by A. L. Tyler
Sorcerers & Sumac
Hawthorn Witches Novella #2
By A.L. Tyler
More Books by A.L. Tyler
http://addisynltyler.blogspot.com/
The Waldgrave Series
Arrival of the Traveler
Deception of the Magician
Secrets of the Guardian
Redemption
The Spider Catcher
Rabbit Bones
Serpent’s Bite
Pale Hound
Lion’s Shadow
Shattered Minotaur
Fox Blood (coming January 2016)
Hawthorn Witches
Demons & Dracaena
Sorcerers & Sumac
Werewolves & Wisteria (coming December 2015)
*****
Sorcerers & Sumac
Hawthorn Witches Novella #2
Copyright 2015 A.L. Tyler
Story © A.L. Tyler 2015. All rights reserved. http://addisynltyler.blogspot.com/
Edited by Sarah Read.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination and used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Preview
About the Author
Chapter 1
It was late on a Tuesday night. I was settling down onto the blue couch that Janet had found for me at a local church garage sale with a large mug of berry tea, and Gates had taken the seat next to me. Between us sat a large sub sandwich from the place behind the apartment, and old family show reruns were on the screen.
“I love this one,” Gates said, nosing at the sandwich wrapper.
I set my tea down on the wood television tray I was using as an end table, and then reached over and offered Gates her half of the sandwich, quickly picking off the few stray greens that crossed the border from my half.
She gave a quick and involuntary purr that momentarily quieted. “Jesus, look at those sweaters…what the hell were we thinking in the eighties?”
I smiled and took a bite of my sandwich. Neither of us commented on her purr, the same way that neither of us commented on the litter box. It was just something that happened occasionally; a brief highlight of weirdness between a girl and her talking best friend of a cat.
She still got angry about it sometimes. I still got sad. But at the end of the day, someone had to scoop the box, and we both knew who that was.
We were two weeks into July, and that meant I had been spending long hours at the greenhouse to accommodate the seasonal high in customers, coming home covered in sweat and smelling like fertilizer and moist soil. I would shower off, walk to the sandwich place to pick up dinner, and then watch television with Gates while we basked in the blasting air conditioning. I had brought Gates home with me for the Fourth of July weekend, and she came with us to the park to watch the fireworks.
We ran into her mother, who had given me a hug and said it was nice that I was remembering Gates, and let the cat sit in her lap through the fireworks. Then she had said that the cat seemed too obedient to bear her daughter’s name, and we had shared a quiet smile.
To her credit, Gates had managed to hold her tongue.
“And what the hell is up with the hair?” Gates mumbled, struggling to rip her meat into manageable bites. I had cut it up for her the first few nights, but she said it made her feel like a toddler, so I stopped. “Between the sweaters and the hair spray, that era is so flammable it isn’t even funny.”
I chuckled. When I finished my half of the sandwich, and Gates moved on to critiquing shoes and comparing the level of crazy to current pop singers, I went to my bedroom and pulled out my notebook and a stack of Kendra’s journals.
Gates mostly ignored my efforts now, but for the longest time she had only been upset when I pulled out the journals. Kendra had split them up and written all of the spells so scattered that they were nearly useless. I had been going through them a little at a time for months, making notes and placing stickies, and slowly rewriting them into a college-ruled spiral to build my own grimoire. I knew that Lyssa had her own set, and she had let me see them enough times that I knew she didn’t have all of Kendra’s spells.
The answer had to be in there somewhere. She had just hidden it too well.
It was hard work, because Kendra had basically left off writing on one and moved to the next without rhyme or reason. Most of my efforts were focused on carefully matching the moods of her handwriting from one spell and day to the next, and subtle differences in the pens and pencils she had used while writing. I don’t know how she managed to navigate them for herself.
Of course, I knew that magic was trouble. The one spell in her books that had worked was the easiest one, and the one that had irreparably damaged our lives forever: how to summon a demon.
We had debated whether or not trying to summon Charlie again was a good idea. I had come to believe that he wanted to help, but Gates was firmly set on the opinion that he had taken his pound of flesh and left. If we called him again, it would only end the same way.
The thought that I had agreed to be his bridge and hadn’t seen him since kept me up late some nights. I didn’t know if he was dead or biding his time. Maybe he was so weak that he was trapped in the Other Side.
I opened the notebook and paged back through five journals, carefully connecting and reconstructing a spell to conjure fire. It took me more than an hour, sorting and shifting through a lot of notes and pages while Gates made cracks about shoulder pads and phones the size of shoe boxes. When I was done, it was after eleven, and I set my work aside to go to bed.
Gates took her spot on a memory foam pet bed in the corner, and I brushed my teeth and pulled back my hair. I washed my face, closed the window, checked my alarm clock, and then pulled back the sheets and slid between the cool layers to close my eyes. The lights from the cars on the street outside flashed a calming, repetitive pattern on the wall, and it was beginning to become familiar enough to lull me to sleep as the cars beat a smooth rhythm on the pavement as they approached and retreated.
