by Tyler, A. L.
Standing still in the bedroom, I felt a chill fall over me. It was one of the most sacred books in all of existence, passed down from blood to blood in a succession that had gone on for hundreds of years. The spells in that book had gained power with every generation, right down to me. There wasn’t much room left, but I had committed my knowledge of Charlie, the demon with empathy, to its pages. “Charlie, did you read the book?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know what the significance of that event is?”
He tilted his head, and I saw the concern etched on his brow. Whatever he was about to say, it was going to make it worse. He took a deep breath.
“I was there when Althaea started that book,” he said. “I know the first spells in there. What I suspect them to be, anyways. I was her familiar, and I recognized you the first time I saw you. I thought it was fate, at first, but I guess it was inevitable that I would encounter one of Althaea’s descendants eventually. Stark hunted down enough witches over the years. I knew you. I didn’t want to see him kill you, and that’s why I offered to hide your heart. That’s why, when Stark had already decided to butcher you for parts, I told him about you. I told him about the book I thought you had in your possession. Kendra…Kendra!”
I turned away from him and then out the door. It was completely dark in the greenhouse, and I tripped over a hose as I attempted to storm out.
I could accept that Charlie had been Althaea’s familiar. It made sense. But his betrayal… if he was her familiar, he knew the true importance of that book, and those spells, and what they were capable of.
And he had handed over the knowledge of them to a warlock.
Banishment. I heard the word in my mother’s voice. That was the sentence for witches who told others. Our secrets, and the way we kept parts of ourselves unknown, were both our shield and our sword. To hand them over to a villain—and warlocks were truly the worst I could think of—meant death for all of us. Banishment was the punishment to be handed down to Charlie for such a betrayal.
I felt the tears stinging my eyes, because I knew I wouldn’t do it. In a way, I felt that it was my penance for all the people I had hurt by falling in love with him. I had traded my sword and shield for Charlie.
I stopped myself at the workbench after stubbing my toe on a misplaced shovel. If I didn’t stop, I would shed blood on the grounds, and that came with all manner of complications.
Charlie came up behind me.
“I did it to keep you alive,” he said. “It was the only card I had left to play.”
I grimaced, but I understood. I had done things, too, in the name of saving a lover. When he put a hand on my shoulder, I laid mine over it, and I heard him breathe a sigh of relief.
He had saved my life. But now Stark knew. And Draven’s anger at having been denied once had finally driven him to trickery and deceit. If anyone ever got hold of that book, many more lives could be lost.
Martha jumped up on the workbench, and she meowed softly, as though she were asking what was wrong.. I laid a hand on her head.
She was my friend, but I would never let her out of her cat prison again. I couldn’t even imagine the selfish desire that had brought her to my nieces’ door, especially knowing what would befall them the moment she laid eyes on them.
Others were going to come looking for Martha when she didn’t report back. Her brother, at least, and probably a husband as well. I had never been fond of vampires or their effects on the plants that were my livelihood. I was going to have to either draw my nieces near or else push them very far away before Draven arrived.
And even outside of that problem, I wondered how I was ever going to tell them that Martha, now a cat, was their aunt.
Chapter 1
I missed the smell of bacon in the morning when I got up on Wednesday.
The apartment was a touch too cold, so I grabbed my bathrobe and pulled it on while I turned on the shower and waited for the hot water to kick on. I brushed my teeth and washed my face, and when I finally had to wipe steam from the mirror, there was no one standing behind me.
Because Charlie was gone. I knew he was happy with Kendra, and I was so happy he was no longer with me.
I showered, then got dressed. I took too long and had to skip my tea before shoveling my books and homework into my backpack. Then I was out the door just in time to hear Gates slam the door of her old beater.
“You’re late!” she called to me.
I grinned. Of course I was late; it wasn’t like I could slow down time.
Not anymore.
She jogged a few steps to catch up with me, then adjusted her waist-length ponytail before sighing.
“You have to take that many books with you?” she asked. “All the time?”
“We’re having a study session,” I said. “Studying tends to require books.”
She tossed her ponytail again. “Annie, you’re the only girl I know who goes to a study session with a guy and plans on opening a book, let alone thirty.”
“Four,” I corrected. “And yeah, study sessions are for studying. Why the hell would I go to the library to make out? We schedule that separately.”
“Awkward,” she said. “You put that on your calendar? Make out with Vince, with a pop-up reminder or something?”
“I put it in there as ‘doing laundry,’ just in case someone catches a glance, but yeah. Something like that. Then I send him an invite and we figure out scheduling… don’t give me that look. We’re busy and I have to work around the lunar calendar.”
She teased me about my laundry time as we walked onto campus, and just as we hit the engineering building, she started to ask what ‘doing the dishes’ was really about. I grinned and refused to answer, and she laughed, but we both knew that dishes were dishes.
Life had returned to normalcy with Kendra’s arrival. It had been a blessed month since my last encounter with anything strange, and while Gates had questioned the silence, I couldn’t have cared less.
