by Tyler, A. L.
“You’ve been touched by the darkness,” Kendra said. “There’s an old belief that people like you are bad luck, and you’ll bring misfortune with you wherever you go. It’s likely to get you killed, because anyone who has a bad enough day when you happen to be close by is going to look for a cause. And…” She sighed, shaking her head as she looked at me. “You’ve drawn some unfortunate attention. Martha came here looking for me because of some old business between me and her brother, and necromancers and vampires are serious business. They are a superstitious group, and Draven has a fickle personality. I am very afraid of what he might do to you when he arrives.”
Kendra watched me and waited. I slowly looked around at each of them. After just freeing myself from Charlie and all of the drama that he had brought into my life, I couldn’t believe that I was getting sucked back in on pain of death.
“I’ve always kept a personal apartment here, tucked away behind the office,” Kendra said encouragingly. “And I haven’t lived with other witches since I was a little girl. I think it will be fun if you give it a try. Charlie found a few places to expand the living arrangements and give you each your own space, and I know he’d be happy to help you customize—”
Gates snapped the book shut. “Show me my room.”
My mouth fell open. Kendra gave her a winning smile.
She had immediately adored the room that Charlie had made for her at my apartment, but I didn’t think her loyalties would be swayed so easily. “Gates!”
“Annie,” she said frankly. “I get that your family are a bunch of freaks capable of fighting vampires, but mine aren’t. I’m not dragging them through that again. And this is an amazing opportunity. Someone just showed up and offered to teach you magic. You’re really going to turn that down?”
I stared at her in awe. After everything that had happened to us, I couldn’t believe she was still mooning over witchcraft like it was the antidote to all of our problems instead of the cause.
“Someone already showed up and offered to teach me magic,” I said. “And then he put Jennifer Wilmot in the hospital and turned you into a cat. He cursed my niece, ripped apart my sister’s family, and brought werewolves and vampires into my life, and apparently cursed me to be a bad luck charm until I’m dead. And now I’ve got this other person, my aunt, who keeps saying that I screwed up and caused all of this, but it was her book, and her demon, and her ex who came after me!”
Gates wasn’t impressed. “And if you had known magic, you would have been able to prevent all of that.”
“You paint a very dire picture of the time we spent together, Thorn,” Charlie said lightly. “You don’t recall me setting up your dad with Janet? Or when I helped your werewolf boyfriend? Or the time I saved your life? That feels a little unfair.”
Gates pointed at Charlie. Frowning, Kendra turned back to me.
“I can’t force you to do anything,” she said. “But I don’t want to watch you die because you didn’t know how to defend yourself. You’re still a little girl in my mind. The vampires are coming, and if you won’t do it for me, at least do it for Charlie. I can help you break the bridge with him now, but that would mean his life hangs on me, and believe me, Draven isn’t likely to just walk away when I refuse to give up that book—and your friend, as she’s the only one who can read all of it now. Without a second bridge, if I die, Charlie does too. Before you walk away, I want you to ask yourself if you owe this to him for saving your life.”
I closed my eyes. She had hit on the one sore spot that could change my mind, and I saw the rest of my free time that semester going up in smoke. But if Charlie could still take me to the Other Side when I needed more time for my assignments, I might still have a chance.
“Fine,” I said stiffly. “But I need to be back to campus by noon, and I have plans tonight. Tomorrow is better, I only have one class.”
Kendra shook her head, confused. “Annie, you can’t be serious. You’re dropping out.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but to my utter shock, Lyssa was already on her feet.
“No,” she said, and suddenly all the mothering authority she possessed was in her voice. “She’s going to school. She’s worked too hard, and I’ve worked too hard, and she’s going to school!”
Kendra looked to Charlie. He held up his hands.
“I’m not choosing sides in a fight between two bridges,” he said. “That gets ugly for all of us very quickly. Your fights are your own.”
Kendra narrowed her eyes. “Fine. Trial basis. But if it causes a problem, school gets the ax.”
I furrowed my brow. “You’re not my mother!”
Kendra started to say something, and from the look on her face, it wasn’t something nice, but Gates spoke over her as she hugged the book to her chest.
“Annie, let’s just go look at our rooms, okay?” she said. She started walking toward Charlie, and he immediately took the lead.
With a final glare at Kendra, I left her and Lyssa standing alone in the greenhouse as I followed Gates and Charlie.
The silence was unbearable and the tension nearly strangled me, so I spoke.
“You knew about all of this?” I asked Charlie. “The book, and Gates, and that this was going to happen?”
He gave me a glance, but kept walking. A cold fall breeze blew a scatter of cottonwood leaves across the grounds around us as we approached the old shed where we stored the outdoor gardening tools.
“I suspected,” he said. “But I didn’t think it mattered. I didn’t think Kendra was coming back. And a lot of the time, I thought I would kill her if she did. Gates wasn’t qualified, and I had the book, so it was a moot point.”
I grumbled. “You should have just killed her…”
He stopped. I immediately felt the guilt wash over me, because the words were careless, and I knew better. Charlie was my demon, and words between witches and demons carried a lot of weight, and I had just wished my aunt dead. When he turned to face me, I started to stumble over an apology.