I closed my eyes, slowly drifting off, and one last glance toward Gates, now soundly asleep in the corner, made me sit bolt upright, wide awake.
“Thorn,” he said by way of greeting. “I need a favor.”
Chapter 2
He continued to stand there, a dark silhouette against the bright street lights that peeked through the window blinds behind him.
Charlie seemed to follow my gaze down to Gates. “Oh, she can’t hear me, Thorn…”
But even as he spoke, Gates leapt up from her bed, hissing and spitting as she spun around in confusion.
“…Or perhaps she can, now.” His smile glimmered white in the dark of the bedroom. “You’re more cat than human now, Gates. Good for you, settling into the digs.”
Gates’ back was arched to a nearly impossible extent as she slowly backed away from the corner. A constant low growl threatened the demon she couldn’t see, but she somehow knew he was there.
“You’re back,” I finally managed.
“Yes.” Charlie looked down for a moment, and then raised a hand and snapped his fingers. The lights in the room came on, and I closed my e
yes against the sudden brightness. When I opened them again, he was still leaning against the wall in the corner, arms crossed, looking highly amused as I assessed him. “I’m back.”
He was dressed as he usually was, in a look that was reminiscent of work casual, but two hours after work has ended and in a classier bar. He wasn’t as disheveled as the last time I had seen him, and his eyes weren’t bloodshot with effort.
I swallowed my apprehension, reaching down to lift Gates onto my bed because she didn’t want to turn her back to jump up. “You’re looking well, Charlie. I suppose you’re back to heal Gates?”
He smiled and raised a finger, waggling it at me as he took two steps closer. Gates hissed.
“Oh, no, Thorn…You still owe me a Kendra before I owe you a Gates.”
“I became your bridge,” I said stubbornly. I didn’t care if he did look casually professional while I sat there in a camisole and pajama pants. Gates’ mother had gone beyond trying to find her lost daughter. She was mourning her now, and it wasn’t right. “You’re going to turn her back!”
“But if I only had the power,” he said with a sickly grin. He was enjoying the interaction too much, and I was tired.
Whipping off the covers and sending Gates leaping three feet into the air in surprise, I got out of bed and walked to the kitchen. Charlie followed, and once she had her feet and her wits again, so did Gates. I angrily grabbed at the empty kettle on the stove and filled it, setting it back and turning the stove knob with frustration. But even as I clicked it on, the water sputtered out, piping hot, and I flicked it back off with a glare at Charlie. He winked at me as I took a mug and a selected a bag from my box, and then set my tea aside to steep. Leaning on the counter to gather my thoughts, I sighed.
“Turn her back,” I said again.
“I can’t do that, Thorn.”
“Can’t,” I demanded, “Or won’t?”
“Can’t,” Charlie said simply. He picked up my tea and blew on it once lightly, and then set the mug in my hands. It was the perfect temperature, and I glared over the rim at him as I took a tentative sip. “I don’t have the power.”
“You’ve got the power to make tea,” I said sarcastically. “But you can’t find it in you to reverse whatever you call what you did to her?”
“Hmm…” He smiled again. “That’s exactly right, Thorn. Exactly how it is. I’m a demon that’s been reduced to making tea for a living.”
Still glaring, I leaned back against the countertop, trying to sort my emotions and my words, and hoping that Gates would jump in and give him a verbal lashing. She must have thought better of the idea, having been turned into a cat the last time she had insulted him.
“But I’m fine, thanks for asking…” Charlie took to the opposite wall, turning to face me. “I’ve been here and there, hiding in the Other Side for a while to heal up, and then back here again. I went to Boca, and then Cairns and Honolulu. I like the heat. I don’t think you knew that about me, did you? Anyways…feasting after the fast. It’s a good thing, but it tends to leave one feeling bloated and tired, so I went back and did some spring cleaning, and then—”
“Don’t care,” I said. “Why the hell are you back here if you can’t do anything for Gates?”
He didn’t even bother to spare her a look as he stared into my eyes.
“Hair of the dog that bit me,” he said with a twitch. “And I say ‘dog’ only to avoid the ugliness of my true sentiment. Your sister banished me, and I need a lock of her hair to make a full recovery.”
With a stony-faced expression of exhaustion and gloom, I set my half finished tea in the sink and then stared at it. The deals were never done with Charlie, and this one was a tricky matter.
“You need Lyssa’s hair?” I asked. My voice had gone flat.
“I do,” Charlie replied.
Quiet though they were, I heard Gates’ paws beating a retreat back to the bedroom, and I heard the cat door I had installed for her flip-flap shut. She didn’t want to be around him anymore, even for my sake. My dad had rolled his eyes when I said I needed cat doors in all of the internal doors, but my insistence won out and we had worked it out with the landord.
