by A. L. Tyler
Bam. Straight onto the floor.
My bedroom door flew open, and Charlie smiled down at me.
“Oh good, you’re awake!” He turned and walked out as I tried to gather myself up from the floor and the tangled wad of sheets I had tied myself up in. “Have some breakfast, and we’ll get to work.”
Finally unwrapping my left leg and stumbling to my feet and out of the bedroom, I ran to the bathroom and ripped open the curtain to start the shower.
I yelped in surprise when I found Charlie hiding inside.
“Breakfast is traditionally consumed in the kitchen, Thorn,” he said.
“I don’t have time!” I hissed. “I’m opening the greenhouse today, and Lyssa is going to kill me if I’m not there on time!”
“You’ve got time.”
“No,” I insisted. “I don’t! You told me even demons can’t turn back time!”
“Annie…”
The weary tone of Gates’ small voice from the living room drew my attention, and I glanced out the bathroom door to see her sitting in the window, looking out. I walked to her to see what she was staring at, and discovered a bird that had just taken off from a street sign outside.
It was frozen in flight.
I whipped back around and looked at Charlie. He smiled politely, as though I was the crazy one.
“You stopped time?!” I said, louder than I had intended.
He brought a finger to his lips to shush me, and made a concerned face. “You’re going to wake your upstairs neighbors, Thorn! And don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t stop anything…”
He walked away to the kitchen, and I finally noticed the smell of bacon and eggs. Where they came from, I didn’t know. There hadn’t been any bacon in the fridge when I went to bed.
I turned back to the window, breathless and grasping at straws as I tried to figure out what was going on. “You slowed it down?”
“Don’t be silly.” Charlie set down a large plate of food on my little kitchen table. “Think scientifically. I made time move faster in here, so everything out there only appears to be going slower by comparison. I wouldn’t slow down the entire rest of the world just for you… You’re a vain girl, Thorn.”
I tried to breathe. I tried to reconcile what was happening, but it was too early in the morning, and I needed my caffeine.
Trying to calm my nerves and slow my racing heart, I turned back to the table, and Charlie gestured at me to sit down. I did so, gripping the mug of coffee a little too tightly.
It was the perfect temperature, just the way my tea had been the night before. It was all perfect… and abundant.
“I can’t eat all of this,” I said, picking up a piece of bacon and starting to chew.
“Please…” Charlie said, picking up a piece himself. “You’re in the company of a demon, Thorn. You’re not going to get fat unless you want to.”
I raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“That’s diet orange juice, if it makes you feel any better.”
The stifled laugh from the window made me glance over in shock, and I caught a glimpse of Gates’ stoic expression before she turned back to the window. “Shut up, Annie. That was funny.”
The way her face never matched her mood was still disconcerting to me, even after all this time, and it never failed to jar me from the moment. I took her a heaping helping of eggs and bacon before coming back and helping myself.
When breakfast was done, I took a shower. Then I got dressed, and looked at my clock. Not even a full minute had passed.
Back out in the living room, I found Charlie looking over my spiral-bound book of spells. Bastard spells, as he had called them.
“Oh, this is wrong. Just so wrong,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Thorn, there’s dark magic and light magic, and never the twain shall meet, but this has more shades of gray than most recent parodies I’ve seen.”
I shrugged. “I got it all from Kendra’s spells.”
Closing the book and setting it down, he gave me a long look. “And I’m sure not all of them were Kendra’s spells, because I know she recorded a lot of Stark’s doings for posterity, as well. But that’s for another time. I need you to make me a protection spell before we go poking at your sister again.”
“A… protection?” I stammered. “Charlie, I haven’t managed a single spell since summoning you. You expect me to do a protection spell just on the fly, like it’s nothing?”
“Well…” He raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, and I knew whatever was going to come out of his mouth next wasn’t something I was going to like. “You have no natural talent as a witch, so I thought we might go a cruder route until you learn. Witches are about theory and heart, but warlocks are much more about practice and mechanics.”