My best friend wasn’t a cat anymore, not even temporarily. She had gone home and re-forged her relationships with her family, and our high school had graciously made it possible for her to submit her remaining work and get her diploma within a few weeks. She had petitioned the dean of the college I was attending to allow her to apply for a Spring admission, and because her story was so fantastically exceptional, he had granted her request. Gates was going to join me at school in January, but until then, she mostly hung out and followed me around.
My boyfriend, Vince, was still a werewolf, and he always would be. But we managed, and it didn’t interfere with our lives nearly as much as I had thought it would. Not when we managed our schedules well, anyway.
We paused at the door to the geology building and waited for Vince’s class to let out. The three of us went for coffee before settling in at the library. Gates read a science magazine while Vince and I worked through the problem set for our astronomy class, and when we finished, he closed his book.
“Did you want to do laundry together later?” he casually asked.
Gates nearly choked on her coffee, and Vince looked at me in disappointment.
“There’s no point in having a code if you’re going to tell everyone.”
I blushed and tried to suppress a smile as I put my books away. “I should be home by six. Remember to bring your quarters.”
Gates cocked an eyebrow. “Is that code, too? Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
Vince smirked as he leaned over to give me a quick kiss. I loved the little taste of chai tea he left on my lips before walking away. He usually wasn’t so open in public, but there wasn’t much either of us wasn’t willing to do when it came to weirding out Gates.
“I’ll bring the detergent, too.” And then he was off to his next class.
I looked back at Gates and her raised eyebrows.
“You know I want to know about the quarters, right?” she asked.
I cocked my head. “Tough. Go g
et your own.”
I hassled her about using all of her free time to find a date as we walked back to the apartment. She hassled me back about the quarters.
I opened the door and dumped my bag onto the floor as I kicked off my shoes. Gates picked up the remote and turned on the television. We had picked up a bad habit of watching the reality court shows and eating microwave burritos before my classes started at noon.
But as I turned to go into the kitchen, I knew something was wrong. It was in the way the light came through the window, and the stillness in the air.
Someone was there, and they were bringing a new storm into my life.
“Thorn.”
I turned back to see Charlie standing by the front door.
Gates still had the remote poised in her hand and a shocked expression on her face as she stared at him.
I shook my head in disbelief. “No.”
“Kendra needs to speak with you.”
“No,” I repeated, shaking my head. “No, no—I found her for you. That was the deal. You’re not here now, because—”
“You’re still my bridge,” he corrected, taking a few more steps into the apartment. “And so is she. And as my bridge, she has requested that I fetch you—both of you—because she needs to speak with you. I suggest you eat quickly.”
The microwave door popped open on its own, and I could already smell the warmed burritos inside.
“No.” It seemed to be the only word my mind could conjure.
“Yes,” Charlie said with an apologetic nod. “She’s waiting, and so is Lyssa. Make it fast.”
I faced him properly, shaking my head. “Lyssa was worried about you. Enough that she actually came by to see me, and that’s saying something, because she seems to think I’m some kind of untouchable freak since she found out about me being a demon for a few minutes. She tried to call, and then she went to the greenhouse, and it looked like it had been closed down. She moved to be with Josh and Rosie.”
“A few minutes? May as well have been a lifetime, Thorn, because you of all people know time moves differently in the Other Side.” Charlie cocked an eyebrow, looking guilty. “I may have turned off the phone and done some things to discourage visitors. I wanted some privacy with Kendra. We had a lot of laundry to do after our separation, as the turn of phrase seems to be around here.”
“Your code is worthless,” Gates muttered.
“And I didn’t want to know that,” I added. “So she just gets to ditch us in our hour of need, but the second she wants to chat I have to drop everything? I don’t think so.”
Charlie’s eyes narrowed, and he raised a hand and snapped his fingers. We were all in the greenhouse.
“I do,” he said.
Chapter 2
Kendra was sitting in front of me at the workbench. She’d set out a tablecloth and laid out a spread of doughnuts and tea. Lyssa sat next to her looking as serious as usual. Kendra gave me a wide grin.
“Annie, so nice to see you again!” she rose and started to walk toward me, her red hair brilliant in the natural light of the greenhouse.
I took a step back and raised my hand out in front of me.
“No,” I said again, shaking my head. “I have classes today at noon. I don’t have time for witch and demon crap.”
“She also has to do laundry at six,” Charlie added.
Kendra stopped, furrowing her brow. “It’s laundry. Just ask Charlie to do it.”
Gates barely contained another laugh, and Lyssa rolled her eyes.
I shook my head. “Charlie’s not getting anywhere near my laundry. What do you want?”
Crossing her arms and smiling again, Kendra looked me over and smiled. She gestured back at the table as she swayed on her feet.
“I’ve got raspberry-filled doughnuts,” she said. “They’re your favorite.”
I cocked an eyebrow. I didn’t know if Lyssa had told her, or if Charlie had dug the detail out of my mind, but one of them was going to get an earful later.
“Do you want something?” I asked.
Kendra laughed. “I’m not a demon, Annie! I can’t have a coming home party with my nieces? You saved the day, and I want to thank you for—”
“Charlie said you wanted to talk,” I said bitterly.
