Werewolves & Wisteria (14 page)

A decade and a broken curse later, and it was finally done.

I turned over, resting my chin on Charlie’s chest and smiling at him, and he closed his eyes and smiled back. We were back in the greenhouse, just like old times, and he had reopened the hidden doors to the apartment I kept for myself down the hall from the office.

The employees had been dismissed that day, well-compensated for their time and with a bonus for the lack of notice on their layoff. I didn’t need them. Plants liked me, and they had a way of taking care of themselves in my presence. Charlie took care of everything else.

He wrapped his arms around me, sighing as I laid my head on his shoulder.

“I’m not a babysitter,” he said.

“I’m sorry.” I would be saying it for a long time. I was okay with that. “What is she like now? Anise?”

“She prefers Annie,” he said. “Or Thorn. That’s what I’ve been calling her.”

I exhaled a subtle, surprised laugh. “Like Stark used to call me? That’s dark.”

“It seemed fitting at the time, and then it stuck,” he said quickly. “Why? Lyssa is your apprentice. You’re considering taking on Annie, too? That’s awfully gregarious of you.”

“I can’t abandon her,” I said, looking out the window at the tiny crescent moon. Charlie had taken a liking to her, more so than he had ever expressed for the idea of Lyssa, and it took a special disposition to work with demons. He had used the collected resources for his mortality spell to spare her the servitude of demonhood. He hadn’t used all of everything because she started out human, and a reversal was easier than a full conversion, but I knew the true measure of what he had sacrificed for her.  It would take us a decade, at least, to gather those things again. “She’ll be a pariah if people ever find out.”

“You think Lyssa is going to tell?”

“These things have a way of getting out,” I said. “Did she retain anything?”

He paused a little too long.

“Charlie?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “She isn’t especially talented, that’s all. I suppose we could have made her try harder, but she really just wants her life to go back to normal. Poor girl.”

“Hmm. She’ll never get that now that she’s been seen in public with
you
,” I joked.

Charlie smiled, but then he looked at me, very seriously. “She’s a good girl. She has a good heart, and she doesn’t like keeping secrets that could hurt people. There’s something I have to tell you. It’s about the book.”

I sat up, frowning as I looked down at him. I leaned over to grab my robe off the floor and slipped it around my shoulders. “It’s safe, isn’t it?”

“It’s safe,” he said. “Annie’s friend, Gates, she read it. But she didn’t know what to do with it.”

I closed my eyes, shaking my head. “No, she couldn’t have. I hid that book under Althaea’s skull. Only a Hawthorn could have taken it from under there.”

“A Hawthorn did, as I understand it,” Charlie said carefully. “And Annie then handed it to her friend, who became the first person who was not a Hawthorn to read it since it was written.”

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 time it had been passed down in my family, 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 to all of us. Banishment was the punishment to be handed down to Charlie for such a betrayal.

And 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 a 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.

End of Preview

Hawthorn Witches Novella #4: Vampires & Vinca

Coming February 2016

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About the Author

I grew up in Broomfield, Colorado, reading and creating art. (But mostly reading.) I am a second generation trekkie, a fan of obscure anime and most science fiction and fantasy on television today, and I have dressed up to attend the conventions. I proudly have a time turner and a tribble sitting next to the VHS copies of Star Wars on my shelf at home--still seeking a sonic screwdriver to add to the mix.
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