I raised an eyebrow. Thankfully, it was Gates who spoke first.
“You want her to do one of Stark’s spells?” she asked. “Dark magic? No. No way.”
Charlie threw his hands in the air. “What do you think she’s been doing so far? Demon summoning is dark by its very nature. We’re not crossing any lines that haven’t already been crossed.”
I shared a look with Gates.
“Fine,” I said.
Charlie whipped a knife out from behind his back. “Give me your hand.”
I stepped back and put my hands behind my back as Gates hissed in objection. “You can’t be serious.”
Charlie’s eyes darted away, and then back. He smiled crookedly. “Not your entire hand, Thorn. It’s just a few drops of blood for the spellwork.”
Reluctantly, I brought my hand back out, but only to try to take the knife from Charlie. He withdrew it from my reach.
“If you need blood, I’ll do it myself.”
He scoffed. “I’ve seen enough people try and fail to cut themselves. Time is moving slowly, but it’s still moving. Get something to bite and then sit down and hold still.”
Cocking my head, I narrowed my eyes. “I’m in the company of demons. This shouldn’t have to hurt.”
The smile that spread across Charlie’s lips was a little too pleased. “Now, that’s the spirit, Thorn. Sit down. It won’t hurt.”
I took two deep breaths and then rolled up my sleeve and pulled over the gliding recliner I’d picked up from a garage sale the previous weekend. Gates jumped into my lap.
“Annie, wait…”
I looked down into her impassive face, waiting for her to speak. When she didn’t, I had to wonder if she really wanted to stop me.
“He’s the only one who knows enough to teach me how to fix this,” I reasoned, running a hand over her soft, furry head. “And if I don’t learn, he’s the only one who can help you. It’s okay, Gates. I got you into this mess.”
“I got you into this mess!” she protested. “Annie, have you seriously forgotten that I pushed you into doing all that crap that night?”
“And I decided to accept Charlie’s offer when he wanted to curse Jennifer for me,” I sighed. “I could have said no, Gates, and then this all would have been a lot simpler. I should have said no. Would you do it for me, if I was the cat right now?”
She stared at me. I thought we were having a moment, but then she had to open her mouth.
“No. You’d be in a shelter interviewing with some batshit crazy cat lady who smells like a litter box and buys skirts with patterns that hide fur. I’m a dog person.”
She jumped down and away, and I tried to proceed like she hadn’t been an ass. Charlie ignored us both as he leaned over me, and I watched in fascination as he selected a single finger and held it steady as he pressed the blade. I felt the pressure, but then… nothing. Blood started to flow out and into a cup he had produced out of nowhere.
And more blood. And more.
It bled worse than a paper cut, filling the chalice to the volume of a shot glass, and just when I started to feel like I was going to be sick or pass out, Charlie waved a hand over my stabbed finger and the blood stopped like he had turned off a faucet.
&n
bsp; I held up my clean and perfectly intact hand in wonder, still feeling dizzy from the experience, and tried hard to ignore whatever Charlie was doing with my blood as he raised the cup. Unfortunately, Gates was compelled to watch.
“Oh, my God…”
I looked at him just in time to see him take a swig and then wipe his lips on a handkerchief, leaving a deep red stain that looked oddly like a lipstick blot. Both the cup and the handkerchief disappeared in a shower of lavender sparks, and he turned back to us and stood up.
“Are you a vampire?” Gates asked, sounding worried. “You just drank her blood. Why the hell would you—”
“I am not a vampire,” Charlie said simply, using a foot to encourage Gates out of his way. “And I resent the accusation. Thorn, it’s time to go.”
“What just happened here?” I croaked.
“I anchored myself to the physical world with a willing gift of life-force,” he said matter-of-factly. “And likely a damned effective one, if it’s your sister that tries to banish me again. I’ve got human blood running through me now, and that’s a lot harder to just sweep away to the Other Side.”