Lyssa sighed and shook her head. “She wants to apprentice you. Both of you. Which is ridiculous.”
My eyes wandered from Lyssa’s bitter scowl to Kendra’s hopeful smile. She wrung her hands.
“Thanks,” I said, a little relieved. “But no, thanks. I’ve had all the magic I can handle, and as I said, I have classes.”
Kendra’s smile fell a little, and her eyes grew a little sharper. “Gates?”
Gates looked stunned. “Oh, I’m not a witch.”
“I’m aware,” Kendra looked sad for a moment. “But we can make do. Not all warlocks are bad. You don’t have the blood, but you can learn it from the book.”
Gates looked at me, and then at the floor, and she slowly shook her head. Kendra’s eyes grew more focused, and she turned away from us, putting her hands on her hips.
“I told you so…” Charlie said in a sing-song voice.
Kendra spun back around. She forced both of her hands to her sides, and looked at Gates before turning her authoritative gaze on me.
“Anise Hawthorn, you’ve caused me a great deal of trouble, and while I’m willing to forgive it because you’ve helped Charlie, no amount of good deeds can undo what you’ve done. And that’s part of the reason you need to be educated, and part of the reason that you will be accepting this apprenticeship. Both of you.”
I stared at her. She was a few inches taller than me, but she was thinner, and the presence of jelly doughnuts underscored exactly how threatening she really was.
“No,” I said without blinking.
She picked up a book from the corner of the workbench and turned back to face me.
“Recognize it?” she asked. Her voice grated, and this time she sounded more serious.
“The book!” Gates said, running forward and taking it from her hands. Lyssa almost stood to stop her, but a glance from Kendra stopped her.
“The book,” Kendra repeated. “The book.”
I glared at Charlie. “I asked you for that book. You wouldn’t give it to me. You gave it to her?”
“It’s her book,” he said lightly.
“I was your bridge,” I said sharply. “And you said it was your book.”
“She’s my bridge too. And it is my book. The way to summon me is in it, therefore, my book.”
“Our book,” Kendra clarified. She was still staring at me and not blinking. “That grimoire has been passed down for generations. It’s one of the oldest anyone has ever seen, and the contents of its pages were meant for Hawthorns’ eyes only.”
I watched as Gates looked up from the pages she was reading. She started to close it.
“You’re fine, honey,” Kendra said without looking over at her. “You wouldn’t be able to read it if Annie hadn’t screwed up.”
My jaw fell open a little, and I looked to Lyssa for support, but she looked straight at the ground.
“Screwed up?” I asked. “I didn’t do anything!”
“I left that book sitting beneath Althaea’s skull because she was the original scribe and protector of those spells. Only a Hawthorn could have taken the book out from under it. No one else would have even been able to see it, and Lyssa didn’t do it, which means it was you.”
I looked to Gates, dumbfounded. “You said that skull was fake!”
“Looked fake to me,” she shrugged, still reading the grimoire. “Who the hell keeps a human skull hidden in a hole in the wall?”
“Annie, that book was protected for a reason,” Kendra said. “The spells in there were a family secret that was meant to be passed on until there were no more Hawthorns to carry the legacy. When that happened, the book would have been given to a carefully selected and trustworthy individual who would have honore
d all of these generations by devoting their life to the sacred use and perfection of these spells. The spells have been growing in power with each generation, and in the wrong hands, some of them have destructive potential I don’t even want to imagine.”
Gates had glanced up from the book to stare, unblinking, at Kendra.
“And you gave it to Gates,” Lyssa said with a weak flourish of her hand.
Gates’ eyes shifted from Kendra to me. “Yeah…you screwed up.”
“She left a precious family heirloom hidden in a wall and didn’t warn anyone about it,” I said, pointing at Kendra. “And you were the one who decided to go poking around in there. I wouldn’t have found it if it hadn’t been left in that wall without a warning.” I looked at Lyssa. “Did you know about it?”
Lyssa shifted uncomfortably. “No. She didn’t tell me.”
“I’m not blaming you,” Kendra said quietly. When I looked at her, I believed it. “But I’m telling you, that’s the reason Gates doesn’t have a choice here. She has to stay and help me rebuild that grimoire, because the second you gave it to her most of those spells became unusable to anyone who isn’t Gates or one of her descendants.”
“Wow,” Gates snorted. “Annie, you really screwed up.”
“We screwed up,” I corrected. “Fine. So Gates is stuck. Why am I here?”
Lyssa rolled her eyes and looked away, and I knew.
“Because of the demon thing?” I asked.
Kendra pursed her lips. “Annie, I’m sure Charlie told you about the ecosystem of terror that keeps most people mum on any magical ability they possess.”
I took a deep breath. Charlie had told me a lot of stories about the various parts of magical beings that warlocks needed in order to cast spells, and I distantly recalled that Kendra’s first meeting with Stark involved him needing a witch’s heart. I braced myself, wondering what I now possessed that could make someone rich on the black market.
“It’s nothing like that, Thorn,” Charlie said quietly. “Quite the opposite. You’re unfit to be butchered, now.”