her head, looking at Charlie. “What is she talking about?”
Charlie looked down, and our eyes met, and I watched as he disposed of the idea of telling the truth just as quickly as it came into his mind. Stark was right; he was a very good liar.
“She’s delirious,” he said. “If you have nettles, she’s going to need them.” He looked back down at me. “I’m sorry, Thorn, this is going to hurt.”
And even with all of my determination, the lights went out again.
~~~~~~~~~
I wasn’t out for long that time. Only around ten minutes by Lyssa’s estimation, and when I came to, the pain had subsided to a manageable level. Charlie had sewn me back up, and while the scar that ran down my side wasn’t any worse, it looked different now, and for some reason that bothered me.