“She didn’t seem to have a problem sweeping me away before.”
“Exactly,” Charlie said. “She likes you, and I’m counting on her having altered whatever spell she used to stop that from happening again. Hence, human blood is a perfect anchor.”
At a loss for words, I looked at Gates. She blinked.
“I really don’t want to do that again,” I said.
Charlie held out a hand to help me to my feet. “I’ll drink it in private from now on. Time to go.”
~~~~~~~~~
At the greenhouse, Lyssa was trying not to argue with a customer about the correct place to grow a certain hibiscus in one’s yard. A lot more people thought that they could grow hibiscus in Colorado than really could, and for most of them, it was an issue of having too much freezing shade in the winter or too much scorching sun in the summer. The perfect yard, and the perfect location, were hard to come by.
Charlie was using a hand to nudge me toward her, and I finally slapped his arm away and turned to go to the back room.
“Thorn, we’re here for hair, not…” he peeked into a bucket and frowned in disgust. “Hand trowels and dirt.”
“She’s with a customer,” I said in exasperation, going to a pallet of new fertilizer that had arrived and needed tagging before it could go out onto the shelves. I picked up the price label gun and set to work.
I heard Charlie walking away, sighing. “Fine, then, I’ll do it.”
It took me a moment to register his words. When I did, the door to the front room was swinging shut and I was running after him at a frenzied pace.
When I came through, I was glad to see that they were still on opposite sides of the room, but Lyssa’s posture had gone rigidly upright as she stared at him with barely contained malice. The customer was still prattling on about how finding some magic combination of fertilizer and mulch would make any hibiscus grow anywhere, which even I knew was flat wrong, especially since he was eyeing a tropical variety. Lyssa didn’t even break to offer him a nicety as she stalked toward us, and then past us, and into the office. The customer stopped talking in dismay, and glanced my way momentarily. I turned my back and followed Lyssa like I was headed to the principal’s office for accidentally bringing something illicit to school.
When we walked in, Lyssa had already pulled out a jar of burning sage, and she had put on some sort of crystal talisman necklace. The clarity of the stone in the middle made me think it must have been a diamond, but it was much too large.
She didn’t even look at Charlie, and didn’t hold my gaze for more than a few seconds before looking at the ground. “Annie, I told you, we’ll find a way to help Gates. Send him back where he belongs.”
“I didn’t summon him,” I said quietly. I hadn’t exactly told Lyssa that I had become Charlie’s bridge. Somehow it felt embarrassing, and like a personal failing, even though I had only done it with the best intentions. “He just kind of comes and goes now, if you get what I mean…”
Lyssa stared at me. I finally looked back at her, and gave a little nod, and her lips parted just enough that I knew I had disappointed her.
“Oh, Annie…”
Charlie cleared his throat. “And I’m sorry to say, but you won’t find a cure for what’s wrong with Gates. That one is mine and mine alone to give and take.”
“Don’t be ridiculous…” Lyssa sneered. But as she looked into his calm expression, her expression changed to a little frown, and I knew she was afraid.
Charlie was more interested than he should have been in the way her demeanor had changed. He took a step forward and put his hands on the desk to lean in towards her. “Alyssum Hawthorn… I came here for hair, but now the two of us need to talk.”
Lyssa cleared her throat as she stood up from the desk, reaching a hand to clutch at her necklace. “No. You may not have it. The hair or the talking. We’re done.”
She strode to the door, and Charlie grabbed her arm. Lyssa ripped free from his grasp, muttering something under her breath. When I realized it was a banishment, I held my breath, waiting to see if the starry veil of the Other Side shaded over us, but it didn’t.
Lyssa looked from Charlie back to me with a blank stare. “Annie, did you…?”
“Yes,” Charlie grunted. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but I need that hair.”
Lyssa’s accusing eyes fell on me. “And I guess we know whose side you’re on.”