“Annie Hawthorn,” he said gravely. “Kendra was talking about life and death back there, and not just for herself. This is all of us, because vampires have been known to kill entire families for the insult of one person. Are you really so short-sighted that you would trade the lives of your family for college and your boyfriend?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “But you know what this means to me. This is my life. It’s everything I’ve ever worked for.”
“I know,” he said. “This isn’t going to be easy for you. But if you’re going to blame someone, then blame me. I’ve had ample opportunities to let Kendra die over the years, and several times, I intervened. An objective party might say that I did so unwisely, and against my own self-interest, because she has caused a lot of trouble and I would still be on top of the world with Stark now if I hadn’t. Blame me, because right now, you need to cooperate with her.”
Chapter 3
I continued to fume over Kendra’s presumptive attitude and the general state of my life until Charlie pulled open the door to the shed. Stepping through, I frowned.
I was back in my apartment off of campus.
Turning to him, I felt a fresh dispute blossom inside me. “Charlie, please tell me this is a replica, and you didn’t build a wormhole direct from my crazy aunt’s place into mine so that she can harass me whenever she feels like it.”
He had replaced the door behind the tapestry in the kitchen; it had previously led to spare bedrooms.
Following me through and bringing Gates as well, he shut the door and pointed.
“And, I gave you a lock,” he said with a sarcastic grin. “It’s like you don’t know me at all, Thorn.”
“Give me my own room back at the greenhouse. I like to keep things compartmentalized, and I don’t want that bleeding into this.”
“If I did that, you’d never use the room at the greenhouse,” he accused with a wink. “I know you too well.”
“Does Gates’ roo
m go back to her mother’s house?” I asked, feeling a little childish as I did so.
“Gates’ family aren’t capable of fighting off vampires, as she has aptly noted. Her room is just a room.”
“Ocean view?” Gates asked hopefully.
“Of course,” Charlie replied.
I threw up my hands in exhaustion and frustration, and turned to crash on the couch. I had less than an hour left before I needed to start walking to class, and it wasn’t enough time to get over any of the recent demands that had been dropped on me.
Gates called after me. “Annie, did you want me to stay, or…?”
“Go,” I said, trying not to be too irritated at her. “Just go.”
I lay on the couch and listened to the shows that Gates and I usually watched together. I was angry that magic had managed to find its way back into my life, but there was some wisdom in what Gates had said.
If I had known about magic to begin with, I wouldn’t be in half of the mess I was now, and neither would all of the people I knew. And in my mind, I knew what I wanted to do with those powers the moment I learned to command them.
I wanted to fix things.
Gates was happy now, but I couldn’t help but think the situation was temporary, because magic was like a malignant cancer. It spread and infected every part of your life until you were forced to chop off anything that it touched; then you started to cut off anything you cared too much to see destroyed. Sooner or later, it would touch a nerve, and Gates would want things to go back to the way they were.
That was what I wished, and what Vince wished, and though she still wasn’t talking to me much, I was pretty sure Lyssa missed her home life, too.
That was the irony of what I wanted to do with magic. Once I had it, I vowed I would find a way to remove it from all of our lives, and I would do it without dragging anyone else in. If I had made these problems, then I was going to fix them.
I’m not sure how my classes went that day, because I spent the entire time alternating between barely contained rage and a pleasant fantasy of what things were going to be like once I had fixed everything.
Kendra and Charlie would go off together, and Lyssa’s husband and daughter could finally come back. I would be like any other college student, and Vince would be cured, and Gates would agree with me that while the adventure had been nice, it was nicer that it was over.
When I finally dragged myself back to my apartment, I was pleased to see that the lock on the door to the greenhouse was still engaged, and it didn’t look like anyone had come looking for me. Vince texted to ask if I was home yet, and I looked longingly back at the door, quietly shaking my head.
Charlie could appear anywhere. It was a fact, and I had come to live with it, but the thought of anyone accidentally walking in on us made me cringe. The entire apartment felt like it had already been invaded, and it was no longer my space.
I texted back to ask if we could do his place instead.
It’s fine. Blake might be here…
I groaned. Blake was Vince’s blond, thin, charming, and very attractive roommate. His female roommate, who was also the daughter of their pack elder. I hadn’t ever formally met her, and Vince didn’t like to talk about her. I let it be because it was upsetting enough to think about him living with another girl. Blake was older than us by three years, but the age difference was still small enough that I worried about the possibility.
It’s fine, I texted back. I’ve just got to get out of here.
Making sure to lock the door—both doors—I grabbed my keys and got into my old Trooper.
The drive over was short, and while I knew the complex where Vince was staying, I had never actually been inside. He was standing out front to meet me.
“Hey,” he said, giving me a hug when I walked up. “Bad day?”
“Doesn’t even begin to cover it.” I sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He led me around the side of the building and into a dimly lit living room that smelled like sandalwood and baked chicken. Across the room, Blake was laughing with another girl as a reality show played on the television behind them.