“That’s not going to happen,” I said, turning back to face him. “She’ll never go for it. You can have some of mine—”
“I need hers,” he insisted. “Thorn, she banished me, and to shed that weight, I need her hair. Make it happen. Unless you like owning a cat…”
I raised a hand to quiet him, and my stomach twisted into knots. “She’s not a cat. She’s my best friend, and I’m doing everything I can—”
“Everything except this,” he said lightly.
“—to help her!”
We stared at each other. I knew, with her superior cat ears, that Gates could hear us from the bedroom. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what she wanted. She hated Charlie, but her mother was in pain…worse. Her mother was beginning to get over the pain.
I didn’t know what she wanted me to do.
“If I get you her hair, you’ll help Gates?”
“If you get her to give me her hair, I’ll consider helping Gates,” he said crossing his arms. “I don’t know if it will heal me. I just know it’s the next step towards healing.”
I cocked my head, crossing my arms to match his posture. Then I heaved a sigh and walked away, back toward the bedroom.
“Sorry. Not good enough.”
“I technically don’t owe your friend a damn thing until you summon Kendra back here,” he protested, following me. “And need I remind you, this is a two-way street now, Thorn!”
At the door, I spun to face him. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a fact,” he scoffed. His expression became much more serious. “And even if it was, what would you do about it?”
I tried to stare him down. But he was at least a head taller than me, and in the close confines of my humble one bedroom apartment, his stature was impressive.
“Not a damn thing,” he finished. “You’re not a witch. You’re not a warlock, or anything else. You’re just a baby, putting together some bastard book of random spells you don’t even own because they didn’t come from you. I am promising you the world, and all you have to do is agree to play my games. Get me her hair, and we can keep playing. If not, then I guess I’m on the market for a new bridge, and you know I’m good at getting people to say yes.”
I bit my inner cheek to cut the buzz in my head. It was hard to think straight when he started to lecture, because he was too good at it. He was too convincing.
“What I did to your friend can’t be undone by anyone but me,” Charlie said quietly. “I will undo it when I get what I want, and that’s Kendra. You had no problem with that before, so I fail to see why you should have a problem now. Stay on my good side until our deal is done.”
I shook my head, hugging myself. When I looked up at him, his cold, analytical expression didn’t engender much hope. “But that’s just it, isn’t it? Our deal will never be done. I’m your bridge now.”
“’Til death do us part,” he said seriously. “But I’m growing wearier of this family by the second. I can have more than one bridge, though they become less effective that way. Find me Kendra, and I will get another. I’ll still traffic your soul, but you’ll never hear from me again.”
“Is that a deal?”
“It’s how I feel right now,” he said. “We’ll see how I feel later, which is why you should stay on my good side. I can’t make deals with my bridges, Thorn. It’s up to you to persuade me now.”
Looking down, I nodded. I tried to center myself, and remember that I had accepted my life was going to be complicated in the moment I had chosen to save a dying girl’s life. Moments like these were the debt I owed.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll get you her hair. But I want to know the particulars of this arrangement. No more surprises about not making deals. I want the rule book.”
He set a hand on the door frame b
ehind me, leaning in uncomfortably close as he forced a little laugh and lowered his voice. “Fine. I’ll get you a book on demonology, but the rules are simple. There are no rules. We’re two people using a single soul for our mutual purposes. You use it for living, and I use it for travel. There’s no rule about what I can and can’t do. The same is true for you. But if we choose to be friendly, then I may afford you some benefit from my presence.”
I nodded with a grim, sarcastic smile. “You’re a parasite on my soul. Fantastic.”
Charlie didn’t seem bothered by the accusation. He leaned back. “If you choose to look at it that way. But you’re an optimist, Thorn. Accept my gifts and this is a symbiotic relationship, not a parasitic one. And I have gifts to give.”
“I have a long day tomorrow,” I said, my teeth beginning to grind from the effort of having to deal with his arrogance. “Can you give me a good nights’ sleep after all of this crap?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but instead only gave me a little nod. He fizzled into a dark mist and I was alone again. I turned and went into my bedroom. Gates was sitting on her cat bed in the corner, looking as cat-like and aloof as she ever had.
Her lack of visible emotion only made me more uncertain, because she didn’t say a single word as she turned around and lay back down to sleep.
I crawled into my bed, pulled my pillow closer, and then withdrew my hand when I felt something hard beneath it.
It was a bottle of sleep aids, courtesy of Charlie, because I never bought into them. I set them on my nightstand in anger, without taking one, and switched off the light.
Chapter 3
The next day started off with a bang. Quite literally, because Charlie had switched off my alarm clock to allow me to sleep in. I rolled over and saw that I needed to be at the greenhouse in five minutes, and it was a nearly forty minute drive with traffic to get there. I didn’t stop rolling in time, and went right over the edge of the bed in shock.