“I’m just trying to help Gates—”
Her derisive laugh did nothing to help my mood.
“Annie, there is no helping Gates now, and he’s only going to make things worse!”
She stormed out of the office, and Charlie followed.
“I’m not the enemy, Lyssa, and I’ve only done the things I absolutely had to. I take no joy in—”
“Joy?” She turned on him. At least a half-dozen people were inside the greenhouse, and most of them turned to discretely watch the scene unfold. “You threatened my daughter, you animal! I don’t care about your happiness, or your intentions, or where you go or what you do, as long as it takes you away from this family for good!”
She turned and marched out, and Charlie and I followed her all the way to her car.
“Lyssa, please, just—”
“No, Annie.”
“But, it’s for Gates, and he says—”
“No, Annie!”
Charlie reached out and grabbed the car door handle before she could, and waited until she looked up at him.
His voice was as cold as ice. “If you thought the last curse was bad, then you obviously haven’t been at this very long, Alyssum. I can do much, much worse. And I have things to impart to the world that even the best powers won’t be able to reverse, so if I were you, I would consider carefully before refusing again, if you want Rosie to grow up whole.”
Lyssa was staring at him with angry tears in her eyes, and I’d had too much.
“That’s not what we came here to do!” I reached out and tried to pry his hand off of the car door handle, but he refused to let go until he wanted to. “Leave Rosemary and Josh out of it. This isn’t about them…”
“I need her hair!” he snapped at me.
I was unimpressed. I had to physically wedge myself between him and the car to get him to let her leave, and she did, crying as she went.
“I am begging you, Charlie, leave them out of it!” I said, holding my hands together in front of me. “There’s a right way to convince her to do this, and scaring the hell out of her isn’t the way! She’s going to take her kid and run if you do it like that, and then we’re going to be in the same position we are with Kendra.”
He took a few deep breaths, and with a snap of his fingers, the dark of the Other Side overtook us.
Chapter 4
We stood in a familiar room. It was the room where Charlie had brought me s
everal times to complete my homework, but he had done some redecorating in our several weeks’ estrangement.
It was still night outside the window, because it was always night in Charlie’s expression of the Other Side, but the moon outside was dimmer and more obscured by a drizzling rain that I wasn’t used to. Stained glass windows had appeared, and all along one wall of my study room, there were floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with old tomes. The wood-hewn table and bench had been replaced with a more elaborate and ornate desk and chair, and the squeak in the door was gone as Charlie threw it open and began to descend the stairs.
As I watched him go, I wasn’t sure what to do. Every time I had come here, he had left me in this one room. He always closed the door as he went.
But this time, the door was open.
I hesitated as I peeked out, but there was nothing to see but the descending spiral staircase. Charlie’s elongated and distorted shadow trailed up the wall after him from some light source below. Using the wall to balance myself on the narrow steps, I followed him.
Around and around, each round of the stairs was illuminated by a wall sconce that cast a pale purple glow.
Five times around below, I emerged into a a long hallway, stonework just like the rest of what I had seen, and Charlie was already disappearing down it.
“Charlie!” I called. “Wait!”
I saw him heave a sigh and look over his shoulder. Reluctantly, he paused to wait for me. Halfway down the hall, the windows opened up, letting the damp dreary weather in around us. Normally I liked overcast days, but it was too cold in the Other Side today to be wet.
“I am not dressed for this,” I said in complaint as I came up to him.
“You’ll survive,” he said humorlessly.
“Is this what happens when you’re in a bad mood?” I said, crossing my arms as a slow, creeping breeze blew more freezing mist right through every minute crack in the woven top I was wearing. “You’re a little bit of a drama queen, did you know that?”
He turned and started walking again. I chased after him again, but I couldn’t goad him to talk. We walked into a luxe sitting room, and past it into a dark dining room, then down some stairs into a kitchen. Out onto the street, we ventured down a bit, and then into the same storage space that I had seen the time that Lyssa had banished us.