When we walked in and Vince shut the door, Blake set down the quesadilla in her hand and came over.
“Blake, this is Annie,” Vince said. “Annie, Blake.”
Blake held out her hand and we shook. I was afraid for a moment that she was going to say something about me being a witch, or Charlie’s previous life with Stark, but her carefree grin reassured me we didn’t need to hash it out.
“Nice to meet you,” she said. “I threw on some more chicken and broke out an extra avocado. I wasn’t sure if you were planning to eat here, but you’re welcome, if you want to.”
Her dark-haired friend was watching me over the back of the couch, and I knew they had been talking about me before I arrived, but I appreciated the nonchalant gesture all the same.
“Thanks,” I said with a smile. “That sounds great. Nice to meet you, too.”
Her show was coming back from commercial, so she hurried back to the couch and her friend, and I saw a bottle of wine pass between them.
“Help yourself!” she called back at me. “And don’t worry about us, we won’t interrupt!”
Her friend giggled, and I didn’t even care. I made a quesadilla and engaged in small talk before following Vince down a short hall to his room.
He had a bed in the corner by the window with a closet door at the foot, and a small desk pushed into the opposite corner. The walls were plain white and he had a view out his window of the dumpsters at the back of the stores across the street. I raised an eyebrow as I used my foot to scoot the chair out from the desk to sit and eat.
“You left what Charlie made for you, for this?” I mocked.
He crossed his arms. “And apparently you have, too. What happened?”
I chewed slowly, trying to concoct a quick way to get out of telling him, but I knew he would spot the lie and call me out.
“My aunt wants to take me on as an apprentice,” I said bleakly. “Gates, too.”
“Gates?” he said, surprised. “You can learn to be a witch? I didn’t think it worked that way.”
I shook my head. “She wants to train her to be a warlock. I…she screwed up, and left this dumb book lying around that apparently no one else was supposed to read, and Gates read it, and now she’s touched, apparently.”
I looked over when I heard Vince chuckle.
“She’s probably thrilled,” he said.
I couldn’t believe that he had known she would react that way, and I hadn’t. She was my best friend, after all.
Vince saw the look on my face. “Oh, come on, Annie. She was always the leader in your friendship, and then you turned into a witch and she turned into a cat. That’s a pretty big demotion. That’s like not even being a sidekick. Let her have the spotlight for a while.”
I opened my mouth to tell him exactly how I felt on the issue, but instead I just shook my head. I hadn’t come here to fight. “Yeah, I guess.”
I finished my food. We talked about that week’s computer programming assignment for a while, and then he turned on an old ‘80s science fiction movie on his laptop and we lay on the bed and watched it.
We were about twenty minutes in when I felt his hand sliding around my waist as he kissed the side of my neck, and I turned to kiss him back.
We had never done anything more than kissing, but it was enough for me. I didn’t need anything else to worry about or be responsible for in my life, and at least for the moment, Vince was okay with that. We made out until the credits rolled, and it was almost eleven, and I didn’t want to go back out in the cold to drive home.
But luckily, I lived alone, and no one was going to miss me. My dad lived in California and Lyssa and Kendra weren’t the boss of me.
I thought about asking Blake if I could borrow pajamas. She seemed like the type of hostess to let me, but I quickly dismissed the idea as too weird. I spent the night wi
th Vince draping an arm over me, squeezed in together on the twin bed.
The next day, I woke to find Vince already gone to his early morning classes. Blake was gone, too, and it was a little weird that they had left me alone in the apartment. I collected my things and straightened my hair before climbing back into my Trooper and driving home.
Charlie was waiting for me.
“Get it out of your system?” he asked me as I shut the door behind me.
“Get what out of my system?” I asked haughtily.
“Guess not,” he taunted. “Kendra wants to see you today. You might want to not mention Vince. She doesn’t really like werewolves as much as I do.”
I furrowed my brow. Charlie hated werewolves, and I knew from my previous encounters with Vince’s pack elder that Kendra had a few friends of that persuasion.
“Friendship is one thing, Thorn,” he said. “What you’re doing is something else entirely.”
“Yeah, well, she’s doing a demon, so she can deal with it,” I grumbled as I went to the kitchen to start my tea. “What does she want?”
“She wants to see you practicing,” he said. “Really practicing.”
I ditched the idea of tea as soon as I saw the half gallon of milk. My stomach rumbled, and I picked it up and drank straight from the carton.
“Practicing?” I said. “Anything I want?”
I went for bread and butter next, and the donuts that I had refused the day before suddenly sounded very appealing.
Charlie’s eyes narrowed. He was reading my mind, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to know. And to not be hungry anymore.
“The craft doesn’t work that way, Thorn,” he said. “You can’t use it to get rid of it. And normal is overrated.”
“Don’t care,” I said. I went to the bathroom next, turning on the shower and locking the bathroom door behind me for the first time in weeks. I don’t know why I did it; locks didn’t keep Charlie out, but the action did give me some placebo relief.
“You want to help your friends,” Charlie said from outside the shower curtain. “That’s admirable.”